The Night I Left, He Turned Grey

The Sinclair Residence.

Leila Jennings hadn’t been back here in a while.

Looking at the spring couplets pasted on the Sinclair family’s door, she couldn’t help but remember every New Year’s Eve, standing alone on a stool to put them up. The main door would be wide open, offering a glimpse of the joyful atmosphere inside.

Mr. Sinclair and Sean Sinclair would be sitting on the sofa, Mrs. Sinclair would be carrying a tray of freshly washed fruit, and a bouncing Cecilia Sinclair would be trailing behind her, grabbing a piece of fruit and taking a bite before plopping down on the sofa and flopping onto her brother, Sean.

Leila closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and raised her hand to ring the doorbell.

It was Mrs. Sinclair who opened the door.

"You’re here." Mrs. Sinclair’s expression was surprisingly pleasant today. She led Leila straight to the study.

Mr. Sinclair pulled open a drawer and placed four small red booklets on the desk.

Two were marriage certificates, with gold-stamped lettering.

Two were divorce certificates, with silver-stamped lettering.

Leila’s gaze froze on them, her breath catching slightly.

She reached out to take them.

Mr. Sinclair was faster, snatching them up. His gaze was sharp as a blade. "Leila Jennings, do you remember what you promised me?"

"I remember." Leila tore her eyes away from the little red booklets and looked at Mr. Sinclair calmly. "I won’t go around advertising it. For those who don’t know Sean and I were married, I won’t bring it up. For those who do know, I won’t be the one to bring up the divorce."

Mrs. Sinclair moved to stand beside her husband, her eyes also fixed on Leila. "You must promise you won’t affect my son’s future. Swear that you won’t breathe a word about him and Sarah Lynch to anyone."

Leila didn’t speak, just watched them quietly.

"I won’t bring it up myself."

If someone asked, however, that was a different matter.

Mrs. Sinclair caught the unspoken meaning. "You will guarantee you won’t tell anyone!"

Leila hadn’t been particularly intimidated by their threats even before the divorce was finalized, let alone now that the certificates were here.

"I can’t guarantee that," Leila said. "My mentor’s wife, the director of my old orphanage, and my friends who care about me—they deserve to know. I have no reason to hide it from them."

Her reasoning was sound.

Mrs. Sinclair was at a loss for a rebuttal, and Mr. Sinclair motioned for his wife to drop the matter.

He said crisply, "You can tell your people, but you cannot tell Sean yet. He’s at a critical juncture, and you are not to distract him."

"If you can’t do that, I will not be giving you this divorce certificate."

Seeing that Mr. Sinclair was about to put the certificate back in the drawer and lock it away, Leila immediately promised, "I can do that."

Mr. Sinclair paused his movement.

"Until Sean’s project bidding is over, I won’t tell him we’re divorced." Leila held out her hand.

Mr. Sinclair said sternly, "Leila Jennings, considering how you’ve taken care of Sean these past few years, I’ll trust you this once. In the future, you can marry whoever you want, just don’t try to associate with the Sinclair family again."

Mrs. Sinclair dropped the pretense and snorted coldly. "Our family was never someone you could climb up to in the first place."

Leila’s attention was solely on the divorce certificate. She reached out and took it.

She opened it.

Certificate Holder: Leila Jennings.

Leila’s eyes swept over the registration date, the certificate number, and the red-background photo affixed to it.

It was her, from last New Year’s Eve.

She could tell at a glance it had been cropped from a group photo.

Many of Sean’s important documents were kept here with his parents, and even her marriage certificate had been left here as well. That was why Mr. Sinclair hadn’t asked her for it when he agreed to handle the divorce proceedings.

There was an official seal stamped over the photo.

Leila then opened the marriage certificate. A line of red text jumped out at her.

Parties divorced. Certificate void.

Leila tugged at the corners of her lips. She had wanted to smile, but her cheeks felt as if they were clamped in a vise, and the smile never came. Her eyes lowered slightly.

In Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair’s eyes, this looked like she was forcing a smile, her gaze a desperate attempt to appear calm.

Mrs. Sinclair let out a cold laugh, her lips curling with thick ridicule.

’With her orphan background and now being a divorcée, no one will want her. Even if she does manage to remarry, it’ll be to some old man as his second wife, just to be a stepmother to someone else’s kids.’

She could almost see Leila’s miserable future, and the smile in her eyes became impossible to conceal.

’See? Without the Sinclair family, without my son, Leila Jennings is nothing.’

"Alright, you have the certificate, now hurry up and leave." Mrs. Sinclair was eager to get rid of her.

Leila only took her own marriage and divorce certificates.

"Remember to give Sean his. How is he supposed to marry Sarah Lynch if you don’t give him his divorce certificate?"

Mr. Sinclair: "We don’t need you to remind us. We will give it to him ourselves when the time is right."

"Alright." Leila clutched the two booklets tightly and turned to leave the study.

Cecilia Sinclair had just returned from shopping, laden with bags large and small. She froze when she saw Leila, then immediately demanded angrily, "What are you doing in my house? And coming out of the study—did you steal something?!"

In her first year married into the Sinclair family, Cecilia had also falsely accused her of stealing.

It was a weekend, and the whole family was eating together. Cecilia arrived late, plopped angrily into a chair, and said, "My bottle of face cream that costs over three thousand yuan seems to have a lot less in it. Who used my face cream?"

She was looking right at Leila as she said it.

Her accusation was unmistakable.

The rest of the Sinclair family all turned to look at Leila. Only Sean asked Cecilia, "What does it look like?"

"This one." Cecilia pulled up a picture.

Leila saw it and wanted to say that bottle of face cream wasn’t even in the shared guest bathroom.

Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair’s and Cecilia’s rooms all had private bathrooms. The room she and Sean used when they stayed over did not, so they used the shared bathroom.

But Sean quickly said, "I used it."

Cecilia didn’t believe him at all. She scoffed, her disdainful gaze landing on Leila time and time again.

Leila felt like she had a fishbone stuck in her throat. She wanted to say something, but Sean gestured for her to just eat, and the matter was dropped.

She had thought at the time that it was better not to put Sean in a difficult position, so she never defended herself.

Today, Cecilia’s slander came just as casually.

Leila looked at her, her face cold. "If you don’t want that mouth of yours, I can tear it off for you."

"You!" Cecilia’s eyes widened as she stared at her.

Leila gave a faint smile. "Don’t mention it."

This made Cecilia even more furious, but in the next second, she saw her parents coming out of the study and froze.

"Dad? Mom?" She put her things down on the sofa and walked over. "Why did you call Leila Jennings over?"

"We had some business," Mrs. Sinclair said.

Cecilia was dismissive. "What business could you have? Every time she comes to our house, it’s like she’s polluting the air!"

"Can’t compare to you," Leila said. "With you around, the Sinclair house is always full of foul air."

Cecilia was once again infuriated.

Mrs. Sinclair grabbed her daughter’s arm and glared at Leila. "You’re not welcome here. Get going."

Cecilia lifted her chin smugly. "Did you hear that, Leila? You’re not welcome. Now get lost."

"Cecilia." Leila looked at Cecilia and smiled faintly. "The day after tomorrow, ten o’clock at night. Remember to be on time at The Linden in The Cole Crest Hotel to apologize to me. Apologize, and I’ll drop the lawsuit."

Cecilia looked at her smile and felt a chill run down her spine.

’The same time, the same place... Leila isn’t planning to use the same methods on me, is she?’

"Dad, Mom..."

As the door closed, Leila could hear the faint sound of a sob in Cecilia’s voice.

Once she was downstairs, she immediately called her mentor’s wife. "Ma’am, I got the divorce certificate."

Her voice trembled slightly.

"But I don’t know if it’s real or fake. Could you ask Mr. Duncan to help me check?"