Chapter 1
'At the age of 21, you ended your ridiculous college life.
Without your parents' supervision, you completely indulged yourself. You began to indulge in alcohol and sensual pleasures, and spent most of the day in a daze because of alcohol. Alcohol paralyzed your nerves and your smart brain, and you just muddled through your college life like a passerby.
You haven't had any contact with your parents in the past four years, and they have completely disappeared from your life. Despite this, you still invited your parents to attend your graduation ceremony on the eve of the graduation ceremony, not because you don't want them to miss the important moment of your life, but just because of routine.
As you expected, they didn't seem to want to have anything to do with you. Your invitation fell on deaf ears, and on your graduation day, the only people who gave you applause were your classmates and relatives and friends, not them.
You have no nostalgia for your college life. If you have any good memories, they are probably only the short-lived happiness that alcohol brought you.
But that happiness doesn't exist now - you've stopped drinking.
Although you learned almost nothing during college, this diploma still helped you find a good job. Graduation is good news for you, you can finally have a decent job, earn a good salary, and live the rich life you have dreamed of since childhood.
After graduation, you thrived in your new company. Your superiors appreciated your talents and intelligence, and you were soon assigned to an important position in an overseas branch.
There, you met Mina.
Mina is your subordinate, a very lively and beautiful girl, she has bright golden hair, brown eyes, charming dimples, and a sweet smile. She is like the bright sunshine in midsummer, suddenly illuminating your life, and you can't help falling in love with her.
She has many things you once desired, a happy childhood, a good family, a cheerful personality. She has everything you once desired and lives the life you once dreamed of.
Mina doesn't care about your background or your family. She is good at listening and very tolerant. She can accept everything about you. You often feel that meeting her is your greatest luck at this moment.
You will never forget that winter night when your mother got your phone number from nowhere and called you drunkenly, cursing you and saying you would not live past 28. The development of new drugs was repeatedly frustrated, your boss's criticism made you breathless, the apartment had a power outage, the express delivery was lost, and even the sandwich delivery was particularly unpalatable. It seemed that all the bad things were concentrated on that day, just like Black Friday.
You walked downstairs with a heavy heart, wanting to hang out in the dark for a while to relieve your mood, but a scolding phone call from your boss made you even more upset. You stood downstairs, feeling depressed and angry, and almost swallowed you up.
Mina jumped into your arms at this moment.
Like a little deer, with a smile on her face, a furry scarf close to you, and starlight in her brown eyes.
"Surprise!"
Mina held up the plastic bag in her hand: "Look what I brought you, homemade Mexican food!"
"I saw your tweet complaining about today's sandwich being awful. I happened to be learning Mexican cuisine recently, so I made this especially for your taste!"
"I have some handmade candles in my bag that I made before, and they just happen to be useful now. Having a candlelight dinner during a power outage, oh my god, this was my dream when I was 16 years old, but unfortunately there has never been a power outage in my home."
Actually, the Mexican food that Mina made that day was terrible, so spicy that you almost cried. But no matter how you think about it later, you think it is the most delicious food you have ever eaten.'
Jiang Qi: ...
Damn it, why can such weird people have beautiful, rich and white girlfriends, while a normal young man like him was dumped by his girlfriend on the eve of the postgraduate entrance examination.
Jiang Qi turned to the next page.
'December 24th.
You lost your father.'
Jiang Qi:?
Is it so sudden? Is it without any explanation of the cause and effect? After writing so much nonsense in the beginning, is it just brushed aside when it comes to the plot? ?
'Your father's death dealt you a great blow, and coupled with the setbacks at work, you were in a daze during those days.
The development of new drugs was not going smoothly. The huge work pressure forced you to forget all your worries and devote yourself to work. You often worked overtime until late at night, and the dark circles under your eyes became heavier. The irregular meals made you suffer from stomach problems. After a year of hard work, the development of new drugs finally made great progress.
You and Mina have reached the stage of discussing marriage.
While you were discussing your wedding date, the data of the new drug was leaked, and all clues pointed to you as the person who leaked the data. You knew it was a complete frame-up, and you tried to collect evidence and make up your own, but it was confirmed by a trumped-up document provided by your boss. You had no way to defend yourself, and only Mina believed you. You were sued by the company and thrown into prison.
Overnight, you went from being a social elite with a bright future to a notorious business spy. Mina insisted on being with you despite her family's opposition, holding your hand and telling you that she believed in you.
Novel King
During the two years and eight months in prison, Mina never abandoned you. She often came to visit you, and you found that she was getting more and more haggard, and her accessories were getting fewer and fewer. She no longer carried those branded bags, no longer did manicures, no longer wore high heels, and her clothes became more and more simple. Every time you visited her, she didn't say a word about her life, and when you asked about it, she just brushed it off lightly.
You saw all of this, and you secretly swore in your heart that you would start over after you were released from prison, give Mina the best life, and hold the wedding that she and you had imagined countless times.
After you were released from prison, you learned that Mina was kicked out of the house by your father because she insisted on marrying you before you went to prison despite his opposition. She has been trying to overturn your case for more than two years, spending a lot of money to do so, selling jewelry and luxury goods, and was fired from the company because of this.
The rich lady who used to never check the price when buying things has become an ordinary office worker who is busy working for a salary and collects supermarket coupons to buy discounted items.
You start looking for a job, but it's not going well. Because of your criminal record of industrial espionage, no big company is willing to hire you. You run around sending out resumes, but even for low-paying positions, they often say yes and then turn around and say no. You know someone must be targeting you in secret, and even changing cities won't make things better.
Mina has not been completely unsuccessful in the past two years. You all know that the frame-up is closely related to your former boss. The strange thing is that every time the private detective she hired found a useful clue, the clue would disappear, causing her to be working in vain for the past two years.
After much consideration, you decide to start your own beverage business.
With your clever mind, your beverage business has grown rapidly in just two years. You have established a company to develop new beverages. Once the new beverages were launched, they became very popular, and orders came in from all over the world. Just as you and Mina were about to start a new life, the new beverages suddenly had food safety issues.
Many children were poisoned, and the matter became more and more serious. You and Mina wanted to investigate the factory, but a fire broke out for no reason, causing many workers to be burned. Your past imprisonment was dug up and made a big fuss, and all kinds of abuse and doubts followed. Soon, the company's capital chain broke and it was on the verge of bankruptcy. You were sued again and faced a more serious prison sentence than before.
Under this series of blows, you collapsed.
You start drinking, indulging in alcohol all day long, alcohol paralyzes your brain and your pain. You start to lose control of your emotions, become irritable, and just like your mother, you get angry, yell, and smash bottles.
You start to feel high and low, and soon you feel that alcohol can't satisfy you, and you need something better that can numb your nerves and make you happy.
You start smoking marijuana.
No matter how Mina tried to dissuade you, you continued to sink deeper and deeper. It's not that you didn't think about cheering yourself up, but it's much easier to fall into depravity than to cheer yourself up. The cruel reality made you more addicted to the illusory happiness that drugs brought you. When you were sober, you felt ashamed. When you saw Mina's haggard face and sad look, the guilt and shame were so strong that they would swallow you up. However, the more guilty and ashamed you felt, the more you tried to escape and the deeper you fell.
You often think of your crazy mother and weird father, and you begin to wonder if you were born with crazy genes. Occasionally when you are awake, you look at the mirror and see yourself in the mirror, who is neither human nor ghost. You are not worthy of the beautiful Mina at all.
Mina is willing to accompany you like this, but you don't want to.
You don't deserve it.
You spoke nasty words to Mina, trying to make her dislike you. You have been a burden to her all these years, and she would be better off without you.
Finally, Mina left you.
She disappeared from your life. Ironically, you became sober after Mina left. With the help of a lawyer, the injured worker and the parents of the poisoned child chose to settle. Although the company went bankrupt, the compensation did not make you completely bankrupt. You returned to Country Y and quit drinking and drugs with the help of Sunny, and your life returned to normal.
Life seemed to be getting better.
Except there was no Mina.
You start looking for Mina, but she seems to have disappeared. She didn't return to her father, no one knows anything about her, she just disappeared, as if she had never existed.
On January 9, you received an invitation from the Mask Club and a black mask.
Dear Mr. John:
Our club will hold a dinner at 7pm on January 11th, and you are cordially invited to attend.
The club will fulfill a wish for every guest who attends the dinner, as long as the guests share their own stories and pay a small price. If you are interested, please wear a black mask and wait at the entrance of the Starlight Hotel at 5 pm on January 11, and the staff will take you in.
Mask Club
It seems like a practical joke, but you decide to go anyway since you have nothing to lose now.
At 5pm on January 11, you went to the entrance of the Starlight Hotel wearing a mask and waiting on time. As written in the invitation letter, a staff member wearing a tuxedo and a white mask led you into the hotel. The hotel was decorated very luxuriously, and the waiters, both men and women, wore white masks.
You are dressed very casually, not like you are attending a high-end dinner. The staff leads you into the banquet hall, where there is only one banquet table and six guests wearing different clothes and black masks like you are waiting.
The staff member said, "The banquet will start at 7 o'clock sharp. You can walk around the banquet hall as you like. We will have a story-sharing activity later. Please prepare your story well. Our boss likes it best when guests share their stories."
This banquet was really weird. You quietly looked at the six guests present, three men and three women. A man in a high-end suit was talking to a short-haired woman in red high heels. The other four were already seated and there was no conversation between them.
You have no interest in communicating, so keeping silent is your best option at this time. You sit quietly in the corner, waiting for the dinner to begin.
Your task:
1. Finding Mina is your first priority. If this club can really fulfill your wish, you have to please the club owner anyway. Since the owner likes to hear stories, you might as well tell him generously. The more exciting the better, but don't tell him too long. No one likes to listen to long-winded nonsense.
2. Find out the origin of the club. Such a mysterious club cannot be unknown.
3. Hide the fact that you have been in prison. No one will have a good impression of a criminal.
(Do not turn to the next page without the host's permission)
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