Chapter 1

For the sake of her childhood friend, Kelly threw me overseas for three years.

I had just broken my leg, was penniless, couldn't speak the language—I could only survive by scavenging through trash.

I called her more than once, begging:

"Kelly, I really can't go on like this."

All she left me with was cold indifference:

"If it weren't for you, would Hudson have gotten hurt? Once you fix that spoiled rich boy attitude of yours, I'll bring you home."

Winter was brutal. Just as I was about to die on a street covered in snow, a wealthy heiress named Summer bought me.

It wasn't until three years later, when Kelly and I ran into each other by chance, that she stopped me:

"Yan, three years and you still haven't fixed that entitled attitude!"

I frowned, ignoring her words, and called Summer.

"Honey, another woman's trying to seduce me. When you come pick me up, bring bodyguards to teach her a lesson."

The moment I finished speaking, Kelly snatched my phone and hung up the call.

"Yan, when will you ever drop this spoiled act? Now you've learned to lie too."

As her words fell, snow began drifting through the air.

Meeting Kelly's disappointed gaze, this scene instantly pulled me back three years.

Kelly and I were young sweethearts who went from college straight into marriage. Everything went smoothly.

The world envied and praised us—perfectly matched families, a golden couple.

Kelly's lifelong promise to me was:

"Yan, you're an heir to a fortune, I'm a socialite. We're made for each other—no one can tear us apart."

Her devotion made me willingly give her everything—company shares, household authority, all of it.

Three years into our marriage, she went to countless hospitals, determined to give me twin children through IVF, to give me a sense of family.

But my perfect wife changed completely after Hudson appeared.

Hudson was her childhood friend. I heard his family moved away after going bankrupt.

When Kelly encountered him again, Hudson was being beaten by loan sharks—his wife had run off with another man.

That familiar face from childhood, bruised and alone, sitting on the side of the road—he looked pitiful.

Oh, the night they met, Kelly had gone out to buy me a cake.

I've hated myself countless times for craving that damn cake.

On that street, Hudson recognized Kelly first.

Two simple words stirred Kelly's childhood feelings.

"Kelly."

So Kelly brought him home.

I was waiting excitedly for that cake when I saw a dejected man standing behind Kelly.

Kelly said:

"Hudson, my childhood friend. He'll be staying with us for a while."

This was the first time Kelly brought a man home, and the first time I completely lost it in front of her.

I smashed everything in the villa that could be broken. A shard even cut Hudson's face during my rampage.

Kelly rushed Hudson to the hospital in a panic, ignoring me as I collapsed on the floor, my old injury flaring up, begging her.

"Kelly, my leg hurts."

As Kelly helped Hudson out the door, she only threw back:

"Yan, stop faking."

So I went to the hospital alone.

When I arrived, after the examination, the doctor said if I'd come two minutes later, they might not have been able to save my leg.

Then the doctor pulled out paperwork from Kelly's recent IVF procedure.

"Your wife is three months pregnant. Please take good care of her."

This joy washed away my anger. For the sake of the baby, I could overlook tonight.

As I left the examination room, I happened to run into Kelly.

"Temp, you're pregnant."

Kelly was cold:

"What's there to be happy about? I owe Hudson my life. I need to repay him first."

I stood frozen.

"Kelly, if you keep treating him like this, we're getting divorced."

I thought my threat would work.

Instead, Kelly slapped me and forced me to apologize to Hudson.

"Yan, you're so childish. Hudson is the one who's hurt right now."

So this was how it felt when the woman you love compared you to another man. The pain was unbearable.

I was forced to apologize.

I went back to my family home.

I thought Kelly would come to make up with me.

But in the end, I couldn't stand it and softened first, going back.

I opened the door to find Hudson lying in the bed Kelly and I shared, wearing the lingerie shorts Kelly had given me.

The sight burned my eyes. I lost it, completely lost it.

I grabbed Hudson's arm, dragging him out of the villa.

But Hudson fell down the stairs.

That fall landed him in the hospital. The doctor said he'd injured his head and might suffer brain death.

It sounded like a death sentence for Hudson, but in reality, it was a life sentence for me from Kelly.

Once again, she looked at me with utter disappointment.

"Yan, you're trying to kill someone. Do you understand that?"

Kill someone?

I wasn't.

I tried to explain—the villa's staircase was only two stories, and Hudson had fallen on his own.

Kelly wouldn't listen. She just kept accusing me.

"Someone as privileged as you could never understand Hudson's suffering, never empathize with his struggles. In your entitled eyes, is Hudson's life that worthless?"

I had nothing to say.

Faced with this version of Kelly who so blatantly favored and protected Hudson, I truly couldn't speak a word.

Silence and self-mockery were my final defenses.

But Kelly pushed me.

"Yan, when something happens, all you do is stay silent. And you dare to smirk?"

"Let me tell you—yesterday, I accidentally fell down the stairs. Our baby is gone. This is your punishment for hurting Hudson."

The baby was gone.

It felt like countless fine threads were woven through my entire skin, threatening to flay me alive. The pain was unbearable.

I steadied my emotions and only said:

"I understand."

But Kelly's punishment wasn't over.

She sent me overseas.

"When Hudson wakes up, that's when you can come back. Fix that spoiled attitude of yours and reflect on what you've done."

The final result of this cold war was Kelly abandoning me in a foreign country where I knew no one, stripping me of all my money, even cutting off all my connections.

Leaving me without hope, without anyone to help.

She said it was for my own good.

"Yan, only by personally experiencing how hard Hudson's life was can you truly empathize."