The café at No. 27 Wutong Street was tucked away in a quiet alley of the old city, a world apart from the glittering district where Su Wan had spent the last five years.
At 7:55 PM, Su Wan arrived five minutes early. She wore a simple beige trench coat over her jeans and T-shirt, her hair tied in a low ponytail, her face bare of any makeup. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the ancient wooden door.
Inside, the scent of coffee mingled with the smell of old books. In the darkest corner sat a man in his early thirties, wearing a dark gray shirt and thin-rimmed glasses. When Su Wan approached, he looked up with eyes as sharp as a hawk's.
"Ms. Su Wan?" his voice was low and steady.
"I am." Su Wan sat down, her eyes darting around warily.
"My name is Chen Jiashu, a lawyer." The man pushed a business card across the table. "I was the legal representative of the late Ms. Lin Wanqing."
Lin Wanqing. The name felt like a key, unlocking a door deep in Su Wan's memory. She remembered her mother staring out the window during her childhood, whispering that name.
"Was she my mother's friend?" Su Wan asked cautiously.
Chen Jiashu shook his head and placed a sealed envelope on the table. "This was left for you by Ms. Lin Wanqing. She passed away three years ago—less than three months apart from your adoptive mother."
Su Wan's fingers trembled as she opened the envelope. Inside was a DNA report. The probability of biological kinship: 99.99%.
"Lin Wanqing was my... biological mother?" Su Wan's voice was barely a whisper.
"Yes," Chen Jiashu said calmly. He began to unravel a twenty-six-year-old secret. Her biological mother was the heiress of the Lin Group, who had eloped with a common teacher. After her lover died, she suffered from severe depression, and her sister—Su Wan's adoptive mother—had taken the baby "to help," but ended up stealing her identity forever.
But the most crushing blow was yet to come.
Chen Jiashu pulled out a copy of a document titled "Marriage Contract Agreement." It was signed by Jiang Chen and his father, Jiang Zhenguo, one month before the wedding.
The contract stated: Jiang Chen must marry Su Wan and maintain the marriage for five years. In exchange, he would receive 30% of the family company's shares and management power. After five years, he could divorce her without paying a single cent of settlement—only a small "hush money" fee.
Su Wan felt a wave of nausea. Every "I love you," every anniversary surprise, every night he stayed by her hospital bed after her miscarriage—it was all a performance for shares.
"So, my entire marriage was a lie?" Su Wan's voice sounded hollow. "He only wanted the power?"
"It's more complex than that," Chen Jiashu leaned forward. "He didn't just leave you; he's making you the scapegoat. He emptied the company's funds and fled, leaving you to face the bank, the creditors, and the law. To the world, you lived a life of luxury while he 'struggled.' They will think you were his accomplice."
Su Wan felt a chill. The gilded cage was never a sanctuary; it was a trap designed to bury her alive when the time came.
"What do I do now?" she asked.
Chen Jiashu placed a bank card and a set of keys on the table. "Your biological mother left you a trust fund of five million dollars and an old house in the south of the city that the Jiang family doesn't know about. Go there. Disappear from their sight."
As Su Wan left the café, she took out her SIM card, snapped it in half, and threw it into a trash can. She bought a cheap burner phone with cash.
The canary had truly left the cage.
But on the top floor of the Jiang Group headquarters, a man stared at a screen showing "Target Lost." He picked up the phone and said coldly:
"She's gone. Activate Plan B."