Rumor: A cold madness
The message arrived through an encrypted channel—concise, yet like a blade tempered in ice, piercing the numbest corner of my heart with precision. "A marriage alliance between the Ai and Li families is imminent. Match: Li Zhe. Condition: Li family channels will support 'Prometheus.'"
At that moment, I was adjusting a new fragrance, trying to capture the breath of light on pine needles after the first thaw of winter snow. My fingers trembled; the expensive essence fell onto the testing strip, blooming into a messy stain.
Marriage. Li Zhe. Ha. A perfect solution, isn't it? For her, for Ai. Use a Beta, a socially matched marriage, to buy the family some air, to steady a faltering enterprise. Clean, decisive—true to her style: solve the problem, then return to her "freedom."
And me? What am I?
That love she discarded like worn-out shoes, the mark left after she lost control during her heat, the revenge I nurtured day and night with hatred—were all these, in her eyes, nothing but trivial errors that a "marriage" could simply cover over?
My heart clenched as if gripped by an invisible hand. After the suffocating pain came a wildfire of rage, and a coldness bordering on annihilation. Emma, you want to rid yourself of me this way, erase the past? Don't even think about it.
Arrangement: A gentle lingchi
I did not act immediately. Anger is inefficient; I needed absolute calm.
I watched her begin to appear alongside Li Zhe, watched the media's "ideal match" narratives, watched the flawless mask of the Ai president settle on her face. I could even picture her at those banquets, playing the fortunate Alpha bride-to-be with effortless grace.
Each frame replayed in my mind like slow motion; each time it sprinkled salt and poured ice over wounds that had never healed.
I accelerated the Nirvana plan. My strikes against Prometheus grew precise and ruthless. I would make her and her Ai understand: beyond the choice I offered, there was no other path.
At the same time, I drafted the marriage contract myself. Terms harsh to the point of humiliation—equity, loyalty, heirs. I stripped away every escape and illusion. This wasn't a cooperation agreement; it was my declaration of war, the only "exit" I would allow her, the strongest chain to bind her to me.
I waited for the moment—the one that would drive her and the Ai behind her into absolute desperation.
Showdown: The final checkmate
The moment came quickly. As the Ai–Li engagement rumors swelled and Ai's stock price caught a brief breath, I delivered the fatal blow to Prometheus.
Then I appeared in Emma's office.
No appointment—an intrusion. She sat behind the broad desk, fatigue etched into her face from days of strain, and… a hint—perhaps even unnoticed by herself—of numbness toward the "stability" to come.
When she saw me, numbness snapped into vigilance, edged by panic. "Mr. Gu, to what do I owe the honor?" She tried to arm herself with coldness.
My gaze slid past her and landed on the glaring engagement action plan on the desk. My lips curved into the faintest, coldest arc. "I hear you're getting engaged? Congratulations."
Her face went a shade paler; her lips pressed tight.
I had no patience left for pretense. I tossed the prepared marriage contract before her as if throwing out trash. "Sign it." My voice was level, but absolute. "Then announce to the world that the person you're marrying is me."
She stared, incredulous—at me, then at the contract—as though hearing pure lunacy. "You're insane!" She shot to her feet, her voice sharpened by shock and fury. "Gu Liang, what do you want?! Isn't revenge enough? Must you humiliate me like this?!"
Humiliate?
I looked at her—the woman who once ground my sincerity into the dirt—and felt only a frozen wasteland inside. "How could this be humiliation?" I stepped in, closing the space, my gaze like a blade stripping away her feigned composure. "I'm giving you—and Ai—a better choice."
Word by word, I laid out the "pros and cons," dressing naked coercion as a "fair" transaction. Each syllable was a knife I had honed myself, cutting her dignity, and cutting into my own heart already riddled with wounds.
When I finally said, "Marry me, and you won't have to betray your 'heart'—won't have to marry a Beta you don't love. Isn't this what you always wanted? 'Freedom'?"—I saw the light in her eyes fracture, terror flooding in.
"Freedom," from my mouth, was the cruelest irony.
I knew then—I had won. I used what she valued most to drive her into the dead end I had designed.
I watched her sink back into her chair, watched her fingers tremble as they took up the pen, watched the tip score lines of humiliation and despair across the contract that would decide our future fate.
The expected thrill did not come. Only a heavy, cold exhaustion, and a numbness as though I stood outside myself.
When she signed her name, it was as if all strength drained out of her.
I took the contract, checked it, slipped it into my pocket. "The wedding is next month. I'll have everything prepared."
I turned and left without looking back.
I knew that behind me, the Alpha who once shone so brightly now sat collapsed amid the rubble of power and the shackles of marriage. And I, in the most brutal way, had dragged her back into my hell.
The door closed behind me, sealing two worlds apart. I stood in the empty corridor, fingertips cold.
This war, born of her "weariness," had reached a twisted pause.
I bound her to me—with hatred, with interest, with a marriage contract.
Yet why does my chest still feel hollow, devoid of warmth?
Is this victory—or the beginning of another, longer agony?
I do not know. I only know that from the moment she signed her name, our entanglement will last until death.