Chapter 1

The night before the engagement banquet, my fiancée’s childhood friend said he had prepared a surprise for the groom-to-be.

He tricked me up to the rooftop glass conservatory of the hotel, locked the door from the outside, and turned on every sprinkler.

On a rainy night in December, ice-cold water slammed down from above.

The conservatory was surrounded by transparent glass on all sides, and the guests downstairs held up their phones to watch me shiver miserably inside.

He smiled with vicious delight.

“Isn’t Jiang Yanzhou the best at pretending to be calm?”

“Tonight, let everyone see what a man who clawed his way up from some backwater place looks like when he’s frozen into begging for mercy!”

My fiancée, Shen Mingtang, wore a white evening gown and a cashmere coat.

She stood behind the curtain of rain and looked at me without the slightest worry.

She only frowned a little and said flatly, “Let him suffer a little. That’ll keep him from thinking that just because he has my family backing him, he can really stand on equal footing with us.”

Later, I smashed the glass and came down from the roof.

Blood ran down my legs and arms, and after I wiped the rain off my face, I called my lawyer.

“Notify the board. Pull the investment, freeze the accounts, and stop all of the Shen Group’s project payments for tomorrow morning.”

“Send tonight’s video to the police.”

“Illegal detention, intentional injury, invasion of privacy—don’t leave a single one out.”

The door of the glass conservatory was locked from the outside.

There were transparent walls on all four sides.

The white lights overhead were blinding, and the rain mixed with the sprinkler water, like countless ice needles stabbing densely into my skin.

I reached out and yanked at the door handle, but it wouldn’t open.

An electronic lock hung outside, and its screen glowed with a cold red light.

The rooftop terrace downstairs was packed with people holding champagne and wearing expensive formal clothes, like they were watching an impromptu encore performance.

Some were laughing, some were whistling, and some held their phones high, pointing the cameras at my face, which was soaked through.

“This is an exciting show!”

“The Shen heiress’s engagement eve really is different.”

“The groom-to-be locked on the roof and left out in the rain—what kind of rich-family test is this?”

“Didn’t Young Master Lu say it already? It’s a test to see if he’s worthy of entering the Shen family.”

One mocking remark after another drilled into my ears through the sound of rain.

My fingers were stiff with cold as I clung to the door handle, the metal edge scraping my palm raw with pain.

Lu Wenchuan stood outside the door in a dark gray suit, holding a black umbrella.

His features were handsome and refined, and his manner was gentle.

If not for the remote control in his hand, anyone would have taken him for a decent, polite man.

He waved the remote at me and said with a smile, “Brother Yanzhou, don’t look at me like that. Everyone just wants to see how much you really love Mingtang.”

Another burst of laughter erupted from the terrace.

I lifted a hand and wiped the water off my face, my voice trembling from the cold.

“Lu Wenchuan, open the door!”

He tilted his head.

“But the game has only just started.”

“We made a bet to see how long you can hold out before begging for mercy.”

He took a step closer and looked at me through the glass.

“Weren’t you always very good at enduring?”

“You came from a small place and climbed all the way to where you are now on your own. So inspiring.”

“Then prove it to us. Prove that you deserve to be part of the Shen family!”

I looked at his clean, mild face, and my heart sank little by little.

Tonight was the eve of my engagement banquet with Shen Mingtang.

The Shen family had rented out the entire mountain-top hotel, and tomorrow morning the media, business partners, and relatives would all be there.

Shen Mingtang said I had stayed with her through Shen Group’s hardest three years, and had walked with her from the daughter of the Shen family, doubted by the board, to the person who truly held the reins of the company today.

All of this was the respect I deserved.

For this engagement banquet, I had pushed aside overseas project meetings, personally confirmed every funding arrangement, and helped her fend off the trouble caused by several of the Shen family’s uncles and elders.

But now, the woman I loved was standing right there in the center of the terrace downstairs.

She didn’t come up, and she didn’t tell anyone to open the door.

She just stood in the warm, bright light, coldly watching me shiver in the glass conservatory under the icy water.

I shouted to her through the glass, “Shen Mingtang! Have him open the door!”

I thought at the very least she would frown.

But she only accepted the hot tea handed to her by a server with unhurried grace, her tone flat.

“Yanzhou, Wenchuan just likes to have fun.”

“You’re more mature than he is, and you’re steadier too. Don’t make a fuss with him.”