I Played A Mean Wife But Cried In Secret Chapter 01

I Played A Mean Wife But Cried In Secret Chapter 01

After the high-flying socialite Julian lost everything, I moved with him into a basement apartment.

Money was tight, and life was a struggle, yet he still had to provide for his spoiled, venomous wife—me.

The System forced me to keep up this persona.

But my conscience was too loud. I felt guilty over every little thing.

So every time I hurt him, I cried secretly.

In the middle of the night, I sneaked into his room and rolled up his sleeve.

A nearly four inches long wound glared fiercely—

It was from working himself to the bone to pay for that overcoat I’d forced him to buy me.

As I dressed the wound, I sniffled,

“System, when will he ask me for a divorce?”

I didn’t want to do bad things anymore, nor did I want him to get hurt.

The System looked at Elias’s arm, soaked with my tears,

then at his slightly trembling eyelashes, and sighed,

[Divorce?]

[He’s going to love you for a lifetime.]

*****

“I knew no one would pick them up,” I said excitedly, holding the flowers under the streetlamp at ten o’clock night, “See? They’re beautiful, and the bow is perfectly tied.”

The System only sneered in response,

[Five-dollar roses, eight-dollar jasmine bunches, and this ten-dollar wrap—]

[Total cost less than a hundred bucks. These cheap trinkets aren’t worth rummaging through trash cans at midnight. You might as well climb in there yourself.]

I fell silent for a moment before murmuring softly,

“System, that’s really mean.”

Another sneer came from the System.

But I lacked confidence when I said it—

after all, I’d said something equally harsh to Elias not long before.

I’d thrown the flowers fiercely at his feet in front of him.

He’d bent to pick it up, and I cut him off with a sneer,

“Everyone else gets nine hundred ninety-nine roses! What about you? If you’re poor, don’t copy others! These are ugly, cumbersome, and embarrassing!”

“Can’t you earn more money? Marrying you is the worst luck of my life!”

It wasn’t just the flowers—there was also a box of fresh strawberries.

His supervisor had given them out during a construction site visit,

and Elias hadn’t eaten any; he’d brought them all home for me.

The System rolled its eyes, thoroughly disdainful of my secret flower-retrieval mission,

[Can you stop fixating on these meaningless things! Keep your persona—you’re a arrogant, vicious supporting character, and your only job is to humiliate the hero. I’m so tired of your stupidity!]

It snapped, urging me to go back repeatedly.

Pretending not to hear, I squatted down, leaned close gently, pressed the jasmine flowers into a bookmark, and then slowly walked back.

The strawberries he hadn’t been willing to eat, the flowers he’d gone out of his way to buy—

if these things, which the System scorned, were meaningless,

then what on earth was meaningful?