All Chapters of RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK: Chapter 341 - Chapter 345

The profound, bureaucratic silence that followed our victory was its own kind of noise. The Silence—now capitalized, a proper noun trapped in an endless audit of the Narrative 10-K Form—was contained. The First Library’s shields could lower. The avant-garde Subtlists, having served their purpose, drifted into obscurity, leaving behind a few very confused art critics and a lot of beige canvas.We returned to our react studio. The Couch (the null sphere) pulsed a warm, welcoming frequency, happy to have its commentators back. Ratings had dipped in our absence, but a marathon of our “Greatest Missed Metaphors” compilation had held the Audience over.It should have felt like a return to normal. But normal had been recalibrated. We’d just fought a war with paperwork. The universe felt… thicker. More layered with absurdity.

The Great Garden Bake-Off became our secret, sacred project. The universe spun its epics, the Audience consumed its react streams (now hosted by a surprisingly charismatic collective of sentient moss we’d left in charge), and the Silence remained eternally baffled by its tax forms. But our true work was measured in crust flakiness and berry sweetness.We’d established a routine. Mornings were for foraging and theory.“The problem,” Lina declared, staring at a diagram of gluten chains she’d etched in the dirt, “is structural integrity versus tenderness. Dad’s treating the crust like a load-bearing wall. It needs to be a… a flavorful curtain.”“A curtain that holds boiling fruit,” Kael pointed out, us

The logic-drone pie was a high watermark in our strange, beautiful collaboration. Jeff’s culinary interpretations were becoming less like engineering schematics and more like… art. Edible, often bizarre, but deeply felt art. The garden thrived. The Grand Curator (“Vanilla,” as Lina now called him to his face) visited more often, bringing not just ingredients, but a quiet, fascinated joy in watching the process.We’d settled into a golden age of pure, purposeless creation. Our only audience was each other, and a man who spoke in pastry from beyond the story.Which is why the new signal was so jarring.It wasn't a broadcast, or a visitor, or a psychic scream. It was a dropped call.A single, fragmented image, flickering at the edge of my perception like a dying ember: a familiar face, etched in lines of deep exhaustion, streaked with what looked like grease and… was that glitter? It was Lyra. But not the serene, luminous guide. This Lyra looked harried, frantic, and she was mouthing a s