The set lights burned hotter than usual.
Yuyan blinked through them, delivering her final lines with the composure of a seasoned actress—but her fingers trembled just off-camera. Her director didn't notice. The crew cheered as the last take wrapped, and just like that, the months of blood, sweat, and retakes came to a quiet end.
She smiled for the crowd, hugged the cast, and let herself be swept into the celebration.
But beneath the applause, her stomach turned—not from nerves.
From the secret growing inside her.
It had started small: a wave of nausea during rehearsals, a sudden exhaustion after a light lunch. She'd brushed it off. Stress, maybe. A cold. But when the dizziness didn't fade and her appetite flickered strangely, she'd gone to the clinic in disguise, heart thudding the entire cab ride.
The nurse had smiled softly when the test came back positive.
"About five weeks," she'd said.
Five weeks. Back to the night when Luchen had torn down the last barrier between them—without asking. Yuyan had told herself she could forget it. But now the consequence bloomed quietly inside her.
And no one knew.
Not Lemin, who'd been texting daily with his carefully worded concern. Not Luchen, who had kept his distance since the rooftop scene, honoring her need for space like a penitent soldier.
And certainly not the press, who'd caught wind of the film's finale and were hungry for a new headline.
She slipped away from the wrap party after an hour, faking a headache. Her driver waited outside, but instead of heading to the Zhao estate or her apartment, she directed him toward the hills.
"To the lake," she murmured.
The wind that greeted her there was cool and quiet. She stood beneath the weeping willow where she'd once practiced scripts as a trainee. Back then, her dreams had been loud. Now, they pulsed under her skin—tender, complicated, growing by the day.
She placed a hand over her stomach.
"I don't know how to protect you," she whispered. "But I will."
Her phone buzzed.
Luchen: How did filming go? I saw the studio's post. You looked beautiful.
She didn't reply.
Another message followed.
Luchen: Are you still planning to come home tomorrow? I'll make sure no one's there except me.
Yuyan stared at the screen. The man who had broken her had also waited, quietly and without expectation. She hadn't forgiven him. Not fully. But something in her couldn't erase him either.
And now, there was more at stake.
She sent a single message: Yes. Noon.
A pause. Then:
Luchen: Okay. I'll be waiting.
As she slipped her phone into her coat, another gust of wind stirred the trees, brushing past her like a breath.
One chapter closed. Another one—unwritten—pressed forward from within her.
She wasn't ready to speak of it yet.
But soon, the truth would demand light.
---