The next morning, Shen Qingyu woke to sunlight. His fever had lowered, though his body remained weak, and for a few seconds he stared at the unfamiliar ceiling before memory returned: beach, handkerchief, do you want to marry me, yes. He slowly turned his head. On the bedside table lay neatly folded clothes — a white shirt and a dark suit, everything in his size — and beside them sat a glass of warm water and medicine. On top of the clothes was a note. The handwriting was strong and simple: Eat breakfast before taking medicine. No signature. No unnecessary words. Shen Qingyu looked at the note, and then he smiled.

Downstairs, Lu Jingheng was waiting in the dining room in a black suit, his tie fastened neatly, his expression no different from someone preparing for an ordinary business meeting. On the table were light porridge, eggs, side dishes, and warm milk. Shen Qingyu paused. Lu Jingheng looked up. "Can you eat?" "Yes." "Sit." Shen Qingyu sat, and the housekeeper placed a bowl before him. The porridge was not too hot, the side dishes were light, and the milk was warm but not sweet. Shen Qingyu looked at the table. "You investigated my taste?" "You disliked sweet cake at the Shen banquet." Shen Qingyu's hand paused. That banquet had been two years ago, the night his engagement was cancelled and the night almost everyone forgot it was still his birthday, and Lu Jingheng had not been there. "How do you know?" "You mentioned it on the beach." Shen Qingyu tried to remember — that night he had cried until his head hurt and might have said anything — but Lu Jingheng had remembered. Shen Qingyu lowered his eyes and ate a spoonful of porridge. It was warm, and his throat, still sore from fever, finally hurt less.

After breakfast, Lu Jingheng's assistant arrived with documents, everything prepared and efficient to the point of terrifying. Shen Qingyu read through the materials carefully while Lu Jingheng did not rush him, and when Shen Qingyu finished he asked, "Do we need a prenuptial agreement?" "No." "President Lu, with your assets, that is not rational." "I am rational." "Then?" "If I was worried about assets, I would not marry you." Shen Qingyu looked at him. Lu Jingheng's expression remained serious, as if he had only stated another fact, and Shen Qingyu suddenly realised that talking with this man required a strong heart — he did not speak love words, only practical sentences that somehow struck more accurately than love words. Shen Qingyu signed where needed, and then the assistant drove them to the civil affairs bureau.

The civil affairs bureau had just opened and was not yet crowded. A few couples sat waiting — some excited, some shy, some whispering together — and among them Shen Qingyu and Lu Jingheng seemed strangely calm, too calm. One was the empire's youngest Omega film emperor currently being cursed across the internet, the other was the Lu Corporation's cold and untouchable head, and they sat side by side in suits, both beautiful in completely different ways: Shen Qingyu's beauty pale, sharp, and dazzling, Lu Jingheng's handsomeness deep, cold, and oppressive. Several staff members secretly glanced at them, then glanced again, then did not dare look too openly. When their number was called, Shen Qingyu stood, and for a brief second dizziness struck from the remaining fever. Lu Jingheng's hand moved immediately to support his elbow. Shen Qingyu looked down at that hand, then said softly, "I can walk." Lu Jingheng withdrew his hand. "Mn." He did not insist, did not say don't be stubborn, did not decide Shen Qingyu was weak because he was unwell — he only stayed close enough to catch him if he fell. Shen Qingyu's eyelashes lowered. Then he walked forward, and Lu Jingheng walked beside him.

At the registration window, the staff member checked their documents several times — perhaps because she recognised Shen Qingyu, perhaps because she recognised Lu Jingheng, perhaps because this pairing looked too unbelievable — and finally she asked carefully, "Are both parties entering this marriage voluntarily?" Shen Qingyu looked at Lu Jingheng, and Lu Jingheng looked back. For a moment Shen Qingyu remembered the black waves of public opinion, the ruined contract, the cold study, Xie Linchuan's guilty eyes, Shen Jianing's tears, the beach wind, the white handkerchief folded in his palm. Destruction had brought him here, but the step forward was his own. So he smiled — not coldly, not sharply, just faintly. "Yes," Shen Qingyu said. "Voluntarily." Lu Jingheng's voice followed, low and steady. "Yes."

The staff stamped the documents, and red seals fell onto white paper with a small sound — not loud, not dramatic — but Shen Qingyu felt something in his life split cleanly into before and after. Before this, he had been Shen Qingyu of the Shen family, Xie Linchuan's abandoned fiancé, the youngest Omega film emperor, the industry's hot potato. After this, he was still all of those things — but also something else. He looked at the red marriage certificate handed to him. Lu Jingheng's legal husband. A person who had chosen a new door when the old ones collapsed. Beside him, Lu Jingheng accepted his own certificate and placed it carefully inside his coat pocket, and Shen Qingyu noticed the movement and raised a brow. "President Lu, afraid of losing it?" "Yes." Shen Qingyu paused. "It is important," Lu Jingheng added.

The morning sunlight fell through the civil affairs bureau window. Shen Qingyu stood in that light holding his red certificate, his face still pale from illness, his career still in ruins, his name still drowning beneath online abuse — but for the first time since the storm began, he felt the ground beneath him become solid. He lowered his eyes and smiled. "Then keep it well." "I will." Outside the window, the city continued as usual. No one knew that on this ordinary morning, the empire's most untouchable SSS+ Enigma had quietly married the Omega the whole internet was busy condemning, and no one knew that five years later this hidden marriage would become the first crack in every rumour built against Shen Qingyu. And no one knew that Shen Qingyu, who had lost everything in five days, had not walked into the civil affairs bureau to surrender. He had walked in to begin again.