The Househusband Was a Hidden Monarch

Chapter 2

Cassian stepped out of the house and the iron gate closed behind him.

He stopped on the stone driveway and slowly turned back to look at the villa. The building stood tall and proud under the evening lights, polished marble walls, carved balcony rails, imported glass windows, everything screaming wealth and status. 

For three years he had cleaned those floors, fixed broken pipes with his own hands, cooked meals, endured insults, and silently watched his wife climb higher in the business world. 

Now he stood outside like a stranger, with a sigh his lips curved into a faint, bitter smile.

“Three years,” he muttered under his breath. “Not bad. Some people waste their time gambling. I invested mine in stupidity.”

He lowered his gaze to the jade pendant resting in his palm. The stone was dull on the surface and slightly cracked at the edge, something most people would call cheap. 

But Cassian’s eyes saw something else. Hidden within the jade were faint spiritual veins, a suppressed formation pattern that only someone trained in energy perception could notice. This wasn’t a decoration, it was a life-binding artifact, a key that could reconnect him to a world he had deliberately buried.

“If I activate you now…” he murmured lazily, turning the pendant between his fingers, “those old lunatics will smell me from ten provinces away.”

He clicked his tongue.

“And then what? Assassins. bounty hunters. underground sects. Black market cultivators. What a lovely welcome back party.”

His tone was sarcastic and almost amused, but his eyes were calm and empty, like he had already calculated every possible outcome. 

Cassian had always looked like this, slightly bored or tired, as if nothing in the world was worth his full attention. Even being divorced minutes ago did not shake that expression much.

Five years ago, though, things had been different, his gaze grew distant as memories surfaced. 

He had returned home to find his courtyard drenched in blood. His enemies had struck when he was away on a mission in a ruthless and precise manner. 

The woman who raised him, who had once stood beside him like an unbreakable mountain, was lying on the ground with her breath fading. Cassian still remembered kneeling beside her, his hands covered in her blood while she struggled to speak.

“Leave… this life... get a woman and settle down,” she had whispered.

He had refused at first. He had been known across circles as a mad dog but that night, as his mother’s fingers tightened weakly around his sleeve then dropped weakly on the floor, he made a promise.

He would stop, he would bury the chaos and would live like an ordinary man and so he disappeared.

He sealed off his old life and hid his identity, and walked into Fiona’s life like a harmless nobody. 

While she struggled to establish her company, he quietly handled things behind the scenes and gave her all the help and support she needed.

He endured being called useless because it was easier than explaining how he was powerful and now…

He let out a soft, mocking laugh.

“She finally climbed high enough to look down on me,” he said. “Impressive. I trained a hawk that thinks I’m a worm.”

He gritted his teeth and added,

“Five million…” he scoffed. “That woman really thinks she bought my youth like she was shopping for vegetables.”

Well… it was fine.

Cassian exhaled slowly as he stretched his body, if he thought about it carefully, this marriage had never really started from love anyway. 

He only married Fiona because of her grandfather. The old man had once worked under him many years ago, a loyal subordinate who had followed him through storms and bloodshed without hesitation. 

When Cassian decided to leave that chaotic world and live an ordinary life, the old man had been the one who found him, kneeling despite his age and begging him to protect the family. 

At that time Cassian was already looking for a way to fulfill his mother’s dying wish. So with the grandfather’s help, he married Fiona quietly.

He'd told the old man that he must never reveal his real identity and he agreed without much thought.

 Hiding was easy that way. What he didn’t expect was that not long after the wedding, the old man died.

Still, Cassian stayed and was devoted. He had even planned something. On Fiona’s next birthday, he intended to reveal a small part of his background, not everything, just enough to let her understand that no storm in this world would ever shake the ground beneath her feet as long as he stood beside her.

Instead… he was betrayed and kicked out like garbage.

Cassian clicked his tongue softly.

“Well, life has a sense of humor,” he muttered with a faint smirk. “At least it keeps things entertaining.”

He looked at the jade pendant rested in his palm again. For a moment he simply stared at it, his bored eyes carrying a trace of something deeper. Then without hesitation, he bit his fingertip and let a drop of blood fall onto the stone.

The reaction was immediate.

The pendant trembled violently. A sharp pulse of spiritual energy burst outward.

Above him, the sky that had been calm seconds ago suddenly darkened as thick clouds gathered unnaturally fast. Thunder rolled across the heavens like the roar of an ancient beast waking from slumber. Lightning flashed, tearing through the clouds in blinding streaks.

Cassian stood still at the center of it all.

Energy rushed back into his body and his sealed power surged upward violently, spiritual pressure rising in waves strong enough to distort the air around him. The faint bored look on his face remained, but deep inside his eyes, something terrifying had returned.

After a few breaths, the phenomenon faded.

The clouds dispersed and the thunder stopped.

The street returned to its normal quiet as if nothing had happened.

Cassian flexed his fingers slowly, feeling strength he had not touched in years flow through his veins again and his lips curved slightly.

“Ah… that’s better.”

Before he could say anything else or move, the distant roar of engines sounded and headlights flooded the street.

A convoy of black luxury cars sped toward him and came to a sharp halt just a few meters away from him