Ethan's gaze slowly drifted from Wesley Wang, finally settling on Sarah Su, who stood resplendent in her snow-white wedding gown.
His eyes were wide with a fractured, agonizing disbelief.
"You're actually marrying him?" Ethan's voice cracked, rising in a crescendo of uncontrollable fury. "This bastard... he violated you!"
Hearing this, Sarah didn't show a flicker of shame. Instead, she let out a sharp, derisive snort.
Her face was a mask of supreme disdain as she mocked him, "What would a broke loser from the countryside like you know? I was just looking for a bit of excitement!"
Standing beside her, Wesley erupted into a fit of manic, arrogant laughter.
He pointed a finger at Ethan, his voice dripping with venomous amusement. "You pathetic waste. While you were rotting away, we were playing like that every single day. If you want, I can show you the recordings so you can get an eyeful!"
To drive the point home, Wesley reached out in front of Ethan and unceremoniously slapped Sarah's backside.
Sarah didn't flinch; instead, she writhed her body provocatively, pressing herself softly against Wesley.
Her voice was a sickening, honeyed coo. "Young Master Wesley, what are you saying? I only perform for you. Why would a loser like him be worthy of watching?"
Witnessing the utter depravity of the pair, the shock in Ethan's eyes was slowly replaced by a cold, abyssal disappointment. "Sarah Su... I never imagined you were such a shameless woman." Ethan took a deep breath, his voice turning as sharp as a winter frost.
"Three years ago, I must have been truly blind to ever think of marrying you."
"Don't flatter yourself!" Jessie Xu, standing nearby, rolled her eyes and chimed in with a snide, high-pitched sneer.
"If you hadn't stuck your nose in back then, Sarah would have been the Young Mistress of the Wang family long ago!"
Sarah, seemingly unsatisfied with the level of insult, lifted her chin high.
She finally tore away the last shred of her disguise, dropping a bombshell with triumphant glee: "To tell you the truth, Ethan—your imprisonment three years ago? I was the one who set the whole thing up!"
BOOM!
The words struck Ethan's mind like a thunderclap.
The three years of lightless, brutal suffering behind bars—every single day of that living hell—had been a gift from the very woman he had planned to spend the rest of his life with!
"Good... good! So that's how it is!" Ethan let out a sharp, angry laugh.
His eyes narrowed, and a sliver of the suffocating authority belonging to the Supreme Lord of the Dragon Temple began to radiate from his frame. "I will make sure you both pay the ultimate price!"
Faced with Ethan's burgeoning wrath, Sarah remained completely unfazed.
She reacted as if she had heard the world's most ridiculous joke. "Three years, and you still haven't fixed that bragging habit of yours! You're a common convict.
How exactly do you plan to fight Young Master Wesley?"
Wesley stepped forward with an arrogant swagger, his eyes gleaming with a murderous intent. "Listen, Ye. You've got some spine. But three years clearly wasn't enough.
Believe me, with one word, I can make sure you go back inside for the rest of your miserable life!"
"Is that so?" Ethan slowly clenched his fists, his knuckles letting out a series of crisp, explosive pops.
He began to advance, step by agonizing step, his entire being radiating a soul-crushing pressure. "Go ahead and try!"
Just as the tension reached a breaking point, a raspy, trembling voice drifted from the distance.
"Ethan? Is that you... have you come home?"
That voice, familiar to the very marrow of his bones, caused Ethan to shudder violently. He whipped his head around, searching for the source.
There, in a dusty corner on the outskirts of the Imperial Residence, was a woman dressed in a faded janitor's uniform.
Her back was hunched as she scavenged through the trash on the ground. Her face was a map of exhaustion and weathered sorrow, and as she looked up, her eyes filled with an ocean of disbelieving, joyful tears.
Ethan's eyes turned a brilliant, stinging red. Every ounce of murderous intent and rage vanished, replaced by a deep, hollow ache in his chest.
"Mom!"