I Refused to Save Her, Then Crushed My Ex-Wife’s Corporate Empire

In January, Manhattan was ravaged by a blizzard that threatened to tear New York apart.

The central air conditioning had long since stopped working due to overdue bills. In my penthouse apartment, the lights were off. I sat alone on the leather sofa by the window, wearing a slightly faded gray cashmere sweater. My hands and feet were as cold as a corpse, but my heart was colder than the long, endless night.

"Ding—"

My phone, lying on the coffee table, vibrated, its pale blue light piercing the darkness.

A message from my wife, Victoria, appeared on the screen. At this very moment, she should be wearing a bespoke Savile Row suit, seated in a VIP seat at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, sipping champagne and receiving compliments from Wall Street tycoons.

And this message she sent me was full of the self-righteousness of someone in absolute power:

"Don't use not answering the phone to throw a tantrum. Apologize to Julian, and I'll have him reinstate your credit card approval privileges. Be sensible, Arthur."

Looking at the screen, my hands, which had once been able to precisely extract deep-sea rock cores in the lab, didn't tremble at all. I didn't even feel anger.

The utter despair and deathly silence of the past three days, in her eyes, were merely a canary's "tantrum" because it hadn't gotten its food. Not only did I have to be submissive for a pittance of living expenses, but I also had to grovel and apologize to her male assistant.

I opened my phone, not to reply to her, but to click on the electronic link sent by my private lawyer three hours earlier, titled "Undisputed Asset Waiver and Divorce Affirmation."

I scrolled to the last page and, with my frozen fingers, smoothly signed "Arthur" in the electronic signature field.

After signing, I switched back to my chat with Victoria and typed a single word expressionlessly:

"Get lost."

Send. Lock screen. I tossed my phone into the corner of the carpet like trash.

Faint neon light streamed in from the French windows, illuminating a black quartz box beside me. It was the urn containing my mother's ashes, just returned.

I stared at it silently, my heart seemingly stopping.

Only three days, and it was all over. But this composure and peace were bought with a life.

Three days ago, I wasn't nearly as resilient as I am now. Back then, I was like a drowning person thrown into the deep, oxygen-deprived sea, devoid of dignity. I would have even kissed Victoria and Julian's shoes to save my mother's life.

That night, the incessant winter rain pounded against the windows of Mount Sinai Hospital.

Outside the emergency room, the attending physician's voice was colder than the rain:

“Arthur, your mother's organs are rapidly failing. She must be injected immediately with that gene-targeted drug airlifted from Germany. It costs $500,000 in cash, not covered by private health insurance. You only have two hours. If you don't have the money, you'll have to prepare for the worst.”

$500,000. For Victoria, who heads a multi-billion dollar private equity conglomerate, this amount wouldn't even cover the legal fees for an overseas acquisition.

But for me, it was an insurmountable obstacle.

For the past three years, to pay for my mother's medical treatment, I broke the back of my MIT geology genius, signed that two-hundred-page prenuptial agreement that was a bloodsucker, and became Victoria's "full-time husband" kept on her Long Island estate. A mere ornament to promote my philanthropic persona as a tycoon.

In this house built of gold, I had nothing. To buy a cup of coffee, a box of painkillers, or even to pay for every routine doctor's visit for my mother, I had to log into the damned "family trust system" and submit an electronic receipt.

And the person who controlled the compliance approval of this system was Victoria's trusted male assistant—Julian.

In this extremely unhealthy marriage, even the few dollars I spent on a taxi depended on the whim of that man who wore a strong Tom Ford cologne.

But at the time, I didn't care about the humiliation. I squatted in the pale corner of the emergency room corridor, my hands trembling like a Parkinson's patient, dropping my tablet several times. I snapped a picture of the critical illness notice stamped with a red seal as fast as I could, filled out the form, and frantically submitted an application for 500,000 yuan for surgery through the expedited channel of the family trust system.

*“Please, approve it…”

I pleaded silently over and over. Those ten minutes felt like an eternity. I stared at the progress bar on the screen like a dog, even rehearsing how I would bow my head and admit my weakness if Julian wanted to humiliate me. I'd do anything as long as the approval came through.

Ten minutes later, the silent tablet screen lit up.

An email from the “Trust Compliance Department” popped up.

I held my breath and opened it, but what I saw felt like a chainsaw striking me.

It wasn't the green light of hope for approval, but a glaringly ironic red X, glaringly obvious.

The rejection section contained only a brief, cold line:

【The amount is too large, lacks a cross-border medical tax code, and poses a compliance risk. Please resubmit your application in three business days.】

Three business days? My mother wouldn't even last three hours!

In that instant, the cold air outside the emergency room seemed to freeze my veins. I stared intently at the red heart-shaped cross, realizing one thing—

true murder doesn't require a knife. In this cold, capitalist system, all it needs is a so-called "compliance loophole."

And what awaits me is the deepest, most bottomless abyss of despair.