The test results were folded neatly inside my bag.
I hadn't looked at them again.
I didn't need to.
Facts didn't change because you stared at them longer. They only became heavier.
The doctor had been very precise.
"This isn't a crisis," she'd said. "But it isn't nothing either."
Not life-threatening.
Not urgent.
Not something I could ignore forever.
A condition that required monitoring. Adjustment. Stability.
A reminder that my body, like my future, no longer belonged to impulse.
I appreciated the irony.
I told no one.
Not because I was afraid.
But because information was currency—and I had spent my entire life bankrupt from giving too much away.
This time, I would be rich in silence.
Across the ocean, impatience set in.
Gu Chengyi reviewed the private report again, jaw tight.
"No contact," his assistant repeated. "No indirect signals. No financial trace beyond a standard living pattern."
"She's limiting herself on purpose," Gu Chengyi said.
"Yes."
"Why?"
The assistant hesitated. "So she won't need you."
Gu Chengyi closed the file.
For the first time, efficiency offered no solution.
Han Zhe didn't bother with assistants.
He showed up.
Not at my door.
Not at my campus.
At the one place he knew I wouldn't expect him.
The café.
I noticed him the moment he walked in—too familiar, too out of place, like a memory that had missed its cue.
I didn't stand.
I didn't leave.
I finished my tea.
Only then did I look up.
"You shouldn't be here," I said calmly.
He smiled, the old instinctive one. "You used to say that all the time."
"I meant it then," I replied. "I mean it now."
The smile faded.
"Yanxi," he said quietly, "you didn't even let us explain."
"There's nothing to explain," I said. "Only things to accept."
He leaned closer. "You disappeared. Do you know what that did?"
"Yes," I answered. "It stopped hurting me."
The words landed harder than any accusation.
He straightened slowly.
"You've changed."
"No," I corrected. "I've stopped waiting."
He left without another word.
For once, he didn't try to follow.
That scared him more than rejection ever could.
That night, Shen Yu received confirmation of something he'd suspected for weeks.
"She declined all long-term assistance offers," his contact reported. "Housing, funding, even mentorship programs."
"And her condition?" Shen Yu asked.
A pause.
"She didn't authorize release."
Shen Yu closed his eyes.
Careful.
Deliberate.
Untouchable.
For the first time, he understood the danger.
Not to her.
To them.
I updated my rules again.
My body is not a bargaining chip.
My silence is not an invitation.
Survival does not require permission.
I stopped at the page, pen hovering.
Then added one final line.
If they come back, it will be on my terms—or not at all.
Outside, the city slept.
Inside, something steadier than hope settled into place.
Resolve.
Because whatever was growing inside me—condition, consequence, or cost—
It was not a curse meant to drag me backward.
It was a boundary.
And Chapter 75 marked the moment the past learned something it hated most:
I no longer needed saving.
I only needed them to stay where they were—
on the other side of my life.