Lost and Found

Barely had I stepped through our front door when an anonymous text message pinged on my phone.

【Boss, I just managed to snap a whole series of photos of Mr. Julian and Ms. S checking into a hotel room together. Do I get a massive bonus for this shipment?】*

Trembling violently, I tapped open the attached image files.

It was undeniably Julian and Vivienne.

Though both of them remained fully dressed.

The visual confirmation of them entering the exact same hotel room hit like a physical blow.

Julian, how could you possibly sink this low and do this to me!

The previous batches of photos had all been meticulously engineered framing jobs executed by the private investigators I hired.

Clever camera angles had made them appear ambiguously intimate.

Yet I had always known those were fabrications.

Today, however, was fundamentally different—this was the raw, unadulterated truth.

Stubbornly, I dialed Julian’s number over and over, desperately clinging to a fragile shred of hope that it was all an elaborate misunderstanding and he would offer an explanation.

Yet from afternoon extending deep into the dead of night, the phone rang until battery failure without a single pickup, and text messages met with total radio silence.

The last lingering spark of hope was personally crushed under his boot.

I wept until my tear ducts ran dry, crying until exhaustion dragged me down into unconsciousness.

Until a wave of heavy alcohol stench violently ripped me back to wakefulness.

It couldn’t even be categorized as a kiss; it was a brutal, carnivorous tearing.

Fueled by toxic rage, Julian tore my clothes apart, his heavy hands pinning my body down with savage force.

Agony radiated across every inch of my frame.

My lips bled, my skin burned with friction.

I fought back with every ounce of remaining strength, thrashing wildly to no avail.

“Julian, have you lost your mind?!”*

“Ask yourself that!”*

“Husband and wife need to have children, don’t we need to put in some serious effort!”*

He descended upon my body in a frenzy of predatory violation.

The mere thought that mere hours ago he had been entwined with another woman sent wave after wave of intense physical revulsion surging upward.

Drawing on a desperate surge of adrenaline, I kicked out hard, slamming my heel directly into his healing injury. As he hissed in sharp pain, I swung my arm and landed a resounding, vicious slap straight across his face.

“Get the hell away from me, don’t you dare touch me!”*

Julian froze, pulling back slowly. The trace of animalistic lust in his eyes had completely vanished.

He calmly raised a hand to wipe away the fresh blood seeping from the corner of his split lip.

“I actually thought you were capable of enduring a bit longer. Turns out you cracked right here.”*

Julian slumped unceremoniously to the floor, his back resting limply against the edge of the mattress as he panted heavily.

“The second I saw those photographs, I knew you were up to your old tricks again.”*

“I just never expected you’d be vicious enough to use this exact stunt to pave the way for Leo.”*

“In your heart, is that bastard really that important?”*

“He’s my friend. Trusting him—what’s wrong with that?”*

“You trust him, yet you refuse to give me even an ounce of trust!”*

Julian looked utterly shattered, struck by an overwhelming catastrophe: “Clara Song, you truly know how to drive a blade straight through my heart.”*

“And what about you, Julian? Given everything you and Vivienne pulled, how on earth expect me to trust you?”*

Julian closed his eyes wearily, letting out a long, heavy sigh.

“Vivienne is merely an assistant to me, nothing more and nothing less. But apart from you, not a single soul ever suspected anything between us.”*

“What are you implying?”*

“I’m implying —— Vivienne and I were putting on a theatrical performance for you from start to finish.”*

“Ever since the accident, you’ve grown increasingly consumed by corporate affairs. True, I orchestrated all of it, but Clara, I felt terror too; I experienced panic, I struggled with internal demons.”*

“You frequently vanished for weeks on end without returning home. I watched you grow sharper and more brilliant by the day, watched you secure major contracts, watched you surrounded by capable, healthy men… Naturally, I grew deeply insecure.”*

“During that period, I forced this broken body of mine to endure from dawn till dark every single day, then quietly comforted myself in the shadows by whispering —— my wife is simply busy working.”*

“Clara, can you even begin to comprehend the agony I went through?”*

“You were in agony, so you dragged Vivienne out to torment and provoke me?!”*

I found myself utterly incapable of comprehending his warped logic, feeling only a profound sense of disgust.

“Did you ever pause to consider my torment from morning till night? Do you have any idea how much your stubborn refusal to answer calls or reply to messages drove me to the brink of collapse?!”*

“Julian, you claim you and Vivienne were just acting, but what about her? Do you dare swear she didn’t harbor genuine romantic feelings for you?”*

“Of course I knew Vivienne liked me. After all, a girl like that wears every single emotion plastered across her face.”*

Julian’s eyes retained zero remorse, gleaming entirely with cold, calculated pragmatism.

“Precisely because she genuinely fancied me, she was easy to manipulate and capable of pulling the wool over your eyes. After all, my wife is exceptionally intelligent.”*

Hearing those words sent a shiver of pure horror crawling down my spine.

“Yet Julian, that was entirely one-sided rhetoric from you. If you had wanted to, everything this afternoon could easily have materialized into reality.”*

“You admitted you sent people to track her, so why intentionally stage this whole farce just to push me over the edge?”*

“To verify if I care about you? There were countless superior methods available, why did you have to pick the most vicious one?”*

“Or to put it differently, was today merely a loyalty test? Wanting to expose my greed, testing my threshold of tolerance, so you could subsequently elevate your leverage of control over me, correct?”*

“Clara Song, must you use such venomous language to humiliate me?”*

“Because you, Julian, are entirely capable of it.”*

I reiterated every single syllable: “As long as you desire it, there is nothing in this world you won’t stoop to do.”*

Julian’s eyelids flushed crimson as he gazed up at me with overwhelming grief: “Clara, Vivienne and I are completely innocent.”*

“That hotel this afternoon is where her grandmother resides. Knowing you had people tailing me, I deliberately fed you that trail, but we honestly didn’t do anything.”*

“After exiting through the back door, I went straight to the equestrian club. I wanted to see just how deeply aggrieved you were, since you only dared to ride horses alone through the dead of night.”*

“If you don’t believe me, the club staff can verify my timeline.”*

“Clara, we are husband and wife—must you tear this family apart over a nobody like Vivienne?”*

Tears choked my throat as I wept openly.

“Yes, Vivienne is a trivial nobody, but your attitude is what matters most.”*

“You knew full well it would break my heart, cause me agony, and tear me apart—yet you still chose to do it anyway.”*

“Julian, you stood on high watching me suffer, then turned around to blame me for driving you into isolation. You are far too cruel.”*

“I’m exhausted. I can’t play games with you anymore, I admit defeat, I don’t want to fight for anything else.”*

“I want a divorce!”*