Chapter 76: Two-Faced Phoenix Man 35

The lobby of the Civil Affairs Bureau was nearly empty that morning.

Jiang Rang and Lu Xiang were among the first to arrive, getting their number and being called almost immediately.

The two of them nervously handed over the materials they had prepared in advance. With the fall of a single red stamp, their marriage was official.

The entire process took no more than five minutes.

They had barely finished getting their marriage certificates when Lu Xiang clutched the two little red booklets like precious treasures, as if he wanted to lock them away for safekeeping.

Jiang Rang was still a bit dazed. The dream coming true so easily left him feeling lightheaded and euphoric.

Visions were already dancing before the young man’s eyes: stacks of accumulated wealth and power piling up around him. Years from now, people wouldn’t think of him as relying on the Lu Family, but as Jiang Rang himself.

Just imagining it made Jiang Rang tremble with excitement all over.

A faint flush crept into the corners of the young man’s eyes—a beautiful shade of red, vivid and dewy. In the rising sunlight and in the gaze of the deeply smitten Eldest Young Master Lu, it looked like a soft wave of bashfulness gently baked by warmth.

Lu Xiang could feel his heart pounding out of rhythm, like a transparent glass marble bouncing wildly, each impact against the concrete ground a silent confession.

Their clasped palms were slick with sweat, but neither pulled away.

Newlyweds were always like this, brimming with beautiful visions for their future. Those dark eyes overflowed with hope and happiness. They always believed love could conquer all the twists and turns of the world.

That was how Lu Xiang felt.

But the world wasn’t always as warm and sunny as their wedding day.

Because of his disownment from the Lu Family and the total blockade that followed, his former friends—the young masters and misses who had once fawned over him—now avoided Lu Xiang like the plague.

Helpless, the man tried taking part-time jobs off-campus, but every time, he was mysteriously fired after just a couple of days.

The once-proud son of heaven, the Eldest Young Master Lu, had fallen so low he couldn’t even afford his next meal.

Not to mention throwing the wedding of his dreams.

Jiang Rang didn’t really care about the ceremony. Coming from a poor family himself, as a child, he’d considered any day with a full belly a good one.

And now, ever since regaining his clarity, the young man seemed to have returned to the early days of their passionate romance. He never cared whether Lu Xiang could give him a lavish wedding or expensive gifts.

On the contrary, he could sense the guilt and unease in his lover’s silent actions.

After all, this was the same Eldest Young Master Lu who used to throw money around without batting an eye. Now, he couldn’t even scrape together the cash for a wedding. The drop was steep, bound to breed frustration.

So the young man comforted his husband more than once.

He would always take the man’s hand gently, his soft eyes brimming with tenderness that could almost drip like water.

“It’s okay, A-Xiang,” Jiang Rang would say. “As long as you’re by my side, that’s enough.”

He added, “We still have the laboratory, and I have that money you transferred to me before. If you need it, I can send it over anytime.”

Of course, Lu Xiang refused. Gritting his teeth, he pushed on and finally landed an off-campus part-time gig.

It was the most ordinary, unremarkable job: washing dishes. The monthly pay was a measly eight or nine hundred, for hours of nonstop scrubbing plates and bowls.

But Lu Xiang took it anyway.

In front of his lover, a man always wanted to seem capable and independent.

He had already leaned on Jiang Jiang’s savings for far too long. Shame wouldn’t let him keep living like a useless parasite.

The Eldest Young Master Lu began learning to save money and budget wisely.

Refusing Jiang Rang’s deposits and with income so hard to come by, he started skimping ruthlessly on his own meals. Forget the delicacies of the past—even meat was a rarity in his bowl now.

The once dazzling, arrogant, germaphobic Eldest Young Master Lu had faded into a mere shadow, slowly dissolving into the muddy sludge as the sunlight dimmed.

After more than two months like this, Lu Xiang finally scraped together enough for a wedding gift for his young lover.

Eighteen hundred yuan—not a penny more, not a penny less.

Clutching the cash, he headed to a somewhat niche jewelry store.

The tall, handsome man—his face slightly gaunt—wore the cheapest street-market clothes but didn’t hesitate to buy a beautiful collarbone chain inlaid with tiny diamonds.

That very night, he used it to woo and pamper his beloved.

Jiang Rang was never one to spoil the fun. He didn’t ask Lu Xiang how much he’d spent or where the money had come from. The young man simply met his gaze with those deep black eyes, his beautiful lips curving into a gentle smile. “It’s gorgeous, A-Xiang. Thank you. Will you help me put it on?”

As he spoke, he tilted his head slightly, baring the smooth, ivory-pale curve of his neck.

Lu Xiang carefully grasped the two ends of the collarbone chain, his heart brimming with joy. But that elation stalled for a moment when he glanced down at his palms—reddened and faintly swollen from days soaked in water and chemical detergents.

Just two months of hard labor, and already his hands were roughening. Peeling skin revealed hints of raw, reddened flesh at the joints.

Hands this ugly made him shrink back in instinctive self-consciousness, even as he fastened the necklace around the young man’s neck.

Lu Xiang finally realized he couldn’t keep going like this.

He knew better than anyone that his father was forcing his hand, pushing him toward compromise.

But the man was stubborn by nature—he wouldn’t turn back until he slammed headfirst into a wall.

If one path was blocked, he’d simply blaze a new trail.

So Lu Xiang started finding ways to run the research lab alongside Jiang Rang, working through proxies.

The man was too serious, his focus bordering on solemnity. He even overlooked the little details of everyday life.

In the year since they’d gotten their marriage certificate, the two had juggled school while dodging the Lu Family and bootstrapping their venture.

With no follow-up investments for the research lab, Jiang Rang had sunk nearly his entire fortune into it.

Things were finally turning around. The new-generation cloning robot had been successfully developed; all it needed now was a market test run.

Lu Xiang had kept a close eye on the laboratory’s progress over the past few days and had only just found some breathing room.

The man with his slightly wavy black hair still cut a handsome, striking figure, but those uptilted peach-blossom eyes now carried an unspoken depth, heavy with something unnameable.

Lu Xiang swiped to unlock his phone screen. The green chat window still held his message from yesterday evening, a careful note about not coming home.

Even by afternoon today, the young man hadn’t replied.

Lu Xiang lowered his gaze a fraction, unease and raw sensitivity swelling in his chest like a waterlogged sponge, slowly leaching out damp trails of doubt.

This wasn’t the first time.

Over the course of that year, Lu Xiang and Jiang Rang had started out with sweet, intimate days.

Fresh off registering their marriage, they’d been glued to each other day in and day out. Lu Xiang’s body was toned and resilient; it felt like they’d tumbled into a blissful dream spanning years, their bodies and souls intertwining like pilgrims graced by the divine.

But then the research lab demanded everything—chasing investors, pulling strings. It took endless scheming, endless sweet-talking.

With so much money sunk into it, they threw themselves into making it work.

Inevitably, their fiery passion cooled amid the sporadic silences, slipping into a dull routine.

Their conversations dwindled from constant chatter to curt work updates, ignoring everything else—and that slide had taken barely half a year.

Once junior year hit, their schedules split them apart for most classes. If Lu Xiang didn’t track Jiang Rang’s timetable and chase him down, they might not cross paths even once a day.

And even when they did manage to meet, the young man’s frequent drifting off left him with a choking sense of helplessness.

It was as if they both knew something was wrong with their relationship, but neither could pinpoint the problem—or how to fix it.

The thought made Lu Xiang’s fingers tremble faintly. His brows knit tight as he fired off another message.

“Jiang Jiang, why aren’t you replying?”

The air hung still and silent, thick as the deep sea muffling sound, pressure sealing off his ears.

Lu Xiang pressed a finger to the throbbing vein at his temple. The teardrop mole beneath his eye gleamed like a dark pearl. He let his gaze drop, long thick lashes quivering as his slender fingers hesitated—then tapped out one more message.

“Jiang Jiang, I’m on my way home. I think we need to talk.”

Message sent, Lu Xiang flagged down a cab with practiced ease and pocketed his phone.

The trip from the research lab to Jiang Rang’s little house was short—a ten-minute ride at most.

The afternoon sun slanted westward by the time Lu Xiang stood before the familiar door of the small home where they’d cohabited for nearly a year and a half.

The jangle of keys rattled softly, and he eased the door open.

The man in his tailored black suit set aside his stack of documents. He’d just slipped off his shoes and opened his mouth to call his partner’s name when an odd noise drifted from the thinly insulated bedroom.

The splash of water. Harsh, ragged breaths. The faint creak of the bed frame shifting.

Lu Xiang’s mind went blank in an instant. His entire body stiffened like an old tree struck by lightning, and his already weary face slowly drained to a terrifying shade of deathly white.

The familiar world around him, steeped in the warm intimacy of a loving couple, seemed to fade away color by color.

The man shuffled forward slowly, like a man on his deathbed, one laborious step at a time toward the master bedroom door, which stood slightly ajar.

This time, he finally heard everything clearly.

His beloved wife—his love—was right there on the bed where they slumbered together every night, locked in an intimate embrace and kiss with another man.

And that man was none other than the prim and proper Ji Mingyu he knew from day to day.

They kissed with such fierce abandon that they never noticed the door had swung open wide enough for a person to slip through.

His Jiang Jiang—his beautiful, gentle wife—wore an expression of brazen lust he’d never seen before. Eyes closed, his slender neck arched back as the beastly man pecked and kissed and nipped and bit at his skin.

Jiang Rang let out a low, breathy gasp, half-heartedly pushing at the man before him. “Ji Mingyu, don’t leave any marks. He’ll see them.”

Ji Mingyu paused for a fraction of a second, then chuckled softly under his breath. “He won’t see a thing. Isn’t he busy right now?”

Jiang Rang said nothing more, as if giving silent consent. Soon enough, his narrowed eyes brimmed with glistening wetness. In that moment, waves of passion surged through the room, a sight too exquisite for words.

Lu Xiang had no idea how he endured hearing it all. For the first time, he truly understood the agony of a knife-twisted heart.

It felt like someone was hacking away at his heart with a dull, serrated cleaver—one brutal chop after another—but never slicing clean through. The pain only grew more insane, more unbearable.

He couldn’t take it anymore. His hand shook as he reached for the door, but in that instant, two phones rang—one from inside the room, one from out.

Lu Xiang’s body trembled violently. He braced one hand against the doorframe and fumbled with the other to answer his call.

“Mr. Lu, I’m afraid I have some terrible news. The higher-ups have raised ethical violation concerns about the research lab’s ‘New-Generation Cloning Robot’ project. It’s been completely shut down—no further development allowed…”

The phone slipped from his grasp and shattered against the floor with a piercing crash.

Silence blanketed the room.

After a long, agonizing stretch, Lu Xiang slowly lifted his head. His face was ghostly pale as he shoved the door fully open.

Jiang Rang’s expression flickered with panic for a split second, but it swiftly morphed into irritation. He even scooted closer to Ji Mingyu at his side.

Lu Xiang’s lips quivered. The world before his eyes seemed to whiten and spin.

In a hoarse voice raw with anguish, like a beast crying blood, he choked out, “Jiang Jiang… are you betraying our marriage?”

There wasn’t a shred of guilt on Jiang Rang’s face. He clutched the phone he’d just hung up, raked a frustrated hand through his hair, and snapped, “Yes, I betrayed you. You saw it with your own eyes, didn’t you?”

“You got the call too, right? The lab’s shut down now. We don’t have any assets to split anyway. Let’s just get divorced.”

Lu Xiang’s face turned even more ashen. For a long moment, scalding tears spilled from his bloodshot eyes. Overwhelmed by the heart-rending pain tearing through his chest, he lost all composure and begged desperately, “Jiang Jiang, we can’t divorce. You promised me we’d be together forever. I know you love me—you were just seduced by him, weren’t you? It’s not your fault—”

“Tch—”

A scornful laugh cut through the air, cold as a frozen pond. Jiang Rang looked down imperiously at the man who had once towered above everyone, now reduced to a discarded spouse. “Lu Xiang, just look at yourself. I don’t want to keep pretending anymore. To be honest, I only married you for your status. Who else could stomach that rotten temper of yours?”

“Who would’ve thought you’d turn out to be such a useless waste? You can’t even go back to the Lu Family, there’s no money left, and you’re just holed up working yourself to death day in and day out, getting all misty-eyed over your own suffering?”

“But even then, the research lab went under. I’d bet my life your dad had a hand in it.”

Jiang Rang’s face flushed beet red with fury, his features twisting in rage.

“People climb toward the heights, water flows to the lows. Don’t blame me—I’m just done wasting my time on you.”