Before they could understand, I swiftly removed my wedding ring and hurled it at them. I was aiming for Mo Yuzhen, but unfortunately, the ring hit Jiang Xinyue squarely on the forehead.
"Ahhh!" she screamed, holding her forehead.
Mo Yuzhen jumped up instantly. "Tang Xiyu!" he shouted, glaring at me. "How dare you hurt Xinyue!"
"Oops, I was aiming for you," I gave him a mocking smile. "But since she slept with a married man, she deserves it."
"Ahhh!!! Brother Yuzhen, blood.... there's blood....," Jiang Xingue's scream echoed in the room. "I am digfigured! Brother Yuzhen, I am disfigured! This bitch disfigured me!"
For the first time that night, I actually wanted to laugh. But then Mo Yuzhen turned toward me, fury blazing in his eyes. "HOW DARE YOU, TANG XIYU! APOLOGIZE NOW!"
I met his gaze with a faint smile. "Want me to apologize? Sure!" Then, without giving him a chance to react, I did the same thing. I stepped forward and slapped him hard across the face.
PAK!
The sound cracked through the room loud and crisp, shocking even Jiang Xinyue, who was screaming and crying. Both of them looked at me blankly as if they could not believe I had done that.
Honestly? Even I was stunned. My palm burned, but God, it felt good.
"That's for cheating on me, you scumbag," I spat.
If eyes could kill, I would have been buried six feet under the ground. Mo Yuzhen looked so mad. His expression darkened instantly, and he lunged towards me like an angry bull.
But I was ready. My hand flew again.
PAK!
"That's for being an asshole and breaking my heart."
"TANG XIYU!" he roared, shaking with anger.
I knew if I stayed any longer, he'd hurt me. The man standing before me wasn't my husband anymore; he wasn't the man who loved me. He was just a lying, cheating scumbag.
So I turned on my heels and ran out of the room before he could take another step. The moment I stepped out of the suite, the tears I'd fought so hard to hold back finally fell.
It was over.
My marriage. My hope. My foolish bubble of love.
Everything was over.
I walked down the corridor in a daze, tears still streaming down my face. My legs felt weak, my heart heavier than ever. Inside, I had tried to be strong, tried to hold my head high, but deep down, I was just a broken woman.
The pain of being betrayed by the person I loved so deeply, the crushing reality that the happiness of the past four years had been nothing but an illusion… it was suffocating.
It was like someone had wrapped a noose around my neck and was slowly pulling it. I couldn't stop the tears. I cried and cried as I walked, not knowing where my feet were taking me.
Why? Why? Why?
The question repeated itself over and over in my mind. Why did he cheat? Why did he do this to me? What did Jiang Xinyue have that I didn't? Why did he break the beautiful thing we created with love?
And yet, through the storm of my emotions, a bitter, ironic laugh escaped me. I couldn't help but remember that night—the first time I had met him.
Mo Yuzhen.
The infamous playboy, my boss, someone so out of my league, and someone I knew to stay away from. And yet, that one night, that one incident changed everything.
He noticed me. He took an interest in me. He started pursuing me, trying to please me, trying to win me over. I knew men like him. I knew their nature. I knew it was just a fleeting interest, a small pastime to amuse himself.
Once the fun ended, he would leave me. So, I tried to stay away from him. But he was persistent.
Maybe it was his persistence. Maybe it was the fact that he never looked at another woman after meeting me. Maybe it was the way he had saved me one time, like a knight in shining armor. Before I knew it, I started to harbor feelings for him.
I agreed to be in a relationship with him, knowing to leave when he got bored. Days passed, and I was waiting for him to leave me. But instead, he proposed.
That was when I believed he genuinely loved me. I felt like the heroine in one of those novels—meeting a rich, arrogant playboy who finally abandoned his reckless ways and loved that one person with all his heart.
I was that one person. I was that female lead.
My life was my very own fairytale. When we got married, we were so happy.
But I wasn't the ideal candidate in his mother's eyes. Jiang Xinyue was. She was everything his mother wanted for him. And I… I was just a "vixen," a "wannabe actress," a "golddigger" who had seduced her son and married into a wealthy family.
His mother never accepted me. She hated me and made it quite clear. She mocked me, belittled me, and tried to break me. And yet, Mo Yuzhen stood by me. He fought for me. He defended me, loved me, even when it meant going against his mother.
But I knew how much he respected his mother and how much it hurt him to fight with her for me. So, I started changing everything she disliked about me.
Red was my color. She hated me wearing red, so I gave it up.
She disliked my career. I gave it up.
She disliked my friend. I broke that friendship.
She disliked what I ate, what I said, and how I dressed, so I changed everything.
I turned into the woman she wanted for her son. I bore every humiliation, every taunt with a smile, just because I loved him and he loved me. Just to hear him say, "Xiyu, this means so much to me..."
And now, it was all a sham. Four years of laughter, of love, of shared dreams was nothing but a lie. I couldn't hold it anymore. I laughed, feeling like a fool for thinking that a person's nature would change.
I was no female lead. I was just a stupid woman, who gave up her dream for scumbag.
"Hahaha… ahahaha…"
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes," I nodded, laughing and crying at the same time. I clutched my chest. "It hurts so much…"
"But you deserve it, Tang Xiyu." A cold voice whispered from behind. "This is retribution for the sins you committed."