"Who is this? What the hell do you mean by video-calling my girlfriend early in the morning?"
"I am Lin Xiangyu's husband! Why the hell are you lying bare-chested in my bed?!"
Just out of prison, Gu Yuan had tried to video-call Lin Xiangyu, but a man had answered instead.
On the video screen, it was indeed a man.
And he was lying bare-chested in what used to be his own marital bed.
"Ah, I remember now. You're Gu Yuan, right? Your wife is sleeping soundly right next to me!"
The man turned the camera slightly to reveal a breathtakingly beautiful woman, a satisfied smile at the corners of her lips, curled up fast asleep beside the man like a lazy little kitten.
Seeing this, Gu Yuan felt as though the sky had collapsed.
She hadn't come to visit him once in three years in prison, and instead, she had handed him the ultimate badge of cuckoldry.
Rage surged straight to his head. He roared at the phone screen, "Bastard! If you dare lay a single finger on my wife, I'll make you pay dearly!"
"What are you babbling about, ex-con? Take a good look at your wife!"
With that, the man whipped back the blanket, and Gu Yuan saw that Lin Xiangyu was completely naked, her alluring limbs entwined around the man.
"See that, ex-con? Your wife is utterly divine! Once she wakes up, I'm going to taste her all over again."
Provoked to the point of madness, Gu Yuan's eyes bloodshot, his face twisted in fury.
"You piece of shit, you're asking for it! If I don't finish you today, I'm no man!"
Hanging up the video call, Gu Yuan wanted to hail a taxi to the city center, but realizing he didn't have a single penny to his name, he had no choice but to walk.
As he trudged along, Gu Yuan couldn't help recalling everything he and Lin Xiangyu had been through since their marriage.
Five years ago, he married Lin Xiangyu. To support her entrepreneurial ventures, Gu Yuan sold off all his family assets.
Four years ago, to cure his mother-in-law's illness, he went to Longhu Mountain and knelt there for seven days and seven nights, finally begging for a Longhu Pill to save her.
Three years ago, Lin Xiangyu was humiliated at a hotel. In a fit of rage, Gu Yuan smashed a bottle over the culprit's head, causing a severe concussion.
For that, he was sentenced to three years. Throughout those three years, worried that his wife's business capital might run short, every single penny he earned working in prison was sent straight to Lin Xiangyu.
He hadn't kept a single cent for himself.
She had promised she would drive to the prison gate herself to welcome him home on the day of his release.
Gu Yuan had waited a very, very long time for this day, imagining his wife and her family waiting for him together, happy and whole.
Yet the moment Gu Yuan stepped out of the prison gates, the only thing welcoming him was the early morning breeze.
While his own wife, Lin Xiangyu, was cozying up in bed with another man.
The more Gu Yuan thought about it, the more his heart ached. All those years of devotion had gone to waste.
The only comfort he had was that over the past three years in prison, he had encountered a few almighty hermits who had passed on their extraordinary skills to him.
These were abilities ordinary mortals could never touch, for any single one of them was enough to shake the entire world.
Three hours later!
Gu Yuan finally reached the city center and looked up at the Champs-Élysées Mansion before him.
He took a deep breath to steady his emotions!
It was 11:00 AM, and at this time of day, Lin Xiangyu would already be at work.
This location was the very one Lin Xiangyu had mentioned two years ago when she came to visit him in prison.
During his three-year imprisonment, Lin Xiangyu had only visited him three times. Back then, Gu Yuan had assumed she was simply too caught up in building her business to come see him.
Now it was clear she had long since found someone new.
Gu Yuan walked into the building. The security guard assumed he was there to fix the plumbing and let him right through.
Finding Lin Xiangyu's company on the lobby directory, Gu Yuan took the elevator straight up to the twelfth floor and located the president's office.
Inside the office, Lin Xiangyu was wearing a tailored coffee-colored professional suit, her cascading hair draped over her shoulders.
Already a stunning beauty, she wore light makeup paired with Armani glasses, giving her an aloof, commanding air of seductive maturity.
Sensing someone entering, Lin Xiangyu looked up toward the door. Seeing who it was, she instinctively took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and put them back on to look again.
"Gu... Gu Yuan?! What... what are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here? Today is the day I get out of prison, don't you know?" Looking at the breathtaking woman before him—his own wife—he should have felt proud.
Yet the mere thought that she had spent the entire previous night rolling in bed with another man made Gu Yuan's heart cramp violently.
"Gu Yuan, I'm sorry... I forgot!"
Gu Yuan stared intently at Lin Xiangyu. For a moment, he couldn't tell whether she was acting or genuinely aggrieved.
Yet the woman lying in another man's arms in this morning's video had undeniably been her.
At that moment, the office door pushed open, and a man in a tailored suit wearing glasses walked in.
Gu Yuan looked at the man, and rage instantly flared in his heart.
This was the exact man who had provoked him on the video call this morning.
"Director Lin, you have a client here? I'll come back later!"
"No need, he's not a client! Let me introduce you both. This is Wen Hao, our company's creative director. And this is Gu Yuan, a... a friend of mine!"
Lin Xiangyu paused mid-sentence, looking at Gu Yuan's rustic, tacky outfit and feeling deeply embarrassed. She simply couldn't bring herself to say, "This is my husband."
A friend?!
Those two words filled Gu Yuan's heart with a profound, bone-deep sorrow.
He had poured out his heart and soul for five or six years, only to be reduced to a mere "friend" in the end!
"So you're Brother Yuan! I've heard so much about you. It's a real pleasure to meet you!" Wen Hao adjusted his glasses, pretending it was their first meeting, and proactively extended his hand.
With sharp perception, Gu Yuan noticed that the glasses Wen Hao was wearing were a matching couples' style with Lin Xiangyu's.
He was flaunting their romance right to his face, out in the open.
"So your name is Wen Hao!"
Gu Yuan extended his hand as well. Just as he prepared to teach the fellow a harsh lesson, the bastard suddenly shrieked in agony ahead of time.
"Ah, ah, ah! My hand! Brother Yuan, I just wanted to get acquainted, why squeeze so hard?!"
"Gu Yuan, are you out of your mind?! Let go of him right now!" Lin Xiangyu snapped angrily from the side.
Gu Yuan kept his eyes on Lin Xiangyu. Seeing Wen Hao in pain, the worry and heartache in her eyes were unmistakable and genuine.
He glanced back at Wen Hao and caught a flash of cunning deep within the man's eyes as Lin Xiangyu scolded him.
Since you love acting so much, I'll give you a performance you'll never forget!
Gu Yuan tightened his grip on Wen Hao's hand and gave it a violent yank. In an instant, Wen Hao's entire right arm from elbow to shoulder was completely dislocated.
Immediately following came a series of popping crunches, sounding just like peanut shells being crushed to pieces.
"Ah, ah, ah! It hurts... it hurts... it's killing me!"
Wen Hao's miserable screams instantly echoed through the entire office. His face turned deathly pale in a split second, beads of sweat pouring down as his legs gave out and he collapsed straight to his knees on the floor.
"Stop this right now!"
Lin Xiangyu slammed a fierce slap across Gu Yuan's face, cursing furiously, "You useless, violent brute! Did three years behind bars not beat the bad habits out of you at all? All you ever know how to do is solve problems with violence—you deserve to rot in prison!"