Chapter 196 The Dust Settles

Chapter 196 The Dust Settles

I woke up the next morning with a hangover, throbbing pain in both temples.

Harsh white light flooded the room. I squinted immediately, taking a few seconds to adjust.

On the nightstand, Emily had left a glass of water, two hangover pills, and a pink sticky note.

It read: [Take your medicine before you go back to sleep. I had to step out. Love you!]

Next to the words was a rough little heart she'd drawn.

I sat up, swallowed the pills, drank half the glass of water, then lay back down and closed my eyes.

Natural light seeped through the gap in the curtains, casting a thin bright line across the floor. From downstairs came the occasional sound of passing cars and birdsong, and somewhere in the distance, an electric drill hummed briefly before going quiet.

The world kept moving. Everything was calm and in order.

After half an hour of lying still, my head had fully cleared.

I got up, washed my face, and stood briefly lost in thought in front of the mirror before working through the rest of my routine—combing my hair, getting dressed.

I put on a white button-down underneath a light camel cashmere cardigan and pulled my hair back into a neat low ponytail.

I looked fine. My eyes were a little puffy, but a thin layer of concealer covered it completely.

I sat at the dining table, finished my water, and picked up my phone to scroll through social media.

The top trending topic—#JaneAndThaliaDrivenOutOfTheSpencerFamily—had a viral tag next to it and over 300 million views.

I tapped on it. The pinned post was a long write-up from a well-known entertainment blogger, with nine photos attached.

In the first photo, Jane stood outside the gates of the Spencer manor, dragging two suitcases. She was wearing a camel wool coat, but her makeup had smeared—eyeliner smudged dark beneath her eyes, hair sticking to her face in messy strands. Every trace of the polished, put-together rich girl she used to be was gone. She looked like a mess.

In the second photo, Thalia was being wheeled out in a wheelchair by a nurse. She was deathly pale, lips dry and cracked, wrapped in a thick blanket with her eyes half-closed. She looked completely drained.

The third photo caught the moment the Spencer manor's heavy brass doors swung shut, the butler's expressionless profile just visible in the narrowing gap.

The rest of the images were compiled by users online—old photos of Thalia and Daniel together, security footage screenshots of Jane coming and going from the estate, paparazzi shots of Daniel leaving a hotel late at night, and video stills from outside City Hall.

The comments were going wild. People marveled that the whole situation was more absurd than anything you'd see in a drama. Others joked that William ran such a tight grip on family spending that even close relatives had to get approval before buying anything.

I kept scrolling and came across a leak about Daniel's personal spending access being frozen.

A screenshot of an internal document from the Spencer Group's legal department stated that effective immediately, all of Daniel's personal expenses required William's written approval before being processed. He would receive a fixed monthly allowance, and anything beyond that amount had to be submitted with a detailed explanation and budget breakdown.

Someone online claimed that when Daniel found out, he went on a rampage inside the manor and destroyed furniture worth tens of thousands of dollars—and nobody said a word to him about it. Apparently, all staff payroll at the Spencer estate ultimately answered to William.

I turned my phone over and stared up at the ceiling, letting my mind drift.

Jane and Thalia had lost the Spencer family's protection for good. Every privilege Daniel had was gone.

Before I left, I had urged William to see a therapist. And I had taken care of everything Madison had asked of me before she died.

From here on, I was done with the Spencer family. All of it.

I got up and changed into something for going out—a cream trench coat, a light camel cashmere scarf, light makeup, and my usual dusty rose lipstick.

I paused in front of the entryway mirror and looked at myself: steady color in my face, back straight, eyes calm and clear.

"Eleanor, you did the right thing," I said quietly to my reflection, each word deliberate. "Don't look back."

When I arrived at City Hall, the middle-aged clerk handling my case was already waiting. She wore gold-rimmed glasses and had a gentle manner about her—she poured me a glass of water and gestured for me to take a seat.

The process went smoothly. Identity verification, confirmation of intent, signatures, official stamps, photos, and the final paperwork—all done in under twenty minutes.

When I got to the section asking for the reason for divorce, I paused briefly, then checked the box for irreconcilable differences.

The moment I signed my name, it felt like every last bit of strength drained out of me.

The clerk handed over the divorce decree. I tucked the documents away, thanked her politely, and walked out of the building.

Outside, the sun was warm and the sky was wide open.

For December in Silverlight City, this kind of clear, bright weather was rare.

The sky was a deep, clean blue, with a few thin clouds drifting slowly above the rooftops.

A long-overdue sense of ease rose up inside me. Something that had held me tight for so long had finally let go.

And at the same time, something opened up in its place—a quiet, open space, clean and wide, like the sky stretched out in front of me.

Only scattered fragments of memory remained, slowly fading.

The ginkgo trees outside City Hall had turned completely yellow. The wind shook the branches and leaves drifted down, covering the ground in gold.

I stood on the steps and let the sunlight fall on me.

It suddenly came to me—there had been a ginkgo grove just like this on my university campus.

I was young then, full of hope. I met William in that grove, and from that day on, I carried him with me.

Back then, I had made a quiet wish: that when I was old, someone would sit beside me in a place like this, and we'd grow old together, slowly and peacefully.

There were no benches here.

So I sat down right on the fallen leaves.

A thought came to me, sudden and strange—if I died one day, I wouldn't mind being buried under a blanket of ginkgo leaves just like these.

The same scene, the same feeling. That would be enough.

William kept drifting into my mind.

Maybe it was the cold ground throwing me off.

I lay down on my side and slowly closed my eyes.

The winter wind moved gently over me.

The cold seeped into my bones, and the last traces of last night's alcohol rose up again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a black Maybach parked along the curb.

The body was spotless, sunlight bending in a smooth arc across the roof.

The window was rolled halfway down.

The midday light traced the clean lines of his brow, eyes, and nose. A faint stubble covered his jaw—the kind that comes from days of not stopping.

He had undone the top button of his shirt, a small patch of collarbone showing.

He turned and looked at me. We were several meters apart. His expression was unreadable.

Even seeing me lying on the ground, he didn't react. He looked like someone who already understood everything I was feeling.

He didn't wave. He didn't say anything.

He just sat there in the driver's seat, waiting for me to decide.

I stayed where I was and didn't move.

He kept waiting.

A breeze passed through. A single ginkgo leaf spun down and landed softly on the top of my shoe.

After a long moment, I pushed myself up off the ground, walked over, and opened the passenger door.

I got in.