Category: English

I spent seven years loving Leo. His secretary suggested the kidnapping was a good chance for me to learn my lesson, and he actually didn’t pay the ransom. Those hellish months made me see him for who he truly was. Just when I finally made up my mind to leave, he came to me, eyes red, begging me to come back. He said he wanted a fresh start, but I had already learned how to stay far, far away. 1. The day I walked into the city barefoot, I made the news. Kirsten Hassell, the adopted daughter of the prominent Hassell family, had been kidnapped for months. She stumbled back, filthy and reeking, her clothes ragged, her bare feet scarred and bleeding. She was a wreck, like a stray dog. I watched the media flashes, the cameras clicking, desperate for a shot, but my heart was already stagnant, incapable of even a ripple. The old Kirsten was dead. The glamorous, naive, spoiled, vibrant Kirsten was gone. The kidnappers, and Leo, had utterly destroyed her. Soon, a group of bodyguards in black suits cut a path through the throngs of people. Their leader, Ethan, I knew. For seven years, during my relentless pursuit of Leo, he had been the one to “escort” me out of Leo’s office and private apartment. “Escort” was a polite word for it; it was more like dragging me out, because I wouldn’t give up, and because Leo found me utterly exasperating. “Ms. Hassell, Mr. Hassell is waiting in the car for you. Please come with me.” Ethan’s gaze flickered with surprise when it landed on me; he clearly hadn’t expected me to be in such a wretched state. I nodded, stepping forward on my injured feet, leaving bloody prints on the pavement. The pain receptors in my nerves were long since numb; this short walk was nothing compared to my escape. Ethan walked behind me, unable to resist calling out, “Ms. Hassell…” I didn’t answer him. Pity me? He should be relieved. After this lesson, I would never pester Leo again, nor would I add any extra trouble to his job. Once in the car, I saw Leo sitting, eyes closed, lost in thought. His short, dark hair was impeccably styled, his sculpted features flawless, undeniably handsome. Of course. During my absence, he must have felt an unprecedented sense of peace and relief. He looked better than ever. Hearing the slight commotion, Leo slowly opened his eyes. The moment he saw me, he barely recognized me. “Kirsten?” I meekly nodded. Yes, I had learned my lesson. Before, I hadn’t cared about being the adopted daughter of the Hassell family, acting as if I were their biological child, proud and arrogant. But now, after the kidnapping, I understood that my life was in the Hassell family’s hands. If Leo didn’t pay the ransom, my life was worth less than dirt. He frowned, a hint of displeasure. “How did you get yourself into this state?” This state? What state? A lunatic? A beggar? I’d run for dozens of miles, sleepless, not only evading kidnappers but also wary of predatory animals in the suburban forests. When thirsty, I drank rainwater; when hungry, I rummaged through trash heaps by the highway. I imagine anyone would go mad under such circumstances. I knew he was annoyed that I appeared before the media looking like this, that it would cause trouble for his company—the Hassell family’s company, to be precise. “I’m sorry.” *Sorry for offending your eyes, Leo.* Leo paused at my reply, then a smirk played on his lips. “She was right. You actually learned your lesson.” I didn’t understand what Leo was talking about. Once the car door closed and the vehicle started moving, Leo suddenly reached a long arm toward me. I instinctively recoiled into the corner, but he stopped short, speaking with a disgusted tone, “Kirsten, you stink.” I don’t know if it was the confined space of the car, but Leo finally smelled the foul odor clinging to me—a fermented mixture of blood, sweat, dirt, and scraps from garbage piles. Hearing Leo’s words, I instinctively moved to get off the seat, but the car swerved slightly, and I ended up kneeling in the aisle. “I’m so sorry, I won’t get the seat dirty, I’ll just…” *Just kneel here.* It hurt so much. My knees, and the tiny pinprick wounds the kidnappers had made with fine steel needles. They blamed me; I wasn’t important to Leo at all, and they hadn’t gotten the ransom, wasting their time, so they took their anger out on me. I couldn’t stand, so I just knelt in that cramped space. Leo instantly became furious. “What are you doing? Get back in your seat!” He ordered me, but his disgust kept him from helping me up. I could only obey, using immense effort to prop myself up and sit back. The pain, coupled with the low blood sugar from the past few days, brought tears to my eyes. Leo had always ignored my tears, finding them annoying, but this time, he surprisingly tossed me the handkerchief he had used to wipe his hands. I clutched the clean, white cloth. Before, I would have been overjoyed, but now, that handkerchief only served to highlight my filth and brokenness. Ethan glanced at me in the rearview mirror. My head was bowed; perhaps he had never seen me so disgraced and pathetic. 2. When the car returned to the Hassell estate, Leo ordered someone to take me to the bathroom to wash up. I refused the maids’ help, only asking them to pick out a long dress, one that covered my ankles, from my old wardrobe. They rummaged for a while, finally pulling out a modest, long-sleeved dress, almost like a student’s uniform, from a corner amidst various fashionable clothes. No one defined what a student should wear, but looking at myself in the mirror, I did indeed resemble a student more than my former flamboyant style. I remembered receiving my acceptance letter from a top international design school before the kidnapping. Now, three months had passed since the enrollment deadline. “Thank you.” The maids looked utterly stunned, clearly not expecting their young mistress to thank them. But after everything that had happened, I understood perfectly: I was essentially no different from them. They were maids hired by the Hassell family; I was a daughter hired by the Hassell family. Pushing the door open, I saw Leo waiting for me at the top of the stairs. He leaned casually against the railing, his eyes lazily scanning me up and down, then he scoffed. “Kirsten, what game are you playing now? Dressed like that.” *Too plain?* Leo thought this was another one of my childish ploys for attention, but I only wanted to cover my scars. I followed Leo into the dining room. The room was silent until Leo gestured for me to come forward. Only then did I notice Mr. and Mrs. Hassell sitting at the dining table, looking worried. Mrs. Hassell saw me and almost rushed over. She stumbled, and a woman beside her gently helped steady her. “Mrs. Hassell, please don’t worry. Ms. Hassell has returned safe and sound, hasn’t she? Ms. Hassell, Mrs. Hassell has been so worried about you that her hair has turned gray.” I knew this woman; she was Leo’s secretary. Claire. Claire had naturally flowing black hair, wearing the simplest, most unassuming turtleneck sweater and jeans, yet a beautiful rose gold necklace hung around her neck. I was “safe and sound,” while Mrs. Hassell had worried herself sick. The moment Claire spoke, I transformed from a victim into an unfilial daughter of the Hassell family. Mrs. Hassell held me, weeping, while the woman comforted her. But I couldn’t cry. I looked at Leo, and his eyes seemed to say I was a heartless person. Finally, Mr. Hassell spoke, his voice firm, interrupting them. “Stop holding Kirsten, let her come and eat.” Mrs. Hassell wiped her tears. “My fault, my fault. My darling has suffered so much these past months, she must not have eaten properly. Come, Auntie made your favorite fish chowder!” Mrs. Hassell pulled me to sit between her and Mr. Hassell. Leo sat opposite me, and Claire sat beside him. Such a perfect picture of a family. I looked at the food in my bowl—a feast of colors, aromas, and flavors. I had almost forgotten what normal food looked like. I yearned to drop my chopsticks and just grab it with my hands, stuffing it into my mouth. The closer I got to the city highway, the stricter the sanitation management became. Gradually, I couldn’t find any more trash heaps, which meant no food. So I had been starving for almost three days, surviving only on tree leaves. Under everyone’s gaze, I forced myself to pick up the bowl and shovel rice into my mouth with chopsticks. Even so, I still caught Claire’s mocking gaze; she ate daintily, in small bites, displaying her elegance. Leo, witnessing this, naturally looked even more disgusted with me, yet at Mrs. Hassell’s urging, he reluctantly picked up a piece of sweet and sour pork and placed it on my plate. I thought that even the blandest porridge and steamed buns, which I used to find hard to swallow, I could now devour. But looking at the tempting sweet and sour pork, and realizing Leo had personally put it there, my stomach churned with nausea. “Darling, eat. Leo knows you like sweet and sour, so he specifically asked Auntie to add this dish.” *Nonsense.* Leo had no idea what I liked. Conversely, I knew all his preferences by heart. For instance, gold—he favored rose gold. Seeing my hesitant chopsticks, Mr. Hassell asked with concern, “What’s wrong, darling? Did you argue with Leo on the way back? Don’t worry, after dinner, I’ll give him a good talking-to.” “Dad!” Leo exclaimed, perhaps feeling this made him lose face in front of Claire. I shook my head silently, overcoming the physiological revulsion, and brought the sweet and sour pork to my mouth with my chopsticks. But the moment I swallowed, I threw up. Leo’s expression was startled. I immediately stood up from my chair, covering my head and retreating to a corner. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll eat it, please don’t hit me!” Everyone was shocked. Mrs. Hassell’s tears flowed again as she came to embrace me. “Did those people abuse you, darling? Tell me, did they?” Mr. Hassell and Leo also approached. Mr. Hassell’s expression was pained, looking at me with heartache. Leo, however, frowned, remaining silent, his face grim. *What does this mean? Didn’t the kidnappers threaten the Hassell family, saying that if the ransom wasn’t paid, their adopted daughter would experience abuse?* *Why are they asking me now if I was mistreated?* Actually, giving me stale bread and spoiled rice wasn’t really abuse, especially compared to the slop I ate afterward. I was just so terrified, terrified of the feeling that my life was in Leo’s hands. The kidnappers had negotiated directly with him, but he chose to abandon me. He hated me that much. I suppose that’s where the physical nausea came from. 3. After dinner, I was called to Mr. Hassell’s study. Mr. Hassell, abandoning his usual decisive corporate demeanor, patiently and kindly asked me, “Darling, you’ve liked Leo since you were a child. Do you still like him?” I shook my head frantically, so hard my facial muscles started to ache. Seven years of loving Leo, seven years of humiliation, seven years of pain. But I never learned my lesson, did I? That’s why this time, this time I went through a hell of revenge and torment. I couldn’t dare to like Leo anymore. Mr. Hassell pondered my answer for a moment, then sighed regretfully, “Oh, well. You may not be Leo’s wife, but you’ll always be a daughter of the Hassell family. My darling is so good, so beautiful, it’s that boy Leo who’s unlucky.” He took a bank card from his drawer. “This is what your parents left for you, four million dollars. They asked me to hold onto it and give it to you as your dowry when you grew up.” Four million dollars. The ransom was also four million dollars. During the kidnapping, I had resented my parents, wondering why they hadn’t taken me with them, sparing me this gratuitous torment. It turned out, they had already left me a guarantee to live well. They loved me so much. I bit my thumb, preventing myself from crying out. “Thank you, Uncle.” It was already 8 PM when I left the study. I walked toward my own room but bumped into Leo halfway. He understood my intention and spoke to me with an unexpectedly gentle tone, “Claire is staying in your room tonight. You’ll stay in the guest room next to mine.” So it was for Claire. I nodded and started walking in the opposite direction. When I first moved into the Hassell household, Leo disliked me and moved to the room furthest from mine—one in the far east, the other in the far west. But my room had been decorated by a top-tier designer hired by the Hassell family; the guest room couldn’t compare. Yet, ultimately, it all belonged to the Hassell family. If Leo told me to yield, I would. I hadn’t walked two steps when Leo called out, “Kirsten, why are you so obedient now?” I turned around and saw a mocking, yet almost worried, expression on his face. “I… I’m sorry…” I spoke hesitantly. Aside from endlessly apologizing, I had no idea what to say to Leo. “This is the third time you’ve apologized to me today. You’re being strange.” Leo walked over, leaning in and raising a hand to my forehead. I recoiled as if electrocuted, pushing myself away quickly. By the time I gripped the hallway railing, my legs were weak, almost unable to stand. Leo looked at me like I was insane, his expression growing impatient. I forced back the tremble in my voice and said, “I… I’m moving out tomorrow. I’ve already told Mr. Hassell.” I had expected Leo to be relieved by the news, to finally let me go. Instead, he grew angry. “Moving out? Why?… I merely let Claire stay in your room for a night. She’s a guest; what’s wrong with you being accommodating?” I shook my head frantically. “No, it’s not that.” Leo’s face darkened as he walked toward me, grabbing my wrist and pulling me toward the easternmost room. “Come with me, I need to talk to you.” Fear engulfed my mind. I tearfully pulled out the bank card Mr. Hassell had given me earlier in the study. “I’m sorry, I have money, please don’t hit me.” “I have money, please don’t hit me.” Leo turned back, startled. I was already slumped on the floor, my wrist still held high in his grip. “Kirsten, what are you saying?” My lips were now bitten purple. As Leo’s face loomed larger, I gradually recalled the kidnappers’ insults: *The Hassell family’s dog, foolishly clinging to its master.* “Mr. Hassell, I—no, Mr. Hassell, I won’t bother you anymore. I wouldn’t dare again.” Leo finally realized my mental state was off. His movements became much gentler. He put an arm around my waist, lifting me from the floor. The sudden loss of balance made me instinctively cling to Leo’s neck. His stern expression finally softened slightly. “Kirsten, I’m not saying I don’t want you around, it’s just…” Before he could finish, the hallway door swung open with a *click*. Claire poked her head out of my room, the bright light from inside spilling into the hall. She covered her mouth, feigning surprise. “Mr. Hassell, Ms. Hassell.” Leo looked displeased. “I gave you the room, what else do you need?” Claire replied somewhat aggrieved, “It’s a video conference with the US branch. Mr. Hassell, they need you to attend personally.” Leo glanced at me in his arms, then reluctantly put me down. My body was stiff, unable to speak. “Wait for me in my room.” Leo left that instruction, then walked over to Claire. The two entered the room, and the door closed. The bright light vanished from the hallway. I felt like I had just escaped death, cold sweat already soaking through the back of my clothes. Leo wouldn’t be back. I knew Claire’s tactics. Countless times, on my birthdays, my graduation ceremonies, he had been called away by Claire exactly like this. Perhaps he truly wanted to leave, and truly didn’t want to return. And I needed to leave as soon as possible, to a place where I wouldn’t see Leo. I was terrified that any further contact with him would push me over the edge into madness. 4. I sat on the guest room bed until 3 AM, with no sound coming from Leo’s room next door. During that time, I used the new phone Mrs. Hassell bought me, logged into an app, and found a well-secured apartment for rent. Just as dawn broke, the Hassell estate was silent. I carried my shoes, barefoot, and slipped out. Walking outside, I suddenly saw someone leaning against Leo’s car, playing on their phone. My heart leaped, fearing it was Leo. The person heard my movement and looked up. I realized it was Ethan. I pretended nothing was wrong, walked past him, and headed to the roadside to hail a cab. But he followed me. “Ms. Hassell?” “……” “Mr. Hassell knows you’re…” “Can you please not tell Leo?” I suppressed my agitation. I was so close, just a hair’s breadth away from escaping. Why did I have to run into him? Ethan looked confused. “Mr. Hassell will be worried.” I shook my head hard, and started to take off my clothes. Ethan instinctively backed away, then turned his head, his ears flushing. “Ms. Hassell, what are you doing?” I didn’t care. If I could live, what was shame? That feeling had long been eroded by Leo. “He won’t worry about me. All these scars were left on me by the kidnappers, under his instruction.” Ethan looked at me then. Under my jacket was a white sleeveless tank top, clearly revealing purple-red whip marks, blue bruises, and several scabs on my arms. He was incredulous. These shocking scars were beyond his comprehension. I quickly put my clothes back on while he was stunned and pleaded, “Ethan, please, let me go, or I’ll die.” It was the first time I had called him by his name. Before, I always called him Leo’s dog, just as the kidnappers called me. Ethan was speechless for a long time. I quickly ran towards the roadside to hail a taxi. Suddenly, a large hand grabbed me, but after realizing there were injuries beneath my clothes, it recoiled. I was on the verge of tears. “No…” Ethan gritted his teeth, his voice firm. “You won’t find a taxi at this hour. I’ll take you.” “?” With a complex mix of emotions, I got into Leo’s car again. Ethan turned off the dashcam, just in case. “Just bear with it, we’ll be there soon.” He thought I resisted being in Leo’s car, which was true, but as long as it meant escaping Leo, escaping the Hassell family, this endurance was nothing. We arrived at the prearranged apartment complex. I texted the agent that I wanted to move in immediately. To close the deal, he came early in the morning with the contract and keys, greeting us with a cheerful smile at the complex entrance. Ethan was worried, so he came up with me to see the place. It was a fully furnished loft. Although small, it had all the necessary household items. “One thousand two hundred square feet, it’s already the largest apartment in our complex, Ms. Hassell. Whether you live alone or with a boyfriend, it’s more than enough.” I looked at Ethan. He said nothing, his head bowed as he flipped through the contract in his hand. Then he asked about utilities and air conditioning. Finding no issues, he handed it to me. I don’t know why, but I trusted him immensely. Perhaps it was his good nature, not caring when I lashed out at him with kicks and punches every time he dragged me out of Leo’s office. Or perhaps it was when he found me in a bar, under Leo’s orders, and brutally beat those men who tried to lay hands on me. Without hesitation, I quickly signed, pulled out the bank card, and handed it to the agent. He swiped it on the POS machine, then complimented Ethan and me a few times before happily leaving. In the empty room, only Ethan and I remained. He suddenly became a bit awkward. “Ms. Hassell, I should head back.” I nodded, intending to write him a check as thanks—an old habit of mine—but then realized my pockets were empty. Right, I had left with nothing. I had wanted to bring a few personal items, but even my own room had been taken over, let alone a checkbook. “Ethan, how can I thank you?” Ethan was slightly surprised. “No… no need to thank me.” I said no more. Even if he needed something from me in the future, I wouldn’t refuse. Ethan left; he had to go back to work. Before leaving, he said, “Get some good rest.” I certainly needed rest. The thought even crossed my mind: *Finally, I can rest.* Dozens of miles, I slept under tarpaulins in farmlands, on low tree branches. It wasn’t really sleeping; my mind was constantly on edge, wary of those hunting me, wary of wild animals. Back at the Hassell estate, I was constantly waiting for an opportunity to escape. So, sitting on that soft guest room bed, I pinched the soft flesh of my inner thigh over and over, just to stay awake. I took off my shoes, went upstairs into the bedroom. The large bed inside had only a bare mattress; I hadn’t had time to buy any furnishings. But luckily, this loft came with blackout curtains. I pulled them shut, collapsed onto the mattress, and fell into a deep sleep.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “430155”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The moment I opened my eyes in this new life, I made one, critical decision. The first thing I did was grab the sponsorship list, filled with names, and shove it deep into the trash. In my past life, my name was Jade. I died of stomach cancer at thirty-seven. Of the 101 children I had sponsored, not a single one came to see me off. This time, I took the money I’d set aside for donations and, without a second thought, bought ten houses before the market boomed. Not long after, familiar faces began appearing on my television screen. The same boys and girls who had once knelt before me, swearing they would repay my kindness, were now wiping away tears as they gave interviews. “Mama Jade promised she would support me through university, but now she’s vanished. I heard she bought ten houses.” “We have no choice but to drop out and find work.” “I don’t hate her, it just… it hurts so much.” “We just want to ask one thing: Mama Jade, we called you our mother. How could you be so cruel?” 1 I switched off the TV, my face a blank mask. The instant I unlocked my phone, a flood of messages crashed in. The first: “Ms. Jade, this is a reporter from Cityline. Could you comment on why you’ve suddenly ceased funding for 101 underprivileged students? Would you be available for an interview?” The second: “Mama Jade! It’s Faye! Why aren’t you answering your phone? You promised you’d see me through university!” The third: “Ms. Jade, as a well-known philanthropist, you suddenly have ten properties to your name while children are forced to drop out of school. Can you live with yourself?” The fourth, the fifth, the sixth… My phone vibrated ceaselessly, as if it were about to explode. At the same time, I heard a clamor of footsteps outside my apartment. From the sound of it, dozens of people were gathered at my door. Their voices seeped through the wood, impatient and demanding. “Ms. Jade! Come out and say something!” “Why did you stop the funding?” “Do you know the children are kneeling in front of the TV station?” I closed my eyes. In my past life, I was a good person—selfless, altruistic, always putting others first. My husband, Mark, and I ran a small building supply store. We worked from dawn till dusk, pinching every penny. Most of the money we earned went to charity. Over ten years, we donated more than a million dollars, sponsoring 101 children from the poor, rural parts of the region. We started supporting many of them when they were in elementary school. I promised them they could focus on their studies, that I would support them all the way through university. They wrote us letters, calling us “Mama Jade” and “Papa Mark,” promising they would repay our kindness one day. We kept every letter, pulling them out on sleepless nights. Reading them always brought tears of joy to our eyes. Mark and I had no children of our own. We didn’t want repayment; we just wanted to ensure poverty wouldn’t define their lives. Then, Mark died. His delivery truck overturned. His last words were, “Make sure you take care of the kids.” And then he was gone. I was shattered. Before I could even begin to process my grief, I was diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer. For over a year, I lay in a hospital bed, waiting for those children to visit me. Not one came. I told myself they were busy with school, that the travel was expensive. I didn’t blame them. Then, my medical funds ran out, and I had no choice but to stop the sponsorship payments. The phone started ringing. “Auntie Jade, where’s this month’s living stipend?” “Auntie Jade, you said you’d support me through university. I’m only a freshman in high school. Are you backing out now? You’re ruining my life!” “Ms. Jade, this is Kevin’s father. You made a promise. How can you just cut us off? What’s our son supposed to do?” The last call came from a girl named Lily. When I had first selected her for sponsorship, she had knelt before me, tears streaming down her face as she called me “Mama.” Now, on the phone, she said, “Mama Jade, how long will your treatment take? You need to get better and get back to work soon. There are a lot of us kids waiting for you.” I hung up and burned all the letters I had kept under my pillow. Later, a reporter dug up my story and went to interview the children. Reporter: “Jade is very sick. Aren’t you going to visit her?” Child A: “She promised to support me through university. Now she’s in a hospital bed with no money. What good would it do if I went?” Child B: “She’s so rich. It’s just an illness. Besides, how much is our tuition, really?” Child C, who was Lily, smiled innocently at the camera. “Everyone does things for a reason. As for what her reason was… I don’t have to say it. You can probably guess, can’t you?” I turned off the television. With my last bit of money gone, I left the hospital and went home. I lay on the bed Mark used to sleep in, wasting away day by day. I died on New Year’s Eve, as fireworks lit up the night sky outside my window. Staring at the ceiling, I whispered, “God, if I get another chance—” “I will love myself first.” And He listened. I was reborn. Reborn at thirty-three. Mark was still alive, and we were still relatively well-off. Changing my fate wasn’t easy. That afternoon, I barely made it out of my apartment building. Down below, a sea of kneeling figures. Over a hundred children in their school uniforms, holding banners. “MAMA JADE, WE NEED YOU.” “MAMA JADE, DON’T ABANDON US.” Kneeling at the very front was Lily. She held a megaphone, her voice cracking with emotion as she cried out: “Mama Jade, you promised you’d see me through university! Have you forgotten?” Reporters swarmed the area, their cameras all pointed at the entrance to my building. The moment I stepped outside, a wail pierced the air. “Mama Jade!” Lily crawled forward on her knees, scuttling until she reached me and wrapped her arms around my legs. “Mama Jade, please don’t abandon us! You said we were your children! You promised you’d always support us!” Her tears soaked into my pants, cold and damp. Behind her, the other 100 children began to cry in unison, their sobs echoing through the courtyard. Security guards tried to intervene but were blocked by the reporters. I was surrounded by cameras, microphones, and cell phones. Someone was live-streaming. People in the crowd were dabbing their eyes. I heard someone mutter, “How pitiful. How can that woman be so heartless?” I looked down at Lily. Her face was exactly as I remembered it from my past life. She had knelt before me just like this, crying and promising to care for me in my old age. Then, when I was on my deathbed, she had told a camera, “Everyone does things for a reason.” I reached down and, one by one, pried her fingers from my leg. “Mama Jade!” she clung on tighter. I pried the last one off. Then I crouched down, meeting her gaze. “Lily, how old are you this year?” She hesitated. “Seven… seventeen.” “Seventeen,” I nodded. “That’s not so little anymore.” I paused, then enunciated each word clearly. “Everyone does things for a reason. As for what your reason is right now… you don’t have to say it. I can guess.” Her face went rigid. I stood up, stepped around her, and walked away. Behind me, Lily let out a gut-wrenching sob. “Mama Jade! You can’t do this! You promised us! You can’t go back on your word!” The other children joined in, their cries even louder than before. A chant began: “Mama Jade, come back! Mama Jade, come back!” The cameras followed me, their live-stream comments a dense, scrolling blur. “What kind of person is she? All those kids are on their knees and she won’t even look back?” “So cold-blooded. And I used to ‘like’ her posts.” “Ten houses, and she won’t donate a single one. I knew her charity was fake!” “Jade, how do you sleep at night?” The reporters’ microphones were practically in my face, their questions a barrage of “why.” Seeing no escape, I stopped and faced them with a calm smile. “Yes, it’s true. I have decided to stop the donations.” “As for the reason, that’s my private business, and I won’t be discussing it here.” “However, I believe there are more good people in this world than bad. People like you, for instance. You are all more than welcome to take over sponsoring these children.” “With so much kindness in this world, I’m sure that even without me, they will be able to finish their education. Am I right?” I smiled as I scanned the faces of these righteous, well-meaning people. At my words, the reporters fell silent, no longer pressing me. I seized the opportunity, pushed through the crowd, and hurried to the complex gate. A car was parked by the curb. The window rolled down. It was Mark. His eyes were red. “Honey, I saw everything.” His voice was thick. “Those kids… they’re so pitiful. We’ve always helped them, haven’t we? Why the sudden…” I opened the car door and got in. Mark turned to me. “We always said we didn’t want their gratitude, we just wanted them to have a good life…” “I changed the password to our savings accounts,” I said. He froze. “What?” “The passwords to our two accounts. I changed them.” I stared straight ahead. “If you want to withdraw any money, you’ll have to ask me.” “Honey, what are you—” I sighed. “Mark, I had a dream. It was so real that I believe it’s destined to happen.” “In the dream, you died. I got cancer. I was in the hospital for over a year, and not a single one of those 101 children came to see me. When I stopped the funding, they called to hound me, telling me to hurry up, get better, and go back to work to earn money for them. They went on television and said I had ulterior motives. In the end, I died alone at home on New Year’s Eve, while fireworks were going off outside.” He was speechless. “Mark,” I said, my voice weary. “In this life, let’s love ourselves first.” He stared at me, his mouth agape, completely bewildered. Outside the window, a massive screen on a building was playing the news. “Renowned philanthropist Jade abandons 101 underprivileged children, who kneel in the street begging her to return…” People on the street were looking up at the screen. Someone shouted: “Jade, I hope you rot in hell!” A chorus of agreement followed. I let out a cold laugh. A handful of rice creates gratitude; a sackful creates an enemy. The old proverbs were never wrong. The online backlash spread like wildfire. For days, a crowd surrounded my building. “Jade! Get out here!” “Heartless monster!” “What a fake. She’s nothing but a fraud!” Someone threw an egg at my window, the yolk sliding down the glass. Someone else spray-painted my building’s entrance in red: “FAKE CHARITY, REAL VAMPIRE.” Another group held up a banner: “PUNISH THE UNSCRUPULOUS BUSINESSWOMAN! JUSTICE FOR THE CHILDREN!” I peeked through a crack in the curtains and saw Lily, still at the front of the crowd, giving a tearful interview. “We never wanted her money. We just wanted to know why she suddenly abandoned us.” A boy next to her was sobbing hysterically. “She bought ten houses but made us drop out of school! My sister is only in middle school, and now she has to work in a factory!” The crowd erupted. “Call the police! Arrest her!” “People like her deserve to be canceled!” “Let’s trash her place!” Suddenly, a rock shattered my window, sending shards of glass flying perilously close to my eyes. Mark threw himself in front of me, the color drained from his face. “Honey, we should call the police.” I shook my head. What good would that do? They were just a group of “poor,” “helpless,” “betrayed” children. The next day, things got worse. Someone had posted my home address online, along with the location of Mark’s building supply store. By the time I got there, I heard someone in the crowd yell, “Trash it!” Before the words had even faded, a baseball bat shattered the glass door. The crowd surged in like a tidal wave. Shelves were toppled, tiles were smashed, and the cash register was overturned. Someone lit the sign out front on fire, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. My honest, good-natured Mark, his eyes red with fury, rushed in to stop them, only to be thrown to the ground. Someone spat on him. Someone else kicked him. In that moment, a rush of blood went to my head. But I didn’t charge in. Instead, I took a step back, to the edge of the crowd, and opened my phone’s live-stream. I aimed the camera at the fire, at the ransacked store, at Mark being trampled underfoot. The comment section scrolled frantically. “What’s going on?” “Holy shit, this is a riot!” “Did anyone call the cops?” “That’s that Jade woman’s store!” “Good! Serves her right! Hope that fake philanthropist goes bankrupt!” I stared at the screen, my voice calm but with a tremor I couldn’t hide. “Hello everyone, I’m Jade. What you are watching right now is my husband being attacked.” “For the past three days, my home has been vandalized, my store has been besieged, and my husband has been beaten. And all of this is because I stopped sponsoring 101 children.” “To date, I have supported them for three years, donating approximately $300,000. I have records for every single transfer.” “As for why I suddenly stopped… I didn’t want to talk about this today.” I pulled a few folded papers from my pocket and held them up to the camera.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “430124”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The day I went back to swipe my card, my heart pounded as I faced the familiar scene. The despair from my past life was still fresh. That twenty-thousand-dollar bill felt like a bottomless pit. No matter how many times I paid, it reappeared instantly. Back then, I had needed to use the card urgently, thinking I could repay it within the interest-free period. But after I paid and refreshed the statement, the same twenty-thousand-dollar debt stared back at me. I thought it was a system issue and called customer service. They checked and said everything was normal. They had not received my payment. With the due date approaching, I had no choice but to pay again. Yet, the bill soon reappeared, unchanged. Furious, I called the police. After investigating, they told me I had not made any payments and warned me not to waste public resources. No one believed me, no matter how I explained. It felt like a loop. Every payment I made, the bill returned. Crushed by the endless debt, I eventually chose to end my life. Until my last breath, I could not understand why I could never clear that bill. Now, I am back, reborn on the day it all began. This time, I will uncover the truth. … I flinched and quickly cancelled the credit card transaction. The horrific memories of my past death flooded back, leaving me terrified and bewildered. I’d used this credit card for over ten years without a single issue. And I was always careful with money, never linking it to any automatic payments. What was even more insane was that both the bank and the police claimed I hadn’t made any payments. But I distinctly remembered paying, and the credit card had shown “payment successful.” Why did the bill reappear moments later? If it wasn’t a system issue, and I hadn’t wronged anyone, why would someone deliberately target me? My thoughts were still a tangled mess when my mom called, saying the hospital was pressing for Dad’s medical bills. After hanging up, my face crumpled into a frown. Over the years, we’d borrowed from every friend and relative to pay for Dad’s treatment. My salary hadn’t come in yet, so the only way to get the money was to use a credit card. Recalling the endless problems with this card in my last life, I gritted my teeth. This time, I’d just switch to a reliable bank and get a new credit card. Surely, that would solve the problem, right? No sooner said than done, I immediately called my cousin, Jenny, who worked at another bank. We’d grown up together, thick as thieves. Ever since Dad got sick, she’d been a huge help to me. Sure enough, when I told her I needed a credit card for medical expenses, she immediately offered to lend me the money herself. I quickly declined. Jenny’s family wasn’t well-off, and she had a son with a disability. I couldn’t add to her burden. Seeing my determination to get a card, Jenny relented. But to be safe, I still pressed her with a few questions: “Jenny, are you sure your bank’s system is solid?” “Like, what if I pay, but a bill still mysteriously pops up?” Jenny paused, then confidently stated: “Skye, don’t you worry!” “Our bank is a national institution! It hasn’t had a single problem in decades!” “Besides, I’ll be handling your card myself. I guarantee you won’t get ripped off!” Jenny’s assurances eased my mind slightly. After getting the card, I immediately paid twenty thousand dollars for Dad’s medical bills. A couple of days later, my salary came in, and I paid the card off immediately. This time, I was extra cautious. After the “payment successful” message appeared, I immediately took a screenshot. My heart was in my throat, terrified that the bizarre events would repeat. Thankfully, after a long wait, no new bill popped up. Just as I sighed in relief, thinking everything was finally resolved, the screen suddenly refreshed. The zero balance morphed into negative twenty thousand. 2 I froze, unable to believe my eyes. I furiously refreshed the screen several times, but it still showed negative twenty thousand. I clicked into my payment history, and it was completely empty. The twenty thousand I’d just paid had vanished into thin air. I immediately called Jenny. After I explained everything, she quickly reassured me not to worry, saying she’d look into it. A short while later, she called back, her voice tinged with an odd note: “Skye, I just checked the system backend. There’s no record of your payment at all.” “I also contacted the tech department, and they said the system is completely normal today.” “Tell me honestly, did you even make the payment?” Now I was desperate. After a frantic explanation, I sent her the screenshot of the successful payment. There was a moment of silence before Jenny’s voice came back on the line: “Skye, I just had my colleagues re-verify, and you genuinely didn’t make the payment.” “And they also said…” Jenny hesitated, then spoke with a touch of helplessness: “That screenshot of yours… it’s definitely been Photoshopped.” I completely lost it then. I immediately told her if they suspected me of faking it, they should call the police for an investigation! Seeing how agitated I was, Jenny quickly tried to calm me down: “Skye, just hold on.” “How about this? Why don’t you come to the bank and make the payment again in person? We’ll record the whole thing.” “If you don’t want to, I’ll cover it for you this time! What do you say?” Seeing Jenny’s sincerity, I reluctantly agreed. Soon I was at the bank, and with Jenny and several colleagues watching, I began the payment process again. This time, with every step, I made sure Jenny and the others witnessed it firsthand, and everything was recorded. It wasn’t until the “payment successful” message popped up that I looked up at everyone: “You all saw it, right? The money really went through!” “Don’t let any weird bills pop up again in a little while!” Jenny nodded: “Skye, we all saw it. You definitely made the payment.” “This bill absolutely won’t pop up again, you can rest a million percent assured!” Seeing my lingering skepticism, Jenny even made a solemn promise: “Skye, even if this bill reappears later, it’ll be our bank’s responsibility, and you absolutely won’t have to bear it!” Even the other staff members chimed in with their assurances. With all the witnesses and a direct promise, I finally felt confident enough to head home. No sooner had I gotten home and was about to kick off my shoes, a text message popped up. I looked down, and my mind instantly exploded. The twenty-thousand-dollar bill was back! 3 I didn’t even have time to catch my breath before I was back in the car, speeding towards the bank. The moment I walked in, I rushed straight to Jenny’s counter, pulled up the bill, and demanded to know what was going on. Jenny stared at the bill in my hand, completely bewildered, and the other colleagues who had gathered around were also stunned. “This, how is this possible?” “Our system hasn’t had a single error in decades, how could it…” But amidst their chatter, a staff member who had been checking the backend suddenly pulled a long face. She looked up at me, her expression grim: “Everyone, I’ve found the reason.” “She set up a delayed payment. That money was only nominally deposited just now, and now she’s withdrawn it!” At this, the surrounding colleagues immediately crowded around to look, and the next second, they erupted: “I knew it! How could our system possibly have a problem!” “So, she just wants to use the money without paying it back, playing tricks and slandering us!” “This person has some nerve, lying without even a gasp to avoid paying! I almost believed her!” … I was completely stunned. When had I ever set up a delayed payment? I pulled up my salary card, found the twenty-thousand-dollar transaction, and shoved it in front of them, shouting: “Look closely, all of you! Didn’t this money already transfer out?” “How dare you say I withdrew the payment?” But a female staff member sneered at me: “Oh, please! You could Photoshop a successful payment screenshot before, who knows if this screen is faked too!” Other staff members quickly chimed in: “Exactly! Across the whole country, no one’s heard of someone paying their credit card and then having a bill just pop up out of thin air!” “What’s more, we’re a national-level system, how could we make a mistake?” “People like her are just full of lies, completely untrustworthy!” … Jenny looked at me, her eyes filled with disappointment: “Skye, we grew up together. I always thought you were an honest person.” “If you really needed money, I would have gladly given it to you. But why would you lie to me?” “You’ve truly let me down!” The accusations around me grew louder, and someone even called the police right then and there. I stood rooted to the spot, my mind buzzing. Jenny and the staff’s reactions didn’t look faked at all. If they were deliberately trying to make things difficult for me, it clearly wasn’t working. But I had clearly paid twice, and the money had indeed left my account. Why did the bill keep reappearing? 4 The cops arrived pretty quickly. After hearing what had happened, they sent some officers to check the bank’s system while I was taken to an office for questioning. “Ms. Lin, are you certain you made the payment on time?” “You need to be honest. Otherwise, you could be facing financial fraud charges, and that’s a serious offense!” I quickly explained, showing them my salary card’s transaction history. But after looking for a bit, the officer frowned: “Ms. Lin, these records only prove you made a payment!” “But the destination isn’t clear, it doesn’t prove you paid your credit card.” I was speechless. Just then, two more officers knocked and came in, immediately reporting: “We’ve checked. The bank system has no issues.” “We also found that Skye Lin did borrow twenty thousand, but she hasn’t made any payments!” The officer in front of me immediately scowled: “Skye Lin, even now, you won’t just tell the truth!” “Do you think what I just said was a joke?” I was practically exploding with frustration: “Officers, I really did pay!” “But I don’t understand why the system keeps showing I haven’t!” “If you don’t believe me, we can do an experiment right now!” The officers paused, seeing I wasn’t joking. They exchanged glances and finally agreed. So, in front of several officers, I repeated the payment process again. And as soon as the screen showed “payment successful,” I immediately told the officers to confirm the backend information. Surprisingly, this time, both my credit card and the bank system showed a payment record. And after half a day, no bill popped up. The staff present immediately started making snide remarks: “See? As soon as the police show up, she can pay successfully, no more tricks!” “It’s all an act, trying to shift the blame!” The officers also stared at me sternly: “It’s now been proven that as long as you make a normal payment, there’s no issue of bills repeatedly appearing!” “So your previous statements were all made up to avoid paying, weren’t they?” “Your actions have disrupted the bank’s normal operations and even bordered on financial fraud!” By the end, the officer’s tone had become extremely severe! I was utterly stunned. But no matter how desperately I tried to explain, no one there believed me. Seeing the officers about to take me away, I felt completely hopeless! I had honestly made the payments, but the credit card bill kept reappearing! And now, at the crucial moment of proving it, everything was suddenly back to normal! Why was this credit card always targeting me? Just then, a small detail flashed in my mind. I instantly understood why!

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “430140”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 I jolted awake on March 7th, my eyes snapping open. By my desk stood the student I sponsored, a scholarship kid. She held a bottle of pills, a sweet smile on her face. “Eleanor, your allergy meds are almost out. I put a new bottle in your drawer for you,” she said. I didn’t call her out immediately. Because I distinctly remembered that after my accidental death in my previous life, I’d found a notebook hidden under her pillow. It was filled with dates, each one checked off, and each checked date perfectly matched a time I’d suffered an “accident.” And on the very last page of that notebook, there was a line I still couldn’t quite understand. … I looked at the bottle of pills in Vera’s hand. A white, round bottle, almost identical to the imported loratadine I used. But there was an extra line of small print on the label. Vitamin C. In my past life, I hadn’t noticed such a small detail. I’d casually put it in my medicine cabinet and dutifully taken it for half a month when allergy season hit. Then, my allergies had erupted, sending me straight to the hospital. “Eleanor, you look a little pale…” Vera tilted her head, her eyes wet and innocent. I took the bottle and placed it on my desk, not in the medicine cabinet. “You don’t need to buy my medication anymore. And you don’t need to organize anything on my desk.” Vera’s lips trembled. “Eleanor… did I do something wrong? Please tell me, I’ll change…” Tears welled up instantly, her voice dropping lower and lower until it became a soft sob. The door creaked open. Nathan stood in the doorway. He saw Vera crying and his face immediately darkened. “Eleanor, what’s going on? Are you picking on Vera again?” I looked at him. In my previous life, I had been in love with him for two years. Tall, handsome, student body president. But every time something happened to me, he was always the first to defend Vera. “Nathan, we’re breaking up.” “…What?” “We’re done. Effective immediately.” Vera quickly grabbed my arm. “Eleanor, don’t be rash! You and Nathan have such a good thing going. Don’t let me get in the way…” I looked down at the hand gripping my arm. Her nails were neatly trimmed, spotless. In my previous life, that hand had worn rubber gloves, using tweezers to painstakingly peel off and re-affix labels in the lab. That wasn’t the kind of meticulous work a timid liberal arts student would do. “Let go.” Vera recoiled. I grabbed my backpack and walked out of the dorm room. Nathan shouted after me, “Eleanor Bennett, what the hell is your problem? If you walk out, don’t bother coming back!” I didn’t stop. After leaving the dorm building, I sat on a garden bench for ten minutes, letting my heartbeat settle. Then I went back to the dorm building and borrowed a spare key from my friend, Sarah, in the room next door. While Vera was out, I re-entered the dorm. I walked over to Vera’s bed. She had very few belongings, and her bed was meticulously neat. Under the pillow. In my past life, at the very last moment before I died, I saw her holding a notebook. I reached under her pillow. My fingertips brushed against a hard cover. I pulled it out. It was an ordinary black notebook. I opened it. Page after page was crammed with dates. She was planning to kill me. From March to June, step by step, systematically. I was about to close the notebook when I noticed a small asterisk next to the date May 18th. After it, in tiny writing, were three words. [She will come.] She? Who was ‘she’? Was someone else involved in Vera’s plan? I pulled out my phone and took pictures of every page in the notebook. Then I put it back under the pillow exactly as I found it. By the time I left the dorm, it was dark. I stood by the window in the hallway, looking at the dates on my phone. March 12th, five days from now. In my previous life, that’s when my pollen allergies had landed me in the hospital. This time, I was eager to see what “surprise” Vera had in store for me. 2 For the next few days, I acted completely normal. Classes, meals, lab work, back to the dorm. I talked when I needed to, smiled when appropriate. But I no longer let Vera touch any of my things. Several times, she tried to help me organize my desk, bring me food, or collect my laundry, but I subtly refused each time. Every time I refused, she’d look at me with those wet, innocent eyes, like a puppy abandoned by its owner. My other roommates couldn’t stand it. “Eleanor, Vera is so good to you. Why are you so cold lately?” “Seriously, she genuinely cares about you. Don’t hurt her feelings.” I just smiled, offering no explanation. On the evening of March 11th. Vera went to the library. Ten minutes after she left, I locked the dorm door and began my inspection. First, I checked my medicine cabinet. The swapped allergy medication was still there; I had already sealed it away separately. Then I checked my bed. I pulled off the pillowcase and shook it out. Nothing amiss. I unzipped the pillow insert. My hand froze. Tucked inside the pillow insert’s lining was a small bag. It contained dried flowers. Tiny petals and pollen, sealed in a clear plastic bag. The bag had a small tear at the opening, and the pollen was slowly seeping into the pillow’s stuffing. Every night, I’d lay my face on that pillow, breathing for an entire night. Pollen would directly enter my respiratory system. For someone with severe pollen allergies, this was like burying my face in an allergen. In my previous life, on March 12th, my allergies flared up, sending me to the hospital. The doctor had attributed it to seasonal changes. Who would have thought someone had deliberately placed something in my pillow? I carefully removed the bag of petals with tweezers and placed it in a sealed bag. Then I replaced my pillow with a new one. On March 12th, I was perfectly fine. No allergies, no hospital, nothing happened. That evening, Vera returned to the dorm and saw me sitting quietly at my desk, reading. Her gaze lingered on my face for two seconds. It was brief, but I caught it. She was checking my skin for rashes, swelling, or signs of difficulty breathing. There was nothing. Her eyes flickered. I closed my book and spoke casually. “Vera, those dried flowers you put in my pillow last time were quite fragrant. What kind were they?” The entire dorm went silent for a moment. Vera turned, her face a mask of bewilderment. “Eleanor, what are you talking about? I never put anything in your pillow…” “Really?” I took the sealed bag from my drawer and held it up to the light. “This bag of petals fell out of my pillow insert. Want to take a look?” My roommates gathered around. “No way! Flowers in a pillow?” “Who would put flowers in a pillow…?” Vera’s lips parted, and her eyes began to redden. “Eleanor… maybe when I was airing out your bedding, some petals accidentally got on it… the school garden has so many flowers blooming lately…” “Petals that just ‘got on’ wouldn’t be in a plastic bag.” I flipped the sealed bag over. The clear plastic bag still had the torn opening. Clearly, someone had intentionally opened and placed it there. Vera was speechless. Tears streamed down her face, and her hands twisted together. “I really don’t know… maybe someone played a prank… Eleanor, please don’t accuse me…” The other roommates exchanged glances, unsure whose side to take. I didn’t press further. The time wasn’t right. I put the sealed bag away and smiled. “Never mind, I must have been mistaken.” Vera let out a sigh of relief, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. But I noticed that when she returned to her bed, her first action was to reach under her pillow. Only after confirming the notebook was still there did her shoulders truly relax. That night, I took the bag of petals to the school’s biology lab and asked a senior student for help with identification. The results came back the next day. It wasn’t ordinary flower petals. It was ragweed pollen, mixed with a small amount of mugwort pollen. These two are the most common and potent allergens for all pollen allergy sufferers. Mixed with dried flower fragments, they were extremely subtle, almost impossible to discern with the naked eye. I took photos of the identification report and saved them. Just as I was about to turn off my phone, a text message popped up on the screen. An unknown number. No sender name. Just one line of text. [She didn’t buy the flowers herself. Check the old flower and bird market in Westside, March 5th.] 3 I didn’t immediately pursue that anonymous text message. Because the second date was approaching. April 3rd. In my previous life, on that day, I almost had an accident during my pharmaceutical chemistry lab class. Two reagent bottles had their labels swapped. I had followed the labels and taken ethanol for a dissolution experiment, but it was actually hydrochloric acid. It reacted violently with another reagent, and the beaker exploded. My hand was badly burned. At the time, everyone thought it was a lapse in lab management. Vera cried hysterically, “Eleanor, I’m so sorry! I must have accidentally bumped something when I was helping you organize your lab bench… Please let me pay for your medical bills…” Nathan had said, “She’s a liberal arts transfer; how would she know the difference between these chemicals? It’s your fault for not checking, why blame her?” I hadn’t blamed her. My past self never blamed her. But this time, I was going to film how “accidental” she was. March 28th, six days before the lab class. I went to see Mr. Miller, the lab administrator. “Mr. Miller, do we have security cameras in our lab?” Mr. Miller shook his head. “We used to, but they broke down six months ago. The university hasn’t allocated funds to fix them.” I’d expected that. In my past life, there were no cameras in the lab, which is why Vera dared to act. “However…” Mr. Miller pointed to a camera on the hallway ceiling. “There’s one in the hallway outside the lab door. It can record who comes and goes.” Not enough. I needed footage from inside the lab. That afternoon, I bought a mini recording device online. It was the size of a fingernail, magnetic, and could be attached to a metal shelf. On the evening of March 31st, I entered the lab when no one was around. I stuck the recording device to the top of the reagent shelf directly opposite my lab bench. The angle perfectly covered my entire work area. Then I waited. April 2nd, 11:40 PM. I was scrolling on my phone in the dorm when the recording device’s app pushed a motion alert. Movement detected in the lab. I tapped to open the live feed. In night vision mode, the screen was green. A figure pushed open the lab door. Walked to my lab bench. Pulled a pair of rubber gloves from their pocket and put them on. Then retrieved a small pair of tweezers from another pocket. She crouched down, carefully peeling off the labels from two reagent bottles. Using the tweezers, she gently lifted a corner of each label, peeling off the entire thing without a single wrinkle. Then she swapped the two labels and stuck them back on. The entire process took less than three minutes. Her movements were clean, precise, and without any hesitation. She stood up, removed the gloves, and stuffed them and the tweezers back into her pocket. As she turned to leave, her face was perfectly aimed at the recording device. Vera. Her expression was calm, her eyes focused. No nervousness, no fear. I downloaded the video, encrypted it, and saved it to my cloud drive. April 3rd. Lab class. I arrived at the lab ten minutes early. In front of the other students, I meticulously checked every reagent bottle. Pretending to discover the swapped labels. I raised my hand and called the professor over. “Professor, it looks like the labels on these two bottles are swapped.” The professor came over, saw they were indeed misplaced. “Who moved the reagents on this lab bench?” No one confessed. Vera sat in the observation area nearby. Liberal arts auditing students weren’t required to do experiments, but they could watch. She tilted her head with an innocent expression. “Eleanor, what’s wrong? Is there a problem with the reagents?” I looked at her. “Nothing, someone just swapped the labels. Luckily, I found it in time.” Vera’s expression remained unchanged. The lab class concluded smoothly, with no fires, no burns. After class, I went to the university’s academic affairs system to look up Vera’s admission file. I’d wanted to do this for a while. The file showed: Vera, female, twenty-one years old, a third-year student in the Chinese Literature department, applied to audit classes in the Pharmacy department in her second year. From a remote mountainous area, financially disadvantaged, father bedridden due to an industrial accident. I knew all of this. But there was a line in the file I hadn’t noticed before. College entrance exam preferences. First choice: Pharmacy. Second choice: Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Third choice: Chinese Literature. Her first choice was Pharmacy. Not Chinese Literature. She had wanted to study pharmaceuticals from the start. She had only been assigned to the Chinese Literature department because her exam scores weren’t high enough for her first two choices. Would someone whose first choice was Pharmacy not know what causes pollen allergies? Not know the importance of reagent labels in a lab? Not know that an epinephrine auto-injector has an expiration date? She knew everything. She was just pretending not to understand. I closed my laptop, and my phone vibrated. It was that unknown number again. [April 3rd, safe?] I hesitated for a few seconds, then replied. [Who are you?] The other party quickly responded. [Doesn’t matter. May 18th, your epinephrine auto-injector. Be careful.] When I tried to send another message, there was no reply. This person knew Vera’s entire plan. Every date, every move. Even where the pollen was purchased. Was he Vera’s accomplice? Unlikely. If he were an accomplice, why would he warn me? Then he must be Vera’s enemy. Or… another victim. 4 The acacia trees on campus were blooming everywhere. For someone with pollen allergies, this season was a nightmare. I carried my epinephrine auto-injector everywhere – it was a lifeline for anyone with severe allergies. During a severe allergic reaction, epinephrine must be injected within minutes, or it could lead to laryngeal edema and suffocation. In my previous life, on May 18th, I suddenly had an allergic reaction outside the classroom. Difficulty breathing, swollen throat, blurred vision. Vera had frantically rummaged through my bag, found my epinephrine auto-injector, and tearfully injected me. But it brought no relief. Because that pen was expired. Expired epinephrine degrades and becomes ineffective; injecting it was useless. It was only when a passing school nurse gave me a new shot that I was pulled back from the brink. I lay in the emergency room all day. Vera knelt by my bed, crying, “Eleanor, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know this pen could expire… It’s all my fault for not checking when I helped you organize your medicine cabinet…” Nathan said, “It’s your life-saving medication; if you don’t check it yourself, what good is blaming Vera?” This time, I was prepared. On May 10th, I bought two brand new epinephrine auto-injectors. One I placed in my medicine cabinet, openly visible, with a date three months old, almost expired. The other I hid in the innermost secret pocket of my backpack, brand new. Then I waited. May 15th. I returned to the dorm and noticed my medicine cabinet had been disturbed. The epinephrine auto-injector I’d placed in plain sight was still there. But when I picked it up and turned it, there was an extremely fine scratch on the pen. This wasn’t the same pen I’d put in there. Someone had swapped my pen, replacing it with an identical-looking one. I opened it to check the expiration date. Expired by eight months. This was even more ruthless than in my previous life. Last time it was at least almost expired; this time, it was a completely useless pen, expired by eight months. I put the expired pen back in the medicine cabinet, untouched. Then I took a photo with my phone. May 18th. At 3 PM, a few classmates and I were discussing a project on the lawn outside the academic building. The acacia pollen concentration was high. My nose started to itch, and my eyes felt a bit puffy. Vera appeared nearby, handing me a bottle of water. “Eleanor, are you feeling unwell? Should we go to the infirmary?” I took the water but didn’t drink it. “I’m fine.” After a while, I felt my throat starting to tighten. My hand reached into the secret pocket of my backpack, gripping the new epinephrine auto-injector. Then I made a decision. I closed my eyes and slumped backward. Feigning an allergic reaction. “Eleanor Bennett! What’s wrong with you?!” “Quick, call an ambulance!” The scene erupted into chaos. Vera was the first to rush over, falling to her knees beside me. “Eleanor! Eleanor, don’t scare me!” Her movements were quick. She flipped open the outer compartment of my backpack and pulled out the epinephrine auto-injector from the medicine cabinet. “Found it! I’ll inject her!” A classmate nearby shouted, “Do you know how to use it?” “Yes! I’ve seen the tutorials!” Vera said, pulling off the cap and aiming it at my outer thigh. I opened my eyes and grabbed her wrist. “No need.” I pulled out the new epinephrine auto-injector from my secret pocket and injected myself. Within minutes, the allergic symptoms rapidly subsided. I sat up, my breathing steady. Vera stood frozen, still holding the expired, useless pen. I looked at her. “Vera, is that the pen you took from my medicine cabinet?” “Yes… yes, it is…” “Then take a look. How many months expired is it?” Vera looked down at the date on the pen. Her expression quickly shifted to one of panic. “What? Expired? How could this be… Eleanor, I didn’t know… I didn’t notice when I helped you organize your medicine cabinet before…” “Really.” I stood up, brushing grass from my skirt. “Then tell me, where did the unexpired pen in my medicine cabinet go? I replaced it with a new one two weeks ago. How did it become one that’s eight months expired?” Vera’s mouth opened, but no words came out. That evening, while Vera was in the shower, I once again opened her notebook. Next to May 18th, two words had been added. Failed. I flipped to the next page. A line of text, written with such force the paper was nearly torn. [If all three attempts fail, initiate Plan B.] Plan B? I continued to flip. The last page of the notebook. It only had one line of text and an address. [Find Sister Johnson. Westside Old Factory District, Building 17.] Westside Old Factory District. I opened my phone and searched the address. The first news headline that popped up made my pupils contract sharply. [Ten Years Ago, Westside Pharmaceutical Factory Safety Incident Led to Three Deaths; Factory Director Johnson Sentenced to Seven Years.] Head of the accident investigation team: Eleanor’s mom, Martha Bennett. Martha Bennett. My mother.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “430156”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 My father once said that when a person dies, they leave their most prized possession to the one they love the most. When he passed away, my younger sister inherited three houses and two million dollars in cash. My mother, her eyes red from crying, shoved a thick photo album into my arms. Her voice choked with sobs. “Your father loved you the most, Shavon.” I opened the album. On the back of every single photograph was my father’s handwritten signature. The photos were all of me, crouching by the front door of my grandmother’s house. They documented, from countless angles, the six years I spent as a “left-behind child,” waiting for my parents to come back for me. I looked up, only to see my mother and sister turning their faces away, deliberately avoiding my gaze. So, in my father’s heart, this album filled with years of agonizing waiting was what he considered his “most prized possession.” … The room was so quiet I could hear my own breathing. The album stopped at the days right before they finally brought me home. A tiny version of me, wearing patched-up clothes, stumbling eagerly into my parents’ arms. They sandwiched me between them, hugging me incredibly tight. “Are you going to go far away again?” I had looked at them timidly, tilting my small head up, trying desperately not to let my tears fall. They both kissed my cheeks, squishing my face. My dad’s voice was firm and resolute. “Never. Our family will never be apart again.” That was the most sincere lie he ever told me. And it was the only time his words would come back to slap him in the face so viciously. Because the very next year after bringing me home, they had my little sister, Mia. They said it was so I would have a companion. So that when they grew old, I would have someone to “discuss things with.” Thinking back on it now, what exactly was there to discuss? Discussing who would pull his oxygen tube? No, I didn’t think so. Because the daughter he claimed was “least favored”—my sister—didn’t visit him a single time while he was paralyzed from his stroke. She didn’t even show up to see him take his last breath. It seemed the only person I had to “discuss” things with was myself. The album turned to the second page. A small figure standing under a decaying red wooden door. My “companion” didn’t keep me company. Using my schooling as an excuse, my parents took Mia and moved away for work… “Shavon.” “Hey, Sis.” Their voices broke my train of thought, pulling me back from six years of childhood isolation. My sister and mother awkwardly looked away. It was my mother who finally braced herself to look at me. “Are you okay?” I pressed my lips together and offered a light, dismissive smile. What could possibly be wrong? I was my father’s “most beloved” daughter. That was all. My mother’s eyes were filled with complex emotions. Her hand hovered in the air, wanting to comfort me, but it never landed. Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t force out a single word. Mia forced a smile, looking incredibly unnatural. “Sis, don’t take it to heart.” “Dad really did love you more. He gave you his most precious possession.” I turned to look at her. She was rubbing her nose, her eyes darting everywhere but at me. “Is that so? How about I give you this ‘love,’ and we trade?” She glared at me. Before she could snap back, my mother reached around from behind and covered her mouth. “Your sister is young. Don’t stoop to her level.” Right. A six-year age gap. I was forty. She was thirty-six. We were both mothers now, yet in my mother’s eyes, she was still just a child. I waved the photo album and smiled, raising an eyebrow. “I’m just messing with her. Dad loved me the most; how could I ever bear to trade?” Ignoring my mother’s distrustful gaze, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a second, and pasted on a fake smile. “I’m really fine.” “The burial is done, the estate is divided. Since there’s nothing else, I’ll be going.” My mother watched me leave with a tight smile, offering a hollow platitude. “Stay a little longer.” “You’ll miss home when you leave.” Yet her feet remained firmly glued to the floor. I waved them off. “No need.” “Home,” according to my father’s will, had already been transferred to Mia. Every trace of my existence had long been scrubbed from that small two-bedroom apartment. The other two properties were permanently rented out. I had nowhere to sit, let alone sleep. I took one last look at Mia, hiding safely behind my mother, staring at me with pure resentment. I looked at the house I had lived in for less than five years. There was nothing of me here. Only a younger sister draped in designer brands, protected by our mother. I closed the door. The heavy stares disappeared. The air out in the hallway tasted slightly sweet. A sudden, inexplicable lightness washed over my entire body. Even the photo album in my hands looked a bit more tolerable. I just didn’t understand why my chest felt so hollow, why my throat was tightening. Even my tears betrayed me, blurring the makeup I had spent an hour applying. Maybe it was because I finally accepted reality. In his heart, Mia was worth three houses and two million dollars. And I was worth a photo album. Dad’s “most precious love”… it turned out I was the only one stupid enough to take it seriously. 2 I couldn’t help but find it hilarious. I wiped away my tears and practically fled the building, clutching the album to my chest. Even after sitting in my own bedroom for an hour, my mind was entirely blank. My husband, David, reached out and gently touched my forehead. “If you need to cry, my shoulder is right here.” Was I sad? Honestly, no. Just a dry throat and stinging eyes. Nothing more. David gently took the album from my hands. “You as a kid? You were pretty cute.” As he slowly flipped through the pages, my brain felt like a tangled ball of yarn. The night my father passed, we had actually argued about this very issue. “We had to leave you at your grandmother’s house back then. We had no choice. But later, we brought you back,” he had said, his trembling hand grabbing mine. “No one in this family ever played favorites. You’re just too calculative.” “When you have kids of your own, you’ll understand my intentions.” I had mercilessly pried his fingers off mine, meticulously wiping my skin where he had touched me. “I can stop calculating. But while you were paralyzed, why did you only call for me, and never for her?” The father and daughter had fallen into a suffocating silence. My dad, who usually loved to complain about how clumsy and useless Mia was, didn’t utter a single word in her defense. This deeply skewed, biased love had always been our family’s poison. It was the knot I could never untie. He didn’t say anything. His mouth hung open, but the words never came, and then, he took his last breath. Six years of being a left-behind child felt like a cosmic joke. In a trance, I remembered my grandmother wiping away my tears over and over again. “Your dad went to get medical treatment. When he’s better, he’ll come pick you up.” Yeah. He got better, and I went home. But arriving with them was Mia, born the year after they left. My dad had patted my head, speaking with heavy significance. “Mia is your companion. When we’re old, you’ll have someone to discuss things with.” “She’s too young; she needs constant care. So we have to take her with us.” “You have school tomorrow. We’re just going away for two months. We’ll be back soon.” I remember frowning, throwing a tantrum on the floor. “Liars! You can’t take me because of your medical treatment, so why are you taking Mia?!” A little girl’s tears didn’t buy any sympathy from my parents. Early the next morning, they left. The space next to my bed was empty and freezing cold. And so began my next cycle of living under someone else’s roof. Because of school districts, I was moved from my loving grandmother’s house to my step-grandmother’s house. She was my grandfather’s second wife, a harsh woman who absolutely despised me. Annoyed at having an extra mouth to feed, she constantly scowled. “Why do girls eat like pigs?” “When you’re done stuffing your face, go wash the dishes.” “You’re so lazy. No one will ever marry you. No wonder your own parents don’t even like you.” Her vicious words hit me right in the chest. I didn’t understand what I had done wrong. My shoulders shook violently as I let my tears fall silently onto the freshly washed bowls. The brutal truth of the world is: it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. As long as you are the favored one, you win by simply existing. 3 Love doesn’t care about timing or logic. As long as it’s her, she wins. It took me half my life to finally understand that sentence. David continued turning the pages until he reached the very end. It wasn’t a family portrait. It wasn’t a photo of me and my dad. It was a photo of David and me. My dad took it himself during a family trip, right before I married David and moved to a different city. Scrawled at the bottom in crooked handwriting were the words: My daughter has truly grown up. Is it time I let go and let her be a free bird? As I rubbed my thumb over the ink, I quickly felt a raised texture on the back of the photo. Written on the back were two words: I’m sorry. When my eyes locked onto those letters, it felt like a thousand needles plunged straight into my heart. It hurt so much I stopped breathing; it hurt so much I couldn’t even cry. Back then, he had sneered, “A married daughter is like spilled water.” “If you marry someone far away, you think it’ll be easy to come home?” “You think the world is so simple. You’ll definitely never come back. Maybe not for a year, maybe not for ten…” Young and full of pride, I refused to accept it. I believed that as long as I had money, distance meant absolutely nothing. And I was right. I was incredibly driven. I grabbed every single opportunity to climb the ladder. I worked a corporate job during the day and wrote web novels at night. My career skyrocketed, and my first novel became a massive hit. Aside from the first two years of our marriage when money was incredibly tight, I flew home twice a year, every year, staying for two months at a time. Just like summer and winter breaks in school. Arrive on time, leave on time. Until one trip, I found the locks on the front door had been changed. “Don’t come home so often,” my dad’s booming voice came through the phone receiver, stabbing my heart. My voice trembled. “Why?” “Stop asking why. The house belongs to your sister now. If you need something, wait until I come visit you.” It turned out Mia had her eye on a guy from another city. My parents were worried about her, so they rode the train with her to meet his family. As for the house? Because the guy was broke and couldn’t afford a down payment, my dad proudly declared, “You married someone else and moved away. If I don’t give it to your sister, who do I give it to?” “If I give it to her, she’ll stay close and take care of me. The house is her leverage.” “Once she has the house, she’ll settle down here with us.” So, the real reason they had forced me to buy a house in my husband’s city years ago was so they could give their own house to Mia. I had glared at them, pointing a shaking finger. “If you wanted to give her the house, fine. But why did you force me to buy one near you guys in the first place?” My dad grew impatient and practically shoved me out the door. “Stop asking so many damn questions!” “Your wings are fully grown now! If you don’t want to be here, then get the hell out!” “It’s my damn house! I’ll give it to whoever I want!” Right. Three houses. They lived in one, gave one to Mia, and rented the third one out. And under his strict demands, I had to buy a house in my new city using the money that was supposed to be my dowry. They provided absolutely zero financial support for my wedding. They just said they wouldn’t ask for a bride price from David, and that the house we bought would serve as “their” leverage for me. The heavy door slammed shut, cutting off the sound of laughter inside. Returning to the apartment I bought myself, I couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all. Come visit often. A promise nobody else in that house gave a damn about, but I was the only idiot who took it seriously. My phone ringing shattered my memories. It was Mia. “Sis, I’ll give you one of the houses. Can we talk?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “430125”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

On move-in day at my new university, I was buzzing with excitement. I had hauled a bunch of homemade baked goods all the way from my hometown, totally ready to win over my new roommates. But the moment I finished my awkward little introduction, the vibe shifted. Before I could even unpack, these three guys literally shoved me back out into the hallway, their faces twisted in pure disgust. They made it aggressively clear they were not sharing a room with me. The situation escalated straight to the Resident Director. Mr. Harrison looked completely stressed out by the whole ordeal, but he scrambled to find me an empty bed in another freshman dorm. Except, history repeated itself. I had barely dragged my suitcase to the new door when the guys inside blocked the entrance. They did not just refuse to let me in. They flat out declared they would rather drop out of college than breathe the same air as me. I was losing my mind trying to figure out why. Had someone been spreading rumors about me? But I had literally never crossed anyone in my life. I scoured the freshman Discord servers, the campus subreddit, and the anonymous confession pages. There was absolutely zero mention of my name. I tried chatting up other guys in my classes. At first, they would talk to me normally. But the second I casually mentioned needing a roommate, their expressions would freeze, and they would immediately find an excuse to walk away. And the worst part? Not a single person was willing to look me in the eye and tell me what I was doing wrong. 1 “Mr. Harrison, we absolutely refuse to live with him.” “Yeah, if you force us to take him, I’m literally packing my bags right now.” “Guys, come on…” Mr. Harrison sighed, realizing his attempts to mediate were completely useless. He shot me a helpless look. “Look, guys, I’m really sorry to ask, but could you just tell me why?” I reached out, gently grabbing one of the guy’s sleeves in pure desperation. “I’m super chill, I swear. I stayed in dorms during high school. I am not the type to cause drama.” He just glared at me and violently shook off my hand. “There is no ‘why.’ We just aren’t rooming with you. End of story.” I stared at my heavy suitcase, feeling a wave of exhaustion crash over me. I leaned against the doorframe, fighting back tears. I had always been a quiet, introverted guy. I did not have a massive friend group, but I never made enemies either. I just could not understand why arriving in a brand new city, at a brand new school, surrounded by total strangers, felt like a punishment. Everyone was treating me like I was radioactive. “I am so sorry, Arthur. I just can’t find a single room willing to take you right now,” Mr. Harrison said softly, giving my shoulder a sympathetic pat. “We don’t have any single dorms available. How about you stay at a cheap motel off campus for a few days? I will keep trying to shuffle some room assignments.” He offered a weak smile. “Don’t stress too much. People probably just got the wrong idea about you. Once they get to know you, it’ll all blow over.” That sparked a thought. Did someone say something about me? Mr. Harrison’s words triggered a frantic search. I pulled out my phone and scrolled endlessly through every class group chat, the campus forums, and social media pages. I scrolled until my thumb cramped. Nothing. Not a single post about me. Besides, I was the only kid from my small town high school to get accepted here. There was literally nobody on this campus who even knew my past. While I was sitting in an empty lecture hall, totally lost in my own head, someone called my name. “Arthur! No way, we have the same class?” I looked up and recognized Noah. He was the very first person I met on campus. On my way to orientation, he had suffered a severe blood sugar drop and nearly passed out on the sidewalk. I was the one who caught him, ran to a vending machine, and shoved a sports drink and a granola bar into his hands. I had to rush off to move my stuff before we could even swap numbers, so seeing him here felt like a miracle. “Noah! Man, does your room have an empty bed? Can I please be your roommate?” I grabbed his arm, clinging to him like he was a life raft. 2 I had literally just saved the guy from a medical emergency. He knew I was a decent person. Even if there were some insane rumors floating around, he wouldn’t believe them. Mr. Harrison and I had practically knocked on every door in the building except for one. I had been too heartbroken to try the last room on the list. I never expected Noah to be living in that exact room. I held my breath, waiting for him to nod and save me from this nightmare. Instead, the color completely drained from Noah’s face the second the word “roommate” left my mouth. “No. We’re full.” His friendly smile vanished, replaced by a look of absolute terror. He stepped back, putting distance between us. “My roommates would never agree to it anyway.” “Noah, why? Why does everyone hate the idea of living with me?” My voice cracked. I gripped his jacket, completely breaking down. I did not even care about moving into his room anymore. I just wanted the truth. “You know I’m a good guy. Just tell me what’s wrong with me, and I’ll fix it.” He yanked himself out of my grip, his eyes darting around nervously. “There’s no reason. We just don’t want you there.” Feeling entirely hopeless, I took to an anonymous college advice forum. I poured my heart out. We are all freshmen, we are all strangers, so why am I the only one being treated like a monster? The internet was quick to offer theories. One comment caught my eye. “Did someone start a rumor that you have a severe contagious disease?” A chill ran down my spine. It made horrible sense. Lately, there had been some privacy controversies on campus regarding students with severe bloodborne viruses. To protect their identities, the school never released names. Did someone point the finger at me? I did not waste a single second. I booked an appointment at the local hospital and requested a full panel. I tested for every communicable disease under the sun. The agonizing wait took days, but the results finally hit my inbox. Everything was negative. I was perfectly healthy. I was so relieved that I literally projected my medical records onto the smartboard before a lecture started. Just to prove I hadn’t photoshopped anything, I logged into the hospital portal live in front of thirty people and pulled up the official documents. I thought the nightmare was over. The misunderstanding was cleared up. But when I asked around the room afterward, people just looked at the floor. Still, nobody would take me in. I posted the update online, begging for more advice. “Maybe they think you’re psychologically unstable? Like, an actual psycho?” another user suggested. Back to the hospital I went. I sat through hours of rigorous psychiatric evaluations. The results were crystal clear. My mental health was perfectly stable. No disorders, no red flags. I showed these papers to everyone. I even had my childhood friends record video testimonials swearing I was the most normal, harmless guy on the planet. It didn’t change a thing. The mere mention of me moving in made guys threaten to pack their bags and leave the state. At this point, the internet turned on me. Since neither health nor sanity was the issue, the anonymous crowd decided I was the villain. The comments shifted from helpful to brutal. “Bro is definitely leaving out the part where he’s a total creep.” “You don’t get universally hated for zero reason. You’re definitely hiding something messed up.” “Engagement bait. Block this clown.” My inbox flooded with death threats and vile insults. Completely defeated, I deleted the post and locked my phone. ‘3 The bizarre legend of my rejection bled into other majors. People who didn’t even know me started whispering when I walked through the quad. Some claimed I had committed an unforgivable crime in my hometown. Others swore I was a walking biohazard. Every time I stepped into an academic building, I could feel the heavy, judgmental stares burning into my back. I had been living in a cheap motel for half a month, and the daily rates were bleeding my bank account dry. With zero options left, I had to do the one thing I dreaded most. I had to ask my parents for more money. But when I FaceTimed them, I saw them sitting on the dusty tailgate of a rusted pickup truck at their construction site, eating cold, dry sandwiches. The words died in my throat. My parents had me late in life. Terrified that they wouldn’t be able to provide enough, they decided I would be their only child. We were never rich, but they worked their fingers to the bone to give me everything. They did not have fancy degrees and couldn’t pull strings to help me in the real world, but their love was the only thing keeping me sane. “Arthur, honey, how are the dorms? Are you getting along with the boys?” my mom asked, wiping dust off her cheek. “We know you’re a bit quiet, but try to put yourself out there. Order a pizza for the room,” my dad chimed in. “Making a few solid buddies will make the workload way easier.” My mom squinted at the screen. “Are you eating enough, sweetie? You look so skinny, and it’s only been a few weeks.” Hearing the pure, unconditional love in her voice against the backdrop of my living nightmare almost broke me. Tears pricked my eyes. I made up an excuse about being late for a study group and hung up fast. Even though I didn’t ask, a notification popped up a minute later. Mom had transferred a hundred bucks with a note telling me to buy something nice for dinner. I had to get out of that motel. I begged Mr. Harrison to look outside our major. Anywhere. Any building. Finally, his relentless emailing paid off. He found a single open bed. “It’s a suite full of seniors from the engineering program,” Mr. Harrison explained, looking visibly relieved. “Most of them are off doing internships, so the place is pretty quiet. Both their RD and I talked to them. They know your situation, and they actually agreed to let you move in.” I literally cried. I thanked him over and over. Finally, someone was willing to treat me like a human being. I packed my bags with a massive smile on my face, moved into the suite, and spent three hours deep cleaning the entire place. I scrubbed the floors and wiped down the counters, hoping to give my older roommates a great impression whenever they returned. I didn’t have to wait long. I had only enjoyed two peaceful nights of normal college life when I got a text saying one of the seniors was coming back from his internship. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. The next day, I was a nervous wreck, terrified he would take one look at me and demand I leave. But my fears were completely unfounded. Chris, the senior, was incredibly chill. He walked in, tossed his duffel bag on the couch, and handed me a box of fancy donuts he brought from the city. When he saw the spotless kitchen, he acted like he had won the lottery, calling me the greatest freshman to ever exist. For the first time since stepping foot on this campus, I felt the warmth of actual friendship. Chris and I clicked. Everything felt like it was finally falling into place. Until Thursday. I had just finished my afternoon lab. I bought a huge pizza and a massive watermelon, excited to crush some video games with Chris like we planned. But when I turned the corner to our suite, the hallway was completely packed. Chris was standing there with his arms crossed. Next to him were Mr. Harrison, the engineering RD, and two guys I didn’t recognize. Judging by the aggressive body language, they had to be the other two seniors living in the suite. “No way. He packs his trash and leaves tonight.” 4 “We’re seniors, man. Why the hell did you dump a random freshman in our space?” one of the strangers yelled. “We will literally pay for the empty bed ourselves. We’ll split the cost three ways. Just get Arthur out of here.” I stood frozen. Chris, the guy who had been laughing and eating donuts with me yesterday, was currently glaring at the door like he wanted to physically throw my belongings out the window. My brain short-circuited. My grip slipped. The heavy watermelon crashed onto the hard linoleum floor. It shattered into pieces, the bright red juice bleeding across the tiles like my own fractured heart. “Chris… what’s going on?” I stammered, my voice trembling. “I thought we were cool. We were just hanging out.” “Why is everyone doing this to me? What did I do?” I completely snapped. I dropped the pizza box, ran over, and grabbed Chris by his hoodie, begging him to just talk to me. I was practically on my knees in the middle of the hallway. Chris just looked at me with eyes as cold as ice. He yanked his hoodie out of my hands. “Pack your stuff and leave, Arthur. Now.” He warned me that if I didn’t willingly walk out that door, they would blast music and scream until the entire dorm building called campus security. Even when Mr. Harrison threatened them with disciplinary action right before graduation, the seniors didn’t flinch. They would rather face academic penalties than sleep under the same roof as me. Not wanting to cause a scene that would get me expelled, I silently packed my bags. Mr. Harrison pulled me aside, looking completely defeated. He admitted there was literally not a single room left on campus that would accept me. He promised to expedite a full refund of my housing fees so I could rent a cheap apartment off campus. I was too numb to argue. I accepted defeat. I found a grueling part-time job at a busy campus coffee shop to cover the rent of a tiny studio apartment. Thankfully, between my fast-tracked refund and the coffee shop tips, I was able to make ends meet without begging my parents for cash. A week later, I was wiping down the espresso machine when a familiar face walked up to the register. Noah. Ever since he rejected me outside his dorm, we had avoided each other like the plague. But today, seeing me in the apron, he actually initiated a conversation. “Arthur… I just wanted to say thank you again. For that first day.” He rubbed the back of his neck, refusing to make eye contact. “If you hadn’t caught me, I probably would have cracked my skull on the pavement.” “Anyone would have done it. Don’t worry about it,” I replied, my voice completely flat. I slid his iced latte across the counter. The relentless rejections had drained every ounce of empathy out of my body. I was done trying to be the nice guy. “Look, Arthur, I…” Noah looked agonizingly guilty. Gone was the panicked, defensive guy who had backed away from me in the hallway. He paced around the pickup counter for several minutes, clearly wrestling with something massive. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Eventually, the shift manager yelled at him to clear the line, and he bolted out the door. “What was his deal?” my coworker asked, raising an eyebrow. “Looks like he owes you a thousand bucks with that sad puppy expression.” I just shook my head. Truth be told, I was noticing a really bizarre shift in the campus dynamic. The moment I moved off campus and officially gave up on the dorms, the invisible wall around me started to crack. Guys who used to sprint the other way when I walked past were suddenly nodding at me in the library. When professors assigned group projects, I wasn’t the last one picked anymore. People actually invited me to their study tables. Noah was the most obvious. He constantly hovered around me in lectures, clearly desperate to mend fences, but always choking up before he could explain himself. I couldn’t figure out the logic, but honestly? I didn’t care anymore. If playing the role of the off-campus loner got me through the next four years in peace, I would gladly take it. Once I grabbed my degree, I was leaving this weird, toxic place behind forever. I had made my peace with it. But someone else hadn’t.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “430141”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

There’s this game making the rounds with my buddies lately. The idea is to pretend you’ve gone bankrupt for a month, just to see if the woman in your life is the real deal. To make it convincing, not only did my friends and family agree to play along, but my company even brought in a “new boss” to complete the charade. I swapped my designer clothes for a cheap five-dollar t-shirt and a beat-up trucker hat. Full of confidence, I went to find the woman I thought I loved more than anyone: Serena. But the second she saw me, her face twisted in disgust. Without a word, she had security throw me out like a piece of trash. I just stood there for a long time, my mind a total blank. When I finally came to my senses, I shakily dialed another number. When the call connected, I said in a raw voice, “Sophie, honey? Daddy’s gone broke. I don’t even have a place to stay.” On the other end, my daughter’s sweet, innocent voice replied, a gentle comfort. “Daddy, don’t be scared. You can have my room.” 1 When Benny’s call came, I was in the kitchen baking a cake. My daughter, who was playing a game on my phone, answered it. I don’t know what he said, but suddenly, my four-year-old’s face lit up, and she came running towards me. She ran so fast one of her little shoes fell off. “Mommy, this is great! Daddy’s gone bankrupt! He can come to my birthday party this year!” Bankrupt? The call was still connected. The contact name was “Ex-Husband.” The last time Benny had called was on New Year’s. He only ever contacted me on holidays. He’d summon me to his parents’ house to play the happy couple, to keep the old folks happy. The moment we were out of their sight, he’d coldly drop my hand and drive off to be with Serena. His back seat would be piled high with gift boxes, the passenger seat covered in a sea of red roses. I would clutch the thousand-dollar “performance fee” he’d tossed me and stand in the biting wind, feeling nothing. Because with that money, Sophie and I had our rent covered for the next six months. Hearing that Benny was bankrupt, I was just confused. Why wasn’t he calling his precious, doted-upon Serena? Why was he calling me, a woman he couldn’t stand the sight of? Benny’s voice came through the phone, cautious. “Luna… I have nowhere to stay, and I haven’t eaten all day. Can you… can you take me in?” I was about to say “No.” But my daughter clutched my skirt. Her big, grape-purple eyes blinked, full of hope and pleading. “Mommy, please? Just let Daddy be here for my birthday this one time. All the other kids have both their parents at their birthday parties.” I looked down at her, and my heart ached. I knew how much Sophie longed for a father’s love. Benny did love Sophie, in his own way. He’d take her to theme parks, buy her little dresses, and send her entire sets of those princess mystery boxes. But then one day, Sophie came home with her head hanging low and said she would never “bother” her daddy again. I dropped my spatula and stormed over to his villa. With the arm strength I’d built from washing a thousand dishes a day, I slapped Serena across the face, again and again. I shoved her head into the toilet to give that filthy mouth of hers a good rinse. After that, Benny never mentioned seeing Sophie again. But today was Sophie’s birthday. All she wanted was to have her parents with her. I relented. “Benny, Sophie misses you. You can come over for dinner.” On the other end, the man let out a sigh of relief. It was the sound of someone realizing they hadn’t lost everything after all. “You’re still at The Crestwood Estates, right? I’m on my way.” I was confused. “Where? I’ve never been there.” I rented an apartment at Maple Creek, close to the kindergarten. Our street was lined with food stalls. At night, you could hear the muffled bass from the karaoke bar across the road, and the pest control van made its scheduled rounds right below our window. It was a world away from the luxury complex Benny was talking about. There was a long silence on the phone before he asked for my current address. Even in his cheap clothes, the man’s presence was undeniable. The moment he walked in, Sophie launched herself at him, hugging his leg. Benny stroked her head fondly, his eyes scanning our small two-bedroom apartment. The warmth in them instantly vanished. “This is the kind of place you have my daughter living in?” 2 My hand, holding the teapot, froze. The apartment was nicely renovated, with clean, natural wood finishes. From the large appliances down to the cartoon-themed floor mats, Sophie had picked everything out herself, and I had paid for it. No matter how hard things got, I never let Sophie feel inferior about what she ate, wore, or where she lived. And yet, Benny’s first act upon entering my home was to find fault. But then again, he and Serena lived in a 5,000-square-foot villa. Of course this felt cramped to him. I dumped the tea I was making into the trash and pulled my daughter aside. “Sophie, sweetie, why don’t you go to your room and see if you can find the birthday present Mommy hid for you, okay?” The little girl’s face lit up, and she ran into her bedroom. My smile vanished. I shot daggers at Benny. “This kind of place? Who was it just now, begging to come to ‘this kind of place’? You don’t even have ‘this kind of place’ to live in anymore. What right do you have to criticize me?” Benny quickly composed himself. He was supposed to be a bankrupt loser now. Not a CEO. He sat down on the sofa, looking a bit awkward. “You misunderstood. I meant, why aren’t you living in the house I gave you?” I had no idea what he was talking about. “What house?” When we divorced, all I had was a single suitcase and my three-month-old daughter, Sophie. The little money I had came from selling the jewelry his parents had given me. Benny’s handsome brow furrowed. “Luna, you gave me a child. Even if I don’t love you, I would never neglect my own flesh and blood.” “I had my secretary, Mr. Quinn, buy a house for you both, and I set aside a large settlement for you. You didn’t take it?” A house? A settlement? This was the first I was hearing of it. But it clicked into place immediately. “I didn’t take a single thing. Are you broke now and trying to shake me down for money?” Benny’s eyes narrowed, a storm of regret brewing within them. “Luna, I would sooner beg on the streets than take a dime from you. In this entire world, the person I’ve wronged the most is you.” Our past was like a trashy novel. I was the orphaned daughter of the man who had saved Benny’s father’s life. The Young family took me in when I was eight, and his father doted on me. His mother liked my gentle nature. And Benny, two years my senior, treated me like a little sister he had to protect. He’d fight off the bullies who picked on me. He took me to see beautiful places, to interact with animals. He did everything he could to pull me out of the grief of losing my parents. And I poured my secret crush into my diary. “Luna loves Benny. Will Benny ever love Luna?” In my senior year of college, I got my answer. Benny proposed. I was overjoyed that he loved me back. Like a fool, I went with him to get our marriage license. It cost nine dollars. I didn’t know that his father had given me 10% of the company’s shares as a dowry, while making Benny start from the bottom. Benny wasn’t marrying me. He was marrying a comfortable life and a promising future. After we married, I was lost in a dream of love. I cooked for him, ironed his shirts, picked him up from late-night meetings. But while I was pregnant, he cheated on me with a “sympathetic” intern. Serena, who was half a year older than me. He said Serena understood him, that she was his soulmate, that they were true love. He said what he felt for me was just familial affection. Benny’s father, with his sharp eye, saw through Serena’s cunning and hypocrisy. He declared that as long as he was alive, that vixen would never set foot in his house. Benny came up with a compromise. He wouldn’t divorce me, keeping me around to appease his parents. But he would give Serena all the perks of being his wife, short of a marriage certificate. That day was the tenth day after Sophie was born. I, who had always let Benny walk all over me, ripped out my IV, grabbed the fruit knife, and without a second thought, plunged it into my own abdomen. Marrying Benny was my mistake. I was young, foolishly in love, an absolute idiot. His cheating, his treating me like a maid—I deserved it all. But I would rather die than let him ruin my daughter’s life. Blood pooled on the floor. Benny froze. He was panicked, terrified, guilt-ridden. He pressed his hands to my stomach, his fingers trembling uncontrollably. “Luna, don’t die.” 3 I was stubborn. If he didn’t agree to a divorce and give me full custody of our daughter, I would kill myself. If they saved me, I’d do it again, until I was dead for good. If I died, his father would make Serena’s life a living hell. To protect Serena, Benny signed the divorce papers. The day I left, he gave me one last instruction. We had to keep the divorce a secret. On holidays, I had to come back and play the happy wife for his parents. I said fine. I’d charge by the appearance. One thousand dollars a pop. For Benny, the man I would “rather die than be with,” to have to turn around and pay me—it was a blow to his pride. His face contorted in a sneer. “Don’t you have any feelings for me at all? Is money all you care about? Fine. I won’t give you a single cent. I’ll wait for you to come crawling back, broke and begging.” He was a man of his word. The “financial compensation” mentioned in the divorce agreement? I never saw a dime of it. I did live a life of poverty, but I got back on my feet, all by myself. I never once went back to him. Thinking back, Benny pressed his fingers to his temples. “I was just angry. A single mother and a child… of course I wouldn’t have actually abandoned you.” “But your angry words were my life for the past four years.” Benny was silenced. He looked around the room again. The furniture wasn’t cheap, but it was far from luxurious. A single pair of Serena’s socks cost a few hundred dollars. The clothes I was wearing were years old. Benny picked up his phone and called his secretary, Mr. Quinn. “Mr. Young… I mean, Benny. What can I do for you?” With a new boss in charge, Mr. Quinn was still adjusting. Benny’s voice took on its old authoritative tone. “Four years ago, I asked you to buy a house in The Crestwood Estates and set aside an eighty-million-dollar settlement. Did you deliver it to my ex-wife personally?” Eighty million? That would have been enough for Sophie and me to live comfortably for the rest of our lives. Mr. Quinn hesitated. “Well… I think you’ll have to ask Ms. Serena about that…” Her again. A wave of pure hatred washed over me. Serena already had so much. If she dared to touch what belonged to Sophie, I would make her regret it. At seven o’clock, I brought a Lamb-themed cake to the table. Sophie squealed with delight. “Wow, Mommy, you’re amazing! I love you so much!” My phone buzzed with messages from other parents in her class. “Did your mom make that herself? It looks better than the custom one I ordered from a bakery! I’m so jealous!” “Sophie’s mom is so talented. She can do fox makeup, make handmade bags, carve fruit… and now she makes beautiful cakes too…” In the past four years, I’d done every odd job imaginable to make ends meet, turning myself into a jack-of-all-trades out of sheer necessity. Sophie carefully cut the cake, giving the first piece to me and the second to Benny. “Daddy, this is the first birthday you’ve ever spent with me. I’m so, so happy.” Benny, who had been staring blankly at his phone, snapped back to reality and accepted the cake with exaggerated enthusiasm. I knew what he was thinking about. Today was also Serena’s birthday. In all the years past, he had always celebrated with her. It was no coincidence that my daughter and my rival shared a birthday. When I was nine months pregnant, Serena got tired of just taunting me with texts and photos. Or mailing me the free samples that came with the luxury goods Benny bought her. She came to the hospital to provoke me in person. It was her birthday, and Benny had just given her an engagement ring, promising her the wedding of the century. She came to invite me and my unborn child to attend. The rage and stress sent me into premature labor. I hemorrhaged, and we both nearly died. For the first time, Benny scolded Serena. Serena’s eyes filled with tears. “I just wanted to be with you, out in the open…” Benny’s heart melted, and he pulled her into his arms. “Shh, I’m keeping her around to protect you.” Just on the other side of the wall, I was fighting for my life in the delivery room. All I felt was disgust and despair. 4 The pain was a blade twisting in my soul. So now, hearing Benny was bankrupt, all I could think was that he deserved it. After the cake, I tried to kick him out. Benny looked at me pitifully. “I have nowhere to go.” I shoved him out the door with all my strength. “Not my problem. Go find her.” The hallway light flickered on, then off. Benny stood outside my door for a long time. Then his body slid down against the door, his head sinking in defeat. In truth, Serena was the first person he had gone to. Benny had thought to himself, I’ve spoiled Serena for four years, given her anything she ever wanted. When she heard he was in trouble, she would surely be frantic, ready to do anything for him. If she was willing to sell just one of the properties he’d bought her, she would pass his test. He couldn’t bear to make it too hard on her. But when Serena saw him in his blue-collar getup, she couldn’t hide her disgust. A needle pricked the man’s heart. Serena quickly masked it with a smile and welcomed him in. She figured this was all part of some elaborate birthday surprise. Pretend to be broke, then reveal the real gift. But a moment later, she saw a message in the group chat she shared with Benny’s wealthy friends. “The Young family is done for. Even his parents fled the country overnight.” “He sold the company and still owes a billion. Benny will be paying that off for the rest of his life.” “Not necessarily. He bought Serena all those houses and luxury goods. She can sell them to pay it off. But then, she’ll have to live a simple life with him.” Someone remembered that Serena was in the chat. Another friend cursed. She was immediately kicked from the group. Serena’s eyes went wide. It was so brutally real. Before, it was always “Serena, darling,” “our girl.” Now, they couldn’t even kick her out without a curse word. A storm was coming, and she had to save herself. “Your family is bankrupt? What does that have to do with me? Do we have a marriage license? Do your parents even accept me? Why should I have to sell my houses?” Benny’s heart hammered in his chest. He thought he must have misheard. His sweet, understanding girlfriend… how could she suddenly sound like this? “Serena, what are you saying? Besides a piece of paper, what haven’t I given you? I practically tore out my own heart for you. I gave up my wife and child for you.” Benny thought that would appeal to her sense of loyalty. He was wrong. Serena just scoffed. “You gave me those things willingly. I’ve never heard of anyone asking for gifts back. I slept with you for four years. You didn’t expect to get that for free, did you?” “Besides…” Seeing the raw fury in Benny’s eyes, Serena’s contempt grew. “A man who can abandon his own wife and child… you really think I’d want a man like that?” “Your wife nearly died in childbirth, and you didn’t care. Who knows if there will be a fourth or a fifth woman down the line? Who’s to say you wouldn’t do the same to me?” Benny staggered, barely able to stand, but he had no rebuttal. Serena fiddled with her phone. “Well, you’re useless to me now. So here’s a little parting gift. I’ll tell you why your wife was so desperate to divorce you.” “From the first time you slept with me, I sent her everything. Photos of our dates, our time in bed, the gifts you bought me. I sent it all.” “She really put up with it for a long time. It took me pushing her into premature labor for her to finally snap. I’m not a fool like her. I would never be your free maid, your baby-making machine…” A bolt of lightning seared through Benny’s brain. So, Luna had given him chances. So many chances. Serena dropped the act completely. “Benny, darling. I scraped your social media clean the day I started at the company. I knew all your likes and dislikes. What you thought was a soul connection was just me doing my homework… honestly, it was exhausting trying to keep you entertained…” Benny couldn’t take it anymore. He lunged forward and wrapped his hands around her throat, as if to strangle the life out of her. “You… you were only after my money! You used my love! You destroyed my marriage! You nearly cost me my child! My father was right, you’re a disease!” Before he could finish, security guards, summoned by Serena, dragged him away and threw him out of the building. It was the end of June, but Benny was shivering uncontrollably. Just then, his phone buzzed. It was a notification from the group chat named “Her True Heart.” The same friends from before had created a private chat to check on the results of their game. “Benny, bro, we just put on a hell of a show. Is Serena scrambling to sell a house to save you?” Benny typed back with furious thumbs: “Her name is Luna, and I’m going to win her back.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “430157”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

When a gentle new sister appeared in our home, I saw my brother smile for the first time in ages. He said she would live with us and take care of me like he did. I grabbed a greeting card and ran over, asking if she knew my brother’s New Year’s wish. She knelt, patted my head, and smiled. “His biggest wish is for you to disappear from this world.” Suddenly, memories rushed back—my parents lying in blood, my brother’s broken vow at their grave, the dishes I’d smashed, his endless tears. After the tragedy, I became the “idiot” everyone whispered about. Our money drained fast because of my illness. Brother studied by day, worked at night. He’d come home exhausted to a house I’d trashed. I’d throw filth at him, screaming that he wanted to hurt me. He never got angry, just held me with red eyes, repeating, “I’m your brother.” Later, my illness grew worse. He had to take me everywhere. One day, I ruined yet another job he’d finally found. He crouched on the floor, back to me, shoulders shaking. “Celeste, why don’t you just die?” His voice broke. “Please… stop tormenting me.” That sentence unlocked my memory. I walked over, wiped his face with my sleeve, and whispered, “Brother, don’t cry.” He turned and hugged me tight, sobbing apologies. But now I see—those moments of clarity, his occasional tenderness, were just the calm before the storm. Some wishes were never just words. 1 I stared blankly at my sister, and it took a long time for a sentence to tumble out of my mouth: “Die, what is ‘die’?” My sister scoffed, saying mockingly, “You really are an idiot, you don’t even know what dying is.” She knelt down and patiently explained to me, “‘Die’ is like your mom and dad, gone, no longer existing.” I backed away three steps in terror, shaking my head. “Brother says, don’t want Celeste to die.” My sister stood up, looking down at me. “Your brother has changed his mind. He told me his wish is for you to disappear.” “So, Celeste, go die quickly. It’s good for your brother and good for me.” I stood rooted to the spot, clutching the greeting card in my hands, trying hard to understand what my sister said. When I came to, I saw the sliced fruit scattered all over the table, and the trash from the bin had spilled out. No, the house is so messy, Brother will be angry. So, I knelt down, wanting to put the trash back in the bin. There was a noise outside. The front door opened. Brother was home. I flashed him a smile, about to say that Celeste was very good today, when I saw my sister run crying to him, throwing herself into his embrace. She pointed at the trash on the floor and said, “I really can’t handle your sister anymore. I fed her fruit, and not only did she refuse to eat it, but she also threw things everywhere!” A hint of an apologetic smile appeared on Brother’s face. He stroked my sister’s head and said, “You’ve worked hard, Honey. Sigh… The doctor said my sister’s condition was improving, and I didn’t expect her to start again after just a few days.” My mouth slightly agape, I instinctively wanted to refute, but my mind couldn’t form a complete sentence. I could only stammer, “Celeste, didn’t…” My sister glanced at me, then complained to Brother again, “She’s even lying now.” Brother sighed, knelt down, and said to me, “Celeste, lying is wrong.” “And, didn’t Brother tell you to listen to your sister at home? Why didn’t you listen?” I was bewildered. But… sister told me to die. Brother, do I really have to listen to my sister? My already damaged CPU was overheating. My head swam, and I collapsed softly into Brother’s arms. My sister leaned over and asked, “Can your sister really recover?” Brother held me tighter, stating with certainty, “Yes, even if there’s only a one in ten thousand chance, I will cure my sister!” Brother didn’t notice the dark shadow that flickered in my sister’s eyes. But soon, she said softly, “Mmm, you go to work. I’ll help you take care of your sister.” Brother’s eyes welled up with emotion, and my nightmare truly began. One day, she sat on the sofa watching TV, calling me over to massage her legs. I clumsily massaged her, but she kicked me away. “Are you an idiot? You can’t even massage legs?” I was kicked several feet away, crying out in pain. My sister, however, complained to my brother when he returned, saying I wasn’t listening again. Brother could only repeatedly tell me to listen to my sister. I choked back sobs, reaching out to hug him like he used to, but Brother slapped my hand away, saying firmly: “Celeste, say it, ‘I will listen to my sister.’” I cried, trembling, mumbling indistinctly, “Brother says, I have to, listen to my sister…” At this, my sister hugged me tenderly and told my brother, “Vincent, your sister is still a child. Don’t be so harsh. It’s fine if I suffer a little.” Brother was so touched that he didn’t notice my lips were white with fear in my sister’s embrace. My sister saw that my brother fully believed her. From then on, whenever my brother wasn’t around, my sister became a different person. She would secretly pinch the inside of my arm. I instinctively wanted to pull my hand back, but then I heard my sister say, “Celeste, your brother told you to listen to your sister, didn’t he?” “Hold out your hand!” So, I cried while extending my arm to my sister. She seemed to hate me terribly, pinching with all her might each time. I was almost crying myself unconscious when my brother arrived. My sister quickly pulled down my sleeve and turned to throw herself into my brother’s arms. She transformed herself into a victim in just one second. “Vincent, your sister is truly impossible. She won’t listen at all!” One day, a spark ignited in my mind. I rolled up my sleeve and showed my bruises to my brother. He paused. My sister quickly said apologetically, “It’s my fault for not watching Celeste properly.” “You know, this child still can’t walk steadily. She bumps herself and gets bruises everywhere in no time.” Brother remembered that almost every time he opened the door, he would see me sitting on the ground, crying in pain. The next day, Brother wrapped all the furniture in the house with foam padding. My sister gritted her teeth and said to me, “Celeste, your brother is truly good to you.” I nodded and said, “Brother, is good to Celeste, doesn’t want Celeste to die.” My sister let out three cold laughs, then casually picked up a hanger and swung it at me, hitting me on the head. I cried out in pain, calling for Brother. But my sister said, “Your brother’s away on a business trip. He won’t be back for half a month.” “You little brat, you even want to tattle on me to your brother!” She pinched my chin with her left hand and slapped me hard with her right, leaving my face swollen. I trembled uncontrollably, crying, but she became more and more excited with each blow, until someone knocked on the door. She frantically gagged me and shoved me under the covers, then went to open the door. It was the neighbor, Mrs. Davies. She asked, “What’s going on? Celeste is crying so hard.” My sister forced a weak smile and said, “She’s having another episode. She keeps saying I’m the murderer of her parents, and I can’t calm her down.” Mrs. Davies looked a little sympathetic, took out some small cookies, and said, “These siblings have it tough. I made some cookies, go try to comfort Celeste.” Mrs. Davies made to enter. My sister immediately blocked her, saying, “No need, Mrs. Davies. I’ll take care of Celeste.” Taking the cookies from Mrs. Davies, my sister closed and locked the door. She sat on the sofa, legs crossed, eating the cookies Mrs. Davies had given me, saying as she ate, “You’d better be good these next few days and not cause me any trouble.” After that, she took a rope, tied me up at home, and left. I wanted to go to the bathroom, but I couldn’t reach it. The rope chafed my neck; it hurt so much. I couldn’t hold it anymore and made a mess on the floor. When she came back, she kicked me twice. Then she took a picture of the mess and sent it to my brother, crying, “What am I going to do, Vincent? I can’t take it anymore. I looked away for a second, and she made a mess all over the floor. Is your sister deliberately trying to get at me…?” Brother immediately replied, “How could this happen? Sweetheart, I’ll send you money to hire a cleaner. You’ve really had it tough.” Brother sent many apologetic emojis. After the cleaner finished and left, my sister walked over with a dark expression and slapped me. “Useless thing! Can’t even control your own waste!” After venting, she looked at me lying on the floor like a dead fish and said coldly, “If you dare to tattle on me to your brother again, I’ll keep hitting you!” “To be honest with you, all your brother’s previous girlfriends left him because of you.” “Only I am willing to accept you.” “How much money has your brother spent to cure your illness?” “Don’t you think you’re a burden?” “Celeste, if you truly love your brother, you should be sensible and stop hindering your brother’s bright future.” I took my sister’s words to heart. I really was a burden. When Brother returned from his business trip, he brought my sister a gold necklace. My sister beamed, “Gold is so expensive now, you really bought it for me…” Brother said it wasn’t easy for my sister to take care of me, and he would buy her gold jewelry every month from now on. My sister smiled even more happily. But suddenly, my sister’s smile froze. Because Brother took a gold bracelet out of his bag. It was more expensive than my sister’s gold necklace. When Brother put the bracelet on my wrist, he said, “Celeste, Happy New Year. Brother wishes you peace and happiness for life.” My sister said somewhat stiffly, “Vincent, aren’t you afraid of the idiot, no, your sister, losing the bracelet?” I got a little angry, and for the first time, I talked back to my sister: “No, Celeste won’t be that careless.” Hearing my words, Brother happily grabbed my sister’s hand and said, “Did you hear that? Celeste said such a long sentence for the first time!” “She’s definitely going to recover.” Brother embraced me in surprise, then noticed the still unhealed injury on my neck, asking confusedly, “Celeste, how did you get hurt?” I wanted to tell Brother that my sister bullied me. But before I could speak, Brother’s attention was drawn to the cut on my sister’s finger. “It’s all your sister’s fault for wanting an apple, causing me to accidentally cut my hand.” She was lying… She clearly hurt her hand when she was out playing. I opened my mouth and said, “It wasn’t… it wasn’t because of me.” But no one heard what I said. Thankfully, Brother would have many days off after this business trip. I could finally avoid being beaten by my sister, and not have to eat food off the floor like a dog, or be videotaped and laughed at by my sister. But I also knew Brother wouldn’t stay with me forever. Suddenly, I remembered what Mom used to tell me: “Celeste, if anyone bullies you, you must, must tell your family.” Yes, I should listen to Mom and tell Brother that my sister bullied me. But when my sister was around, I never had a chance to talk to Brother. The moment I appeared, my sister would stare chillingly at my gold bracelet, her expression terrifying. I could only cover my bracelet, hide in my room, and secretly listen to the sounds outside. Finally, one day, my sister received Brother’s transfer and left. Hearing the front door close, I quickly ran out and pulled on Brother’s sleeve, saying, “Sister, bad, bully me.” Brother, of course, didn’t believe me. After all, I used to say Brother was a bad guy. Brother knelt down and told me, “Celeste, if you wrongly accuse someone like this, your sister will be sad.” I shook my head, very earnestly saying, “Not wrong.” I ran to the utility room, found the rope my sister used to tie me up, put it around my own neck. Then I placed the rope by the table leg, lay on the floor, and looked up at Brother, saying, “Sister made me eat like this.” “She tied me, here.” “I need to go to the bathroom, can’t walk there, my neck hurts.” I pointed to the wound on my neck, explaining haltingly. Brother’s eyes grew increasingly serious. He rolled up my sleeve and saw that even with all the furniture padded, I had more bruises than last time. “Sister hit you?” he asked. I nodded. Brother said, “I see.” That day, I hid in my room. I heard Brother and my sister arguing for the first time outside. “You believe what an idiot says?” My sister’s voice was even louder than Brother’s. She shrieked hysterically, “Your sister never liked me, she thinks I stole your love, and you actually believe her?” “I must have been blind to choose you. My parents both said I wouldn’t be happy with you, yet I broke ties with them, came here to help you take care of your sister, and now you suspect me…” My sister cried so heartbreakingly that I felt a bit confused looking at my own wounds. Could it be that I really just bumped myself?

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “430126”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

As the Fairchild heiress, I’ve always despised the color pink. So when I returned home after three years of studying abroad, the sight that greeted me was jarring. The walls and carpets of my fiancé’s townhouse were drowning in an offensive shade of flamingo pink. Even our Russian Blue, Sterling, had a ridiculous pink bow tied around his neck. Confused, I called Nicholas. He casually explained that his sister had complained the decor was dated, so he’d had it redone last month. After hanging up, I scrolled through his sister’s Instagram. Her latest story screamed, “OMG, who even likes pink? It’s so tacky.” The lie was so clumsy, so blatant. My heart sank. My instincts screamed that Nicholas had betrayed me, but I clung to a sliver of hope that it was all a misunderstanding. That hope was obliterated when I went to the bridal boutique to pick up my million-dollar couture gown. The truth was stark, undeniable, and wearing my dress—the scholarship student Nicholas sponsored. When I confronted her, she called me the other woman and sneered that I was a desperate old hag who couldn’t keep a man. Nicholas arrived moments later, not to defend me, but to placate her. He told me to be the bigger person, that she “didn’t know any better.” As a Fairchild, I have never lacked grace. If she could have the million-dollar gown, she could have the engagement that came with it. He seemed to forget that a Fairchild engagement isn’t a hand-me-down that just anyone can claim. … 1 “Where did this trash come from? Who told you you could touch my dress!” With my wedding just around the corner, I’d come to the boutique to see my custom-made gown. I never expected that the moment I touched it, I’d be met with the sting of a slap across my face. The dress was ripped from my hands, the tiny, sharp diamonds embedded in the lace scraping against my knuckles, sending a jolt of pain up my arm. I frowned, my cheek burning. “Who are you? This is my wedding dress!” Another slap. “You bitch! You’ve ruined my dress! You’ll pay for this! Do you have any idea how expensive this is? You couldn’t afford it if you sold your entire pathetic life!” I was utterly dumbfounded. Just then, the boutique manager rushed over, bowing and scraping to the woman. “Miss Rhodes, my deepest apologies! A new employee didn’t recognize your gown and brought it out for someone else!” This “Miss Rhodes” was now sobbing into her phone, wailing “Hubby, hubby” as she tattled. “Hubby, some broke woman got her filthy hands all over my dress, what do I do?” “Hubby, this was the dress you had made just for me!” The call was on speaker, and a voice I knew all too well drifted from the phone. “Shh, baby, it’s okay. We’ll just have them remake the damaged part. Don’t ruin your pretty little face over it.” That voice… it was my fiancé, Nicholas Rhodes. I’d heard whispers that Nicholas had found someone else while I was away. I’d asked him about it, more than once, and he’d always denied it. I’d even asked his parents, and they’d dismissed it as baseless gossip, rumors started by wannabe starlets looking for a benefactor. The Fairchild and Rhodes families had arranged this union years ago. We were just waiting for my return to finalize it. My mother had even commissioned a world-renowned designer to create my gown. But the dress in front of me, the one this woman was claiming, was not my size. The moment I’d held it, I knew the dimensions were all wrong. I was in the middle of questioning the staff when this woman had attacked me. She was still crying hysterically. The manager was sweating profusely, and the poor salesgirl who brought me the dress was apologizing over and over. Fearing the wrath of “Miss Rhodes,” the manager grabbed me by the arm and gave me a sharp kick to the back of my leg. I was already unsteady in my heels. The kick sent me sprawling, and I crumpled to the floor in a heap of designer fabric and shame. “Who is this tramp? How dare you touch the dress belonging to Mr. Rhodes’ fiancée! Get on your knees and apologize, now!” “Shut your mouth,” I sneered, my voice cold. “The Fairchild-Rhodes engagement was national news. This woman is no Fairchild.” The woman, enraged, stomped forward and ground her heel into my leg. “The Fairchild heiress? That old hag could never deserve my brother! He raised me himself, and he promised he would marry me!” An old injury in my leg flared with white-hot pain. I shoved her hard, sending her tumbling to the floor, where she immediately started wailing again. Annoyed, I pulled out my phone and called Nicholas directly. He picked up quickly, but his tone was clipped and impatient. “Victoria, I’m busy. A huge project just came up at the office. You said you were going to the boutique yourself, why are you calling me?” “Nicholas, you get your ass down to this boutique right now. Why is this stray you’ve picked up daring to touch my wedding dress?!” There was a stunned silence. “What stray? Who have you been listening to now? I know you’re upset I couldn’t come with you, but this is not the time for a tantrum.” “I’m busy. I’m hanging up.” And just like that, he did. My fists clenched. Fine. If he was going to be this dismissive, then I had no interest in a tainted dress. But he owed me an explanation. I struggled to my feet, my heart aching for the beautiful gown my mother had so lovingly commissioned. Since it had been defiled, I wouldn’t have it. I walked over to where it lay on the floor, picked up a corner of the delicate tulle skirt, and with a satisfying shriek of tearing silk and lace, I ripped the hem clean off. The woman’s eyes turned red with fury. She launched herself at me. “My dress! You bitch, I’ll kill you! Do you know who my husband is? He’s the heir to the Rhodes Corporation!” “I’m calling the police! I’m calling the police!” I just scoffed and dialed 911 myself. Given the gown’s seven-figure price tag, this was a major incident. The police arrived quickly. It was from them that I learned the woman’s real name wasn’t Rhodes. It was Jenna Mills, a scholarship student the Rhodes family had sponsored through college. After graduation, she’d been working as Nicholas’s personal assistant. Everyone in their circle knew the real nature of their relationship. But with my impending return, Nicholas had started introducing her as his “adopted little sister,” which is why everyone called her Miss Rhodes. “Officer, a month ago my husband told me he ordered a custom wedding gown for me from this boutique,” Jenna sobbed to the police. “It’s been tailored to my measurements for weeks! He’s already paid the deposit! And today this crazy woman just came in and destroyed it! You have to arrest her!” The boutique manager quickly corroborated her story. “It’s true, this young lady is Mr. Rhodes’ girlfriend. He brings her in all the time. The dress has been in alterations for her for quite a while. This whole thing is a terrible misunderstanding, but the damage has nothing to do with our store! It was all her!” he said, pointing at me. An officer approached me. “Miss, you claim this gown belongs to you. Do you have any proof?” “Of course I do. This boutique is the flagship store of a world-renowned designer. This gown was his personal creation for me. To prevent counterfeiting, there’s a microchip embedded in the seam. It can be scanned to verify the owner’s identity. And the bracelet I’m wearing is the scanner.” I handed my bracelet to the officer. He found the chip easily. The scan brought up my complete profile. “Miss Mills, or should I say, Miss Rhodes,” I said, my voice dripping with ice. “As you can see, this dress has a name. And that name is Fairchild. It is the private property of Victoria Fairchild.” “This gown is valued at 9.6 million dollars. You have altered it beyond recognition. You will be responsible for the full cost of the damages.” Jenna stared, dumbfounded. She’d had the dress for weeks and never noticed the chip. The manager’s face went pale, and he started frantically wiping sweat from his brow. But Jenna wasn’t ready to give up. “It’s fake! That’s fake! She’s trying to steal my dress! She must have come in here earlier and planted that chip! Otherwise, how come none of the tailors found it, but she knew exactly where it was? It’s a setup!” The manager, terrified of being implicated, quickly jumped to her defense. “Yes, that must be it! The Fairchild heiress has been abroad for years, with no word of her return. But Miss Rhodes has been here with Mr. Rhodes several times! Officer, we have security footage! It will prove that Mr. Rhodes and Miss Rhodes are a couple and that they came to see this very dress!” He eagerly offered up the CCTV recordings. I almost laughed at their stupidity. I wanted them to check the footage to prove I hadn’t tampered with anything. But the manager, in a stroke of genius, claimed that day’s camera feed was malfunctioning. Due to the high value of the item in question, we were all taken to the police station. My parents were overseas, so I called our butler to come get me. Jenna, of course, called Nicholas. But Nicholas, the coward, didn’t show his face. He sent his executive assistant, Megan, instead. Megan bowed deeply the moment she saw me. “Miss Fairchild, I am so sorry for what you’ve been through.” “Where is Nicholas?” “The president is in a critical meeting, Miss. The company has several major projects launching, and he simply couldn’t get away. He sent me to pick up Miss Mills.” I let out a cold laugh. “And you think she’s going anywhere?” Megan quickly dialed Nicholas’s number and handed me the phone. “Miss Fairchild, the president would like to speak with you.” I wanted to hear what he had to say for himself, so I took it and put it on speaker. The first words out of his mouth were drenched in condescension. “Victoria, can you stop making a scene?” “Jenna is a scholarship student our family sponsored. If word gets out that a massive corporation like ours is bullying a poor girl from an underprivileged background, how do you think that will look?” “You are about to marry into our family. Shouldn’t you be putting our family’s interests first? Come home. It’s just a dress. This is ridiculous.” “These years abroad have made you completely uncontrollable. You’re going to have to learn to control that temper once you’re married.” I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. I had truly been blind to this side of him. “Nicholas, do you have any idea what you’re saying?!” My sharp tone seemed to startle him into silence. If he had half a brain, he’d remember that between the two of us, I was the one who held the real power. But years of playing CEO had clearly rotted his mind. “Victoria, is that any way to speak to the man of the house? Where are your manners? It seems I’ll have to teach you a few things before the wedding.” “And don’t bother calling your butler. I’ve already had my people send him away.” My eyes widened. I couldn’t believe his audacity. The next thing I knew, Megan was escorting us out. I was driven not to my home, but to a secluded villa in the suburbs. There, I finally saw Nicholas. “Nicholas, what do you think you’re doing? This is illegal confinement. This is kidnapping. Have you thought about what you’ll tell my parents?” In just a few short years, he was no longer the timid boy who used to follow me around, begging for resources. He now radiated the smug aura of a man in power. With a slight wave of his hand, Jenna would nestle into his arms, a pretty little toy in his palm. He scoffed at my words. “What is there to explain? You’ll be part of our family soon enough. Our families have collaborated on so many projects over the years. Do you really think your parents would risk billions in joint ventures over their spoiled daughter?” “Jenna might be from a poor background, but she’s taken care of me in your absence. She’s naive and inexperienced. Can’t you just be the bigger person and let this go?” “Nicholas, you are despicable! Who gave you the nerve to say such disgusting things?!” I screamed, cutting him off. He frowned dismissively, and his men immediately forced me to my knees. “It seems your time in exile didn’t teach you any manners.” “Jenna,” he said, a cruel smile playing on his lips. “Let her have a taste of what she gave you.” [To see how Victoria turns the tables and unleashes the full might of the Fairchild family on Nicholas, unlock the next chapter.] Jenna smiled as she walked toward me and slapped me hard across the face. “If I ruin that pretty face of yours, you won’t be worthy of standing next to my brother, will you?” With that, she ordered his men to slap me one hundred times. Blood trickled from my ears and mouth, and my head was ringing. Still not satisfied, Jenna ordered them to strip me. I fought with all my might, but they broke two of my fingers and tore off several of my fingernails. Nicholas had brought a small army of bodyguards. I was powerless. The feeling of their invasive eyes on me was the ultimate humiliation. “Victoria, you have a few days to reflect on your behavior,” Nicholas said, his voice cold. “I’ll be back in a week. I hope by then you’ll have learned how to please a man.” Then he left me there. I tried to escape, to make it back to the city, but the sound of howling wolves in the night sent me scrambling back to the villa. There was no food, no water. After three days, I collapsed on the living room floor, exhausted. I stared at my twisted fingers, my battered body, and gritted my teeth. Then, the villa’s main door was kicked open. My butler, Arthur, rushed in with a team of our own security. When I woke up again, I was in a private room in my family’s hospital. Arthur was sitting by my bed. He was overjoyed to see me awake. “Miss, you’re finally awake! You had me so worried. If anything had happened to you, I don’t know how I would have explained it to your parents!” “My parents?” My throat felt like it had been shredded. Every word tasted of blood. “They’re on a flight back now. They’ll be here soon.” “Good. Send a message to the Rhodes family. Tell them that if Nicholas is still able to stand by tomorrow, their family will cease to exist.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “430142”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My brother’s son just turned eight this year. As the lawyer was handling the inheritance paperwork, he suddenly pointed to a clause at the end of the will and asked if I knew what my father had meant by it. I leaned in for a closer look. The clause stated that the house was to be provided, rent-free, for the use of the eldest grandson until he turned thirty. The lawyer sighed. “This means that for the next twenty-two years, while the house is legally in your name, you don’t actually have the right to use it.” 1 I stood in the law office, feeling like the punchline to a cosmic joke. Twenty-two years. My brother’s son, Henry, was eight. Thirty years old was exactly twenty-two years away. In other words, this half-a-million-dollar house, with my name on the deed, was to be a free home for my nephew for twenty-two years. And after twenty-two years, the place would be a rundown dump, its value a whole other question. Besides, after someone’s lived in a place for over two decades, could you really kick them out? My father had played his hand brilliantly. With a single piece of paper, he had bought out the last shreds of affection I had for him as a daughter. He had also bought all those days and nights I’d spent, devoted and exhausted, caring for him at the end of his life. I turned my head to look at my brother, William, sitting on the couch. His eyes darted away, unable to meet mine, but he couldn’t hide the smug little smirk playing on his lips. He knew. He must have known all along. I took a deep breath, my voice trembling uncontrollably. “Will, what is this?” William cleared his throat, putting on his best honest-man act. “Nora, don’t get worked up. Dad was just thinking of Henry’s future. He’s a boy, he’ll need a house when he gets married, right?” “Our family doesn’t have much. Dad didn’t have a choice.” His wife, Linda, immediately jumped in, her tone dripping with entitlement. “Exactly, Nora. You’re a girl, you’ll get married someday. A house isn’t as important for you.” “Besides, the deed is in your name, isn’t it? See how fair Dad was? He was still thinking of you. We’re just looking after it for you for twenty-two years. Saves you the hassle of renting it out. Isn’t that great?” A chill ran through me, a fury so cold it burned. “Looking after it? Linda, search your conscience. Is that what you call it? This is squatting! You’re stealing my home!” “How dare you!” Linda shot to her feet, her voice rising to a shriek. “What do you mean, stealing? This was Dad’s gift to his own grandson! It’s written right here in the will, clear as day! Nora, I’m telling you, don’t be ungrateful. The thing Dad worried about most before he died was that you wouldn’t honor his wishes. Are you really going to defy his dying wish? Can you live with that?” The thing he worried about most was that I wouldn’t honor his wishes? So when he held my hand and told me he wasn’t playing favorites, this is what he was thinking. He wasn’t comforting me. He was setting a trap. Sensing the escalating tension, the lawyer stepped in. “Ms. Shaw, Mr. Shaw, please, calm down.” “The will is legally binding. It’s all here in black and white. Ms. Shaw, you do indeed own the property, but the right of use for the next twenty-two years belongs to your nephew, Henry.” I looked at the lawyer and asked, enunciating every word, “So who pays the HOA fees, the heating bills, and the maintenance costs for these twenty-two years?” The lawyer paused, flipping through the documents. “The will does not specify. According to property law, the owner is typically responsible for such expenses.” “Okay. I understand.” I grabbed my bag, and without another glance at my brother or his wife, I turned and walked out. Linda’s shrill voice followed me. “Nora, what’s with the attitude? The keys! As soon as the deed is transferred, you’d better hand over the keys!” I didn’t look back. Stepping out of the law firm, the sunlight was blinding, but I felt frozen to the core. I pulled out my phone and found the last picture I had of my father. He was lying in a hospital bed, an oxygen tube in his nose. I was holding his hand, my smile full of daughterly devotion. Beneath the photo was the caption I’d posted: “Dad, may you rest in peace. You were the best father in the world.” Now, it all felt like a sick joke. 2 The six months my father was critically ill were the darkest of my life. He spent three months in the ICU, the daily bills piling up like a flood. My brother, William, just threw up his hands, claiming his factory was doing poorly, his wife was unemployed, his son had school expenses—he simply had no money to spare. Every time he came to the hospital, he’d hang around outside the room for ten minutes, snap a photo for his social media feed with a caption like, “Hoping Dad gets well soon,” and then make an excuse to leave. The entire burden fell on my shoulders. I rushed between my office and the hospital every day, spending nights on a cheap folding cot. Hiring a full-time nurse was too expensive, so I gritted my teeth and did it all myself. Bathing him, feeding him, dealing with his bodily waste—I did it all without a single complaint. Because he was my dad. The man who raised me. And because he had held my hand, more than once, and told me, “Nora, you’ve worked so hard all these years. Don’t worry, Dad knows what he’s doing. I won’t favor your brother.” The depth of my gratitude then was matched only by the depth of my disgust now. My husband, Mark, came home from a business trip to find me completely shattered. After I told him everything, he slammed his fist on the table in anger. “What kind of garbage is that? They’re walking all over you. What did he think you were? A free nurse and an ATM?” I collapsed into his arms, the tears finally breaking free. “Mark, I just don’t get it. How could he do this to me? I’m his daughter!” Mark held me, gently stroking my back. “Because you’re too good, Nora. In their eyes, your sense of duty is something to be taken for granted, an excuse to sacrifice you again and again.” He was right. Growing up, if there was ever anything good, it always went to William first. One egg had to be split, and he always got the bigger half. When I got into college, my dad gave me five hundred dollars for tuition. He gave William two thousand, telling him to go out and “make his way in the world.” After I started working, I sent three thousand dollars home every month, without fail. And my brother? The money for his wedding gift to his bride was scraped together because my dad forced me to pay for it. I wasn’t without resentment, but my dad would always say, “Your brother isn’t as smart or as capable as you are. As his little sister, you should help him out. We’re family, we can’t be so calculating.” “We’re family.” That one phrase had bound me for thirty years. Only today did I realize that in their definition of family, there was only taking and giving, no fairness or respect. And I was always the one expected to give. Just then, my phone rang. It was William. I swiped to answer but said nothing. “Hello? Nora?” William’s voice was laced with impatience, a commander issuing an order. “Where’d you run off to? Linda and I have been waiting. Where are the keys to Dad’s house? Get over here and give them to us. We’re planning to have it cleaned so we can move in next weekend.” I let out a cold laugh. “What keys?” William was taken aback for a second, then his voice rose. “What do you mean, ‘what keys’? The house keys, of course! Nora, don’t play dumb with me! The will is crystal clear. Are you trying to back out of it?” “The will says the house is for your son to live in, but it doesn’t say when, does it?” I said slowly. “The deed isn’t even finalized yet. The paperwork is still being processed. What’s the rush?” “You…” William was furious. “Don’t give me that crap! I’m warning you, if you don’t hand over the keys within a week, we’re calling a locksmith! Don’t blame us for embarrassing you then!” He hung up with a vicious click. I clutched my phone, the sorrow in my heart slowly being consumed by a rising fire of anger. Embarrassing me? They had ground my face into the dirt, using a knife carved from my own father’s bones to cut me to pieces, and now they wanted to talk about saving face? Fine. If you’re going to be shameless, then I’ve got no face to give you. 3 The next day, my aunt called. My father had only one sister, and she had always doted on William. “Nora, I heard from your brother that you’re refusing to give him the keys to the house?” My aunt’s tone was heavy with the scolding weight of an elder. “How can you be so thoughtless? Your father’s barely cold in his grave, and you’re going to make him turn in his grave over a house?” I answered calmly, “Auntie, that house is mine. The will states that I have ownership.” “Ownership, ownership, what’s that but a piece of paper? The house is for your nephew to live in, he’s still family.” “You’re a girl, what’s the point in fighting for it?” When I didn’t respond, her voice grew shrill. “Your brother has it so tough, supporting a family of three on his own. Henry is about to start elementary school, how can he not have a decent house? You’re married, you have your own home. Can’t you have a little sympathy for your brother?” There it was again. That same old argument. Because I’m a girl, I’m supposed to give way. Because my life is better than his, I’m supposed to be a bottomless well for him to draw from. “Auntie,” I interrupted her, “when Dad was in the hospital with hundreds of thousands in medical bills, neither you nor my brother paid a cent. Now it’s time to divide the inheritance, and you’re all suddenly so eager. Don’t you find that a little ridiculous?” The line went silent. A few seconds later, my aunt exploded in a rage. “Nora, what is that attitude? I am your elder! Wasn’t it your duty as a daughter to pay for your father’s care? What, did you expect us to praise you for it? I see what it is—you got married, and now you think you’re too good for your own family!” I hung up and blocked her number. On Friday afternoon, I was in a meeting when my phone started vibrating nonstop. It was Mark. I gave him a nod and stepped out of the conference room to answer. “Nora, you need to get back here, now!” Mark’s voice was a mix of urgency and fury. “Your brother and his wife, they’re at the house with a locksmith, trying to break in!” “I’m on my way!” I got permission from my director and floored it all the way to my father’s house. Downstairs, a small crowd of curious neighbors had already gathered. My brother William and his wife Linda were standing with their hands on their hips, directing a locksmith who was working on the security door. “Hurry it up, man! This is our house!” Linda’s voice was sharp and loud. I pushed through the crowd and shoved the locksmith away from the door. “Stop. Who gave you permission to touch the door to my house?” William saw me and showed no remorse. Instead, he played the victim. “So you decided to show up? Why didn’t you answer our calls? If you haven’t done anything wrong, what are you afraid of?” “What have I done wrong?” I pointed at the lock. “This is my house. What right do you have to break my lock?” Linda rolled her eyes. “Your house? The will says my son gets to live here for twenty-two years! That makes it ours! We have every right to enter our own home!” The neighbors started whispering amongst themselves. “Isn’t that the Shaw’s daughter? Poor thing. I heard her dad gave her the house, but then let his grandson live in it.” “That’s just bullying!” “Her brother and his wife are just awful…” Hearing the comments, Linda’s face turned beet red. She suddenly lunged at me, pointing a finger at my nose. “Nora, you ungrateful brat! William is the son! This house should have been ours in the first place! Dad only wrote your name on it because he was afraid you wouldn’t agree! You really think it’s yours?” “I’m telling you, we’re opening this door today! And we’re moving into this house!” As she spoke, she tried to shove me. Mark arrived just in time, pulling me behind him and creating a barrier between us. “William, Linda, have some decency,” Mark said, his face dark with anger. “The house belongs to Nora. What you’re doing is breaking and entering. It’s illegal!” “Illegal? Who are you trying to scare?” William yelled, his neck stiff with defiance. “It’s in my father’s will! Go on, call the cops! Let’s see who they listen to when they get here!” They were banking on the fact that I would be constrained by family ties, by my father’s reputation, that I wouldn’t dare escalate the situation. Seeing their shameless confidence, the rage in my chest burned hotter. I took out my phone and, in front of everyone, dialed 911. “Hello, yes, I’d like to report a crime. Someone is breaking the lock on my door. The address is…” 4 The police arrived quickly. When William and Linda saw the patrol car, they visibly panicked. Linda tried to sound tough. “What’s the use of calling the police? This is a family matter!” The lead officer was a stern-faced middle-aged man. He looked us over and asked directly, “Who called? What’s going on here?” I stepped forward and clearly explained the situation, including the contents of the will. William, in turn, produced a copy of the will, pointing to the clause with righteous indignation. “Officer, look, it’s in black and white. The house is for my son to live in! How is entering our own house breaking and entering?” The officer listened, his brow furrowed. He turned to a younger officer beside him. “Get on the radio with the legal department at the precinct and confirm how we handle this kind of situation.” Then he turned back to us, his tone serious. “Until this is sorted out, nobody touches this door. Both parties, come with me to the station to give a statement.” The moment Linda heard “station,” she started to throw a fit. “I’m not going! We didn’t break any laws, why should we go to the station? What kind of police are you? Siding with an outsider against us!” The officer’s face hardened. “Ma’am, I need you to cooperate with our investigation. If you continue to obstruct, we will charge you with interfering with a police officer.” That shut her up. She didn’t dare make another sound. At the station, we were put in separate rooms to give our statements. An hour later, we were brought back out. The young officer approached us holding a document. He addressed William and Linda. “We’ve consulted with our legal advisor. While this will grants your son the right to reside in the home, the property has not yet been legally transferred, and the owner has not willingly provided the keys. Your act of forcibly breaking the lock constitutes trespassing and property damage.” “If any property was damaged, the owner has the right to demand compensation and pursue legal action against you.” He paused, looking at all of us. “To put it simply, if she doesn’t want you to move in right now, you cannot force your way in. This is a civil dispute, and we advise you to resolve it through mediation or legal channels. For today, you’re getting a verbal warning. If it happens again, it won’t be this simple.” The expressions on William and Linda’s faces were a sight to behold. The will they thought was their trump card had, in the eyes of the law, given them no right to forcibly take possession. As we walked out of the station, the look my brother and his wife gave me was one of pure venom, as if they wanted to swallow me whole. “Nora, you’ve really outdone yourself!” William seethed. “You’d even call the cops just to keep us out! Do you even see me as your brother anymore? Do you have any respect for Dad?” “The moment you started scheming against me, no, I didn’t,” I said, looking at him coldly. Linda suddenly shrieked, “Fine! Fine! Nora, you just wait! See if you can keep us out forever! We have our ways!” They stormed off in a huff. Watching them go, I felt no sense of victory, only a profound weariness. Mark took my hand. “Nora, don’t be scared. Let’s go home.” I nodded, leaning against him. Although we had dealt with the immediate crisis, a sense of unease lingered in my heart. Two days later, my daughter’s kindergarten teacher called me, her voice frantic. “Lily’s mom, you need to come to the school right away!” My stomach clenched. “Ms. Davis, what is it? Is Lily okay?” “Lily’s fine, it’s her uncle and aunt. They’re at the gate right now, insisting on picking Lily up. They say they want to take her to see the new house that’s been prepared for her…” The phone almost slipped from my hand. They had sunk so low as to use my five-year-old daughter.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “430158”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel