Three days later, in a modern-style villa nestled among dense woods on the outskirts of New York.

Chloe sat before the enormous floor-to-ceiling window. Outside lay a meticulously maintained English garden, still shrouded in morning mist. The computer screen illuminated her cold, focused face as she studied financial statements and project records from Daniel's "Reed Architectural Design Company" for the past three years.


Three days had passed since that soul-shattering confession. She hadn't seen Julian since.

That morning, after waking in the guest room bed, she'd found only villa keys and a new phone that could only contact him on the living room table. He'd left a note in his characteristically calm, forceful style: "Focus on what you need to do. I'll be back after handling some trouble."

No unnecessary explanations, no tentative tenderness—like a precise machine that had initiated its program.


Chloe cut off all connections with the outside world, turning this place into her war command center. Her first move was not against Daniel, but Leo. She knew all too well that Leo was Daniel's only weakness, and also the softest spot in her father's heart. As long as Leo remained out there, this war would always have variables.

Through Attorney Hamilton, she anonymously submitted detailed materials to the board of trustees at Leo's university about his suspected improper use of family influence in his admission and scholarship applications. She didn't mention any personal scandals, but instead used professional, irrefutable business tactics to push him into an academic integrity investigation.


After sending the instruction email to the lawyer, Chloe picked up her coffee, her gaze unconsciously drifting toward the garden outside. Her breath suddenly caught.

In the center of the garden, "Moon Goddess" roses grew in abundance—an extremely rare variety of white roses that gleam with a silvery luster under moonlight.

Chloe's mind went blank with a deafening boom.

She remembered. When she was eighteen, the family had gone on a trip to Italy, and in an ancient manor library, she'd seen this flower in a yellowed botanical atlas. She'd pointed to the hand-drawn picture and said to her father: "Dad, look, if I ever have a garden full of 'Moon Goddess' roses, it would be like living on the moon."

That was just a whimsical dream casually expressed by a young girl. Even she herself had almost forgotten about it.

Julian… how could he know?

That feeling of having her soul completely seen through caused a nearly suffocating panic. She forced herself to look away, pulling her attention back to the cold numbers on the computer screen.

Next, Daniel.

Her father had once mentioned casually that Daniel's company's meteoric rise was all thanks to a landscape renovation project for a city hall park he'd secured three years ago. She immediately had Attorney Hamilton use all Julian's resources to dig deep into the bidding process for this project.

One day later, an encrypted file arrived in her email.

Inside was a complete chain of evidence showing how Daniel had bribed officials and colluded with several companies to rig the bidding process. It was enough to ruin his reputation, or even send him to prison.

Chloe looked at the conclusive evidence but felt no satisfaction of revenge, only bone-deep exhaustion.

Uncontrollably, she recalled Julian's roaring voice in that secret gallery: "I made you marry Daniel not because I thought he was worthy of you, but because I thought he was safe! A harmless waste of space!"

At the time, she had only thought it absurd.

And at this moment, she truly understood. When making that decision, Julian had already loved her for three years. What heart-wrenching torment he must have endured to push away the woman he deeply loved, with his own hands, to another "worthless person" whom he despised, only because he couldn't overcome that barrier of status and ethics in his mind.

It turned out they were all fools, completely deceived by Daniel's perfect façade.

This realization made her feel something beyond hatred toward Julian's emotion that could be called either "love" or "obsession." It was an extremely complex feeling, mixed with pity and an inexplicable sense of connection.

The moment of the final battle had arrived.

She decided that the next day, she would anonymously submit this evidence to the Commercial Crime Investigation Department, while simultaneously having her lawyer initiate divorce proceedings and property division.

On the eve of action, she stood alone by the floor-to-ceiling window in the second-floor study, gazing at the sea of "Moon Goddess" flowers outside, gleaming with cold silver light in the darkness. She felt no joy from the impending victory, but rather an unprecedented loneliness.

She took out the phone Julian had given her, which had only one contact.

She stared at the solitary "J" on the screen, her finger hovering over the call button for a very long time.

She wanted to ask him: Over these five years, what kind of person have you been watching me become? Have you treated my life as a script you can manipulate at will?

But in the end, she didn't make the call.

She opened the messaging interface and typed "Tomorrow, I will hand over all the evidence," but then deleted it, character by character.

He didn't need to know this. He already knew.

Finally, her fingers paused on the keyboard for a long while, and she sent only two words.

"Thank you."

Thank you for the weapon, and thank you… for remembering that dream about the moon, which I had long forgotten.

A few seconds later, the phone vibrated slightly.

The reply contained only one word.

"Mm."

As always, Julian's typical brevity and coldness.

Chloe gave a self-mocking smile, and just as she was about to put down her phone, the screen lit up again.

It was a second message.

"I'm here."

Looking at those three words in the empty study, that taut string inside her body named "strength" finally, slowly relaxed.

She leaned against the cold glass window, looking at the "moon" outside that belonged to her, and finally showed her first faint smile in a long time—one tinged with resignation and relief.

The night before the operation.

In the master bedroom on the second floor of the villa, Chloe stood before the giant dressing mirror.

She had chosen her "battle dress"—a sharply tailored black silk suit worn with nothing underneath, the deep V neckline tracing lines as sexy and dangerous as a vengeful goddess. Her makeup was impeccable, eyeliner sharp, and on her lips, a bold crimson red she had never tried before, radiating aggression.

The woman in the mirror was both stranger and utterly familiar.

She was about to put on a pair of vintage diamond earrings when she heard an almost imperceptible sound behind her—the door being opened and closed again.

Chloe froze. She didn't turn around, but through the mirror, she watched the man who had appeared silently behind her.

Julian.

He hadn't even rung the doorbell, but had used the key he'd long possessed to enter her "safe house" like its owner.

He said nothing, just slowly walked forward and stood behind her. The distance was extremely close, so close that Chloe could feel the cold fir woody scent emanating from him, warmed by his body heat, infiltrating the air around her, thread by thread, intertwining with her own perfume.

He trapped her between the mirror and his tall body, forming an airtight, oppressive encirclement.

Neither spoke, only engaging in a silent confrontation through the mirror.

Julian's gaze, carrying what felt like tangible heat, wandered over her reflection. From her feigned composed yet slightly trembling eyelashes, gliding past her elegant collarbone, and finally resting on the delicate skin exposed by her deep V-neckline, his eyes dark like a deep pool.

Chloe could clearly hear her own heart beating like a drum. She forced herself to meet his gaze in the mirror, her eyes calm, even carrying a hint of barely perceptible defiance.

As if saying: I know what you want to do.

Julian's lips curved into a faint, almost invisible arc. He took out a velvet jewelry box from his pocket and slowly opened it under her gaze.

Inside lay the pearl earring she had lost.

"Your left ear," his voice was extremely low, like a lover's whisper, his breath barely brushing against the back of her neck, triggering a small shiver in her, "seems to be waiting for something."

Chloe didn't answer. This lack of denial was itself a form of tacit consent.

His slender fingers picked up the earring from the box, but he didn't immediately put it on for her. Instead, he placed it in her palm. Then, with his chin, he gestured toward her right ear.

Chloe understood his intention. Silently and obediently, she put the original earring stud on her right ear.

Then, she waited.

Julian finally moved.

His left hand, with indisputable gentleness, slid from her shoulder to her jaw. His fingertips lightly caressed her smooth skin, then applied slight pressure to turn her face to the side, exposing that small, delicate left ear that waited for him.

His right hand, holding the cold pearl, slowly approached with almost torturous deliberation.

Chloe could even feel the slight coolness from the pearl before it actually touched her skin.

He was in no hurry to pass it through the earhole.

His lips, instead, moved close to her ear first. His scorching breath, like an electric current, instantly spread throughout her entire body.

He said in a hoarse whisper that only the two of them could hear:

"Now…"

His fingertips finally, slowly and deliberately, pushed the cold metal rod through her sensitive earlobe.

"…it's complete."

Click.

A soft sound of metal clasping shut in the dead silence of the room was like a final branding.

"And…" he didn't pull away, his warm nose almost brushing against the curve of her ear, "…mine."

After putting on the earring, he didn't immediately leave. His hand, following the line of her neck, slowly slid down, finally resting on the exposed skin at her back, where with his slightly cool fingertips, he drew an almost imperceptible circle.

This was a gesture filled with both possession and reassurance.

He didn't mention anything more about revenge or the future. Those grand narratives seemed utterly superfluous in this moment filled with desire and suggestion.

He simply leaned down and left an extremely light, almost nonexistent, yet scorching hot kiss at the roots of her hair behind her ear.

Then, he straightened up and, as quietly as he had come, turned and left the room.

The door was gently closed once more.

As if he had never appeared at all.

Chloe stood there for a long time before slowly raising her hand.

Her fingers touched not the earring that had just been put on, but the skin behind her ear that was still slightly warm from his breath and kiss.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Her makeup remained sharp, but her eyes no longer held just cold determination. Beneath those burning flames of revenge had appeared a layer of dreamy, dangerous mist of desire.