Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My husband, Alex Qin, got into a car accident saving me. The first thing he said when he woke up was, "What are you doing here?"

The doctor examined him and said Alex had amnesia—traumatic blood clots in his brain had made him lose several years of memories. The doctor warned me not to upset him and to let his memory come back gradually.

In the hospital room, I prepared a meal and tried to feed him, but he just sat on the bed, ignoring me.

"Tell me," he demanded, his eyes filled with mockery and disdain, "why does everyone say you're my wife?"

"The truth is, I am your wife—legally," I replied.

Alex Qin gave me a cold, dismissive glance. "How could I ever marry a slut like you who only knows how to crawl into men's beds?"

I froze. My heart ached so badly that the approaching winter cold felt warm compared to the chill that swept through me.

We had been so in love. Right before the accident, he was even planning our trip. But now he was a patient—he'd gotten hurt saving me. All I could do was pray Alex would recover soon.

His words told me his memories of me were stuck on the time those bed photos of me with Jack Lin went viral...

Back then, I had just graduated. Jack Lin was the typical spoiled rich kid at our university—using his family's money and connections to run wild on campus. He'd chased me for a while, but I'd rejected him.

Probably out of stubbornness, he kept pestering me nonstop after that, so I avoided him as much as I could. That is, until our first college reunion after graduation.

Jack had picked the venue. Once I got there, they forced me to drink a lot of alcohol, and after that, I blacked out. When I woke up, photos of me and Jack in bed were all over the local trending searches.

At the time, Alex ran in the same social circle as Jack. Stirred up by Jack's lies, Alex also thought I was some gold-digging slut trying to marry into a wealthy family by sleeping around.

Later, when I went to the hotel to look for surveillance footage to clear my name, I ran into Alex Qin. I was having some trouble, and he happened to help me out. That's how I cleared up the misunderstanding—and how Alex and I became friends.

But Alex Qin's parents were prominent figures in the area. They thought I'd tarnished the Xie family's reputation and had always disapproved of me. Still, they never caused trouble because Alex always stood up for me.

I was in the doctor's office discussing Alex's treatment plan when Alex's mom burst in.

"Xiao Shi! Alex is gone!" she cried out to me.

"I just went out to buy him wonton soup like he asked. When I came back, he was gone! I searched the entire floor and the garden, and I can't find him anywhere. I don't know what to do!" She sobbed hysterically.

Panic shot through me. He had amnesia, had nothing with him—where could he have gone alone? What if something happened to him? I didn't dare think about it.

"It hasn't been long—he can't have gone far. Let's split up to look," I said, trying to calm her down as much as myself. My legs were shaking as I spoke. Over the years, I'd grown so used to relying on Alex for everything. I couldn't imagine my life without him.

"I'll check the hospital's surveillance cameras. Don't panic," the doctor said, picking up the phone to make arrangements. I helped Alex's mom sit down and waited with her.

"Let's go to the security room—they've already been contacted," the doctor said once he hung up.

After checking the footage, we saw Alex walk out the hospital gate and out of the camera's range. My heart sank—once he was off camera, finding him would be so much harder.

We hurried downstairs to search separately. Alex's mom called a friend at the police station, hoping they could help. I ran down the street, asking everyone I saw if they'd seen him, bumping into countless people along the way.

As I rounded a corner, a burly man knocked me to the ground. A sharp pain instantly shot through my stomach—like a knife twisting inside me. I hadn't eaten much that day, and my body couldn't handle the pain. I blacked out.

When I woke up back in the hospital, the doctor told me I was pregnant. My mind went blank. Alex still hadn't regained his memory, and now I was pregnant. This baby couldn't have come at a worse time.

I hadn't even figured out how to face this pregnancy when a nurse came in and told me they'd found Alex—with the police's help, at a café.

"Why did you run off alone? Do you have any idea how worried I was?" Alex's mom sobbed as I walked back into his hospital room.

"I just wanted to ask Jenny Yuan why she broke up with me," Alex said, showing no sign of remorse. His eyes were cold as ice.

This was his usual expression when he didn't want to deal with something—so cold it could chase away the summer heat. But with me? He'd always been as gentle as a spring breeze. Even his assistant had once marveled, "President Xie is like a completely different person when he's with you."

Seeing this cold expression again didn't make me feel strange—it made me feel sorry for him. I knew Alex only dropped his guard around people he was close to. At work, he had to be decisive and faultless. With his strict, lecturing parents, he always showed nothing but respect. It was only around those he cared about that he let his true self show.

I just never thought he'd look at me this way—because of Jenny Yuan. His cold gaze felt like it could kill me.

When I first met Alex, Jenny Yuan had just broken up with him. I didn't know the exact reason, only that she'd suddenly said she wanted to break up and then disappeared. She was Alex's first love—his lingering confusion and resentment from that relationship had made it hard for him to open up about his feelings for a long time.

"After Jenny Yuan broke up with you, she disappeared. Later, you and I got together and got married," I said, pulling myself together to explain. "Alex, it's been five years." My voice cracked. I didn't know how much longer I could hold on in the face of his coldness.

Alex didn't reply. I had no idea what he was thinking, and I didn't dare push him, afraid of upsetting him.

"I don't know what happened in those five years," he finally said, turning to me slowly. "But I don't believe I would ever be with someone like you." His tone was completely devoid of warmth—as if he was resigning himself to something he thought I'd forced on him.

He had no idea how much strength it took for me to keep loving him, to take care of him, even as he threw these cold words at me.