Did My Ex-Wife Agree to Remarry Me Today? - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Divorce

On the fifth working day of the New Year, Chi Yun was restless. She couldn’t hear what the noisy mouths around her were saying; her only thought was to go home.

But once the banquet began, she had to put on a different mask—exchanging pleasantries, conversing, and even greeting guests with a practiced smile. Inside the antique-styled banquet hall, business moguls and political dignitaries gathered. A mutual friend introduced her to high-ranking officials using phrases like “industry rising star” and “limitless potential.”

Chi Yun performed her social duties perfectly, drinking cup after cup, repeatedly suppressing the exit lines she had prepared in advance. During brief moments of distraction, watching the liquid continuously being poured into her glass, Chi Yun thought: I originally intended to pretend to be drunk, but now I’m actually going to be.

When the banquet finally ended, the big figures left first. Chi Yun stayed behind, silently seeing off a group of people before finally departing.

“President Chi! Over here, over here!” At the spacious hotel entrance, her assistant, Pei Pei, drove the car up and waved frantically at Chi Yun, who was waiting on the steps.

Dressed in a white blazer-skirt, the beautiful Chi Yun brushed back her long hair and walked down the steps unhurriedly. Every step was deliberate—planting her foot firmly before shifting her weight. From a distance, her posture and demeanor were no different from when she had first arrived. No one could tell how much alcohol she had consumed.

Only Chi Yun knew that one more cup and she would have collapsed.

A white clutch was nestled in her palm. Whenever her steps began to falter, she commanded her disobedient fingers to grip it tighter—inside that bag was something more effective than any sobering soup. Chi Yun gritted her teeth as she walked, reminding herself: Even if you are drunk, you must wake up now.

As she approached, the assistant hurried around to open the car door. The parking spot happened to be in a wind tunnel; a gust of cold air blew past, causing Chi Yun to tuck her chin and clench her jaw even tighter. Her alcohol tolerance was decent—she didn’t vomit or cause a scene when drunk—but the headache and the numbness in her hands were truly annoying.

Enduring the discomfort, she got into the car and told Pei Pei to drive to her residential complex. Her regular driver, Sister Lian, was off today, so Chi Yun had called her assistant to work overtime, promising that all expenses would be reimbursed.

“President Chi, do you want some juice? I just bought it.” While waiting, Pei Pei had wandered around the hotel and found a fresh juice shop she’d wanted to try for a long time. Usually, there was a long queue, but today was surprisingly empty.

“What flavor?” Chi Yun glanced toward the tightly sealed paper bag. She couldn’t see the contents, but she noticed an environmental recycling symbol on the bag. She felt like she had seen that logo before but couldn’t recall where.

“I got you pear juice, room temperature, no ice. My own is an iced watermelon juice.” Pei Pei had been with Chi Yun for two years and knew her boss’s preferences well. She was certain she hadn’t made a mistake.

But today, Chi Yun did something unprecedented: “Give me the watermelon juice.”

Before the car started, Pei Pei—emboldened by the fact that her neighbor was the boss’s grandmother—clutched her juice protectively. “But I added extra fruit and ice…” Her expression seemed to say: Isn’t it bad to take what someone loves, President Chi? I work hard just for this one sip…

“I’m not drinking it,” Chi Yun said. “My hands are numb; I want to hold something icy. I’ll give it back in a moment.”

“Won’t ice make the numbness worse?” The assistant tucked away her teary expression and obediently handed the watermelon juice back.

Chi Yun sat in the center of the back seat, leaning her head back, her voice tinged with exhaustion. “I hope it gets a little more numb.”

After a steady thirty-minute drive, they entered the Huijing Mansions. Chi Yun pointed to a corner near the perimeter wall of her home, signaling the assistant to park there. The lighting was dim here, with shadows sharper than the light—perfect for her to give certain instructions.

Pei Pei turned around, nodding as she listened. After Chi Yun finished her instructions, the assistant looked up and said understandingly, “President Chi, I’m ready.”

It wasn’t hard—just a phone call to Sister Zhou.

Chi Yun glanced at the pitch-black three-story villa, withdrew her gaze, and leaned her head back against the headrest. She raised her arm to cover her forehead, feigning a state of great discomfort. Seeing that the preparations were complete, Pei Pei found Li Zhou’s number and dialed.

She turned on the speakerphone as ordered.

The ringing echoed in the car, rising and falling with Chi Yun’s heartbeat. Chi Yun felt nervous and swallowed quietly.

The first call went unanswered.

“President Chi,” Pei Pei turned back, looking troubled. “Sister Zhou isn’t picking up.”

Chi Yun’s brow furrowed slightly. She gestured: “Call again.”

The second call went unanswered as well.

Pei Pei held the phone, asking tentatively, “Still calling?”

Chi Yun was firm: “Keep calling.”

On the third attempt, halfway through the ringing, the person on the other end finally picked up.

Pei Pei held the phone excitedly: “Sister Zhou!”

The other person’s voice was cold. “What is it?”

Pei Pei looked at President Chi, who had already closed her eyes to feign drunkenness, and delivered the rehearsed lines: “Sister Zhou, are you home? President Chi is drunk and doesn’t feel well. I’ve driven the car to your doorstep. Is it convenient for you to come out and pick her up?”

Every time a banquet ended and Sister Lian drove her home, it was always A-Li (Li Zhou) who came out to fetch her. This time… she won’t see through it, right?

But Chi Yun’s hopes were quickly shattered. She heard Li Zhou respond in a flat, monotone voice: “I’m not there.”

Pei Pei hurried to ask, “Then when will you be back? President Chi is extremely drunk; she won’t let anyone else help her. She says she must wait for you…”

Li Zhou said directly, “I no longer have anything to do with your President Chi. Don’t look for me. I’m busy, hanging up now.”

On the other end of the line, the indifferent and distant voice, the sound of footsteps on wooden planks, and the faint, ethereal sound of waves hitting rocks… all came to an abrupt halt with Li Zhou’s final sentence.

Chi Yun snapped upright in the back seat. She stopped pretending and stopped acting. She pulled a red booklet out of her clutch and began staring at it, turning it over and over.

Pei Pei gripped the phone, watching her boss’s brow furrow deeper and deeper. She asked cautiously, “President Chi, did you really divorce Sister Zhou?”

Chi Yun hated those words. She gripped the center of the divorce certificate with both hands, wanting to rip the little booklet apart. But she only made the motion; she didn’t have the courage to go through with it. She pressed the certificate between her hands, smoothing out the creases, her voice muffled: “I didn’t divorce her.”

The little assistant was good at catching the point: “But Sister Zhou said she has nothing to do with you anymore.”

Chi Yun couldn’t figure out one thing. She asked Pei Pei, “Tell me, what is the process for a divorce?”

Pei Pei’s parents were divorced. When they split, Pei Pei was sixteen and fully supported the decision made by two people whose feelings had long since faded. She had even gone to the Civil Affairs Bureau with them, so she was very familiar with the process.

She said, “To handle divorce procedures, you must bring your household register, ID card, marriage certificate, and a signed divorce agreement that states a mutual desire to divorce and an agreement on child custody and debt/property division. Then you go to the Civil Affairs Bureau to process it.”

“Marriage is a major life event, and similarly, divorce requires careful handling. So whether you are a human, a dragon, or a phoenix like yourself, you need to go to the Civil Affairs Department in person to process it.”

“It’s very fast. Two years ago, my mom and dad finished it in less than two hours.”

Chi Yun’s eyebrows were practically twisted into a knot, her voice filled with confusion. “But my household register, ID, and marriage certificate have always been with me. I never took them out. And that divorce agreement delivered this morning—I signed ‘No Divorce.’ I didn’t cooperate at all. How did I receive a divorce certificate from the Civil Affairs Department by evening?”

“Is there something wrong with the process?”

“There’s definitely something wrong!” Pei Pei said. “Is that divorce certificate fake?”

When Chi Yun first received it, she also thought it was fake—a prank. But she had called the Civil Affairs Department and verified it. This was a legal document proving that her marriage with Li Zhou had dissolved.

Pei Pei suggested, “President Chi, call the Mayor’s hotline. Whether it’s real or fake, the Civil Affairs Department was involved. They have to give you an explanation.”

Forget the Mayor; Chi Yun had even looked for people more authoritative than the Mayor. But their answers were consistent: all procedures were legal and compliant. She and Li Zhou were truly divorced.

If she wanted to know the truth, she probably had to ask the person involved.

Chi Yun tucked away the divorce certificate and asked Pei Pei, “Did you hear the background noise on that call just now?”

Pei Pei paused to remember, then nodded. “I heard it. It was the sound of waves and people walking on a boat.”

Chi Yun said, “Where is the nearest coastline?”

“I want to go find her.”

“But Sister Zhou isn’t in the country,” Pei Pei said instinctively. “If I’m not mistaken, Sister Zhou should be in the waters near Country S… Right! The Indian Ocean! Sister Zhou mentioned it; those are the waters of the Indian Ocean. So those waves just now were the waves of the Indian Ocean.”

Chi Yun: “…”

How do you know so clearly?

And if you knew she wasn’t in the country, why didn’t you say so earlier?

If she wasn’t here, was their little performance just now even meaningful?

The questioning look in Chi Yun’s eyes was so obvious that Pei Pei scratched her head and said, “I thought you asked me to make that call simply because you missed Sister Zhou’s voice and wanted to hear her talk. Since your number was blocked by her…”

By comparison, Chi Yun wanted to know the answer to the first question more. She composed herself and asked, “How do you know she’s abroad?”

And in… what? Near Country S, in the Indian Ocean? If the assistant could name the longitude and latitude, Chi Yun would have to suspect someone had installed a tracking system on her wife’s phone.

Pei Pei actually had seen the longitude and latitude, but she hadn’t memorized them. she tapped open a video app she frequently watched and said slowly, “The documentary Sister Zhou filmed was updated yesterday. The location was K-City, the capital of Country S. The preview said they would go out to sea today to rescue a killer whale whose tail is entangled in a cable. I follow every episode; I even turned on the update notifications.”

Chi Yun was stunned. “Documentary? What documentary?”

Pei Pei let out an “Ah?” and her gaze lingered on Chi Yun’s fair, clean face. Her surprise was evident: “President Chi, you didn’t know Sister Zhou is a documentary superstar?”

“The documentaries she films are incredibly popular online.”

Filming documentaries? A documentary superstar?

Is she a director or an actress?

Chi Yun felt her head throbbing painfully. She asked Pei Pei, “What kind of documentaries does she film?”

“Cleaning ocean trash and protecting marine animals.” As Pei Pei recited this familiar public welfare slogan, she opened the video app to the most popular collection and displayed it. “A lot of people watch this. Sister Zhou is amazing. Taking hooks out of sharks’ mouths, rescuing dolphins trapped in ‘ghost nets,’ performing surgery on sea turtles, and even diving two hundred meters deep to pick up trash and save little fish… She’s omnipotent. Truly, Sister Zhou is capable of anything.”

She spoke in the tone of a little fan girl.

Chi Yun leaned in. “Open one and let me see.”

Pei Pei randomly opened a video she had seen and hit play. As the intro started, the screen was flooded with bullet comments like “My wife is appearing in three seconds!” which blocked the footage.

Chi Yun: “…”

Aside from those words, Chi Yun could see nothing. Also, on what grounds do those people call her wife ‘wife’?!

Seeing President Chi’s face darken, Pei Pei gave an awkward smile and reached out to turn off the bullet comments.

Once the comments were gone, the protagonist appeared.

Wearing a white wetsuit and goggles, Li Zhou sat on the edge of a speedboat, looking relaxed. Upon reaching the target location, she gave a gesture to the camera and swiftly leaned back—like a bolt of white lightning, she leaped nimbly and gracefully into the deep blue sea.

She wore no breathing apparatus. She free-dived over a hundred meters down to show the audience the non-biodegradable trash settled on the ocean floor.

Chi Yun was quite afraid of water; whether in videos or in person, it made her dizzy. Yet, presented with this vast expanse of sea, her first reaction wasn’t dizziness. Instead, she widened her eyes, staring blankly.

That sprite-like figure swimming underwater… is her wife?

The wife in her memory was fair and gentle, a woman of few words. The thing she did most was spread a straw mat in the sunniest spot of the courtyard, sit cross-legged, and meditate in silence.

Chi Yun watched intently, trying to reconcile the two vastly different versions of her wife.

Then she realized: she didn’t know her wife at all.

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