Rise Of The Underworld King

Chapter 3

"Did you really sign it just like that?" Tina whispered to herself in disbelief, staring down at the ink on the white paper.

"I gave you exactly what you wanted," Ethan said calmly, his hands resting quietly at his sides.

Tina felt a unexpected pain deep inside her chest as she looked at his signature. She had spent two days convincing herself that Ethan would cry, beg, or cling to her legs to stay in the Macy family villa, but he had not hesitated for even a single second.

Before she could speak another word, the front door swung wide open, and loud, cheerful footsteps echoed through the hallway.

"Tina, my dear daughter, you will not believe what Young Master James just promised us!" Evelyn Macy shouted with joy as she walked into the foyer.

Donald Macy followed closely behind his wife, carrying several bright orange luxury shopping bags in both hands.

"Our Tina is truly amazing. One dinner with Steven James, and our company will receive an entire commercial plaza contract next month"

Ethan raised his head slowly, his eyes looking toward the entryway.

The moment Evelyn kicked off her high heels and stepped on the floor of the living room, her smiling face instantly froze. Her eyes landed directly on Ethan, and the joy on her face turned into pure, bitter disgust within half a second.

"Oh, look who finally decided to show up," Evelyn sneered loudly, crossing her arms over her chest. "The great live-in-husband has finally returned after disappearing for three whole days without doing a single bit of work."

Donald dropped the shopping bags on the floor with a heavy thud, glaring at Ethan with annoyance. "Where the hell have you been, Ethan? Do you think you are a rich young master who can take vacations whenever he feels like it?"

Ethan did not answer them. He simply stood beside the glass coffee table, staring at both of them coldly.

Donald opened his mouth to shout another insult, but as soon as his eyes met Ethan's freezing stare, the words caught in his dry throat. A sudden, cold shiver ran straight down his spine, making his knees feel strangely weak.

Evelyn also took half a step backward without realizing it, her heart skipping a beat under Ethan's silent, cold gaze. For a brief second, she felt like she was standing in front of a terrifying ruler rather than her quiet, obedient son-in-law.

The sudden silence in the room felt embarrassing. Donald felt his face burn with shame when he realized that he had just been frightened by a jobless loser.

To cover up his sudden fear, Donald clenched his fists, stepped forward aggressively, and raised his voice to the highest pitch. "Why are you looking at us like that, you ungrateful wretch? Are you trying to intimidate your own elders in our own house?"

"Look at his disrespectful attitude!" Evelyn screamed, finding her courage again as she pointed her sharp acrylic nail directly at Ethan's nose. "You vanish for three days, you leave the house in a total mess, and now you dare to glare at us like you want to kill someone? Who do you think you are?"

"I am standing in front of the people who ate the meals I cooked for three years," Ethan said, his voice quiet, calm, and cold.

"Don't you dare mention those cheap meals!" Evelyn yelled back in disgust. "Any street cook could make those dishes! You lived under our roof, you slept in our guest room, and you spent our family's money! Cooking a few simple meals was the absolute least you could do to pay for your daily bread!"

"That's right!" Donald chimed in, puffing out his chest with arrogance. "Do you have any idea how much status our Macy family has in Newberg today? Our cosmetics company is worth over thirty million dollars! And what about you? What have you achieved in these three years?"

"I gave everything this family needed," Ethan replied softly.

"You gave nothing but shame and embarrassment!" Donald mocked, waving his hands in the air. "Whenever my business friends ask me what kind of high-ranking man my daughter married, I have to lower my head and change the topic! I am ashamed to even say your name in public!"

Evelyn walked over to the sofa, sitting down beside Tina while continuing to glare at Ethan with hatred. "Every single day I prayed that my daughter would wake up and open her eyes. A phoenix should fly in the sky with dragons, not crawl in the mud with a useless worm like you!"

"Mother, that is enough," Tina said in a low, tight voice, her eyes nervously darting toward the papers on the table.

"No, Tina, it is not enough!" Evelyn snapped, patting her daughter's knee with an affectionate smile. "You are too soft-hearted, my dear! You have carried this dead weight on your shoulders for far too long. But everything is going to change today because Young Master Steven James is here for you!"

Donald smiled proudly, nodding his head repeatedly. "Steven is the only son and heir of the great James Group! Their family business is among the top three construction and real estate empires in the entire city! Their net worth exceeds five hundred million dollars!"

"Steven is polite, handsome, wealthy, and powerful," Evelyn boasted, her eyes shining with greed. "Just one word from his father can open every commercial door in the province. Only an outstanding man of his caliber has the true qualifications to stand beside our Tina as her husband!"

"Do you hear that, Ethan?" Donald took another step toward Ethan, his voice dripping with condescension. "A man like Steven James can give my daughter private jets, luxury villas, and endless business contracts. What can you give her? A broken bicycle and a bowl of cheap noodles?"

Ethan looked at Donald's smug face, a faint, cold smile barely visible on the corner of his lips. "Is that what you truly believe?"

"It is not what we believe, it is the absolute reality!" Evelyn yelled, leaning forward. "You have wasted three precious years of my daughter's youth! While other young women were attending charity galas with wealthy heirs, Tina was stuck coming home to a useless husband who smells like cooking oil and dish soap!"

"We have had enough of your pathetic existence," Donald declared loudly, crossing his arms together. "We called our family lawyer two days ago. Today, you are going to sign the divorce agreement, pack your cheap clothes into your plastic bag, and get out of our sight forever!"

"And listen to me very carefully, Ethan Sanders," Evelyn added sharply, her voice turning mean and vicious. "Do not even think about trying to take half of our house or asking for a single penny of alimony! Our Macy family's money was earned through Tina's hard sweat and tears! You do not deserve a single red cent from us!"

"If you dare to make a scene or demand money," Donald warned with a cold sneer, "I will have Young Master James call the city security bureau to throw you into the streets like a stray dog! You will leave this house completely empty-handed!"

Tina looked at Ethan's quiet posture, and then looked at the white sheets of paper resting on the glass table. She felt a strange, suffocating tightness in her throat.

"Mom, Dad, stop shouting," Tina said quietly, her voice trembling slightly.

"Why should we stop shouting, Tina?" Evelyn asked, looking at her daughter with confusion. "We need to make sure this freeloader understands his place! If we are not firm with him, he will cry and refuse to sign the papers!"

"He has already signed," Tina said, looking down at the carpet.

Evelyn blinked in surprise, her mouth staying open for a moment. "What did you just say?"

"I said, he already signed the divorce agreement," Tina repeated, pointing her trembling finger toward the coffee table. "He signed it the moment he walked into the room. He didn't ask for the villa, he didn't ask for the car, and he didn't take a single penny from our family."

The living room went dead silent once again.

Donald and Evelyn both froze in place, staring at the white papers on the glass table with wide, stunned eyes. Donald quickly leaned over, picked up the final page, and examined the fresh black signature at the bottom.

It was truly Ethan's name, written clearly and decisively.

"He... he really signed it?" Donald muttered in shock, turning the page over to see if there were any handwritten demands or conditions attached to the back. "He didn't demand five hundred thousand dollars? He didn't even ask for a small apartment in the old district?"

"Not a single penny," Tina murmured, her fingers gripping her own skirt tightly.

Evelyn stared at Ethan for several seconds, completely unable to process what had just happened. In her mind, a poor orphan like Ethan should have begged on his knees for a few million dollars before agreeing to let go of a wealthy woman like Tina.

She had prepared hours of cruel insults and legal threats to force him to give up the family property, but none of it had been necessary.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Evelyn threw her head back and let out a loud, mocking laugh.

"Ha! Look at him trying to act like a proud hero!" Evelyn sneered, tossing the paper back on the table with contempt. "He knows he is completely useless! He knows that if he tried to fight us in court, our lawyers would crush him like a bug! He signed because he had no other choice!"

"That's right!" Donald laughed along, feeling relieved and arrogant once again. "He knows he doesn't have the legal right to touch our Macy family's wealth! At least he has a tiny bit of self-awareness left in that thick skull of his!"

Ethan looked at the couple, his lips parting as he let out a low, cold sneer.

"Do not ever flatter yourselves," Ethan said. "Do not ever think your Macy family is so popular or special in this world."

Evelyn's laughter stopped instantly, her face twisting in anger. "What did you just say, you little beggar?"

"I said, not everyone in this world wants to have anything to do with your family," Ethan said, taking a slow step toward them. "To you, your little cosmetics workshop is a grand empire. To me, your entire family's wealth is nothing more than a pile of worthless dust."

"How dare you speak to us like that!" Donald roared, slamming his fist against the back of the sofa. "If our wealth is dust, what is your life? You are an orphan with no background, no job, and no future!"

"And never deceive yourselves into thinking that you succeeded through your own remarkable effort," Ethan continued, completely ignoring Donald's outburst as his cold eyes locked on Tina. "A talented, self-made businesswoman? What a ridiculous joke."

Tina's head snapped up, her eyes flashing with fury as his words struck her deepest pride.

"What did you call me?" Tina demanded, standing up from the sofa to confront him.

"Before you married me three years ago, what was the Macy family?" Ethan asked, his voice calm, clear, and utterly merciless. "Your father had lost eight million dollars in bad real estate investments. Your mother was hiding from debt collectors every single week. Your cosmetics company was on the absolute brink of total bankruptcy, with suppliers refusing to give you a single gram of raw materials."

Donald's face turned bright red with rage, while Evelyn's eyes widened in shock at the mention of their past disgrace.

"Have you forgotten how you cried in front of my grandmother's house three years ago?" Ethan asked, staring straight into Tina's pale face. "You begged for a solution. You promised to be a good wife if your family could just survive that crisis. And miraculously, the very next week after our marriage, the largest bank in the city approved a twenty-million-dollar loan without asking for collateral, and the top chemical suppliers gave you their secret formulas for free."

"Shut up! Shut your mouth right now!" Tina screamed, her previous feelings of guilt instantly vanishing into thin air, replaced by overwhelming anger and pride.

"Why should I shut up?" Ethan asked coldly. "Are you afraid to remember the truth?"

"The truth is that I saved this company with my own blood and sweat!" Tina yelled, her chest heaving violently as she pointed her finger at Ethan. "A man like you has no qualifications to stand here and judge what I did for this family! You know nothing about business! You know nothing about the world!"

"You think you did it all alone?" Ethan asked with a faint, mocking smile.

"Yes! I did it all alone!" Tina shouted with conviction. "I worked eighteen hours every single day! I stayed up all night rewriting business proposals! I drank alcohol until my stomach bled just to please difficult clients at dinner tables! What were you doing while I was fighting for our lives? You were at home boiling chicken soup and watering the plants!"

"You were a useless freeloader who made zero progress in three years!" Tina continued, her voice trembling with righteous indignation. "You never read a business book, you never met an investor, and you never earned a single dollar of profit! You are just a mediocre, lazy man who wants to attach himself to my success and claim my hard work as his own!"

"Well said, Tina!" Evelyn clapped her hands loudly, looking at Ethan with venom in her eyes. "Look at this shameless beggar trying to put gold on his own ugly face. How dare you claim that our company survived because of you?"

Donald sneered ironically, shaking his head with disgust. "If it was not because of our Tina's brilliant talent and relentless effort, how could Macy Cosmetics grow five times larger in just three years? Don't tell me you are going to claim that the twenty-million-dollar bank loan was approved because of a live-in son-in-law!"

"If you truly had that kind of power to influence banks and chemical giants," Evelyn mocked with a shrill laugh, "why on earth would you live in our house for three years, washing my son's dirty socks and taking out the trash every morning? Why didn't you buy a hundred-million-dollar mansion instead?"

"He is just a pathetic loser trying to protect his fragile male ego before he gets kicked out into the street," Donald said, waving his hand dismissively. "He knows he will be sleeping under a bridge tonight while my daughter will be riding in Young Master James's Rolls-Royce tomorrow morning".

Ethan stood quietly in the center of the brightly lit living room, listening to their vicious words, their mocking laughter, and their completely delusional arrogance.

He did not argue with them. He did not bother to explain that the bank chairman had bowed to him on his knees three years ago, or that the top chemical research institute was merely a minor subsidiary of his global Miracle Group.

To explain the truth to people who lived in the gutter was a complete waste of his time and breath.

Ethan slowly turned his head, his eyes sweeping across the faces of Evelyn, Donald, and finally resting on Tina’s angry, arrogant expression.

"Is that so?" Ethan said softly, his voice echoing in the room. "Then let's wait and see.”