Song Liuli drove off from the company with resolve as hard as steel. While on the road, she looked at the items she had placed on her passenger’s seat.

Her clutch bag. Her passport. Her visa.

She doesn’t feel like enacting the scenes in novels and movies where the female lead will usually go abroad to get away from the male lead just to return a few years later. She’s not a female lead, after all. She’s just a broken shoe, a leftover woman, who can’t even keep her man.

Since she has decided to leave, she will leave for good. No turning back.

When she decided to confront Minglan for the last time, she gave herself no way out.

She had already sold her apartment in the city. She had also arranged it so that the business she established in the country will slowly become a branch company instead once she establishes herself in the place she plans to go to. As for her remaining relatives - her older brother and younger brother - they’ll understand. She will just give them a call once she arrives at her destination.

With this, it will truly be over between her and Bai Minglan.

Seeing the intersection’s traffic light up ahead changing to yellow, Song Liuli changed gears and slowed down to a rolling stop. Just as the light turned red up ahead, Liuli felt a heavy impact from behind.

And right then, everything turned dark.

----

‘Let’s break up!’

All of a sudden, those words interrupted Bai Minglan’s concentration as he was working on some important documents in front of him.

‘That woman!’, he released a frustrated sigh. Since his concentration has been broken, he felt the frustration building up. He has a lot of things to do right now and he doesn't have time to be distracted. Knowing that, he massaged the area between his brows to release some tension.

He flipped his wrist to see the time. He was a bit startled to see that it has been more or less two hours since Song Liuli walked out the door. He had expected the woman to come back barging inside his office, like she used to when she is throwing a tantrum. However, nothing like that happened this time. Unknowingly, so much time has passed by and she still hasn’t returned.

“What is she up to this time?”, he asked himself while putting down his pen. He looked around to find his phone, as she probably bombarded him with messages by now.

Just as he saw his phone and was about to pick it up, his chief secretary, Gu Baicheng, suddenly opened the door. Bai Minglan knotted his brows in displeasure as his normally calm secretary just barged inside his office without knocking.

“Are you looking to get fired?”, he said in his usual threatening cold voice.

“B-boss..”, Gu Baicheng walked inside further until he reached the TV desk. He grabbed the remote along the way. “I apologize for not knocking on the door, but I think you need to see this.”

The man then proceeded to turn on the TV and switched to the news channel. Although Minglan was displeased, he allowed his secretary to scurry around. Gu Baicheng has been with him since the establishment of his company, so he knows that the man won't be disrupting him or acting out of line if it isn't important. He observed closer and it was only then that he saw Gu Baicheng’s pale pallor and trembling hands.

“Breaking news,” the monotonous voice of the news anchor filled the office. The image being shown on the screen is an aerial shot of a highway showing the aftermath of a road accident. One car was half flattened from behind by a lorry truck. In a cut shot, it shows some steel rods from the truck were stuck inside the car. A mosaic is placed on the areas with what seemed like blood. Some of the surrounding cars were affected too, though not as severe as the one in front of the truck. “An accident has happened at X highway at 9:45 this morning, causing 2 dead and 14 injured. One of the bodies was that of the truck driver while the other was identified to be the 31-year-old award-winning fashion designer, Song Liuli, who was driving the car with the most damage in the accident…”

‘Song Liuli….’

Minglan can’t believe his ears while his eyes stayed on the TV screen. The red and blue lights of the police car and Song Liuli’s photo being shown at the upper right of the screen were the only thing that registered in his head.

“What did it say again?”, with full of disbelief, Minglan blurted out these words.

“B-boss… Miss S-song..”

“That can’t be!”, Minglan banged the table with his fist hard to interrupt whatever it is that his secretary may want to say. He doesn’t want to hear it. He stood up agitatedly as he screamed out his disbelief.

“She was just here! I was just talking to her right here!”

She’s dead? He won’t believe what anyone says!

Tiriririring.

Before Minglan can gather his thoughts, his cellphone and office phone rang simultaneously. In fact, he can also hear the phones outside ringing.

He picked up his phone and saw that it was Shen Tianyi, his best friend, on the caller ID. He dreaded to pick it up, yet he still connected the call after a while.

Outside, his secretaries were all frantically answering the phone. He can hear the words ‘Miss Song’ over and over from them.

“Minglan?”, Tianyi tentatively asked with a morose voice. After a short pause, he asked, “You already knew?”

He immediately understood what he wanted to ask. Perhaps the man can hear the background noise or perhaps he is just truly asking a question. Weakly, he slumped in his chair, as if every last ounce of strength was drained from him.

Bai Minglan didn’t answer for a while. Tianyi even thought that he wouldn’t answer, thus he called his name again.

This time, Minglan asked with a slight quiver in his voice. “It’s t-true?”

“Mmm.”, Tianyi hummed sadly. “Come to H hospital’s morgue. Her brothers are already here now.”

Hello, author here!

Was your emotions stirred up at this point? Brace yourselves for the upcoming chapters!

Love lots!