Chapter 136 Lunar Tear
Chaos rippled through the hall. The crowd pressed together in the dark, voices rising in a confused murmur.
The blackout didn't last. Within seconds, a single white spotlight sliced through the gloom and landed on one figure.
Terrence.
Bianca raised an eyebrow. A flicker of curiosity stirred in her chest.
What was this about?
The lone beam of light tracked Terrence's movements—or rather, it illuminated the cart being pushed just behind him by an attendant.
On the cart sat something tall, draped entirely in black velvet. The mystery of it made people lean forward, desperate to see what lay beneath.
Terrence walked ahead. His charcoal suit was sharply tailored, shoulders straight. He radiated an icy, untouchable presence that kept the world at arm's length. Only his eyes betrayed him. When they found Bianca's across the room, the frost melted away. A trace of warmth surfaced—subtle, but unmistakable.
"Did Terrence just look this way?"
One of the women near Melissa whispered the question.
Melissa didn't fully understand what was happening, but she recognized an opportunity when she saw one.
A perfectly timed blush warmed her cheeks. She gazed toward Terrence with practiced shyness, lowering her lashes just so.
"Terrence must have seen me…"
Her voice came out soft, laced with a delicate, girlish fantasy.
The woman in the green dress had been ready to argue with Melissa, but the warmth in Terrence's expression stopped her cold. She'd never seen him look at anyone like that.
Could Melissa actually be telling the truth?
But how could someone like her possibly deserve him?
Terrence moved through the crowd with steady, deliberate steps. Every eye in the room tracked him.
As he drew closer, Melissa's heartbeat thundered in her ears like a drum. She pressed her lips together to suppress a smile. Hope rose inside her, unbidden and intoxicating.
Was Terrence really coming to her?
The distance shrank. Even the woman in green began to reconsider her judgment, her eyes narrowing in reassessment.
The looks of envy and jealousy from the surrounding women fed Melissa's vanity until it soared. She straightened her posture without thinking, preening under the attention.
Her eyes softened. A delicate pink dusted her cheeks. She opened her mouth to speak, to welcome him.
Terrence walked right past her.
Melissa froze. Shock widened her eyes. Disbelief flooded her expression, shattering the carefully constructed mask of modesty.
"Excuse me, miss. Please move aside." The attendant pushing the cart spoke politely, but his tone was ice-cold.
Humiliation slammed into Melissa, cold and merciless. She almost shouted at him, almost let the rage spill over, but then she remembered—the fear, the danger, what had happened before.
Her voice died in her throat. She stepped aside, resentment burning a hole in her chest.
The woman in green didn't waste a second. Her sneer was sharp enough to cut glass. "You kept calling him Terrence like you were close. But he doesn't seem to know you exist."
"Bianca."
Terrence's voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly through the silent hall.
Bianca looked up. Surprise flickered in her eyes. "Terrence, what is this?"
The corner of Terrence's mouth lifted. He didn't answer. Instead, he walked to the cart and pulled away the black cloth in one smooth motion.
A necklace lay beneath.
The moment the cloth fell, the necklace caught the light. It didn't glare; it glowed. It was as if someone had shattered the purest moonlight and captured it in solid form, soft and luminous.
The centerpiece was a pear-shaped diamond. The teardrop silhouette flowed naturally, like a crystalline drop of water frozen mid-fall. Its clarity was flawless, reflecting the surrounding light without distortion, wrapped in a faint veil of cool white radiance, like moonlight filtered through gauze.
Every facet captured the light with precision. When it shifted, the glow didn't blind—it rippled outward in layers, fading from cold white to the faintest silver-blue, like moonlight spilling across a lake and stirring gentle, endless waves.
The instant the necklace was revealed, every gaze in the room locked onto it.
"It's beautiful…"
"I've never seen craftsmanship like this. This is art."
Murmurs of awe spread through the crowd like wildfire.
Terrence's attention never left Bianca. Her familiar silhouette sharpened in his mind, clearer than ever.
"Bianca, I had this made especially for you. It's called Lunar Tear."
He lifted the necklace and walked toward her.
Up close, the details were even more exquisite. It was a rare treasure, no question.
Bianca's expression softened. She looked deeply into Terrence's eyes. Then she swept her hair to one side, exposing the pale, elegant curve of her neck.
The clasp clicked into place. Terrence brushed a stray lock of hair from her skin, his fingers lingering for a fraction of a second. His gaze swept across the room. His voice rose, sharp and absolute.
"She is the only treasure in my heart."
A beat of silence.
Then the hall erupted. Voices overlapped, congratulations pouring in from every direction. Bianca faced them calmly, her composure unshaken.
The woman in green sneered, loud enough for Melissa to hear. "Some people have no shame. Trying to latch onto the powerful when they don't have what it takes."
Melissa's face drained of color. She swayed slightly. The contemptuous stares cut into her like blades, dragging her down into the mud. She turned and fled, barely holding herself together.
Jealousy had already taken root in Melissa's heart. And in the dark, it continued to grow.
The next day, Melissa hadn't slept. The scene from the exhibition replayed endlessly in her mind. The shadows under her eyes had deepened into bruises.
She stumbled through her classes in a daze and made her way slowly toward the restroom.
The only treasure in his heart?
Bianca should have been locked in a gilded cage—a decorative object, something to be toyed with, stripped of dignity.
Why did Terrence look at Bianca with such tenderness? Why did he look at Melissa with nothing but cold indifference?
She wasn't worse than Bianca. So why was she the one being looked down on?
The memory of that night didn't just spark jealousy—it ignited something deeper. A refusal to accept defeat. Rage. Resentment.
That useless Blair. He couldn't even deal with one girl. And then he'd left her stranded in the middle of nowhere. She'd had to claw her way back.
She wanted Terrence's love too. That kind of warmth. If it belonged only to her, how perfect would that be?
Melissa sat on the toilet, laughing softly to herself. Madness flickered in her eyes, sharper than before.
Then voices drifted in from outside the stall. Hushed. Conspiratorial.
"Do you know who I saw at the exhibition last night?"
"Who?"
"Remember that girl from the forum drama a few days ago?"
"You mean Bianca? It's not that surprising she'd be at an art exhibition. What's the big deal?"
"The head of the Anderson family was there too. Word got out early. Tons of people showed up just to see him. Invitations were impossible to get. My dad barely managed to score one."
"Are you saying there's more to Bianca's background than I thought?"
"Yes! Bianca is the girlfriend of the head of the Anderson family—Mr. Anderson himself. And he gave her a necklace worth a fortune!"
A loud crash echoed through the restroom. The two women at the sink jumped and spun around.
Melissa stood there, eyes bloodshot, dark circles carved beneath them. She stared at them with wild intensity.
"Bianca is not Terrence's girlfriend. That necklace wasn't from him!"