After marrying the heir worth three hundred billion, I put his used CK underwear up for sale online. When his underwear kept disappearing, he frowned and began to suspect there was a thief in the house. With a wave of his hand, he installed eighty-eight hidden cameras throughout the house, determined to catch the underwear thief. That's how I got caught. When he discovered the underwear thief was actually me, he flew into a rage. "Hudson! Have you lost your mind from being broke? You're actually stealing my underwear to sell!" "Do I not give you enough to wear or spend? You just can't shake that poverty stench, can you!" I was about to explain when he threw new underwear in my face. "Since you love stealing things to sell so much, I'll just pay your living expenses in underwear from now on!" Then he left without looking back, leaving me clutching the medical report I hadn't had a chance to hand him. It read in bold letters: Late-stage gastric cancer. I'd just been diagnosed today. I hadn't even paid the examination fee yet.
The bill amount was two hundred and fifty dollars. I picked up the underwear scattered on the floor, wiped off the dust, and continued listing it online. Priced at eighty-eight dollars per pair, forty-two pairs sold. I glanced at it twice, closed the page, and called Henry. "Henry, let's get divorced." Two seconds of silence on the other end, followed by a scoff. Then came a woman's voice, syrupy sweet and mocking. "Oh, Hudson, how much are you trying to squeeze out of Henry this time? Come up with a new trick already?" It was Aurora, a famous beauty and the daughter-in-law Henry's parents truly wanted. Henry didn't say anything. But I could imagine his expression—brows knitted, lips pressed into a thin line, eyes cold as ice. That was how he looked at me every time, especially after what happened five years ago. Back then, Henry's society lady mother came to see me. Before I could even say hello, she handed me a check for five million dollars. "Leave my son. This money is yours." I took the check and agreed to break up. Not because I loved money, but because my mom had just been diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Chemotherapy was a bottomless pit—one day in the ICU could burn through ten to twenty thousand dollars. Henry had just started his business right before that, and I'd transferred all my savings to him as startup capital. I hadn't kept a single penny. His company was just getting off the ground and couldn't scrape together even five hundred thousand. He ran around every day chasing investors, so exhausted he'd collapse into bed as soon as he got home. That five million was my only way out. Later, his company came back from the brink and grew to a market value of three hundred billion. He was also acknowledged by the elite Franklin family—truly reaching the pinnacle of success. But then he came to find me, saying he wanted to marry me. I thought he'd learned the truth and was repaying his debt. Instead, on our wedding night, he told me: "Hudson, I'm marrying you just so you can see how much the man you abandoned for being poor is worth now." He didn't know my mom died anyway. He didn't know I'd gotten on my knees in front of his mother that day, begging her not to tell Henry the truth. On the other end of the phone, Henry finally spoke. "Divorce is fine." His voice was calm, like he was discussing a business deal. "Leave with nothing. Don't expect to take a single penny." "Also," he paused, "return everything I gave you in cash." What had he given me? For our third anniversary, he gave me a Cartier necklace. I later discovered it was a knockoff and was laughed at by high society ladies for a whole month. The bag he gave me for my birthday came with a receipt inside, but the price had been blacked out. The only valuable thing was the wedding ring. But the next day, someone came to "borrow" it, saying it needed to be resized. It was never returned. I calculated—if I converted all these things to cash, they'd be worth about ten thousand dollars at most. "Fine," I said. Silence on the other end for a few seconds. He probably hadn't expected me to agree so readily. Aurora spoke again, her voice tinged with laughter: "See, Henry? I told you. She can't wait to take the money and run. Five years ago she could abandon you for money, and now she's willing to leave with nothing—she's probably latched onto an even bigger sugar daddy." Henry didn't respond to her. He just said coldly, "Hudson, you really are something," then hung up. I folded the payment slip twice and stuffed it in my pocket. Then I counted the new underwear he'd thrown at me—a hundred pairs total. At eighty-eight dollars per pair, that was eight thousand eight hundred dollars. It should be enough for my divorce.
Henry and I got together in college. He'd tested out of poverty-stricken rural nowhere, top of our entire department. My parents didn't approve. They said we were from different worlds, and I'd suffer for it later. I didn't listen. After graduation, I left with him. When he was starting his business, we lived in a basement to save money. Water pipes ran across the ceiling. The sound of upstairs neighbors flushing toilets echoed through the night. The dampness was so heavy our bedding never dried. He held me and said I'm sorry you have to go through this. I said it's not hard, as long as you're here. When we were young, we thought that was forever. Neither of us expected my mom would be diagnosed with cancer then. So when his mother handed me that five million dollar check, I took it. Then I broke up with him. He asked me why. I said I was tired, didn't love him anymore, didn't want to live in poverty. He stared at me for a long time, his gaze heavy, and said, "Hudson, don't regret this." Later, when he came to marry me, I thought he'd uncovered the truth. Instead, it was his carefully planned revenge. At first, I did think about telling him the truth. Not long after we married, I gathered courage for ages and told him everything about what happened back then, from beginning to end. But after listening, he looked at me like I was a joke: "Hudson, you're better at making up stories than you are at having taste." He didn't believe me. So I stopped trying. I thought if I was good enough to him, he'd eventually see. He was picky about food, so I got up at five every morning to make congee. He had lots of business dinners, so I'd make hangover soup and wait for him every night. He was a perfectionist—shirts had to be hand-washed, collars had to be pressed. I did all of it myself. Until he started bringing other women home. The first was a minor celebrity, the second was an investment banker, the third I didn't recognize. Every one of them wore perfect makeup, had killer bodies, and carried themselves with elegance. That night at 2 AM, he brought yet another strange woman through the door. This time, I finally broke down. I stood in the hallway, eyes red, blocking his path. "Henry, please don't do this." He glanced at me like I was a piece of furniture in the way. "Move." "I can pretend nothing happened, just leave me some dignity..." "Dignity?" He laughed. "A woman who'd do anything for money wants to talk to me about dignity?" He walked past me with that woman in his arms, his words cutting like ice. "You're no different from them. Except they have clear prices. You don't even need to name one." My heart felt like it had been stabbed clean through, one strike fatal. After that, I never tried to stop him from bringing women home again. But I started having sleepless nights, sitting on the living room sofa waiting for dawn. That's when my stomach problems started. At first it only hurt when I ate. Later it got worse and worse, eventually hurting so badly I'd shake all over. But he only gave me a hundred dollars a month for living expenses. I couldn't even afford decent stomach medicine. I could only hide it from him and work as a waitress, serving plates from 5 PM to 3 AM, earning eighty dollars a day.
Today I worked my usual shift until 3 AM. When I got home, I pulled out my key. The door was locked from inside. I pressed the doorbell. The maid's voice came through the intercom. "Sir brought Miss Aurora home and specifically instructed that no one is to be let in tonight." The night frost was heavy. Shivering from cold, I begged through gritted teeth: "Can you just let me in for a moment? I'll just grab a coat and leave, okay?" "Please don't make this difficult for us." Clutching my still-aching stomach, I slowly slid down along the door and curled into a ball. The maid muttered something inside. The sound wasn't loud, but the soundproofing was poor—I heard it. "Coming home reeking of cooking oil every night. I don't know why the master married someone like her in the first place." My stomach started cramping again. Crouching by the door, cold sweat streamed down my forehead. My vision kept going dark until I finally collapsed, unable to control it. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying on the ground. I don't know how long I'd been lying there. My clothes were soaked with dew. I climbed up and wiped the corner of my mouth with my sleeve. Blood. A wave of desolation swept through me. I hugged myself, curled up on the front steps. Trying to find some warmth this way. I thought of the year Henry and I lived in that basement. That winter was especially cold too. The basement had no heat. To warm my hands and feet, Henry would go jogging outside every night. He'd come back steaming with body heat and dive under the covers to wrap me up. His body was hot as a furnace, but his hands and feet were freezing. He'd deliberately press them against my waist, making me shrink from the cold. I asked why his hands were so cold. He said the wind got to them while jogging outside. I said then don't jog anymore. He held me tight: "No way. If I don't jog I won't have body heat, and you'll be cold while sleeping." And now, looking at the luxurious mansion before me, I felt nothing but alienation. When the maid woke up and opened the door, I was leaning against the doorframe, face pale green, lips white, half my body stiff and numb. I dragged my stiff legs into the living room. The house was silent. When I reached the entrance, the gossiping voices of two maids in the break room were especially grating. "She froze all night and still didn't leave?" "Right? Miss Aurora already spent the night upstairs, and she's still clinging here. Really shameless." I said nothing and walked straight into the kitchen. After searching for ages, I finally found a package of stale oatmeal deep in the cupboard. I mixed it with water and put it on the stove. Just as the ginger water finished cooking, Aurora walked in wearing a silk bathrobe. Her exposed snow-white skin was covered with faint red marks, painful to look at. She wore delicate no-makeup makeup. When she looked at the shabby bowl of oatmeal in my hands, her eyes filled with disgust. "Henry's already planning to give me this villa as an engagement gift. If you're smart, pack up your junk and get out now. Save yourself the humiliation of being thrown out by security later." I ignored her and tried to walk around her with the bowl. The moment we passed each other, Aurora's peripheral vision caught the staircase. She suddenly cried out and slammed into my arm. "Ah!" The bowl in my hands immediately flipped over, the entire bowl of scalding oatmeal spilling onto my hand and thigh. My skin instantly turned bright red, searing pain drilling into my core. Aurora fell to the floor in a sitting position, covering the back of her hand with a sob in her voice. "Miss Hudson, I was just trying to help you with the bowl. Even if you don't like me, you shouldn't splash hot porridge on me..." Urgent footsteps came from upstairs. Henry came down with a dark expression, striding over to help Aurora up. Looking at the ceramic shards and water on the floor, his gaze was sharp as a blade. "Hudson, what are you doing?" "I didn't splash her." I endured the severe pain on the back of my hand, my voice dry. Aurora hid in Henry's arms: "Henry, don't blame Miss Hudson. Maybe I said something careless earlier and she misunderstood." Only a small patch on the back of her hand was red. But large blisters were rapidly forming on the back of my hand, which Henry completely ignored. "Apologize." I looked at him and said coldly, "She ran into me herself." "I'll say it one more time. Apologize to Aurora." The disgust in his eyes nearly overflowed. "A woman with poverty in her bones like you—what else can you do besides these lowlife tactics?" I looked into his eyes and didn't argue another word. I just lowered my head and pulled out a bankbook from my pocket, its edges worn fuzzy. I held the bankbook out in front of Henry. "You said before that to get divorced, I'd have to return everything you gave me over the years in cash." "This is all the money I can come up with. See if it's enough. If it's not enough, I'll work to earn the rest and pay you back slowly." Henry looked at the bankbook without reaching to take it, his brows knitted even tighter. Aurora moved first, swiftly snatching the bankbook from my hands. "Oh my, looks like Miss Hudson has saved quite a nice 'nest egg' behind Henry's back these years." Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she opened the bankbook. The smile on her lips froze instantly when she saw the number. Then she laughed mockingly: "Three thousand one hundred and twenty-six dollars and five cents? Hudson, are you giving charity to beggars or putting on a show here?" She tossed the bankbook onto the coffee table in front of Henry. Henry's expression looked terrible. To someone worth three hundred billion like him, this probably couldn't even buy a single bolt on his car wheel. "Hudson, are you mocking me with this pocket change?" He raised his head, eyes cold as ice. "Or do you think asking for divorce will get my attention?" "This is all the money I have." "If it's not enough, I'll work more. I'll pay you back two thousand a month. Eventually I'll pay it all off." Henry stared at the bankbook, an indecipherable irritation flashing in his eyes. He suddenly stood up. "This little money? I'd be embarrassed to take it out. I can't believe you'd pull such a pathetic stunt." Aurora hummed delicately from the side: "Henry, don't bother with her. My hand hurts so much. I hope it doesn't scar." Henry didn't spare me another glance. He put his arm around Aurora's waist and walked toward the door without looking back. "Come on, I'll take you to the hospital." The sound of the engine gradually faded. The villa fell silent again. Enduring the pain, I went to the medicine cabinet and found a tube of burn ointment that was about to expire. The ointment on the red, blistered skin triggered piercing pain. I gritted my teeth and wrapped the back of my hand in gauze, layer by layer. After treating the wound, I took the bankbook upstairs. The study door wasn't locked. I pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and pressed the bankbook under several hundred-billion-dollar contracts. He found this money embarrassing, but I had to repay it. Late in the evening, my phone vibrated on the table. It was Aurora calling. "Hudson, Henry's at 'Nightfall' bar. He said since you want to earn money to pay your debt, here's an opportunity. If you can make him happy, he might waive the rest of what you owe." After she hung up, I laughed self-deprecatingly. Even if there was only a thread of hope, I wanted to clear my debt to Henry before I died and leave with a clean slate.
When I arrived at the bar's private room and pushed the door open, smoke filled the air inside. Henry sat in the middle leather sofa, a half-burned cigarette between his fingers. Aurora pressed herself bonelessly against him. Seeing me push through the door, Aurora raised an eyebrow and said to Henry with feigned surprise and a delicate laugh: "See Henry, I told you. Miss Hudson runs faster than anyone when she hears there's money to be made. Even coming to a nightclub isn't a problem for her." Henry lifted his eyelids, looking at me through the curling smoke. His face was terribly dark, his fingers gripping the glass white at the knuckles, disgust thick in his eyes. He spoke, his voice hoarse and icy cold. "You're this desperate for money?" I stood by the dimly lit doorway, the burn on my hand still throbbing dully: "Henry, as long as I can pay you back, anything is fine." "Good. Very good." Henry suddenly laughed coldly. He signaled someone nearby to bring over a briefcase. When opened, it was filled with stacks of cash. "Hudson, since you love money so much, I'll give you a chance." He tapped the ash from his cigarette, saying word by word: "Take off one piece of clothing, ten thousand dollars." I looked at that row of checks and didn't hesitate, reaching to unbutton my coat. There were several of Henry's friends in the room. The moment they saw my action, mocking laughter came from around us. Henry stared at me fixedly, veins pulsing at his temple. He seemed not to have expected me to agree so readily. The fury in his eyes nearly consumed me. "Hudson, if you're really this desperate for money, turn left when you leave—there's a red light district. Just go sell yourself directly, wouldn't that make money faster!" Aurora leaned on Henry's shoulder, laughing until she shook: "Henry, don't say that. Miss Hudson is earning money through her 'skills.'" I said nothing and continued raising my hand, my fingertips touching the collar button of the thin shirt underneath. One button, two buttons. When the shirt slid off, revealing the black bra straps underneath and my shockingly thin collarbones, the mockery on Henry's face finally couldn't hold. He suddenly stood up, grabbing my wrist that was about to continue unbuttoning. His grip was so strong it felt like he'd crush my bones. "Enough!" He roared, his voice carrying a certain agitation. "You want a divorce this badly?" He glared at me, his eyes bloodshot. "Fine, I'll grant your wish. You want to repay the money? Drink this bottle of whiskey, and I'll write off the rest of the debt. I'll sign the divorce papers tomorrow." With a "bang," he slammed an unopened bottle of strong whiskey heavily on the coffee table. Aurora paused, then looked at me with some excitement. I looked at that bottle of alcohol. My stomach was already beginning to ache faintly. The doctor said that with my stage of gastric cancer, alcohol was a death sentence. But I just nodded and reached for the bottle. "Alright. It's a deal." I pulled out the cork, tilted my head back, and poured it down my throat. The burning liquid scorched down my throat and into my stomach, burning my organs until they hurt. Henry stood there watching me, his expression shifting from anger to shock. When the bottle was half empty, he finally couldn't take it anymore and violently swept the glasses off the table. "Get out! All of you get out!" Without looking at me once, he grabbed his car keys, pulled Aurora into his arms, and rushed out of the room. The door slammed shut with a "bang." Seeing this, those rich second-generation friends also slipped out one after another. The huge private room was instantly left with only me. I still clutched the remaining half bottle of alcohol in my hand, my body sliding powerlessly onto the thick carpet. That pain was fiercer than any time before. My stomach felt like it was being ground by a meat grinder. I curled into a ball, cold sweat instantly soaking my entire body. "Urgh—" A fishy sweetness suddenly rushed up my throat. Lying on the ground, mouthfuls of fresh blood gushed from my mouth. I propped myself up, trying to get the painkillers from my pocket, but my fingers wouldn't work. My vision began to blur. Henry, I've finally returned the dignity you wanted.
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