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

This Reddit comment, which was verified with a gold badge, caused the external server to crash for five seconds within three minutes of being posted.

Immediately afterwards, the top trending topic on Weibo in China quietly changed.

The hashtag #ChenYuanEatingSoftRice# has changed to #IfLinQinghanHadn'tRunnedAwayFromTheWedding#.

Comments from netizens flooded the screen, the sound of keyboards clicking louder than the night wind in countless cities.

If Lin Qinghan hadn't answered that male best friend's call at the Civil Affairs Bureau that day, wouldn't she be the wife of the world's richest man now?

[Upstairs, stop being disgusting. Even if they did get the marriage certificate, with Lin Qinghan's rotten-to-the-core personality, Chen Yuan would kick her to the curb sooner or later.]

I really want to see how she would ruin this marriage if she didn't run away.

The data flow on the internet seems to generate a strange magnetic field.

The halo around the screen began to distort and stretch, turning into rapidly spinning vortexes.

The timeline was forcibly reversed.

Let's go back to that sweltering summer day three years ago.

At the entrance of the Chaoyang District Civil Affairs Bureau in Beijing.

The asphalt road surface was softened by the sun, and the cicadas' chirping was so loud it hurt people's eardrums.

Lin Qinghan stood on the steps, wearing a custom-made white dress and eight-centimeter Jimmy Choo shoes.

"Buzzing".

The phone in my bag vibrated. The screen flashed the words "Zi'ang".

Chen Yuan stood half a step away from her, holding their household registration books in his hand.

Lin Qinghan, her nails painted with crimson nail polish, hovered above the screen for a second.

She frowned, and her high heels clattered heavily on the steps.

Last night, Gu Ziang got into a fight at a bar and ended up in jail. He called her, sounding like he was going to die.

If this were in the original timeline, she would have answered the phone without hesitation, turned around and left, leaving Chen Yuan alone at the Civil Affairs Bureau like a joke.

But in this parallel universe distorted by netizens' obsessions, Lin Qinghan's fingertips shifted by half an inch.

She hung up.

"Let's go in."

Lin Qinghan coldly uttered three words and walked into the hall first in her high heels without even turning her head.

It was as if the person walking behind her was not her husband with whom she was about to spend her life, but a low-level assistant carrying her bags.

"Click."

The embossed seal pressed heavily onto the two red marriage certificates.

Lin Qinghan took the notebook but didn't even glance at it.

She casually tossed one of the books to Chen Yuan, and roughly stuffed the other into the inner compartment of her Hermès bag, the zipper zipping and closing with a crisp, clean sound.

"Chen Yuan, the signature is on, and the certificate has been issued."

Lin Qinghan stood at the bottom of the steps and opened the door of the Porsche Panamera.

She put on sunglasses, covering most of her face.

"Don't think that just because you've got a marriage certificate, you can really act like the eldest son of the Lin family. I, Lin Qinghan, married you only to fulfill the old man's dying wish. You'd better recognize your place and stop delusional about interfering in my life."

Chen Yuan held the red booklet in his hand, his expression blank.

The Panamera's exhaust fumes sprayed onto Chen Yuan's trouser legs before disappearing into the distance.

The day after we received our marriage certificate.

Lin Qinghan then took Gu Ziang home.

With a band-aid still on his eye, Gu Zi'ang swaggered onto the leather sofa in the Lin family's hillside villa.

He put his feet directly on the coffee table that Chen Yuan had just wiped.

Dirt stuck to the imported glass surface.

"Qinghan, your 'male nanny' is quite efficient." Gu Ziang peeled an orange, casually tossing the peel onto the carpet.

Lin Qinghan sat on the other side, applying a face mask, without even lifting her eyelids.

"My grandfather insisted on giving them to me. Anyway, the house is big enough, so it's just one more pair of chopsticks."

Chen Yuan, wearing a faded white shirt, brought out a plate of sliced ​​fruit from the kitchen.

He placed the fruit plate on the coffee table.

Gu Ziang deliberately stretched out his leg and provocatively kicked Chen Yuan's knee with the tip of his shoe.

"Hey, tell me, how much pocket money do you get from the Lin family each month? Is it enough to buy a decent pack of cigarettes?"

Chen Yuan straightened up and looked down at Gu Zi'ang.

Those were eyes devoid of any human emotion, as if looking at a rotting corpse.

Gu Zi'ang felt a chill run down his spine from that look, and a strange fire rose in his heart.

"What are you looking at? A country bumpkin, does he really think he's the head of the Lin family?"

"Zi'ang." Lin Qinghan frowned as she spoke, but there was no hint of blame in her tone.

She peeled off the face mask and threw it into the trash can.

"Don't lower yourself to his level."

She turned her head and gave Chen Yuan a cold look.

"Chen Yuan, sweep up the orange peels on the floor and go back to your own room. Don't get in my way here."

Chen Yuan went to get a broom.

In this parallel, hypothetical timeline, he has not yet torn off the disguise of "Abyss" and the controlling shareholder of Star Venture Capital, and is still playing the role of a stoic husband who keeps his promises and tries to warm a block of ice.

But his patience is crumbling at a visible rate.

Six months later.

It's 11:30 p.m.

The kitchen countertop was spotless, and the fish maw and chicken soup, which had been simmering for four hours, emitted a rich aroma.

The door lock made a soft "tick" sound.

Lin Qinghan pushed open the door and entered.

Her high heels tapped out a cold rhythm on the gleaming marble floor. She tossed her limited-edition bag onto the sofa and rubbed her aching neck.

Chen Yuan came out of the kitchen, carrying a bowl of steaming soup.

"Have some soup first to warm your stomach." Chen Yuan placed the porcelain bowl on the dining table.

Lin Qinghan walked over and glanced down at the bowl of clear yellow chicken soup.

A few goji berries floated on the soup noodles.

Her brows furrowed into a tight knot, and she reached out to push the bowl away.

The porcelain base rubbed against the glass tabletop, producing a harsh sound.

A few drops of scalding soup splashed out and landed on the back of Chen Yuan's hand, leaving a red mark.

Chen Yuan didn't move.

"Chen Yuan, do you have nothing better to do all day?" Lin Qinghan glared at him. "I'm working myself to the bone at the company every day on projects worth billions, and what do you do at home besides sitting around the stove?"

"The old man brought you into the Lin family hoping you could help me with my business. And what happened? You can't even understand a financial statement."

She scoffed and crossed her arms.

"Zi'ang just helped me secure a 30 million investment today. What about you? How much is your bowl of soup worth?"

Chen Yuan pulled out a tissue and slowly wiped the soup off the back of his hand.

I crumpled the tissue into a ball and threw it into the trash can.

"Gu Ziang's investment was a bridge loan with ridiculously high interest rates. He's ripping you off," Chen Yuan said calmly.

"Shut up!"

Lin Qinghan slammed her hand on the table.

"What right do you have to judge Zi'ang? He grew up in the business world, while you're just a penniless nobody picked up from the countryside by the old man. Do you even know what bridge financing is? If you don't, shut your mouth and don't flaunt your ignorance in front of me!"

She turned and walked towards the stairs, her high heels clattering loudly.

"I want a Western-style breakfast at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Stop making your old-fashioned Chinese food."

Chen Yuan stood still.

The restaurant's crystal chandelier light fell on him.

He picked up the bowl of fish maw and chicken soup, walked to the sink, and tilted his wrist.

The clear yellow broth, mixed with fish maw, flowed away through the drain filter, leaving not a trace of residue.

Two o'clock in the morning.

Outside the villa, the wind carried a light drizzle that pattered against the French windows.

Chen Yuan sat in the study of the guest room.

The screen flashed with complex streams of green code. He was "Abyss," the ruler of the dark web, who could paralyze a country's power grid in a second if he wanted to.

"Bang!"

The study door was kicked open.

Lin Qinghan rushed in, her face pale, without even changing out of her pajamas.

Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair was disheveled, and she no longer had the aloof queen-like demeanor she had during the day.

"Chen Yuan!"

Lin Qinghan's voice was sharp, filled with barely concealed panic.

Chen Yuan's fingers left the keyboard, and the code on the screen instantly switched to a meaningless webpage.

"Lin's servers crashed half an hour ago!" Lin Qinghan walked to his desk, bracing his hands on the tabletop, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"The company's newly launched core e-commerce platform has a fatal vulnerability in its underlying logic. Hackers are attacking it relentlessly, and users' financial data is being leaked. Those incompetent people in the tech department have been working on it for half an hour and haven't found anything!"

She was panting heavily, staring intently at Chen Yuan.

"I heard you studied some computer science in college?"

Chen Yuan leaned back in his chair, looking at her pale knuckles, his tone completely calm.

"so?"

"Show me this pile of stuff right now!"

Lin Qinghan slammed a stack of A4 papers with garbled error messages printed on them at Chen Yuan with a loud "thud".

The paper scattered in mid-air, falling like white snowflakes.

Several sharp edges grazed Chen Yuan's cheeks.

There was no bleeding, but a glaring red mark was left.

A piece of paper landed on Chen Yuan's keyboard, covered with error codes.

If Chen Yuan wanted to, he only needed to type three lines of commands to build a perfect firewall in a minute, and even track down the physical location of the hacker who attacked the Lin family.

But he didn't move a single finger.

"I don't care if you understand or not, you need to fix this vulnerability right now, immediately!"

Lin Qinghan pointed at the computer screen, her voice carrying an air of entitlement and command.

"If the data isn't fixed tonight, Lin's will lose over a billion yuan when the market opens tomorrow. You eat our food, you live in our house, so you have to step up for me when it matters."

Chen Yuan slowly stood up from the chair.

He was a head taller than Lin Qinghan.

Even though he was wearing the cheapest cotton pajamas, the oppressive aura emanating from him caused the room temperature to plummet at that moment.

Lin Qinghan involuntarily took half a step back, her high heels clicking on the solid wood floor.

"What...what are you looking at?" she asked, raising her voice in a show of bravado.

Chen Yuan was not angry.

He looked at Lin Qinghan at this moment with only a cold indifference, as if he were looking at a skeleton.

"I remember you saying during the day that I couldn't even understand a financial statement."

Chen Yuan's voice was deep, each word striking the silent room.

"Now you want me to fix the underlying logic?"

"That's just sophistry!"

Lin Qinghan's eyes reddened with anxiety. She grabbed Chen Yuan's pajamas collar and pulled hard.

The fingernail scratched a red mark on Chen Yuan's neck.

"Even if you're a complete waste of space, you still have to stay up all night and finish reading this pile of code! Just throw something together to get by, and make sure Gu Ziang sends someone to fix it by tomorrow morning!"

In this parallel universe.

Lin Qinghan did not run away from the marriage, but she still used the most cruel and selfish methods to sever Chen Yuan's last bit of gratitude.

She grabbed the scattered A4 sheets one by one, crumpled them into a ball, and once again roughly threw them at Chen Yuan's face, her eyes filled with malice:

"You're my husband, isn't it only natural that you stay up all night to fix these problems?!"