Ten minutes.

That was the price of my father’s life.

Not two hundred thousand yuan.

Not some impossible medical miracle.

Ten minutes.

I sat outside the operating room until morning with the critical notice still open on my phone.

Rejected.

Rejected.

Rejected.

Every red notification had a timestamp.

Every timestamp was evidence.

At 6:13 a.m., Tu Nhuoc Tuyet sent me another message.

“Sister, has the hospital completed the detailed cost list yet? Send it when you have time and I’ll help you submit it again.”

I stared at it for a long time.

Then I laughed.

My father was already gone.

And she was still pretending this was an accounting problem.

I typed:

No need.

She immediately replied:

“Did Mr. Lam’s condition improve?”

I didn’t answer.

I handled the cremation alone.

There was no funeral banquet.

No expensive coffin.

No relatives waiting outside some grand hall.

My father had spent his entire life saving every coin so I could live better than he had.

In the end, I carried his ashes in a simple urn that cost less than the bottle of wine Chu Yen Kinh had probably been drinking when he told me not to bother him.

I scattered them beside the river near our old home.

Then I returned to the city.

And I began preparing my disappearance.

The first document I signed was the divorce agreement.

I asked for nothing.

No apartment.

No shares.

No jewelry.

Not even the expensive bags Chu Yen Kinh occasionally bought and then locked in the dressing room because, according to him, I might “sell them secretly.”

The second document was my body donation registration.

My father had once told me:

“If one day there’s nothing left of me, at least let something be useful.”

I decided the same should apply to me.

Not because I planned to die.

Because I no longer wanted the Chu family deciding anything about me—not while I was alive, and not afterward.

Then I opened the wardrobe.

Five years of marriage had left surprisingly little that actually belonged to me.

Most dresses had been chosen by stylists.

Jewelry was registered under the family office.

Even my phone contract belonged to Chu Yen Kinh’s company.

I took two sweaters.

Three pairs of trousers.

My university certificates.

My passport.

And the fuzzy sweatshirt he had thrown to me five years earlier when we were still dating.

Back then, I thought it was romantic.

Now I realized it was simply the only thing in that house nobody would bother taking back.

At noon, Chu Yen Kinh returned.

He saw the suitcase near the door and frowned.

“Where are you going?”

“To leave.”

He loosened his tie.

“Still angry about the hospital payment?”

I looked at him.

He still didn’t know.

Three days had passed.

He hadn’t asked once how my father was doing.

“I already restored the treatment,” he continued impatiently. “What more do you want?”

I suddenly understood that I needed him to say it.

Needed to know there was absolutely nothing left inside me that might someday regret leaving.

So I asked:

“If someone needed two hundred thousand yuan to live, and you had the money, would you give it?”

He frowned.

“Depends who.”

“My father.”

His face became annoyed.

“Lam Hi, again?”

I waited.

He poured himself water.

“Your father’s illness has lasted years. How much money do you expect me to keep throwing into that bottomless pit?”

Something inside me became completely quiet.

“He raised me.”

“And?”

“He’s my only family.”

Chu Yen Kinh laughed coldly.

“You married into the Chu family. Learn which family matters now.”

There it was.

I nodded.

Then I pushed the divorce agreement across the table.

“Sign.”

He glanced at the title.

His expression changed.

For perhaps three seconds.

Then he laughed.

“You’re threatening me with divorce?”

“No.”

“You think because I refused one unreasonable request, I’ll suddenly panic?”

“No.”

His eyes sharpened.

“Then what is this?”

“A divorce agreement.”

“I can read.”

“Then sign it.”

He stared at me as if trying to recognize someone who had suddenly replaced his obedient wife.

Finally, he leaned back.

“Fine.”

He picked up the pen.

“You want to scare me? Let’s see who gets scared first.”

He signed.

Without reading.

Exactly the way he assumed I had signed every document he gave me during our marriage.

When he finished, he threw the papers toward me.

“Take them.”

I collected them carefully.

“Thank you.”

That seemed to irritate him more than crying would have.

He pointed at my suitcase.

“Go then. When you calm down, don’t expect me to personally bring you back.”

I opened the door.

Behind me, he added:

“And leave the black card.”

I stopped.

Then returned to the dining table and placed it beside him.

“I never activated it.”

His expression flickered.

“What?”

“I said I never activated it.”

“You asked me for money for years.”

“For medicine.”

I looked at him.

“Never for myself.”

Then I left.

I had barely reached the elevator when my phone vibrated.

Tu Nhuoc Tuyet.

“Sister, Mr. Chu asked me to remind you that the family black card has a monthly spending limit. Please don’t use this argument as an excuse to overspend.”

I deleted the message.

The next morning, I went to a small translation agency.

The owner, Professor Zhao, had taught me at university.

When he saw me, he stared for several seconds.

“Lam Hi?”

I smiled.

“Professor.”

“You disappeared.”

“I got married.”

“That is not the same thing.”

Those words nearly made me cry.

He looked at my résumé.

Then at me.

“You still speak Arabic?”

I answered him in fluent Arabic.

His eyes widened.

Twenty minutes later, he placed a contract in front of me.

A foreign entertainment group from the Gulf was entering the Chinese market.

They needed someone familiar with Arabic, English, Chinese—and entertainment business structures.

I almost laughed.

For five years, I had sat silently at Chu family dinners while producers, investors and directors discussed contracts as if I were furniture.

Apparently furniture had been listening.

“When can you start?” Professor Zhao asked.

“Today.”

Three days later, I translated my first acquisition proposal.

One week later, the client asked that I attend negotiations personally.

And two weeks later, something happened that Chu Yen Kinh could never have imagined.

His company was negotiating for the largest Middle Eastern distribution deal in its history.

The foreign delegation arrived in Beijing on Monday.

Chu Yen Kinh personally hosted the dinner.

Tu Nhuoc Tuyet sat beside him wearing a white couture dress.

I knew because Professor Zhao showed me the guest list before we entered.

“Do you know them?” he asked.

I closed the folder.

“Unfortunately.”

When the doors to the private conference hall opened, conversations slowly stopped.

Chu Yen Kinh looked up.

His wineglass froze halfway to his mouth.

Tu Nhuoc Tuyet’s smile disappeared.

I walked in behind the delegation leader wearing a simple black suit.

No jewelry.

No black card.

Nothing from the Chu family.

The delegation leader gestured toward me.

“This is Ms. Lam Hi, our chief language and contract consultant for this negotiation.”

Chu Yen Kinh stared at me.

“You?”

I didn’t answer.

Tu Nhuoc Tuyet recovered first.

She smiled.

“Sister, are you working as an interpreter now?”

Her tone carried the same pity she had used when rejecting my hospital application.

“How nice. At least you can support yourself.”

Several executives lowered their eyes awkwardly.

I opened the contract.

“Shall we begin?”

For the next two hours, I translated every clause flawlessly.

Then we reached the profit-distribution section.

The delegation leader frowned.

He whispered something to me in Arabic.

I checked the Chinese version.

Then checked it again.

A number had been altered.

Not accidentally.

The Arabic contract allocated eighteen percent.

The Chinese version submitted by Chu Entertainment listed twenty-eight.

Ten percentage points.

Worth hundreds of millions.

I slowly raised my head.

“Mr. Chu.”

Yen Kinh frowned.

“What?”

“There is a discrepancy in your contract.”

Tu Nhuoc Tuyet immediately interrupted.

“Impossible. I personally reviewed every page.”

I looked at her.

“I’m sure you did.”

Then I turned toward the foreign delegation.

In Arabic, I explained exactly what had been changed.

The atmosphere transformed instantly.

The delegation leader closed his folder.

Chu Yen Kinh stood.

“What did you tell them?”

Before I could answer, Professor Zhao translated for him.

“They believe someone attempted to alter the revenue distribution.”

Tu Nhuoc Tuyet went pale.

“That’s ridiculous!”

I turned the laptop around.

The revision history was still there.

User:

TX_Ruoxue.

Timestamp:

The same night my father had been waiting for surgery.

The same hour she had repeatedly rejected my application for two hundred thousand yuan.

Chu Yen Kinh stared at the screen.

Then at her.

“Nhuoc Tuyet?”

She began shaking her head.

“I can explain.”

But before she could, my phone vibrated.

A message from my divorce lawyer.

The divorce registration is complete. Effective today.

I looked at Chu Yen Kinh.

Then I smiled for the first time in weeks.

“Mr. Chu, before Ms. Tu explains the missing hundreds of millions…”

I placed my wedding ring on top of the altered contract.

“…perhaps you should also know that as of this morning, I am no longer your wife.”

And for the first time since I had known him, Chu Yen Kinh looked genuinely afraid.