Category: English

1 To run away with me, my girlfriend, Sarah, agreed to have a child with her childhood friend, Liam, to carry on his family line. After their first son was born, she told me the baby was too young to be without his mother. She asked me to wait until he was three. Three years passed. Then she said his family wanted a daughter to make the family “complete.” She asked me to wait a little longer. I waited and waited. I watched 1,460 sunrises and sunsets over Mount Rainier. When I finally thought we could leave, I found she had scheduled a vasectomy for me. When I stood before her with the surgical notice and my hiking pack, she clung to Liam and pleaded with me, “His grandparents want a third grandchild. Can you just wait a little longer?” The moment she said it, the world spun, and I fell down the stairs. In my last moments of fading consciousness, I saw Sarah looking down at me, her gaze cold and distant. “This is what you get, Matt, for not knowing your place.” I slowly closed my eyes, my heart finally dead. It was time to leave. Alone. “Well, well, if it isn’t the leech who’s always clinging to Miss Spencer. I heard he’s been trying to worm his way into the family.” “See? Karma’s a bitch. The Spencers gave specific instructions: no holding back during the procedure. Just castrate him.” “Once he’s got nothing down there, let’s see how he bothers Miss Spencer then! Serves him right!” I opened my eyes and tried to sit up, but a sharp, piercing pain shot through my lower body. Hearing me stir, the two nurses by my bed fell silent, but the contempt in their eyes was unconcealed. I was used to these stinging glares. “How long can I stay here?” I asked. The heavier nurse’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Mr. Hayes, you can be discharged right now. Of course, you can stay as long as you like. We will be happy to serve you.” She then pulled the other nurse away, her mocking voice trailing behind her. “You see that? A grown man with red eyes, about to cry? Who’s he putting on a show for? Is he waiting for Miss Spencer to come? Give me a break. She’s got the handsome Mr. Lawson. Why would she come looking for him? He must be delusional.” I lowered my gaze and lifted the blanket, looking at the bloodstains on my pants. A bitter smile touched my lips. They were mistaken. I wasn’t waiting for Sarah to come. I was trying to hide for a few days. It was her ovulation period. Every month at this time, they would be inseparable, their passion unbridled and on full display. Every time, the sounds of their lovemaking were like daggers, stabbing me over and over. But I couldn’t say a word. Sure enough, ten days later, when I limped through the door, my face pale, they were on the sofa, wrapped in a post-coital kiss. Liam was kissing Sarah’s neck, his eyes meeting mine with a provocative smile. He suddenly bit down harder. Sarah gasped, a mix of protest and pleasure in her voice. “Liam, we’ve been at it all morning. You’re insatiable. The pregnancy test is already positive!” She picked up the test from the table, bouncing with joy. “Two lines! Liam, I’m pregnant with your third child!” 2 Then, she pouted and playfully hit his chest. “Oh no, you were so rough just now. What if you hurt the baby? You’re terrible!” Liam wrapped his arms around her, his hand gently caressing her stomach. “Of course not. Daddy will be gentle from now on. I won’t scare our little one.” Sarah leaned against him, her face radiant with the joy of impending motherhood. It was a stark contrast to the cold, calculating woman who had drugged me and sent me for the procedure. Even though I knew this was coming, my heart still clenched in pain. Sarah finally noticed me standing at the door. She froze, instinctively pulling away from Liam. Her voice was tinged with apology and guilt. “Matt, you heard? We didn’t have a choice. Grandpa said the company is too much for just two children to handle. A third heir is a safer bet.” “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have to bother Liam, who’s already so busy, to make a baby with me.” She gave Liam an apologetic kiss, completely oblivious to my ashen face. Liam deepened the kiss, chuckling as he ran his fingers through her damp hair. “It’s nothing, Sarah. As long as it makes you happy.” As they were about to get lost in each other again, a wave of resentment surged through me. I stood up straight and interrupted them. “Then why isn’t my child good enough?” Sarah’s expression became complicated, her brow furrowed. “Matt, what are you talking about?” I gave a humorless smile and asked again, “Sarah, wouldn’t my child be your child too? Not worthy of being born?” Before she could answer, a toy car came flying from upstairs and hit me on the forehead. An angry, childish voice followed. “Not worthy! Not worthy! You’re a creepy old man! Stop bothering my mommy! You’re not allowed to bully my mommy!” I stumbled back a few steps. Just as I regained my balance, a small boy came running at full speed and knocked me over. It was Sarah and Liam’s three-year-old son. “Creepy old man! How dare you come back! I won’t let you in my house! Get out!” He started punching and kicking at my groin. The area was already a mess of infection and decay from the botched surgery. If I hadn’t gone to a clinic in time, I might have lost everything. There was no way I could withstand a child’s frantic assault. I scrambled to get away, my body trembling with pain. Sarah saw the beads of sweat rolling down my forehead and quickly pulled her son away. “Leo, is that how you talk to your Uncle Matt? Apologize!” But Liam caught her raised hand. He stepped between us, frowning. “Sarah, why are you being so harsh with him? Have you forgotten what you promised me?” “Besides, how much strength can a little kid have…” Liam trailed off, shooting me a disgusted look. The concern on Sarah’s face faded, replaced by disappointment. She turned to me, her voice laced with exasperation. “Matt, you’re a man. It was just a small procedure. How can it still hurt after all this time? Are you really going to hold a grudge against a child?” “Besides, you were the one who said something inappropriate. Don’t say it again.” I bit my trembling lip. 3 Seeing I had no intention of backing down, Sarah’s face grew stern. She pushed me towards the nursery. “Alright, alright, Matt, go take care of the baby.” “You’ve been looking after her since she was born. She’s more attached to you than to me or Liam now. When she cries, no one else can soothe her. It’s exhausting.” I stood up, the pain shooting through me, and met her gaze. “Sarah, I told you, I’m not doing it anymore. I’m not your nanny.” But as if on cue, the family’s old housekeeper, Mrs. Lee, rushed out and shoved Sarah’s newborn daughter into my arms. “Matt? Oh, you’re finally back! Miss Spencer said you had a little procedure. Why stay in the hospital so long? A grown man, so delicate!” She shot me a disdainful glance. “Quick, quick, take her! These old bones of mine are about to fall apart. There, she’s all yours now. Take good care of her.” Then she shooed Sarah and the others out the door. “Miss Spencer, Mr. Lawson, what are you still dawdling for? Did you forget you’re taking Leo to the family dinner tonight? Look at the time, let’s go, let’s go!” I tried to hand the baby back, but Mrs. Lee blocked my way like a brick wall, escorting Sarah out. Her eyebrows were raised high, her expression as fierce as a cornered animal. “You leech, what do you think you’re doing? Back in my day, a man with designs on the young miss would have been crippled and thrown to the pigs! Know your place!” “Pah!” She spat on my face, and the door slammed shut. The only sound was the baby’s piercing cries, which felt like they were about to shatter my heart. I stared blankly at the child in my arms, wondering how my life had come to this. My wandering gaze fell on the photo wall in the living room. I realized that, at some point, the photos of Sarah and me hiking in the mountains had been slowly replaced by family portraits of her, Liam, and their son. There was no trace of me left. Only a single, small photo of a snow-capped mountain remained. It was Mount Rainier, the place where Sarah and I had fallen in love, the place where we were supposed to get married. Just before we were set to leave, her grandparents, disgusted by my humble origins, had insisted she marry Liam Lawson, the heir to the Lawson fortune. Sarah had run away from home. We were already in Seattle, about to head into the mountains. But a call from the ICU pulled her back. When she reappeared before me, she was rail-thin, her eyes swollen from crying. She fell to her knees. “Matt, I’m sorry. My grandparents raised me. I can’t let them die. But I can’t lose you either!” “I made a deal. If I have a son with Liam, they’ll let me go.” “Matt, please, don’t be angry, don’t leave me. Liam is just a means to an end. You’re the one I truly love! Just bear with me for ten months, okay?” The first time, Sarah cried in my arms, clinging to me desperately. At the last moment, she pushed me away and stumbled into Liam’s room. She was back in my room in less than a minute. 4 The second time, she was gone for half an hour. The third time, she stayed the night. The fourth, the fifth… Slowly, she went from insisting I wear a condom to forbidding me from touching her at all, saying she was afraid of “contaminating” the Spencer and Lawson bloodlines. She told me to be patient, that it would all be over after she gave birth. I sat in my room, waiting in bitter silence until dawn, but she never came back. I waited through the first child, the second. I watched 1,460 sunrises and sunsets over Mount Rainier. Sarah and Liam grew closer, more and more like a real married couple. And I, a man who had traveled the world, had become their nanny and childminder. I had fought, I had argued, I had even cried in frustration. Sarah would always soothe me, then go right back to Liam’s side. Now, a third child was on the way. I should have seen it long ago. I should have left. I sat in a daze until late at night. Sarah’s family finally returned, laughing and talking. The moment they opened the door, they froze. Her daughter was on the sofa, having cried herself into a state of exhaustion. The photos on the wall were all torn down, shredded to pieces. “Matt! I told you to take care of our daughter! Why isn’t she making a sound? Are you trying to kill her?” Sarah lunged at me and slapped me across the face, her expression contorted with rage. Liam rushed to pick up the baby and shoved her into my arms. “Matt! Just because you’re sad about losing your chance to have children, it doesn’t give you the right to take it out on my daughter!” “Get back in there and feed her, change her diaper!” But I was unmoved. I even smiled. “I told you, I’m not your nanny anymore. Don’t you understand?” Liam was stunned, then he laughed coldly, his finger practically poking me in the eye. “Sarah, you see? I told you he was holding a grudge! Has it been easy for me these past few years? I’ve put up with the gossip, raised three children with you without any official status, all to make your love story happen!” “And in the end, I’m the bad guy!” Sarah gritted her teeth and slapped me again, her eyes blazing. “Matt, do you have any idea how busy Liam is? Do you know how proud he is? He’s not even my boyfriend, but he’s had three children with me, all for you!” But if she would just open her eyes, she would see that the “busy” man she was talking about was practically glued to her 24/7, and still looked as vibrant as ever. And I was like a candle about to burn out, the dark circles under my eyes reaching down to my mouth, all because I had spent the last three months pulling all-nighters, cleaning up after her daughter. And now, I couldn’t even have children of my own. And what’s more, I was never the one who asked him to have children in the first place. Why was I the one paying the price? My expression was as dead as my heart. Sarah took it as a provocation and grew even angrier. “Can’t you be more understanding? My grandparents were starting to like you because you took such good care of the kids. Our plan was so close to succeeding. What is your problem now?” “Don’t you want to go to Mount Rainier with me anymore?” That threat again. The last flicker of love in my heart finally extinguished. I fought back the tears from the slap and said, my voice filled with a strange sense of release, “No, Sarah. I don’t want to go with you anymore.”

It was the company’s monthly holiday, and my boyfriend Aaron’s personal secretary posted a picture on her social media feed. The caption read: “Sure, you’re on top during the day at the office, but at night, I’m the one in charge!” The photo showed her, a woman named Chelsea, lounging on a waterbed strewn with rose petals. And kneeling at her feet, massaging them with an almost reverent expression, was Aaron. The ever-serious, no-nonsense director of our department. Tucked into his pocket was a brand-new, gleaming gold necklace. That very morning, I had given him the gold to make that necklace, begging him to finally go public with our five-year relationship. He’d taken it without a word, but when I tried to snap a picture of us together, he’d snatched my phone and smashed it on the ground. His eyes had been filled with pure contempt. “Don’t you own a mirror? Don’t you have a puddle to look in? You’re just a low-class, trashy piece of work, aren’t you? You’d do anything to ruin me.” Suddenly, the last five years—my quiet obedience to his strict “no office romance” rule—felt like a pathetic joke. The next day, I sent a text to my father. “I give up. I’m coming home to take over the family business.” … After confirming that the gold necklace was indeed the one I had paid for, I sent a message to the company-wide group chat. “Wishing Director Evans and Chelsea a long and happy life together.” A few minutes later, Chelsea replied, claiming it was just a game of ‘Truth or Dare,’ a command from her “master.” Then Aaron, who had been MIA all day, finally appeared. Are you insane? What the hell are you posting in the group chat? You’re both women, why do you have to be so damn jealous? Are you that desperate for a man? Before I could even type a response, he sent another message, a string of laughing emojis. What are you good for besides causing me trouble? Why don’t you just crawl back into your mother’s womb and stay there? His vulgar words still hit me like a punch to the gut, even though I should have been used to it by now. Disgusting. Utterly disgusting. The memory of me, just that morning, begging him to marry me, made my whole body tremble. “Forget it, Aaron,” Chelsea chimed in. “It’s my fault. I’ll go explain to Sophia right now!” “Don’t you dare!” Aaron’s voice boomed from my phone; he must have called her. Underneath the rage, I could hear a raw, unmistakable panic. “There are no cabs out there this late! Sophia, there’s a limit to your games! Do you really think I can’t crush you?” I hadn’t said a single word, but I could hear choked sobs from the other end of the line, followed by the rustling of clothes. “I’ll swim back if I have to, Aaron! Don’t stop me! I won’t let anyone spread rumors about you!” “Who gives a damn about that bitch? I’m firing her right now!” he roared. “Chelsea, you just stay here and relax. As long as I’m the director, no one is going to mess with you.” With that, he hung up. Even though I sent the word “Goodbye” less than five seconds later, he didn’t reply. Of course he didn’t. He had my notifications on silent unless it was something important. Two hours later, I had packed all my things. Every item in this apartment, from the kettle on the stove to the custom-designed feature wall in the living room, I had chosen myself. I had even bought the damn place, planning to surprise him by signing it over to him. Thank God I never told him. My phone buzzed. It was a message from Chelsea. Sophia, don’t worry, there’s nothing going on between me and Aaron. I’ve always seen him as a brother, a father figure. I would never have any improper thoughts about him. As if to prove her point, she sent two videos. One showed Aaron scrubbing her back in the bathtub. The other showed him tucking her into bed, singing a lullaby. In the past, I would have never dared to respond to such a blatant provocation. No matter what happened, I was always the one who ended up apologizing, begging for his forgiveness. Five years had worn away the passionate, hysterical girl who would fight for love. But now, I realized that my quiet endurance had been just another form of weakness. Are you itchy? I typed back. Are you sending me these because you want me to curse you out, so you can put your phone on vibrate and stick it up your ass? The “typing” bubble appeared and disappeared for a long time. See? You’re so emotional, she finally sent. I blocked her number. I didn’t sleep a wink. I just sat there, in the dark, until the first light of dawn. Then I texted my father. “I give up. I’m coming home to take over the family business.” My dad, the old man, responded with a string of flower emojis. Are you sure? You’re not messing with me? “I’m not messing with you.” A bitter smile touched my lips. Ha! I just won a five-million-dollar bet with your Uncle David! I knew it! My throat tightened. “You should have come home ages ago! You can have any man you want. Why waste your time on that one loser?” he continued. “I’ll buy that little company you work for first thing in the morning. A little toy for you to play with. How dare they bully my daughter? They must be blind!” “It’s fine, Dad.” “I want to do this myself. One day, I’ll be the one to acquire them.” The old man paused, then sighed. “You’re just like your mother.” “No matter what happens, Dad will always be here for you.” I hung up, took a deep breath, and prepared to leave. But as I opened the door, I ran right into Chelsea and Aaron. “There. Are you happy now?” Aaron strode into the apartment, his leather shoe coming down hard on my foot, grinding his heel into my instep. The pain was excruciating. I bit my lip to keep from screaming, my head ringing. I first met him during a hurricane. He’d lost his footing and was nearly blown away. The rain was so heavy that day, the water was up to our ankles. I’d grabbed him, and in the process, a piece of glass had pierced my foot, leaving a permanent scar. Aaron’s eyes widened for a second, a flash of guilt in their depths. But then he glanced over his shoulder at Chelsea, and the guilt vanished, replaced by a cold hardness. “Apologize to Chelsea.” “If it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to get back here, and she wouldn’t have gotten into that car accident.” I looked past him at Chelsea, who was standing there perfectly straight, without a single scratch on her. “Don’t you know that car almost ran over her big toe? We’re lucky she’s okay, or our lives would have been over!” Aaron’s voice was sharp, accusatory. He looked at me as if I were a murderer. “Sophia, you’d better say what I want to hear. Or else… a little country girl like you… it would be nothing for me to blacklist you from this entire industry.” “An ant needs to know its place. You can’t fight a giant. You’ve heard that before, right?” Chelsea wrapped her arms around Aaron’s waist from behind and shook her head. “Aaron, sweetie, it’s not her fault. She’s never had a proper education. A well-educated person like me shouldn’t stoop to her level. Let’s just drop it.” “What am I?” I clenched my fists, fighting the urge to slap them both. For five years, Chelsea had been like a fly buzzing around a pile of shit, constantly circling me, never letting up. “Chelsea,” I said, my voice dangerously low. “I’ve been wanting to do this for a very long time.” SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! Aaron’s face turned a deathly pale, his hands trembling with rage. “I told you to apologize!” My face was on fire, the taste of blood in my mouth. Chelsea let out a sharp, mocking laugh. Shame, rage, and a crushing helplessness flooded my veins. “Sophia, is it that hard to apologize? You’re the one who’s in the wrong!” Aaron grabbed a shoehorn from the entryway table and brought it down hard on my knee. “Chelsea is being generous by not making you kneel! And you’re still pushing it? Who the hell do you think you are?” I remembered just a few days ago, crying, begging him for forgiveness. But now, I was just tired. I just wanted to leave. Arguing with him felt beneath me. “Sophia, if you walk out that door, we’re done!” Seeing that I wasn’t backing down, a flicker of panic, almost imperceptible, crossed Aaron’s face. “Fine.” I nodded, feeling nothing, and limped out the door. Five years. Five goddamn years, all fed to a dog. Suddenly, a powerful force slammed into me from behind. I flew forward, instinctively throwing out my right hand to break my fall. A searing pain shot through my arm. I yanked it back, and a large flap of skin tore away, exposing the white muscle beneath. When I opened my eyes, I was at the bottom of the stairs, my head throbbing from where it had hit the stone steps. And Aaron, my boyfriend, was standing at the top, protectively shielding Chelsea. No concern. No worry. Just a look of cold satisfaction on his face as he pulled Chelsea back into the apartment. “Serves you right!” “You can kneel there and think about what you did. And don’t you dare get up until you understand what you did wrong!” The pain was overwhelming. I couldn’t move. I could only lie there, crumpled on the ground like a stray dog. By the time a kind neighbor found me and got me to the hospital, it was too late to avoid major surgery. My right hand. The most important tool for a designer. And I had to watch, helpless, as they drilled one steel pin after another into the shattered bones. My heart felt like it had turned to ash. Three days later, Aaron posted on his social media. It was a picture of him and Chelsea, locked in a passionate embrace. He was wearing the suit I had designed for him. The matching woman’s suit, tailored to my exact measurements, hung loosely on Chelsea’s frame, making her look like a sad, clumsy clown. Less than two minutes after he posted it, my phone rang. “Have you calmed down?” “It’s Chelsea’s birthday today. She wants to bury the hatchet. Don’t forget to get her a nice gift.” Aaron’s voice was casual, as if nothing had happened. Only the constant, throbbing pain in my hand was there to remind me. “Okay.” A nice gift… For five years, I hadn’t taken a single penny from my family. The hundred thousand dollars I had saved up, I had spent on gold to make Aaron happy. Now, after one surgery, my bank account had a balance of twenty-five cents. Chelsea wanted a nice gift? Ha. I wondered if bankrupting her would count. I made my arrangements. Right on time, I arrived at the party. Aaron stood at the door, his arm around Chelsea’s waist, looking for all the world like a newlywed couple. When they saw me, they intertwined their fingers. “Sophia, you came empty-handed?!” Aaron’s face darkened. “I should have known you had no class. Look at what you’re wearing. Rags. And all those bandages… you’re disgusting.” “You’re just here to ruin my night, aren’t you?” Chelsea couldn’t hide the glee in her eyes. She shook her head, forcing a placid expression. “It’s fine, Aaron. It’s enough that she came.” “Besides,” she added, a sly smile playing on her lips. “As long as you’re here, that’s the only gift I need.” “Although… I do have a surprise for you…” As she said the word “surprise,” she touched her stomach. Just that one gesture, and my breath caught in my throat. I clutched my phone tighter. In all our years together, Aaron had never crossed that line. Even in our most passionate moments, when I was wrapped around him, he would always pull away and take a cold shower. He said his first time was important, that he would never give it to a “gold-digger” like me. The other people at the party, all our colleagues, started to hoot and cheer. That’s when I noticed them. Aaron’s parents. And his younger brother. “Aaron,” Chelsea said, her voice soft and full of emotion. “Even though it’s my birthday, none of it would mean anything if you weren’t here.” “I know you don’t believe in marriage, but I worry about you being alone when you’re old. So… I selfishly decided to keep a part of you for myself.” She looked up at him, her eyes shining with sincerity. “The baby is two months along. It’s a girl. She’s beautiful, and she looks just like you.” Two months… My world tilted on its axis. My head felt like it was about to explode. My mother died when I was young. I was raised by my aunt. Two months ago, my aunt passed away. And Aaron had been by my side, seemingly inseparable. He was with me during the day, and with Chelsea at night. And I, like a fool, thought I had finally won his heart. It was just guilt. A pathetic attempt to atone for his sins. Aaron’s parents started clapping, leading the cheers. I could hear people whispering. Aaron was known for his ruthless, zero-tolerance policy on office romances. The last person who tried to hide a relationship was sued into bankruptcy and ended up in jail. But he just patted Chelsea’s back reassuringly and said, his voice calm and steady, “In that case, I’ll have to fire Sophia.” “After all, she’s the one who seduced me in the first place, shamelessly clinging to me and calling herself my girlfriend.” “A woman like that is a disgrace to this company.” Instantly, all eyes were on me. I could feel the weight of their judgmental stares, the invisible green hat of the cuckold settling firmly on my head. “Are you finished?” To everyone’s surprise, I just smiled. “Then it’s my turn to present my gift.” I clapped my hands twice, and suddenly, the room was filled with police officers. The one in charge stepped forward and addressed me with a respectful bow. “Ms. Sonny.” Aaron doubled over with laughter. “Sophia, are you on something? Where did you find all these actors? On your salary, you must have bankrupted yourself to hire this many.” “‘Ms. Sonny’?” he spat. “Give me a break!” His saliva hit my face. The older police officer, a man in his fifties, turned pale and rushed to get me a tissue. “Sophia, why do you always have to pretend to be something you’re not?” Chelsea sneered, stepping to the side. “Can’t we women be a little more gracious? I would give up my entire life for Aaron. And you? You’re just a bitch in heat.” Aaron’s younger brother, seeing the chaos, started running around, kicking over decorations and making a mess of the party. His parents, who had him late in life, doted on him, spoiling him rotten. Out of love for Aaron, I had always tolerated the little monster. I let him ride on my back like a horse, circling the living room ten times, all in the hopes of earning a sliver of Aaron’s affection. “Nathan! Get down from there!” Aaron’s lips thinned, a storm brewing in his eyes. He strode forward and raised his hand to slap his brother. So he could get angry! He did know his brother was a little demon. He did know how to protect others. He just never, ever stood on my side. But before the slap could land, his father grabbed his arm, and his mother kicked him hard in the shin. “That’s enough! What are you doing?” “You… what’s-her-name,” his father barked at me. “Come over here and apologize! Such a disrespectful thing.” “You’re just a gold-digger from the countryside, trying to climb the social ladder on our family’s coattails. You should be grateful we even let you in the door!” Five years. For five whole years, they couldn’t even be bothered to remember my name. “Wait, I don’t think this is an act,” someone whispered from the crowd. “That old guy in the front, he’s on the news all the time. I recognize him.” “It can’t be… I thought Sophia was from the country.” “Who knows? Maybe she’s some secret billionaire. Let’s just watch the show.” The room fell silent.

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1 I’m a forgotten shrine god, chained to decaying wood and stone. Forced to grant wishes for offerings, my power shackled by mortal desires. For ten days, Rhys came. Ten days of identical prayers for wealth and power through sacred incense. Needing one final wish cycle to ascend, I manifested before him with his ten incense sticks. “Ten wishes,” I whispered like wind through dead leaves, “but if my shrine falls, I vanish.” He snapped the first stick instantly: “Make me a Lord.” I wove fate from my essence, hollowing myself to fulfill it. The second wish surprised me—”Stay with me.” His tenderness persisted even as his power grew. When he wished for eternal love with the third stick, I yielded. Then war brought spoils—including Princess Elena. The fourth stick snapped: “Make her my wife.” “I clawed my way to this height for one reason,” he declared, his voice hard as iron, “to one day have the power to take her back. And now, that day has finally come.” Martha, the kind old housekeeper who cared for me, was aghast. “But what about Lady Lyra?” she pleaded. “She has been with you for five years, my lord. She has been loyal and devoted, asking for nothing, not even a title.” Her worried eyes met mine. Rhys’s face twisted in fury. He had Martha dragged away and beaten for her impertinence. “How dare a servant lecture me! Everything I have done, I have done for Elena! As for that other one… she can crawl back to whatever gutter she came from!” His voice was colder than a winter midnight. The maids fell silent, their hands stilling in their work. I suppose it was true. Before Princess Elena had been brought here as a hostage, he had treasured me. I was his precious secret, a woman to be cherished, one who could not be scolded or wronged. Every day he would beg me to say I loved him. But now that his childhood love was within his grasp, that devotion had vanished like smoke. Martha was old; she couldn’t endure such a brutal punishment. I stepped in front of her, shielding her from the guards. “I’ll do it,” I said to Rhys. “I will get you your princess.” His face lit up with an almost manic joy. He told me to be quick, then turned and strode away, already planning the wedding, eagerly awaiting the arrival of his true love. Days later, I intercepted the Crown Prince’s carriage. His royal guards had blades at my throat in an instant. Accusing me of attempted assassination, they tortured me, driving splinters between my fingers. The agony was a white-hot fire, so intense it stole the breath from my lungs and drained the color from my face. “I can save him!” I gasped. “I can save the Prince!” I knew Prince Kaelan was dying, that the King was frantic, seeking a cure from every corner of the realm. I poured a century of my divine power into him, pulling him back from the brink of death. The King was overjoyed. He summoned me to the throne room at once. “You have saved my son and heir,” he boomed. “Name your reward.” My eyes found Princess Elena, kneeling in a corner of the great hall. My voice was steady. “I ask that you sanction a marriage between Lord Rhys and Princess Elena.” The King agreed without a moment’s hesitation. A trivial hostage in exchange for his son’s life? It was a bargain. Rhys’s wedding was a grand affair. His entire estate was alive with celebration and music. Only my own small wing of the house remained dark and silent. I lay on my bed, wracked with violent coughs, a handkerchief stained crimson clutched in my hand. Saving the Prince had come at a terrible cost. He was meant to die; by twisting his fate, I had invited a backlash upon myself, siphoning away my own life force. A short while later, Martha scurried in to announce that Lord Rhys had arrived. The door flew open. He stood there, his arm wrapped possessively around Elena, his face a mask of cold disgust. Elena spoke first, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “I hear you’ve been pretending to be ill to win Rhys’s pity. I know it’s my fault… I know I’m the wicked one who stole your place.” Her eyes shimmered with tears that never fell. “If you truly cannot bear to have me here, then I will give it all back to you!” “You being here only makes Elena upset,” Rhys said, his voice flat. “It’s time for you to leave. Go back where you belong.” “You were only ever a substitute for her,” he continued, each word a hammer blow. “The fact that you resemble her in some small way was your greatest honor. But the real thing is here now. You need to be gone.” He started to turn away with her, but I found my voice, a sound as thin as a spider’s thread. “If I leave… does that count as my fifth wish?” He stopped dead. He reached into his coat and pulled out the fifth stick of incense. “Yes,” he said. “I wish for you to disappear from my life forever.” He had started carrying the sticks with him, just in case a wish struck him. He then pulled out a sixth and snapped it as well, the sneer in his voice undisguised. “I’m done playing your childish little games. I don’t believe for a second that you have any real power.” His face was cruel. “I only pretended to believe, I only coddled you, because you were a stand-in for Elena. Now that she’s back, you’re obsolete.” I grabbed his sleeve, trying desperately to make him understand. “I am the spirit of the ruined shrine. I am real…” “Enough!” he roared, shaking me off. “How long are you going to keep up this charade? You invented this whole fairy tale just to stay by my side, didn’t you?” No one believed me. No one ever believed in the god of a forgotten place. There was a time when my shrine flourished, when offerings were plentiful. I granted every wish they brought me. 2 When they wished for beauty, I became uglier. When they wished for wealth, my own divine light dimmed. Gradually, I could no longer grant their insatiable desires, and they stopped coming. My shrine fell to ruin, and I faded with it. But now, I was just one mortal’s prayer cycle away from my ascension. I waited a hundred years for someone to come, and then he appeared: Rhys, with his ten sticks of incense and his desperate wish. And so, I became indebted to him for ten wishes. Only by fulfilling them could I be free. I found him that first day, half-dead from poverty and despair on the side of a road. I offered him the ten sticks. “I must collect the wishes of mortals,” I had explained. “For every stick you break, I will grant you one wish.” Even then, on the verge of death, he had snapped the first. “I want to be rich. I want to be a Lord, so that no one can ever look down on me again.” To fulfill his ten wishes, I had to stay by his side. Then, on his birthday, he had looked into my eyes and, with a sincerity that felt real, snapped two sticks at once. “I wish for you to stay with me forever. I wish for us to grow old together.” A god knows nothing of love, nothing of desire. I only knew that this brought me two wishes closer to my goal. So I agreed. For years, we lived as husband and wife in all but name. He never officially married me, but the whole world thought he would. “Lord Rhys is just waiting until his position is secure,” they would whisper. “Then he will make an honorable woman of his love.” I believed them. But it was all a lie. Then, he had snapped two sticks to declare his love for me. Now, he snapped two more to cast me aside for another. I let my hand fall from his sleeve. “You have four sticks of incense left,” I said, my voice hollow. “When you have used them all, I will leave you forever.” He scoffed, pulling Elena closer and shoving me aside as they left. “Just get out of here for now. Elena doesn’t want to see you. As for your damned sticks, we’ll deal with them some other time.” He looked at Elena with an expression of utter devotion. As they passed, Elena paused and sighed dramatically. “Rhys, my love, she must adore you so. To endure such humiliation and still refuse to leave… perhaps you should give her some small title, out of pity.” Rhys was instantly defensive. “I’ll have her thrown out this instant! I swear on my life, Elena, you are the only one I will ever call my wife.” And so I was thrown out into the snow, with nothing but the clothes on my back. Martha was cast out with me, a dismissal contract clutched in her trembling hands. I had ruined her life as well. She used what little savings she had to get us a room at an inn. “My dear girl,” she said, her voice heavy with sorrow, “you have a pure heart. Lord Rhys does not love you. Why do you cling to him?” She looked at me sadly. “It’s time you opened your eyes and saw who else is out there.” She opened the window, and there, standing like a silent sentinel in the falling snow below, was Prince Kaelan. Martha’s heart ached for me; she wanted me to let go of Rhys and find a new life. But I was stubborn, my eyes fixed on the singular, burning desire for my ascension. “I still owe him four wishes,” I insisted. If I failed, I would be trapped in this mortal world forever. My breathing was becoming shallow, my body wracked with a profound exhaustion. Granting Rhys his lordship had already shortened my lifespan. Healing the Prince had aged my mortal form to that of an eighty-year-old woman. A dull, constant pain was my new companion, and I tossed and turned in the cheap bed. Martha, thinking I was lovesick for Rhys, could only sigh. She spoke of returning to her home village, of retiring. I took her hand and used a flicker of my remaining power, transforming my touch into a handful of silver coins that I pressed into her palm. This was my mess to clean up. After she left, I finally allowed myself to cough up the blood I’d been holding back. Using my power in such a weakened state was destroying me from the inside out. In the days that followed, my face grew haggard and my hair began to fall out. Every day, I would drag myself to Rhys’s estate, and every day, I would be turned away. My body grew weaker, and the slightest chill would confine me to bed for days. But I gritted my teeth, waiting. Waiting for him to break the next stick. Finally, I saw his carriage returning, with him and Elena inside. I threw myself in its path, but it didn’t slow. Not for an instant. The impact sent me flying. I landed in a heap, blood spilling from my lips. Rhys started to get out, but someone was faster. Prince Kaelan was there, sweeping me into his arms, calling for his attendants to stanch the bleeding. Rhys stood over us, his face a cold mask. “It’s just another one of her pathetic tricks for attention, Your Highness. Don’t fall for it. She’s a master of manipulation.” But Kaelan ignored him, his eyes fixed only on me. He tried to lift me, to take me away, but I struggled weakly. Four more sticks. I can’t leave yet. Rhys sneered. “You see? She loves me so much she’d rather die at my feet than leave with you.” Kaelan gave me one last, deep look, then turned and walked away into the snow. Pain lanced through my body. I tried to speak, but my throat was clogged with blood. With a blood-soaked hand, I grabbed the hem of Rhys’s fine leather boot. “Four… sticks left…” I rasped. “Just make your wishes and I’ll…” The world went black before I could finish.

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My wife, who’d been dead for seven years, was back. Not only that, she’d brought a man with her. And she expected me to just step aside and hand over my title as her husband. “Seth nearly lost his sight saving me. I’ve already promised to marry him,” she said, her voice dripping with an unearned authority. “If you sign the divorce papers quietly, I’ll let you continue living here.” I was silent for a moment, then answered coolly, “Actually, I’m already married to someone else.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be difficult, Patrick. Everyone knows you’re still head over heels in love with me.” 1 But I wasn’t the same Patrick Rhodes from seven years ago—the pathetic fool who would have done anything for her, the man who had groveled at her feet until he had no dignity left. “I have no reason to lie. I’m married.” Echo shot me a look of pure contempt, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. “Stop the act, Patrick. I’m not here to ask for your permission. I’m informing you. Whether you like it or not, I’m marrying Seth.” Seth stepped forward, lacing his fingers with hers. His voice was a soft, cloying melody of faux innocence. “Echo, darling, please don’t fight with Patrick. It’s just my bad luck. Maybe you should just send me back.” He made a show of turning to leave, but his hand clutched the hem of her dress, and the look he shot me was a triumphant glare. It was a pathetic, transparent performance. Echo’s expression softened instantly. “Seth, don’t say that. You promised we’d be together forever.” She turned back to me, her confidence bafflingly absolute. “Don’t worry. Patrick is crazy about me. He’ll do anything I say. We’ll get married, I promise.” Seven years, and her delusional self-assurance had only gotten worse. Before I could speak, she fixed me with a threatening stare. “You’ve enjoyed seven years as the Sterling family’s golden boy. It’s time to let Seth have his turn. He’s suffered enough. I won’t let you bully him.” A sarcastic smile touched my lips. “I haven’t done a thing. Don’t try to pin this on me.” Echo’s eyes narrowed. She looked me up and down as if I were something she’d found on the bottom of her shoe. “Do you actually think you’re important? If it weren’t for the fact that you waited seven years for me, I would have thrown you out of this house the second I walked in. I wouldn’t be wasting my breath.” Throw me out? She wouldn’t get the chance. And what on earth made her think I’d waited seven years for her? The day she abandoned me was the day I gave up on her completely. Seven years ago, I was in a limousine, dressed in my wedding tuxedo, traveling over winding mountain roads to pick up my bride. And she ran. She left me at the altar. The official story was a tragedy. A landslide on the road. While I was out of the car checking the damage, Echo had supposedly slipped and fallen from a cliff. For seven years, everyone believed she was dead. I even picked out her gravesite myself. Marrying into the Sterling family was a future my father had fought tooth and nail to secure for me. Echo could throw away the Rhodes family’s reputation, but I couldn’t. And besides, she wasn’t the only woman in her family. For the past seven years, I’ve been a husband and a father. If she hadn’t suddenly reappeared, I would have completely forgotten she ever existed. So, seeing her again after all this time stirred nothing in me. “Echo, let me repeat myself one more time,” I said, my voice flat. “You and I are not husband and wife. Legally, you’re a deceased person. Who you marry is none of my business.” Echo let out a dismissive scoff. “At least you know your place. If you hadn’t been so obsessed with marrying me back then, I never would have had to run off to another country and hide for seven years.” So, that was it. I’d always wondered how she was the only one who died when so many people were there. It wasn’t a tragic accident; it was a disappearing act. She hadn’t changed at all—still willing to do anything to get her way, no matter who she hurt. When the news of her “death” had reached her mother, the woman had collapsed on the spot. She’d fallen into a deep sickness, nearly following her daughter to the grave. The butler, who had just rushed in, overheard Echo’s callous words. “Miss Echo, you mustn’t say such things,” he stammered. “Mr. Rhodes is now the VP of Sterling Corp.” “VP?” Seth, standing beside her, asked with a flicker of darkness in his eyes. “Echo, didn’t you say your grandfather would only ever make you CEO?” Echo’s face stiffened. She stared at me, confused. “My father only has one daughter. Who else is qualified to inherit the company besides me?” I just watched her, my expression unreadable. Had she left her brain overseas? Did she have any idea how foolish she sounded? The butler was sweating, wiping his brow frantically. “Miss Echo, what are you saying? Mr. Rhodes is married to Miss Julia. She is the CEO of Sterling Corp now. Your aunt, don’t you remember?” The day Echo left me stranded, I stood on that highway, lost, the eyes of a hundred gossiping onlookers burning into me. That’s when Julia had stepped forward. She said she would marry me. In that moment, I was adrift, powerless. Everyone in New York knew it was my wedding day, and my bride had died on the way to the ceremony. Cursed. Jinx. A black mark. Those words were nails pinning me to a pillar of public shame. And then, suddenly, someone was offering me a way out. A hand to pull me from the wreckage. She would save the Rhodes family from humiliation. Why wouldn’t I have married her? Julia hadn’t even planned on attending her niece’s wedding. She’d only returned to the country at the behest of the old man, her father. And in a bizarre twist of fate, she became my wife instead. Echo stared at me, her face a mask of ridicule. “Everyone knows my aunt Julia is a titan of industry. All she cares about is her career. She wouldn’t give a pathetic lapdog like Patrick a second glance.” Julia Sterling was a legend in New York’s business world. Half of the Sterling empire was built on her personal ventures. Within the family, she was treated like a queen. To this day, I still don’t fully understand why she married me. There were so many men richer and more handsome than me. The butler kept trying. “Miss Echo, it’s true. You can look up the news online. Or ask anyone in the family.” Echo just curled her lip in disdain. She randomly pointed to a gardener, then a maid. They both gave her the same answer. Her composure finally cracked. Her face went rigid as she glared at me. “Well, well, Patrick. You work fast, don’t you? I’m gone for a few years, and you’ve already got the entire staff wrapped around your finger, all of them in on your little conspiracy to lie to me.” I remained calm, refusing to get drawn into her madness. My marriage to Julia was a hard fact. Whether Echo believed it or not meant nothing to me. She’d been spoiled her whole life. The butler, fearing another outburst, quickly sent someone to call Julia. “Get Miss Julia’s assistant on the phone! Tell her to come home immediately!” Julia was in the middle of negotiating an aerospace deal and had left for the office early. The old man, Mr. Sterling, and Echo’s mother weren’t home either. Otherwise, Echo wouldn’t have dared to cause such a scene. As the standoff thickened the air, my daughter Ava suddenly burst into the room. “Daddy, why didn’t you come back to play with me?” The moment Echo saw Ava, her face twisted in rage. It was obvious why. Ava was a miniature, female version of me. Echo’s gaze darted between me and the child, her body trembling. Finally, she raised a shaking hand and pointed it at me. “How dare you betray me. You even have a bastard child.” Her voice was a venomous hiss. “Tell me, whose is it?” Ava, who inherited Julia’s sharp personality, might not have fully understood the word, but she knew it was an insult. She tapped her chin, looking like a tiny, serious adult. “Who are you calling a bastard? My mommy says people with dirty mouths are just trash.” Ava was six. She knew almost everyone in the household, but she’d never seen Echo before. Echo immediately snapped back, “How dare you talk back, you little brat.” That was it. I saw red. This was my precious daughter, the light of my life. How dare she call her that? “Echo,” I growled, my voice low and dangerous. “You watch your mouth. Or I promise, you’ll regret it.” Seth, ever the snake, glanced at me and added casually, “The child looks like she’s old enough for school, doesn’t she? Don’t tell me you cheated on Echo before you were even married?” The words were poison. Echo’s eyes went wide with fury, and she looked at me as if she wanted to claw my face off. There is nothing a woman hates more than being cheated on, especially when the man was once her devoted admirer—a man who had sworn to love her until the day he died. “She’s six,” I said calmly. “You son of a bitch, Patrick!” Echo shrieked. “I’m gone for seven years, and you have a child with someone else? Have you no shame?” Only seven years? We’d only known each other for a few years before she took off for seven of them. And she was the one who abandoned me. The butler rushed to explain. “Miss Echo, that’s Miss Julia’s child!” “Shut up!” she screamed at him. “You traitorous old fool! Where are my parents? Who let him get away with this? Cheating on me and acting so smug about it!” “The entire Sterling family knows, Miss Echo.” At the time, Echo’s parents had felt so guilty about her running away that they hadn’t objected to me marrying Julia. Hearing this, Echo finally exploded. Her eyes were like daggers, scanning the room. “Who is the slut? Who dared to humiliate the Sterling family like this? Does she have a death wish?” No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find a single plausible suspect among the staff. I let out a dry, humorless laugh. Seth, with a sickeningly sweet tone of concern, tried to counsel me. “Patrick, you should just confess. If you push Echo too far, even I won’t be able to help you.” I shot him a withering look. “We’re both men here. Cut the act.” Before I could react, Echo’s hand whipped through the air and cracked across my face. “You shut your mouth!” she screamed, her voice ragged. “You’re the one who cheated! You had a child behind my back, and you have the nerve to lecture Seth?” I hadn’t seen it coming. My cheek instantly flared with a hot, stinging pain. Seeing me get hit, Ava charged forward like a little bull. “You hit my daddy! I’ll get you!” “Ava!” Echo snatched Ava up by the collar of her dress, lifting her off the ground. My heart hammered against my ribs. “Echo, put her down!” The maids and other staff rushed forward. “Miss, please, put the child down!” one of them pleaded. “Miss Julia will not be merciful if anything happens to her.” Everyone in the Sterling household knew that Ava was the center of Julia’s universe, a treasure she protected fiercely. But Echo just sneered. “Get out of my way if you want to keep your jobs. Today, I’m going to teach them both a lesson.” My blood ran cold. “Echo, what are you doing?” Her face was a mask of venomous rage, her entire presence turning glacial. “According to the law, you committed adultery during our marriage and had a child. I can demand you leave with nothing and compensate me for my emotional distress.” The problem was, we were never married. My hands clenched into fists, veins bulging on the back. “Echo, we were never married! There was no adultery! Now put my daughter down!” If she weren’t a woman, I would have already tackled her. I, Patrick Rhodes, do not hit women. Ava’s little legs kicked in the air. She was dangling, struggling, but surprisingly, she wasn’t crying. She wasn’t afraid. The staff, intimidated by Echo’s threats, kept their distance, offering only weak, useless pleas. Echo ignored them completely. She shot me a dark, cryptic look. “After I’m done with this little bastard, I’ll deal with you personally.” With that, she started carrying Ava towards the door. The staff exchanged panicked glances, but no one dared to intervene. Finally, the old butler blocked her path. Echo’s face darkened. “What? You dare to stand in my way?” The butler, sweating profusely, bowed his head respectfully. “Miss, please, let’s talk this through. Don’t be rash. Please, put the little princess down.” Seizing the opportunity, I lunged for my daughter, but Seth intercepted me. He blocked my path with a sinister grin. “Patrick, what are you doing? Don’t do anything foolish now.” I swung. My fist connected with his face with a satisfying crack. “If anything happens to my daughter,” I snarled, “I will make you both regret the day you were born.” Seth stumbled backward, crashing into a nearby vase, which shattered on the floor. He hit his head, and blood began to trickle from a cut on his forehead. Seeing him hurt, Echo’s eyes turned red with fury. She channeled all her rage onto Ava. “You dare touch Seth? I’ll kill this little bastard!” She lifted Ava high, preparing to hurl her to the ground. For a split second, my heart stopped. I dove forward on pure instinct. “AVA!” Seeing her mother’s friend turn into a monster, Ava, finally just a small child, burst into terrified tears. “Get away from me!” Echo screamed at me. “I’ll deal with you later!” I wrapped my arms around my daughter, holding her tight, refusing to let go no matter how hard Echo pulled and clawed at me. Finally, Echo’s patience snapped. She grabbed a heavy ceramic flowerpot from a nearby stand and swung it at my head. A searing flash of pain. I felt something warm and wet trickling down my face. The butler and others rushed to pull her back, but she screamed them away. “Miss, stop! That’s your aunt’s husband!” the butler cried, grabbing her arm to stop another blow. Just then, a calm, cool voice sliced through the chaos from the doorway. “What, exactly, is going on in here?” “You’d all better have a very good explanation for this.”

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1 Four years into our marriage, my husband, Leo Williams, who never posts anything, broke his social media silence with a new story. 【What a greedy little kitten.】 The picture was of a girl wearing a pink cat-ear headband, her cheeks flushed red and tongue stuck out from the spice of the hot pot she was eating. It was Holly, the new streamer at his company. Less than a minute later, a comment from a mutual friend popped up: 【Bro, you forgot to switch accounts!】 And just like that, Leo’s new post vanished like a phantom. But it reappeared moments later on Holly’s own social media page. Then, his call came through. The old me would have already screenshotted it, called him first, and launched into a tirade. It would have ended in a screaming match, no question. But this time, I was thoughtful enough to let the call ring until it went to voicemail. … By the time Leo got home, I was nearly asleep on the sofa. He slipped off his jacket and bent down to change his shoes. “Why didn’t you answer my call?” Leo rarely prodded like this unless he knew, deep down, that he was in the wrong. “Fell asleep,” I mumbled without lifting my head. “Didn’t hear it.” “Had to work late unexpectedly. You don’t always have to wait up for me. You don’t have to make yourself so pathetic.” The old me would have shot back, insisting loudly that I did it because I loved him. But there was no point in arguing anymore. Leo handed me a square velvet box, gesturing for me to open it. Today was the day his company went public. To celebrate, I had done what I always did: left work early, bought groceries, cooked his favorite meal, and waited for him to come home. But I had waited half the night for a man who had promised he’d be home early, and he never came. I pretended not to notice the thick, greasy smell of hot pot clinging to his clothes as I took the box and set it aside on the coffee table. I’d seen this box before. The last time was when he’d missed my birthday. The logo, the floral pattern—it was identical. Leo stared at the box for a moment, his brow furrowing. His voice dropped. “Sienna, can you stop being so childish?” Buying me jewelry was Leo’s standard way of offering an olive branch. As long as I accepted the gift, the unpleasantness between us would be swept under the rug, never to be mentioned again. But this time, I had no intention of taking his olive branch. And that, naturally, made him angry. “Let me put it on for you.” Not giving me a chance to refuse, he opened the box and took out the bracelet inside. He reached for my wrist, but his hands froze when he saw the identical bracelet already clasped there. “Just leave it,” I said, pulling my hand back and rising from the sofa, ready for bed. “It’s late. We both have work tomorrow.” “I’ll have my assistant take you to pick out something new another day.” “No need,” I replied, my voice as cold as ice. 2 Perhaps out of guilt for the duplicate gift, Leo suggested we drive to the office together the next morning. My body ached, and I didn’t feel like driving, so I didn’t refuse. Leo stood in front of his car, his brow knitted so tightly the lines almost touched. At some point, he had started to despise me riding in his car, especially in the passenger seat. He’d even pushed me to buy my own car to avoid it. It was probably because I used to fight with him like a maniac over my right to that seat. He’d grown tired of it. But now, for Holly’s convenience, his car was a shrine to her. It was filled with cat-themed plush toys and decorated with cute, hand-drawn stickers. He’d even had the passenger seat professionally redesigned, just to make sure the petite Holly was perfectly comfortable. Seeing me waiting, however, he finally pulled the door open and started moving the mountain of plush toys to the back seat. Watching him go back and forth, I frowned. “You know what? I’ll just drive myself.” He tossed the last stuffed cat into the back. “No, let’s go together. Holly’s just… whimsical. She loves these little trinkets. Don’t mind them.” I stared at the pink, custom-fitted seat, a piece of a different world dropped jarringly into the car’s sleek interior. I refused. It was, I decided, deeply unsettling. I reached for my own car door, but Leo shot forward to block me, sliding into my driver’s seat instead. “I’ll drive. I said we’d go together.” I watched him for a long moment, not missing the flicker of discomfort in his eyes. So, he did know how inappropriate it was to transform his passenger seat for another woman. Leo looked like he wanted to explain, but I cut him off. “We’re going to be late. Just drive.” He pressed his lips into a thin line and started the car. While we were stopped at a red light, his phone rang. It was a custom ringtone, one I didn’t recognize. A pitiful, whiny voice came through the speaker, punctuated by faint sobs. “Leo… my tummy hurts so bad… I think it was something I ate yesterday. Can you please come take me to the hospital? Please, Leo? You’re the best.” After he hung up, Leo didn’t even glance at me. He didn’t say a word. He just yanked the steering wheel, pulled over to the curb, and quickly unbuckled my seatbelt for me. His tone was final, leaving no room for argument. “An employee isn’t feeling well. I have to go check on her. We’re almost at the office. You can walk the rest of the way.” I hadn’t even had time to close the door before he hit the gas and the car peeled away, leaving me standing in a cloud of exhaust. 3 Honestly, at this hour, almost no one walked to work. When the light turned green, the driver of an e-scooter, probably not expecting a pedestrian in the crosswalk, rounded the corner and slammed right into me. My hands, knees, and forehead were scraped up to varying degrees. The nurse cleaned my wounds, placed a large bandage on my forehead, and gave me instructions. “Try to keep it dry for the next few days. No baths. And apply this ointment on schedule.” I took a cab from the hospital to the office. The driver had two phones mounted on his dashboard. One was for navigation. The other was streaming Holly’s live broadcast. The comment section was flooded with messages of concern. “Aww, thank you all for caring so much! Your kitty is fine, I promise. It’s a good thing Leo got here so quickly! I don’t even need to go to the hospital anymore.” “Nooo, I haven’t confessed my feelings to him yet! Stop saying that, you guys! He’s sitting right here watching. Yes, he’s super, super sweet.” I looked down at my own phone. Two messages from Leo sat there, seething with anger and impatience. “My assistant said you missed the project planning meeting today. Where were you? Get to the office now.” “I ask you to walk a few blocks and you throw another one of your fits? What is wrong with you?” The hypocrisy was staggering. That evening, I had just finished applying ointment to my cuts and was curled up on the sofa watching TV. The sound of the front door’s keypad broke the silence, followed by Leo’s mocking voice. “And here I thought you’d finally learned your lesson. You’ve been so quiet these past few days. Turns out you were just waiting for this.” The TV must have been too loud for him, because he strode over and ripped the plug from the wall. “Sienna, do you have a brain in your head? We’ve been preparing for that project meeting for two weeks! Do you have any idea how much money the company loses when a project is delayed?” I looked up at his face, contorted with disgust. Then I saw him freeze. His gaze locked onto the bandage on my forehead, then traveled down to the raw scrapes on my hands and legs. He frowned. “What happened to you?” I broke his gaze, my voice casual. “It’s nothing. Just got hit by a vehicle on my way to work.” Leo’s eyes flickered, and a hint of guilt crossed his face. He stepped closer, trying to inspect my injuries. “Why didn’t you call me?” I flinched away from his touch, a humorless smirk on my face. “It’s just a scratch. Nothing important. I’m sure your employee was a higher priority.” Was there any point in calling him? He’d answer the phone and, without asking a single question, launch into a tirade of baseless accusations and complaints. Did he ever actually care what I had to say? He never came when I called before. Why would today be any different? My words stung him. He straightened up, a cold sneer on his face. “Sienna, do you have to be so sarcastic? It was wrong of me to leave you on the side of the road, I admit it. But are you a child? You can’t even walk down the street without getting hit by a car?” I stared at him, speechless. You see? Even a simple statement of fact was twisted into sarcasm, immaturity, a childish taunt. I had no intention of engaging with him. I got up and started for the bedroom. Noticing how much pain I was in as I walked, Leo’s expression softened slightly. He sighed and came over to help me. “I’ll sleep with you tonight. That way I can take care of you.” It had been a long time since Leo had come to bed before midnight. Holly had claimed that the constant harassment from viewers on her stream was making her anxious, that she was afraid of becoming depressed. She insisted he stay with her during her broadcasts. So every night, Leo would go to his study, half-working, half-watching her stream. He would frequently join her on camera for a “sweet interaction.” I had fought with him about it, cried, screamed—nothing changed his mind. Leo was adamant that it was “just work.” He finally threatened me with divorce, and I had no choice but to back down. I didn’t refuse his offer. But as he reached out to pull me into his arms, I spoke softly. “Leo, let’s get a divorce.”

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“Freda’s father is a lost cause! Save Lily first!” I never thought the most twisted joke imaginable would play out right before my eyes. The words, spoken by my husband, were a bullet to my reviving heart. I scrambled to my feet, grabbing at Kyle’s shirt with all my strength, only for him to kick me away with brutal force. “You were unconscious for five whole minutes, Freda! Do you have any idea what that means?” he snarled, his face a mask of feigned righteousness. “Your dad was swept further downstream, but Lily is still struggling right here in the water!” His voice dripped with venom. “If you want to blame someone, blame your father! If he hadn’t insisted on coming, would the raft have capsized in the first place?” The way he stood there, so straight and certain, made my stomach churn with nausea. In my last life, I had trusted him completely. And what did it get me? It got me my father’s tragic death. It got me a hospital bed, where I fought for my life after nearly drowning, while he spent the entire night buying flowers to comfort my best friend, Lily. Reborn into this moment, I would not let it happen again. I swore it. 1 “Please, I’m begging you, save my father!” I screamed at the rescue team. “The woman in the water is my best friend, and she’s a strong swimmer!” My desperation only fueled Kyle’s rage. He swung his hand, and a sharp slap sent me sprawling to the ground. “Freda, this is not the time for your tantrums! Do not question my judgment!” he bellowed for all to hear. “Are you all insane? Are you going to ignore the person right in front of you to chase a lost cause? Do you want both of them to die? Who here is willing to take responsibility for that? Go! Save Lily! Save her now!” A ringing filled my ears. I cut through Kyle’s tirade, summoning every last bit of strength to scream over him. “If you don’t go save my father, I will die right here, right now, for all of you to see!” Finally, my threat registered. Two rescuers broke off and swam towards Lily, but the larger part of the team headed downstream, in search of my father. Kyle shot me a look of pure ice before rushing towards Lily’s position. Watching his desperate back, the last flicker of hope I held for him burned to ash. When I next saw my father, he was unconscious from the water he’d inhaled. He looked just as he had in my last life—pale and lifeless on a stretcher, a rescuer tirelessly performing CPR. My heart pounded with panic. I dialed 911 over and over until I heard a crackle from the rescue captain’s radio. “Is the ambulance here yet?” “We’ve got one. The second is stuck in traffic, it’s going to be delayed…” Before I could ask anything else, a shocked and furious voice cut through the air. It was Kyle. “Lily, you’re hurt!” He knelt, gently blowing on a scrape on Lily’s ankle, his eyes filled with a tenderness he never showed me. The way they looked at each other was so thick with intimacy it was almost tangible. I couldn’t believe I had been so blind to it in my past life. This time, I didn’t miss the triumphant glint in Lily’s eyes as she glanced at me. A bone-deep chill washed over me. In my last life, it was for a few pathetic scrapes like this that Kyle had let my father die. The wail of a siren grew closer. The ambulance was here. As a paramedic and I lifted my father’s stretcher, Kyle moved to block our path, his eyes darting around nervously. “Freda, let’s have Dad wait a bit. The second ambulance will be here soon!” he pleaded, trying to keep his voice low. “Lily’s leg is hurt badly. She needs to get to a hospital right away.” He physically blocked the ambulance doors, trying to keep us from being seen. “It’ll be fine! Dad has always been strong. He’s just unconscious!” he insisted. “But Lily, she’s so fragile, and her ankle is still bleeding!” “Get. Out. Of. My. Way!” I broke. The good-natured, patient Freda he knew was gone. I shoved him with a fury that stunned him. In his moment of shock, Lily limped over, her face a mask of theatrical sorrow. “Freda… after all our years as friends, how could you do this to me?” she whimpered, huge tears rolling down her cheeks. “It’s not like we’re not going to save your dad. It’s just a small delay. Why are you being so difficult?” Kyle’s hand rose as if to wipe her tears, but catching my eye, he froze. One was the best friend I’d known since childhood. The other, the man I’d loved from high school prom to our wedding day. And right here, in front of me, they were performing a grand, heart-wrenching drama of forbidden love. The double betrayal was a physical pain in my chest. “Lily? What are you doing here?” A round-faced nurse hurried from the ambulance, her eyes lighting up in recognition. My heart leaped into my throat. The paramedic was one of Lily’s colleagues from the hospital. 2 “Jenna, my leg is injured! You have to get me in the ambulance first,” Lily said, her voice urgent. “I can’t do that,” the nurse, Jenna, replied firmly. “Hospital policy is clear. We prioritize critical patients.” I breathed a sigh of relief as the other medic and I loaded my father into the vehicle. Just before the doors closed, I saw Kyle talking to Jenna. He started to take off his watch, but she pushed his hand away. My focus was on my father’s still form. I didn’t think much of it, just urged the driver to go. The next second, the doors were flung open again. In the harsh sunlight, I heard Jenna’s disdainful voice. “If you don’t have money, why did you call an ambulance? The fee for a long-distance mountain call-out is expensive! Get him out of the vehicle, now!” My father’s stretcher was being pulled back out. “I have money! Let my father stay, I can pay!” I screamed, my voice raw. “Then prove you can pay,” Jenna said, her brow furrowed in suspicion. My phone was at the bottom of the river. I searched my pockets—not a single dollar in cash. Without thinking, I ripped the Patek Philippe from my wrist and held it out to her. “Take this watch as collateral! It’s more than enough to cover the fee. Just let my father go!” Jenna let out a derisive snort. “A Patek Philippe? Your husband already tried to fool me with a fake watch just now. You’re pulling the same trick?” A cold dread washed over me. Now I understood what Kyle had been doing. Lily’s voice dripped with scorn. “Pathetic. Acting rich when you’re broke.” Kyle grabbed my hand, playing his part in their little drama. “We didn’t mean to deceive anyone,” he said, his voice laced with false humility. “Please, just have a heart. Do a little charity work and take my father-in-law to the hospital.” I wrenched my hand free. “He’s lying! My watch is real! Give me your phone, I can log into my bank account and show you!” Jenna’s face hardened. “You have money for doctors but not to take care of your own family? Just take him home and let him rest. Stop wasting our time!” The medics continued to unload the stretcher. In the end, I was left on the roadside, watching helplessly as the ambulance sped away with Lily inside. I grabbed Kyle’s sleeve, my voice trembling with rage. “Why did you lie? I don’t even care that you’re sleeping with Lily! But my father needs a doctor!” “If anything happens to my father, I swear I will never let you go.” The rafting rescue team was still there, squatting by the road, watching the show. Seeing them, Kyle’s face flushed with anger. “Stop being so unreasonable! There’s nothing going on between me and Lily, so stop spouting nonsense!” he hissed. “Lily’s leg injury couldn’t wait! There’s another ambulance coming, what’s the big deal about your father waiting a little?” The disappointment was like a thick sludge, filling my lungs, making it hard to breathe. “In seven years of marriage,” I asked, the question that had haunted me for years finally escaping, “have you ever, for one second, considered my father your family?” Kyle’s lips pressed into a thin line, his face a canvas of guilt and discomfort. … Kyle and I were each other’s first love. To marry him, I had given up everything my family offered me. During our poorest years, I ate expired food with him and slept in a storage unit, my body covered in ant bites. One night, he walked for four hours in a downpour just to get me medicine from a pharmacy. As he applied the ointment, he swore with tears in his eyes, “I swear to God, I, Kyle Miller, will make Freda happy for the rest of her life. If I break this vow, may I die a horrible death!” Later, when his startup began to see success, my family finally relented. We walked hand in hand in the snow, dreaming of growing old together. First love was sweet. So sweet, I thought it would last a lifetime. That illusion shattered after we were married, when a media outlet dug up the fact that my father had been the primary investor in his company’s initial stock offering. The news was everywhere. The brilliant young CEO was branded a gold-digger, a man who got ahead by leeching off a woman. He never said a word, acting as considerate as always, but something between us had irrevocably changed. He smoked more, his silence filled with a volatile, brooding anger. One night, drunk and disoriented, he confessed his true feelings. “Do you know what I hate most in this world? Handouts,” he slurred. “Freda… I wish I had never met you.” 3 My thoughts snapped back to the present. I saw the tense line of Kyle’s jaw. “That’s not important,” he answered dismissively. The entire time, his feet were pointed in the direction Lily’s ambulance had disappeared. The irony was suffocating. His body was here, but his heart was long gone. When the second ambulance finally arrived, my father’s pulse was terrifyingly weak. Once we were inside, I ignored Kyle completely, my eyes glued to the heart monitor. Not long after we started moving, my father’s heart rate began to plummet, at one point dropping into the 30s. “Dad, please wake up…” I cried, my voice tearing from my throat. Kyle finished a phone call and stood up, speaking to the driver. “Can you go any faster? Don’t take the detour to the other hospital. Go to the nearest town clinic, now!” A few minutes later, miraculously, my father’s heart rate began to climb back up. I was crying with relief, so much so that even the sight of Kyle beside me wasn’t as repulsive. The ninety-minute drive took the driver less than thirty. We arrived at the clinic and were rushed through for an emergency examination. The CT results were bad. A cerebral hemorrhage, with significant bleeding. The doctor informed me that the local clinic wasn’t equipped to handle it; he needed to be transferred to a more specialized hospital. “Kyle, thank you for arranging for the ambulance to come to our hospital,” Lily said, pouting as she tugged on his arm. “I thought the equipment here would be enough. I had no idea Uncle was so seriously injured…” My body swayed. I stared at Kyle in disbelief. He pushed Lily away and took a step towards me, his face a picture of apology. “Freda, let me explain…” I turned my back on him without a word, following the paramedics as they loaded my father into yet another ambulance. As we drove, a part of my heart crumbled to dust. I knew, with absolute certainty, that there was no going back for us. When we reached the next hospital, the accompanying nurse quickly briefed the on-duty doctor. After a quick call to the relevant department, the doctor looked at me with a flicker of pity in his eyes. “I’m so sorry. Our hospital’s only neurosurgeon is on leave today…” A roar filled my head. A wave of immense despair washed over me. We were at least six hours from the nearest major city hospital. Without a surgeon, who could save my father? The rain was relentless, splashing up from the open courtyard, soaking the cuffs of my pants. A figure slowly emerged from the downpour and stood before me, holding out a hand. “Freda, let’s take Dad home. Let’s be with him for his final moments.” It was Kyle. I recoiled in disgust, my mind racing, desperately trying to think of a solution. Suddenly, I saw Lily in the hospital courtyard, arguing with a strange man. What is she doing here? A sense of unease pricked at me, and I started walking towards them. Kyle caught up to me. “That’s Lily’s ex-boyfriend,” he explained, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “He’s from a poor family and has been harassing her for money since they broke up. Lily has always had a boyfriend, Freda. You need to stop being so suspicious…” The man arguing with Lily was dressed in worn-out clothes, his slippers so old they had holes in them. He looked exactly as Kyle described. I stopped. My father was dying. I couldn’t waste time on idle curiosity. But as I turned to walk back, passing Kyle, a single raindrop hit my forehead, and my mind cleared with shocking clarity. Wrong. Those weren’t worn-out slippers. They were surgical clogs. As Kyle watched in stunned confusion, I bolted through the rain like a madwoman. “Doctor! I’m Freda Sterling! My father has a cerebral hemorrhage and needs surgery…” I cried, grabbing the strange man’s sleeve. The man, Dr. Miller, frowned. “Are you with them? This other woman just told me you had decided against signing the consent form for surgery.” Kyle rushed over, his voice sharp with accusation. “Freda, what do you think you’re doing, grabbing onto another man like that?” He grabbed my arm, trying to pull me away. SLAP! I hit him with all the force I could muster.

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At dinner, my mother-in-law Martha claimed she was a time traveler from twenty years ago. We dismissed it as medication side effects—until she confronted Arthur: “Why are we living worse than twenty years back? I gave you my brother’s factory spot!” Arthur went silent. Later, Martha begged me to tail him on my scooter. We watched as a Rolls-Royce pulled up. A suited man stepped out: “Mr. Thorne, the luxury care suite is ready. No more pretending to be poor.” Martha collapsed against me, sobbing. “Why do you look shocked too?” she gasped. Because in that Rolls sat my “humble delivery driver” husband. 1 Martha, in a daze, stumbled after the disappearing Rolls-Royce, her feet catching on an uneven paving stone. She went down hard. A young couple rushed to help her up, but she just stared at the empty street, refusing to move. “Lady, if you’re trying to pull an insurance scam, you picked the wrong car,” the girl said, half-joking. “That’s a Rolls-Royce. And not just any Rolls—look at the plate, CV-0002.” Martha looked at the girl’s envious face, completely bewildered. “CV-0001 belongs to the famous Vivian Vance, the wife of the Thorne Industries chairman,” the girl chattered on, full of celebrity gossip. “And CV-0002 belongs to the chairman himself, Arthur Thorne. Who knew the head of such a massive corporation was such a romantic? Totally whipped, I bet.” The more the girl talked, the darker Martha’s expression became. When she heard the name ‘Vivian Vance’, her eyes looked like they were about to burst from their sockets. “Arthur Thorne… After twenty years, you’re still with that bitch.” Sensing the shift in mood, the boyfriend gave his girlfriend a nudge, and they quickly made their escape. I was rooted to the spot, my limbs heavy as lead. My phone slipped from my numb fingers, its screen still glowing with a news headline:【INTERNATIONAL SUPERMODEL SHERYL STARR AND HEIR SANDY THORNE HIT THE CLUB FOR A WILD NIGHT OUT】. The man in the photo, his face splashed across the screen, was the same man I knew as my husband. My husband, whose supposed battle with leukemia had drained our life savings and plunged us into a mountain of debt. It wasn’t just my father-in-law who was living a lie. It was my husband, Sandy, too. If I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes, sitting in the back of that Rolls-Royce in a perfectly tailored suit, I would never have believed it. The husband I’d worked three jobs for, the man I’d pulled back from the brink of death’s door by feeding him rice porridge and pickles to save every penny… was the heir to the Thorne Industries empire. Martha had told me her story. Twenty years ago, she had used her family’s connections to get Arthur, who could barely read, into college and land him a respectable job in the city. They had a beautiful son. An accident had thrown her forward in time, and she had expected to wake up to a comfortable, upper-middle-class life. Instead, she woke up to this. The shrill ring of my phone snapped us both out of our stupor. “Kendra, were you moonlighting again? I’ve got customer complaints up to my ears. If I didn’t know you were supporting two cancer patients at home, I would have fired you on the spot. Hello? Are you there?” The voice on the other end was loud enough for Martha to hear every word. Her gaze sharpened, focusing on me. “Two cancer patients? Besides Sandy, who else…?” A horrifying thought seemed to dawn on her. She walked over to a nearby car and stared at her reflection in the side mirror. Sparse hair, a gaunt face, a frail frame paradoxically swollen by a bloated abdomen. “The doctors said you have late-stage stomach cancer,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “They said surgery might have helped, but you refused treatment. You wanted to save the money for Sandy’s bone marrow transplant, so you hid it from him and Arthur.” Martha stared at her reflection for a long, silent moment. Then, a chilling smile spread across her face. “Arthur Thorne,” she whispered to the broken woman in the mirror. “What will you do when you find out that the woman who gave you everything is dying because your little charade kept her from getting treatment?” 2 Following a business news alert, Martha found the hotel where Arthur was holding a meeting that afternoon. Though her mind was sharp and young, her sixty-year-old body was frail. She was panting heavily by the time she reached the lobby. Before she could even ask for the location of the conference room, the front desk clerk was already pinching her nose and rolling her eyes. “Ma’am, we don’t have any cans for you to collect here.” She gestured subtly for security to remove the “eyesore.” But Martha wasn’t leaving. She screamed, “I want to see Arthur Thorne!” Her voice echoed in the opulent lobby. “The land he just sold belonged to my family! How dare he use that money to buy that whore Vivian Vance a private island!” “Where did this crazy person come from?” the clerk muttered, looking at her with a mixture of pity and disgust. I arrived just in time to see her in a standoff with two burly security guards. As I moved to intervene, a pair of familiar figures emerged from the elevator: Arthur and Sandy. “After this meeting, Vivian and I are stepping back to enjoy our lives,” Arthur was saying. “You need to step up, son. Handle things.” “Don’t worry, Dad,” Sandy replied, a smug grin on his face. “I learned from the best. Kendra, just like Mom, is so hung up on a man being faithful. They don’t get it. For men like us, from families like ours, how could one woman ever be enough?” A blade of ice twisted in my gut. My nails had dug so deep into my palms that they’d drawn blood. “Sandy,” Arthur added, his tone more serious, “the empire comes first. Remember, I started with nothing. It was your mother who saved me. And Kendra… even though her family is ordinary, she stuck by you when you told her you had leukemia. She worked herself to the bone to pay off our ‘debts’. You won’t find that kind of loyalty in any of the blue-blooded women in our circle.” As the two impeccably dressed men walked past me, Sandy pinched his nose and quickened his pace. He whispered something to the front desk clerk, who immediately grabbed a can of air freshener and began spraying the path I had just walked, a look of profound apology on her face. At that moment, the guards manhandled a protesting Martha out of the hotel and shoved her onto the hot pavement. Just then, a black SUV pulled up. “Sandy!” Supermodel Sheryl Starr, teetering on stilettos, stepped out. She carefully stepped over Martha’s head to reach Sandy, linking her arm through his possessively. “How can a five-star hotel let in delivery drivers and homeless people?” Sheryl whined, her voice carrying across the lobby. “I almost twisted my ankle trying to avoid her.” Arthur frowned slightly, but the expression vanished as quickly as it appeared. Sandy, however, stroked Sheryl’s nose dotingly. “As long as my baby wasn’t hurt.” He shot a look at the security guards. They understood immediately, forming a human wall and using a velvet rope to cordon me and Martha off from the entrance. “Sandy, you ungrateful wolf! You’d kick out your own mother!” Martha shrieked, her voice raw with anguish. But her cries were lost, muffled by the thick, soundproof glass of the hotel lobby. The 100-degree sun beat down on us. Martha was drenched in sweat, her lips a deathly white. Suddenly, she coughed, spewing a mouthful of white foam mixed with blood. I scrambled to support her slumping body with one hand while frantically dialing Sandy’s number with the other. He rejected every call. Through the glass, I could see my husband. My husband, the son Martha had cherished for over twenty years. He was sitting on a plush leather sofa, his suit jacket off, the muscles of his abdomen visible through his silk shirt as he wrapped his arm around the scantily clad supermodel. Fueled by a surge of adrenaline, I broke through the confusion and charged into the conference room. When Sandy saw me, his eyes darted away. He quickly dropped his hand from Sheryl’s waist. “Kendra, what are you doing here? Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m just shooting a scene.” “Oh? A scene?” I shot back, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Since when are you famous enough for international supermodel Sheryl Starr to be your co-star in an intimate scene? Or is she just so in love she’s willing to be the other woman?” Sandy’s face went rigid. The others in the room, sensing the impending explosion, quickly and quietly filed out. “Sister,” Sheryl said, her earlier disdain replaced by a saccharine smile. “It must be so hot outside. Here, have some iced tea.” She held out a glass, and the massive diamond on her ring finger and the jade bangle on her wrist flashed, searing my eyes. “Oh, this old thing?” she said, noticing my stare. “I found it in Sandy’s room. I said I liked it, so he gave it to me. Later, I heard it was a family heirloom your mother gave you before she died. The one you sold to ‘help’ him. I suppose I should return it to its rightful owner.” Sandy stood there, silent, unable to meet my gaze. When he had told me he was giving up on his treatment because he was out of money, I had tearfully pawned the only thing my mother had left me. And now, it was on her wrist. As Sheryl handed it to me, she “accidentally” let it slip. It hit the marble floor with a sickening crack, shattering into a dozen pieces. Rage, white-hot and blinding, flooded my veins. I swung my hand and slapped her, hard. Sandy leaped in front of Sheryl, grabbing my arm and shoving me to the ground. Shards of the broken bangle dug deep into my palm, but I felt nothing. No pain. Just a vast, cold emptiness. “Kendra, what the hell is wrong with you? It’s just a stupid bracelet!” he snarled. “Don’t you know Sheryl’s a model? What if you hurt her face? How is she supposed to work?” With that, he shot me a look of pure disgust and led a whimpering Sheryl out of the room. My heart felt like a cavern, ripped open by a jagged knife. I couldn’t breathe. 3 By the time Arthur arrived at the hospital, Martha was awake. The moment she saw him, she ripped the IV from her arm, scrambled off the bed, and launched herself at him, her fists pounding against his chest. “Arthur Thorne! You really were with that bitch! I saw it all!” Arthur clutched his stinging cheek, a flicker of surprise in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by something that looked unnervingly like relief. “Martha, we’re not young anymore. Just focus on getting better. We can live out our days peacefully. That’s what’s important.” In the two years I’d been married to Sandy, Arthur had always been the picture of a refined gentleman, unfailingly polite to family and strangers alike. I’d never seen him lose his temper, not even now, with a red handprint blooming on his face. Even the patient in the next bed was looking at Martha like she was being unreasonable. Martha’s eyes were bloodshot. She glared at Arthur, then lunged again, but Sandy stepped between them. “Mom! You’ve seen who Dad is now! He’s the chairman of a major corporation! He spent years playing along with your little games. Look at yourself! You can’t even dance with him. Now look at Aunt Vivian! Her skin, her figure… she looks like she’s thirty. She goes on trips with us. You never even let me go to summer camp as a kid. In the end, it was Aunt Vivian who took me!” Martha’s face turned ashen. Her lips trembled, and she pointed a shaking finger at Sandy, speechless. “Sandy, you ungrateful brat! I got cancer scrimping and saving for your ‘illness’, and you’re taking their side?” “Cancer?” Sandy scoffed. “You’re still using that old trick? Haven’t you learned anything new in twenty years?” Both Arthur and Sandy’s faces were grim. Sandy shot a quick, accusatory glance in my direction. “Honestly, Mom, just calm down,” he continued, his tone patronizing. “Aunt Vivian helped find this place for you. It’s a luxury care facility. A million a year. We could never have earned that in a lifetime before. Just relax and enjoy your retirement. Dad and I will visit often.” “Get out! Both of you, get out!” Martha shrieked, grabbing a water glass and hurling it at Sandy. Arthur and Sandy exchanged a look, shook their heads, and left the room. Martha lay on the bed, silent and still. “Honey,” the woman in the next bed said to me as I walked in. She was peeling lychees for the man lying in her bed. “Your mother-in-law acts like a twenty-year-old, still expecting fairy-tale love.” Martha’s eyes filled with tears as she watched the couple, perhaps remembering a time when she had cared for Arthur with the same devotion. Suddenly, a machine by her bed let out a piercing shriek. A doctor rushed in, saw the reading on Martha’s blood oxygen monitor, and immediately shoved her into the emergency room. “Her abdomen is completely filled with fluid,” the doctor said gravely when he came out to find the next of kin. “The family needs to prepare for the worst.” 4 I must have called a hundred times. Finally, a sharp, feminine voice echoed down the hallway. “Wow, a total amateur with better acting skills than a professional. Is it money you want? Is a thousand dollars enough?” Sheryl Starr sauntered over, a wave of perfect curls bouncing on her shoulders. She held a wad of cash and shoved it into my hands. “My future father-in-law already told me about your little mother-daughter-in-law act. Consider this your salary for today’s performance.” “Sheryl! Sandy’s mother is in critical condition! She could die at any moment!” I yelled. Sheryl just smirked, tapped her phone, and raised an eyebrow. “Even better. Sandy’s real mother should have always been Aunt Vivian. You and that old hag can crawl back to whatever hole you came from.” A cheerful, middle-aged woman’s laugh crackled from the phone. 【Sheryl, dear, I knew I was right about you. When you and Sandy get married, I’ll give you all the limited-edition bags and jewelry Arthur gave me.】 “Thank you, Aunt Vivian,” Sheryl cooed, her face stretched into a smile so wide it looked painful. She rolled her eyes as she hung up, then immediately picked up another phone. “Aunt Vivian and I have Sandy’s and Arthur’s phones. Don’t even think about reaching them today.” With a flick of her hair, she strode away from the ER doors. I tried calling them again. This time, all I got was the cold, robotic voice of the voicemail service. “We did everything we could,” the doctor said, shaking his head. “The patient’s abdominal cavity was full of fluid. If she had come to the hospital sooner to have it drained, she might have had a few more days.” I looked at Martha, lying still on the bed. Her face was dark and weathered, her skin like parchment from years of collecting scrap under the brutal sun to make ends meet. A chilling thought crept into my mind. If Martha hadn’t time-traveled, in twenty years, would that be me lying on that bed? Before she passed, Martha gave me her last will and testament: her ashes were to be scattered to the wind, never to be given to Arthur Thorne or his son. After handling her affairs, I left a signed divorce agreement on the dining table and walked out of that house for good. A few days later, my phone exploded with calls. 【Kendra, what is the meaning of this? You insisted on marrying me when we had nothing, and now that you know my family is wealthy, you want a divorce? Is this another one of your games? You’d better show your face right now.】 I blocked Sandy’s number, only to receive a message from Arthur demanding to know where Martha was. 【268 Longsea Road.】 I replied. 【Why is she working at a funeral home? What a morbid place.】

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1 I was fitting my wedding dress when my fiancé called, voice shaking. “Scarlett, the new house… it’s burned down!” At the scene, my seven-year-old nephew Ethan sobbed in a reporter’s arms, covered in soot. “It was Auntie! She tried to burn me alive for our family’s money!” Under flashing cameras, he revealed bruises on his neck. “She beats me, drugs my water, even puts thumbtacks on my bed!” The internet erupted: “Her sister’s barely buried, and she’s stealing from a child!” “Monsters like her deserve execution!” My fiancé’s family’s pity turned to horror. What Ethan didn’t know? For him, I’d torn up a deal—his father’s house in exchange for a lighter sentence—and sent the man to death row myself. I’d spent my savings raising him… only for him to paint me a murderer. Nausea hit me. This nephew? I was done. … “Scarlett Evans, you piece of trash!” “How dare you get married after trying to kill your own nephew! Your sister must be turning in her grave!” My phone buzzed relentlessly, the messages on the screen making my scalp tingle. I stood outside the police tape, my wedding dress stained with ash. The phone rang again. It was my fiancé Leo’s mother, her voice like ice. “Scarlett, you’ve dragged the Chen family’s name through the mud! The wedding is off! Off, do you hear me?!” She hung up before I could explain. Through the crowd, I saw Leo. He tried to rush over, but his mother held him back, her grip like a vise. His eyes were filled with pain, but also with a wavering doubt. The way he looked at me, as if I were a monster, froze the last bit of warmth in my heart. Memories from the past few months flooded my mind, each one a knife twisting in my gut. It started with him stealing money from my wallet. Five thousand dollars, gone in less than a day on game skins, virtual items, and tips for streamers. When I confronted him, he ran to school, crying, telling his teachers I had forced him to steal because I wouldn’t feed him. They believed him. At the parent-teacher conference, the other parents looked at me like I was a child-abusing demon. I explained, I begged, I showed them receipts for everything I bought him. It was useless. Then, he deliberately pushed a classmate at school. The little girl broke her leg. When her parents came to our door, he hid behind me, his eyes wide with tears, and whimpered, “My aunt wants me to get expelled so she can send me to an orphanage.” I emptied my savings to pay for the girl’s medical bills. I enrolled him in the most expensive after-school programs, bought him every toy he wanted. In return, his schemes only grew more elaborate. A month ago, in the principal’s office, Ethan sobbed his heart out, pointing a small finger at me. “Teacher, my aunt made me steal it! She said our family was starving and we had to steal something valuable!” The limited-edition fountain pen was worth three hundred dollars. I paid for it on the spot. Worse, I had to apologize in front of all the other parents, admitting to my “improper parenting.” The looks they gave me were the same as the reporters’ now—filled with disgust and contempt. And then, ten days ago, the neighbor’s cat fell from the sixth floor and died instantly. Ethan stood there, his eyes red and puffy, looking aggrieved. “It scratched me. I just gave it a little push. I didn’t think it would fall.” But I had seen the cat’s body. I saw the raw, pink flesh where patches of fur were missing, oozing blood. I saw the small, still-bleeding puncture wounds on its hind leg, clearly made by a small knife. I remember the look in that cat’s eyes before it died—pure terror. And Ethan, once he was back inside, didn’t shed a single tear. Thinking back now, it wasn’t an accident. He did it on purpose. I looked past the police tape to where Ethan was surrounded by reporters. His tears came on command, his trembling voice pitched with just the right amount of fear. “My aunt said I’m a murderer’s son and I don’t deserve to live! She said I’m a burden and she’s wanted to kill me for a long time!” Every word was a bullet, hitting its mark with deadly precision. Watching Ethan’s masterful performance for the cameras, the last shred of hope I had cherished was extinguished. I had naively believed that at seven, he was still just a child who didn’t know any better. That even if he did wrong, with enough guidance and love, I could set him on the right path. But now, watching him expertly manipulate public opinion, calculating every last detail, I finally understood—I could never teach him. 2 A police officer approached, his expression grim. “Ms. Evans, we need you to come with us for questioning. Your nephew, Ethan Thorne, has accused you of arson and attempted murder.” I looked at him and said, word for word, “I did not do it.” I was escorted by two female officers toward the charred remains of my bridal home. Strangers and neighbors pointed and whispered. “That’s the black-hearted woman! Lost all her conscience for money!” “Yeah, that’s her. She always seemed so quiet and gentle, who knew she was so vicious.” “Right, even tried to burn her own nephew to death, what a beast!” I tried to explain that I hadn’t killed anyone. That I had given all my love to care for my nephew. But no one around me believed a word. My legs started to feel weak, a buzzing filled my head. Just then, a familiar voice called out, “Scarlett! Scarlett Evans!” I turned to see my best friend, Kendra. She was desperately pushing through the crowd, trying to reach me. “Let me through! I need to see Scarlett!” Kendra finally broke through to me, her eyes filled with tears. “Scarlett, what on earth happened?!” “Ethan is not just your enemy’s child, he’s also your sister’s only son!” My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. Even Kendra doubted me. “I didn’t do it!” I screamed, my voice raw. Kendra took a step back, a flicker of fear in her eyes. “Scarlett, you need to calm down…” The female officer pulled me forward, and my mind started replaying the past. After my sister’s funeral, my brother-in-law’s parents knelt before me, a property deed and a bank card placed beside them. “Scarlett, sign this leniency plea, let your brother-in-law live, and all of this will be yours!” His mother wailed, heartbroken. “Your brother-in-law just made a mistake. If your sister knew, she wouldn’t want Ethan to lose his father and become an orphan!” I looked at the plea, my hands trembling. A house worth two million dollars, a bank card with half a million. Enough for Ethan to live comfortably for the rest of his life. But my sister, she was only 26, in the prime of her life. She never got to see Ethan grow up. In front of all our relatives, I tore the plea to shreds. “My sister’s life is not something a house can buy!” The relatives gasped. Someone started to reason with me, “Scarlett, you’re being too impulsive.” “Exactly, the dead can’t be brought back. What’s the point of doing this?” “You’re a single woman, raising a child is hard. With the money, at least your life would be secure.” I looked at them, my heart twisting in agony. My brother-in-law’s parents scrambled up from the floor, their eyes filled with venom. “Fine, Scarlett Evans. You want him dead? We’ll make you pay for the rest of your life!” At the time, I thought they were just angry words. I never imagined it was a declaration of their revenge. Even when my sister was alive, her husband had instilled in Ethan the idea that “money can solve everything.” Whatever Ethan wanted, his father bought. The most expensive toys, the finest clothes, the latest gadgets. My sister once worried, “If you keep spoiling him like this, he’ll be ruined.” Her husband was dismissive. “My son deserves the best.” Once, Ethan lied at school, claiming a teacher had hit him. When my sister found out the truth, she spanked him in anger. When her husband found out, he immediately held Ethan and yelled at my sister, “You dare touch my son!” My sister cried in frustration. “I was trying to teach him a lesson, he can’t get into the habit of lying.” “Teach him?” Her husband sneered. “You’re a Thorne. What right do you have to discipline a Chen family child?” That night, my sister cried in my arms for a long time. “Scarlett, am I really not a good mother?” I comforted her. “Sis, you did the right thing. Children need discipline.” Thinking back now, the seeds of Ethan’s evil were planted long ago. 3 I was taken to the scene, the air thick with the acrid smell of smoke. The bridal home was burned to a black skeleton, and my heart felt like it had been ripped apart. “Scarlett Evans, you venomous woman!” Ethan’s grandmother had arrived at some point, and the moment she saw me, she lunged, trying to claw at me, only to be held back by the police. She pointed at me, wailing to the onlookers and reporters, “First she killed my son, now she won’t even spare my only grandson!” Her eyes were vicious, as if she wanted to tear me to pieces. The crowd began to murmur, some taking pictures, others recording videos. “You really can’t judge a book by its cover.” Leo’s mother stood to the side, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Our family almost married a murderer.” Her words were a knife, plunging straight into my heart. This woman, who had once held my hand and said, “Scarlett, from now on, you’re my daughter,” now wished I would just disappear. My eyes started to burn, and I fought back tears. “Scarlett.” Leo finally walked over to me, his voice hoarse. “Tell me, why did you lock the door from the outside?” He used the word “why,” not “I believe you.” My heart plummeted. Even my fiancé didn’t believe me! “I didn’t lock the door!” I screamed. “Auntie said she had a surprise for me.” Ethan, hiding in his grandmother’s arms, pointed a small finger at me, his voice trembling. “After I went in, I heard a ‘click’ from outside. She locked me in!” His performance was flawless. The trembling voice, the perfectly pitched fear, even the “click” sound was mimicked with eerie accuracy. The crowd grew agitated. “The kid’s details are so specific, it must be true.” “Worse than an animal! People like her should get the death penalty.” My breathing quickened, and the world began to spin. “The investigation at the scene confirms the door was indeed locked from the outside.” A firefighter’s words shattered my last line of defense. Leo took a step back, a flicker of fear in his eyes. His mother immediately rushed forward, grabbing his arm. “Son, let’s go. Don’t get involved with a murderer.” “Wait!” I lunged, trying to grab Leo’s hand. But he stepped back, avoiding my touch. The man who once said, “Scarlett, I’ll protect you for the rest of my life,” was now looking at me like I was a monster. Tears streamed down my face. “Leo, you don’t believe me either?” “Scarlett, I…” Leo’s voice was full of pain and conflict. “Forget it.” I wiped away my tears, my voice strangely calm. “You don’t have to say anything. I understand.”

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The blizzard had turned the world into a ghost, and I was shooting the breeze with my colleague over the walkie-talkie to kill time. Through the thick, swirling snow, I saw a figure by a car, waving at me. A resident, I figured. I was about to head over, ready to score some points for the property management. Then, my colleague’s voice crackled urgently from the radio. “Sam, don’t go!” “The main roads are all closed. Who’d be trying to drive in this?” “That’s a bear wave!” 1 I’d heard the stories. Some bears, especially near populated areas, had learned to mimic human gestures. A friendly wave. A distress signal. In weather like this, a well-meaning person would think someone needed help. By the time they got close enough to see the truth, it was too late. You were food. The local news had just reported a bear escaping a nearby wildlife park. Our community wasn’t far. If Al hadn’t warned me, I can’t imagine what would’ve happened. A cold dread washed over me. I asked Al what to do. His grandfather had been a hunter up in the mountains, and the old man’s warning echoed through the radio: Never turn your back on a predator. I took his advice, turning off my radio to avoid any sudden noise and beginning a slow, deliberate retreat. But even though I tried to act casual, the hazy figure in the distance began to wave its arm faster, more frantically. The arc of its swing grew wider, a blur of motion no human arm could make. Was it dropping the act? Then, suddenly, it stopped. I blinked, and it was gone. Vanished into the whiteout. I scanned the area, my heart hammering against my ribs as a cold sweat beaded on my forehead. A terrifying thought bloomed in my mind. The frantic waving wasn’t just a threat; it was a distraction. It knew that I knew. It was trying to confuse me, to find a new angle of attack, one that would put it out of my line of sight. The situation had changed. I switched my radio back on, my voice trembling as I updated Al. I didn’t even finish my sentence. “Run, Sam!” his voice screamed, so loud it was distorted. “Run now!” Al’s panicked warning sent a jolt of pure adrenaline through me. I spun around and sprinted, a blind, desperate flight toward the security booth. The whole way, I didn’t feel the thunder of pursuit, and a sliver of relief cut through my panic. I was just at the door, fumbling for the handle. Whoosh! A blast of wind tore past my ear. A set of claws, massive and black, swiped through the space where my head had been a second before. It had somehow gotten behind me. If I hadn’t ducked to unlock the door at that exact moment, my skull would have been crushed. The force of its missed swing was so powerful that the creature stumbled, its heavy body unable to pivot quickly. That was all the time I needed. I lunged inside, slammed the heavy-duty door shut, and twisted the deadbolt. Only then, with the crisis momentarily averted, did my body give out. I collapsed against the wall, my limbs turning to jelly. Outside, I could hear ragged, guttural panting, punctuated by thunderous blows against the door. The force was incredible; the entire booth trembled with each impact. That’s when I realized the horrifying truth. It hadn’t just chased me. It had climbed the perimeter wall, taking a shortcut to head me off. Was this thing really a bear? The pounding continued for several minutes. Eventually, it must have realized the reinforced steel door wasn’t giving way. Thank God I’d complained about the winter cold and had management upgrade the old wooden shack to this insulated, fortified booth. Slowly, the sounds outside faded. Only then did I dare to switch on my radio again. “Al? You there?” “Jesus, Sam! Finally! I thought you were a goner!” I assured him I was safe and quickly recounted what had happened. There was a long silence on the other end, followed by a heavy sigh. “Sam, listen to me,” Al said, his voice grim. “From now on, no matter who knocks, you do not open that door.” “What’s going on? What do you mean?” “That bear… I think it’s eaten someone. It’s… leveled up.” “Leveled up? What the hell does that mean?” Suddenly… Knock. Knock. Knock. A polite, human knock at the door. Over the radio, Al’s voice was a desperate whisper. “Don’t open it, Sam. For the love of God, don’t open it.” Then, his radio went silent. I hesitated, then crept toward the door. The security monitors were useless, just a screen of snowy static from the blizzard. The only way to see out was the peephole. I bent down, peered through the small glass lens, and my blood ran cold. Standing outside was a man, bleeding heavily. I could just make out that it was Mr. Henderson, the owner of the little convenience store next to the complex. He’d clearly been attacked. He was looking at me, his eyes pleading for help. My hand instinctively went to the deadbolt. But Al’s warning held me back. Mr. Henderson was weak, his body slumped forward, dripping blood onto the fresh snow. It was that slump, that small detail, that made my eyes widen in horror. Behind him, pressed against the side wall of the booth, I saw it. The bear. It craned its neck, peeking around the corner to watch me, then quickly retracted its head, disappearing from view. In that instant, I understood exactly what Al meant by “leveled up.” 2 Mr. Henderson was a good guy. He’d often slip me a free coffee or a sandwich during my long shifts. I crouched by the door, watching him through the peephole. My plan was simple: wait for the bear to move a little further away, then yank him inside. If I was fast enough, the bear wouldn’t have time to react. I watched for what felt like an eternity. The bear didn’t reappear. Had it left? My gut, now screaming with primal fear, told me to wait. To be sure. Still nothing. Even if it was still hiding around the corner, out of my direct line of sight, I might have a chance. The creature was massive, clumsy. It couldn’t be good at quick turns. After another minute of silent observation, I decided to risk it. Click. I took a deep breath and slowly, quietly, turned the deadbolt. My hand touched the doorknob. It was ice-cold. “Sam… please, hurry!” Mr. Henderson’s voice was a weak rasp from outside. Hope had renewed his urgency. Then, my heart skipped a beat. Through the peephole, I saw Mr. Henderson’s eyes flick instinctively to his right. Had the bear circled around? Was it waiting on the other side of the door? Thwack! I slammed the deadbolt back into place. At the exact same moment… BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! A furious, inhuman pounding rattled the entire booth. This wasn’t a man’s strength. “Aaargh!” Mr. Henderson screamed, a sound of pure terror, before it was cut off by a wet, gurgling sob. Then came the sounds. Tearing. Cracking. Wet, slurping noises. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see, but my mind painted the gruesome picture for me. A moment later, Al’s voice came over the radio. He’d seen the whole thing on a different set of cameras from the main office. He tried to comfort me, telling me that Henderson knew the bear was there. He was using himself as bait to get me to open the door. He was selfish first. It wasn’t my fault. I knew he was right, but that didn’t stop the deep, gnawing fear that was consuming me. “Al… it’s leveled up, just like you said. I saw it.” My voice was shaky. “It can suppress its instinct to feed, use a human as a tool, learn how we open doors. It even anticipated what I was thinking, tried to trick me.” Al sighed heavily. “That’s why I told you not to open the door, man.” “I have to call Brenda,” I said, my sense of duty kicking back in. “She needs to warn all the residents.” Al was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Sam, you need to worry about yourself right now. You start helping the others, and it finds out? It’s not going to let you go.” Before tonight, I would have laughed that off. A bear understanding network communication? Logical cause and effect? But after what I’d just witnessed, I wasn’t so sure. Maybe it really had become something more. Al’s advice made a terrifying kind of sense. If I just stayed quiet, maybe it would lose interest and find another target. But I couldn’t do it. I’m no hero, but I get paid to do a job, even if the pay is crap. I couldn’t live with myself knowing the familiar faces I saw every day were being hunted. I knew it was probably out there, listening, lurking in some blind spot. But I made the call. I dialed Brenda, the property manager, and told her everything. She needed to send out an emergency alert to all the HOA group chats. I was only in one, and a warning from a security guard wouldn’t carry enough weight. I also called the police and reported the situation. After I hung up, I felt a small measure of relief. But before I could even catch my breath, Al’s voice crackled over the radio, telling me to check the group chat. One look at my phone, and the knot of fear in my stomach tightened again. In the Building 13 residents’ chat, a user named Finn from apartment 1201 had posted a photo. It was a panoramic shot of the entire complex, blanketed in a pristine layer of white snow. There was no sign of a bear. No sign of Mr. Henderson’s body. Nothing. Finn’s message read: “A bear? Seriously? Are you guys so desperate for attention you’re making up ‘bear attack’ stories now?” 3 I zoomed in on the photo, frantically scanning every pixel. There was nothing. Not a single track, not a drop of blood. This was impossible. If there was no bear, what had I just experienced? Did the bear drag the body away and cover its tracks? Was the photo photoshopped? I was furious. I typed back: “We are not joking about this. This is a serious threat, and everyone needs to take it seriously. Someone has already been killed. I saw it with my own eyes.” A few of the residents who trusted us chimed in, offering support. The news about the escaped bear had been public knowledge, after all. Better safe than sorry. But Finn from 1201 quickly replied, posting a link to a brand-new news article. The escaped bear from the wildlife park had been captured an hour ago, miles away from our complex. The report stated the bear had not harmed anyone. Finn’s next message was scathing: “Stop with the theatrics. If you people at property management want to feel relevant, try lowering our HOA fees and fixing the plumbing instead of making up drama.” His words opened the floodgates. Residents who already had a grudge against management seized the opportunity, piling on, dredging up old complaints. Even the supportive residents started to waver, asking me to post a photo as proof. Doubt began to creep into my own mind. Was it possible? Was it all a hallucination? I shook my head. No. I wouldn’t believe it. I decided to go out and get the proof myself. The tracks had to be there. Even if the bear dragged the body away, there would be blood under the fresh layer of snow. I pulled out my phone, ready to take a picture. But first, I checked the peephole one last time. Nothing but white, empty snow. Was I wrong? Was it the little bit of whiskey I’d snuck into my coffee earlier? It was just a splash, not enough to make me see things… was it? “Sam, don’t be a fool! Don’t open that door! There’s something wrong with 1201!” Al’s voice crackled through the radio, sharp and urgent. My hand froze, inches from the deadbolt. Click. Rattle. Click. I pressed my eye back to the peephole and a wave of ice-cold terror washed over me. The bear was there. Standing upright. And its thick, clumsy paw was no longer a paw. It had transformed. It was using its knuckles, like a human hand, to twist the doorknob. The shock was so profound, my voice trembled when I spoke into the radio. “Al… what’s wrong with 1201?” 4 I thought I was prepared for anything, but Al’s next words hit me like a physical blow. “The bear… Finn in 1201. He raised it.” Raised it? No wonder. No wonder its behavior was so unnatural. The way it moved, the way it thought. This was no ordinary zoo animal, used to being fed by tourists. Al’s words also made me think about the apartment number: 1201. Our buildings were old, only twelve stories high. But the top-floor units, the penthouses, came with a large attic space. Big enough to house a bear? It was possible. The thud of its heavy footsteps would be the hardest thing to hide, but from the twelfth floor, the residents on the eleventh might not hear a thing, especially with enough soundproofing. But why? I could understand keeping a cat, a dog, maybe even a fox. But a massive, dangerous predator? It was insane. And illegal. I voiced my confusion to Al. He said he didn’t know why, but he did know one thing: he was standing outside Finn’s apartment in Building 13 right now. He’d smelled that familiar, musky scent of a bear and it had led him straight there. He sent me a picture on my phone. It was taken from roughly the same angle as Finn’s, but in this one, you could clearly see a large brown bear lying in the snow right next to my security booth, waiting. The body had been dragged into the peephole’s blind spot on the right, and the bloodstains were deliberately covered with a fresh pile of snow. “I’m going to talk to him,” Al’s voice came over the radio. “Sam, you stay put. Don’t you dare open that door.” Al’s reaction seemed too fast, almost as if he’d known about 1201 all along. But I didn’t have time to question it. A moment later, the radio was silent, but my phone started buzzing with notifications from the group chat. Al was posting. He’d caught the person spreading misinformation, he said. It was Finn from 1201.

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In my ninth life, after Prince William killed me again, he summoned my soul with incense. He did it because I’d died for him eight times before—but this time, he wanted me to die wearing his beloved consort’s face. “Seraphina,” he murmured, “you can be reborn. It’s not true death. Haven’t you always wanted to go home? I promise, this is the last time. After this, we’ll return to the village and live together.” Tearful, I nodded. But later, as I waited for the face-swapping ritual, I overheard him speaking to a guard: “My lord, you promised the princess we’d return to her village—yet you had me slaughter everyone there. She cherishes that place. Is this wise?” William’s shadowed face was unreadable. “Those villagers refused Elara their beauty rituals. She killed them in anger, and I cleaned up the mess.” He sighed. “Seraphina lost a few relatives. I’ll make it up next life.” But, William, my love… this is my last life. For us, there is no next time. 1 “…While the villagers have been exterminated, the valley is filled with rare and valuable flora. It seems a waste to burn it all,” the guard said, still kneeling. The blood on his sword was still wet, dripping onto the stone floor and creating a crimson path that snaked to William’s feet. In this life, William was the Prince Regent, a man of immense power. He lounged in his carved throne-like chair, his dark hair cascading over his shoulders. His handsome, almost feminine eyes, usually so full of charm, were now pools of icy indifference. He toyed with my soul-incense, a small, carved stick that bound my spirit to the mortal plane, as if listening to a trivial report. He didn’t even look up. “The plants are unimportant. Every person in that village possessed a soul-incense.” His voice was smooth, detached. “As long as the incense exists, they can be reincarnated, generation after generation.” “Elara was concerned the face-swapping ritual would damage her skin. She’d heard of their legendary beauty rituals. But they not only refused her, they insulted her. In a fit of rage, she slaughtered them.” He finally looked at the guard. “But that clan can use their soul-incense to be reborn. They could seek revenge on Elara’s descendants. I cannot allow her future to be threatened.” The guard, still in his blood-soaked tunic, flinched. “But my lord, you promised the princess you would return to the village with her soon. When that time comes…” William smiled, a chilling, humorless expression. “There will be no ‘that time.’ In one month, Seraphina will die in Elara’s place. In the next life, I will simply tell her that after nine generations, her people have moved on, and the village can no longer be found. She trusts me completely. She will never doubt it. As long as you keep your mouth shut.” Eight lifetimes of power had honed William’s presence into something truly formidable. The guard prostrated himself, trembling. “My lord, you have my word. I will never breathe a word of this to the princess.” The next second, the mute assassin who shadowed William’s every move stepped forward. A flash of steel, and the guard’s tongue was sliced from his mouth. In all his lives, William had never trusted words. Only the silent could truly keep a secret. The brutality of it sent me stumbling backward. Before, even in the face of his enemies, William had never shown this side of himself to me. The man before me was a stranger, terrifying and cold. I fled back to my chambers, my body collapsing to the floor. After the initial shock, a wave of profound, bottomless despair washed over me. I had been on my way to ask for my soul-incense back. My people’s soul-incense was a finite legacy. When one of us died, our descendant inherited our stick. If a soul-incense was destroyed, not only would that soul be annihilated, but their entire bloodline—over a hundred people—would be barred from the cycle of reincarnation. This was my last life. My ninth and final turn. I had wanted to send my soul-incense back to my village, to at least preserve my family line. But the secret I had so trustingly shared with William in our first life had become the very tool of my people’s extinction. In our first life, William was a Crown Prince. On a quest for a mythical artifact, he had stumbled upon my hidden village and found me, a girl who had never seen the outside world. He became Emperor, and I, his most cherished consort. For ten years, he built me palaces, hosted lavish banquets in my honor, and laid the world’s treasures at my feet. He would wake in the night, clinging to me, weeping that it was all a dream. But empires fall. Barbarians invaded, and our kingdom crumbled. William fled with me from the capital, a desperate retreat across the country. Finally, cornered, his generals delivered an ultimatum. “The people whisper that a sorceress has bewitched the Emperor, cursing the kingdom. Your Majesty, if you do not execute the sorceress and give the army justice, morale will break. We will never reclaim our home.” The courtyard outside my chambers was filled with kneeling courtiers and commanders. William locked me in my room, his body trembling with rage. “Fools! The barbarian threat has existed since my father’s time! It has nothing to do with you! They lose their own battles, and they want a woman to take the blame? Unacceptable!” He threw the dagger they had given him to the floor, his face streaked with tears. I gently picked it up, pressing it back into his hand along with my soul-incense. “William,” I whispered, “I am of the old blood. I can be reborn with my memories intact. Take this. In the next life, it will help you remember me, and find me again.” And so, in my first life, to save his kingdom, I guided his hand and plunged the blade into my own heart. In my second life, I shielded him on the battlefield, taking a thousand arrows meant for him. In my third life, when he summoned me back, he had a wife. Her name, he said, was Elara, his childhood sweetheart, a marriage arranged by their parents. He claimed there was no love between them, but he could not simply cast her aside. I believed him. Later, when rebels stormed the city, they tied both Elara and me to the city walls. “General William,” the rebel leader had shouted, “choose one. Your wife, or your mistress.” For the first time, William hesitated. And in that moment of hesitation, Elara cut her own ropes and leaped from the wall to her death. After that, William changed. In our fourth life, he found me first, but still spent years frantically searching for Elara’s reincarnation. “Seraphina, I failed her in our last life,” he’d explained. “I just want to make it up to her. Our time together will be long.” I dismissed it as a lingering obsession, a need for closure. In our fifth life, we were married, but he rescued Elara from a life of destitution and brought her into our home. “It’s my fault she suffered,” he’d insisted, ignoring my tears. He made her his second wife, of equal rank to me, and let the entire city laugh at my humiliation. So it went, life after life, until our eighth. He was an Emperor again. He gave Elara a child. It broke my heart, but I said nothing. He had given me the title of Empress, and every honor, yet he spent every night in Elara’s palace. I remained silent, until the day he stripped me of my title and threw me in the dungeon. “Seraphina,” he’d said, his voice cold, “I never knew you were so jealous. I only wanted to give her a child to lean on, before we retired to the countryside together. I never imagined you would be so cruel as to harm it.” “I can’t let you harm anyone else.” Elara had lost the child. And he blamed me, the Empress who never even left her own palace wing. Before I could even defend myself, he sentenced me to death by a thousand cuts, three hundred agonizing slices to make me remember my “crime.” Each time I fainted from the pain, his physicians would revive me with ginseng, keeping me alive for the next cut. When it was over, he came to my broken, hollowed-out body, his sword drawn. “Don’t blame me, Seraphina. Wait for me in the next life.” The sword pierced my heart, ending the torment. I awoke in my ninth life. In this life, William had clawed his way from obscurity to become the Prince Regent, all to secure a comfortable life for Elara in the palace. But Elara, emboldened by his power, had become a tyrant, her cruelty and recklessness infamous. Now, a rebellion was rising, their banner proclaiming the need to “cleanse the court and remove the demon consort.” Elara had to die. And William wanted me to die for her. He had promised the last time was the final time. The memories were a physical pain. My first instinct was to run, to at least save the last hope of my people and give my ancestors a proper burial. But I knew that as long as William held my soul-incense, I couldn’t even leave the palace walls. If I couldn’t escape, then at least I could choose how I died. I would not die for the woman who had destroyed my entire race. My gaze fell on the Whisperbloom flowers in the courtyard, a plant I had brought from my village. The blossoms were poisonous, a powerful paralytic. Eaten in large enough quantities, they caused a painless death in one’s sleep. Compared to the agonies of my past eight deaths, it sounded like a mercy. Without hesitation, I stuffed a handful of the blossoms into my mouth. The paralysis was immediate. I tumbled from my chair, my body hitting the ground, my consciousness fading. But then, frantic footsteps from the courtyard. “Seraphina!” William swept me into his arms, his voice raw as he called my name. Through the haze, I thought I saw a flicker of the old panic in his eyes, the helplessness, the fear. I tried to smile. But his face hardened with anger. “You want to die? Seraphina, your life is mine! How dare you try to take it without my permission?” He summoned the royal physicians, forced me to vomit up every last petal, and then ordered the courtyard stripped of every single Whisperbloom. When I was finally coherent, he stood over me, his eyes filled with a deep, chilling disappointment. “You were never like this before, Seraphina. Are you so consumed with jealousy that you would kill yourself, just to force Elara to her death? When did you become so vicious?” He gripped my face, forcing me down into the bedding. With the entire household of servants just outside, he ripped my clothes. “Is it because I gave Elara a child? Is that what this is about? Fine. I’ll satisfy you. Will that be enough?” I saw the shadows of the servants moving behind the screen, and I burned with shame. But the residual poison had left me too weak to even push him away. The gentle lover of my memories was gone. The bed frame creaked violently, and I saw the servants outside freeze, listening. Two tears traced a path from the corners of my eyes. When he was finished, he looked at my tear-streaked face, paused for a fraction of a second, and then simply covered me with the blanket. “You will stay here and recover. Banish these thoughts of suicide from your mind. I have already announced that you are gravely ill. You will remain in this courtyard and entertain no other foolish ideas.” 2 William placed me under house arrest. Guards patrolled the perimeter day and night. Anything I could possibly use to harm myself was removed. I sat on a bare stone bench in the courtyard, the sun beating down on me, but I felt no warmth. A maidservant, her expression blank, draped a cloak over my shoulders and handed me a hand-warmer. “My lady,” she said, her voice monotone, “it is time for your meal.” After my suicide attempt, my stomach was ruined. Every bite of food was agony, causing me to break out in a cold sweat. But William ordered the servants to watch me, to force me to eat every last morsel prepared by the kitchen. “You’re too thin, Seraphina,” he would say. “You don’t look enough like Elara. Don’t be difficult. Eat more. It’s the only way the disguise will be convincing.” So I became a machine, letting them stuff food into my mouth, swallowing it down, enduring the fire that would burn in my gut until the early hours of the morning. Until one day, the moment the food was placed before me, a wave of nausea hit, and I threw up. The maidservant, thinking I had taken poison again, immediately called for the physician. The physician announced that I was pregnant. One month along. I did the math. It was from the day he had confined me. My hand instinctively went to my stomach. A flicker of life in the barren desert of my heart. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The last drop of my people’s blood was right here, inside me. But then, uncertainty. If William knew I was pregnant, would he spare me? Would he let me preserve this last hope? After the physician left, I expected William to come. I waited for three days. He never appeared. A servant whispered that he had left the city in search of some rare treasure. I assumed Elara had heard of some new trinket she desired. It was always the way. She wanted, and William provided. But on the morning of the fourth day, a maidservant rushed into my room. “My lady! The Prince Regent has returned with a magnificent night-glowing pearl! He says it is for your birthday! Quickly, let me help you dress!” Her words jolted me. Today was my birthday. A lifetime of rebirths had blurred the passage of time. I had forgotten. But William had remembered. I touched my stomach, a sliver of hope blooming in my chest. He must care for this child. That’s why he had gone to find my favorite gem, the night-glowing pearl, for my birthday. He stood before me, placing the impossibly large, luminous pearl in my hands. He took my hand, his touch gentle. “Seraphina. Do you like it?” I was about to speak when his tone shifted. “I thought you would like this. A final gift, to send you off happily.” I stared at him, confused. He stood up, and Elara walked in from the doorway. “The rebel army is at the city gates,” she said, her voice impatient. “They’re screaming for my death. William, hurry up.”

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