Just as she reached the private room door, Jiang Yousheng heard people inside joking around.
“Beichen, what’s it like sleeping with your ex-wife after the divorce?”
She froze instinctively, standing outside the door.
After a long pause, a low voice replied, “It’s… nothing special.”
Through the crack in the door, she saw Gu Beichen lounging on the sofa, casually playing on his phone.Under the dim lighting, his lowered lashes outlined a sharply defined, strikingly handsome face.
“Su Mumu’s back. When are you going to dump her?”“Don’t tell me you actually caught feelings for that ex-wife after sleeping with her.”
Gu Beichen put away his phone, impatience written all over his face. “I’ll talk about it when I get bored. Mumu coming back won’t change anything.”
“True. Jiang Yousheng willingly degraded herself into your secret lover anyway—she brought it on herself.”“Honestly, seeing her fawn over Brother Beichen like a little lapdog now is hilarious!”
Someone noticed Jiang Yousheng standing at the doorway.The room gradually fell silent.
If this had been the old Jiang Yousheng, she would’ve stormed in, slapped Gu Beichen hard, thrown wine in his face, and smashed the entire room.
“Beichen, drink less,” she said instead, pretending she hadn’t heard anything. Wearing a gentle smile, she walked obediently to his side.
Everyone watched eagerly, expecting drama.
In the past, Jiang Yousheng had been a spoiled heiress—wild, fiery, famous for her explosive temper that matched her stunning figure. When she was unhappy, nobody else got to be happy either.
But that was before the Jiang family went bankrupt a year ago.
She had fallen from a high-and-mighty rich young lady to Gu Beichen’s hidden mistress.
The company collapsed. Massive debts piled up. Friends and relatives scattered. Her father fell ill from stress; her mother cried about wanting to die.
“Shengsheng, go find Gu Beichen. He loves you so much—he’ll definitely help repay our debts.”
Jiang Yousheng’s scalp tingled with dread. “Mom… Gu Beichen and I are divorced…”
“What? He divorced you at a time like this—and left with nothing? What a disaster for our family! I don’t want to live anymore!”
But she had been the one who asked for the divorce.
“Have you thought this through?” Gu Beichen had asked coldly.
He had always been lukewarm with her, smiling faintly yet distant.
Even on the day they went to the Civil Affairs Bureau, he looked the same.
Thinking he might try to cling to her, she had warned him viciously, “You’re just an illegitimate son. Do you think you’re worthy of me?”She even mocked him as a toad dreaming of eating swan meat.“Hurry up and sign. You’re leaving with nothing.”
His face darkened as he signed.
During their three years of marriage, Gu Beichen had always tolerated her—no matter how she humiliated him, ignored him, or insulted him in front of others. Even when she accused him of scheming his way into her bed, he never argued.
Instead, he quietly warmed milk for her every night.When she got drunk, he drove more than ten kilometers in the middle of the night to pick her up.When she developed stomach problems, he learned to cook nourishing porridge and woke early to make it for her.
Everyone believed he loved her deeply—spoiled her to the bone.
Yet right after their divorce, the Jiang family went bankrupt.
On the very day the Jiang family fell, he acquired the Jiang Group and bought up all the family’s sold-off assets.
Her mother caused scenes; her father lay ill in a hospital bed.With no other choice, Jiang Yousheng went to beg Gu Beichen for help.
After exhausting her in bed, he tossed her a contract and a bank card.
“One million—or serve me for a year. Your choice.”
Her heart ached. Fate had turned—now she would be the one oppressed.
He was clearly humiliating her.
One million wasn’t nearly enough to pay off the Jiang family’s debts.
Yet her pride wouldn’t allow her to endure a year of humiliation.
“Not enough…” she said, taking the card anyway—once upon a time, this amount wouldn’t even have bought her a handbag.
Gu Beichen looked at her indifferently, his deep eyes like a dark ocean.“Jiang Yousheng, you were the one who asked for the divorce. Tonight, you came to me on your own. I owe you nothing.”
It was true.
He had never relied on the Gu family or taken a single cent from the Jiangs. Everything he had achieved was built by his own hands.
The Gu and Jiang families had been close for generations.
Originally, Jiang Yousheng was supposed to marry his uncle—the youngest son of Old Master Gu. Gu Beichen, on the other hand, was an illegitimate child born from his father’s affair and was never accepted by the Gu family until his father died unexpectedly. Only then did his grandfather acknowledge him as blood.
The three of them grew up together, and the one Jiang Yousheng truly loved was his uncle.
On her eighteenth birthday, she got drunk and woke up in bed with Gu Beichen. The media caught them leaving together—photos of “Hei City’s richest heiress and an illegitimate son” went viral overnight, turning her into the city’s biggest laughingstock.
Her father was furious, despising Gu Beichen’s status and blaming him for ruining his daughter’s innocence—he nearly beat him to death.
But in the end, to save her reputation, he forced her to marry Gu Beichen under the condition that he marry into the Jiang family as a live-in son-in-law—as punishment.
The Gu family was prestigious; even an illegitimate son was still a Gu heir. Such humiliation should have been unthinkable—yet Gu Beichen agreed.
From then on, he was mocked by society as a live-in husband.
In a twisted way, the humiliation between them felt even.
Because of that scandal, she lost the chance to marry the man she loved. Resentment grew in her heart; she refused to let Gu Beichen touch her and constantly degraded him.
On the day the Jiang family went bankrupt, she delivered herself to him. Gu Beichen took his revenge in bed, forcing her to beg for mercy.
One contract later, she became his caged canary.