My Wife Gave My Award to Her First Love? I Filed for Divorce and Watched the Company Collapse

“We finally produced the material we’ve been researching for so long!” “To celebrate the birth of this material, which is sure to make us famous in history, let’s raise our glasses to our greatest contributor, Ethan Miller!” My wife, Claire Bennett, pushed up her glasses, lifted the wineglass in her hand, and gazed at Ethan with undisguised affection. His face was glowing with joy as he looked back at Claire, his eyes just as full of emotion. Ethan raised his glass high and looked at everyone. “This experiment couldn’t have succeeded through my efforts alone. Everyone worked hard!” “And of course, we couldn’t have done it without Professor Bennett’s help. Come on, let’s raise a glass to Professor Bennett!” The material produced by this experiment could only be described as revolutionary: a room-temperature superconductor. Because of this one material, our little-known lab had become the force leading a global transformation. And because of this material alone, everyone in our lab was now destined to go down in history. Our names would appear in every university textbook on materials science. No researcher could endure such glory without celebrating. Happiness lit up everyone’s face. At that moment, they forgot their usual elegance and strict professionalism and gave themselves over completely to their excitement. Ethan picked up an expensive bottle of champagne and shook it vigorously before popping the cork. Sweet champagne sprayed into the air, and everyone’s excitement reached its peak. The look in Claire’s eyes grew hotter and hotter as she stared at Ethan, and amid everyone’s cheers, she suddenly leaped into his arms. Ethan caught her tightly, his hands wrapping around my wife’s lower back as they pressed their foreheads together, their mouths almost touching. When the people in the lab saw this, the wild atmosphere made them forget Claire’s usual sternness, and they began egging the couple on. “Kiss her! Kiss her!” My wife, who normally wouldn’t even let me hold her hand, clung tightly to Ethan without saying a word of protest. The second male lead wore an even broader smile as he called out to everyone in the lab. “Don’t let Professor Carter find out about this!” Whistles and jeers began to ring out among the employees. “He’s just Professor Bennett’s pretty boy, here to pad his résumé!” “Exactly! As far as we’re concerned, you two are a perfect match!” “That useless man can’t do anything, yet he still wants to lead our lab. He doesn’t deserve it!” And my wife, Claire, couldn’t even bring herself to scold them. Blushing shyly, she buried her face against Ethan’s neck. Their faces drew closer and closer, while the cheers from the lab grew louder and louder. Just before they kissed, I pushed open the door at the entrance to the banquet hall. I had stayed up all night finishing the paper on the room-temperature superconductor and was about to submit it to Nature. I had come to ask my wife whether there was anything else that needed revising. But I searched the entire lab and couldn’t find a single person. I called my wife again and again. Every second mattered. If we produced the material and published the paper before anyone else, we would truly become the fathers of room-temperature superconductivity. I managed to get through to Claire countless times, but she never answered. I called everyone I knew at the lab, yet not one of them picked up. In the end, an old employee who had been by my side since the lab was founded secretly told me that everyone was celebrating in the banquet hall. But I never expected that after driving through the rain all night to get there, this would be the scene waiting for me. Claire lifted her head from Ethan’s arms and looked at me. Her face was flushed from alcohol and embarrassment, but her brows were tightly furrowed, and her gaze was colder than the rain outside. “Alex Carter? What are you doing here? Did you finish the paper?” “Didn’t I tell you to finish it and publish it as soon as possible? Did you just ignore everything I said?” She was still in Ethan’s arms, greedily enjoying the warmth of his embrace. “Since you’re here, there’s something I need to tell you.” “Revise your paper. I’ve decided to give Ethan first-author credit and the naming rights.” “Isn’t there an application for Outstanding Young Scholar coming up? With this achievement, Ethan will definitely get it.” There was no discussion and no plea in her voice. There was only a cold command. The heart that had just been burning with excitement was instantly doused by those few words. Only then did the chill of the rainy night crawl over my body, and I couldn’t stop myself from shivering. How many times had this happened? How many times had she spoken to me this way? Ever since Ethan had joined the lab, Claire had changed the first author on every paper to Ethan. Sometimes, I would spend days conducting an experiment and nights writing the paper, only for Claire to take it to Ethan the next morning and put his name in the first-author position. This had happened countless times, but whenever it happened again, the anger was still impossible to suppress. Everyone present was waiting for me to explode. They watched me with malicious smiles, eager to see me humiliated. I stared at Claire, my eyes burning with fury. They had never conducted this experiment or even read the paper, yet I had compromised again and again. I had given them second-author credit and listed them as supervisors, but they still weren’t satisfied. They wanted to take first-author credit too. The flames in my heart surged higher, nearly consuming me. I pulled the lab director’s ID card from my coat—it hadn’t even had time to come off my neck—and shoved it into Ethan’s hand. . I smiled at the two of them and said, “How could I possibly hit anyone?” “Fine, take it all. You can even be the director of this lab!” “I quit!”Ethan’s face had been full of smug satisfaction, but after feeling the ID card in his hand, he looked at me with surprise. Every employee in the lab froze. Only Claire showed a trace of surprise and anger. I smiled at them both and said, “Isn’t this what you wanted? The lab is yours now. Congratulations.” I walked over, patted Ethan on the shoulder, and said with a smile, “But you’d better be careful. Some things are too much for someone without the ability to handle them.” As I spoke, I pressed down hard with one hand. Ethan’s tall body was forced downward. His face flushed red as he strained with all his strength, but he couldn’t push back up. Watching him struggle, I gave him a disdainful smile. As expected, he was just a fool whose body had been hollowed out by alcohol and women. Anger covered Claire’s face as she picked up the ID card and demanded, “Alex, what do you mean?” “This is our lab’s celebration banquet. Why did you come here to throw a tantrum?” Seeing the fury in her eyes, I couldn’t help laughing. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” “You wanted to give everything to the man you love and lift him into the heavens. Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?” “Ethan is the first author now. He’s the one becoming famous. And now I’m even giving him my lab. Why aren’t you happy?” “I really don’t know what it would take to make you satisfied.” Claire couldn’t say a word. She kept pushing her glasses up her nose, and I knew it was a sign of her irritation and anger. In the past, I would have gone over to comfort her and tell her not to be upset, but today, I didn’t care anymore. Ethan stepped forward and blocked Claire from view, his face full of provocation and smugness. “Professor Carter, don’t be angry. Take your ID card back!” “It’s just that we didn’t invite you to the celebration banquet. Don’t get so worked up, Professor Carter.” With a few words, Ethan made me sound petty and narrow-minded, while carefully avoiding any mention of the disgusting things he and Claire had done. I didn’t respond to him. I only looked at Claire, wanting to see what she would say. Claire seemed to understand what was happening and shoved the ID card directly into Ethan’s hand. “It’s fine. Since he gave you the lab, accept it. Let’s see whether this lab can keep running without him!” “He spends every day slacking off and doing odd jobs, yet he really thinks he’s indispensable!” In the end, she still chose Ethan. Ethan’s smile grew wide as he quickly slipped the ID card into his pocket. What had a master’s degree earned overseas done to deserve becoming the head of a lab like this? The moment he got the ID card, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath as though he had finally achieved his goal, then turned toward Claire. “Claire, I won’t let you down. Trust me!” He strode over and grabbed my wife’s hand, completely disregarding the fact that I was still standing right there. Claire gazed at Ethan with infatuation as he basked in his triumph. Even with me standing there, she acted as though I were invisible. I quietly watched Ethan and laughed. I had thought that after spending several years earning his master’s degree, Ethan would at least have some understanding of what it meant to lead a lab. I never expected an overseas degree could be this watered down. They had never watched me conduct an experiment, much less read any of my papers. They didn’t understand the experimental procedures at all. They didn’t even know the principles behind the experiment or what the raw materials were. They were holding a finished product and foolishly thinking they could reproduce my work. It was pure wishful thinking! As long as I didn’t reveal the method, no one in the world would know how to produce a room-temperature superconductor! Ethan thought that forcing me out meant everything would be fine, but he had no idea what was waiting for him. The world had already been informed of the breakthrough in room-temperature superconductors. Now everyone was waiting for the paper to appear, and laboratories everywhere had begun verification without wasting a second. Orders from countless factories came flying in like snowflakes. The penalties from the contracts they had impulsively signed alone would be enough to keep them in debt for the rest of their lives! As I watched the two of them gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes, I could already imagine the look on their faces when they were frightened senseless by the astronomical debts. Claire seemed to suddenly remember that I was her husband and quickly let go of Ethan’s hand before turning to me. “Alex, it’s not as if I’m completely without gratitude for our past.” “If you leave this lab, you probably won’t even be able to support yourself.” “How about this? Stay at the lab and learn from the new graduate students. Once you’ve achieved something, you can leave. That way, you won’t embarrass our lab.” Learn from the graduate students? I was the creator of the room-temperature superconductor and a Nobel Prize winner in the making, yet she wanted me to learn from newly arrived graduate students? Once I published this paper, any country in the world would welcome me with open arms and treat me like a national treasure. She actually wanted me to stay here and do odd jobs? There was no way I would continue humiliating myself here. I frowned at Claire and said, “Before I leave, I have one condition. I want to take all my experimental records with me!” Claire gave me a half-smile and said, “You can have your experimental records back, as long as you apologize to Ethan and say that you gave him the lab because you knew you weren’t capable enough. Then I’ll give you the records.” Apologize? I wasn’t capable enough? She wanted me to apologize to this con artist who had spent several years overseas before coming back to deceive everyone? I walked up to Ethan and slapped him across the face. “You want an apology? Fine, I’ll give you one!”