6:33 a.m. The phone screen lit up, vibrating with quiet urgency.
Shen Yichen glanced up from his desk, casually tapped the screen, and saw the headline flash before his eyes:
BREAKING: Top Star Su Rui in Critical Condition—Collapsed on Red Carpet, Now in Vegetative State
He froze. His finger hovered above the image.
It was a photo from a hospital bed—oxygen tube in her nose, her face pale as porcelain, her body lying motionless on sterile white sheets.
The headline screamed in red, searing through his retinas, far too loud for a world that had yet to fully wake.
"Vegetative state."
The words struck like a nail, lodging themselves deep in his mind.
Shen put down the phone, stepped toward the window, and drew back the curtains.
Sunlight spilled in across the room, settling on the clean, tailored lines of his suit sleeve.
He was always precise. Composed. Efficient. But right now, for the first time in years, his thoughts stuttered to a halt.
His mind drifted—back to that winter night so many years ago.
It had been a charity gala where the tech elite mingled with celebrities. Beneath the chandeliers, everything shimmered. The air buzzed with voices, with deals, with ambition. He had been about to leave, another glass of champagne untouched in his hand—
And then he saw her.
Red dress. A slight smile. A glass raised in effortless grace.
Su Rui stood there like a firework just before ignition. The whole room bent around her presence.
She noticed him too. Raised her glass with a teasing glance.
That one look embedded itself in his vision like a burn.
And after that glance—they got close. Fast.
Eleven days later, they were married. No press release. No photo ops.
Just him saying, "I want the world to know you're mine."
She had laughed. "Fine. But you'll have to sign a contract—I'm a high-value public asset, you know."
Those days felt like stars colliding—too bright, too intense, destined to implode.
She liked control. He preferred silence. She demanded fire; he craved order.
The passion that once drew them together became the fuse that set off endless arguments.
They fought at midnight. Slammed doors. Accused each other of things neither meant.
He still remembered her flinging his laptop across the floor. The battery skidded three feet across the wood.
She screamed, "Do I even matter to you?"
He shouted back, "Su Rui, does anyone matter to you except yourself?"
After one particularly brutal fight, she moved out.
The next day, she topped the trending charts: "Queen of Breakups—Su Rui Cuts Ties Overnight."
And him?
He said nothing.
Not because he didn't want to. But because by then, words had lost all power.
Back in the present, Shen Yichen closed his eyes, inhaled deeply.
She was in a vegetative state now.
The fierce, defiant woman who once stared down every camera with disdainful ease—
Now lay in silence.
Her voice, once sharp enough to wound, was quiet as a grave.
He'd never seen her like this.
Never imagined it.
The phone screen still glowed beside him. The headline flashed again, merciless.
It was real.
She was no longer part of this world—not really.
His throat tightened.
Still, he said nothing.
A moment later, he returned to his desk, opened a contract file. His fingers rested on the pen.
But he didn't move.
Sunlight crept across his face, drawing sharp shadows across his profile.
He murmured, barely audible:
"This isn't like you, Su Rui… You wouldn't leave the stage like this."
No one answered.
Outside the window, a bird sliced through the sky—swift, unbothered.
Inside, he sat frozen, unwilling to admit that something in him had already begun to crumble.
——
Elsewhere, in a dim workers' dormitory, Su Rui lay curled on a narrow mattress.
Her phone buzzed.
She tapped the screen, absentminded—until she saw the headline.
"Su Rui becomes a vegetative patient."
She stared at the image of herself on the hospital bed.
That lifeless woman—white, distant, unfamiliar—felt like a ghost extracted from her body.
She whispered:
"So… I really did die."
She clutched the phone tighter, her eyes locked on those cold words.
For a long while, she said nothing.
Then, slowly, she set the phone down, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling.
A single tear slid down the side of her face.
Morning light was rising.
But something inside her had gone quiet.
Like fireworks that had once burst across the sky—now stilled in midair.