The Engagement Ring He Forgot, the Fortune He’ll Never Touch cahpter 11

Three years later.

On the giant screens across the city’s premier shopping district, the latest Global Billionaires List was rolling.

My name had risen to the top three.

In just three years, my business empire had swept across the globe, swallowing countless capital titans in its wake.

I had become a queen—his equal in marriage and in power.

Wherever I went, all eyes were on me—radiant, untouchable.

But in stark contrast to the city’s dazzling prosperity… lay a slum where daylight never reached.

In a filthy dead end filled with towering piles of garbage.

A madman covered in festering sores was crawling through the mud. It was Bennett.

He had completely lost his mind. His mental defenses had collapsed entirely.

“Found it… I found it!” A sudden flash lit up his dull, clouded eyes.

He dug frantically under rotten vegetable leaves and pulled out half a moldy cold bun covered in green fuzz.

He clutched it like a priceless treasure and shoved it into his mouth with a vacant grin.

Around his neck hung a cheap broken string. It tightly bound a shard of pearl and a clump of clay.

“Adelaide… eat… eat with me…”

He smiled at the empty air like a child. Tears fell in heavy drops down his face.

“I’m not afraid of suffering… I can live in that leaking basement again… I’ll stay with you…”

A few middle school students passing by covered their noses and walked around him in disgust.

“Hurry up, let’s go. That lunatic’s at it again.”

The moment Bennett heard the voices, something inside him snapped.

He threw away the moldy bun and crawled forward on all fours.

He suddenly grabbed the leg of a passing man and pleaded.

“I’m sorry! I was wrong! I really know I was wrong!”

He cried so hard his voice tore apart.

His fingers, covered in foul mud, clutched the stranger’s pants as he screamed in despair.

“I already suffered with her… I even ate moldy bread with her…”

“Why doesn’t she want me anymore?!”

“Please… help me call her back… I’ll give her my life…”

“Get the hell off me! Where did you crawl out of, you disgusting psycho?!”

The passerby kicked him hard in the chest in anger.

Bennett was sent rolling through the filthy water and slammed into a garbage bin.

The crude clay fragments and broken glass tied around his neck drove deep into his flesh, drawing fresh blood. But he seemed not to feel it at all.

He struggled back up from the sewage ditch.

Then raised his head toward the sky above the slum.

In the distance, atop towering skyscrapers, a massive LED screen was playing my interview with global financial media.

I smiled with calm confidence, my eyes alight with power.

Bennett stared blankly at the woman on the screen.

Then he suddenly let out a broken, hysterical laugh.

He crawled forward into the sewage, grabbing handfuls of filth and stuffing it into his mouth while screaming in grief.

“Why… why didn’t you take me with you…”

But in that lightless slum, no one answered his cries.