During the company’s celebration party, Zenia Andrews, my girlfriend, declared in front of everyone that she was going to get married.

Everyone turned to look at me with teasing smiles.

“Not bad, Felix; you’re finally tying the knot with Zenia.”

However, their smiles stiffened the very next second, because Zenia announced that she was not marrying me, but her assistant. I showed no sign of anger or sadness. I just dug out a wad of cash and threw it in her face.

“Get someone else to be his bridegroom. Here’s five hundred dollars. Split it evenly between you two.”

Zenia ran over and said airily to me, “Don’t get jealous so easily! I already told you that we’re just going through the motions. He’s a foreigner and wants to get a green card. The easiest way for him to do so is by marrying me. The moment he gets it, we’ll get divorced. Then, I’ll marry you right away, okay? He even prepared a wedding gift for you to repay you!”

I just smiled as I listened to her. When she saw that I was not behaving strangely, she nodded in relief and returned to the banquet hall.

She trampled all over my love like it was worth nothing. How could I possibly let her trample all over it again?

My next reaction was to call our rival company. “We’ll do as we promised last time. I’ll bring all the core patents when I join you.”

The next morning, I entered the office building and ignored the strange looks my colleagues shot at me. Then, I saw the present John York, Zenia’s assistant, gave me on the table.

It was a small slice of strawberry cake that could be bought for fifteen dollars off the street. The strawberry that was supposed to be on top was nowhere to be seen. There was even a message seemingly written on it at the last minute. In crooked letters, it read: Congratulations on the wedding!

“My god, is this the wedding gift John is giving to Felix?”

“Enough already, guys! Stop talking about it. He’s coming.”

I threw the cake into the trashcan and did not look at it again. The moment I returned to my chair to pack up, I received a message from the company app.

It was from Zenia.

[Are you still mad about me and John? Could you stop being so petty? You’re a man, you know? It’s not as if I’m not marrying you. I’m just helping John get a green card. Otherwise, he would have to leave our country, and it’d be a major loss for us to lose such a talented person!]

Even though I did not know how an idiot whose CGPA did not hit the minimum requirement for graduation and flunked ten compulsory courses could be considered a talented person, I did not say anything.

As for Zenia, she kept spamming me with messages once she saw that I was not replying.

[Getting the marriage certificate is just a process. The moment John gets his green card, I’ll divorce him. Are you saying you can’t even trust me that much? Besides, you know that John has been working with me for a long time. I can’t bear for him to leave. I have no other choice but to do this.]

I treated all her words like white noise. Nothing she said could be trusted.

It was not as if the company would stop functioning the moment an assistant left. Why would the company president need to enter a fake marriage with him? I clearly knew that this was just an excuse Zenia was using so that she could continue being biased to John.

Out of politeness’ sake, I replied with an “okay,” only for Zenia to take advantage of the situation.

[Since you’re okay with it, something has happened to the project you helped John manage. Go handle the client follow-up. Remember not to cause any problems. Don’t smear John’s reputation on purpose!]

I sneered. It was no wonder why she had said so many things to me. It was because she wanted me to clean up John’s mess.

As for smearing his reputation…

I was originally the one in charge of communicating with the client, but when John saw how much the project was earning, how much commission it would give to whoever was in charge, and how easygoing the client was, he snatched it out of my hands.

Two days after it was taken over, a problem rose.

I just could not understand how Zenia could ask me not to smear John’s reputation when calling him a piece of trash would be praise if coming from me. John was a Cathayean who had only joined the company for a year. From the moment he passed the interview and became Zenia’s assistant, Zenia was no longer herself.

The company was in its development stage, and everyone needed to put in more effort to make it grow, but she gave up on meetings and negotiations to do all sorts of things with John. If he liked a project, it didn’t matter how much effort I had put into it, how much alcohol I had to drink during social events, or how much suffering I had to go through; it would end up in John’s hands.

The moment something went wrong, I was then pushed to the forefront to help him clean up the mess.

During the company’s annual meeting, despite not having properly managed a project to completion before, John somehow managed to become the sales champion just by stealing projects from me.

I wooed Zenia for three years and dated her for five. I did my best to take care of her and catered to her every whim when it came to her life. I poured my blood, sweat, and tears for her. I proposed to her countless times before, but all I got was that she wanted to wait a little longer.

Forget whether it was embarrassing for me or not, the preparation I needed for every proposal was a lot of work.

But in the one year John was in the company, Zenia had threatened me with a breakup almost two hundred times and kept talking about her assistant at home. Every day, no matter what she did, John was on her mind. She left the house early and returned late. She acted like she had lost her soul to John.

During this year, Zenia forgot about my birthday, our anniversary as a couple, and my parents’ death anniversary. Even though I prepared everything and just expected her to be there, something would happen to John every single time, and Zenia would immediately put everything down to look for him, all in the name of needing to treasure foreign talents like him.

These were all excuses for her to show her bias toward John.

“Come, Zenia, let’s get our marriage certificate!”

John stood beside my workplace and shouted in the direction of Zenia’s office. He did not even look at me, but there was a smile on his face.

I knew that he was boasting to me.

Zenia walked out of the office in exquisite makeup and put a stack of documents on my desk.

“Felix, have someone get this special effects revision plan ready. I’m going to check it when I’m back.”

Then, she added a USB drive to the stack before turning around to hold John’s arm.

I heard him whisper to her, “Since we’re getting married today, can I have the honor of becoming your husband for the day?”

I did not hear Zenia’s reply, but I did not want to hear it.

Once they left the company, I submitted my resignation application to the system.

HR approved of it soon enough.

Sometimes, not saying anything could also be a show of attitude.

I walked out of the company with my things and narrowed my eyes at the dazzling sun.

Was I disappointed?

Perhaps.

But more so, I felt relieved. I also found the situation a little regrettable, not for my relationship with Zenia, but for all my hard work and contribution to end up with me getting someone like this as my girlfriend.

I had lived a life of hardship with Zenia before. Back then, we had just graduated from university, and we stayed in our rental house to eat bread and drink expired milk. We dreamed ridiculous things, like becoming company presidents and eating caviar in the morning while having beef wellington for dinner.

While those days were tough, I did live happily.

When I could finally eat whatever I wanted, Zenia fell in love with a useless foreigner.

All my money ended up going into a manor in the suburbs. I had originally bought it because living and working from there would be more comfortable, and we could afford it, but in order to be closer to John, Zenia had rented a single-level apartment near the downtown area in the name of making it easier to go back and forth to work.

Zenia’s parents ended up living in the manor. As for me, I continued staying in our old rental house.

I lived alone and was with just getting by. So I put most of my things and my parents’ personal effects in the manor.

Since I no longer considered us to be a couple, it would only be right for me to reclaim all that belonged to me.

While I was on my way to the manor, I saw John’s Instagram post.

[While I can only be your husband for one day, I’ll protect you for the rest of my life!]

He also posted his wedding photo with Zenia, and the love in her eyes could be seen through the screen. I could only then remember Zenia’s indifference when she stared at me.

I laughed at myself.

She truly did not even have a single bit of love for me left.

Soon, I arrived at the entrance of the manor and pressed on the doorbell. Patrick, Zenia’s father, opened the door, and the smile on his face immediately fell. He glanced at me coolly before looking behind me before frowning.

“You didn’t bring any workers here this time. So, you didn’t buy any big furniture?”

In the past, whenever I came to the manor, I would add some new furniture to the place. One, it was to let Zenia’s parents live more comfortably. Two, I bought this manor with my own money, so there was no problem with me renovating my own place, was there?

As I looked at his aloof expression, I chose not to insult him, since he was my elder. I smiled instead. “It’s nothing. I just came here to grab my parents’ personal effects. I’m going to bring them back to my place.”

No matter what, it was not right for me to chase these two out at this moment. I needed to give them time to pack up.

Just then, Marge, Zenia’s mother, ran over with her phone in hand and a smile on her face. “Patrick, I’m telling you, the article is saying that mixed-blood children are all pretty, just difficult to raise…”

Before she finished speaking, she saw me through her glasses, and her gaze turned cold as she frowned. She mumbled under her breath, “Why is this jinx here again?”

I squashed my anger and ignored her. I pretended to not have heard her and continued saying, “Please let me in, Patrick. I’ll leave once I grab my parents’ things. They’re all pretty valuable, and I’d feel pretty worried having them around, you know?

Patrick flew into a rage. “What’s the meaning of this, Felix? My family is rich, so why would I want to take your parents’ things?! We’re busy right now, so come over in a few days!”

With that said, he slammed the door shut so hard that it nearly hit my nose.

Rage burned in my heart, and I could not calm down even after a long time passed.

I had bought this manor with my own money, and I paid for the renovations as well. In other words, these two were just living in the manor out of my good will. Why could I not enter my own manor?

But since Patrick was behaving this way, I knew that things would not end well if I tried barging in. It would be better for me to get a lawyer and deal with this.

Even so, the anger continued burning in me.

Suddenly, I remembered my parents leaving behind a pair of tortoiseshell cufflinks for me in Zenia’s company. I needed to get them back.

When I returned to the office, Zenia and John had just finished their marriage registration, and everyone was congratulating them.

Even though all of them knew that I was supposed to be her boyfriend, everyone also knew who to fawn over if they wanted to continue staying in the company. I originally did not intend to make myself look like an idiot. I just wanted to bypass this crowd, go into my office, grab the cufflinks, and leave the place. But when John brought his hand up, the cufflinks he wore attracted my attention.

I clenched my fists, and my eyes turned bloodshot.

Those were the cufflinks my parents had left for me!

Perhaps I was willing to show some respect to my elders, but to Zenia, I was not going to back down.

I rushed over, grabbed John’s arm, and brought it in front of Zenia. “What’s the meaning of this, Zenia? I told you before that my parents left these behind for me. How could you just give them away?”

John was shocked when I suddenly rushed over and hid behind Zenia. As for Zenia, she stood in front of him like a guard dog.

“Why are you suddenly throwing a tantrum, Felix? That’s rude!”

I clenched my fists and glared at John and Zenia as my gaze turned colder.

“Rude, Zenia? You gave my parents’ personal effects to your affair partner, and you’re here lecturing me about being rude?”

Just then, John jumped out.

“B-But I’m the one who married Zenia. Based on what I understand of the country’s language, affair partners are the ones who caused one side to cheat. According to the current situation, I’ve married Zenia, so you’re the affair partner!”

He then pointed at my nose and repeated loudly, “Affair! Partner!”

Those words caused me to fall silent.

The crowd gasped, as if they were praising John’s train of logic.

John immediately puffed out his chest as he stared at me.

I was livid and opened my mouth, but I did not know what to say.

When Zenia saw how John had effectively silenced me, she actually gave him a praising smile, as if making me speechless was something that made her happy.

“You should still return those cufflinks to me! My parents left those for me. Why did you give them to someone else?” I insisted.

Zenia’s eyes burned with hostility, and she said, “They’re just a pair of cufflinks and aren’t worth that much money. You just won’t let this slide, huh? Even if I crush them and throw them into the trashcan, I wouldn’t need to pay much for compensation. I don’t care about it at all. Stop acting all high-and-mighty over here when you’re just an orphan!”

Without any hesitation, Zenia took the cufflinks back from John and threw them on the floor. “I can’t believe you’d argue with me over this stupid pair of cufflinks!”

I tried to catch them, but she had thrown them too hard, so I could not save them.

I fell to the floor and watched as my cufflinks shattered to pieces. They could no longer be repaired.

Something in my heart shattered as well.

Meanwhile, as if doing this was still not enough, Zenia continued insulting me. “Just now, I received a call, and I’m already showing you respect by not yelling at you. I can’t believe that you’d act all high-and-mighty with me instead. You didn’t manage to solve the problems in the project, even now, so John got yelled at. How many times has this happened now? And to think that you’d still care about those stupid things all day. I’m telling you right now, we’re breaking up from this moment on! Leave the company now!”

I stood up and walked out while staggering. Then, I received one final message from Zenia.

[Aside from the wedding gift, you’re not getting a single thing, not even the manor or the furniture!]

As I stared at the failed message, I sighed. I was blacklisted.

I tolerated everyone, but all of them treated me like an idiot and an easy target. They kept on insulting me and taking everything that I owned.

If that were the case, there was no need for me to continue tolerating them.

Zenia… She would do well not to forget the way she humiliated me.

Because I was going to return all that humiliation tenfold.