Rebirth To Chase My Ex-Wife [BL]

"0977, step out! You're free today," the officer's voice cracked through the silence, laced with a sharp disdain that echoed off the cold, sterile walls of the prison.

The heavy metal door groaned open, its screech reverberating, a brutal reminder of the years spent behind it. A figure, tall but unnervingly thin, rose from the far corner of his cell. Every movement was slow, mechanical—as if his body no longer remembered the language of fluid motion, and was now forced to obey a command long forgotten.

Ten years. A decade of confinement had withered him. Once a man whose presence demanded attention, now reduced to a specter. Skin stretched tight over bones, hollow cheeks framed by deep-set eyes—his physical form, a testament to the endless years of deprivation and hollow despair.

No one knew the extent of his suffering—no one cared. His life, a ghost of what it once was, had become nothing more than an afterthought.

Where others might have been met with cheers, with joy at their release, he felt only the weight of his own abandonment. His freedom, a cruel illusion. Redemption? A farce that had never been within his reach.

Stepping out into the harsh light of day, he squinted, the brightness foreign to his eyes after years of artificial gloom. The wind stung his cheeks, biting cold, as if mocking his newfound release. It was freedom, yes—but the kind of freedom no one ever warned him about.

The world outside had forgotten him. No crowd waited for him. No family. No familiar faces. Just the empty expanse of the road stretching out before him, a desolate reminder of the years he'd lost.

Once, people had wept for him—when the sentence was handed down, when they thought his life was sealed behind bars forever. But now, he knew better. Those tears were false, laced with hypocrisy. His relatives, his stepmother, his stepbrother, even his wife—none of them had come to visit. Not once, in all the years he'd spent rotting in that place.

Except for one. His ex-wife—only he had cared enough to visit. But even he had abandoned him. After five years, he stopped coming altogether.

And now, on the day of his release, he stood alone, deserted by the one person who had once offered him a fleeting sense of hope. How foolish he had been, to think that things might change.

His heart sank as he walked aimlessly down the road. His thoughts swirled, dark and heavy. He would never return to that mansion. The mansion that once promised comfort, security—it had become a prison in its own right. A prison of lies, a prison of expectations.

He would rather spend his life behind iron bars than face the suffocating air of that place again.

As he walked, lost in his thoughts, a sleek black McLaren Elva glided to a stop beside him. He paused, his gaze drawn to the car, and then to the figure inside.

A woman, elegant and poised, looked at him with recognition. It took him a moment to place her, but then the name slipped from his lips, barely a whisper.

"Lu ... Xin'ai ...."

"Jiang Yanxu?" Her voice was soft, but there was a hint of disbelief.

He didn't answer at first. The sound of his name, after all these years, felt like a ghost in the air. It sounded foreign, distant.

"Brother-in-law, come on in. Let's talk in the car."

Hesitation, the man climbed into the car. The moment he sat down, he stared at Lu Xin'ai, his mind struggling to piece together the years that had passed. Her face was familiar, yet distant—reminding him of a time he no longer cared to remember.

Lu Xin'ai. The successor of Lu Company. The heir to one of the largest animation companies, right behind his own Jiang Group. She was... family. His ex-wife's cousin.

A flood of memories hit him—memories he had buried deep, memories that now resurfaced with painful clarity. She reminded him of a woman he had failed to protect, a woman whose face was painted with disappointment in his mind.

His ex-wife.

The guilt hit him like a hammer. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. He could never escape it.

A faint, bitter smile tugged at the corner of his lips, but the tears came anyway. They spilled, one by one, dropping onto the worn fabric of his clothes. He didn't try to hide them. What was there left to hide?

No one thought he could feel this kind of pain. No one knew that, even after all these years, he still carried the weight of regret, of lost love.

"Brother-in-law, what's wrong?" Lu Xin'ai's voice was concerned, but there was a hesitance to it. She reached out, gently touching his arm.

He couldn't speak. His throat was tight, his heart heavy with everything he had failed to be.

"Why ... why are you crying?" she asked softly, her voice breaking the silence.

He didn't have the strength to respond. He could only think of Yan An. Yan An, his ex-wife. He had been the only one who had cared—through everything, he had been there. But he had pushed him away. He had broken him. He had broken everything.

Years of regrets and failures crashed down on him.

Lu Xin'ai, who had seen the change in him, said nothing. She understood more than he knew. His actions had been unforgivable, but in her heart, she knew that Yan An, despite everything, had never once hated him. He had only ever loved him.

But love wasn't enough to undo the damage he had done. It wasn't enough to bring back what had been lost.

"Yan An ... he never hated me," he whispered, the words slipping out in a broken, hoarse tone.

Lu Xin'ai nodded silently. She had heard the stories. She had heard the whispers of his fall from grace. And yet, here he was, broken and empty—still haunted by the man he had wronged.

She had always been told not to hate Jiang's family, not to hold grudges. And now, in this moment, she could see the truth in the man's eyes. There was nothing left but regret.