Chapter1

“Once you sign it, the two million dollars will be deposited into a trust account at Mount Sinai Hospital in installments . Your sister can have a miniature heart transplant tonight.”

In a luxurious penthouse conference room on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a family lawyer in a suit and tie pushed a document in front of me.

I didn't look at Chloe sitting across from me—the first in line to inherit a family worth billions, my "former" fiancée, and also my childhood sweetheart.

We were once considered the perfect partners in New York's high society. Three months ago, I was Nasdaq's youngest tech star, and now, a malicious short-selling attack on my company by Wall Street has bankrupted me. My father jumped to his death, my assets are locked up, and to make matters worse, my sister Anna's rare heart condition has deteriorated significantly.

Without money, the hospital will remove Anna's life support today.

To save Anna, I had no choice but to accept Chloe's extremely insulting condition—to be her nominal "tool " and help her trigger that bullshit family rule that "one must get married to inherit the family trust."

I looked down at the final terms of the "Hidden Marriage Contract":

The husband's identity must not be disclosed to any media outlet;

You must not interfere with the woman's private life and social life;

The woman has the right to unilaterally terminate the agreement at any time and carry out an unpaid expulsion.

The man must have the woman's approval for every penny he spends, must not appear in public, and must be available whenever she calls.

Cold, harsh, and stripping away all human dignity.

"I can't believe it." Chloe crossed her arms, her exquisite, cold face filled with vengeful pleasure. "The once invincible genius founder on Wall Street, now he's like..." Like a stray dog, she sold her remaining life for millions in medical bills.

"Give me the pen," I interrupted her expressionlessly.

A flicker of annoyance crossed her eyes as she tossed the Montblanc pen in front of me: "Sign it and get out of here to my Long Island estate. Remember, in this agreement, you're just a tool with a price tag!"

"Pay me money, and I'll save my life." Without any hesitation, I signed the document.

That night, at the Long Island Hillside Manor, in a dark and cramped basement room.

No wedding, no wedding ring—this was my first night as a “newlywed.”

At 11 p.m., the door was suddenly pushed open.

Chloe, dressed in a gorgeous silk robe and red-soled high heels, walked up to me. Before I could even speak, she abruptly waved her hand.

A dull thud.

A thick wad of crisp, new hundred-dollar bills slammed into my face. The sharp edges of the bills grazed my cheekbone, leaving a red mark, which then scattered across the expensive carpet.

“Here’s ten thousand dollars in cash.” Chloe looked down at me as if I were a disgusting parasite. “Didn’t you used to pride yourself on being a tech geek and treating money like dirt? This is your ‘service fee’ for tonight. In this villa, even if I bring anyone back tomorrow night, you’ll be blind. Don’t have any disgusting delusions about me.”

The air fell into a deathly silence.

I didn't get angry; I just calmly squatted down.

" Kneel down and pick it up. " She stepped on a banknote and looked at me with disdain.

Under her condescending gaze, I slowly knelt down and picked up the insulting banknotes one by one from the ground.

As I took the last banknote, I stood up and looked her straight in the eye: "Service fee confirmed. Next time, please use bank transfer. Throwing cash at people makes them scatter too much, and picking it up takes time."

“You…” Chloe felt as if she had punched a cotton ball, her face instantly turning ashen. “Bankruptcy not only drained your money, but it also ripped out your backbone! You’re so despicable, it disgusts me!”

She slammed the door shut and left.

I stood there, my nails digging into my palms until they pierced my skin and drew warm blood. The pain kept me absolutely rational. Anna's special medication couldn't be stopped for even a day. Until my sister was out of danger, I was this dog called "husband."

What truly tried to trample my dignity into the mud was the next morning.

I walked down to the courtyard on the first floor of the villa. The elders of the family were enjoying an outdoor brunch, and standing next to Chloe was a blond, blue-eyed, frivolous white man—Julian.

Before I went bankrupt, Julian was just a rookie running errands for my research team. But after I went bankrupt, he betrayed me, using a few pages of discarded code that I had casually thrown away to curry favor with Chloe, and transformed himself into her company's "Chief Technology Officer" and the family's de facto son-in-law.

Seeing me approach, Chloe deliberately raised her voice and pulled a silver car key from her bag, tossing it to Julian: "A gift for you, a limited edition Aston Martin Valkyrie, three million dollars."

Three million US dollars. The price of a sports car is the price Anna paid to save her life.

“Wow, thank you, darling.” Julian gave Chloe a triumphant kiss, then strode over to me.

A cold wind blew out a hundred-dollar bill that I had carelessly stuffed into my coat pocket the night before. The bill landed on the lawn, and Julian stepped on it without hesitation.

"Oh, sorry." Julian stomped the sole of his expensive leather shoes hard, lowering his voice to sneer arrogantly, "You used to always look down on me in meetings and call me trash. And now?"

The elders and servants all cast piercing glances at me, waiting for me to break down like a stray dog.

I stared at his smug face and suddenly laughed.

“Julian.” I didn’t back down; instead, I took a step forward. He instinctively took a half-step back.

I pointed to the dazzling supercar and said coldly, "The hybrid energy recovery system in this Valkyrie is the same underlying logic you copied from me. But obviously you didn't understand it. At high speeds in North America where the temperature is below 10 degrees Celsius, heat overload will cause a conflict in the system logic, resulting in a fatal bug that causes a 0.3-second system crash during braking."

"What nonsense are you spouting? The system I wrote is flawless!" Julian screamed guiltily, his face flushed red.

"Is that so?" I gave him a cold look. "Shut up. Move your foot."

Startled by the chilling murderous intent in my eyes, Julian instinctively moved his foot away. I bent down to pick up the dirt-covered banknote, not even glancing at the extremely displeased Chloe, and turned to walk back to the basement.

The moment I closed the door, my phone vibrated.

The hospital sent a message: "The initial payment of two million has been received. Surgery will be scheduled for 3 PM sharp."

I breathed a sigh of relief. The money had arrived, and Anna's life was saved. I relaxed completely.

I casually turned on the computer, and a glaring red intrusion alert immediately popped up on the screen—someone was trying to steal the source code library of the next-generation revolutionary artificial intelligence "X-Core" that I had kept on the internal network.

The IP address is the one Julian just connected to this morning.

Stealing my technology?

A cold smile curved my lips. I didn't unplug the network cable; my fingers flew across the keyboard like phantoms.

Defense? That's not my style. Since Julian likes to play dirty, I'll personally "feed" him.

In a second, I bypassed the access barrier and "sent" a disguised source code package containing a deep trojan to his hard drive. Not only that, I used his IP address to infiltrate all his devices on the villa's network and took over the underlying control of the Aston Martin outside.

I pressed the Enter key.

"You like playing with cars, right?"

Three seconds later.

A terrified scream erupted from the courtyard outside the window.

Through the narrow, high window of the basement, I saw Julian smugly get into his three-million-dollar sports car and start it up, showing off to his elders. However, the car's advanced intelligent central control screen instantly went black, and then, the hybrid system I had deemed "garbage" completely malfunctioned!

"Bang—Pfft!"

Without warning, all twelve airbags exploded, slamming into the blond young man amidst his extremely pitiful screams, causing his nose to bleed profusely and him to faint on the spot!

The sports car's alarm blared throughout the entire estate. Chloe frantically directed the security guards to smash the car windows and rescue the occupants, leaving the scene in complete disarray.

I leaned back in my chair, watching Julian's swollen face, a result of the airbag's shock, and calmly picked up the cold water on the table and took a sip.

"It crashed in 0.3 seconds, I warned you, you idiot."

I stared at the computer screen at the code package with self-destruct logic that Julian had just stolen. It was like a ticking time bomb, silently planted in the lifeline of him and even his entire family.