Category: English

I thought my ex-husband talked too much. So, after the divorce, I found myself a mute boyfriend. My “little mute” was young, sweet, and practically perfect in my eyes. One day, I went to his college dorm to pick him up. Instead, I overheard a conversation with his roommate. “Cam, how long are you going to keep pretending?” “Until I get bored.” 01 Just as I stepped into the men’s dorm hallway, I heard someone laughing. “Cam, what’s it like playing the mute card to hook up with your own aunt?” I subconsciously stopped and stood by the door. After a long pause, a deeper voice replied. “It’s whatever.” Through the crack in the door, I saw a tall college boy sitting on a chair, legs crossed. His eyelids drooped, giving him an incredibly aloof, “over-it” look. “So when are you going to dump her? Isn’t it annoying not being able to talk every day?” “Is it annoying for you to talk every day?” He spun his phone in his hand, looking utterly impatient. “I’ll do it when I get bored.” I didn’t make a sound. Pretending I hadn’t heard anything, I turned and walked back downstairs. I sent him a text: “I’m here, where are you?” The reply came quickly. “Got it, coming right down!” Seconds later, a figure dashed out of the dorm building. Cameron Reed was still wearing the same black hoodie. But the annoyed expression was gone, replaced by a sunny, enthusiastic face. He walked up to me with a wide grin, looked down, and tapped on his phone. [Hey, did you wait long?] “Not too long.” He looked at me for two seconds, blinked, and typed again. [You look upset. Are you annoyed from waiting?] I turned to look at the boy holding up his phone, carefully trying to please me. I let out a breath. “No, just work stuff.” [Oh.] The boy lowered his eyes, looking disappointed. This demeanor was too different from what I had just seen in his dorm. It almost made me doubt if the previous scene was just my imagination. He sat obediently in the passenger seat, then suddenly thought of something. [Can you wait a few more minutes?] I nodded, and he immediately opened the car door and ran out. While waiting for him, I hesitated for a moment before clicking on Richard Sterling’s profile. “You mentioned before that you have a nephew. What’s his name?” Soon, the man I hadn’t contacted in ages replied. Richard: “Cameron Reed.” Richard: “Why?” I was about to reply when the car door suddenly opened. I hurriedly shoved my phone into my pocket as Cameron got in. With one hand in his pocket, he buckled his seatbelt and then suddenly pulled out a lollipop. Strawberry flavored. He pushed it toward me. “For me?” The boy nodded, [Don’t be mad anymore, okay?] 02 I was a low-income student sponsored by Richard Sterling. Marrying him was purely because he needed it. He needed an obedient, compliant wife to deal with his grandfather pushing him to get married. And I was the perfect, easily manipulated candidate. While we were together, I rarely had the chance to learn about his family. But I did have a vague impression of this nephew who was always shipped off to boarding schools. A reckless, spoiled rich kid. A young master whose wild antics gave even Richard headaches. And this very terror was now sitting next to me, looking like a total angel. Putting on such a good act—I found it quite amusing. The car stopped at a red light, and I looked at him. “Kiss me.” The boy froze, then his eyes gradually deepened. I didn’t need to ask twice; he leaned over and grabbed my chin. And gave me a solid, passionate kiss. No matter how well Cameron pretended in daily life, he could never hide that primal, predatory instinct when things got physical. Suddenly, a car next to us honked twice. Before I could react, it honked again. I turned and saw the window of the adjacent car rolling down. Revealing a very familiar face. Richard Sterling? I tensed up instinctively, but then realized he couldn’t control me anymore. The man’s expression was far from pleasant, his tone sarcastic. “So desperate you can’t even wait?” I flashed a smile. “Young people have a lot of energy. Forgive the show, Mr. Sterling.” Richard’s face darkened, his gaze bypassing me to look at the passenger seat. I subconsciously tensed and blocked his view. “The light’s green, I shouldn’t hold up traffic.” With that, I rolled up my window first. Looking at Cameron again, he was staring out the window, lost in thought. I suddenly wondered what Richard’s expression would have been if he had discovered that the person passionately kissing me today was his own nephew. But this situation was too interesting. I really didn’t want it to end just yet. 03 As soon as we got inside my apartment, Cameron couldn’t wait and threw himself at me. He held me urgently, kissing my lips. [I don’t like him.] “Don’t like who?” [Your ex-husband.] “Oh.” I leaned in, brushing against his earlobe. “What a coincidence, I don’t like him either.” He scooped me up with one arm and tossed me onto the bed. I let out a gasp and wrapped my arms tightly around his neck. He silently smirked, a flash of triumph in his eyes. I suddenly remembered what his roommate asked him today. “What’s it like hooking up with your aunt?” He said, “It’s whatever.” But I felt differently. Hooking up with my ex-husband’s nephew. That feeling… was fucking fantastic. Richard used to be wild too. But it was the wildness of someone in power. It was all taking; I didn’t enjoy it at all. But Cameron was different. I knew he was trying to please me. This pleasure reached its peak after discovering his true identity. Just as he was impatiently trying to get started. My doorbell suddenly rang. [Ignore it.] Soon, the doorbell turned into my phone ringing. “Must be something important.” I patted Cameron’s head soothingly. And grabbed the phone with one hand. “Open the door.” It was Richard. “I’m not home.” “I saw your car, open the door.” I paused. “It’s not a good time right now.” The person outside seemed to be lighting a cigarette. “Are you with that guy?” “We’re divorced, it’s none of your business.” “Then let’s get remarried.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he seemed shocked by them himself. Neither of us said anything else. A faint static hummed through the phone line. I spoke first. “You’re drunk. Have your assistant take you home.” “Open the door first.” “It’s really not a good time.” “Heh, Audrey, you’re getting bolder and bolder.” He let out a scoff, as if remembering something. “Wait, I almost forgot. Taking advantage of me being drunk to steal a kiss, playing dumb to propose to me—you’ve always been pretty bold.” The call ended. I was still caught up in Richard’s words. I really did love him back then. The first time I saw Richard was right after I started college. Full of reckless courage, I marched into his company just to see the benefactor who sponsored me. Falling for him seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I never thought I’d actually marry him one day. After getting married, I lived in my own pink bubble. Thinking my love alone could sustain a relationship for two. Until Chloe’s appearance shattered my dream. [Audrey?] A hand reached from behind me. I turned around. Cameron was standing right behind me. I was suddenly very curious. If this guy knew that the real reason Richard and I divorced was because of another woman… What would he do? Would he go play the mute to seduce Chloe? The mute act is getting old, maybe he could pretend to have a limp… Thinking this, I couldn’t help but laugh. I patted Cameron’s cheek. “I’m not really in the mood right now. Let’s take a rain check.” With that, I stood up and put on my robe. Completely missing the increasingly complex expression on Cameron’s face. 04 That night, I was sleeping groggily when a vibration woke me up. S: [Cam, we’re just waiting on you at The Enigma.] S: [Got some really hot girls here, you sure you don’t want a drink?] That’s when I realized. I was holding Cameron’s phone. Hearing the shower running in the bathroom, I placed the phone back on the nightstand. A few minutes later, Cameron came out. Afraid of waking me, he tiptoed to his side of the bed. He picked up his phone, swiped a few times, tossed it aside, and grabbed his jacket. I pretended to just wake up and opened my eyes. “Going out?” [My advisor needs to see me about something. I have to go back to campus.] “Now? It’s almost midnight.” Cameron spread his hands in a helpless gesture. I scoffed inwardly. It was a waste of talent that this rich kid hadn’t gone into acting. Suppressing the urge to roll my eyes, I patted his head comfortingly. “A senior’s life is a tough one, no human rights. I get it.” I waited a few minutes after Cameron left before slowly getting out of bed. I grabbed my car keys and followed him out. Honestly, it wasn’t for anything specific, just curiosity. I wanted to see what the real Cameron, who played the sweet, pitiful boy for me, was actually like. After all, the first time I met Cameron. Was at the hospital. I had just had surgery. I couldn’t move easily and needed to hire an aide. Cameron was the one who applied for the job. Initially, I was hesitant about him. Not because he was “deaf-mute,” but because I wanted a female aide. But the boy was incredibly persistent. [I’ve taken care of my mom since I was little, I’m very experienced.] [I promise I can do whatever they can do, and do it well.] I had to admit, in that moment, my heart softened. I didn’t have a father. My mother was paralyzed, and I had taken care of her since I was little, just like he claimed to have done. Later, if it hadn’t been for Richard’s sponsorship. I probably wouldn’t have even finished high school. So, I let him stay. It was exactly as Cameron had promised. He was sweet, hardworking, and incredibly thoughtful. Other aides would sneak out to rest whenever they had a chance. Only he stayed by my side all day long. Emptying my bedpans and urinals. When I was feeling down, he tried every possible way to cheer me up. My appetite was terrible then, so this guy cooked for me himself. He’d arrange the bento boxes into cute cartoon characters just to coax me into taking a bite. The old lady in the next bed laughed watching him. She told me, “This kid is treating you like you’re his girlfriend.” So later, it was only natural that we started dating. During all this time, I never doubted Cameron’s identity. He would often uncontrollably use sign language with me. Sometimes, when he was in the mood, I’d even have him teach me a few signs. Even in our most passionate moments, he never made a sound. He just looked at me with those wet, puppy-dog eyes, like a satisfied dog. Of course, the biggest reason I never doubted him was. What kind of spoiled rich kid could endure this much! He was so patient I almost wondered if he thought he was some historical figure enduring hardship to build character! 05 I used to be a regular at bars, too. Most of the time, I was brought there by Richard. He drank, I drove. And on the way back, we did all sorts of crazy things in his obnoxiously aggressive Hummer. Shaking off the memories, I was about to look for Cameron’s private booth. Suddenly, a hand grabbed me. “Came specifically to find me?” I looked up. Richard had actually appeared in front of me. “You refused to see me earlier, and now you can’t wait to run over here. Playing hard to get?” “I’m here to find my boyfriend.” I avoided his intense gaze, turned, and tried to leave. But he tightened his grip on my wrist and pulled me straight into a men’s bathroom stall. “Richard!” “Yell louder, let’s get everyone in here.” I glared at him. He rubbed his thumb across my lips. “Did he kiss you here today?” “None of your business, let me go!” “The little kitten is showing her claws. You’ve changed quite a bit since the divorce.” Richard scoffed. “Break up with him.” “Why should I?” “Audrey, you should know I hate it when people touch my things.” His finger traced my cheek. “There’s a limit to throwing tantrums. Don’t dance on my landmines.” I was about to argue back, but he continued. “Agreeing to the divorce was granting your wish. It doesn’t mean you can escape my control. I blame myself for giving you too much freedom this past year. It made you forget who you belong to.” Richard was domineering and arrogant. If he wanted to, he could make all my efforts in work and life vanish into thin air. But what gave him the right? What gave a man who betrayed our marriage the right to say such things so brazenly? “You already have Chloe, isn’t that enough?” At the mention of that name, Richard furrowed his brow in disgust. “I told you, there’s nothing going on between me and her.” “Nothing? Photos of you two kissing were all over the tabloids!” “Yeah, it was just a kiss. Is that worth throwing a fit over?” You couldn’t reason with him. What a piece of trash! I didn’t want to listen to him anymore and forcefully tried to break free from his grip. Suddenly, a man’s voice came from outside. “Uncle Richard, are you done in there?” My whole body froze. Cameron? Richard was about to push the door open and walk out, but I yanked him back. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I avoided his sharp gaze. Richard stopped moving and asked, “What is it?” Separated only by a thin wall, Cameron’s slightly impatient voice drifted over. “I’m heading out. Let me borrow your driver.” “So early?” “Yeah.” Richard called his driver, and only then did Cameron leave. Before he left, he whistled. “Still going strong for an old guy. Have fun.” Looking up, I met Richard’s thoughtful gaze. “You know Cam?” “No.” “Then why did you avoid him?” “A man and a woman alone in a men’s bathroom stall… Mr. Sterling might not care about his reputation, but I care about mine.” With that, I kicked the door open. This time, Richard didn’t stop me.

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During an experiment in the quantum computing lab, the graduate student I was mentoring suddenly asked me, “Professor, do you know the saying, ‘From chaos, duality’?” I set down the equipment I was holding, but before I could answer, she let her lab coat slip from her shoulders, followed by everything else. She guided my hand to the warmth between her legs. Her captivating eyes locked onto mine. “From chaos, duality,” she whispered. “From duality, unity.” “The highest form of purity is also the highest form of debauchery.” That night, my restraint finally broke. 1 My wife’s beauty had long since faded, and my life was consumed by my work. It had been a long time since I’d felt such a release. Afterward, I rested my hand on Isabelle’s waist. “What do you want?” I asked. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling, strangely vacant. “Someone once said that for kids from towns like mine, the most powerful person we’ll ever meet is our university advisor.” “I refused to believe that was my limit. I sent my resume to company after company. They’d grant me an interview out of respect for you, but the questions were always about you. Once they realized our relationship was purely professional, the offers would vanish into thin air. I haven’t received a single one.” “Professor,” she said, her voice hardening, “I want a position at Elysian Dynamics. I’ve given you the most valuable thing I have to trade for it.” She added, almost as an afterthought, “It was my first time.” In the dim, hazy light, I studied her. She was undeniably beautiful; otherwise, she never could have tempted me to cross this line. Her face was a portrait of conflict: one half pained innocence, the other half ruthless ambition. I dressed and, before leaving, told her, “You’ll get what you want. The offer from Elysian will be in your inbox tomorrow.” My reputation in the field is formidable. A word from me was all it took. After I made the call, I found my wife staring at me. Her expression was placid, but her words were like needles. “You’ve never involved yourself in student placements before.” “What’s different today?” “Is there something special about this student? I think I saw her once, at that university gala.” “She’s very beautiful. It makes sense you’d take such an interest. I just…” “That’s enough.” I cut her off before she could finish. “She’s from a poor background. Life is harder for kids like her. Besides, her academic record is exceptional. I’m just giving her a hand up. Is there a problem with that?” My wife, Connie, looked at me, stunned. I rarely used such a sharp tone with her. But tonight, for some reason, the sight of her sagging cheeks and her shocked expression filled me with an intense irritation. My mind involuntarily flashed back to Isabelle’s smooth, pale skin, and the flicker of panic in her eyes as I entered her. I couldn’t stop myself. I went to see Isabelle again. She smoothed her hair, her voice unnervingly calm. “Professor, a one-time transaction can be born of desperation. But to continue… that would make me no better than a prostitute.” She bowed deeply. “Professor, despite what happened, I still believe you are a man of principle. You wouldn’t force me if I wasn’t willing, would you?” After she left, I sat there, rubbing the rim of a paper cup. She was right. I wouldn’t force her. But there were other ways to make her willing. Isabelle was gambling on my character. I was gambling on her breaking point. Isabelle’s new job at Elysian quickly became a nightmare. She was hitting roadblocks at every turn. It was my doing, of course. I hadn’t needed to say much. Just a single, casual comment to a senior executive: “That student of mine, Isabelle… I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She’s become rather difficult lately. I suppose a big offer from a company like yours has gone to her head.” We were all seasoned players. The executives at Elysian understood immediately. They began applying pressure from all sides. I expected her to last a week, maybe less. To my surprise, two weeks passed, and she still hadn’t contacted me. A flicker of annoyance sparked within me. I had been a master puppeteer for years; this was the first time a string had gone slack in my hands. I called the executive and arranged a dinner meeting for that evening. Isabelle, naturally, was required to attend. Throughout the dinner, she played her part perfectly, smiling and making conversation as the wine flowed. But afterward, her face was etched with fatigue. “Professor,” she said, her voice low. “I didn’t think a man like you would resort to such petty, dirty tricks.” I cornered her by the restrooms, my hand moving to her blouse, undoing the buttons one by one. “Isabelle, there’s a beast I’ve kept caged inside me for a long time. You’re the one who unlocked the cage. Are you just going to walk away and leave it hungry now?” Just as the pale curve of her breast was about to be exposed, she clamped her hand over mine. Her eyes, when they met mine, were shockingly resolute. “Don’t push me, Professor. I told you, our transaction is over. Don’t try to use my job to threaten me. I may be an ant trying to shake a tree, but if I make our story public… even if no one believes me, even if I have no evidence… it would still damage your reputation, wouldn’t it?” Her voice was cold and steady. “You value your reputation above all else. You wouldn’t want to tarnish it, would you?” She then proceeded to button her blouse, her gaze never wavering from mine. I let out a soft, sharp laugh. To kill a snake, you strike it where it’s most vulnerable. I had been too hasty. I had someone look into her background. I needed to understand this sudden, fierce resistance. Once you take the easy road, it’s hard to go back to walking the hard path. The report arrived on my phone that afternoon. It turned out Isabelle’s fiancé had come to the city to be with her. Interesting. According to the file, he had paid for her entire education, from her undergraduate degree through her master’s, with his own labor. They had planned to get married in a month. I sighed, zooming in on a photo of the two of them on my phone. Her fiancé—a man named Rocco—looked like he’d just finished a shift on a construction site, covered in grime. But Isabelle was kneeling beside him, holding a lunchbox, looking at him with a smile of pure adoration. True love… If it was true love, then why did she climb into my bed? Another hypocrite, tainted like the rest. After some thought, I made a call to a friend in real estate. The very next day, Isabelle was in my office. “Professor… was it you?” I feigned ignorance. “What are you talking about?” She took a deep breath. “My fiancé… he doesn’t have the connections. No one would just hand him a major construction contract out of the blue. I don’t believe in miracles. So, what is your price?” I gestured behind her. She turned her head. Through the one-way glass of my office wall, she could see Rocco in the hallway, his face alight with a joyous, triumphant smile. I felt her entire body begin to tremble. I stepped closer, putting my arms around her. “Don’t be afraid. He can’t see in. But look at him… look how happy he is. Do you have the heart to shatter that beautiful dream of his?” As she watched him, I pressed her against the cold glass and slipped my hand beneath her blouse. Once you’ve tasted something, you develop a craving. I was beginning to realize I was becoming obsessed with her. The first person to notice my change was my wife. She confronted me, holding up one of my shirts, a smear of lipstick on the collar. “Alistair,” she pleaded, “this was a mistake, wasn’t it?” I could see the desperation in her eyes. She was begging me to lie. How pointless. To come looking for an answer you already know, hoping I’ll tell you what you want to hear. I took the shirt from her calmly. “No, Connie. It’s exactly what it looks like. I’m having an affair.” She began to shake. “But… why?” Why? My mind drifted back to a suffocating summer afternoon decades ago. I was just a junior lecturer back then, a boy from a small town who had clawed his way to the big city. I was called a genius back home, but here, I was just one among many. I had neither top-tier talent nor powerful connections. Advancement seemed impossible. The day before my tenure review, when I had finally understood the unwritten rules of the world and was on the verge of despair, Connie told me she had to work late. The Dean, however, had told me to wait for him in the office next to his. He had something to discuss with me. I assumed he wanted a bribe for the promotion, a bribe I couldn’t afford. But I didn’t wait long.

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I used to be the ex-boyfriend of the survivor base’s ultimate leader. Because of my terrible attitude and spoiled nature, I was despised by everyone and eventually thrown right into a horde of zombies. After miraculously surviving and escaping, I discovered a terrifying truth. My world was actually a post-apocalyptic novel, and I was nothing more than a pathetic, tragic villain meant to die early. To keep myself alive, I decided to completely abandon the main plotline and live a quiet, peaceful life on my own. That was my plan, at least. But one day, the leader of the base suddenly tracked me down. His eyes were completely bloodshot, and the first words out of his mouth were breathless and broken. “I thought I would never see you again.” 1 “Felix, you are being completely unreasonable again.” Kieran’s cold, detached voice rang out right behind me. I jolted, stiffly turning around to meet his gaze. His eyes held nothing but impatience and anger. That familiar, indulgent love he used to reserve only for me was entirely gone. Normally, I was at least a little intimidated by him. I do not know what got into me this time, but my temper snapped, and I screamed right back at his face. “Yes! I am being unreasonable! What exactly are you going to do about it?” Kieran clearly did not expect such a fiery outburst from me. A second later, his rage spiked. His intimidating aura crashed down over me like a tidal wave, completely crushing my brief moment of bravery. His face darkened so much it looked like a storm cloud ready to burst. “Felix, have I been too lenient with you?” My anger was still there, but my courage had officially checked out. I am not an idiot. I can tell the difference between Kieran being annoyed and Kieran being genuinely furious. When he truly loses his temper, he becomes terrifying. “Dinner is ready, so I am leaving.” I dropped that single sentence and bolted. Nothing matters more than eating in the apocalypse. As long as I mentioned food, Kieran would not keep picking a fight. Sure enough, I had not walked far before that chilling pressure behind me vanished, replaced only by his muffled, frustrated sigh. We only had a little argument. Did he really need to be that fiercely intimidating? My nose stung slightly, and I cursed him in my head. What a petty jerk. 2 On the way back to our quarters, people on the street shot me dirty, hostile glares. I glared right back, fierce and unyielding. The people in the base absolutely hated me. Ordinary folks worked the fields to earn their keep. Those with combat abilities risked their lives outside the walls killing zombies. I was the only one living like a delicate parasite, clinging tightly to Kieran for survival. I never thought there was anything wrong with that. It was a mutual agreement between two consenting adults. What right did anyone else have to judge us? But people still constantly harassed me, claiming they were acting on behalf of the base and trying to “save” Kieran from my toxic influence. My first major fallout with Kieran happened because I got into a physical fight. Someone was talking trash about me behind my back, and I happened to overhear it. I had zero combat power, so it was a completely one-sided beatdown. I looked incredibly pathetic by the end of it. But the part that infuriated me the most was Kieran. He did not check on my injuries first. Instead, he walked over and apologized to the guy who beat me up. I gave him the silent treatment for three days after that. He eventually went on a scavenging run and brought back a box of rare chocolate to beg for my forgiveness. Lately, our arguments had become far more frequent. At first, Kieran would at least pretend to coax me out of my bad moods. As time went on, the bastard stopped trying entirely. He refused to say a single comforting word, always using meal times as a cheap excuse to break the ice. Eat, eat, eat! I hoped he would choke on his food. Kieran had just brutally scolded me in front of the entire base again, stripping away every ounce of my dignity. I was supposed to be his boyfriend, yet he never once defended me. He just stood there and allowed them to humiliate me. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I marched right up to Kieran and demanded a breakup. He stayed completely silent, staring down at me with those pitch-black, bottomless eyes. After a long agonizing moment, he let out a dark sneer. “Felix, what exactly gives you the delusion that you can survive out there without me?” All my righteous anger instantly deflated. He was right. I did not know how to kill zombies, and I was terrified of scavenging for supplies. My food, water, and shelter all depended entirely on him. Kieran and I actually met before the apocalypse ruined the world. Back then, he was just a nameless, poor kid. I still have no idea where he got the audacity to think he was worthy of courting someone from my social class. But he was incredibly handsome. In a crowd of utterly average faces, his sharp, striking looks were a breath of fresh air. Having him around was good for my eyes. Relying entirely on his pretty face, I decided to give him a chance. After we got together, Kieran was completely obedient. If I told him to walk east, he would never dare look west. I can confidently say that my current terrible temper is at least fifty percent his fault! I just did not understand how things had devolved into this nightmare. The base residents held a deep, venomous grudge against me, acting as if I had dragged their majestic, awe-inspiring leader into the gutter. The pure contempt in their eyes made my blood boil. If it were not for this godforsaken apocalypse, people with their low status would not even be qualified to tie my shoes! And Kieran was no longer my shield. He stopped prioritizing my feelings, and whenever I got into a shouting match, he blamed me without even asking what happened! It is true what they say. The moment a man gains power and status, his heart completely changes. 3 To vent my bitter frustration, I waited until Kieran was sound asleep in the middle of the night. Then, I planted my foot firmly against his sculpted abs and kicked him right off the bed. While he was still inhaling sharply on the floor, trying to process the pain, I moved like lightning. I grabbed the heavy quilt, threw it entirely over his head, and delivered several blind punches to his skull. Finally, I bolted out of the bedroom like a frightened rabbit, locked the door from the outside, and casually made myself comfortable on the living room sofa. Kieran violently twisted the doorknob a few times. He started pounding on the wood. His hoarse, deeply agitated voice seeped through the door. “Felix, what the hell are you throwing a tantrum over now?” I completely ignored him. A few minutes later, his voice dropped into a terrifying, bone-chilling octave. “Fine, Felix. If you have any guts at all, do not ever come back into this room.” I curled up tighter on the sofa and sniffled. Why should I listen to you? I will go wherever I please! When daylight finally broke, the harsh sunlight pierced my eyes, making me scowl. After the apocalypse, the flora, fauna, and even the sun’s rays had mutated to become incredibly harsh and burning. If Kieran did not specifically hunt down high-grade sunscreen for me during his supply runs, my skin would have peeled off a long time ago. I pulled the soft blanket up to my chin, happily dozing off again before my brain caught up with reality. Wait, a blanket? I snapped my eyes open, a smug grin spreading across my face. Oh, Kieran. Even when we are in a bitter cold war, you still obediently sneak out to tuck me in. Feeling like I had finally scored a victory, my mood skyrocketed. I decided I might actually give him a decent smile when he came back. Kieran had specifically warned me to never leave our housing sector. I did not have any friends in the base anyway, so I usually spent my entire day locked safely indoors. But I never expected trouble to come knocking directly on my front door. Looking at the fierce, vicious men blocking my entryway, my stomach dropped. Usually, when Kieran was around, I would confidently hurl insults right back at them. But when he was gone, I absolutely never dared to provoke them. These men chopped off zombie heads without blinking. My neck was significantly softer than a rotting corpse’s. The burly man in the front crossed his arms. “Felix, we are not trying to make things difficult for you. But lounging around being utterly useless every single day is getting a bit ridiculous, do you not think?” I swallowed hard, desperately trying to maintain my usual arrogant, superior facade. “Did Kieran not make it clear to you? I belong to him. He contributes more than enough for the both of us. Do you really dare go against his orders?” The men erupted into cruel, mocking laughter. “You really still think you are some precious treasure? Commander Kieran already has a new lover. A smart person would take the hint, pack up quietly, and leave with some shred of dignity. You better start thinking about your own survival.” I felt like I had been struck by lightning. I stood completely frozen. A new lover? Kieran found someone else? Why did I not know about this? A tidal wave of absolute terror consumed me. In that moment of panic, I did not even stop to question if their words were true. The thugs kept talking. “Honestly, you are the most pathetic waste of space in this entire base. Even the street walkers know how to use their bodies to please a man and earn their keep. But you? You hide behind the Commander’s protection, parading around like you own the place. A whore should at least have the self-awareness of a whore. Since you clearly do not know how to serve a man, you are coming outside the walls to scavenge with us.” My eyes widened in sheer horror. I had spent all this time perfectly sheltered under Kieran’s wings, completely oblivious to the real, lethal dangers of the apocalypse. I was still acting like the spoiled rich kid I used to be. I fought tooth and nail, refusing to go with them. But my scrawny arms were no match for grown, battle-hardened men. I was brutally dragged and tossed into the back of their armored truck. The vehicle violently rumbled out of my familiar, safe haven. Separated by a single concrete wall, one side was humanity, and the other was absolute hell. I finally witnessed the true, unfiltered apocalypse. The putrid, rotting stench in the air was so thick I could barely breathe. In that moment of nausea, I finally understood why Kieran always scrubbed himself raw in the shower before he even tried to touch me. The last time I had faced a zombie up close was at the very beginning of the outbreak. Back then, the infection rate was low, and society was still desperately holding onto a shred of order. Kieran had grabbed my hand and fought his way out of our university campus, dragging me through unspeakable horrors until we reached this city and built the survivor base. Sitting in the truck, I desperately missed his warmth. He loved me so deeply back then. Could he really betray me for someone else? Or perhaps he truly did love me once, but my terrible behavior finally pushed him past his breaking point, and he simply decided I was not worth loving anymore? 4 The truck screeched to a halt in a desolate, ruined city. The streets looked completely dead and abandoned. Was there actually anything left to scavenge here? I eyed the men suspiciously as they prepared to disembark. I desperately wanted to stay in the vehicle, but I was too terrified to remain alone. If a horde swarmed the truck, these men would absolutely never come back to save me. After weighing my terrible options, I shakily followed them out. We entered a massive, crumbling department store. The shelves were completely barren and coated in a thick layer of grey dust. It looked like the place had been picked clean years ago. Suddenly, a violent tremor shook the concrete floor beneath my feet. By the time I realized what was happening, the men were already sprinting toward the exit at top speed. My brain short-circuited. Pure instinct took over, and my legs carried me after them. The men piled into the truck, slammed the doors, and the engine roared to life. They were not waiting for me! They intentionally brought me out here to dispose of me! The realization hit me like a physical blow. Uncontrollable, suffocating terror gripped my throat. “Do not leave! Wait! Please do not leave me behind!” I sprinted after the tires with everything I had, but the truck left me entirely in the dust. They were gone. And I was completely surrounded by the undead. As the rotting, foul-smelling corpses dragged their feet closer and closer, I accepted my fate and squeezed my eyes shut. The ruined city was blanketed by a thick, oppressive layer of grey clouds. Amidst the gloom, a gust of wind carrying the stench of blood and decay swept through the street. A large, reinforced cargo truck slowly pulled to a stop nearby. The noise attracted a few straggling zombies on the road. Before the monsters could even lunge, a group of people hopped out of the truck, wielding heavy blades. With terrifying efficiency, they severed the rotting heads from their bodies. Startled by the commotion, I peeked through the narrow crack of the rusted dumpster I was currently hiding inside. Their combat movements were brutally efficient. The three men in the group barely even blinked, decapitating zombies with single, fluid strikes. After clearing the immediate area, the group began packing up, preparing to leave. Panic surged through my chest. I did not care if they were saints or murderers. This city had been dead for years, and who knows when I would ever see living humans again. I scrambled out of the filthy dumpster and sprinted awkwardly toward them. Hearing footsteps, they instantly assumed I was a running mutant. One of the men whipped out a machete and swung it directly at my skull. I shrieked, dropping to my knees and covering my head. “Please do not kill me! I am human! I am a good person!” The sharp blade halted a millimeter above my scalp. A few strands of my severed hair fluttered to the asphalt. I sat completely paralyzed on the ground, a cold sweat drenching my back. The man stared down at me, his face an absolute mask of ice, and slowly lowered his weapon. 5 Another man strolled over, crouching down to inspect me with wide, amused eyes. “Well, look at that! A living, breathing human in this hellhole!” A second later, his cheerful expression twisted in absolute horror. He violently stumbled backward. “Holy crap! What is that smell?! You are going to suffocate me!” My face burned bright red. I lowered my head in deep shame. “I am so, so sorry.” A young woman with short, practical hair stepped up to me. “Can you tell me why you are completely alone out here?” She scratched her head, looking puzzled. “Or rather, how are you even alive right now?” The dam finally broke. The memory of those bastards tossing me into a zombie horde flooded my mind, and I started sobbing uncontrollably. By all logic, I should have been ripped to shreds within two seconds. But for some inexplicable reason, the surrounding zombie horde suddenly scattered into the alleys. Clutching my painfully racing heart, I had frantically crawled into this dumpster and stayed paralyzed in the filth for two entire days. I fully believed I would either be eaten alive or starve to death in the dark. I never expected to be saved. Through choked sobs, I briefly explained how my squad had maliciously abandoned me to die. The short-haired girl’s eyes softened with instant sympathy and outrage. My eyes were red and swollen, tears pooling pitifully in my lashes. I looked exactly like a tragic, helpless victim who had been cruelly betrayed. I had absolutely zero leverage or survival skills. Playing the pathetic, harmless victim was my only strategy to win their sympathy. Thankfully, my fragile appearance and tragic story successfully lowered their guards. “Can you please take me with you? I promise I will not be a burden. I can do anything you ask, just please do not leave me in this place.” The girl turned her head, looking at the three men for permission. The guy who had complained about my smell gave a lazy, indifferent shrug. “Might as well bring him. Look at how scrawny he is. It is not like he is going to eat much of our rations.” I immediately nodded frantically. “Yes! Exactly! I barely eat anything at all!” The other two men remained silent, which in the apocalypse essentially meant yes. Just like that, I climbed into the back of their cargo truck and finally left that city of nightmares behind. I had narrowly escaped death, and I should have been overjoyed. But a heavy, suffocating dread settled in my chest instead. During those two terrifying days huddled in the dumpster, a flood of bizarre, cinematic visions had violently forced their way into my brain. Every single vision was about Kieran. The Kieran in my mind felt terrifyingly unfamiliar. He did not look like the man who sighed helplessly at my tantrums, nor the man who scolded me with a stern face. He radiated a bone-chilling, absolute frost. He barely looked like a man with a beating heart. In those visions, I was completely absent. He stood entirely alone, ruling with an iron fist, slaughtering his enemies, expanding his territory, and ultimately ascending to become the absolute sovereign of the wasteland. At the very end of those flashing memories, a line of glowing text appeared in my mind. Commander Kieran was no longer the underdog a piece of trash like Felix could humiliate. He was the sole hope of humanity, destined to lead the survivors and ensure the fire of civilization never extinguished. Reading that sentence and piecing all the memories together, the horrific truth became crystal clear. This world was a published novel. Kieran was the unstoppable protagonist. And I was just a petty, malicious early-game villain who bullied him when he was weak. A worthless cannon fodder destined to be torn apart by zombies at the very beginning of the story.

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There were five people in our family. Dad bought 10 crabs. But when they were steamed and served on the table, only 4 were left. Grandma naturally dropped one into her own bowl, leaving mine completely empty like a sick joke. Before I could even pout or feel wronged, Mom, who had just gotten off work late, marched up and snatched the crab right out of Grandma’s bowl with her fork and handed it to me. She glared at her and said, “At your age, do you really deserve the best meat? Here’s a leg, suck on it yourself.” 01 I look exactly like my mom, but my personality is as soft as my maternal grandpa’s. Whenever I came home crying after being bullied, Mom would sigh, wondering how I managed to skip a generation and inherit Grandpa’s temperament. “Chloe, don’t be scared. Mom will teach you. If a boy bullies you, kick him where it hurts. If a girl bullies you, punch her in the chest. Works every time.” She would crouch in front of me, patiently teaching me how to retaliate swiftly and ruthlessly. Sitting nearby, my dad, Mark, would shift uncomfortably, crossing his legs tight, and soon make an excuse about needing a smoke to escape to the porch. I would stare at my mom in innocent confusion, not quite understanding how she could use such a beautiful face to drop eight F-bombs in a single sentence. It wasn’t until I saw her and my maternal grandmother getting drunk and trading dirty jokes that I learned what the phrase “runs in the family” truly meant. Mom was at her wits’ end with my absolute inability to toughen up. She would sigh and tell Dad that one day she’d have to find me a six-foot-four lumberjack to protect me. Fortunately, my younger brother, Leo, stepped up to fill that role early. At barely eight years old, he was already unusually tall, clearly destined to be a big, tough guy. But Leo was energetic and mischievous. Mom and Dad worked and traveled a lot, so they didn’t always have time to watch him, and with my soft personality, Leo wasn’t exactly intimidated by me. That’s when Dad’s mother—my paternal grandmother—chimed in. She said she had plenty of free time to help raise the kids and actively volunteered to move in. My parents thought it would be a great opportunity for us to bond with her, so they didn’t refuse. So, the year Leo was seven and a half and I was twelve, Grandma officially moved in with us. Leo and I didn’t have many memories of her. Aside from visiting her for a few days during the holidays, we hardly ever saw her. But Dad had told us many stories about her life, explaining how hard things were for her when she was young, and reminding us to always love our grandmother. So, I was genuinely looking forward to her arrival. But I was sorely disappointed… “What is this? Why is there such a huge difference between Chloe’s room and Leo’s?” She hadn’t even put her suitcases down before she toured the whole house, hands behind her back. She pointed at my bedroom and asked Dad: “Why does a girl need a room this big? Look at poor Leo, stuck in that little space…” Saying that, she crouched down and asked my brother, who was bouncing a soccer ball, if he wanted to trade rooms with his sister. Leo didn’t say a word. He just rolled his eyes at her, grabbed my hand, and pulled me toward the front door. “I’m meeting my friends for soccer. Dad, you entertain Grandma yourself!” His attitude made Grandma furious. Even from down the street, we could hear her screaming inside the house about how my mother had raised a disrespectful brat. “Listen to me, you need to toughen up. Just ignore Grandma, you hear?” At the convenience store, Leo bought a Popsicle, broke it in half, and handed me a piece. “At her age, she’s still playing that sexist ‘boys are better than girls’ garbage. Totally delusional.” I held the Popsicle, taking a bite, not really knowing how to respond. After a long pause, I just squeezed out, “She’s our grandma. Surely she won’t be that bad.” “Whatever. I’m just going to have to keep a closer eye on you, otherwise she’ll sell you out and you’ll be happily asking if she got a good price.” Leo sighed helplessly. Standing almost as tall as me, he reached out and pinched my nose. “You’re such a pushover.” “Ugh, stop! Show some respect, I’m your older brother, don’t pinch my nose!” I chased him playfully in the sunlight, angry but laughing, while he dodged me with a grin. I thought the room-swapping comment was just a minor hiccup. I never expected it to be just the beginning. 02 Mom reacted to the room-swapping complaint by cold-laughing and pretending she didn’t hear it. No matter how many outdated, old-school traditions Grandma cited, it was useless. If Mom ignored it, Dad—the ultimate devoted husband—would never agree to it either. As for Leo, the fact that he didn’t actively argue with her face-to-face was already the peak of his respect for his elders. And then there was me. For days, Grandma couldn’t stand the sight of me. But she didn’t dare say anything in front of my parents. Instead, she would corner me in secret, talking about how back in her day, girls were put to work in the fields by age seven. She told me that once I finished middle school, I’d be going back to the country with her to do manual labor. It gave me nightmares for days. I dreamed of angry cows and sheep chasing me, asking why I hadn’t cut the grass for them yet. Leo noticed I looked exhausted and asked what was wrong. I hesitated, genuinely scared, but eventually told him. He didn’t say anything. But that night, he snuck into Grandma’s room wearing a creepy mask and played ghost noises on his phone. It scared the old woman so badly she slipped, fell hard on her tailbone, and had to be rushed to the ER for X-rays and a cast. Before my parents could double-team him with a spanking, Leo sneaked into my room, crouched by my bed, and said: “You know, you’d rather have nightmares for days than just tell me. You might as well stop being my older sister and just be my little sister.” “Come on, call me ‘Big Brother’ and let me enjoy it.” Before I could snap back at him, Mom threw the door open, her face dark like a storm cloud, and hauled him out by his collar. Then came the soprano roaring: “You little punk! You’re getting too bold! First you make your grandmother fall, and now you’re making your sister call you ‘Big Brother’?” “If I don’t keep you in check, you’re gonna start acting like you own this house!!!” Then came the smack smack sounds of a spanking. Leo was tough—he didn’t let out a single cry. A few minutes later, he even provoked Dad, saying, “Didn’t even hurt.” So Dad rolled up his sleeves and tagged in. I hid behind my door, trying to step out and stop them several times, but Leo kept waving me back. He mouthed silently: [I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt. Don’t get involved, or that old witch will hold a grudge and make your life hell when she gets back.] I nodded, crying. But after a few minutes, I couldn’t hold it in. I ran out and told my parents the whole story, cause and effect. They were stunned, but after hearing me out, they didn’t say much. While Dad was putting an ice pack on Leo’s backside, he turned to me: “Chloe, all those things I told you before… I didn’t mean you have to just take whatever Grandma dishes out. Girls from her generation had it rough, working the fields at eight or nine was normal, but that doesn’t mean it applies today.” Mom took over: “When your dad and I were kids, the hardest thing we ever did was maybe feed the neighbor’s chickens a few times. Ignore your grandmother. Quitting school to do manual labor? That’s total bullshit!” When Mom gets fired up, her language belongs in a dive bar, but beneath the crude words was nothing but fierce love for me. I wiped my tears, nodded, and promised them I wouldn’t listen to Grandma anymore. To me, the incident was over. But it left a massive knot in my mom’s heart. When Grandma got discharged from the hospital, Mom bought her a smartphone and taught her how to use Facebook and TikTok. Whenever Mom had free time, she would send Grandma videos. They were all highly targeted clips with titles like “Gossiping Old Woman Bitten by Dog,” “Mean Grandma Hit by Grocery Cart,” or “Karma: Falling Flowerpot Hits Toxic Elder.” Grandma didn’t know how to block people, so she spent every day with a dark scowl, watching videos of people her exact age suffering horrific accidents because of bad karma. “Don’t be scared of her, Chloe,” Mom said gently while helping me wash my hair in the tub. “Old folks like your grandmother are paper tigers. One match and they go up in smoke.” “Next time she dares to talk trash to you, I’ll have your dad boot her right back to her hometown so she can relive her glorious childhood of farm labor.” 03 Maybe my family’s protectiveness was a bit too obvious, because Grandma never made those kinds of comments to me again. But her dislike for me was very real. Walking home from school, I often saw her chatting with the other elderly ladies in the neighborhood. Whenever my name came up, she would complain that my parents spoiled me, saying I was too pampered and didn’t know my place, and that I’d suffer terribly when I got married. I didn’t understand why, as a woman herself, she felt the need to project such a malicious future onto me. But I had promised my parents and Leo that I wouldn’t take her words to heart. So I walked up to her naturally and said, “Grandma, I’m hungry.” She jumped, sending peanut shells flying from her lap as she stood up. “Oh, Chloe… why… why are you home so early?” “It’s Friday, we get out a period early.” I smiled at her. “Grandma, I’m hungry.” “Listening to you talk, I thought Chloe had turned into a complete delinquent, but she’s just the same sweet girl as always!” Mrs. Henderson, one of the neighbors chatting with her, rolled her eyes at Grandma. “If I hadn’t watched this kid grow up, I’d have thought you were talking about someone else’s daughter.” “Exactly. If you said that about the Smith kid or the Johnson kid, I’d believe it, but Chloe? Give me a break.” The other ladies chimed in, shutting Grandma down. Her face looked awful. She couldn’t take it for more than a minute before making an excuse and hurrying inside. “Chloe, tell your mom to keep a closer eye on her mother-in-law,” Mrs. Henderson called out to me. “We all know your family, we know you’re a good kid. But strangers don’t! She’s out here running her mouth every day, spilling the family’s business like a leaky bucket!” “Okay, I’ll tell Mom!” I said goodbye to the ladies and hurried upstairs. I dropped my backpack and started my homework, planning to tell Mom when she got home later. Dad also came home early that day. He was carrying a large styrofoam cooler and mysteriously called Leo and me over to look. “Wow! These crabs are huge!” Leo picked up two massive Blue crabs, holding one in each hand to play with. “Dad, let’s not eat them yet. Let me play with them for a couple of days.” “You little punk, if you play with them for two days they’ll be dead and rotting. You can play with them for a bit right now.” “Awesome! Then we can eat rotten crab!” “You little brat!” I gently poked a bubbling crab with a chopstick, smiling as I listened to them bicker. Grandma poked her head out of the kitchen, saw the cooler of crabs, and looked incredibly moved. “Mark, how did you know I was craving crab lately?” “Huh? You like crab, Mom?” Dad scratched his head. “I never heard you mention it. I would have bought more. There’s only 10 here.” “That’s plenty, plenty!” Grandma came out and carried the cooler into the kitchen. “That’s more than enough!” Without the crabs to play with, Leo huffed and went back to his room. I didn’t have much to say to Grandma, so I went back to mine too. It wasn’t until the rich, savory smell of steamed seafood filled the entire house that we finally came out and sat at the dining table. “So big!” Leo drooled looking at the plate. Grandma smiled and served him the two biggest ones. Then she gave Dad two. But when it came to me, the plate was empty. “Mom?” Dad paused with his fork and looked at her. “Where’s Chloe’s?” “What’s the rush? Don’t you see I don’t have one either? The rest aren’t done steaming yet.” Grandma took a bite of her green bean casserole. “Big crabs take longer to steam. We have to wait for the others, or we’ll get food poisoning.” That made sense, so Dad didn’t say anything else. But as we ate, hearing the crack crack of Leo breaking crab shells made me feel a little left out. “I’ll let you have one to satisfy your craving, look at you pouting.” Suddenly, a bright red crab appeared in my bowl. Leo bumped my arm. “But I get to pick your biggest one later!” “Okay.” I smiled and picked up the crab, but just as I was about to crack the shell, Grandma snatched it away with her tongs. “Why are you taking his? There’s barely enough to go around as it is. What kind of older sister acts like this?” I was stunned. I watched helplessly as Grandma dropped the crab back into Leo’s bowl and pressed it down into his rice. Instantly, the crab was covered in sticky white rice. My heart gave a sharp twinge, and my eyes welled up. “What are you doing?! I wanted to give it to her! Mind your own business!” Leo slammed his fork down and stood up, furious. “Leo Evans!!!” Seeing Leo about to start swearing, Dad got angry. “She is your grandmother! Do not speak to her like that!” “Just because she’s old doesn’t mean she’s great! Why does she get to bully my sister?!” “…Grandma might not know how to express it, but she doesn’t hate your sister. Didn’t you notice her bowl is empty too?!” That argument shut Leo down. It was true. Grandma hadn’t eaten a crab either. Snatching Leo’s away didn’t necessarily mean she was targeting me. So I swallowed the lump in my throat, rubbed my eyes, and kept eating my rice. Leo didn’t say a word. He picked up his dropped fork, walked over to Grandma, muttered a stiff “Sorry,” then went to the kitchen to grab a clean fork. Dinner resumed, but the atmosphere was incredibly oppressive. Dad tried to give me the crab from his bowl, but I refused. I looked at Grandma and said quietly, “Grandma hasn’t had one yet. Give it to her first.” Dad patted my head and praised me for being so mature. And just like that, the crab went into Grandma’s mouth. Even after dinner ended, the steamer pot in the kitchen was still humming. I figured saving the remaining four crabs for a late-night snack with Mom wasn’t a bad idea, so I didn’t bring it up. But late into the night, after Mom had showered and was sitting on the couch with a face mask watching Netflix, the crabs still hadn’t appeared. I couldn’t describe how I felt. My eyes just burned, and I wanted to cry. “What’s wrong, Chloe? Did your brother prank you again?” Mom waved me over. “Don’t cry. As soon as I take this mask off, I’ll go beat him up for you.” “Sniff… Mom…” I buried my face in her shoulder. “Why doesn’t Grandma like me?” “Huh? Her?…” Mom pulled me onto her lap and stroked my hair. “Because she’s brain-damaged. She suffered when she was young, so now she wants to tear up everyone else’s umbrella. She’s crazy, just ignore her.” “Today she…” Hugging Mom’s arm, I told her exactly what happened. Hearing this, Mom ripped her face mask off and marched me right into the kitchen. “Crabs, huh? Well, Mom’s on her period so I shouldn’t eat much seafood anyway. You can eat all four of them, kiddo.” She smiled and opened the fridge. “We won’t give any to that little brat. They’re all yours.” I smiled through my tears and nodded vigorously. But we turned the entire kitchen upside down and couldn’t find the remaining crabs. Logically, there should have been six left. Yet aside from a lingering seafood smell in the air, there were zero crabs. Mom took a deep breath, grabbed my hand, and marched to Grandma’s bedroom door, knocking loudly. The heavy, rhythmic pounding reflected exactly how impatient Mom was. Leo poked his head out of his room, signing to me to ask what was wrong. I shook my head and told him, “The crabs are missing.” “What? You STILL haven’t eaten?!” Leo sprinted out of his room, completely baffled. “It’s been like six hours! How have you not eaten yet?” “…” I didn’t answer. I just hung my head in silence. 04 “What are you doing this late?! I’m trying to sleep!” Grandma opened the door, her face dark. “I don’t keep the same crazy hours as you people.” “Oh! I thought you were hiding in your room eating in secret and were too scared to open the door!” Mom rolled her eyes, pushed past her, walked into the room, and sat down, crossing her legs. “Where are my crabs? Mark bought crabs and I haven’t seen a single leg. Where did you hide them?!” “Who said they were for you? Mark bought those to respect his mother!” “Please. You’ve probably never even seen a crab in your village, why would he buy them for you?” Mom tossed her hair, her expression full of absolute disdain. “Stop changing the subject. Where are my crabs!” “You!” Grandma choked on her rage, rolled her eyes, and aimed her guns at me. “Well aren’t you something, Chloe. I stop you from stealing your brother’s crab at dinner, so you go crying to your mother behind my back? You don’t even—” “I said stop changing the subject! WHERE ARE THE CRABS!!!” Mom slammed her fist on the table, stood up, and towered over Grandma. “I’m asking you a question! Dare to say one more word about Chloe and see what happens!” The room was packed with gunpowder. Grandma glared at me venomously and shut her mouth. I took a step back, feeling a chill run down my spine. I didn’t understand why Grandma was looking at me with such pure hatred. Was it just because I asked about the food that was supposed to be mine? Leo stepped in front of me, glaring back at her. “Let me guess, you only served four crabs on purpose just to mess with my sister and make sure she couldn’t eat, right?!” “What kind of grandmother are you? Even Mrs. Henderson next door treats us better!” “YOU!!!” Grandma clutched her chest and collapsed onto the floor, wailing, “I’m so old and I have to suffer like this! I don’t want to live anymore!!!” She was making so much noise that Dad, who was up in his second-floor office, got startled and hurried down to see what was going on. Seeing Dad, Grandma found her savior. She immediately grabbed him and demanded he mediate. “Crabs? Why are we fighting about crabs again?” Dad was confused and looked at Mom. “Did Leo complain to you? He was the one out of line this afternoon, you can’t just listen to his nonsense.” “Does your son look like the kind of kid who complains when he loses?! It was your daughter!” Mom impatiently kicked the bedroom door. “Your wonderful mother lied to Chloe’s face, telling her to wait for her food, and now it’s almost the next day and she hasn’t had a single bite!” “No way. Mom!” Dad looked at Grandma in disbelief. “Didn’t you say you’d bring them to her room later? Where are the crabs?!” “Yeah! Where are they!” Mom crossed her arms and sneered. “Where did you hide them? If you love them so much, why don’t you take them back to your farm and plant them in the dirt? Maybe you’ll grow a whole crab tree next spring.” 05 The pressure was entirely on Grandma. The glaring eyes were practically burning holes through her. Seeing that Dad wasn’t defending her, Grandma sat on the floor and started wailing again: “Why am I even alive?! Interrogating me over a few stupid crabs! Oh, Mark’s father, why did you have to die so early?!” When old people decide to be utterly unreasonable, it’s incredibly draining. But Mom’s temper was notoriously stubborn and fierce. She raised an eyebrow and glanced at Leo. The smart kid instantly got the memo. He dragged a huge basket of snacks from the living room cabinet, set it on the desk, and pulled me down to sit beside him, eating chips while watching Grandma cry. At first, Dad wanted to say something, but after catching the suppressed, violent rage in Mom’s eyes, he wisely kept his mouth shut. So, in Grandma’s bedroom, the four of us sat in a row on the bed, each holding a bag of snacks, munching away while watching Grandma weep on the floor. “Here, crab-flavored sunflower seeds. Eat these first so you don’t starve.” Leo handed me a bag, clicking his tongue in awe at the wailing woman on the floor. “This is my first time seeing an adult throw a literal tantrum on the floor up close. Really expanding my horizons here.” Hearing this, Mom laughed. “Well, you got a free show. Hurry up and thank your grandmother.” Dad and I stayed silent, chewing our snacks and waiting patiently. We waited for about four or five minutes. Grandma finally ran out of energy to cry. She sat on the floor, glaring at us. “Done crying? If you’re done, let’s talk about the crabs.” Mom spoke lazily. “If you can’t explain it clearly, you can go back to crying. I’m in no rush.” Lying on the floor, Grandma gritted her teeth in pure hatred. She suddenly scrambled up, pointed at Mom, and screamed: “So what if I just didn’t want you two eating them?! I gave the rest of those crabs away to the neighbors, and I made sure not to save a single bite for you!” Then she turned and pointed a wrinkled finger at me. “Such a manipulative little schemer at this age! Running your mouth and complaining! Let me tell you something—where I grew up, a useless little thing like you would have been thrown in the river and drowned the second you were born!!” The sheer malice in her words was terrifying. I shrank back, shivering in absolute fear, almost dropping my bag of snacks. “You motherf—!!!” Mom lunged off the bed straight at her. “How DARE you say that to Chloe!” Mom wasn’t a big woman, but according to her, she used to be the toughest girl in her high school. She was never afraid of a fight, routinely taking on six people at once. So, from the moment she lunged to the moment she tackled Grandma onto the bed, pinning her down, the rest of us were in total shock. Dad reacted the fastest. He rushed over, grabbed Mom, and physically peeled her off Grandma: “Sarah, calm down, calm down! Two more punches and you’ll actually kill the old lady!” “Yeah, Mom! Going to jail for manslaughter isn’t worth it!” Snapping out of his shock, Leo chimed in: “I’m weak, I’ll take the assault charge! Let me get revenge for my sister!” Saying that, he tried to dive onto the bed to claw at Grandma. Luckily, Dad had quick reflexes and snagged Leo by the collar, hauling him back. Otherwise, there was no telling how badly Grandma would have been beaten. Honestly, I never expected things to escalate like this. I watched in a daze as Dad played human shield, blocking Mom and Leo, who had both transformed into ferocious dragons. “I don’t want to live!!!” Grandma, who had been pushed down, wailed even louder, rolling around on the floor. “Beating me over a few crabs! Just let me die!”

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1 At thirty-five, I was a financial wreck, living paycheck to paycheck and blowing each one on trendy restaurants or concert tickets within days. After five years, I had no savings. When I got sick, I could not afford treatment. I died in a hospital bed, full of regret. Reborn, I vowed to save. But as soon as my salary arrived, the urge to spend took over. I turned to credit cards, and only when I faced a twenty five thousand dollar statement did I realize I needed someone to manage my money. But who would take on such a job? My best friend mentioned her cousin Simon, and a light went on. Simon was a finance director famous for his frugality. He split bills to the soda, kept hotel toiletries, and sold raffle prizes the same night. At thirty-five, he was still single. His penny pinching scared everyone away. I put down my bubble tea, a plan forming. A meticulous finance director obsessed with saving. He was the personal money manager I had been searching for. He was exactly what I needed. My best friend thought I’d lost my mind. “What do you even see in him?” she asked, bewildered. “Are you excited for him to take you on dates to Taco Bell? Or to make you go Dutch on everything?” “You don’t get it,” I said, my eyes gleaming. “I need someone to control my spending. I just can’t do it myself.” She sat across from me, frowning. “Then find a normal guy! Simon has a problem! It’s like a compulsion!” I just grinned. “Isn’t that perfect? I’m a spender, he’s a saver. We’ll balance each other out.” She rolled her eyes. “You two get together, and I guarantee he’ll be logging the cost of your morning bagel into a spreadsheet. You know that, right?” I took a long sip of my tea and nodded enthusiastically. “I know. That’s why I need him.” When my parents found out, their reaction was even stronger. “Simon? You mean the guy who’s so cheap he made the local news?” My mother nearly fainted. “Chloe, sweetie, you’re already so extravagant. If you get with a guy like that, you’ll be fighting every single day!” My dad had a slightly different take. “Being responsible with money is a good thing,” he mused, “but he does take it to an extreme.” I wrapped my arms around my mom, trying to win her over. “Mom, think about how much money I’ve wasted over the years. I need someone who can keep me in check.” “But not a complete Scrooge!” she lamented, sinking into the sofa in despair. I ignored their protests and had my friend set up a dinner for me and Simon. For our first meeting, I chose a budget-friendly diner—about twenty dollars a person. Simon was even more handsome than I’d expected: tall, slim, with sharp features behind a pair of glasses. He wore a faded navy-blue sweater. The first thing he did after sitting down was pull out his phone and open the calculator app. “This place averages twenty dollars a head, according to Yelp,” he stated. “The most recommended dishes are the spicy fish and the sweet and sour pork. For two of us, two entrees and a soup should be plenty. We can keep the total under fifty. Does that work for you?” I was stunned for a second. Not because he was being cheap, but because… it was such a relief. He had no idea how much anxiety a menu usually gave me. I always wanted to order everything, but my budget was limited, and I almost always overspent. Now, here was someone who had done all the math for me, right down to the final total. I didn’t have to think at all. I nodded shyly. “Okay. I trust your judgment.” After dinner, he walked me home. Standing at the entrance to my apartment building, I took a deep breath. “Simon,” I said, my courage wavering. “I’d like to try… with you.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Try what?” My face grew hot. “Dating.” Simon was silent for three full seconds. Then he spoke. “I’m open to that. But first, we need to sign a financial agreement.” I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. The next day, he emailed me a “Relationship Financial Management Agreement.” It stipulated that both parties would cover their own daily expenses, and all shared costs would be split 50/50. Each month, both parties were required to save no less than 30% of their income, with proof of savings subject to mutual review. Any non-essential purchase over fifty dollars required prior notification and justification. Neither party was to give the other gifts exceeding one hundred dollars, with a holiday gift budget capped at fifty dollars. If either party violated these terms, they would be required to pay the other 200% of the difference as a penalty. I stared at the document for a full ten minutes. Then, I burst out laughing. This man was completely serious. He wasn’t trying to take advantage of me. He just wanted to manage my money. 2 On our first official day of dating, Simon took over my finances. He had me show him everything: all my bills, my credit card statements, my payment apps. After reviewing them, he was silent for a full minute. “Chloe.” I couldn’t bring myself to look up. Twenty-five thousand dollars in debt was, admittedly, a bit beyond my ability to repay. His voice rose, but he didn’t mention the debt. Instead, he pointed at my order history. “You spent over a hundred and fifty dollars on bubble tea last month?” “I think so…” I wished the floor would swallow me whole. “One a day?” he asked, and I could hear him gritting his teeth. I mumbled, “Sometimes two.” He took a deep breath and scribbled a line in his notebook: “Bubble tea: limited to two per week, maximum four dollars per cup.” I scrambled over, trying to snatch the notebook away. “You might as well just kill me.” Simon held the notebook out of my reach, looking down at me. “You spend a hundred and fifty a month on tea. That’s nearly two thousand a year. If you saved that money, in three years you’d have enough for a down payment on a small condo.” My mouth fell open, but no words came out. He was right. In the weeks that followed, I learned what true budgeting really meant. He helped me cancel two streaming subscriptions I never used. He turned off the auto-renew feature on all three of my food delivery apps. He disabled push notifications for every shopping app on my phone. He even created a new lunch plan for me. The company cafeteria offered a meat and two-veg special for five dollars. It was healthy and cheap. I’d always found the cafeteria food disgusting and had never once eaten there. He joined me for lunch every day for a week, and I had to admit, it wasn’t half bad. In the first month, my spending dropped by a thousand dollars compared to the month before. I stared at the positive balance in my bank account—a first for me—and my eyes welled up. This time, I finally had money. This time, I wouldn’t die in a hospital bed because I was broke. The next day, I went for a full medical check-up. The results came back perfect. To celebrate, I treated myself to a spicy noodle soup that night. But after just a few bites, I was hit with a violent bout of food poisoning. My fever shot up to 102. By the middle of the night, I couldn’t take it anymore. I called Simon. He was at my door in twenty minutes. The first thing he did wasn’t ask how I was. He glanced at my takeout history on my phone. “What did you eat tonight?” I clutched my stomach, a cold sweat breaking over my body. “Spicy noodle soup…” Simon shoved the phone in front of my face, his expression grim. “Again? You just had that last Friday. I told you, you need to cut back on that stuff. It’s unhealthy and it’s not cost-effective.” I was delirious with fever, and hearing him talk about cost-effectiveness sent a surge of anger through me. “Simon, I’m dying here, and you’re still talking about money?” His tone was calm, almost clinical. “I’m not talking about money. I’m helping you analyze the cost-benefit. If you go to the ER now, the visit will be at least five hundred dollars. Do you even have that in your health savings account?” I turned my head away, refusing to answer. After a minute, I heard him sigh. “Fine. I’ll take you to the hospital.” I slapped his hand away. “I’m not going! All you care about is money!” Simon stood frozen, his eyes turning a little red. “Chloe, if I only cared about money, I wouldn’t have a taxi waiting downstairs with the meter running.” I blinked. Peeking out the window, I saw the flashing hazard lights of a cab parked by the curb. “Let’s go,” he said, reaching for my hand again. This time, I didn’t pull away. 3 At the hospital, he was a whirlwind of efficiency—registering, paying, picking up prescriptions. I sat in a chair in the treatment room, an IV drip in my arm. By three in the morning, my fever had broken and my head was clear. I watched him dozing in the uncomfortable plastic chair beside me, and a wave of guilt washed over me. “Simon.” “Hmm?” He opened his eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you earlier.” “It’s okay.” He paused. “But I still have to say it: that noodle soup was not a good value. Ten dollars for a meal that makes you sick. The hospital visit cost over five hundred dollars. Your total cost for that one meal was nearly six hundred. That’s enough to cover our cafeteria lunches for half a month.” I looked at his dead-serious expression and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Can’t you just be a little concerned about my health?” Simon reached out and felt my forehead. “Your health is fine now. But your spending habits are not. If you don’t change them, this will happen again.” He pulled a thermos from his bag and handed it to me. “Drink some warm water. The IV will make your hands cold.” I took the thermos, and the last bit of my irritation melted away. This was just his way of caring for me. A year passed just like that. For our first anniversary, I decided to buy Simon a new phone. He’d been using the same one for five years; the screen was so cracked he’d put tape over it to hold it together. While he was in the shower, I took his old phone to transfer the data. That’s when I saw it: a transfer record for two thousand dollars. Two thousand? I froze. Simon’s total monthly expenses were never more than a few hundred dollars. Where did this transfer come from? I glanced towards the bathroom but decided not to ask him yet. I put the old phone back where I found it and said nothing about the new one. But over the next few days, I started paying attention. I discovered a recurring transfer every month. The amounts varied—sometimes a thousand, sometimes fifteen hundred, but the two-thousand-dollar one was the largest. The recipient was always the same account. What was stranger was that after every transfer, he would delete the confirmation text from the bank. He was hiding something from me. My mind started racing. Did someone in his family need money for medical bills? But he’d never mentioned anything. Was he seeing another woman? The thought made my stomach twist into a knot. But no, that didn’t make sense. Simon wouldn’t even splurge on a movie ticket for our dates. How could he possibly afford to support another woman? What was it, then? I wracked my brain until one possibility emerged. Was he paying back an ex-girlfriend? I remembered my friend telling me that when he and his last girlfriend broke up, he’d given her an itemized list of shared expenses. Maybe she was turning the tables on him? All these theories battled in my head, keeping me up for nights. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. We were eating at a cheap food stall one evening when I just came out with it. “Simon, who are you sending money to every month?” The hand holding his chopsticks froze mid-air. “You went through my phone?” I shook my head, fighting the lump in my throat. “I’m willing to live this frugal life with you, but are you giving all our money to some other woman?”

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The glory of the World Championship win had barely settled when a man I once refused to sign stormed up to me, eyes burning with hatred. Surrounded by reporters, he angrily accused me of match-fixing. “If you hadn’t taken dirty money and undercut me, I’d be holding that trophy!” he shouted, yanking up his sweatpants to reveal a carbon-fiber prosthetic leg. The reporters erupted. Flashbulbs exploded as they shouted, “You belong in prison!” I raised my hands. “This is a misunderstanding.” “A misunderstanding?” He threw a medical report at me. “Two years ago today, in that playoff game—were you or were you not Kieran?” My stomach dropped. My name is Kieran, and I was involved—but as the head coach. I never stepped on the court. He took my silence as guilt. “You ruined my life!” he screamed. “I’ll make you pay!” The cruel irony: that day, I wasn’t even at the arena. An obsessed fan had drugged me, filmed me unconscious, and blackmailed me. But what stunned me most was his “witness.” “My girlfriend saw everything!” he yelled. “I won’t let you walk away with that trophy!” I looked at the woman beside him, clinging to his arm. My blood ran cold. It was her—the same fan who had ruined me two years ago. 1 When the woman finally got a good look at my face, a flash of pure panic and guilt crossed her eyes. Unfortunately, the crippled player completely missed her silent freak-out. He just pulled her forward, playing directly to the cameras. “I have been with my girl for seven years. Her biggest dream in the world was to see me win a championship.” “She dressed up that day, sitting in the bleachers with so much hope, just to watch me play. And what happened? Kieran maliciously stepped under my feet while I was shooting a three-pointer. My ankle shattered so badly they had to amputate. He killed my entire career in a split second!” He even held up a hospital billing statement. Under the ‘Guarantor for Medical Expenses’ section, my name was printed in black and white. Kieran. But that was because I was the coach of the opposing team. Naturally, I stepped up to cover the injured player’s medical bills out of basic human decency. I reached out, trying to pat his shoulder. “Bro, hold on a second. I am incredibly sorry about what happened to you, but you have the wrong guy.” “The wrong guy? You think you can just write off my ruined life as a misunderstanding?!” Tears streamed down his face. He looked completely unhinged as he roared at me. “My name is Silas! The Silas whose life you completely destroyed!” “If a monster like you gets to be crowned a World Champion, I would rather die right here to prove my innocence!” The media crowd gasped collectively. Every single camera lens pivoted directly to my face. The reporters were practically foaming at the mouth with righteous indignation. “Kieran, you know exactly how vital a player’s legs are. What exactly possessed you to do something so sick?” “Nobody would joke about losing a limb! Have you no conscience? Are you really going to stand there and deny it?” How the hell was I supposed to confess to something I never did? I had been dragged through hell that day too. I was just a clean-cut, hardworking coach back then. And that woman completely violated my boundaries. She drugged me, recorded my most vulnerable, humiliating moments on camera, and used the footage to try and force me into a relationship with her. God only knows how much money and sanity it cost me to finally bury that nightmare. I took a deep breath, fighting to keep my voice level. “I remember you. You were a prospect I rejected during the draft trials. You can’t just accuse me of ruining your life because I bruised your ego.” “I was merely the coach during that minor league game. I never subbed in. I never stepped on the court. I physically could not have fouled you.” Let alone the fact that I wasn’t even in the building. I waved my hand, gesturing for my legal team to step in and handle this circus. But before I could even turn my head, Silas lunged forward and snatched my World Championship trophy right off the podium. This was the holy grail my teammates and I had bled and sweat for over three years. It was the ultimate proof of our international dominance. As the team captain, I was supposed to be the one lifting it to the rafters. If Silas hadn’t hijacked the press conference to smear my name, my boys and I would be popping champagne right now. Instead, Silas held the heavy gold trophy high above his head. Pure malice spilled out of his eyes. My posture instantly turned lethal. “What do you think you are doing? Put that down and think very carefully about your next move.” Silas ground his teeth. “Kieran, you destroyed my life. If you do not confess to the whole world right now and show them the ugly freak you really are, you are not leaving this stage!” Seeing that he was entirely prepared to burn everything to the ground, I stopped moving. “Do you have any idea that slandering me on global television will land you in a federal prison?” “And the trophy you are holding represents the glory of an entire nation! Do not let your petty, delusional vendetta ruin this!” Silas just let out a disdainful snort. “You think I would come up here to expose you without hard proof?” “Look closely, everyone! This is the raw broadcast footage from that exact day. World Champion? Please. He is a career-ending thug!” He uploaded a video file directly to the event’s public feed. The reporters and the millions of fans watching the live stream immediately pulled it up. My eyebrows knit together in sheer confusion. What the hell was going on? The player in the video who viciously undercut him looked exactly like me. The footage Silas provided even had a verified timestamp. It was definitively from that minor league game. Realizing the massive severity of the situation, the tournament organizers routed the video to the jumbotron above us. Everyone watched as a player wearing my exact face deliberately slid his foot under Silas while he was airborne for a three-pointer. Silas came down hard, his ankle snapping in a sickening way as he collapsed in agony. The entire arena exploded into chaos. Fans from all over the world stared at the stage in absolute horror. “I can’t believe their World Champion is a dirty player. What an absolute disgrace!” My die-hard fans tried to scream in my defense, but the supporters of the team we had just defeated mercilessly attacked them. “Your idol is a literal criminal! This whole championship is tainted. We demand a complete rematch!” People started hurling cups of soda and half-eaten hotdogs at my supporters in the stands. The reporters didn’t hesitate. They shoved their microphones practically down my throat. “Kieran, are you still going to lie to our faces?” “Whether you took a bribe or did it out of spite, you intentionally maimed Silas and forced him into an amputation! That is an indisputable fact!” “A degenerate like you belongs behind bars. How dare you even touch that trophy? It is a desecration to the sport!” I tried to speak, but my voice was completely drowned out by the tidal wave of accusations. We had bled for our country. Now, our crowning achievement was being dragged through the mud. My fans in the audience were being shoved and bullied. My teammates, who had been crying tears of joy just ten minutes ago, now stood with their heads bowed, looking utterly lost and completely humiliated. Meanwhile, Silas soaked up the sympathy of the press, offering the cameras a tragically broken smile. “I used to be a kid with big dreams. I never thought the world could be this cruel. The woman I love was sitting right there in the crowd, and all she got to see was my most pathetic, broken moment.” “If life was fair, I would be the one holding this trophy today. But Kieran, that disgusting thief, stole everything from me!” Silas clutched the trophy my team had earned, weeping and playing the victim, acting like it rightfully belonged to him. That gold was forged from our blood, sweat, and sleepless nights. Why the hell should I let him tarnish it with his baseless, psychotic lies? I took a deep breath, forcing my heart rate down. I had no idea how my face ended up in that game footage. But there was one thing I knew with absolute, terrifying certainty. A human being cannot physically exist in two places at once. The day I was drugged and dragged into that hotel room, the lobby security cameras and the vile video Sloane filmed on her phone both had rock-solid timestamps. They were my unbreakable alibis. I just wondered if Silas would be able to handle the truth when I shoved it down his throat. I glared at him with ice in my veins. “We live in an era where deepfakes are practically flawless. Are you absolutely certain the guy in that video is me?” Silas gritted his teeth. “Who else could it be?! Everyone can see it perfectly. That is your face! You are just too much of a coward to admit it until the coffin is nailed shut!” Right on cue, his girlfriend Sloane stepped into the spotlight. “My boyfriend’s dream was always to win the World Championship. He was a generational talent. Before I met him, he had never lost a single game.” “Kieran was obviously insanely jealous of his natural gifts! That is why he refused to sign him, and that is exactly why he took a cheap shot and crippled him when they finally faced off!” She puffed out her chest, speaking with absolute, unwavering conviction, painting a vivid picture of the tragedy she supposedly witnessed that day. I would never be able to scrub Sloane’s sickening face out of my memory. I was the one who survived a nightmare because of her. Back then, I was just a regular coach grinding my way up. But my looks caught Sloane’s attention, and she developed a completely unhinged obsession with me. She tried to buy me with money. She tried to pressure me using her family’s connections. Nothing worked. I refused to cave. So she resorted to the lowest, most despicable tactic imaginable. She slipped a drug into my drink. She was in that hotel room. She took complete advantage of my paralyzed state to film an explicit, non-consensual video. The entire horrific ordeal was documented on her phone. I couldn’t even stomach the thought of watching it a second time. She was only bold enough to publicly slander me right now because she assumed I had permanently deleted that traumatic footage the second our legal battle ended. But the truth was, just in case this psychopath ever returned. I had kept a heavily encrypted backup. I stared dead into Sloane’s heavily plastic-surgeried face, a wave of pure revulsion rolling off me. “You claim I was on the court undercutting Silas that day. Then let me ask you something. Who was the guy passed out in the penthouse suite of the Grand Plaza Hotel that exact same afternoon?” Sloane violently flinched. She snapped her head toward me. “What, are you going to start spreading slut-shaming rumors about me now? Is this how a World Champion behaves?!” Silas clenched his fists. He immediately pulled Sloane behind his back, puffing up like a righteous savior. “I thought you were just an overly competitive thug who played dirty because you were terrified of losing to me. But at least I thought you had some backbone! Dragging an innocent woman’s reputation through the mud? You are not even a real man!” The reporters eagerly typed away, practically salivating. They were already painting me as a mob-connected enforcer who intentionally crippled rookies. Now, they were slapping a ‘misogynist’ label on me, condemning me for throwing a woman under the bus to save my own skin. I kept my tone dangerously calm. “I grew up in a working-class neighborhood. I am not some mobster intentionally breaking people’s legs.” Sloane pointed a manicured finger right at my nose. “That is exactly why you took the dirty money! You did a hit job to eliminate a player who actually had real talent!” “I saw the whole thing from the bleachers. Do not even try to lie your way out of this! Whether it is his leg or that championship trophy, you owe my boyfriend your life. You do not deserve any of it!” I had pushed through three years of brutal injuries. Three years of sleepless, agonizing training camps. And she had the sheer audacity to say I didn’t deserve it? I took a step back, putting distance between myself and Sloane. “A single video clip proves absolutely nothing. I am calling the police right now to pull my geolocation data and hotel records from that day.” “First of all, I was the head coach. There is zero possibility I subbed into the game. Second, I was never even inside that arena!” I locked eyes with Sloane, my gaze utterly lethal. “Where I was, and exactly what I was doing that day, is something you know very, very intimately, Sloane. Do not push me to the point of no return.” It was a highly explicit, deeply violating video involving both of us. Even though I didn’t grow up rich, my parents raised me to be a gentleman. I truly did not want to destroy a woman’s dignity on international television. But Silas didn’t care. At that exact moment, he hoisted the trophy high into the air and violently slammed it down onto the hard stage floor. A deafening crack echoed through the stadium. The honor my teammates and I had bled for over three years, a multimillion-dollar international trophy representing the pride of our entire nation, shattered into a dozen jagged pieces. I saw red. “Silas, have you completely lost your mind?! That is a national treasure!” More importantly, the sentimental value of that trophy was something a hundred thousand Silases could never afford to repay. Silas just pointed a venomous finger right at my face. “Let me make this crystal clear. I would rather smash this trophy to dust than let a piece of trash like you ever hold it again!” “Who knows if you are going to bribe the cops and the media to fabricate some fake alibi later!” He turned to the completely stunned crowd, speaking with fanatical devotion. “I swear on my actual life, Kieran is the one who took my leg. That video is one hundred percent authentic.” “If he can genuinely prove he didn’t do it, I will take a knife and end my own life right here on this stage! Are you all satisfied now?!” Betting his own life on the line. That was all it took for the scales of public trust to permanently tip in his favor. The tournament officials looked at us with deep apprehension. The gold medals that were supposed to be draped around our necks were quietly packed away. My fans, who had been fiercely fighting back just moments ago, went completely still. They squatted in the stands, quietly weeping as they absorbed the humiliation. A few of my teammates broke down sobbing, dropping to their knees and pounding their fists against the stage floor in sheer, helpless agony. The rookie I had personally mentored looked up at me. His eyes were bloodshot and completely shattered. “Captain… did you really do those things?” “Please tell me it is a lie. You are not that kind of person, right?” Looking into his completely broken eyes, I knew he was hanging on by a thread. I was the leader of this franchise. I was the idol my fans looked up to. I represented the country. If I didn’t completely annihilate these lies and clear my name right here, right now, the people who loved and trusted me would suffer a permanent psychological collapse. And all of this nightmare was meticulously orchestrated by Silas and Sloane. Silas, you really wanted to play this game? You better pray you can survive the fallout. I pulled out my phone and unlocked the heavily encrypted hidden folder in my gallery. “We actually do not need to wait for the police. I have a video right here that explicitly proves I was nowhere near that basketball court.” I already had the media control booth’s email from the press briefing. I attached the file and hit send. “Put it on the jumbotron. The raw, real-time footage from that afternoon is more than enough to clear my name!”

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I ran over a small dog while driving. The moment I felt the bump, I knew something was wrong. I heard a tragic yelp from under the wheels. I stopped the car and got out. It was a Corgi puppy, no bigger than my hand, probably barely a month old. It was twitching on the ground, its spine and two of its legs crushed by my tires. The owner was a young girl. She immediately burst into tears, dropping to her knees and scooping up the puppy. In its final moments, the puppy stuck out its tongue, its eyes brimming with tears. Blood kept dripping from its mouth. Unable to make a sound, it could only whimper, using its last ounce of strength to lick its owner’s face before its head went limp. The girl cried until her voice went hoarse. I felt terrible, too. The puppy was so small. But honestly, I felt she bore some responsibility for walking the dog off-leash, so I didn’t want to take full financial responsibility. The girl refused to compromise with me and called the police. When the officer arrived, I argued repeatedly that the girl should be entirely at fault. However, the officer still ruled it a 50/50 split in liability. In the end, I paid $3,000 in compensation because Corgis are expensive dogs. Three thousand dollars was too steep. The more I thought about it, the more unfair it felt. Luckily, this was a rural area on the outskirts of the county, and many of the street cameras were managed by the local community board, not as complicated as getting footage in the city. I hurried to the community center to check the surveillance footage, intending to gather evidence for an appeal to the traffic division. When I arrived at the community center, no one was there, but the office door was open, and a computer was on. I decided to check the footage myself first. What I saw on the screen proved that something was very wrong. In the video, as I drove past, the girl came out of her house holding the puppy. Once my car was clearly passing by, she suddenly threw the puppy right under my tires! I was dumbfounded. And what happened next was even more unbelievable. After the girl “called the police,” a white car, looking exactly like a police cruiser but suspiciously unmarked, pulled onto the road in the corner of the video. The car stopped behind a bend. A man stepped out—it was the very “police officer” who had just handled the case. The man wasn’t wearing a uniform initially. Only right before arriving at the scene did he hastily throw on a police uniform, attach a siren to the roof, slap on fake police decals, and put on fake license plates before slowly driving over. That’s when I realized: I had been the victim of a scam that cost a puppy’s life! Who could tolerate such a disgusting waste of a little life?! I kept watching the footage. After I left, the girl and the fake cop returned to their “cruiser” and immediately stripped off all the police markings. The man opened the trunk, revealing it was full of barely-alive puppies. They completely disregarded whether the puppies would suffocate. The man pulled out another puppy, this time a Pomeranian, and casually tossed it onto the ground. The puppy yelped as it hit the dirt, breaking a leg. It limped toward the girl, as if begging for her protection. The girl couldn’t care less that its leg was broken; after all, it was destined to be thrown under a car’s tires. Too lazy to pick it up gently, she grabbed the puppy by the scruff of its neck and walked away. They were serial scammers! Furious, I immediately dialed 911, then walked out the door toward my car. I originally intended to drive after them, but right before I got in, I calmed down. These people were professional scammers, criminals. I just needed to wait patiently for the real police to arrive. Confronting them myself was way too dangerous. I swallowed my anger, unlocked my car, opened the door, and got in. But the moment I sat down, the passenger door suddenly opened too. Before I could react, a man slid into the passenger seat. Without any hesitation, he grabbed my arm. Then I got a clear look at his face. It was the man who had just impersonated a police officer to scam me! I never expected this guy to track me down and ambush me. Did they make sure the victim had completely left the area after every scam? He stared at me dead in the eye and asked, “Buddy, what are you doing at the community center?” For a second, I didn’t know how to answer. Reason told me not to provoke criminals, so I said, “Just getting some paperwork.” He nodded and said, “Show me the paperwork.” I didn’t have any paperwork! I could only grab the door handle, desperate to get out of there. But the next second, the man suddenly pulled a small knife from his pocket. Gripping my arm tightly, he said coldly, “You move, I stab you.” I froze instantly, my mind going completely blank. I had never been held at knifepoint in my entire life. Only then did I realize movies are full of crap. There’s no “staying calm under pressure.” The moment someone actually points a knife at you, your brain short-circuits. You can only stare at the blade, praying internally that he doesn’t plunge it into you! At that moment, the back door opened. The girl from earlier got into the car. She had completely dropped her pitiful act. She casually tossed the crippled Pomeranian aside, chewing gum, and asked, “Did he call the cops?” The man said, “Buddy, show me your phone.” I swallowed hard, not knowing what to do. But right then, I saw a security guard walk out from around the corner. Terrified, I quickly rolled down the window and screamed at him: “Security! Help!” I thought that with a witness present, the man wouldn’t dare make a reckless move. Who knew he wouldn’t care at all. The security guard heard my voice, glanced at me, and actually acted like he saw nothing! While I was staring in disbelief, the man suddenly roared at the security guard, “You just let anyone look at the security footage?!” The security guard actually offered an apologetic, fawning expression: “I’m sorry, man. I just went to grab lunch.” “Lock the door when you leave from now on! And delete the footage!” That’s when I realized: this man was connected to the community board, and deeply! So deeply that the security guard could turn a blind eye even when he clearly saw me being held at knifepoint! I had no choice but to meekly hand over my phone. Even though he was the scammer, I was the one carefully apologizing, “Man, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. I don’t want the money back, just consider it a tribute to you guys.” He flipped through my phone and said casually, “You actually did call the cops.” The girl in the back seat suddenly flared up. She slapped me hard across the face from behind and cursed, “Call the cops, my ass!” The slap landed hard on my face, making it sting, but the humiliation and pain were nothing compared to my fear of that knife! I whispered, “I’m sorry, I’ll tell the police I made a mistake right now.” The man replied casually, “Don’t say sorry. I can’t let you go.” Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through my stomach! I looked down. The man had plunged the knife into my gut! I could feel my abdominal muscles contracting violently. He pulled the knife out, and blood instantly gushed from the wound. My mind was in chaos. I stared at the wound, my head filled with the thought that I was going to die. I had a wife and kids, a mom and dad, but I was going to die! I clutched my stomach, my voice trembling as I spoke: “Why… it wasn’t a big deal, why…” I couldn’t even finish my sentence before I almost burst into tears. I was so scared. I was terrified of dying! I didn’t understand why I suddenly got into this mess, or why they had to kill me over something so trivial. The girl grabbed my hair and dragged me into the back seat. The man grabbed my legs and shoved me back. I wanted to fight back, but it hurt too much to move! In movies, when the protagonist gets stabbed in the stomach, they can still fight. But when I actually got stabbed, my first reaction was wanting to throw up. It hurt so much my whole body was shaking, and I was getting colder and colder. I could even feel my body temperature dropping as I lost blood. I had absolutely no strength, shivering from the cold! I was shoved into the back seat, my vision starting to go dark. The man got into the driver’s seat and started the car. The girl looked at me with contempt, like I was an animal, completely indifferent to whether I lived or died. Their reactions suggested this wasn’t their first time doing something like this. I wanted to plug the wound. Even with my hands pressing on it, blood kept flowing out. Fighting the dizziness, I grabbed some stickers my daughter played with from the back seat, peeling them off one by one and sticking them over my wound. Seeing what I was doing, the girl didn’t stop me. Instead, she found it hilarious, laughing continuously and telling the man to look at what I was doing. The man glanced back at me and burst out laughing too. My desperate struggle on the brink of death was nothing but a comedy to them. Weakly, I managed to stick all the stickers over my wound. Thank God, these stickers were all plastic-coated, making them harder for the blood to soak through. But eventually, I couldn’t fight off the encroaching darkness and passed out completely. In a daze, I felt like someone was touching me. Everything around me was very loud. I tried to open my eyes many times but had no strength. When I finally woke up, it was already daylight. Something was nuzzling my abdomen. I looked down and saw a dog sniffing my wound! Terrified, I quickly sat up, but the violent movement caused such intense pain I almost passed out again! Perhaps because of my sudden movement, a cacophony of shrill barking erupted around me. Clutching my stomach, I finally realized I was surrounded by dogs. I had been thrown into a massive dog pen, surrounded by fences, topped with wire mesh that reached all the way to the roof. My lips were cracked, and my throat burned with thirst. A pack of dogs stared at me in confusion. Finally, I spotted a large water trough in the corner. Several dogs were drinking from it. I don’t know what kind of primal instinct took over, but I crawled over to the trough, only to find the water inside was filthy, mixed with dog hair and muddy water. Even though I was dying of thirst, I refused to drink it. The psychological hurdle was too high. But I was so thirsty, and my body was alternating between hot and cold. My head felt heavy. I deduced I was probably dealing with an infection and a fever. The agony was unbearable. Eventually, I took off my sock and used it to scoop up water. I held the bulging sock as water filtered through, tilted my head back, and opened my mouth. Even if it was just a sock, it could at least filter out the dog hair and dirt. I used the sock to drink twice before I finally felt less thirsty. Once I regained some mental clarity, I began observing my surroundings. This was a massive dog breeding facility. Aside from the large circular pen I was in, there were many other similar pens. I could see mountains, and not just the foothills—I could see halfway up the slopes. Without a doubt, I was currently at a breeding facility deep in the mountains. Places like this usually need to be far away from residential areas, so the mountains are often a prime choice. While I was observing, I noticed a figure in the distance. It looked like a woman, limping, holding a phone and filming something. Because she was too far away, I couldn’t see clearly. But she stopped at every dog pen to film with her phone for a while before moving on to the next. She was getting closer and closer to me. When she got close enough, I saw her face clearly and was completely dumbfounded, because I recognized this person! She was a local internet personality known as “Kind-Hearted Chloe,” with hundreds of thousands of followers. She was disabled herself, but naturally compassionate. She usually made videos about rescuing sick, disabled, and abandoned dogs. She had even set up donation channels to help these poor animals. Even I had donated twenty bucks to her! Seeing her, I frantically hit the wire mesh and yelled: “Chloe! Can you see me? Help me!” Chloe was filming with her phone. She heard my voice, glanced at me, then ignored me and continued filming. My heart went cold. I understood. Kind-Hearted Chloe. We all thought she was a good person rescuing dogs, and everyone donated to her, hoping she could save more small animals. Now I realized, those sick dogs were probably all their tools. Alive, these dogs were tools to extort money. When they were about to die of illness, even their corpses could turn a profit. Chloe completely ignored me. After finishing her video, she took another dog from a different pen and said into the camera: “The little Golden Retriever with a broken leg that was abandoned by its owner last time is doing much better now. Today, we’re going to continue its treatment.” I didn’t dare yell, because I knew that since she dared to film in front of me, it meant she wasn’t livestreaming. If I dared to make a sound and ruin her video recording, they would definitely torture me again! Chloe took out a medical kit, recording a video, lovingly feeding the little Golden Retriever medicine. An injured dog was receiving treatment, while I, a dying human being, could only cling to life! After Chloe finished filming, she didn’t record my cage at all, simply walking past me. Suddenly, I saw something drop from her hand. I looked down and realized it was medicine. I reached out and pulled the medicine towards me. Veterinary Amoxicillin tablets, veterinary fever reducers, and some rubbing alcohol. These medicines didn’t have cardboard packaging, just the plastic blister packs. I looked at Chloe; she was still recording, acting as if she had absolutely nothing to do with those pills and had seen nothing. I quickly opened the medicine. Many pet medications are universal with human ones, just in much smaller doses. I took several pills and shoved them into my mouth. Then I looked at Chloe again. My intuition told me she was a good person, but she couldn’t be associated with me, not even giving me the cardboard boxes for the medicine. To avoid causing her trouble, after taking the anti-inflammatory and fever-reducing pills, I dug a hole in the dog pen and buried the remaining medication. After taking the medicine, I took off my shirt and lured a nearby puppy to bite it. The puppy, not knowing any better, thought the shirt was a toy and bit down hard, pulling back and forth until the shirt finally tore. I pushed the puppy away and tore the shirt into strips of cloth. Then, I grabbed the stickers covering my wound. Finally steeling myself, I gripped the stickers and ripped them off. The agonizing, soul-tearing pain almost made me scream out loud. I bit down on my teeth so hard I thought they might shatter. With every millimeter the sticker was peeled back, my agony increased exponentially! Blood flowed from the wound. I gritted my teeth and endured the pain, pulling until all the stickers were ripped off! I checked the wound. It was still bleeding, but not as heavily as yesterday. Some puppies curiously approached. I waved my hand forcefully, and the wound immediately flared with pain, causing me to hunch over. Gritting my teeth again, I poured the rubbing alcohol directly onto my wound. I had been hunched over, but the moment the alcohol hit the wound, the pain was so intense my legs straightened out! Gasping for air, I wrapped the cloth strips around the wound, tying them as tightly as I could. Simply cleaning the wound drained a massive amount of my energy. I collapsed on the ground, feeling completely drained, but I still managed to dig a hole and bury the alcohol bottle before lying down to rest.

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The gala for my father’s seventieth birthday had just wound down. Deep in the night, my phone buzzed frantically. It was my husband, Mark. His voice crackled with panic on the other end. “Max, something terrible has happened! Our lead investor just skipped town with all the money. I have to get out of the country, lie low for a while. Don’t, under any circumstances, try to contact me!” In an instant, every trace of sleep vanished. I forced my voice to remain calm, telling him to be safe. The moment I hung up, I didn’t hesitate. I called the bank’s 24-hour hotline and froze every single card and account under my husband’s name. The irony was almost funny. The so-called “lead investor” who had supposedly vanished with our fortune was, at that very moment, passed out drunk in the room next to mine. He was my father. And I was very, very curious to see just how long he and my husband planned to keep up this elaborate “bankruptcy” charade. 1 I booked the first flight I could. When I arrived at the luxury resort he was supposedly hiding out in, I found him at the entrance of a grand ballroom. He was dressed in a sharp tuxedo, and on his arm was my close friend, Jessica, glowing in a white wedding gown. They were greeting guests. His eyes widened in panic when he saw me. He stumbled down the steps, rushing towards me. “Max, let me explain. Jessica’s father is critically ill. His dying wish is to see her married.” He grabbed my arm, his voice a desperate whisper. “I’m just acting, that’s all. It’s just a performance for her dad.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I yanked my arm free and slapped him hard across the face. “A performance?” I spat, my voice dripping with ice. “Should I chip in for a wedding gift, then? Help you really sell it?” The surrounding guests were already starting to whisper and point. Jessica, seeing the commotion, flushed with a mixture of shame and anger. Then, as if on cue, tears welled in her eyes, expertly casting her as the victim and me as the intruder. “Miss Aston,” she began, her voice trembling beautifully, “I know you’ve always been obsessed with Mark, to the point of developing… delusions. I feel for you, I truly do. But this is my wedding day. Please, don’t be so aggressive. You can’t force someone to love you.” Mark nodded, playing along. “Whatever you have to say, we can talk about it at home after the ceremony. Be good, Max. Don’t make a scene.” Even now, all he could think about was continuing with this sham of a wedding. I laughed, a harsh, grating sound. My eyes scanned Jessica, and then I saw it, glittering around her neck. It was my necklace. A one-of-a-kind emerald piece worth ten million dollars. The very one I had reported stolen months ago. “No wonder you were paying her a fifty-thousand-dollar-a-month salary,” I seethed, the pieces clicking into place with sickening clarity. “You two have been screwing around behind my back for God knows how long!” “And my designer bags, my jewelry that went ‘missing’… you stole them all for her, didn’t you?” I raked my gaze over Jessica with contempt. “One of you steals, the other one wears it. You’re a match made in hell, you pair of scumbags.” The crowd erupted in a mix of gasps and laughter, phones already out and recording. Jessica stomped her foot, her face a mask of fury. She fumbled in her purse and triumphantly produced a marriage certificate, shoving it in my face. “Open your eyes and look! Mark and I are legally married!” she shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at me, high on her momentary victory. “She’s sick in the head! She throws herself at any man who looks her way. My husband is just her latest obsession!” The crowd’s murmurs shifted. A few men started looking me up and down with leering eyes, one of them letting out a low whistle. “Hey, baby, you that desperate? The guy’s married. My room’s just upstairs if you need to scratch an itch…” One of them was bold enough to reach for my arm. I snatched a wine bottle from a nearby table and brandished it, making him recoil. I pointed the jagged neck of the bottle at Mark, my voice low and dangerous. “I’m giving you one last chance. Me, or her. Who is your wife?” Mark’s gaze flickered, and his next words plunged a shard of ice into my heart. “My only wife is Jessica,” he said, his voice cold and final. “Now, you’re going to apologize to her, or so help me, I will have you committed.” Jessica clung to Mark’s arm, her face a picture of tearful gratitude, and shot me a look of pure triumph. “Darling, don’t waste your breath on a psycho. She’s not worth it.” Looking at their disgusting, triumphant faces, something inside me snapped. I raised the bottle, ready to bring it crashing down on them both. If I was going to hell, I was dragging them with me. But Mark was faster. He kicked out, not at the bottle, but at me. As I stumbled, he lunged forward, stomping on the back of my hand with all his weight. His eyes were filled with a chilling malice. “Jessica is my life,” he snarled. “You hurt her, and I’ll make you pay a hundred times over.” A sickening crack echoed in the ballroom. A dull, throbbing agony shot up my arm, stealing my breath. Cold sweat beaded on my forehead. Jessica, ever the actress, rushed to his side, tugging on his arm. “Mark, stop! It’s our wedding day. If something bad happens, it’ll be a terrible omen. Just… just make her kneel and apologize. That’s enough.” Mark nodded, his tone dripping with magnanimous condescension. “You hear that? Get on your knees and apologize. Do it now, or you’re going straight to an asylum.” The loathing in his eyes was a physical blow. My heart felt like it had turned to stone. This was the man I’d given my youth to. My first love. Seven years. Our seven years of history were nothing against the test of time. I fumbled for my phone, my fingers clumsy and shaking. I opened my photo gallery and pulled up a picture of our marriage license, and a photo from our wedding day. “This is proof we’re married,” I announced, my voice trembling with rage. “I’m reporting you for bigamy!” In this country, bigamy was a serious crime. Prison time. The crowd’s murmuring turned suspicious, their eyes darting between Mark and Jessica. “That certificate she’s showing is dated seven years ago. Were they lying?” “If he’s married to both, that’s a felony! He should be locked up!” Jessica just smirked at me, a cruel, triumphant gleam in her eyes. She leaned in close, her voice a venomous whisper. “You still don’t get it, do you? Your marriage certificate with Mark… it’s a fake.” “He promised me he would only ever truly love me. You were never worthy of legally being his wife.” For a moment, the world went silent. Then, a tidal wave of pure, unadulterated fury surged through me. My entire seven-year marriage, my devotion, my sacrifices… it was all a joke. I started to laugh, a broken, hysterical sound that quickly turned into sobs of despair. I stared at her, my vision blurred with tears of hatred. I raised my good hand, not even sure what I intended to do, but before I could touch her, she let out a piercing shriek and threw herself backward onto the marble floor. She clutched her stomach, her face contorted in agony. “Mark! My stomach… the baby… our baby!” Before I could even process the word “baby,” a brutal slap sent my head snapping to the side. My ears rang, and the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. Mark scooped Jessica into his arms, his eyes burning with a hatred so intense it scorched me. “Jessica is pregnant with my child,” he roared. “If anything happens to that baby, I swear to God, I’ll make you pay with your life!” I tried to speak, but only a bitter taste coated my tongue. He was the one who said he never wanted kids. A DINK—double income, no kids—lifestyle, that’s what he’d preached. A child would only get in the way of “our life together.” I’d believed him. Now I understood. It wasn’t that he didn’t want a child. He just didn’t want a child with me. Jessica let out a panicked cry. “Get me to a hospital! Please, I think I’m losing the baby!” Without a second glance at me, Mark turned and ran, carrying his precious cargo out of the ballroom. The world tilted, and darkness swallowed me whole. When I woke up, the sterile white ceiling of a hospital room greeted me. An IV was taped to my arm, but it wasn’t dripping fluid in. It was drawing blood out. I tried to struggle, to sit up, but my body felt like lead. Mark appeared at my bedside, looking down at my pathetic state with cold, detached eyes. “Jessica’s losing a lot of blood,” he said flatly. “She needs a transfusion, and you’re a match. Consider it your way of atoning for what you did.” A surge of adrenaline-fueled rage shot through me. “I didn’t push her!” I screamed, my voice raw. His hand clamped around my throat, squeezing. “I have waited seven years for this child,” he hissed, his face inches from mine. “I will not allow anything to happen to Jessica or my baby. If they don’t make it, I will burn you to ashes and scatter them to the wind.” He held on until spots danced in my vision, then released me. I fell back against the pillow, gasping for air, overwhelmed by a suffocating sense of helplessness. The blood loss made me dizzy, and I drifted into a groggy sleep. I was pulled back to consciousness by the sound of a voice. I cracked my eyes open to see Jessica on the phone, her back to me. “Yes, everything is arranged with the asylum,” she was saying. “The moment Max Wynton is stable, she’s to be transferred. I want her locked away for the rest of her miserable life.” She noticed I was awake, ended the call, and walked over to my bed with a smirk. She poured a glass of water from the carafe on the nightstand. And then, she tipped it, sending a stream of scalding hot water onto my arm. “This is what you get for crossing me,” she sneered. I cried out, my body convulsing from the searing pain. I bit my lip until it bled, glaring at her through a haze of agony. “You faked it all,” I rasped. “The fall, the miscarriage…” She laughed, a loud, ugly sound. “And what if I did? Mark only believes what I tell him.” She placed a hand on her flat stomach, a cruel smile playing on her lips. “My baby could have been perfectly healthy. Such a shame I had that ‘accidental’ fall a few weeks ago that took care of it. Mark was so excited about being a father… I just had to find someone to blame, didn’t I?” I trembled with a rage so profound it felt like it would tear me apart. “You’re a monster.” Her smile widened. “And once you’re gone, all your assets will become mine.” A cold dread washed over me. She wasn’t just planning to lock me away. She was planning to make sure I never left this hospital alive. Using every last ounce of strength I possessed, I ripped the IV from my arm, scrambled out of bed, and shoved her aside. I had to escape. But my body betrayed me. I was too weak. After only a few steps, my legs gave out and I collapsed in the hallway. Jessica followed at a leisurely pace, giving my side a contemptuous kick. Seeing that I couldn’t even get up, she laughed. “Go on, run. I thought you were so tough.” Her eyes glinted with a sadistic light. “You know, just getting rid of you would be too boring. Let’s play a little game.” “I hear there’s a derelict part of town not too far from here. Full of… desperate men. How about we drop you off there?” I recoiled in horror, scrambling backward. “You can’t do this. My father is—” Before I could finish, she grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back and slapping me twice, hard. “Your family? A bunch of ungrateful leeches!” she spat. “Every time Mark brought them gifts, they looked down on him. If it weren’t for Mark supporting your family all these years, do you think you could have lived the life of a wealthy housewife?” My heart sank. The lie was so audacious it was almost brilliant. Mark was a broke nobody when I met him. I used my own savings to fund his first start-up. My family never approved of him, which is why he barely had any contact with them. The few times he did visit, he brought a cheap basket of fruit. And “supporting” them was a joke. Without my father secretly investing millions into his company, he never would have gone public in seven years. Her bodyguards dragged me out of the hospital and threw me into a car. We drove to the city’s dark, forgotten underbelly and they dumped me in a filthy alley. She pulled out her phone and addressed the group of gaunt, hollow-eyed men who were already gathering, drawn by the commotion. “Whoever shows her the best time,” she announced, her voice echoing in the grimy space, “gets half a million dollars.” Instantly, four or five of them closed in, a predatory hunger in their eyes that made my stomach churn. I grabbed a loose brick, ready to defend myself. “You will regret this!” I screamed at her. She was unfazed. She even started a video call with Mark. My terrified, dishevelled image on the screen made him roar with laughter. “Jessica, you’re too soft,” his voice tinny through the phone’s speaker. “She killed our baby. She should be rotting in a prison cell.” Jessica sighed dramatically. “But she was with you for a time, Mark. I want to build up some good karma for our future children. She’s just so stubborn. If she had just knelt and begged for forgiveness, I wouldn’t have had to do this.” Mark scoffed. “She’s a vindictive bitch. I’ve had enough of her. You know, Jessica, we’ll have to redo our wedding, but I promise you, this time, it will be the most extrMaxgant event this city has ever seen.” They talked as if I wasn’t even there, as if my life wasn’t about to be destroyed. Any last flicker of hope I had for the man I once loved died in that filthy alley. After hanging up, Jessica turned to the vagrants. “What are you waiting for? Get to it! If you don’t, you won’t see a single penny!” With a primal scream, I surged forward, crashing into Jessica and knocking her to the ground. I threw all my weight on top of her, my hands finding her throat and squeezing. “If I die, I’m taking you with me!” I shrieked. For the first time, I saw real fear in her eyes. She clawed at my hands, choking and gasping for help. Suddenly, Mark’s furious roar cut through the air. “Max, you’re dead!” He must have rushed over after the call. He snatched a heavy rock from the ground and brought it down on the back of my head. The world exploded in a flash of white-hot pain as he kicked me off of Jessica. It took a long moment for my vision to clear. When it did, I saw Mark glaring at me with pure, unadulterated hatred. “It wasn’t enough for you to kill our child, you had to try and kill her too,” he seethed. “This time, I won’t be lenient.” He barked an order at his bodyguards. “Go get more of them. And call the local news stations. Tell them we’ve got a scoop. By the end of today, Max Wynton’s name will be synonymous with filth!” Ignoring the blinding pain in my head, I tried to crawl away, to escape, but the bodyguards were on me in a second. They dragged me back, forcing me to my knees in front of Mark and Jessica. Mark fussed over Jessica, gently brushing dust from her dress with a sanitized wipe, his touch full of tenderness. He wouldn’t even look at me. “Don’t worry, my love,” he murmured to her. “I’ll get your revenge for you right now.” Jessica, her eyes brimming with tears, clutched his hand and shook her head weakly. “I don’t blame her. As long as I can be with you, I’ll endure any hardship.” I spat at her feet. “How many men have you pulled that routine on? How many backup plans do you have lined up after Mark?” I’d seen her getting cozy with other men at his office before; I’d just been too blind and trusting to see it for what it was. Her act shattered. The tears became real, streaming down her face in angry torrents. “Mark, she’s humiliating me! I can’t live like this!” she wailed, turning as if to smash her head against the nearby brick wall. Mark caught her, holding her tight, his face a thundercloud of fury directed at me. “I’ve been too good to you,” he snarled. “You can live out the rest of your pathetic life in this gutter.” He gestured to his men. “Break her arms and legs.” Panic seized me. I thrashed against their grip. “Mark, you’ll pay for this! As long as there is breath in my body, I will never let you get away with this!” He let out a cold, dismissive laugh. “Oh, I’m waiting. I remember that old college flame of yours, the one who’s still single, waiting for you. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he sees the video of the great campus beauty, Max Wynton, begging for mercy under a pile of hobos. He probably won’t be able to eat for a week.” I couldn’t believe it. To appease Jessica, he was willing to utterly and completely destroy me. My joints were brutally dislocated. The physical agony was immense, but it was nothing compared to the searing pain in my soul. Tears streamed down my face, hitting the grimy pavement as memories of our seven years together flashed through my mind. The sweeter the memory, the more bitter the irony now. I was a broken puppet, paralyzed on the ground, my eyes locked on Mark, burning with a helpless, venomous rage. He held Jessica, gazing down at my ruined form as if I were an insect. The circle of men closed in, the stench of unwashed bodies and cheap liquor overwhelming me. Their greedy, lecherous stares made me want to vomit. My tears of terror only seemed to excite them more. Jessica burrowed into Mark’s chest, her voice a sickly sweet murmur. “Mark, I can’t watch. It’s too scary.” He covered her eyes with his hand, his voice a gentle caress. “I’ll watch for you, my love. I’ll watch her get the punishment she deserves. She could never compare to you, to your purity and kindness.” My heart shattered into a million pieces. I gritted my teeth, trying to writhe away like a worm, to escape their grasping hands. But they cornered me, my back against the cold, damp brick wall. There was nowhere left to run. As they lunged, I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d rather die than suffer this humiliation. I was about to bite down on my own tongue, to end it all, when the piercing wail of sirens sliced through the night. Seven, eight police cruisers swarmed the alley, their lights painting the scene in strobing flashes of red and blue. In the middle of them all, a black Rolls-Royce, the kind that whispers of old money and untouchable power, glided to a silent stop.

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[System Alert: Critical deviation detected in Decade Vow core mission.] [Marriage milestone: FAILED.] [Host termination: 48 hours.] The warnings pierced my mind just after Richard asked, with cruel gentleness, if I still wanted to try on my wedding dress. Minutes earlier, he’d been adjusting my veil. “I was next door keeping Wendy company,” he chuckled. Then it clicked—that’s how he knew I’d gone to the club last night. “She was so scared when she heard your voice, she had to sit on my lap the whole time,” he said, each word a blade. I followed his gaze to Wendy, the girl I’d sponsored for years, now holding my crystal heels, eyes red with tears. Moments before, she’d crouched at my feet, gushing, “If he ever breaks your heart, I’ll make him pay.” Richard brushed my bodice, his tenderness now a mockery. All the joy drained away, leaving only the System’s countdown and the weight of betrayal. 1 I stared at Richard, my throat tight and burning. “Say that again.” And he actually did. This time, he sounded even more composed. “I was with her last night.” “I was planning to keep it under wraps a little longer. But seeing her hold your wedding shoes just now… it hit me. She deserves an explanation too.” I stood frozen, the words trapped in my chest. Today wasn’t just my final fitting. Today was the absolute deadline for the System to verify the success of my Decade Vow mission. Ten years ago, I bound my soul to this System. The price was ten years of my lifespan. In exchange, I gave Richard a meteoric rise to power and saved the Prescott family from absolute bankruptcy. The System only gave me one condition. I had to fulfill my marriage pact with Richard within ten years. Today was supposed to be the finish line. Instead, he chose today to shove me off a cliff. I heard my own voice shaking. “Why today?” “Why did it have to be the day I put on my wedding dress?” Richard remained silent for a heartbeat, but his gaze drifted right past me, landing softly on Wendy. “Because she’s been by my side for a long time. She never asks for anything. She doesn’t even dare to ask for a title.” “I refuse to let her suffer in silence anymore.” A bitter, broken laugh escaped my lips. “And me?” “What about my last ten years? What was all that for?” His expression didn’t waver. It was as if he had rehearsed these answers a thousand times. “It’s not like I’m backing out of the wedding.” “It’s just that Wendy needs some closure, too.” I looked at the man I loved, feeling my heart sink into a bottomless pit. But I didn’t realize he could stoop even lower. He met my eyes, his tone completely flat. “When you took that fall down the stairs at the new house last month? That wasn’t an accident.” “I took her to see our bridal mansion that day. She spilled some champagne and didn’t mop the floors properly. When you went up to check the lighting fixtures later, you slipped.” My blood ran cold. My entire body turned to stone. I nearly had a miscarriage that day. I spent the entire night clutching my ultrasound scans, too terrified to sleep, sobbing because I thought I had overworked myself with the wedding prep and failed to protect my baby. Richard had held me tightly that night, kissing my forehead, telling me it was okay, begging me not to blame myself. He wasn’t comforting me. He knew exactly what happened. He just sat back and watched me tear myself apart. I raised my hand and slapped him across the face with everything I had. The sharp smack echoed off the mirrored walls. The entire boutique went dead silent. Richard’s head jerked to the side, but he didn’t blow up. Instead, he let out a breath, looking almost relieved. “Are you done?” “If you’re done, try to calm down. We’re skipping the fitting today.” “The wedding can be pushed back.” He turned on his heel to leave. Inside my head, the System’s alarm screamed to life. [Decade Vow System detects critical mission deviation.] [Marriage milestone confirmation: FAILED.] [Host termination countdown: 48 hours.] I stood glued to the floor, my hands and feet turning to ice. Right on cue, Wendy rushed forward, her eyes brimming with fresh tears. She grabbed one of the bridal heels and lobbed it at Richard, acting like she was standing up for me. “You promised me you wouldn’t say anything!” “Why did you have to hurt Audrey today of all days?” The pointed heel clipped Richard’s forehead. His very first reaction wasn’t to check his own bleeding skin, but to grab her hands and ask if she had hurt her fingers. I stood in the distance, letting my tears fall and stain the pure white silk of my gown. 2 By the time the bridal shop descended into total chaos, Declan arrived. He was my senior in college and the co-founder of the charitable trust my late mother left behind. Every single grant application Wendy submitted over the past four years had crossed his desk. The moment he walked in, his eyes darted to Wendy first. Only after making sure she was okay did he frown and look at me. “Audrey, what exactly are you trying to pull here?” I stared at him. “You knew too. Didn’t you?” He dodged the question, his voice taking on that familiar, patronizingly soft tone. “Wendy just wants a place to belong.” “Don’t back her into a corner.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I’m backing her into a corner?” “I used my dead mother’s money to put her through college. I paid her hospital bills. I paid her rent. I pulled strings to get her internships. And now you’re telling me I’m the one ruining her life?” Declan sighed heavily, giving me the kind of look reserved for a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. “She comes from a broken home. She grew up with nothing.” “You have the world at your fingertips. She has absolutely nothing.” “Since you’re the one who brought her up to this point, you should be the bigger person and show some grace.” Right on cue, Wendy drifted over, her eyes red and puffy. “Audrey, if you’re mad, take it out on me. Please don’t blame Richard.” “I was the one who fell for him first. It’s all my fault.” Her voice was frail and dripping with guilt. But the silver leaf pendant resting against her collarbone caught the light, and the sight of it made my eyes burn. That necklace was my mother’s heirloom. Three years ago, Wendy was hospitalized. She cried through the night, terrified of the dark. I personally fastened that necklace around her neck, telling her it would keep her safe. Looking at it now, I realized my kindness was just a joke. I reached out, hooked my fingers around the delicate chain, and ripped it off her neck. She let out a sharp cry of pain, bursting into tears as she scrambled backward. The next second, Richard stepped in and shoved me hard. I stumbled in my heavy gown. My waist slammed violently into the edge of the display podium. A sharp, cramping pain shot through my lower abdomen instantly. He completely ignored me, shielding Wendy behind him as his voice turned to ice. “That is enough, Audrey.” I looked up at him, suddenly finding the whole situation incredibly absurd. We had fought before over the past decade. But he had never laid a hand on me. He had never pushed me away in front of an audience. And now, to play the knight in shining armor for a girl I practically raised, he didn’t even care about the baby growing inside me. I took a shaky breath, shifting my gaze to Declan. “That phone call last night. Telling me to go to the club to pick up the girls. You set that up on purpose, didn’t you?” Declan’s eyes flickered away. “You were going to find out eventually.” Then it hit me. It wasn’t just Richard and Wendy. Even Declan, my trusted friend, was busy paving the way for her. Richard’s phone buzzed. He checked the screen and then shoved it directly in my face. Someone had already leaked photos from the bridal boutique to a gossip blog. The angles were perfectly cropped. You could only see Wendy looking innocent, holding the shoes with teary eyes, and me looking like a monster, aggressively ripping the necklace off her throat. The comments were already flooding in, tearing me apart for bullying a sweet girl. Richard’s face was thunderous. “Did you hire someone to post this?” Looking at that photo, a strange, chilling calm washed over me. “No.” “But isn’t she the other woman?” Richard ground his teeth, his voice dropping low with suppressed rage. “She never wanted to compete with you.” “Are you really so bitter that you have to destroy her life?” Declan chimed in, playing the voice of reason. “Audrey, if this blows up, it’s going to ruin Wendy’s graduation and drag the foundation’s name through the mud.” “You need to go to her commencement ceremony and clear the air publicly.” Richard followed up with a final demand, tossing it out like a generous favor. “As long as we get past this graduation drama, our wedding goes ahead as planned.” My chest felt hollow, packed with shattered glass. One betrayed me. One fiercely protected her. One did her dirty work to clean up the mess. And right now, all three of them were demanding that I be the one to swallow my pride and step back. Just then, my phone chimed with a private message from Wendy. [Audrey, Richard was so worried I’d get scared hearing your voice last night. He held me on his lap the entire time.] [I was shivering so much, so he kissed me. He kissed me for a really long time.] I stared at those two lines of text. Bile rose in my throat. The System’s voice echoed simultaneously. [Host’s will to survive is plummeting rapidly.] [Termination countdown halved.] [Remaining time: 24 hours.] I slowly raised my head and looked at the two men standing before me. “Fine.” “I’ll go to the ceremony.” 3 Wendy’s commencement was held in the grand university auditorium. When I walked backstage, she was wearing an immaculate white sundress. Her hair was perfectly styled, and her face carried that carefully curated look of innocent vulnerability. The professors, classmates, and alumni buzzing around her were showering her with praise. One of the deans patted her shoulder affectionately. “Wendy, you’ve really beaten the odds.” Someone nearby immediately chimed in. “Absolutely. Coming out of an impoverished mountain town and making it to the top of the class in the city. You’ve really made something of yourself.” An older alumni smiled warmly at her. “I was just telling the board, you’re the greatest success story the foundation has ever produced.” “Exactly. Winning valedictorian is incredibly well-deserved.” “She’s going places. I heard she bagged multiple elite internships in her senior year alone.” “That’s what you call pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.” I stood in the shadows, listening to the glowing praise, feeling a bitter laugh bubble up in my throat. None of them knew. Her tuition, her hospital bills, every stepping stone of this supposed ‘self-made’ success story was paved with the blood, sweat, and charity of my mother and me. But here she was, the poster child for independent resilience. The second I stepped into the light, Wendy’s eyes brimmed with tears. She rushed toward me. She paused a few feet away, acting incredibly timid, as if she was terrified I would lash out. Then, very tentatively, she reached out and pinched the fabric of my sleeve. “Audrey, you actually came.” “I thought… I thought you’d never forgive me.” Richard materialized behind her and shoved a folded piece of paper into my hand. “Read this when you get on stage. Stick to the script.” I glanced down at the paper. Paragraph one: I had to admit that my emotional outburst at the bridal shop was due to pregnancy hormones and pre-wedding jitters, and that I had wrongfully targeted Wendy. Paragraph two: I had to explicitly state that the cheating rumors online were vicious, fabricated lies. I read it once. Then, while maintaining dead-eye contact with Richard, I slowly tore the paper into confetti. His face darkened instantly. “Audrey, don’t do anything stupid.” I ignored him, walking straight past him, and took the microphone directly from the MC’s hand. The auditorium was packed. The harsh stage lights beat down on me, making my eyes sting. I stood at the podium, staring out at the sea of unfamiliar faces, my voice ringing out crystal clear. “I only have two things to say.” “First, Wendy is not an innocent, underprivileged student.” “Second, Richard isn’t my fiancé. He is her husband.” The crowd erupted. A tidal wave of gasps and whispers crashed through the room. Wendy’s reaction was flawless. The tears spilled over her lashes on command. “Audrey, how could you say that…” “I never wanted to steal anything from you.” “If you want, I’ll even claim your unborn baby as my own! Just please, don’t back me into a corner!” That single sentence acted like gasoline on a fire. The murmurs turned into loud, furious chatter. She successfully painted herself as the ultimate martyr making a heartbreaking sacrifice, while I became the toxic, unhinged villain using a pregnancy to blackmail a man. I opened my mouth to respond, but Wendy suddenly reached into her designer clutch and slapped a little red booklet onto the podium right in front of me. A marriage certificate. I looked down. My mind went entirely blank. The names printed on the legal document were Richard Kensington and Wendy. The date of registration was yesterday. I snapped my head toward Richard. A flicker of guilt crossed his face, but he quickly masked it with cold indifference, leaning in to whisper harshly in my ear. “She’s graduating. She’s been feeling insecure.” “I just signed the papers yesterday to humor her. It means nothing.” “Once this PR nightmare dies down, I’ll quietly file for divorce.” “Our wedding is still on. Stop throwing a tantrum.” Humor her. So in his world, a legal marriage was just a shiny toy you handed out to keep a girl quiet. He thought he could secretly marry her, then throw a massive wedding with me, partitioning his vows like party favors for two different women. But Wendy was still putting on the performance of a lifetime. Wiping her tears, she sobbed into her own microphone, claiming my four years of sponsorship were never about charity. She told the crowd I had a twisted savior complex, that I was trying to groom her into an obedient pet. She claimed I was a control freak who turned violently abusive the second she formed a genuine friendship with Richard. She even swore to God that the photos from the bridal shop were a smear campaign I had personally orchestrated. The crowd turned ugly. Fast. “What a fake philanthropist.” “Sponsoring a girl just to steal her man? Sickening.” “She’s absolute trash.” Rage blinded me. I raised my hand, fully intending to slap the lies out of her mouth. But before my hand could connect, someone gripped my wrist from behind, locking it in a vice grip. I whipped around. Declan was standing there, his face tight with anger. “Audrey, that’s enough.” “This is a graduation ceremony, not a street brawl for you to act like a lunatic.” I stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. “Declan, you honestly think I’m the one being a lunatic?” He broke eye contact, but he didn’t let go of my wrist. His voice was cold. “If your conscience was actually clean, things wouldn’t have escalated this far.” That single sentence extinguished the last dying ember of warmth in my heart. And right at that moment, someone in the front row launched a plastic cup of red fruit punch at the stage. It hit my stomach. The sticky red liquid cascaded down the pristine white of my dress. Then came a second cup. Then a third. The insults grew deafening. A few radicalized students rushed the stage, shoving me, yanking on my dress, shoving their phone cameras aggressively into my face. I was violently jostled backward. My foot caught on a cable, and I stumbled hard. A sudden, agonizing tearing sensation ripped through my lower abdomen. I looked down and watched as the dark, heavy crimson began to bloom rapidly across the wet fabric of my dress. In that moment, a chilling realization washed over me. I was losing the baby. But the mob in the auditorium didn’t care. The screaming, the pushing, the flashes—nobody stopped. I clutched my stomach, the physical agony finally overriding the heartbreak. I didn’t even have the energy left to say a single word.

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1 At my career’s breaking point, my manager and boyfriend, Nolan, told me to gain twenty pounds in two weeks to land an Oscar-bait role. I showed up hopeful, but the director sighed. “Your acting is incredible, Avery, but the character is severely emaciated. You’re all wrong.” My stomach dropped. Before I could text Nolan, I saw him across the room, smiling triumphantly at my rival. She got the role—simply because she was thinner. When Nolan met my gaze, his smile vanished. He rubbed his nose, looking exhausted. “Serena is in her prime for awards season. She needs this more than you. Your acting is too good; I had to trick you into gaining weight to let her win.” He delivered the final blow without pause. “And you’ve begged me to marry you for years. Now that you’re too heavy to book roles, we can finally settle down.” There was no romance, no vow. His eyes darted to Serena, his first love, standing nearby. I realized I was just a placeholder, a warm body waiting for her return. I laughed bitterly, slid the silver ring off my finger, and said calmly, “Forget the wedding. We’re done.” The silver ring hit the floor and rolled under a leather casting couch. Nolan’s face darkened with immediate fury. “Are you expecting me to beg you to stay in front of her? Is this your way of proving you matter?” I opened my mouth. “No…” He held up a hand, his eyes burning with impatience. “Save the excuses. Do whatever you want. Just don’t come crying to me tonight, drunk and begging to get back together.” I gripped the hem of my oversized sweater. My cheeks burned with a humiliating heat, worse than if he had slapped me across the face in front of a live audience. Serena gently tugged at his sleeve. “Nolan, I told you not to speak to women like that. Avery, he’s just blunt, he doesn’t mean any harm, please don’t be mad at…” Nolan grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the door. “Don’t waste your breath on her. Didn’t you need to go to wardrobe for your fittings?” They walked out without a single backward glance. The chemistry between them was palpable. They moved in sync, looking exactly like the leaked paparazzi photos from their romance years ago. It was as if they had never broken up at all. Someone in the casting room recorded the entire exchange. An hour later, it was posted online by an anonymous burner account. Once again, my body became the internet’s favorite punching bag. [Good lord, her body has completely let itself go. Does she know she’s an actress? Is she prepping for a role as a slaughtered pig?] [Seriously, she just blew up overnight. Zero work ethic. Could she not put the fork down for five minutes? Look at how elegant Serena Blair is!] I was born with a metabolism that punished me for breathing. The first time I was ruthlessly fat-shamed by the internet years ago, I fell into a severe depression. I had to take steroid medications just to function, which only made my weight spiral further. Directors laughed me out of rooms. I was ready to quit acting entirely. That was when Nolan pushed his way through a crowd of executives mocking me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me out of the building. He looked at my tear-streaked makeup and told me, “The world is already looking down on you. Are you going to bully yourself, too?” From that day on, he was my guiding light. I followed him, trusted him implicitly, and fell deeply in love with him. He knew exactly how agonizing my journey had been. He knew how much faith I placed in him. And today, he took that faith and crushed it under his heel. My phone buzzed. It wasn’t a text from him. It was a flood of direct messages from my top fan accounts, begging me to fire my manager. They had been telling me to drop Nolan since the very beginning, ever since my styling and roles started tanking. I used to brush it off, blindly believing that as long as my acting was solid, I could elevate any terrible script he handed me. But now, the label of “the ugly, toxic supporting character” had been permanently glued to my forehead, bleeding over into my real life. 2 I finally realized how pathetic my confidence was compared to the brutal reality he had orchestrated to elevate Serena. My assistant, Jess, let out a heavy sigh from the passenger seat of my car. “Stop reading the comments, Avery. Look, I already enrolled you in an elite weight-loss boot camp.” I took a deep breath, staring out the rain-streaked window. “Cancel it. Didn’t the agency want to pivot me to the international market? Tell Director Davis I accept his offer.” Jess whipped her head around, her jaw dropping. “But that’s a massive global franchise! You’ll be shooting on a closed set overseas for two years. What about you and Nolan?” “There is no me and Nolan,” I cut her off smoothly. “From now on, my life has absolutely nothing to do with him.” The head executives at my agency were thrilled when I agreed to the international pivot. To build up my underdog narrative, they intentionally left all the fat-shaming hashtags trending on Twitter. Thankfully, my mental armor was infinitely stronger than it used to be. The insults barely registered. I was sitting in the agency’s conference room, filling out my international transfer and visa applications, when the door violently crashed open. Nolan stormed in, his face red with fury. “I told you guys when I signed on that we do not buy negative PR for Serena! The entire internet is calling her a manipulative homewrecker right now!” His tirade choked off the second he realized I was sitting at the table. A flash of awkward guilt crossed his face. The rumor was that after Nolan and Serena broke up years ago, our agency spent a fortune to poach him. They agreed to a massive list of unequal demands. I just hadn’t realized that one of those demands was a protective clause for Serena. Looking back, it all made sickening sense. Whenever I needed good PR, he threw me to the wolves. He bought negative trending topics about my weight, my face, my personality, leaving them up for days. When I was doxxed and stalkers showed up at my front door, he didn’t show a single ounce of sympathy. Just like now. We were both getting dragged online, but his eyes were only looking out for her. A soft, mocking chuckle escaped my lips. His face instantly hardened into a scowl. “The executives promised me they wouldn’t touch her. So this was your doing, wasn’t it?” “You’re mad that I gave the role to her, so you rallied your toxic fanbase to call her a homewrecker? You’re spinning a narrative that she’s using me to sabotage your career?” I furrowed my brow. Before I could even open my mouth to defend myself, his phone rang. I caught a glimpse of the screen. Serena. He answered it on the first ring. It was a courtesy he had never extended to me, not even the night I was being chased down a highway by deranged stalkerazzi and called him for help in tears. “Nolan!” Serena’s voice was frantic on the other end. “Someone leaked photos of you and Avery on a date! Everyone is saying I’m the other woman! They’re calling me a mistress!” “She won’t stop crying,” her assistant yelled into the background. “She’s threatening to jump off the balcony to prove her innocence!” In that split second, the color drained from Nolan’s face. His knees physically buckled. He glared at me, his eyes burning with pure, unadulterated hatred. “You are a vicious, evil woman. You’re so desperate to ruin her that you’d set your own career on fire!” He didn’t give me a chance to speak. He stumbled backward and sprinted out of the room. The executive sitting across from me let out an uncomfortable sigh. “We didn’t buy those trends. Do you want me to…” I forced a polite smile. “No need. Let him think whatever he wants. I’m leaving anyway.” The executive nodded silently and collected my transfer paperwork. Less than three minutes after I walked out of the conference room, my phone chimed with a notification from Twitter. I opened the app. Nolan had just quote-tweeted the viral photo of us on a date. [Avery and I have never been in a romantic relationship. We are strictly colleagues. Serena Blair and I never broke up. Any romantic marketing involving Avery Sinclair was purely a studio-mandated PR strategy. There is no infidelity involved.] My chest seized. It felt like an invisible fist was crushing my lungs. When Nolan first became my manager, Serena’s rabid fanbase accused me of being the homewrecker who ruined their fairy-tale romance. When paparazzi finally caught us kissing a year later, the hatred multiplied tenfold. I endured a solid year of brutal cyberbullying. It got so bad the agency begged us to just go public and clear the air. 3 But Nolan always refused. He always used my career as an excuse, claiming a public relationship would ruin my marketability. He stood by and watched as millions of people called me a slut, a mistress, a home-wrecker. And now, he freely handed the public declaration of love that I had bled for over to his ex. He permanently branded me with the “mistress” label just to protect her. In that moment, I finally understood that true love knows no obstacles. The only obstacle was that he simply didn’t love me. The agency couldn’t control him anymore. They immediately moved to assign me a new manager and drafted a statement to sever all ties with him. But when it came time to hand over my portfolio, Nolan suddenly slammed the brakes. “I’ve managed her for years! No one knows her career trajectory better than I do!” The sudden 180-degree shift in his attitude was laughable. It only cemented the fact that I was nothing but a tool he needed to keep in his back pocket. I stared at him, my eyes empty, filled with nothing but profound numbness and exhaustion. “No. I know my own trajectory.” He flinched. He clearly hadn’t expected me to speak to him with such cold authority. In the past, whenever the agency suggested switching managers, I was the one who fought against it. I wanted to stay close to him. I willingly kept myself chained to him. But now that my spine was made of steel, he was completely powerless. Sensing the tension, the executive slid my international transfer forms across the table. “Look, the reality is, Avery is leaving the country…” Nolan frowned deeply. He reached out to grab the papers. My eyes narrowed. I stepped directly into his path, blocking his hand. “I am in control of my own career from now on. If you refuse to hand over the files, I will build a new portfolio from scratch.” I grabbed the papers, folded them neatly, and handed them back to the executive. I shook my head slightly. As I turned to walk away, Nolan raised his hand, his fingers twitching as if he wanted to grab my wrist. I side-stepped him effortlessly. After the disastrous meeting, I went back to my apartment and started packing my life into boxes. As I was folding clothes, my phone buzzed. A text from him. [Her mental health is incredibly fragile. I was just calming her down. Don’t overthink this.] In a sea of green text bubbles, this was the first time in an entire month he had initiated a conversation that wasn’t strictly about work schedules. And yet, it was still revolving around Serena. Whenever I texted him for comfort, whenever I needed a shoulder to cry on or just a shred of affection, his standard response was always the same three words. [Toughen up, Avery.] I didn’t immediately call him back in tears. I didn’t beg for his attention or try to explain my side of the story like I used to. What was the point? A few minutes later, the electronic lock on my front door beeped rapidly with several failed passcode attempts. My heart skipped a beat. I pulled up the security camera feed on my phone and saw him standing in the hallway. The tension in my chest evaporated. All that was left was a hollow, empty void where my expectations used to be. Our passcode was our anniversary date. He had been coming to this apartment for five years and still couldn’t remember it. Yet, when he needed to log into a social media account he hadn’t touched in two years, he remembered Serena’s birthday as the password in less than a minute. I put my packing tape down and opened the front door. His eyes were laced with genuine anxiety. “Why didn’t you open the door? I thought something happened to you.” I found the whole situation hilarious. “What could possibly happen to me? You said it yourself, I’m tough.” He frowned, the fleeting guilt in his eyes vanishing instantly. “Look, I found out Serena’s PR team bought those trending hashtags. I didn’t have all the facts, and I shouldn’t have accused you. That’s on me.” “But there is absolutely no need for you to be this petty and sarcastic. She only broke up with me back then because her management forced her to. There is nothing going on between us now.” “That statement on Twitter? She posted that using my phone. By the time I saw it, the damage was done. I already told you, we can get married right now. You really need to let this go.” I stared at the poorly concealed impatience swimming in his eyes. 4 I finally spoke. “So, if you two had never broken up, is this how you would talk to her? Would you demand she marry you without a shred of romance or a proper proposal?” He rubbed the back of his neck, visibly irritated. “That doesn’t matter. You’re in a critical phase of your career right now, you shouldn’t…” My chest contracted violently. Before he could finish his sentence, I raised my hand and slapped him directly across the face. My voice was terrifyingly calm. “You knew I was in a critical phase of my career, and you still manipulated me into gaining twenty pounds!” “You’re right. None of it matters. Whether your pathetic excuses were meant to protect me or because you’re still obsessed with her, it doesn’t matter. Because we are broken up.” “Now get the hell out of my apartment. I never want to see your face again.” His eyes widened, rimmed with a furious, humiliated red. It was the first time in five years I had ever kicked him out. He slammed the door behind him, spitting out one final, venomous threat. “You’re going to regret this!” For five years, I had bent over backward to accommodate his every mood. We had never been at each other’s throats like this. So, when he realized I was no longer his submissive, easy-to-control puppet, he resorted to the dirty tactics he usually reserved for his enemies. My interim manager told me I had to attend a high-end charity gala that evening. But when I arrived, I realized I had been tricked. It was a sleazy, low-tier corporate networking mixer. A yacht party where actresses were treated like eye candy. Nolan and Serena were sitting on either side of the wealthy studio executives. My new manager gently pushed me into the private room. “Your resources are being downgraded, Avery. You aren’t bringing in money right now. Nolan said if you can handle the drinking for Serena tonight, he’ll secure a great script for you.” Back when I was a nobody clinging to Nolan’s roster, I couldn’t book any good roles. My lack of income meant his performance bonuses tanked. To make sure I didn’t drag his career down, I secretly agreed to attend one of these shady investor banquets. It started with just drinking on behalf of the executives. But as the night dragged on, several men cornered me and started force-feeding me liquor. I tried to run, but the VIP doors were deadbolted. They pinned me down, their hands wandering all over my body. Right as I was about to give up all hope, Nolan kicked the heavy wooden doors off their hinges, grabbed a fire axe from the hallway, and smashed the mahogany dining table cleanly in half. His eyes were bloodshot as he pulled me into his chest, shielding me from the room. He drove me home, screaming at me the entire ride, calling me an idiot with no brain. He told me that these drinking banquets almost always ended in hotel rooms. He yelled until I stopped responding. Bright red blood had started spilling past my lips like water. That was the first time I ever saw genuine, unfiltered terror on his face. From that day forward, I was banned from attending any event that required alcohol. Seeing me frozen in the doorway, Serena smiled brightly and walked over. “Oh, this is all my fault. I told the investors my alcohol tolerance is terribly low, but I didn’t want to disrespect them. Nolan remembered you could hold your liquor, so he called you in.” “You don’t mind, do you? Really, we’re doing this to help you network for new roles.” I stared at the smug, provocative gleam in her eyes. Surprisingly, I felt entirely at peace. It was fine. I would drink the poison tonight. Because after tonight, every single debt, every ounce of history between Nolan and me, would be permanently erased. I picked up a heavy crystal tumbler filled with dark amber liquor. I locked eyes with Nolan, watching the sudden, nervous tension ripple across his face. “Thank you all for this wonderful opportunity.” The cheap, high-proof alcohol burned down my esophagus like battery acid. I wiped a stray tear from the corner of my eye and poured myself a second glass. “But for this next round…” Before I could finish, Nolan practically lunged out of his chair, snatching the glass from my hand. His brow was furrowed in deep, angry lines. His voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “If you can’t drink, then don’t! Do you always have to be this stubborn? Would it kill you to just admit you need me?” I smiled. I opened my mouth to speak, but a violent, metallic clattering erupted from the ceiling above us. Before any of us could look up, the entire room lurched into a violent, terrifying sway. The floor dropped out from under my heels, sending my head spinning. 5 With a heavy thud, I crashed onto the marble floor. Piercing screams erupted from the hallway outside the VIP suite. “Earthquake! It’s an earthquake! Run!” Nolan grabbed my arm, hauling me to my feet. He threw his arm around my waist, preparing to drag me toward the exit. But from behind us, Serena’s voice pierced the chaos. “Nolan! My legs… my legs won’t move! I’m so scared!” In that split second, without a single micro-expression of hesitation, he let go of my hand. “She was in a severe earthquake as a child. She has crippling claustrophobia, I can’t just leave her here.” “You need to get out on your own. If you can’t make it to the stairs, find cover! I promise I’ll come back for you!” Without waiting for a response, he scooped Serena up into his arms and sprinted past me, vanishing into the panicked crowd. I struggled to push myself up off the floor. But with a deafening crack, the massive crystal chandelier detached from the ceiling and slammed directly into my shoulder. Nolan had glanced over his shoulder right as it happened. The momentary hesitation in his eyes vanished as quickly as it appeared. He disappeared into the dust and the screaming, taking my consciousness with him. … When I finally woke up, the sterile smell of a hospital room filled my lungs. Jess was sitting by my bed, her eyes red and puffy. The earthquake hadn’t been catastrophic. The hotel suffered minimal structural damage, and there were barely any casualties. The most severely injured person in the entire building was me, knocked unconscious by a cheap light fixture. The emergency rescue teams were the ones who pulled me out of the rubble. Jess looked at me, her mouth opening and closing. I knew exactly what she wanted to say. Nolan never came back. He was busy comforting Serena. On Instagram, I saw the photo they posted. Their hands tightly intertwined. The caption read: [No matter how much time passes, my heart will always choose you first.] I didn’t feel the soul-crushing grief or the fiery rage I expected. I only felt a profound sense of relief. My heart, which had spent five years sprinting to keep up with his, could finally beat for itself. I looked at the nightstand. Sitting next to my water cup was a first-class ticket for an overseas flight. “Let’s go,” I whispered. Jess helped me out of the hospital bed. We took a private car straight to the international terminal. Right before I stepped into the security checkpoint, a text from Nolan popped up on my screen. [Why aren’t you in your hospital room? Stop running around. I hired a private specialist to give you a full-body scan.] Staring at the message, I felt absolutely none of the pathetic, desperate joy I used to feel whenever he showed me a breadcrumb of attention. I smiled, hit block, and permanently deleted his contact. I popped the SIM card out of my phone and tossed it into a trash can. I had already set up a new international number. Nolan Cross. I am so incredibly tired of playing your twisted game of cat and mouse. From this moment on, I will never haunt your world again. Nolan gripped his phone, pacing the hallway outside Avery’s hospital room. He had been waiting for twenty minutes, but she hadn’t replied. In the past, the moment he sent a text checking up on her, she would immediately call him back, her voice thick with happy tears. Even when she was buried in script readings, she made her assistant reply instantly. But ever since that disastrous casting call, the dynamic had subtly shifted. It planted a dark, unsettling seed of panic in the pit of his stomach. Someone gently tapped his shoulder. He spun around, assuming it was Avery. “Where the hell did you go? Stop running…” The spark of relief in his chest instantly flatlined when he saw Serena standing there. A heavy, unexplainable wave of disappointment washed over him. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay in your suite and rest. The lobby is swarming with paparazzi and stalkers, what if they get a photo of you?” Serena’s eyes grew glassy with tears. “It’s fine. I wasn’t really hurt anyway. I just felt so alone in that big room… and I wanted to check on Avery. I need to apologize to her. If I hadn’t cried out for you, she wouldn’t have been crushed by that chandelier.” Nolan’s immediate instinct was to say Avery was fine. She was built tough. During action sequences, she refused to use stunt doubles to save the studio money. She took hits, cuts, and bruises without ever complaining. To the rest of the world, she was made of iron. But whenever she was alone with him, she would pout and show him her bruises. Even when he gave her the cold shoulder, she would whine until he was forced to pat her head and comfort her.

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