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

"Old man, it's so good to have met you in this life."

This soft whisper, softened by the passage of time.

In the last golden rays of the setting sun, it slowly transformed into a wisp of warmth that drifted away on the wind.

After a day of bustling activity, the Cloud Top Manor finally came to a close under the cover of night.

A long period of tranquility has returned.

It's 11:30 p.m.

In the master bedroom on the second floor.

The air was filled with the calming scent of chamomile, a fragrance that had remained unchanged for decades.

Shen Wanzhou had already fallen into a deep sleep.

She turned to the side, her hand instinctively clutching the edge of the silk quilt beside her.

Breathing is slow and deep.

Her long, silver hair was scattered on the soft pillow, gleaming softly under the dim light of the bedside lamp.

Chen Yuan sat on the edge of the bed.

He did not get up immediately.

He stretched out his large hand, covered with brown age spots and rough calluses.

He gently tucked the corner of the blanket up, covering the exposed part of her shoulder.

He gently stroked her face, which was covered with fine wrinkles, with his fingertips.

A familiar warm touch came from my fingertips.

After confirming that she was sleeping soundly.

Chen Yuancai supported himself on the mattress with one hand and slowly straightened up.

He picked up a dark gray cashmere cardigan draped at the foot of the bed.

Draped over the shoulders.

With his other hand, he held the sandalwood walking stick, which had been polished to a smooth, glossy finish.

The tip of the cane touched the thick Persian carpet without making the slightest disturbing sound.

He tiptoed to the door.

He pressed down on the metal doorknob and walked out of the master bedroom.

The motion-activated nightlights in the corridor lit up one by one as he walked.

It emits a dark yet warm orange glow.

Chen Yuan leaned on his cane.

We moved forward step by step, at a leisurely pace.

At the end of the corridor lies the core server room of the dark web, once filled with liquid-cooled servers and tracking the flow of global funds.

He ordered its complete demolition twenty years ago.

now.

This space has been transformed into a spacious study with a rustic, scholarly atmosphere.

The rosewood display shelf was filled with rare and out-of-print ancient books, as well as hundreds of cookbooks from various schools of cooking, some of which had been turned upside down.

"Click".

Chen Yuan pushed open the heavy solid wood door to the study.

The air carried the dry smell unique to paper.

He walked to the desk.

He pulled out the large, genuine leather chair that had been with him for decades and slowly sat down.

His fingers, with slightly stiff knuckles, reached for the brass table lamp on the left side of the desk.

Snapped.

The switch is pressed.

A beam of warm white light in the shape of a cone instantly illuminated the flat area in the center of the desk.

Chen Yuan opened the first drawer on his right.

From the very bottom.

He took out a thick, blank diary with a cover made of high-quality pure cowhide.

The cowhide has a natural texture and a rough feel to the touch.

He laid the diary flat under the light.

Then he took out a black custom-made fountain pen from the pen holder next to him.

Unscrew the pen cap.

My fingertips spun half a circle on the cool metal barrel of the pen.

Then, he pulled open another small drawer.

He took out an exquisitely crafted tortoiseshell eyeglass case.

Chen Yuan opened the box and took out a pair of reading glasses with gold rims.

It rested slowly and deliberately on the straight bridge of his nose.

Through the clear lenses, he stared at the pure blank page of the diary.

The nib of the fountain pen hovers less than half an inch above the paper.

The pale blue ink refracted a faint light under the lamp.

But it didn't fall immediately.

The surroundings were so quiet that the only sound was the ticking of the old-fashioned grandfather clock.

Chen Yuan leaned back in his chair.

My vision gradually lost focus.

These past few decades.

He left behind too many legends in this manor and in this world that are enough to terrify anyone.

He once used a few lines of code to cause a financial empire across the ocean to collapse overnight.

He once brought a plate of boiled cabbage in clear broth, which made a titan of Western cuisine kneel down.

He once used hundreds of billions of dollars to carve a woman's name in the sky.

Take any one of these resumes at random.

All of this is enough to fill a thick business bible for future generations to study and worship day and night.

But at the moment.

When he finally picked up his pen, wanting to leave something behind for his eventful life.

The first thing that popped into my mind was...

It was neither the fierce battles with swords drawn nor the astronomical accumulation of wealth.

It was that winter fifty-five years ago.

That bitterly cold winter morning, when even breathing felt like breathing ice crystals.

The entrance to the Jianghai Civil Affairs Bureau.

The strong wind whipped up large snowflakes, which pounded wildly onto the concrete steps.

That was the very beginning of the story.

He was wearing an old cotton-padded coat that was faded from washing and had a frayed collar.

He was clutching a small red velvet box containing a cheap silver ring tightly in his hand.

My palms were covered in a sticky layer of cold sweat from the cold and tension.

He was standing outside that glass door.

Looking at the woman with exquisite makeup, he hung up the phone.

She was wearing high heels.

Without a pause, and without a single explanation.

She wrapped her expensive cashmere coat tighter around herself and walked without looking back towards the red Porsche parked by the roadside.

The moment the car door slammed shut.

A cold wind blew into his chest through his collar.

The beating heart was frozen.

He remembers the feeling of his fingers being frozen stiff and numb.

I remember the hollow echo that ring made when it fell into the tin trash can.

That was the sound of a man's dignity being utterly crushed and trampled into the mud.

That was the darkest, most hopeless period of his life.

but.

The wheel of fate.

It was precisely in that valley where they were abandoned.

It produced a dull, grinding sound.

It changed to a completely different direction and started spinning wildly.

If that day...

The woman did not turn around and get into the car.

If she had accepted that cheap ring and walked into the Civil Affairs Bureau...

So, what about the next fifty-odd years of my life?

It will be a long and desperate torture.

He would be like an old ox with its eyes covered, pulling a millstone.

Every day, I'm in a cramped basement, facing endless patch code.

Faced with insatiable greed and endless demands.

He would personally pour his heart and soul into it.

Finally, on a quiet, deserted night, he collapsed in front of that overheated computer tower.

There won't even be anyone to collect the bodies.

He will never know.

Behind a tightly closed mahogany door, there was a girl who would pass him a black card through the crack in the door.

I will never see that pink sticky note that smells like peaches.

No one will peek at him like a little tail while he's chopping vegetables.

There will be no one.

On the streets of a foreign land, in order to protect him, they unreasonably spent billions of dollars of their assets.

Inside Chen Yuan's chest cavity.

Suddenly, a deep, resonant vibration was emitted.

He laughed out loud.

An aged laugh echoed in the quiet study, carrying a profound understanding and relief born from seeing through the ways of the world.

Those past humiliations and resentments.

At this moment, it has become an absurd joke.

There was no such decisive betrayal.

What can he offer in exchange for half a century of peace?

What can he give to exchange for the wife upstairs who has grown old with him, and the children and grandchildren running around the yard outside?

In this life, fortune and misfortune are intertwined.

Who could have imagined such a great blessing?

It was in that very second that he was abandoned.

Chen Yuan pulled his wandering thoughts back.

He sat up straight again.

His large, wrinkled hands gripped the custom-made fountain pen tightly.

His dark eyes stared at the yellowed pages of parchment.

Press down with the pen tip.

The ink spread across the rough paper.

It makes a soft, textured writing sound.

He did not write about grand business plans.

There was no mention of any survival rules for the dark web.

He simply used the steadyest force and the most upright strokes.

It's in the very center of the first page.

The stars shone brightly outside the window. Chen Yuan lowered his head and solemnly wrote the first sentence of his memoir on the yellowed pages: "I am grateful for the mercy that spared my life during that elopement, which allowed me to live and enjoy the most delicious meal in the world."