When he finally saw what it was, his heartbeat suddenly sped up, blood surged backward, his mind went completely blank, and his nerves were so tense they were about to snap.

——

3:45 a.m.

The rain had probably stopped, and the honking on the road was piercingly loud.

Susan Clark lay flat on her bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Her mind buzzed in chaos, and her heart felt empty, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out.

After coming back, she didn’t idle around. She went to the storage room, pulled out a cardboard box, and packed up everything Samuel Grant had given her these past days.

Some things had been used and couldn’t be returned, so she made a list and put it in the box, planning to pay him back for everything.

This included the concert tickets for Lauren Scott. They were supposed to go together, but now she could only return the money for the other ticket as well.

And now, all she needed to do was quietly wait for Samuel Grant to come find her.

Sure enough, before long, the doorbell rang.

Based on Susan Clark’s understanding of him, he was probably standing outside drenched in rain, looking pitiful, waiting to explain and beg for her forgiveness.

She could even predict his lines. He’d start with, “Let me explain,” then his eyes would redden, and he’d tug at her sleeve, just like when he confessed to her back then.

Thinking of this, Susan Clark couldn’t help but laugh.

It all felt like a dream.

She didn’t have much strength when she got up, but she forced herself to appear in front of Samuel Grant.

Only one light was on in the hallway, dim and hazy, but enough to clearly see Samuel Grant’s face.

He was holding a blue lace-trimmed umbrella, his hair limp but clean, not a trace of water on him.

Not at all what Susan Clark had imagined.

He hunched his shoulders, lowered his head, glanced at Susan Clark and immediately looked away.

“Shuyi…”

Susan Clark lifted her chin, about to deliver her well-rehearsed speech of never forgiving him, when she heard from across, “Let’s break up.”

Susan Clark: “…?”

“I love you very much, and I really want to be with you forever, but this kind of life is too exhausting. I can never see where the end is. Even dreaming of buying a small apartment in this city is a luxury for me, I…”

“Wait.” Susan Clark snapped back to her senses and quickly interrupted him, “What do you mean?”

“Shuyi.” He frowned, gritted his teeth, and blurted out everything in his heart, “We both need to be realistic! Her family isn’t ordinary—her uncle drives a Rolls-Royce, even the license plate is a special number, there’s only one like it in the whole city! Wealth, power—I want to leap ahead to where I’d be in twenty years too, I… I think we’re better off as friends.”

Susan Clark almost couldn’t catch her breath, just a fingernail’s width away from dying on the spot.

So in the end, before she could even speak, he dumped her first?

“Samuel Grant.” Susan Clark held back her anger, gripping the doorframe tightly, and said word by word, “Did you bring up my phone?”

“I-I brought it.”

Samuel Grant still didn’t dare meet her eyes. After a quick glance, he lowered his head and took out her phone.

Susan Clark snatched her phone, took a deep breath, and with one burst of energy, kicked the box and Samuel Grant out the door.

“Who the hell wants to be your friend! I’ll be your ancestor!”

——

The sound of the door slamming echoed through the entire hallway. Even leaning against the door, Susan Clark could feel it vibrating, and she kept patting her chest to make sure she wouldn’t pass out from anger.

After a moment of silence, footsteps finally sounded outside.

Susan Clark couldn’t help holding onto that last bit of hope, hoping Samuel Grant would at least act like a decent person.

So she turned around and looked through the peephole, only to see Samuel Grant walk a couple of steps with the box, then suddenly squat down, put the box on the ground, and start rummaging through it.

The box was filled with things Samuel Grant had given her—ceramics, decorations, books, and all sorts of little trinkets.

After a while, he pulled out a small item and put it in his jacket pocket, then left the rest of the box and got into the elevator.

No way?

Susan Clark was stunned, blinking hard.

If she wasn’t mistaken, Samuel Grant had just taken the only valuable thing in that box—a gold brooch?!

In that moment, rage surged over her, drowning out all sentimental feelings, tearing apart the rose-tinted filter of the past few years, and exposing the ugliest side of Samuel Grant’s character, leaving Susan Clark with no room for nostalgia. Even her fondest memories turned to ashes, fueling her anger.

Susan Clark threw herself onto the bed, punching her pillow over and over, but still couldn’t erase those images from her mind.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Samuel Grant acting like being with her was some kind of hardship, keeping Susan Clark wide awake until dawn.

But she had only taken half a day off, so in the afternoon she still had to get dressed up and go to work.

A scumbag can be thrown away, but performance reviews can’t be lost.

——