"I don't feel like driving today. You drive." Su Yang said as he stood beside the garage.
The driver looked up from polishing the black sports car, surprised.
"Young Master, the Bugatti—"
"Take the Bentley," Su Yang cut him off. "The black one. We're not going to a party."
He didn't wait for the response. The sky was still a pale gray, and the morning breeze brushed against his face like a whisper from the past. Su Yang slid into the back seat and shut the door.
Seeing that Su Yang had already decided the driver got in as well.
"Let's go."
The engine hummed to life, low and steady. Unlike the loud roar he used to love. The noise he used to make trying to be seen, trying to gain her attention.
The city of Phoenix was already awake. Towering skyscrapers in the distance reflected the early light. While in his district rich families nestled behind high gates, the illusion of safety bought with old money and deeper secrets. Dirty little secrets and darkness hidden behind glamorous facades.
As the car rolled past familiar streets, Su Yang's gaze was distant.
Fifteen years.
It had all come crashing down in just fifteen goddamn years.
His family — the Su family — had once been one of the top giants of Phoenix City. Alongside the Luo family, their names ruled finance, politics, and was among the top four families.
Su Yang was the heir. The prince of Su. Destined to inherit it all.
And Luo Yue was his betrothed. His childhood friend. The daughter of the Luo Patriarch, elegant and untouchable. The one he had given everything to — loyalty, trust, love and even his self esteem.
But the future didn't unfold like some storybook ending. Despite his efforts to hold it all together, despite his undivided devotion.
It tore itself apart like wet paper. He believed if he loved her all with all his being he would be able to melt her frozen heart. All that felt so laughable now, he wasn't her knight. He was not the hero of her story, it was meant for someone else. He was just blind to see it. Lost in in his own delusions. He was just a pawn for her to extract all that she was able to and discarded when useless.
He remembered it clearly now. He could see all that he was blind to before.
He was just a means to an end, a curtain to hide her true romance until she could be with him openly. All the years in their marriage that slept in separate bedrooms meant to giver her space and time to get over her androphobia was so that she could stay away from me.
She used the resources and destroyed my family along with him so that he could have it all. His eyes reflected the exact moment of his death, how he lay paralyzed because of the poison she put in his food and she kissed another man right before his very eyes.He closed his eyes, and the memory surged back. That day, on this very day 15 years from now. They had been eating dinner — him, Luo Yue, and Jin Zixuan. A quiet, elegant evening in their sprawling villa. The kind of evening he used to cherish, thinking they were a family. Mid-meal, a wave of weakness swept over him. It started in his fingers, then crawled up his arms and legs like cold iron vines. He tried to lift his spoon — it clattered back into the bowl. His vision blurred. He looked at Luo Yue.Seeing this instead of calling the doctor Luo Yue got up from her seat and made herself comfortable in Jin Zixuan's lap. He was thunderstruck, the wife he believed to be androphobic was sharing a deep kiss with another man.
A kiss.
Deep. Slow. Intimate.
Their lips pressed together like they'd done it a thousand times before. No hesitation. No guilt.
Su Yang's heart shattered louder than any crash of china or thunder.
The woman he had loved — the woman he had protected all his life, the woman who had cried about her androphobia to avoid his touch — was kissing another man like she was made for him.
His voice, when it came, was a broken whisper.
"…Why?"
Luo Yue finally looked at him. Not with shock or remorse — just tired disdain.
"Why?" she repeated, her lips curling into a smile so cruel it didn't seem human. "Because I never loved you."
The words sliced through his heart like serrated glass.
"You think I was ever yours, Su Yang? You were a pawn. An idiot with a silver spoon. You thought being loyal, being devoted, was enough to melt my heart? Don't make me laugh."
She rose from Jin Zixuan's lap and walked toward him slowly, like a queen to a broken subject.
"You were useful. That's all. The Su Group? That fall wasn't an accident. It was engineered. We bought and threatened your board directors killed the loyal ones. Your trusted CFO was my informant. Every decision you thought you made — we whispered it into your ears. Every failure was our design. We even killed you father in that car crash."
Su Yang's lips trembled. And his eyes wept. Even his father. What sin did he commit to suffer such a betrayal.
He could hardly breathe.
"And your sister…" Luo Yue said it with a voice so calm it was nauseating. "Ah, poor little Su Rouxi. She always suspected something, didn't she? So we had to deal with her too."
Jin Zixuan laughed behind her.
"She got close and we had her kidnapped and raped."
Su Yang's world spun. His mind went blank.
"She begged," Luo Yue whispered. "For mercy. For help. She screamed your name in the dark."
Despite his weakness he tried to get up. He held the knife in his hand tightly and wanted to do nothing more than stick in her eye and into her brain.
"She died alone. Broken. Just like you're about to."
She crouched in front of him, stroking his face gently.
"We poisoned you . And I kissed him because I wanted that to be the last thing you ever saw — the truth you were too blind to see all along."
His as anger had reached a fever pitch his his sister was his reverse scale and he was her sinner, a failure of a brother who couldn't protect her. But his knees gave way. His body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Darkness crawled at the edges of his vision.
That was the last thing he saw.
Her lips on another man's mouth.
The truth finally laid bare.
And death, quiet and waiting. But the last thing on his mind was how he had failed his sister. He was angry and guilty. He prayed to all the Gods out there to give him just enought strength to kill these motherfucking sons of bitches but his body had no stength left so he turned to the devil for a second chance.
Su Yang's hand clenched the leather seat. And tear drop rolled down his face.
His driver glanced at the rearview mirror. "Young Master?"
"I'm fine."
His tone left no room for questions.
They were getting close to the school now. Phoenix No. 1 High.
It looked exactly the same — from the neatly trimmed hedges to the pretentious European-style arches. It was where the elite sent their spawn.
He would walk through those gates again.
But this time, he knew the script.
This time, he would rewrite it.
As the car slowed down in front of the school, Su Yang's eyes lingered on a girl waiting by the side gate.
A petite figure, long black hair tied into a simple ponytail. She wore a plain uniform, no makeup, and carried a thick chemistry textbook to her chest like it was a shield.
His heart tightened.
Su Ruoxi.
His little sister. His angel.
Alive. Whole. Smiling.
She hadn't seen him yet.
Tears stung his eyes.
She had suffered the most.
He had failed her once.
He wouldn't again. Anyone who dares to lay a hand on her will his arm ripped out.
The driver opened the door.
Su Yang stepped out, his steps hurried, eager to hug her. Make sure she was real and not a figment of his imagination.
The morning sun had finally risen.
And in its light…
A villain returned to school.