Chapter 1

It's been three years since I got married, and life's just been getting better and better. My company is flourishing, and my wife is a successful career woman.

However, I have a friend from my college days who has already sabotaged a few families among our friend group. He can't bear to see others doing better than him.

One day, during a gathering with friends, he slung his arm over my shoulder and said earnestly, "Alan, look at you. After you got married, you lost all freedom. You now live like a simp. Can you still call yourself a man? I've booked a private room somewhere fun tonight, and no one's allowed to leave! Let's have a blast and party all night!"

I swallowed my discomfort and went along with them, only to find out what he meant by "having a blast" was hiring some professional ladies.

And he even dragged me along to try my luck at gambling.

Chapter 1

My name is Alan Reed. I'm 30 years old, and I run a media company that's not huge but makes stable profits.

Three years into marriage, at an age where most people start putting on weight, I haven't grown a beer belly. In fact, I'm living even better than when I was single.

The reason is simple: I have an amazing wife, Melody.

Melody is a senior executive at a top-tier venture capital firm in the country, managing hundreds of millions of dollars.

At work, she's decisive and sharp, but at home, she's a super supportive wife who is always considerate of my feelings and is gentle and understanding.

Since we got married, our careers have been on the rise, and our lives are harmonious and beautiful. You could say we're living the dream.

But I never imagined that this stability of mine would be a thorn in someone's side.

That person is Jeremy Collins, my "good friend" from college, my coursemate and my roommate for four years.

Jeremy, even back in college, was a bit of a looker and changed girlfriends faster than he changed sneakers.

After graduation, while everyone else was struggling in the real world, he always maintained this facade of a "playboy" and "free spirit".

He didn't have a proper job and claimed to be working in "private equity and crypto".

At gatherings, he loved to show up in flashy, flamboyant streetwear, sporting a Rolex Submariner (which was possibly fake), giving advice on everything.

For the past six months, every time we had a friends' gathering, Jeremy would make snide remarks about me, as if his mouth was dipped in poison.

"Oh, Mr. Reed is a protected species now, isn't he? He has to report to his wife three days in advance just to come out for a drink. Alan, I'm telling you as a brother, what's the difference between you and a simp nowadays? You get married and lose every bit of freedom. Your wife's got you on too tight of a leash. If a man doesn't have some pocket money of his own to have fun outside, can he even be called a man?"

Whenever he'd get drunk at the table and spew his venom, the other guys like Michael and Shane could only awkwardly try to smooth things over.

I, remembering our college friendship and knowing he'd always been a blabbermouth, never really took it to heart. I'd usually just smile it off.

"Melody does it for my own good. Having someone who cares about me is a blessing."

"Nonsense! She's just being a control freak!" Jeremy took a hard drag from his cigarette, a look of disdain all over his face. "Just you wait, Alan, that woman will drain you dry sooner or later."

I originally thought he was just a typical late-stage chauvinist who couldn't stand seeing other couples happy.

It wasn't until a certain evening last month that I truly saw the vicious side hidden beneath his friendly mask.

That day, we were drinking at a chill bar. I realized I had left my custom lighter in Jeremy's car.

He was pretty drunk, so he casually tossed me his car keys and told me to get it myself.

Chapter 2

The cold wind outside the bar sobered me up a bit.

I walked over to Jeremy's car, opened the door of the Porsche – which he bought on installments – and rummaged through the glove compartment on the passenger side for my lighter.

I didn't find the lighter, but I accidentally lit up his phone, which he'd carelessly left on the seat without locking the screen.

It showed a WhatsApp chat interface.

The contact's name was "Tiger (Debt collector, do not answer)".

Normally, I shouldn't pry into other people's business, but I caught a glimpse of my name on the screen, so I instinctively stopped and looked.

Jeremy's voice message to the other party had been transcribed into text, several paragraphs long.

Each word sent chills down my spine.

"Tiger, give me two weeks, I'll definitely get the money! I have this idiot college friend called Alan. He's a total henpecked husband who runs his own company. He has at least a few million in cash flow. His pretentious happy face just makes me sick."

"Don't worry, I have a plan. In a couple of days, I'll set up a gathering and show him how "real men" have fun. I'll have a few girls with cleaner backgrounds drag him into trouble, then take some photos. His high-and-mighty career-woman wife will surely dump him after seeing those photos!"

"Once they divorce, Alan will lose half his assets. When he's a mental wreck, I'll go comfort him as a good friend, then borrow money in his name to pay my debt. This guy will be my ATM machine!"

I felt cold all over.

Standing outside the car, clutching Jeremy's limited-edition phone, I felt as if all the blood had been instantly drained from my body. Then, a wave of pure dread rushed to my head.

For four years in college, I'd covered for Jeremy countless times in roll calls and bought him countless meals.

When I first started my business after graduation, he was kicked out by his landlord and practically lived at my place for half a year, and I never charged him a single cent.

I always thought that no matter how different our values were, we shared a bond of brotherhood after living in the same dorm for four years.

But it turned out that in his eyes, I was nothing more than a goose that laid golden eggs, a fat sheep ready to be slaughtered.

He not only couldn't stand to see me do well but also wanted to destroy the family I was so proud of. He wanted to ruin my reputation and use my hard-earned money to fill his bottomless debt pit.

I felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over me from head to toe, yet I felt calmer than ever.

I didn't take his phone. I put it back on the seat exactly as it was, and casually retrieved my lighter from deep within the glove compartment.

The moment I closed the car door, I saw my stern reflection in the window, and I knew I had already given this "brotherhood" a death sentence.

Back at the bar, Jeremy was groping a girl who was promoting drinks.

Seeing me return, he burped and slurred, "Yo, took you long enough to get a lighter. Did you sneak off to report to your wife?"

I suppressed the churning in my stomach and forced a perfunctory smile. "Yeah. You know I'm scared of my wife. Something suddenly came up and I have to go. Don't worry, I've paid the bill. You guys carry on drinking."

The moment I walked out, I knew the war had already started.

Three days later, Jeremy's "poisonous scheme" arrived as expected.

It was a Friday afternoon. He blared in a voice message in our WhatsApp group called "Brothers Who Slept With Me In College":

"Guys! It's my birthday, and I've booked a big VIP room at Night Palace! All of you have to come! Special note: no family members. It's a guys' night out. We want absolute freedom for men tonight! Alan, I'm talking about you. If you don't come, I'll go to your place with a megaphone and call you out from downstairs!"

Chapter 3

Michael and Shane both cheered and wished him a happy birthday.

I looked at the screen, scoffed, and sent a one-word reply: "Okay."

That evening, when the dinner party was over, it was already past ten.

Jeremy, his face flushed from drinking, wrapped an arm around my shoulder without a word and half-dragged, half-pushed me into his car.

"Come on, come on, the second half is the main course. Alan, your brother's gonna broaden your horizon tonight. You shouldn't be chained by that tigress at home. If a man goes his whole life without seeing the wild side of the world, he's lived in vain!"

The car twisted and turned through the night, finally pulling into an extremely discreet high-end club's underground parking lot in the suburbs.

The moment I stepped into the private room, I knew this was no legitimate place.

There was no karaoke. Eight scantily clad, heavily made-up girls sat on the couches, and the air was thick with the pungent smell of cheap perfume and hormones.

Jeremy immediately had an arm around a girl on each side, then casually pushed the prettiest one into my arms.

"Alan, this is Scarlet, she's yours tonight. Go wild. Things that happen in here, stay in here. No one will ever know." Jeremy winked at me, his smile utterly lecherous.

Scarlet immediately coiled around me like a snake, her hands with luxurious manicures reaching for the buttons on my shirt. "Alan, Jeremy said you're always under a lot of pressure at work. Let me give you a massage."

I pushed her hand away, stood up, and looked at Jeremy expressionlessly. "Is this what you call freedom?"

Jeremy was stunned, clearly not expecting such a strong reaction from me.

He stood up and clapped his hands. The wall behind the private room turned out to be a secret door.

The secret door opened, revealing a smoky, chaotic scene behind it. People gathered around a huge long table. The clinking of chips and the shouts of gamblers pierced my eardrums.

It was an illegal underground casino. Jeremy pulled out a handful of colorful chips from his pocket and forcefully shoved them into my hand, his eyes gleaming with a wild light.

"The front room is for soft fun, while the back room is for hard fun. Alan, it's my treat tonight, so go play a few rounds. If you win, it's yours, if you lose, it's on me! This is a playground for adults!"

I looked at the cheap plastic chips in my hand, reeking of sweat, and then at Jeremy's twisted, excited face. I finally understood just how vicious the "plan" that he mentioned in the voice message was.

Prostitution, gambling, drugs – if I touched even one of those, Melody would definitely divorce me, and my life would be ruined.

Without a moment's hesitation, I flicked my wrist and threw the handful of chips onto the glass coffee table in front of me.

The chips scattered, and the room fell silent.

"Jeremy," I looked down at him, my gaze as cold as ice, "You call prostitution and gambling a man's freedom? You can rot in the dirt yourself, but don't try to stain me. Don't ever take me to this kind of place again."

With that, I grabbed my jacket and strode out of the room, leaving the ashen-faced Jeremy behind.

But I knew he wouldn't leave it at that.

Sure enough, the moment I turned to close the door, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jeremy give a signal to the girl named Scarlet.

Scarlet suddenly let out a soft cry and lunged at me with her collar wide open. She practically pressed her chest against mine.

Jeremy held up his phone and a flash went off. A perfect "suspicious-looking photo" was thus born.

Chapter 4

Walking out of that smoky, chaotic club, breathing in the cold night air, I felt a wave of nausea.

I didn't go home. Instead, I drove straight to Melody's company.

It was eleven at night, and the lights in Melody's office were still on.

She was wearing a well-tailored business suit, reviewing a thick investment proposal with blue-light-blocking glasses on.

Seeing me push the door open, she took off her glasses, looking slightly surprised.

She rubbed her temples, her usually sharp gaze softening instantly. "What brings you here so suddenly? Didn't you say you're going out drinking for Jeremy's birthday? You reek of cigarettes."

I walked over, poured her a glass of warm water, then pulled up a chair and sat opposite her. I took a deep breath. "Honey, I need to confess something to you."

For the next fifteen minutes, I held nothing back, telling her everything, exactly as it happened: the chat I read on Jeremy's phone that day, how he took me to an underground club tonight for prostitution and gambling, and how he took that suspicious-looking photograph at the end.

I didn't exaggerate or try to hide my own foolishness. After all, I'd initially thought he was just a loose cannon.

After I finished talking, the office was deadly silent.

I expected Melody to be angry, at least to blow up at me for keeping such bad company, but she didn't.

She listened quietly, then reached for her phone on the table. She unlocked it and pushed it towards me, a chillingly cold smirk playing on her lips.

On the screen was a message from a newly registered WhatsApp account containing the very photo of the escort girl lunging into my arms at the club's private room entrance.

The angle was incredibly tricky. Because it was backlit, you couldn't see me pushing her away. Instead, it looked like I was holding her in a loving embrace.

Below the photo was the caption: "Mrs. Reed, your husband is fooling around in an underground casino with a young model. You're not doing a very good job of keeping him in check, are you? How does it feel to know that you can't satisfy your man?"

"Sent ten minutes ago." Melody's slender fingers tapped on the table, "The timeline matches perfectly. Looks like your "good friend" is really efficient."

"That scumbag..." I clenched my fists in anger, feeling the urge to rush back and beat Jeremy to a pulp.

"Sit down." Melody's voice was soft but carried an undeniable authority.

She looked at me with sharp eyes, "Beating him up wouldn't solve any problem. You'll just get detained for fifteen days and give him a chance to play the victim. Alan, you're the boss of a company. When you encounter a problem like this, you need to keep a clear head."

"So what do you suggest I do?"

Melody scoffed, forwarded the photo to her assistant, and then made a call.

"Hello, Neil? It's me. Help me check someone out. His name is Jeremy Collins. Check his recent cash flow and debt situation. Pay especially close attention to his dealings in the crypto and grey market. I want the most detailed report possible. The sooner, the better."

After hanging up, Melody leaned back in her executive chair, arms crossed over her chest.

Her eyes gleamed with the sharpness of a hunter spotting its prey. "Since he's trying to drag you down and ruin you, it must mean he's in serious financial trouble. I wouldn't be surprised at all if an arrogant speculator like him gets involved in things he shouldn't."

The efficiency of the venture capital queen was terrifying.

In less than two days, Neil's "due diligence report" landed in Melody's inbox.

The two of us sat in the study at home, going over the dense numbers on the screen, and gasped.

Jeremy wasn't just bankrupt, he had gone completely insane.

The report showed that over the past year, Jeremy had become obsessed with a shady, high-leverage cryptocurrency.

To increase his leverage, he not only maxed out all his credit cards but also borrowed from underground loan sharks at an annual interest rate as high as 70%.

Last month, that crypto crashed, and he lost everything overnight. He was nearly two million dollars in debt.

The debt collection agencies pushed him to the brink, threatening to chop off his limbs.

"His jealousy of you is just a façade. The real reason he's setting you up is because he needs a fat sheep to slaughter," Melody pointed out directly.

"He wants to force us to divorce using the photo, creating the illusion of your emotional breakdown. When a person is in extreme distress and desperate to save their marriage, their IQ is at its lowest. At that point, Jeremy will naturally step in under the guise of being a good friend to trick you into investing or becoming his guarantor, and completely drain you of whatever marital assets you get to pay his debt."

Looking at this irrefutable evidence, I felt a chill run down my spine.

If I hadn't happened to see the messages on his phone that day, if I hadn't confessed everything to Melody without reservation, or if Melody had even a hint of suspicion when we saw the photo, Jeremy's malicious plan would have succeeded.

"How do we get him back?" I asked, gritting my teeth.

Melody stood up, walked to the French window, and looked out at the bustling night view. Her tone was frighteningly calm. "He tricked you and attempted fraud. This is no longer just a moral issue. Alan, since he dug a trap for you, why don't we turn the tables on him? We'll play along and lure him into our own trap. Then, we'll screw him over."