Category: English

During our mandatory weekend corporate retreat, I took leave to be by my wife’s side for her emergency surgery. When I got back, Marcus fined me seven thousand dollars in front of the entire office. “Company policy states that team synergy comes before everything else!” Marcus barked. “Ethan, as a senior designer, you set a terrible example by skipping a company event. Your penalty is doubled!” The very next day, I saw his young secretary, Tiffany, carrying a brand-new Chanel bag worth exactly seven thousand dollars. So that’s how he wanted to play? Fine. I’m done being his doormat! The news of me getting fined seven thousand dollars for skipping the retreat spread through the office like wildfire. In the breakroom, my long-time rival, Carter, looked at me and shook his head. “Man, you should have just sucked it up and apologized. You’ve got to request time off way in advance.” “I submitted the paperwork a week ago. He sat on it and refused to approve it on purpose,” I said, pouring myself a cup of coffee. Carter leaned in, his eyes widening. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, but Marcus’s connection just got back from overseas. Supposedly some hotshot Ivy League grad. He wants to bring him in to burnish his own resume.” The puzzle pieces instantly clicked. The whole “making an example out of me” speech was pure garbage. Marcus just wanted an excuse to kick me down so he could promote his own guy. Fine. I’d gladly clear the path for them. The moment I got back to my desk, Tiffany tapped on my computer monitor. “Ethan, pack up your office. You’re moving out to the common area.” I glanced at the open cubicles outside. Our design department was structured with open cubicles, but as the lead designer, I had a private office to meet with clients. Moving me out was a blatant demotion. “Tiffany, you can’t just tell me to pack up. I need an official notice.” “An official notice? Sure, let me spell it out for you. You’ve been stripped of your lead title. You’re just a regular designer now. Got it?” Just then, Marcus walked out of his office. Seeing me still sitting there, he frowned. “What’s taking so long, Ethan? Why aren’t you moving?” “Tiffany says I’ve been demoted. Just because I missed a retreat?” “Exactly. I’ve already reported this to the Chairman. You refused to participate in team building and openly defied company policy. You’re lucky you aren’t fired. You’re on probation now. If you don’t like it, feel free to file a complaint with HR!” I chuckled. “Alright. But I want the company to issue an official written notice. Otherwise, I’m not moving a single box.” Marcus pointed a finger at me. “You asked for it! Tiffany, draft the notice right now! Some people just don’t know when to be grateful. Let’s show him how things work around here!” Within two minutes, Tiffany pinged the entire company WhatsApp group with the official PDF of my demotion. I saved the document to my personal drive, packed my things, and walked out to the cubicles. Right after that, Tiffany added a new user to our group chat. “Everyone, please welcome Tristan, our new Design Lead! He’s a prestigious Ivy League grad and will be leading the design department starting today!” Everyone in the office stared at me in shock. I didn’t say a word. I just sat at my new cubicle, pulled out my phone, and started playing games. A few suck-ups in the chat sent welcoming emojis, but the atmosphere in the office was dead silent. Everyone knew what was really happening—I had been robbed. My former team members came over to vent for me. “Ethan, this is messed up. They can’t just throw you out like this. It’s dirty.” “Yeah, we just submitted the new blueprints yesterday. If the client asks about the changes, what are we supposed to say?” I shrugged. “Management made the call. We just do what we’re told.” My calm reaction left them utterly confused. But I wasn’t about to waste my breath. It was obvious they wanted to use my hard work to feed this new guy’s ego. Too bad they were in such a rush. Half an hour later, Tristan walked out of his office, clearly looking to establish dominance over me. “We have thirty designers in this department. Some people have been slacking off and collecting free paychecks. That ends today,” he announced loudly. “Starting now, everyone must submit one complete design concept per day. If you can’t finish, you stay late. If you can’t handle the pressure, the door is right there.” He then pointed a finger directly at me. “You. Ethan, right? I heard about you before I got here. I don’t care how many successful projects you had in the past. Under my watch, you follow the rules. Understood?” He looked down at me, his face dripping with arrogance. I nodded and gave him a dry smile. “Understood.”

Seeing how compliant I was, Tristan smirked. He went on to add two more rules: strict clock-in times and detailed client feedback logs. The office instantly erupted into quiet groans. Sometimes we had to meet clients across town, and some weren’t even in the same state. It was impossible to clock in physically at the office every morning. This new system was going to ruin everyone’s schedule. But as soon as the complaints started, Marcus shut them down. “No rules, no order! Did you all forget about the seven-thousand-dollar fine we just handed out? Let me tell you, I brought Tristan in to fix your lazy, undisciplined habits!” The room went dead silent. I kept my mouth shut. If they wanted me to clock in, I’d clock in. If they wanted daily sketches, I’d sketch. I was in no rush. In five days, they would regret this. Tristan officially took over my office that afternoon, acting like he owned the place. I wasn’t bothered at all. I spent ten minutes using an AI generator to produce a basic design sketch, submitted it before 5:00 PM, shut down my computer, and clocked out. Carter saw me leaving and teased, “Not staying to save the company today?” “Hey, we have to follow the new rules, right? Strict work hours,” I waved at him and walked out. Carter was the second-best designer in the department. He had been trying to take my job for years, but now that I was demoted, he didn’t get the promotion either. Instead, some random guy had parachuted in over both of us and brought a bunch of annoying micro-management rules with him. Seeing me leave, Carter rolled his eyes, shut down his laptop, and left too. Getting off work exactly on time was a luxury I hadn’t experienced in years. Normally, I would be revising blueprints or negotiating with clients until midnight, only to find out they liked the very first draft best. This level of freedom was actually nice. On my way home, I picked up some groceries and made a warm pot of soup for Chloe. She was surprised to see me home so early. When she found out I had been demoted, she looked incredibly guilty. “Is this because of my surgery?” “It has nothing to do with you, honey. Honestly, the company needed a wake-up call anyway. Who says only Gen Z can quiet quit? I can do it too.” Chloe finally smiled, her worries washing away. Since I actually had a free evening, I set up the projector and we watched a movie together. I posted a picture of our cozy setup on my Instagram. Carter commented almost instantly: Look at you, living the dream! I replied with a smiley face. But when I checked the company WhatsApp group, it was a war zone. Marcus was throwing passive-aggressive shade in the group chat. “Some people only care about enjoying life. Have you finished your deliverables? Are you making enough money to afford being this lazy?” Seeing him target me so obviously, I laughed out loud. I tagged him directly in the group chat. “Marcus, let’s keep business separate from personal life. I value my health. I enjoy my free time, but I also haven’t missed a single deadline.” Then, I uploaded my entire quarterly performance report and client feedback logs directly into the chat. The Chairman and senior executives were in this group, so I had absolutely nothing to fear. Sure enough, a second later, Marcus slid into my DMs, frantically demanding I delete the message. I ignored him and put my phone on Do Not Disturb. The next morning, the moment I walked into the office, I was summoned to Marcus’s office. Marcus stared at me, his eyes dark. “I’m not going to waste my breath, Ethan. Hand over your current client files to Tristan today. Also, pay your fine.” “The transition is fine. But I don’t have seven thousand dollars in cash. Just deduct it from my salary. My wife’s surgery was expensive. I’m broke.” Marcus sneered. “Don’t play games with me.” “I’m not playing games, boss. I requested leave a week ago, and I told you three months ago that my wife was having surgery and money would be tight. That’s why I took on those high-budget clients, which you approved. I’m broke. If you want seven grand, take it out of my commission. My bonus and commissions for this month should be around that much anyway.”

Hearing this, Marcus’s brows furrowed tightly. I raised an eyebrow at him. “Seriously, I don’t have the cash. Do what you have to do.” I turned and walked out. Livid, his face turned purple, and he chased after me into the main floor. “Ethan, don’t think you’re untouchable just because you’ve been here a long time!” The entire department stopped and stared. I turned around calmly. “I don’t think that at all, Marcus. I follow the rules. Just deduct it.” Marcus thought I was bluffing. He immediately instructed payroll to alter my pay stub. Aside from my base salary, my entire seven thousand dollars in commission was wiped out! I remained completely unbothered. I kept showing up on time, leaving exactly at five, and submitting basic sketches. They couldn’t find a single real reason to write me up. Until Mr. Harrison from Apex Group showed up. I had handled all the preliminary drafts for Apex, but since all my files had been forced over to Tristan, he was now the primary contact. Apex Group was our biggest client. We had worked with them for three years without a single hiccup. This new project alone was worth over ten million dollars in design fees. Marcus and Tristan were sweating bullets, waiting by the entrance early in the morning. When I strolled in right on the dot, Marcus glared at me. I ignored him and slipped into the breakroom to eat my breakfast. Mr. Harrison arrived shortly after, surrounded by his entourage, and was escorted straight into the main conference room. A few minutes later, Tiffany marched over to my cubicle. “Ethan, take these physical blueprints and deliver them to the Westside development site.” The Westside site was on the complete opposite side of the city. With morning traffic, a round trip would easily take four hours. “Tiffany, isn’t there a digital version?” “The client requested physical copies. Go now, don’t drag your feet!” Fine. I’ll go. I took the prints and left. The moment I arrived at the Westside site, my phone rang. It was Marcus. “Ethan, where the hell are you?! Get back to the office right now!” “Marcus, Tiffany sent me to deliver blueprints to the Westside site. I just got here. What’s wrong?” “Send me the design concept and the core structural files for the Apex project!” I laughed. “Everything was in the transition files I handed over to Tristan. Anyway, I have to go meet the site manager. Bye!” I hung up immediately. A second later, Tristan called. “Ethan, let me remind you, those files belong to the company! You can’t steal them! If this deal falls through, you will be held financially liable!” I didn’t even bother replying. I blocked his number. Carter texted me a few minutes later, giving me the live updates. Apparently, Mr. Harrison had realized the moment he sat down that his lead contact had been replaced. He asked a few technical questions, and Tristan had stumbled through them like an idiot, unable to answer a single one. Mr. Harrison’s face had gone completely cold. Finally, he asked about the smart-home patent involved in the design. Was it secured? Marcus and Tristan looked at each other, completely clueless. Now, Mr. Harrison was demanding to see the patent certification, and since they had no idea where it was, they were panicking. Bro, you set a trap for them, didn’t you? Carter texted. Damn, you played them beautifully! No wonder you’ve been so relaxed. You were waiting for this! Without that patent certification, the entire design was useless. The sketches were basically expensive trash, and the ten-million-dollar deal would vanish. The higher-ups would definitely skin Marcus and Tristan alive. Hearing Carter’s amused voice over the phone when I called him back, I just chuckled. Suddenly, I heard Tristan’s panicked voice in the background of Carter’s phone. “Is that Ethan?! Give me the phone!” “Ethan! Get your ass back here right now! What is going on with the patent?!” “Sorry, Tristan. I can’t help you. I’m no longer the lead on this project. You’re the genius Ivy League grad, figure it out.” “Ethan! I know you’re pissed, okay? Just come back. We can negotiate!” Marcus’s voice cut in, desperate. “Just come back and help us get through this meeting first!” I flatly refused. “How could I? This is Tristan’s big debut with our most important client. I wouldn’t want to steal his spotlight.” Tristan roared through the receiver, “Ethan, don’t get cocky! I don’t need you to close this damn deal!” I smiled coldly. “Let me tell you something. In less than three hours, you’ll be on your knees begging me to come back. Don’t believe me? Let’s watch.”

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According to my family’s tradition, the groom had to put the wedding shoes on the bride’s feet with his own hands. It symbolized that our future path together would be filled with pure happiness. But just as my fiancé was about to slip the shoes onto my feet, his childhood best friend, Chloe Higgins, let out a sharp cry. “Julian! The clasp on my high heels just broke. Can you help me fix it?” Without a second thought, Julian Carter threw my wedding shoes aside. He turned around, got down on one knee in front of Chloe, and began fixing her clasp. An Angered heat rushed to my face, and I questioned him: “Julian, according to my family’s tradition, you are only supposed to put shoes on your bride today.” He didn’t even look up. “What century are we living in? Why are you still believing in such silly superstitions?” Chloe wiggled her foot once the shoe was fixed, giving me a smug, sweet smile. “Is Evelyn mad? He’s just being kind by helping me. You’re lucky to marry someone as sweet as Julian.” I looked down at my bare feet. Suddenly, I felt there was no point in wearing these wedding shoes anymore. I pulled out my phone and sent a message to the man who had personally handcrafted a pair of shoes for me years ago: 【Want to crash a wedding?】 【Bring the wedding shoes you made for me, and take the bride away.】

【Wait for me!】 Seeing the quick reply, I locked my phone screen. Chloe stepped in her newly fixed shoes, twirling half a circle. The hem of her bridesmaid dress brushed past Julian’s knees, seemingly by accident. “You’ve got great hands,” she said, her eyes curving flirtatiously. Julian smiled helplessly, his gaze warm. “Alright, stop jumping around. If they break again, I won’t have time to fix them.” The two of them smiled at each other, completely ignoring everyone else in the room. I sat on the edge of the bed, my toes curling involuntarily. The cold air from the air conditioner crawled up my ankles, sending a chill straight to my heart. My mom couldn’t take it anymore. She stepped forward, physically blocking the two of them. “Julian, the ceremony is starting in twenty minutes. Why haven’t you put Evelyn’s shoes on yet?” “Our family tradition says the groom must put the shoes on the bride for the marriage to be blessed.” “What’s wrong with you, leaving Evelyn sitting here while you fix a bridesmaid’s shoe?” Only then did Julian look at me, but his expression was entirely indifferent. “Traditions are flexible, Eleanor.” He turned around and took a luxury designer box from his best man. “I actually prepared a surprise for Evelyn.” He opened the box, revealing a pair of custom haute couture wedding shoes. The other bridesmaids let out a collective gasp of awe. “Oh my god, they are gorgeous! I heard this design has a six-month waiting list!” “The groom is so thoughtful. Evelyn, you are so lucky.” Julian held the box, his tone carrying a hint of self-righteous pride. “I had a friend fly these in from Paris just so you could have a unique wedding.” I stared at the shoes. My heart felt absolutely nothing. Twelve-centimeter stiletto heels. An extremely narrow, pointed toe. These were all the design elements I avoided at all costs in my daily life. I have a high arch. I can’t wear pointed shoes, and I certainly can’t walk in such thin heels. And Julian knew this perfectly well. Three years ago, on my birthday, he took me on a date to an amusement park. The new shoes I wore that day blistered my heels, and I was walking a bit slow. He noticed immediately. He knelt down, took my shoes off, and threw them straight into the trash can. Then, ignoring the startled looks of the crowd, he took off his own limited-edition sneakers and put them on my feet. His shoes were massive on me, like two giant boats, but they were incredibly warm. He ran across the scorching asphalt in just his socks to a nearby shop to buy me a pair of cute, soft cotton slides. Back then, he kissed the tip of my nose, his eyes filled with pure love. “My Evelyn’s feet are meant for walking on smooth paths.” “We will never wear shoes that don’t fit again.” That memory was etched into my soul. But now… Chloe leaned in, her smile barely concealed. “Evelyn, these shoes suit you so well, don’t they? I helped Julian pick them out for several nights!” The moment the words left her mouth, she gasped, covering her mouth with her hands in mock innocence. “Oh dear, did I ruin the surprise?” “Julian said you don’t know much about luxury brands, so he practically begged me to help him choose.” Julian nodded, taking it completely for granted. “Chloe always has great taste.” “The shoes you usually buy are too plain. Today is our big day, you should look radiant.” My mom’s face flushed with anger. “Only the feet know if the shoes fit! What’s the point of them looking good if they hurt?” “Evelyn is not used to such high stilettos. What if she falls?” Chloe chipped in with a giggle. “Julian will be holding her. How could she fall?” “When a girl gets married, suffering a little for beauty is totally worth it.” Julian casually tossed the luxury box onto the end of the bed and reached out to grab my ankle. His palm was warm, but I felt freezing cold. He picked up the stiletto and tried to force it onto my foot without even asking. The moment my toes hit the narrow front, a sharp, piercing pain shot up my leg. I instinctively pulled my foot back. “Ouch! It hurts!” “Stop squirming!” Julian frowned, his voice growing impatient. “Just squeeze into it. It’ll fit.” His grip tightened, and he tried to force my foot into the shoe again. The rough edge scraped off a piece of my skin, and my heel instantly turned red. It hurt so bad! I kicked my foot back with force. The sharp metal clasp scraped across my instep, leaving a harsh white scratch. “Julian, I wear a size 7.” “But these custom shoes are a size 6.” “That is Chloe’s shoe size.”

The noisy bedroom fell into a sudden, dead silence. Julian froze at the edge of the bed. He hesitantly looked down at the label on the side of the box. Size: 6. Irritated, he tugged at his tie and whipped his head around to glare at Chloe. Tears instantly welled up in Chloe’s eyes, her voice trembling with a sob. “Julian… I’m so sorry.” “I asked the designer, and they said this style runs large. Plus, a size 6 looks best in photos. It makes the bride’s feet look small and delicate.” She grabbed Julian’s sleeve, tears streaming down her face. “I just wanted Evelyn to look perfect in the wedding photos. I didn’t mean to… I really didn’t know she couldn’t even squeeze into them…” With only twenty minutes left before the ceremony, it was impossible to find another pair of wedding shoes! Julian sighed, reaching out to gently pat Chloe’s hair. “It’s not your fault. You had good intentions. I was too busy and didn’t double-check the order myself.” He picked up the small shoe again, softening his voice as he looked at me. “Evelyn, we’re out of time. Just deal with it for half a day.” “You don’t have to walk much in the wedding car anyway. Once we get to the venue, we’ll just do the ceremony walk, and it’ll be over before you know it.” I stared at him, the last warmth in my heart freezing over. Once, Julian’s favorite thing to brag about was how he memorized all my sizes. At parties with friends, he would put his arm around my shoulder and say: “A man who can’t even remember his own woman’s shoe size and ring size doesn’t deserve to be in a relationship.” He knew damn well I was a size 7. He knew my arches were high and that I couldn’t handle tight shoes. Yet now, he outsourced such an important task to Chloe, and even after she messed up, he wanted me to “deal with it”! I asked coldly, “On the most important day of my life, you want me to force my feet into shoes that don’t fit?” Julian’s brow furrowed deep. “Can’t you just bear it for a bit? You usually don’t complain about bumps and bruises. Why are you making such a big deal out of this today?” My mom rushed over, snatched the shoe from his hand, and slammed it onto the floor. “I raised my daughter for over twenty years, and on her wedding day, you want her to suffer in tiny shoes?!” The heel hit the hardwood floor with a loud, dull thud. “Oh dear, what’s with the temper?” The bedroom door was pushed open, and Julian’s mother, Beatrice Carter, walked in slowly. Her eyes were filled with nothing but disdain as she looked at me. “Is this tiny matter really worth throwing a tantrum in front of all these people?” “If the shoe is too small, just take out the insoles. Problem solved.” My dad stepped forward, his face dark. “An ill-fitting shoe on a wedding day ruins the blessing! You’re basically cursing my daughter to have a hard life ahead!” Beatrice squeezed out a fake smile. “Arthur, the Carter family is well-known in this city.” “These shoes cost fifteen thousand dollars. If Evelyn throws a fit in public, what will people think of us?” She affectionately took Chloe’s arm. “Chloe stayed up all night helping select the style. Even if she made a mistake, she worked hard.” “You guys are being incredibly petty by making a mountain out of a molehill.” Chloe turned to another bridesmaid, Harper. “Harper, aren’t you a size 7?” “Evelyn has nothing to wear, and the ceremony is about to start. Can she borrow your shoes for the ceremony?” Harper froze, looking awkward, but she slowly slipped off her semi-worn red high heels. Chloe took the shoes and pushed them to my feet, acting as if she was saving the day. “Evelyn, these will definitely fit. Please don’t let my mistake ruin your big day.” Julian looked at Chloe with absolute admiration in his eyes. “See? This is how you handle things smoothly.” “Just wear these. The wedding party is waiting.” I looked down at the worn-out shoes that still carried someone else’s body heat. I bit my lip until I tasted blood. “Julian Carter, you want me to wear someone else’s old shoes on my wedding day?”

“They’re just shoes! Do you have to embarrass everyone like this?” Julian’s patience finally snapped. He kicked Harper’s old shoes aside. “Dozens of relatives are waiting outside, and we have over a hundred tables booked at the venue.” “Evelyn Vance, do you really have to pick a fight right now?” He stood tall in front of me, his expression cold and stubborn. He was absolutely sure I wouldn’t dare ruin the wedding. The invitations had been sent to everyone in town, and the wedding had been in preparation for over six months. In his eyes, I was always soft-tempered and cared deeply about my parents’ reputation. He believed I would never dare to call off the wedding. My mom was trembling with rage, pointing at the door. “The Carter family has gone too far! We are not doing this wedding!” My dad stood in front of me like a solid, protective shield. “Take your things and get out.” Beatrice’s face twisted instantly, her voice screeching. “Arthur! The invitations are out! If you call off the wedding now, it’s the Vance family that will be humiliated!” “Have you forgotten your family’s social standing? Marrying into our family is a major step up for you guys.” “If you kick us out today, tomorrow the whole town will know your daughter is damaged goods who got dumped at the altar!” My dad’s shoulders tensed. He was a high school history teacher who had spent his entire life living honorably. He had never suffered such humiliation. But for my sake, he clenched his fists, standing his ground in silence, swallowing the bitter insult. Looking at the white hair at my father’s temples, my heart ached terribly. The day Julian proposed, it was in this very room. He had knelt before my parents, raising three fingers to swear: “Mr. Vance, Evelyn will have many titles in the future—Mrs. Carter, a daughter-in-law, a mother.” “But to me, she will always be your daughter first. She will always be Evelyn Vance.” “She won’t have to cook, she won’t have to network, she won’t have to please anyone. She can be as spoiled as she wants.” “I am marrying her not to make her sacrifice anything, but to make her the happiest girl alive.” Back then, my dad, a man who rarely cried, had red eyes as he placed my hand in Julian’s. But now? Julian wasn’t giving me love. He was making my parents drag their dignity through the mud with me. Seeing this, Chloe timidly tugged at the corner of Julian’s suit jacket. “Julian, go comfort Evelyn.” “You guys are getting married today. Please don’t fight. It’s all my fault…” “Shut up,” I said coldly, cutting her off. Chloe shrank back in fright, hiding behind Julian. Julian immediately shielded her, his face darkening. “Evelyn, why are you snapping at Chloe?” “She was kind enough to borrow shoes to solve your problem, and instead of saying thank you, you yell at her?” I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms. I pointed at the size 6 wedding shoes. “Julian, pick up that shoe.” “Look at the back of the clasp. Tell me what is engraved there.” Julian suspiciously picked up the shoe and flipped it over. On the back of the metal clasp, two letters were clearly engraved: J & C Julian’s eyes flickered with panic, but he quickly forced a calm expression. “It’s just the designer’s personal mark. Stop looking for problems.” I exposed his lie without mercy. “The brand’s founder’s initials are not J and C.” Chloe waved her hands in a panic. “No, that’s not it… Julian said he wanted to give me a gift last month. Maybe the workshop mixed up the orders…” Mixed up the orders? The wedding shoes bought for the bride were engraved with the initials of the groom and another woman. He hadn’t even bothered to check them, or perhaps he just didn’t care if I found out. I threw back the wedding blanket and stepped bare feet onto the cold hardwood floor. The chill traveled from the soles of my feet straight to my heart. “Julian, do you really think I can’t survive without you?” Julian didn’t expect that I, who had always been submissive, would openly defy him in front of both our parents. “Stop acting crazy. The cars are waiting. Put on some shoes and let’s go.” He reached out to grab my wrist. I stepped back to avoid him, grabbed my wedding veil, and ripped it off my head. The hairpins holding the veil scattered all over the floor, and my long hair fell loosely over my shoulders. “I’m not going!”

Julian’s hand froze in midair. He stared at the white veil I had thrown at my feet, his breathing turning heavy. After a brief moment of panic, he straightened his back again, his voice turning threatening and cold. “Evelyn Vance, you better think carefully about the consequences.” “If you don’t walk down those stairs today, what will all the guests outside think of you?” “Will your family ever be able to hold their heads up in this town again?” He adjusted his slightly messy cuffs, treating the initials on the wedding shoes as a minor, insignificant detail. “No wedding is perfect. It’s just a little hiccup.” “If you want to throw a tantrum, I can let it slide, but don’t play games with our wedding.” “This ceremony isn’t something you can just cancel whenever you feel like it.” My mom held my hand tightly, glaring angrily at Julian. “Even if our family is whispered about for the rest of our lives, we will never throw our daughter into a burning fire!” “The wedding is off! We will take the blame, and we will pay back any deposits ourselves!” My dad’s slightly hunched back straightened up, his voice booming like a bell. “Don’t be afraid, Evelyn. Your parents are still here. Nobody can force you to marry someone you don’t want to.” “At worst, we’ll just move to another city. We’ll survive.” My nose tingled, and tears threatened to spill over. The people who truly loved me would never ask me to sacrifice myself for “the bigger picture.” They would stand by my side without hesitation when I was wronged. Julian’s face was incredibly ugly. He gave my parents a icy look, then turned to Chloe. “Chloe, take the bridesmaids to the venue first. Help me keep the guests and elders calm.” “I’ll stay here until she regains her senses.” Chloe nodded, holding her dress as she quickly walked out. Beatrice followed close behind, letting out a sneer before she left: “I’d like to see how long Evelyn can keep up this act.” “Once the wedding time passes, let’s see how the Vance family faces anyone in town!” The best men also took the hint and stepped out of the room. The bedroom fell quiet. Only my angry parents, myself, and Julian, who was leaning against the door frame lighting a cigarette, remained. “Don’t be sad, Evelyn…” My mom gently stroked my hair, her heart aching. “We can always move. Your dad and I have our pensions, we can support you!” I squeezed her hand, any remaining hesitation in my heart completely vanishing. Julian blew out a cloud of smoke and let out a soft sneer. “Alright, that’s enough. The venue is booked, you’ve already accepted the wedding expenses, and everyone is waiting.” “You’re twenty-six, Evelyn. If you don’t get married today, the whole town will know you were dumped. Who would ever want to marry you after this?” He gestured toward the size 6 shoes with his chin. “Be a good girl, put the shoes on, get in the car, and I can pretend none of this happened.” I didn’t even look at him. “Julian, you can marry whoever you want.” The moment my words fell, a panicked voice of a best man came from the hallway: “Julian! There are over a dozen black Rolls-Royce Phantoms downstairs! Their license plates are all sequential!” “They’ve completely blocked our wedding convoy! The scale is insane!” Amidst the shocked gasps outside, the elevator bell dinged. Steady, heavy footsteps approached from the hallway. Julian, still holding his cigarette, turned his head in confusion. A tall, striking man walked in against the light, followed closely by four suited bodyguards. His custom-made pure black suit wrapped perfectly around his broad shoulders and narrow waist. His sharp eyes carried the undeniable authority of a powerful business tycoon. Between his long fingers, he held a transparent, temperature-controlled dust box. Inside the box was a pair of hand-stitched, soft lambskin flat wedding shoes in vibrant red. Those were the shoes he had crafted years ago, holding my ankle and measuring my foot inch by inch with his own hands. Sebastian Thorne walked straight past the dumbfounded Julian and knelt on one knee right in front of me. He looked up, his deep, dark eyes locking onto mine. “Evelyn, I’m here to take my bride home.”

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Everyone was waiting for Tristan to propose to me—his deaf first love—with that rare pink diamond. He had rehearsed the proposal hundreds of times. The entire world was convinced we would end up together. But a sudden earthquake hit, and I vanished, losing all contact. By the time I crawled my way back to survive, he had completely forgotten about me. For his stepmother’s daughter, he smashed the cake I spent all day baking. For her, he went crazy and cried. “Listen, Sera. I don’t care how much I loved you before. Right now, Melanie is my only girlfriend.” Heartbroken and exhausted, I decided to let go. Yet, when I finally walked away, the cold, ruthless man knelt on the wet sand, grabbing my hand, begging. “Don’t leave me, Sera. Without you, I’ll die.” My eyes held nothing but icy indifference. I let out a cold laugh. “The moment you chose to abandon me, Tristan, you were already dead in my heart.” On Tristan’s birthday, he invited his friends to a private VIP club at the mountain peak. By the time I arrived, there were no seats left. One of his friends led me over to him. “Hey Tristan, where should Sera sit?” Tristan glanced at me as I stood outside his luxury car. He spoke carelessly. “Let the deaf girl squeeze in with you guys. I have to go pick up Melanie.” “But man, we’re all driving convertibles and we’ve all got girls. She can’t sit on our laps.” Tristan scoffed, irritation in his voice. “Then let her sit on your laps!” Without another glance at me, he slammed the gas pedal of his silver Bugatti, leaving me in a cloud of dust. Recalling the lip-reading of that conversation, my lips curved into a bitter smile. They didn’t know I could read lips perfectly. I didn’t know how long it took before I finally pushed the doors open to enter the club. The first thing I saw was Tristan gently wiping tears from Melanie’s face. “Don’t cry, Melanie. No one is going to drive you away from me. You’re the one who saved my life.” “I won’t believe a word they say.” When Tristan spotted me, his eyes instantly narrowed into a harsh glare. He had clearly had too much to drink, his face flushed red with alcohol. I quietly retreated to a corner, pulling out a hangover cure from my bag, waiting. Because of my hearing loss, the world was blissfully quiet. The old Tristan used to hate places like this. He used to love curling up in a quiet corner with me, reading books, avoiding the loud crowds. Someone nudged me forward. “Sera,” Tristan called out. I held out my hand to give him the medicine, but he suddenly grabbed my wrist and pulled me close. “Where is your hearing aid?” His hand brushed against the device hanging behind my ear. Understanding his silent demand, I quickly put it on. The very next second, Tristan grabbed the back of my neck and slammed my face straight into the customized birthday cake on the table. The waiter gasped. The entire room fell dead silent. The cake was beautiful. I had spent a whole day learning from a pastry chef just to make it for him. “Aside from playing the victim and clinging to me like a pathetic beggar, what else can you do? Did you think making this stupid cake would make me love you again?” “Keep dreaming.” The greasy frosting made it hard to breathe. After a sharp, painful buzz in my ears, the whispers and mocking laughter of the crowd flooded in. Melanie had started crying earlier because someone whispered she had stolen her sister’s man. But it was the truth. She had taken advantage of Tristan’s amnesia to steal my place. My heart went cold. “I was the one who saved you, Tristan! Not her!” On the day of the earthquake, despite being severely injured and facing constant aftershocks, I dug through the ruins with my bare hands for a day and a night to pull him out. I stayed by his side without food or water until I passed out. While I was unconscious, Vivian’s daughter discovered Tristan had amnesia. She forged evidence to make herself the hero, and everyone in her family helped her spin the lie. “Is it fun to lie like this? Tristan, you were abroad when it happened. How could you have saved me?” “They fabricated everything to trick you. You can look up the records, Tristan! Don’t believe her!” Tristan sneered. “You are completely insane.” He turned his back on me. “Even if I am being tricked, I’m happy to be.” I used to organize Tristan’s birthdays every year. Tears pricked my eyes as I remembered the year we first met. We were ten. He was an rebellious, unacknowledged illegitimate son. He was only dragged out of the slums because the primary heir of his family had died in an accident. In that dangerous, hostile high-society circle, he was sensitive and cold to everyone. Except me. He was only gentle with me. The year we officially started dating, he held a slightly ugly, homemade cake with trembling hands, his eyes red. He said, “Sera, let’s spend every single birthday together from now on, okay?” I smiled and asked, “What did you wish for?” “To stay by Sera’s side forever. Until the end of time.” My thoughts snapped back to reality. Melanie looked terrified. “Tristan, don’t be like this. Sera is only making up these lies because she can’t let you go.” The smugness in Melanie’s eyes was barely hidden. She looked at my ruined, pathetic state, unable to suppress her joy. “Sera, I know you lost your hearing because you saved me when we were younger. But my family gave you a massive financial settlement for that. Let me make this clear: I will never marry you.” Wiping the frosting from my face, I let out a hollow laugh. Seeing my miserable state, he scoffed. “Clean yourself up and get out.” In the restroom, I used wet wipes to frantically clean the cream off my clothes. It wouldn’t come out. This dress was a gift from Tristan. After I accepted his confession, he had wrapped me in his arms, clumsy but incredibly gentle. “White suits my Sera best.” I used to protect this dress with everything I had. But now, the person who ruined it was Tristan himself. Melanie walked in to wash her hands, her face smug with provocation. “How does it feel to have your face smashed into your own cake?” “Save your breath, Sera. If he wanted to remember you, he would have by now. I’m the one who saved him during the earthquake. His life belongs to me.” I lowered my gaze. “I guess if you tell a lie enough times, you actually start believing it.” I had saved Tristan’s life more times than I could count. When he was depressed and starving himself, when he tried to end his life with a shard of glass, when his family’s enemies targeted him and tried to drown him in the river… I was the one who pulled him through the darkest times of his life. Melanie shook the water off her hands. “He will never remember you. Stop wasting your energy. No one cares about you anyway—not Dad, and definitely not Tristan.” “Just admit it, Sera. You’re just a pathetic, unlovable loser.” My father, Arthur, knew exactly how deeply Tristan and I had loved each other. Yet, in the face of this lie, he chose to side with Melanie. “Your sister said she’d kill herself if she couldn’t be with Tristan! She’s young and foolish, but are you senseless too?” To the public, he was always the righteous, fair businessman. I never expected him to say something so heartless to me. “How do you expect me to be sensible? I’ve given up everything she wanted. Am I supposed to hand over the man I love to her too?” In the middle of the night, Tristan suddenly decided to take everyone to a nearby private island for an overnight trip. They grilled, watched the stars, and admired the bioluminescent bay, leaving me completely ignored in the corner. A woman walked over to me, her tone demanding. “Sera, Tristan said he lost his watch. He wants you to go find it.” “His watch?” “Yeah. It probably fell in the woods over there.” She looked me up and down with deep disdain. “He also said, if you can’t find it, you don’t ever have to show your face in front of him again.” I looked at the pitch-black, silent woods. “Okay.” But by the time I found the watch and walked back, everyone was gone. Only a small blanket was left behind, weighted down by a note with Tristan’s handwriting. [Sera, stay on this island and think about what you did.] When I was finally brought back to the city, I ran a high fever for three straight days. My assistant, Hazel, fed me medicine with a long face, her eyes wide as she frantically signed to me. “It’s not worth it! You almost died for him so many times, and your health is completely ruined. Even if he lost his memory, he has no right to treat you like this!” “Why do you insist on staying by his side? I don’t get it.” I reached out and touched her ear, feeling the edge of her hearing aid. “I don’t get it either. But he will remember. He has to.” I drifted into a hazy sleep until a phone call woke me up. “Sera.” The line was silent for two seconds. “Starlight Hotel, Room 1309. Bring my watch over. And buy some cold medicine on your way.” He was sick? It was pouring rain outside. After waiting fifteen minutes without any Uber picking up my request, I grabbed an umbrella and ran out. Half an hour later, dripping wet, I knocked on Tristan’s hotel door. He opened the door wearing a bathrobe, leaning against the frame while smoking. His collar was open, revealing red scratch marks on his chest. Tristan looked down at me coldly, then turned to the person behind him with a smirk. “See, Melanie? I told you she’d run over even in a storm. You lost the bet.” Looking at Tristan, every cell in my body went numb with cold. “Here is your medicine and your watch. I’m not feeling well, so I’m leaving.” Melanie called out to me. “We’re sisters, after all. I’m so sorry we made you run errands in this weather. Come in and dry off.” There wasn’t a shred of apology in her voice. Tristan frowned at my dripping wet figure. “If she tells you to come in, come in.” “Wait a second. Why are you bringing your bag inside? If anything goes missing, Tristan and I won’t be able to explain it.” What could I possibly steal? I let out a mocking laugh. But when I finished drying off and walked out of the bathroom, I saw Tristan playing with the voice recorder from my bag. “Sera, I didn’t realize you were this sick. You actually sneakily recorded my voice?” He pressed play. “Sera, goodnight.” “I love you.” “I’ll always miss you.” The audio cut off. Tristan gripped the recorder tightly. “Did you seriously think you could wake up my memory with these fake, edited clips?”

“They aren’t fake,” I explained quietly. Tristan had recorded those secretly. He had to fly abroad for a week for a major bidding project, but that day happened to be our 100-day anniversary. Back then, I was studying for my master’s degree and often stayed up late organizing notes. He had secretly used my recorder to leave those three sentences. During the year he was missing, there were so many nights I couldn’t get through. I survived by listening to that recording on loop. Tristan turned to me. “Listen. I don’t care how much I loved you before. Right now, Melanie is my only girlfriend.” Right in front of my face, he deleted the files, completely wiping the memory card. That was the last recording of his voice I had. The rest had already been destroyed by Melanie. I wasn’t willing to accept this. I couldn’t accept that the boy who once looked at me with nothing but absolute devotion had completely forgotten and discarded me. I couldn’t accept standing by and doing nothing while he loved someone else. Everyone told me to let it go. But… “Tristan, did you really forget everything? Did you forget when we were ten, I had a high fever and you carried me on your back for a mile just to hail a cab to the hospital?” “Did you forget how we skipped classes to climb walls just to see a concert? Did you forget how you kept practicing your speech to propose to me…” Melanie’s expression grew increasingly panicked. She clutched Tristan’s arm, looking at his tense face. “Tristan… if you remember, will you stop wanting me?” Tristan’s face suddenly went cold. “Enough! I don’t want to remember any of it!” The next second, a painful yank pulled at my ear. My hearing aid was ripped away and clamped in Tristan’s hand. My eyes widened in panic. “What are you doing? Tristan, give it back!” Tristan walked to the window and threw it out. “I don’t want to hear another word from you.” I scrambled to the window, leaning out so far to catch it that I almost fell. Tristan reacted instantly, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me back, yelling in anger, “Sera! Are you insane?! Do you want to die?!” Melanie was visibly startled by my reaction. “Maybe I am insane,” I whispered. Tristan froze. “You can hear me?” Suppressing the bitter ache in my chest, I spoke coldly, “I can read lips. Everything you say, I know.” I pushed him away and ran downstairs to find the hearing aid. This hearing aid was a gift from Tristan. He once said, “Sera, let me be your ears.” He also said, “Once all the family drama is over, we’ll get married.” I held the shattered pieces of the hearing aid in my palm and sobbed uncontrollably in the rain. I went to the hospital alone to get fitted for a new hearing aid. I sat quietly in the corner of the hallway, watching people pass by. In the past, whenever I came to the hospital, Tristan was always by my side. He would handle all the paperwork, treating me like a fragile princess. I unlocked my phone and saw Melanie’s Instagram post. [So happy @Tristan] I hesitated for a second before clicking on the video. On the screen, Tristan was wearing a tailored suit, kneeling on a red carpet, holding a diamond ring as he proposed to Melanie. “Melanie, from the moment you saved my life, I knew I belonged to you. I will use all my love to make you happy. Will you marry me?” Melanie covered her mouth in tears of joy. “Yes! I do!” As she nodded, Tristan let out two tears, pulled her up, and kissed her. The heartwarming scene did nothing to warm my frozen heart. My vision went black, and I collapsed in the hospital hallway. The only person who rushed over to take care of me was Hazel. Hazel signed to me with teary eyes, “Rest up. I put your phone on silent. Just sleep. Everything will be better tomorrow.” I drifted into a restless sleep until a loud bang woke me up. Hazel was violently pushed to the floor by Tristan. He stormed toward my bed. Before I could react, his hands wrapped tightly around my throat. His fingers turned white from the sheer force, his veins bulging. It felt like he wanted to crush my neck. As suffocation took over my brain, Hazel scrambled up, using her small body to frantically pull Tristan away. She was mute, unable to scream. She could only watch in terror as my pale face turned purple. “Tell me! Where did you hide Melanie?! She’s your sister!” Desperate, Hazel grabbed a vase from the nightstand and smashed it over Tristan’s head. A drop of blood fell onto my cheek. Tristan snapped out of his frantic state, his grip on my throat loosening, though his red handprints remained bruised on my skin. Tristan clutched his bleeding forehead, looking tortured. “Sera… Melanie is missing. I’ve searched the entire city and I can’t find her.” He pulled out Melanie’s phone. “The last text she sent was to you.” [Sera, Tristan proposed to me. I thought about it all night, and I feel so guilty. I’m giving him back to you. You must take good care of him like we agreed. I won’t ever show my face to you guys again.] “What agreement? What did you agree with her?” Due to the lack of oxygen, my vision was blurry. “I don’t know where she is.” His hands tightened again. “Stop lying! Who else would want her gone besides you?” “So… that’s the kind of cheap, malicious person I am to you.” Seeing the last spark of light fade from my eyes, Tristan froze for a split second. “I’ll say it one last time. I didn’t kidnap anyone.” Tristan was on the verge of losing his mind. Outside, the storm raged on. In the quiet hospital room, a sharp ringtone broke the silence. “Tristan! We found Melanie’s location using her GPS. She’s at the edge of the cliff! Hurry, she’s going to jump!” Tristan glared at me, then dragged me out of the hospital bed. “You’re coming with me to explain everything.” Hazel tried to block him, typing frantically on her phone, but Tristan completely ignored her. He brutally ripped the IV needle out of the back of my hand, making me gasp in pain. I was thrown into his car. Before I could even buckle my seatbelt, he slammed on the gas. He drove like a maniac through the storm, nearly hitting several cars. With a loud screech, the car skidded on the wet road and crashed into a tree. Terrified, I reached out to check on Tristan’s condition. But he ignored me, restarted the engine with bloodshot eyes, and fought the steering wheel. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him look this desperate. But this time, it wasn’t for me. “Melanie, you have to be okay…” The scent of blood filled the car. Five minutes later, we finally arrived at the edge of the cliff along the highway. The rain poured down, soaking Melanie’s dress in mud. “Melanie! Don’t do anything stupid! I swear I only love you!” Tristan screamed. She sobbed loudly. “Don’t come near me! I can’t live with this guilt and my love for you. Please forgive me for being selfish!” Tristan shoved me toward her. “Sera! Tell her! Tell her you’ll announce to the media that we broke up mutually!” Our love story had been highly publicized by the media, and our engagement was public knowledge. I turned to look at him, but his eyes were completely fixed on Melanie. He roared at me, entirely blind to the last shred of hope dying in my eyes. “Say it!”

I slowly slid the engagement ring off my finger and threw it off the cliff. “I will make it clear to the media.” He had placed that ring on my finger himself, telling me I could never take it off until our wedding day. “Melanie, did you hear that? She said it herself!” Tristan yelled. It felt like my heart had been tossed into boiling oil, then instantly frozen in ice. Melanie’s tense shoulders relaxed slightly. But suddenly, the wet mud beneath her feet gave way, and she slipped over the edge. She screamed, grabbing a loose pine branch. Tristan rushed forward to catch her, but his right shoulder had been dislocated during our car crash earlier. “Tristan, don’t let go! I don’t want to die! Pull me up!” Melanie clung to his injured arm. Tristan’s face contorted in agony, but he squeezed his eyes shut. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you. Hold on!” The rain made everything slippery, and their grip was sliding. I ran forward and grabbed Melanie’s other arm. “Hold on! We’ll pull you up!” With a hard tug, we managed to pull her back onto safe ground. But just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, a violent force slammed into my chest, shoving me backward. With a sharp gasp, I lost my balance and tumbled off the cliff. At the brink of death, my hands instinctively clawed at the wet rocks. Three of my fingernails ripped completely off, exposing raw flesh and mud. The agonizing pain snapped me into absolute clarity. Tristan hadn’t expected me to fall. “Sera! Hold on! I’m coming down to get you!” He held onto a thin tree trunk, reaching his hand down to me. Melanie stood frozen above. “Tristan, don’t go down! What if you fall too? Let’s just call the rescue team!” “Sera, don’t blame me… I didn’t mean to push you.” She stood there watching us, the rain washing over our faces. Tristan’s head throbbed with a sharp pain. “Sera… grab my hand!” I looked at Tristan’s pale face. Slowly, my bloody fingers slipped from his grip. I didn’t have the strength to hold on anymore. “Tristan, this time, I’m letting go.” Hearing my words, a look of sheer terror flashed in his eyes. Maybe he finally remembered. He remembered a girl who had once held onto his hand over a suspension bridge, holding on even when her lips were bitten raw and her hands were covered in blood. That day, Tristan had looked at my bleeding hands and screamed, “Sera, let go! If you don’t, you’ll fall with me!” “I won’t!” That day, his family’s enemies had staged a car crash to eliminate him. We had crawled out of the wreckage, nearly falling hundreds of feet into the river below. “I don’t have any warmth or energy left to wait for you to remember anymore.” Even if he got his memory back, he was no longer the Tristan who loved me. “Sera! Hold on to me!” “Tristan,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “I really don’t want you anymore.” My body felt like it was on fire, scratched and pierced by branches as I fell. When I finally opened my eyes again, the world was silent and dark. I couldn’t hear… and I couldn’t see. Until someone gently placed a brand new hearing aid behind my ear and pulled me into a warm embrace. The man’s hot chest pressed against my back. He leaned close to my neck, his breath warm. “Sera, you lost the bet.” “Now, will you finally look at me?” He intertwined his fingers with mine, his cool lips gently pressing against my scarred, battered fingers. A shiver ran down my spine. “Do you want me to destroy them for you?” Julian’s voice was dark, devoid of any warmth, yet laced with a dangerous, possessive affection. “I’ll be your loyal dog, Sera. Only yours.” Fortunately, my blindness was temporary. By the time I filed a lawsuit against Melanie for attempted murder, Arthur arrived at the hospital with Vivian and Melanie in tow. But they weren’t here to check on my health. The moment Arthur walked in, he slapped me across the face. “Sera! How dare you sue your own sister? Are you trying to make our family the laughingstock of the city?” I had long stopped expecting any warmth from him. “Really? Since when does a sister push her own sister off a cliff?” I threw my phone onto the bed, playing the video. In the recording, Melanie hadn’t slipped and accidentally pushed me. She had clearly waited for the perfect moment to shove me down. I had to thank Tristan’s dashcam for recording everything so clearly. It was just a pity that my vision hadn’t fully recovered yet, so I couldn’t see their terrified, pale faces. Melanie’s smug face contorted with fear. “How… how is this possible? I thought I deleted…” Arthur turned to Melanie in disbelief. “What is the meaning of this?!” He quickly slipped back into his role of the stern, righteous father. Melanie, realizing the deleted video had somehow ended up in my hands, lost her mind. She grabbed my phone and smashed it on the floor, screaming hysterically, “This video is fake! Sera, you’re framing me just because you want to ruin my life!” Even now, she was still acting. I truly admired her acting skills. “Whether the video is fake or not, the police forensics team will decide. And by the way, that wasn’t the only copy.” “Melanie, I’m giving you one chance to apologize. Once you miss it, you’re done.” Vivian knew her daughter well. Realizing Melanie was guilty, she panicked. She raised her hand and slapped Melanie hard. “Kneel down and apologize to your sister!” Melanie clutched her bruised cheek, stomping her foot as she fled the room. “Sera, don’t even dream of getting an apology from me!” By the time Vivian ran out to chase her, Melanie had already vanished. Vivian turned back to me with a tight, fake smile. “Sera, your sister is just immature. I’ve already punished her for you.” A light slap on the cheek counted as punishment? “Oh, is that a punishment? I thought you would punish her the way you used to punish me, Vivian.” When I was six, I tried to save a stray cat Melanie was torturing. In the process, I accidentally stepped on a few of Vivian’s precious roses. When she found out, she whipped my legs with a thick steel ruler until they were black and blue, leaving me unable to stand. Then, she locked me in a dark, cramped closet for two days without food. No matter how much I screamed and cried, she never softened. If a maid hadn’t remembered to let me out, I would have died in there. And now, a single slap was supposed to make us even? How cheap did she think my life was? “Look at me now. I’m half dead. Do you really think a slap is enough?” Vivian’s face darkened, but she couldn’t snap back. “Then what do you want?” I tilted my head and smiled. “Well, I haven’t decided yet. Actually… I don’t really want to forgive her. How about you kneel down in her place, and maybe I’ll think about it?” As we stood in a tense standoff, Tristan suddenly pushed the door open and walked in. “Sera, don’t push people too far!”

I laughed out loud, my voice dripping with mockery. “I haven’t even done anything yet, and you already think I’m pushing them too far, Tristan? If that’s the case, tell Melanie to come here herself and beg for my mercy.” “We’re sisters, after all. Right?” I whispered the last word, my casual attitude making Tristan’s blood boil. “I was the one who made you go to the cliff, so I’ll take responsibility for your injuries. But you fell because you lost your footing, you can’t blame Melanie. Besides, you’re alive and well now.” What a twisted logic. “Who told you I fell because I lost my footing? And who told you I am ‘alive and well’?” “Look at my eyes. The doctor said they were almost blinded by the branches.” Right in front of him, I unpeeled the thick bandages wrapped around my hands. Instantly, the horrific wounds were exposed. My finger bones were severely bruised, and the raw flesh, though scabbed over, looked terrifying. When I pulled back the hospital gown, my skin was covered in deep purple bruises, with a long, jagged scar stretching from my arm all the way to my collarbone. Even Arthur frowned at the sight. No woman would willingly ruin her own body like this. And everyone knew my profession. I was a pianist. My hands were my life. “You…” Tristan stammered, his voice caught in his throat. “I didn’t know you were hurt this badly… I thought…” I ignored the guilt in his eyes. “Didn’t you say I’m alive and well, so I shouldn’t complain? Now you see exactly how ‘well’ I am.” “If I hadn’t been lucky, you would be looking at a corpse right now. What right do you have to ask me to let it go, Tristan?” I looked up, my voice dead cold. “Even if a wound heals, does it mean it was never cut open?” “I’m tired. If you aren’t here to sincerely apologize, get out.” Tristan stood frozen, staring at me. Finally, he dragged a chair over to my bedside. “I misunderstood you, and I caused your injuries. To make it up to you, I will personally take care of you until you recover.” Tristan didn’t look much better himself. His arm was in a cast, his head wrapped in gauze, and his face was extremely pale. He tried to play the emotional card. “You said I used to love you a lot. What was I like back then?” My lips trembled under the bandages, my eyes turning wet. “He would believe me unconditionally.” Tristan didn’t stay long. A frantic phone call came in from Melanie. “Tristan! I’m standing downstairs, and several police officers just arrived to arrest me!” “I’m so scared… where are you?” Tristan hung up the phone with one hand. “Sera, I have to handle something. Wait for me to come back.” As his footsteps faded down the hall, I clutched the blanket and let out a cold, mocking laugh. He promised to take care of me, yet without a second thought, he abandoned me again to run to Melanie. “Sera, please forgive your sister,” Arthur sighed deeply. “Sure,” I smiled brightly. “Really?” Vivian asked with hope in her eyes. “Tell her to throw herself off that same cliff. If she breaks an arm and gets her face ruined, I’ll drop the charges immediately.” Vivian bit her lip, and with a loud thud, she fell to her knees before me. It was a heavy, painful drop. “You said you’d forgive her if I knelt. I beg you, Sera. She’s still young, she can’t have a criminal record.” My face remained expressionless. “I said I’d think about it, Vivian. You actually knelt?” Melanie, having evaded the police, ran back into the room. The moment she saw Vivian kneeling before me, her eyes turned red and she burst into tears. “Mom! Don’t kneel to her!” The police officers quickly caught up. Vivian held onto Melanie’s hand, begging the officers, “Please, officer! My daughter is a good girl! She didn’t do anything!” Once the chaotic noise finally faded down the hallway, I leaned back against my pillow, exhausted. Suddenly, someone pulled back my blanket and slid in beside me. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, sharing his warmth with me. “Sera, choose me. I will never betray you.” My heart felt incredibly complicated. “Julian, I don’t love you.” “It doesn’t matter,” he whispered, twirling a strand of my hair around his fingers. “I can wait until you completely clear him out of your heart.” I had saved Julian under a bridge during my freshman year of college. Unlike Tristan, Julian was the legitimate heir of the powerful Julian family. But the fight for succession in his family was brutal. Our relationship was strange—he was always quiet, cold, and eccentric. Later, on the day of my engagement to Tristan, he left the country. When I heard his name again, he had become a powerful figure no one dared to cross. I never knew he held such deep, dark feelings for me. He gently traced the soft palm of my hand. “I’ll make them beg on their knees for your forgiveness.” “I’ve already set everything up. Just wait for him to come crawling back.” The Melanie family was already in chaos because of Melanie’s arrest. Normally, they could have resolved this with some money, but because of pressure from the Julian family, every door was slammed in their face. I ignored all the calls from Arthur and Vivian. Once my vision fully returned, I went to the hospital to schedule my cochlear implant surgery. Just as I reached the clinic door, Tristan called. Hearing Tristan’s voice, Julian’s grip on my waist tightened. He leaned against my shoulder, his breathing turning heavy and dark. “Sera, can you please let your sister go?” I shrugged, looking at Julian with a smile. Half of his face was shadowed in the dim light of the hallway, looking dangerously beautiful. Even if I wanted to let her go, Julian wouldn’t allow it. I stared at my scarred hand, my tone dripping with mockery. “I already told you. Unless she throws herself off that cliff and rips off three of her own fingernails, I won’t drop the charges.” “If there’s nothing else, I’m hanging up.” “Wait,” Tristan inhaled sharply. “Sera, can you return the 5% of company shares I gave you?” Return them? Why on earth would I? I directly sent him a video clip. “You forgot, didn’t you?” In the video, a younger Tristan smiled brightly at the camera. “Today, I am voluntarily transferring 5% of my company shares to my beloved Sera. I will never take them back.” In the video, my past self gasped. “How can you do that?” “Sera, you saved my life so many times. Without you, I wouldn’t have anything I have today. If I ever betray you in the future, I hope I die a horrible death.” I had jumped into his arms in the video. “Don’t make such horrible vows!” “Then you can rest easy, because I will never make a mistake. I will only ever believe in my Sera.” The chat window went silent, showing [Typing…]. Tristan called back. “I’ll buy the shares back from you. Name your price.” Name my price? Could he ever afford the price of my youth, my energy, and the agonizing pain in my body and soul? “Thirty billion dollars, Tristan. Are you buying?” “Sera, you are completely out of your mind!” The doctor inside called my name. Julian stood close, his large hands cupping my face. He pressed a soft kiss against my eyelashes. “Sweetheart, pay attention to me,” his deep, magnetic voice whispered in my ear, warm and seductive. “Do you want me to get you a pillow? It’ll make the seat more comfortable.” I blinked, slightly dazed. Since when was he this polite? His voice was clearly heard by Tristan over the line. “Sera! What are you doing? Why is there a man with you?!” Asking me this now? Isn’t it a bit too late? “Tristan, what I do with other men is none of your business. Don’t you think your question is incredibly pathetic and inappropriate?” I hung up immediately. Julian leaned down, pressing his lips against my collarbone. “Sera, I’m jealous.” I gently patted his head. “Julian, I’m never looking back.” Tristan’s family company was in complete chaos. A mysterious force was aggressively buying up board seats, aiming to overthrow Tristan as the majority shareholder. Coincidentally, my 5% shares were the key to tipping the scale. Tristan’s father, Charles, who had already retired, had to step in to protect the company. Over the phone, he tried to play nice. “Sera, I’ve always approved of you and Tristan. In my heart, you are the only daughter-in-law of our family.” “Really? But he’s the one who wanted to call off the engagement in front of the media.” Charles let out a dry laugh. “He’s just acting out. Once you two are married, he will realize who is truly good to him.” In the dimly lit room, Julian was gently applying ointment to my scars, his hand resting on my waist, tightening slightly. He stared at me, a dark fire dancing in his eyes, laced with testing and laziness. “Tell him… as long as Tristan marries you, you will hand over the 5% shares as a wedding gift.”

Julian narrowed his eyes, gently pinching my chin. Seeing how easily the situation had turned, Charles’s voice filled with joy over the phone. “Deal.” He didn’t care who Tristan married; he only cared about his own profits. As expected, Tristan called me shortly after. His voice was hoarse and dripping with pain. “Sera! I will never marry you! Don’t even dream of it!” “I’m impressed you still have the energy to scream at me.” Tristan had grown up being beaten by his father, only rebelling once he became an adult. In the past, I used to hate Charles’s harsh parenting. Whenever Tristan was beaten and locked up, I would sneak in to bring him medicine. “The more you don’t want to do something, the more I’ll make you do it,” I laughed softly. “I’ll be waiting for you to beg me to marry you.” Because of Tristan’s constant delays, his family’s company began to fracture from within. I spent my days peacefully in my new apartment, watering flowers and reading books. Meanwhile, Tristan was running around frantically, trying to make up for the financial damage my 5% shares could cause. Julian stayed by my side, making every day peaceful and sweet. He personally dried my wet hair, lifting me up to sit on the counter. “Sera, it’s time for him to come beg.” Under pressure from his father, Tristan finally agreed to marry me. Charles arranged a private meeting for us. Tristan glared at me, his eyes filled with a rage that wanted to tear me to pieces. I took a sip of my tea. “Mr. Charles, Tristan doesn’t seem very willing. Let’s just forget it. I don’t like forcing people.” Charles immediately stood up. “To marry a girl as beautiful and talented as you is his blessing! How could he be unwilling?” Charles left the room to let us talk privately, giving Tristan a warning look before he closed the door. “Tell me, what do you actually want?” Tristan smashed his teacup onto the table, his eyes burning with hatred. “Didn’t you say you loved me? Otherwise, I wouldn’t have lied to you… and pushed you to this point.” Irritated by my words, Tristan stood up to leave. “Go ahead. The moment you walk out that door, I’ll dump my shares into the open market.” Tristan slammed his fist on the table in frustration. Before he could throw another tantrum, I spoke quietly, “Call Melanie. Tell her the good news about our wedding.” Tristan’s throat bobbed. He suppressed his rage, looking conflicted and miserable. “You need to think this through.” When Melanie, who was still in the detention center, heard the news, she screamed and almost passed out. I took the phone from Tristan’s hand, listening to her hysterical cries with a cold smile. “Melanie, this is how it feels to have what belongs to you stolen. Do you like it?” On the day we went to try on wedding dresses, Tristan handed me a share transfer agreement. “Sign this now, and we’ll get married.” His tone was incredibly cold, making me burst out laughing. “You seem to have forgotten, Tristan. I’m the one holding all the cards here.” Tristan frowned. “Then what do you want?” I looked at the faint, pale ring mark on my finger, tilting my head. “Go find the engagement ring you made me throw off the cliff.” “The moment you bring it back is the moment I sign this contract.” I walked into the dressing room alone. I saw Julian standing inside, his long eyelashes casting a shadow over his dark, silent eyes. I pulled the curtain shut. Julian stepped forward, wrapping his arms tightly around my waist from behind. “The wedding dress is beautiful. I wish you’d only wear it for me.” Looking at my reflection in the mirror, the scars on my shoulders were hard to hide. Julian suddenly leaned down and pressed a deep kiss against my scar. I gasped, quickly covering my mouth with my hand. At that moment, the sound of Tristan’s leather shoes echoed outside the dressing room. “Sera, I’ll go find the ring. You better keep your word.” Seeing my tense expression, Julian smirked. He pressed closer to my lower back, his breath warm against my ear. “Sera, do you like this?” Overwhelmed by the sensation, I couldn’t find the strength to answer Tristan. I bit my lip and glared at Julian. Hearing no response, Tristan reached out to pull back the curtain. “Are you in there?” I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned forward and bit Julian’s hand. “Stop it!” Julian let out a low chuckle, his handsome face filled with dark amusement. “I’m changing… Tristan, I want you to personally find that ring and bring it back to me.” I followed Tristan to the highway cliff. I watched him use climbing gear to go down the cliff again and again, searching through the mud and rocks only to return empty-handed. Eventually, I got bored and left him there. Later, the hospital contacted me saying Tristan had lost his footing, tumbled down the cliff, and stayed trapped there all night. Fortunately, he was rescued. I walked into his hospital room at a leisurely pace. He was covered in bruises, his leg wrapped in a thick cast. “Did you find it?” Tristan coughed violently. “No. I couldn’t find it.” I curled my lips into a sweet, innocent smile. “Of course you couldn’t. I had my people retrieve it days ago.” “Sera! You played me!” He tried to sit up in anger, but I pressed him back down by his injured shoulder. “Tristan, remember this feeling. This is what it feels like to be played. Does it feel good?” His eyes were filled with a chaotic mix of emotions as he stared at me. He seemed to remember that rainy day on the cliff. After a long silence, his lips parted. “I’m sorry…” I had waited so long for this apology. But now, it felt incredibly cheap. “Throwing something away is so easy, Tristan. But trying to find it again? It’s harder than climbing to heaven.” I loosened my grip on the lawsuit, allowing Melanie to be released on bail. If she stayed locked up, the game wouldn’t be fun anymore. The moment Melanie was released, she threw a massive tantrum. She tried to go to Tristan’s house multiple times, but Charles blocked her every single time. She was furious but had no way to vent. The current situation was too tense, and her family didn’t dare let her make a scene that would attract the media. In desperation, Melanie staged a suicide attempt by pretending to take an overdose. Of course, it was just a show. Unfortunately for her, it barely made a splash. When I heard the news, I walked into her hospital room. The moment she saw me, she grabbed a flower vase and threw it straight at my head. Arthur stood by her side, his face cold and disappointed. Looking at the chaotic state of the family, his patience had worn thin. “Sera, look at what you’ve done to this family! Do you even respect me as your father?!” Since he asked, I decided to be completely honest. “Do you even deserve to be called my father? From the moment you helped Melanie steal everything I worked for, crushing my dreams into the dirt, you should have known our relationship was dead.” I had recently discovered through a private investigator that Melanie was only a year younger than me. That meant while my mother was dying of cancer in her hospital bed, Arthur was already sleeping with Vivian. When I was five, they moved into our house, taking over my mother’s room and belongings. Because Melanie was jealous of my talent in dancing when we were children, she staged a “car accident” that crushed my bones, ensuring I could never dance again. She had spent her entire life trying to eliminate me. “I only called you ‘Dad’ out of respect for giving me life. But do you deserve it? This cold, rotten family makes me sick.” Arthur’s blood pressure spiked, and he clutched the hospital bed, gasping for air. “I’ve already sent the legal severance agreement to the house. You better sign it.” I looked at him coldly. “Otherwise, if any ‘accidents’ happen to you, I will fight with everything I have to take every single penny of your inheritance and spend it all.” “You better stay alive, because I have a massive gift waiting for you all.”

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My fiancée was obsessed with a brand-new condo development and insisted I buy a unit for our future home. But just as we were about to sign the contract, she suddenly turned her attention to a cramped, 600-square-foot fixer-upper in a run-down district. “Ethan, look at this place. It has so much vintage charm.” “I want this shack to be our home.” This rundown junk house cost exactly the same as the 1,400-square-foot luxury condo. The price was way above market value. My fiancée dragged me to the real estate agency, threatening that if I didn’t buy this old place, the wedding was off. As I hesitated, a stream of glowing comments suddenly floated before my eyes. [This fixer-upper actually belongs to your fiancée’s ex-boyfriend, Tyler Ross.] [Once you buy this house, Tyler will take your money and buy that exact luxury condo you wanted as his own place.] [Sign the contract now. This neighborhood is slated for a city buyout. Massive redevelopment is coming. Meanwhile, that luxury condo project is about to go under. It will never be finished.]

My fiancée, Chloe Harper, shoved the pen into my hand, her voice sharp with impatience. “Ethan, if you don’t buy this house, the wedding is off. I mean it.” I frowned, staring at her while the words from the floating text echoed in my mind. Was this house really her ex-boyfriend’s? Just yesterday, she was head over heels for the luxury condo. Why the sudden, overnight obsession with this dump? Marcus, the real estate agent, flashed a greasy smile and chimed in. “Mr. Vance, don’t let the exterior fool you. With a little renovation, this place will look brand new.” “Besides, who knows when that new condo development will actually be completed?” “It definitely won’t be ready in time for your wedding.” Chloe nodded eagerly. “Exactly! Who knows when they’ll finish building it? It might end up as an abandoned construction site.” “Ethan, I’m not waiting forever to get married.” I was still skeptical about the mysterious floating text. I lowered my head, flipping to the seller’s information page on the contract. The name Tyler Ross stared right back at me in bold, black ink. So, the bullet comments hadn’t lied. Everything about Chloe’s bizarre behavior over the last two days suddenly made sense. I looked up, locking eyes with my fiancée. “Chloe, are you absolutely sure you want this place?” “If we buy this, we’re living here. The commute is terrible.” “Ethan, I am one hundred percent sure.” “Once we’re married, you can just buy me a new car for my commute. Problem solved, right?” She looked so desperate, as if she wanted to grab my hand and force me to sign. “Alright, Chloe. We’ll do it your way.” I gripped the pen and swiftly signed my name. The moment the ink dried, she began pushing me to wire the funds immediately. “Ethan, why don’t we go to the bank right now and finalize the payment?” “I won’t feel at peace until the money is gone.” “You already have the funds ready anyway. There’s no point in delaying.” She practically dragged me to the bank to wire the money. The very next day, she took me to the county clerk’s office to transfer the deed. That was where I met the owner of the fixer-upper, Tyler Ross. He was of average height, with a plain face, but he was incredibly enthusiastic. “Mr. Vance, if I weren’t in desperate need of cash, I would never have sold this place.” He didn’t speak to Chloe once. They didn’t even exchange a single glance. To anyone else, they looked like complete strangers. That night, I received a call from the sales manager of the luxury condo development. “Mr. Vance, are you really giving up on your unit?” “Yes.” “Alright, I’ll release the hold. Coincidentally, a Mr. Ross just put down a deposit on that exact unit. He said it’s for his upcoming wedding.” “He even brought his girlfriend along today to see it.” I was baffled. Chloe was willing to live in a dump just so her ex could afford a luxury condo? Did she still have feelings for him? Well, since the “new home” was secured, we had scheduled a dinner with both families at a high-end restaurant to discuss the wedding.

Chloe called saying she had an urgent issue at work and would be late. “Ethan, what on earth were you thinking? Passing up a luxury condo for a run-down shack?” Chloe’s mother, Eleanor, glared at me, her face pinched with dissatisfaction. “That old house couldn’t have cost much, right?” “Since the house is such a downgrade, you’ll have to make up for it with the wedding budget.” “The $30,000 we agreed on earlier is way too low. Let’s make it $90,000.” “And you need to buy Chloe a new car. Nothing less than $40,000.” Eleanor’s spit was practically flying across the table as she barked her demands. It was obvious Chloe hadn’t told her parents the actual price of the house. “Eleanor, Chloe was the one who insisted on buying that house,” I replied calmly. “She threatened to call off the wedding if I didn’t. And for the record, the old house cost the exact same as the new condo.” Eleanor and her husband exchanged a look of pure disbelief. Just then, the private dining room door slid open, and Chloe walked in, panting slightly. She took the seat next to me and hurriedly gulped down some water. “Chloe, did you really demand to buy that fixer-upper?” Eleanor’s brow furrowed, her wrinkles deepening. “Mom, it was just a sudden whim. Who knew Ethan would actually buy it?” Chloe brushed it off as if it were nothing, though she had literally blackmailed me with our marriage. “But since it’s bought, let’s just leave it at that.” Suddenly, she turned her head to look at me. “Ethan, I’m already sacrificing so much by agreeing to live in that old place. You can’t mistreat me.” “Tomorrow is the weekend. Why don’t we go shopping for my wedding jewelry?” Before I could even open my mouth, Eleanor chimed in, listing off how many carats the diamond should be. The three of them launched into a heated, enthusiastic discussion. My parents and I sat in silence, completely shut out of the conversation. Suddenly, another stream of glowing text floated before my eyes. [Your fiancée wasn’t working overtime today. She was at a luxury jewelry boutique.] [She and Tyler already picked out the exact designs. She’s just waiting for you to pay for them tomorrow.] [After buying the jewelry, she plans to drag you to a dealership to buy a car.] [Oh, by the way, she intends to ‘lend’ both the jewelry and the new car to Tyler for his wedding.] [Your fiancée is really giving her all to make sure her ex has a perfect wedding.] When the waiter served the food, Chloe’s family finally quieted down. “Ethan, it’s not convenient to commute without a car. Let’s go car shopping right after the jewelry store tomorrow.” Sure enough, her words matched the bullet comments perfectly. But I still couldn’t understand. Why was she doing this? If she still loved Tyler, why didn’t she just marry him? Instead, she was exhausting herself to fund his wedding with someone else. I tapped my fingers rhythmically against my teacup, my brow furrowing. “Chloe, I just bought the house. My liquid cash is a bit tight right now.” “There’s no rush for those things anyway. I want to prioritize the renovation budget first.” Instantly, Chloe’s face turned sour, her eyes flashing with anger. With a loud bang, Eleanor slammed her hand onto the table and stood up. “Ethan, what is the meaning of this?” “Not only are you making my daughter live in a dump, but now you won’t even buy her basic jewelry and a car?” “Let me tell you, plenty of wealthy men are begging to marry our Chloe.” “Come on, Chloe. We’re leaving. This wedding is off.” The moment she finished speaking, Eleanor grabbed Chloe’s arm and marched toward the door. My parents stood up, trying to defuse the situation, but I shook my head at them, signaling them to stay put. Noticing Chloe had left her phone on the table, I picked it up and followed them out. I caught up with them near the restaurant entrance. “Mom, what are you doing? This is so embarrassing,” Chloe was whining.

“Chloe, this is how you handle men. Now Ethan will crawl back and agree to everything.” “Even if Ethan is tight on cash, his parents have deep pockets.” “If he won’t pay up now, he never will after you’re married.” I couldn’t help but sneer inwardly. They were actually targeting my parents’ retirement savings. “Oh, wait. I think I left my phone.” Chloe patted her pockets, turned around, and froze when she saw me standing there. Shock flickered across her face, followed by awkwardness. She stammered, “Ethan… how long have you been standing there?” I handed her the phone. “I came to bring you this.” “My mom was just joking earlier. Don’t take it to heart,” Chloe said quickly, trying to smooth things over. I looked her up and down. She felt like a complete stranger to me now. Two years ago, we met at a party. She had been so gentle, sweet, and always put others first. We fell in love quickly. She had told me she wanted us to live on our own after marriage, in our own little world. My career had been going well, and I had saved enough to buy a house in full. She had fallen in love with that luxury condo development at first sight. She used to talk about how great the neighborhood was, how close it was to good schools, and how perfect it would be for our future kids. We had looked at other properties, but she rejected them all. She only wanted that one. She had repeatedly emphasized that she would never accept a secondhand house. And yet, almost overnight, she had become a completely different person. “Ethan, actually, the renovations can wait.” “We can just make do with the current state of the house and renovate it when we have more money later.” Chloe’s voice pulled me back from my thoughts. Eleanor immediately chimed in. “Chloe makes a good point. The priority right now is buying the jewelry and the car.” “Gold and diamonds only go up in value. Chloe is actually helping you save money, Ethan.” By this time, my parents had caught up and walked out of the restaurant. “We can talk this through. It’s a waste to leave all that food. Why don’t we go back inside?” my mom suggested gently. Hearing this, Chloe nodded. “Yes, let’s go back inside.” “My mom was just hot-headed. Please don’t be angry.” But as they tried to walk past me, I stepped in and blocked the entrance. “Chloe, I won’t be buying the jewelry or the car anytime soon.” “And I will not be using a single cent of my parents’ money.” Chloe’s eyes went red. She clenched her fists so hard the veins on the back of her hands popped. “Ethan, do you really have to do this?” “Fine. Then let’s just call off the wedding.” Once again, she used our marriage to threaten me. I let out a soft, dry laugh. “Fine.” After that disastrous dinner, I cut off all contact with Chloe. My parents urged me to apologize, even offering to pay for the car and jewelry themselves, but I flatly refused. Three days later, Chloe finally called me. “Ethan, are you going to buy the jewelry and the car or not?” “If you take me shopping today, I’ll overlook everything that happened.” “But if you’re going to remain stubborn, then we’re done. Let’s break up.” My hand gripped the phone tightly. After a moment of silence, I spoke calmly. “I told you, I’m not buying them. If you want to break up, I won’t stop you.” She unleashed a stream of furious curses on the other end. Even without seeing her face, I could picture her livid expression. “Fine, Ethan. Don’t you dare regret this.” “Go ahead and rot in that garbage shack. Let’s see what kind of woman would ever be willing to live there with you.” “By the way, did you even bother to check the actual value of that dump?”

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My boyfriend of ten years, Ethan Carter, was perfect. He was handsome, brilliant, and successful. His only flaw? He loved tearing me down. If I got an A- instead of an A+, he’d tell me I “wasn’t trying hard enough.” When I finally made my first dollar writing online, he told me my stories were “utter trash.” Later, at the bridal boutique, when Ethan stared at me and sneered that my body wasn’t good enough to look like a real bride… I finally snapped. For the first time in a decade, I screamed at him: “If you think I’m so terrible, why the hell are you marrying me?” At the bridal boutique, when I stepped out of the fitting room, even the strangers nearby gasped. The stylist smiled warmly. “Miss Miller, you’re so tall and elegant. This dress looks absolutely stunning on you.” “Go show your fiancé. He’s going to fall in love with you all over again.” I smiled back nervously. “Maybe. He’s… a bit of a perfectionist.” After ten years with Ethan, I knew his standards. He had never complimented me. Not once. But today, looking at myself in the mirror, with my defined waist and glowing skin perfectly framing the delicate lace of the gown, I couldn’t help but hope. Surely, Ethan would like this. Right? Would he finally call me beautiful? Would his jaw drop like the other grooms in the shop? My heart pounded with nervous anticipation as I walked over and gently tugged on Ethan’s sleeve. But a second later, my hope was brutally crushed.

Ethan turned around. He looked me up and down with cold, calculating eyes. The first words out of his mouth were: “Maya, you’re still too fat.” My smile froze. The stylist beside us went completely stiff. “Your face looks bloated, your arms look thick, and your shoulders look way too broad. It’s totally unflattering.” Ethan sighed, sounding deeply disappointed. “Maya, you don’t look like a bride at all in that.” His voice wasn’t incredibly loud, but it was clear enough for everyone in the boutique to hear. Dozens of eyes locked onto me—some pitying, some mocking, some just watching the drama unfold. In that moment, I didn’t feel like a human being. I felt like a piece of cheap merchandise Ethan was inspecting and rejecting. Tears welled up in my eyes, choking the breath right out of my throat. To fit into this dress, I had done exactly what he wanted. I ran every single day. For three months, I starved myself, living on tiny portions, losing twenty pounds just so I could look perfect on our wedding day. Why was he still doing this to me? Maybe it was the months of hunger, or maybe it was the agonizing weight of shattered expectations. Whatever it was, the girl who had endured his insults for ten years was gone. I ripped the veil off my head. For the first time in my life, I screamed at him. “Ethan! If you think I’m so terrible, then don’t marry me!” “You’re right, I don’t look like a bride. So we’re not doing this. The wedding is off!” While Ethan stared at me in absolute shock, I took a deep breath, finally saying the words that had haunted my mind for years: “Ethan, we’re over. I’m leaving you.”

By the time my best friend, Chloe, came to pick me up, I still couldn’t stop crying. The moment I posted on my Snapchat that the wedding was canceled, my phone blew up. Most of the messages were variations of: “Maya, are you crazy? What did Ethan do?” “He’s such a great guy. If you let him go, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” Even my mom took his side. “I talked to Ethan. It was just a stupid dress, Maya. You’re overreacting. Don’t throw away a good man over nothing.” Meanwhile, Ethan sent me a text with just three words: *Stop being dramatic.* Staring at my phone, a profound sense of helplessness washed over me. No one understood. To the rest of the world, Ethan was the perfect catch. He was drop-dead gorgeous, highly successful, made bank, and had been loyal to me for ten years. His only “quirk” was that he liked to “motivate” me by pointing out my flaws. We were childhood sweethearts. We grew up on the same block. He had always been the golden boy—the straight-A student, the star athlete, the one who excelled at everything while I struggled to keep up. But life has a way of balancing things out. In exchange for his genius, he had a miserable home life. His mother passed away when he was young, and his father was a workaholic who barely noticed him unless Ethan brought home a trophy or an Ivy League acceptance. Because of that, Ethan grew up fast. While other kids were playing tag in the yard, Ethan was winning state math championships. That cold, lonely upbringing turned him into a reserved, distant man. But with me, he showed his sharp, critical tongue. If I got a B instead of an A, he would tap my head and tell me I “wasn’t smart enough.” He’d point at my wrong answers and demand to know how I could make “such stupid mistakes.” If I got third place in a writing competition, he’d roll his eyes, completely disappointed, and call me a “slacker.” Growing up, my mom’s favorite phrase was, “Look at Ethan. He’s so brilliant, always top of his class, winning every award. Why can’t you be more like him?” I spent my entire youth living in Ethan’s shadow. I hated how he made me feel worthless, and I hated how my mom constantly compared us. But when our teenage hormones kicked in, our friends called us “enemies to lovers.” They told me that the way Ethan treated me was just his way of showing he cared. Even when Ethan asked me out, he said: “Maya, if I didn’t love you, do you really think I’d care enough to push you this hard?” That was the first time he had ever spoken to me so softly. His eyes were warm, filled with a rare, gentle smile. With everyone around us cheering, I ignored the quiet warning bells ringing in my heart. I foolishly said yes. And that foolishness lasted ten years.

Chloe was my best friend from college, and she was the only one who supported my decision to walk away. Back in college, Ethan once asked me to meet him at the library to study. Waking up at 7 AM on a Saturday wasn’t easy. Even though I practically sprinted across campus, I was two minutes late. Ethan sat there, arms crossed, his face dark with annoyance. “Maya, why do you have zero sense of time?” “If you’re like this at a job, are you going to keep clients waiting too? What if a million-dollar contract is on the line?” I automatically started to apologize, but Chloe, who was just returning from a morning run, pulled me behind her. “Waking up early on a Saturday just to study with you is torture enough. Maya is amazing for even showing up,” Chloe snapped. “And she was literally two minutes late. Do you really need to make a federal case out of it?” From that day on, Ethan and Chloe hated each other. But Chloe loved to praise me. If I got a B+, she cheered. If I passed my finals, she threw a mini-celebration. Even if I just managed to drag myself to an 8 AM lecture, she’d tell me I was doing great. She’d say, “Don’t listen to Ethan. Our Maya is the absolute best!” That kind of validation was something I had never experienced in my twenty-something years of life. Naturally, I loved spending time with her. But Ethan despised her. “She only praises you to make you complacent. She’s keeping you blind to your own flaws.” “Constructive criticism is the only way to grow. Pointing out your weaknesses is how I show I actually care about your future.” Whenever Chloe’s name came up, Ethan’s jaw would clench, and his lips would press into a thin, tight line. I knew that look. It meant he was angry, and whenever he got angry, I was the one who got lectured. I wanted to defend Chloe. I wanted to tell him she wasn’t like that. But a familiar, paralyzing fear would creep over me, keeping me rooted to the spot. I was terrified. I was terrified of his anger, terrified of his disappointment. When Chloe heard about it later, she just sighed. “Maya, when someone spends years chipping away at your self-esteem, it’s incredibly hard to break free.” “Take your time.” So today, when I finally told her I had dumped him, Chloe was ecstatic. She hugged me tightly and whispered, “Congratulations, babe. You’re finally free.”

Chloe took me to her apartment and let me move into her spare bedroom. When she showed me the room, her eyes were shining. “Maya, look! I decorated it just for you!” I stared at the pastel pink walls, the cute Disney desk, and the plush doll resting on the bed. For a moment, I was completely dazed. Since moving in with Ethan, how long had it been since I’d owned anything like this? Ethan was a strict minimalist. Our apartment was a sterile void of black, white, and gray. Whenever I brought home anything pink or cute, he would sneer, calling my taste “utterly tacky and childish.” The memory hit me, and tears began to stream down my face again. I hugged Chloe, sobbing into her shoulder. If Ethan was a ten-year nightmare I couldn’t wake up from… Then Chloe was the universe’s way of healing me.

A few days later, I went back to the apartment to pack my things. I didn’t expect Ethan to be there, but when I opened the door, he was sitting on the couch. He lazily looked up at me. “Are you done throwing your tantrum? Are you ready to come home?” I forced myself to keep my voice steady. “I’m not throwing a tantrum, Ethan. I meant what I said. We are over.” “I’m only here to pack my things.” To my surprise, Ethan didn’t yell. He just sat there, legs crossed, hands folded, watching me with a smug, knowing smirk. I swallowed the knot in my throat and started packing. Truthfully, I didn’t have much. Most of the things in the apartment were bought by Ethan after we moved in together. When we first started living together, he saw my colorful coffee mugs and patterned towels and frowned. “Maya, your things look so cheap. They’re an eyesore.” The next day, he threw them all in the trash and replaced them with gray ones. When I tried to confront him, he just shrugged. “Your things were embarrassing. They didn’t fit the aesthetic, so I upgraded them.” That was the first time I actually wanted to break up. I couldn’t understand why a simple personal preference had to be treated like a crime. But my mom talked me out of it. “He bought you nicer things, Maya. Let it go. You guys have been together for so long, don’t throw it away over some mugs.” So, I compromised. Only years later did I realize: it wasn’t a small thing. Nothing that makes you feel small is ever a small thing.

The only part of that apartment I actually loved was my writing corner. A simple desk, a lamp, and my laptop. That was where I had written countless stories. I had loved writing since I was a kid, but Ethan always scolded me for “wasting my time on useless fantasies,” so I had put my dream on hold. In college, with more free time, I started writing online again. Ethan was my very first reader. I had eagerly shown him my draft, hoping for a shred of encouragement. But after skimming it, he cold-boiled me with a glare. “This is absolute garbage, Maya. It makes no sense.” “You have zero talent for writing. Give it up.” But for once in my life, I loved something too much to listen to him. I kept writing. And to my surprise, my stories started getting popular. When I received my first payment from the platform, I proudly showed him my dashboard. “Look! I made three hundred dollars from my writing!” I wanted to prove to him that people liked my work. That they were willing to pay for it. I wanted to prove that I wasn’t as useless as he said. But how did Ethan react? He glanced at the screen for a split second, then looked up with utter disdain. “Useless trash.” He looked down at me like I was a charity case. “There are a lot of gullible people on the internet who probably felt sorry for a newbie. You actually think this means you’re a good writer?” “Don’t flatter yourself.” Every single word was a dagger, popping the tiny bubble of hope in my chest and leaving a bleeding, aching wound. After that day, no matter how much money I made from my books, I never mentioned my writing to Ethan again. Now, standing in my old writing corner, I took a deep breath and prepared to pack my laptop. But when I touched the trackpad, the screen lit up. My heart stopped. The folder containing my latest manuscript was gone. It was a 100,000-word draft. Every single sentence had been carefully crafted, representing months of sleepless nights and absolute devotion. I frantically checked the recycle bin. I searched the temporary Word files. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. There was only one person who could have done this. “I deleted it,” Ethan’s voice echoed from the doorway. He was leaning against the frame, looking at me with dark, unreadable eyes. “I realized this useless trash was giving you delusions of grandeur.” “Did you honestly think you could support yourself and leave me with some silly internet stories?”

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For three years, I thought my husband was just too busy with work. Until late one night, I stumbled upon a file on his tablet titled The Mental Deterioration Plan. High-frequency noise in the dead of night, slow-acting sedatives mixed into my aromatherapy candles. Step by step, he was driving me “insane.” He stole my father’s life’s work, forced me to my knees in the ruins of my childhood home, all to clear the name of the real killer. But he had no idea. Every single pill he forced me to swallow was hidden under my tongue. Every manic episode was just an act. By the time he thought I had drowned myself in the ocean, I was standing on a stage in Paris, wearing a hearing aid, accepting the highest honor in international design. Everything they took from me, I will take back ten times over. Summer’s POV I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Passing the study, I noticed Ethan’s tablet screen glowing on the desk. He hadn’t locked it. The screen was open to a hidden folder he had just viewed. I went to turn it off for him, but the moment my fingers hovered over the screen, my heart stopped. “Summer’s Mental Deterioration Plan.” Below it were the step-by-step instructions: “2:00 AM – 4:00 AM: Activate the high-frequency acoustic device in the attic to induce auditory hallucinations.” “Monday, Wednesday, Friday: Infuse bedroom aromatherapy with slow-acting neurotoxins to disrupt memory retention.” At the very bottom, the digital signature read: Ethan. Standing in the chill of the air conditioning, my fingertips went completely numb. I tapped deeper into the folder and found saved chat logs between Ethan and Chloe. Chloe: “The cathedral is almost finished, but Summer still holds the intellectual property rights. If she ever snaps out of it and sues me for plagiarism…” Ethan’s reply: “Don’t worry. I’ve already drafted the transfer agreement. As soon as the gala ends, I’ll have her sign it. After that, the cathedral belongs to you.” Ethan added: “Summer is heavily medicated. Her brain is mush. Getting her to sign will be child’s play.” I stared at the screen, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the edge of the desk. That cathedral was my father Charles’s lifelong dream. He had drawn tens of thousands of drafts for that building. I was the one who went with him to get his signature stamp made. But three months ago, just as the cathedral was nearing completion, my father was publicly accused of plagiarism. A man who had spent his entire life building an honorable reputation leaped from the top floor of the half-finished cathedral in utter humiliation. He died on impact. Ethan was convinced my father had pushed his younger sister, Lily, into the ocean to drown years ago. So Ethan married me. He showered me with affection, only to poison me and set a trap. It was all a sick game of revenge for his sister, designed to slowly drive the entire family to our graves. But he didn’t know the truth. Lily hadn’t been pushed by my father. She had been pushed by Chloe to cover up the fact that Chloe had stolen my father’s original blueprints. Now, they didn’t just want to steal my father’s legacy and win the gold award with his designs. Tomorrow, they wanted to strip me of the property rights forever. A sudden, violent spasm hit my stomach. I leaned against the desk, bent double, and dry-heaved violently. The pain curled me into a ball on the floor, my fingers clawing at the gaps in the hardwood. I pulled so hard that one of my fingernails snapped in half, blood pooling on the floor. But I couldn’t feel the physical pain. My mind was flooded with the image of my father’s broken body on the concrete. And the image of Ethan’s fake, tender smile as he held me every night, coaxing me to take those “calming pills.” He drove my father to suicide! He locked me up like a madwoman! The man who poisoned me day after day was the husband I had loved for three years! The sound of the front door unlocking echoed from downstairs. Ethan was home. I stared at the door, my fingers trembling. Moving as fast as I could, I plugged a flash drive into the tablet and copied every single byte of data. Then, I wiped the screen, placed the tablet back in its exact position, and made sure there wasn’t a single trace of it being moved. I pulled two tiny, flesh-colored earplugs from my pocket. They were high-grade noise-canceling plugs I used to use. They could block out almost all external sound. I pushed them deep into my ear canals. The world went instantly quiet. Only the heavy, ragged sound of my own breathing remained. The study door opened. Ethan walked in, dressed in a sharp black suit. His expression was soft. But when he saw me collapsed on the floor, a cold flicker passed through his eyes. “Summer? Why are you sitting on the floor in the dark?” Ethan rushed over, kneeling down to grab my freezing hands. The moment his skin touched mine, goosebumps erupted all over my body. I wanted to rip his lying face to shreds. I wanted to scream at him and demand why he murdered my father. But I forced the hatred down. I knew that if I fought back now, I would never get the blueprints back. I wouldn’t even make it out of this house alive. I had to play the part of a completely broken, insane woman. “Ethan…” I let him pull me into his chest. My body shook violently as I let my tears spill onto his sleeve. “The noise is back. There are bugs crawling in my brain, eating me from the inside. Ethan, am I really going crazy?” I cried, burying my face in his chest, my fingers tearing at his white shirt. The blood from my broken nail left a dark red smear across his clean fabric. Ethan gently stroked my back. His touch was soft, like he was petting a favorite toy. “It’s okay, Summer. It’s just hallucinations. You’ve been under too much stress lately.” His voice was deep, dripping with fake concern. But I knew the truth. At this very moment, the high-frequency transmitter in the attic was blasting at maximum volume. Ethan was watching me lose my mind, completely cold-blooded. “Here, take your medicine. You’ll feel better after a nap.” Ethan pulled out a small white bottle, tapped out a blue capsule, and handed me a glass of warm water. I stared at the blue capsule. The slow-acting poison meant to rot my brain. Without hesitation, I washed it down with the water. But as the capsule slid past my teeth, I used the tip of my tongue to wedge it firmly into the pocket of my cheek. “Good girl.” Ethan ran his fingers through my hair, a flash of smug amusement in his eyes. “Let’s get you to bed. Tomorrow, I’m taking you to the design awards. Chloe is winning the gold, and she needs her best friend there to support her.” Supporting the woman who murdered my father. He really knew how to twist the knife. I lowered my head, letting my long hair hide the burning rage in my eyes. “Okay,” I whispered obediently.

Summer’s POV Once Ethan was sure I was calm, he left the room with a few reassuring words. I bolted to the bathroom. The second the lock clicked, I threw myself over the toilet. I shoved my fingers down my throat, my nails scraping against the raw flesh of my tonsils. I gagged violently, tears streaming down my face. Finally, the blue capsule, slick with saliva and stomach acid, splashed into the bowl. The blue coating had already begun to dissolve, releasing a bitter, chemical stench. Staring at the dissolving pill, my entire body shook. If I had swallowed it tonight, I would have been a stuttering, mindless shell of a human by tomorrow morning. Ethan wanted me crazy. I didn’t have time to grieve. I had to transfer the cathedral’s intellectual property immediately. I flushed the toilet, watching the poison swirl away. I grit my teeth and looked up at the mirror. My face was ghostly pale, my eyes bloodshot, and a smear of dried blood stained the corner of my mouth. I closed my eyes and practiced a vacant, twitchy smile. Only when my reflection looked exactly like a textbook psychiatric patient did I open the door and step back out. In the bedroom, Ethan was standing by the nightstand. He held a white ceramic jar, lighting the aromatherapy candle with a match. Seeing me enter, he blew out the match and waved me over. “Summer, I had this special lavender blend made just for you. It’ll cure your headache.” I walked over. The thick, sweet scent of lavender filled the air. But beneath the floral notes was a faint, metallic tang, like rotting fish. The slow-acting neurotoxin. The chemical designed to destroy my nervous system. “It smells wonderful, Ethan.” I leaned meekly into his chest, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath of the tainted air. Ethan stroked my back, his hand moving like he was petting a dying cat. But I could feel his body tensing. He was watching my face, waiting for the reaction. I let my head slide onto his shoulder, letting my eyes glaze over before slowly closing them. “Ethan… I’m so sleepy. I’m going to close my eyes for a bit…” I mumbled, letting my limbs go limp as I drifted onto the mattress. “Sleep, sweetheart. I’m right here.” Ethan lifted my legs onto the bed and pulled the duvet over me. He sat by the edge of the bed for a few minutes. Once he was certain I was dead to the world, he stood up, switched off the lights, and quietly slipped out of the room. The moment the door clicked shut, my eyes snapped open. They were sharp, clear, and completely alert. Ethan had no idea that I had secretly swapped the poisoned wax in that jar with pure, organic lavender wax weeks ago. I slipped out of bed and reached into the deepest corner of my closet, pulling out a hidden burner phone. I dialed a number. The line rang once before a gravelly, older voice answered. “Summer?” “Robert, it’s me,” I whispered, my voice cold as ice. “My father’s reputation is gone. I can’t let them take the last thing he left behind.” Robert was my father’s most trusted legal counsel. “Summer, are you sure about this? If you secretly transfer the patent rights and Ethan finds out, he will ruin you.” Robert’s voice was thick with worry. I gripped the phone, my knuckles aching. “I don’t have a choice.” I spat the words through my teeth. “Ethan is going to force me to sign the cathedral over to Chloe tomorrow. I have to move every single design patent into my father’s offshore private trust before he can touch them.” “Understood. I’ll handle it immediately. It’ll be done within two hours. But Summer… what are you going to do tomorrow?” I didn’t answer. I silently hung up the phone. I turned my head and looked at the closet, where the white gown Ethan had chosen for me hung. In the pale moonlight filtering through the window, the dress looked like a shroud. I closed my eyes and lay back down in the dark.

Summer’s POV The next morning, Ethan woke me up early. He leaned down and kissed my forehead, his voice tender. “Morning, Summer. Time to get dressed.” I sat up obediently. Ethan walked to the closet, opened the doors, and pulled out the white gown. A few minutes later, I stood in front of the vanity mirror in the dressing room, my back arched as I struggled to reach the zipper. A pair of warm hands covered mine from behind, smoothly taking the metal clasp from my fingers. Ethan stared at my reflection in the mirror, a faint smile on his lips. His movements were light, his fingers brushing against my spine as he slowly pulled the zipper up. The dress was a fraction too tight. As the metal teeth scraped against my skin, my body instinctively tensed, a small shiver running down my back. Ethan placed his hands on my shoulders, parting my long hair to one side. He leaned down, pressing his face against my neck. His warm breath fanned across my cold skin, his voice as gentle as always. “Summer, today is a big day. If the reporters ask you anything, just say exactly what we practiced yesterday, okay?” The tone was the same one you’d use to coax a difficult child. It made my blood run cold. I stared blankly at his reflection. “Okay.” Half an hour later, I was led into the grand hall of the International Design Awards. The red carpet was swarming with media. The flashing lights were blinding. Chloe, dressed in a stunning gold gown, was holding the trophy that belonged to my family. She smiled radiantly for the cameras. When she saw Ethan leading me inside, she picked up her skirt and walked over, grabbing my hand. She leaned in close, whispering venomously in my ear, “A brain-dead bitch belongs in an asylum. But I have to thank you. Even as a cripple, you still had to crawl out today to hand me my trophy.” I heard every single word. My eyes remained vacant, but I bit the inside of my cheek until the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. Ethan kept his arm wrapped around my waist, his posture protective and doting. To anyone else, he looked like the ultimate devoted husband. With this sickeningly sweet display, he guided me toward a row of microphones. The cameras focused on us instantly. Ethan leaned down, his voice a warm whisper in my ear. “Tell the press that the cathedral design was just a manic scribble you did, and that Chloe completed it entirely on her own. Apologize to her, Summer. Be a good girl.” I looked at the reporters eagerly waiting, then at Chloe’s smug, triumphant grin. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, they were wide with pure, unadulterated terror. “Ah!” I let out a blood-curdling shriek and violently slammed my hands forward, knocking the heavy microphone stand into the press row. The metal stand crashed onto the marble floor, causing the speakers to erupt in a deafening screech of feedback. “Bugs! There are bugs biting me!” I flailed my arms wildly, my palm connecting with Chloe’s face in a brutal, resounding slap! SMACK! The force of the blow was massive. Chloe stumbled back several steps and collapsed onto the floor, the gold trophy flying from her hands and shattering into two pieces. “Summer! What the hell are you doing?!” Ethan’s face twisted in horror as he reached out to grab me. I ducked under his arms, screaming as I ran toward the massive promotional banner on the stage. I clawed at the fabric, ripping Chloe’s face to shreds with my fingernails. “Red bugs! They’re crawling out of the blueprints! They’re eating my dad’s brain!” I howled, digging my nails deep into my own face and neck, leaving red welts across my skin. Blood trickled down my collarbone, staining the chest of my pristine white gown. The entire venue erupted into chaos. Screams and shutter clicks filled the air. “Don’t let them bite me! Ethan, save me!” I threw myself into Ethan’s arms, my body convulsing as I forced white foam to bubble at the corners of my mouth. Ethan held me tight, rubbing my back, his face filled with panic and concern. But from an angle no one else could see, a brief flash of relief washed over his eyes. He truly believed I had finally lost it. “I’m incredibly sorry, everyone. My wife’s condition has flared up. Please excuse us,” Ethan announced coldly. He scooped up my shaking body and marched out of the venue. The camera flashes strobed wildly behind us. I lay limp against Ethan’s shoulder, my warm blood soaking into the fabric of his white shirt. Over his shoulder, I stared coldly at the shattered gold trophy lying on the red carpet.

Summer’s POV Ethan brought me back to the estate that night. A private doctor treated the scratches on my neck and face. Once the door was locked, I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling until dawn. The next afternoon, hearing Ethan’s footsteps downstairs, I slowly dragged myself out of bed. I messed up my hair, tore at the collar of my pajamas to expose the fresh bandages on my shoulder, and made myself look as utterly broken as possible. Only then did I walk downstairs, bare feet padding softly on the stairs, mimicking a sleepwalker. Ethan was sitting on the living room sofa. As I reached the landing, I heard Chloe’s soft, whimpering voice. “Ethan, I don’t blame Summer. She’s sick. It’s not her fault she hit me.” Chloe sat on the sofa, holding an ice pack to her swollen cheek. “I’m just worried that if she stays like this, it’ll delay the progress on the West District Theater…” Ethan poured her a glass of warm water, his tone dripping with sympathy. “You’re too soft-hearted.” I took that cue to walk down the last few steps, my eyes vacant, my hair a wild mess. Seeing me, Chloe instinctively shrunk back behind Ethan. Then, she stood up with the glass of hot water and walked toward me. “Summer, you’re awake? Here, have some water.” Just as I reached out, Chloe’s wrist violently jerked. The boiling water splashed directly onto the raw, freshly scabbed wounds on my knees. “Ah!” Chloe stumbled back, looking horrified. “I’m so sorry! My foot slipped… I didn’t mean to.” As she retreated, the sharp heel of her stiletto came down hard on my right hand, pinning it to the floor. She pressed directly onto the cracked, broken fingernail. A blinding white pain shot up my arm. I clamped my jaw shut, my entire body violently trembling. Ethan rushed over. He didn’t check on me. Instead, he guided a trembling Chloe back to the sofa before turning to me. He grabbed my bleeding hand, pulling me up. He didn’t call for a doctor. Instead, he locked his fingers around my shoulders and dragged me to my feet. His touch was still gentle, but his grip was like iron, locking me in place. “Summer, what you did at the gala yesterday was wrong. You hurt Chloe. Good girls don’t do that.” Ethan smiled, using his thumb to wipe away the tears of pain spilling from my eyes. His gentle voice made my stomach turn. “When we do something wrong, we have to apologize. Apologize to Chloe.” I froze, staring at him in disbelief. “You want me to apologize to her?” “Just say you’re sorry, and we can put this behind us.” “No!” I rasped. Ethan’s face darkened. He forced his weight down on my shoulders, slowly pushing my body down toward the sofa where Chloe sat. His massive palms held me in a vice grip, forcing my knees to slam onto the cold hardwood floor. The scabs on my knees split wide open. The pain made my vision go black. Suffocating under the humiliation, I dug my nails into my bleeding palm. I forced my head down, grit my teeth, and whispered, “I’m… sorry…” Only then did Ethan let go. He used a silk handkerchief to wipe the blood from his hands, then picked up a yellow hard hat from the table and handed it to me. His voice was warm again. “Since you’ve apologized, I need you to do something for me. Go to the West District Theater and get the acoustic readings.” I stared blankly at the yellow hard hat before reaching out to take it. As long as Chloe needed it, Ethan wouldn’t hesitate to squeeze every last drop of value out of me. Because everyone knew that only my ears could detect the most precise acoustic frequencies. Twenty minutes later, at the West District Theater construction site. The empty, concrete shell of the building was freezing. The wind howled through the open window frames. The moment I stepped into the subterranean acoustic testing room, the heavy steel door behind me slammed shut. The sound of a deadbolt sliding into place echoed through the chamber. I spun around. Through the double-paned acoustic glass, I saw Chloe standing on the other side. She held the control cables in her hand, a twisted, vicious grin on her face. “Summer, that slap from yesterday? It’s time to pay it back.” In the center of the testing room stood a massive high-frequency decibel transmitter. Chloe laughed coldly as she slammed her palm onto the console, twisting the frequency dial all the way into the red zone. SCREECH. A piercing, high-frequency wail exploded inside the sealed concrete room. The sound felt like a white-hot iron needle driving straight through my ear canal and piercing my brain. I collapsed to the floor, clutching my ears as cold sweat drenched my back. The sound was everywhere, bouncing off the concrete walls, vibrating through my skull, literally tearing at my eardrums. Warm, sticky fluid began to seep through my fingers. Blood splattered onto the cold concrete. As the world around me dissolved into a terrifying, silent void, my vision darkened, and I passed out. When I finally opened my eyes, the smell of sterile bleach filled my nose. I lay motionless on the hospital bed, staring blankly. The door clicked open, then locked from the inside. A man in a sharp grey overcoat walked over to the bed. He had incredibly dark, deep eyes. It was Christian, Ethan’s ultimate rival in the business world. He bent down, looking at me. “Stop acting. I know you’re not entirely deaf, and I know you’re not crazy.” I didn’t move. I didn’t even blink. Christian let out a low chuckle. “Don’t be scared. Your dear husband ruined your father for a mistress. You want survival, and I want power. We share the same enemy.” He leaned in close to my ear, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I can fix your ears. I can get you out of the country safely, and I can even stage a fake death for you.” “The price? Give me the evidence that Ethan stole your father’s designs.” I opened my eyes and looked at him. I had already lost everything. I was on the verge of losing my hearing entirely. There was nothing left to fear. “Deal,” I rasped, my throat raw.

Summer’s POV After Christian left, I lay on the hospital bed. I thought I would just wait for his plan to unfold and slip away quietly. But the next morning, the burner phone on my bedside table buzzed. An unknown number had sent me a video. I tapped it open. In the video, a massive excavator was smashing into a red-brick estate. The walls crumbled into dust. That was my father’s life’s work, his personal archive and memorial. In the bottom right corner of the frame, a woman’s hand, wearing a diamond bracelet, was wrapped around Ethan’s arm. It was Chloe. Then, a text message popped up: How tragic. The home you cherished so much is gone. My brain short-circuited. I didn’t care about the IV drip in my hand. I yanked it out violently, tearing the skin. Blood splattered onto my hospital gown. I didn’t even put on shoes. I ran out of the hospital barefoot. By the time I stumbled onto the gravel driveway of the estate, the archive was mostly rubble. Only a single red-brick archway remained, standing lonely amidst the ruins. I tried to charge past the gates like a madwoman, but two security guards tackled me, pinning me into the sharp gravel. “Let me go!” The jagged stones sliced into my knees, blood quickly soaking through my gown. Ethan stood a few feet away, dressed in a flawless black suit, holding a black umbrella. Chloe clung to his arm, giggling behind her hand. Pinned under the guards, I forced my head up, glaring at him with wild, bloodshot eyes. “Ethan! Tell them to stop! That is my father’s only legacy! He didn’t plagiarize anything! He was framed!” Ethan walked over slowly, stopping just out of reach. His leather shoes were splattered with mud. He frowned slightly, then knelt down, gently peeling my bleeding fingers off his trousers. “Summer, the ground is dirty. Get up, okay?” He brushed the dust off my shoulders, his voice soft, but his eyes were completely dead. I fell to my knees in the rubble, slamming my forehead against the sharp stones. “I’m begging you! Ethan, please!” I threw away every ounce of my dignity, pounding my head against the ground. “Make them stop! His brushes are in there, his photos… please…” My forehead split open, blood and dirt smearing across my face. Ethan stood over me, holding his umbrella, looking at my bloody face with a flash of disgust. “Summer, stop this. You look like a lunatic.” His voice was still gentle, but it was devoid of any human warmth. “Your father is dead. What’s the point of keeping this trash?” Chloe sneered from the side. “Exactly, Summer. Even if you keep it, you can’t protect it.” My nails dug into the dirt until they bled. Seeing the excavator crane rise again, I broke down completely. I crawled to Ethan’s feet, grabbing his ankles, sobbing hysterically. “I’ll sign the papers! I’ll give up everything! It all belongs to Chloe! Just… don’t let them demolish the rest… please…” Ethan looked down at me, a look of smug satisfaction finally washing over his face. He bent down, using his handkerchief to wipe the blood from my forehead. “See? If you had been this good from the start, we wouldn’t be here. Sign this, and I’ll leave the archway standing.” He shoved a waiver of inheritance and a pen into my bloodied hand. My hand shook uncontrollably. The blood dripping from my broken nail dragged a thick, red streak across the signature line. I thought that by dragging myself through the dirt, I could save the last piece of my father. I handed the paper back, trembling. Ethan took the document, verified the signature, and tossed it to his secretary. “Good girl,” he murmured, his voice dripping with mock affection. But a second later, he stood up, turned his back on the archway, and said to the foreman, “This structure is a safety hazard. Level it.” My pupils shrunk to pinpricks. A primal scream ripped from my throat: “Ethan.” CRASH! The heavy iron wrecking ball smashed into the red-brick archway, turning my father’s final legacy into a pile of generic dust. Ethan wrapped his arm around Chloe, turned on his heel, and got into the waiting black town car. The car roared to life, splashing mud all over my hospital gown as it sped away. I collapsed into the muddy gravel, staring at the debris. My eyes were bloodshot, devoid of tears. I crawled forward, inch by inch, using my blood-slicked right hand to clutch a single broken red brick. I pressed my face against the cold stone, imagining it was my father’s warm hand. I remembered him holding my hand, teaching me how to draw. I remembered the last words he said to me before he jumped: I’m sorry, Summer. Now, everything was gone. Clutching the brick, the tears finally spilled over. I lay in the ruins, and then, I began to laugh hysterically. “Ethan… you really are a monster!”

Summer’s POV I don’t remember how I got back to the estate. I only remember the private doctor using tweezers to pick the gravel and dirt out of my open wounds one by one. A week later, the cuts on my knees had scabbed over. Ethan tossed a pair of white silk stockings and a heavy wool trench coat onto the bed. He reached out, his fingers tracing my cheek. “Tonight is the joint venture gala. It’s on a yacht in international waters. Behave yourself, don’t act crazy, and I’ll let you enjoy the ocean breeze.” But the moment we boarded the yacht, every step up the stairs tore my fresh scabs open. Thick blood soaked through the white stockings, making me break into a cold sweat from the pain. Ethan’s hand tightened around my shoulder, his grip tight enough to bruise my bones. He whispered in my ear, “We have international investors here tonight. If you act up, I will throw you straight into a psychiatric facility.” I let him drag me into the shadows of the ballroom. Across the room, Chloe, clad in a custom designer gown, was holds a glass of champagne, laughing with the elite. The crowd surrounded her, praising her as the architectural genius behind the modern cathedral. Meanwhile, I was discarded in the darkest corner of the room. I hadn’t had a drop of water since yesterday. My empty stomach twisted in pain, and I had to pinch the flesh of my thigh hard just to stay conscious. I was waiting for midnight. The time Christian and I had agreed upon. Right now, in the blind spot of the yacht’s security cameras, jumping into the black ocean was my only way out. My only chance to escape Ethan forever. The clock on the wall finally struck twelve. I stood up, using the wall for support. I moved slowly, making sure not to draw any attention. Amidst the clinking glasses and loud laughter, I pushed open the heavy wooden doors and stepped onto the deck. It was pitch black outside. The ocean wind cut through my clothes like knives, making me cough violently. I gripped the railing. Below me, the black waves of the open sea churned violently. I unbuttoned the wool coat, took it off, and folded it neatly, placing it on the deck. I shed the coat, and I slid off my wedding ring, placing it on top. I was going to leave the broken, tortured version of Summer on this boat forever. To Ethan, this would look like a desperate suicide. But to me, it was the first day of my life. I climbed over the iron railing, standing on the narrow ledge over the abyss. “Summer! What the hell are you doing?!” Ethan’s panicked roar shattered the wind behind me. I turned my head. Ethan was sprinting toward me, his hands outstretched. His eyes were bloodshot, his voice trembling in the wind. “Get down from there. Who said you could stand there?” I looked at him, and for the first time in three years, a genuine, beautiful smile crossed my face. I pulled the flesh-colored earplugs from my ears, tossed them into the black sea, and spoke, my voice raspy but clear. “Ethan. We’re even.” Just as his fingers brushed the hem of my dress, I leaned backward, falling into the dark water below. “Summer.”

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When my parents divorced, my dad fought tooth and nail for my older brother, Brandon. My mom did the same for my younger sister, Chloe. I was the middle child. Nobody wanted me. I was the trash of the family, rejected by everyone. Little did they know, I was born with a fated luck aura. As long as I stayed in this house, the family would thrive. But the moment I left, they would plunge into rapid ruin. Sure enough, after the divorce, my father’s business went bankrupt, and my mother’s career was completely destroyed. As for my siblings, Brandon’s arms were permanently crushed, and Chloe had to have both of her legs amputated. Meanwhile, I lived my best life alone. My luck aura blessed my own path, and in less than a year, I became the youngest self-made billionaire in the country. When my parents finally realized that all their past wealth was entirely thanks to my fated luck… They regretted everything. They fell to their knees in front of me, sobbing and begging me to come home. I just gave them a cold smirk. “Who are you beggars? Get lost, before I have security throw you out.”

Today was the day my parents got divorced, and the day our custody was decided. In the courtroom, Arthur didn’t hesitate to choose Brandon. Victoria immediately chose Chloe. Once their choices were made, they fell into a tacit silence. Their eyes only lingered on their chosen children, filled with warmth and expectation. I sat alone in the corner of the bench, like a piece of forgotten luggage. Watching this, my nose stung, and my chest felt so tight it ached. The judge fell silent for a moment, flipping through the files. He frowned and asked, “What about… the other child? Ethan?” Hearing my name, my heart skipped a beat. I looked at Arthur and Victoria with a tiny, desperate shred of hope. But their brows instantly furrowed. Their eyes filled with undisguised disgust. Victoria curled her lip and turned to Arthur. “Arthur, you have a massive estate. You should take Ethan. You have enough money to feed stray dogs, so you can’t tell me you can’t afford your own son. It’s just adding another plate to the table!” “Victoria! You really have a slick tongue!” Arthur’s voice shot up as he snapped. “Raise him? He’ll only drag Brandon down and ruin my company’s reputation! You gave birth to him. You raise him. I’m not spending a single dime on him!” The two of them immediately started screaming at each other, tossing me back and forth like a piece of unwanted garbage. Their toxic words stabbed deep into my heart. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I stood up and screamed at them, my voice cracking with tears, “Dad! Mom! What did I do wrong? I’m your child too!” Faced with my question, they looked embarrassed for a split second, which quickly morphed into furious rage. “Look at yourself! Do you really have no self-awareness?” Victoria’s face twisted as she shrieked, “How dare you speak to us like that? Is that how you show respect? You ungrateful little brat!” Arthur pointed a finger right at my nose. “A useless waste like you should have never been born in the first place!” My heart died right then and there. Since they saw me as nothing but trash, why should I beg for their scraps? I turned directly to the judge. “Your Honor, I want to apply for legal emancipation. I don’t want either of them to have custody over me.” The judge looked at my parents, who showed absolutely no objection, and sighed before granting my request. Leaving the courthouse, I watched the two happy little families walking ahead of me. I said coldly: “This is the last time I will ever call you Mom and Dad. I remember telling you before that I have a luck aura.” “Everything you have right now—your wealth, your success—was because of me.” “Now that you’ve thrown me away, don’t come begging when your business goes bankrupt and your careers are ruined!”

I wasn’t trying to flatter myself when I said those words. Ever since I was a kid, I had this fated luck aura. As long as I was around, the family prospered. Ever since my aura activated, Arthur’s failing business suddenly took off, making him a multi-millionaire CEO. Victoria, who was on the verge of being laid off, got promoted all the way to becoming a celebrity dance instructor. Because of the blessing of my aura, Brandon was hailed as a math genius, and Chloe was praised as a prodigy dancer. I blessed everyone in that house, yet I was treated like a parasite. And now, they had abandoned me. The firstborn is the pride, the youngest is the spoiled baby, and the middle child is just the invisible punching bag. Classic Middle Child Syndrome. I was always the extra one. In their world, there was never any room for me. I still remember when we were kids. When Brandon won a math competition, Arthur bought him a ten-thousand-dollar gaming rig without blinking. When Chloe performed on stage, Victoria would proudly present her with massive bouquets of flowers. And me? I brought home straight A’s and top-tier trophies year after year. All I got in return was cold mockery. Victoria wouldn’t even look up from her phone. “Stop wasting time on useless things. Who knows if you cheated just to get attention.” Arthur tore my certificates into shreds. “Can this paper buy food? Can it make money? You’re just trying to copy Brandon to beg for presents, aren’t you? Stop embarrassing us.” All my hard work, all my proof of worth, was nothing but trash to be stepped on in their eyes. What hurt even more was that they always “forgot” to send me lunch money, while Brandon and Chloe’s accounts were always loaded on time, often with extra bonuses. Arthur was a wealthy CEO, and Victoria was a famous instructor, yet their middle son almost starved to death. How ironic. Outside the courthouse, when they heard me talk about my luck aura, they laughed. Arthur sneered, “A luck aura? You? You don’t deserve it! My company is successful because of my own hard work! It has absolutely nothing to do with a loser like you!” Victoria scoffed, “Lying just to get our attention. You’re trying to take credit for our hard work. You are rotten to the core. Thank god we didn’t choose you.” Brandon glared at me, his voice full of arrogance. “Ethan! How dare you curse our family! You’re disgusting!” Chloe looked at me with pure disdain. “No wonder Mom and Dad hate you. You only know how to throw tantrums because you’re incompetent. Look at yourself.” Faced with their insults, I shut my mouth. They would cry soon enough. I left without even going back to pack my things. That house had never had a place for me anyway. I slept in the cramped utility closet and wore Brandon’s old hand-me-downs. The SATs were only a few days away. This was my last chance, my only ticket out. I had to fight with everything I had. Otherwise, I would truly be ruined for life. But once I started living on my own, I was shocked to find myself completely transformed. My mind was clearer than ever. Even the hardest prep questions felt incredibly easy. I even bought a few scratch-offs at a gas station and won several thousand dollars in a row. A thought flashed through my mind: “Now that I’ve cut ties with them, my luck aura is finally blessing ME. Because I am my own family now.” This realization made me ecstatic. The scales of fate were finally tipping in my favor.

The exam day arrived quickly. I cruised through the SATs, my pen flying across the paper like magic. Meanwhile, in another testing center, Brandon was staring at his test sheet, sweating profusely. “How is this happening?” Brandon stared at the blank spaces, his fingers shaking uncontrollably. “I… I knew how to do these questions yesterday…” Ever since I left, Brandon had felt his mind growing cloudier and slower. But he had brushed it off, too arrogant to care, still spending his nights partying. He didn’t realize he was suffering from the backlash of my departure. As the timer ticked down to the last few minutes, a desperate, wild thought crossed his mind. When the proctor turned her back, he leaned over and peeked at the sheet of the student next to him… At the exact same time, Arthur was drowning in corporate chaos. His business partners were pulling out of contracts for no reason. Major projects were failing one after another. In the past, he could solve these issues in his sleep. But now, he had no idea what to do. If this kept up, his company would go bankrupt. Suddenly, his phone rang loudly. “What? My son cheated? I knew that little piece of trash Ethan was no good! But you don’t need to call me, he’s emancipated! He’s not my problem!” Arthur immediately assumed it was me, letting out a stream of vile curses. However, when the voice on the line clarified that the cheater was Brandon, Arthur felt like he had been struck by lightning. “No way! You must have made a mistake! Brandon won math trophies! Why would he need to cheat?!” Brandon was his pride and joy, the heir he was grooming to take over the company. Hearing this news felt like his entire sky was collapsing. Brandon’s SAT scores were completely voided, and he was banned from taking College Board exams for three years. This news was a fatal blow to Arthur’s already struggling company. Meanwhile, Chloe was participating in a massive, high-stakes dance showcase. Many top industry directors and scouts were in the audience. The future of her entire dance company depended on this performance. The artistic director had put all his hope on Chloe. But when the music started, everyone was horrified. The backup dancers moved gracefully, but Chloe just stood there like a statue, tears welling up in her eyes. She realized that every single dance move had vanished from her brain. Even her proud muscle memory was completely gone. “What are you doing? Dance!” Victoria screamed frantically from the wings, her voice cracking. This threw the backup dancers off, ruining the entire formation. Chloe tried to move, but she was as clumsy as a lame duck. “This is the prodigy you bragged about?” a prominent director in the front row asked, his voice dripping with disgust. Victoria rushed to explain, “She… she’s usually not like this! She’s just nervous…” “Her movements have zero technique. She’s worse than a beginner,” a famous choreographer said, frowning. “Victoria, I highly doubt your professional credentials as an instructor.” “And people call you a master teacher? I don’t see a single trace of talent here.” Victoria’s face went paper-white. She knew better than anyone that once these words spread, her career as a celebrity dance coach was over. The director of the dance company looked like he had lost his mind. His years of hard work had just gone up in smoke. His eyes turned bloodshot as he stared at Chloe on stage. In a sudden fit of psychotic rage, he rushed onto the stage, grabbed a heavy metal prop from the set, and slammed it violently into Chloe’s legs. “Ahhhhh!!!” A horrific shriek echoed through the entire theater. “You useless bitch! You ruined me!” The director screamed hysterically, his voice shaking with mad desperation. “My life’s work… gone! All gone!” Victoria stood frozen, all color draining from her face, her soul seemingly sucked out of her body. The director was eventually tackled by security and hauled away by the police. Chloe was rushed to the ER. To Victoria’s horror, the diagnosis came back: Chloe’s legs were shattered beyond repair. She would never stand again. Arthur rushed to the hospital with Brandon. Even though he was divorced, he still loved his daughter. He held the medical report with trembling hands. The stress of the past few weeks had aged him by ten years. His eyes were red and wet. “Why… why is this happening…” “My company is ruined, Brandon is banned, and now Chloe…” Arthur collapsed onto the hallway floor, sobbing hoarsely. “Oh God! What did our family do to deserve this?!” Victoria was crying uncontrollably, looking incredibly disheveled. Suddenly, she shuddered, as if struck by a terrifying realization. Her lips trembled as she whispered: “Could… could Ethan have been telling the truth? Is he really a luck charm? Was our wealth all because of him?” “Since we kicked him out, the company, Brandon, Chloe, and me… all of us…” She grabbed Arthur’s arm tightly, her eyes wide with terror and regret. “When he was home, nothing like this ever happened!” Arthur sat frozen on the floor. He connected the dots of everything that had happened recently. His face went dead white, and he felt a wave of regret so strong he wanted to beat his head against the wall.

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Three years after our divorce, my ex-husband, Julian, showed up at my door holding a massive bouquet of red roses. He had that same smug, confident smile I used to know so well. “Chloe, I kept my word. I’m back, right on time, to take you back.” Three years ago, he played a game of Truth or Dare with his friends and lost to his childhood friend, Serena. Serena had proposed a dare: “I want to see if you and Chloe are actually true love.” “So, get a divorce and don’t see each other for three years.” “If she still wants to remarry you after three years, I’ll admit it’s true love.” Julian had never set any boundaries with Serena. We fought about her constantly because of things like this. At the time, I thought there was no way he would agree to something so ridiculous. But to my horror, he agreed without a second thought. “Sure! A bet’s a bet!” His friends tried to talk him out of it: “Dude, think about this. Divorce is a major deal!” But he just looked at me with absolute certainty. “I trust our relationship. Chloe only loves me in this lifetime. She will definitely wait to remarry me!” I didn’t say a word. He didn’t realize that was the very last chance I was ever giving him. My thoughts snapped back to the present as he tried to shove the roses into my arms. I didn’t take them. I stepped back, my voice completely flat. “Sorry, my husband doesn’t let me accept flowers from other men.”

A confident, knowing smirk played on Julian’s lips. “Still mad?” “Alright, alright. I’m here now, aren’t I?” “Babe, stop being childish.” His tone was dripping with patronizing affection. He honestly thought I was just playing hard to get to punish him. Just like he used to, he stepped forward and reached out to pull me into his arms. I took another step back, my expression freezing over. “Control yourself, Mr. Gray.” His hands froze in mid-air. The gentle, mock-tender look in his eyes never wavered from my face. “Did I really make you that mad this time?” “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll buy it for you. Anything to make it up to you.” He was still so utterly convinced that a few sweet words and a credit card could fix the wreckage he left behind. As he spoke, he took another step toward me. For every step he took forward, I took one back. The look in his eyes shifted, darkening with a sudden urge to conquer, to force me to submit. “Julian, three years is a long time. It’s enough to change everything.” He nodded, seemingly agreeing. “True.” I backed up until my shoulders hit the cold brick wall. There was nowhere left to run. He slammed both hands on the wall on either side of my head, trapping me in his space. It was the same old wall-pinning trick he used when we were dating. Back then, he loved trapping me in corners under the moonlight just to kiss me breathless. “So, did you give me a son or a daughter?” He murmured, reaching out to gently stroke my cheek. At the mention of the child, a sharp, stabbing pain flared in my chest. Three years ago, he knew damn well I was pregnant. Yet, after losing a stupid game, he still divorced me just to please his precious Serena. And for three years, he completely vanished. Not a single text, not a single phone call. Yet here he was, standing before me with the sheer audacity to assume I had quietly given birth to his child and waited around like a loyal dog for his return! A mocking laugh escaped my lips. Before I could tell him that I had aborted that pregnancy, Julian’s phone started buzzing. He pulled it out. The caller ID flashed with the name: *My Princess*. That was his contact name for Serena. I had seen it countless times during our marriage. I remembered how he used to pat her head and tell everyone that she had been his little princess since they were kids. He never cared about how I, his actual wife, felt. And just like before, he answered her call instantly. “Julian, you need to come quick… my cramps are so bad, my stomach hurts so much…” Serena’s whiny, tearful voice echoed through the speaker. Panic instantly flooded Julian’s eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m coming right now.” He hung up. He reached out and hastily patted the top of my head, like he was soothing a harmless pet. “I have to go check on Serena first. I’ll come back to find you later tonight.” Before the words had even fully left his mouth, he was already running down the street.

Serena was still up to her old tricks, using Instagram to passive-aggressively flaunt her hold over Julian. Her latest post showed her lying in Julian’s arms, looking pale and sweaty. Julian’s hand was resting gently on her stomach, rubbing it. Her caption read: *Since we were kids, he’s always been the one who loves me most. No matter how busy he is, or who he’s with, the second I’m not feeling well, he drops everything to fly to my side. He really is the best man in the world!!!* I casually tapped the heart to leave a like. In fact, over the past three years, Serena had posted her “flexes” every single day. For three years, she posted 1,095 brag-posts on Instagram, and I liked every single one of them. She boasted about everything. For instance, she didn’t have a job, but Julian gave her his black card to spend whatever she wanted. She lived in the house that was supposed to be our marital home. She used my old things whenever she wanted, or threw them in the trash if she felt like it. For the past three years, they lived exactly like a married couple. I knew she was doing it entirely to torment me. But every like I left was nothing but my pure contempt and indifference. Serena, however, convinced herself that I was just going crazy with jealousy, desperately trying to make my presence known. The next time I saw Julian, he walked into my coffee shop with Serena clinging to his arm. They were wearing matching beige casual outfits. Julian, who had always insisted on wearing stiff, formal suits when he was with me, was wearing a trendy, relaxed blazer today. Back when we were married, I had begged him to wear matching outfits with me. He always brushed me off, saying he hated changing his style. Serena looked around my coffee shop, her eyes scanning the place with mock pity. She gasped dramatically. Julian frowned, looking at me with disapproval. “I gave you so much money in the divorce. Why are you doing such grueling manual labor?” When we divorced, I demanded half of his assets. He had signed them over without hesitation, probably thinking it was just a temporary deposit. I stopped wiping the espresso machine and looked up at him, my face entirely blank. “Because I want to. And it has absolutely nothing to do with you.” Julian’s face didn’t change. He still thought I was just throwing a tantrum. Serena offered me a fake, sugary sweet smile. “Chloe, it’s been three years. How have you been?” “Great.” Serena seemed taken aback by how calm I was. Just then, Julian’s phone rang. He turned around and walked outside to take the call. The second he was out of earshot, Serena’s sweet mask fell off. Her smile turned into a smug, venomous sneer. “Cut the act, Chloe. But don’t get your hopes up too high.” She looked down her nose at me, a cold laugh escaping her lips. “Even if you remarry Julian this time, so what?” “His mother still despises you. Her perfect daughter-in-law has always been me.” “Julian is only marrying you out of a sense of obligation.” “In fact, he only came to find you today because I gave him permission.” “And you’ll have to sign a prenup.” “By the way, I drafted it myself.” She reached into her designer bag, pulled out a document, and threw it onto the counter. I looked down at it with sheer amusement. The terms were hilarious. I would have zero claim to any of the Gray family’s assets. After marriage, I was not allowed to call his mother “Mom”—I had to call her “Mrs. Gray.” I was forbidden from identifying myself as Julian’s wife in public; to the world, I had to remain his “ex-wife.” This absurd, insulting document actually made me laugh out loud. I slid the papers back over to her. “If Victoria loves you so much, why are you still just his side-chick?” “It’s been three years, Serena, and Julian still sleeps with you without giving you a ring. How pathetic.” Serena’s face flushed with rage. She raised her hand, ready to slap me. But then, the sound of Julian’s approaching footsteps echoed from the doorway. Her expression changed faster than a theater mask. Tears immediately welled in her eyes, and she adopted a look of tragic, selfless understanding. “Chloe, I really do want you and Julian to be happy. I just want him to have a good life.” “As his childhood friend, his happiness is all I care about. This prenup is just a formality, please don’t be mad at him…” She was still the same cheap actress she was three years ago. And Julian, seeing her tears, lost all ability to think rationally, as usual.

“Serena, what’s wrong?” Julian immediately pulled Serena into his arms, his eyes filled with intense concern. Serena shook her head, putting on a brave, suffering face. “It’s nothing… it’s my fault. Don’t blame Chloe.” The more she played the victim, the more Julian was convinced I had bullied her. “Chloe!” He barked at me, his face turning incredibly cold. “Apologize to her right now!” He spoke to me like a master commanding a servant. A cold smile touched my lips. He frowned, looking at me with frustration. “Serena grew up with me. She’s like a sister to me!” “She is my family. Can you stop being so incredibly hostile to her every single time?” “Even if it’s just for my sake, can you try to be nice to her?” I remained silent. I had seen this exact show countless times three years ago. I was completely sick of it. Just as I was about to kick them out of my shop, my phone on the counter began to ring with a FaceTime call. The caller ID read: *My Baby Boy*. Julian’s eyes lit up the second he saw the screen. Before I could stop him, his hand shot out and swiped the green button to accept the call. I quickly snatched the phone back. My two-year-old son’s adorable, chubby face appeared on the screen. “Mommy, I miss you!” Hearing that sweet little “Mommy,” Julian practically vibrated with excitement. He was absolutely certain that I had given birth to his son. I quickly mumbled a few words to my son and hung up just as Julian lunged to grab the phone to talk to him. “Let me see my son!” He was grinning from ear to ear, his anger from a moment ago vanishing as if it had never existed. Beside him, Serena’s face turned incredibly dark. “He is not your son,” I said, my voice ice-cold. “Don’t ever come near me again, you pathetic psychopaths.” He didn’t even get mad, still trying to play the understanding partner. “Alright, stop fighting. I know you’re mad.” “But I really miss you and our boy.” At that moment, I realized that a self-absorbed narc like him would never believe I had moved on until he saw my husband with his own eyes. Suddenly, Julian spoke up again. “My mom’s birthday is in a few days.” “You’re a great cook. Prepare a few of her favorite dishes.” “Use this opportunity to fix your relationship with her.” “Now that you’ve given her a grandson, she won’t be hard on you anymore.” Ah. So he did know. He knew that during our three years of marriage, his mother had treated me like dirt. Victoria had always looked down on my middle-class background. Even though I was Julian’s legal wife, Victoria never allowed me to attend any family dinners. If she was present at an event, I wasn’t even allowed to sit at the same table as her. And during all of his mother’s psychological abuse, Julian had always remained completely silent. A mocking sneer played on my lips. “Julian, tell me. Why didn’t I even have the right to have dinner with your mother back then?” He hesitated for a second before mumbling, “Well… that’s just because you didn’t know how to please her.” Serena chimed in helpfully, “Chloe, begging your elders isn’t embarrassing. Mrs. Gray actually loves it when people crawl back and beg on their knees.” She was openly mocking me. I let out a dry laugh, locking my eyes onto Julian’s. “Julian, it’s been three years. The world has moved on.” “I am married. And the child is not yours.” Then, I turned to Serena. “Maybe you should try begging on your knees more often. Who knows? Maybe Victoria will finally let you through the front door.”

Serena burst into tears. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she sobbed, covering her face as she ran out of the shop. Julian’s face twisted in fury. He glared at me. “How long are you going to keep up this stubborn act!” With that, he ran out to chase after Serena. My phone buzzed in my hand. It was a text from my husband: *Hey beautiful, the project is officially wrapped up. I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon.* A wave of relief washed over me. I figured that once Julian saw Alexander in the flesh, he would finally stop his delusional fantasies. The next day, right after I arrived at the coffee shop, I got a frantic call from my son’s daycare teacher. She said that a man claiming to be my son’s father and a woman claiming to be his godmother had just taken Leo away. My heart instantly jumped into my throat. I drove like a maniac straight to the Gray estate. When I burst through the doors, my blood ran cold. Serena had put my son inside a massive dog enclosure, forcing him to sit on the floor with a bunch of shedding dogs and cats. Leo had been severely allergic to animal dander since birth. He couldn’t touch dogs or cats under any circumstances. My poor baby was sobbing hysterically, his face flushed bright red. Red, angry hives were already breaking out all over his neck. Serena completely ignored my son’s panic. Instead, she was trying to force a black cat into his trembling arms. “Don’t be scared, Leo. This cat is three years old, so technically she’s your big sister.” “She’s my favorite baby. Hold her! Don’t be so rude, crying so loud is going to scare her.” My son screamed, waving his tiny hands to push the animal away. The black cat, startled, lashed out with its sharp claws, leaving several bloody scratches across my son’s face. Leo let out a piercing shriek of pain. Serena tutted. “Look what you did. You scared my baby cat.” Her eyes were filled with a sick, threatening gleam as she stared down at my sobbing toddler. “Get your hands off my son!” I screamed, charging forward in a blind rage. Just as my fingers were about to reach Leo, Julian suddenly materialized from the side, grabbing me from behind and dragging me back. “Serena was just trying to be nice and let Leo play with some pets.” My eyes were bloodshot. I spun around and slapped Julian across the face with all the strength I had. “My son is highly allergic to animal dander!” “He can’t be around animals!” I tried to push past him to grab Leo, but Julian grabbed my wrists in a vice grip. Serena looked at me with wide, innocent eyes. “Today is my cat’s birthday. She loves playing with kids.” “I just thought since Leo is coming back to the Gray family, they should get to know each other.” As she spoke, the black cat on Leo’s lap was still scratching frantically. My son’s arms, neck, and face were covered in angry red welts and bloody scratches. Serena added helpfully, “Don’t worry, my pets are fully vaccinated. They’re very clean. I sleep with them every night.” Looking at my son, who was crying so hard he could barely breathe, panic consumed me. I thrashed wildly against Julian’s grip. Julian held me tight, trying to soothe me. “He’s a boy, Chloe. Don’t raise him to be so soft.” “He’s going to inherit the Gray Group one day. We need to build his courage. He can’t be afraid of a stupid cat.” Suddenly, Leo’s eyes rolled back, and his head slumped forward. I let out a guttural scream. “He’s going into anaphylactic shock!” Only then did Julian realize how grave the situation was. I broke free, scooped my limp son into my arms, and ran toward my car. Julian and Serena scrambled to follow me to the hospital. When we arrived, Leo was immediately rushed into the emergency room. A doctor walked out holding a consent form. “Are you the father or mother? I need a signature immediately.” Julian stepped forward eagerly. “I’m the father! I’ll sign!” But just as his hand reached for the pen, a deep, commanding voice boomed down the hallway. “Since when did my son become yours?”

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Ethan Shaw changed the door lock password. The new password was sent to my email, and after trying twice, I got in. The apartment smelled wrong. The air was filled with gardenia-scented fabric softener, not the one I used. There were clothes in the washing machine that had not been taken out. One of his shirts and a floral dress. The dress was a size S, and I wore an L. I took the clothes out, folded them, and placed them on the sofa armrest. I glanced through the trash can too. Pizza for two, two cups of Coke, and neither was Diet Coke. I only drank Diet Coke. He knew that. So neither of those two cups was for me. I did not lose my temper. I sat on the sofa and waited for half an hour. When he came back and saw me, he froze for a second before changing his shoes. “You’re back early today.” I pointed at the dress on the sofa. “Who did you wash this for?” “A coworker. She spilled wine at a party—” “A coworker who wears size S, loves Coke, and uses gardenia fabric softener?” He did not answer. I picked up my bag and opened the door. “I’ll use the new password just this once. Change it again, and don’t send it to me.”

“It’s too late tonight. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.” At 1:47 a.m., Ethan Shaw’s message popped up. Only the spotlight above the blending table was on in the studio, and the base notes of agarwood and cedar wrapped around me, cold and clean. Not gardenia. The second message came right after. “Lily Hart just drank too much and got her dress dirty, so she came over to shower. Don’t twist everything into the dirtiest possible version.” Lily Hart. He gave me a name. Earlier at home, he had called her “a coworker,” but now she had become Lily Hart. I did not reply right away. I unscrewed a bottle of petitgrain essential oil and brought it to my nose. My sense of smell could calm me down. Gardenia fabric softener was not a scent that clung after one shower. Those molecules seeped into the fibers, and it would take at least two to three straight weeks of use. I had studied perfumery for eight years, and my nose was more honest than his mouth. After organizing my words, I typed back, “She wears size S, uses gardenia fabric softener, and loves Coke. Those three things all happened during the half month after you changed the password. Ethan, there is no gardenia fabric softener in my apartment.” His “typing” indicator flashed six times. In the end, he sent a voice message. I tapped it open. First came two seconds of silence, then a long, drawn-out sigh. “The company’s new product has been under a lot of pressure. She helped me run channels and took care of a few daily things along the way. It was only for this period, and it won’t happen again.” Daily things. Changing his fabric softener and washing her own floral dress in his apartment. He called that “along the way.” I sent him a voice message, and my voice was even calmer than I had expected. “Are you admitting it?” “What am I admitting?” He typed faster than he talked. “Serena Cole, can you stop obsessing over details? I didn’t handle it well enough, but you can’t erase three years of us because of a bottle of fabric softener.” Three years. He brought up three years. Three years ago, he wanted to start a business, and there was forty thousand in the account. I sold three exclusive formulas and scraped together eight hundred thousand as his startup capital. Those formulas were based on what my mother had left me, and they were half my life. At the folding table in our rental apartment, he pressed his thumbprint on a piece of paper and wrote a crooked line: Half the company shares are yours, and the front door password will always be your birthday. Always. Back then, it was always. Now it had become “it won’t happen again.” I typed, “Three years. Are you talking about the three years when I invested eight hundred thousand and three formulas?” “See, you’re keeping score again,” he replied instantly. “I’m talking about feelings, and you drag money into it. That’s your problem.” My problem. I stared at those two words for a long time. I closed SnapChat and placed my phone face down on the blending table. When dawn was almost breaking, I returned to the apartment. I opened the fridge, and my hand stopped in midair. The fridge was packed full of Coke. There were handwritten sticky notes on the cups, the handwriting round and cute, with a little smiley face drawn on them—”Special sweetness for Mr. Shaw~ You worked hard! —Lily” Lily. She had given herself a nickname in my fridge. I took them out one cup at a time. There were eight cups in total. I opened the closet too. My coats and sweaters were still there, but an extra pink storage bag had appeared in the bottom drawer, with a teddy bear keychain hanging from the zipper and two neatly folded pairs of leggings inside, size S. There was also a new pink cup on the bathroom cup rack, printed with the words: SMALL BUT MIGHTY. I took my own toothbrush away and left that pink cup untouched. When I opened the jewelry box, Ethan’s engagement ring was still in the top compartment. One carat, and he said he had bought it with the company’s first profit. But the formula for that order had come from me. In the end, I had given it to myself. I walked back to the kitchen. A thin layer of condensation had formed on the outside of the eight Coke cups in the trash can. I threw the ring in. It sank to the bottom, wedged between the bottom of a cup and one of “Lily’s” sticky notes. My phone rang again. Ethan: “Are you coming back today? Let’s talk about last night in person. Don’t overthink alone.” I picked up my suitcase and took one last look at the apartment. Twelve hundred square feet, south-facing, a listing I found, a lease I signed, and now it smelled like someone else’s home. I only replied with one message: “I cleaned out the fridge. There’s something in the trash can. Remember to take it out.”

“We still need to talk about the shares in person.” A week later, Ethan sent me this message, along with a restaurant location. On the other end of the phone, Ava Reed was so anxious she started cursing. “Why the hell would you go? If he’s asking to meet now, he’s definitely up to something.” “We need to sign the share withdrawal agreement eventually,” I said. “Dragging it out does me no good.” “Then I’ll go with you.” “No. If there are more people, he’ll have an excuse to change the subject.” When I arrived at the restaurant entrance, the first thing I saw was that suit. Dark gray custom tailoring, subtle vertical stripes, the birthday gift I gave him two years ago. Back then, he said the cut looked too old and shoved it into the closet without wearing it once. He wore it today. The buttons were fastened all the way to the top, and his tie was tied in a Windsor knot. He stood up and pulled out a chair. “Sit. I ordered the sake-steamed clams you like.” “I’m here to sign the agreement.” “Eat first.” He pushed the plate forward. “You’ve been staying at the studio these days, right? The water heater there is broken. How are you showering?” “Does that have anything to do with the shares?” He paused, then took a document from his briefcase and spread it out. “You can withdraw your shares, but the company’s valuation can’t be finalized right now. We need to wait until after the third round of financing—” “Ethan.” I cut him off. Because I saw the person walking in through the door. A floral dress, size S, with a waist so thin it looked pinched into shape. The scent on her reached my nose from three tables away—gardenia. Not natural gardenia, but synthetic gardenia aldehyde from cheap household products, sickeningly sweet and flat. Lily Hart. The moment she “saw” us, her expression switched smoothly—first surprise, then embarrassment, then a smile that was eighty percent obedient and twenty percent innocent. “Oh, Mr. Shaw, you’re here too? What a coincidence.” She actually sat down. She pulled out the chair beside Ethan and sat down on her own. “Hello, Mrs. Shaw.” She nodded at me, the curve of her lips precise down to the millimeter. Mrs. Shaw. I put down my fork and said nothing. She immediately turned to Ethan. “Mr. Shaw, your stomach isn’t good, so you can’t eat spicy food. Let me switch this to plain oatmeal and something light for you, okay?” She reached for the menu, her arm brushing against Ethan’s sleeve, so natural it was like she had done it a hundred times. Ethan did not move away. “You won’t blame me for meddling, will you, Mrs. Shaw?” She looked up at me, her gaze full of consideration and propriety. “After the last party, Mr. Shaw’s stomach hurt all night, and I really couldn’t bear to see him suffer.” After the last party. The last time his stomach hurt. She knew better than I did when his stomach had hurt. “I don’t blame you,” I said, calling the server over. “Add one spicy grilled fish, extra spicy.” Lily blinked. “Mrs. Shaw, Mr. Shaw really can’t—” “He used to drink until he threw up for business dinners, so his stomach has always been bad, and he can’t eat spicy food. Didn’t you know?” She had no answer. Ethan frowned and lowered his voice by half a degree. “Serena, is this really necessary? Going after a young girl with all that sarcasm.” A young girl. A size S floral dress, gardenia fabric softener, eight cups of “special sweetness” in the fridge, and a pink SMALL BUT MIGHTY cup in the bathroom. In his mouth, it was reduced to two words—a young girl. “Where’s the share withdrawal agreement?” I pulled the topic back. “I said we’ll wait until after the third round of financing—” “How long?” “Three to six months.” “Give me a firm answer.” He drew the agreement closer to his side. “What’s the rush? It’s not like we’re divorcing and splitting assets. Calm down, take some time to cool off, and come back so we can live properly.” Take some time to cool off. He thought I was talking about feelings, while I was talking about equity. Lily suddenly spoke, her voice soft and gentle. “Mrs. Shaw, Mr. Shaw has really been under a lot of pressure lately. I’ve been overseeing the new product development line, and we’ve been busy until after midnight every day. If you’re worried, I’ll keep my distance from Mr. Shaw from now on.” Her words were beautiful. She backed down in public, made herself look weak, and casually slipped in “busy until after midnight every day.” I stood up. Ethan pressed his hand on the agreement. “Are you signing or not?” “Did you wear this suit today because you thought I’d soften up if you put on something I gave you?” I picked up my bag. “Something you shoved away for two years and never wore, then polished up to use in an emergency. It’s exactly like what you did to me.” His fingers tightened on the table. Beside him, Lily lowered her head and stirred her coffee, her shoulders shrinking slightly, as if she had suffered some enormous grievance. When I walked out of the restaurant, I heard her say behind me, “Mr. Shaw, did Mrs. Shaw misunderstand something about me? Should I not have come?” “It has nothing to do with you. Her temper has always been like this.” Ethan’s voice leaked through the gap in the glass door, clear as day. “Her temper has always been like this.”

“Serena, are you here at the company to pick up your things today?” Chloe at the front desk sounded a little nervous, and her eyes drifted toward the office area inside. “Yeah, I’m here to pick up my personal belongings.” Ethan’s company was in Building B of the tech park, taking up the entire third floor. I had helped him choose that office building back then and negotiated the lease down. I bought the plants at the front desk, and I blended the scent for the fragrance system at the end of the hallway. But today, as soon as I pushed the door open, I smelled gardenia. The diffuser stones in the hallway had been changed to a new scent. I did not stop and walked straight to Ethan’s office. The door was not closed. Nothing much had changed on the desk, and the bottom drawer was where I kept my things—a leather-bound notebook, A5 size, with a brown vegetable-tanned leather cover and corners worn pale. My mother’s handwritten formulas. The complete compositions of thirty-seven perfumes, all her notes, scent trial records, and raw material ratios were inside. When she passed away, she left nothing else, only this. The drawer was empty. The notebook was gone. I looked back at the workstations outside. At the desk directly facing Ethan’s office, the surface was covered with pink storage boxes and a laptop with a glittery case. My mother’s formula notebook was on that desk. It was pressed under a takeout container and an unfinished cup of Coke. A large brown water stain spread across the leather cover, and when I flipped open two pages, the brown stain had soaked through the paper, blurring half of my mother’s fountain pen writing. She had used my mother’s relic as a coaster. “Hey, Mrs. Shaw—” Lily had returned at some point, holding two new cups of Coke, and when she saw me standing in front of her workstation, her steps slowed by half a beat. “Mr. Shaw asked me to organize this notebook.” She put down the Coke, speaking as if she were explaining something completely natural. “Some of the formula data inside needs to be entered into the system.” “This is my personal property.” “But Mr. Shaw said these formulas are the company’s core assets—” I reached out to pull the notebook away. She moved back, and the chair wheels slid, her elbow knocking over the cup on the desk. Freshly brewed hot coffee. Boiling liquid poured over the back of my outstretched right hand. Pain. It felt like someone had pressed a piece of red-hot iron against my skin. The back of my hand swelled quickly, first turning red, then blistering, with clear blisters bulging one after another over my knuckles. My right hand. Perfumery required grinding, test strips, and turning the wrist to sense how a scent lingered. Everything depended on this hand. Lily screamed, but she was not looking at my hand—she was looking at the coffee stain splashed on her own thigh. Ethan rushed out of the office. He ran past me. He ran to Lily’s side, crouched down, and checked her leg. “Did you get burned? Let me see.” Then he turned his head and looked at me, frowning as if I had caused trouble. “You knew she’s clumsy. Why did you fight her over some stupid notebook?” Some stupid notebook. I clenched that leather notebook, now soaked and ruined by Coke, in my right hand. The blisters on the back of my hand burst under the pressure, and clear fluid ran down between my fingers, mixing with the brown Coke stains. “Ethan,” I said, “the eight hundred thousand you used to start your business came from this stupid notebook.” His expression finally cracked. “Don’t send me the password anymore. Even you feel dirty to me now.” I left with the notebook clenched in my hand. In the elevator, my hand began trembling uncontrollably, the pain so intense that my fingertips spasmed. Chloe ran after me and handed me a bottle of water, looking at my hand like she wanted to say something but hesitated. “Serena… should I call a car for you? Burns need treatment right away.” “Help me call a car to the hospital.” “Okay.” She paused for two seconds, then said quietly, “Serena, Lily… Mr. Shaw didn’t ask her to organize that notebook. She took it herself. Last week, she even took photos of the formulas inside and sent them to an outside supplier.” My fingers tightened around the notebook another degree. I could no longer feel the pain. “Thank you for telling me, Chloe.” She bit her lower lip and nodded hard, looking like she was about to cry. The car arrived. Before getting in, I looked back at the third-floor window, and the office lights were still on. “Let’s go.”

“Second-degree burns, with some deep second-degree areas.” The doctor took off his gloves and looked up at me. “What do you do for work?” “I’m a perfumer.” He paused, and the motion of tossing his gloves into the trash slowed by half a beat. “The deep second-degree areas over the joints on the back of your right hand may leave scars. Right now, we still need to monitor the wound for infection risk, and skin grafting cannot be ruled out later.” “Will finger movement be affected?” “It’s hard to say for now. It depends on recovery. If scar contracture develops, the bending angle of your fingers may be limited.” By the time Ava rushed into the hospital room, my hand was already wrapped in gauze. “Serena Cole, are you insane? Why didn’t you call me? Your hand—” “Help me do a few things.” Her eyes were red with anxiety, and her mouth was still open before she could finish scolding me. “First, block every contact method for Ethan Shaw.” “Okay.” “Second, help me check flights to Grasse today.” “You’re leaving?” “I’m going to Grasse. There’s a fragrance-producing region there, and I contacted an estate owner before. I can do independent R&D there.” “Wait—your hand is already like this, and you still—” “Ava.” She shut up. I lowered my head and looked at my right hand, wrapped tightly in gauze. Beneath the white bandages were ulcerated wounds, broken blisters, and a piece of skin whose future was uncertain. A perfumer’s hand. “Help me buy a ticket. Tonight.” She said nothing more and took out her phone to start working. She blocked him and deleted all chat records. Then she suddenly stopped. “Serena, look at this.” She handed me her phone. It was an Ins page. The account was called “Lily Sweetpea,” with half a side profile as the avatar, and an amethyst necklace hanging at the collarbone—I had seen the same style beside the cup rack in Ethan’s bathroom. The latest post had been published three hours ago. Title: [New Home Decorating Vlog | Building Our Little Nest with Him] A nine-photo grid. The first photo was the living room, my sofa, the floor lamp I chose, and a bouquet of gardenias on the table. The second photo was the kitchen, with the fridge door open and rows of thirty-percent-sugar Coke inside, the sticky notes on the cups clearly visible. The third photo was the bathroom. That pink SMALL BUT MIGHTY cup was placed in the center, and the spot for my toothbrush beside it was already empty. The fourth photo was the bedroom. The photo on the nightstand had been changed. In the frame was a photo of Ethan and Lily together, the two of them leaning against each other at the beach Ethan and I had gone to last year. Comments: “You’re so happy! Your boyfriend’s place is huge!” “How many bedrooms is this? So luxurious for two people!” “I’m jealous, I’m jealous. When are you getting the marriage license?” In three hours, there were two hundred and forty-seven comments. She had turned my home into her content material. My sofa, my lamp, the lease I signed, the home I found, all became “our little nest” in her title. “There’s another one.” Ava scrolled down to a post from last week. “Look at this.” Title: [My Perfumery Diary | Learning to Make Perfume at My Boyfriend’s Company] In the photo was an open leather-bound notebook—my mother’s formula notebook. She had photographed the inner pages. My mother’s fountain pen writing, the raw material ratios and scent trial records written line by line, had been photographed and posted on social media by her, with the caption: “My boyfriend’s company’s exclusive formula notebook. I heard it’s worth millions. I’ll work hard too and become a master perfumer!” One thousand three hundred likes. Four hundred and seventy saves. The things my mother wrote stroke by stroke were now in the saved folders of four hundred and seventy strangers. “Serena…” “Have you bought the plane ticket?” “I bought it. Eleven tonight.” “Let’s go.” I stood up, without putting my right arm into the sleeve of my coat, and when the gauze on the back of my hand brushed against the edge of my clothes, the pain made my vision go white. Ava supported my arm and walked me to the hospital lobby, and my phone suddenly rang. An unfamiliar number. When I answered, it was a man’s voice, very formal. “May I ask if this is Ms. Serena Cole? I’m Attorney Clark from M&C Law Firm, contacting you on behalf of Mr. Ethan Shaw.” “What is it?” “The share agreement you previously signed with Mr. Shaw does not constitute a valid shareholder relationship under the law because it does not have the statutory filing procedures required by the company charter. Mr. Shaw hopes to negotiate with you amicably—” “You mean that agreement is invalid?” “Strictly speaking, that handwritten document is indeed difficult to use as—” “I invested eight hundred thousand at the time. There are transfer records.” “Mr. Shaw’s position is that the nature of that sum was a personal loan rather than an equity investment, and he is willing to repay it in installments—” I hung up. The taxi was waiting at the entrance. Ava opened the car door, looked at my face, and said nothing. After the car drove through two intersections, she finally asked quietly, “Serena, are you… okay right now?” The night slid past the car window, and streetlights retreated one by one. “Help me look into someone,” I said. “Lily Hart’s background, work experience, and how she got into Ethan’s company.” “You suspect she—” “I don’t believe anything anymore. Help me investigate.”

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On the night before my wedding, my friends threw me a bachelor party. Halfway through, my friend Mason Reed gave me a suggestive look and said: “We’ve got something even hotter planned, and we booked three strippers for you so you can have one last wild night before marriage.” I shook my head and refused. “You guys have fun. I can’t do anything that would hurt my fiancée.” But Mason said to me: “You’re way too old-fashioned! Yesterday, my friend hooked up with a woman who was about to get married, and she was crazy in bed.” As he spoke, Mason took out his phone and showed me his chat messages with that woman. I froze. That woman’s Ins profile picture was exactly the same as my fiancée’s. I forced myself to control my emotions and acted like nothing had happened. The next day, the wedding went on as planned. Smiling, I walked onto the stage with my fiancée on my arm, then pressed the remote. On the big screen, the chat records, audio recordings, and videos were all there. The whole room exploded.

I looked at the screen of Mason’s phone, and in a gaming group chat, a man was bragging about his one-night stand. “A woman about to get married is seriously wild.” “I love this kind, mature and forward.” I looked at the woman’s profile picture and wondered why it looked so familiar… I snatched the phone out of my friend’s hand. I zoomed in on the screenshot. It showed a chat between a man and a woman: “You’re getting married tomorrow, and I really can’t bear to let you go.” “Then come see me tonight.” “What am I coming to see you for? Aren’t you afraid your husband will find out?” “What kind of husband is he to me? The wedding hasn’t happened yet, so I’m still yours. Whenever I think about getting married, I get anxious, so come keep me company.” Attached after that were a few blurry chest photos with no face shown. Coincidentally, the woman’s profile picture was half of a heart. It was exactly the same as my fiancée Chloe Bennett’s profile picture. I remembered that she had been the one who suggested we use the same Ins profile picture. Mason, sitting beside me, did not notice that something was wrong with me. “Look, this woman’s getting married tomorrow, the same day as you. But she’s still hooking up with her ex the night before the wedding. What a slut, haha…” I pretended to stay calm and said nothing. Then I walked to the restroom and called Chloe. The phone rang several times, but no one answered. My heart tightened. The woman Mason had just shown me, the one actively cheating and flirting with her ex, could not really be Chloe, could it? Finally, the call went through. I listened to the voice on the other end of the phone and let out a long breath, thinking maybe it really was just a coincidence. Plenty of people used the same social media profile picture, and plenty of people got married on the same day. How could I suspect someone who was about to become my legal wife? Besides, Chloe’s family were all very conservative Christians. Her whole family was against sex before marriage. Even on the night of our engagement, when I wanted to get intimate, she refused me and insisted on giving herself to me completely on our wedding night. How could I suspect her? I was such a jerk. “It’s nothing, nothing, I just… missed you. Is your room all set up?” I asked her with a guilty conscience. I did not dare tell her the gossip I had just heard. Otherwise, as smart as she was, she would definitely guess why I had called. “It’s almost… mm… all cleaned up.” “What’s wrong, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” I asked nervously. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I accidentally bumped into the cabinet. If there’s nothing else, hang up, okay? Don’t you have to get up early tomorrow to pick me up? Don’t be late.” “Don’t worry, I definitely won’t be late. You should also get some… rest.” I had just finished speaking. On Chloe’s end, she hung up on me in a hurry. I had originally wanted to be sweet with her for a couple more sentences. Forget it, she had been busy for days, so she must have been tired too. After I came out of the restroom, my buddy saw I seemed fine and started yelling at me again: “Come look, come look, this is so damn exciting. That guy posted something even crazier in the group…”

Mason shoved his phone in front of my eyes. There was a new chat on it. “This is so exciting and feels so damn good. My ex-girlfriend and I were right in the middle of it when her husband suddenly called, and it almost scared the hell out of me.” “But my ex-girlfriend is seriously badass. She didn’t let him notice anything was wrong at all.” “My ex-girlfriend was wearing a wedding dress and talking to her own husband on the phone while she was under me, and damn, that felt incredible, haha.” Looking at that string of laughing emojis, I felt a wave of rage I could not hold back shoot straight to my head. Chloe’s voice had sounded off for a split second just now. I had not thought much of it at first. But at this moment, this man with the username “Kyle Harding” was bragging in the group and describing the scene in real time, so I had no choice but to suspect it. The female lead was Chloe, the woman who was about to marry me. “Damn, bro, that’s insane.” “I’m so jealous, man. Can you start a livestream?” “So jealous, start a livestream and let us see. Good things are meant to be shared.” In just a minute or two, the people in the group had already started egging him on. No, I could not just sit there and wait. Blind guessing was useless. I had to confirm whether the woman cheating on the night before her wedding was Chloe or not. Otherwise, tomorrow’s wedding could not happen.] “Idiot, you’re just talking out of your ass, aren’t you?” After I sent that sentence, the entire screen full of envy paused instantly. I waited a little while. “Kyle Harding” finally saw it. “Bro, are you just bitter because you can’t have it?” “I can understand if you’re jealous and resentful, but if you’re cursing me out, are you insane? It’s not like I fucked your wife!” That one sentence hit me right where it hurt. The person he might have fucked really could be my wife. But it also might not be. The reason I cursed at him was to confirm it. On my end, I was gritting my teeth so hard that I bit red marks into my lip. Mason finally realized something was wrong. He looked at the line in the group that said, “Did I fuck your wife?” Then he turned and looked at me. “Shit, it’s not really your fiancée, is it…” He did not dare keep going. Then he quickly added: “No, no way, Ethan. We must be overthinking it.” “Whether or not it’s Chloe, we can just confirm it.” My eyes were bloodshot, and I looked at him with something almost savage in my face. Then I quickly lowered my head and started typing on the phone. “Idiot, just because you say you’re fucking someone else’s wife, are we supposed to believe you?” “I think you’re just bluffing, acting all by yourself, chasing attention, and enjoying praise from people who don’t know the truth. Is that fun?” I needed to provoke him and make him reveal key proof. And then. Snap, he really threw a photo straight into the group. “Idiot, see if I’m lying or not.” I ignored his insults and quickly tapped the photo with my finger, enlarging it…

The photo showed only a back. Not even the head was in the shot. She was indeed wearing a wedding dress. And the hem of the wedding dress had already been lifted up onto her back. It was easy to imagine what had just happened. Or what was currently happening. I zoomed in and searched bit by bit, but I found no useful information. So I kept provoking him: “Idiot, I can tell you’re not bragging.” “But you don’t even dare photograph the back of her head, so how am I supposed to know whether the broad back under you belongs to some huge dude from the front, haha.” After I said that, the people in the group started blindly stirring things up too. “Exactly, bro, what kind of photo is this? We can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman. You’re not really bragging, are you?” “Could it be an AI picture, haha?” “Record a video, record a video. We want to see a live video…” The situation completely got out of control. “Shut the fuck up, all of you. Did you all eat shit with those mouths? Believe it or don’t, I don’t care.” … A few seconds later, he still could not help but tag me in the group. “No, bro, something’s off about you!” “I feel like you’ve been provoking me this whole time. Fuck, did I really fuck your wife?” “Or do you know my girlfriend…” I did not reply right away and slowed myself down. I knew he was starting to panic too. After all, this was a local group. Even if most people did not know each other, there was always a chance that someone nearby might recognize someone. Who could stay calm and not be afraid when it felt like you had been caught by the actual partner while seducing someone in a relationship? “Bro, why aren’t you talking? Do you really know my ex-girlfriend?” Seeing that I had achieved my goal, I stopped scaring him. “You’re overthinking it. I’m just from out of town and here to clear my head.” “I joined a random group because I wanted locals nearby to recommend good food and fun places, but who knew I’d run into you bragging?” While I kept him steady in the group, I privately added him as a friend. What if he left the group and ran off in a bit? The notification sounded quickly. [The other party rejected your friend request.] Rejected? I added him again and attached a note: [Accept it, or I’ll call the police and report you for spreading a woman’s private photos, and you won’t get away.] This time, that man accepted my friend request very quickly. “Bro, what exactly do you want?” he asked me directly in the private chat. “Don’t overthink it. I’m just curious. If I don’t see what your girlfriend looks like, I really won’t be able to sleep tonight.” “You don’t need to be scared either. I’m really not local, so there’s no way I know you or the bride under you. If you don’t believe me, you can check my Ins posts and see if you recognize me.” I waited for a while, but the other side never replied. I guessed they had really gone to look through my posts. But I was not afraid, because the account and phone both belonged to Mason. They would not find anything useful. Besides, there was another point: they definitely would not dare make a big deal out of this. So they could not run anymore. “I can’t let you see my ex-girlfriend’s face. Ask for something else.” The fish had taken the bait. “Bro, that’s kind of stingy. You’re enjoying something that good yourself, and you won’t even let someone else take a look?” “Ask for something else, or if you want a woman, I’ll pay to get you the best escort in town. How about that?” “How can a paid escort be as exciting as your bride? Fine, if you won’t show her face, take a full-body shot so I can at least see her figure and satisfy my craving.” Even if I could not see her face, as long as it was Chloe, I would be able to confirm it through other features. Snap! A full-body photo was sent over, showing her from the back. I immediately zoomed in on the back of her head, because there was a mark there that could confirm whether she was Chloe…

In the end. I really found it. I zoomed in on the photo and looked again and again. I could not help kicking the stool beside my foot away. The heart-shaped red mole behind her ear was so glaring. If having the same profile picture could be a coincidence. If the strange sound she made during the phone call could be argued away. Then this photo was ironclad proof. Chloe Bennett, the woman who was going to have a wedding with me in just a few hours. Had cheated! I took out my phone. I wanted to FaceTime her. I wanted to ask her how she could be so shameless. But just as I was about to dial, Mason suddenly grabbed my hand. “Ethan, what are you doing?” “What am I doing? What do you think I’m doing? I want to kill someone. I want to go kill the bastard who fucked my fiancée right now, and while I’m at it, kill that bitch Chloe too.” After saying those two vicious lines. It was like all the energy in my body had been drained dry. I knocked something behind me over. I collapsed to the floor. I covered my face, and tears kept pouring down. “My fiancée cheated. My fiancée cheated…” I had truly never imagined something like this would happen to me. Just dozens of minutes ago, I had still been imagining tomorrow’s romantic scene. Now everything was destroyed. Everything was gone. Mason patted my shoulder. He said nothing, but he still helped me come back to my senses. The wedding would be held in just a few hours, and I had to make a decision. I owed my parents, relatives, and friends some kind of explanation. But as for that bitch Chloe. I would never take her back. Since she was this shameless, I would give her exactly what she deserved. “Let me use your phone again.” I reached my hand out to Mason. Seeing that I had calmed down, he did not hesitate. He handed it over directly. I opened the chat box with “Kyle Harding” and started typing: “Bro, I can tell from her back that your girlfriend is top-tier. Talk it over with her. How much would it cost to let me have a turn?” I wanted to catch them in the act. I wanted to nail Chloe down completely. “Are you sick? You wanted to see the photo, and I showed it to you. Now you want a turn too? Do you really think I’m some idiot you can mess with?” “Ten thousand dollars to let me have a turn, or I’ll post your business online. You two choose.” “I’m just here to travel and clear my head. If you agree and I have fun tonight, I’ll get in a car and leave afterward. In the future, none of us will see each other again, and none of us will know each other, so don’t worry.” The other side stopped replying again. I did not know whether Chloe disagreed. Or whether they were scared. But they no longer had a choice. “I think the bride beside you probably doesn’t want her business exposed either. Even if it’s only a back view, people who know her can still recognize her, don’t you think?” I was threatening them. I was betting that they did not want to make this bigger. Then I directly transferred ten thousand dollars to him. “Bear Inn, Room 520. I hope you keep your promise and get lost right after you’re done.”

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