THE MISSING EX-BOYFRIEND AND THE SWEET REVENGE

In the end, Arthur booted Julian straight out the door. I took the liberty of deleting his fingerprint unlock permissions too.

He stood there like a fool downstairs the entire night. A heavy rainstorm poured down that night, of all nights. Julian was soaked through from head to toe, looking miserable and pathetically lovesick.

But in my eyes, all I felt was revulsion. Thinking of how the body that had once touched me had also wrapped itself around Celeste, my stomach turned all over again.

That night, I asked Arthur to carry me over to the window. The streetlight outside filtered through the thin curtain, casting our tangled silhouette onto the fabric. At the height of it, Arthur bit lightly at my shoulder, his gaze cutting through the gap in the curtain to look down at the street below.

“Looks like he’s about to lose his mind down there.”

“Let him lose it.”

Arthur shuddered slightly. “Evelyn, I’m so happy right now.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’ve been waiting for this day for a very long time.”

Julian genuinely did lose his mind. He called incessantly, an outright nuisance, even pounded on the door loudly. In the end, I called the police directly to handle it, and only then did he finally shut up.

The next day, yesterday’s livestream footage exploded across the internet, thanks to none other than Celeste. Engagement had originally been fairly modest, but because she’d had the nerve to insult the entire internet as “nothing but ordinary salaried workers,” Miss Celeste was immediately dragged under the microscope by netizens. Her family background and private life got picked apart down to the last corner.

The moment the Celeste family’s company scrambled to launch a PR damage-control campaign, someone immediately dropped iron-clad evidence that Celeste and Julian had been having an affair.

The video was crystal clear: a drunk Julian being helped along by Celeste. He teased playfully, “How about I stay over in your room tonight, hm? Not scared?”

Celeste shot him a sidelong glance. “Known each other how many years now, who’d be scared of you?”

“Tch, your nerve’s pretty big, then.”

“If you’ve got the guts, let’s see who begs for mercy first later.”

The two of them, bickering back and forth, walked hand in hand into a hotel room together…

At that point, the video abruptly cut off, but everyone understood implicitly what came next. Aside from the two leads, the voices of whoever had been filming had all been distorted, but I knew perfectly well it was their own close-knit circle of friends. Because besides that group, no one else would have had the chance to film from such close range.

That day had been Celeste’s birthday; Arthur had been busy and hadn’t attended. Besides him, that left only the other two young men. That circle of friends, seemingly so tight-knit, had in fact long since been riddled underneath with every kind of selfishness and internal conflict.

Once the affair scandal broke, the cheating couple was thrust straight into the eye of the storm. Julian’s family’s fashion company saw customers turning their backs en masse, returns pouring in, losses mounting severely.

In the middle of all this chaos, Julian pulled an especially despicable move: he dumped the entirety of the blame onto Celeste, trying to scrub himself clean.

It turned out the whole “fake disappearance” idea had been Celeste’s instigation, and the affair had also been her doing, luring him in. Julian even released a stack of screenshotted messages as evidence.

Celeste had once sent him lingerie photos at midnight, asking whether the set looked good on her.

That final blow sent the wave of public outrage to its absolute peak. Celeste was buried under a barrage of insults from netizens, unable to lift her head, and even her family’s restaurant started getting harassed relentlessly.

Celeste completely panicked. She called around trying to explain herself everywhere: “We’ve known each other since we were kids, to him I’m just one of the guys, there was absolutely no deliberate scheming or luring involved!”

Little did she know, that explanation only made netizens more furious: “Disgusting, honestly. If you slept with him, own up to it, don’t hide behind this whole ‘wholesome friendship’ act.”

Celeste lost her job, and with nowhere else to turn, she ran to cling to Arthur.

The day she showed up at his door, I happened to be there too. Looking through the doorbell camera at Celeste’s haggard, worn-down face, Arthur didn’t even spare her a glance, turning instead to ask my opinion: “Want to see her? See what she’s up to.”

“Sure, let’s hear what she’s got to bark about.”

I stepped back into another room to give them space. Even though the soundproofing was decent, bits and pieces still reached my ears.

Celeste sobbed. “Arthur, you’re the only one who can save me right now!”

Arthur, indifferent: “Save you how?”

“I know you and Evelyn are together now…”

“Mm.”

“You and her are probably just fooling around for fun, right? Your family background is so good, why would you actually care about some ordinary girl like her?”

“What exactly makes someone an ‘ordinary girl’?” Arthur cut in coldly. “We’re all just mortals at the end of the day, Celeste. Things have come to this and you’re still acting all high and mighty?”

Celeste choked, not daring to argue back. “Look, all you have to do is come forward and say this whole thing was Evelyn scheming on her own to have it both ways. Once it’s done, I’ll introduce you to some gorgeous girls, way better than her.”

Arthur let out a scornful laugh. “Are you dreaming?”

Celeste grew anxious. “Aren’t we close friends!”

“Without Evelyn, who the hell would want to be friends with you.”

“Wh-what?”

“Didn’t understand that? Let me put it more plainly then — the entire reason I joined your fake little circle of friends from the very start was because of Evelyn, and Evelyn alone.”

This time, it wasn’t just Celeste who was stunned — even I, standing in the other room, froze completely.

Arthur went on, unhurried: “I noticed Evelyn back in freshman year of university. Unfortunately, before I ever got the chance to learn her name or how to reach her, she’d already become a couple with Julian.”

Celeste’s eyes went wide. “You… you joined our group because…”

“That’s right. To find an opening, to stir up trouble.”

“Are… are you out of your mind? They’ve been together for two years!”

“And I’ve waited two years too.” Arthur smiled, full of pride. “Effort doesn’t betray you. This opportunity — I finally got the chance I’d been waiting for.”

“So the reason you agreed to help cover for Julian was also…”

Arthur nodded. “On the surface, it was to repay a debt. But underneath, from the very starting line, I already had my own plan in motion.”

In this whole elaborate performance, everyone had their own agenda. Only Arthur had held his cards close, hiding it perfectly, all the way to the very end.

Celeste’s face went white as paper. “Arthur, your scheming runs way too deep!”

“I’m flattered.”

Celeste left in utter humiliation. I crossed my arms and looked at Arthur. “Impressive. You even hid it from me that thoroughly.”

“If I hadn’t, how else would I have ‘climbed the ladder’?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Arthur laughed bitterly. “On the surface I was Julian’s good friend — if I’d shown my hand too soon, you’d never have so much as glanced at me. So I had no choice but to play the villain. I deliberately lured you in, let you change your affections toward me, and let myself take on every bit of the blame for it.”

Arthur had, in this way, walked his way properly and legitimately into my life under the guise of the guilt-ridden atoner, taking care of me piece by piece, subtly — or not so subtly — showing off his flawless physique… step by step, quietly claiming my heart for himself.

“What if your final plan had failed?” I asked.

“Then so be it.” Arthur smiled gently. “At the very least, during the time you were hurting the most, I got to be by your side. That would have been enough.”

Celeste, having lost everything, her reputation in ruins, was forced to flee the city in disgrace. Her family’s business went into freefall, their capital sinking without a trace. There was no longer any road left for her to walk as an arrogant, high-society young lady.

Still, I felt I hadn’t quite gotten my fill of satisfaction. Clearly, the crime had been committed by two people together — so on what grounds was Julian getting off scot-free?

I had no dirt on him in my own hands, but I was certain someone else did. That close-knit circle of friends who’d run wild with him surely held onto plenty of secrets.

So I immediately logged onto Celeste’s social media and sent her an anonymous message:

【Hey~~ It’s clearly that trash man’s fault~~ Why should you be the only one taking the blame, hm~~ Don’t let him off the hook! I’m rooting for you all the way~~】

Hmph, who doesn’t know how to play the “sweet little snake” card these days?

Just as I’d expected, Celeste, cornered with nowhere left to turn, would grab at any straw and bite down on it viciously. She started dropping a whole series of evidence, exposing Julian for bullying a classmate back in high school.

Back then, Julian had once broken a fellow student’s arm over some petty dispute, and his family had thrown out several hundred thousand to bury the whole incident. And yet, that very same year, Julian had still been voted an outstanding student.

At first, these revelations weren’t enough to stir up much of a storm. But as bad luck would have it, Julian’s family’s fashion company was in the middle of a fierce trade war with a competitor. The moment that rival caught sight of this dirt, it was like finding a cool mat in the middle of summer — they immediately poured money into pushing the hashtag straight to the top of search trends.

And just like that, Julian’s mask of the “perfect young heir” shattered into pieces.