Chapter 3: The White Moonlight

To avoid Jiang Yanshi, I ran all the way to Lucerne. I never expected to run into Su Yan—the woman Jiang’s parents called his “white moonlight.”

As it turned out, we were old friends.

The moment she saw me, she looked surprised.

“I heard you married Jiang Yanshi?”

“We’re divorced.”

She visibly relaxed. “Thank God. A man like him… who could put up with that?”

Apparently, the legendary “locking his heart away” was nothing more than Jiang Yanshi refusing every blind date that came his way.

I immediately put on my best performance and lied to Su Yan without blinking.

“You know how it is… I married him when he was disabled. That kind of thing affected the marriage too.”

Su Yan froze, then nodded sympathetically.

But I noticed her fingers flying across her phone at lightning speed.

For some reason, I had a very bad feeling about it.

Sure enough, the moment I returned to my hotel, a chill crept up the back of my neck.

A familiar voice sounded behind me.

“Lin Xiyue… How does it feel, going around telling everyone I’m useless? Having fun?”

I turned around, inwardly marveling at the sheer amount of drama that came with being rich.

Jiang Yanshi stood there with his arms crossed, wearing a smile that wasn’t quite a smile.

“My disability is in my legs,” he said casually. “But have I ever failed to satisfy you?”

The memories came rushing back, and heat spread across my face.

Still, I forced myself to raise an eyebrow.

“You’re paying this much attention to me. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with me?”

“Yes.”

His answer was immediate.

I froze.

Every sarcastic remark I’d been about to make died in my throat.

A year after our divorce, the man who once claimed he hated me to the bone was standing right in front of me, calmly telling me he loved me?

I decided to remind him.

“Let me refresh your memory. ‘Sooner or later, I’m divorcing you.’ ‘Don’t flatter yourself into thinking I like you.’ ‘I’m going to kill you.’”

I looked him straight in the eye.

“If you hated me that much, then stop coming after me.”

After that day, Jiang Yanshi seemed to become an entirely different person.

He launched an all-out pursuit that drove me crazy.

Every day brought a new gift, accompanied by the most ridiculous excuses.

“To commemorate the fact that you ate breakfast.”

“To commemorate the beautiful weather.”

I blocked his number.

He started writing me handwritten letters.

Wherever I went, he somehow managed to move into the building across from me.

A man who had once been consumed by hatred suddenly switched to full-on devotion—learning how to cook, asking me out for walks, inviting me to the movies…

His persistence slowly began to shake my resolve.

But the obsessive part of me remained on guard.

I thought about it so much that I ended up getting sick.

Jiang Yanshi seemed almost delighted by the opportunity.

He went into the kitchen, made me porridge, and patiently fed me spoonful by spoonful.

I turned my face away.

“I’m not eating.”

I hated bland things.

I liked extremes.

If you loved someone, you should love them like a lunatic. If you hated someone, you should hate them all the way.

But Jiang Yanshi remained patient.

He blew on each spoonful to cool it down, helped me sit up, and treated me with such gentle tenderness that it felt…

Fake.

For some reason, my old instinct to poke at things until they broke started stirring again.

I wanted to see how long this sweetness of his could possibly last.

So I looked him dead in the eye and said coldly,

“Jiang Yanshi, are you really this desperate? You’re clinging to me like you have no self-respect. Don’t you feel pathetic?”

His fingers tightened slightly around the bowl.

Yet his voice remained infuriatingly calm.

“Be good. Eat first.”

I refused to eat.

I thought he would finally lose his temper.

Instead, his eyes slowly reddened.

A single tear slipped down his cheek.

His voice trembled.

“You keep asking whether I love you… but what about you? Did you ever like me, even a little? Or was I just a toy you used whenever you needed to blow off steam?”

His voice broke.

“You were the one who started teasing me. You watched me fall deeper and deeper, then turned around and walked away. I really did throw away my dignity… You treated me like that, and I still love you.”

He lowered his head, his lashes trembling as if he were about to fall apart.

But what he said next left me completely stunned.

“At first, I wanted to kill you. But my body betrayed me…”

He swallowed.

“It became addicted to the way you tormented me. When you hit me, I didn’t feel pain. All I felt was my heart racing from the thrill. I have to admit… it felt damn good.”

He gave a bitter laugh.

“I kept convincing myself it was nothing more than a physiological response. I told myself I hated you because you were always so calm, because you never seemed to care about how I felt.”

He lifted his head and looked at me with red-rimmed eyes.

“That’s why, Lin Xiyue… could you try loving me? Just a little. Is that really too much to ask?”

Something tightened painfully in my chest.

The feeling was sour, restless, almost bubbling beneath my skin.

I blurted out,

“Jiang Yanshi, are you insane?”

How was he even more messed up than the patient who was supposedly the one seeking treatment?

I hadn’t even recovered from my illness when I found myself tied to the bed.

He smiled at me with almost unnerving gentleness, held my chin, and fed me medicine mouth-to-mouth before whispering softly,

“Wife, once you’re better… I’ll let you hit me.”

Before I could figure out what he meant, less than an hour later, I was being dragged onto a private jet.

He smiled leisurely.

“Sweetheart, we’ve been playing house for long enough. It’s time to end the game.”

He stroked my hair.

“If I just lock you up properly…”

His smile deepened.

“You won’t be able to run anymore.”

Of course.

It had all been an act.

A week later, once I had fully recovered, he took me down to the basement.

Then, to my utter disbelief, he stepped inside the cage himself.

He fastened the restraints around his own wrists and lifted his head, his eyes dangerously seductive.

“Everything you left unfinished a year ago…”

His lips curved into a smile.

“Finish it now.”

He looked straight at me.

“Welcome home, my darling wife.”

Qu Ze hugged his cat and shook his head as he watched the two of us.

“You two…”

He sighed.

“One likes to hit, the other likes being hit. That’s textbook mutual pathology.”

He glanced at me.

“You wanting to control someone, possess them, and drive them crazy just so they’ll belong to you—that’s how you love.”

Then he looked at Jiang Yanshi.

“And him? He likes being strangled by you, being tied up until he can barely breathe… That’s how he loves.”

He shrugged.

“It sounds completely messed up, but when two people are that perfectly matched? Honestly, it’s kind of perfect.”

I shot him a look.

“Since when did you study psychology?”

Qu Ze laughed.

“I didn’t.”

He paused.

“Some people just have a way of finding each other.”

The doorbell rang.

Jiang Yanshi had come to pick me up.

Before I left, Qu Ze shoved a mysterious gift bag into his hands and gave him a knowing wink.

I looked at the bag.

Then at my husband’s smile.

And silently thought:

Well, shit.

Looks like I’m stuck with this cage for the rest of my life.