Chapter Seven: Divorce

Hong Chen cast a deep, lingering look at the imperious Chen Feiyang before abruptly turning around and walking away—not to leave, but to return to the Liu family residence. Chen Feiyang and Lin Yuxin were both taken aback. By the time they followed after him, the villa’s main door had already shut firmly.

“Your grandfather’s diabetes has affected his vision. I can write a prescription that will restore about eighty to ninety percent of his sight, but you must do something for me first…”

Inside, Liu Xinyue stared at Hong Chen’s utterly serious face, hesitated for a moment, then steeled herself and agreed, “Alright.”

Outside, Chen Feiyang pressed the doorbell repeatedly with no response. He was just about to call Liu Xinyue’s phone, his finger poised over the eighth digit, when the door suddenly swung open. Liu Xinyue appeared with a cold, steely expression, flanked by two men in black, each gripping a steel rod.

“Xinyue…”

“Step back!” Liu Xinyue strode forward, her icy gaze forcing Chen Feiyang to retreat several steps, then pointed to the Porsche parked by the roadside and commanded, “Smash it!”

Before the astonished eyes of Chen Feiyang and Lin Yuxin, the two men dashed toward the Porsche with the ferocity of wolves, swinging their rods. The windows shattered one after another, and dents blossomed across the vehicle’s body…

“Xinyue, that’s my car!” Chen Feiyang’s eyes blazed with fury. Liu Xinyue shot him a frosty glance. “It’s an eyesore parked outside the Liu residence. If you have a problem, call my brother.”

Chen Feiyang was on the verge of exploding with rage.

Just then, a modest Santana emerged from the underground garage—the Liu family’s car for errands. It stopped at the gate, the window rolled down, and Hong Chen poked his head out. He glanced at the now-wrecked Porsche, shook his head and sighed, “I was just wondering whether parking by the roadside would be an eyesore.”

Chen Feiyang’s face was a picture of humiliation.

Hong Chen handed a folded paper out the window. Liu Xinyue stepped forward, took it, glanced over it, then looked up at Hong Chen. “If you don’t believe it, toss it,” he said flatly.

Liu Xinyue’s lips twitched; she put the paper away.

Hong Chen then turned to Lin Yuxin. “Wife, everything’s settled here at the Liu family. Miss Liu is lending me her car for a few days. Get in.”

Lin Yuxin’s face went rigid. She had come here as Chen Feiyang’s girlfriend, so being addressed as “wife” by Hong Chen put her in an excruciatingly awkward position.

Chen Feiyang’s face darkened to the point of pitch. To him, Hong Chen’s use of “wife” was a provocation—a declaration of ownership.

“I’m warning you, the Lin family has already decided to cast you out. Yuxin is now my girlfriend. If you keep pestering her, don’t blame me for being rude,” Chen Feiyang growled, glaring at Hong Chen. “Get lost. Yuxin came with me, and she’ll leave with me.”

Hong Chen ignored him, treating him like a mad dog barking in the street. His eyes remained fixed on Lin Yuxin, waiting for her decision.

“Hong Chen, you should go. I’ll explain later,” Lin Yuxin said at last, glancing at the Porsche’s shattered remains and then at the furious Chen Feiyang. In the end, she made a decision that sent Hong Chen into a wintry abyss.

For a fleeting moment, Hong Chen’s grip on the steering wheel tightened so fiercely it nearly broke off. He took a deep breath, said not a word, pressed down the accelerator, and sped away.

In his rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of Chen Feiyang’s smug face, Lin Yuxin’s conflicted expression, and Liu Xinyue’s puzzled astonishment. But Hong Chen no longer cared. A storm cloud had settled over him, his face ashen and forbidding.

Within his heart, anger and sorrow warred in equal measure. He felt as if someone he trusted had stabbed him in the back.

Yes, his marriage to Lin Yuxin was by arrangement; they shared neither the reality of husband and wife nor much affection. In private, they were like strangers who happened to be familiar with each other. Yet in front of others, Lin Yuxin had always steadfastly defended his position as her husband—never once wavering. In time, this had won his trust.

But that trust had just been ruthlessly betrayed. From beggar to emperor, betrayal is always the hardest thing to accept.

Once he’d left the villa district, Hong Chen pulled the Santana over, rolled down the window, and let the cold night air wash over him as he lit a cigarette. Soon, his expression returned to normal.

Years of endurance had honed his self-control far beyond that of ordinary men. Still, a man betrayed by his own wife could not remain unruffled; a low, melancholic frustration lingered in his chest.

“This farcical marriage should end early,” he murmured. Three years of contractual marriage, arranged by Su Qinghai—he’d never cared about the Lin family’s wishes. As long as Lin Yuxin didn’t walk away, he had no intention to break the agreement, both because he wasn’t one to break his word, and out of respect for his adoptive father.

But now, only one thought remained: divorce.

A wife who had betrayed him, who had cuckolded him, was no longer worthy of his loyalty.

One cigarette burned down, and he lit another. Halfway through, his phone vibrated with a message: “Old place, late-night snack. I’m already here. Hurry up!”

Hong Chen checked the time—it wasn’t even eight yet. He smirked. A late-night snack this early? But he’d barely eaten dinner, so he was still hungry.

He flicked the cigarette stub out the window and drove off.

…

South Street was famed for its night market. In the evenings, over a dozen stalls filled the air with fragrant smoke, making mouths water.

Hong Chen parked the Santana in a temporary spot by the roadside, handed the parking lady ten yuan, and made his way to the fifth stall in the middle—a place he knew well. He scanned the area and quickly spotted a square table.

On the table sat three or four dishes and nearly a dozen bottles of beer. A fat man sat drinking alone. He was no taller than five-foot-seven but weighed at least two hundred pounds, clad in baggy jeans and a loose wool sweater, his mid-length hair giving him a vaguely K-pop vibe.

Hong Chen came up quietly behind him, patted his left shoulder, and when the man spun around, he saw nothing but empty air. Turning back again, he found Hong Chen already seated across from him, swigging beer straight from the bottle.

Draining the bottle in one go, Hong Chen wiped his mouth, belched, and grinned. “What’s this—treating yourself to a nobleman’s dinner with your girlfriend, didn’t get enough, so you came for a late-night snack?”

The fat man was none other than Hong Chen’s sworn brother from online gaming. His real name was Xu Le, a native son of Qing City, using the game ID “Last Aristocrat.” According to him, he was a direct descendant of the Xu clan, the greatest noble house after the Ming imperial family—still prominent locally even after the dynasty fell, only declining in his great-grandfather’s generation…

Whether this was true, who could say, lost as it was in the mists of time. Judging by Xu Le himself, you’d be hard-pressed to find a trace of aristocratic grace in any of his cells, even with a magnifying glass.

Xu Le tried to force a smile, but his face was bitter as gall. Abruptly, he blurted, “I’ve been dumped.” Then he grabbed a beer and started drinking straight from the bottle.

Hong Chen was momentarily stunned. He’d heard Xu Le boast at least ten times that, in all his twenty-plus years, his greatest pride was his girlfriend of seven years—easily an eight out of ten in looks—who’d stood by him through two stretches of unemployment after junior college.

How had it ended so suddenly?

Xu Le took half a minute to drain a beer, banged the empty bottle on the table, and muttered, “She told me to meet her at the city park. I even booked her favorite restaurant online. But when I got there, up rolled a TT. The driver was her new boyfriend. She just tossed me four words: ‘Let’s part on good terms.’”

Hong Chen’s eyes widened in surprise; the story mirrored his own recent experience. “And then? You didn’t just part on good terms, did you? Even if you didn’t beat up the guy, you should’ve smashed the TT at least.”

Xu Le gave a self-deprecating smile and shook his head. “What else could I do? Beg her on my knees not to break up? I’m just an office drone, earning five or six grand a month. I just quit last month, and don’t know where my next job is coming from. I don’t blame her for choosing a rich, handsome guy. But she shouldn’t have dated him behind my back for half a year before coming clean…”

Anger flashed across his face, then faded. “I wanted to smash the car, too. In the heat of the moment, I kicked the door and left a big dent. But the guy didn’t care—he even said the first kick was on the house. If I kicked it again, he’d call the cops, and the repairs would cost tens of thousands. Later, I realized if I’d really lost it, I’d have lost both the girl and a pile of money. Even a base-model TT costs half a million; I couldn’t afford that even if I sold myself.”

Hong Chen didn’t know what to say. He could only point at Xu Le and finally blurt out, “You really have no backbone.”

Then he laughed for no reason and added, “To be honest, our stories aren’t so different. My wife also showed up in another man’s car—the only difference was, it was a Porsche, and I smashed it to bits.”