My best friend stole my girlfriend. Five years later, I showed up to remodel their wedding house. Susan clung to Ethan’s arm, glaring at me like I was dirt. “Get out. You’re soiling my new home.” He laughed and threw a stack of cash at my feet. “For the help, loser.” I didn’t bend down. My gaze swept past them and fixed on the massive design rendering in the living room. It was clearly “Homecoming,” the same piece I had spent three sleepless months drawing for Susan five years ago. Now, the signature simply read “Design by Ethan.” I stepped on the bills and sneered. “A thief’s final destination is prison.” Ethan’s smile froze instantly. He had no idea. I’d already prepared a very special wedding gift for them next week. Jason’s POV At two in the morning, I sat in my moldy rental room, holding a package of expired bread. The dim light from my phone screen stung my eyes, but I couldn’t look away. The top trending post felt like a rusty nail, driving straight into my eyeballs. The title read: “I stole my best friend’s girlfriend-do I regret it now?” The anonymous poster’s answer had the most upvotes. “Why would I regret it? It’s been absolutely amazing.” “Five years ago, that guy was a stubborn genius. Handsome, smart, and childhood friends with this rich girl. Everyone thought they were the perfect match.” “So what? I just used a few tricks.” “First, I pretended to be depressed and used that to get close to her through sympathy. Then at a party, I deliberately provoked him until he hit me. I fell onto broken glass on purpose, blood everywhere, then acted magnanimous and forgave him.” “The girl went ballistic. She thought he was violent, unstable, completely unreasonable.” “While they were fighting, I brought her coffee every day, kept her company, played the victim. And him? He was still working multiple jobs like an idiot to buy her gifts, exhausted like a dog, didn’t even get a chance to explain.” “Then came the final move. I tampered with his university application and framed his gambling addict father for it. He fell apart, didn’t get into Oxford, and his life went straight into the gutter.” “Now? That rich girl is my fiancée. We’re not just partners in a publicly traded company-next week we’re having the wedding of the century.” “And that former genius? I heard he’s working construction now. That’s what they mean by choices matter more than effort. What good is a high IQ? Emotional intelligence is king.” The comment section exploded. Some cursed him out. “You’re shameless. Destroying someone’s relationship and being proud of it?” Others sucked up to him. “He’s just smart. If the guy couldn’t keep his girl, whose fault is that?” “Exactly. If a lover can be stolen, they weren’t really yours.” Reading these words, I felt my blood flowing backward, my fingers trembling uncontrollably. Not from anger, but from disgust. Even more so because of a blurry silhouette photo the poster had shared. It was from five years ago, on Susan’s birthday, a picture of me carrying her on my back under the fireworks. Only three people had this photo. Me, Susan, and Ethan, who had been holding the camera with that innocent smile on his face. I set down my phone, my stomach cramping, and rushed to the narrow bathroom to dry heave. So that was it. That inexplicably failed first love of mine, my ruined life caused by someone tampering with my application, these five years of living like a dog-it was all Ethan’s carefully designed trap. And Susan, the woman I’d loved for ten whole years, was about to marry the man who destroyed me. Suddenly, urgent knocking came from outside. “Jason! Open up! I know you’re in there!” It was the landlord. I wiped the cold water off my face and opened the door. The landlord looked fierce, jabbing a finger at my nose. “You’re three days late! When are you paying rent? I bet your vegetative mother is about to get thrown out of the hospital too, right? If you don’t have money, get lost. Stop squatting here!” “Tomorrow.” My voice was hoarse. “I’ll definitely pay tomorrow.” “Tomorrow, tomorrow, always tomorrow! If you don’t pay up, I’m throwing out all those crappy blueprints of yours!” I closed the door and slid down against it, powerless. Ethan was right in that post. He won. He became a winner in life. And me, Jason-I really did end up in the gutter. These five years, I didn’t go to college. To earn medical bills for my mother who became a vegetable after a car accident, I did hard labor, delivered food. Now I was the lowest level construction worker at a renovation company. That high-spirited Jason who vowed to design world landmark buildings-he died long ago. But I never imagined the “cause of death” would be so absurd. I wanted to laugh, but tears came out instead. Just then, my boss called. “Jason, urgent job tomorrow. That wedding house in Cloudcrest Villa-the owners are coming to inspect and want some design changes. The original designer bailed, and you’re capable, so you’re up. Pull this off, and there’s a three-thousand-dollar bonus in it for you.” Cloudcrest Villa. The most expensive rich district in the city. “Okay.” I agreed. For the three thousand dollars. For the ventilator that would keep my mother breathing next week. I had no choice. Even though I knew, deep down, that house was almost certainly Susan and Ethan’s.
Jason’s POV Early the next morning, I rode my beat-up bicycle to Cloudcrest Villa. The villa was incredibly luxurious. Just the entrance garden was several times larger than where I lived. I carried my toolbox, standing in the opulent hall, completely out of place. “Here, and here, the trim needs to be redone.” I was crouching on the floor measuring baseboard data when the sound of high heels clicking against marble came from the entrance. Then came a familiar male voice that made me stop breathing. “Susan, you’re just too much of a perfectionist. I think it’s already great. After all, this is our home-as long as I have you, it’s perfect.” My hand holding the tape measure froze. I looked up and met two pairs of eyes. Susan wore a well-tailored beige trench coat, her long hair pinned up. Her exquisite makeup made her look even more coldly elegant than five years ago. Beside her, Ethan wore a suit, a Patek Philippe worth a fortune on his wrist, his arm wrapped lovingly around her waist. Our eyes met. The air seemed to freeze in that instant. The smile in Susan’s eyes vanished immediately, replaced by shock, then undisguised revulsion. “Jason? What are you doing here?” Ethan paused for a moment, then a playful smile curved his lips. That look was like watching a stray dog begging for food on the roadside. “Isn’t this our genius Jason?” Ethan called out dramatically. “How did you end up like this? The worker renovating our wedding house is actually you?” I slowly stood up and brushed the dust off my pants. “I’m here to work. If you’re not satisfied, I can have someone else take over.” “Don’t!” Ethan stepped forward, blocking my path, looking me up and down. “We’re old classmates. We should catch up when we run into each other. Look at you, filthy all over. These years have been rough, huh?” He turned to Susan with an exaggerated sigh. “Susan, see? I told you Jason wouldn’t go far. If he’d just stayed on the right path back then, he wouldn’t be doing grunt work for us now.” Susan’s gaze cut across my face like a knife. Once, these eyes held only me. She would wipe my sweat when I drew blueprints, would cry from worry when I got injured playing ball. She said. “Jason, you’re my light. We’ll be together forever.” But now she looked at me coldly, as if looking at garbage. “Ethan, don’t waste words on this kind of person.” Susan’s voice was icy. “Make him leave. I don’t want to see him. He’s dirty.” “Dirty”-those words were like two slaps across my face. I clenched my fists, nails digging into flesh. “Miss Susan, I was sent by the company.” I looked straight into Susan’s eyes. “If you want to breach the contract, please contact our manager. I’m just doing my job according to the contract.” Susan frowned. “Jason, do you have no shame?” Susan was getting angry. “Five years ago you injured Ethan in a fit of rage, then gambled away your tuition and drove your father to death. Someone like you, who can’t be helped, appearing in front of me is an insult!” Gambling? Drove my father to death? I snapped my gaze to Ethan. He stood behind Susan, giving me a provocative smile, his lips moving silently. “I’m the one who said it. So what?” So that was it. Behind that post, he’d fabricated so many lies I didn’t even know about. My dad clearly died of a heart attack after being hounded by creditors that year. And those debts came from the so-called “guarantee contract” Ethan had tricked my dad into signing! All the rage surged to my head in that moment, but I forced it down. Right now, I had no right to get angry. My mom was still in the hospital waiting for this money to save her life. “Miss Susan,” I lowered my head, my voice low. “I’m just a renovation worker. After I finish today’s job, I’ll leave. I’m just trying to make a living.” Seeing me lower my head, Ethan looked even more smug. He pulled out a stack of bills from his wallet, about two or three thousand dollars, and tossed them at my feet like throwing change to a beggar. The bills scattered across the dusty floor. “Alright, stop playing pitiful.” Ethan put his arm around Susan. “Since we’re old classmates, I can’t be too heartless. Take this money and get lost. Don’t dirty our new house. As for the work, we’ll just find someone else.” Susan didn’t stop him, just watched coldly. In her view, this was probably the treatment someone like me at the “bottom” deserved. I looked at the money on the ground, then at Ethan’s hypocritical face. The words from that post echoed in my mind: “His life went straight into the gutter.” I bent down. Ethan laughed out loud. “That’s right, Jason. People need to accept their fate…” I picked up that stack of bills and weighed them in my hand. Then, right in front of them, I slapped that wad of cash hard across Ethan’s face! Bills flew everywhere. Ethan was stunned, his face burning with pain. Susan screamed. “Jason! Are you insane!” “Yes, I am insane.” I stared hard at Ethan. “Ethan, you really think you can hide what happened five years ago forever? You really think I deserve to rot in the gutter for you to step on?”
Jason’s POV Ethan stumbled back half a step, but quickly recovered and tried to rush at me. “You bastard, you dare hit me? Security! Where’s security!” Susan grabbed Ethan, blocking him, her eyes full of disappointment and disgust. “Jason, you’ve really disappointed me.” She pulled out a checkbook from her bag, scribbled a string of numbers, and tossed it on the nearby table. “That’s fifty thousand dollars. Take the money, get out of my sight, and never appear again. For the sake of your mother once taking care of me, this is the last time I’ll help you.” Fifty thousand dollars. For me right now, that was a fortune. Enough to pay for Mom’s hospital bills for three months. If it were yesterday’s me, maybe I would have knelt down and picked up that money for Mom’s sake. But not today. I’d read that post. I knew the truth. This fifty thousand wasn’t charity-it was hush money. It was a gag order, dirty money to trample my dignity. “Susan.” I looked at her, suddenly feeling such sadness. “Do you really understand him? Do you really know what happened five years ago?” Susan sneered. “I understand very well. For me, Ethan gave up his chance to study abroad and stayed to start a business with me. And you? You only knew how to drink, fight, and run from responsibility. The facts are right there-what more do you want to argue?” “Facts?” I pointed at Ethan. “Ask him-that architectural design assignment in sophomore year, who actually drew it for you? Ask him-the day your father’s company went bankrupt, who knelt in the pouring rain all night begging creditors for a few more days?” Ethan’s expression changed instantly. Susan froze, then frowned. “That was Ethan! He stayed up three nights straight to draw it until his hands swelled! As for that night… Ethan was with me too.” I laughed. Laughed until my lungs hurt. So he didn’t just steal my life. He stole everything I had ever worked for. That year, to help Susan complete her award winning design, I drew for three days and three nights straight in the dorm room of Ethan, who called himself my good brother. I worked until I passed out. When I woke up, Ethan had already taken the drawings to claim credit. He lied to me, saying my work was too terrible and that he had to fix it before submitting. And that rainy night, Ethan did go. But he stayed in his car the whole time. Only I knelt outside in the pouring rain like a fool. “Jason, you’re truly frightening.” Susan shook her head. “When you’ve accomplished nothing yourself, you steal others’ credit to put on your own face? What’s the point of such lies?” I looked at Susan’s determined eyes. My heart went completely cold. Five years, plus deliberate brainwashing, had completely demonized my image in her heart. Explain? What could I explain with now? With these dirty clothes or with my high school diploma? “You’ll regret this.” I said softly. “The biggest regret of my life was knowing you.” Susan struck back mercilessly. I didn’t glance at that check, picked up my toolbox, and turned to leave. At the door, I stopped, my back to them. “I won’t renovate this house. But there’s a problem with the structural diagram for that load-bearing wall in the living room. If you renovate according to the current plan, it’ll collapse within three years.” With that, I strode out of the villa. Behind me came Ethan’s furious voice. “Don’t listen to his nonsense! What does a construction worker know about structures! I hired a first-class designer for those plans!” Walking out of Cloudcrest Villa District, the sunlight outside was so blinding it made me want to cry. I got on my bicycle. Wind rushed into my collar, cold to the bone. My phone vibrated. It was the hospital calling. My heart tightened. I quickly answered. “Mr. Jason? This is the hospital. Your mother’s condition suddenly deteriorated. She has a serious lung infection and needs to be moved to ICU immediately for emergency treatment. Please come pay the fees and sign right away!” “How much?” My voice trembled. “Pre-payment of fifty thousand dollars.” Fifty thousand dollars. Again, fifty thousand dollars. What Susan had just thrown on the table was exactly fifty thousand dollars. Fate was like a cruel clown, laughing madly at me. I trembled. “Doctor, please save her first… I’ll get the money right away, right away…” “Hurry. We can’t wait much longer.” The call ended. I looked at the bustling streets, at the skyscrapers towering in the distance. That was where I once dreamed of designing. Now, I couldn’t even come up with fifty thousand dollars. I didn’t go back to the construction site. Instead, I turned my bike around and went to a pawn shop. The only valuable thing I had was the necklace I’d kept close to my body. It was a family heirloom, something Mom had saved for me to give to my future wife. But I couldn’t think about that now.
Jason’s POV The owner was a shrewd middle-aged man. He examined it with a magnifying glass for a long time, then held up three fingers. “Thirty thousand dollars.” “This necklace is excellent, worth at least eighty thousand!” I panicked. “That was before. The market’s bad now. Thirty thousand. Take it or leave it.” I gritted my teeth. “I’ll take it.” With thirty thousand dollars, I borrowed another ten thousand from coworkers and maxed out my credit card, finally scraping together fifty thousand. I rushed to the hospital, paid the fees, and watched as Mom was wheeled into the ICU. I collapsed onto the hallway bench. Through the glass, watching Mom covered in tubes, so thin she was just skin and bones, my heart felt like it was being ground in a meat grinder. “Mom, I’m sorry… I’m useless.” I covered my face. Tears poured through my fingers. Just then, the TV at the end of the hallway was broadcasting a news interview. “…Congratulations to Evergreen Group and Ethan Industries on their strategic partnership. Miss Susan and Mr. Ethan’s engagement ceremony will be held next week. Mr. Ethan, I heard you personally designed the wedding house?” On screen, Ethan had his arm around Susan, looking smug. “Yes. Although I’m not a professional designer, for Susan, I’m willing to try anything. I want to give her a one-of-a-kind home.” The reporters were full of praise. “Mr. Ethan is so romantic-not only a business genius but also a design genius.” I stared hard at the screen. Design genius? That person who couldn’t even memorize CAD shortcuts-he qualified as a design genius? Suddenly, the image cut to a design rendering displayed behind them. In that instant, all the blood in my body froze. That image… That villa design called “Homecoming” was clearly from my sophomore year sketch, the dream home I’d planned to give Susan someday! The “suspended corridor” and “light atrium” designs were my original concepts, praised by my professor as extraordinarily inspired. But later, that sketchbook went missing. I thought I’d lost it when moving. Turns out, it was stolen by Ethan too! He didn’t just steal my girl, steal my credit-now he was stealing even my last dream to use as his proposal to Susan! If he didn’t want me to live, then nobody would live! I pulled out my phone and found that post. The post was still trending. Ethan was still smugly replying to comments. “That idiot will never figure out that his most treasured design is about to become my masterpiece. This is what intellectual dominance looks like.” With trembling fingers, I registered a new account. Under that post, I typed a line. “Ethan, does it feel good using stolen things? I’m Jason. At next week’s wedding, I’ll send you a big gift.” After posting, I closed my phone. I was going to fight back. I couldn’t just accept defeat like this. I returned to my rental room, rummaged through everything, and found an old laptop I’d sealed away at the bottom of a box years ago. Though old, the hard drive contained all my original design files with timestamps. And also, those memories I’d buried. Five years ago, to frame me, Ethan had someone photoshop pictures of me in bed with another woman and sent them to Susan. He also drugged my drink, making me miss the most important scholarship interview. Before, I had no evidence for any of this. I could only accept my fate. But now, in that post, to show off, he’d laid out every detail of his schemes. Though anonymous, if I could prove that account was his, he was finished. And proving that wasn’t actually difficult. Because in the post, he’d shared that blurry silhouette photo. Though blurry, I remembered that when he took that photo, I was right beside him. If I could find photos from other angles that day, or surveillance footage… Wait. That day was Susan’s birthday party at “Cloudcrest Club.” Cloudcrest Club… wasn’t that the predecessor of the villa district where I just worked? I suddenly remembered-today at the villa, in the storage room, I’d seen several dust-covered old surveillance hard drive boxes labeled “Cloudcrest Club Archive 2018.” That villa was converted from the old club! My heart raced. If those hard drives weren’t damaged, if they just happened to capture Ethan’s little tricks on the terrace that day…
Jason’s POV For the next week, I worked like a madman. During the day, I worked myself to death at other construction sites earning money. At night, I lurked near Cloudcrest Villa. I had to find a way to get in and retrieve that hard drive. Susan and Ethan’s wedding preparations were in full swing. Their wedding photos were advertised all over the city, stabbing my eyes. I heard that to showcase his “talent,” Ethan had specially invited Professor Harrison, a titan in architecture, to attend the wedding and planned to publicly release that “Homecoming” design at the ceremony, announcing his entry into real estate design. Professor Harrison was once my professor, the one who had no choice but to expel me over the “plagiarism” scandal. Ethan really wanted to destroy me completely. Finally, an opportunity came. The day before the wedding, the villa needed final lighting adjustments and soft furnishing arrangements. The foreman called me. “Jason, they’re short-handed for moving stuff. You going? Even though things ended badly last time, this time it’s cash on completion-five hundred dollars.” “I’ll go.” I put on a mask and cap, changed into inconspicuous work clothes, and mixed into the moving crew. The villa was filled with flowers and balloons everywhere, dreamy like a fairy tale. Susan was in the hall directing workers to arrange champagne towers, her face glowing with happiness. That smile. I’d seen it countless times in my dreams. Ethan was surrounded by people flattering him. “Mr. Ethan is so accomplished for his age. This design is a masterpiece!” “Yes! I heard even Professor Harrison praised it highly.” Ethan waved modestly. “Not at all. Just drew it casually.” I kept my cap low, carried a case of wine, bypassed the crowd, and quietly slipped toward the basement storage room. The storage room door was unlocked. My heart pounded like thunder. I turned on my phone flashlight and searched through mountains of junk. Found it! The box labeled “Cloudcrest Club Archive 2018” was still in the corner! I was so excited my hands shook. Just as I was about to stuff the box inside my jacket- “What are you doing?” A cold voice suddenly rang out at the door. I froze, then slowly turned around. Susan stood in the doorway, arms crossed, looking at me coldly. “Jason, you really never change. Stealing things five years ago, still stealing now?” I removed my mask and took a deep breath. “I’m not stealing. I’m looking for the truth.” “Truth?” Susan walked in, her gaze falling on the hard drive box in my hands. “What is this?” “This is surveillance footage from your birthday five years ago.” I held up the box. “Susan, if you have even a shred of trust left in me, look at what’s in here. See who drugged the drinks that night, who took those photos from behind.” Susan’s expression wavered for an instant. “Give it here.” She extended her hand. I hesitated, then handed it to her. This was my last chance. Susan took the box and was just about to open it when urgent footsteps suddenly came from behind. “Susan! Don’t listen to his nonsense!” Ethan rushed in, snatched the box from Susan’s hands, and smashed it hard on the ground! Crash! The hard drive box shattered into pieces, the disk sliding out. Still not satisfied, Ethan raised his foot and stomped on that disk several times until it was nothing but fragments. “You…” Eyes red, I rushed forward to punch him. Several security guards immediately rushed in and pinned me to the ground. “Jason!” Ethan straightened his tie, grinning viciously. “You think you can slander me with some random broken box? This is my home! You trespassed and attempted theft. I can call the police right now and have you arrested!” Susan looked at the fragments on the ground, her expression complex. “Ethan, why are you so agitated?” She asked. Ethan’s face stiffened, then he put on a wronged expression. “Susan, I’m just too angry. We’re about to get married, and he keeps coming to cause trouble, trying to use this fake stuff to destroy our relationship. I just can’t take it anymore!” He grabbed Susan’s hand. “Darling, don’t pay attention to this lunatic. Just kick him out. Calling the police would be bad luck.” Susan looked at me, then at Ethan. Finally, she sighed. “Throw him out.” The security guards dragged me out like a dead dog and dumped me at the villa gate. Rain poured down. I lay in the mud, looking at that brightly lit villa, listening to the laughter and chatter inside. The hard drive was destroyed. The last piece of evidence was gone. Had I lost? No. I climbed up from the mud and wiped the filth from my face. The moment Ethan crushed that hard drive under his heel, the panic in his eyes had already given him away. But more importantly, he never knew. That hard drive was just a decoy. The real ace had never been the surveillance footage. It was the “Homecoming” design he planned to unveil at tomorrow’s wedding. Since you want to steal my life’s work and flaunt it as your own, I will make that dream the tomb that buries you. I pulled the USB drive, sealed inside a waterproof bag, from inside my jacket. It contained all the original design data I had compiled over the past few days, along with the digital evidence tracking that post back to its source. That’s right. I had spent the last of my savings to hire an expert hacker. Ethan, see you tomorrow. I’ll send you a gift you will never forget.
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