When my husband gave his entire fifty-thousand-dollar bonus to the girl from the spa for her heart surgery, I lost it. I smashed everything in our apartment to pieces, screaming the most vicious things I could think of.
“Get out. I don’t want to catch whatever disease you picked up from her.”
“If you and that woman die in the street, I won’t even spit on your graves.”
“You pathetic bastard! A leopard can’t change its spots, can it? You’re just trash!”
Alexander heard me, then slowly, deliberately, crushed his cigarette out with his bare hand. A cold smirk twisted his lips.
“Right. You’re the saint here.”
“Forgetting who stripped naked and climbed into my bed at eighteen? Who walked around campus with a baby bump under her sweatshirt?”
The trust I had given him for years transformed into a blade, and he plunged it straight into my heart.
What Alexander didn’t know was that in the instant those words left his mouth, I gave up on our marriage.
And on our second child.
…
The room fell into a dead silence. The friends who had come to play peacemaker stared, their hands clapped over their mouths in shock.
Only the people closest to you know exactly where to stick the knife to make it hurt the most.
I can still remember that baby, dissolving into a pool of blood on a dirty bathroom floor. We were just two broke students, unable to scrape together even the few hundred dollars for a proper procedure. All we could afford were some pills from a back-alley clinic.
In that foul-smelling restroom, a tearing pain ripped through my stomach, a pain that felt like it would never end. An eighteen-year-old Alexander held me, his own tears spent as he sobbed.
“I’m sorry, Ava. It’s all my fault. I’m an animal, it’s all my fault…”
And now, thirty-year-old Alexander was using that same horrific memory to call me cheap. All for that girl from the spa.
My face was ashen. I felt like I was about to collapse. I couldn’t form a single word.
Alexander rubbed his brow, a flicker of regret in his eyes. Our friends rushed to his defense.
“Ava, it’s not really Alex’s fault this time. That girl, Hailey, she ambushed him outside his office.”
“Yeah, she was on her knees, begging, saying she couldn’t go on. Alex just felt sorry for her.”
“Come on, it’s the holidays! There’s nothing a married couple can’t get through.”
A long time ago, I might have believed that. That he just felt sorry for Hailey. A spa worker who hadn’t even finished high school—I never imagined he could actually fall in love with her.
Not until he started moving heaven and earth to find specialists for her heart condition, year after year.
Not until she mentioned she wanted to see the world, and he brought her as his date to the company’s annual gala.
Not until she complained about her dysfunctional family, and he personally took her to an amusement park to make up for her lost childhood.
They kissed at the top of the Ferris wheel. I only found out because a photo from the park’s security camera ended up on social media. The man who never had time for dinner with me had become someone else’s shoulder to lean on.
We had our first explosive fight. Alexander swore she kissed him, that he was just too stunned to push her away when she started crying. The argument ended with him writing a letter, promising he’d never come home late again.
I never imagined that would be the beginning of an endless cycle: fights, silent treatments, reconciliations. Sometimes it was over a tube of lipstick in the passenger seat. Other times, the scent of another woman’s perfume on his suit.
He grew more impatient, colder.
I became more and more hysterical.
Now, I was just tired.
Alexander had given Hailey so much. Money, love, time. He might as well give her my title, too.
I managed a weak, hollow smile. “We won’t be a married couple for much longer.”
Alexander stared at me in disbelief. “You’re going to divorce me? Over fifty thousand dollars?”
“Ava, there’s a limit to this drama!”
After all this time, after he had pushed my boundaries for her again and again, he still thought our marriage was indestructible.
How absurd.
As we stood there, deadlocked, his phone rang. I knew from the ringtone who it was, and a fresh wave of rage washed over me. For countless nights, that sound was my signal to stare at the ceiling alone until sleep finally came.
After a few brief words, he grabbed his coat.
“Where do you think you’re going? You are not leaving!” I blocked his path, incredulous. We were in the middle of this, and he was running to her.
“We’ll talk when I get back.”
“If you walk out that door, we’re getting a divorce!”
“Alex, man, just say something!” one of his friends pleaded.
“Bro, maybe you should stay with Ava for a bit. She’s not in a good place…”
Everyone could see I was on the verge of a breakdown.
Everyone but him. He didn’t see it, or he didn’t care.
Alexander’s voice was laced with impatience. “We’ve said everything there is to say. She’ll cool down in a few days and see sense.”
“We’ve been together for over a decade. You think we’re going to break up over something so small?”
A bitter laugh escaped my lips as the front door slammed shut.
In the living room, our huge wedding portrait lay shattered on the floor, a casualty of the fight.
My tears hit the cold hardwood. For years, I had made excuses for him, tolerated and forgiven him time and again. But Alexander was no longer the boy who used to sneak out to buy me a greasy bag of takeout.
I was the only one left clinging to the dying embers of a memory, fooling myself day after day. But now, even I couldn’t keep up the lie. I went straight to the hospital.
The doctor told me that because of the first abortion, my uterine lining was already severely damaged. Another one could leave me unable to ever conceive again.
I listened with my head down, completely numb.
I signed the forms, took the anesthesia, and lay down on the operating table.
I didn’t cry when the cold instruments entered my body. I just stared at the stark white light overhead, remembering that sweltering afternoon when I was eighteen. That dim, filthy bathroom stall, Alexander holding me tight, his palms slick with sweat, his eyes full of tears.
The pain and fear were real then.
And the love in his eyes was real, too.
It’s just a shame that his love was now reserved for someone else.
After the procedure, a nurse helped me off the table, murmuring post-op instructions. I steadied myself against the wall, each step a dizzying effort.
The sharp, antiseptic smell of the hallway stung my nostrils. And there, in my most vulnerable moment, I saw my husband.
He had his arm around another woman, his face wearing that familiar, gentle expression.
I watched them talk, my heart a placid, dead sea.
Hailey, dressed in a hospital gown, leaned weakly against Alexander’s chest. He must have been going to handle her admission paperwork because he left her for a moment.
Hailey saw me. She froze, then her voice turned timid. “Ava? What are you doing here? Did you follow us?”
“Alex is just being nice and keeping me company since I have no one. Please don’t misunderstand.”
The words “no one” were spoken with deliberate, heavy emphasis.
The pain in my abdomen was intense. I had no energy to play her games. But just as I turned to leave, Hailey bit her lip and rushed toward me.
“Ava, that fifty thousand dollars is just the price of a few of your handbags, but it’s my life! The doctor said if I don’t have this surgery now, it’ll be too late! Please, don’t take this money from a dying woman! When I’m better, I’ll work like a dog to pay you back, I swear.”
Without warning, she dropped to her knees, clutching at my pants, tears streaming down her face on command. “I’m begging you, please don’t take my life-saving money! I just want to live!”
Her desperate cries echoed through the waiting room. All eyes turned to us, brows furrowed in judgment.
“What kind of person is she, trying to take a sick woman’s money?”
“She looks well-dressed, but her heart is made of stone!”
“The poor girl is on her knees! Have some compassion…”
A cold sweat broke out on my forehead from the pain. I tried to pull my leg away, but Hailey collapsed to the floor, her body trembling.
Just then, Alexander pushed through the crowd and saw the scene. His face turned to thunder. He yanked Hailey to her feet and glared at me, his eyes blazing with undisguised disappointment and fury.
“You followed me to the hospital? Are you so relentless that you’d chase her down for the money for her surgery? Do you have any compassion at all?”
It was the same accusation he’d thrown at me on our anniversary when Hailey had called him away.
“She’s so pitiful, don’t you feel anything as a woman?”
“How can you be so cold-hearted?”
I was so tired of hearing those words.
Whatever.
But maybe it was because we had fought so much lately. Maybe his anger had blinded him. Alexander took a step forward and shoved me, hard. “Say something! What the hell do you want?”
The push sent me staggering backward. I lost my balance and fell, my tailbone cracking against the hard, cold tile. A tearing, explosive pain ripped through my lower abdomen.
The crowd gasped.
My face contorted in agony.
Alexander froze. He had no idea why a single push could topple me, a woman who had always been so healthy. Just as he had no idea that in the hours he had spent fussing over Hailey, the last thread connecting us had finally snapped.
He instinctively bent down to help me up, but I flinched away.
“1
When I learned that the IVF embryo I carried was actually a mix of my husband’s and his mistress’s DNA, I didn’t react violently like before. Instead, I calmly carried it to term and gave birth.
From then on, I became the talk of high society, feeding gossip columns. Millionaires envied Ethan for having such a “magnanimous” wife, mistresses prayed to trap him, and other wives saw me as a disgrace.
Ten months later, I safely delivered the baby. As I left the delivery room, Ethan kissed my forehead gently.
“Clara can’t handle pain and you’re infertile, so you were perfect to carry our child,” he said. “Don’t worry—she only wants to be a mother. Your status as Mrs. Sterling is safe. You’re still the one I love most.”
Everyone thought I was too in love with Ethan to fight the mistress, so I went along. But only I knew the truth: this child was forced on me by the Sterling matriarch, who repaid a past favor. Now that the heir was born, the promised divorce agreement should finally take effect.
…
The anesthesia wore off, and the pain jolted me awake from unconsciousness.
The moment my eyes opened, Ethan Sterling, beaming with joy, held the baby.
“Darling, Grandma has already named our child. Just sign here, and he can be officially registered.”
He handed me the birth certificate.
Seeing the name Arthur Sterling, my groggy mind instantly cleared.
Arthur.
A name meaning “noble strength,” or perhaps for me, “to engrave the beginning.”
It was the beautiful aspiration I held for my unborn biological son.
It represented our hopes for love.
And it was the name given to the thirteenth generation’s firstborn in the Sterling family lineage.
To rescue Ethan Sterling from kidnappers years ago, I had taken a knife for him, injuring my body, making it impossible to conceive again.
Later, our first IVF child was tragically lost due to a miscarriage from excessive bleeding after he pushed me, having caught him cheating on our marital bed with my stepsister, Clara Berthelsen.
That had been a fully formed boy.
After my recovery, I planned to erect a memorial for him, a cenotaph, to be placed in the family cemetery.
But a fortune teller had said the child hadn’t reached full term, the timing wasn’t right, and it had to wait.
That wait lasted over a year.
During my current pregnancy, he had whispered in my ear countless times, wanting to give the name Arthur Sterling to this illegitimate child.
I had always refused.
But now, looking at his expectant eyes, I only felt disgust at my past tears and misery.
I knew Grandma would never choose that name.
It was just Clara Berthelsen, who loved to claim everything of mine, whispering in Ethan Sterling’s ear.
Anyway, divorce was a certainty. I didn’t care for the name of a heartless father.
“Whatever. Call him whatever you want.”
“I only have one request: don’t list me as the child’s mother. My biological son in heaven wouldn’t be happy.”
Ethan Sterling paused, a flicker of guilt in his eyes.
“Elara, don’t worry, I’m only using her for half of your bloodline. Her and I…”
Before he could finish, a loud crash suddenly came from outside the door.
“You little hussy, who gave you permission to be here!”
Clara Berthelsen fell to the ground, sobbing.
“I just wanted to see the baby.”
Grandma Sterling, leaning on her cane, repeatedly struck her.
“Get out!”
In that instant, Ethan Sterling was like a startled bird. Without even handing the baby to the nurse, he roughly tossed him onto me and rushed out.
The freshly stitched incision ripped open under the pressure, and a searing pain made me cry out.
But he seemed not to hear, leaving me.
His unwavering action of shielding Clara Berthelsen, standing defiantly between her and Grandma’s cane, made his earlier comforting words to me seem utterly ridiculous.
“Grandma! It was my idea, and I did it for the Sterling family! Don’t hurt innocent people!”
Grandma Sterling paused, unconsciously looking at me.
Seeing the white bedsheet stained with blood, she struck Ethan Sterling with her cane.
“You beast! Her wound isn’t healed, how can she hold a baby!”
Ethan Sterling’s eyes filled with panic and regret. He was about to rush over to me.
But Clara Berthelsen suddenly collapsed behind him.
He panicked, scooped her up, and started to leave.
Grandma Sterling stood firmly in his path.
“You’re not going anywhere! Your wife is still in there! Do you still want this family or not!”
2
Ethan Sterling’s eyes were filled with hesitation.
“Yes! But she was hurt by you! I can’t abandon her! Elara… she’s with you, she’ll be fine!”
Once upon a time, he shielded me from every storm.
Once upon a time, he would never make me the one to be abandoned.
I endured the pain and gave him a faint glance.
“Grandma, let him go.”
He seemed surprised by my magnanimity.
After all, in the past, to keep him from leaving, I had thrown tantrums, rolled on the floor, abandoning all dignity.
His eyes were complex. He wanted to say something, but in the end, he strode away.
The nurse and maternity assistant helped me re-dress my wound.
The baby was also settled to sleep.
My phone suddenly pinged with a message from him.
“I forgot about your wound, I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to cause a scene in the hospital and affect the Sterling family’s reputation.”
“Clara is unconscious and can’t be left alone, so I won’t be coming back for now. You rest well.”
I stared at the screen for a long time, stunned.
I remembered how he once, upon hearing I was injured in another city, flew for eleven hours, canceling all work just to be with me for a check-up, staying by my side every moment.
Seeing me sigh, Grandma Sterling snatched my phone.
She read the cold words on the screen and snorted.
“That scoundrel! I’ll deal with him when he comes back. Elara, don’t worry, Grandma…”
Hearing this, I suddenly chuckled, looking at her with calm eyes.
“You condoned all of this, didn’t you?”
“I no longer care what he does. You promised me that once I gave birth to this child, you would help me divorce. I hope you keep your word.”
Her expression froze, her eyes filled with deep guilt.
“Grandma is sorry.”
“I’ve already tricked him into signing the divorce agreement. Rest peacefully for your thirty days of confinement, then you can leave.”
Grandma kept the baby with her, personally arranging for his care.
Meanwhile, I stayed at a maternity center under the guise of an early confinement, avoiding gossip.
But that night, the scandal of the Sterling heir’s fury for his mistress, abandoning his wife after childbirth, and defying the matriarch to protect his sister-in-law, spread throughout the business circle.
Sterling Group’s stock continued to plummet, leaving Ethan Sterling frantic.
Clara Berthelsen’s social media influencer account was overrun by angry netizens. The past incident, when I had exposed her for seducing my husband only for Ethan Sterling to suppress it, was resurrected.
The platform was filled with curses. If not for Ethan Sterling’s help, her account would likely have been deactivated, and she’d owe breach-of-contract fees.
I didn’t see him again until seven days later.
The first time he saw me, he looked at me with disappointment.
“Elara Bennett, are you happy now, getting your revenge on us like this?”
I paused, then quickly realized he was blaming me for the spread of the gossip.
Of course. After all, I used to work in media, and I was an expert at fanning the flames.
Unfortunately, the first time I, in a fit of madness, exposed his and Clara Berthelsen’s scandal, he blackmailed my company with claims of privacy invasion and defamation, forcing them to fire me.
Now, finding someone to help would truly be difficult.
I gave him a sidelong glance, no longer feeling the sting of being misunderstood.
I continued to work on the anniversary gift I was knitting for Arthur.
“You should know that your scandals aren’t just the ones visible on the surface. If I wanted to expose them, you’d probably suffer another major blow.”
He stood at the doorway for a long time, stunned.
He spoke, almost helplessly.
“After this, I’ll break it off with her. But promise me, we’ll live our lives well together, okay? With a child, we’ll be a happy family.”
He had spoken words like this almost every day during my pregnancy.
Yet, it hadn’t stopped him from continuing to be entangled with Clara Berthelsen.
He either felt pity for her status as an illegitimate child or believed she was lonely without family support.
In short, he had a thousand reasons for his irresistible attraction to her and his desire to protect her every whim.
He stood by the door, refusing to leave, as if he wouldn’t budge until I answered.
Seeing him blocking the sunlight, I perfunctorily agreed.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when explicit photos and videos of my alleged affair went viral online, that I understood what he meant by “after this.”
Ethan Sterling released a clarification video.
In the video, he tearfully told the media that I had spitefully spread false gossip about him because my sister had discovered my affair during pregnancy.
3
Clara Berthelsen, weeping profusely, claimed she had merely advised me not to hurt Ethan Sterling’s feelings, but I, believing she was about to expose my adultery, sought revenge.
Everyone urged Ethan Sterling to divorce me, this “”loose woman,”” immediately.
But he, instead, put on a show of deep affection.
“No matter what mistakes Elara makes in this life, I cannot stop loving her.”
Watching his hypocritical performance, I couldn’t help but throw up.
Ethan Sterling, hearing this from outside the door, rushed in.
“What’s wrong?”
I frowned, looking at Clara Berthelsen who had followed him in, and pulled my hand away from his.
“Nothing, just that you disgust me. To protect a mistress’s transgressions, you’d go to any length to defame your wife’s reputation. Ethan Sterling, your love is truly magnificent.”
His face paled, and he opened his mouth to explain.
But Clara Berthelsen suddenly knelt, weeping, her face streaked with tears.
“I’m sorry, Elara. It’s all my fault! Julian only made you a scapegoat because of me.”
Ethan Sterling instantly felt deeply pained, his eyes turning to me in a reproving gaze.
“I came here to tell you about this. Those images were all AI-generated by me. Ultimately, she’s your sister, and it’s only right for you to sacrifice yourself to help her maintain family ties. Why do you have to be so aggressive towards her?”
“Besides, you’re a housewife; reputation means nothing to you. What outsiders say won’t affect my feelings for you. It’s enough that I know it’s fake. But she’s different. She has no one to rely on and depends on the media for her livelihood. If her image and reputation are ruined, everything is over for her.”
Listening to his high-sounding justifications, I felt nothing but disgust.
Being a housewife was his doing, after all.
Not only did he force the company to fire me, but he also spread the word throughout the media industry that anyone who hired me would be going against him.
My interviews repeatedly hit dead ends. When I finally found a private studio, he maliciously reported us.
Ultimately, all my media practitioner certificates were revoked, making me an outcast in the industry, scorned by everyone.
I couldn’t be bothered to argue with him. The maternity nurse had said to keep a pleasant mood during confinement, and in any case, in another half a month, I would be completely free.
Grandma also promised me that she would clear my name then. What they did no longer mattered.
I looked at him expressionlessly, let out a long breath, and turned over into bed.
“Do as you please. Whatever you want to do, do it.”
He thought I was going to hit Clara Berthelsen as I had in the past, and he became incredibly nervous, standing firmly in front of her.
But seeing me turn my back and lie down, all his emotions came to a halt.
After a long moment, he asked me in a disbelieving tone,
“You… you’re not angry?”
My voice was flat.
“Didn’t you always wish for me and her to get along harmoniously?”
He sighed in relief and smiled.
“You’ve finally learned. I knew you weren’t such a heartless person. I’ll definitely make it up to you later.”
I didn’t reply, and I didn’t look at him until they left.
After a long while, I touched my chest, feeling no stirrings.
So this was what it felt like to let go.
In the following days, perhaps out of guilt, he came to see me every few days. He was met with resistance and coldness but remained unperturbed, simply telling me about the wonderful life we would have together.
It wasn’t until he brought up the baby’s one-month celebration that he spoke with difficulty.
“Clara can never acknowledge her biological child in this life, so I was thinking, before the child is old enough to understand, she could openly attend the baby’s one-month party as his mother.”
“It would complete her regret, don’t you think?”
My knitting needles didn’t stop, and I didn’t even look up.
“I told you, do as you please. This isn’t my child to begin with. Whatever you want to do has nothing to do with me.”
He stiffened, his eyes reddening with a hint of anger. He snatched away the memorial items I was knitting for Arthur.
“Why are you always like this these days! Do you know what her attending represents? It means implicitly acknowledging her as the mistress of the Sterling family. You used to be completely against it.”
I paused, then looked at him with a bored expression.
“Isn’t this good? Last month, when you two were in bed, didn’t you say it was a shame you couldn’t give her a proper status in this lifetime?”
He stood there, frozen and pale like a statue.
I retrieved my items, my emotions stable as if nothing had happened.
His incessant, nauseating attempts to explain that he didn’t love her, that he was merely drugged and compelled to sleep with her, wanting to take responsibility, were defeated by my silence.
4
After that day, he didn’t come to see me again.
But I often saw Clara Berthelsen posting pictures on her social media, showing them taking family portraits in various styles with the child.
On the day I finished my confinement, the entire Sterling family was celebrating the illegitimate child’s one-month party.
Grandma said the divorce papers would be finalized the next day.
When I returned home to pack my things, our cozy marital bedroom had been completely redecorated to Clara Berthelsen’s taste.
Even the photo of him cradling my pregnant belly, which used to sit by the living room TV, had been replaced with a family portrait of him, Clara Berthelsen, and the baby.
In the photo, Ethan Sterling was smiling genuinely.
Even more beautifully than the day he successfully confessed his love to me.
I went back to the bedroom, intending to take some clothes I had before our marriage.
But when I searched through the closet, I couldn’t find the purely handmade embroidered qipao my mother had personally sewn for me before she passed away.
I was about to call to ask when I saw a photo on social media of Clara Berthelsen wearing it at the one-month party.
A wave of fury boiled over.
I hailed a cab and rushed to the banquet hall, watching her, arm-in-arm with Ethan Sterling, smiling and accepting everyone’s compliments.
Seeing me, Ethan Sterling had a hint of guilt on his face, but also a predictable smugness.
He released Clara Berthelsen and walked towards me.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist coming, but today is an important occasion for the child, don’t…”
I didn’t give him a chance to finish. I rushed to Clara Berthelsen and slapped her across the face.
“Remember your place as a mistress. Don’t be like your mother, that old hussy, always stealing other people’s things.”
With that, I pulled out a pair of scissors and tore through the qipao she was wearing.
With a ripping sound, accompanied by her piercing shriek, I shredded the dress.
“If you have no clothes, go naked. This is a dress my mother made for me. You, a mistress, I’d rather destroy it than let you wear it!”
The scene erupted into chaos. Grandma Sterling, usually so concerned with family reputation, uncharacteristically stood still, not intervening.
Ethan Sterling threw a coat over Clara Berthelsen, glaring furiously at me.
“How can you be so vicious? With so many people here, where will she put her face? It was just a borrowed dress. Do you really have to be so petty?”
Seeing his inability to distinguish right from wrong, I sneered, and with a swift motion of my scissors, cut all the buttons off the couple’s formal shirt that my mother had made for him.
“You forgot the vow you made to my mother, to be good to me for life. That’s alright, I won’t forget. Our relationship is like this gown now, severed and broken!”
“I wish your family a hundred years of happiness.”
With those words, I left amidst everyone’s shock.
That one-month party ended badly. Clara Berthelsen, overcome with emotion, fainted, and Ethan Sterling took her to the hospital.
Grandma Sterling presided over the rest of the banquet alone with the child.
The next morning, I successfully obtained my divorce certificate.
My phone still held a message from Ethan Sterling demanding an apology.
I blocked and deleted him, then took my divorce certificate to the cemetery to visit my Arthur.
Two weeks earlier, I had already arranged for a headstone to be placed for him.
Looking at the words “Beloved Son Arthur Bennett,” my heart ached endlessly.
I opened my mouth, about to say something.
Ethan Sterling’s voice came from behind me.
“I knew you’d come here. You always used to come see the child whenever you felt wronged. But yesterday, you went too far, in public…”
Before he could finish, Clara Berthelsen gasped.
“Julian, Elara actually named that child the same name as our child!”
“Elara, no matter how much you dislike that child, you will always be his mother. Why would you use the same name to curse him to an early death?”
Ethan Sterling frowned, stepping closer and seeing the name Arthur Bennett.
His gaze swept down, seeing only “Mother Elara Bennett” listed as the monument setter, and no mention of him.
The maternal surname filled him with a strange and uneasy feeling.
But quickly, this uneasiness dissipated amidst Clara Berthelsen’s crying.
He glared at me.
“The child’s death is also a regret in my heart, but why did you act on your own? Are you trying to curse your own nephew to an early death?”
“I haven’t even confronted you about shaming Clara in public yesterday. Do you think I love you so much that I’ll indulge your every whim?”
“I’m giving you ten minutes. Immediately tell the cemetery to smash this headstone. I’ll reconsider a name and have a new one put up!”
I coldly stared at this man who had once cried inconsolably after our son’s death.
“What if I refuse?”
He froze, looking at me in astonishment.
After a long moment, his eyes filled with deep disappointment.
He raised his hand, and three bodyguards emerged from a car.
“Elara Bennett, he is my child, but Clara’s child is also my child. If you insist on doing this, then I will have no choice but to dig up his grave!”
“I’m sure his spirit in heaven will not blame me, knowing it’s to protect his younger brother.”
Even though I already knew his ugly face, hearing him threaten to dig up his own child’s grave for the sake of a mistress, for the sake of a name,
my heart still ached.
Seeing his confident expression, certain that I would back down for the sake of my child’s peace,
I smiled.
Calmly, I pulled out the divorce certificate from my bag and tossed it in front of him.
“My apologies, Mr. Sterling. I don’t think you have the right to dictate what I name my child.”
“Because an hour ago, we ceased to be husband and wife.” “
🌟 Continue the story here
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They call me the glass doll of the apocalypse. My skin is so fragile, a harsh wind feels like a slap. Everyone in Redemption Base knows I’m good for nothing but tears, a hothouse flower kept safe and sound by Silas.
That was, until she arrived. The so-called War Goddess. She couldn’t stand the way Silas protected me.
The moment he led his team out on a scavenger run to clear the Dead Zones, she stormed into my room and dragged me toward the hordes of the infected.
“The Commander is out there fighting for his life, and you’re in here living like a queen? What gives you the right, you useless leech?” she sneered. “There’s no room for parasites in this world! Today, I’m going to teach you a lesson on his behalf!”
I stumbled and fell, the gravel bit into my elbow, drawing blood. I curled into a ball, trembling.
“Please… don’t hurt me,” I sobbed, my voice thin and reedy. “Silas and I… we’re linked. We have a pain-sympathy bond. If you hurt me, he’ll feel it… he’ll be furious.”
The War Goddess, Jocelyn, just laughed, a cruel, sharp sound. She grabbed a fistful of my hair. “Still playing games? Silas is neck-deep in a tide of Rotters. You think he has time to notice a little scratch on you? I’m going to make you understand the rules of this new world, once and for all!”
…
The pain from my scalp was searing as Jocelyn dragged me out of my room, my bare feet stumbling over the rubble-strewn training grounds.
“It hurts… please, it hurts so much…” I cried, reaching for her hand, only to be met with a vicious slap across the face.
The impact sent me sprawling. My knee crashed against a sharp stone, the skin tearing, and beads of blood welled up instantly.
The pain was blinding.
I was the girl Silas had sheltered with the best of everything. A slightly-too-hot bath could leave my skin red and stinging. I had never known suffering like this.
Tears streamed down my face as I hugged my knees, my whole body shaking uncontrollably.
Miles away, in the heart of the Dead Zone in Sector S.
A ten-foot-tall Tyrant roared, swinging a colossal axe down at the man standing atop a ruined skyscraper.
Silas, clad in black combat gear, his expression cold as ice, should have dodged the blow with ease.
But in that split second, an agonizing, shattering pain exploded in his knee. His left leg gave out, and he dropped to the ground, landing hard on one knee.
“Commander!” his lieutenant screamed in terror.
The axe blade whistled past, slicing off a lock of Silas’s dark hair.
The veins on Silas’s hand bulged as he pushed himself up, gasping for air, his forehead drenched in a cold sweat.
Rosie… Someone was hurting Rosie!
Silas’s head snapped up. His dark eyes instantly flooded with crimson, a murderous rage blazed within him. He was out here risking his life, and someone back at the base dared to touch his girl?
…
Back at Redemption Base, the central plaza was bustling. It was ration distribution day, and thousands of survivors were gathered.
Jocelyn dragged me onto the high platform and stomped her steel-toed boot onto my shin.
“Agh!” I screamed, a pain like splintering bone shooting up my leg.
Jocelyn looked down at the crowd, her voice booming. “Look, everyone! This is the parasite Silas has been protecting!”
“While we risk our lives for half a slice of moldy bread, she hides in her villa, bathing in purified water and eating canned meat!”
The crowd erupted.
A thousand pairs of eyes, filled with hunger and resentment, locked onto me.
“Why her?”
“We barely have enough water to drink, and that bitch uses it for baths?”
“Kill her! Make her give back the supplies!”
A wicked smile played on Jocelyn’s lips. She leaned down, her breath hot against my ear. “Did you hear that, Rosie? That’s the will of the people.”
“So what if Silas protects you? He’s not here now. I’m in charge.”
“No… I didn’t…” I sobbed, struggling to breathe. I wanted to explain, but my voice was swallowed by the sea of curses.
“Still talking back?” Jocelyn’s eyes went cold, and she ground her heel into my leg.
“Tell me, everyone,” she yelled to the crowd, “does a parasite like this deserve to die?”
“Yes! Kill her! Kill her!”
Someone in the crowd threw the first stone.
It struck me squarely on the temple.
Warm liquid streamed down, blurring my left eye. My world dissolved into a smear of crimson. The pain was so intense I nearly passed out. I clutched my head, curling into a helpless ball, crying out the only name I could think of.
“Silas… Silas, it hurts…”
A hundred miles away.
A storm of black, volatile energy erupted from Silas, shredding the dozens of Rotters swarming him into a paste of flesh and bone.
He clutched his head, the world spinning as a phantom pain exploded behind his eyes.
“Commander! Your head…” his lieutenant stammered, his face pale with shock. The Commander hadn’t been hit, yet a bloody welt was forming on his temple out of thin air.
Silas’s eyes were bloodshot. He grabbed his lieutenant by the collar, his voice a raw rasp. “Back to base! Now!”
The lieutenant glanced at the horde. “But Commander, we haven’t taken down the Tyrant yet. If we pull back now, everything we’ve done will be for nothing…”
“I said get us back to the base!” Silas roared, slamming his fist into the armored truck’s door. The reinforced steel dented under the force.
He could feel it. He could feel Rosie crying.
She was in pain.
Suddenly, a crushing agony shot through his left palm, as if every bone was being ground to dust.
In the plaza, Jocelyn was stomping on my hand with her steel-plated boot.
“Go on, scream! Keep screaming!” she taunted, twisting her foot viciously. “Your precious Silas is too busy playing savior of the world to care about a little tramp like you.”
The pain was so intense I couldn’t even scream anymore, only broken whimpers escaped my throat.
The pain in my fingers was directly connected to his heart.
If I screamed, the feedback would be ten times worse for him.
I couldn’t scream. I was afraid the pain would kill him out there on the battlefield.
I bit down hard on my lip, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth, refusing to make another sound.
Seeing me silent, Jocelyn spat on my face. “Useless. Gone mute, have you?”
She turned to the survivors below. “Since you all hate her so much, I’ll do you a favor today. Anyone who can ‘teach this little princess a lesson’ gets a whole sausage!”
A single sausage. In these times, it was enough to make someone sell their soul.
A forest of hands reached for me. Stones and rotting vegetables rained down on my body.
All I could do was cover my head and curl up tighter.
Just as I thought I was going to be beaten to death, a woman pushed her way through the crowd.
“Everyone, stop!”
The voice was familiar.
I struggled to open my blood-crusted eyes, peering through the gaps in my fingers. I saw a face I knew.
My cousin, Sarah.
Before the world fell apart, she was the only family I had left.
A flicker of hope ignited in my chest. I reached out a trembling hand. “Sarah… help me…”
Sarah strode onto the platform. She looked down at my broken form on the ground, a flicker of pure satisfaction in her eyes.
She kicked my hand away.
“Don’t call me that. Who’s your cousin?”
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The seven-year itch. The number of women my husband, Ethan Vance, has slept with—I can’t even count them on my fingers and toes.
The reason I always turned a blind eye.
Was because he always threw money at me.
If he cheated with an influencer, he’d give me a penthouse downtown.
If he took a young model to a yacht party, he’d transfer an identical yacht to my name.
He used money to buy off my breakdowns, my questioning, and my tears.
Until I was eight months pregnant, and the fetus accidentally stopped developing, resulting in an induced labor.
Supported by the nanny, I walked weakly out of my hospital room.
Only to see Ethan in the next room, carefully doting on a woman who had just given birth.
Our eyes met. A flash of panic crossed his eyes before he returned to his usual coldness.
He walked over and handed me a blank check.
“Fill in whatever amount you want.”
I tore the check into pieces.
I looked at him and smiled.
“Ethan, this time I don’t want money…”
I raised my trembling hand and pointed to the faint crying sound coming from the hospital room behind him.
“I want that child.”
…
01
“Chloe, are you crazy?!”
Ethan’s face was written all over with disbelief.
I repeated again, “I want that child.”
The weakness from the induced labor made every word I spoke feel like it was draining my life force.
“What nonsense are you talking about!” He lowered his voice. “That is not your child!”
“Your child is already gone!”
Right, my child is gone, dead…
“Isn’t your child my child?” I asked softly in return.
“Or do you want the eldest grandson of the Vance family to bear the title of an illegitimate child from birth?”
Ethan choked instantly.
He and I were childhood sweethearts; our families have been close friends for generations.
Both the Vance and Sterling families are top-tier wealthy families that care about face and value rules above all else.
He could play around, he could be a playboy, but he absolutely could not allow any fundamental stain to appear.
The woman in the hospital bed, Mia Lin, finally reacted.
She struggled to sit up, her voice shrill: “Ethan Vance! You can’t give my child to her! This is my only…”
This was her only weapon to climb the social ladder.
For a woman with such an ordinary background to think she could secure her status through a child is nothing but a pipe dream.
Watching Ethan’s conflicted expression, I suddenly found it incredibly ironic.
Using the last of my strength, I pushed him aside and walked step-by-step into the hospital room.
Mia’s body shrank back, her arms holding the swaddled baby tightening.
“Miss Lin, hello. I am Ethan’s wife, Chloe Sterling.”
I forced a stiff smile, enunciating every word to tell her a cruel fact.
“From today on, I am this child’s mother.”
I paused, admiring her instantly pale face, and then delivered the final blow:
“Remember, it was your child that was lost during the induced labor… Understand?”
Those words “induced labor,” I said them very lightly, yet it hurt so much I could barely breathe.
“Ah!”
Mia screamed, breaking down, grabbing the pillow from the headboard and throwing it at me.
“You’re talking nonsense! This is my child! Mine!”
Ethan followed me in, looking troubled.
“Ethan, you can’t let her take our child away!” Mia cried, seeking his help.
Ethan looked at me, his face showing a difficult position.
“Chloe…”
I softly whispered a sentence in his ear:
“The land development project in the West End… Grandpa values it very much, and it just so happens to be in my brother’s hands.”
Ethan’s body stiffened abruptly.
The West End land was the most important strategic layout for the Vance family in the next ten years, and also the key for him to prove his capability to the old patriarch of the Vance family.
He whipped his head around to look at me, with anger, unwillingness, and a trace of apprehension.
He took a deep breath and said to Mia: “Be good, let Chloe… raise the child. It will make his status legitimate.”
I turned to my nanny and instructed:
“Go, bring that child to my hospital room.”
I walked out of the room and dialed my assistant’s number.
“Go bribe the hospital staff. I don’t want anyone other than us to know about this. On the child’s birth certificate, the mother’s name can only be Chloe Sterling.”
Soon, more intense arguing, the sound of things smashing, and Mia’s heart-wrenching crying came from next door.
I looked down at the little boy in the crib.
He was sleeping soundly, his little mouth opening and closing.
A cold smile curled at the corner of my mouth.
2
Ethan would come to my room for a while every day, but while his body was here, his heart was next door.
His phone screen was always lighting up with various messages from Mia.
[Ethan, I miss the baby so much. Can you ask her to give the child back to me?]
[I don’t want anything else, I just want my child.]
[Ethan, I bled a lot. The doctor said I have severe postpartum hemorrhage. Am I going to die?]
Mia knew exactly how to manipulate Ethan.
She never attacked me directly, just repeatedly emphasized her pain and her longing for the child.
Using this to highlight my “viciousness” and “unreasonableness.”
Every time he read them, his frown would deepen, and then he would find an excuse to leave in a hurry.
Early one morning, Ethan wasn’t there, and the child had been taken by the nurse and nanny for a checkup.
Mia stood by my bed like a ghost, her eyes venomous.
“Chloe, don’t think you’ve won.”
“That unlucky child of yours, I was the one who made Ethan get rid of it.”
“That night, Ethan drank too much and kept calling me.”
“I just whined on the phone, saying the child in your belly would be an obstacle for me in the future…”
“I told him to spend more time with me, not to always hover around you.”
“I didn’t expect that after he hung up, he would really go back to find you. As for what happened next…”
“It’s your own fault you couldn’t keep your child. You can’t blame anyone else.”
“You’re just raising a child for me, don’t be happy too early!”
After she finished, she turned and left.
Every word was like a red-hot branding iron, searing fiercely into my heart.
So that’s how it was…
I closed my eyes, the hand under the blanket trembling violently. The blood backing up in the IV tube quickly dyed a section of the transparent tube red.
I bit my lip so hard that a heavy, metallic taste of blood spread in my mouth.
I didn’t cry, nor did I make a fuss. I just silently pulled out the IV needle from my hand.
Beads of blood slid down the back of my hand, dripping onto the pure white bedsheets like a stark, tragic plum blossom.
At that moment, the hospital room door was pushed open.
Ethan walked in.
He saw the blood on my hand, froze for a moment, then quickly stepped forward and grabbed my wrist.
“Why did you pull out the needle? Are you crazy?!”
He picked up a cotton swab from the nightstand, pressing down hard on my wound, his brows furrowed tightly, actually showing a bit of genuine concern.
I was trembling all over. I wanted to scream, to interrogate him, to pounce and tear him to shreds.
But I had no strength.
“You can go. Go be with Mia.”
“Martha will be back soon; I don’t need you here.”
A cry came from next door. Mia was acting crazy again.
Ethan ran over without hesitation.
I called my assistant and told her to process an early discharge for me immediately.
“Back to the main estate!”
Back to throw my weight around.
When I appeared at the door of the Vance family’s main estate holding that child, the whole family was in an uproar.
Grandpa and Grandma, maternal grandparents, uncles, aunts… everyone crowded around.
“Oh my, my precious grandson!”
Grandma carefully took the child from my arms, grinning from ear to ear.
Grandpa was even more excited, his hands trembling. He looked at me, his eyes full of approval.
“Chloe, good job! You are a great contributor to our Vance family!”
I became the hero of the entire family.
Because I brought the first male heir of the fifth generation to the four-generation Vance family.
No one knew that my heart had already died in that cold hospital, along with my unborn child.
My father-in-law watched the nanny van drive straight into the garage and asked, puzzled, “Where is Ethan?”
“Busy, probably. I didn’t even see him at the hospital.”
3
The rewards from the elders were almost staggering.
Grandpa gave me an ocean-view villa located on the coast; the keys were placed directly on my nightstand.
Grandma brought out all the jade jewelry she had kept at the bottom of her trunk, set after set, dazzlingly green.
My father-in-law directly transferred five percent of the Vance Group’s shares to my name, making me the youngest member of the group’s board of directors overnight.
My mother-in-law was even more considerate, giving me a private island in the Maldives, saying I could go there to relax once I recovered.
I smiled and accepted it all.
These were all what I deserved.
What I exchanged for my child’s life.
No one knew that in the deepest part of that luxurious walk-in closet, I hid a tiny corner.
There were no expensive bags or fine clothes there.
Only a small, uncarved memorial tablet made of rosewood.
With no words written on it.
In front of the tablet, I placed a pair of small, knitted booties I made myself that could never be given, and a few pitifully small baby clothes.
Every night, when all was quiet, I would lock myself in the closet.
I hugged that small tablet, stroking it over and over again.
“Baby, Mommy’s here.”
“Baby, today Grandpa and Grandma bought a lot of toys. If you were here, you would have them too.”
“Baby, do you blame Mommy? It’s Mommy’s fault, failing to protect you…”
I never cried out loud, just let the tears slide down silently, soaking the wooden tablet in my arms.
Where my heart was, it felt like a hole had been torn open that could never heal. The cold wind blew in, hurting so much I couldn’t breathe.
That was a secret belonging only to me and my departed child.
Ethan also returned to the main estate, but he didn’t dare approach me.
Grandpa pointed his cane at him in front of everyone, calling him a bastard, saying I had just “given birth,” and instead of staying with me, he was making me angry.
He was punished by being made to kneel in the family shrine all night.
He probably couldn’t understand how the Chloe who once loved him more than life itself, who was completely under his control, could suddenly become like this.
He would occasionally come to the bedroom to keep me company, but more often, he came to see that child.
He would awkwardly hold him, feed him, his eyes revealing an unfamiliar thing called “fatherly love.”
He stood behind me, silent for a long time, and suddenly spoke.
“Chloe, about what happened that night, I was wrong. I drank too much.”
“Mia… she’s just too dependent on me. Don’t hold it against her,” he added.
I slowly raised my head, looking at the two of us reflected in the mirror.
He was tall and handsome; I was thin and haggard.
“Hold it against her?” I chuckled lightly.
“What right do I have to hold anything against her? I couldn’t even protect my own child.”
His face instantly became very ugly, as if stung by my words.
“That was an accident!” He raised his voice.
“Why must you keep harping on it! I’ve already tried my best to compensate you!”
Compensate?
I was born into a wealthy family; money is the most useless thing to me.
I didn’t want to argue with him anymore and pushed him out the door.
“Chloe, what exactly do you want?”
“What do I want?” I looked at him, my words sarcastic. “I want you to stay away from me.”
Eventually, he let go of my hand.
From that day on, he rarely set foot in my room again.
We didn’t even bother to maintain that paper-thin disguise between us anymore.
4
When the child was a hundred days old, the Vance family held an extremely grand hundred-day banquet.
The banquet took place on the lawn of the main estate. Guests gathered; almost all the prominent figures in the city were present.
I wore a custom-made red gown, holding the child wrapped in a silk swaddle, standing beside Grandpa and Grandma, receiving everyone’s blessings and envy.
The child was named Oliver Vance by Grandpa, hoping his life would be clear and bright, and the rivers and seas peaceful.
Halfway through the banquet, Grandpa walked onto the stage leaning on his cane and picked up the microphone.
The entire venue instantly quieted down.
“Today, taking the opportunity of my great-grandson Oliver’s hundred-day banquet, I want to announce something.” The old man’s voice was loud and full of vigor.
“Under the Vance Group, a new subsidiary specializing in high-end infant and toddler products has been established. Currently, the estimated market value has reached a billion dollars.”
“Today, I give this company, as a gift, to my granddaughter-in-law, Chloe.”
Thunderous applause erupted.
I held Oliver, bowing slightly to express my thanks, wearing a proper smile on my face.
Applause and gasps of amazement echoed from the audience.
Everyone looked at me with envy and jealousy.
Giving away a billion-dollar company just like that—what an incredible honor!
Holding Oliver, I was about to go on stage to give my thanks.
Suddenly, the doors to the banquet hall were forcefully pushed open.
A woman in a white dress, ignoring the security guards’ attempts to stop her, rushed in like a madwoman.
It was Mia Lin.
She pushed through the crowd like a lunatic, charging straight toward the main stage.
“Wait!”
Everyone was stunned by this sudden turn of events, and the scene instantly went quiet.
Ethan’s face changed, and he immediately stepped forward to stop her.
“Mia! What are you doing here! Stop making a scene!”
Mia threw off his hand. She raised a document in her hand, glaring at me with bloodshot eyes, her voice shrill.
“Me, making a scene? Ethan Vance, look at her! She’s holding my child, accepting the wealth and glory that should belong to me! She’s the one making a scene!”
Mia laughed shrilly. She shook off Ethan, pulled a document from her bag, and held it high.
“Today, I’m going to let everyone see how your Vance family bullies people!”
She rushed onto the stage and snatched the microphone from the emcee.
“Everyone, look closely! This is a paternity test report!”
Her voice carried through the speakers, spreading across the entire venue.
“The report clearly states that Oliver and my DNA have a 99.9% biological relationship!”
“I am his biological mother!”
The entire audience was in an uproar!
Everyone’s gaze hit me like a searchlight.
Questioning, disdainful, gloating…
My parents-in-law’s faces also turned extremely ugly. They looked at me, their eyes full of questioning.
Ethan rushed onto the stage, trying to snatch the report from Mia’s hand, while still trying to coax her.
“Stop making a scene, let’s go home and talk about it, okay?”
But Mia ignored him. With bloodshot eyes, she glared at me fixedly.
“Chloe Sterling! You robber! You stole my child and are acting so hypocritically here. You are shameless!”
She pointed at me, questioning me hoarsely.
The scene devolved into chaos.
Ethan rushed over to cover Mia’s mouth but was bitten hard by her.
“Ethan Vance, now you only have one choice: divorce her and marry me!”
My assistant quietly walked up beside me and placed an antique, black-lacquered wooden box at my feet.
I took a deep breath, holding Oliver—who had started to cry—and slowly walked onto the stage.
I calmly took the paternity test report from Mia’s hand, not even glancing at it.
Then, I picked up the microphone and looked at the guests below with their varying expressions.
“That’s right.”
I responded generously, even with a hint of a smile on my face.
“Everything she said is true.”
The chaos at the scene reached its peak at this moment.
Just then, my assistant quietly walked onto the stage and handed me the heavy sandalwood box.
I opened the box, spoke into the microphone, looking at the shocked faces below, and slowly began to speak.
“Everyone, please stay calm.”
“Because today, I also have a surprise for everyone…”
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My sister is a white swan, and I am an ugly duckling.
My parents always love to compare us: “Look at your sister, then look at yourself.”
Even the neighborhood boy we grew up playing with said, “Serena looks like a princess, you look like the maid who serves the princess.”
I wasn’t convinced and asked him why.
He sniffled and said, “Because you look messy.”
Until that day we went to a banquet.
My parents held my sister’s hand, trying their hardest to sell her to the host family, praising her to the skies.
I shrank in the corner, staring at the imported cookies on the table, swallowing my saliva.
But the young master of that family didn’t even look at my sister.
He walked straight through the crowd and pulled me tightly into his arms.
“Mine.”
He said.
1
Serena was born with a face that God himself had blessed.
A heart-shaped face, big eyes, skin as white as a freshly peeled egg. Her eyelashes were as long as two small fans, fluttering and flickering.
Every time we took her out, passersby would pull my mom aside and ask, “This child is so beautiful, is she a child model?”
My mom would purse her lips and smile, looking modest: “No, no, she just grew up like this.”
At this time, if I leaned over and yelled, “Mom.”
Passersby would be startled, look down and see an average face with a runny nose and cheeks frozen red, looking suspicious: “This is also your daughter?”
The smile on my mom’s lips would collapse immediately, becoming faint: “Yes.”
“The younger one.”
Passersby would haha: “It seems that all the nutrition in the belly was snatched by the older one, huh?”
My mom would also smile along: “That’s right, the older one really lives up to expectations.”
The adults just said casually that Serena snatched my nutrition, but I took it seriously.
For a long time, I viewed Serena as a class enemy.
Actually, it wasn’t that long, only about two or three months.
The specific tactic was to grab her fruit to eat.
Those bright red strawberries, shiny cherries, and durians that smelled smelly but tasted delicious.
My mom always washed and cut them well, and served them to Serena. A large plate, incredibly exquisite.
Only the remaining scraps would be my turn.
I finished my share and wasn’t satisfied, so I secretly took some from Serena’s bowl.
If you walk by the river often, how can your shoes not get wet.
After a few times, I was caught red-handed by my parents.
Serena was crying there, like pear blossoms with rain: “Sister grabbed my fruit to eat.”
She looked good even when crying, like the little mermaid in a fairy tale book dropping pearl tears, both pitiful and lovable.
I stiffened my neck and yelled: “Who told her to snatch my nutrition in the belly!”
Serena sobbed while refuting: “I didn’t!”
I started to throw a tantrum: “You did, you did!”
I was in a hurry, my facial features flying wildly, winking and making faces.
Compared with Serena who was crying aesthetically beside me, I looked like an evil ghost just down from the mountain.
The visual sense of a mean old witch making things difficult for a princess in distress.
It made my mom so angry that she picked up a coat hanger and greeted my butt: “Let you talk nonsense!”
“Not good-looking, and still so bad-hearted!”
I jumped up and down to avoid my mom’s physical attack, howling and begging for mercy: “Wrong, wrong, stop hitting!”
My mom put her hands on her hips and pointed at my nose and cursed: “Your sister doesn’t owe you anything!”
“If I see you grabbing your sister’s things again, I’ll break your legs!”
Serena didn’t snatch my nutrition.
Then why does she look like a fairy, and I look so random?
I couldn’t figure it out.
Why are my parents’ hearts so biased to their armpits?
I couldn’t figure it out either.
If I couldn’t figure it out, I went to ask others.
On the bench downstairs in the neighborhood.
Leo Vance and I sat side by side, each holding half a Fla-Vor-Ice pop.
“Do you have a brother?” I asked Leo Vance.
He sucked noisily: “Yes, what’s up?”
“Then is your mom better to your brother?”
“What does ‘better’ mean?” He turned his head to look at me.
I thought about it and gestured: “It means… only giving your brother meat during meals, giving your brother the good fruit too, only signing your brother up for tutoring classes…”
He frowned and thought for a long time, then shook his head: “Not really.”
“But isn’t not going to tutoring classes a good thing?”
We looked at each other, as if we had found a bosom friend.
“Indeed.”
My mom signed Serena up for a pile of classes: piano, etiquette, hosting, all kinds of things.
Every time she went out, Serena had to wear that deadly tight little dress and dress up like a mannequin.
All free time was filled up.
I was different.
I was free-range.
When I was building castles in the sandbox downstairs and covered in mud, Serena was pressing her legs in the practice room there.
Tutoring classes, sounded miserable.
Thinking about it this way, Serena is so pitiful.
That little bit of imbalance in my heart instantly disappeared.
Leo Vance asked: “You have a sister?”
I said: “Yeah.”
He said “Oh” and didn’t ask any more.
Only the sound of us sucking ice pops remained in the air.
2
I found my inexplicable psychological balance.
I no longer made noise at home, and even looked at Serena with a bit of sympathy in my eyes.
I played whenever I wanted, and had a large group of fox friends and dog friends.
That day I played wildly and forgot the time.
When I came back to my senses, the sun had set long ago, and the streetlights in the neighborhood were dim yellow.
My little friends were taken away by their parents one by one.
Some parents were angry, some worried, some cursing, some gentle and soft-spoken.
Anyway, they were all taken home.
Leo Vance was also dragged away by his brother pulling his ear.
His brother looked quite like him, just a bit more handsome than him.
Before leaving, Leo Vance didn’t forget to turn back and shout: “Go home quickly, Maya!”
The lively playground instantly emptied, quiet and scary.
Only then did I find out I was the only one left.
So quiet.
I looked up at the building where my house was.
High up, the light in the living room was on, warm yellow.
Why don’t my parents come to find me?
I kicked the small stone by my foot.
If it was Serena who didn’t come home so late…
Forget it, there is no if.
My mom is her personal bodyguard, following wherever she goes, with various courses connecting seamlessly.
Actually, I could run back in two steps.
But I didn’t know who I was competing with, I just didn’t want to move.
I squatted down and drew with a tree branch in the sandbox.
Drawing kittens, castles, princesses, bows…
The whole sandbox was covered with my drawings.
People getting off work came back one after another.
Still no one came to find me.
There were fewer and fewer people in the neighborhood, and my stomach started to sing the empty city strategy.
The wind blew, and the tree leaves rustled.
As if ghosts were running around in the woods.
My back went cool, and my hair stood on end.
Didn’t dare to look back, ran wildly.
Rushed into the corridor in one breath, drilled into the elevator, desperately patted the door of my house.
Felt like ten thousand ghosts were chasing behind me.
Three… two…
Seeing that I was about to be caught…
I was anxious to cry.
The door opened.
…
White light leaked out from the door crack, and the ghosts instantly dispersed.
I was saved.
It was my mom who opened the door, glanced at me, frowned: “Where did you go wild? Coming back so late.”
“The food is in the pot, serve yourself.”
I was still immersed in the gladness of surviving the disaster, smiling foolishly: “Thanks, Mom.”
Hurry to change shoes and go in to shovel rice.
Serena was sitting on the sofa watching cartoons.
I shoveled the rice in a few mouthfuls and leaned over to watch with her.
Detective Conan.
The red ruby of the old rich man was lost, there were four suspects.
There was a man who looked thievish and mouse-eyed, with a treacherous face, as soon as he came out, I pointed at the TV and shouted: “It must be him! Looks like not a good person at a glance!”
Serena slanted her eyes at me, too lazy to pay attention to me.
I got energized: “Do you believe it? Let’s bet, if I win, you split half of your allowance with me.”
She didn’t speak, pretending to be high and cold.
I stared at her with big eyes.
She got annoyed by my staring and tutted: “Reason?”
I said: “Appearance is born from the heart! He doesn’t look like a good person!”
“Oh.” Serena said lightly, “He looks quite like you.”
My anger shot up instantly, just about to gesture with her.
My mom’s loud voice rang out: “Serena, it’s time to practice piano!”
Serena’s face instantly collapsed and she stood up reluctantly.
I immediately turned anger into joy, making faces at her gloatingly.
Continue watching TV.
My mom shouted again: “Maya, turn off the TV! Your sister needs to practice piano, don’t disturb her!”
I said “Oh”, turned the TV to mute, and continued to watch the mime.
3
Damn TV station.
Cutting off at the critical moment, the next episode preview hanging people’s appetite.
Who is the real culprit after all?
Have to wait another week.
My resentment was very deep.
Deep enough that Leo Vance could see it.
We both occupied a swing, swaying.
He asked: “Who provoked you again?”
I angrily sprayed the TV station for not being human.
After hearing the plot, Leo Vance slapped his thigh: “I also think it’s that man, looks like a big rat!”
We looked at each other, high-fived and swore: “Heroes see the same thing!”
“Hey, last time you went back late, did your mom scold you?”
“No.” I said.
He looked envious: “Your mom is so good, doesn’t control you.”
I didn’t speak, always feeling something was wrong in my heart.
Just as we were talking, Serena came back after class, probably Serena’s piano class.
Wearing a pink fluffy dress, with sparkling rhinestone hairpins pinned on her head, like a doll.
My mom held her hand, walking from afar.
I shouted: “Mom! Sis!”
My mom waved her hand and shouted a sentence: “Don’t play too late.”
Serena looked back, followed my mom and walked away.
I turned my head and found the ice pop in Leo Vance’s hand fell to the ground, stained with a layer of sand.
“What are you doing?”
Leo Vance opened his big mouth, pointing at Serena’s back, his eyeballs were about to pop out.
“That’s your sister?”
I said: “Yes.”
He looked at the direction Serena disappeared, looked at me again, looked over there again.
“Are you picked up?”
I blew up: “You are picked up! Your whole family is picked up!”
Leo Vance was still sighing there: “Your sister is like a princess.”
Actually, I also think Serena is like a princess.
But I just didn’t want to hear him tell the truth at this time.
Seeing I ignored him, he leaned over again: “You two don’t look like sisters at all.”
“Then what like?”
He thought for a while and said seriously: “Like princess and maid.”
What kind of friend is this!
I was so angry that I pushed him hard.
He was unprepared and sat in the sandbox, covered in sand: “Ouch! Why are you hitting people when I tell the truth!”
“Dead pig!”
I flung him away, crying and running away: “Break off relations! Never speak again in this lifetime!”
My liver hurt from anger.
When I got home, I tore the Ultraman cards Leo Vance gave me into pieces.
Leo Vance is a big idiot pig.
Clearly we are the iron buddies.
Even if his brother is a hundred times more handsome than him, I haven’t said it to his face!
Shredded paper was scattered all over the floor.
My mom saw it, fuming: “Maya! What demon are you doing again!”
“Making garbage all over the floor! Can’t you be cleaner?”
I talked back while squatting on the floor picking up paper pieces: “Last time sister spilled soup on the floor, why didn’t you scold her!”
“She was careless!”
“I was also careless!”
Got excited, tears spurted out.
“Could it be that she was careless, and I was intentional?”
My mom stared at me with hands on hips: “Learned to talk back too? Can’t you learn from your sister, much better behaved than you!”
“What are you crying for, embarrassing or not!”
I shouted back: “That’s because you never scolded her!”
My mom laughed angrily: “So you are blaming us now?”
She gestured to get the coat hanger.
I was so scared that I hurriedly ran back to the room and locked the door from inside.
She didn’t chase over.
After a while, the sound of closing the door came from outside.
My mom took Serena out again.
4
I dug out the small mirror hidden under the pillow.
Hatefully thought, everyone likes Serena.
Just because she is beautiful?
I’m not very ugly either.
The mirror reflected a face covered with tears and snot.
Dirty, like a bitter gourd.
Scared myself, hurriedly buckled the mirror.
Recalling the last time seeing Serena cry, that was called pear blossoms with rain, fairy shedding tears.
Really comparison angers people to death.
I was a bit resentful.
Why did my mom give birth to Serena so beautifully, and gave birth to me just fooling around?
I felt the whole world was targeting me.
Parents had biased hearts.
Even my good friend rebelled, seeing Serena couldn’t walk.
I decided, I want to be a cold and ruthless killer.
Let them all regret it!
Going to school the next day.
Leo Vance greeted me.
I pretended not to see, floating past without looking sideways.
Leo Vance insisted on leaning up, waving his hand in front of my eyes: “Blind?”
I said coldly: “Please stay away from me, we have already broken off relations.”
He was hippie smiling: “Really angry?”
“It’s my mouth that owes, don’t be angry.”
As he spoke, he took out a bottle of milk from his schoolbag and handed it to me.
It was all foreign language on it, couldn’t understand.
“Here, imported milk bought by my eldest aunt, very expensive.”
I was a bit greedy.
Usually good food at home was reserved for Serena, I couldn’t even smell it.
Just about to reach out to take it.
He took out another pink one, with big strawberries painted on it: “This, strawberry flavor, for your sister.”
My outstretched hand shrank back as if getting an electric shock.
Leo Vance had no eye sight at all: “This strawberry flavor is sweet, girls love to drink it, your sister will definitely like it.”
I didn’t speak.
Quickened my pace to bypass him, walking away without looking back.
Leo Vance shouted from behind: “Hey! Maya!”
“Maya what are you running for?”
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1
The Pain of a Replacement
On what was supposed to be our second anniversary, Sienna married someone else behind my back.
The groom was my uncle, Greyson—the one who had vanished two years ago.
When I demanded to know why, she looked at me with a face full of pity and said, “Your uncle has ALS. Marrying me is his last wish.”
“He doesn’t have long,” she added softly. “Just… let him have this.”
It was only then that I understood. For the past two years, I had been nothing but his substitute.
Sienna’s first love, the one she could never have, had returned. The moment he reappeared, her affection swerved back to him without a moment’s hesitation.
And me? I was just a convenient option, easily discarded.
Later, just as Sienna wished, I disappeared from her life.
But then, ignoring her husband’s worsening condition, she came back, begging me to love her one more time.
…
The wedding candy in my hand felt like a wad of cotton choking the air from my lungs. I couldn’t breathe.
When reality finally crashed back in, I grabbed the arm of the nurse who had just handed me the small, ribboned box. “Who did you say is getting married?”
The young nurse turned back, her face beaming. “Dr. Jiang! The groom’s name is Greyson Thorne. I heard it was love at first sight. I can’t believe they got married so quickly!”
She bustled off to share the news with others, leaving me frozen in a cloud of cheerful gossip. I couldn’t hear a thing.
Those two names—Sienna and Greyson—struck me like a bolt of lightning, rooting me to the spot.
Sienna was the woman I had been secretly dating for two years. Greyson was my bastard of an uncle who had been missing for the last two.
I never imagined their names would ever appear together, let alone linked by the word marriage.
I don’t know how I made it home. The coffee table was covered with the gifts I had so carefully chosen. A cake, a bouquet of her favorite flowers, and the designer necklace she’d been wanting for months. Today was our anniversary. I was going to propose tonight. But before I even got home, I heard the news at the hospital.
Staring at the symbols of my devotion, a pain like a thousand tiny cuts sliced through my heart, leaving me breathless.
I’d called Sienna dozens of times since I found out. Every call went to voicemail.
Finally, as dusk settled over the city, she answered.
She used to hate it when I called her repeatedly, but this time her voice was bright, bubbling with excitement. “What’s up? You’ve called so many times.”
So happy. Was it because she was getting married?
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I forced my voice to remain steady. “Sienna, what are you doing?”
There was a pause. She sensed the shift in my tone. Because she was older, I usually called her by a pet name, never her full name unless something was wrong.
After a few seconds of silence, she answered, her voice cool and composed. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m at work, of course.”
“And do you know what today is?” The lie, so casual and clean over the phone, made my hand clench around my phone. A sob caught in my throat, but I forced it down.
“What day is it? I’ve been so busy, I must have forgotten.” Her tone relaxed, as if she assumed I was just being clingy and pouty because she wasn’t home yet.
Her attitude was the final blow. My heart turned to ice. “Sienna, do you remember that today is our second anniversary?”
“Of course, of course, I remember. But I told you, I’m busy at work. Is that why you’ve been calling so much…?”
Her voice held a note of smug certainty, as if she’d figured me out. But I cut her off, closing my eyes against a wave of despair.
“So, even though you remembered, you still chose today to marry someone else? And not just anyone—Greyson!”
“You found out already?”
There was a flicker of disbelief in her voice, but she quickly regained her composure. “I’ll explain everything when I get home.”
“No need. I can explain it to Kian myself.”
A smooth, gentle voice drifted through the receiver. I recognized it instantly. Greyson. The sound of his voice brought back a flood of memories of everything he’d done, and my head began to pound with rage.
“Kian, it’s me. It’s your uncle.”
“Go to hell. You’re no uncle of mine.” The words exploded out of me, raw and unfiltered. “Wasn’t it enough that you killed Grandpa two years ago? Now you’ve come back to ruin my life too?”
Silence. Then, I heard Greyson’s voice, thick with emotion. “I’m sorry, Kian. I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“I’m sick,” he said, his voice cracking. “It’s ALS.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. A diagnosis of ALS was a death sentence. But just as quickly, my suspicion returned. My uncle was a pathological liar. How could I know if this was just another one of his games?
“I’ve reached the end of my life,” he continued, his voice heavy with pathos. “I’m alone, abandoned by everyone. And then I realized… Sienna was still waiting for me. She was the one woman I always wanted to marry. For my sake, since I’m dying… please, don’t blame her.”
I wanted to laugh. “Did I cause you to be abandoned? You killed Grandpa with your bullshit, and then you just disappeared. Now you come back, steal my girlfriend, and act like you’re the victim? Isn’t this all your own damn fault?”
“I’m sorry, Kian. I was wrong. I deserve this…”
His voice was a perfect symphony of weakness and remorse, laced with just the right amount of tears. It was enough to make Sienna’s heart break. She snatched the phone from him.
“Kian!” she yelled, her voice sharp with fury. “He’s a sick man! How can you say things like that to him? Don’t you see he’s already broken?”
I nodded slowly to myself on the other end of the line. Greyson was broken. And what about me? The man who had stood by her side for two years?
What the hell was I?
My gaze fell on the table in front of me. The perfect cake, the vibrant flowers—all testaments to how much I cherished our relationship. And for what?
For her to run straight into the arms of her first love, marrying him in secret on a day I was off work, while I was at home like a fool, planning a surprise.
If I hadn’t decided to stop by the hospital to see her today, how much longer would she have kept me in the dark?
Fine. It’s over.
“Sienna,” I said, my voice hollow. “Congratulations on your wedding. We’re done.”
2
The Truth is a Thunderbolt
I hung up and collapsed onto the sofa, but my heart refused to be still.
Sienna was three years older than me. When I started my internship at the hospital two years ago, she was my supervising physician.
The first time she saw me, her eyes filled with tears.
At the time, she’d blamed it on the dry hospital air.
Now I finally understood. It wasn’t the air. It was because she was seeing Greyson’s ghost in my face.
A tear traced a path down my cheek as I remembered the afternoon she’d told me it was love at first sight.
“Kian, you have beautiful eyes. I think I’m falling for you. Will you go out with me?”
Her words had stunned me. No girl had ever been so bold, so direct. Especially not my mentor. Without thinking, I turned and ran.
A few steps later, guilt hit me. I walked back and apologized. “I’m sorry, Dr. Jiang. You just… caught me off guard.”
Sienna had smiled and said she’d been too forward. Then she added, out of nowhere, “You’re very different from him.”
All those little details I’d ignored came flooding back, and her reasons for pursuing me became painfully clear.
All this time, I’d been a fool, a placeholder. Her passionate pursuit, her gentle affection—it was all because I had a face that looked like his.
And yet, despite it all, she’d still had the nerve to have her wedding candy delivered to me.
While I was at home, naively planning our anniversary. She was the one who chased me, but in the end, I was the one who fell in love, and I was the one who got hurt.
Hours passed. Moonlight streamed through the window, bathing me in its cold light. I forced myself to get up. I gathered everything on the table—the cake, the flowers, the necklace, and the ring I was going to propose with—and threw it all into the dumpster downstairs.
Afterward, I wandered the streets with no destination in mind.
They say the lonelier you are, the more you seek out crowds. I found myself on a street lined with bars. Staring at the wall of liquor bottles, only one thought crossed my mind: drink until I forget.
Under the dim lights, I downed glass after glass. A flush crept up my face, and the emotions I’d been suppressing finally broke free, spilling out as tears.
As I reached for my thirteenth drink, a slender hand intercepted mine, plucking the glass from the bar.
I looked up, my vision blurry. The figure in front of me swayed. I couldn’t make out her face.
“Kian? What are you doing, drinking like this?”
Her voice was soft, like a distant breeze. I stared at her for a long time, but my head was still spinning. “Who are you? Do I know you?”
I mumbled, trying to grab the glass back, but she moved it out of my reach. Annoyed, I slid off the barstool, determined to reclaim my drink.
“You’re already wasted, and you want more?” There was an edge to her voice. I didn’t understand why she cared how much I drank.
I squinted, trying to focus on her face. A spark of recognition flashed in my mind.
Helena.
Two years ago, before Sienna and I got together, my father had forced me to go on a date with her. It was after that disastrous setup that I realized I had feelings for Sienna and finally accepted her confession.
I never thought I’d run into Helena like this. My pathetic pride kicked in. The last thing I wanted was for my former blind date to see me in such a miserable state.
I tried to leave, but the world was spinning too fast. Helena grabbed my shoulder to steady me. I stumbled, losing my balance, and fell backward.
As I landed on a soft couch, the room tilted violently. The only thing that came into focus was Helena’s beautiful, bewitching face, leaning closer.
“What’s wrong? Did your true love break up with you?”
Her voice echoed in the fog of my mind. The alcohol was at its peak. Helena’s cool fingertips traced a line along my jaw, and I flinched, turning my head away. But she cupped my chin, forcing me to look at her.
“Since your true love doesn’t want you,” she purred, a wicked smile playing on her lips, “why not give this arrangement a try?”
Under the hazy, intimate lighting, her smile was intoxicating.
I don’t know if it was the alcohol or the pheromones, but I was mesmerized. Sienna had betrayed me so completely. Why shouldn’t I be bold and try something new?
Before I could answer, Helena’s lips were on mine. My eyes shot open. I meant to push her away, but she only deepened the kiss.
What happened next felt inevitable. We spent the night in a suite above the bar.
When I woke up the next morning, Helena was gone.
I checked my phone and saw a flood of messages and missed calls from Sienna. My head was already throbbing from the hangover, and her long-winded essays made it even worse.
In them, she poured out her feelings for Greyson.
【I just feel sorry for him now. He has this incurable disease, he doesn’t have much time left. But you’re different, Kian. What I feel for you is love. Real love. You have your whole life ahead of you. I’m just marrying him to be with him at the end, but you’re the one I truly love.】
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Seven years after breaking up with my first love, I became the sugar mommy of a male college student who looked like him.
Everyone around me said he was just a substitute, but he smiled slightly and never refuted.
As time went by, I felt living like this wasn’t bad, so I warned my friends:
“Don’t say he is anyone’s substitute, I’m going to marry him.”
Just that one sentence made my first love on the other side of the ocean fly back overnight.
Even though he had been separated from me for several years and had never come back to find me.
1
When I opened the door, the smile on my face froze.
A person I had only seen in my dreams for seven years was standing outside the door.
Ethan Hayes, my first love.
His features were still sharp and deep, eyes like stars, more mature and charming than before.
That black windbreaker draped over him, majestic like a tree.
I had thought many times about what I would say if we met again, but I didn’t expect him to speak first, raising one eyebrow.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
When we broke up, it wasn’t ugly.
Because it ended with his long and lasting cold violence.
But I have my pride.
On the day of the first snow in the New Year, I cried my heart out alone in the snow.
But opening my phone, I just calmly said one sentence:
“Let’s break up, setting you free.”
He replied very quickly, almost never replying instantly during the long cold violence.
“Okay.”
From that day on, my unforgettable first love came to an end.
For so many years, I always thought I couldn’t forget him.
But it turns out time can really smooth everything.
Seeing him again, the waves from the past were long gone.
Now he was sitting in the living room, while I was seriously decorating the house.
Hanging balloons, colorful lights, waiting for the cake in the oven to bake, taking it out, and carefully decorating it according to the tutorial.
A few strands of broken hair fell from my forehead, and I didn’t bother to smooth them back.
No time to pay attention to his existence,
Only saw his slowly clenched fingers from the corner of my eye.
Today is Caleb Moore’s birthday.
After working all afternoon, people slowly arrived.
They were all my friends,
Only with more people would there be popularity.
I hoped to make Caleb happy today.
And when they saw Ethan sitting on the sofa, those who knew our past were all stunned.
But looking at me, they still said nothing.
At five o’clock, the doorbell rang again.
Opening the door, Caleb stood outside holding flowers, looking at me gently with a smile.
I pulled him in, and colorful ribbons shot out from both sides, falling on him.
“Caleb Moore, happy birthday!”
I happily put my arm around his shoulder and introduced him to all my friends.
Introducing one by one, when it came to Ethan, my tone paused, trying to say as usual:
“He is… Ethan Hayes, my classmate in high school.”
Ethan stared at me. When he lowered his brows and eyes, it was actually very scary, with a heavy aura.
If according to my understanding of him in the past, I almost thought he would flip the table and leave at any time.
But fortunately, he didn’t.
Even when Caleb reached out to him, he gave me face and shook it.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Throughout the birthday party, I made Caleb the protagonist.
Friends praised him endlessly.
After all, since I laid down that sentence last time, no one dared to say he was a substitute tactlessly anymore.
“So handsome, Lily, really envy you for having such a handsome boyfriend.”
“Not only handsome, but also good-tempered, unlike the one you had a few years ago, wow really…” That person realized something, glanced at Ethan, and suddenly silenced.
…
The atmosphere of the banquet reached its peak when eating, drinking, and playing games.
Because Caleb lost, he was asked to do a dare, the condition was–kiss me.
Everyone applauded and cheered:
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
“Kiss quickly! Not a man if you don’t kiss! This is your girlfriend!”
Suddenly with a bang, the door was slammed shut.
And Ethan was long gone from his seat.
…
2
After the party ended, I went upstairs.
Caleb sat in front of the easel, looking at the picture seriously.
The soft light of the bedroom spilled on him, his profile elegant.
He didn’t know, he was more moving than his paintbrush.
Sneaking up on him from behind, I suddenly got interested and reached out to cover his eyes regardless.
“Guess who I am?”
Caleb needed focus when painting, but he never blamed me for disturbing him.
I could feel him gently curling the corners of his lips, cooperating asking me:
“I don’t know, who are you?”
“I am your little baby.”
I said sweetly.
Letting go, he looked up at me smiling, and then pulled me into his arms just like that.
His embrace was wide, soft, and powerful, always able to wrap me easily.
I buried myself in it, taking a deep breath.
The faint scent unique to Caleb fascinated me so much.
Caleb suddenly said:
“What happened to you today?”
“Huh? Nothing.”
“Feel…” His gaze fell on me, thoughtful. “Your state is not right.”
I didn’t expect him to be so keen.
Seeing the person I once yearned for day and night after so many years, no matter how calm I was, it was inevitable to be affected.
But I didn’t plan to tell him.
Unexpectedly, he suddenly asked me: “That guy today, the one you said was a high school classmate, I haven’t seen him around you before.”
Alarm bells rang in my heart.
“Oh… he went abroad after graduation, just came back recently…”
I thought I acted as usual, but still couldn’t help feeling guilty, secretly praying he wouldn’t ask anymore.
Who knew he looked at me with a half-smile, effortlessly piercing my disguise.
“That’s your ex, right?”
“…How did you know?”
“Guessed.”
Looking into his eyes, I surrendered.
Maybe this is man’s sixth sense.
Raising three fingers, pointing to the sky, the earth, and my heart.
“I admit, indeed yes.”
“But after so long, I have long had no feelings for him.”
“Who is in my mind now, don’t you know?”
Saying the last sentence, I couldn’t help smiling.
He gently pinched my face.
“I know.”
Didn’t ask again.
This is Caleb, always decent, always knowing propriety and when to advance or retreat.
Occasionally I feel that others secretly calling him Caleb the Sensible also makes sense.
Otherwise, so many people came and went around me for so many years, how come only he stayed.
On the weekend, someone invited me to play golf.
This is considered a common activity in the upper class. During the process, everyone will exchange recent business sectors and market conditions.
I took Caleb along too.
Many people in the circle knew about me and Caleb.
Although those people had loose lips, they wouldn’t disrespect me openly, but the caddies picking up balls in the field were different.
They whispered:
“See that pretty boy? He was kept by Sister Lin, heard tens of thousands a month.”
“Sister Lin is really good to him, even bringing him to play golf, such a high-end place… really dirtying our club’s mats.”
“Exactly, that kind of poor person probably hasn’t touched a golf club in his life.”
…
Just happened to be vacant on the field, I asked Caleb.
“Want to try?”
He didn’t refuse, nodded, looking very noble.
Going on the field, taking the ball, gripping the club, swinging.
Hole in one.
Perfect!
Others looked sideways one after another,
I applauded happily, loudly saying:
“Beautiful!”
3
Swiped twenty thousand dollars on the spot.
The venue took out twenty thousand in cash, distributing to everyone present one by one.
Whenever someone gets a hole in one, money is distributed as an honor and celebration.
When distributing to those few caddies, I said lightly:
“Don’t give to these few.”
“Mouths too dirty, I’m afraid of dirtying my money.”
Hearing this, they showed expressions of extreme shame.
The boss who invited me said with a smile:
“Didn’t expect your boy… friend to be so amazing.”
I waved my hand: “If not for him back then… sigh, let’s not mention it, anyway it wasn’t easy for me to get him.”
I was born into a wealthy family in the capital. The family has many children. I was cultivated as an heir since childhood, which also gave me the capital to look down on everything.
It can be said that except for stumbling on Ethan, no one has ever rejected me.
At this time money distribution reached the corner, suddenly came a burst of low exclamations.
A tall, handsome man stood there, don’t know when he came.
Seemed to have been there for a long time.
The assistant handed him two thousand, smiling apologetically, but he didn’t even look.
Walked forward, also hit a shot.
Also a hole in one.
Everyone exclaimed.
He swiped forty thousand.
Turning his head, he saw me happily holding Caleb’s hand.
“Why are you so amazing, worthy of being my boyfriend, really making me proud!”
Ethan’s face sank suddenly.
And I was unaware, continuing to praise Caleb on my own.
Suddenly a ball rushed into view, speed extremely fast, almost about to hit Caleb’s head.
But still deviated a little bit, brushing past Caleb’s temple by a hair’s breadth, then falling heavily to the ground.
Such a big golf ball, such impact, almost could give someone a concussion!
But Ethan walked over and said casually:
“Sorry, hit wide.”
“Wide my ass!” I almost couldn’t help cursing! “Hayes, are you sick?!”
He didn’t expect my reaction to be so big, raising his hands:
“Just a little thing you keep, heard he’s also my substitute, how come the original is in front of you, you still pass fish eyes for pearls?”
Beside me Caleb although expression unchanged, his eyes still dimmed.
Ethan’s words really stepped on my landmine hard.
I raised my hand, gritting my teeth pointing at his nose.
“I tell you, Caleb is my boyfriend, not some substitute. You fucking be smarter next time, otherwise in the whole capital, I’ll mess with you every time I see you.”
“You know I have this strength!”
Strictly speaking, the Hayes family focuses on business, my family focuses on power, his family has to respect me three points when seeing me.
Ethan’s expression changed, bit by bit becoming gnashing teeth.
In disbelief:
“You just… for him?”
And I had already pulled Caleb away.
4
Sitting in the car, I still felt heartache.
Held his face and looked again and again.
Although that ball didn’t really hit, I was still worried.
“Does it hurt?” I said.
Hearing this he blinked, then eyes filled with some mist.
“Hurts…”
I felt even more heartache, seeing him so pitiful, became even angrier at Ethan.
“His brain was really kicked by a donkey, that idiot, swinging club without looking at direction, why doesn’t he go die!”
Just cursed like this for a while, when I came back to my senses, found Caleb looking at me with a smile.
Gaze infinitely gentle.
Don’t know why I suddenly stunned a bit.
“What’s wrong? Something on my face?”
His hand gently stroked my hair, stirring up a burst of酥痒 (crisp itch/tingling sensation).
“Like seeing you angry for me.”
“Why?”
“Shows you care about me.”
I pulled his hand, poking poking poking in his palm with finger, in such atmosphere don’t know why felt so hot.
“Of course I care about you, humph.”
He smiled gently again.
I found I blushed.
The news that I threatened to mess with Ethan on the court spread.
Now everyone on the field says I “raged for a beauty”.
Even my parents knew.
On the phone my dad said angrily:
“Listen to yourself, is that proper? Just for such a thing, go mess with Ethan?”
“Our relationship with the Hayes family for so many years, all ruined by your one sentence! Now how many people are watching the joke!”
“You, go apologize to Ethan, then cut off that little boy of yours!”
Things weren’t that serious, after all I didn’t really do anything to Ethan, just Dad was angry and spoke indiscriminately.
But, he did use this excuse to remove me from the general manager position, arranging in an unimportant position.
Stripped my power.
When finding Caleb, he had already prepared everything.
Seeing me come, wrapped the cape around me.
Potions, scissors, hair clippers and so on were all ready.
Today is the day he scheduled to cut my hair.
He teased me:
“I haven’t done it for so long, aren’t you afraid I’ll ruin your cut?”
But I didn’t speak.
He seemed to realize something, immediately shut up.
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My mother always said: A plant that isn’t pruned will grow wild and useless.
I was the tree they pruned down to a stump.
From the age of five, I learned to keep my joy locked down—it was “getting ahead of myself.”
I couldn’t cry when I was bullied—because, as my father said, “Flies only land on open sores.”
If I scored an A- on an AP exam, my parents would only ask, “Where are the other two points? Are you getting lazy?”
When relatives praised me for being quiet and polite, my parents would publicly cut them off: “She’s acting. At home, she’s as lazy as a pig. Don’t let her fool you.”
Over time, I learned to bury every single emotion, becoming the perfectly polished product they demanded.
The year I turned nineteen, my Aunt Carol secretly slipped me a crisp envelope.
“You’re grown now, Jamie,” she whispered. “You need to start learning to manage your own money. For college.”
It was two thousand dollars.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t immediately hand over a gift.
That night, I woke to the sound of metal scraping metal. My father, Robert Davies, was using a screwdriver to pry the lock off my desk drawer.
He snatched the envelope, his eyes blazing with the satisfied triumph of a detective: “I knew it. I knew you were acting strange. You’re learning bad habits.”
My mother, Amelia Davies, then took a picture of the cash and posted it to the family group chat, “The Davies Family Circle.”
“Jamie was caught trying to steal money from her aunt. This cash is tainted. Our family values won’t allow it. We are distributing it to everyone here as an apology for her disgrace.”
The screen lit up with scrolling “Thank yous” and praises like, “Amelia, you know how to discipline a child!”
I looked at the phone and smiled.
I didn’t know then that it would be the last time I ever smiled in that house.
…
“Smile? You have the audacity to smile?”
My father’s hand came down, a wind-cutting whip against my cheek.
I didn’t feel the pain right away. All I heard was the high, sharp whine of the slap echoing in my eardrum.
I stared, transfixed, at the phone on the coffee table.
The family group chat was still refreshing.
Aunt Leah: Your family’s discipline is so strict! Kids shouldn’t have cash, it just leads to trouble.
Uncle Brian: Wow, I snagged thirty bucks! Thanks, Amelia! But Jamie seemed so sweet. Guess she had a sneaky side.
Cousin Sam: Thanks, Auntie! I’m using the money to buy a new skin for my game!
The screen was a carnival of digital congratulations and animated cheers.
They were happily snatching up their share, chatting away.
“See this, Jamie? Open your eyes and look!”
My mother thrust the phone inches from my face.
“They’re all laughing at you! Hiding a little nest egg, like some kind of delinquent? That two thousand dollars wasn’t a gift from Carol—it was a test!”
Her spittle flew as she spoke, her voice rising to a frantic pitch.
“If we hadn’t found it, what would you have done? Used it for drugs? Gone out and done something truly shameful?”
I leaned against the corner of the wall. My cheek was burning, and the whole side of my face felt numb.
“Mom…” I tried to speak, my voice dry and scratchy, like swallowing sandpaper.
“Aunt Carol said it was for college expenses. I just… I wanted to be independent. I wanted to stop asking you for things.”
“Lies!”
My father kicked over a small side table, unbuckled his leather belt, and snapped it through the air.
“What kind of education does a morally corrupt person like you need?”
His chest heaved violently.
“You plot against your own parents! What’s next, murder? Are you going to come back and kill us in our sleep?”
I instinctively hunched my shoulders and protected my head.
“Rob, not the face,” my mother said coolly.
She took a step back, giving my father enough room.
“It’s New Year’s Day tomorrow. I don’t want to answer questions about a black eye in front of the neighbors. It reflects poorly on me.”
“I know.” My father answered, and the belt rose high, coming down in a sharp, stinging arc.
One.
Two.
The metallic buckle smacked against my back with a sickening, muted thud.
I didn’t make a sound.
I just kept my eyes wide open, fixed on the crystal chandelier on the ceiling.
The light was a harsh, sickly white, like a spotlight in an interrogation room, illuminating every wretched corner of this home.
When he was tired, my father tossed the belt onto the sofa, pointing a finger at my face.
“Did you learn your lesson?”
I slowly lifted my head to look at him.
Sweat and panic glazed his face. His eyes held the exhausted satisfaction of a violent release.
“Yes,” I answered mechanically, opening my mouth.
“What was your mistake?”
“I shouldn’t have hidden the money. I shouldn’t have had private thoughts…”
I paused, and then added quietly, softly.
“I shouldn’t… exist.”
My mother, hearing the answer she wanted, kicked my leg.
“Go write a full report. Two thousand words. You will detail where the money came from, why you hid it, and you will post it to the family group chat to apologize to all your relatives. If it’s not heartfelt, you won’t eat tonight.”
I held my phone, the screen light illuminating the swelling, bruised purple of my hand.
Suddenly, a new message popped up in the group.
Aunt Carol: Rob, Amelia, what are you doing? I gave Jamie that money.
The very next second, the group admin, “Family Peace is Success,” muted the entire chat.
Group admin “Family Peace is Success” removed “Aunt Carol” from the conversation.
My mother scoffed, putting her phone away.
“Your Aunt Carol is an emotional fool. Enabling a child is killing a child. We will minimize contact with her. We don’t need her bad influence.”
A deathly silence returned to the living room.
My parents went into the kitchen to eat. The clatter of their silverware sounded warm and domestic.
I knelt on the cold floor, staring at the notification that my only ally had been ejected.
I felt something deep inside my body shatter, completely and irrevocably.
My finger hovered over the screen for a long time.
I typed a line of text.
Dad, Mom. You can keep the money. I don’t want my life anymore.
My fingertip hesitated on the ‘Send’ button.
I could hear their easy laughter from the kitchen.
“The pot roast is perfect this year.”
“Did you remember to set out the gift baskets for the neighbors?”
Why?
Why should I die, while they continued to live, peaceful and justified?
I deleted the message.
I posted a new one to the group: Mom and Dad were right to discipline me. I was wrong. The money will be used to buy everyone some snacks. Happy New Year.
The moment I sent the two-thousand-word apology, the group un-muted.
The blinding stream of “thumbs-up” emojis and “such a responsible child” praise felt like a series of sharp slaps against my remaining sliver of self-respect.
My mother held her phone, admiring her trophy.
“See? Everyone forgives you.”
“Jamie, I only do this for your own good. You hate us now, but when you’re older, you’ll realize no one in the world will teach you responsibility like your own parents.”
“Alright, stop kneeling,” my father said, sitting on the sofa, fiddling with the screwdriver.
“Go eat. You made a mistake, but we’re not going to starve you.”
I stood up stiffly and walked to the dining table.
All that was left was a single bowl of plain pasta piled high with the leftover fatty scraps of the pot roast.
It was all the grease, the white, trembling fat that they had picked off their own plates.
“Eat it,” my mother said coldly. “Don’t waste food.”
I looked at the plate and felt a spasm of nausea in my stomach.
I hadn’t eaten fat since I was a child; it always made me sick.
But I dared not protest.
When I was five, I separated a piece of fat onto the table, and my father pressed my head down and forced me to swallow it back.
He said: “Picky eating is being spoiled. No one in my house is allowed to have bad habits.”
I picked up the bowl, used my fork to stab a block of cold fat, closed my eyes, and put it in my mouth.
I fought back the urge to vomit and swallowed the greasy chunk whole.
“Eat slower. You look like you’re starving,” my father said with disgust. “Zero table manners. You’re an embarrassment to take out in public.”
I forced down the last bite of fat, suppressing a violent retch. “I’m done.”
“Good. Now, go make the appetizers. We have company tomorrow, so you need to finish the whole batch tonight.”
I ignored the throbbing pain in my back and walked to the kitchen counter.
I picked up the fragile wrapper, trying to pinch the edges shut.
But my hands were shaking.
My palms were swollen like over-proofed dough, my finger joints were stiff, and my nerves were frayed. The slightest pressure, and—
“Pop.”
The wrapper tore. The ground meat filling squished out, coating my hands in a slick film of oil.
“Clumsy!” My father exploded. He slammed the TV remote onto the table.
“You can’t even make a simple appetizer! Useless at everything you try, except stuffing your face!”
He rushed over, grabbed the broken wrapper, and violently threw it into the trash can.
“Are you doing this on purpose? Huh? Trying to spite me?”
“Look at your hands! As fat and useless as a pig’s hoof! Did reading all those books rot your brain? You can’t even fold dough! What good are you?”
I lowered my head, staring at my swollen, trembling hands.
He was right. I was useless.
I wasn’t worthy of the lean meat, I wasn’t worthy of a gift, I wasn’t worthy of a secret, and I wasn’t even worthy of preparing a holiday meal.
“Get out of here!” My father pushed me away in disgust.
“Don’t stand here contaminating the rest of the ingredients!”
I stumbled backward, hitting the refrigerator.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized out of habit, even though the fault wasn’t mine.
“Go to the porch and reflect! Don’t come back inside until midnight!”
My father waved his hand dismissively, as if swatting away a fly.
I turned and walked toward the sliding door.
The moment I pushed it open, the biting chill of the winter air slammed into my neck, making me gasp.
But a small part of me felt a sudden rush of relief.
Finally, I didn’t have to smell the sickening odor of rendered fat and stale discipline.
I slid the door shut, isolating myself on the freezing porch.
Inside, the lights were bright. My parents were wrapping the appetizers and watching a New Year’s special on TV, laughing heartily.
Outside, it was pitch black, and the cold wind howled.
I pulled out my phone and checked the time.
Eleven fifty PM.
Ten more minutes until New Year’s Day.
Dad, Mom.
You hated that I was useless.
So I’m going to be useful one last time.
I’m going to prepare your New Year’s gift.
Seven AM, New Year’s Day.
“Jamie! Come cut the fruit!”
My mother’s voice cut through the door.
I closed my English vocabulary book.
The book was merely a prop. They loved to see me looking productive and ambitious.
“Coming.”
Several neighbors who’d come to exchange holiday greetings were sitting in the living room. The coffee table was littered with snack wrappers.
Mrs. Rodriguez smiled warmly: “Oh, look who it is! Jamie’s out! It’s been a year, and you’ve gotten so tall. You’re such a handsome young man.”
“Handsome? He’s a block of wood,” my mother said, smiling as she handed Mrs. Rodriguez the largest, shiniest apple.
“The boy’s a fool. He’s useless at everything except burying his nose in a book.”
Mrs. Rodriguez nervously tried to smooth things over: “Being quiet is a sign of maturity.”
“Maturity, my foot! He’s just sullen!”
My father sat in the armchair, crossing his legs.
“Look at the expression on his face, like we owe him a fortune. Just last night I had to discipline him for stealing. He’s a wolf cub we raised that’s ready to bite the hand that feeds him.”
The smile on Mrs. Rodriguez’s face froze. She gave me a look of pity.
“Rob, he’s a grown boy. You have to save face for him…”
“Save face? Does he deserve it?”
My father snorted, his eyes filled with contempt.
“Go pour Mrs. Rodriguez some tea. Fill it to the brim. Don’t be stingy.”
I picked up the teapot.
My right hand was still swollen, and my fingers were stiff and unresponsive.
I trembled slightly.
Hot tea sloshed onto the tabletop.
“Useless!”
My father lunged up, slamming the back of my head with his hand.
“DONG!”
My head hit the sharp edge of the table. My vision blackened.
The teapot slipped from my grasp. Scalding water splashed onto my bruised hand, the pain sharp and sickeningly familiar.
I didn’t move or cry out.
I just bent down to grab a rag and wipe up the spill.
“You can’t even pour a cup of tea correctly! What good are you?”
“We’d be better off keeping a dog. At least a dog wags its tail when guests arrive. You? Making a miserable face on New Year’s, who is that supposed to be for?”
Mrs. Rodriguez stood up in alarm, her face pale.
“That’s enough, Rob. Please don’t hit the boy. I… I have something on the stove. I need to leave.”
She practically fled out the door.
The moment the door closed, the air solidified.
My mother glanced at me with distaste, taking the plate of peeled apples away.
“Worthless. You can’t even manage to greet a guest properly. Clean up the mess and get back to your room. Stop being an eyesore.”
I picked up the broom, bent my back, and began slowly sweeping the wrappers.
“Oh, wait,” my father suddenly said, a hint of excitement in his voice.
“Clear out your locked cabinet in your room.”
I stopped. “Why?”
The lock was already broken, but the cabinet was still the only private space I had in this house. It held my journals, my sketchbooks, and the letters from Aunt Carol.
“Why what?” My father glared, annoyed.
“Your cousin Sam is coming to stay for a few days. He said he likes that cabinet. He’s going to use it for his transformers. Get your junk out of there and put it in a box.”
“That’s my cabinet,” I said, tightening my grip on the broom handle.
It was the first time I had contradicted him.
“Yours?” My father threw the remote, walking toward me. His finger poked my forehead again and again, forcing me to back up.
“What in this house is yours? I bought the house, I bought the cabinet, and I gave you the very life you breathe! What right do you have to claim anything?”
“Clear it out now! Don’t force me to lose my temper on New Year’s Day!”
I was pinned against the wall, nowhere left to retreat.
“Fine,” I heard myself say.
He was satisfied and went back to the TV.
One last time, I thought.
I just have to hold on a little longer.
After tonight, I’ll give you the cabinet. I’ll give you my life, too.
I crouched in front of the cabinet and reached for the door.
I wanted to take out the journals and letters, at least destroy them myself so they couldn’t be left here.
But when the cabinet door swung open, my blood ran cold.
It was empty.
The stack of journals I cherished, the sketchbooks where I’d drawn my future, Aunt Carol’s letters… they were all gone.
I scrambled out of the room like a madman.
“Where are my things?!” This was the first time in nineteen years I had yelled at them.
My parents were nestled on the sofa, laughing at a show.
Hearing my scream, they paused for half a second before their faces hardened.
“What are you shrieking about?” my mother frowned.
“My journals! And the letters in my cabinet! Where are they?”
I rushed to the coffee table, my whole body trembling.
My father slowly peeled an orange, not even looking up.
“Oh, that trash? I told your mother to toss it.”
“Tossed?” Something in my brain snapped.
“Where did you toss it?”
My mother shrugged dismissively: “The bin downstairs. Who can remember?”
“Those journals were full of depressing, dark garbage—all that talk about being ‘suppressed’ and ‘wanting out.’ It was a bad omen. And Carol’s letters were poison, telling you to break away from us.”
“That was my life…”
I whispered, tears suddenly flooding my eyes.
Those journals were the only confidants I had in countless silent nights.
Those letters were the last bit of warmth I had to cling to.
“Your life?”
My father flew into a rage, throwing an orange peel that hit my face.
“Your life belongs to us! You dare to yell at your own father over a few notebooks? You’re out of control!”
He grabbed the solid wooden folding chair from the corner.
“Rob! Not his head!” my mother screamed.
I didn’t move to dodge.
This scene was too familiar.
At six, I ate candy given by a neighbor and was beaten until my nose bled.
At ten, I got second place and was forced to kneel in the snow all night.
At fifteen, I defended myself from a bully and was made to apologize to the aggressor.
The stool came down. The pain blinded me. I curled up on the floor, hearing his ragged, angry breaths and his curses.
“I’ll teach you to yell! I’ll teach you to stare! I am your father!”
My mother finally walked over and pulled him back.
“That’s enough, Rob. Look at this.”
She picked up my phone, grabbed my hand, and unlocked it.
In the notes app was a draft I hadn’t deleted: Want to apply for grad school in Aunt Carol’s city. Get far away.
My mother stared at the line, then squatted down and shoved the screen in my face.
“You wanted to run? You wanted to go to Carol? You wanted to abandon us?”
She looked back at my father: “Rob, the boy’s heart is poisoned. He’s not going to college.”
My father, breathing heavily, nodded.
“Study so much you think you can run? You’re going to stay here and get a factory job!”
My mother dialed my college advisor right in front of me.
“Hello, Professor Thompson? Happy New Year. This is Jamie Davies’ mother.”
Her voice was tragically sorrowful.
“We need to withdraw Jamie… Yes, a mandatory leave. He’s had a complete psychotic break—stealing, violence against his parents. A severe mental crisis.”
I lay on the floor, desperately trying to reach for the phone, wanting to scream, “I didn’t! She’s lying!”
But no sound came out. My throat was raw with blood, and my shoulder was too broken to move.
“We’re afraid he’d hurt the other students if he went back… Expulsion is fine. His life is ruined anyway.”
She hung up the phone.
Then, she opened the college Facebook group.
“This is Jamie Davies’ mother. Jamie was caught stealing property and physically abusing his parents. He has extreme psychological issues and has been brought home for forced treatment. Please excuse any debts or improper behavior. We apologize for the trouble he has caused.”
Send.
The screen immediately exploded with a stream of “???” and shocked emojis.
In that single moment, the carefully constructed facade of a normal, capable student I had built at school was shattered by her foot.
If I ever went back, I would be the violent, thieving lunatic.
She tossed the phone onto the coffee table and looked down at me.
“Did you hear that? You’re going to stay right here, close to us. You won’t go anywhere.”
“Oh, and tomorrow, we’re removing the lock from your bedroom door. You don’t need privacy.”
They turned off the lights and went to bed.
The room was plunged into darkness.
Only the fireworks outside flashed intermittently.
You want me to stay in this house forever?
Fine.
I crawled, piece by piece, back to my room.
I pulled out the red hoodie Aunt Carol had bought me last year from under my bed.
I’d never worn it because my mother said red was too flashy and “unseemly.”
I pulled it on.
In the mirror, my face was ghost-white, but the vibrant red gave me a fleeting moment of life.
I sat at the desk, spread a sheet of white paper, and wrote one line:
Dad, Mom, I finally became the child you always wanted: Quiet, obedient, and never leaving this house.
I took the utility knife and walked into the bathroom.
I turned on the water.
The water in the bathtub rose over my bruised shoulders and my chapped, cracked hands.
It felt wonderful.
I raised the knife. I didn’t hesitate.
There was even a thrill of impatient relief.
I didn’t feel the pain.
I only felt my body getting lighter, little by little.
The rules, the accusations, the beatings, the sheer weight of being their child—it was all draining away through the wounds.
Outside, fireworks exploded.
It was morning.
It was the second day of the New Year.
Happy New Year, Jamie.
🌟 Continue the story here
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My sister told my stalker I was into BDSM and captive love scenarios.
So he locked me in the moldy basement of his rental unit.
I slept in a dog cage, allowed a sip of water and a few bites of stale bread only at his discretion.
By the time I escaped, I’d missed my college exams and the starvation had given me stomach cancer.
My sister, Phoebe, looped her arm through my honors student boyfriend’s, Cameron, and winked at me, a playful, cruel gesture.
“Did you enjoy the thrill, big sister? That sweet, sweet taste of being a captive little wife?”
“You submissive types love that, don’t you? Not like Cameron and me, we have to stick to the power-couple path.”
In the end, she tipped off the psycho to my hiding spot.
I was drained of blood and transformed into a horrifyingly exquisite doll.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back—the day my sister stole my boyfriend.
I looked at the perfectly charming, sun-kissed young man who was my stalker.
A slow smile curled on my lips. “Tell me, Silas. Are you willing to be my good dog?”
…
1
He was visibly blindsided by the question.
The ever-present, easy smile that was his camouflage flickered, replaced by a momentary panic and deep confusion.
But I wasn’t looking at the panic. I was looking past it. In the frantic swirl of his gaze, I caught a flash of something that shouldn’t have been there: a flicker of raw, pathological excitement.
A sickness.
I watched the slight bob of his throat beneath his pristine white collar, the light of madness reflecting in his dark eyes. It was the same light that had guided my nightmares for so long.
In my past life, it had taken only a single malicious lie from my sister to unleash him. He had taken me—the girl who was kindly tutoring him—and locked me in that dank basement, choking me, abusing me with a systematic cruelty I still couldn’t process.
To keep me awake, to satisfy his twisted obsession, he would force me to calculate the answer to a math problem every three seconds.
In that dark, airless memory, I learned that seven was the maximum number of ribs you could have broken by a shovel and still be conscious, and that exposing exactly six to eight teeth made for the most socially acceptable smile.
All thanks to my dear, sweet sister.
Now, reborn, I finally understood the rules of the game. Against a psychopath like Silas Thorne, you had to be the bigger monster.
When I saw the excitement in his eyes threaten to break free, I knew it was time to pull back the leash.
I shrugged, hoisting my book bag nonchalantly. “Just kidding. Forget I said anything.”
I started to walk toward the library entrance, but he moved with terrifying speed. His hand shot out and clamped around my wrist, pulling me back.
When I turned, the fleeting panic was gone. In its place was a singular, ink-black focus. His eyes were locked on mine.
The next second, he met my gaze, then quickly unclasped the belt he wore, wrapping the leather tightly around his own throat.
As the shadow of a smile touched my lips, he sank to his knees.
Like a child eager for praise, he whispered a single, charged word: “Mistress.”
Just as I reached out to ruffle his perfectly styled hair, a familiar voice—the last one I wanted to hear—rang out behind me.
“Kendall… what… what are you doing?!”
It was Cameron, my boyfriend of three years.
He was staring, his eyes wide with disbelief, holding my sister’s hand and juggling a ridiculous, artisanal green smoothie he’d deliberately driven across town to buy for her.
2
Cameron instinctively looked down at the man kneeling at my feet.
His face registered an entirely new level of shock, a type of panic I’d never seen from the controlled, academic golden boy.
Before he could demand an explanation, Phoebe gasped in mock horror. “Oh! Sister? I never knew…”
“You’ve been playing so dirty behind Cameron’s back?”
Then, pretending to recover, she smoothed things over for me, turning to Cameron with fake concern.
“No… wait.”
“Cameron, we must be misunderstanding Kendall.”
“She must have some kind of profound stress. Maybe she’s just dealing with the pressure of the Presidential Scholarship by…”
“By letting off a little steam like this?”
Looking at the thinly veiled, triumphant mockery in her eyes, I felt my heart begin to incinerate.
I remembered the past, when she’d handed Silas the carving knife and asked me, a cruel smirk on her face, “What now, little wife? Ready to be stuffed and mounted?”
The suppressed rage made my body tremble, but I locked it down. I placed my hand on Silas’s head, stroking his hair gently.
“Don’t listen to them, good dog.”
“What I feel for you is far more than ‘letting off steam.’”
Silas froze.
He glanced at me, then wasted no time in establishing his claim. Ignoring the crowds of students around us, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. Hard.
For a moment, a metallic, coppery taste filled my mouth as he devoured every gasp of air I had left.
When he finally pulled back, he looked straight at Cameron, a satisfied, predatory expression on his face.
“What’s wrong, Mistress?”
“Someone’s staring at me like they want to murder me.”
“Surely my Mistress won’t abandon me for him?”
Seeing the raw, incandescent fury in Cameron’s expression, I smiled and replied, “Of course not.”
This blatant, public provocation shattered Cameron’s usual polished composure. He threw his head back and yelled at me, shame and anger overwhelming him.
“Kendall! You know this is a critical tutoring period for Phoebe!”
“Did you seriously bring this… this trash here just to humiliate us?”
“Do you think this is funny?!”
Cameron’s outburst caused Phoebe to frown at me in disappointment. “Sister, I know you’re upset that Cameron is focusing on my applications.”
“But you shouldn’t use your relationships to act out! What makes you any different from those trashy, shameless sluts?”
Cameron immediately cut off her ‘well-meaning’ monologue, glaring at me.
“Enough.”
“Some people are only fit to live in the gutter. We don’t need to be dragged down by a tramp like her.”
Then, he took Phoebe’s hand and stormed away.
But just before they turned the corner, I caught the shadow of a triumphant smirk on Phoebe’s face. She looked like she knew exactly what my future held.
Too bad. In this life, I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
3
That same day.
In the study lounge booth right next to the one where Cameron was helping Phoebe with her prep, Silas and I kissed with a blistering heat.
The gasps and soft sounds of our activity were so loud they practically drilled into Cameron’s booth.
The sound of his rage climaxed when he smashed his expensive fountain pen on the table.
Just as things were about to spiral out of control, I bit Silas’s lip.
He winced, his brow furrowed, and he looked at me with displeasure. “What is it, Mistress?”
“Are you still worried about the brother next door?”
“Or did the sound of his tantrum disrupt your pleasure?”
He smoothed out his expression, showing two tiny, almost boyish canines, and I was momentarily stunned.
Because of the trauma of my past life, I had never really looked at Silas. I had never noticed how truly beautiful his features were.
His long, slightly curled lashes softened the pathological edge in his eyes. He looked like a finely carved sculpture.
Compared to Cameron’s clean-cut, predictable handsomeness, Silas was a revelation.
But I snapped out of the trance quickly. I knew exactly what kind of terrifying creature lurked beneath that perfect exterior.
When I didn’t answer, his strong, articulate hand slammed me back against the wall.
The muted thump made the study table in the next booth vibrate.
Just then, Cameron’s patience finally ran out.
He threw his textbook down and angrily hammered on the dividing wooden wall.
Silas, however, met Cameron’s rage with an infuriating calmness.
“Do you need something, Mr. Honor Student?” he asked, a flirtatious lightness in his voice. “Perhaps you need my Mistress to enlighten you on a difficult question?”
He stepped slightly aside, making a mocking ‘after you’ gesture.
That playful smirk succeeded in humiliating Cameron.
“This is a study lounge!” Cameron hissed, his teeth clenched in fury. “It’s not a place for you two to hook up!”
He slammed the door and stormed back into his booth with Phoebe.
The next second, I heard heavy breathing and soft, breathy sounds of “no” and “don’t” coming from the other side of the wall.
I gathered my things and started to stand up.
That’s when a solid, powerful hand clamped around my throat.
The suffocating pressure instantly intensified. Silas’s calm mask dissolved, replaced by the stark, terrifying madness I remembered so well.
“Mistress,” he whispered, his eyes blazing with a deranged intensity.
“You can’t just tease someone and then walk away. Even if I am your dog, a mad dog will bite.”
Staring into his almost pathologically focused eyes, I felt no fear. I just asked him, flatly, “Did that feel good?”
Silas blinked, clearly taken aback.
I pressed on, my voice steady and normal. “The taste of defying your Mistress.”
“Did it feel good, Silas?”
That single question successfully introduced a tremor of panic into his gaze. As my calm, assessing look held him, he slowly released his grip.
Then, he knelt down, cupping my feet in his large hands.
After a long silence, his eyes, suddenly vulnerable and flickering, lifted to mine. “Mistress.”
“I’m the best boy. Please don’t abandon me.”
I finally allowed a genuine, though cold, smile to surface. I gently ruffled his soft, messy hair.
I replied softly, “Good dog. I won’t abandon you.”
“Ever.”
A brilliant, utterly sincere smile bloomed on Silas’s face.
Just as we started to leave, Cameron and Phoebe, looking disheveled, emerged from their booth.
Meeting my cold gaze, Cameron gave a short, cruel laugh, revealing a hickey on his neck.
A flushed Phoebe rolled her eyes at me. She leaned into Cameron, complaining coquettishly about how forceful he’d been. “Now my legs feel like jelly.”
She gave me a smug, sidelong look, then wrapped her arms around Cameron’s neck as he lifted her up to carry her.
“You’re the expert here, sister,” she taunted.
“You guys made the entire table wobble, yet you look completely fine.”
Then, she focused her intent on Silas. “I really envy you, Silas.”
“To get someone already well-trained right from the start.”
“Not like Cameron and me. We have to take things slowly, even with the most basic positions.”
I was physically sickened. Then, she paused, tapping her chin with a faux-innocent look.
“Oh, right.”
“Cameron just promised to give me your early acceptance scholarship slot.”
“You’re not mad, are you, sister? After all, a flirtatious little wife like you will just end up focused on domesticity anyway.”
“Not like Cameron and me. We have to stick to the hard path of the power couple.”
Phoebe’s silvery laughter faded as the memory of my past life flooded back: I had given up my hard-won competition scholarship spot for Cameron when he’d begged me.
He had then turned around and passed it to Phoebe as a grand gesture, and the two of them became the celebrated golden couple heading off to the Ivy League, while I was left for dead.
Reborn, there was no way I would let Cameron steal what was mine.
I’d just left the principal’s office.
Moments later, the pair of them blocked the doorway of my classroom, staring at me with disbelief. “Kendall!” Cameron sputtered.
“You have gone too far!”
4
Seeing that I had made absolutely no effort to hide the fact that I had reclaimed my scholarship, Cameron was shaking with anger.
“You know Phoebe’s grades aren’t guaranteed for an Ivy League spot! Why would you deliberately hog her scholarship?”
“What is your problem?!”
He actually made me laugh. Taking back what was mine was, in his mind, “hogging.”
I suppressed the nausea he caused me and shrugged indifferently at the pair of them. “I simply retrieved what belongs to me.”
“Is there an issue with that?”
I then smiled, meeting Cameron’s enraged eyes. “You’ve been trying so hard to tutor Phoebe. Isn’t that because you want her to prove herself with her own hard work and talent?”
“A shortcut like this doesn’t suit her ‘Girlboss’ image. Why, I thought I was doing you a favor by helping her earn it the hard way. Why are you upset?”
I turned to leave, but as I passed him, Cameron grabbed my wrist with a crushing grip.
The commotion drew the attention of other students, but he intentionally raised his voice to embarrass me.
“Kendall!”
“You—”
Even with an audience, I didn’t mince words. “That’s right. I did it on purpose. What are you going to do about it?”
My dismissive attitude immediately sent Phoebe into a fit of tears. Red-eyed, she pouted at Cameron. “Cameron, it’s fine.”
“If my sister is so determined to ruin things for us, I’ll let it go. I won’t let you beg her for my sake.”
The display instantly earned her the sympathy of the surrounding male students. “Kendall, that’s going too far!”
“So you’re smart—who cares? What kind of future will a little wife like you have, even at an Ivy?”
“Unlike Phoebe, who’s on the fast track to being a powerful woman! How dare you hold onto that spot?”
“You don’t deserve it!”
Encouraged by the crowd, Cameron glared at me, his voice rough with resentment. “You want to make a scene? Fine!”
“Today, I’m going to let everyone see what kind of person you really are!”
He stormed toward the rushing principal, full of self-righteous fury.
In front of all the students, he declared, “I want to file a formal complaint!”
“Kendall has engaged in immoral conduct! She was hooking up with another student in the study lounge!”
Phoebe followed him, her chin held high as she launched into her own self-serving ‘Girlboss’ manifesto.
The principal, however, interrupted them with a scowl. “What are you two doing?! Do you realize the trouble you’re in?”
“The school is considering canceling your exams and moving to expel you both!”
Cameron and Phoebe froze, horrified. “What?! How is that possible?!”
Before they could fully process the shock, the class chat group exploded with activity.
Reading the stream of messages, Cameron’s face turned chalk-white. He looked at me and screamed, utterly undone:
“Kendall!”
“What the hell have you done?!”
Seeing the grainy video of him and Phoebe in the study lounge circulating wildly, I merely shrugged and smiled. “Nothing much.”
“Just doing my part to ensure our student body has a quiet, dignified environment for their studies.”
The loud, unmistakable sounds of their heavy breathing echoing from the phones of students in the hallway caused Phoebe to completely lose it.
She dropped to the ground, screaming hysterically.
“It wasn’t me!”
“That person wasn’t me!”
She grabbed one student’s phone and smashed it, trembling. “Don’t look!”
“None of you are allowed to look!”
Despite their frantic denials, the principal dragged them both off to his office.
I thought the two of them would face a social media firestorm.
But I underestimated the power of the Cameron family’s money. Within half an hour of their parents arriving, all traces of the video had been purged from the school networks and the internet.
Even their impending expulsion was quickly rescinded.
That night, on the walk home, Cameron confronted me, a clear threat in his voice. “Kendall!”
“Don’t think this is over. You dared to bring shame to Phoebe? You should expect to pay a very heavy price.”
Phoebe looked at me with pure malice. “Sister, you disappoint me. People with character flaws like yours belong in the lowest pit of hell.”
Meeting Phoebe’s wicked glare, I knew it was time to give them a preview of hell.
After they left, I finally made the call.
The next morning, Silas, who was waiting to pick me up, was holding a beautifully wrapped gift box.
Inside was the brooch he had recently given me.
The moment he dropped the box in shock, the meticulously prepared “gift” I had nestled within the red raffia ribbon rolled out.
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My wife was a scientist of renown. A public figure.
In interviews, when the subject of emotion came up, she’d say:
“I don’t believe I am a suitable partner.”
“I would never prioritize love. Under no circumstances.”
“I am only willing to dedicate my finite time to the infinite pursuit of science.”
After the segment aired, the world was full of praise for her fearless devotion to her work.
I, meanwhile, quietly tucked away my medical report.
I had cancer. Stage four.
The days she spent in London, accepting her prestigious award.
Those were my last days on this earth.
1
The final sensation before my consciousness dissolved was the blinding, searing light of the operating room lamp.
When I felt my spirit detach and rise, I was able to see the operating theater in its entirety.
I saw the monitor next to my bed—the line that tracked my heart rate had flattened into a single, merciless stroke.
In that moment, I realized with startling clarity.
I was dead.
2
I don’t know why, but I had become an invisible presence, able to drift freely.
Just this morning, I had been coherent enough to talk to Serena Ashworth.
She was taking a flight at noon for a major academic conference overseas.
So, I had gotten up at seven to make her breakfast.
For someone so outwardly minimalist and detached, Serena had very specific tastes.
Her sourdough toast had to be just a little crisp, and her milk had to be steaming, not scalded.
My daughter, Paige, used to joke: “Dad, you’ve spoiled Mom with all this meticulous care.”
I never argued with her. After taking care of Serena so thoroughly for two or three decades, even the most troublesome tasks had simply become habit.
3
“Serena, I heard the temperature is going to drop sharply in London because of that Arctic front.”
“I packed an extra down vest for you.”
“Your gum is in the left pocket of your carry-on. You always get altitude sickness on the plane; chew a piece, it helps.”
“And don’t stay up too late. Your heart’s been bothering you, hasn’t it? Get some rest…”
“It’s a Polar Continental air mass.”
Her voice cut me off, sharp and sudden. I looked up dully, meeting her clear, bright eyes.
The phrase beauty unmarred by time fit Serena perfectly. Her features were exquisite; she was nearing middle age, yet the years had left no trace on her.
That coldness, which she had carried since she was a young woman, could still reach straight to the core of my heart.
She was correcting the imprecision of my opening statement. The “Arctic front” I’d mentioned was precisely a “Polar Continental air mass.”
But I was only trying to show concern. I lowered my gaze, smoothing down the lapel of her jacket.
“I know.”
“Travel safe, Serena.”
She turned and walked past me. She assumed I had the afternoon free.
That wasn’t true.
She was heading across the Atlantic for a major academic presentation.
I also had a meeting to attend.
It was my pre-operative consultation.
The doctors said the success rate for the surgery was only twenty percent.
4
When the doctor informed me that my gastric cancer had been discovered too late and had already metastasized throughout my body, I sat in the hospital corridor for an entire afternoon.
A television mounted in the corner was playing a rerun of Today’s Talk, the interview Serena had done a few days prior.
The woman with the chillingly cool gaze didn’t want to waste much time on anything besides research.
Even when asked about her husband, she only offered a terse dismissal.
“I am an obtuse person.”
“I don’t understand love. My husband… he is a responsibility, mostly.”
“Anniversaries? They’re mere formalism. I’d rather spend that time running a few more experiments than preparing for such a thing.”
It was precisely the kind of thing Serena would say.
Forget anniversaries; she didn’t even celebrate birthdays.
When I was younger, I used to cling to the hope that she might one day surprise me and wish me a happy birthday.
But I never waited long enough to see her arrive.
The brain that could memorize countless data points was stubbornly unwilling to remember the four digits of my birthday.
Eventually, I stopped waiting. I’d sit alone at the table and prepare a bowl of long-life noodles, marking the day myself.
Serena was an iron tree; she would never bloom. It took me over twenty years to finally admit that truth.
It was only in the last few years that I began to feel differently about myself.
Call it exhaustion, or surrender.
Funnily enough, she was she, and I was I.
This truth, which she had laid out plainly for me decades ago, I was only now truly understanding.
I folded the prognosis into a crease-covered square, put it in my pocket, and only called my daughter.
5
Paige and I were close.
Because Serena never really liked children, and her only daughter showed absolutely no aptitude for science.
After listening to my detached, emotionless account, Paige’s voice caught in her throat.
“Dad…”
“Did you tell Mom…”
“I didn’t tell her.”
I looked down at the granite floor.
“I don’t want to tell her.”
She was her, and I was I. Besides, what difference would it make if she knew I was sick?
Would she set aside the research she was madly pursuing day and night to care for me?
“Paige.”
“Dad doesn’t know how much longer he has to live.”
“When I’m gone, don’t tell your mother.”
I lowered my head to smooth out the creases in my shirt. Why should I bring something that Serena was utterly indifferent to, to clutter her life?
“Okay.”
Paige answered from the other end of the line.
“But Dad, honestly, Mom doesn’t deserve you.”
“She truly doesn’t deserve someone as good as you.”
…
6
My spirit drifted through the hospital corridor.
I saw the surgeon exit the operating room, shaking his head regretfully. Paige was slumped, sobbing by the bedside.
She had brought me to the hospital at noon and had stayed outside the OR until night, but her father had failed and would not open his eyes again.
She was crying so hard, and I was fluttering frantically right next to her, but she couldn’t see me.
I wanted so badly to hold her, to tell her not to cry, just like when she was little.
Paige had done so well. She hadn’t become a scientist, as her mother wished, but her paintings were loved by many, and she was scheduled to have an exhibition in Italy later that year.
I sat next to her, looking up at the night sky, singing to her as I used to do when she was a child.
She couldn’t hear me, but I felt that somehow, she would know her father was there.
…
Suddenly, I was swept away by a current, carried to a place very far away.
The senses of a spirit after death are bizarrely unique. I could perceive what was happening at the hospital after my death, yet at the same time, I arrived at the conference hall where Serena was presenting.
Her conference was scheduled to last seven days.
A woman like her could easily become the focal point of any gathering.
Young, beautiful, with a resume that was practically unprecedented and unlikely to be repeated.
In truth, Serena had always been the center of attention since childhood.
In college, the boys who chased her were as numerous as fish in a river.
In that slightly more traditional era, boys would boldly wait outside her dorm building.
Each time, she would look at them with that same look of absolute distance.
Dressed in the simplest white blouse, textbooks tucked under her arm, she would look down at them with a restrained, detached air:
“I’m sorry, I don’t like you.”
The words were utterly without mercy.
What many girls proudly saw as “being popular,” for her was nothing more than a simple nuisance.
She was already winning national awards left and right back then.
Her name was frequently on the lips of professors. I was one of the students who looked up to her, always on the absolute periphery.
I only dared to glimpse the edge of her shirt when we exited the dining hall.
Serena had no idea that I had been secretly crushing on her for three or four years before we met through an arranged introduction.
And I certainly never expected that three years after graduation.
The woman my family arranged for me to meet would be her.
“I won’t have a person I like.”
That was the first thing Serena said to me when we met.
“If I have to say I like anything, I like experiments, mathematics—nothing to do with people, in short.”
She frowned slightly, yet even this couldn’t diminish her dazzling beauty.
She explained herself concisely.
“We are not discussing romance.”
“We are simply ensuring the existence of an heir. Do you understand?”
…
She was very clear back then.
It was I who decided I could accept it. It was I who wanted to be with her.
I kept thinking that we had all the time in the world, that one day her clear, unflinching gaze would finally land on me.
I kept thinking that she—
would fall in love with me.
Was it sheer arrogance? To pin the hope of all my daily, tireless efforts on that slim chance of love emerging over time?
My spirit drifted to her side.
I watched her exchange serious words with the scholars opposite her.
She was tall, cool, and elegant.
“Wasn’t I foolish?”
I rested my hand in my pocket, looking at her.
“They say smart people look at ordinary people the way ordinary people look at fools.”
Meanwhile, my body was being driven away in a hearse to the crematorium.
The academic symposium was buzzing with life.
“Serena, do you think I was truly a fool?”
7
Serena took a photo of the London night view and sent it to my phone.
Of course, I could no longer reply.
Paige really hadn’t told her mother about my death; she had even blocked Serena from seeing the obituary I’d sent out via text.
That was fine. I’d clung to her for too long when I was alive; I didn’t want to trouble her in death by making her change her flight.
Besides, I didn’t think she particularly wanted to see me one last time.
The London night view was beautiful. But for some reason, that night, she stared at her phone for a long time on the windy balcony.
I drifted closer to see, and I suddenly realized: In the past, whenever she sent me a message, I always replied instantly.
When she traveled abroad, she would casually send me a few photos. I would reply with an emoji I’d saved from Paige—a big thumbs-up, or two, with the words “So awesome!” written on them.
This time, she waited a long time. I didn’t reply.
“Dr. Ashworth, it’s raining again outside.”
“Please come back in, you’ll catch a chill.”
A young man’s voice called out behind her—one of her students. In the academic world, some things are silently understood.
The student stepped forward, a little too intimately, to drape a jacket over her shoulders, but she gently pushed him away.
8
“Fish and chips.”
“It’s awful.”
Serena sent me a picture of the restaurant.
My remains were being placed into the cremation furnace.
“Raining again.”
Serena sent a picture of the view outside her hotel window.
Friends and family were attending my burial service.
“Presentation tonight.”
“Flight back tomorrow.”
Serena stood on the stage, the lenses of many cameras focused on her.
I used my somewhat rusty memory of technical English to understand the presentation.
Her research achievement seemed to have added a brilliant new chapter to human development.
There she was, standing in the spotlight, shining in her domain, never failing to exceed expectations.
I suppose that was the reason I had loved her for so many years.
But that was my love for her; it wasn’t her love for me.
The spring rain fell softly. As my ashes were being buried next to a simple square tombstone, I finally understood this truth.
9
That night, when the conference ended, Serena tried calling my number. When the third call went unanswered, she changed her flight to one leaving at midnight.
She frowned the entire flight; her face was even colder than usual.
It made sense. For years, I had been available to her whenever she called. It must have been disorienting to suddenly be unable to reach me.
Normally, I would always pick her up at the airport whenever she returned home.
I would be sure to arrive an hour or two early and just wait there for her.
These were also habits. A person can’t bear to see their beloved inconvenienced. I always did my utmost to make her life comfortable and perfectly arranged.
But this time, she had to walk through the deserted terminal alone and hail an expensive cab at four or five in the morning.
She arrived home at six a.m. She knocked first, but no one answered. She used her fingerprint to unlock the door and pushed it open.
The house was empty.
Everything was just as she had left it. The sink was spotless, the dining table bare.
Only, the slippers I usually wore were sitting by the entryway.
She unfastened the jacket she’d been too rushed to change out of, walking around the unlit house, circle after circle.
The bedroom, the balcony, the bathroom.
Finally, she pulled open the door to the washing machine.
…
Finding nothing, she paused, pulled out her phone, and called me.
After a long wait, she was met with a busy signal.
She sighed, sliding her thumb down the list to another number.
Paige’s.
Their relationship had been strained since before Paige was a teenager.
In recent years, Paige only came home to see me, with no intention of engaging with her mother.
Serena’s attitude was much the same: she was consumed by her research, which essentially meant she didn’t want to be bothered with raising a child.
She had been absent during the most crucial stages of her daughter’s development, so Paige never had a kind word for her.
“What do you want?”
“Where is your father?”
Both of their voices were sharp, but Paige hesitated.
Then came a strange laugh, an indescribable sound. She repeated the question in a low murmur.
“Where is my father?”
“My father is gone.”
“Gone where?”
Serena’s frown deepened. The morning sun had just begun to fall on her brow.
I heard the raw, choked edge in my daughter’s voice on the other end of the line.
“He didn’t go anywhere.”
“Dad passed away, Mom.”
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