A midnight text from the ‘Big Boss’ exposes the ‘perfect man’: ‘Thank you for pretending to be my husband all these years!’
I. THE PEACEFUL ISLAND IN THE POOR CITY
In a certain poor city, where roads puddle with water after every heavy rain, always bearing the tire tracks laden with the hardships of wandering souls, life usually drifts by with the pattering, dreary sounds of scarcity. Level-4 tenement houses were crammed tightly together beneath the grey smoke of manual processing workshops, where people toiled day in and day out just to trade for two modest meals.
At that desolate corner of the street flickering with yellowish streetlights, her little family was once considered a rare symbol of fulfillment amidst the mud.
Her husband was the embodiment of everything a poor woman could dream of in a safe harbor. He wasn’t born at the finish line, nor did he possess an illustrious family background, but his extraordinary efforts had pushed him step by step up the rungs of fame in a major financial corporation located in the city center. From a scrawny, low-level office clerk, he rose to become a high-level manager, then the right-hand man trusted absolutely by the top board of directors.
Yet, what made her most proud wasn’t the bank card with its balance increasing every month or the luxury car provided by the company for his commute, but the almost unbelievable loyalty of a successful man. Amidst a corporate world full of traps, butterflies, and all-night drinking sessions, her husband still retained his exquisite refinement and thoughtfulness just like the early days of their romance. He had never raised his voice at his wife once, never letting a single distracted gaze slip before the dazzling beauties of society. All his mind, time, and attention, except for his busy work, were entirely wrapped up in this small nest.
She used to look at her husband’s former calloused hands of hardship, then look at their present life, telling herself she was the luckiest woman in the world. She entrusted all her trust, her entire soul, and her love to that man, convinced that amidst this murky world, an unshakable fortress of sincerity still existed.
Until that night.
II. THE QUIET NIGHT AND THE DEADLY GREEN GLOW
It was a cold winter night, when the chill from the moldy lime walls seeped deep into every fiber. Outside, winds whistling through the window cracks carried the scent of mud and the thick coal smoke of the poor neighborhood.
In the bedroom, a tiny nightlight cast a vague, shifting yellow glow. Her husband was lying on his side, plunged into a deep sleep after a week of work stressful to the point of exhaustion. His breathing was steady, his delicate face bearing traces of fatigue yet wonderfully peaceful. His arm still wrapped around her waist, holding her naturally like an indispensable habit throughout all those years of living together.
She lay awake, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep because of idle thoughts earlier in the evening. She shifted slightly, intending to untangle her husband’s arm to reach for a glass of water on the bedside table.
At that exact moment, her husband’s cell phone lying face up on the wooden nightstand suddenly vibrated softly: Buzz…
The phone screen lit up, cutting across the pitch-black darkness of the bedroom. A nameless, curious instinct rose, or perhaps it was just a random coincidence when the green glow shone straight into her field of vision. She had no intention of checking her husband’s phone, because up until then, the trust between them was absolute. Yet, the text notification popping up on the locked screen was too clear, too sharp, ruthlessly striking her mind:
From: The Big Boss “Thank you for pretending to be my husband to fool the world for all these years.”
The whole room seemed to stall. The whistling wind outside suddenly vanished, replaced by a violent buzzing sound striking straight into her eardrums.
Her heart skipped a beat, then pounded crazily as if wanting to burst out of her chest. The blood drained completely from her body, leaving behind a numbing coldness spreading from the crown of her head to the tips of her fingers and toes. She widened her eyes, reading over and over the words displayed on the glowing screen, repeating them in her head like a demonic spell she couldn’t possibly comprehend.
Pretending to be my husband? Fooling the world for all these years?
Who was the sender? “The Big Boss” – the powerful chairwoman, head of the trillion-dollar financial empire whom her husband always respectfully called with absolute reverence during every family dinner. That chairwoman was famously sharp, autocratic, holding the power of life and death over the entire corporation, and a figure who always kept her private life hidden from every media lens.
Why would someone of such supreme status text her husband with such bizarre content? And if her husband was merely “pretending to be a husband” to fool the world… then who was the man lying beside her? The gentle, thoughtful husband who had spent years sharing modest meals with her… who was he really?
III. THE COLLAPSE OF MEMORIES
She slowly turned her head, staring fixedly at the man lying right beside her under the dim nightlight.
That face was familiar down to every line. Every mole, the high bridge of the nose, the thin lips that usually wore a gentle smile whenever he returned home… All those things had been deeply etched into her mind throughout all those years of youth. Yet, in this moment, beneath the faint, fading green light of the phone screen, that familiar face suddenly turned utterly unfamiliar, bizarre, and terrifying like a rubber mask cast callously.
Old memories began tumbling back into her head, no longer carrying their warm beauty as before, but suddenly turning into pieces of a morbid joke calculated beforehand.
She remembered his week-long business trips to distant cities. He always went alone, returning with fatigue, but his eyes flashed with an unspoken vigilance that she had previously ignored.
She remembered the huge bonus amounts transferred into their joint family account. He had explained them as commissions from major projects he successfully closed directly with the board of directors. She had naively believed it, smiling happily thinking of their children’s prosperous future ahead. But now, those numbers suddenly turned into wages, remuneration for a long-running play covered up by blood and deception.
Above all, she remembered the gaze of “The Big Boss” during a rare occasion when she went to the company to bring lunch to her husband last year’s noon. That powerful woman stood from the top floor looking down at the lobby, her gaze carrying no friendliness of a boss toward an employee’s wife, but a complex look: a mixture of mockery, pity, and something resembling the grace of someone standing high above looking down at a puppet performing its role to perfection.
At that time, she thought it was just because the chairwoman was naturally cold to everyone. But now, the naked truth bared itself, making her feel nauseated and utterly disgusted.
IV. THE ABYSS OF PANIC
She shifted her body slightly, sliding off the warm bed that had suddenly turned as cold as a glacier. She didn’t dare breathe heavily, fearing just a small sound would wake the monster pretending to sleep soundly beside her.
She clutched the edge of the bed, dragging her limp legs out of the bedroom, walking straight to the cramped little kitchen at the end of the hallway. The pitch darkness swallowed her petite figure. She flicked on the kitchen light switch, its faint yellow glow casting over peeling walls, clearly illuminating her pale, tear-stained face reflected in the windowpane.
This truth was too cruel, too insane for a woman accustomed only to a simple life in a poor corner of the street.
If he wasn’t her husband, where was her real husband? Or had there never been a genuine marriage to begin with? Was it all a conspiracy, a facade built up to cover some monumental secret of the high-finance world? Could it be that the powerful “Big Boss” needed a safe, ordinary family cover to dodge scandals, underground investigations, or some threat from the underworld? And her husband—a man of ordinary appearance with superb acting skills—had accepted to become a pawn to live out another man’s life as a model family man?
But if it was just an acting contract, why did he treat her so gently? The care, the warm embraces, the patient sweat throughout all those years… could those too just be part of the role? Or throughout all those years of acting, had the line between real life and drama blurred, causing even the impersonator to sometimes forget he was merely a puppet?
Extreme terror squeezed her chest. She collapsed onto the cold kitchen floor, clutching her head with both hands, choking back silent sobs. The hurt, trampled self-respect, and the feeling of being turned into a cheap joke tore her soul into tiny shreds.
V. FOOTSTEPS IN THE DARK AND A CALL FROM BEHIND
While her mind was sinking deep into the abyss of despair, from the dark hallway leading to the living room, a soft sound echoed.
Clack… clack…
It was the sound of slow, gentle, yet steady bare footsteps approaching the kitchen.
Her body stiffened like a stone statue. The choking sobs instantly caught in her throat. She slowly raised her head, her eyes wide open staring toward the kitchen door.
From out of the darkness, a tall figure appeared vaguely. Beneath the shifting yellow light, that man’s face lacked the gentle, tired look from the bed earlier. Replaced instead by an icy calmness, his deep eyes looking at her without a ripple of emotion.
He stood leaning against the kitchen frame, arms crossed over his chest, watching her collapse on the floor like a hunter observing prey that had walked into the trap by itself.
— “Why are you up so late?” – his voice rose, deep and strangely familiar, yet echoing now like a call from an entirely foreign world. There was no confusion, no panic of someone whose fabricated secret had been exposed. He was frighteningly calm, as if this day was bound to come sooner or later.
She tremblingly looked up at him, her voice wheezing, broken with fear:
— “Who… who are you? What on earth is that in the phone? Over these past years… what were we to you?”
He sighed softly, a gentle sigh bearing genuine fatigue rather than pretense. He walked slowly toward her, squatting down facing her within a span of just a few inches.
— “I’m sorry,” – he said, raising his hand as if to touch her cheek, but then stopping mid-air and pulling his hand back. – “Everything I gave you in this house… love, care, dinners… was real. I never deceived your feelings in that aspect.”
— “Really?!” – she burst into a sob, tears streaming down like rain across her pale face. – “Pretending to be someone else’s husband to fool the world is what you call real? What on earth are you in that damn corporation? A pawn? Or a hired clown to play a long-running drama?”
He was silent for a few seconds, his gaze staring deep into her red-rimmed eyes full of pain. Then, in a steady, cold voice, he bared the cruelest truth in its entirety:
— “I am not a pawn. I was assigned the task of protecting her. The ‘Big Boss’ you saw… is actually the only person in the family holding control over a colossal fortune while also being the target of assassination attempts by countless enemies in the underground financial world. To blind them, to create an absolute safe cover for her personal life away from prying camera lenses and sudden attacks, the corporation built a flawless plan: creating a complete copy of a family background identity in society. And I… was chosen to play her legally registered husband on paper.”
He paused for a beat, then spoke the words that caused her world to completely collapse:
— “But for security reasons, I couldn’t live with her. I needed a truly peaceful nest to release pressure, to live like a normal human being after hours facing danger. And so… I chose you. In that poor corner of the street, in this rented house, I truly found happiness I’d never had in my entire life.”
VI. DAWN WITHOUT TOMORROW
The small kitchen sank into a breath-choking silence.
She sat dazed, looking at the man before her. Turns out, the loyalty, the gentleness, and the home she had proudly boasted of for all those years… were in reality merely a peaceful transit station carved out from the fractured life of a man living in the shadows of massive financial conspiracies. She wasn’t his wife. She was just a safe hiding corner he rewarded himself with after his masquerades outside.
— “Now you know everything,” – he stood up, his voice carrying an unshakeable, cold decision. – “According to security protocols, when an outsider learns this secret, they must choose: Either vanish from this world with me to some remote place where nobody knows, or…”
He didn’t finish the rest. But his cold gaze replaced every answer.
Outside, the faint morning light began to glimmer through the thick fog of that poor city. That street corner was still noisy with the traffic of daily survival, but inside this small house, time had stopped forever at the boundary between life and death.
