Mr. Dior : Chapter 1: The President’s Million-Dollar Bride (1)

“Doctor, among the casualties from the pile-up that just arrived, is there one named Zhang Da-Diao… wait, scratch that, Zhang Chenfei?”

Jiao Qi ran into the central hospital, covered in sweat, not even realizing that the suit jacket he was clutching in his hand had been completely crumpled.

“He’s in the emergency room. Are you a family member? Please pay the deposit first,” the nurse on duty said while flipping through the ledger.

“President Jiao!” Secretary Yu Yuan came bouncing over, his chubby frame wobbling with every step. He grabbed onto the reception desk, gasping for air. Originally out for a business dinner with his boss, he had just shaken hands with a client when he received the hospital’s call saying Jiao Qi’s legal husband, Zhang Chenfei, had been in a car accident.

Having worked for Jiao Qi for three years, this was the first time Yu Yuan had ever seen him so flustered. His face had gone deathly pale, and he had grabbed his coat and bolted without a second thought. Yu Yuan had to apologize to the client, then push his 180-pound body to hit 180 miles per hour to catch up with his boss, drifting the car all the way to the hospital.

Jiao Qi tossed a card to his secretary and turned to head toward the emergency room.

Little Fatty Yu Yuan caught his breath and gave the nurse a friendly smile, showing two deep dimples: “Where do I pay?”

There were over a dozen beds in the emergency room, and the sea of blue sheets made his head spin. Jiao Qi took a deep breath, scanning the chaotic crowd for his husband.

Technology is advancing, and society is evolving. Same-sex marriage is legal now, and he and Zhang Chenfei had been married for seven years. These seven years had been sweet and smooth, free of any major storms. He never imagined that a “car accident” would happen to the guy who lectured him every day about “obeying traffic rules.”

The pile-up on the overpass involved over twenty victims, all gathered here in this ER.

“Ah—it hurts so much!”

“Hurry, this one needs surgery immediately!”

“Doctor, please, save him, sob, sob…”

Other patients were either surrounded by doctors or family members; only his husband sat there all alone. His tall frame was crammed into a bed less than a meter wide. His head was bowed, wrapped in a layer of gauze, and he looked rather pathetic.

At least he wasn’t missing any arms or legs. Jiao Qi clenched his freezing fingers, letting out a small sigh of relief.

“Are you okay?” He draped his suit jacket over Zhang Chenfei, whose shirt was missing two buttons, and turned to call for a doctor when he was suddenly grabbed by the wrist.

Zhang Chenfei looked up. There were a few scrapes on his face, and a large patch of bright red blood had seeped through the gauze on his forehead, yet it didn’t diminish his good looks at all. His deep black eyes reflected Jiao Qi’s cold, handsome face as he sneered, “What, are you happy to see me in trouble?”

“Damn it! Zhang Da-Diao, what the hell is your problem!” Jiao Qi shook off the hand that was gripping him, trembling with anger. He had been scared out of his wits when he heard about the accident; how could this person say something so hurtful?

Zhang Chenfei curled his lips in a smile that looked completely abnormal, like a psychopathic killer from a crime movie—or, as it’s known in some media, a “wicked, charming smile.”

He pulled Jiao Qi into his arms, pinched his chin with one hand, and said slowly in a deep, magnetic voice, “You are already my wife. As long as you listen, I will pay back the debt your father owes. Remember my name: Dio Zhang.”

Huh?

“Zhang Da-Diao, did you bang your head and break your brain?” Jiao Qi blinked. “My dad is loaded, okay? He just bought two hundred acres of land in the city center the day before yesterday. When did he ever owe anyone money?”

Holding that gauze-covered head, Jiao Qi felt heartbroken. His husband definitely had a concussion. He needed to get a doctor for a head CT. He struggled to get down, but Zhang Chenfei held onto him with a death grip.

“Let go.”

“You can’t escape the palm of my hand!”

“…”

“Uh… Mr. Zhang?” Two traffic police officers stood by the bed, looking at the two men clinging to each other, unsure if they should speak up.

Due to the chain collision, Zhang Chenfei’s car had the best performance and the lightest damage, so they were prioritizing his investigation.

Seeing the officers, who were now staring at the ceiling lights, Jiao Qi jumped off the bed like an electrocuted fish. He gave a dry cough and adjusted his tie. “Sorry, is there something I can help you with?”

“Ah, we are investigating whether anyone in the emergency room was illegally using high-beam headlights…” The officer who insisted on looking at the lights was elbowed by his partner.

“We found the dashcam in Mr. Zhang’s car, but we need Brain-Link authorization to view it.”

Technology has advanced rapidly; people don’t use mobile phones anymore, opting for Brain-Links instead. A Brain-Link consists of two parts: external hardware and internal software. The latter is a chip implanted in the brain that connects to neurons, while the external part is a watch-like device.

Hearing this, Zhang Chenfei stylishly unbuckled the black-and-gold strap on his wrist. His external Brain-Link had been destroyed in the crash; the screen was pitch black and wouldn’t even charge.

“This…” The two officers looked anxious.

“It’s fine, I have shared access,” Jiao Qi said, showing his own silver device. Just then, a doctor came over to examine Zhang Chenfei, so he grabbed the doctor to explain the situation.

“Please, check him out. He’s talking very strangely.”

The examination took quite a while. Since the police were busy and pressed for time, Jiao Qi took them into the hallway and activated his Brain-Link to connect to the dashcam. The virtual screen displayed the ten minutes before the crash, showing heavy traffic on the overpass with everyone moving very slowly.

“Another business dinner!” Zhang Chenfei’s voice came from the recording background, sounding quite dissatisfied.

Jiao Qi remembered sending him a message at that moment, telling him he had a business dinner and probably wouldn’t be home until ten. His heart skipped a beat. Could he have crashed because he was trying to reply?

“Other people’s sweet wives are already home cooking for their husbands, but you? You have even more dinners than I do.” After a string of grumbling complaints, he told his Brain-Link to send a cold “Got it” and closed the chat.

“Louis XIII, find a novel to listen to.”

The erratic monologue didn’t match the image of the famous socialite President Zhang at all. The atmosphere became subtly awkward. The traffic officer dutifully asked, “Who is Louis XIII?”

“His Brain-Link…”

The Brain-Link “Louis XIII” immediately searched for a novel and began reading the summary in an icy mechanical voice.

[To pay off her father’s debt, she was forced to marry that overbearing man. On their wedding night, he forcibly possessed her. “Please, stop.” “Heh, that’s far from enough!”] The mechanical voice sounded strange reading it, but the content sounded incredibly trashy and exciting. Zhang Chenfei told Louis XIII to download the novel, deciding that this was what he would listen to today.

No sooner had it read two sentences than a sharp screech of brakes rang out, followed by a loud BANG, and the screen began to shake violently. The car seemed to be pushed by some force, slamming hard into the rear of the vehicle in front.

The police copied this part of the footage, reassured Jiao Qi that Zhang Chenfei wasn’t at fault, and moved on to continue their investigation elsewhere.

Back in the emergency room, the doctor had finished his assessment.

“After testing, your husband’s physical functions are all fine, but his perception of himself and the world has become skewed. We don’t know how to treat this yet. Why don’t you take him home and observe him first?” the doctor said with an “I can’t help you” expression.

“You call this ‘fine’?” Jiao Qi pointed at his husband, who was occasionally flashing that “wicked, charming smile,” and asked the doctor in disbelief. This was clearly a huge problem!

The chubby secretary, Yu Yuan, stood to the side and whispered, “Um… could it be facial nerve damage?”

“…”

The ignorant fatty. He didn’t understand the “CEO” trope.

The doctor couldn’t offer a better explanation and insisted Zhang Chenfei didn’t need to be hospitalized, so Jiao Qi had to take him home.

Holding Zhang Chenfei’s hand out of concern, they walked down the hospital corridor, which was thick with the scent of disinfectant, causing many young women to sneak glances.

“Those two are so handsome!”

“The tall one looks a bit like Zhang Chenfei, from Shifei Tech…”

“No way.”

Jiao Qi didn’t know what they were discussing; he only felt the weight of countless gazes and couldn’t help but speed up. There was a tragic, heroic vibe to the whole situation: “Husband accidentally becomes an idiot, wife refuses to abandon him.”

Zhang Chenfei, however, wasn’t flustered at all. With one hand in his pocket and his wife dragging the other, he tilted his head with great interest: “Man, what tricks are you playing now?”

Just as they reached their car, Jiao Qi was suddenly pinned to the passenger seat by his husband, who tightly buckled the seatbelt and casually “wall-pinned” him against the door. “Heh, trying to run away while you have the chance?”

His shirt, missing buttons, couldn’t hide the overflowing masculine hormones, which inexplicably made Jiao Qi blush.

“Run your sister! I’m driving!” Jiao Qi raised his hand to unbuckle the belt, but his wrist was tightly gripped and pressed above his head. His husband kissed him without another word. This kiss was different from usual—filled with extreme passion and dominance, it left Jiao Qi bewildered and unable to resist.

“Man, don’t provoke me. You can’t handle my anger.” Zhang Chenfei smiled wickedly, wiped the moisture from his wife’s lips with his thumb, slammed the car door with style, and sat in the driver’s seat with a flamboyant flair, moving to the rhythm of the night breeze.

“You… where are we going?” Jiao Qi looked at him with distrust.

Zhang Chenfei glanced at him, stepped on the gas without a word, and drifted away instantly. He didn’t head to the apartment where they lived on workdays, but drove straight to their luxury villa in the suburbs.

Luckily, his driving skills and common sense were still intact, so Jiao Qi stopped worrying after a while. He sent the medical records and a summary of the day’s events to their private doctor, apologized to the client he had stood up, and then rubbed his temples, exhausted.

The villa was quite far from the city center. Normally, Jiao Qi would have taken a relaxing nap, but today he didn’t dare to sleep. He fished out a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth.

The villa complex was quiet at night. From afar, one could hear the roar of the high-performance engine. The butler and servants immediately came out to open the gate: “Sir, you’ve returned.”

Zhang Chenfei stepped out of the car, dragged his “little wife” from the passenger seat, and held him firmly in his arms: “From today on, he is my wife. You must address him as Madam.”

“Huh?” The butler twitched his old gentleman’s mustache, completely confused. Haven’t they been calling him that for seven years?

Translation Notes
Zhang Da-Diao (張大屌): This is a pun. “Da-Diao” literally translates to “Big Dk.” Jiao Qi is making fun of his husband’s name by purposely using this vulgar homophone.