Guan Zhong Lao Ren
2 Published Stories
Guan Zhong Lao Ren's Books and Stories
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Ex-Wife, Please Have Some Self-Respect
Fritz Heaney I was driving through a rainstorm in upstate New York, pushing my old Volvo to the limit just to pick up a Dior gown for my wife, Catarina. She needed it for a gala tonight, where she planned to spend the evening standing next to the man she actually loved, Atticus Deleon.
The truck hit me head-on, crossing the center line and sending my car rolling down an embankment in a shriek of twisted metal and shattered glass. As the steering column crushed my chest, my brain didn't see a white light; it was pried open by a digital tsunami, flooding my mind with the "Quantum Archive"-billions of data points on surgery, high-frequency trading, and combat.
I woke up in the ICU with three broken ribs and a concussion, but the only thing waiting for me was a screaming voicemail from my wife's assistant.
"Jorden, where the hell are you? Catarina has been waiting for thirty minutes! You are so incompetent it's actually impressive."
There was no "Are you okay?" or "Are you alive?"-only fury over a ruined dress and a missing tie. While I was being resuscitated, my wife was on Instagram, singing "Endless Love" with Atticus and laughing at my "tantrum." She even called the family lawyer to freeze my credit cards, wanting to make sure I couldn't even buy a coffee without her permission.
For three years, I had been the "useful husband," the doormat who apologized whenever she stepped on my toes. But the accident had overwritten my desperation with cold, hard logic, and I realized I had almost died for a woman who viewed me as a liability with a negative return on investment.
When Catarina finally stormed into my hospital room to demand an apology for ruining her night, I didn't look at her with the usual puppy-dog eyes. I looked at her with ice in my veins and handed her a manila envelope I had drafted myself.
"Sign the divorce papers, Ms. Evans. I'm done being your canary." Midas Protocol: Seducing My Rival's Wife
Breenda I sat in the freezing conference room, my knuckles white as I strangled a cheap plastic pen. Outside, Manhattan was weeping in the gray rain, but inside, the air was sterile and dead. I stared at the polished mahogany table, seeing the distorted reflection of a man who hadn't slept in forty-eight hours—a man about to sign his own divorce papers.
Across from me, my wife Linda wouldn't even look at me. She was too busy drumming her fingers near a diamond ring that cost more than I had made in the last five years combined. Then the door swung open, and Simon Thorne walked in. The billionaire heir didn't say a word; he just walked behind Linda and placed a heavy, possessive hand on her shoulder, marking her as his.
"Let's wrap this up," Simon said, checking his Patek Philippe with the bored tone of a man ordering a coffee he didn't want. Linda finally looked through me like I was a ghost and told me to stop dragging this out. She whispered that I couldn't even afford myself anymore, a physical punch to the gut given I’d lost my job three weeks ago. After I signed, Simon flicked a business card at me, mockingly offering me a job as a doorman for minimum wage.
I walked out into the downpour, shivering in a suit I couldn't afford to dry clean. My phone vibrated with a text from my landlord: "Pack your things. Keys by tonight or I’m calling the cops." I stood on the corner of 5th Avenue with exactly $42.18 to my name, watching Simon kiss my wife through the glass wall of the penthouse. I was thirty, homeless, and drowning in a city of lions.
I wanted to roar until my throat bled, but I just stood there, a drowned rat in a world of predators. How could I have lost everything so fast? Why was the woman who promised to stay through "for poorer" now leaning into the arms of the man who just humiliated me?
Suddenly, my phone screen exploded with a blinding golden light. An app called the Midas Protocol installed itself, declaring poverty a disease and itself the cure. With one tap, a million dollars bypassed a federal hold and hit my account, and a "Nemesis Card" appeared in my digital inventory. I didn't hesitate. I typed Simon Thorne’s name into the vengeance algorithm and hit execute. The game had officially changed. The Discarded Husband's Spectacular Comeback
Qian Mo Mo I spent three hours searing the perfect wagyu steak and chilling a bottle of 1996 Dom Pérignon for our anniversary. My wife, Evelin, texted me saying she was stuck in a late board meeting.
"Don't wait up."
But a bank alert on my phone told a different story: a $5,600 charge at a VIP lounge in the Meatpacking District. When I tracked her down, I didn't find her in a boardroom; I found her sitting on my business partner's lap, laughing as he fed her chocolate-covered strawberries.
When I confronted them, Evelin didn't even look guilty. She called me hysterical and a "prude" for interrupting their night. Hank mocked me to my face, calling me a pathetic "trophy husband" who was probably home ironing napkins while they were out having real fun. When I finally snapped and defended my dignity, my own wife slapped me across the face and had her security throw me out like trash.
"You are nothing without the Carney name. You're a stray I picked up."
By the time I hit the sidewalk, she had frozen all our joint accounts and blacklisted my name from every major firm in the city. I had spent ten years managing her family's billions and fixing the books her lover messed up, only to be left with ten dollars in my pocket and a suitcase full of dusty law books. She thinks I'm a broken man who will come crawling back to beg for mercy just to afford a meal.
I realized then that our marriage was just a corpse I'd been dragging around, and she was the monster who had killed it years ago. I felt the sting of her slap and the weight of her betrayal, wondering how I could have been so blind to the person I shared a bed with.
Standing in a cramped apartment in Queens, I blocked her number and called a "shark" lawyer I hadn't spoken to since law school.
"I'm the biggest shark in the tank, Dom. Let her try to ruin you."
Evelin thinks she took everything, but she forgot one thing: I'm the one who knows exactly where the bodies are buried in her family's ledgers. The war has just begun.