Wen Yin: No need.
The invitation had come from Shao Hua, which meant it bore Shao Yuanjia’s approval. If she didn’t go this time, he could always invite her again. Wen Yin didn’t know exactly what he was after, but she couldn’t let it go—she needed to find out.
Her mind slid back to that night, unwilling and inevitable. Shao Yuanjia had stood on the balcony like that, a distant look in his eyes as he watched her. Then, slowly, he had told her the thing she had never expected: that he too had come out of the same orphanage.
At the thought, something in Wen Yin stalled. Her memories of that time were already hazy; the orphanage had become a blur at the edges. She could not possibly have imagined who, among the faces she’d known, Shao Yuanjia might have been.
Childhood there had been carefree for her, a brief pocket of happiness before everything that followed hurled her into a different abyss. After she’d been taken back—taken where, she could not fully remember—something had shifted, though she couldn’t have said what.
“Shao Yuanjia…” she whispered the name, more to herself than aloud.
A name rose in her memory after years of silence—Yuanjia. Jia-jia. And then, like a small silhouette stepping into the light, a little boy appeared in her mind: dark-skinned, skinny, standing before her with eyes bright as grapes, looking at her with a timid, cautious hope.
“Are we friends yet?” he had asked, voice tentative.
How had she answered then? Wen Yin remembered only the small girl's eager nod, the flush of pride on her face. She’d patted her own chest hard—a gesture she had learned from television, something that felt boldly honorable—and declared, voice brimming with certainty, “Of course! Of course we’re friends! We’ll be best friends—friends for life!”
Wen Yin blinked and returned to the present, staring at herself in the vanity mirror. Time had stripped away that childish certainty from her face. She had not, in a million years, expected the timid boy she had known to grow into the son of one of the city's most powerful families—brought back into the Shao household, his future painted in bright, inevitable light.
She felt…coolness, a prickle at the back of her neck. But that assumption of brightness depended on one condition: that Shao Yuanjia didn’t ruin things for himself. If he started acting recklessly, the whole picture could collapse.
She sighed. The orphanage days had faded almost entirely from her mind, but one detail remained: someone small and sticky-footed who had trailed behind her like a shadow. Only now did that face begin to fully come back—only now did she realize that the child at her heels and this man standing before her tonight were the same person. She never expected they would find themselves on opposite sides.
—
When Wen Yin arrived at Shao Hua’s new collection launch, she spotted him immediately—familiar and foreign at once. Shao Yuanjia stood in the center of the room, speaking with potential partners, a picture of composed authority. His gaze landed on her as smoothly as if he’d been waiting.
For a second their eyes met and his breath caught. He had to admit it: Wen Yin pulled focus in a room the way a star pulls light. She wore a simple champagne evening dress—minimal, effortless—and outshone more than a few women who had sweated to get the most ostentatious gowns and labels onto their backs.
Wen Yin watched as Shao Yuanjia finished his conversation with the business representatives. They laughed and nodded, then dispersed. He turned and walked straight toward her.
From the moment she stepped into the venue, every head had shifted toward her. People were stunned—what was Shao Hua doing inviting a former designer to their show? Dramatic or deliberate, the scene set tongues wagging. Were there grudges between the brands? Was Wen Yin there to make a scene?
Despite the collective curiosity, Shao Yuanjia moved with a kind of impatient certainty straight for her. Wen Yin, by contrast, kept her expression composed and gave him a small, polite nod—a simple greeting.
“Mr. Shao.”
He had worked on his look tonight: a bespoke suit, impeccable tailoring. Under the lights, Wen Yin thought she saw something of Shao Yinan in him—their features lining up in a way that made her blink. Shao Yuanjia himself hadn’t expected his styling tonight to echo Shao Yinan’s usual type at all.
The others, seeing only a courteous exchange, returned to the show. Wen Yin’s seat had been tucked in a corner—close to Shao Yuanjia, in fact. She sat through the entire presentation expressionless while he, visibly tense, lingered beside her. His attention wasn’t on the runway; it was on her. The models could have been ghosts for all he cared.
When Wen Yin stood, he stood with her, his reaction sharper than the room expected. People in the rows behind them glanced over in puzzlement, but their placement at the edge spared them from scrutiny. Shao Yuanjia realized he’d overreacted, cleared his throat and sat down, trying to look composed.
A few minutes later Wen Yin walked toward the balcony and he followed.
Outside, the balcony air felt cooler and cleaner than the crowded show. The door had barely shut behind him before she turned as if she’d known he would come.
“Why did you call me here tonight?” she asked.
He clenched his hands, nerves tightening his voice until it had a rough edge. He moved his mouth a few times as if to find the right words but failed. All he could manage at last was, “Nothing much. I just wanted to see you.”
A question hovered in Wen Yin’s mind. He pushed again. “Don’t you have something to say to me?”
Expectation lit his eyes, but it was tempered by a cautiousness that made him look fragile, like someone afraid to press too hard and break what was there. Wen Yin found herself thrown by his vulnerability.
“I want to tell you…” she hesitated, weighing the words, then said slowly, “that we should keep our distance.”
“We’re not…that close. In fact, we’re more likely to be on opposite sides.”
Her voice was cool and ruthless. The words dropped like ice into him; for a moment he felt as if his heart had slipped down into some dark cellar. The warmth drained from him and he stood there, stunned and small.