Chapter 25 — My Husband Brought His Ex Home

When she tried to leave the city, her creditors intercepted her, and shortly after, she received an official summons ordering her return to cooperate with an ongoing police investigation. Inside the quiet mediation room, Han Hao pushed a divorce agreement across the wooden table toward me.

Sign this.

My family will not contest the house.

I will compensate you for your belongings.

I only ask one thing of you—please, return my wedding ring.

I lowered my gaze to look at my bare hands. The wedding ring had been removed and put away long ago. Reaching into my handbag, I retrieved a small velvet box and placed it gently on the table.

Here is your ring.

He opened the lid, his eyes instantly growing bloodshot as he stared at the band resting inside.

Zhi Xia, have we truly come to this point?

It is not that we have come to this point, I replied evenly.

It is that all of you, step by step, forced me to this exact destination.

21

The finalization of the divorce proceeded much quicker than I had anticipated. Han Hao did not contest the house. In truth, he had no legal ground to contest it whatsoever. The property was my personal pre-marital asset, backed by a clear financial paper trail and undisputed property registry records. As for the alleged renovation costs he claimed to have personally funded, lawyer Lin demanded formal documentation and receipts. He could produce none. Subsequent auditing of our joint expenses revealed that the vast majority of those so-called post-marriage renovation funds were actually just recycled from household living expenses that I had paid for out of my own pocket. The only item he had genuinely purchased himself was a television cabinet. I calculated its depreciation value and transferred the amount back to him: eight hundred and sixty yuan. Han Hao stared at the digital transfer receipt, his face turning deathly pale. I did not mock him. For those eight hundred and sixty yuan represented the absolute limit of sincerity he could possibly muster in this marriage. As for the car, he was left to shoulder the remaining loan installments on his own. Our joint savings were already meager, and they were divided strictly according to the law. He had initially intended to pressure me into shouldering a portion of his parents crushing debts. Lawyer Lin only had to ask him one simple question.

Did Miss Xu sign any loan agreements, did she receive any of the funds, and did she derive any actual benefit from them?

He fell silent. From that moment onward, he never uttered another word about debt. Chu Lan Chi reached out to me shortly after through an unfamiliar phone number. The moment I picked up, she broke down in tears on the other end of the line.

Zhi Xia, mother was wrong.

For the sake of the time we spent as mother- and daughter-in-law, could you please tell the police that all of those incidents were merely a misunderstanding?

Chu Lan Chi, I said coldly.

You are not my mother.

My mother would never take the heirloom left to me and gift it to another woman.

The line fell completely dead. I hung up the phone and blocked the number immediately. Han De Hai’s legal troubles were far more severe than anyone had anticipated. Not only had he used forged copies of my property deeds to deceive his creditors, but he was also strongly suspected of embezzling and concealing relocation compensation funds meant for his extended family. The bank card hidden inside my bedside table had become the crucial piece of evidence. He had originally planned to stash the money in my home, waiting for the scandal to break so he could stubbornly insist that I had embezzled the Han family's funds behind their backs. But he never expected that Fang Xiao Hui would sneak upstairs in the middle of the night and get caught. Even less did he anticipate that the damning text messages he sent her would be recovered on the spot. Relatives, creditors, and police officers descended upon him simultaneously from all directions. He no longer possessed the energy or breath to hurl curses at me. I heard that on the day the old Han family residence was sealed off and appraised, Chu Lan Chi sat weeping on the front doorstep for an entire afternoon. She was not crying out of remorse for what she had done to me. She was weeping because she finally realized that without my house to prop up her fragile pride, the Han family was nothing at all. Fang Xiao Hui was finally forced to face the consequences of her actions. Faced with overwhelming evidence, her theft of my earrings, access card, and spare keys was prosecuted under the law, and she was ordered to make financial restitution. Her active participation in spreading rumors and cyberbullying also resulted in a court-mandated public apology, compensation for emotional distress, and coverage of legal protection fees. Her debt of one hundred and twenty thousand yuan was relentlessly pursued by ruthless creditors. As for the child she carried in her womb, rumor had it that the biological father was overseas and flatly refused to acknowledge paternity. I no longer cared. That was no longer my story. I refused to waste a single superfluous tear on anyone else's self-inflicted chaos. On the day I collected my divorce certificate, the weather was exceptionally bright and clear. Han Hao stood outside the entrance of the Civil Affairs Bureau, his fingers gripping the divorce certificate so tightly that his knuckles turned white, his eyes as red-rimmed and bloodshot as someone who had gone days without sleep. He called out to stop me.

Zhi Xia.

If I had never allowed Xiao Hui to move into our home in the beginning, would things have never turned out this way?

I turned to look at him.

No.

A faint, fragile glimmer of hope flickered in his eyes. I continued, unyielding. Because even if there had never been a Fang Xiao Hui, something else would have inevitably taken her place.

Your mother wanted to use my house as a bargaining chip to curry favor with others.

Your father wanted to use my house to pay off his debts.

And you, you endlessly demanded that I be the understanding one.

The fundamental problem was never whether someone managed to cross that threshold.

It was that all of you fundamentally believed that I should always be the one to step aside and yield.

The last spark of light in his eyes extinguished completely. I turned around and walked away without looking back. My father was waiting for me by the roadside. Today, he wore a clean, pressed shirt, and he had carefully combed his hair into place. Seeing me emerge through the doors, he straightened his posture, his expression taut with nervous anticipation.

Are you finished?

I nodded.

Yes, Dad. It is all over.

He let out a long, heavy breath, and instantly, the edges of his old eyes grew hot and red.