Eager to transfer all his company shares to his mistress in order to get rid of his wife, the husband was left dumbfounded upon hearing these fateful words: “I was hired by your wife six months ago!”
I. The Calculation in the Shadows
There are things belonging to survival instincts at the bottom of society: those who have been poor for a long time often breed a subtle, cunning cleverness in their blood. In a certain poor city, where rows of fibro-cement-roofed shacks stretched side by side under the sweltering heat reeking of grease and charcoal smoke, there once lived a man who wriggled his way up through that very cunning cleverness.
He had neither high education nor an illustrious background. All he possessed was a cold, calculating head, a disguised endurance, and an ambition so grand he was ready to step over anyone standing in his way. His devoted wife was the first to suffer the fate of being trampled by him. Throughout those destitute years, that woman gritted her teeth and labored, hustling from dawn to dusk to scrape together every single coin of capital, building a small mechanical workshop and step-by-step elevating it into a business with a solid market standing.
But when money began flowing into the accounts in long, trailing strings of numbers, the bond of husband and wife suddenly felt cramped in his mind. He looked at the wife who had shared his pillow and blanket with increasingly clear coldness. Her hands, calloused from working tirelessly, became an eyesore to him. He felt ashamed every time he had to take her out socially, feeling she was a heavy iron shackle dragging him back to an impoverished past.
And thus, the appearance of a young, glamorous mistress acted like a powerful magnet pulling at the core of his mind. She possessed not only a fiery appearance and worldly experience in the dirty business arena, but also a sharp, chillingly pragmatic mind. In the dim, smoke-filled hotel rooms, he and she mapped out a perfect plan to strip away all achievements from his devoted wife.
His plan was exceedingly sophisticated: taking advantage of his wife’s absolute trust and poor legal understanding, he tricked her into signing a series of power-of-attorney and share-transfer documents under the excuse of “restructuring corporate debt to avoid tax audit risks.” He believed he was a strategic genius, an old fox capable of outsmarting everyone. Every share, every valuable asset of the company was stealthily shifted by him, registered entirely under the name of the young mistress. He firmly believed that once all procedures were complete, he would kick his wife out onto the street empty-handed and proudly step onto the throne of fame with his new lover.
II. The Festival of Greed and Blind Pride
That winter came early, bringing lingering drizzle that chilled even the corners of the poor streets. But inside the luxurious meeting room of the downtown high-rise office building, the air was burning hot with the scent of victory and wealth.
He stepped into the meeting room with long strides, head held high, a smug smile lingering on the corners of his lips as a man about to conquer the world. His designer suit was neatly ironed, and an expensive Swiss watch sparkled under the warm lights. Waiting for him was his mistress, wearing a dress as bright and red as a poisonous thorny rose, her eyes sparkling with triumph.
On the conference table lay a thick legal dossier, clipping black-and-white pages awaiting the final signature to legalize the transfer of 100% of the company’s shares to the young mistress’s name. To him, this was the most sacred moment of his life—the moment to completely cut ties with his impoverished past and step into a brilliant high-society chapter.
— “Is everything fully prepared?” – he lowered his voice, looking affectionately at his mistress.
She smiled faintly, a radiant smile hiding an eerily cold light. She pushed the translated dossier toward him, placing a gold-plated fountain pen on the edge of the table.
— “Of course, darling,” – her sweet voice rang out in the quiet space of the meeting room. – “Everything you wanted, I’ve handled thoroughly. You just need to sign this very last page, and this empire will officially belong to us.”
He took a deep breath, his chest swelling with excitement. He felt no suspicion, not a single second of hesitation. In his head at that moment, only the cheering sounds of wealth and power echoed. He picked up the fountain pen, twirled it a few times between his fingers, then bent down, decisively placing his first strokes onto the legal paper.
Flourishing, sweeping handwriting appeared, marking the completion of a vicious conspiracy. He finished signing the first page, flipped to the second, and then the final page. When the last drop of ink touched the final period of his signature, he raised his head, letting out a light sigh of relief as if shedding a lifelong burden.
— “Done.” – he laughed loudly, dropping the pen onto the table. – “From this moment on, no one can ever snatch anything away from our hands.”
III. The Icy Smile and Fateful Words
Yet, instead of leaping into his arms to celebrate as she always did, the mistress remained seated comfortably in her high-end leather chair. She didn’t budge, didn’t cheer, nor did she flash her usual vulgar, triumphant grin.
Instead, she slowly leaned back in her chair, interlaced her fingers, and curled the corners of her lips into a sarcastic, razor-sharp curve. Her gaze looking at him held no more affection, replaced by supreme contempt.
He froze, a sense of unease flashing in his mind like lightning tearing open the night sky.
— “You… what’s wrong?” – he asked, his voice suddenly skipping a beat.
The mistress didn’t answer immediately. She leisurely reached for a glass of drinking water on the table, took a small sip, and then slowly pushed the entire newly signed legal dossier back toward him. The action was performed leisurely, ruthlessly, and with calculated precision.
— “You signed really fast,” – her voice rang out, steady and ice-cold, completely stripping away her usual sweet cooing. – “Didn’t you even bother reading a single word of the subsidiary clauses at the back?”
His chest tightened. A surge of cold air rushed straight from his spine up to his cerebrum. He stared wide-eyed at the dossier, then back at the rapidly changing, terrifying expression on his mistress’s face.
— “What do you mean by that?!” – he roared, jumping up from his chair, slamming his hand hard against the table top. – “Wasn’t this document discussed thoroughly beforehand? The shares have been transferred to you, and then we will…”
— “The shares were indeed transferred,” – the mistress interrupted him, standing straight up, her gaze sharp as a razor piercing deep into his core. – “But unfortunately, they don’t belong to me, and you don’t have a single penny left either.”
— “Are you out of your mind?!” – he yelled in panic, forgetting all sweet terms of endearment. – “You’re holding these legal papers in your hands, how dare you betray me?! I can report you…”
The mistress burst out laughing, a cold laugh echoing through the four glass walls of the soundproof meeting room, making his skin crawl. She leaned forward, pressing both hands against the table, bringing her face close to his, each word dropping slowly, clearly like nails driven into wood:
— “Thank you for transferring them, but I am someone hired by your wife six months ago.”
IV. The Brutal Truth Unraveled
Boom!
His mind exploded as if tons of explosives had just been detonated right atop his head. The entire meeting room spun and turned upside down. His legs grew weak, collapsing heavily onto the floor, both hands clutching the edge of the table to keep from falling flat.
— “You… what did you just say…?” – he stammered, his voice trembling violently, every drop of blood drained from his pale face. – “My wife… my wife is just a stupid countrywoman, stuck in the kitchen year-round… How… How could she hire you?!”
The mistress stood straight up, adjusting her luxurious vest lapel, casting a look of supreme pity down at the lifeless corpse collapsed at her feet.
— “A stupid countrywoman?” – She sneered. – “Your own arrogance and stupidity blinded you, making you fail to realize that beneath her silence lies a strategic mind as sharp as anyone’s in the business arena. Six months ago, when you started showing stealthy signs of dispersing assets, she sought me out.”
Scattered fragments of memories over the past period suddenly clicked together in his head, sharp as daggers. Turns out, the first time he accidentally met his mistress at the luxury cafe wasn’t random destiny; the evenings she proactively approached him, praised his talent, lured him into the trap… all of it, every single bit, was a script meticulously staged down to the smallest detail by the very wife he despised.
— “She didn’t throw loud tantrums, didn’t cause a scene to humiliate the company,” – the mistress’s voice continued to ring out, steady as a death sentence, – “she chose to play an open hand. She entrusted the entire legal system to me, asking me to pretend to be an ambitious mistress, luring you step by step into willingly handing over all shares and corporate control into a safe screen.”
She pulled another dossier from her handbag, opened it, and tossed it straight in front of him.
— “Take a good look, darling,” – she said coldly. – “The legal documents you just signed weren’t transferring assets to me for my personal keeping, but rather granting full asset management power of attorney and urgent share transfer to an independent corporate entity—and the sole owner of that entity is none other than your ex-wife. Oh, and by the way, starting today, you are officially divorced and out on the street empty-handed.”
He crawled trembling forward, picking up the paper from the floor. His cloudy eyes read the clearly printed black words over and over again. Indeed, no mistress’s name was listed as the final owner. The entire share system, workshops, bank accounts… had been legally converted and fully returned to the wife through an extremely tight trust mechanism meticulously designed by top lawyers.
V. The End of the Betrayer
Utter panic choked his throat. He realized he had lost—lost the most painful, bitter game of his life. He not only lost the colossal fortune he spent so much scheming to plunder, but also signed his own career death warrant with his own hands.
Before turning to walk out of the meeting room, the mistress paused for a beat, casting a final look of supreme contempt down at him:
— “She left me with one message before I came here: ‘A man who bites the hand that feeds him and betrays his family deserves to be thrown out onto the street with empty hands’. Good luck starting over in this poor city.”
The meeting room door slammed shut with a heavy thud.
The fluorescent light shone down upon the spacious room, illuminating the lonely silhouette of a man collapsed on the floor, holding his head and screaming in despair and helplessness. There were no applauding crowds welcoming high society, no glasses of champagne to toast victory. There was only the terrifying silence of retribution, and the brutal truth: the man who thought he was the wisest hunter would forever remain nothing more than a foolish prey walking straight into a trap set by the very wife he once discarded.
