The day Fu Yanli won the most prestigious academic award of the year was the exact same day I served him with divorce papers.

In the backstage dressing room, he had just shed his tailored suit jacket for a crisp white dress shirt, buttoned tightly all the way to his collar. That pristine, restrained demeanor of his had always provoked a dark, wicked desire in people, the urge to strip it away with their own hands.

In stark contrast to his immaculate appearance, I deliberately tugged my collar to the side, exposing a vivid, scarlet “hickey” painted with lipstick.

I slid the papers and a pen across the table toward him, a smirk playing on my lips. “Sign it.”

He didn’t spare the document a single glance. Instead, the young professor’s sharp, incisive gaze locked onto the “evidence” on my neck. Silence settled over the room. One second. Two seconds…

I expected him to fly into a rage, or at the very least, hurl a token accusation my way. But he didn’t. He simply stood up without a word and walked unhurriedly toward the door.

The lock engaged with a dry, hollow sound. He removed his gold-rimmed glasses and tossed them casually onto the table. Stripped of that polite barrier, his eyes revealed a dark, chilling intensity that was downright terrifying.

Then, he began to unbuckle his belt.

In the dead quiet of the room, the metallic clatter echoed tenfold, sending a cold shiver straight down my spine. My heart skipped a beat.

In our three years of marriage, he had always treated me with polite detachment. Even our time in bed felt like a controlled laboratory experiment: precise, restrained, and completely devoid of emotion. To put it plainly, the man was colder than an air conditioner set to sixty degrees.

Today, I had come here specifically to shatter that icy lab to pieces.

I forced myself to stay composed, keeping a provocative smile plastered on my face even as he stepped directly into my personal space. His familiar scent of cedarwood enveloped me, but today, it carried a suffocating, dangerous weight.

He didn’t ask questions, he didn’t snap, and he didn’t tear up the papers. He merely leaned down, using the hand that usually held scalpels and test tubes to catch my chin, tilting my face up.

“Tang Yu.”

His voice was still low and smooth, but the temperature behind it had plummeted well below freezing. “Are you really… in such a hurry?”

I jerked my face away, breaking the contact. “Yes. I’ve had enough. Fu Yanli, let’s just make a clean break.”

“A clean break?” he repeated, tasting the words as if discovering a novel piece of jargon.

He leaned in close, his hot breath brushing against my ear and raising a wave of goosebumps along my skin. “Who was it last night clinging to my waist, whispering that they loved my scent the most?”

My face flushed crimson. You bastard. Bringing that up now? Sure, last night was an “accident,” but to me, it was nothing more than basic physical gratification. I gritted my teeth. “That was just biology, not love. Can’t you tell the difference, Professor Fu?”

“Is that so?” A faint smile touched his lips, but his eyes remained deadly serious.

He picked up the divorce papers. For a fraction of a second, I thought I had won, though an odd, hollow sensation flickered in my chest. But he didn’t sign. Holding the pen, he suddenly grabbed my wrist and pulled me in front of the vanity mirror.

In the reflection, I was completely enveloped in his embrace. The tip of his pen lightly grazed my neck, right over the fake mark.

He pulled out a crisp white handkerchief and slowly, methodically wiped it away. The lipstick vanished in an instant.

“YSL, shade 196, isn’t it?”

I froze.

“Your taste… is as terrible as ever.” He met my eyes in the mirror, his smile dripping with cold mockery.

Before I could react, the pen nib pressed against my skin once more. This time, he wasn’t erasing. He was writing.

Three neat, elegant words, Fu Yanli, were stroked directly onto the curve of my neck.

“Now this is a mark,” he whispered in my ear, emphasizing every single syllable. “Got it, wife?”

For the first time in three years, I felt genuine fear toward this man. The person I thought I knew inside and out had turned out to be a complete stranger.

Outside, the announcer’s voice echoed through the speakers, calling his name to the stage. Fu Yanli calmly slid his glasses back on and fastened his belt. He folded the divorce papers neat and tight, slipping them into his suit pocket.

“Wait for me at home.”

Leaving behind those four quiet words, he opened the door and stepped out, instantly morphing back into the flawless, revered professor as thunderous applause erupted.

Meanwhile, I stood frozen before the mirror, staring at his name sitting arrogantly on my throat. Compared to Fu Yanli’s brand of possession, my little fake hickey had been nothing more than childish play.

I practically bolted from the venue.

On the massive LED screens outside, Fu Yanli stood beneath the brilliant stage lights, radiant, eloquent, and impeccably logical.

No one watching could ever connect that picture of perfection… to the man who, less than ten minutes ago, had locked the door, undone his belt, and looked at me with dark, ravenous eyes as if planning to conduct an “experiment” right there on my body.

I pressed a hand over my neck.

The skin beneath my palm was still burning.

Part of me was humiliated.

Part of me was furious.

But deep down, there was another emotion, one so shameful I hated to admit it.

Thrilled.

He wasn’t a walking block of ice anymore.

It’s just… his melting point turned out to be a little too dangerous.