When he asked me to marry him, the whole village laughed.
I said yes.
Seven days before the wedding, his father summoned me to their mansion. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes looked at me like I was something filthy.
"50 billion. That’s enough for three lifetimes. Take it and disappear."
On the coffee table lay a check, the number written like a curse.
I smiled.
"That money can’t buy back the foot I’ve already placed across your family’s threshold."
I turned and walked away, my heels clicking sharply against the marble floor—like a slap.
They thought I’d be afraid.
But I grew up in the mud. I’ve seen real storms.
His older brother hired people to smear me, calling me a gold-digger.
So I tossed a voice recorder into the family group chat: "The twenty billion your dad lost in Macau last year—wasn’t that paid for with the permit to relocate my mother’s grave?"
Silence flooded the screen.
They shut down all my social media, buried every trace of me.
So I stood outside their mansion with a megaphone, reading aloud Article 3 of the Marriage Law: "Arranged marriages, mercenary marriages, and any interference with marital freedom are prohibited."
A passerby took a photo. It went viral. **#CountryGirlTakesOnTheRich#** trended nationwide.
On the final day, they staged a fake wedding.
"Just perform for the media," they said. "Divorce right after."
I put on the white dress, the veil, and stepped slowly down the aisle.
As the officiant began, "Ladies and gentlemen, the bride and groom—"
I removed my veil, smiled at the cameras, and said, "Today isn’t a performance."
Then I pulled a paper from my chest.
"This is the detailed record of my father’s unpaid wages when he worked as your family’s laborer. With interest, it exactly covers my dowry today."
His father shot to his feet. "Are you out of your mind?!"
"I’m not crazy," I said, looking at his son, softly. "I just don’t want to love on my knees."
Chaos erupted.
And outside, sirens wailed closer.
I’d already sent all the evidence to the tax bureau.
The real wedding never happened.
But three months later, I opened a legal aid station in a city village.
The sign read: "Specializing in taking down the arrogant—especially the wealthy."
As for him?
He left the public eye, heard to be farming in the countryside.
Sometimes people see a man in a worn-out shirt squatting by my shop, eating a roasted flatbread, silently staring at the sign with my name on it.
