The CEO's Despised Wife is a Gossip God

Chapter 1 The Bloody Contract

The rain did not just fall; it battered against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Lu family mansion like a swarm of angry fists. But the storm outside was nothing compared to the freezing abyss inside my chest.

I was kneeling on the imported Persian rug, the rough fibers digging into my bare knees. Blood trickled down my forehead, blinding my left eye, dripping a steady, morbid rhythm onto the pristine white marble floor.

"Sign it, Su Yan," a voice commanded.

It was a voice that had haunted my dreams and dictated my waking hours for three agonizing years. Lu Chen. Billionaire CEO of the Lu Corporation, the most powerful man in Jingcheng, and my husband.

I looked up through the haze of my own blood. He stood towering over me, a bespoke Italian suit hugging his broad shoulders, his handsome face carved from an iceberg. There was no pity in his dark, obsidian eyes. Only immense, suffocating disgust.

He threw a stack of papers at my face. The sharp edge of the thick stock paper sliced across my cheek. Divorce Agreement.

"You've dragged this out long enough," Lu Chen sneered, adjusting his diamond cufflinks.

"Wan'er needs a liver transplant. Yours is a match.

Sign the divorce papers, donate the lobe, and I'll give you a severance package large enough to keep a pathetic country bumpkin like you fed for ten lifetimes. "

Behind him, clinging to his arm like a fragile, wilting lotus flower, was Lin Wan. The untouchable "white moonlight." The woman he had loved since childhood. The woman whose place I had supposedly stolen by marrying him to fulfill his dying grandfather's wish.

Lin Wan coughed weakly into a lace handkerchief, her eyes brimming with crocodile tears.

"Brother Chen, don't be so harsh to Yan-yan.

She didn't mean to push me down the stairs.

I'm sure she just... she just hates me because you love me.

" She let out a pathetic sob, burying her face in his chest.

I pushed her?

A hysterical, broken laugh escaped my throat. I coughed, spitting a wad of blood onto the divorce papers.

"I didn't push her!" I screamed, my voice raw and entirely stripped of its former subservient sweetness. "She threw herself backward! She's not even sick, Lu Chen! I saw her medical reports! She bribed the doctor—"

SMACK!

My head snapped violently to the side. The stinging pain on my cheek was instantaneous, but the ringing in my ears was worse.

Lu Chen had slapped me. The man I had cooked for every night, the man I had stayed up waiting for until 3 AM, the man I had endured endless humiliation from his high-society friends for—had struck me to silence me.

"Shut your mouth," Lu Chen hissed, his voice dropping to a demonic register. "Do not slander Wan'er. She is pure, while you are nothing but a scheming, greedy rat who used my grandfather to crawl into my bed."

He gripped my jaw, his fingers digging into my bruises. "Sign the paper. Or I will personally see to it that your adoptive parents' bakery is bulldozed to the ground tomorrow morning."

My heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces.

The utter futility of my love for him crushed my lungs.

For three years, I had endured the gossip.

The useless Mrs. Lu. The uneducated beggar.

The placeholder. I thought my warmth could eventually melt his icy exterior.

I was a fool. A massive, irredeemable fool.

"Brother Chen," Lin Wan whispered, stepping forward. She knelt beside me, her sweet perfume making me nauseous. Under the guise of comforting me, she leaned her lips right next to my ear.

Only I could hear her venomous whisper: "Did you really think a street rat could become a phoenix? He's mine. He always has been. And by the way, those brakes on your adoptive parents' delivery van? I had them cut."

My eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated horror. "What did you say?"

"Oops," Lin Wan said aloud, suddenly jerking backward violently, though I hadn't moved a muscle. "Ah!"

She tumbled backward toward the top of the grand staircase.

"Wan'er!" Lu Chen roared. He lunged forward to catch her, but in his blind panic, his heavy leather shoe kicked squarely into my chest.

The force sent me sliding across the polished floor. I reached out, my fingers grasping at empty air, but there was nothing to hold onto.

I tipped backward over the edge of the stairs.

Time seemed to slow down. I saw Lu Chen holding Lin Wan safely in his arms, his back turned to me. He didn't even look back as I fell.

Thud. Crack. Smash.

My body violently collided with the marble steps, tumbling down, down, down. Agony exploded in my spine, my ribs, my skull. When I finally hit the bottom, I couldn't breathe. A massive pool of crimson was already spreading beneath my head, staining the white floorboards.

My vision faded to black. The last thing I felt was a suffocating wave of hatred.

If there is a next life... I will tear off your perfect masks. I will make you all pay.