TangShi Lei stared hopelessly at the paper in her trembling hands, a tear escaping with silent despair. Sliding across her delicate pale cheek as she stifled the sob which caught in her throat, burning painfully. Her heart and soul shredding as though a million sharp blades were piercing every inch of her body and she knew that her new life was about to end before it had even begun.
She'd finally managed to escape the cold and miserable existence back home in Shanghai. From her cruel father, and hateful stepmother and sister, and now here she was, being summoned home like an object who had no will of her own. To fulfil the role her father placed on her as the family prize, to be sold to the highest bidder. A marriage alliance for the benefit of Lei Enterprise, her family's conglomerate.
Her body gave out as her knees weakened, shivering, and slumping down onto the sofa behind her which saved her from a full fall as her tears began to drip in quick succession. Her heart breaking in two. The agony of knowing she was so close, and yet never stood a chance of ever being free, and now he had new ways in which to call her to heel. She could never escape the responsibility of being the eldest daughter of the Lei family and what weight that held, even if he had never treated her as his child.
She had worked so hard to get the scholarship to this prestige art school in California, on her own merit, hard work, and undying commitment to being free. He had finally been convinced by her stepmother Ava, to let her go and rid her from under their feet. Something Ava had wanted since she married him when TangShi was merely a toddler and became her new mother's burden. Just eight weeks ago she tasted joy, and now he was taking it all back. Loosening her reigns for the briefest moment before hauling her back to heel.
It was her light in a dark world and a chance at fulfilling her dreams of one day becoming a known artist who could support herself and live a modest life, far away from the Lei family and all it encompassed. A world of socialites, rich families, and business moguls, of which she was never given the chance to really be a part of. Nor did she ever want to. If they were all as cruel and cold as her own family, she didn't want to be a part of that lifestyle or community.
Shanghai was a place of bad memories, cold nights, and the loss of her mother before she had ever known her. TangShi had never truly felt love, adoration, or warmth from her family that was meant to cherish her. All they had ever done was make her feel like a rabid dog that wandered in from the streets and took every opportunity to kick her down so very brutally. She had only ever known how it felt to be outcast and unwanted by everyone around her that wasn't paid to care for her.
Wasn't her mother why her father hated her the most? That her mother died so she could enter this world, and he never stopped reminding her of the fact that she was a cursed brat who took the love of his life away in her act of selfishness.
When Ava had Jeufeng, her younger half-sister, she had held her breath in hopes that he would finally move on and she would experience the gentleness of a sister in her life, but she was so very wrong. Ava hated her, was jealous of her natural beauty and quiet temperament, and soon made sure to give her father a new daughter to replace the one who disappointed him the most. Breeding it into Juefeng that TangShi was the enemy and a rival for her inheritance and position in the Lei family.
Juefeng was a full seven years younger than TangShi. She was as cruel and as hateful as her parents, only with so much more venom as she hated that she was the second born of the family Lei and not the sole princess she always wanted to be. TangShi was nothing more than grit in her shoe.
TangShi stared at his words once more and couldn't breathe through her despair any longer, choking as each black inky knife-like letter on white paper clawed at what was left of her sanity. Her tears saturating the letters and pulling watery ink down the paper with them.
"You will return home as soon as you receive this letter. We have arranged your engagement to the young Master of the Leng family, as you are the eldest child of Lei, and our two families wish to unite to better our standing in the corporate world. You will obey this request, or I will use any means to extract you from the USA and bring you home to make life unbearable for you. Do your duty, return at once, and begin preparations to become the Young Miss of Leng. Do not disappoint me further. I have spent time and money to raise you to adulthood and I expect you pay that back with obedience and cooperation. Do not embarrass our family name by ignoring my request. I have enclosed your travel arrangements and ticket for immediate return."
There was no love or affection in his letter. No asking her to think of her family and giving her options or kindness in the tone. Not even a hint of asking how she had been these past two months or fatherly concern. Just the same demands, orders, and the same vitriol she had known her whole life.
His voice rang through her head as she read it, as though hearing the scorn and bitterness in how he always addressed her. Blinded by watery tears and unable to do anything but slump and die a little inside. She had no fight in her anymore, it was all sapped away with every year she endured this lonely unfairness. She knew refusing was pointless and her visa here depended on her scholarship, but it wasn't forever. He had abilities to have it revoked and have her shipped back to Shanghai to face worse if she didn't obey.
She had no idea who the young Master of Leng was, as it was a family so superior in riches, fame, and power, that she had never been allowed to cross paths with. TangShi was never taken to events, dinners, or functions that benefitted the Lei family. She was seen as the black scar on the surface of the porcelain flawlessness of her father's reputation. The hidden shame.
She screwed up her eyes and considered for a moment why he would now deem her worthy to be married to someone so influential. It dawned on her with a deeper heaviness that Juefeng was only seventeen, and so spoiled that she would never marry for anything less than love and adoration. Her father would never force his precious girl to marry this way. She liked to be chased and held suitors at arm's length, so it would be beneath her to be ordered to marry for position. As always Juefeng was to be pampered and coddled.
TangShi knew her father was betting on her submissive nature and quiet personality, to be controlled, and used without complaint, and no doubt there would be conditions to be met for the duration of the marriage. TangShi wasn't stupid and knew how these things went. She had heard of many of the girls in her years at school getting married off for a contracted alliance. To supply heirs, name, funding, and then at the end sometimes a separation, a so long, and left to get on with life as a divorced woman to live in shame. She could only hope the term of this marriage was short and that they only wanted a union until whatever business affiliation was strengthened. She couldn't bear to think of anything more than just wasting a couple of years bound to this stranger. Thankfully divorce among the rich was becoming more commonplace and not the shame it once used to be.
TangShi couldn't help herself but be resigned to fate and pulled out her cell phone, internet searching the identity of the young Master of Leng with morbid curiosity. Somehow knowing she had no way out; this was the only thing she could think to do to distract her from her own misery. Be proactive and try not to fall apart as her life came crumbling down around her.
She inhaled her breath sharply when faced with dozens of red-carpet event images that sobered her tears immediately. Pages and pages of editorial pictures, paparazzi shots, news images, and so much more. He was famous enough anyway. So much so that his Weibo account was listed on the first page, and she hovered over it indecisively. He seemed more celebrity idol than son of a well-known conglomerate. She had never paid attention to news or social media so to her, she had no idea who he was.
YuZhi Leng was twenty-six years old, gorgeous in a flawless and sculpted way, in his tall and muscular physique that seemed almost unreal. Straight and stiff in posture, exuding confidence in his own handsomeness. His eyes were oddly green in his beautiful Chinese face and mono-lids that somehow enhanced the beauty of his look under straight manicured brows. The effect was stunning.
He looked like a movie star, his hair styled sexily at a longer length on top, short back and sides, and dyed a slight chestnut brown instead of his natural black. He screamed of money, and pride in his appearance. Every other part of him was dark and sinister, shrouded in expensive tailoring, and a dignified cold look on that noble profile. He could make any woman melt with a face like that and his ruggedness shone through, even at such a young age.
Looking at his beauty made her forget her woes for a second, but something about him pulled her back to a close-up picture of his face. Her heart rate upping a little, and her hands began to tremble as her emotions reacted. Swallowing heavily as a nagging detail in the back of her mind kept pulling her to search the images closely.
There was a rare one of him smiling, so naturally at ease and caught off guard, and it tugged at something of the familiar deep in her heart. It changed his face dramatically, from cold and standoffish to a boyish charm that hinted at warmth. She couldn't place her finger on it at first, just a feeling that she had met him somewhere, and began to search the endless articles of him. Each one on the arm of a woman in almost every single shot, but she ignored her and found one other of that smile.
There was an inkling of memory once again as she gazed at the perfectly straight and white dazzling teeth that had seen thousands of dollars' worth of dentistry. Those dark brows, that clear gaze that enhanced his youthful charm, yet also brought out a mature manly quality to the shape of his face. She was rendered speechless for a second and her mind wandered backwards in time, trying to place him with the image that was fast fading in her own mind as the years went by.
Clawing at a memory she had forbade herself to recall for so long, she hesitated. She tried to stop herself before the old pain of a wounded heart resurfaced to bruise her, but she couldn't hold back the glimmers breaking in. She was piecing together uneven pieces of a puzzle and trying so hard to make them fit. Still almost a decade on looking for answers to the mystery of a boy she had never been able to truly forget.
How silly she was to think that it might be him, and even if it was, she would be stupid to place any emphasis on that night. Stupid to try and figure out if YuZhi Leng was even him. The boy in her mind, eight years ago, was a fleeting fancy and nothing more than a cruel heartbreaker. Who lifted her up and made her feel cherished for just one perfect night. Right before abandoning her and casting her aside like everyone else did, the very next day.
One night of companionship, warmth, and being kissed for the very first time was enough to have made her hope for something more in life, raising her spirit and giving her heart wings. They had talked all night, danced, connected on a level that made her feel alive and seen. She had been moved to believe in insta-love for the first time in her life and thought what she felt could be exactly that. A stupid young girl pulled in by an older boy with fake promises and too much charm.
They had been inseparable even long after the bells chimed midnight. They had walked the streets, hand in hand. Giggled and ate street food before he snuck her home and helped her into the window of the hotel she was staying at with her class that night. It had been a school trip, a chance encounter in another city, a masked ball, and yet he had placed a scar on her heart that bled still.
Who knew he would then just forget her as quickly and leave her to weep her sorrows away in solitude when he never showed up at the bridge they arranged to reunite at the next day at noon. He had promised to meet her there and yet never showed.
They had stayed masked, finding it exciting, mysterious, and promised to unveil one another when the bells chimed twelve again. He had all but proclaimed his love to her, and she had confessed how unhappy and empty her life was with her family, laid her secrets bare, and told him how she planned to escape her life. The first time she had ever unburdened her truths to someone she didn't know. And yet, he hadn't made her feel gross, or unwanted, but kissed away her pain and called her his destiny. He had sworn to be her knight in shining armor and to help her escape the step dragon and the cruel gatekeeper of her personal prison. He had given her hope and made her feel seen for the first time. Worth something to another human.
She had waited for four hours for him to never show face the next day, until rain soaked her through, and tears got muddled up with the water running down her face. He taught her a great lesson in believing anything a man would say to get what he wanted. Weeping in agony before she was forced to leave, abandoning that stupid white lace mask on the that damned walkway and never looking back to allow herself to relive that humiliation until this moment. She could only be glad that she had never let intimacy happen between them and kissing was the only part he got to take.
With the heartache and pain fresh in her chest and mind's eye, she blinked at his image one more time, evaluating those familiar misty green eyes and that smile.... unsure if he could be the same person but yet, not convinced he wasn't. There weren't many Chinese men who had green eyes, and they didn't look like he wore contacts on any of the pictures online. They seemed real and natural, much like those of the boy that night who told her his name was Yoonie.
It just added again to the heaviness of her body, and she shook herself to bring her senses back to the present. A bitterness rising up once more that she had held down for so many years, and the tears dried on her cheeks as her skin burned instead. Him or not, he was a player and not worth her residual pain of a nothing night. Maybe Yoonie was a nickname, or maybe it was a coincidence and green eyes on handsome men were more common than she thought. Not that it mattered as either way, she was now going to be tied to this man whether she agreed to it or not.
She knew she had no choice but to return home now, and if this was the same boy, then she wouldn't fall for his games or his coldness for a second time. She had learned her lesson when he ripped out her soul way back then and as she flicked her phone one more time, she fixated on the woman at his side. The same girl in every image, even when taken months apart and she clicked on one article from only a week ago with shocked wide-eyed disbelief. Curious that a playboy would frequent a single date.
"YuZhi Leng and long-term girlfriend Rhea Cheng"
TangShi read it twice more before clicking on another, and another, her irritation rising as she was faced with the same result. No matter what the girl's hair was like, her clothes, her make up, it was definitely the same woman in all of them and was still apparently current. It seemed she had been by his side for many years, and this was no news to the comments under the articles, praising them for being China's dream couple.
Not only would TangShi be forced to wed this young master, but it looked like he would be forced to push his love life to the past to fulfill his end of this bargain. He clearly had a lover, and she looked like someone who wouldn't let go easily. The name Cheng was a known name in that city, and TangShi wondered at why he wasn't already married to her if he loved her deeply enough to date for at least three years.
TangShi choked on her own salvia and coughed violently; a new sensation slicing her heart that wasn't quite like any pang she felt before and suddenly weird and angsty. Her eyes straying back to his hand in Rhia's and it almost suffocated her as she closed the webpage and tossed her cell aside. Refusing to acknowledge the rising hurt in her body.
She knew it was stupid to still harbor anything from five years ago, and the chances are it wasn't even him at all. She had only seen him wearing a black mask over a third of his face, she didn't know him at all. It was beyond stupid to feel jealousy, resentment or whatever this was.
And the only token of that night she still had was hidden deep in her box of keepsakes back home in Shanghai. A stupid pressed rose he had worn in his lapel, wrapped in a colored ribbon which was imprinted with some sort of crest all over in small repetition, she had never seen before.
Despite how much he had hurt her that night, her silly sentimental self had saved that stupid flower in the pages of a heavy book, and then later laminated it into a useable bookmark so it would never fall apart. She had no idea why she did it. Other than to serve as a reminder to never trust any man, not even one with pretty green eyes, a soft smile, and a warm hand that made you feel like everything was going to be okay. Wolf in sheep's clothing. That's what he was, and she wouldn't forgive as long as she lived.
TangShi picked up her cell once more and opened her email app with the heaviest of moods. Her eyes swimming once more because she knew what she had to do now was inevitable. She pulled up her tutor's contact with slow motions. Her friend, her mentor, who had welcomed her so openly and made her feel like she was finally home when she arrived and began typing in the message she did not want to write. Her soul dying a little with every letter appearing on the screen.
She would have to forfeit her scholarship as she had no idea how long before her father let her go again and she knew that without a doubt, once married she would have no freedom for fear she would bring shame to his name. She would have to let go of the little dorm room that had become her haven, and return to a city she always felt like she never belonged in. To a life she was never part of and play the ruse of good daughter to a noble house.
She wouldn't be welcomed home with open arms, and she didn't expect it either, but at least she would be going back to where Linlin was, and that was the only positive.
She missed her childhood best friend when she moved out here. It had broken her heart to say goodbye at the airport to the only real family she had ever known and knew that if anything could keep her going, help her through this, then it was Linlin. She was loyal, and kind, and would never let her face any of this alone. She had held her up for so many years and been her rock for as long as she could remember.
Daughter of a notable family, a budding rising jewelry designer in her own right and always the life and soul of the party. Linlin would be the one thing that made going home not as devastating as it seemed. The diamond in her darkness!
She sighed as she finished typing her resignation email before sending it out into the web with a lost and desolate weight in her chest. She scrolled to her friend's number and started to compose the text that she knew would be the next step on returning home.