Chapter 149: Chapter 149: Impact
The quiet in the car is total.
The moment the door clicked locked behind me, all the noise of the street, the lingering reporters, and the entire city seemed to vanish completely. Qiao Jin drives with his usual smooth, steady focus, his hands easy on the steering wheel, while Liang Feng sits in the front passenger seat, his eyes watching the road ahead.
I lean my head back against the soft seat and close my eyes, letting out a long, shaky breath.
Only now, sitting alone in the deep silence of the backseat, does the reality of the situation fully sink in.
Bael isn’t here to pick me up.
Every single morning without exception, his fingers locked through mine on the seat before I’d even settled properly, the car not unlocking until I gave him his kiss on the cheek. I complained at first, I told him he was being ridiculous, told him I was going to be late, told him Liang Feng and Qiao Jin were right there watching.
He never cared.
He just waited with that infuriating patience, one eyebrow slightly raised, completely certain I would give in.
I always did.
And every evening, Bael was waiting outside before I even sent a message. Standing beside the car in whatever he’d been wearing that day, not scrolling his phone, not doing anything in particular, just standing there like he had nowhere more important to be and no interest in pretending otherwise.
That one detail always caught me off guard no matter how many times it happened. Bael Wuchen, who runs a company worth more than most people will ever conceptualize, standing on a pavement doing nothing, just waiting for me.
All week, after work, without a single miss, he was the one waiting for me right outside. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday—every single day ended with the exact same routine.
I would get into the seat, talk about the work or sometimes talk about nothing, but he would always lock his fingers through mine, refusing to let go for the entire ride until we reached the estate. His presence was a solid, warm weight that always kept me grounded, no matter how stressed I was about the presentation.
But today, on the most important day of all, the seat right next to me is completely empty.
A sharp, hollow ache grows deep inside my chest. I look down at my bare hands resting in my lap, feeling a sudden, intense wave of longing that makes my throat tighten.
I want to see him right now.
More than anything, I want to be held tightly in Bael’s arms, to bury my face against his warm neck and feel his hand gently moving over my hair up and down until the last of the nervous energy finally leaves my body. I want him to hold my hand and tell me, in that rough, low voice of his, that he saw the whole thing and that he is proud of me.
But I have no choice but to wait.
If Bael said something very important came up at his office, it really must be a huge issue.
It isn’t like he won’t come back home at all tonight. I try to comfort myself with the timeline of the evening. By the time the car gets through the heavy city traffic, by the time I walk through the front door, wash the sweat of the auditorium off my skin, and wait a few quiet minutes in our bedroom, Bael will be home. We will have the whole night together.
I can wait.
I will sit on the couch in our living room and keep my eyes on the front door. I will try to read my notebook, or maybe I will just stare at the wall, counting the minutes until his car pulls into the driveway. I already know how it will feel when he finally walks in. He will look tired from his high-level meeting, his tie will be loosened, and his jacket will be slung over his arm.
But the moment his gray eyes find mine, that tension will leave his face.
He will walk straight to me without saying a word, and I will stand up to meet him. I will let him pull me against his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat until my own mind completely quietens down. We don’t even need to talk about the presentation right away. Just being in the same room, sharing the same air after such a long, overwhelming day, will be more than enough to make the lingering fear disappear.
Outside, the city has shifted into that specific evening rhythm, the roads a little fuller now, headlights and taillights blurring slightly as Qiao Jin moves through traffic, the light catching on glass and metal in flashes too quick to hold onto.
I let it slide past without focusing on any of it.
I take a deep breath, forcing my shoulders to relax as the car moves smoothly down the familiar highway route. The exhaustion of the day is finally catching up to me, making my eyelids feel incredibly heavy. My muscles feel loose, and the tension from standing on that stage completely drains away.
I think about Bael’s voice on the phone.
*I won’t*, he said, when I told him not to take too long.
He said it like a promise and not like reassurance, which is a distinction I’ve learned to pay attention to.
I’ll see you tonight.
I’ll see you tonight, and I’ll be there, and whatever today was, we’ll be in the same space again, and that will be enough.
The car moves through the city and I am almost peaceful, almost settled, the exhaustion soft around the edges of everything.
Then, everything goes entirely wrong in a single second.
The car takes a sudden, violent, drastic turn to the left. The tires let out a loud, terrifying shriek against the road as the entire body of the vehicle tilts dangerously to one side.
"Young master!"
Liang Feng and Qiao Jin shout the words at the exact same time. Their voices lose every single ounce of their usual calm, professional tone, replaced by pure, raw panic. I have never heard them sound like that before.
I snap my eyes open, my heart instantly leaping straight into my throat. I try to sit up, my hands reaching out blindly to grab the front seat, trying to see what is happening through the front glass. But before my brain can even understand the movement, before I can look out, a massive, deafening roar echoes through the air.
There is a sudden, heavy impact right against the side of the car.
The sheer force of the crash hits like a thick iron wall, shattering the windows into a million tiny pieces. The vehicle loses its balance completely, spinning violently out of control as the metal frame crushes inward with a sickening, grinding crunch. The sound of tearing metal fills my ears, deafening me.
My body is thrown sideways like a ragdoll, completely helpless against the force.
The seatbelt locks violently across my chest, digging hard into my shoulder and ripping the fabric of my shirt. Outside the broken window, everything turns into a fast, blurry mess of gray road and flashing lights. I can’t tell what is up or what is down anymore.
The car keeps spinning out of control, throwing my body against the cold door over and over again. I can hear Qiao Jin desperately fighting with the steering wheel while the metal screeches under our feet, but we are completely helpless.
Right in the middle of all this mess, a cold, sharp fear hits my mind, totally separate from the pain.
The baby.
My hands try to reach down toward my stomach on pure instinct, my fingers curling tight, trying hard to make some kind of shield. I want to curl my whole body around my stomach. I want to take the full force of the crash myself to protect it, but the violent shaking of the car keeps tearing my arms away. I am completely weak. I can’t protect anything.
Pain.
It is an immediate, overwhelming pain that rips through my entire body, brighter and hotter than any stage lights. My head slams hard against something solid, a brutal shock wave running straight down my spine and through my ribs.
Everything goes completely dark for a second, then blurs back into a terrifying, blurry red.
I can taste the thick, metallic taste of blood filling my mouth, spilling past my lips and dripping down my chin. A warm, heavy wetness starts to flow rapidly from the side of my forehead, running into my eye and blinding me.
I try to move my limbs, but my body refuses to obey a single command. The pain is too large, too loud, filling up every single corner of my mind until I can’t even form a single thought.
The sounds around me begin to fade, dissolving into a strange, distant ringing. The air inside the car feels suddenly, freezing cold against my bleeding skin.
*Bael...* His name is a faint, desperate whisper in my mind, the very last thing I hold onto as the world starts to slip away completely. The dark study, the sketches on the floorboards, the warmth of his chest—it all feels so far away now.
My eyes grow too heavy to keep open. The overwhelming agony in my chest slowly turns into a numb nothingness, my breathing turning shallow, ragged, until even drawing air feels impossible. As my eyelids close for the final time, a cold, heavy certainty settles over me.
I am dying.
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