Afterward, he took me to the cemetery to visit his mother. He crouched in front of the headstone and poured a splash of liquor onto the earth.

“I’ve got a home now. Whether you’re happy about it or not… your son sure is.”

I remembered what my dad had told me: his mother was a beauty in her youth, abandoned by one man only to end up living with an abusive abuser. When Li Yao was twelve, unable to take it any longer, she wrapped her arms around the man and jumped off a building with him. Li Yao had been left to navigate the brutal world completely alone ever since. Thinking about that, my eyes welled up, and I gently wrapped my arms around his waist.

Naturally, a certain someone had zero romantic timing. He leaned down and planted a loud, wet kiss on my cheek.

“Wife, feel free to get as clingy as you want. I can take it.”

Once the weekend came to an end, I got ready for school. I inspected every single inch of myself in the mirror to make sure there weren’t any “suspicious” marks before I dared to step out the door. Just as I reached the threshold, Li Yao caught up to me.

“Wife, I’ll drive you.”

“No, no, no! That’s way too much trouble!” I waved my hands in a panic.

He called me out instantly. “You just don’t want people knowing we’re together, do you?”

Hit right in the bullseye, I stammered out a messy explanation, terrified my classmates would misinterpret our relationship as some kind of sugar-daddy dynamic. He nodded understandingly, handed me a bag of wedding candy, and asked about my ring. Seeing my flustered expression, he made the final call.

“Whatever, suit yourself. I’m driving you to school, and you can call me whatever you want—mister, uncle, whatever.”

“Thanks… Uncle,” I squeaked out softly.

Li Yao didn’t even react; he just turned on his heel and walked off. I sheepishly shuffled after him.

The ride was dead silent. It wasn’t until he pulled up in front of the campus gates that he finally broke the silence.

“Alright, my big niece, I’ll pick you up tonight.”

“Okay.” I forced a perfectly obedient, practiced smile.

Thinking my duty was served, I was just about to get out when he suddenly leaned over, wrapped an arm around the back of my neck, and pulled me in for a kiss—blink-and-you-miss-it fast, gentle as a breeze. He casually swiped his thumb across the corner of my mouth, his voice a low rasp. “Go on.”

I stared blankly at his slightly flushed ears, nodding like a broken toy. Who knew he had this kind of romantic send-off routine for school? I’d only taken a few steps toward the gates when he called me back, hesitating for a long moment before dropping an absolute gem of wisdom:

“Remember to drink plenty of warm water.”

Well, at least he tried.

Sitting in class, I realized I’d forgotten to bring the wedding candy anyway—not that I had anyone to hand it out to. Ever since my family went under, my friends had been dodging me faster than a approaching deadline. Just as I was pretending to be a model student to avoid any unnecessary drama, a shadow fell over my desk.

“Khanh Khanh.”

I didn’t even need to look up to know whose voice that was. Instantly, Li Yao’s question echoed in my head: Which idiot put that love letter in your bag?

Yep, the idiot himself had arrived.

I stood straight up, didn’t say a single word, and—SLAP!

I delivered a stinging open-handed slap right across Tu Dat Minh’s face. The impact made my hand go completely numb, but to my utter embarrassment, tears instantly brimmed in my eyes.

Tu Dat Minh grit his teeth, his jaw tight. “Tong Khanh, are you insane?”

“Oh, so Young Master Tu came all the way here today just to do a sanity check on me? What’s the verdict?”

He lowered his head and began offering excuses—how my family’s downfall had cost his family millions, how his parents had forced him to go abroad. I let out a cold chuckle. Our families used to be so close, yet the moment crisis struck, his parents immediately “liquidated assets” by buying up our factories for absolute dirt. And now he was standing here telling me I needed to be understanding?

Whispers rippled through the room.

“Look at her, still acting like a spoiled heiress.”

“Watch out, or she’ll end up joining her dad behind bars.”

I trembled with rage, blindly grabbing the nearest object on my desk and hurling it toward the voices.

The air instantly froze. Ngo Gia Nhien—my former roommate—was crumpled on the floor, clutching her head as blood trickled through her fingers.

“Tong Khanh, you really have lost your mind!” Tu Dat Minh roared before rushing over to her side.

At the hospital, the injury turned out to be nothing more than a superficial scrape, but Gia Nhien cried a river to play the delicate victim. Tu Dat Minh put on his best hypocritical posture, trying to force me to apologize.

“You can throw all the tantrums you want, but you need to face reality. This counts as intentional assault.”

Watching my old classmate—who had only met him because of me—now whimpering his name in that sweet, helpless voice made me feel sick to my stomach. I pulled out the three thousand in cash Li Yao had forced me to carry, shoved it into his hands, and looked him dead in the eye.

“Here you go, Tu Dat Minh. Have fun playing hero.”

I turned around and walked out, my back straight as a ramrod. But the second I rounded the hospital corner, out of sight from everyone, my cool composure shattered in an instant. His words kept looping relentlessly in my head: Face reality.

After crying until my eyes were swollen, I wiped my face clean and headed back to campus to keep playing the docile, model student. I gave my academic advisor a deeply remorseful apology for the disruption, and as for the snide remarks flying around me, I simply turned on my selective deafness.

When evening classes wrapped up, I slid back into the car and instantly flipped my submissive-wife switch back on for Li Yao. But we hadn’t driven far when—

A flashy red Porsche swerved sharply, blocking our path right at the intersection. Li Yao let out a low curse and glanced over at me.

“Friend of yours?”

I didn’t answer, staring coldly as Tu Dat Minh slammed his car door shut and marched toward us in a rage. He pounded furiously on the driver-side window, barking through the glass:

“Get out of the car! Have you no shame at all? If you were that desperate for money, you should’ve come to me!”

He reached through the crack in the window to force the door lock open—

Li Yao leaned over, snagged his wrist, and twisted his arm backward in one swift motion. The sickening snap made my own joints ache just listening to it. Li Yao pulled out a tissue and wiped his hands as if he’d just handled trash.

“Stop throwing a fit, soft-boy.”

Tu Dat Minh’s face contorted in agony. Instinctively, I moved to step out and check on him, but Li Yao’s hand clamped down firmly over my wrist. The sharp, icy look in his eyes instantly brought me back to my senses. I shrank back like a chastised puppy, not daring to make another sound.

“Tong Khanh! I could’ve kept you too!” his hysterical scream echoed from behind us.

I froze. This morning I was terrified people would think I was someone’s kept woman, and yet the very first person to hurl that insult at me was the guy who had once sworn he loved me.

“Kept woman, my ass,” Li Yao scoffed, stomping on the gas and surging forward. “I married her fair and square.”

I turned to look at him, tears streaming down my face again. “Uncle… do you… do you beat your wife?”

The cold, effortless violence he’d just displayed had terrified me. He reached over, ruffling my hair with a casual hand.

“Honestly? I’d rather my wife beat me.”

By the time we got home, seeing that I was still sniffling, he raised an eyebrow. “You still crying over that loser?”

“I just… I just feel so stupid,” I sobbed out.

Li Yao gently pinched my cheek, a faint smile touching his lips. “Crying over a guy like that—that’s the only stupid part. Good girl, wipe those tears. Don’t make life harder for yourself than it needs to be. What’s done is done, and I won’t ask about it again—so stop being scared of me.”