You got your marriage certificate and then abandoned me? I'll feed the richest woman in the wor

The early winter night breeze wafted through the gaps in the French windows, gently stirring the dark gold velvet curtains.

In the master bedroom.

Only the retro wall lamp by the bedside emitted a warm orange glow.

The air was filled with a rich, lingering aroma of scallion oil.

This warm, homey aroma completely shut out the chill of late autumn outside.

Shen Wanzhou leaned back against the soft cushions.

Her full head of silver hair was casually tied up with an antique white jade hairpin.

She held that familiar deep white porcelain bowl in her hands.

Although his face is etched with the marks of time.

But when those peach blossom eyes looked at the man sitting by the bed, they still revealed a watery dependence.

"tasty."

She swallowed a mouthful of soft, chewy noodles, soup and all.

A comforting warmth spread through my stomach.

Her voice was hoarse, yet it conveyed the satisfaction of a little girl who had just eaten her favorite candy.

Chen Yuan sat on a soft stool on the edge of the bed.

He held the sandalwood cane in his hand.

The tip of the cane, with its metal corners, touched the Persian carpet silently.

He didn't speak.

His deep black eyes, in the dim light, gazed quietly at his wife who had been with him for more than half a century.

That weathered, hard face was now incredibly soft.

It was like a pool of spring water that had been still for a hundred years, only rippling before her eyes.

The two gazed at each other in a quiet, warm way.

In Chen Yuan's mind.

It's like an old, dilapidated film projector that's been turned on.

The images began to rewind rapidly in my brain in an irreversible manner.

These past few decades.

In this Jianghai City, on this dark web, and in this world, he has stirred up too many storms that are worthy of being recorded in history.

Those scenes.

The images flashed before his eyes like a revolving lantern.

He recalled the time he pressed the Enter key on the top floor of Xingchen Venture Capital.

The ten trillion yuan of overseas funds is like a cataclysmic flood.

They crushed those century-old Wall Street families, along with their proud financial barriers, to dust.

Those arrogant financial tycoons.

He desperately tore at his tie in front of the screen, then knelt on the ground and wailed.

He also remembered the crimson gate of the Huangfu family's house that had been blown open.

More than a hundred masters of ancient martial arts and internal martial arts were defeated by his fists and feet.

Like rows of fragile bowling pins, easily swept into a pool of blood.

The dignity of a century-old aristocratic family was trampled under his blood-stained shoes.

It was ground into powder so fine that even the wind couldn't blow it away.

And those too.

Those swarms of bees and butterflies who think they can climb onto his gold mine just because they have a bit of good looks.

A top female celebrity who was practically handing over blank checks in an overseas supermarket.

A social media influencer who was thrown into an artificial lake by bodyguards like trash.

And those chaebol heiresses, dressed in kimonos, kneeling and trembling in the corridors of the Aman Hotel.

These women.

They had used every despicable means imaginable in an attempt to tear a hole in this man named Chen Yuan.

But without exception.

They were all frozen to the bone by his defenses, which were even more piercing than the Siberian cold front.

In Chen Yuan's world.

They didn't even qualify to be a name in his memory.

It was just a bunch of pungent dust reeking of cheap perfume.

however.

In these rapidly flashing afterimages.

A face suddenly surfaced from the deepest recesses of my memory.

That was decades ago.

In an underground prison ward filled with the smell of Lysol and devoid of sunlight year-round.

That woman with gray hair and a thin frame.

She used her blood-stained fingernails to scratch the rough plaster wall.

His name was engraved over and over again.

It let out a pitiful scream like a bellows, until it finally breathed its last in despair and regret.

Lin Qinghan.

This name was once the heaviest shackle in the first half of his life.

It was also the ungrateful wretch he had nurtured over five years with countless sleepless nights and bowls of warm medicinal meals.

She was with a liar who was full of lies.

He turned and left without a second thought at the entrance of the Civil Affairs Bureau.

They threw his sincerity and dignity into the trash and trampled on them.

At that time.

It would be a lie to say that Chen Yuan harbored no hatred.

The pain of being betrayed by the closest person had made him clench his fists in countless dark nights.

But now.

Decades have passed.

Chen Yuan leaned back in his chair.

I could hear the soft sounds my wife made as she ate noodles in the room.

He looked at the image of the woman who had gone mad and died in prison in his mind.

His deep black eyes could no longer stir even the slightest ripple.

There was no sense of satisfaction from avenging a great wrong.

There was no lamentation over her tragic end.

Even the hatred that once wanted to grind her to dust had completely dissipated.

Time is the most ruthless and greatest crusher in the world.

It encompasses all love, hate, and passion.

Let go of those hurdles we once thought we couldn't overcome, and those awful people we thought we could never forgive.

They were all thrown into the long river of time.

Repeatedly washed and crushed.

Until the very end.

Even the name has become blurry and unclear.

Even hatred has become a superfluous waste.

Whether it's Lin Qinghan or Gu Ziang.

And then there's the gambler's biological father, whose fingers were chopped off in an underground casino and who was banished to a coal mine.

these people.

In Chen Yuan's eyes now, they were nothing more than a few pebbles he had accidentally kicked along the long road of his life.

He had long since left them far behind.

It turned into dust, the most worthless thing in the world.

It scattered with a gust of wind.

It won't leave even a trace.

Chen Yuan withdrew his gaze from the void.

Refocus on the present.

Shen Wanzhou had finished the last bite of noodles.

He even drank the last drop of soup from the bottom of the bowl.

She let out a long, satisfied sigh.

Place the deep white porcelain bowl on the bedside table.

It made a soft "click" sound.

"Are you full?"

Chen Yuan's voice was tinged with laughter.

He put down the sandalwood cane he was holding.

A large hand, with distinct joints and marked by the passage of time, is stretched out.

His fingertips bore thin calluses from years of holding a knife.

With natural and practiced movements, he lightly brushed against Shen Wanzhou's lips.

I took away a little bit of the dark brown sauce that I had accidentally gotten on my skin.

Shen Wanzhou obediently raised her face.

Let him wipe it.

Those peach blossom eyes, though no longer clear, were still full of dependence, quietly watching him.

In the eyes of this man who possessed the wealth of the entire world.

What trillion-dollar empire? What dark web god?

None of these things are as genuine as the satisfied smile on the face of this old cat that cried out for food in the middle of the night after it had eaten its fill.

This is the empire he built in his lifetime.

It was also the only pure land he protected with his life.

Chen Yuan withdrew his hand.

My gaze passed over the floor-to-ceiling window and fell upon the bright moon hanging high in the sky.

The moonlight is bright and clear, and life is peaceful and serene.

Chen Yuan used his wrinkled hands to wipe the soup from the corner of her mouth. Looking at the bright moon outside the window, he silently sighed in his heart: "After a lifetime of fighting and killing, in the end, nothing compares to this moment of peace."