Shen Jingwei's lawyer called the shelter looking for her.
Sister Mei forwarded the message: "Mr. Shen would like to negotiate a settlement. Complete non-contact in exchange for signing an NDA about your relationship."
Wanyin called Meilin immediately.
"He's trying to buy my silence."
"How much is he offering?"
"They didn't say. Just that it would be 'generous.'"
Meilin was quiet for a moment. "Take the meeting. See what he's offering. You don't have to accept but it's good to know his strategy."
The meeting was set for the following week. Neutral location, lawyers present.
Wanyin brought Sister Mei as support.
Shen Jingwei's lawyer - a woman this time, probably meant to seem less threatening - laid out the offer.
"Five hundred thousand yuan. One time payment. In exchange, you sign an NDA agreeing never to discuss your relationship with Mr. Shen publicly. You also agree to drop the restraining order."
Half a million yuan. More money than Wanyin had ever seen.
With that much, she could go back to school. Could start a real life. Could stop struggling paycheck to paycheck.
"What else?" she asked.
"That's it. The money, the NDA, and he leaves you alone permanently."
"If I refuse?"
"Then we go to trial for the permanent restraining order. We fight it. We make your past public - every affair, every job you lost, every desperate call you made to him begging him to take you back."
There it was. The threat beneath the offer.
Take the money and stay quiet. Or have her past weaponized against her.
"I need to think about it," Wanyin said.
"You have one week. After that the offer disappears."
Outside, Sister Mei was furious.
"They're trying to buy your trauma. Make it disappear like it never happened."
"Half a million yuan could change my life."
"At what cost? Your truth? Your voice? The ability to warn other women about him?"
"But I could go to school. I could—"
"You could do those things anyway. It would take longer but you could do them without selling your story."
That night Wanyin couldn't sleep. She kept thinking about the money. What it could buy. The security it would provide.
But also what it would cost.
Her truth. Her ability to speak freely about what happened.
She called Meilin.
"Did he offer you money too? To drop the divorce?"
"Ten million. I turned it down."
"That's different. You don't need the money."
"No. But even if I did, I wouldn't take it. Because money doesn't fix what he broke. And silence just lets him do it again to someone else."
By the end of the week, Wanyin had made her decision.
She called the lawyer.
"I'm declining the offer."
"Miss Xu, I'd advise you to reconsider. This is extremely generous—"
"I don't want his money. I want the restraining order made permanent. I want the right to speak freely about my experiences. And I want him to understand that not everything can be bought."
"You're making a mistake."
"Maybe. But it's my mistake to make."
When Shen Jingwei heard she'd refused, he sent one final message.
"You could have taken the easy way out. Now I'll make sure the hard way destroys you."
She screenshot it and added it to the evidence file.