The Remarriage Trap

Twenty-six-year-old Leon Wolf was a married man whose dishonor was well-known across Springfield City. He lived with his wife's family-the Mansons-and was treated like a slave during his three-year marriage. Dignity was something foreign to him, but he finally had enough of it one fateful night!

For the past three years, he worked like a horse in the Mansons' company every single day, yet his salary had to be handed over to his wife Marilyn whom he could not even get without touching distance.

By the time he came home at night, he had to do laundry, mop, cook, and do all sorts of housework. Still, he worked hard without complaining.

He thought that doing all that would allow him to prove his worth to his wife and convince her to stay with him until they grew old, but what he received in exchange was a big gift-a baby!

His wife-whom he never once had the chance to get within touching distance of-was pregnant, and he was about to be a father! Would anyone consider that good news, though?

"Is it that hard to wash the clothes clean or mop the floor well, Leon? You're useless! Can't you do anything right? Why should we let you stay with us when a dog would've done better than you?"

...

The harsh words came from Leon's mother-in-law, Helen Manson. She pointed a finger at his face while she chastised him like there was no tomorrow. Leon looked up, and his eyes were bloodshot due to anger.

"Helen!" Leon gritted his teeth and suppressed the voice in his throat.

"Don't call me by my first name. You're not worthy to be addressing me like that!"

Helen had an expression of disgust and contempt. Leon remained silent and refrained from talking back.

Three years ago, he happened to chance upon the Mansons' patriarch when the latter's illness acted up all of a sudden. Elder Manson, as he was known, was carried to the hospital on Leon's back for about eight miles or so. The old man received treatment in time and was thus saved by Leon's kindness. Elder Manson probably felt it prudent to repay the favor by marrying off his granddaughter, Marilyn, to Leon. Everyone else in the family opposed it, but the old man turned a deaf ear to them.

Since then, Leon stayed with Mansons for three years. Three years! Even the coldest of people would warm up to someone in those three years, but it was impossible to do anything with that bitter mother-daughter duo!

Marilyn and her family looked down on him from the bottom of their hearts simply because he was an orphan with zero prospects and no family background.

Despite his best efforts, Marilyn and the others continued to nitpick, smack, and scold him at every turn.

Elder Manson was the only person in the entire family who treated him well.

When Elder Manson was around to protect him, his mother-in law, Helen was able to restrain herself-but only a little.

Ever since Elder Manson passed away from illness a month ago, Helen and everyone else had practically stepped up their efforts to drive him away. He became a redundant existence in the family and spent his

days being treated worse than a dog...

The room door swung open and Marilyn walked in, reeking of alcohol. Clad in fashionable clothes and black silk stockings, the gait of her long legs and her seductively blushing face was irresistible to almost every man.

Since she was back, Leon looked up at her and felt a surge of pain from his aching heart. He could not fathom how she could bring herself to go out for some drinks even when she was pregnant!

Leon's first instinct was to head up and support her, but Marilyn immediately shoved him away.

"Hands off me! Pack up your stuff right now and get the hell out of here. We're getting a divorce at the Civil Records Office tomorrow!"

"What! Why?!"

At that point, Helen showed up and began cursing at Leon as soon as she saw him standing there in a faze.

"What are you doing, Leon? Bring over a basin of water and start washing Lulu's feet!"

Helen walked over to Marilyn with a doting expression on her face. She then held the woman's hand in the gentlest of manners and asked worried, "Why are you drinking so much alcohol? It's not good for the baby. You've put in so much effort to finally get pregnant with Brody's son, so you mustn't let anything happen to him."

She already looked forward to having a grandson even though the baby was still months ahead of the due date because only a boy would give her daughter a chance to become Brody's wife.

The only reason she kept Leon around was that she was unsure about the baby's gender-after all, someone needed to take care of her daughter, and a babysitter would cost extra money.

"Don't bother washing my feet! I've suffered enough from your uselessness for the past three years, Leon! Let's get divorced tomorrow!"

Marilyn looked at Leon with a cold, arrogant, and contemptuous expression.

Leon immediately felt as if his heart was pierced by thousands of arrows. He knew that he was not worthy of Marilyn, and yet he continued to work hard and endure everything for three years in the hopes of getting Marilyn's approval.

Little did he know that he would receive a request for divorce in exchange for all his hard work!

"You're right!" Helen understood soon enough. "After all, we have Brody's child now, and it's going to tarnish our reputation if news gets out that he's still living with us."

"I'm tired. Could you walk me to my room so I can rest? The sight of this idiot disgusts me!"

Marilyn stroked her stomach tenderly and began worrying whether other women around Brody would try to interfere with them once her belly got bigger. As Helen helped Marilyn into the room, she took a jibe at Leon, "Why are you still here? Are you going to stay around and take care of a baby that isn't yours?"

In that split second, humiliation, anger, and a plethora of other negative emotions began to overwhelm Leon's heart. He felt like an abandoned stray that was chased out mercilessly from its home. All his belongings from the three years of marriage-including his ID Card-were thrown into the trash can, and Leon's strongest emotion right then was that of bitter disappointment.

He was homeless.

In those three years, his earnings from work were handed in full to his mother-in-law and he was never given a single cent. He was the same as a wild dog.

Leon wandered on the street and ended up at a cemetery, where he felt the cold air within the darkness.

He stood in front of a tombstone with a lonely expression and widened eyes, but not a single tear was shed.

He did not know whether to feel anger, despair, or disappointment.

He looked silently at the tombstone of the late Elder Manson, the only person who protected him and took care of him during those three years. After being kicked out of the house, Leon felt to pay his respects to the old man one last time.

Although the purpose of his visit was to pay his respects, he did not have any money on him and could not even afford to buy the cheapest flowers.

"Thank you for taking care of me during these three years, Sir...

"I'm going to divorce Marilyn tomorrow...

"I failed to live up to your expectations..."

Leon's eyes were red. He knelt in the dark of the night and bowed to Elder Manson's tombstone several times in a row. It was difficult to put the bitterness and sadness in his heart into words.

Once he paid his respects, he took a pendant, held it in his hand, and sat blankly on the ground with his back against the tombstone.

Unbeknownst to Leon, the pendant seemed to glow with white light, almost as if it could sense the anger and humiliation within him...

Leon proceeded to leave the cemetery after paying his respects to Elder Manson, but before he stepped out of the place, he spotted a beautiful woman in officewear standing at the entrance. She had a beautiful figure, and Leon wondered why someone like her would visit the cemetery in the middle of the night instead of being sound asleep in bed. She used heavy makeup too, prompting him to do a double take at her.

She seemed unhappy and muttered something along the lines of, "Broke-a*s b*stard".

Leon usually ignored such remarks in the past because he did not stand to gain anything anyway if he reacted to them. However, the surprise his wife gave him by getting pregnant with someone else's son, and his expulsion from the house, made him incredibly upset. He wanted to vent his feelings. In a hot-headed moment of impulsiveness, he ran to the woman and said, "Rather early of you to be offering yourself out of

the street! How much do you charge for a night? I just so happen to be in a good mood today!"

Truth be told, Leon did not have a single cent in his pocket. He trembled a little when he spoke and was worried that she was a hooker because then he would not have anything to pay her with.

Luckily for him, the beautiful woman's face turned ashen and she stared at Leon after hearing his statement.

She was a prim and proper woman, it seemed.

Leon felt secretly relieved.

He suffered a lot at the Mansons that day and he already hit rock bottom. When he saw the woman glaring at him, he added another sentence, "What are you staring at? Didn't you hear my question? I asked you how much you're charge for a night. What's wrong? Are you expecting to be shown some dignity even though you're out here selling yourself? I used to do combat training you know, so you're the one who should be thanking me for a good time instead."

That remark made the woman even angrier and she immediately yelled, "What's your name? Which company are you from?"

"What's it to you? Were you thinking about coming right to my place?"

Leon would not just foolishly tell random people about him.

"How dare you!"

The woman's face turned red with anger, but she had no choice other than to run away from Leon, leaving the latter feeling very resentful.

As Leon turned to leave, he saw two shady young people sneaking into the cemetery. They were each holding a sack and a rope.

They did not see Leon because the place was too dark and the surroundings were blocked by trees and tombstones.

Any smart person could see that those two were up to no good.

Leon frowned and surmised that they were after that woman and so decided to follow them secretly. Sure enough, the beautiful woman who seemed to be waiting in the cemetery was immediately attacked from behind by the two men and stuffed right into the sack. Her mouth was stuffed with a pair of stinking socks, and all her struggling and resistance were in vain.

Soon, one of the stronger men held down the woman while the other brought a huge and heavy stone and tied it to the sack.

The two of them then lifted the stone and threw it into the river with a plop.

Leon's pupils widened!

It was murder!

Leon's first instinct was to run away, but he was worried that he would startle the men through any sounds he made while doing so. As a result, he kept hiding behind the tombstone and waited until the two men left before sticking his head out cautiously.

After giving it some thought, Leon jumped into the water. He might be a cowardly man, but the values instilled in him since childhood meant that he could not just stand by and watch a weak woman being killed

right in front of him.

Leon rescued the woman from the water in no time. He ignored the fact that he was wet and panting and untied the sack immediately.

Unfortunately, he did not notice that he was just beside a dagger dropped by one of the men.

Elsewhere, the two young men went all the way to the road outside the cemetery, where a high-end luxury SUV was parked.

The two were about to get into the car and leave when Marco subconsciously reached out for his boots.

His expression changed in an instant.

"Dang, I dropped my dagger! It's probably somewhere by the river... We need to hurry up and get it back. There are fingerprints on it..." The two men ran back toward the river.

...

When Leon opened the sack, the woman inside was already soaking wet. Her white top and a short, hip-hugging skirt were all wet, clinging tightly to her body and accentuating her curvy and exquisite figure. Her

top, in particular, revealed vague traces of her small black lace bra.

It was a sight to behold!

Leon could not help but gulp. He thought that Marilyn was already a beautiful enough woman, and he never would have expected the woman in front of him to surpass Marilyn's beauty by a mile.

The woman was underwater for long enough that her face was pale and she could not even breathe. There was nothing Leon could do except put one hand on her ample bust and give her some mouth-tomouth respiration.

To his surprise, her bust was soft and her lips were even softer, the latter with almost a hint of sweetness to them.

Leon could not help but fantasize even more.

Moments later, Leon finally resuscitated her.

"Bleagh..."

The woman coughed out several mouthfuls of water. Her eyelashes trembled slightly and she finally regained her senses.

The woman could sense a warmness on her lips. When she raised her head again, she saw Leon's hand stroking her leg, so she kicked him to the river in a fit of anger.

He even scolded him, "What do you think you're doing, feeling me up like that?! You pervert! Disgusting!"

Leon was caught by surprise and ended up falling into the water.

He thrashed and flailed a couple of times in the river before successfully climbing back ashore. At that moment, he looked even more pitiful than before.

He suffered so many wrongs that day and looked at the woman with an enraged expression. He did not even bother to explain what happened to her.

"Women are all the same! I saved you and gave you mouth-to-mouth, but rather than thank me, you kicked me into the river! Didn't your parents teach you anything? I think I ought to punish you on behalf of

your father!"

Leon said and strode up to her. The woman started to panic, and her whole body-including her chest and voice- trembled. "Hey, quit messing around!"

If somebody did something to her in such a desolate area and threw her back into the water, no one would be able to find any evidence.

Leon then snatched her water-damaged cell phone and car keys. He destroyed her cell by smashing it hard on the ground and then threw the car key into the water!

"Let's see you act tough now!"

Leon said angrily, "You're an ungrateful one, aren't you? We're out in the wild right now, and I just broke your cell. What if I left right now and took a taxi home? How are you going to survive here? You can't call a taxi without your cell phone, and you can't open your car now that the keys are swimming with the fish. Do you want to go home? Well, fat chance! I'm going to leave you here where even the grass doesn't grow. It's a cemetery, so I'm sure you'll have lots of company at night."

Leon then walked off with big strides.

The woman was so scared that she shook like a leaf and cried, "No!

Don't! Don't do this! I'm begging you!"

The cemetery was located in a remote area, to begin with!

Leon was confident that there were no ghosts around, but he could not say for sure about the many rumors that wolves lurked around the area. The woman was wet after being hauled out from the river, and she would not be able to walk far since she was injured. Considering how far away the place was, it was almost certain that no one would go there to rescue her. For a woman whose car keys were thrown into the river and whose cell phone shattered, spending a night there would be more agonizing than death.

Unfortunately for her, Leon had every intention of punishing her for her ungratefulness.

Leon strode away.

"You jerk! Don't just leave me here!"

The woman tried chasing after Leon, but it was all in vain as he left in a rage. She cursed wildly and felt incredibly dejected, for she did not expect that a dignified young woman like her would suffer such treatment in the hands of an ordinary person.

"B*stard! Once I find out who you are, I sure as hell will make you pay!" the woman, whose name was Iris Young, shouted.

As soon as she said that, Leon decided to ignore her firmly even though he felt a little reluctant to act that way earlier.

When Iris saw Leon disappearing from her sight, she felt like crying but somehow could not shed even a single tear. The heel of her high heels snapped, and she shivered due to the cold wind because her body was still wet. She looked around warily as she sensed the eeriness of her surroundings. Even if there were no wolves around, there was no telling whether they might be any supernatural manifestations since they were in a cemetery.

She hated Leon with every fiber of her body, for she never suffered such mistreatment in all her life as a pampered eldest daughter in her family.

Leon, on the other hand, began to regret what he did within a minute or two after leaving. He was a good person with a good heart, and without that goodness in him, he would not have saved old Elder Manson all those years ago and endured all that torment the Mansons subjected him to for so many years. When he lashed out at the woman earlier, he simply poured out all his resentment toward Marilyn and Helen on the innocent Iris. His brief walk gave him the chance to calm down, especially since there was a gentle wind blowing on him.

He thought to himself, 'She's a girl. Doing that to her would be crossing the line on my part. Even if she didn't encounter any wolves or ghosts, she'd still end up with a bad cold if she stayed out here all night. My conscience will eat away at me for the rest of my life if anything bad happens to her.

Scaring her a little is enough. I shouldn't leave her here the entire night.'

Leon then turned around and went to find her.

As soon as he arrived at the place where he left Iris, she was nowhere to be seen

Leon got anxious. He searched high and low for her but found nothing except her high heels.

It was not a good sign!

Leon knew that something Iris was in trouble, and he soon heard Iris's faint cry for help. He ran over to the direction of the sound and his anger returned once more. It turned out that the two thugs from before returned, and killing Iris was no longer their sole agenda. Anyone could guess that the men were feeling a little turned on when they returned and saw Iris all wet and dripping.

Iris was practically stripped bare already by the time Leon found her. At that point, he completely disregarded the fact that he was no match for those two men and ran over to kick them. He then gazed down and saw that Iris was down to her last pieces of clothing. As much as she tried to cover it, she was unable to hide the glowing fairness of her exposed skin. Leon subconscious beamed at her delightful figure and deemed her one of the most stunning women he ever saw.

At the very least, it was much better than Marilyn's figure when he peeped at her while she took a bath.

"Are you alright?"

The guilt-ridden Leon took off his clothes and threw them to Iris so she could cover her body.

Iris hurriedly covered herself with the clothes, but she felt angry and helpless when she saw that her savior was Leon. Her hand took on a mind of its own and wanted to slap him in the face, but a scene she saw from the corner of her eye caused her to yell instead.

"Be careful!" she warned, but it was already too late.

The thug, clad in a black suit, was a robustly-built man. By contrast, Leon had an ordinary build and so failed to block the man. With a kick, the man sent Leon flying two or three meters away. He then took out the dagger he dropped earlier and sneered.

"Trying to get yourself killed?"

The man in the black suit stepped on Leon's chest and raised the shinindagger to kill Leon.

Behind him, the man who earlier tore off Iris's clothes and was kicked away by Leon urged, "Marco, the Youngs are powerful, and it won't be long before they track us both down. We can't waste any more time.

Deal with them and don't make a single mistake!"

'That's rich, coming from you.' Marco thought somewhat unhappily. After all, they would have ended Iris's life had the other guy not given in to those lustful impulses.

However, it was not the time to be arguing about who was right, and Marco immediately stabbed Leon's chest with a dagger.

Blood splattered everywhere!

With his last dying breath, Leon gritted his teeth, grabbed Marco's thigh fiercely, and shouted at Iris.

"Run! My life's not worth much, so it doesn't matter if I die. Save yourself! Don't worry about me!"

Leon smiled bitterly at Iris before his impending death. As angry as he was deep down, he remained the honest Leon during the last moments of his life.

He decided that he was not going to be that kind of person again in his next life.

Leon's bitter smile encompassed a myriad of emotions, including sourness, desolation, and despair.

Iris's delicate body was shocked stiff. She seemed to be able to read Leon's inner fragility and sadness through his smile, and it was a far cry from the brave and strong appearance he put on.

Iris did not escape because she knew that it was a futile effort once Leon died.

Upon seeing Leon's death, Iris's pretty face turned pale and she slumped to the ground.

Although Leon bullied her earlier, it was inevitable for her to feel sad when she saw him giving up his life to save her.

At the same time, blood gushed out from Leon's chest and stained the pendant hanging around his neck.

No one noticed the white glow on the pendant that began entering Leon's body from the wound.

'I am an ancestor of the Wolfs, and my renown pales not against that of legendary deities. Should fate be upon any one of my descendants, they shall inherit what is contained within me...'

As he was about to die, a whole mess of jumbled-up information poured into Leon's mind.

Moments later, he seemed to be returning toward the light as his pale face turned abnormally red and an unknown power coursed through his body.

"You're next, Iris!"

The man in the black suit sneered and walked toward Iris with the dagger.

Iris sat paralyzed on the ground with a look of despair and grief.

"Behind you!"

The other guy shouted angrily but it was unfortunately too late.

Leon picked up the dagger on the ground, stood up all of a sudden, and stabbed the man in the black suit from behind.

"How..."

The man in the black suit turned his head suddenly, stared wide-eyed at Leon, and collapsed to the ground with a thud. He was dead before he could even think, 'How did you come back to life?'