Category: English

Three years after the divorce, the next time I heard news of my former CEO husband, it was live-streamed. His engagement party was splashed across the Jumbotron in the airport as soon as I landed. On the massive screen, the girl tucked under my ex-husband’s arm was gushing about their great love story. “Three years ago, I ran a little boutique florist shop in the Village, and he came into my shop to buy flowers for his wife.” “I was instantly smitten. When I found out he was the CEO of the Harrington Group, I started showing up at his office with ‘client’ bouquets every single day. I made sure his wife knew exactly what was going on, of course.” “After that, they fought constantly, and I just kept swooping in to ‘comfort’ him.” “It all came to a head when he got drunk after a huge fight with her. We were both overwhelmed by emotion, and it just happened naturally.” “I heard his wife had a miscarriage that night during their argument, and she ran home and cried herself silly.” “But look at me now—I knew I made the right choice. He’s the head of Alistair City’s leading conglomerate. I’m about to be the CEO’s wife. If I hadn’t swooped in when I did, I wouldn’t have this life.” “His ex? She was miserable. She didn’t even recover from the miscarriage before he made her walk away with nothing. Who knows if she’s even alive now.” I looked up at the familiar, smug face on the airport screen. I smiled. Well, that’s rather awkward for her. Not only was I perfectly alive, but I had also become the Asia-Pacific representative for Archon Capital, one of the world’s top investment firms. I was back in Alistair City, and it was time for the head of their leading conglomerate to change. 1 The VIP lounge was almost unnervingly quiet, which only made the engagement party blaring on the enormous screen seem even louder. My assistant, Leo, walked over silently, placing a cup of unsweetened black coffee and a sleek tablet next to me. The coffee was scalding, bitter, and bracing—exactly what I needed. I lifted the cup, taking a slow sip, my gaze fixed on the tablet. The screen was lit with the words “The Harrington Group,” below which were real-time stock prices and a core data analysis report. The red, plummeting arrow was stark and unmistakable. My index finger tapped lightly on the cold screen, once, then again. The smell of antiseptic from the hospital three years ago. The crisp, cold reality of the divorce papers that left me with nothing. The countless nights I’d spent curled up with stomach pain in my cramped foreign apartment, staring blankly at the nameless city lights. I set the coffee cup down with a light click against the table. Serena Maxwell on the Jumbotron was still talking, but I no longer heard her. I lifted my eyes to Leo, who remained silently beside me. The last trace of warmth in my expression vanished. “Notify Archon Capital’s European headquarters. Initiate Phase One of the acquisition plan for the Harrington Group.” Leo didn’t hesitate, immediately beginning to type on a separate device. I turned back to the screen and the happy couple, a cold, predatory smile playing on my lips. “I want to see their panic before the market opens tomorrow.” Alistair City’s business world was turned upside down overnight. “Archon Capital Enters the Market with Multi-Billion Dollar War Chest, Suspected Hostile Takeover of Harrington Group!” “Harrington Stock Plummets to Trading Floor, Market Value Evaporates by Billions!” In Alexander Harrington’s office, the air was so thick with tension you could wring it out. Alex, a man who prided himself on his unflappable composure, now had his tie yanked crooked and his eyes, visible behind his gold-rimmed glasses, were webbed with red. Several high-level executives stood opposite him, too afraid to even lift their heads. “Find out! Find out now! What the hell is Archon Capital? Who is their goddamn representative?” Alex slammed his fist onto the desk, the veins on his hand bulging. An hour later, an emergency board meeting was called. The room was packed with the Harrington Group’s old guard, their faces all darker than thunderclouds. Alex sat in the primary position, trying to stabilize the situation, but his own mind was chaos. It was then that the heavy double doors of the boardroom were pushed open. Leo walked in first, expressionless, ushering the person behind him. Then, I walked in. I was wearing a sharply tailored, slate-gray power suit, my heels clicking a crisp, rhythmic beat on the polished marble floor. The entire boardroom fell into a suffocated silence. Every single eye in the room was fixed on me—shock, disbelief, and a panicked search for context. Alex’s gaze, though, was different. It was utterly riveted to my face, like a nail driven into the wall. His lips parted, his throat bobbing once. The sight of him, speechless and stunned, was more satisfying than any positive financial headline. I ignored him, walking directly to the opposite end of the long conference table, the seat reserved for the acquiring party. I sat down with a composed elegance. The moment I was seated, Leo opened the tablet and slid it in front of me. “Eliza… Sloane?” An older board member finally found his voice, laced with uncertainty. I looked up, sweeping my gaze across the familiar, yet suddenly irrelevant, faces. Finally, I let my eyes settle coolly on Alexander Harrington. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” I said with a faint, utterly cold smile. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Eliza Sloane, the Asia-Pacific Representative for Archon Capital, leading this acquisition.” Alex’s face instantly drained of all color. “The Harrington Group’s financial reports for the past three years look impressive, but in reality, over thirty percent of your profit comes from high-risk leveraged investments. The moment your capital chain faces stress, the entire structure collapses.” “Seven of your subsidiaries have bloated, inefficient management. Last year alone, administrative expenditures consumed five hundred million dollars that should have been dedicated to technology and R&D.” “Your newest real estate venture was a major strategic error, located on the fringe of future municipal planning. That investment won’t see a return for at least three years.” In a few succinct sentences, I sliced through the Harrington Group’s glossy facade, exposing the rot underneath. Each word made the board members’ expressions darken further. Alex’s hands were clenched into tight fists under the table. When the meeting concluded, the look in the eyes of the men in the room had shifted from pure shock to pure, unadulterated dread. People began to leave, but Alex remained seated. He waited until the last person was gone, then stood and walked slowly toward me. He stopped in front of me, his tall frame casting a long shadow. “Eliza,” his voice was raspy, edged with an emotion I couldn’t decipher. “You…” What did he want to say? Ask why I came back? Or why I was doing this? I didn’t give him the chance. I stood up, deliberately closing the tablet and handing it to Leo. Then, I met his gaze, looking him directly in the eye. “Mr. Harrington, this is still business hours.” I paused, watching his face instantly freeze, and the curve of my smile deepened slightly. “Keep your private emotions contained.” 2 After that day, I didn’t pay much attention to Alexander’s reactions. The person I was truly waiting for was Serena Maxwell. I knew she would come for me. People like her, who survive by playing the victim, are terrified of losing their audience and their stage. Now that I was back and had stolen her spotlight, it would only be a matter of time before she struck. Sure enough, on the third day, a heavy, engraved invitation to a charity gala was delivered to Leo. “The annual Alistair City Charity Gala. The Harrington Group is the lead sponsor,” Leo stated plainly, placing the card on my desk. “Serena Maxwell is this year’s Charity Ambassador.” I picked up the beautifully designed card, running my finger over the embossed lettering. “A lovely ambush,” I chuckled, tossing the invitation back down. “Tell them I will be there on time.” Leo nodded, asking no further questions. He knew I wasn’t going to attend a party; I was going to crash a coronation. The moment I stepped into the ballroom that evening, I felt the immediate stickiness of countless gazes—curious, searching, and more than a few frankly malicious. I didn’t care. I picked up a flute of champagne and found a quiet corner that wasn’t overly conspicuous. It didn’t take long for the show to begin. Serena was wearing a pristine white, strapless column gown, her hair in a loose, delicate updo that exposed her slender neck. She truly looked like a fragile porcelain doll who knew nothing of the world’s harshness. She carried her own glass, weaving through the crowd with a clear destination: me. She stopped directly in front of me. Alex stood a few steps behind her, his brow furrowed, looking like a cowed husband who wanted to intervene but didn’t know how. “Eliza… sister?” Serena whispered tentatively. “It really is you. You’re back.” I stayed silent, watching her begin the performance. Her eyes instantly misted over. The tears arrived right on cue. “Sister, I’m so sorry… What happened three years ago, it was all my fault. I loved Alex too much, and I… I didn’t mean for it to happen. I’ve lived with the guilt all these years, I just…” As she spoke, she glanced out of the corner of her eye, making sure her performance of fragile remorse was being witnessed by enough people. It was award-worthy acting, I’ll give her that. The room was already filling with murmurs. Several sympathetic looks were directed at her, while the glances aimed at me were laden with judgment and blame. I was being framed as the unforgiving villain, the one bullying the poor, repentant girl. Alex finally closed the gap, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Serena, a clear act of protection. He looked at me, his eyes complicated. “Eliza, let the past go.” “The past?” I finally laughed, gently swirling the champagne in my glass. “Easy words for you, Alex. Some things can’t be let go.” Serena seemed frightened by my response, shrinking further into Alex’s side, and her tears intensified. “Sister, please, can you forgive me? I just want to be happy with Alex now…” Watching her deliver this masterclass in deceit, I found any impulse to anger completely missing. I set my glass down and took my phone from my clutch. Under the confused scrutiny of everyone nearby, I pressed the play button. A crisp, smug female voice, amplified by the phone’s speaker, carried clearly through our corner of the ballroom. “…You should have seen what a fool Eliza was. She believed everything I said! Like I accidentally fell down the stairs…” “Alex? Men are all the same. If I cry, he thinks the whole world is out to get me. He’d argue with Eliza, and then he’d come straight to me for comfort…” “The miscarriage? Good riddance! Saved me the trouble of figuring out how to get rid of it myself. With that kid gone, she was nothing. That CEO wife title was always going to be mine!” The voice, the tone—arrogant and malicious—was a stark contrast to the tear-stained Serena standing before me. The recording continued, but the silence around us was deafening. Serena’s pale face still had tear tracks, but her expression had completely frozen. The feigned innocence in her large, watery eyes finally melted away, replaced by nothing but raw terror and utter collapse. 3 That charity gala recording caused the Harrington Group’s stock price to quietly plummet by another hundred million in market capitalization. Every morning, Leo provided me with his update on the Harrington Group’s latest movements. “Harrington dropped three points today. A few smaller shareholders are folding and requesting private meetings with you.” I nodded. “Schedule them. It’s time to close the net.” I heard that Alex’s side was absolute chaos. He had canceled all upcoming public engagements with Serena and had even frozen the funds for several of her vanity projects within the company. It seemed that trust, once fractured, could never be fully repaired. Alex was quietly beginning to investigate what happened three years ago. Leo’s intelligence network was highly efficient, reporting that Alex had pulled all the security footage from the hospital during my stay and sent people to interview some of the nurses in private. I listened to these reports with cold detachment, almost finding it funny. How foolish must a man be to only remember to seek proof after the truth has been shoved in his face via a recording device? Where was his skepticism before? Trying to play Sherlock Holmes now was far too late. I wasn’t interested in Alex’s small acts of penance. His investigation wouldn’t change the outcome. I wanted the Harrington Group. His personal remorse was worthless. The acquisition was proceeding smoothly. One shareholder after another was defecting, and the Harrington Group’s internal defenses were being dismantled piece by piece. The external and internal pressure was suffocating Alex. I heard he was suffering from recurring stomach issues again, often spending entire nights locked in his office. Late that night, I had just finished a video conference with European headquarters and was preparing to finally rest. Leo knocked and came in, his expression unusually grim. “Ms. Sloane, there’s been an issue.” I gestured for him to sit. “We received two pieces of intelligence.” “The first is from our insider at the Harrington family estate,” Leo said. “Tonight, Alex locked himself in his study and was looking through a lot of your old things. He found a letter—a letter you wrote back then but never got the chance to send.” My heart skipped a beat, completely unprepared for the emotional jolt. Leo continued: “Inside the letter… was your sonogram. He knows now that you were pregnant with twins.” My fingers instinctively clenched, my nails digging into my palms. “After he saw the letter, he locked himself in the study. He hasn’t come out all night.” Seeing my prolonged silence, Leo slid a tablet across the desk. The screen was on. “Ms. Sloane, this is the second piece of intelligence. Our private investigator has secured the definitive proof.” I looked down, my gaze falling on the screen. It was an investigation report, attached to clear bank transfer records. The recipient was a middle-aged woman named Lana Reeves. Occupation: Hospital janitor. The report also included a video—Lana Reeves’s confession. She admitted that three years ago, Serena Maxwell paid her twenty thousand dollars to apply a special oily liquid to the staircase landing I used every day for my prenatal appointments. Colorless and odorless, you wouldn’t notice it, but the floor would become dangerously slick. My breath stopped entirely. I stared intently at the screen, seeing the conclusion printed on the final page in large, bold font: Upon investigation, Eliza Sloane’s miscarriage was not an accident. It was a premeditated act of murder.

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Chapter 1: The Wedding Night Disaster The wedding suite at The Plaza Hotel smelled of expensive lilies, champagne, and impending doom. I sat on the edge of the king-sized bed, the silk sheets cool against my skin, still wearing my Vera Wang couture gown. It was a dress thousands of women would kill for, but right now, it felt more like a straightjacket. Across the room, my new husband, Chase Sterling—heir to the Sterling Private Equity empire and New York’s most notorious bachelor—was aggressively loosening his bow tie in the mirror. “Why the hell did I agree to this?” Chase grumbled, ripping the silk tie from his neck and tossing it onto the terrifyingly expensive Persian rug. He turned to look at me, his blue eyes cold. “You look miserable, Chloe. Fix your face. The press might have drones outside the window.” I slammed my hand on the mahogany dresser, the sound echoing in the tense silence. “Excuse me? You think I wanted this? I’m here because my family’s real estate portfolio is tanking, and your father needed a ‘respectable’ wife to clean up his son’s messy reputation. Don’t act like you’re the victim here, Chase. Go cry to Sierra.” Sierra. The name hung in the air like toxic perfume. Sierra was a bottle service girl at Nebula, the most exclusive club in Manhattan. She was beautiful, mysterious, and famously known as Chase Sterling’s “girlfriend.” On our wedding night, I was bringing up his mistress. It was tacky, but I didn’t care. Chase’s jaw tightened. He poured himself a glass of scotch, his knuckles white against the crystal decanter. “Leave Sierra out of this. You look at you—you’re loud, you’re messy, and you have zero elegance. You’re nothing like her. She’s… gentle. She understands me.” I felt a sting of tears but forced them back. “Then go marry her! Why are you here with me?” I stood up, grabbing my suitcase. “I’m done. I’m going back to my parents’ estate in the Hamptons. You go to your club. We’ll get an annulment in the morning.” I marched toward the door, my heels clicking sharply on the hardwood floor. Before I could touch the handle, Chase grabbed my wrist. He pulled me back, not roughly, but with enough force to make me stumble into his chest. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, his voice low. “To get a divorce lawyer,” I snapped, trying to shake him off. “Go find Sierra. I’m going home.” He let out a frustrated sigh, rolling his eyes. “Chloe, stop being dramatic. You can’t leave. The paparazzi are camped in the lobby. If you walk out of here alone on our wedding night, the Sterling stock drops ten points by morning. My father will kill me, and your father will lose his financing.” I froze. He was right. We were trapped in this gilded cage together. “Fine,” I hissed, smoothing out my dress. “But I’m not sleeping in the same bed as you.” “Believe me, the feeling is mutual,” Chase muttered. He grabbed a pillow and a blanket from the closet. “I’ll take the couch. You take the bed. Just… stop yelling. My head hurts.” “Maybe if you didn’t drink so much at the reception, you’d feel better,” I shot back. “Maybe if I didn’t have to marry you, I wouldn’t have to drink,” he countered. I watched him set up a makeshift bed on the velvet sofa. This was Chase Sterling. The boy I had grown up with. The boy who used to pull my pigtails in kindergarten. And now, the husband who wished he was with someone else. “You’re unbelievable,” I whispered, turning off the lamp. “Night, Chloe,” he said into the darkness. “Try not to snore. I know you do.” “I do not snore!” I yelled, throwing a decorative cushion at him. “You do,” he chuckled, catching the pillow without looking. “I remember from nap time in first grade.” I huffed, burying my face in the duvet. I hated him. I really did. Chapter 2: The Bamboo Horse and the Club To understand why this marriage was such a disaster, you have to understand our history. Chase and I were what the Chinese call “Bamboo Horse” friends—childhood neighbors who grew up inseparable. The Sterlings and the Vances ruled the Upper East Side. We went to the same prep schools, the same summer camps in Maine. Our parents always joked about us getting married, forcing us to sit together at galas. But we weren’t friends. We were accomplices. Chase was a magnet for trouble. Even in middle school, girls were leaving love notes in his locker. He would bring them to me, looking annoyed. “Here,” he’d say, dumping a pile of scented letters and chocolates on my desk during study hall. “I don’t like dark chocolate. You eat it.” “Why do you take them if you don’t like them?” I’d ask, unwrapping a truffle. “I can’t hurt their feelings,” he’d say with a shrug, leaning back in his chair with that effortless, arrogant grace. “I’m too nice.” “You’re a player,” I’d correct him. “And you’re using me as a trash can for your unwanted snacks.” “Whatever. You love the chocolate.” He was right. I did love the chocolate. And maybe, deep down, I loved that he felt comfortable enough to be his true, annoying self around me. But Chase wasn’t husband material. He was a playboy. A rich kid with too much time and money. The incident that should have warned me away forever happened when we were sixteen. I was a straight-A student; Chase was on academic probation. One afternoon, he dragged me out of AP History. “I need a favor,” he whispered, pulling me into the janitor’s closet. “I need to get into The Velvet Room.” “The strip club?” I hissed. “Chase, are you insane? We’re minors!” “Not for the dancers,” he said, looking desperate. “I need to find someone. A girl named Sierra. Please, Chloe. You know the bouncer, Big Mike, from your dad’s security detail. He’ll let us in if you vouch for me.” “Absolutely not.” “If you do this,” he said, looking me in the eyes, “I’ll owe you. Forever.” I was an idiot. I put on a baseball cap, borrowed his oversized hoodie, and we snuck out of school. We went to the club. The bouncer, Mike, looked at me skeptically. “Miss Vance? Does your father know you’re here?” “I’m doing a… sociology project,” I lied, my voice cracking. “This is my cousin. He’s just here to carry my notebook.” Mike rolled his eyes but let us in. Inside, the music was deafening. Chase ignored the dancers. He scanned the room frantically until he saw a girl cleaning tables in the back. She looked young, maybe eighteen.

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On a variety show, the host randomly checked the seventh photo in the guests’ phones. I displayed the Rolls-Royce my brother, Payton, just picked up. But the “innocent” white lotus (a term for someone who pretends to be pure and innocent but is actually manipulative) got teary-eyed: “Sis, you can target me usually, but can you please not mooch off my boyfriend’s car for clout?” I was stunned: “How come I didn’t know my brother had a girlfriend?” The white lotus cried as she called Payton: “Hubby, I’m being bullied…” There was a pause on the other end, then Payton’s voice became very serious: “Who? Where? I’m flying back to the States right now to find you.” I was dumbfounded. The internet exploded: [I knew Quinn Qin was clout-chasing again!] [Didn’t see that coming, CEO Pei isn’t someone she can leech off!] [CEO Pei is so sweet! You guys get married right now! Piss off Quinn Qin!] No, seriously, I just didn’t know when my brother secretly started dating my arch-nemesis! 1 My dumbfounded expression was quickly turned into a meme and trended on Twitter. [Hahaha, Quinn Qin didn’t think Sherry was joking with her, did she? Did she really think Sherry loves clout-chasing as much as she does?] [Is CEO Pei someone she can leech off? Dying of laughter, this meme is my contender for meme of the year!] [Hahahaha, so satisfying to watch! I love seeing this poser get slapped in the face by Sherry!] The livestream comments were going crazy. I immediately ran out of the livestream room to the lounge. [Too ashamed to face anyone?] [ seeing her suffer makes me so happy] I closed the lounge door and called Payton immediately. His voice sounded a bit anxious: “Sis, I have something urgent, talk later.” “Let me guess, is your girlfriend being bullied?” Payton froze: “Sis, how did you know?” “Are you crazy, dating that kind of woman!” “Sis, you don’t know, she’s the most special girl I’ve met in my twenty-five years.” I almost suffocated: “She’s an actress! What can’t she act out? Let me tell you, I know exactly what kind of person Sherry Song is. Break up with her immediately!” “She’s not acting!” Payton was righteous: “Even when she’s drunk, she says she loves me!” I felt a blockage in my chest: “What’s so hard about that? I can act that out too. I love you, I love you, I love you!” “Are you crazy? What kind of fit are you throwing!” Payton got goosebumps and hung up directly. I turned around angrily, only to find someone standing at the lounge door. Sherry covered her mouth with one hand, holding her phone in the other, looking extremely innocent: “Sister, sorry, I didn’t know you were in here too.” I sneered: “How do I remember you staring at me entering this room just now?” “Sister, you…” Sherry’s eyes turned red instantly. The comments went crazy: [Ahhh, you psycho, stay away from Sherry!] [Hate this poser the most, bad movies and bad person. Clearly she tried to leech off Sherry’s boyfriend first!] I had no interest in this catfight game and turned to leave. But unexpectedly, just after touching up my makeup, the trending search exploded again. I clicked it open; it was the three-second video of me “confessing” to Payton. Trending Topic: #Payton: Are you crazy? What kind of fit are you throwing? #Quinn Qin attempts to be the other woman, scolded as a psycho by Payton My vision went black. 2 The lounge’s soundproofing and privacy settings were excellent. The only one who could have filmed me was Sherry, who opened the door at the end. That video started recording exactly when I was “confessing.” It looked like I was crazily saying “I love you” to Payton, and then being shunned by him. Thinking of this, I proactively found Sherry and showed her that three-second video: “You secretly recorded me?” Sherry hurriedly smiled: “Sister, don’t misunderstand, I was just taking a selfie and accidentally…” “Why was the camera pointed at me for a selfie? If it was accidental, why post it?” Sherry’s face turned pale. Only then did she realize that admitting she filmed it was equal to admitting she leaked the video. But her persona had always been the harmless, innocent white lotus. Her eyes reddened, and tears suddenly fell: “Sister, I beg you, please stop pestering my boyfriend, okay? I’ve advised you for so long and you won’t listen. I don’t know how to argue, I really had no choice but to… “This is the first time I’ve met a boy I like so much, I beg you…” I interrupted her: “This act works on him, not on me. “Play too many games and you’ll be found out eventually. Him dumping you is just a matter of time. Behave yourself.” With that, I turned and left. This variety show was set in the countryside. I was preparing for the next step of the itinerary when my agent called: “Little ancestor, calm down. It’s only been a while, and you’re already third on the trending search!” I hurriedly opened my phone. The number one trending topic had a glaring “Explosive” tag: #Quinn Qin threatens Sherry Song Just now, a recording was leaked by someone claiming to be a variety show staff member. Inside was exactly the conversation between me and Sherry. But I was very sure, only Sherry and I were present at the time. My Twitter and Instagram were already blown up. [Lady, look clearly, Sherry is the girlfriend personally verified by CEO Pei! And you’re telling Sherry to behave herself?] [Homewreckers deserve to die] [Wondered who it was, turns out it’s this poser. Not surprised then, hope your whole family dies soon] … Meanwhile, Sherry started a livestream in her car. The corners of her eyes were slightly red, tears in her eyes, yet she smiled “stubbornly”: “Everyone, please stop talking about it. There must be some misunderstanding between me and Sister. “If I hurt someone because of this, I would be very sad too.” Netizens were heartbroken: [Ahhh baby, you can’t be too kind! Quinn Qin is just targeting you! Don’t speak up for her ahhh!] [Baby is so good, my heart aches boohoo! Going to curse in Quinn Qin’s comments right now] [Protect the best baby in the world, Quinn Qin deserves to die a horrible death!] I sat in the car, my vision going black again and again. So I called Payton. 3 “Break up, break up with her immediately!” I got straight to the point. Payton was confused: “Sis, I told you we are true love.” “You didn’t see her ability to manipulate public opinion against me at all, did you? Have you even looked at the trending searches?” “Oh, Sis, which day do you not get scolded? I’m used to it for you.” …He had a point. “It’s okay, Sis. When I get back, I’ll treat you guys to a meal and clear up the misunderstanding. Sherry is a very good person, definitely not what you think.” “Forget it. I have more experience in this circle than the contracts you’ve signed.” “Isn’t your experience just getting scolded?” “You!” “Alright, alright, Sis. How about quitting the industry? Look at the bad movies you make.” I argued logically: “How can they be called bad movies! If I acted seriously, it’s not a bad movie!” “Yes, yes, yes, you acted seriously, but your acting skills are inherited from Mom!” I was speechless. Payton laughed: “Alright Sis, come back and take over the family business. Obviously, you earn much more this way than mixing in the entertainment circle, and I can relax a bit. Why suffer outside?” “I won’t! I didn’t enter the entertainment industry to make money, it was for Lucas Lu!” “…” 4 Indeed, I didn’t need to enter the entertainment industry. My parents urged me every day to take over the family business and make it bigger and stronger with Payton. But I stubbornly chose the entertainment industry just to be close to my idol, Lucas Lu. This peer I’ve been a fan of for five years. To avoid unnecessary trouble, I never publicly announced my relationship with Payton. I took my mother’s surname, and Payton took my father’s. So for so many years, no one suspected us. Unexpectedly, such a big farce has occurred now. I suddenly regretted it very much. As a guide on my brother’s growth path, I once watched him closely and forbade early dating. Didn’t expect the consequence of lacking love’s nourishment in adolescence is being easily hooked by bad women. I sat in the car, regretting and holding my forehead: “If I knew earlier, I should have let him date more!” 5 Soon, the haze in my heart was swept away. Because after getting off the car, I learned the identity of today’s mystery guest. “Lucas Lu?!” I screamed: “Is it him? Is it really him?” The staff looked at me with disdain, snorted coldly, and turned away. The entire production team was cold to me because of the “stealing Sherry’s boyfriend” incident. Later, they found that this attitude received unanimous praise from netizens, so they looked down on me even more. I didn’t care. After mixing in the circle for so many years, I’ve suffered plenty of eye-rolls and ridicule. Lucas Lu is still worth my attention. The moment Lucas stepped out of the car, everyone erupted in piercing screams. I rushed up in one step and handed over the gold-rimmed card: “Mr. Lu, I’m your fan, can I have an autograph?” He took off his mask and smiled: “Sure.” Took the card, scribbled a few strokes, and handed it back to me. Just as I wanted to treasure it, I saw two words written on it: [Dumbass] I froze. Looked up, he was glancing at me disdainfully, sneering. “Brother Lucas!” An excited voice interrupted my thoughts; Sherry’s car had also arrived. The moment she got off, she pounced into his arms in one step: “It’s actually you! Weren’t you filming somewhere else?” Lucas caught her in his arms, spinning her around: “Knowing you’re here, I came specially. Or on a whim, wanted to take this variety show. Which one do you want to hear?” The comments were frantically scrolling: [I’ll say it, I’ll say it! Came specially for you! For you, for you, for you!] [So flirtatious boohoo…] Sherry pouted, frowning as if angry: “Teasing me again!” Lucas smiled and scraped her nose: “Still so easily angered.” I frowned: “Don’t you have a boyfriend?” Lucas raised his hand to protect Sherry behind him, giving me a contemptuous smile: “Sherry and I are childhood sweethearts. We’ve supported each other since we were little to get to where we are today. “I hope Ms. Qin doesn’t think everything is dirty just because she herself is dirty.”

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I told her I was done the moment I slid into the passenger seat of Sloan’s Tesla, fresh from the traffic authority office. “Asher, I’m exhausted. Stop playing games, please?” I looked at Sloan’s profile—her hands gripping the steering wheel—and a laugh, thin and brittle, escaped me. “I’m not playing games.” “Sloan,” I turned my head, my gaze tracking the blur of neon lights outside the window, “this is where we get off.” 1 The Tesla slammed to a stop mid-span on the main bridge. The air inside the car was instantly thick, frozen like the surface of a December lake. “Reason.” Sloan’s fingers drummed once, sharply, on the steering wheel. Her voice was cold enough to frost the glass. “Give me one good reason. What in the hell is this dramatic exit about now?” I glanced in the rearview mirror at the silver Lexus that had followed us for three intersections, then pressed the button to lower my window. The night wind rushed in, clean and sharp. “I’d guess we have thirty seconds.” “Before the person in that car comes running to you.” I started the countdown, low enough for only her to hear. “Thirty.” “Twenty-nine.” “Twenty-eight.” When I reached twenty-five, the Lexus had pulled over and stopped. The driver’s side door flew open, and a boy in a beige trench coat sprinted toward us, tapping frantically on Sloan’s window. Sloan frowned and pushed the button. “Sloan, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” Kellan’s eyes were already red-rimmed, his voice shaking with a manufactured sob. “I truly didn’t mean to rear-end you, I just saw your car driving so fast, and I was so worried you’d crash, so I followed…” He looked past her, directly at me, and a single, perfect tear rolled down his cheek. “Asher, please don’t be angry. I wasn’t trying to interrupt you guys. I was just… I was just so worried.” He reached for my sleeve, and I recoiled, pulling my arm away. “Hit me,” Kellan pleaded, pushing his face closer. “If it’ll make you feel better, just hit me.” Sloan pressed her hand firmly on his shoulder, keeping him in place. “Kellan, stop it. What are you doing?” Then she turned back to me, her eyes heavy with disappointment. “Your damn chivalry? Did you leave it in the precinct parking lot?” I laughed out loud. See? I hadn’t done a single thing, yet just by sitting here, I was instantly cast as the unreasonable, classless man. I pushed Kellan’s hand away and stared directly at Sloan. “Do you understand now?” “Sloan,” the part of my chest where my heart used to be felt utterly numb. I unbuckled my seatbelt. “That is the reason.” “We’re over.” I shoved the car door open. Over Kellan’s look—that flicker of shock, then undeniable, smug victory in his eyes—I gave Sloan a smile. “Congratulations. All those little maneuvers you used to wedge yourself between me and Sloan over the years are finally paying off.” “Sloan is all yours.” I turned and walked away. Sloan bolted out of the car, grabbing my wrist and spinning me back around. “Asher! Do you have any idea how important the signing I missed today was because of this fender-bender? You called, said you’d been hit, and I threw down my pen and rushed to the precinct! And for what? The person who hit you was Kellan! He’s an intern at my own company!” “He apologized. Insurance is filed. What more do you want from me?” “I’ve been biting my tongue for months, Asher. Kellan is always here, always talking you up, telling me to be more understanding, telling me not to fight with you. Can you stop being so ungracious?” Her grip on my wrist was crushing. An old injury flared beneath her grasp, a sharp, familiar jab of pain. I looked down at the pale circle of skin her fingers were devouring. “Let go!” I yanked my arm free, rubbing the throbbing spot, and then I roared. “Sloan!” “I’ve been biting my tongue for eight years!” Sloan and I had been together for eight years. From college to launching her company, from a shared basement apartment to a view of Avery Coast in a high-rise. We’d fought, we’d argued, we’d had weeks of silence, but I had never done this—I had never humiliated her in front of a third party. But I was done holding back. “I had a 104-degree fever, and you were helping him at the shelter find a home for a stray cat. I was getting torn apart by a client during a crucial pitch, and you were on a rooftop watching a meteor shower with him. Every single time I genuinely needed you, you were already with him!” I held her gaze. “You gave him the security code to my apartment so he could sneak in and grab files while I was out of town. You gave him my prized, irreplaceable, first-edition collection set for his birthday, telling him, ‘Asher doesn’t really play with these anymore.’ Today, my car gets rear-ended, and your first words were, ‘Is Kellan okay?’” “Sloan!” “We’re done!” My composure, which I’d desperately clung to all evening, shattered like a broken dam. Sloan’s face paled. She automatically started to rationalize. “I had Kellan get the files because I was running into a meeting! I asked about his car because his damage was worse! Why are you always dissecting every little thing!” “Asher!” She looked at me, her eyes filled with nothing but exhaustion and disappointment. “When did you become so petty? Hunting for microscopic crumbs of evidence?” “You’re turning into exactly the kind of small-minded man you swore you’d never be!” I thought I was past the point of pain. From giving my statement at the traffic authority office to sitting in her car, I had been perfectly calm. I even spent that drive reviewing our eight years—from meeting to falling in love, from having nothing to having everything. And I had concluded: it had to end. I wanted a clean exit. But her words still twisted my heart, a blunt force trauma to the softest part of my chest. “Yeah. In your eyes, I’m the small-minded one.” I let out a weak chuckle. “Well, I don’t need your approval anymore.” I turned to leave, but Kellan scrambled to his feet and grabbed my arm. He was crying now. Tears streaming down his face, though I hadn’t shed a single one. “Asher, I’m sorry, this is all my fault… I’ll quit tomorrow. I’ll leave the company. I’ll disappear… Sloan really loves you. Please, don’t break up with her. Please.” I hated this performance most of all. Looking at his tear-drenched face, I ripped my arm out of his grasp. “Get lost!” Kellan stumbled back a few steps, staring at me, startled. “Asher!” Sloan rushed forward to steady Kellan. Seeing the scrape on his elbow, she turned on me, her voice shaking with rage. “Are you insane! Apologize to Kellan!” “Dream on.” I looked at Sloan, then caught Kellan’s expression—a fleeting moment of triumph beneath the tears—and spat out a final ultimatum: “Either we end this cleanly, or I move out right now, and you can deal with the fallout. You choose.” I didn’t look back. I didn’t care about Kellan’s choked sobs or Sloan’s attempts to soothe him. I flagged down a cab and headed straight for my oldest friend Rhys’s place. 2 Rhys opened the door, looked at me, and didn’t ask a single question. He just stepped aside. He wordlessly pulled two six-packs of an ice-cold IPA from the fridge and set them on the coffee table. He only asked one thing: “Good start?” I looked at the beers, and my eyes suddenly burned. I’d managed to hold it together until now. Rhys didn’t say anything else, he just opened his arms. “Cry, man. Go for it. You don’t have to put on a show for me.” I completely broke. I collapsed onto his shoulder, howling until my throat was raw, shaking uncontrollably, until I finally stumbled into his bathroom and threw up until there was nothing left. Finally, my voice hoarse, I whispered: “I’m leaving her.” What is the end of love? It’s when the person you swore you’d face the world with turns into the opponent sticking the knife in your back. It’s when you finally admit that the grave you once believed could bloom with flowers is just a pile of dirt—the flowers will wilt, and the love will die. I stayed at Rhys’s place for two weeks. In that time, I scrolled through thirty-seven updates on Kellan’s private feed. Every single one featured a glimpse of Sloan. [Midnight deadlines don’t feel so lonely when you have the right company.] The photo was a selfie of Kellan. In the blurry background, Sloan was a focused profile at her computer. [You promised you’d always be my light.] The photo was two hands linked: on Kellan’s wrist was the Cartier watch I’d bought Sloan last Christmas. The other hand, resting lightly on his arm, was hers. [Taking the most important person to the most important place.] A photo of Kellan, beaming, inside an airport lounge. Beside him, Sloan was captured mid-doze. Post after post. Rhys jumped off the couch, pointing at my phone, screaming. “I swear to God! That little shit! Is Sloan blind? How can she not see what he’s doing? It’s completely obvious!” Rhys was furious. I, conversely, felt strangely calm. I was going through withdrawal, and the craving was almost gone. I just shrugged at Rhys’s outburst. “Sloan knows exactly what she’s doing.” “She knows?” Rhys sank down beside me. “Then why does she keep playing the innocent victim?” “To her, if they haven’t slept together, she’s innocent.” I managed a wry smile. “She always told me that her relationship with Kellan was pure and clean. And that my mind was the only thing that was dirty.” Sloan always maintained that one boundary. So whenever I pushed back, she always shut me down with the same weapon: “You’re seeing things because your heart is poisoned.” 3 Now looking at these posts, I felt nothing. “The moving company is scheduled for ten,” I reminded Rhys. If I was breaking it off, I had to physically leave that apartment. My things weren’t extensive, but a few items couldn’t stay—chiefly, the box of my father’s original blueprints and sketches. “Just glad you finally came to your senses,” Rhys said, clapping me on the shoulder. When we arrived at the apartment building, I checked my phone—Kellan had posted half an hour ago, tagged at a resort hotel in the next county, the photo grid featuring a dozen pictures of Sloan. I thought I’d have the place to myself. But the moment I unlocked the door, the scent of a simmering garlic butter sauce hit me. I walked into the living room and saw Kellan, wearing my charcoal grey cashmere lounge pants, sitting cross-legged at the dining table, picking at a plate of shrimp. He jumped up like a startled rabbit when he saw me. “Asher…” I ignored him, my eyes tracing the pants back to the source—Sloan, who had just walked out of the kitchen holding a steaming pot of soup, her expression instantly freezing. “You’re back?” Sloan asked stiffly. “Have you eaten?” I didn’t answer. I walked straight toward my study. Then I stopped dead in the doorway. The design books, once perfectly ordered on the shelves, were pulled out and haphazardly stacked. My work desk was a mess of scattered drawings, but the thing that made my blood run cold was the corner of the room: The door to my father’s old floor safe was wide open. 4 “Asher…” Kellan had crept to the doorway, his voice thin as a mosquito’s whine. “I’m so sorry… Sloan and I came back from the hotel, and I realized I left my suitcase there… Sloan told me to put on your clothes…” “I accidentally… bumped the safe.” A buzzing started in my head. I spun around and saw Kellan holding a stack of faded, yellowed paper—my father’s original blueprints and sketches—the edge of the stack stained with a huge, dark smear of coffee. “I swear I didn’t mean to!” Kellan threw himself forward, grabbing my arm, instantly on his knees. “Please, just hit me! I’m begging you! Hit me!” “I didn’t know these were your dad’s designs! I honestly didn’t know!” He grabbed my hand, trying to force it to strike his face. “Hit me! Hit me hard! I deserve it!” He then attempted to kowtow, but before his head could touch the floor, an arm slipped beneath his chest, stopping him. Sloan pulled him up and looked at me, her voice as flat as if she were commenting on the weather. “He’s gone, Asher. They’re just drawings. They’re not him. Kellan is sorry, can you please stop making this worse?” Her tone was so rational, so utterly dismissive of my grief. As if I were the one who was overreacting, the one who was small-minded. She stood between us, a protector, blocking my path to Kellan. “He already feels terrible. Just let it go.”

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I’d been Rhys Kingston’s “best friend” for two decades. Twenty years. Not even the night we tumbled into bed—drunk, messy, losing our virginity to each other—could change that. All I got in return was his cool, measured voice: “That was just a mistake, Rory. We’re still best friends for life, right?” I used to believe Rhys was just emotionally detached, incapable of real intimacy. That was, until the day the housekeeper, Lana, climbed into my father’s bed, and I cracked my equestrian crop across her back until she bled. Rhys, who should have been standing shoulder-to-shoulder with me, had eyes only for Seraphina “Sephy” Bell, the housekeeper’s daughter, who stood weeping behind her mother. He was genuinely in love with her. He brought her brazenly into our exclusive social circle. He even announced his intention to marry her at the Kingston family dinner. Only I, his so-called childhood friend, was left to become the city’s laughingstock. My mother, crushed by the gossip and sinking deeper into depression, jumped from the top floor of our house. That twenty-year delusion of mine shattered into dust. I decided to simply vanish from his world and start over. But Rhys Kingston, We were just friends. So why did you panic when I hired a boat full of models? 1 When Rhys kicked open the cabin door, I was grinding against a male model, clad in a skimpy scarlet two-piece. My skin, slick with sweat and shimmering under the low, suggestive lights, was a reckless, burning fire—scorching the eyes of every observer. “Oh my God… what is this?” Devon Reed, usually all easy smiles, stopped dead in his tracks, his cheeks flushed, barely able to look directly at me. Rhys stood right beside him. He was still wearing his usual detached, above-it-all expression, though his gaze darkened considerably as it swept over me. “Aurora Wells! Are you done with this charade?” He strode forward, slamming off the deafening music, and tossed a heavy blanket over me. I ignored him, instead pulling the model closer and whispering against his ear. “Ignore him… let’s keep going.” The model smirked, pulling me into a tight embrace in open defiance, his shaggy head burying itself provocatively in my neck. But before his breath could even graze my skin, Rhys grabbed my arm, wrenching me away with such force I nearly stumbled. “Rory Wells!” His fury finally broke through. “Parties, hookups, models—do you even remember what day this is?!” “Of course I remember!” I froze for a split second, then spun around and slapped him across the face. The sound was sharp and clear, but the tears finally came, blurring my vision. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Rhys Kingston! And you definitely don’t get to mention my mother!” My mother had treated Rhys like her own son, pouring money and influence into him, securing his place as the Kingston heir. And yet, Rhys had fallen for the housekeeper’s daughter. He’d fallen for Seraphina Bell! Today was my mother’s funeral. The one person in the world who had no right to lecture me was him. Devon hesitated, stepping forward. “Actually, Rhys handled the entire funeral…” “Aurora Wells,” Rhys said, cutting him off with a cold voice. That face I had been obsessed with for twenty years was still utterly remote, his dark eyes fixed on me, but the words he spoke felt like a slow, agonizing flaying. “Did you forget? You’re the one who ran to the Kingston estate, caused a scene, exposed everyone’s secrets, and drove your mother to take her life.” I froze mid-breath. My swollen eyes locked onto his face, while inside, something cracked, splintered, and stabbed painfully through my organs. It hurt so much I couldn’t draw air. He was right. I hadn’t been able to stand the thought of him marrying Sephy. I had foolishly, shortsightedly, failed to see that the Kingston power now dwarfed my family’s, and that Rhys was no longer the bullied bastard child who needed my protection. I was the idiot who stormed the Kingston house, waving that embarrassing photo of us in bed, shrieking that Sephy’s mother was a shameless homewrecker. And when Rhys had rebuked me, I’d lost all control and publicly thrown his own mother’s background—she was once a struggling single mother who clawed her way up—back in his face. That was when the future Mr. Kingston had unleashed his true wrath. He not only silenced the rumors and had me physically removed from the estate. He retaliated. He took that photo of us, cropped his face out, leaving only the image of me, flushed and lost in the moment, for the entire city to consume. He let the entire city dissect and pass judgment on my passionate expression in bed. My twenty years of devotion to Rhys became a sick joke. Look at her. The Wells heiress is a desperate slut. Her mother couldn’t compete with Sephy’s mother, and she couldn’t compete with Sephy for Rhys, either. That’s what everyone said. And that was why my proud, vibrant mother, in a moment of utter despair, threw herself off the penthouse balcony, crashing into a scarlet stain on the pavement. Right before she died, she had a moment of lucidity, a clarity brought on by the trauma. She clutched my hand, her eyes sharp, clear, and utterly heartbroken. “Rory, you chasing after Rhys looks exactly like I chased after your father. Chasing… until you can’t see yourself anymore. It’ll kill you.” “Go find a few men. You’ll know that in the end, love is just… a cheap trick.” So, I had skipped her funeral. Instead, I’d chartered a yacht and hired a crew of models. And finally, it was my turn to use his words against him. “So what?” My smile was bright, but my nails were digging crescent moons into my palms. “We’re just childhood friends. You don’t get to dictate my life.” Rhys stared at me, his dark, heavy eyes emanating a strange, oppressive atmosphere. After a long pause, he simply said, in a dull voice: “Sephy is waiting for you.” In an instant, my heart stopped, then erupted in a wave of pain. I thought I had moved on. But twenty years of entanglement, all it took was one name to leave me a wreck. “You’re a real piece of work, Rhys Kingston.” I murmured the words under my breath. Typical of the “best friend” I grew up with—he knew exactly where to twist the knife for the maximum effect. He ordered his men to drag me into a waiting car. As I was leaving, I noticed the model’s light-colored eyes. Devon leaned in, whispering, “I know you’re hurting, Rory. But it’s your mom’s funeral. You can’t not go.” He glanced at Rhys, who was leaning back with his eyes closed, clearly resting, and hesitated. “Don’t be angry. Rhys oversaw the whole service. He really does care…” He trailed off, unable to finish. He was right to stop. Was Rhys doing it for me? Or was it to show respect for my mother’s protection all those years ago? Neither reason seemed to stick. The moment my mother jumped, whatever was between us curdled into an impossible, messy debt. I slumped into the seat, watching the tiny porcelain pendant hanging from the rearview mirror sway with the speed of the car. Devon, Rhys, and I had been inseparable since kindergarten. Yet, Rhys only ever had one picture in the car—a tiny old selfie of just him and me. And the passenger seat was always reserved for me. I used to believe that small “exception” was my special privilege, and I threw myself blindly at him because of it. Now, my photo was gone, replaced by the pendant Sephy had made by hand. The passenger seat was cluttered with a fluffy, incongruous pink dog blanket. Everywhere I looked, there were traces of Sephy. Oversaw the funeral? I managed a strained smile, tasting the metallic tang of blood at the back of my throat. He probably just wanted to impress Walter Wells so he could marry Sephy sooner. The car stopped at the Wells estate, and I shoved the door open and got out. My mother’s funeral had just concluded, but the Wells living room had already been completely redecorated. Even the old family portrait—my mother, father, and me—had been replaced with a wedding photo of Walter and the housekeeper. My mother’s body wasn’t even cold, and he was already rushing to bring his new wife home. “You wicked girl! Where the hell have you been all day?!” “How dare you skip your own mother’s funeral! Do you even care about this family?!” Walter Wells stood up, slamming his fist on the table, his face, ravaged by alcohol and indulgence, turning an ugly shade of red. Beside him, Lana Bell, dressed like the wealthy matriarch she’d always wanted to be, cooed softly in a proprietorial manner, though a flicker of disdain crossed her eyes. “Darling, Rory is just too distraught. That’s all.” “She’s still young. Don’t be so angry, Walter.” “Yes, Mr. Wells, Rory must be so sad,” Sephy chirped, standing nearby in a crisp white dress, looking as innocently fragile as a gardenia. Walter sat back down next to Lana and scoffed. “If she were half as level-headed as Sephy, her mother wouldn’t have died from despair!” I snapped my head up. Looking at this trio’s pathetic performance, I suddenly burst out laughing. “Stop the act. If you two hadn’t been shameless enough to sleep together, would my mother have been driven to jump?” “Aurora Wells!” Walter bellowed a warning. Lana’s face went white. “I am so sorry for your mother, but Walter and I are genuinely in—” Before she could finish, I lunged forward, grabbed a handful of her hair, and, over her shriek, slammed her down in front of my mother’s memorial photo. “You begged my mother to take you and your daughter in when you had nothing, and you repaid her by climbing into my father’s bed.” “If you really feel sorry, you should join her in the grave!” Walter roared for me to let go. Sephy rushed forward, crying and trying to pull me away. “Stop, Rory! You can’t blame my mother! You’re the one who drove your own mother to suicide, don’t pin the blame on her—” Before she finished that line, I snatched the nearby equestrian crop and viciously brought it down across her lying, two-faced mouth. “You hit me! Rhys won’t let you get away with this!” Sephy clutched her mouth and screamed, a malicious, poisonous gleam in her eyes. I gave her a wild, triumphant smile. “Not pretending anymore, are we?” “I like you better this way.” “You are going to kill me with this madness!” Walter clutched his chest in fury, servants and staff rushing to his side. “Your madness changes nothing! Your mother is gone, and it’s your fault! No one in this house wants you here!” Sephy shrieked through her red-rimmed eyes. I raised the whip again, but a hand suddenly grabbed my forearm, the grip so tight I felt my bones might crack. “Aurora Wells! Who gave you permission to lay a hand on her?!” Rhys, who had somehow appeared behind me, had two burning flames in his dark eyes. I refused to yield, though the hand gripping the crop trembled for a moment. “Didn’t you hear what she said? She deserves it!” “I heard,” Rhys said, his voice flat as he dropped my arm. “So what.” My heart stopped beating for an instant, and then the raw, sharp pain began to blossom. I stared at Rhys, disbelief suffocating me. He knew! He had always known Sephy was playing a role, he knew she was intent on driving me out of the Wells family, and he knew how impossible my life was here. But he still chose to stand with her. “Rhys!” Sephy sobbed, throwing herself into his arms. “She hit my mom, and she hit me with that horse whip!” Rhys held her close, his eyes fixed on me, his voice colder than ice. “Is that so? Then I’ll give her a hundred lashes myself to apologize to you. How about that?” “Rhys Kingston, you wouldn’t dare!” I glared at him, my eyes burning. Rhys met my gaze unflinchingly. His dark eyes held mine for a moment, then he raised his hand and ordered his bodyguards to restrain me on the floor. In front of Walter and the Bells, he ruthlessly beat me until my skin was raw and bloody. As the pain grew so intense I began to cough up blood, I heard a terrible, deafening crash inside my chest. Twenty years of affection, the very last flicker of hope… It was all ground into ash in that single moment. I don’t know how many lashes I took before I finally lost consciousness and collapsed. In a haze, I was lifted into a familiar embrace, the faint, clean scent of cedarwood and iris—Rhys’s signature scent—filling my nose. “Rory! Get a doctor now!” I heard his voice, ragged and panicked—a rare sound—but he was shouting for me only after he had commanded his men to beat me until I was bleeding. I used my last surge of energy to struggle out of his arms, preferring to fall painfully onto the tiled floor rather than remain in his embrace. “Rhys Kingston, you’re fucking disgusting.” Rhys didn’t respond to that. He had me rushed to the hospital that night and arranged for my treatment. But the next morning, the small company I had secretly started was reported to the authorities, and all the evidence was dumped right on Walter’s desk. The partners I had worked so hard to secure overnight immediately backed out. Even the photos of me and the models at the funeral party were deliberately circulated. One by one, these events cornered me. Walter publicly announced his intention to disown me. I was forced to swallow my pride and call in favors, desperate to find someone to intercede. The former darling of the city, Aurora Wells, was hobbling on unhealed whip marks, meekly asking for help from the socialites who used to follow her around. “Rory, it’s not that we don’t want to help.” Tristan Davies, the one at the head of the table, looked distressed, but his eyes were shamelessly licking over my pale face and the visible bruises on my neck. “But you crossed Rhys. That’s a cost none of us can afford.” He slid a glass of amber-colored liquor towards me, his eyes gleaming with a familiar, predatory hunger. “But if you’re willing to have a few drinks with us and hang out tonight… we could potentially reconsider.” I knew exactly what “a few drinks and hanging out” meant. It was the ugly, transactional game of power and sex, a common practice in our circle. I used to watch it with cold contempt. Now, I was the fish on the cutting board. No escape. “Tristan, I didn’t call you all here for that!” Devon, his face ashen, tried to intervene, but his lower-tier family status meant he was quickly—and physically—silenced. “She can’t expect us to risk everything without showing any sincerity,” someone sneered, his gaze on me vile and sickening. “Besides, who doesn’t know Rory plays fast and loose? A whole yacht of models—what’s a few more of us?” They advanced on me, liquor glasses in hand, a pack of wolves circling, savoring the reversal of power. The shame turned my face white, and the salty, metallic taste in my throat threatened to spill over. “Quite the party, isn’t it?” Rhys’s voice suddenly cut through the air. “Why didn’t you invite me?” The room went instantly silent. Everyone watched Rhys standing in the doorway, Sephy on his arm in a custom-made evening gown. It looked like a casual, accidental encounter. Tristan froze, then quickly recovered, ushering Rhys to the head seat with an awkward smile. “We knew you were busy, Rhys. Just a casual get-together.” Rhys’s eyes scanned my pale face, then the liquor glasses in every man’s hand. He settled calmly into the seat and issued his instruction to me. “Since you love to drink so much, maybe you should use this opportunity to properly apologize to Sephy.” “If she hadn’t interceded on your behalf, the punishment would have been far worse.” I bit my lip, glaring at him, and everything clicked into place. My small attempt at independence, my plan to get revenge on Walter—Rhys had seen it all. With a slight nod, he had crushed all my hope, pushing me into this humiliating, unspeakable position. All to exact revenge for Seraphina. My heart felt fit to burst with rage. But I bowed my head, forcing myself to swallow the burning liquor in one gulp. “Sephy, I was wrong. I apologize.” Only then did Rhys nod in satisfaction, turning to leave with Sephy on his arm. A moment later, a strange, burning heat coursed through my body, and I realized the drink had been spiked. I tried to leave, but Tristan blocked the door, slapping me hard across the face. “Running, are we?” Tristan had already had Devon quietly dispatched. His voice was a triumphant, savage roar. “Let’s see who saves you this time!” Save me? Through my blurring vision, I managed a bitter, hopeless smile. Who had ever saved me? Ever since I became the city’s joke, every step I took had already landed me in this unending hell. I bit down on my lip until it bled, grabbed the liquor bottle, and smashed it against the head of the man tearing at my clothes. I ran, dragging my leaden, injured leg. “Bitch! Get her!” Someone threw a bottle at me; someone else brutally kicked my lower leg. The stabbing pain, coupled with the feverish heat that threatened to overwhelm me, nearly drove me mad. Clutching the last shred of my sanity, I dragged my broken body into an empty supply closet and crammed myself into a utility cabinet. By pure instinct, I clawed out my phone and dialed my emergency contact. He picked up almost instantly, his voice quiet and calm. “Hello?” Fear and the drug made me choke out the words, sobbing. “Rhys, help me!” “I’m sorry, I was wrong, please, you have to save me—” Then Sephy’s voice cut in on the line. “Rhys, darling, I suddenly have a craving for that special gourmet shortbread. Can you go get it for me right now?” I screamed into the phone. “No, Rhys, please listen to me, my leg is broken, they’re trying to—” “Yes, of course.” “Beep—beep—beep…” Rhys had answered Sephy. I buried my head into my knees, letting the sound of despair roar out of me. Just as my consciousness began to fade, I heard footsteps outside the closet, like the approaching drumbeat of the devil.

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On the day of high school graduation, in front of the entire class, I slapped a stack of cash onto Christian’s chest. “I’ve had my fun. We’re done.” He bent down, picking up the bills one by one from the floor. His voice was hoarse when he finally spoke. “Okay.” Summer ended. Christian boarded a train to Harvard Med. I flew to Switzerland to start a grueling round of chemo. Years later, I was back in the States, lying in a hospital bed, bald from the treatment. I was busy scrolling through wigs on my phone when the door opened. Christian, wearing a white coat, walked in. Our eyes met. 1 When Christian walked in, I was in a very undignified position—butt in the air, face buried in the pillow. My phone was blasting a livestream: “Black Friday sale! Don’t miss out, fam!” “Ms. Montez, shopping for wigs again?” The noisy ward fell silent. The nurse pointed at me. “Dr. Vance, this is the new patient for your group. She’s signed the consent forms.” The moment Christian looked over, I froze. My brain went blank. It had been ten years. The man I thought I’d never see again was now my attending physician. And he caught me doing yoga stretches on a hospital bed. Kill me now. I scrambled up, adjusting my crooked face mask. Silence. I didn’t dare look him in the eye, but I could feel his gaze on me. It was cold. Zero warmth. Nothing like the gentle, exasperated look he used to give me when I messed up a math problem. “Ms. Montez, this is Professor Christian Vance. He’ll be in charge of your treatment plan.” I avoided his eyes and gave a quick nod. Didn’t make a sound. The intern next to him, holding a clipboard, started reading my history like a good student. “Luna Montez, female, 28. Ten years ago, a physical revealed enlarged cervical lymph nodes. Initial diagnosis was Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Further pathology showed—” “Skip the history.” “Huh? Do you know the patient, sir?” My heart was in my throat. I pretended to be busy with my phone. I felt Christian’s gaze land on my ridiculous sheep-horn beanie. After a long pause, he said flatly, “I don’t know her. Her case is unique, so I reviewed it beforehand.” My phone auto-jumped to the checkout page. The payment countdown was ticking. Seconds passed. I zoned out, finger hovering over the “Buy” button but never pressing it. The intern dutifully reported the treatment plan. Christian listened, his tone devoid of emotion. “Okay. Continue current treatment. Re-examine tomorrow.” Then, he moved to the next patient. Rounds lasted twenty minutes. He didn’t look at me again until he left. I moved my stiff neck and realized my back was soaked in sweat. The wig I wanted was sold out because of the distraction. Ugh, just my luck. But the silver lining was: Christian had forgotten me. Even when the intern said my name, he didn’t react. 2 Christian and I didn’t start off on the right foot. Back in high school, I was a rich brat—terrible grades, worse attitude. My homeroom teacher made Christian my desk mate to “influence” me. At first, Christian ignored me. He just did practice tests, over and over. He was smart, nice, handsome. His only flaw was being poor. I was the opposite. Dumb, mean, rich. Sitting next to him, I felt like a brainless ATM. But I had charm. While other girls wrote him love letters, I bought him SAT prep books. I paid for all his study materials. In less than a semester, I bagged him. The day I kissed Christian, it was his birthday. His white shirt was rumpled, his lips stained with my lipstick. He looked down, eyes hooded. “What does this mean?” It was my first time kissing a guy. My brain short-circuited. I stammered, “D-don’t you get it? Be my boyfriend.” Christian’s ears turned red. He whispered, “Okay.” Those days were beautiful. I hated studying, but I sat obediently next to him, letting him tutor me. In a year, my SAT score went up by 300 points. I calculated it—I could get into a college in Boston. No long-distance relationship necessary. If only that physical hadn’t happened… “Ugh—” The sound of me retching echoed in the ward. I hugged the toilet bowl, seeing stars, covered in cold sweat. My bestie patted my back. “This isn’t working. You’re reacting too strongly. I’m getting a doctor.” I grabbed her hand. “Don’t. I’m used to it.” Twenty-seven rounds of chemo abroad, all alone. I survived that. I fought for ten years. Now it’s back. Who knows how much longer I’ll suffer? I didn’t want to be the annoying patient. My bestie wouldn’t let it go. “Isn’t Christian your doctor? I’ll find him. He’ll help.” I hugged her leg. “Girl, please. Be quiet. You should be glad he didn’t recognize me. If he did, he’d prescribe a hundred rounds of chemo just for spite.” “Who told you that you need a hundred rounds?” A cool voice came from behind. I stiffened. I didn’t dare turn around. My bestie sighed in relief. “Dr. Vance, Luna isn’t feeling well—” “It’s a normal reaction to chemo. If she can’t handle it…” I didn’t hear the rest. My brain was screaming: Did he hear what I just said? 3 That evening, a nurse came to give me an anti-nausea shot. She probed, “Do you know Professor Vance?” I flopped onto the bed, dead inside. “Nope. Why?” “He never micromanages like this. He specifically went to the attending physician and ordered this shot for you.” I looked in the mirror. Gaunt. Pale. Sickly. Compared to ten years ago, I looked like a different species. Impossible… Christian has a good memory, but— Wait. He has a great memory. What if he’s holding a grudge? The name “Luna Montez” was on the chart. How could I think he wouldn’t know? My bestie chimed in, “Your Professor Vance is only 28, right? A professor so young?” “Wow, you know your stuff! He did an accelerated MD-PhD program. Graduated at like 26. He’s a unicorn. Regular people can’t compare.” Seeing my bestie’s interest, the nurse laughed. “Planning to chase him? Save your energy. He’s taken.” My bestie winked at me. Then the nurse added, “The Dean’s daughter. Ivy League grad. They might get married any day now.” My bestie’s smile froze. I picked at a loose thread on my hospital gown, suddenly finding it fascinating. After the nurse left, my bestie whispered, “Luna, sorry…” “Eh, what for?” “I’m 28, not 18.” The dream of the cold, aloof genius falling for me died ten years ago. 4 I didn’t see Christian after that. I heard about him, though. Academic conferences, research labs. He did rounds once a week to check meds. Between chemo cycles, patients could go home. So until I was discharged, I didn’t see him. On the way home, my high school class president called. “Luna! You still in Boston? How’s treatment?” Background noise was loud. The class rep jumped in. “Why didn’t you tell us you were sick? If the Prez didn’t mention it, we wouldn’t have known.” I was popular back then. I still kept in touch. I laughed awkwardly. “Didn’t want to bother anyone.” “Don’t say that. Where do you live? We’re coming over tomorrow.” I couldn’t say no. I gave them the address. My parents spent a fortune on my treatment. Thanks to my bestie, I found a cheap rental in the city. First floor, south-facing yard. If I got better, I could plant flowers, maybe get a dog. Most of my classmates stayed in our hometown. Only a few were scattered around. So only five or six people showed up. They brought groceries. “We were gonna do hotpot, but it’s hot. Let’s stir-fry.” I wore a thick beanie. “It’s fine, we have AC. I want hotpot.” Everyone swarmed the kitchen. The house came alive. It felt like graduation all over again. The Prez was washing veggies. “Have you contacted Christian?” I froze. “What?” “Dude, didn’t you know? He’s a hematology expert. specializes in lymphoma. You should ask him.” “Oh, I—” I really didn’t want to get involved with Christian. Then the doorbell rang. The Prez wiped his hands and opened the door. Cheers erupted. “Christian! You made it!” “Whoa, Professor Vance, long time no see.” “Come in! Luna wants hotpot. You’re the expert, can she eat it?” I stood there like an idiot. Unwashed face. No mask. Exposed. I never expected them to invite him. Or for him to see me like this. Christian looked at me calmly. “Clear broth is fine.” “Okay, okay! Clear broth it is!” Everyone got busy again. Christian changed into the slippers the Prez offered. He handed a bag of fruit to someone in the kitchen. The Prez tried to smooth things over. “Hey, let bygones be bygones. Christian, be the bigger man. Don’t hold a grudge against Luna.” Someone shoved a colander of spinach into Christian’s hands. He was pushed onto the sofa opposite me. Suddenly, it was just the two of us in the living room. The AC hummed in the corner. I avoided his eyes, fumbling for the mask in my back pocket. Snap. Christian broke a spinach stem. “I already recognized you. Is there a point in hiding?”

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A month before I died, I hired an undertaker online. The reviews said he was a pro—full-service, handled everything. From corpse cleanup to the final shovel of dirt, it was the perfect “one-stop shop” for someone like me, who had no one to collect my body. But when we met, my luck ran out. The undertaker was my ex-boyfriend, the one I dumped five years ago. Enemies on sight. He took one look at me in the hospital bed and waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t care who you are. I’m not burying you.” I scrambled out of bed to block the door before he could leave. “It’s a misunderstanding! I booked it for my grandma!” He stared at me, face like a thundercloud, hesitated for a solid minute, then finally snatched the credit card from my hand with a frown. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. He took the money. He signed the contract. When I die, he can’t back out now. 1 I was lying in the hospital bed, waiting to die, when old Mrs. Zhou in the next bed nudged me. “Add this guy on WeChat,” she whispered conspiratorially. “He’s amazing.” “He handled my husband’s funeral. From picking up the body to the burial, he does everything. Even throws in the burial shoes and shroud for free.” “Don’t underestimate a good send-off,” she added. “Get it right, and you’ll have good karma in the next life.” Everyone in our ward was waiting to die. But I was the youngest. When I first arrived, the uncles and aunties pitied me. “So young,” they’d say. “You shouldn’t be here.” But as time passed, they realized I wasn’t sad. So, death became just another topic of conversation. I thought about it and added the contact Mrs. Zhou recommended. I wasn’t counting on karma for the next life. But for this one? Yeah, I needed help. My parents were gone. My grandma had been bedridden for years—she couldn’t even get out of bed, let alone bury me. Funerals are complicated. I tried to plan it myself, but I just didn’t have the energy. I was dying, and I hadn’t even bought an urn. I had some savings left. A full-service package seemed like the way to go. I sent the friend request. Ten minutes later, no response. Finally, a message popped up. Not in the chat, but in the friend request verification box: “What for?” 2 I blinked, double-checking I had the right person. I typed back, explaining I needed a full funeral package. This time, it took him thirty minutes to reply. “?” Still didn’t accept my request. I frowned. I showed my phone to Mrs. Zhou. “Does he not add strangers?” She looked confused. “That’s weird. In his line of work, he adds strangers all the time.” She grabbed her own phone and sent a voice message. “He’s probably just busy. Let me book him for you.” I was getting sleepier by the day. I thanked her and drifted off. I slept fitfully until evening. Snores from the uncles filled the room. I checked my phone—almost 8 PM. Guess he wasn’t coming. My nose felt hot. I touched it—blood. I woke up instantly, grabbing tissues from the nightstand and stumbling to the bathroom. It wasn’t the first time. I was used to it. Apply pressure. Plug with cotton balls. Wait. After a few rounds of soaked cotton, the bleeding stopped. I washed the blood off my hands and neck in the mirror. The ward was quiet. No one saw. Good. If they saw, they’d feel bad for me. And when they felt bad, I felt bad. I leaned against the sink, waiting for the dizziness to pass. Tomorrow, I needed to ask the doctor about discharge. Grandma was alone at home. With whatever time I had left, I wanted to be with her. Once the vertigo faded, I opened the bathroom door. Knock, knock. The doctor’s rounds. I opened the ward door without looking, turning back toward my bed, using the wall for support. But no footsteps followed. I stopped and looked back. A man stood in the doorway. The room was dim, lit only by the nightlight. Maybe it was the shadows, maybe my vision was failing. I couldn’t see his face clearly. 3 I rubbed my eyes. He stood still. Only his eyes moved—cold, disgusted, indifferent—scanning my face. Maybe I was sicker than I thought. I was hallucinating Liam. He looked at me just like he did five years ago. Calm. Detached. Back then, I said, “Let’s break up.” He said, “Okay.” Flat. No emotion. The silence was suffocating. After a while, I realized it wasn’t a hallucination. There were other patients in the room, after all. My palms started sweating. Why did I feel guilty? I forced a smile. “What a… coincidence. Who are you looking for?” My eyes burned. Thank god for the dim lighting. He probably couldn’t see my tears. Five years ago, breaking up hurt. But I never imagined our reunion would be on my deathbed. The indifference on his face vanished, replaced by a flat, professional mask. “Someone booked a funeral service. I’m here to sign the contract.” I froze. Right. Mrs. Zhou’s recommendation. “You… you’re Liam?” Liam stared at me. He didn’t speak. But his eyes screamed: Is this a joke? My brain really was rotting. How slow could I be? Liam hadn’t even changed his WeChat profile picture. It was still the Patrick Star I chose for him years ago. Mrs. Zhou had told me, “This is Liam, the funeral guy.” But I didn’t connect the dots until now. The awkwardness was thick enough to choke on. I stammered, “Sorry… I booked it. I forgot. And… I didn’t know it was you.” Liam let out a cold laugh. “I’m surprised you’re not too good for my services now.” He turned to leave. I pushed off the wall and chased him. “You’re already here! Just sign the contract!” I only had a month. Finding someone else would be a hassle. I didn’t have the energy. Liam probably thought I booked him on purpose. That I was shameless. He stopped at the door, turning back. The hate in his eyes was undisguised now. “Ms. Lin, you flatter me. But unfortunately…” He paused, his voice dropping. “I’ll bury anyone. But I won’t bury you.” 4 That stung. Even dying, I was getting rejected. It hurt more than I expected. I looked down at the contract in his hand. My brain was mush. I babbled, “Business is business. You can’t pick and choose customers.” I couldn’t look up. I didn’t want to see his face. Silence stretched on. Finally, he took the bank card I was holding out. “Don’t contact me for anything other than funeral arrangements,” he said coldly. He turned to leave. I remembered he still hadn’t accepted my friend request. I opened my mouth to call him back. Black spots danced in my vision. I reached out to steady myself and accidentally grabbed his hand. His hand was cold. Or maybe I was burning up again. I noticed a ring on his left ring finger. Five years ago, three months after we broke up, he posted his new girlfriend on social media. Married? Engaged? It wouldn’t be surprising. I felt… something. I didn’t know what. I let go of his hand like it burned me. He seemed to flinch. When he looked back, his face was dark with disgust. “Sorry,” I apologized quickly. “Um… accept the request? So we can coordinate later.” Liam scoffed. “No need. Just pass messages through her.” He meant Mrs. Zhou. I couldn’t speak. I watched him walk away. He wiped the hand I touched on his suit jacket. I bit my lip and looked away. It was just a touch. Was I that disgusting?

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The first time I came home after we remarried and received another one of Xander’s “sister-friend’s” jokes… I didn’t lose my mind. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. Instead, I followed her instructions. I placed a packet of condoms on the nightstand beside my and Alexander’s bed. I arranged a heart on the silk sheets with rose petals. And then, with the thoughtfulness of a concierge, I vacated the apartment for the two of them. When I walked through the door the next morning, I brushed past his sobbing “sister-friend” in the hallway. And then I was hit by the full, icy force of Alexander’s stare. 1 Alexander sat rigid on the living room sofa, a storm gathering in his dark eyes. When he finally spoke to me, his voice was soft, laced with an exhaustion he couldn’t quite hide. “Maya and I genuinely don’t have that kind of relationship.” “I’ve told you countless times, our dynamic is like siblings. She just has a bizarre sense of humor and loves pushing boundaries.” When had the normally reticent Alexander, a man whose words were usually rationed like gold, become this verbose? I was busy wiping off my makeup, offering a casual, noncommittal reply. “Oh. I know.” “Snap!” The packet of condoms was thrown with force onto the coffee table, scattering a few wilted petals. “Then what is this?” His voice was low, strained. “Are you doing this just to deliberately punish me?” He buried his face in his hands, visibly struggling to maintain control. I managed a small, weary smile. You punish someone because you either love them or you hate them. I was already past both. I just didn’t want any trouble. I pulled out my phone and showed him the message Maya had sent me yesterday. “Mama’s back. Better clear out the place so I can make magic with my big boy. Don’t forget the condoms and rose petals, babe, I have standards.” Alexander’s expression froze. He stammered, annoyance overriding his previous control. “And—and if she acts out, you just… follow suit? Are you humoring her?” I almost laughed out loud. Last year, when I went to pick up a drunken Alexander from a night out with Maya, I was chastised because I hadn’t brought one of the cheap toys she’d requested as a gag gift. What had he said then? “Maya just likes to joke. Why can’t you just play along with her?” Now that I was actually playing along, he was upset. But, whatever. I’d promised myself: After the divorce, don’t invite unhappiness back into my life. I yawned, feigning boredom, and managed to paste a fake smile onto my face. “Okay, honey, I got it. I promise I’ll remember. You should get some rest now.” Alexander didn’t move. His gaze was searching, as if trying to drill through the blank façade I’d put up. Finally, he stood, an edge of frantic anxiety in his movements as he tried to pull me into a hug. He buried his head in my neck and murmured. “Avery, please, stop joking like this, okay? I hate it. I don’t want anyone but you.” Sensing the shift to desire, I deliberately misinterpreted his words and pushed him away, firmly. “You can’t? What do you mean, you can’t? You’re so young! Go to bed and rest up, then.” Alexander’s hands, which had been fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, froze. A storm was brewing. The sound of his ringtone cut the tension. Seeing the caller ID, Alexander instantly snapped back to attention. He almost instinctively shielded the screen and walked toward the balcony. His tone was instantly soft, indulgent, and completely devoted. “I’m sorry, alright, my queen? I’m coming now to beg your forgiveness.” Before stepping out, Alexander suddenly turned back. “Take your pills.” Under his intense, unyielding gaze, I obediently shoved the handful of pills into my mouth. Sweet slumber. One deep, dreamless night. 2 I woke up at ten p.m. Alexander had climbed into bed next to me at some point, his voice thick with disappointment. “I texted you. Why didn’t you respond?” “I was sleeping too deeply. Didn’t see it. What’s up?” I casually scooted toward the edge of the bed, only to have Alexander’s arm wrap around my waist. “Nothing. Just wanted to ask: How should we celebrate our anniversary?” I answered without thinking. “Let’s go to that trendy new seafood spot. I heard their Lobster Thermidor is incredible.” A flicker of genuine pain crossed Alexander’s face. “I’m allergic to shellfish, Avery. Did you forget?” Right. He had a sensitive system. Besides shellfish, he couldn’t eat nuts or most gluten products. Because of this, for every anniversary before the last few years, I’d always prepared a massive, elaborate meal myself. But ever since his “sister-friend” came back four years ago, those meals had ended up feeding the trash bin. I stretched lazily, as if nothing was wrong, slipping free of his grip. “Then you’ll have to suck it up and watch me eat.” Alexander’s smile was bitter. His hand reached for me again, but this time only gently stroked my hair. He said, “Fine.” He was being so agreeable. It wasn’t like him at all. On our actual anniversary, the traffic was terrible. As Alexander kept rushing me via text, I scrolled through social media. Maya had posted a photo: She was helping Alexander decorate a private room. The caption: “Playing good little helper for my big boy, helping him trick his wife. Ugh, some women are so high maintenance.” The picture itself showed her sitting intimately on Alexander’s lap. Suddenly, I felt like this whole charade was pointless. I pulled over. The sunset was perfect outside the window. Across the square, a handsome, blonde-haired young man was feeding the pigeons. He noticed me looking, and held up the feed, waving enthusiastically. I was twenty minutes away from meeting Alexander, who was still texting to ask if he needed to send a car. I replied No need, turned off my phone, and walked toward the boy. I got home well past midnight. Alexander was sitting on the sofa, radiating fury. “Where were you?” I answered honestly. “Feeding pigeons.” Alexander shot to his feet. “Feeding pigeons? I booked out an entire restaurant. I waited from five o’clock until closing. And you were feeding pigeons?” “And that’s not all…” He furiously threw a stack of photos at my feet. “Does feeding pigeons require this level of intimacy?” The photos showed me laughing and wrestling playfully with the blonde young man. I just shrugged helplessly. “We were just messing around. If you insist on reading too much into it, there’s nothing I can do.” The entire scene had a bizarre, familiar quality. Two years ago, when I confronted him with photos my friend had sent me—pictures of him and Maya kissing—he had replied with the same exasperated dismissal. “It was just a dare. A stupid game. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?” It was a shock to me then that the normally reserved and dignified Alexander would play such childish, idiotic games. But that was all history now. I waved my hand, indicating I wasn’t going to bother explaining anything further. Alexander clenched his fist and slammed the gift box on the table to the floor. A cup tumbled out. It was a limited-edition handcrafted piece I’d spent months trying to track down. While Alexander stormed out to the balcony to smoke and cool off, I quickly picked up the cup to inspect it. Tsk. What a shame. A chip was gone from the rim. I was a little annoyed. So, I decided to go out and make myself happy. 3 At the high-end lounge, I sipped my drink. I began dramatically recounting the whole story of me and Alexander to the eighteen male models I’d hired for the night. Originally, I truly believed Maya was just Alexander’s “bro.” So, when she’d made sexually suggestive jokes to Alexander right in front of me, I’d just laughed along. When she’d gotten inappropriately handsy with him, I believed Alexander when he said she was just being uninhibited because she’d lived abroad for so long. But her jokes became increasingly excessive, flagrantly provocative. It escalated until Alexander’s birthday. She left her worn, intimate underwear as a “gift” and put it on my side of the bed. That was when Alexander and I had our first explosive fight. In my mind, that action severely crossed the line of friendship. It was a direct, aggressive insult. But Alexander only rubbed his temples with irritation, playing it down. “She’s always been like this, Avery. Free-spirited. What do you expect me to do?” I recognized the absolute tolerance in his tone. Tears welled in my eyes as I pleaded. “At least… you could choose not to associate with her.” Alexander, who was usually gentle and affectionate with me, immediately changed. “Avery, you’ve gone too far. You have no right to interfere with my social life!” In that moment, I understood that this so-called “sister-friend” held more weight than me, his wife of five years. He suffered severe motion sickness, yet he accompanied her to amusement parks for rides that left him violently ill. He was meticulous about his work, yet he ditched a crucial, high-stakes meeting just because she’d asked him to watch a meteor shower that might happen. I cycled through constant questioning, screaming, and even begging. All I got in return was Alexander’s growing perfunctory attitude and his increasing tendency to walk out on me. Our arguments became more frequent. I lost control of my emotions more and more often. In our most intense fight, I even grabbed a knife. My love was desperate. Even my threats were directed at myself. As I started to slip, Alexander firmly grabbed the blade with his bare hand. He let his flesh be torn and bloody rather than allow the blade to touch me. My heart softened. I repeatedly told myself, Maybe I’m the one being too paranoid. Xander loves me. I must be misunderstanding him and Maya. Another year, another Alexander birthday. The party was set for the rooftop of a downtown restaurant. Before leaving, I carefully placed a positive pregnancy test into a gift box—my ultimate surprise. I hoped this baby could repair the rift between us. Surprisingly, Maya didn’t cause any trouble before the party started. Everything seemed to be moving in a positive direction. Until I stepped into the elevator that led to the rooftop. The elevator reached the top floor, but the doors never opened. The emergency button, coincidentally, was broken. I have severe claustrophobia. The elevator cab was small, stiflingly hot, and pitch black. Within minutes, I was struggling to breathe, near total suffocation, my body slick with cold sweat. I frantically tried to call Alexander. All I heard was a busy signal. Maybe it’s too loud and he can’t hear it, I tried to reassure myself. I tried to control my breathing, my mind racing to find a way to save myself. But the next second, the elevator suddenly plunged. I screamed, shrinking into a corner in pure despair. I thought I was going to die. And in my heart, I was still regretting that I wouldn’t get to see Alexander one last time. The elevator stopped smoothly only when it reached the sub-level garage. The doors opened. I raised my head, dazed, but instantly understood everything when I saw Maya’s openly triumphant face. Alexander was standing right next to her. Seeing me drenched in sweat, his expression flickered. “That joke went too far, Maya.” Maya punched him lightly, dismissively, on the arm. “Daddy was just getting revenge for your birthday, remember? Don’t you get it?” She pointed to Alexander’s right hand, which was wrapped in a thick bandage. “Look at what this bitch did to your hand! If you don’t teach her a lesson now, she’ll think she can walk all over you.” Shaken to the core, I stumbled out of the elevator. On a monitor to the side, a recording played back every moment of my humiliating panic attack in the elevator. Alexander had known. He had allowed it. Alexander walked toward me, reaching out to steady my trembling body. I pushed him away with all my strength. Maya grumbled, annoyed. “Stop being such a drama queen. It’s pathetic.” I slapped her across the face. She screamed, turning on Alexander with a look of pure rage. “Are you going to control your crazy wife or not?” Alexander pulled me tightly into his embrace. “Enough, Avery. Let it go. Don’t think about it. Maya didn’t mean anything by it.” He didn’t even suggest that Maya apologize. The miscarriage report came out the next day. The divorce papers landed on Alexander’s desk the day after. This time, no matter what he said, I only had one cold reply: “Sign them.” Three months later, tired of the endless argument, Alexander slapped the signed divorce papers onto my desk. I got what I wanted. I took another sip of my drink, pausing the story. It was strange. Those memories, which had once been so agonizing, now felt distant, like watching a stranger’s story through glass. The young male models, however, were teary-eyed, wiping their faces and loudly indignant. “That guy is the absolute worst! You’re amazing, Miss, and he didn’t deserve you.” I nodded in agreement. “He really was the worst. Now, come on, let me feel those abs.” “BANG!” The door was kicked open. Alexander walked in, his face absolutely livid.

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I fell for my best friend’s rival. The day I finally confessed, my best friend’s eyes went red, her face shifting through a kaleidoscope of shock and betrayal. In the end, she forced out a tight, biting, “Congratulations.” But afterward, she turned all her focus on Reid. She sparred with him academically, then ruthlessly sabotaged him in the corporate world. I thought she resented him for stealing the top spot in my life, the one she’d always coveted. It wasn’t until our fifth year of marriage that she and Reid slept together. I screamed. I cried. I begged. But they only escalated their cruelty. Eventually, I was exhausted. I chose to walk away and grant them their twisted peace. Years later, I returned home for a Stanton University alumni event. A strange little boy tumbled into my arms, his face a startling, miniature replica of Reid’s. Our former class president laughed upon seeing us. “Is this yours and Reid’s kid? I always knew you two had a spark, even back then.” He chuckled conspiratorially. “I used to joke that even though you were always bottom of the class, you had a best friend who was number two, and a boyfriend who was number one!” I was about to correct him when my old best friend, Blair, rushed over, grabbing the boy and clutching him tight. “Finn! Why did you run off? You scared Mommy half to death!” Reid was right behind her. He froze the moment his eyes landed on my face. “Sierra, you’re alive?” 1 Blair’s head snapped up, her expression a mask of pure, visceral shock. To them, I had been lost at sea five years ago. Drowned. I offered them a slow, distant smile. “My luck held out. I just swallowed a lot of saltwater.” Blair, ever the quick study, regained her composure instantly. She shook the little boy in her arms gently. “Finn, this is Aunt Sierra. You should call her Godmother.” We’d once promised that if we married, we’d catch each other’s bouquets, and if we had children, we’d be the godmothers. The boy, Finn, shyly whispered, “Godmother.” I didn’t acknowledge it. Turning to the class president, I simply said I had an appointment and prepared to leave. The president, sensing the toxic atmosphere hanging over the three of us, was eager to see me go. Reid, however, was determined to follow. “Sierra, where are you headed? I can drive you.” Blair’s lip twitched almost imperceptibly, but she said, “Yes, it’s not safe for you alone. You don’t even drive.” I inwardly scoffed. After all these years, she still saw me as the helpless, flighty girl. But a free ride was a free ride. On the way, Reid kept peppering me with questions about my life. I kept my answers clipped and minimal. I told him I was rescued and survived. I told him I’d been living overseas, selling my art. I was back now because a long-time buyer wanted to meet in person. Reid’s voice suddenly climbed an octave. “Man or woman? Are you sure they’re trustworthy? You need to keep your guard up.” I didn’t spare his feelings. “Friends I’ve known for years aren’t trustworthy. A husband I shared a bed with isn’t trustworthy. How, then, can I judge a stranger?” Reid fell silent. Blair’s face turned an ugly shade of gray. When we arrived at my place, I got out, collected my bags, and then turned back toward the car, stopping beside the little boy, Finn. He had Reid’s eyes and Blair’s mouth. The moment I reached a hand toward him, Blair reacted, pulling Finn tight into her chest, her eyes wide with terror. “What are you doing? You want my child to pay for your revenge? He’s innocent!” Reid warned my name, his voice low and dangerous. I simply reached out and plucked a small, hard fruit stone from Finn’s lips. “I was afraid he’d end up like my child—choked and suffocated, with adults right there, too blind to save him.” Their faces went white. The silence was absolute. Back inside my home, I checked my messages. Mr. Albright had confirmed our meeting. He genuinely admired my work; over the years, he’d observed every new piece I created, even if he didn’t buy it. I was back for him, yes. But I was also here to finish a much older, darker piece of business. I met Mr. Albright in a quiet, upscale coffee shop. He looked to be in his late fifties, with a kind, reserved face. “Ms. Wyatt,” he said warmly. “I see so many stories in your paintings. They make me deeply curious about you.” He paused, looking around the nearly empty shop. “Would I be privileged enough to hear some of them?” I nodded. 2 In high school, I was still Sierra Wyatt, the spoiled heiress who had no worries. While my classmates were pulling all-nighters and drowning in stress, I was only interested in painting and partying. Reid, however, was the polar opposite. He was the undisputed number one student—brilliant, disciplined, and politically adept. At first, I found him utterly pretentious. Then Blair arrived. She came from a poor background and was fiercely academic, working a job every evening to help her family. I was impressed. I convinced my father to establish a scholarship specifically for students like her. I wanted to keep it anonymous. But the teacher, in front of the entire class, made a point of announcing my donation and forced Blair to bow and thank me. Looking back, I believe that public moment of forced gratitude was when Blair started to resent me. But I was oblivious. I poured my heart out to her, treating her like the sister I never had. Blair’s biggest aspiration was to beat Reid and claim the number one spot. But Reid was an insurmountable fortress. She was always second. After yet another loss, Blair broke down crying. To cheer her up, I tried everything I could think of. “It’s okay,” I’d announced dramatically. “I’ll just start dating Reid! I’ll distract him, ruin his grades, and you can finally win!” Reid, passing by, scoffed. “Sierra, you’re too clueless. You don’t even know how to flirt. Need me to show you how?” And that’s how we ended up together. My senior year was the year my life shattered. My father’s business went bankrupt, and he killed himself. In my deepest despair, Reid and Blair were my anchors. Reid swore he would take over my father’s role, promising to be the one person in the world who would always love me. Blair let me stay in her tiny apartment and worked tirelessly to tutor me. I pulled myself together. I started studying like my life depended on it, and by the time the SATs arrived, I was confident I could get into a decent college. Then the accident happened. Despite checking and double-checking everything, I couldn’t find my No. 2 pencil for the Scantron sheet. Leaving the testing center, I slapped myself, convinced I was the most utterly worthless person alive. Again, Reid and Blair were there. They encouraged me until I moved past the trauma. They both went on to Stanton University, the country’s best. I decided higher education wasn’t for me, so I took a job bussing tables near campus. Reid would come straight from class to help, and soon, customers assumed he was the employee. He constantly talked about our future. We’d marry right after graduation. He’d earn enough money to buy me the best art supplies and keep me a carefree, sheltered art patron. But I felt a creeping sense of insecurity. I begged Blair to keep an eye on Reid for me. Blair looked at me with an unreadable, deep expression, a forced, unnatural smile pulling at her lips. I remember feeling smug, thinking I was successfully “showing off” my perfect relationship. I urged her to start dating, too. “No need,” she’d said. “I already have someone I like.” It took years to finally understand that smile, and to know exactly who that person was. It was already too late. 3 Reid and I married right after he graduated. But reality was far harsher than his dreams. He worked himself to the bone to earn money, coming home exhausted every night, collapsing into sleep the moment his head hit the pillow. To ease his burden, I learned to cook, clean, and manage the house. I had never realized how much labor was involved in keeping a home. The endless cycle of meals, laundry, and cleaning. They were all small things, but stacked together, they were enough to drown me. By the time the financial pressure finally eased, our daughter, Skye, was born. I named her Skye, wanting her to be calm and serene. But she was a whirlwind of energy, always crying and restless. Every night, I had to walk the length of the living room, holding her, for hours until she finally drifted off. By the time I slipped into bed, Reid’s hand would be reaching for me. “Honey, it’s been too long since we…” Despite my physical and emotional exhaustion, I dutifully submitted. But the moment of climax was always ruined by Skye’s first whimper. I’d instantly push Reid away, scrambling naked off the bed to comfort her. I never saw the look of pure annoyance on his face as he lay behind me. Life had successfully chipped away at the clueless princess, turning me into a killjoy of a housewife. For my birthday that year, Reid brought home the most expensive set of oil paints. I glanced around the house. “We’re out of diapers,” I said flatly. “You should have bought diapers.” Meanwhile, Blair was carving a bloody path through the corporate world. She and Reid joined the same firm, and she clung to her old rivalry, fighting him at every turn. And she was still losing. Once, she prepared a flawless presentation, grinding on the pitch for weeks, but the CEO still chose Reid’s plan. Blair called me, sobbing hysterically. “Why can’t I ever beat him, Sierra? Why? After all these years, can’t I just win once?!” I shot Reid a dirty look, preparing to go comfort her. But Skye wrapped herself around my legs, refusing to let me go. I resignedly sent Reid instead. “She’s a woman drinking alone at a bar; it’s not safe. You caused this mess; you clean it up.” Reid’s hands paused on the remote. He looked at me, a searching quality in his eyes. “Are you sure you want me to go?” “Of course.” Reid looked like he was making the most momentous decision of his life. “Fine,” he said. He turned back and looked at me several times before walking out the door. I didn’t sense the earthquake coming. I was just there, cooing at my daughter, telling her silly stories. The true catastrophe began that night. Reid never came home. When he finally returned the next morning, I was already cooking. He mumbled some excuses about Blair being a drunken mess and how he’d been so exhausted getting her back to her place that he just passed out on the floor. His tone was calm and believable. Blair was my best friend. I accepted the lie easily. In the days that followed, Reid’s “overtime” and “business trips” became more frequent. At first, I assumed the company was just busy. Then, I started to notice things. A foreign hair on his jacket. A strange, sharp perfume that wasn’t mine. Finally, when I found a discarded, opened condom wrapper in his pants pocket, I knew. He was cheating. Shattered and enraged, I drove to Reid’s office and staged a scene. I cried, I screamed, I lay on the floor, demanding he name the woman. Reid’s face was pure disgust. “Sierra, I provide for you! I put a roof over your head! I let you be a homemaker so you didn’t have to worry about a thing, and this is how you repay me? By making baseless accusations?” He pulled out his phone, flipped on the camera, and pointed it at my face. “Look at yourself! What do you look like right now? A hysterical shrew!” 4 On his phone screen, I saw a stranger: my hair was a wild mess, my skin sallow. My outdated dress was stained with unwashed grease spots. Behind me, the female employees were immaculate, their makeup perfect, their business suits crisp. They radiated the aura of competent professionals. Their stares were a mix of pity and contempt. Blair emerged from the crowd. “Sierra, don’t make a scene. This is pathetic.” Reid yelled, “Let her! She just wants me to get fired so the whole family starves! Go on, do it! Start a live stream! Let everyone see!” It was then I realized I had no ammunition left. I’d been out of the workforce since high school. With just a high school diploma, I had zero leverage. If I divorced him, he’d easily win custody of our daughter. A cold clarity washed over me. I crawled up from the floor. “I’m done. I’m going home.” After that day, I became subservient, terrified of provoking Reid. He grew bolder—lipstick smudges on his shirt were common. Yet, I clung to him, desperately afraid he would abandon me. My only defense was Skye. I tried to use her to appeal to his vanishing affections. Reid did love his daughter, though. When he wasn’t busy, he would even take her to the office. One afternoon, he took her again. I finished my chores and started scrolling through my phone. Purely by chance, I stumbled across a viral thread. The title read: The Rivalry: Years of Hate, Decades of Lust. I clicked it open. The first line hit me like a physical blow: “No one understood that the eternal runner-up didn’t want the top spot—she just wanted the number one student’s attention.” My heart plummeted. My mind flashed. I raced to the rest of the post. “After losing to him at work again, I went to a bar to drink. He came to comfort me. He asked what I needed. I told him to kiss me. And he did.” “From high school until now, he rejected my advances ten thousand times. But on the ten thousand and first, he accepted. I took him home, and we spent the night making up for all that lost time.” “The top spot I could never reach finally became my conquest.” I felt the blood drain from my body. Blair loved Reid. Reid’s mistress was Blair. I lost all control. I tore to Reid’s office and barged into his suite. Groans and muffled sounds were immediately audible from the inner office. I kicked the door open. Blair was sitting on Reid’s lap, their clothes in disarray. Blinded by fury, I grabbed every object in sight and hurled it at them. A ceramic figurine struck Blair on the forehead. She started bleeding. Tears streamed down my face. If Reid’s betrayal was a freezing wind, Blair’s was a total annihilation of hope. “We were best friends! How could you do this to me?” Blair wiped the blood from her temple, her gaze icy. “I never considered you a friend.” Her voice was flat. “You were a spoiled, useless girl. All you were good at was condescension and charity.” “I hated you from the first day we met.” I tried desperately to deny it. “If you hated me, why did you take me in after my dad died? Why did you tutor me?” Blair laughed—a harsh, empty sound. “Because I like to fatten the rabbit before the slaughter. Why do you think you checked for that No. 2 pencil so many times and still didn’t find it? I took it outside the testing center!” “What?” The ground fell out from under me. Blair giggled, lightly shaking Reid. “We have a witness, don’t we, R.J.? You saw me take the pencil, didn’t you?” Reid’s face stiffened. He looked away. “Don’t be shy! You didn’t tell Sierra back then, which is how I knew—you’ve always loved me.” Suddenly, my circulation seemed to reverse. My limbs went limp. I nearly collapsed. “I’m going to—I’m going to report you…” Reid’s face darkened. “Sierra! Enough! Think about our daughter!” Then his expression shifted. He started looking around frantically. Our daughter? Skye? She was supposed to be here. We checked the security footage. We found Skye’s body hidden under the coffee table. While Reid and Blair were engaging in their sordid affair, they’d left Skye alone with a bowl of dried fruit. Skye choked on a hard fruit stone. She pounded on the door, trying to call for help, but her desperate pleas were drowned out by their ecstatic sounds. She tried to reach the water glass on the table, but she was too small. She died silently, just a few feet away from her father. When I finished telling the story, there was a stunned silence in the coffee shop, followed by muffled sobs. Mr. Albright sighed heavily. “I had no idea you’d endured so much, Ms. Wyatt.” He looked at me, heartbroken. “Five years have passed. Do you still hate your ex-husband?” I took a slow sip of my coffee, a subtle smile touching my lips. “Is that all Reid Jefferson—or rather, your employer—wanted to know?” Mr. Albright froze, his professional composure shattering. “What employer? I don’t know what you mean.” I walked past him and approached a patron who had been sitting quietly at a corner table the entire time. I reached down and pulled off the man’s surgical mask.

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After being killed by the psychopath male lead seven times, my mental state finally collapsed. On the eighth attempt, the male lead asked me to guess which straw he was holding. “Guess the shortest one, and I won’t kill you.” I kept a poker face and pointed to his crotch. 1. “Ha… I asked you to guess the straw!” Rain’s mouth twitched, annoyance overflowing from his narrowed eyes. I was numb from being killed, already in a state of living death. “Not the shortest?” Rain’s smile froze, murderous intent spreading and swelling in the silence. I closed my eyes, calmly accepting death. The previous seven times, I wracked my brains to please Rain, willingly becoming his lapdog. But every time, Rain killed me without mercy. I was tired. Really tired. When the system transported me back again, my brain didn’t want to work anymore. If I die, I die. It’s not like I haven’t died before. I really didn’t have the energy to play games with this psychopathic male lead anymore. I waited for a long time, but Rain didn’t act. I quietly opened one eye a slit, and Rain’s beautiful, bewitching face was magnified in front of me. I didn’t know when he had gotten so close, staring at me with eyes that wanted to devour me. “Very good.” Me: “What’s very good? The faint look of death on my face?” But Rain didn’t answer. He left me and left the great hall. Several maids came in and took me, tied up, to the bath. It wasn’t until they started stripping off my clothes that I realized Rain really wasn’t going to kill me this time. “This… what does giving me a bath mean?” The maids serving me didn’t speak, just lowered their heads and giggled. Just like that, I was washed clean and smooth, and delivered to Rain’s bed. Fuck… did the strategy work? 2. Short. It was really short. Of course, I’m not talking about anything else. I’m talking about the time. It was too short. I didn’t even have time to fight three hundred rounds with Rain before it was over. Rain and I lay naked on the bed like two dying fish, gasping for air. As for why I say dying fish, besides the heavy panting, we were both red all over as if we’d been cooked. I guess Rain was embarrassed. Regardless of whether it was because it was short or because it was his first time doing this, his good cool white skin instantly turned into hot pig skin. As for me, I just felt a hundred million points… embarrassed. I knew such a shocking secret about Rain. Would he get angry from embarrassment and kill me again? But before Rain could act, that damn system of mine came online unprecedentedly early. “Host, congratulations on completing the mission.” Surprise was followed by immense joy. So Rain was the heartless sword master who never got close to women. Once his heart was moved and the precept was broken, my conquest mission was complete. If I had known Rain liked the perverted type, I wouldn’t have pretended! Ah, no… I didn’t mean that I was perverted. I was transported back to the real world. Looking at the extra one million in my bank account, I smiled happily. I remitted money to my best friend’s bank account. Hearing that I had been killed seven times, my best friend felt very sorry for me. “Baby, it must have hurt a lot, right? This system is too stingy. You died so many times for only one million!” I sighed helplessly. “There’s no helping it. Now there are too many raiders, and it’s too competitive. The price of raid orders is falling. One million is already a sky-high price.” My best friend said indignantly, “For a raid mission of Rain’s level and difficulty, let alone one million, two more zeros are what you deserve!” That’s right! I started refreshing new raid missions, but because I hadn’t been able to grab a suitable mission order, the system couldn’t be summoned. Near midnight, I couldn’t stay up any longer. I set the alarm for the next morning and fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. I rarely dreamed. Perhaps it was because I had finally won this one-million raid mission, my brain was still in a very excited state. So, I dreamed of Rain. In the dream, Rain and I made love from moonset until dawn. When it was over, I leaned against the headboard and smoked a cigarette, not forgetting to pull Rain, who had shrunk under the covers, out and tease him. “Why wasn’t it short this time?” Rain’s face was cold, his lips trembled, and the tips of his ears were about to bleed. “Ring!” I suddenly opened my eyes and met Rain’s murderous black eyes. I was fucking shocked! I said how could this voice be so real? Did Rain hear me talking in my sleep?! Ah, no! Rain was fucking in front of me!! 3. I, Ring, have been in the raiding world for so many years, but this was the first time I had seen a target character run out of the novel world! It was really ridiculous. His mother opened the door for ridiculous, ridiculous home! Rain slowly straightened up, curled his lips slightly, and wrote the blackening on his face. “How have you been, Ring?” Done. I’m going to be avenged! I called the system to no avail, so I instinctively made a decision. I threw myself into Rain’s arms and coquettishly whispered in his ear. “Lord Sword Master, I missed you so much!” Didn’t everyone think I was going to continue to be Rain’s lapdog? I expressionlessly inserted the knife from Rain’s back straight to his heart. The transformation before and after was only an instant. Rain didn’t seem to expect me to kill him. The evil spirit around him suddenly collapsed, like a withered log. He fell straight onto my bed, unable to even say a word. “I meant I wanted you dead, Lord Sword Master.” I calmly pulled the knife out from Rain’s back and began to think about how to dispose of Rain’s body. Although he was a paper man, this was still a society governed by law. No one would believe I killed a paper man. I would only be arrested as a murderer and shot. Not worth it. Fortunately, Rain’s body slowly turned into bright powder and dissipated. Could it be because he was a paper man? I called the system again, wanting to ask clearly about this matter. But this dog thing, the system, not only pretended to be dead when doing tasks, but was even more thoroughly dead when not doing tasks. I gave up, intending to ask when I received the next mission. That night, I dreamed again. I still dreamed of Rain. He was dressed in loose clothes, his skin snow-white, lying lazily on the chaise longue, his posture seductive, but he looked at me with a pair of resentful eyes. “Ring, you ruthless woman…” I was subconsciously worried that he would appear in front of me again, and tried hard to break free from the dream. After waking up, I immediately inspected the whole house, and finally felt relieved. Fortunately, Rain didn’t appear again… Ding, morning news push. I habitually opened my phone and scanned the news while feeding toast into my mouth. Slap— The toast dropped onto the table without warning. I stared at the picture in the news with wide eyes. Morning News: This morning, a man in ancient costume and three drunken men had a conflict for unknown reasons. The man in ancient costume was stabbed seven times and died on the spot. The three drunken men have been arrested. The identity of the man is yet to be verified… That man in ancient costume who was hacked to death in the street… was fucking Rain?! 4. My best friend pointed at the news and let out a long “Ah,” extremely shocked. “You mean your one-million raid target ran to the real world, was killed by you yesterday, and was hacked seven times by someone and died again today?!” I rubbed my temples. “I don’t know what’s going on. Could it be that he also installed the system?” My best friend: “No way? He also became a raider? Who is he going to raid? It won’t be you, my treasure, will it?” My mouth twitched. “So crazy… It would be more like he came to kill me.” My best friend pondered. “Maybe, just maybe, he came to prove himself?” Me: “Prove what?” My best friend: “It’s not that short!” Me: “…” My best friend and I explored to no avail. All the reasons could only be known after the system came online. Although I wasn’t sure if Rain would come again, the fact that he, a heartless sword master, could be killed by me and three drunks proved one thing. Rain had no ability as a heartless sword master in the real world. He was just an ordinary person. So even if he came, I didn’t need to be too afraid. At night, I dreamed of Rain again. This time I went up and stripped off his clothes, pressed him on the chaise longue and kneaded him to my heart’s content. “Ring, how dare you treat me like this! I’ll kill you!” I pinched his chin and bit his lips fiercely. Blood immediately dyed his lips deeper. “This is my dream. How can you kill me?” Rain glared at me in exasperation, as if he wanted to eat me. But he could only use magic attacks on me and play lip service. He was pressed to death by me, unable to exert a single physical attack, and was eaten clean by me bit by bit like that. The next day I was woken up by a knock on the door. I got out of bed in a daze to open the door. “Ring—” The man standing at the door gnashed his teeth, looking like he was about to break in. I slammed the door shut with a slap, completely sober. Damn, what a lingering spirit! Rain! Looking at him like that, he wished he could tear me to pieces. He wouldn’t have come to take revenge on me for last night’s torture, would he? How is it possible? That was my dream!!!

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