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After three years of marriage, my wife still couldn't forget her first love.

Our love nest had a locked room, a promise she had reserved for her first love.

As long as he returned, there would always be a place for him in our home.

For him, she abandoned me time and time again.

The last time, in order to fulfill a promise she had made with her first love,

she deliberately drugged me, leaving me unconscious for three days.

That time, I almost died.

After being discharged from the hospital, I left a divorce agreement behind and vanished completely from her world.

But then, she began searching for me frantically.

Until she saw a black-and-white photo of a girl in a cemetery who looked strikingly similar to her, she cried out in pain, demanding:

[Shen Qing, tell me—]

[Who were you thinking of every time you looked at me?]

...

On our third wedding anniversary, my wife, Yang Xue, finally agreed to spend the day with me.

I turned our home into a beautiful castle, spent half the day preparing a lavish candlelit dinner, and even picked out an exquisite gift, hoping to treat her like a princess.

I eagerly drank the glass of wine she handed me, but within moments, I felt an overwhelming drowsiness. The room spun, and I collapsed to the floor.

Before losing consciousness, I saw her take out her phone and speak in a tone of tenderness I had never heard before: [He's asleep now. He won't disturb us anymore.]

At that moment, I felt my heart racing, struggling to breathe, and I thought I was going to die. I wanted to scream for help, hoping she would take me to the hospital.

But Yang Xue picked up her bag, stepped out with a spring in her step, and didn't look back. Her eager demeanor reminded me of a young girl experiencing love for the first time.

With the last of my strength, I dialed 120, then completely blacked out.

When I woke up, my head was pounding, and the smell of disinfectant filled the air. As my blurred vision gradually cleared, I realized I had narrowly escaped death.

The events of that anniversary night felt like a dream, and even now, they don't seem real.

How could I have suddenly passed out?

Soon, the doctor came in for rounds, his expression serious. He scolded me: [You're lucky the dose of sleeping pills you took wasn't enough. If it had been just one more pill, reaching a lethal dose, you wouldn't be in the observation room—you'd be in the ICU. Young man, you got lucky.]

When I heard the words "sleeping pills," I was stunned. I had stopped taking sleeping pills five years ago. How could I have taken them by accident? And the doctor's assumption that I had attempted suicide was completely baseless.

Just as I was about to argue, I suddenly remembered the glass of wine Yang Xue had handed me. A ridiculous thought crossed my mind.

Why would Yang Xue drug me?

To confirm my suspicions, I asked a nurse to call Yang Xue, hoping to see her reaction.

The nurse didn't refuse, and soon the call connected: [Hello, are you Shen Qing's family member? He overdosed on sleeping pills and may need to be hospitalized...]

[Shen Qing, what kind of game are you playing now? I checked—that small dose of sleeping pills wouldn't do anything. You'll just sleep it off. Are you teaming up with outsiders to trick me? Is this fun for you?]

[I'm busy right now. I don't have time for your games. If you want to die, just go ahead and die.]

Before she could finish, a pained moan came from the other end.

[A-Xue, is he mad?]

Yang Xue's tone instantly softened into a tenderness I had never heard before. [Don't worry about him. I've already married him. What more does he want? A grown man causing drama all the time is going to ruin our marriage sooner or later.]

As the call ended with a dial tone and I felt the nurse's sympathetic gaze, my mind went blank. My heart felt shattered, and the pain was unbearable.

At that moment, I felt like the biggest joke in the world.

The person who had nearly killed me by causing my hospitalization was my wife, the same woman who had just cursed me to die over the phone.

She had drugged me with sleeping pills on our third wedding anniversary, all so she could spend uninterrupted time with her first love, Mu Chen, without me getting in the way.

Yang Xue, the woman I had loved for five years and been married to for three, how could she be so cruel to me?

She hadn't even bothered to consider the consequences of an overdose of sleeping pills.

Perhaps it wasn't that she didn't think about it—she simply didn't care whether I lived or died.

In the end, she almost killed me.

I was like a puppet in her hands, my emotions and thoughts easily controlled by her.

I was more like a dog groveling at her feet.

When she was happy, she would give me a little sunshine, brightening my entire world.

When she was angry, she would tighten the leash around my neck, tormenting and abusing me until I couldn't breathe, on the verge of breaking down, only to loosen it at the last moment and offer me a condescending olive branch, expecting me to be grateful.

The moment the call ended, I felt as if I had been struck by lightning. I stared blankly at the ceiling.

My heart felt like it had been pierced by a dagger, bleeding profusely.

Just then, my phone buzzed with a notification from a special contact. I instinctively opened it, and my body began to tremble violently. An indescribable rage surged through me.

Mu Chen posted a Weibo update.

A photo of two hands tightly clasped together, with the ocean in the background.

[I said I wanted to see the sea, and you dropped everything to come to me. Truly, first love is the purest.]

I stared at the slender, ring-adorned hand in the picture, feeling as if a boulder was pressing down on my chest. I wanted to laugh hysterically, but the pain was too much.

Five years. What have I been doing all this time?

I had thought that time would heal all wounds, that if I gave her my whole heart and soul, I would eventually see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But how laughable—Yang Xue had never changed. Her first love was still her top priority.

Time and time again, she had left me behind to run to him.

I had lost count of how many fights we'd had, how many times we'd nearly divorced over her first love.

But when Yang Xue drugged me and nearly killed me, I finally understood.

This stone I had been trying to warm for five years would never heat up.

An overwhelming exhaustion washed over me. I felt so tired, so done with their love games.

I was giving up.