Chapter 34: When The Ball Ends!

Chapter 34: When The Ball Ends!

The second I made it back to our corner table, Hana stood right up and stepped in close. She reached around to wrap her arms slightly past my shoulders, warmly dusting off the back of my suit jacket to clean away the stray debris I had missed from my quick run-in on the floor. Mary watched her work, then spoke up so everyone at the table could hear.

"Hate finds you anywhere you go, Rick, even when you don't actively look for it," Mary said, offering a small, knowing shrug. "By the way, good job not refusing the dance."

I looked over at Mary, thoroughly confused by her framing of the situation with Linda, and immediately sought to clarify the matter.

"Linda and I have absolutely nothing going on," I told them, keeping my voice quiet and direct. "I only took the dance to not be rude in front of the crowd, so please don't think it meant anything at all. I have both of you now, and that's all I need in my life."

Hana finished smoothing out my collar and offered a soft, amused smile.

"No, we actually would have been upset if you had just stomped on her feelings in public," Hana said, her tone dripping with playful reassurance. "So we are saying you were being kind to her, and we both thought it was very nice of you. It is just a massive pity that the beautiful flower comes with such a massive pile of manure, fufu."

Sitting a couple of chairs down, James shook his head and piped up to join the conversation.

"Scott Tang being a total ass is understandable, but if Linda is supposed to be his woman, why the hell did he forcefully push her to the floor like that?" James asked, gesturing wildly toward the center of the hall. "You guys only shared a standard dance, and the guy treated it like he literally caught you two in bed together!"

Every single person at our table nodded in unison to James's logical observation. Scott's mind was completely fractured.

Over at the Lang family table, the atmosphere was thick with tension.

Mercy Mu carefully guided the visibly shaking Linda back down into her seat. Having a front-row seat to a sudden explosion of violence made Linda tremble just a bit, largely due to the raw terror of Scott pushing her down in a blind rage. Though for some strange reason—exactly like what had happened during the bank robbery—the moment Rick fought back, her lingering trauma seemed to calm down significantly. Staring at the backs of both the father and the son was the only type of raw violence that didn't completely terrorize Linda's psyche.

Tanya, her older sister, immediately wrapped an arm tightly around Linda's shoulders to help calm her breathing, while their mother, Sue Lang, turned a frosty glare straight toward her husband.

"And what exactly are you going to say about Scott now, George?" Sue asked, her voice dangerously quiet. "In a complete, blind rage, he forcefully shoves aside the exact woman he loudly proclaims he is madly in love with?"

George Lang didn't look up. He slowly swirled his wine, took a heavy drink from his glass, and addressed the entire table with a hardened expression."Sadly, this entire situation is Linda's fault," George said coldly. "I explicitly forbid her from talking to or being around that boy, and this exact chaos is the reason why. So if she chooses to completely ignore my orders, I don't feel Scott was in the wrong here at all. Now, Linda, this is your absolute last warning... stay the hell away from Rick Lee. He is nothing but pure trouble!"

George completely ignored the sharp, disapproving stares coming from his two daughters and his wife. He carried himself like his choices were absolute, and within the walls of the Lang household, they usually were.

Meanwhile, over at the Long family table, Victoria was leaning across the linen cloth toward the Head of the house.

"Did you not see his face during the exchange?" Victoria pointed out to her older sister, her voice urgent. "The calm look in his eyes made it look like he was casually beating a small child. Sister, you seriously need to reconsider your upcoming move against him. I think Rick Lee is a Master practitioner. He can definitely defeat Ashley."

Kimberly, who had already downed a few heavy glasses of wine, just threw her head back and laughed dismissively.

"He executed a simple little takedown on that silk-pants-tiger and you are seriously calling him a Master?" Kimberly scoffed, her face flushed from the alcohol. "That is completely ridiculous. No, this just gives me all the more reason to call in the Bald Donkeys to completely wreck him."

The term Bald Donkey was a highly derogatory name given to the incredibly stubborn Buddhist monks who resided in secluded temples or monasteries, practicing ancient martial arts far away from modern eyes. The Mountain Temple in this story was an isolated mountain sanctuary completely unknown to the modern world, populated entirely by true, high-tier Masters. There were exactly four such temples scattered across Eurasia, tracing their hidden lineages directly back to the original China Empire.

Listening to her sister, Victoria found herself feeling deeply torn between her family loyalty and the son of the man who had abandoned her middle sister to a lifetime of bitter exile. Victoria racked her brain, but she couldn't find the right answer.

Years ago, her middle sister refused to accept the woman from the Tang clan, making things incredibly difficult for everyone. When pushed to the brink, Rick's father rejected her middle sister entirely, choosing to stay with the Tang woman instead. The two women had been like oil and water, and the moment he was told he could only choose one of them, her sister was abandoned completely. Victoria let out a quiet, heavy sigh at the memory.

Kimberly, fueled by her drunk anger, picked up her smartphone right from the table and dialed a number.

"Ashley, tell your father to send the Mountain Temple to cripple Rick Lee," Kimberly ordered into the receiver, her voice loud and demanding. "What? I said do it. Don't start giving me reasons not to. I want the job done within the month. If he actually shows up for university classes after this, don't you dare complain about my anger."

Kimberly hung up on her niece without waiting for a reply, a smug, winning smile spreading across her face.

"There now, Victoria," she gloated, sliding the phone back into her purse. "You won't even have to worry about seeing him inside your classroom. The matter will be completely handled, fufu."

Sitting right beside her, her husband, Rex Long, wore a permanent look of deep pity for whoever his wife happened to be pissed off at. He was thoroughly unhappy in his marriage, and he spent a significant portion of his free time looking online for quick, easy methods of completely vanishing from this world. All jokes aside, he had led an incredibly sad, suffocating life as her husband.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Suddenly, Kimberly's phone began to blare loudly, ringing out even though she had explicitly set the device to silent mode. The moment she pressed the button to answer it, the connection overrode her settings and instantly forced the call straight into speaker mode. A heavy, distorted voice that was electrically scrambled to completely hide any identifying traits of gender or ethnicity spoke through the speaker, echoing out for the entire table to hear perfectly.

[ The Long are a good, loyal bunch. If Rick Lee dies, so will your entire family cease to exist in Eurasia. Good. Good. Good. Click... do, do, do... ]

The line went completely dead. Kimberly's happy alcohol buzz vanished in a single fraction of a second, leaving her completely sober as the entire family stared speechlessly at the black screen of her phone.

"Sister... what the hell have you done?" Victoria whispered, her face pale.

"It is only an empty threat," Kimberly barked, her voice shaking slightly as she tried to save face. "Nobody has the power to erase the Long clan. Just ignore it."

Over at the Feng family table, the perspective was entirely different.

"Little Lee is at least a Master practitioner!" Lane Feng told her family, her eyes sparkling as she recalled the effortless takedown of Scott Tang. "I think that Woo guy, your personal pick, dear, is going to have an incredibly hard time winning the game against him."

"It is certainly not guaranteed," Tony Feng replied, leaning back in his chair with an amused grin. "But I think even if I lose the wager, I still win in the end, right?"

Jill Feng, the designated next head of the house and the older sister to Tina, let a sharp smile spread across her lips. She had fully inherited her mother's striking blonde hair and predatory business instincts.

"No, just pull him from the game entirely," Jill suggested smoothly. "I want him for myself. I think the Feng main branch can use a man of that caliber."

Her father shook his head firmly, looking across the table at his eldest daughter.

"If he wasn't already a signed participant in the game, I would gladly approve of the match," Tony explained. "But participants are bound by the rules; they have to stay in the bracket until they are either defeated or win the entire thing. So if he ends up losing, then I can officially offer him your hand, but..."

Tina narrowed her gold eyes, glaring directly across the table at her older sister.

"Rick won't marry you anyway, Jill," Tina stated flatly, her tone cutting through the air. "He doesn't enter into relationships based on mutual benefits or business leverage like the rest of us do. He strictly follows his heart. If you try to force his hand the way Scott did over there, your complete destruction is the only outcome you will get. And no, he absolutely won't be beaten by Woo."

Lane looked over at her youngest daughter, raising an eyebrow curiously.

"Oh? And have you even bothered to tell Rick what is actually on the line for this silly game you and your father are playing?" Lane asked with a knowing look. "I don't think he will just sit back and take the main prize the way Jill here wants to."

Tina shifted uncomfortably in her seat, clearly annoyed by her mother pressing the issue.

"I know," Tina muttered, looking away. "But I can't cross that bridge with him right now. He and I are not like that. Both he and I know exactly where we stand. I am not a normal girl."

"Well, my silly daughter, I have already taught you absolutely everything you need to know to win a man," Lane said, letting out a soft laugh as she gestured toward her husband. "If you don't believe me, just ask your father over here, who was completely defeated by me back in the day, ufufu!"

Her father’s face flushed red with embarrassment. He quickly turned his head away, clearing his throat loudly.

"Don't bring me into this," Tony mumbled defensively. "And besides, you didn't play fair back then."

With the teasing out of the way, the Feng family relaxed, sharing a laugh and continuing to enjoy the high-society event as a tight-knit, functional family unit.

And the most interesting table in the entire room belonged to the Tang clan.

"My son, hold completely still," Debby Tang, Scott's mother, murmured soothingly. "It is not broken at all, it is just badly swollen. Don't be such a baby."

She was holding a cold, wet rag tightly against her son's nose, coddling him right in front of the surrounding guests. Anyone looking at her coddling actions could tell exactly how overly pampering this woman was toward her child.

"Mother, where the hell are my bodyguards?" Scott hissed through the rag, his voice muffled and thick with rage. "They should have immediately helped me when that bastard Rick pinned me flat on the ground in front of everyone!"

"Sweetheart, mother honestly does not know," Debby replied, looking around the room with a frown. "In fact, I haven't seen either of them for quite a while now."

Anthony Tang slowly put his smartphone down onto the table cloth and turned a cold, calculation-filled stare toward the two of them.

"Your two personal guards were found beaten completely unconscious inside the restroom down the hall," Anthony stated, his deep voice slicing right through his wife's coddling. "They are currently being transported to the hospital to tend to their broken wounds. And my wife... I am going to ask you exactly one time, so you better think about your answer honestly. If you attempt to lie to me, I will know instantly."

Debby swallowed hard, her chest tightening. She absolutely despised it when her husband got that dangerously serious look on his face.

"Did you tell Scott the secret details about Rick?" Anthony asked, his voice dropping to a low, lethal register. "Lie to me right now, and I will divorce you before the sun comes up."

She felt the air completely leave her lungs at the weight of that ultimatum. It was a disaster whether she said yes or no. Internally, she was absolutely pissed off at her idiot son for running his mouth and telling him he already knew about Rick. She had explicitly told him it was a massive secret, sigh.

"I was heavily drunk the night I let it slip by complete accident," she confessed, looking down at her lap.

Anthony nodded his head slowly, believing that specific explanation would make complete sense given her lack of discipline. He turned his gaze toward both Scott and Debbie.

"Then the Tang family will not get involved in the personal fight between Scott and Rick," the patriarch declared flatly. "Even if you two end up killing each other out in the streets, you are entirely on your own, son. That is exactly what a grown-up does—takes full responsibility for his own actions."

Debby immediately gasped, loudly protesting what she viewed as completely unfair treatment. "No! You absolutely cannot abandon your own flesh-and-blood son to a bastard like that! I won't tolerate it for a second! Just step on that kid and crush him, he has absolutely no one backing him up."

"You honestly think Rick has no one?" Anthony countered, letting out a harsh, mocking chuckle. "This is exactly why you and your stupid mouth are so completely ignorant. You spoiled Scott to the point of absolute stupidity, and now you two have made a massive mess that I cannot fix for you two idiots. No, Rick is not alone by a long shot... but I can't even tell you two idiots the truth."

Scott stared at his father, his swollen face twisting into a look of pure confusion and betrayal. "Why the hell are you picking Rick over your own son? That is not right, father!"

"Your older sister, Helen, is the designated next Head of this family, not you," Anthony barked, gesturing toward the sharp woman standing quietly behind him. "You are merely a spare who arrogantly thinks he is the next head of the family. You attacked Rick today solely because he is not officially recognized as a Tang, and you did it entirely to feed your own deep insecurities and your mother's personal vanity. I had hoped you and Rick could eventually come to stable terms, but I highly doubt you possess the brain capacity to see the big picture of the Tang clan."

"No," Scott spat, his eyes burning with venom. "He and I can never walk the same path. The kid is a permanent stain to the Tang name, and he should have never been born in the first place."

Slap!

A resounding crack echoed across the immediate area as Anthony's palm connected violently with Scott's cheek, the sheer force of the blow causing his swollen nose to instantly start bleeding all over again. Every single guest seated near the Tang table saw the Head of the house physically strike his own son. Anthony didn't say another word. With Helen trailing right behind his heels, the patriarch stood up and marched straight out of the Ball, refusing to look at a single person. His family was left sitting there completely stupefied, frozen by the raw display of explosive anger they rarely ever saw on his face.

And the absolute worst part of it all? Tomorrow morning, when I remotely process the digital audio logs from his phone, I will hear this exact conversation and have my entire worldview shattered. Sometimes when you spy on others, you learn deep things you wish you truly did not know.

After that massive outburst, the high-society drama finally ground to a halt, and the remaining bit of the annual Ball was completely peaceful and quiet.

Once the event concluded, Mary took the keys to the heavy Hummer and drove the other three friends safely back home, heading straight to our old apartment afterward to finish packing our belongings for the move the next day. She explicitly wanted to give the two of us the entire house alone for our official honeymoon night.

Hana and I stood by the main entrance to see off her parents, shaking hands and promising to have a formal dinner with them one night before the university semester officially started.

Hana, who had carefully limited herself to only one glass of wine the entire evening to keep her mind sharp, took the keys to her coupe and drove us home—yes, straight to my brand-new home together with her and Mary.

"Well, husband," Hana murmured with a soft chuckle, steering the car smoothly through the quiet streets. "Our very first day of marriage was definitely memorable, right, fufu?"

I reached across the console, placing my palm flat against her smooth thigh, and smiled. Then I let out a quiet sigh, offering a genuine apology.

"Forgive me, Hana. Trouble has always closely followed me around like one of those main protagonists in books and movies. It seems like good and bad things always come in pairs for me."

The moment we pulled into the garage and the heavy door rolled shut behind us, she turned her head to look at me, her blue eyes locked onto mine with deep affection before she said something that instantly changed the entire trajectory of my night.

"Now that the bad stuff is completely out of the way, it's time to handle the good stuff. You have a baby to make inside me, right, dear?"

The sheer weight of her invitation hit me like a physical bolt. I jumped straight out of the passenger seat, putting on an incredibly excited look for her as I yelled out across the concrete garage.

"Hurry the hell up, slowpoke! We have a family to officially start!"

She only laughed out loud at me acting like an absolute fool, but she couldn't hide the deep, radiant smile spreading across her face. Physically, she might only be twenty-five years old, but maturing fast through years of high-pressure medical residency ahead of other women made her feel like a thirty-plus-year-old woman internally, someone who wanted a child of her own more than anything else in the world. Finding me just when she was on the verge of giving up on love entirely really was an incredible stroke of fortune for her.

A few minutes later, a continuous trail of white and black clothing could be seen stretching from the threshold of her bedroom door all the way into the master bathroom. The crisp black fabric of my suit and the elegant white material of her shoulderless dress were discarded haphazardly across the floorboards. The only bit of color remaining other than the stark black and white was her gold ponytail ribbon and my matching gold tie, lying completely twisted over one another on the tile. Together, the interwoven gold fabric almost looked like a coiling Eastern Dragon resting in the dark.

We explicitly did not consummate the marriage inside the shower, but we spent a long time making out under the warm water, letting the heat thoroughly warm our bare bodies up to peak physical potential. Hana purposefully did not want me to empty my load inside the shower and lessen our mathematical chances of conception. I did, however, bury my face deeply into her heavy, double-D breasts, inhaling her scent and losing myself in her touch so I could focus entirely on her body later in the bedroom.

Soon enough, the two of us stepped out onto the mat, thoroughly drying each other's damp skin off from the water with plush towels. Then, holding hand in hand, we walked slowly toward our bed. Yeah, our bed.

The second Hana crawled onto the mattress, I walked over to the sound system and started playing the Kate Kong album of love songs. With the soft music filtering through the room, the raw atmosphere felt absolutely perfect.

"Rick, remember when I told you to make my parents happy tonight and I would make you happy in return?" she asked, her voice dropping to a sultry whisper.

"I honestly did not think you were being serious with that threat," I replied, a grin spreading across my face as I stepped up to the edge of the mattress. "I am already incredibly happy just standing here."

Hana let a knowing smirk spread across her lips as she turned her body painfully slow, shifting onto her hands and knees in the center of the sheets, before she finally delivered the magic words.

"Let us make our baby in your absolute favorite position, ufufu!"

She reached one hand backward, using her fingers to gently spread her lower lips wide to invite me inside, and the visual stimulus caused me to instantly solidify to my absolute maximum potential.

I sprang into direct action, climbing onto the mattress and lining myself up perfectly right behind her exposed hips. I leaned forward, gently inserting the thick head of my shaft into her wet opening, and she released her hand from her flesh to brace herself against the pillows.

"Dear, it's the exact same rules as our very first night together," Hana gasped out, her hips trembling slightly as her internal muscles clamped tightly around me. "Just finish inside me quickly, and we can do our romantic lovemaking afterward. So hurry up and get the actual baby-making out of the way, fufu."

"I love you, Hana. So here I go."

I reached forward, firmly grasping both of her impressive, curved hips with my hands. I pulled her weight back as I drove my hips forward, thrusting hard into her tight channel until my groin slammed flat against her base. I heard a deep, satisfied grunt of joy escape her lips as I fully filled her internal length. With the connection locked, I began the first official phase of our wedding night.

Slap! Slap! Slap!

The raw friction of our skin filled the quiet bedroom. While I maintained a fast, vigorous pace, driving into her depth over and over again, Hana's heavy breasts and long blonde hair swayed wildly with my intense physical motion. The pale flesh of her athletic legs and thighs rippled under the impact, our bodies bouncing forcefully off one another with every single forceful thrust in and out. The heat building between our lower bodies was absolute, her tight walls milking my length with zero mercy.

"AHH! Crap, Rick, I am cumming right now~!" Hana screamed out, her head arching back as her entire body went rigid.

Slap! Slap! Slap!

The violent contraction of her internal muscles tightening hard around my shaft combined with those sexy magic words completely broke my restraint.

There was absolutely no way I could hold my load for another second. I slammed in maximum-deep, driving my tip straight against the entrance of her womb, and firmly locked my fingers into her shoulders to hold her pinned so we could not be separated by the recoil. I let go of everything, feeling a massive torrent of thick semen erupt from my base, filling her internal cavity completely as my body shuddered with the release.

We both knew, with absolute certainty, that this specific moment was when our baby would officially join us in this world.

I finally released my tight grip on her shoulders, slumping my weight down on top of her back as the adrenaline began to fade. She collapsed flat against the sheets under me, her breath hitching as I remained on her back, my arms loosely wrapped around her waist while our bodies stayed joined.

I reached up, gently wiping the beads of sweat from her flushed face, and pressed my lips against hers. For being on the receiving end of such a vigorous pounding, she looked like she had worked incredibly hard to take all of me.

I leaned down, whispering directly into her ear. "I absolutely cannot wait to see you hold our child in your arms. I love you, wife."

As she reached down to clasp the exact hand I had used to wipe her face, she turned her head slightly to give me the single brightest, most beautiful smile I had ever seen in my life, accompanied by one or two genuine tears of happiness tracking down her cheek.

"Rick, I feel completely complete now," she whispered, her voice cracking with raw emotion. "I love you so much."

I let a mischievous grin spread across my face, whispering the next line right against her skin, knowing exactly how she would react.

"After we are completely done resting up, how about I take you out in the sports car and we go do some high-speed doughnuts in the empty lot to celebrate?"

The exact millisecond the words left my mouth, her internal muscles clamped down in a vice-like grip around my little buddy. I let out a soft laugh, knowing that sudden, intense tightening was exactly the reaction I should expect from my beautiful racing addict.