Two minutes later, the screen brightened, and the door to the private room was pushed open a crack.
The scene inside made my blood run cold.
Hale was holding Eden's face with both hands, kissing her passionately.
Eden didn't struggle. She just let him kiss her wildly, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
That tear sparkled under the light.
"Hale, it was wrong of me to keep seeing you behind Daniel's back."
"But now I've decided to marry him, and I won't be with you anymore..."
She couldn't finish her sentence as her mouth was blocked again.
When they separated, Eden's lips were a bit swollen.
Hale had bitten them.
"I won't allow it. I can't accept it! We love each other. Why can't you keep seeing me behind Daniel's back like before? Don't listen to my sister. She doesn't understand our love!"
Hale's voice was choked with tears.
As expected, they had been cheating on me all along!
The screen shook, and the video ended.
I called Dick and asked what was going on.
Dick said he was almost caught but managed to escape.
At last, we had solid evidence.
I hung up the phone and went to find John to show him the video.
John was furious at their shamelessness, venting his anger for a while.
The poor orchid, its leaves were almost all torn off.
"Don't worry, you know my hosting skills. I'll make sure they are utterly disgraced tomorrow!"
After making this fierce promise, John called the brother in charge of the projector and instructed him to play the video at the right moment.
They exchanged a signal. John would snap his fingers to cue the video.
However, we didn't expect that later that night, Dick sent an even more explosive video!
The video showed the hallway on the 8th floor of a hotel.
The four of them had returned to their rooms after drinking, Eden entered room 801, and Lillian and the bridesmaid entered 802.
Hale had also booked a room and went into 809.
Half an hour later, Eden came out of 801 in a silk robe.
She clutched her phone, looked around, and walked to the door of 809, knocking on it.
Hale, wrapped only in a towel, pulled her inside.
Dick said this was filmed at one in the morning.
Then, he sent a second video.
In this one, Eden was seen hurriedly leaving 809, looking around again before returning to 801.
"Damn! Her hair was up when she went in, but it was down when she came out!"
"And that's not all. The bow on her robe's belt was on the left when she went in, but it was on the right when she came out!"
John and Dick both noticed the discrepancies.
My face turned completely dark.
Though I knew Eden had betrayed me, seeing it with my own eyes felt different.
It was like having a lump of cotton stuck in my chest, neither up nor down.
I treated her so well and loved her so much.
I worked hard to make money, giving it all to her, just so she could be happy and do what she wanted at home.
Yet, she took my money and, while I was working overtime, fooled around with Hale.
When I was on the verge of life and death, needing ten thousand dollars to save my life, she took all the money and bought a house with Hale.
Anger ignited that lump of cotton, making my heart burn painfully.
"These shameless scumbags, Daniel, you need to fire Hale tomorrow!"
"And get back all the bride price and money they took, damn it!"
They were both indignant.
I took a deep breath, forced myself to calm down, and asked John to make sure the videos were made public tomorrow.
He patted his chest.
"No problem! I'll edit it well, so everyone can see how disgusting these two are!"
John stayed with me until four in the morning.
Hale came back, but we didn't alert him, just told him to get some rest.
After breakfast, we set off to pick up the bride.
When we arrived at the hotel, the bus was already blocking the entrance.
People from Eden's village had come, and her mother hurriedly asked if I had the red envelopes ready.
Dick, smiling, took them out, and her mother grabbed them.
Feeling the thickness, satisfied, she smiled.
She didn't know we hadn't filled them with 666 dollars and 10,000 dollars as she expected.
Instead, they contained 6.66 dollars and one hundred one-dollar bills.
The other small red envelopes only had five dollars each.
Given what her daughter had done, even five dollars was generous.
The so-called "Master" deserved some credit, so the 100 dollars was worth it.
If it weren't for his suggestion to add Eden's name to the house, they might have gotten the marriage certificate, which would have been a real hassle.
After handing over the red envelopes, the door opened.
Eden sat upright on the bed, thick bridal makeup unable to hide the dark circles under her eyes.
Suppressing my inner rage, I calmly followed John's process to start the bridal pickup.
Skipping over the games and pranks on the groomsmen, the final step was to put shoes on the bride and recite vows.
No matter what, I couldn't bring myself to say those vows.
John's eyes lit up and said, "Oh no! We took too long playing games. We're going to miss the auspicious time! Let's go!"
Eden didn't move, looking up at me with some grievance.
I knew she was sensitive and felt my cold attitude today.
She was selfish and had a bad temper. If she sensed something was wrong, it wouldn't be good.
I forced a smile.
"Eden, I'll whisper these vows to you tonight."
Everyone started cheering, and Eden finally smiled.
She reached out for me to carry her downstairs.
Feeling disgusted, I lied that my arm was numb from sleeping in the wrong position and didn't want to drop her, so I turned around and offered my back.
Eden immediately pouted, but with so many people around, she couldn't throw a fit and grudgingly climbed onto my back.
After the ceremony and photos at my house, we headed to the hotel.
Eden changed into a long dress and stood with me at the hotel entrance to greet guests.
Under the scorching sun, she finally couldn't hold back her temper.