On their wedding anniversary, a husband joyfully received a luxurious gift box from his wife, only to be left stunned and speechless upon opening it to find a video of his young mistress brazenly plotting to oust his wife and send him to prison
There are boxes wrapped in deep red velvet and tied with golden silk bows that are not born to convey love, but to serve as coffins burying all of a person’s most foolish illusions.
In a certain poor city, where deep, winding alleys were always thick with the scent of kitchen smoke mixed with the damp, moldy odor of peeling lime walls, time dragged on with the steady sound of chirping crickets whenever night fell. At that secluded street corner, a man stood before a mirror, using fingers trembling with excitement to smooth his hair—now flecked with a few strands of silver—and carefully straightening a newly acquired designer tie.
In the tarnished mirror, he looked at his own reflection and smugly thought that he was a man born to belong to the spotlight, not to this cramped, tedious space.
And the greatest tedium in that space was none other than the wife he had taken from the days of hardship. In his eyes at that moment, that woman had been drained of all vitality. A plain face without makeup, rough hands from year-round toil over basic livelihood, and that slow, quiet demeanor whenever she spoke—all of it had become a sloppy burden, a blemish obstructing his path to higher tiers of society.
He had found salvation for his inflated ego elsewhere: the office, illuminated by glaring white LED lights, where a young female colleague was present. She had joined the organization not long ago, but had managed to climb to an important position thanks to her sharp beauty, cunning maneuvers, and calculating glances.
Every noon in dimly lit, secluded cafes, or late after work when the office building was completely deserted, the young mistress always knew how to water the seeds of his power-hungry soul with sweet praises. She whispered into his ear that he deserved to be a top-tier leader, that he was being held back by an outdated family, and that his future belonged at the pinnacle of prestige, where she would walk side by side with him.
Deluded by the intoxicating brew of romance and greed, he began to openly grow cold toward his wife. The dinners he abandoned, the sighs disparaging his aging, sluggish wife grew more frequent like a routine of psychological abuse inflicted upon the devoted woman. He firmly believed that his wife was a naive, depressed, and completely blind creature, entirely unaware of the illicit affair burning outside.
Tonight was their tenth wedding anniversary.
He trudged home in an irritated mood, because by right, he should have been sitting in a luxury restaurant bathed in candlelight and wine with his young mistress, instead of returning to this rat hole to perform the hollow duties of a husband. He pushed the door open, ready to fling a blunt remark to extinguish any hope of dull anniversary celebrations from his wife.
Yet contrary to his expectations, the living room was tidied up unusually well. On the rustic wooden table in the middle of the house sat a rectangular gift box wrapped in dark blue velvet paper, tied with a glittering golden silk bow, resting there with an air of solemnity.
The wife stood beside the table, wearing a simple dark-toned dress, her hair hanging down loosely. Her expression carried no anger, nor the usual expectant yearning. Instead, it was a faint, indefinite, and chillingly strange smile.
— “Today is our wedding anniversary,” – the wife’s voice rang out, serene to the point of being hair-raising. – “Open your gift. I’ve prepared it for a long, long time, a special gift meant exclusively for you.”
He paused slightly, a wave of suspicion flickering through his chest, but it was quickly overpowered by curiosity and arrogance. He thought that perhaps because he had been treating her too coldly lately, this rustic wife had squeezed out her meager savings to buy him an expensive gift to salvage the marriage.
He sneered, stepping forward to leisurely untie the silk bow and fling open the lid.
Inside lay no luxury watch, no high-end leather wallet, or any jewelry he expected. Right in the center of the soft velvet lining was a small, compact black electronic device, upon which a red LED dot was blinking continuously. Right beside it was an integrated mini LCD screen, automatically playing a crisp video accompanied by vivid sound.
He froze. Survival instinct flared, urging him to fling the box to the floor. But his feet seemed nailed to the floorboards, his eyes glued to the tiny screen glowing brightly in the dim twilight of the room.
The image emerged clear as day. It was a luxurious hotel room, where dim yellow light poured down onto a large bed. And the main characters in the frame were none other than his young mistress and an unfamiliar man—someone he knew all too well as a high-ranking managing director of a direct competitor to the company he worked for.
The audio from the hidden camera rang out crystal clear, striking his ears like sledgehammers crashing into his cerebrum:
“How are things going? Has that foolish man completely fallen for your sweet words?” – the rival director’s voice spoke, dripping with contempt.
The young mistress in the video giggled, her sharp and calculating gaze clearly visible on her pretty face that had once mesmerized him:
“Don’t you worry! He is so delusional about power that he’s a fool; as long as I pour a few praises into his ears, he’s ready to do anything. The entire strategic action plan for this quarter from the company—he has secretly copied and handed all of it over to me.”
“And what about kicking him out of the company? The board of directors has already started suspecting the confidential document leak.”
“Then just let him drown in that trap!” – the mistress laughed aloud, her voice cold to the point of cruelty. – “I’ve already arranged all the forged certificates and fraudulent signatures in his personal account. By the end of this week, when the board meeting takes place, he will officially become the one bearing full criminal responsibility for embezzlement and selling out the company. At that moment, he’ll lose both his job and his reputation, while the deputy general manager’s seat will naturally belong to you, and I will step up to the position of managing director!”
“What a clever and ruthless vixen. I’m madly in love with you!”
Click.
The video stopped, the screen flashed black, sinking into a thick, pitch-black void.
The living room plunged into a suffocating silence. The only remaining sound was the panting, broken breaths of the man standing frozen beside the table. Cold sweat poured profusely down his forehead, streaming down his chin to drip onto the cold floor.
His mind was blank. Every image of a glorious future, of the powerful deputy general manager’s seat, of vows under the moon with the young mistress… everything instantly vanished into thin air, turning into a foul pile of ashes. He realized he had never been a clear-headed hunter; he was merely a cheap puppet, a filthy tool thoroughly exploited and then mercilessly discarded by the very woman to whom he had once entrusted his physical faith.
He staggered back a few steps, collapsing onto the floor, clutching his head with both hands, his eyes bulging wide as he stared blankly into the empty void. Shock, terror, and humiliation intertwined, squeezing his chest so hard he couldn’t utter a single word.
Standing tall, the wife slowly bent down, picked up the hidden camera device from the table, holding it in her hand as if it were a trivial toy. Her expression remained eerily serene, without a trace of surprise, nor even a shred of pity for the man kneeling at her feet.
— “How do you like this anniversary gift?” – the wife’s voice rang out, gentle yet sharp as a razor slicing through skin. – “You called me old and tedious, unworthy of your glittering outside world. But you forgot one crucial thing: a woman who can endure hardships by your side from the days of poverty is never a fool incapable of seeing people for who they are.”
He raised his pale, sweat-soaked face to look at his wife, his lips trembling without sound:
— “You… since when did you know…?”
The wife smiled faintly, a razor-sharp gleam flashing in her eyes never seen in the past ten years:
— “From the day you started getting busy with late office hours and strange perfume on your collar. I didn’t make a loud scene out of jealousy, nor did I cause trouble at your company, because I wanted to wait and see how miserably the peak of glory you were striving to reach would collapse when it fell right into the trap of its own greed.”
She dropped the device onto the table, the metal impact emitting a sharp, crisp sound.
— “The document files and evidence of you being swindled were sent directly to the board of directors this afternoon. Tomorrow, when you step foot into the company, what awaits you won’t be a powerful seat, but an arrest warrant and handcuffs from the investigative authorities.”
He stared blankly at his wife, feeling as though the entire sky was collapsing, crushing down upon his shoulders. The betrayal he inflicted upon his family ultimately turned out to be the very poison stripping away his corporate life.
The wife turned her back and walked toward the bedroom, leaving him to collapse in utter panic within the four cramped walls of the poor neighborhood corner. Outside, the night remained thick, embracing a dead-end fate for a man who had sold his conscience for extravagant illusions.
