Category: English

I harbored a secret crush on the boy who protected his childhood friend until he was expelled from school. Years later, when I became a top-tier talent manager, I ran into him waiting tables at a restaurant. He had long forgotten me, but I still wanted to give him a chance. I asked him, “Leo Vance, do you want to act?” He left with me. It took me three years to transform him from a waiter into the entertainment industry’s newest A-lister. And then, the childhood friend he had protected all those years ago came back looking for him. 01 Leo Vance didn’t tell me that Chloe Sterling had come looking for him. I found out because a media outlet I was close with caught a video of Leo shopping at a supermarket with a girl. I had a good relationship with the owner of this media outlet. The money I paid him every year was enough to cover the annual revenue of a mid-sized company with over a hundred employees. So, he didn’t publish it. Following the unwritten rules of our industry, he sold the video to me as a favor. I clicked open the video. The paparazzi must have been staking them out for a long time, because the Leo in the photos was fully bundled up; unless you knew him extremely well, you wouldn’t be able to recognize him. However, the girl beside him, dressed in casual clothes, was completely unmasked. Even after all this time, and despite the blurry quality, I recognized her the moment I laid eyes on her. Chloe Sterling. She and Leo were my high school classmates, and she was the childhood friend who grew up with him. During high school, Leo was the big man on campus. He was brilliant back then, never dropping out of the top ten in the grade. Of course, I consistently held the number one spot, but it was different. I spent over a dozen hours studying every day, while he belonged to the type who could easily get good grades with minimal effort. Good grades, handsome, popular—he was famous throughout the school. Naturally, Chloe, who walked to and from school with him every day, received a lot of attention too. At that time, Leo was the student all the teachers had the highest hopes for. During the final push in senior year, everyone had high expectations for him. That was until he, in order to protect Chloe from being harassed by thugs on her way home, used excessive force in self-defense, resulting in permanent disability for one of the thugs. This incident caused a massive uproar at the time, even drawing the attention of the school board. I don’t know if it went on his permanent record, but the thug’s parents were wealthy and powerful, and they refused to let it go. Chloe, who should have stepped forward to explain, never showed her face. Eventually, the school had no choice but to expel Leo. The last time I saw Leo during high school was at the bus station. His figure, dragging a suitcase, was swallowed by the crowd. He was very tall. I watched him look around at the sea of people. He probably didn’t find the person he wanted to see, so he gave a self-deprecating smile and, without looking back, boarded the bus to Los Angeles. At the time, I hid in the crowd, secretly seeing him off for the last time—though I really didn’t need to hide; Leo probably didn’t even know who I was. The next time I saw him was seven years later, at a very ordinary wrap party. When he came over carrying a bottle of ’92 Lafite, I recognized him immediately. I blurted out in astonishment, “Leo Vance?” He was also stunned, politely asking, “Do you know me?” I smiled then. I looked at him. The premature hardships of life had given his aura a calm and steady depth, but his face was still incredibly handsome. He was different from the pretty-boy idols under my management. His handsomeness had a restrained, story-like quality. Combined with his sharp eyebrows and striking eyes, a single glance was enough to captivate everyone. I didn’t tell him we were high school classmates. Before leaving, I simply handed him my business card. He took it, glanced at it, and seeing my name, showed no emotion. I knew then he had no memory of me. But I didn’t mind. I smiled at him sincerely and said, “Leo Vance, you have great potential. Any interest in joining the entertainment industry?” Three days later, I received a call from Leo. Leo had excellent natural potential, and in the entertainment industry, a good face is half the battle. Add to that the fact that I poured all the resources I had into promoting him—with the right timing, right place, and right people—Leo’s rise to stardom was a matter of course, and he became the ace artist under my management. He had always been very cooperative, saving me a lot of trouble, and never caused any incidents. Until today, when I received this video. I watched the video on my phone again, then called Leo. No one answered. I pondered for a moment, closed my phone, stood up, grabbed my car keys from the desk, and walked out. 02 I stood at the door of Leo’s house and rang the doorbell. After a long time with no answer, I waited another five minutes, then started punching in the passcode. I handled everything for Leo. I was the one who found this place for him when he made his first pot of gold. It offered strong privacy and confidentiality—more importantly, I knew the developers well, which saved him a considerable amount of money. When setting the passcode, I asked him what he wanted it to be. He seemed to have no particular preference at the time, just saying, “Whatever.” I joked, half-smiling, “Whatever? Since anything goes, I’ll set it as my birthday. That way, every time you enter the code, you’ll remember my birthday, remember to thank your benefactor, and send me a big gift on time.” He smiled too. Later, this passcode was kept until today; he never changed it. I entered my birthday, and with a “beep,” the door unlocked. I stood at the door, knocked once more. I had given Leo plenty of time. I didn’t know what might be inside, but whatever it was, after all this time, he should have cleaned it up. I walked in, very surprised to find Leo wasn’t there. Instead, a girl stood in the middle of the living room, wearing Leo’s t-shirt, her bare, pale legs showing underneath. She looked at me with panic and confusion. It was Chloe. I stood in the entryway, paused, and asked her, “Where’s Leo?” She looked at me with hesitation, asking in alarm, “Who are you?” I didn’t answer. I opened the shoe cabinet but couldn’t find my slippers. I looked up at Chloe, and sure enough, I saw my slippers on her feet. I remained silent. I have severe OCD; if someone touches my personal items, I won’t use them again. I didn’t show any emotion towards Chloe. I gave her a polite, professional smile and introduced myself: “Hello, I’m Leo’s manager, and also his girlfriend. Could you please tell me where Leo is?” Leo and I got together a year ago. As two consenting adults with mutual attraction, and considering I had always liked him, I never hid that affection from him. Leo was definitely aware of it, but neither of us ever brought it out into the open. We finally got together two years ago when he was just starting to get noticed. I went to negotiate a brand endorsement for him. During the business dinner, I drank quite a bit. I maintained a facade of effortless charm and witty banter until I signed the contract and saw the brand executives to their cars. Only then did I start throwing up. Leo took me home and stayed to take care of me. In my groggy state, I heard him sigh helplessly by my bed and say, “Harper Quinn, you work too hard.” Leo had a cold, reticent personality. That was the first time I had ever heard him use such a helpless tone, and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I was considered a legend in the industry. I started from the bottom as an assistant and worked my way up to becoming a top-tier manager at a young age. Although young, I handled people and situations flawlessly, never leaving any room for criticism. Hearing me laugh, he couldn’t help but smile too. I opened my eyes, looked at him, and joked half-seriously, “If I don’t work hard, how am I supposed to push you to the top?” He froze for a moment, then said quietly, “Harper, I’m very lucky to have met you.” That was the first time he ever thanked me. After that, we had an unspoken understanding. Maybe it was the mood of the moment, but anyway, we got together. Leo and I were both adults with normal physiological needs. We spent our days and nights together; isn’t there a saying, “Proximity favors romance”? After seven years, I finally plucked the moon I had admired in my youth. But now, looking at Chloe, whose face had instantly turned pale at my words, I thought distractedly: I finally caught the moon of my youth, but he also has his own moon. I wonder if it’s time for me, the substitute, to step down. 03 When Leo returned, I was sitting on the sofa, slowly sipping tea. Chloe stood awkwardly and pitifully by the sofa across from me. She didn’t sit down. Her face was pale, and her eyes were rimmed with red, as if I had bullied her. Leo, carrying bags in his hands, froze when he saw me. Chloe seemed to view him as her protector, immediately crying out with grievance, “Leo.” Leo ignored her. To him, he was very cold. He only asked me, “Harper, why are you here?” I looked at him. Although he didn’t pay attention to Chloe, only speaking to me, he was standing right next to her. Knowing him as well as I did, I recognized this as a subtle, protective stance. I smoothly set down my teacup, took out my phone, and pulled up the video the media had sent me to show him. He took it, glanced at it, and quickly explained, “This is a misunderstanding. She’s my sister, Chloe Sterling.” At his words, Chloe looked at him, her eyes growing even redder, clearly on the verge of tears. I smiled and asked him, “Biological sister?” He paused, explaining, “My neighbor’s sister. I haven’t seen her in a long time, she… her family had an emergency, so she came to me for help.” Chloe Sterling. On my way here, I had already looked into her background completely. After Leo was expelled and left all those years ago, she remained unaffected, took her college entrance exams normally, got into an average university, and worked a mundane office job after graduating. I knew that in Leo’s first year after his debut, she had tried to contact him. Back then, Leo was expelled because of her, and she didn’t even see him off. I don’t know what was going through Leo’s mind, but he never replied to her messages. This time, she came looking for him because her father had gotten involved in a pyramid scheme. Not only was he scammed out of a large sum of money, but he also dragged his relatives and friends down with him, leaving them penniless. Her father fled, and Chloe couldn’t stay in her hometown anymore, so she burned her bridges and came looking for Leo. Now it seems, she made the right bet. Leo hated her for abandoning him and being so callous back then, but ultimately, he couldn’t harden his heart against her. Probably because the first love of your youth is always special. To me, and to Leo, it was the same. I nodded, dispensing with nonsense, and asked him, “What are you going to do? Just let her stay here with you?” Leo glanced at Chloe, furrowing his brow slightly, as if pondering. This scene truly annoyed me. I stood up, directly making the decision for him: “I’ve already intercepted one PR crisis for you. She cannot live here with you. It’s too dangerous.” “I’ll have my assistant find an apartment for her soon and help her get settled.” Pausing, I looked into his eyes and continued, “Leo, I hope you won’t get involved in matters concerning her again.” “I’m saying this not just as your manager, but also as your girlfriend.” Only then did Chloe timidly speak up. She was quite good at playing weak. Although she wasn’t particularly pretty, her delicate demeanor easily evoked pity. She said, “Sister, you misunderstood. I… there’s nothing going on between me and Leo. When I arrived, I was starving, so Leo took me out for hotpot. I smelled like food, so I took a shower.” “But I escaped from home, I didn’t bring anything with me, so I had to wear Leo’s clothes.” She finished speaking and opened the bags Leo had just bought to show me. It seemed like an explanation as she said, “Look, Leo just went out to buy me clothes. Once I change, I’ll leave with you. Don’t worry, I absolutely won’t cause any trouble for Leo.” Saying that, she carried the clothes and walked familiarly toward Leo’s bedroom, clearly intending to change there. I’ve seen it all in the entertainment industry. Her “pick-me” act was so obvious, but I couldn’t be bothered to engage with such low-level tactics, so I just stood there waiting for her to come out. Leo stood in front of me, offering a brief explanation: “Harper, I didn’t mean to hide this from you, I just didn’t think it was necessary.” “There is absolutely nothing between me and her, you shouldn’t overthink it.” I looked up at him. Even now, I was smiling. Having been in the entertainment industry for so long, I had learned to mask all my emotions. I smiled warmly, but my words were uncompromising. I said: “Leo, you could have had someone take her to a hotel, or transferred some money to her, instead of bringing her back to your private residence, letting her shower and wear your clothes, and then parading it in front of me.” “This is the first time, so I’ll forgive you.” “I expect you to know your boundaries.” As soon as I finished speaking, Chloe walked out of the bedroom. Seeing the tense atmosphere between us, she froze, and then I saw the corners of her mouth twitch upward involuntarily. But in an instant, she suppressed her expression, walked over submissively, and said quietly, “Sister, I’m packed. We can go.” I turned to grab my car keys. As I reached the door, as if just remembering, I turned back to Leo and said, “By the way, I won’t be coming here anymore. You know about my severe OCD. Please just throw away everything I left here.” 04 After settling Chloe into a hotel, I flew to Milan on a business trip. Another artist under my management had a major runway show in Milan. I had to be there in person to ensure everything went smoothly. By the time I finished up in Milan and returned, it was already a week later. Leo came to the airport to pick me up. Only when I was back in the country did I allow myself to show my exhaustion. I rubbed my temples, and Leo glanced at me, asking, “Did everything go well?” Hearing this, I laughed and looked back at him, “Have I ever messed anything up?” He laughed too, turned the steering wheel, and said, “That’s true, there’s nothing you can’t handle.” He paused, then casually said, “By the way, you mentioned you wouldn’t be going back to that apartment, so I moved to a complex in the Financial District. I bought new replacements for all your things exactly as they were.” I gave a noncommittal “hmm,” and his voice lowered as he said, “Harper, I’m sorry.” I looked up at him, smiled, and said, “It’s fine. I forgive first offenses, but I won’t be so lenient next time.” He smiled too, saying, “There won’t be a next time. I’ll truly cherish this chance you’ve given me.” I didn’t say anything. Leo and I are both smart people. I have an easygoing personality. I don’t forcefully interfere too much with my boyfriend’s boundaries with other women because I always believe that self-awareness is something you either have or you don’t. It can’t be demanded. Things like this, you only need to point them out once. I would only point it out once. Since his debut, Leo has had his fair share of co-stars and female celebrities secretly flirting with him. He always handled it well. Adult love is brought together by fate. If his heart is with you, you don’t need to control him; if his heart isn’t with you, what’s the point of watching his every move? So I always let things be. Later, Leo gave me a brief update on his situation with Chloe, and I considered the matter closed. Until Leo and Chloe started trending. During that time, I had secured a role for Leo in a period drama. After he joined the cast, I was busy with other things, but perhaps I overworked myself, and I suddenly fell ill. The flu symptoms hit me hard and fast. I was dizzy and feverish, feeling like a mountain had collapsed on me. My colleagues sent me home and forced me to rest. I was indeed exhausted, so I turned off my phone, drew the curtains, and slept soundly for an entire day. When I woke up, it was past 8:00 PM. I turned off airplane mode and immediately felt something was wrong. Because there were many missed calls on my phone. Opening my messages, the latest one was from the company’s PR team. She said, “Harper, are you awake? Something happened, check the trending topics.” I opened Twitter, and the number one trending topic was a shocking, red “HOT”. It was Leo and Chloe. 05 The video of them grocery shopping last time was intercepted by me, but this time, the media was clearly out for blood. They didn’t even come to negotiate a price; they just released it directly. The background was the set where Leo was filming. Because it was a period drama, the background had an antique feel. The video was a bit shaky. As soon as I opened it, my heart sank because it clearly showed Leo and Chloe’s faces. This time, there was no way to deny it. In the video, Chloe was skipping and gesturing animatedly beside Leo. Although Leo didn’t show much movement or expression, you could tell he was keeping an eye on the path ahead of her. Until Chloe accidentally twisted her ankle. Leo crouched in front of her, bending down to squeeze her ankle. Chloe tried to walk a bit, then looked up at Leo. Even from a distance, you could see her pouting in grievance. I don’t know what she said, but Leo paused, then swept her up into his arms. The video abruptly ended there, followed by some candid photos of them eating late-night snacks on set. Anyway, there were plenty of scenes of the two interacting. My head started buzzing again. Although I was dizzy, my thoughts were exceptionally clear. I called the PR team. Because of my illness, my voice was hoarse. I was concise: “Respond. The photos and videos are easy to explain. Just say Chloe is a newly hired assistant. Take the opportunity to hype up Leo’s gentle, polite, and friendly attitude towards staff. Compile stories of his past interactions with staff, blast them out through influencer accounts, and get the bot army ready.” The PR team quickly went to execute the plan. I put down my phone and saw numerous probing messages from media outlets on WhatsApp. Frowning, I gave them watertight, non-committal replies. Unknowingly, two hours passed. A PR crisis is easy to handle. As long as there are no explicit photos of them kissing, you can spin black into white. At the top of my chat list were messages from Leo, as well as his missed calls. I didn’t reply. I was thinking. I tapped my finger on the screen, hovering over Leo’s profile picture, pondering how I should handle my relationship with him. Just then, I received another call. It was from the property management of Leo’s previous residence. Because Leo rarely stayed in LA, I handled the property management, utilities, and things like that for him. The person on the other end was very polite, asking me: “Ms. Quinn, your car is parked in someone else’s spot, and the owner just came back from out of town. I’m calling to ask if it’s convenient for you to come and move it.” I was stunned for a moment. But within moments, I realized what was going on. I said, “I’m sorry, I’ll be right there.” Since Chloe came over that last time, I hadn’t been back to Leo’s apartment. I went to the complex and saw the car parked in someone else’s spot. It was Leo’s car, though he hadn’t driven it in a long time. I didn’t have the keys, but looking through the windshield, I could see cute stuffed animals and decorations. It was obvious whose taste it was. He had let Chloe drive this car. I laughed, turning to the property manager beside me: “I don’t need this car anymore. Call a tow truck and have it hauled away.” Then I went upstairs to the 32nd floor. Approaching that familiar yet strange door, I entered my birthday on the keypad. After two beeps, it displayed “Incorrect Password.” I paused, then entered 0712. This was Chloe’s birthday. As for why I knew her birthday, it’s because during high school, every July 12th, Leo would go to a bakery near our homes to buy Chloe a strawberry cake. His focused gaze as he carefully selected the cake made him look incredibly handsome and devoted. At that time, I would sit behind the counter, doing practice problems while looking at his face, unable to help but think: Chloe Sterling, what a lucky girl. I don’t know if that deep-seated envy sparked my inexplicable obsession with Leo. So, when I saw him again years later, I still wanted him. The smart lock beeped and opened. I pushed the door open, but only stood in the entryway and glanced inside. It was enough. Leo had let Chloe live here. She probably wasn’t much for cleaning, so traces of her life were scattered everywhere. When Leo bought this place, because he was busy filming, I had overseen the renovations for him, little by little. I looked around and saw Leo’s jacket draped carelessly on the sofa, mixed with Chloe’s clothes. It gave off an ambiguous, cozy domestic vibe. I have a cool, easygoing personality and rarely get angry because, in my view, all problems can be solved. If there’s a solution, then useless emotions are unnecessary. But this was the first time I felt nauseous and disgusted. I can control my emotions, but I can’t control the most visceral physiological reactions. I wanted to throw up. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and waited for the discomfort to pass before I expressionlessly closed the door. Then, I booked a flight to the city where Leo was filming. 06 By the time I landed, it was already afternoon. Leo was filming. The people on set were very familiar with me and greeted me politely. I smiled and nodded, until the assistant director came over. We were old acquaintances. In the entertainment industry, resources and connections are everything. We exchanged pleasantries, and then he discreetly asked: “Harper, tell me the truth. Who is that girl trending with Leo? She’s been hanging around the set every day lately. I can tell Leo’s attitude towards her isn’t ordinary.” I smiled, deflecting vaguely, “She’s just a personal assistant.” The assistant director smiled at me, saying, “I thought so. I don’t mean to say the girl is bad, she’s just a bit shallow. I’d like to think Leo wouldn’t have such poor taste.” I smiled and followed his lead to Leo’s RV. I paused as I opened the door. An open bag of chips, half a glass of juice, and Chloe’s pink jacket draped over the back of a chair. I didn’t go in. I walked around to the other side. Leo’s own assistant was crouching on the ground, head down, playing a game. I called him in my usual warm tone, “Tommy.” He jerked his head up, saw me, and jumped. He immediately turned off his phone screen, stood up, and called out, “Harper.” I smiled and told him, “Go tell Leo to come find me after he finishes this scene. I have something to discuss with him.” He said “okay” and ran off with his phone, moving so fast it looked like he was rushing to warn him. Someone brought over a lounge chair. I was indeed a bit tired, so I lay down and dozed off for a bit. Unknowingly, I fell asleep. When I woke up, Leo was sitting next to me, and I was covered with one of his jackets. I frowned slightly, removed the jacket, pulled out a wet wipe from the side, and wiped my hands. As soon as I moved, Leo turned around. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes followed the wet wipe from his jacket, which I had tossed aside, to my hands. He paused, and I saw his face slightly change color. I didn’t speak until I had meticulously wiped my hands before looking at him. My gaze moved past his face to look behind him as I asked, “Where is Chloe?” He didn’t explain or defend himself, he just said, “Harper, I had no choice.” It was an out-of-the-blue statement, but I understood. He had no choice. Chloe was his first love, frozen in his youthful memories. She was the person he sacrificed his future to protect in high school… He couldn’t let her go, couldn’t ignore her, couldn’t harden his heart against her… Tsk, this deep devotion is truly moving. I started laughing, showing no emotion as I pulled a contract out of my bag and handed it to Leo. He took it, looked at it, and looked somewhat surprised. It was an employment contract for Chloe. I said, “The PR statement has already gone out. Since we said Chloe is your new ‘personal assistant,’ we can’t let people find out she’s not. Have her come over and sign the contract. Besides, you’re short a personal assistant anyway. Since you and Chloe are so close and know each other well, it works out perfectly.” “I’ll deduct her salary from your card. You decide how much to pay her.” Leo was stunned, probably not expecting me to be so accommodating. Seeing his expression, I laughed, polite but with just the right amount of joking to not seem overly distant. I said, “Why are you looking at me like that? What did you think I came here to do? Play the wicked witch breaking up the happy couple, or mark my territory?” He frowned, looking at me searchingly, trying to discern my true emotions from my expression and tone. If my emotions could be read that easily, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Besides, what’s the big deal? Isn’t it just my man reconnecting with his first love behind my back? There are plenty of men out there. I’ll dump him and find another one. Leo could still help me make money, so I could discard him emotionally, but his surplus value was still useful to me. No one holds a grudge against money. I told him, “Leo, we are a partnership, we’re in the same boat. Helping you solve problems is helping myself solve problems.” “The reason I personally came to bring this contract to you is just to inform you. You know I have severe OCD, right?” Leo’s face suddenly went pale. He understood. Everything in his room that Chloe had touched, I had thrown away, not to mention him. I threw those things away, and now I was throwing him away too. From now on, we would have a purely professional manager-artist relationship. I would help him handle these issues simply out of my professional duty. And a breakup, at the very least, should be done face-to-face. A rare look of bewilderment appeared on his face. Over the years, he had grown accustomed to relying on me. All he had to do was act; I handled all his other affairs. He wouldn’t have that anymore. For a split second, his expression went blank. Subconsciously, he took a step toward me and reached out, a gesture of holding onto me and begging me to stay. He said, “Harper—” Before I could even step back, an angry voice came from behind, “Harper Quinn, what are you doing—” I couldn’t help but laugh. Chloe rushed over like a mother hen protecting her chicks, opening her arms to stand in front of Leo, her face full of self-righteous indignation. Well, this is very soap opera. She stuck her neck out, glaring at me, and said, “Harper Quinn, I ran over here on my own. It has nothing to do with Leo. If you have a problem, take it out on me.” I couldn’t be bothered with her. I shifted my gaze from her face to Leo’s, saying lightly, “Have her sign the contract and send it back to the company. I’ll have Alexia and your assistant handle things from now on.” I gave him a polite nod, maintaining a final shred of dignity, and said, “I’m leaving.” 07 I handed Leo’s affairs over to Alexia. I had personally trained her. For the past year, I had rarely managed artists directly. I had transitioned from management to the corporate side. Except for a few close confidants, not many people knew I now held a 35% stake in the current talent agency. In other words, aside from the big boss, I was practically the second-in-command behind the scenes. As for me, I know when to pick things up and when to let them go. When I said I was letting Leo go, I let him go—mainly because I was too busy. I had so much to do. Romance probably didn’t even account for 5% of my life. His betrayal was to me like catching a cold; I’d sleep it off and be fine. After returning from Leo’s set, I went abroad for meetings with the boss and shareholders to report on the financials. Our company’s net profit was miles ahead of other domestic talent agencies, so after the meetings, we took a short vacation abroad. I had already delegated all my artist-related duties. From that meeting onwards, I would be dealing solely with corporate strategy. During that time, I received messages from Leo. He had probably finished filming and gone back. He sent me a photo of his home looking utterly destroyed. He asked me, “Harper, did you hire someone to smash this place up?” Oh, right. That home Leo had, the one I had poured my heart into decorating piece by piece, I had someone tear it all down. If Chloe wanted to live there, he could redecorate it himself. But that had nothing to do with me anymore. I opened the photo of the wreckage, looked at it, then let out a scoff and didn’t reply. Later, he sent me a few more messages, obviously just making small talk. They weren’t important, so I ignored them all. By the time I leisurely returned to the country, a month had passed. I’m someone who clearly separates my personal life from my professional life. The day after landing, I called all the managers for a meeting. We had worked together for a long time, and everyone knew my rhythm, so it went smoothly. However, after the meeting ended, Alexia lingered in her seat, looking hesitant to speak. I raised an eyebrow in surprise and asked, “Something wrong?” She hesitated for a moment before saying, “It’s about Leo.” I closed the file folder and adopted a listening posture. Alexia paused, then said, “Harper, I’ve dealt with the media a few times over this past month. You know about Leo and his ‘personal assistant,’ right? I don’t know if it’s coincidence or intentional, but the media keeps getting paparazzi shots of them.” “Nothing scandalous, but it’s already crossed the line of normal friendship.” Alexia started off calm, but as she spoke, her tone turned complaining, and she sighed, “Given Leo’s status, I can’t be too harsh on him. But lately, the admins of his fan clubs have been getting restless and dissatisfied. They’ve been coming to me asking what’s going on. And you know Leo and Chloe are childhood friends; the media can definitely dig that up even if we try to suppress it. We can still manage to keep a lid on it for now.” She looked miserable, “But Harper, we really can’t suppress it for much longer. Something’s going to happen sooner or later, and it won’t be a small issue.” I looked out the window, my tone neutral, “Didn’t we recently sign a batch of new artists? Bundle them with Leo and have him mentor them.” “We need to push the new artists up as quickly as possible. Leo has been the top guy for too long; he’s forgotten how he climbed up there.” Leo’s schedule was packed. The company had signed several new artists, and I had Leo bring them on screen. He took them on variety shows, live streams, and of course, when acting in TV dramas, he’d bring a few along. The new artists quickly gained public favor, though I occasionally got dragged on Twitter by his fans for “leeching off Leo’s success.” Looking at the engagement numbers, I decisively had the bot army pose as newbies in the discussion threads, humbly promoting the new artists. The next time I received a message from Leo, it was a photo of him getting an IV drip, with no text. I didn’t know if this was a show of weakness to get me to visit him, or a protest against the packed schedule the company had given him. I thought about it, then sent him a red envelope with a get-well message. Later, I saw a photo on a friend’s social media feed. People from the company had gone to visit Leo. The focus of the photo was naturally Leo, with everyone standing or sitting in chairs next to him. But only Chloe sat by his hospital bed, one hand resting on his shoulder, her face pressed close to him, looking very intimate. Like she was the lady of the house. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

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When the company decided to cut costs and increase efficiency, they laid me off—despite my seven years of relentless dedication. On the day we negotiated my termination, HR demanded I pack my things and leave immediately, revoking all my system permissions on the spot. Believing in seeing things through to the end, I requested a proper handover, but was flatly denied. My manager mocked me behind my back: “She’s just a code monkey. She really thinks she’s irreplaceable.” Later, when the company’s entire system crashed, they blew up my phone, begging me to come back and help. But by then, I had already landed a secure government job. “Sorry,” I replied. “Federal employees aren’t allowed to take freelance gigs.” 1 After lunch, I had just returned to my desk when I received a message from HR: [Harper, are you free right now? Conference Room 13F-1011. Can we have a quick chat?] My heart sank. I immediately felt a sense of impending doom. In the tech world, a message like this usually means you’re getting laid off. Was today finally my turn? Even though I had a feeling this was coming, my mind was anything but calm when the moment actually arrived. Our company was a mid-sized tech startup. I joined right after college. Over the past seven years, I watched the company grow from a tiny operation with a dozen people into a leader in our specific niche. Our growth eventually caught the eye of a massive Private Equity (PE) firm. They threw their weight around and bought a 75% controlling stake. The original founder happily cashed out, relinquished control, and moved to Europe to live out his days on a vineyard. The PE firm immediately parachuted in a swarm of their own management. The heads of every department, and even every small team, were replaced by their corporate cronies. During the first two months of the transition, the company’s veteran engineers resigned in droves. The only ones left were the foundational, ground-level employees. The organizational structure underwent a massive earthquake. By pure luck, I managed to survive the initial purge. The original Operations, Information Security, and Tech Support departments were merged into one new division. I was the Lead Systems Administrator. My superiors and subordinates were gradually laid off, leaving me as a one-woman army. The maintenance of the entire company’s business systems fell squarely on my shoulders. I was so exhausted I could barely breathe, working unpaid overtime until midnight every single day. Why didn’t I just quit? Because I was a woman approaching thirty, unmarried, and childless. We were in the middle of a brutal “tech winter,” and jobs were scarce. I had to endure it for as long as I could. Before the PE firm took over, the company culture had been great. Relationships were simple; everyone just focused on doing their jobs well without needing to kiss up to management. But after the buyout, the new executives launched a series of “reforms.” The workload intensified. Our standard five-day workweek morphed into grueling 80-hour grinds. Overtime became the mandatory norm. My current manager, Richard Sterling, was one of the PE firm’s guys. He had a background in marketing, used to work at a FAANG company, and loved nothing more than hearing himself talk in meetings. He always started his sentences with, “When I was at my previous firm…” He was obsessed with corporate flattery and addicted to making flashy, utterly useless slide decks. He demanded that all his subordinates submit their daily, weekly, and monthly reports via PowerPoint. Coming from a strictly technical background, I found this absurd. Every time I gritted my teeth and filled his templates with raw system data, Richard would criticize my presentations for “lacking soul and synergy.” I honestly had no idea what a “soulful” server report was supposed to look like. Because I didn’t kiss the ground he walked on, he started resenting me. He actively sought ways to embarrass me professionally. Last month, he demanded I give him a detailed presentation of my daily workflow. I complied. But since he wasn’t a technical guy, he couldn’t understand even the most basic terminology I used during my breakdown. He ended up thoroughly confused, which embarrassed him in front of the team. Furious, he accused me of disrespecting him. From then on, his bias against me deepened, and he nitpicked everything I did. 2 [We are already in the room. Come here right now!] Looking at the impatient message from HR, I took a deep breath, pulled a small digital voice recorder from my bag, and hid it in my pocket. When I walked into the designated conference room, the HR Director and Richard were already waiting. HR gestured for me to hand over my phone: “Since the contents of this discussion are highly confidential and cannot be leaked, we need you to surrender your phone.” After I handed it over, she cut straight to the chase: “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors. The company is facing financial difficulties and is optimizing its workforce. You are part of this optimization.” “And what exactly are your criteria for layoffs?” I asked. She pulled out a spreadsheet and flipped through it. “Performance metrics, naturally. Your most recent performance review was a C-minus. It’s unsatisfactory. It shows you are no longer capable of fulfilling the duties of your role.” I let out a bitter laugh. “I am a Systems Administrator. My primary responsibility is maintaining the stability of our servers and networks. During my tenure, has the system ever crashed because of me? I actively coordinate with the R&D and deployment teams every single day. On what grounds am I ‘incapable’?” My position was truly the most thankless job in the company. If you do it perfectly and the system remains stable, no one notices or praises you. But the second a system crashes, the sysadmin is the first one thrown under the bus. Since the PE firm had taken over six months ago, the systems had run flawlessly without a single outage. I hadn’t made a single error. Knowing they lacked grounds to fire me for cause, Richard chimed in: “We believe your workload is incredibly basic. An entry-level tech could do it. Your title is Lead Admin, but if you’re willing to take a 50% pay cut and accept a demotion to IT Support Specialist, we might let you stay.” I argued back fiercely. “The previous operations team had seven engineers. Now it’s just me. I am doing the work of an entire department, grinding until midnight every day. I hardly think my current salary is too high.” “Your previous team was bloated and highly inefficient. That’s exactly why the company had to be acquired. We are trimming the fat so we can move agilely and scale rapidly.” Richard harshly criticized the old company structure. “The work you’re doing right now? I could hire a junior grad to do it. Take the pay cut and stay, or pack your bags and leave.” “I refuse to take a pay cut, and I refuse to quit.” “That’s not up to you.” Richard sneered and signaled to HR. “Revoke all of her system permissions immediately. Let’s see how long she lasts.” He was finally showing his true colors. 3 HR and Richard exchanged a glance. “That is highly regrettable, Harper,” HR said. “Since you refuse the demotion, we have no choice but to terminate your employment.” “Regarding your severance, our standard policy is to offer a basic package based on your years of service. You’ve been here for seven years, so we will offer you seven weeks of severance pay.” “I’ve worked here for seven years with zero infractions,” I stated coldly. “If the company is terminating my contract without cause, I am legally entitled to a much larger severance package, plus penalty pay for lack of notice. I expect a minimum of fifteen months’ salary.” Previously, this HR Director had bullied other employees. She offered the bare minimum, and many employees, afraid of a bad reference for their next job, swallowed their pride and accepted it. Only a few stubborn veterans fought back, filed complaints with the Labor Board, and took it to court. In the end, the company always caved and paid out the maximum legal penalties. I had always been quiet and agreeable at work, which is why she assumed I’d be an easy target. Naturally, she only wanted to offer me the absolute minimum. Richard scoffed, his tone dripping with disdain. “You really have some nerve asking for that much. What kind of startup pays out a fifteen-month severance package?” HR smiled, softening her tone to play the good cop. “Harper, how about this? We can bump it up to eight weeks. Our standard is seven, but giving you an extra week is already a massive favor.” I didn’t say a word. Though I was usually quiet, I wasn’t blind. Before the veteran engineers left, they warned me about the company’s dirty tactics. I was mentally prepared for this. “You need to think about your career trajectory. I’d prefer we part on good terms without making a scene.” She leaned forward. “You’re going to need to find another job, right? Every tech company does background checks. If you don’t cooperate now, we won’t be giving you a positive reference.” “Furthermore, the HR community in the Bay Area is a very small circle. If I put you on our industry blacklist, you won’t be getting hired by any reputable tech firm ever again.” This HR Director’s name was Brenda Mercer. Rumor had it she was specifically hired by the new investors to execute mass layoffs. She was ruthless. People called her the “Corporate Grim Reaper.” She once hired a thousand people in a month, only to lay them all off a week later just to hit an absurd quota. But it didn’t matter. She had just run into a brick wall. “After I quit, I plan on taking a long break. My family owns a large farm in the Midwest. I’m going back to help them. I have no intention of looking for another corporate job anytime soon.” “If you refuse to compensate me according to labor laws, I am more than happy to spend my free time taking you to court. I’ve worked here for seven years without a real vacation. While the lawsuit drags on, I’ll travel, read books, and do whatever I want.” “I have the time, and I have the financial backing from my family. I’m single and childless. I don’t have mouths to feed.” I spoke lightly, but seeing that I was immune to both their threats and their bribes, Richard and Brenda’s faces turned green. 4 Brenda let out a dry, forced laugh. “I’ve seen plenty of young people like you. Especially transplants who moved to the city with no safety net. You all act tough at first, but in the end, you always end up calling us, begging for a good background reference.” “Save your breath. I don’t agree to your terms, and I won’t be begging you for anything.” “Then I must ask you to leave the premises immediately.” Brenda’s face darkened. Her reputation preceded her, and having lost face in front of me today, she finally dropped her professional facade. “If you want me to leave, fine. Give me a formal notice of termination and my employment verification letter.” “Draft the notice right now and get her out of here!” Richard’s patience was gone. His face was a mask of cold fury. “I’ll have the paperwork for you this afternoon. For now, go back to your desk and pack up your personal belongings.” When I got back to my desk, my laptop was already locked. I had been booted from all internal Slack channels and company apps. Even my keycard was deactivated. Kevin O’Connor, a buddy of mine from IT Asset Management, sent me a discreet text: [Harper, I’m so sorry. HR just emailed me demanding I freeze all your accounts and permissions immediately.] I replied with a helpless emoji: [It’s fine. We’re all just cogs in the machine. I understand.] About ten minutes later, Brenda marched over and handed me the termination notice and employment verification letter. The reason for termination stated on the letter read: [Terminated due to insufficient competency for the current role.] What was even more amusing was that the letter actually bore Brenda’s personal signature. She was clearly far too confident in her own authority. I sneered, didn’t argue, and silently shoved the two pieces of paper into my bag. Three burly security guards trailed closely behind Brenda. “Have you packed all your personal items? You can leave the building now.” The guards stepped forward in unison, standing right in front of me. I felt like I was surrounded by three brick walls. They looked ready to physically carry me out if I refused to walk. Deploying three massive bouncers for one average-sized woman? I had to thank them for thinking so highly of my combat skills. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t need a formal handover?” Out of pure professional courtesy, I offered one last warning. Richard scoffed loudly. “The work you do? I can hire literally anyone off the street to do it. Stop stalling and get out!” “Alright then. Please sign this handover checklist so you don’t bother me with questions later.” I didn’t care about his insults. I handed the checklist to Richard, who arrogantly grabbed a pen and scribbled his signature across the bottom. “You’re just a code monkey. Anyone can replace you. You really thought the company couldn’t survive without you?” I smiled, said nothing, picked up my cardboard box, and walked out the door. 5 Once I got home, I immediately started researching employment attorneys and wrongful termination lawsuits. I firmly believe that professional matters should be handled by professionals. I wasn’t the most social person, so I didn’t know many lawyers personally. I was afraid of hiring someone incompetent if I just Googled it. Luckily, my best friend Emma was an executive recruiter with a massive network. When she heard I needed a lawyer, she connected me that very night with Attorney Marcus Thorne, a specialist in labor disputes and corporate lawsuits. The next day, following Mr. Thorne’s instructions, I gathered all my evidence, made copies of the hidden voice recording from the HR meeting, and went to his firm. He was highly professional. He took down the company’s details and reviewed the documents I provided. Mr. Thorne praised my meticulous record-keeping. With the evidence I had, he assured me our chances of winning were incredibly high. After signing a retainer agreement, he informed me he would immediately file the lawsuit on my behalf. On my way home from the law firm, Kevin texted me some office gossip: [Harper, Richard is interviewing your replacements today. He blew through a dozen candidates. A few of them literally cursed him out and walked out mid-interview. I heard he’s trying to lowball the salary to an insane degree.] Reading Kevin’s message, I felt nothing. The company had fallen into a toxic, bizarre culture. The people who did no actual work—the ones who spent their days making slide decks, holding meetings, and talking in corporate buzzwords—were pulling in massive six-figure salaries. Meanwhile, those of us doing the actual heavy lifting were treated like disposable pack mules. They dumped the workload of an entire team onto one person, refused to pay a dime extra, and ruthlessly slashed our benefits. The afternoon catered lunches? Canceled. The breakroom coffee and snacks? Gone. Only tap water remained. [My guess is he’s going to hire a fresh college grad,] I replied. Previously, Richard had casually mentioned to me how cheap new grads were—young, full of energy, and easy to exploit. Exactly as I predicted, Kevin texted me a few days later: [Harper, you called it! The new guy started today. When he came to pick up his laptop, we chatted for a bit. He just graduated this year. He doesn’t even have a computer science degree! He took a three-month coding bootcamp. Aside from an internship, this is his first real tech job.] Richard wasn’t a technical guy, so it made sense he didn’t value technical expertise. But the fact that he hired a bootcamp grad with zero real experience to run the entire backend… I could only wish him luck. That same day, a new friend request popped up on my Discord: [Hi Harper, I’m Tyler Brooks. I just joined the company. I have some questions for you.] I didn’t even need to think about it. He was messaging me about the systems. I hit “Ignore.” The whole reason I made Richard sign that handover checklist was to prevent them from bothering me later. 6 The legal process, from filing the complaint to scheduling mediation, usually takes a few weeks. During that time, I treated myself to a long-overdue vacation, exploring everything the city had to offer. After I ignored Tyler’s friend request, Richard called my cell phone. “Harper, I told Tyler to add you on Discord. Why did you decline the request?” “Why should I accept it?!” “What is with your attitude? Tyler said you didn’t leave any of the admin passwords! How is he supposed to take over your work?!” “Excuse me? It’s not like I took the passwords with me. What was I supposed to hand over? You guys literally locked me out of my computer the second I stepped out of the meeting!” “Then you need to tell us where they are stored!” Richard clearly hadn’t grasped the fact that he was no longer my boss. He still spoke to me with that same aggressive, demanding tone. “My memory isn’t what it used to be. No comment!” All the crucial passwords and server credentials were stored locally on my work laptop. Richard wasn’t entirely brain-dead. After I was fired, he ordered IT to back up the contents of my hard drive. However, the file containing the master credentials was buried deep in a labyrinth of directories, and I had encrypted it. If they found it, good for them. If they couldn’t, well, tough luck. After all, I had successfully “handed over” my responsibilities. “So you’re refusing to cooperate?” He raised his voice. I could perfectly picture his face turning purple with rage. “What are you going to do about it? Call the cops?” “You—!” Before he could finish his threat, I hung up the phone. A massive wave of satisfaction washed over me. My phone buzzed. It was Kevin: [Harper, Richard is absolutely panicking. The product team needs to push an upgrade, and they’re completely bottlenecked at Operations. Tyler doesn’t have the authorization to execute the deployment.] Knowing that Richard would likely keep harassing me for the next few days, I proactively blocked his number. 7 Our first mediation session arrived. Richard and Brenda both attended on behalf of the company. Their offer was standard: eight weeks of severance pay, plus an additional four weeks’ pay labeled as a “consultation/handover fee.” Richard had finally realized that without my handover, the company genuinely couldn’t function. Critical product updates were failing to deploy to the production environment, and the pressure was mounting entirely on him. As the head of Operations, he was the one taking the heat. Attorney Thorne rejected their offer on the spot and presented our demands: Fifteen months of severance pay for wrongful termination and breach of contract, plus penalty pay for unpaid overtime over the last six months, and compensation for all my unused PTO. The standard legal workweek is 40 hours. Over the past six months, I had routinely worked over 80 hours a week. My total unpaid overtime exceeded 1,200 hours. Before I was locked out, I had quietly exported and saved all my digital timesheets and login logs. Before Mr. Thorne could even finish speaking, Richard rudely interrupted him. “You want overtime pay?! That’s just proof that she’s highly inefficient!” Since all pretenses were dropped, I wasn’t going to hold back anymore: “I suggest you look up the standard engineer-to-server ratio at any functional tech company before you open your mouth. But of course, you don’t understand tech. You know absolutely nothing about operations, yet you had the sheer audacity to play manager.” “Tell me, as the head of Operations, Support, and Security, what exactly have you contributed? Do you even understand what our team does? Can you read a single line of code?” “You don’t know sh*t. All you do is kiss up to the executives and make slide decks. With a fraud like you in charge, the company is doomed to fail!” Richard never expected the usually quiet Harper to curse him out so aggressively. He froze for a second, his face flushing violently red. He slammed his hand onto the mediation table: “Harper, who the hell do you think you’re talking to?!” I threw gasoline on the fire. I raised an eyebrow, looking at him with a mocking smirk. “Aww, is the little manager throwing a tantrum? If I’m wrong, prove it. Write a brilliant script right now and prove me wrong.” Driven over the edge, he lunged across the table to hit me but was quickly restrained by the mediators. I deliberately leaned closer, gently tapping my own cheek. “Oh? You want to hit me? Do it. Hit me. If you don’t, you’re a coward.” I have to admit, I was being incredibly petty, but infuriating him felt so good. Seeing that negotiations had completely broken down, the mediators called an end to the session and instructed us to proceed to a formal lawsuit. 8 The very next day, Attorney Thorne filed the lawsuit in civil court. I originally thought this would be a long, drawn-out legal battle, but surprisingly, Richard’s side waved the white flag first. Kevin told me earlier that the pressure on Richard had reached a boiling point. The other department heads were breathing down his neck to fix the deployment pipeline. He was a crony brought in by the new VP, David Caldwell. While he had executive protection, even that couldn’t save him from being interrogated daily by angry directors. Meanwhile, Tyler—the guy who replaced me—couldn’t handle the stress and had already threatened to quit. Richard was in a complete panic, trying to beg Tyler to stay while absorbing the fury of the entire engineering department. Richard had no choice but to beg the company’s legal team to contact Attorney Thorne to arrange another settlement negotiation. When Mr. Thorne called to ask when I was available, I was lounging on a beach out of state. They were the ones desperate, not me. I thought about it and said: “Let’s schedule it for next month.” “I’m enjoying my vacation. I should be back sometime next month.” That same day, I received a call from Richard. He was using a burner phone. “Harper, you think you’re so smart, don’t you?” “You did this on purpose! I should have fired a toxic bitch like you ages ago! Everything you’ve done has pissed off the entire executive board. We’re going to publicize your behavior. You’ll never work in tech again!” Backed into a corner, he still refused to show a shred of respect, barking insults the second the call connected. “Sounds great. Knock yourself out. Bye.” Just as I was about to hang up, I heard him roar through the speaker: “Harper, you better watch your back!” After hanging up on Richard, Brenda called. She used a mix of threats and sweet talk, promising that if I just came back to do a proper handover, everything could be smoothed over. “You’re still young. Burning bridges with a major company won’t do you any good. If you just log on and hand over the credentials, we can renegotiate your severance package.” “Then you will compensate me exactly according to the terms Attorney Thorne laid out during the mediation.” Brenda went silent. In the background, I clearly heard Richard’s voice: “Forget it. Just agree to it. We need to fix the servers first.” After a brief pause, Brenda agreed. Having achieved my goal, I decided not to push my luck. After consulting with Mr. Thorne, we scheduled the negotiation for the following week. They wanted it done immediately, but I was out of state and wasn’t going to rush back for them. They had no choice but to grit their teeth and wait. At the settlement table, Richard and Brenda had lost all their previous arrogance. Faced with Mr. Thorne’s demands—fifteen months of severance, compensation for unpaid overtime, unused PTO, and even coverage of my legal fees—they folded. The company wired me nearly a million dollars on the spot. I agreed to provide one day of online consultation for a fee of $10,000. Any future consultations would be billed at $3,000 per incident. My terms made Richard look like he was going to have an aneurysm, but he was forced to agree. Brenda was equally furious. Shaking her head, she sighed dramatically. “You young people… you really know how to destroy your own futures.” I smiled at her warmly. “That termination letter you gave me last time? I threw it in the trash. Could you be a dear and draft me a new one?” Even though she hated me enough to grind her teeth to dust, she was forced to issue me a brand new employment verification letter, changing the reason for termination to “Resigned for Personal Reasons.” Watching them swallow their pride—a far cry from the arrogant tyrants who had fired me—was incredibly satisfying. 9 That same day, they wired the $10,000 consultation fee to my account as agreed. I accepted Tyler’s friend request on Discord, answered his barrage of questions, and told him exactly where the passwords were and what critical pitfalls to avoid. Since I was being paid $10,000 for the day, I didn’t hide anything. The questions he asked were painfully basic. It was glaringly obvious he was a complete novice. He didn’t even know how to use standard Linux command-line tools, nor did he know any programming languages. As for advanced concepts like load balancing, high availability, or containerization—he had never even heard of them. He was utterly clueless. He actually asked me what a “Docker container” was and why it was called that. I massaged my temples in disbelief and typed back: [If you don’t know, Google it.] It made me seriously question whether he was an IT admin or just a random guy who had wandered in off the street. Richard’s hiring process was an absolute joke. But it wasn’t my problem anymore. If things broke in the future, it was on them. A few days later, Tyler suddenly messaged me on Discord with a ridiculously simple question. It was the kind of thing you could solve with a five-second Google search, and the company hadn’t paid my $3,000 consultation fee. So I ignored him. He immediately started aggressively spamming me: [You there? I asked you a question.] [Ignoring me? Are you dead?] [Stop playing games, bitch! Get your ass over here and answer me!] [Oh, I get it. You just want money, right? When you die, I’ll make sure to burn some extra cash at your grave.] I had to admit, Richard had a real talent for hiring people exactly like himself. Tyler’s temper and character were a mirror image of his boss’s. Staring at his unhinged messages, I smirked and slowly typed a single string of characters into the chat: sudo rm -rf /*

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I went on a reality dating show, only to be exposed for getting into the same car as a mega-pop star, and the internet tried to burn me at the stake. The reigning “It Girl” of the moment sneered at me: “She’s so desperate for fame, who knows how many men’s beds she’s crawled into.” The mega-pop star almost lost his mind, logging online in the middle of the night to post: “Holy sh*t, I’m literally her brother!” “I’m begging you, stop messing with her! She’s going to tell our mom and I’m going to get yelled at. Are you guys going to save me?!” 1 I, Harper Quinn, am the most hated actress in Hollywood. Since my debut, I’ve been cursed at more times than I’ve blinked. My agency had completely given up on me and was ready to squeeze out my last drop of value. They paired me up with the current “It Girl,” Sierra Vance, on a reality dating show to act as her foil. “Go play the ‘pick-me’ girl. The more annoying you are, the better. Your job is to highlight Sierra’s pure, innocent, sweetheart persona.” When my agent said this, I snapped and slammed my hands on the desk! “Are you out of your mind?! Do I look like a clown to you?” “One million dollars.” “Do you think money solves everything?! Hmph, I, Harper Quinn, would never stoop so low—” “Three million.” “Yes, Daddy. How would you like to process the payment?” So what if I had to play the villain? As long as the money is right, I can swallow any pride. This is a golden parachute, and I’m taking it! Making a fortune before retiring? Sounds perfect to me. A dating show? Isn’t that just flirting with a few guys and putting on an act? Ha, I’m not scared of anything. 2 Okay, I lied. I’m terrified. The cast of the reality show was kept top secret until the first day of the live broadcast, when the first mystery male guest made his appearance. — A-list movie star, Liam Sterling. He debuted at the top, has over fifty million followers on Instagram, and is the undisputed king of the box office. The live chat exploded. Sierra Vance exploded. And I exploded too! Not because I wanted to sleep with him. Precisely because—I already had. Liam Sterling is my ex-ex-ex-boyfriend. As for exactly which number he is on the list… honestly, I’ve lost track. 3 I kept my cool, kept my head down, and quietly edged away from Liam. But Liam suddenly turned his head and glanced in my direction. And I was standing right next to Sierra. The live chat instantly went wild: [Look! Liam is looking at Sierra! Ahhhh, they’re so sweet!] [Liam’s eyes are so intense, so magnetic… is it love?] [Do you guys remember? Liam once said he had an ex-girlfriend he could never forget. It has to be Sierra!] Wait, what? Liam said he had an unforgettable ex? …He couldn’t be talking about me, could he? I instantly felt even more terrified and guiltily took another step back. But I didn’t realize Sierra had moved right behind me. I stepped squarely on her foot. Sierra’s eyes instantly welled up with tears: “Ow… Harper, why did you step on me?” I caught on immediately, flipping the switch to “evil foil” mode, and said in a sickly-sweet voice: “Oopsie~ Sierra, I totally didn’t mean to!” Sure enough, the live chat started tearing into me: [Harper Quinn is the ultimate ‘pick-me’ girl. Her fake voice makes me want to throw up.] [Harper is so petty. Stepping on Sierra’s foot on purpose just because she’s jealous of how pretty she is.] [Compared to her, Sierra is so sweet and gentle! A true sweetheart with leading lady energy. Hollywood needs a hundred Sierras!] See that? I take the money, I do the job. I, Harper Quinn, am a consummate professional. [You guys are too naive. Harper is trying to get Liam’s attention. She’s targeting Liam!] ? That comment sent a shiver down my spine! Just then, Liam suddenly looked toward the large live-feed monitor. I quickly dodged behind a crew member to hide. Liam’s gaze swept over, but he didn’t see me. I breathed a sigh of relief. A joke. He’s just one ex-boyfriend. It’s not like there are two of them. I can handle this. The next second, a reckless, untamed male voice rang out behind me: “Ms. Quinn, long time no see. You bumped into me.” The live chat exploded again. Because the person speaking was—mega-pop star, Noah Hayes. I exploded again too. Help! Why is my second ex-boyfriend here too?! 4 The moment Noah appeared, the live chat viewership skyrocketed. When I dated Noah, he wasn’t famous yet. He was just a clingy, puppy-dog teenager who ran a fever and held my hand, refusing to let me leave, whining and calling me “older sister.” Now, he’s the top-tier pop idol, hailed as a once-in-a-millennium visual genius. I never in a million years expected the second mystery guest to be him! But now that we bumped into each other, I couldn’t hide. Before I could even open my mouth, Liam suddenly walked over and spoke directly to Noah: “Ms. Quinn didn’t bump into you on purpose. She’s always been clumsy like this.” Me: “?” Clumsy? Am I a gorilla? Noah raised an eyebrow: “Is that so? Mr. Sterling seems to know Ms. Quinn very well?” Sierra chimed in with a sweet smile: “Oh, when we were filming that period drama before, I saw Harper bringing soup to Liam at night. They probably got to know each other then.” Stealing my lines? I’m supposed to be the ‘pick-me’ girl here! Noah heard this and pressed his lips together tightly. He lowered his handsome eyes and pulled out his phone, messing with it. Sierra kept talking: “But Harper was just staring at Noah… hehe, is there a little spark there?” Liam frowned and suddenly looked down at his phone too. Immediately after, my phone buzzed. Two iMessages popped up at the same time. Carp – Noah: “You were forced to bring him soup, right? You couldn’t possibly like an old man like Liam. Pair up with me for the show.” Trout – Liam: “You bumped into Noah because you were hiding from me, right? Noah is too young, he couldn’t possibly be your type. Make sure you pick me as your partner.” My stomach tied in knots. I felt a dangerous sense of being caught in a pincer movement. Sierra leaned in close to me, acting curious: “Harper, you look terrible, what’s wrong? “Carp Noah… Trout Liam… what kind of contact names are these?” As soon as she finished speaking. Both Liam and Noah snapped their heads toward me, their eyes sharp and probing— Me: “…” Girl, I’m here to be your foil, not your mortal enemy! 5 I quickly flipped my phone over and improvised: “Oh, I’m… planning an old-school fish pond with an employee. Hollywood is just my side hustle. My main business is raising fish.” Sierra looked incredibly shocked: “Oh my god, Harper, you raise fish? But doesn’t your Wikipedia page say you’re a top university graduate?” She immediately covered her mouth after she said it, looking like she had misspoken. But the effect was perfect. The live chat started blasting me again: [What kind of top university grad raises fish? Harper Quinn is shameless, faking her education! Get out of Hollywood!] [Sierra is so genuine. I love people who speak their minds without pretending.] [Gross! I thought she was a player ‘raising fish’ in a metaphorical sense, which would be kind of impressive. But actually raising fish? That stinks!] [Harper Quinn, listen up, you’re just a smelly fish farmer!] Thanks to Sierra’s passive-aggressive comments, the chat’s focus shifted. No one cared about “Carp Noah” or “Trout Liam” anymore. I shot Sierra a look of gratitude. But I forgot that Liam and Noah were standing right next to her. The next second, my phone buzzed again. Carp – Noah: “Checking me out? I knew you still had feelings for me, sister. “When we broke up, you said it was because you were allergic to men with leg hair. I’ve had it all laser removed. I don’t have a single hair on me now. “[Picture of hairless legs][Picture of abs][Picture of V-line]” “Sorry, sister, I pressed the wrong button on those last two. But since you’ve seen them, how would you rate them?” He’s not even wearing pants?! I was so startled my hand shook, and I accidentally clicked on Liam’s new message. Trout – Liam: “If you want to look at me, just look. Don’t be afraid. The worst that happens is we get back together and go public. “Harper, it was my fault back then. I shouldn’t have said sweet tamales are trash compared to savory tamales, making you so mad you broke up with me. “I’ve opened ten sweet tamale franchise stores now. They’re called ‘Sweet Harper Tamales,’ and I’m the spokesperson. “Photos of the endorsement, photos of a multi-million dollar mansion, photos of a luxury sports car. “Accidentally forwarded the wrong things. But do you like the layout of this house? Want to come test-live in it?” I felt like I wasn’t holding a phone right now. I was holding a grenade! With the pin already pulled! Just then, the director suddenly announced: “Our third mystery male guest is about to make his entrance! “But let’s play a little game. I’d like the three female guests to first choose their ‘crush’ among the male guests, pairing up two-by-two. “The remaining female guest will automatically be paired with the third mystery male guest.” My eyes lit up, and I immediately raised my hand: “Director, I choose the third mystery male guest! He must be my Mr. Right!” 6 The moment I said this, the live chat exploded! Liam and Noah both stood up at the same time, looking at me again— I completely ignored them. They’re such huge stars, they wouldn’t actually out themselves on a reality show, right? [Weird, why are Liam and the top idol getting so agitated when Harper says she chooses the third guy? It looks like they’re jealous?] [Are the people above blind? Liam and Noah are clearly looking at our Sierra! That look is definitely a secret crush!] [Both gods were just on their phones, and Sierra was too. They were probably secretly texting Sierra to confess their love!] The director, seeing the engagement spiking so high, agreed to my request. I breathed a sigh of relief. I’ve sighed so much today, I feel like I’m going to hyperventilate. Soon, with the director’s approval, the third male guest made his entrance— I immediately got up to welcome him. I don’t care if he’s a monster or a goblin, he’s my official partner on the show, and I’m going to win him over! The next second. A familiar figure walked out. The King of Pop, Julian Chase. The live chat surged so fast it became garbled text. Clearly, everyone was shocked by this reality show’s super, super, super top-tier cast. But my reaction was different. I was literally scared to death! Because Julian Chase—is also my ex-boyfriend. I seriously suspect the production team has a vendetta against me. If I committed a crime, please let the law punish me, not my ex-boyfriends! I silently backed away, wanting to escape. But Julian, in front of everyone, looked straight at me, his tone gentle and smiling: “Harper, why are you running away the moment you see me?” This time, Liam and Noah weren’t just looking at me; they walked straight toward me… I instantly tensed up. It felt like the panic of accidentally sharing your incognito browser history to a work group chat. Harper Quinn, calm down! It’s just three… I mean, three ex-boyfriends. Are they going to take turns stabbing me to death? Liam’s voice was cold: “Harper? What, do you know Harper Quinn too?” Noah spoke at exactly the same time: “Calling her so intimately, have you known each other for a long time?” Julian is much taller than me. He reached out and affectionately draped an arm over my shoulder, saying with a laugh: “Yeah, Harper and I have known each other for a long time. We’re an ex-couple…” “We’re former co-stars!” I quickly interrupted, striking a “bros” pose, and slung my arm over Julian’s shoulder too. “Julian and I worked on a movie together. I was the female lead, he was the male lead, and we played a couple. Maybe we can try that dynamic on the show.” I made sure my words were airtight. My fingers squeezed his shoulder slightly, signaling Julian not to speak out of turn. Julian turned his handsome, rebellious face and said in a voice only the two of us could hear: “Harper, why are those two staring at you? Do they want to kiss you… just like I do?” [Weird, the way Julian looks at Harper… it’s so intense… why does it feel like a dark, obsessive romance novel?] [Are the people above suffering from glaucoma? Julian’s look is clearly disgust! He’s probably quietly telling Harper to back off.] Seeing that some people in the chat were getting close to the truth, I immediately whispered to Julian: “But… I think Liam and Noah are both better-looking than you.” Sure enough, Julian’s eyes instantly changed, shooting out a dangerous glint, like he wanted to strip me bare. [Quick, the person with glaucoma needs to see this! Isn’t this Julian showing extreme disgust for Harper? The murderous look in his eyes can’t be hidden.] [Exactly, it’s too stupid. Julian is the undefeated king of the pop scene. Would he ever look twice at Harper Quinn? If he does, I’ll eat shit doing a handstand!] Crisis averted! I immediately broke free from Julian and bounced over to stand next to Sierra. Now, no matter how they look at me, I won’t be the target. Sure enough, the live chat started saying Liam and Noah both had a secret crush on Sierra, and this time they dragged Julian into it too. Lol, I’m a genius. I’ll just blend in until the show ends and slip away. No one will ever find out they’re all my exes. Who can even tell the difference between me and Einstein right now? 7 That evening, I had a nerve-wracking dinner with my three ex-boyfriends. Thanks to Sierra, the social butterfly, being there, I managed to avoid exposing myself. Just as I finished eating and was about to slip away, I received an iMessage. Trout – Liam: “Harper, come to the second room on the third floor. I’m waiting for you.” Of course, I didn’t want to go. But I was worried Liam would actually come downstairs looking for me. After all, the contract for being Sierra’s foil stated— I absolutely could not steal the male guest she had her eye on; otherwise, it would be considered a breach of contract, and I’d have to pay a massive penalty. But clearly, Sierra had her eye on all three of these top-tier gods. All three! Oh my god! Isn’t she afraid of choking to death?! It’s hard to judge. I wish her success. I went upstairs with a heavy heart. There were no cameras in the third-floor rooms. Liam was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, a cigarette pinched between his fingers. He was wearing a white button-down shirt. The moonlight outlined his long, lean legs in his slacks. Seeing me enter, Liam immediately put out the cigarette and stared straight at me, his tone cold: “Harper, Noah just came to me privately and said he wants to go public with you. “What exactly was your relationship before? “And what’s your relationship with Julian? Why did you choose him as your ‘crush’?” I immediately cut him off: “Liam, we’re broken up! None of this is any of your business!” “Fine. It was my fault we broke up. I didn’t take good care of you; I didn’t fulfill my responsibilities as a boyfriend. “Give me one more chance, okay?” Liam took a long stride toward me. Seeing him coming in hot, I anticipated his move. Before he could grab my waist, I stepped out of the way. “Liam Sterling! Who said you could touch me without permission!” I glared at him. Liam’s voice dropped, taking on an apologetic, coaxing tone: “Harper, my sweet Harper… It’s my fault. I just couldn’t control myself. “I’ll go out right now and publicly announce I’m pursuing you, okay?” Oh crap! He’s serious! It’s only been a few years since we broke up. How did he go from an aloof, elegant heir to this unhinged maniac? Seeing that Liam was actually about to open the door and leave, I panicked and reached out to grab him. He immediately grabbed my hand back, lowering his head to press his thin lips against the back of my hand. I yanked my hand back forcefully, gritting my teeth: “Liam, this is a reality show, not a lawless wasteland! We absolutely cannot reveal our past relationship, or it will cause a lot of trouble.” “Baby, why did you join this dating show? Was it arranged by your agency?” “Don’t call me baby!” “Then I’ll call you Harper? Julian isn’t close to you, and he calls you Harper. He’s not even your boyfriend.” Well… he’s not my boyfriend, he’s my ex-boyfriend. I felt a sudden pang of guilt, so I just coughed and said vaguely: “I… I came for my one true love.” My one true love is—money. Nothing wrong with that, right? Hearing this, Liam’s expression softened, and the corner of his mouth curled up: “I knew it, Harper. You still have feelings for me. “Noah and Julian were trying to claim a connection with you. Tsk, if they knew I was your ex-boyfriend, they’d probably die of jealousy. “I promise you, our relationship will remain a secret for now. “But you have to give me a chance to win you back. And I really want a bowl of your handmade… you definitely remember what my favorite is, Harper.” Alright, alright. Finally handled one of them. I was so happy I immediately went downstairs to cook noodles! 8 Facts proved I was happy too early. When I was carrying the scallion oil noodles upstairs, I happened to bump into Noah coming out of his room. I turned sideways to avoid him. Noah’s gaze fell on the bowl I was carrying, and he froze: “You actually still remember that I love scallion oil noodles? Sister, do you know how much I want to cry…” Me: “?” Crap! I got my ex-boyfriends’ tastes mixed up! My hands moved faster than my brain. Before Noah could finish his sentence, I reached out and ripped off the lavalier mic on his collar— The live chat instantly surged: [Holy shit? Why is there no sound? What did Noah say behind Harper’s back?] [Reading his lips, it looks like ‘Do you know how much I want to throw up’? Haha, Noah must really hate Harper Quinn, right?] [Harper ripping off the mic, she was definitely afraid of us hearing Noah scolding her! This desperate clout-chaser, to hook up with a top idol, she doesn’t even care about her dignity!] [Noah likes Sierra. Earlier, when he walked past Sierra’s room, his eyes kept drifting inside. Harper still dreams of fighting Sierra for a man?] Noah also caught a glimpse of the live chat and immediately bent down to pick up the mic to yell back. Terrified, I quickly held him down: “What are you doing? Stop!” “Sister, they’re insulting you! You are the first woman I, Noah Hayes, ever loved. It’s not their place to insult you!” “You, you… you shut your mouth!” He’s making it worse! I couldn’t care less about the live chat anymore. I quickly pulled him aside to a spot with no cameras. “Sister, do you know how much I missed you…” Noah opened his arms, about to hug me. “No touching!” I kicked him in frustration. Noah instantly froze. Under his damp, messy hair, his pale, handsome face looked very wronged. “Sister.” He saw the bowl in my hand and gave a cheeky smile. “Is this bowl of noodles… for me?” Uh… It’s not like I could say no now. I couldn’t exactly say it was for Liam. If the two of them met and started fighting, wouldn’t I be completely exposed? I shoved the bowl into his hands and gave him a stern warning: “You are not allowed to mention our past relationship on the show! Or I’ll twist your ear off!” Noah rubbed his nose against my hair: “But… getting my ear twisted by you is a very happy thing…” “Noah Hayes!” “Okay, I won’t say anything. Promise me, after the show is over, you’ll go swimming with me once, okay?” I mumbled vaguely: “Mhm, mhm. We’ll see if I have time.” Anyway, if it’s an ex asking, I never have time. Noah smiled, revealing a little canine tooth: “I knew it. Sister would never stop loving a good boy like me.” “Shut up! Go eat your noodles!” I turned and walked away. Phew, luckily, the second one was dealt with smoothly. As soon as I walked out of the room, I received an iMessage. Trout – Liam: “Harper, where are my tomato and egg noodles? “I just saw the live chat. Why did you make scallion oil noodles? That’s Noah’s favorite. “How do you know what he likes to eat?” I quickly replied: “I got a craving and suddenly wanted to eat scallion oil noodles. How was I supposed to know he likes it! “There are no eggs left, so I can’t make your noodles today. Maybe tomorrow or the day after.” Trout – Liam: “Then come up and stargaze with me, okay? I promise I won’t try anything. “Harper, you wouldn’t want our relationship to be discovered by everyone, right?” This bastard, actually threatening me! Hah! Messing with me is like… punching a cotton ball. I gritted my teeth, but replied submissively: “Stargazing on the roof? I’ll be right up.” After sending the message, I dodged the cameras and sneaked up to the roof. Before going up, I glanced at the live chat. Everyone was enthusiastically discussing Sierra and Noah. They seemed to be having a great time chatting in the living room. Sob, sob, sob. How could there be such a wonderful sugar mama like Sierra, giving me money AND helping me deal with an ex-boyfriend? I’m so moved! I love beautiful women! As soon as I reached the roof, I saw a tall, imposing figure. I was just about to step forward: “Liam…” But the next second, the figure turned around— It was the King of Pop, Julian Chase! 9 I was so scared I almost screamed. “Sweetheart, is that you? “What do you want me to keep you company with? Were you waiting for me to keep you company?” Julian’s naturally rich, sexy voice called out to me deeply. I quickly dodged behind the large iron door. Why is it him! I looked down at my phone and realized something. Just now, to prevent the rotating cameras from catching my screen, I had been flipping my phone over constantly. As a result, Julian happened to send me a message, and I accidentally clicked on his chat box. I sent the message meant for Liam to Julian instead. And I was so nervous I didn’t even notice. The message Julian sent was: “My sweet Harper, I want to see you right now, okay? Even through the door is fine. I just want to be near you. I won’t come in.” Won’t come in? Hmph, who believes his lies! But the point right now wasn’t whether he came in or not, it was—another tall figure was slowly appearing on the roof. It was Liam. Julian took a large step forward and reached out to hug “me”: “Sweetheart…” As soon as he touched the arm. It was hard. Julian froze, then violently shoved the person in front of him: “Who the fuck are you…” The sluggish motion-sensor light on the roof flickered on. A super-mini drone filming us also flew up, though neither of them noticed. Liam disgustedly brushed off his arm: “Are you fucking gay? Get away from me.” Julian’s expression grew even colder: “I’m here waiting for someone. What are you doing up here?” Liam scoffed: “I have a date with the woman I admire.” Julian sneered: “The woman I admire asked me out.” Liam mocked: “Are you showing off to me? The woman you admire asked you out, maybe she texted the wrong person?” Julian sneered back: “Why is the great Liam Sterling taking the initiative to ask a woman out? Acting like a desperate simp?” Liam stated confidently: “Sorry, my woman only loves me.” Julian confirmed: “What a coincidence, my woman only loves me too.” Two male gods appearing on the roof to wait for someone at the same time, and inexplicably tearing into each other—the live chat completely exploded: [Your ‘wives’ are the same person?] [Just now, Sierra was chatting with Noah downstairs, saying she had a multiple-choice question and was struggling with what to do. She must be talking about this!] [It has to be Sierra! So happy, boohoo, two gods are fighting over her!] [I want to see the bloodbath, hehe. Just three guys, I support adding them all in! Eating everything will only give us a balanced diet.] [Sierra, don’t be afraid of getting full, we’re always with you!] Three… three of them at once?! Thinking of that scenario, my palms started to sweat. The sweat made it slippery, and my phone accidentally slipped from my hand. Thump. Liam and Julian both turned their heads toward the iron door simultaneously: “Baby?” “Sweetheart?” Liam: “Shut up, don’t scare my baby.” Julian: “Tsk, it must be my sweetheart. She’s the one who asked me out.” The two exchanged glares and walked over together. My back was pressed tightly against the wall. I didn’t dare breathe, and my legs reflexively clamped together. I’m dead, I’m dead… In a moment of crisis, a sweet female voice suddenly rang out: “Liam, Julian, what are you guys doing up here?” It was Sierra. She had come up at some point, holding a plate of fruit, and a fork had dropped to the ground. Liam and Julian exchanged a glance, assuming the sound from earlier was made by her. A flash of disappointment crossed both their eyes. But the live chat, seeing her, screamed endlessly: [Ahhhh! So exciting! Goddess Sierra is here! The male gods’ shared wife is here!] [Bloodbath, bloodbath! Quick, two men fighting over one woman! Fanfic writers, charge!] [Forceful kiss! One kissing each side! Go!] I wanted to scream too. From this moment on, Sierra isn’t my goddess, she’s my daddy, my dearest daddy!

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “421724”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

On the day the high school queen bee who bullied my boyfriend gets married. My boyfriend jumps into the ocean to kill himself. While sorting through his belongings, I found a hidden folder on his computer. It was overflowing with photos of her, filled to the brim with his longing and love for her. He even wrote a song for her: [Every day without you, I toss and turn, sleepless.] So, when I am suddenly reborn, back to the day she rallies the entire class to isolate him. I withdraw my gaze and do not stand up for him. But he stops me, his voice trembling and desperate: “Why… why aren’t you helping me this time?” 1 The genius singer-songwriter Carter released a new song, Harper. The reference in the song was too obvious. During an interview, everyone asked if the new song was modeled after the woman he loved. The corners of his lips curled up. He looked at the camera with a cold, clear gaze. “Yes. I wish her happiness.” A reporter, eager for drama, slyly asked: “By wishing her happiness, does that mean you are marrying Stella?” I am Stella. From high school until now. From a dim basement apartment to a glittering mansion. We had walked hand in hand for over a decade. This was no secret in the industry. In the video, Carter looked slightly stunned to hear my name. He didn’t answer the reporter’s question. He merely announced that the interview was over and left under the escort of his staff. I watched this fruitless interview. I remembered a saying I had read before. If you’ve been with someone for many years and still haven’t gotten married, there’s a high probability you never will. I just didn’t expect that Carter and I truly wouldn’t get married. Because he committed suicide by jumping into the ocean. On a large rock by the sea, he left an old, outdated cell phone. The screen was left open on his text thread with Harper. There was an unsent message: I love you. 2 Carter was an orphan. With him gone like this, I was the only one left to handle his affairs. He probably anticipated this day long ago. He had drawn up a will early on, arranging everything meticulously. He said he loved children, so he donated his savings to the foster care system. He said he didn’t have a family, so he left all his real estate to me. He said there was a love he couldn’t speak of in this life, and by dying, he could finally be brave for once. He even remembered the kindness of a young intern who had only crossed his path a few times to bring him fruit at the company. But for me, he didn’t leave a single word. It was as if the decade I spent by his side was entirely insignificant. Utterly irrelevant. Like a soulless marionette, I handled everything for him. Until I found an old laptop he hadn’t used in years sitting on a bookshelf. In a folder I accidentally opened. It was packed with photos of another woman. Our high school’s queen bee, Harper. He had named the folder [Daisy]. The flower language of the daisy is hidden love deep in the heart. Feeling almost suffocated by despair, I counted them. Exactly 520 photos. But after high school graduation, they had never crossed paths again. I clicked through the photos. Some of them clearly had social media watermarks at the bottom. The earliest one was Harper taking a bow after her performance at the freshman orientation gala. The most recent one was Harper’s wedding photo. I suddenly understood who Carter’s new song Harper was written for. There was a lyric in it: [Every day without you, I toss and turn, sleepless.] He was using the song to scream his love to the world. I also finally understood the meaning of I wish her happiness. My heart felt like it was being crushed in someone’s fist, throbbing with a piercing, unbearable pain. At the very bottom of the photos was a document. It recorded his secret crush on Harper starting from freshman year. How ridiculous. Harper bullied him from the first day of school. She mocked him for being a hillbilly, cornered him in the bathroom to dump cold water on him, hired guys to beat him up in an alley after school, cut up his clothes, forced him to do her homework, and made him run errands to buy her snacks… I couldn’t stand watching it, so I saved him time and time again, pulling him back to a normal life. He didn’t care about any of that. The only thing he cared about was that on a rainy day, Harper tossed him an umbrella. He felt the whole world stop. Amidst the noise of the world, only her beautiful silhouette remained. It was that silhouette that obsessed him for a lifetime. Even his decision to become a singer was because Harper mocked the lyrics he hid in his notebook after playing a prank on him. She read those embarrassing, emotional words out loud in front of the whole class. She provocatively told him that not just any stray dog off the street could be a star. Instead of feeling humiliated, he only wanted to stand at the very top, just so she would look at him. My eyes stung. So, my years of devotion were just a joke. I didn’t even deserve a name in his story. With trembling hands, I read the last line Carter typed. [If there is a next life, I will be brave.] Tears blurred my vision. If there is a next life, I absolutely will not interfere in the drama between you two. Go chase your true love! 3 When I opened my eyes again, Carter was introducing himself on the podium. When the teacher asked him to sit next to me and be my desk mate. I only froze for a second before my hand shot up. “Mr. Davis, I don’t want to.” Yes, I was back in high school. The exact year Carter was secretly in love with the girl who bullied him, Harper. This time, I wasn’t going to help him. Carter on the podium clearly didn’t expect me to say that. His face flushed bright red. In an instant, embarrassment and hurt washed over his face. Perhaps not understanding my reaction, the homeroom teacher was stunned for a moment before asking in a deep voice, “Why?” Because I didn’t want any entanglement with Carter whatsoever. I wasn’t going to have any ties to this ungrateful backstabber. “I can read auras, and his clashes with mine,” I lied with a straight face, not a trace of panic in my voice. The teacher was rendered speechless, scolded me for being superstitious, but ended up seating him next to the queen bee, Harper. When he walked over, I saw Harper roll her eyes. She exaggeratedly shoved her chair away and spat out two words: “Ew, trash.” At this time, Carter was living in a foster home and worked odd jobs after school. His living conditions were poor, making him look malnourished and much thinner than the other boys his age. His clothes were washed out, heavily patched, and completely out of style. In my past life, when he was my desk mate and Harper sat in front of us, she called him trash. I kicked her chair hard and told her to wash her filthy mouth. Because I knew that once bullying starts, if no one stands up, it only gets worse every day. At the time, I had no romantic interest in Carter; I just genuinely hated seeing him get picked on. But this time. Watching Harper’s actions, I didn’t say a single word. But I noticed Carter’s back go completely rigid. I even had the fleeting illusion that he wanted to turn his head and look at me. I ignored it and kept my eyes on my textbook. 4 After being reborn, I was only lost for a few days before I adapted to my new life. Actually, for a long time growing up, I regretted failing my college entrance exams and not getting into my dream university. So this time, it felt like a gift from above. I was going to seize it. I didn’t care how things developed between Carter and Harper. Falling in love with your own bully? And obsessing over her forever? Why would I try to save a masochist like that? So, when school was almost out, I saw Harper and her clique corner Carter in the girls’ bathroom. I just washed my hands. I tactfully didn’t even glance their way. “Do you know how disgusting you are?” “You smell terrible! It’s making me sick!” “Carter, do you roll around in the garbage or something?” “Does your foster home not have showers? Let me wash you!” … Filthy insults spilled from Harper’s mouth. In my past life, I couldn’t understand how such a pretty girl could be so rotten. So when I bumped into them cornering Carter, I stepped in front of him, shielding him behind my back. I fought a fierce verbal battle with Harper until she stormed off in a rage. And that bucket of cold water was never poured over Carter. At the time, I even told him that when faced with bullying, he had to fight back because no one could save him every single time. He thanked me, but I didn’t notice that his eyes were glued to Harper’s retreating back. Thinking back now, why did I even butt in? Who knows, Carter was probably thoroughly enjoying it on the inside. So, I picked up my pace toward the bathroom door. Halfway there, the bucket of water finally splashed all over him. I didn’t break my stride. I pretended I saw nothing. I kept walking forward. Until I heard Carter’s hoarse, desperate voice call out to me: “Stella…” 5 Tough luck! I ran even faster. As a result, I didn’t see the person in front of me and crashed right into a guy, knocking him to the ground. “What the f*ck…” The guy sitting on the ground squinted his eyes, rubbing his forehead. He looked like trouble. Terrified that Carter would run out and see me, I threw out a quick “Sorry!” and bolted. Without my help, Carter was essentially living in a fiery hell. Kids this age are naturally sensitive and insecure. Combined with his bone-deep pride, he didn’t utter a sound no matter how badly he was tortured. Harper seemed to love the feeling of trampling him under her feet, constantly inventing new, cruel ways to torment him. She only reined it in a bit recently. Because she was preparing for her performance at the freshman orientation gala. Carter’s first photo of her was her holding her award on that stage. I wasn’t interested, so I skipped the gala this time. I thought Carter wouldn’t miss the chance to see his goddess. But to my surprise, he didn’t go either. Seeing his figure in the classroom, I froze for a second. Then I started packing my bag to go home. “Stella.” As I zipped my bag, he turned his head. His brow was furrowed, as if he was suppressing some intense emotion, eager to prove something. In my past life, being with Carter for so many years, he rarely showed any emotional fluctuation. Even during intimate moments, he was always cold and distant. One of his few moments of losing control was when he confessed to me at high school graduation. The boy’s gaze was sincere and burning. Asking me to be with him seemed to take every ounce of his strength. He stared at me, gripping the hem of his shirt tightly, his eyes overflowing with love, terrified I would say no. But now, overlapping that memory with the figure before me, I only felt sick. Maybe back then, he was just looking through me, seeing someone else. So I just gave him a flat, indifferent glance. Under his expectant gaze, I walked right out the door. 6 Carter was cornered by Harper again. This time, it was in a small alley right off campus. It was also on my route home. I don’t know if it was my imagination, but I felt like I saw a flicker of hope deep in Carter’s eyes. Was he hoping I would save him like in my past life? Absolutely not! I gave a passing glance and looked away. Harper had a bizarre obsession with bullying Carter. “Trash, what are you holding?” She laughed cruelly. “Are you a pervert? That looks like a girl’s accessory.” Carter clenched his jaw, saying nothing. Denied an answer, Harper reached out to snatch it. “Did you steal my stuff, you freak?” To everyone’s surprise, Carter reacted violently. He shoved Harper away, but his eyes locked onto me. “It’s not yours.” His voice was dangerously low. “If you break it, I’ll kill you.” It scared me so much I stared straight ahead and fast-walked away. As determined as if I were marching to join the military. The tiny glimmer of light in Carter’s eyes slowly died out against my coldness. Soon, I heard the sound of fists hitting flesh. And his muffled groans. I still didn’t look back. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw him desperately gripping whatever was in his hand. 7 Just as I exited that alley, I stumbled into another one. And ran into someone vaguely familiar. His face was bruised, and he was slumped against the wall. His clothes and jeans had streaks of blood on them. Looked like he had just survived a brutal street fight too. Tsk, this route was cursed. I’ll take a detour next time. Just as I thought that, the guy spoke up: “Hey, leaving me to die?” I froze in my tracks. I’ve read enough novels to know you don’t just pick up stray men off the street, especially not handsome ones. Besides, I saved Carter over and over in my past life, and he never remembered my kindness. Why should I meddle in someone else’s business again? So, I pretended I didn’t see him. Just as I lifted my foot to leave, he shot me a sideways glance. “Seriously? Not gonna save me?” He was persistent. He scoffed lightly. “You can’t even help me up? Last time you knocked me down, my tailbone is still hurting.” I pulled out my phone. “I can call 911 for you.” He raised an eyebrow. “You’re really something.” “Thanks. Since you can still talk, I’m guessing you’re not fatally wounded.” “I’m not lying, I really can’t walk. If you help me up, I won’t sue you. We go to the same school, right?” Seeing I still wasn’t moving, he let out an exasperated laugh. “Are you always this defensive?” “I don’t know if you’re a good guy or not. What if you’ve got a knife and decide to stab me because you’re having a bad day?” “You’ve got a wild imagination.” He pulled his student ID out of his pocket and tossed it at my feet. “Liam, Class 3.” I bent down and picked it up. Yep, he was from my school. “I help you up, and then what?” “Lady, if you wait any longer, my leg is actually going to fall off!” I finally noticed the blood seeping continuously through his pant leg. But I still hesitated. The Carter situation had left me with major psychological trauma. “What are you thinking about? Sister, I’m dying here.” With a heavy sigh, I walked over, bent down, pulled his arm over my shoulder: “Is it completely broken?” “Right leg.” “Okay, I’ll support you. Use your left leg to stand up.” I vastly underestimated Liam’s weight. I couldn’t lift him at all! I refused to give up and used every ounce of strength I had. Then I heard a gritted voice from above my head: “A minute ago it was my leg, now my arm is going to snap.” Oops, my bad… I finally managed to support him to the entrance of the alley. Only to come face to face with a severely bruised Carter. 8 His gaze lingered on me for a long time. Then, he stared in utter disbelief at Liam, whose entire body weight was leaning on me. I almost saw his tightly wound emotions crumble piece by piece. I remembered the past. When I used to show up when Harper was harassing him, I would scream “Fire!” to draw a crowd and save him. It was me who stepped forward to support his bruised body, asking if he was okay. I even took him to the hospital and stayed with him all day. At the time, I truly didn’t have romantic feelings for him. I was just genuinely a nice person. What happened later taught me that being the ‘good guy’ is a thankless job. You don’t even earn a word of gratitude. So now, I had completely withdrawn my kindness toward him. “Stella.” Carter’s voice was hoarse, carrying a barely detectable tremor. “You helped him.” I looked at him calmly and frowned slightly. He took a step forward, his frail body trembling. To my confusion, he held out his hand. In his palm lay a strawberry hair clip. The thing he had fought so desperately to protect just moments ago. It was mine. Like a drowning man grasping at a final lifeline, he looked at me with despair and near-begging eyes. His voice dropped to a whisper: “Why… why aren’t you helping me this time?” 9 For a split second, I thought I was seeing things. How could Carter have a look like that on his face? He was gloomy, silent, cold, and never smiled. He liked Harper. This was also the third time he had called my name since I was reborn. But this was the same guy who didn’t leave me a single word before he killed himself. He was so utterly ruthless, acting as if I were just a passing NPC in his life. So when I looked up at him, my eyes were filled with pure ice. “Do we know each other?” He had asked me the exact same question the first time I saved him in our past life. I thought he was just embarrassed about being seen at rock bottom. So I had told him we were desk mates, and I wanted to protect him. Looking back now. He probably didn’t give a damn about my self-proclaimed ‘kindness’. During every sleepless night since my rebirth, I wondered—did I do something wrong? Now, I wasn’t helping him. I was helping someone else. I didn’t know what he was thinking. But I remembered a quote I read a long time ago. [I just want you to clearly watch me give up on you, time and time again, to save someone else.] [To let you spark with hope, then despair, torturing yourself in endless darkness.] So, whatever he was thinking, let him think it. If he got the wrong idea, even better. “We are…” Carter opened his mouth, his chest heaving violently, his face pale. He seemed to want to scold me. After all, even if we weren’t desk mates, we were in the same class. I shouldn’t leave him to die. But his words were violently interrupted by the guy leaning on me: “A grown man, your arms and legs work fine. Stop playing the victim. Stella, if we don’t move, I’m going to collapse.” Tsk, pretty fierce for a guy who needs someone to hold him up to walk. Liam didn’t lose an ounce of his arrogant attitude. Carter was stunned by his words. His lips trembled slightly, and the corners of his eyes turned red as he stared at me. I just wanted to dump this annoying burden as fast as possible. So I agreed, “Let’s go. I’ll take you to the hospital.” Hearing my words, the previously silent Carter looked like a ghost. His frail figure swayed unsteadily, looking like a strong gust of wind would blow him away. But the look he gave Liam was bone-chillingly cold. 10 “That guy looked at you like a total psycho. You better stay away from him.” Sitting in the cab, Liam suddenly spoke up. “Unlike me. I have good character, a loving family, and I’m a simple guy without all those twisted, dark thoughts.” ??? I turned my head to look at his flamboyant, battered face and couldn’t help but say, “Then why were you fighting? And if you’re so terrible at it, why did you let yourself get beat up this badly?” Liam bristled instantly, puffing out his chest like a proud peacock. “Excuse me, I fought a whole gang by myself, okay? They’re way more hurt than I am! I’m just bleeding a little; they’re wrecked.” “So, if it’s just ‘bleeding a little,’ we don’t need to go to the hospital?” Liam froze, pressed his lips tightly together, and immediately leaned weakly against the window. “I can’t… my blood sugar is crashing. I’m going to pass out.” My silence was deafening. But I still pulled a piece of chocolate out of my pocket and handed it to him. He happily took a bite, the tips of his ears turning bright red. As I was leaving the hospital, Liam grabbed my sleeve and insisted on getting my number. “You’re my lifesaver! I’m taking you out to dinner when I get discharged.” “I’m Liam from Class 3. Remember that! When I transfer into your class next time, you’ll see. I’m a genius at AP Physics.” I froze. I suddenly remembered something. I had seen Liam’s name in my past life. It was in a news article about research on parallel universes. He was the author of the published paper. But the buzz around his paper was completely overshadowed by the news of Carter’s suicide. The internet trending topics dragged Harper into the spotlight as well. After discovering how beautiful she was, many people started writing fanfiction about their tragic romance. They praised Carter as a devoted lover, using his suicide to prove his epic love. And I was painted as the evil, scheming villain who ruined their relationship. I tried to clear my name countless times, but because Carter was dead, I had no proof. People flooded my private accounts with the most vicious insults imaginable. They even claimed I drove Carter to suicide so I could inherit his company and money. They conveniently forgot that his will left absolutely nothing to me, not even a single word of goodbye. He was truly selfish.

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On a reality TV trivia show, my boyfriend cruised through the competition, reaching the finals. During a commercial break interview, the host asked if he had a girlfriend. “The moment I saw her, I even had our future kids’ names picked out. Now, I’m just waiting for her answer.” In that highly anticipated moment, the production team had prepared a “surprise” for him. His childhood sweetheart, who had gone abroad to study, floated onto the stage like a fairy. She shyly said, “My answer is… I do.” Under the bright studio lights, I saw Ethan’s panicked eyes searching the vast audience until they locked onto mine. Meanwhile, I, his actual girlfriend, calmly started a live stream outside the studio. “Taking suggestions for my ex-boyfriend’s baby names. If I pick yours, I’ll send you an $800 cash prize.” 1 One hour earlier. At the filming of the Ultimate Brainpower reality show. My boyfriend, Ethan, had crushed the competition, making it all the way to the finals. With his high IQ and incredibly handsome, clean-cut looks, it was almost a given that he would win. As there was only one final question left in the championship round, the production team suddenly built up the suspense and cut to a commercial break. They started interviewing Ethan. He smiled softly at the camera and said he was waiting for someone’s answer. This sparked a flurry of speculation among the audience about whether he was going to reveal his girlfriend. This was a classic reality TV trope: right before announcing the winner, throw in a tear-jerking moment to generate buzz and trending topics. Watching the broadcast monitor in the waiting area, my best friend, who came with me, nudged my arm playfully. “Tsk, tsk. He’s already got the kids’ names picked out? Is Ethan planning to go public with you? He’s barely famous and he’s already revealing his relationship. He must really be afraid of losing you.” I smiled but didn’t say anything as the makeup artist worked on me. “No way, girl! Are you Ethan’s girlfriend? Omg, can you get me an autograph later? My little niece is obsessed with him!” the makeup artist said, her eyes sparkling. I replied calmly, “No problem. I’ve got you covered.” Ethan probably didn’t know I was here. Otherwise, with his shy personality, how would he dare confess his love on national television? If an acquaintance on the production team hadn’t contacted me saying they wanted to give Ethan a surprise, I wouldn’t have just shown up out of the blue. 2 While we were in the makeup room, a large group of people suddenly walked in. In the center of the entourage was a woman with long, wavy hair, wearing a long white sweater. Because she was surrounded by assistants, I couldn’t see her face clearly. An assistant beside her scanned the room, her eyes landing on us. She strutted over arrogantly and knocked on our makeup table. “Our Chloe doesn’t like having outsiders around when she’s getting her makeup done. Unessential personnel, please clear out.” My makeup artist gave an awkward smile and curled her lip. She expertly grabbed her makeup bag and pulled us into a corner, muttering softly: “Sorry, ladies, let’s just stay out of their way. I bet that’s the guest idol the production team brought in for the finale. No need to start a fight. They’re all like this.” My best friend clenched her fists in anger. “But we were here first! Do celebrities just get to steal people’s spots?” I pulled my friend back and smiled. “It doesn’t matter. We’re just borrowing the makeup room anyway.” After quickly finishing my makeup, I was instructed to wait backstage. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the idol in the white sweater from the makeup room was also standing in the holding area next to me. I figured this was just the general waiting area, so I paid her no mind and calmly kept my distance. Suddenly, she turned her head and looked me up and down. With a laugh, she said, “So you’re the champion’s girlfriend?” I looked at her. Her makeup was flawless, but even the heavy foundation couldn’t hide the surgical enhancements on her nose and lips. She had probably gotten a rhinoplasty and a lip lift. It seemed her makeup artist wasn’t that great after all. I replied with polite distance: “He’s not the champion yet.” The idol scoffed and said with confident ease: “He will definitely be the champion. Ethan has that kind of capability.” I looked at her in surprise, not knowing where she got that confidence. Was she also a fan of Ethan? 3 The show progressed with tension and excitement. Finally, Ethan answered the last question correctly. The other contestants were slower than him. The entire audience stood up, and cheers echoed through the studio. I watched Ethan stand up from his seat. His tall, lean figure looked even more striking under the spotlight. The corners of his mouth lifted into a faint smile. He was flawless from every angle. He was born for the stage. My heart was pounding. Even though we had been dating for five years, I still couldn’t suppress my excitement in that moment. And right at that moment, the host suddenly smiled mysteriously. He announced that a special guest had been invited to share in Ethan’s championship moment. Ethan looked momentarily stunned. “Who?” The host deliberately built the suspense: “The person who has been waiting five years for your answer, of course!” I nervously tugged at my clothes, ready to go on stage. But in the next second, the host suddenly looked toward our direction. “Please welcome the member of the idol group T-16, and the girlfriend of our champion Ethan—Chloe!” I froze on the spot, doubting my own ears. Did the host mix up the guest star’s name with mine? But the idol in the white sweater beside me suddenly reached out, pushed me aside, and flashed me a triumphant smile. Then, she said to the nearby crew member: “Keep the unessential personnel out of the way backstage.” She then confidently walked onto the stage. While Ethan was still in shock, she stepped forward and threw herself into his arms, looking down shyly. “I’m sorry to make you wait so long. The answer is… I do.” 4 On the stage. A handsome man, a beautiful woman, a heartfelt confession. It was picture-perfect. Confetti and streamers rained down on the stage. I stood frozen in place. It took me a long time to react. The acquaintance from the production team jogged over nervously, apologizing profusely. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, Maya. I just found out too! Chloe is a newly debuted, highly popular idol. The producers said having her appear would definitely get us trending and bring traffic to the show. But I don’t know how they gave Chloe the title of Ethan’s girlfriend. There must have been a mix-up!” I had already recovered from the shock. I turned to look at the person apologizing to me. “Is that all? Didn’t you guys also investigate and find out that Chloe is Ethan’s ex-girlfriend?” I had never met Chloe. But I knew about her from Ethan. Six years ago, she went abroad to become a trainee. Afraid of jeopardizing her career, she dumped Ethan without a second thought. Now that Ethan is famous, she’s back to ride his coattails? Thinking about what Chloe said to me backstage before going on… she clearly knew who I was and said it on purpose. The production team member looked embarrassed. I didn’t say much more, just looked at Ethan on stage. I saw the sheer panic on his face. He reached out, seemingly trying to push her away. But Chloe cleverly let go first. He immediately grabbed his microphone, looking frantic. “You guys…” But his microphone was cut off the very next second. I watched this unfold, then withdrew my gaze. I didn’t say much, just calmly told the crew member next to me: “I will definitely pursue what you did today to the very end. Whether it was Chloe’s idea or a deliberate move by the production team, get ready for a letter from my lawyer.” I turned to leave the studio. A voice from the production team yelled angrily behind me: “You’re just a minor influencer! Who do you think you are? You can’t sue us! Ethan knew about the production team’s arrangement all along! He approved it himself. Of course, whoever he says is his girlfriend, is his girlfriend!” “Oh? Is that so?” Ethan approved it? Hmm, very good. Then I’ll deal with both of them. 5 I twitched the corner of my mouth, not bothering to acknowledge them. I grabbed my best friend, who was still in a state of shock, and walked right out of the studio. My friend trailed behind me, and once she processed what had happened, she was furious. “Are we just going to leave like this? What’s the meaning of this, treating us like monkeys? The production team clearly invited us!” I didn’t say a word, my head bowed in deep thought. My friend couldn’t help but step in front of me to stop me. “What are you thinking? We should rush onto the stage and clear things up! You are Ethan’s actual girlfriend. That confession was definitely meant for you, and it got hijacked by that idol! Ugh, so shameless.” I stopped and looked back at my friend. “Rush onto the stage to do what? Wait for them to cut our mics, create a broadcasting incident, let the rumors fly, and let the production team reap all the benefits?” My friend calmed down, and after a while, she said indignantly: “So we’re just going to take it? They invited us and then pulled this crap! And what the hell is Ethan doing? Why didn’t he explain things!” I shook my head and laughed. “Do you think your best friend is that easy to bully? Letting people step all over us?” “Although I don’t know if Ethan knew about this, rushing the stage is clearly not the best way to handle it.” My friend’s eyes lit up. “Do you have another idea?” By this time, my friend and I had already left the TV station. I thought for a moment and pulled out my phone. I dialed Ethan’s number. I figured he must be off the stage by now. As expected, the call went unanswered. His phone was probably left backstage while he was on the show. But that was fine. Not being able to contact him didn’t mean I couldn’t do anything. I suddenly asked, “Don’t we have a live stream tonight?” I’m a beauty influencer. I’ve gained a sizable following through makeup tutorials, with over two million followers on YouTube. My friend is my assistant; I’m the face, and she runs the account. The account isn’t huge, but it’s big enough to handle this situation. My friend was stunned for a moment, then quickly caught on. “Yes, we’re supposed to do a sponsored live stream at 8 PM. But didn’t you delay it because you were going on the show? Are you planning to clear things up on the live stream?” I told my friend to keep a close eye on Twitter’s trending topics. This championship was broadcast live. I imagined Ethan’s and Chloe’s fans were probably going crazy. My friend, having worked with me for years, understood my plan. Not only did she keep an eye on the trending topics, but she also asked some contacts to dig into Chloe’s background. Soon, my friend angrily shoved her phone in my face. Sure enough, the incident was already trending on Twitter. #GeniusStudentVSBeautifulIdol #WhatAGodTierShip Someone had posted a clip from the show. The comments underneath were flooded with netizens. “Ahhh, what is this god-tier visual pairing! I’m shipping it!” “Omg, a confession five years in the making. Ethan is so handsome. I already know this is going to trend!” “I’ve been stalking his Twitter, and he’s always showing off his girlfriend, but never showed her face. I didn’t expect him to make it official on a show.” “Boo-hoo, am I the only one heartbroken? The idol I just started stanning is already taken! Ugh, but they’re still so cute together.” “Sister, why are you dating right after debut? Isn’t focusing on your career better? I’m a career stan!” “What does the person above mean? Are you saying our Ethan isn’t good enough?” I calmly scanned these comments. My friend looked at me with concern. “Don’t be mad, this is definitely a trending topic bought by Chloe’s team, just to create hype! These netizens are being duped! I’ll go buy a trending topic right now to clarify that you are the real girlfriend! Let’s see if she still has the nerve to show her face!” “Don’t do anything yet. Let’s wait and see if there are any other trending topics,” I replied calmly. “Wait? What are we waiting for?” 6 I didn’t say much more. I took out my phone, logged into my account, and opened the live stream interface. Probably because of the promotional posts over the past two days, as soon as I went live, five or six thousand people flooded into the stream. Seeing the growing number of viewers, I quickly pulled out my makeup bag and started removing my makeup bit by bit. “Welcome to the stream, babes! Today, I’m going to show you how to do a ‘tea-tearing’ (anti-mean girl) makeup look.” The chat started scrolling rapidly. [Ahhh, you’re finally live! So excited!] [What’s a ‘tea-tearing’ look?] [You’re removing your makeup now, are you out somewhere? The background doesn’t look like your usual setup.] [Yeah! Looking at the background, it looks like the Cube TV building! Were you invited to record a show?] [Good eye, commenter above! I just googled it, and the logo in the back is definitely Cube TV. I think today is the ‘Ultimate Brainpower’ finale!] [Did you go to see Ethan’s live show too? Did you see our guy officially announce his relationship? Boo-hoo.] I scanned the screen and said calmly: “I came here today for a show, but there was a slight hiccup. However, I have a question for you guys. I want your suggestions for baby names for my ex-boyfriend. If I pick yours, I’ll send you an $800 cash prize.” The chat exploded instantly. [What baby names? Are you having a baby?] [Are the people above blind? She said naming her ex-boyfriend’s baby. Wait, ex-boyfriend?! When did you even get a boyfriend? Breaking up and naming a baby what the hell!] [I’m going crazy!] [Class rep here! Did anyone notice an issue? Maya is at Cube TV, and today Ethan and Chloe just made their relationship official. I remember Ethan’s confession: ‘The moment I saw her, I even had our future kids’ names picked out.’ Could Maya’s ex-boyfriend be Ethan?! Holy shit! What a massive piece of gossip!] [The commenter above discovered the truth!] [Damn, is Chloe the other woman? Is this the main chick tearing down the side chick? Maya, give us the scoop!] [Seeking confirmation! Is Ethan your ex-boyfriend?!] [+1] [+1] Because of this, the live stream completely blew up! Some nosy people posted about it on Twitter. Not long after, Chloe’s fans caught the scent and swarmed over. In an instant, a hundred thousand people flooded the stream! [Chloe fans checking in! Our fairy Chloe shines alone, no one else should try to leech off her fame!] [What D-list influencer is trying to leech off our Chloe? Get lost!] [Twitter army reporting for duty! What’s this influencer’s name? Maya? What the hell, trying to leech off Chloe? Ethan already officially acknowledged her! What ‘ex-girlfriend’ nonsense!] [Just looked at this minor influencer’s content, hahaha, so dead. Is leeching off fame the norm in this circle?] My friend stamped her feet in frustration beside me. I remained calm, didn’t say a word, and continued slowly removing my makeup and applying foundation. Right at that moment, a FaceTime call from Ethan came through. I answered it, unhurriedly turned on the speaker, and placed the phone to the side. I continued the live stream. 7 Ethan’s familiar voice came through. “Baby, I was wrong! Can I be saved if I kneel on a washboard?” “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m innocent! Don’t associate me with whatever that was! You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to go public with! That Chloe thing was orchestrated by the production team. I’ve already fallen out with them, and I’m contacting my lawyer to sue the show and Chloe right now.” “Baby, please say something. Where are you? I searched the whole station but couldn’t find you.” I let him talk enough. I coughed twice and calmly picked up the phone. “Ethan, I’m live streaming.” Ethan froze on the other end of the video call. I expected him to be angry. But he quickly recovered. “Is it your main account? Wait for me! Wait, can I say hi to the fans on the stream first?” “I don’t think anyone wants to see you right now, myself included.” With that, I hung up the FaceTime call. The entire live chat was filled with question marks. [????] [Was that Ethan’s voice just now? So sweet, so soft!] [I want to see Ethan! We want to see him!] [Ahhh, it really was Ethan’s voice! It’s real!] [What the hell is going on! I’m so confused, there’s too much tea to spill! Where’s the class rep, give us a summary quickly!] [Isn’t it obvious? The one leeching off fame isn’t Maya, it’s your disgraced idol! Shamelessly stealing someone else’s boyfriend!] [Exactly, it’s hilarious. Your idol is the one leeching off anything she can. The man himself just debunked it live.] [To the brainless fans above, is Maya your own mother? Defending her so fiercely. Just because she says it’s Ethan means it’s Ethan? Maybe she hired a voice actor. If you have the guts, let Ethan debunk it himself on the live stream.] [Ethan is probably with our fairy right now. How could he appear in this D-list influencer’s live stream? Hilarious.] Opinions were divided in the live chat. Especially Chloe’s fans, who started spamming heavily. My friend stared at me worriedly and told me to mute the mic for a second. “What do we do now? These people don’t believe it at all. Should we ask Ethan to post a clarification tweet?” “No rush, the situation isn’t clear yet.” My hands didn’t stop; I diligently recorded my makeup tutorial. My friend watched the live chat excitedly beside me. “We have almost three hundred thousand viewers now. Should we start selling products?” “Go for it.” “What should we sell?” “Tea eggs and green tea, buy one get one free.” “Pfft…” My friend gave me a thumbs up. The links were quickly posted. As expected, Chloe’s fans in the live chat started their cynical remarks again. [This minor influencer’s true motive is finally revealed. Leeching off fame just to sell products. We’ve already gone to find our fairy Chloe. Just wait for the lawyer’s letter! Best to get her canceled!] Despite the insults, the two items went out of stock in less than a minute. There were also quite a few donations floating on the screen. My friend had been keeping an eye on Twitter. Now she grabbed my phone and muted the live stream. Then she cursed angrily. “That stupid green tea Chloe just posted a tweet, look at this! Damn it, saying we’re the ones staging a collision. Who’s the one staging a collision? She has no shame.” I took the phone and saw a tweet Chloe posted a minute ago. “At an important moment in my life, I didn’t expect someone to try to leech off my fame. All I can say is, whatever makes you happy.” It had only been a minute or so. It already had thousands of retweets, and the comments were full of hate directed at me. Most of them were saying I was calculating and shameless for leeching off her fame. I let out a cold laugh. These people are really interesting. While I was looking at Twitter, the live chat suddenly started flashing with a screen full of “Dream Castles.” 50 of them in a row. If I remember correctly, one of those costs about $400. That’s $20,000 spent in one breath. In an instant, all the comments in the live chat were drowned out by this massive display of wealth. And the account ID of the person sending the gifts: Maya’s Ethan. 8 “Baby, don’t be mad. I’ll give you all my appearance fees from the show, including the secret stash I hid! Please don’t be angry!” This comment flooded the entire live chat, making it hard for anyone not to see it. The chat went absolutely berserk. Some people said I staged it, but the man himself was debunking it live. Soon, a fan realized what was happening. [Ahhhh, it really is Ethan! I followed the account, and it’s Ethan’s verified main account!] [An online confession! That thing on the show was a script, right? This is Ethan’s true wife. I can finally ship them!] [I’m even more confused. What the hell is going on? Who is the real girlfriend? I want to cry.] I saw that public opinion had fermented enough. And a certain someone’s attitude towards admitting their mistake was also very proactive. So I said goodbye to the viewers in the live stream and closed it. As expected, after our series of maneuvers. The top five trending topics on Twitter were all about #Ethan, #Chloe, and #Maya. And very quickly. Ethan also pinned a tweet. It only had one sentence. “The person I confessed to on the show is my girlfriend, Maya. As for why Chloe appeared, I don’t know, it was arranged by the production team. I explained this on stage, but my mic was cut. I hope the production team and Chloe’s studio apologize to my girlfriend, otherwise I will screenshot and save all the attacks my girlfriend suffered as evidence for a lawsuit.” Then underneath, he attached a photo of him and me together. My friend observed all the trending news. Her mouth hung open. “Holy crap, how did you know Ethan would cooperate with you? It was actually the production team causing trouble! I knew your simp Ethan wouldn’t have the guts to do something like that!” “Standard operation. His popularity isn’t something just anyone can leech off of, especially random nobodies.” I told my friend to pack up our things. We’re going home now. “Aren’t we waiting for Ethan to come out of the TV station so we can leave together?” I glanced at the TV station. I said slowly: “If he could have come out, he would have found us by now. He’s probably being blocked by someone. It’s fine, old flames catching up. We’ll just go back and wait for him.” Before I got in the car, I suddenly remembered. “What was the total sales amount in the live stream today? Deduct the merchants’ cost price, our slot fees and commissions, and the donations from the live stream, and donate everything to children in mountainous areas.” “Got it! Don’t worry, the tea eggs and green tea were from merchants I contacted urgently, the fees aren’t high, but we sold a lot. Once the revenue comes in, I’ll donate it all for you!” 9 Not long after we got home. The trending topics had completely blown up. More and more topics emerged. #Chloe’sDownfall #CalculatingProductionTeam: Let the Real Girlfriend Watch from the Audience While Promoting a Newcomer on Stage #Chloe’sCancellationLive #CalculateChloe’sPsychologicalTrauma After I took off my makeup, I put on a face mask. Not long after, the door was opened. Ethan rushed into the house, darting around frantically. Seeing me lying on the sofa. He finally breathed a sigh of relief. “Ba…” “Change your shoes.” I didn’t even lift my head. Ethan instantly swallowed his words, changed his shoes, and then walked over slowly. He was still carrying a durian in his hand. “Baby, I was wrong. I’ve already bought a durian. I’ll crack it open right now, you eat the durian, and I’ll kneel on the shell. Can we call it even on this?” I sat up with the face mask on. I stared at him expressionlessly. “You’re quite self-aware, but what exactly did you do wrong?” He pinched his ear, looking at me pitifully, his nose red with anxiety. “I really don’t know what the production team was doing, and I don’t know why they sought out Chloe, or even invited you to the venue. But don’t worry, I’ve already handled it. I’m suing both the production team and Chloe! No one can bully our baby!” I sighed and peeled off the mask. “I’m not talking about that. I understand the situation. I just want to ask what you were thinking? Confessing to me on a show? Did you take the wrong meds?” Seeing that I didn’t look angry. Ethan instantly bounded over with a cheeky grin. He rubbed against me with his fluffy head. “That’s because you kept refusing my proposals. I had no choice but to resort to this.” “Oh, so you wanted to use public pressure to force my hand?” “Of course not! How could I do that? I was just… just too nervous. Plus, the production team said the interview had to be heartfelt, preferably a deep confession or something.” “Haha, alright. What about Chloe? Aren’t you going to explain?” As soon as I finished speaking, I saw Ethan frown in disgust. Then he said: “There’s nothing to say about her. She’s so fake.” According to Ethan’s own account. The moment he realized the person on stage was Chloe, he pushed her away immediately. He wanted to explain, but his microphone was cut off by the production team. He rushed off the stage to find me. But he was stopped by Chloe and the production crew. The production team explained that it was for the show’s effect. And Chloe even stated that she only accepted the production team’s invitation to perform, and this was just a prank. But he didn’t accept this kind of uncommunicated prank. So he didn’t say a single word to Chloe the whole time. “That’s it? Nothing else?” “What else could there be? I’m definitely innocent. You have to believe me. If you’re still not satisfied, I can only apologize with my life!” “That’s not necessary. I’m just curious about one thing: why would Chloe do this?” Ethan let out a scoff. “Why? For the hype, of course. It’s her usual tactic.” “Hearing your tone, it seems you have some complaints? Mind telling me about this ex of yours?” I asked tentatively. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t angry. No girlfriend doesn’t care about her boyfriend’s ex. Especially since Ethan and I have been dating for five years. We just met each other’s parents not long ago. We’re at that critical stage of preparing for marriage. I have to do a background check in advance. Ethan took a slow, deep breath. “That’s a long story.” “Then make it short. Summarize it in 100 words.” Ethan’s face turned red for a long time. “Can we not talk about this today?” “Sure.” That night. Ethan slept on the sofa.

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Married into wealth for three years, I was universally acknowledged as the “docile, zen” trophy wife. I was so low-profile that I never even took off my sunglasses in public. Until my husband’s childhood sweetheart deliberately leaked a photo of me online. Instantly, the entire police department went on high alert. On the dark web, a bounty was placed on my head, clear as day: “Codename Phoenix: $100 Million Cash Bounty.” “First come, first served.” 01 Having been married into wealth for three years, I had almost gotten used to this quiet, comfortable life. Liam rarely came home, but my allowance was always more than enough. He laid his cards on the table the very first day we got married: “My parents don’t like Mia, which is the only reason you slipped in. “You’d better just quietly play the role of Mrs. Sterling. “As for anything else, don’t even think about it.” I nodded enthusiastically, so fast that even Liam couldn’t help but ask: “Were you… actually listening to me?” “Repeat what I just said.” I replied, earnest and deadpan: “You said you like playing the flute.” Liam was so furious that he didn’t even stay for the wedding night, storming out immediately. I didn’t care. It was a transaction. To him, I was just a random woman he grabbed off the street to act as a shield against his parents. But to me, he was a meticulously chosen safe haven. So, for the three years of our marriage, I made sure to never cause him any trouble. My main goal was to have “zero presence.” I became known in his circle as the “docile, zen” trophy wife. Everyone envied Liam for having a wife who never caused drama, allowing him to play the field as much as he wanted. My only demand was that I absolutely would not show my face in public. When I occasionally accompanied him to social events, I was fully armored: mask, sunglasses, hat. If it weren’t for the mandatory “psychological evaluation” I was forced to undergo every month, life would have been perfect. 02 That day, I finished my psych evaluation and was driven back to the mansion in an unmarked black SUV. I was feeling extremely agitated. Flashes of memories kept crossing my mind. A woman with fiery eyes raising a challenging eyebrow at me: “Sisters for life.” “Hold your gun steady, sis, and I’ll hand you a Medal of Valor.” A stern senior officer demanding answers from me: “Did you sell out your partner?!” “Why are you the only one who came back!” “Why did you insist on marrying Liam Sterling?!” And a doctor in a white coat looking at me with pity: “Due to extreme trauma, your memories are fragmented and confused. “It’s okay, they’ll come back slowly. “But you’re no longer fit for field duty, plus… there are some sensitive issues… “In short, you can finally get some real rest.” In my groggy state, I felt a hand on my forehead. I jolted awake instantly: “Scarlett!” Liam’s hand hovered awkwardly in the air. After a moment, he frowned in displeasure: “Who is Scott?” “Your little boy toy? “Using my money to keep a pretty boy. You’ve got nerve.” I gasped for air, drenched in cold sweat. It took me a long time to reply coldly: “Why are you back?” “Didn’t we agree that I only sell my acting skills, not my body?” Liam’s frown deepened, as if he could crush a fly between his brows: “Why are you throwing a tantrum?” “Do you feel neglected? “Or did you hear that Mia is back in the country?” Three rapid-fire questions, and not a single one hit the mark. I put on a look of innocent confusion: “Who is Mia?” Liam… Just then, my phone chimed with a “ding.” I stiffened. Very few people had my phone number. Even when Liam wanted to contact me, he had to leave a letter with someone at the door. Literally sending messages via carrier pigeon. I opened the message. It was an image. The moment I saw it clearly, my pupils shrank: How is this possible? She’s dead! A message from Chief Harris followed immediately: “Our guys intercepted this on the dark web. “There will be a live human auction on the first of next month. “But we don’t know if it’s real yet. It might just be bait.” I sank into deep thought. Beside me, Liam was still rambling: “I know you’ve always felt like a replacement. “Now that Mia is back, I’m going to test the waters with my parents. “If they can accept her, I’ll draft the divorce papers…” Before he could finish, I managed to lift a hand and give him a crisp “OK” sign. Liam… Liam lost his cool: “Seriously, could you show me a little respect?!” Respect was impossible. The only person in the world who commanded my respect was currently lying in a military cemetery. 03 With practiced ease, I opened a browser—bypassed the firewall—and logged into my dark web account. I sent the photo I just received to a contact named “Broker”: “Check this for me. I need the timestamp and any signs of Photoshop.” “And find out how legit this human auction early next month is.” ‘How legit’ meant what percentage was true versus false. The reply came quickly: “Got it.” “By the way, got some new AK-47s in. You want some?” “They kick ass, and shipping is free.” I scoffed: “You think AK-47s ‘kick ass’? You need to get out more.” “Give me…” After finishing my sentence, I logged off. Looking up, Liam was still standing by the bed, staring at me with a complicated expression. I was suspicious: “Why haven’t you left yet?” For a second, Liam’s expression was almost feral. It took him a long time to suppress his anger: “There’s a gala tomorrow. You’re coming with me.” “Mia will be there too. Don’t make things difficult for her.” I nodded noncommittally: “Fine. Same rules as always: no photos at the event.” “And I get to wear my mask and sunglasses.” 04 The next day, fully armored, I arrived at the banquet hall. Liam was already there, accompanied by a girl who looked so fragile a breeze could knock her over. She looked at me timidly: “You must be Chloe, right?” “I’m Mia. Thank you for taking care of Liam for me all these years.” I waved my hand dismissively: “Don’t mention it. Save the sentiment, just pay me for my trouble?” “Doesn’t have to be a lot. A million or so will do.” Mia looked completely bewildered, her clear, innocent eyes full of massive confusion. She tried hard to steer the conversation back to the “One True Love vs. The Forgotten Stand-In” narrative: “You’re so funny, Chloe.” “By the way, why are you so bundled up? Is it because you’re insecure about being ugly?” I adjusted the edge of my mask: “You’ve got a lot of nerve.” Mia instantly shifted into combat mode, ready to fire back. But I continued: “You should lay off the spicy food.” “Your breath is reaching me even through the mask.” Liam tried to join the fray: “That’s enough! Mia just got back, and you’re already bullying her!” I looked up and smiled: “Oh, sorry, I missed you.” “You too.” “The smell is really strong. It burns the eyes.” In the end, the two of them were shaking with anger. Fortunately, someone intervened and invited everyone to take their seats for dinner. 05 Everyone at the gala was a shrewd social climber. They all knew that Mia would likely soon replace me as the new Mrs. Sterling. So, absolutely no one bothered talking to me; they were all entirely focused on kissing up to Mia. I wasn’t paying attention to the gala anyway. I was anxiously waiting for “Broker” to send me the investigation results. I checked my phone every ten seconds. And downed a glass of champagne every thirty seconds. Even Liam couldn’t help leaning in to say: “Drink a little less.” “Drinking on an empty stomach will give you an ulcer.” I didn’t even need to use my peripheral vision to know that Mia’s rage meter was fully maxed out at that moment. I awkwardly took a big bite of food, trying to avoid conversation. To my surprise, a moment later, Mia suddenly laughed: “Oh my, I accidentally posted a photo of Chloe on Instagram.” “The internet is rating your looks right now.” “Tsk, how could someone give you a one out of ten? That’s too mean.” I nearly spit out my wine. I swiftly snatched Liam’s phone from beside him and immediately saw the trending post on Instagram. It was a picture of me drinking. The comments underneath were buzzing: [The mysterious Mrs. Sterling finally shows her face.] [I almost forgot Liam was married. His wife is way too low-profile.] [Heh, everyone knows she’s just a stand-in. Mia will take her rightful place soon.] [Sure enough, she looks painfully average. Not even half as pretty as Mia.] [To the person above… when you said ‘painfully average,’ didn’t your conscience hurt a little?] I looked at Liam with eyes like ice. He guiltily rubbed his nose, then loudly defended himself: “I didn’t know Mia took a picture of you!” “Besides, you’re not famous. What’s the big deal if she posted it?” Mia chimed in loudly too: “Exactly. You’re just a normal person.” “It’s not like fans are going to camp outside your house at midnight begging for an autograph.” “You really think you’re someone special.” Of course no one was going to camp outside for an autograph. There would only be mercenaries camped out at sniper vantage points at midnight, ready to take my head. I took a deep breath and solemnly announced: “Ms. Mia, you’re in deep trouble.” “I prematurely express my condolences for the legal consequences you’re about to face.” “But you brought this on yourself with your itchy fingers.” Mia laughed disdainfully: “Legal consequences? You’re joking.” “What could possibly…” Mid-sentence, she suddenly froze. It wasn’t just her. Everyone in the hall was looking at their phones in confusion: “Why was the post deleted?” “And Mia’s account was banned?” I took a sip of wine. The police department was probably on high alert by now. But even with them acting fast, it was probably too late… Just then, the piercing wail of police sirens erupted outside the hotel. Simultaneously, the large screen in the banquet hall suddenly flared to life. A jumble of code flashed frantically across the screen. Then, a masked, mixed-race man appeared on the screen: “Officer Phoenix, you really are still alive.” “You’ve hidden yourself too well these past few years.” “But since you’ve surfaced, I won’t let you disappear so easily again.” “It’s time to settle the score for you taking down my entire drug manufacturing operation years ago, and for the death of your partner.” “From this moment on, I am issuing a bounty to all mercenaries and hunters on the dark web.” “The head of Codename Phoenix: $100 Million Cash Bounty.” “First come, first served.” “Of course, you are also welcome to come find me for revenge.” “I will be waiting for you at the site of our old shootout.” “I wonder, do you still have the guts to show up alone like you did back then?” I clenched my fists tightly, my nails digging deep into my palms. Staring straight at the man on the screen, I mouthed silently: “With pleasure.” He couldn’t possibly hear my answer, but in that fleeting second… Stephen, the drug lord who had once ruled from the shadows, smiled a chilling smile of satisfaction. 06 The entire banquet hall plunged into a dead silence. The next second, the main doors were kicked open by SWAT teams. Chief Harris’s frantic, booming voice echoed into the room: “Secure the perimeter! Secure the perimeter!” “Check all sniper vantage points!” “Where is the cyber division?! Did they send toddlers?!” “Delete the video immediately! Check our firewalls!” The SWAT team swarmed in. Captain Chen, leading the charge, yelled at the top of his lungs: “Everyone, get down on the ground!” The socialites and executives in the room were dumbfounded. But meeting the glaring eyes of the SWAT officers, they instantly and uniformly dropped to the floor with a collective woosh. Chief Harris marched over, nodded sharply at me, then narrowed his eyes and roared: “Who uploaded Officer Chloe’s photo just now?!” Mia, trembling uncontrollably, hid behind Liam. Neither of them made a sound. Chief Harris followed my gaze, locked onto Mia, and waved his hand authoritatively: “Take her in first. Run a full background check on her social connections.” “See if there’s a motive for intentional exposure.” Mia was stunned. It wasn’t until a SWAT officer stepped forward to grab her that she snapped out of it: “Why are you arresting me?!” “I have civil rights…” She was hauled out before she could finish. Two other men in the room, shifting their eyes nervously, were pointed out by me and taken away as well. They were Liam’s good buddies. As they were dragged out, they glared at me in silence, their expressions venomous. Liam, on the other hand, looked completely clueless: “What is going on?” “Why did they take them away?” “What is it that I don’t know?” I stared at him intently for a long moment, then smiled: “Just stay like this. It’s better this way.” The cyber division finally got into position. But Stephen’s video had already spread rapidly in that incredibly short window. He hadn’t just hijacked the banquet hall’s screen; he had even forced the video onto the jumbotrons in the downtown shopping district. Countless people witnessed his declaration of war. The worst part was that many people recorded the video and uploaded it to the internet again. It was already trending everywhere. The whole internet was buzzing, trying to figure out my identity. The cyber cops were cursing in despair: “No way, are these people insane?!” At the same time, my phone rang. It was an encrypted call. I walked to a corner, avoiding Chief Harris’s scrutinizing gaze, and answered the call. Broker’s excited voice blasted through: “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! You’re a cop?!” “I’ve been working for a cop this whole damn time?!” I cut him off ruthlessly: “Did you not get paid?” The other side instantly went quiet. After hesitating for a moment, he said: “It’s not about the money. You’re the dark web’s number one target now.” “I can’t help you anymore, or I’ll lose my own life.” “I found out what you asked me to look into.” “Consider this one on the house. No charge. Take care of yourself from now on.” I curled the corner of my mouth: “Thanks.” “You’d better pack your bags and hide overseas for a while.” Broker’s dismissive voice came through: “Relax, what could happen to me?” “I’m just a low-level hustler doing odd jobs for cash.” “Let me tell you about the main thing, about that photo… what’s that sound?” A terrible premonition suddenly washed over me. I instinctively yelled: “Watch out!” Every eye in the venue turned to me. But I couldn’t care about that. A very faint snick came from the other end of the line. Followed by the sound of flowing liquid. I cried out: “Broker? Broker, what happened?!” The call was forcefully disconnected. A video was sent to my phone. I clicked it open. Broker was slumped softly on the floor. His throat was slit, the bone clearly visible. His eyes were empty, his limbs twitching involuntarily. A horrifying gurgling sound came from his throat, striking directly at my nerves. He seemed to want to tell me something. Maybe it was the investigation results, maybe he wanted to curse at me, or maybe he just wanted to say he regretted it. But he would never speak another word. He died, silently. The next second, a person wearing a black cloak and a white smiling mask appeared on the screen. He held up a piece of paper to the camera: 【This is only the beginning.】 07 Back at the familiar yet strange police station, everyone was rushing around frantically. Some were glaring and ordering suspects to “confess and get a lighter sentence, resist and face the consequences.” Some were typing furiously, trying to scrub videos off the internet. And some were playing whack-a-mole, fielding angry calls from various superiors. I stood by the window, feeling completely out of place. After a while, Chief Harris came back, panting: “Why are you standing by the window? Stay out of sight!” I set down the coffee I was holding for warmth: “It’s fine. This is a sniper blind spot.” “Any results on Scarlett’s photo?” Chief Harris slapped his thigh in frustration: “Nothing. Experts say it was processed with a special method.” “It’s hard to verify when it was taken.” “And command says we’re not prioritizing properly.” “We should be focusing on capturing Stephen immediately, not getting bogged down by a photo of unverified authenticity.” I let out a soft scoff: “No surprise there.” Chief Harris was silent for a long moment before finally asking: “Why have you been maintaining contact with someone on the dark web all these years, even having him investigate things for you?” “And how did you know that the businesses of those two kids we just grabbed were connected to Stephen?” “You…” I narrowed my eyes and looked at him: “Why don’t you just ask me directly if I’ve gone rogue?” “Isn’t that the answer you’ve always wanted?” Chief Harris’s eyes hardened instantly. I didn’t back down, meeting his stare head-on. “Officer Chloe, please maintain your trust in the organization!” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud: “Has the organization ever trusted me?” “Haven’t you spent all these years trying to dig up evidence of my betrayal?” Just as we were at each other’s throats, Chief Harris’s secretary hurried over: “Chief, there’s a call from the State Department.” Chief Harris didn’t spare me another glance, turning and walking away briskly. I stared at his back, a mocking smile tugging at the corner of my lips. The secretary glanced at me, offering an apologetic smile: “Officer Chloe, the Chief doesn’t mean any harm. He’s just getting older and a bit stubborn.” “Why don’t you wait in his office for a bit? You two can have a proper talk later.” “I’ll go make you a cup of tea.” With that, he dashed off. 08 As I sat in Chief Harris’s office, sipping tea with nothing to do, a check caught my attention. It was blank, with no amount specified, but it bore an official stamp. And it was from a Swiss bank. In other words, this was an “unlimited blank check” that could be cashed anywhere in the world. The bearer could write in any amount they desired. But why was it in Chief Harris’s office? How could a 50-year-old man who still used a cheap thermos won at a company raffle possess a Swiss bank check? Just as I reached out to examine it closer, a sudden sensation of my hair standing on end washed over me. It was the instinct forged through countless brushes with death. Without a second thought, I dove to the ground, rolling and using the filing cabinet as cover. At the exact same moment, the spot where I had been standing was riddled with bullets. Submachine gun fire poured relentlessly into the office. The alarms blared: “Hostiles in the building!” Realizing they had missed their window for a stealth kill, the attackers instantly chose to retreat. By the time the police surrounded their sniper vantage point, all that remained was a pile of shell casings. Chief Harris was furious: “Damn it! This is outrageous!” “How dare they?!” “How did mercenaries get into the country?!” “Investigate this immediately!” “Did some travel agency approve tourist visas for them?!” I raised an eyebrow and pointed at the shell casings: “Snakes have their paths, rats have their holes.” “These mercenaries are ‘corporate employees’.” “They’re managed by an organized syndicate, dispersed and lying low in various countries well in advance.” “When a mission comes up, they strike. Whether they succeed or fail, they extract immediately.” “Once things cool down, the syndicate rotates a new crew into the country.” “The same crew never executes an assassination mission in the same country twice.” Captain Chen of the SWAT team looked enlightened and gave me a thumbs-up: “Officer Chloe is very knowledgeable.” “We learned something new.” Chief Harris snapped at him impatiently: “Don’t make me smack you in the middle of a crisis!” “What do we do now?” “Every lead is dead—the photo, the auction, the dark web source…” “And those two kids we grabbed earlier? They swear their families just run ‘self-storage units’.” “They provide the space, but they don’t know who’s renting or what’s being stored.” “We sent people to check, and it really is a fully automated, scan-to-access operation.” “Damn it, sometimes technology is too advanced for its own good…” I raised my hand to stop his rambling: “They definitely know that self-storage is meant to lower costs.” “What kind of idiot pays five times the market rate for a self-storage unit?” “Interrogate them again. They’re definitely the weak link.” Chief Harris suppressed his frustration, ordered his men to re-interrogate the suspects, and then said: “Since our next move is unclear, you should stay at the station for a few days.” “I’m worried that if you walk out that door, someone will blow you away to cash in…” I joked half-heartedly: “A hundred million dollars, huh? Even I’m a little tempted.” “Harris, aren’t you tempted?” Chief Harris stared blankly for a moment before realizing what I was saying. He waved his hand dismissively: “No way, no way. You hold grudges like nobody’s business. I’m afraid you’d haunt my bedroom at night.” I stared at Chief Harris’s balding head and spoke slowly: “Actually, there is one other path.” A path Stephen had laid out for me long ago. And he knew, without a doubt, I would take it.

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In my past life, my mother was moved by her own self-righteous love. During my SATs, she slipped an “encouraging” note into my pencil case, causing me to be disqualified for cheating. It wasn’t until right before I died that I found out the whole thing was my cousin’s idea. Reborn, I swore to change my destiny and never repeat the same mistakes. They all said my cousin was just “playing a joke” on me. Well, I’m going to return those jokes to them, one by one. What’s wrong? Why aren’t any of you laughing now? 1 When my husband cheated on me and beat me, I begged my mother for support. Instead, she said, “It’s because you’re useless. You can’t even keep your own man.” “So he cheats on me and abuses me, and it’s somehow my fault?” She continued, “Well… you can only blame yourself for being a bad judge of character.” I finally snapped. “You were the one who forced me to marry him!” My mother looked at me in absolute shock. “If you didn’t want to get married, could I have forced you? Everything was your own choice. Don’t blame your failed life on me.” For a moment, I was speechless. She knew better than anyone exactly when my life started to derail. That year, I was a guaranteed lock for an Ivy League university. But during the first section of the SATs, I found a piece of paper in my pencil case that didn’t belong to me. I forced myself to stay calm and waited until the exam was over to open it. Inside was a single line written in my mother’s handwriting: “Honey, pay close attention to the details.” She had never cared about my grades before. She didn’t care about my life at school, dedicating all her love and attention to my cousin, Savannah. Yet, she chose the most critical exam of my life to pull a stunt like this. I thought I had dodged a bullet. But after all the subjects were completed, someone reported me. After an investigation, I was ruled guilty of cheating, and all my scores were canceled. I checked the answer keys online afterward. My raw score was high enough to get me into the top-tier university of my dreams. But everything was destroyed because of her self-indulgent “encouragement.” Because of a cheating violation, I lost the chance to retake the exams. I was forced to hustle in the real world with only a high school diploma, hitting a brick wall at every turn. My cheating scandal became their favorite dinnertime gossip. I could never escape it; it defined me in their eyes for years. After my father passed away, my mother guilt-tripped me relentlessly, weaponizing my duty as a daughter until I gave in and married the man she picked out for me: Travis. And yet, she claimed this was all my choice? When Travis hit me, she urged me to keep the peace, telling me not to make a mountain out of a molehill, completely ignoring the bruises on my body. Once, when I fled back to my childhood home, she actually welcomed Travis inside with a massive smile, cooked his favorite meal, and urged us to make up quickly. When I discovered his affairs and demanded a divorce, her only response was to blame me for failing to keep a man happy. My heart completely died. I stopped expecting any support from her. But right before I packed my bags to leave, I overheard her on the phone with Savannah. “Do you think Avery will really hate me?” my mom asked. “Why would she? You caused her SAT scores to be canceled back then, and she forgave you for that, didn’t she? This is exactly the same,” Savannah replied. My mother’s voice trembled slightly. “I caused it? But you were the one who told me to do it! You reported her! And you were the one who introduced Travis to her!” Savannah feigned surprise. “But Auntie, didn’t you ask me how to keep her from moving far away for college? I was just making a joke.” It was only then that I realized my entire life wasn’t destroyed by bad luck or fate. It was orchestrated by them. I drove away in a daze, completely hollowed out, and got into a fatal car crash. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my senior year of high school. Maybe even God couldn’t stand watching my pathetic, laughable life anymore. Reborn, I swore to never repeat the same mistakes. 2 I had forgotten a lot of the minor details, but the events that ruined my life were burned into my memory. You could say the tragedy of my high school years started exactly here. When Hunter blocked my path in the hallway, I secretly thought to myself, Here we go. With an arrogant, rebellious smirk, he pointed at me like he was granting me a royal favor. “Hey. You’re not bad. Wanna go out with me?” My vow to never repeat my mistakes starts right now. Gasps and whispers erupted from the students around us. In the crowd, I locked eyes with Savannah. She was too young back then; she didn’t know how to hide the look in her eyes. A look of pure, gloating schadenfreude. I looked up at Hunter and smiled brightly. “Sure.” He didn’t get the “flattered and overwhelmed” reaction he expected. He was taken aback, but quickly recovered. He laughed exaggeratedly, looking me up and down with utter disdain. “Actually, looking at you again, you’re not that pretty. And your personality is boring. Let’s break up.” The crowd immediately understood. This was all just a “joke.” The envious looks from the girls instantly morphed into mockery, laughing at me for not knowing my place and thinking I actually had a shot with a rich kid like Hunter. But my reaction still didn’t give them the satisfaction they wanted. I kept my bright smile. “Sure.” My tone didn’t even shift. Looking at me, it seemed like I genuinely didn’t care. Savannah walked over, linking her arm through mine, pretending to be worried. “Avery, you don’t have to act like this. I know you’re hurting. After all, you’ve had a crush on him for…” The moment those words left her mouth, everyone was convinced I was just saving face and dying inside. I brushed her hand off and waved at Brody, who was standing in the crowd. “A bet’s a bet. Three thousand bucks, please.” Everyone in the hallway froze, including Savannah. She couldn’t figure out how the humiliation trap she orchestrated had suddenly flipped. Brody came from old money; three grand was nothing to him. “I don’t have cash on me. I’ll Venmo you later.” Then he turned to Hunter. “Did you team up with her to scam me? You just cost me three grand. You’re paying for the pool tables today.” 3 Hunter finally realized what was happening and glared at me furiously. “You played me?” I shrugged. “Don’t look at me like that. Weren’t you using me for a bet too? Consider this a win-win.” Yes, Hunter’s public confession was nothing but a cruel bet. He bet that I wouldn’t reject him. In my past life, my rejection severely bruised his fragile ego. Afterward, he started aggressively and publicly pursuing me. From start to finish, he only cared about his own amusement, completely ignoring how his actions affected me. He brought me endless, suffocating trouble. Not to mention his army of fan-girls, who thought I was playing hard to get and relentlessly bullied me. I had begged my mother for help, but Savannah got to her first. Savannah convinced her that I was being indecent and trying to seduce boys at school. My mother called me shameless and said that instead of going to college, I should just find a man to marry early. But thinking back on it now, what did any of that have to do with me? It was a completely unprovoked disaster. I stepped closer to Hunter and whispered. “I didn’t want to do this, but you came after me first. I was just acting in self-defense. “You’re not going to be a sore loser and send people to mess with me, are you?” I knew that by saying it out loud, regardless of what he originally planned, his pride wouldn’t let him stoop that low now. Enduring his furious, fiery glare, I casually started digging a pit for Savannah. “Just a little secret between us—someone tipped me off today just to watch you make a fool of yourself. Instead of glaring at me, you should probably figure out who suggested you use me for your bet, and who secretly leaked the plan so I could use you as a pawn.” Exactly. If I hadn’t known about the bet, how could I have prepared so perfectly to publicly embarrass him? Seeing the realization dawn on his face, I smiled with deep satisfaction. Savannah. In our past life, you orchestrated this entire nightmare from the shadows and then faded into the background, keeping your hands perfectly clean. When I finally found out the truth and told my mother, she brushed it off with a casual, “It was just a joke.” My suffering, my misery, my ruined life—all dismissed as a “joke.” A joke? Savannah, let’s see if you’re still laughing in this lifetime. 4 When Savannah came looking for me later, I was memorizing SAT vocabulary. In my past life, after my college dreams were destroyed, I threw all these books away. If I had known I’d get a second chance, I would have studied them religiously every single day. She stormed into my room and violently swept everything off my desk, scattering my books across the floor. “Avery! What the hell did you say to Hunter?! Why did he come to me threatening to make my life a living hell?!” My parents rushed into the room right behind her. My mother looked at me, her eyes full of disappointment. “Avery, how could you team up with outsiders to bully your own cousin?” When I suffered, it was just my cousin playing a joke. When she suffers, it’s me teaming up with outsiders to bully her. I looked at the mess on the floor, my heart completely at peace. I had long since accepted the fact that I would never be the favorite. I calmly told them the truth. I just received a tip-off and flipped the script when I was being mocked. “It was just a harmless joke. Did you really need to be so cruel to your own family?” my dad said. A joke. Do I look like I’m laughing? I feigned perfect innocence. “What does this have to do with Savannah? I only told Hunter that I was grateful someone gave me a heads-up so we were even. I didn’t say anything else! “Were your friends just playing a joke on you, Savannah, but you misunderstood?” They were left speechless. Savannah stamped her foot in frustration and stormed out. Before my parents left the room, I asked if they could install a lock on my door. They refused. My room used to have a lock, but they took it off years ago. In this house, I wasn’t even allowed to close my bedroom door all the way. They could barge in whenever they wanted, without knocking, treating my personal space like a public hallway. That was also why I never kept a diary. Rather than treating me like their child, it felt more like I was their property. I didn’t need to have my own thoughts or opinions; I just needed to obey. That was why, when I expressed my desire to go to an out-of-state university in my past life, my mother was willing to destroy my future just to keep me chained to her side. I won’t let them have their way this time. 5 In my past life, I had always suspected Savannah was behind the bullying I endured. Even though I was the innocent victim, those girls treated me like a thorn in their side, targeting me relentlessly. My desk would constantly be covered in ink, chalk dust, and sticky, dried soda. If I handed in an assignment, it would invariably be returned to me defaced with vile, disgusting insults. Or… just like what was happening right now. Written in bold letters across the classroom whiteboard were phrases like: “Avery is a slut,” “Shameless whore,” and “Cheap trash.” When I walked into the classroom, some students looked worried, while others wore expressions of eager anticipation, waiting for the drama. But to everyone’s surprise, I didn’t furiously demand to know who did it, nor did I panic and try to erase the words. I simply walked to my seat, sat down, and calmly opened my textbook to read. As the digital clock above the whiteboard ticked closer to the start of homeroom, some students started shifting uneasily in their seats. They exchanged nervous glances. Finally, one guy stood up and grabbed the eraser. I smiled. “Tyler, you’re not on whiteboard duty today. Why are you erasing that?” He looked flustered. “Leaving these words up here… it’s not good, right?” I kept smiling, but my voice dropped several degrees, loud enough for the entire room to hear. “There’s nothing wrong with it. Leave it up. Or… did you write it?” He hastily denied it. “If you didn’t write it, why are you erasing it? Nobody touches that board! Whoever erases it, I’ll assume is the culprit.” He was stunned into silence and awkwardly shuffled back to his seat. The unspoken rule of high school bullying is that these petty, malicious acts must be done secretly. You can’t let a teacher catch you red-handed. Even if they do catch you, you have to be able to play it off as “just messing around.” But this was clearly crossing a massive line. The homeroom teacher could walk in at any second. Maybe this minute, maybe the next. Finally, someone couldn’t sit still anymore. She marched to the front and wiped the board completely clean. It was Tyler’s crush, Blair. She looked incredibly plain—average looks, average grades, average family background. Savannah looked down on her, but Blair was more than happy to act as Savannah’s loyal lapdog, doing her dirty work. Too bad for her, they wouldn’t even be speaking to each other by the time graduation rolled around. I walked straight up to her. “Blair, did you do this?” Her eyes darted away, but she forced herself to act tough. “So what if I did? You messed with Hunter. Do you really have zero self-awareness?” She was trying to use Hunter’s reputation to scare me into backing down. I smiled, grabbed her by the collar, and dragged her forcefully down the hall, kicking the door to Hunter’s classroom wide open. Savannah was in there too. Naturally, Hunter hadn’t arrived for homeroom yet, but that didn’t matter. Even though the room fell dead silent the moment I kicked the door open, I still slammed my hand onto the teacher’s podium. “Hey, Class 4! Your boy Hunter lost a bet and is too much of a coward to own it, so he sends girls to do his dirty work. Do me a favor and pass a message to him. “If you can’t handle losing, don’t play the game. Pathetic loser.” 6 I went viral. Literally. It got so bad the homeroom teacher hauled me into his office. Both of our parents were called in. Tyler’s mother was a very plain-looking woman, likely a stay-at-home mom, and she looked incredibly nervous. My parents couldn’t make it right away; they said they’d be there later. In front of the teacher and his mother, Tyler’s story did a complete 180. “I was just playing a joke with a classmate. You’re completely overreacting,” he mumbled, looking down like he was the one being victimized. His mother nodded vigorously. “Yes, Mr. Davis. Our boy is usually so well-behaved. This must be a huge misunderstanding.” The teacher looked at me. “Students should be kind to one another. We can’t have this kind of intense hostility. How about you both apologize, write a reflection essay, read it at the assembly next week, and we just put this behind us?” Everyone loves “jokes,” huh? Why is your sense of humor so twisted? I let out a cold, sarcastic chuckle. “Sure. Tyler, why don’t you repeat the exact ‘joke’ you wrote on the board to your mom right now? If you do, I’ll let it go.” He snapped his head up, glaring at me with venomous eyes. My voice was dead calm. “There are some jokes that, if you wouldn’t say them to your own mother, you shouldn’t say them to another girl. Since you think it was just a joke, who’s going to say it now? You, or me?” He stammered, unable to form a single word. He wouldn’t say it, so I did. I repeated the vile words written on the whiteboard, syllable by syllable. His mother finally realized what her “well-behaved” angel had been up to. She was shaking with rage. Right then, I gave him an out. “I know this wasn’t originally your idea. Did someone else tell you to do it? Who was it? Tell me, and I won’t hold you responsible.” Just as he hesitated, about to spit out the name, a knock came at the door. “Reporting.” Hunter called out and walked in without waiting for the teacher to say ‘come in.’ I don’t know how long he’d been listening, but he spoke immediately. “Don’t bother. I know who it is.” He walked up to Tyler, looking down at him. “Savannah, right?” He looked at me, rolling his eyes. “I, Hunter, am not a sore loser. I’ve already told everyone: from now on, absolutely no one is allowed to give you a hard time.” Hunter was arrogant and proud. Dragging him into this mess had actually paid off. At this point, I didn’t care about their petty high school drama, but… Flies aren’t deadly, but they are incredibly disgusting. They knew how to use others’ influence to bully me, and now I knew how to do the same. Sharpening the axe won’t delay the woodcutting. From now on, I wouldn’t have to waste my study time dealing with this garbage. Just as I was thinking this, a man burst into the office and slapped me hard across the face. “You ungrateful wretch! Teaming up with outsiders to spread vicious rumors about your own cousin! How did I raise a daughter like you? Apologize to her right now!” My mother didn’t stop him. She just told the teacher that I was completely out of line and that they would teach me a strict lesson. It seems the news of what Savannah did had been broadcasted by Hunter. My nose burned. A trail of blood ran down my lip, and the metallic taste of copper filled my throat. I sneered internally, feeling a wave of deep sorrow: I really wanted to know, how the hell did I end up as your daughter?

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I accepted a system quest to redeem the tragic second male lead of a romance novel. Over a few years, he gradually healed from his past trauma. Everyone said he loved me, treated me even better than he ever treated the original female lead. Until he discovered the female lead’s childhood diary. It was filled with entries about her secret crush on him… The feelings he had deliberately suppressed reignited like a dying ember catching the wind. He started revolving his life around her again. Everyone thought I would have a breakdown, including the system. But I just calmly waited for the quest to end. When the system asked if I wanted to stay, I firmly shook my head. “Suffering for the female lead is the second male lead’s destiny. He doesn’t deserve my redemption.” 01 On the weekend, after visiting Arthur’s parents, we were driving home from their estate when his phone suddenly started ringing with a ringtone I had never heard before. The ringtone was a bit staticky. It sounded like a poorly played violin mixed with electronic interference, like someone had recorded it on a cheap phone. I frowned, and before I could even speak, I saw Arthur visibly freeze. A few seconds later, he almost frantically pulled the car over to the side of the road. He didn’t even wait for the car to come to a complete stop before hastily answering the phone. The soundproofing in the car was excellent, making the interior exceptionally quiet. Even though Arthur tried his best to lean away, I could still clearly hear the soft female voice on the other end. It was Chloe. I knew it. Only she could make the usually composed Arthur Sterling lose his cool in a second. Sure enough, after hanging up, Arthur immediately looked at me with an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry, Elena. I can’t take you home.” “Why?” I asked, knowing full well what the answer would be. “Chloe… she just landed at the airport. She can’t get an Uber, and it’s too late. It’s really dangerous for a girl out there alone.” I lowered my eyes and gave a soft “oh.” “Can’t you just take me with you? It’s not like there’s only one seat in the car.” Arthur’s expression grew incredibly awkward. “Chloe… she… she…” He stammered, unable to form a complete sentence. But I knew exactly what he meant. He just wanted to say that Chloe didn’t like me and definitely didn’t want to see me. He didn’t want to make things unpleasant for her. Since the atmosphere had already reached this point, saying anything more would be useless. I grabbed my purse, opened the car door, and stepped out. Arthur threw out two more “I’m sorry”s. Then he slammed on the gas and sped past me. 02 Wearing high heels and clutching my coat tight against the biting wind, I walked step-by-step along the mountain road. After Arthur’s parents retired, they didn’t want to stay in the city, so they moved back to their old estate in the suburbs. This meant that every time Arthur and I visited them, it was at least an hour’s drive. Arthur was clearly too excited. His mind was completely consumed by the fact that Chloe was back, and he couldn’t let her freeze at the airport alone. But he forgot how far this mountain road was. I couldn’t even hail an Uber out here. How was I supposed to walk back? [He even forgot to drop you off at an intersection where you could easily get a ride.] The system chimed in, twisting the knife. “…” I sighed helplessly. “Can you stop constantly reading my mind?” [Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t help myself.] The system sheepishly retreated. The mountain road was incredibly difficult to navigate at night. Once I finally made it to the main road, I immediately found the nearest hotel. I couldn’t walk another step. That night, I lay alone on a soft, king-sized bed. Even though I was exhausted, I wasn’t sleepy at all. This was already my third year transmigrated into this world. Before I arrived, the story belonging to the female lead, Chloe, had already ended. Like every happy ending, she lived happily ever after with the male lead. Leaving behind only the second male lead, Arthur, to drown his sorrows in alcohol every day, silently pining for her. And my appearance was meant to fulfill the dreams of countless readers: to heal Arthur. To be fair, I gave it my all during these three years. Arthur’s attitude towards me slowly shifted from initial resistance to a deep affection. I once believed I had successfully unlocked his heart. But then that diary surfaced… Arthur finally, belatedly realized that the young Chloe had once liked him too. He had just been too dense back then, giving the male lead the perfect opportunity to swoop in. See? That’s the magnetic pull the female lead has on the second male lead. No matter how much I did. As long as the female lead gave him a sliver of hope, he would reignite like a dying ember catching the wind. 03 I barely slept at the hotel. Until I checked out the next morning, my phone didn’t receive a single new message. It was obvious Arthur hadn’t gone home last night. Otherwise, he definitely would have asked where I was. It was the weekend. I didn’t have to go to work, so I just waited at home. But by evening, Arthur still hadn’t returned. My long-silent phone finally received a new message. [Having dinner with some college friends. I won’t be home for dinner.] I stayed silent for a moment, then replied: [Okay.] I wasn’t hungry to begin with, and now I had even less of an appetite. I just sat on the edge of the sofa, quietly lost in thought. Suddenly, my phone started vibrating frantically. I answered it, and a cacophony of noise instantly blasted through the speaker. It was Mia, Arthur’s college friend. She and I were actually pretty close. Right now, she was keeping her voice low, asking me nervously, “Elena, what’s going on with you and Arthur?” “What do you mean?” “We’re having a college reunion. He said he could bring a plus-one, but he showed up with some strange woman.” I froze for a second, then immediately realized who this woman was—nine times out of ten, it was Chloe. “Why didn’t he bring you? Is he cheating?” Mia was always blunt. But having been bound to the system for years, I was already used to defending Arthur. “Don’t misunderstand. I was busy today. Besides, that’s his sister.” “What ‘sister’? The way they’re making eyes at each other, she looks like a little homewrecker.” “…” Mia was furious on my behalf. Afraid she would make a scene, I could only make up a few more excuses for Arthur. She hung up, still half-doubting me. But not long after, she sent me a few photos. [Look at the way they’re staring at each other. You can practically cut the tension with a knife! Something’s wrong, very wrong! [Look, Arthur is even taking drinks for that little homewrecker! [Elena, I’ll block the door for you. Get over here, now!] 04 Half an hour later, following the location Mia sent, I arrived at the restaurant where they were having dinner. Except… I was there to bring Arthur his medicine. Since a few years ago, when Chloe and the male lead left to travel the world, Arthur had developed a habit of heavy drinking. Like every deeply devoted second male lead in a novel, he had neglected his health, completely ruining his body. His stomach was practically destroyed. Every time his stomach issues flared up, he would be in agonizing pain. So, I hadn’t let him drink for a long time. But now… I guess what was meant to happen, happened. I sat outside the private dining room and texted Arthur to come out and get his medicine. But time ticked by, minute by minute. My legs were getting stiff from sitting, and he still hadn’t replied. The sounds of laughter and cheering kept drifting through the door. Exhausted, I had no choice but to stand up and slowly push the door open. Mia saw me first, her face lighting up with excitement. I guiltily avoided her gaze, walked over to Arthur, and pressed the pill bottle into his hand. “I texted you, but you didn’t reply. I had to bring it in myself.” Arthur looked panicked, his eyes constantly darting toward Chloe, who was sitting next to him. Chloe, on the other hand, sat calmly. She didn’t greet me, just focused entirely on swirling the glass in her hand. The atmosphere in the room suddenly turned incredibly awkward. I quickly waved my hands at them. “It’s fine, I was just dropping something off. You guys keep having fun.” Then I pushed the door open and walked back out. 05 By the time I got into a taxi, my phone was blowing up with messages. Mia was furious with me for not standing my ground. [Elena, what are you doing?! [When people throw mud at you, do you just lie down and take it?] I closed my phone, feeling a bit helpless. What was I supposed to do? This mission was destined to fail. Right now, the best choice for me was to maintain my persona as the understanding, considerate partner. I needed to rack up as many “persona points” as possible so the penalty wouldn’t be too harsh when the mission ended. Besides, the good news was that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. According to the original mission timeline, I only had to endure this for another six months. 06 Just as the taxi was approaching my apartment complex, Mia started bombarding me with messages again. [Holy shit, is this woman married?! [Some guy just kicked open our private room door and dragged her out. [Arthur thought she was in danger and chased after them, but they ended up making out passionately outside. [Elena, you knew already, didn’t you? [This circle is so messed up.] Holding my phone, I almost instantly understood Chloe’s goal. She had lost interest in Arthur a long time ago; she was just using him to make the male lead jealous. Looking at it this way, was Arthur, the ultimate tool, really any better off than I was? … That night, it was incredibly late by the time Arthur got home. As soon as he pushed the door open, he collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud. He was covered in cold sweat, his shirt soaked through. His face was a sickly pale, his lips completely devoid of color. It was obvious his old stomach issue was acting up again. “Did you take the medicine I gave you?” I asked. Arthur’s eyes flickered. I immediately knew the answer. He definitely hadn’t taken it. Of course, how could he bring himself to take the medicine I brought while he was in front of Chloe? I sighed, helped him up, poured a glass of water, and handed it to him along with his medication. This time, he didn’t refuse. He obediently took the pills and leaned against the sofa, waiting for the pain to subside. After a long while, seeming to feel a bit better, he opened his eyes and said “I’m sorry” to me. “I brought Chloe to the college reunion today purely because she happened to be right next to me. “She told me she hasn’t had a proper meal in a long time. That delinquent she’s with doesn’t even have a real job. I really don’t know how he takes care of her…” “Wait,” I gently interrupted him. “What does that have to do with you? Love makes you blind to hardship. Besides, both of you have your own families now.” Arthur froze. After what felt like an eternity, he turned his face away and muttered, “That’s true.” “It’s best if you can see that. Actually, Chloe isn’t as perfect as you think she is. Your memory has idealized her. I don’t believe you couldn’t tell that she was just using you today…” Before I could finish, Arthur snapped his head back toward me. I had never seen his eyes look so cold. “Elena, you don’t understand Chloe at all. What gives you the right to slander her to my face?” 07 After saying that, Arthur didn’t even care about my shock. He grabbed his coat, furiously pushed the door open, and stomped into the living room. The bedroom returned to silence. I stayed quiet for a long time, then gave a self-deprecating shake of my head and lay back down on the bed. Not long after, the system randomly piped up: [Host, are you feeling pretty disappointed?] “Didn’t I tell you to stop reading my mind?” The system chuckled awkwardly: [I was just curious.] I ignored it, but after a while, it couldn’t hold back and asked me again. “Host, I can feel your sadness. Do you have feelings for the second male lead?” My eyelashes fluttered. Developing feelings for the target is a massive taboo when trying to complete a mission. I didn’t need a reminder; I knew this very well. But… Arthur was, after all, my first mission target. I had spent three years with him, day in and day out. I’m human, not a robot. How could I not feel something? Seeing my silence, the system let out another awkward chuckle. [It’s totally normal for you to like him. From what I know, almost everyone develops feelings for their first mission target. [And half of those people choose to stay forever.] I gave a faint “oh,” and then heard the system ask: [Host, do you want to stay?] I remained silent. Honestly, during those three years of living with Arthur, the thought crossed my mind more than once: “Maybe he’s forgotten the female lead and fallen for me,” “Maybe staying like this wouldn’t be so bad…” But looking at it now, I was being incredibly naive. My relationship with Arthur was like a seemingly solid block of ice. As soon as the sun came out, it was destined to melt into a muddy, messy puddle. 08 Early the next morning, Arthur rushed out of the house. I thought he was going to work, but near noon, his secretary suddenly called me. She said there was an urgent document that needed to be signed at the company, but she couldn’t reach Arthur no matter what she tried. “Is Mr. Sterling coming to the office today?” I froze for a second, then snapped out of it, smoothly covering for him. “He’s tied up today. You can just sign it. If there are any issues, I’ll take the blame.” The secretary agreed repeatedly and hung up. For some reason, I had a gut feeling. Arthur definitely went to find Chloe… Sure enough, toward evening, I received a video. It was from Mia, downloaded from some gossip account. She asked: [Elena, isn’t that the little homewrecker? Why is she out buying a house with Arthur? [And the guy standing in the corner… isn’t that the guy she was making out with last time? [Is Arthur seriously being a cuckold for these two?] I clicked on the video. It was definitely them. The gossip account’s caption for the video was: [The city’s most anticipated luxury condo development just opened, and it sold out in less than a day! There are just too many rich people!] …My feelings were incredibly complicated. About six months ago, someone jumped off a building in the complex where Arthur and I lived. The surrounding neighbors gradually moved out. I felt it was getting too quiet and had mentioned it to Arthur. And what did he say? He said the company was too busy lately, and we’d look for a new place when he had some downtime. And so we waited, and waited, right up until now. Why, when it came to Chloe, was he suddenly not busy anymore? 09 That night, when Arthur returned, he was radiating a sweet, cloying perfume scent. He awkwardly took off his clothes, trying to cover it up. “Ugh, all these business dinners are so exhausting.” Before I could speak, the system laughed. [Are you going to expose him, Host?] I shook my head. The scale in his heart had already completely tipped toward Chloe. What was the point of me exposing him? So, I took a deep breath, composed myself, and as usual, helped him put his clothes in the hamper. Arthur shot me a guilty look, then used taking a shower as an excuse to slip into the bathroom. The moment the door closed, I suddenly remembered something. I had left my tablet in there after watching the video this afternoon! “Arthur!” I ran over and knocked on the door, but there was no sound from inside for a long time. Just as I was about to knock again, I grabbed at thin air. Arthur pulled the door open and stood there, lips pressed tightly together, holding my tablet in his hand. And the tablet’s screen was paused right on that video. [Hehe, the crematorium arc begins.] The system cheered. I sighed in exasperation. But Arthur thought I was venting my dissatisfaction at him, and his brow furrowed involuntarily. “Elena, don’t overthink this. There’s a reason I bought a house for her.” “I know.” I nodded, playing along perfectly. “You and Chloe are childhood friends. You were too dense when you were young and accidentally hurt her, so now you want to do everything in your power to make it up to her.” Arthur choked on his words. “Elena, you…” “It’s true, don’t say anything else. I understand completely.” “…That’s good, then.” Arthur finished speaking and went back into the bathroom. Leaving me standing there, completely expressionless. [Host, you seem really upset.] The system said softly. I ignored it, acting like I hadn’t heard a thing.

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I was known as the “airhead eye candy” of the entertainment industry. Because I admitted in an interview that I had never taken the SATs, netizens had been mocking me for years. In contrast, the “genius straight-A student” actress, Chloe, had a much better public image, and her fans constantly used me as a stepping stone to praise her. Until one day, a renowned physics professor at MIT posted on Facebook: [The two best students both went into acting! Not a single one is doing experiments! Angry.] That night, it trended. In an interview the next day, Chloe complained playfully: “Professor, I need my dignity too! My acting won’t delay my experiments!” I pondered this bitterly. I was in the physics department at MIT, and I didn’t think I had ever seen her there. 01 After finishing a day’s shoot, I happily sat in the chauffeured van heading back to the hotel, scrolling through my feed. The very first post was from Professor Davis. [The two best students both went into acting! Not a single one is doing experiments! Angry.] Feeling a bit guilty, I rubbed my nose and replied with an emoji of a little penguin falling over. A moment later, Caleb also saw the post. He replied to me with the exact same penguin emoji. I rolled my eyes in annoyance. Caleb and I were both admitted to MIT through the National Physics Olympiad. From the state training camp, we had noticed each other, constantly competing neck-and-neck until the very end. Since we won gold medals in our junior year and secured early admission, we had nothing to do, so Caleb and I participated in quite a few physics events together. Entering MIT, we were under the same professor, so we were decent friends. Later, he discovered a passion for music, and I discovered a passion for acting. We both used our summer breaks to pursue these side hustles. However, our status in the entertainment industry was worlds apart. He was a genius, chart-topping pop star, while I was an infamous, poorly-educated actress known for scandals. Half a year ago, I don’t know what got into him, but he suddenly insisted on breaking into acting, and insisted on co-starring with me. “I don’t care, you’re my junior, you have to guide me!” Caleb argued unreasonably. “I’m your senior!” I was exasperated. Back in the Physics Olympiad, I was clearly the national champion! “Also, with my scandalous reputation and terrible public image, acting with me will get you dragged!” Caleb frowned: “Why didn’t you ever clarify the thing about you not taking the SATs?” I shrugged: “The agency won’t let me. They insisted I’m suited for the ‘beautiful airhead with a scandalous reputation’ route.” “But luckily, my contract is almost up, and I don’t plan on renewing. I feel like the entertainment industry just isn’t for me,” I whispered. “Besides, if I keep delaying my thesis, old Davis is going to lose his mind!!” 02 Early the next morning, still half-asleep in the van on my way to an interview, my young assistant suddenly turned around anxiously: “Aria, look at the trending topics!! We’re doomed, we’re doomed, boo-hoo-hoo!” Filled with question marks, I opened Twitter and found Chloe’s name glaringly occupying the top spots. #MITPhysicsDepartmentChloe #GeniusStraightAGirlFromOlympiad #ChloeRevealsAnotherHiddenIdentity #MITProfessor:TheBestStudentsWentIntoActing[Crying] #ChloeIsAwesome After reading through the gossip, I finally understood what was going on. Last night, someone anonymously took a screenshot of Professor Davis’s Facebook post and uploaded it online. [The two best students both went into acting! Not a single one is doing experiments! Angry.] The person who took the screenshot probably didn’t have me as a friend, so underneath, they could only see Caleb’s comment with the falling penguin emoji. Professor Davis’s humorous tone created a stark contrast with his status as an MIT physics professor. Combined with Caleb’s massive fanbase, it went semi-viral last night and hit the trending topics. Many gossip accounts even made compilation videos. [The sharp-tongued pop star facing others: Roasting heaven, earth, and the air itself.] [The sharp-tongued pop star facing his teacher: Falling penguin emoji.] The comments section was filled with amusement. But many people were also confused. Because in the entertainment industry, the public only knew Caleb as an MIT physics student. But Professor Davis said “two best students,” so who was the other actor? A little while later, perhaps by coincidence, Chloe posted a tweet. “Although Caleb and I are working hard at acting, it always feels like we’re neglecting our true calling and getting caught by the teacher…” The accompanying photo was a pouty selfie of her on set, with a corner of a physics journal visible on the table. The whole internet instantly boiled over. [So it’s Chloe!!] [Oh my god, is this a public admission?!] [My Chloe is so amazing!] [I knew my Chloe was awesome, but I didn’t know she was THIS awesome!] [How can there be a girl who is both beautiful and a STEM genius? Boo-hoo, I’m bowing down to Chloe!] Me: ? First of all, when did I get a new junior? My assistant in the front seat was still wailing: “Boo-hoo-hoo Aria, she’s definitely going to use you as a stepping stone in today’s interview again! Why are our rivals so strong, boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” Chloe was a famous straight-A student in the industry. Because our acting styles were similar, we were always being compared academically. Although my acting and looks were slightly superior, in terms of academics, my fans were incredibly frustrated. Because I had admitted myself that I “didn’t take the SATs,” making me a famous airhead and an uneducated celebrity. “Aria is stupid, but truly beautiful” was the netizens’ evaluation of me. I could only shake my head and sigh deeply. I had been praised as a physics prodigy since childhood. Except for the state training camp where I basically tied with Caleb, I had always been number one. Compared to my brain, my looks were barely worth mentioning. Being evaluated as “stupid but beautiful” was definitely a first. 03 When I arrived at the interview, as someone hired merely to be a foil for Chloe, I naturally wasn’t considered important and was seated in a corner. After the live broadcast started, the host predictably brought up last night’s trending topic first. “Chloe, what do you think about Professor Davis’s Facebook post last night?” the beautiful host asked with a smile. Chloe puffed her cheeks, a look of bashful annoyance on her face. “How did that get so popular? I need my dignity too! “I’ll balance my time between acting and research. They won’t interfere with each other!” The live chat exploded instantly, scrolling by rapidly. [Boo-hoo-hoo, I knew it! Our Chloe is literally the protagonist of a novel, oh my god!] [I knew she was an NPC!] [So the pampered junior of the MIT physics department is Chloe!] Me: ? First, I am the senior. Second, I am the senior. Lastly, although the gender ratio in the physics department is skewed, just looking at Professor Davis’s students, besides me, there are two other girls. It’s not exaggerated to the point where there’s only one girl in the whole department, adored by everyone, right? What kind of ridiculous, pampered-wife trope is this? But some people in the chat noticed my expression was off. [What’s with Aria’s expression? Jealous of our Chloe?] [I think it’s normal. A person who didn’t even take the SATs, seeing Chloe being so amazing, is just green with envy!] [Why did this show even invite Aria? To be Chloe’s foil? I feel like she might be a bit embarrassed.] [So gross, can’t stand seeing others succeed. Her jealousy is too obvious.] [Why doesn’t Aria go be jealous of Caleb? She just can’t stand women being better than her, such a pick-me!] If I could post memes right now, I really wanted to post that one of the speechless foreign kid. Crazy, everyone’s gone crazy. [I heard a goddess from the MIT physics department got in by winning first place in the National Physics Olympiad! Could it be Chloe?!] [First in the nation!! Oh my god, Chloe, you are my god!!] [Chloe, how many more surprises do you have that I don’t know about!] The sharp-eyed host caught this comment: “Chloe, I saw someone in the chat saying you were first in the Physics Olympiad?! Is that true?!” Chloe smiled shyly, her eyes full of indifference: “Past honors aren’t that important to me anymore. Next, I’m going to focus on honing my acting skills.” [Chloe is awesome!] [The light skiff has passed ten thousand mountains!!] At this moment, for some unknown reason, other comments started popping up amidst the overwhelming praise for Chloe. [Does anyone else think Chloe and Caleb are a perfect match? I heard Caleb was second in the Olympiad that year!] [Soft, innocent genius girl x rebellious, sharp-tongued pop star, I’m shipping them so hard!!] [Boo-hoo-hoo, I’m raising the flag for the C-C ship!! C-C is real!] [Could it be Caleb had a crush on our Chloe, and purposefully dropped points so she could be first, boo-hoo-hoo!] [Oh my god! Loving you so much he lets you shine brighter, what kind of novel plot is this!] Chloe also saw this comment. She thought for a moment and said: “It does seem like Caleb has always been a bit better than me… I don’t know why in the end…” She didn’t finish her sentence. The chat went crazy; the shippers were losing their minds. [Caleb, you massive simp!] [Caleb: If wifey is happy, I’m happy!] [You two need to get married immediately, I’ve already thought of the baby names!] [Yes, yes, yes, Chloe just stand there, I’ll bring the courthouse to you!] At the same time, trending topics related to this interview also climbed up. #ChloeFirstInOlympiad #C-CShip #SimpCaleb #CalebDroppingPoints 04 Meanwhile, looking at these disgraceful things, I was utterly exasperated. This world is a giant, absurd romance novel. Everyone is acting crazy. I don’t know if Chloe even participated in the Olympiad. But I earned my first place with my own blood, sweat, and tears. My hard-won achievements were erased by Chloe in a few sentences, turning them into something Caleb “gave” to me. I ground my teeth in anger. Soon enough, the host finally remembered there was someone else sitting nearby and wanted to utilize my role as the foil. So she asked: “Aria, what do you think about people comparing you to Chloe?” I was already furious, and this host was digging a hole for me. So annoying. If you mess with me, you’re asking for trouble. Thinking about the agency’s astronomical breach-of-contract fee, I forced a fake smile: “She’s amazing, I can’t compare to her.” But I wouldn’t make it too troublesome. You picked the wrong soft target. It’s fine. She was talking about herself anyway, not me, right? If others get mad, I won’t. Getting mad only hurts myself, and no one will suffer for me. [Wait, who is this chick shading?] [Ugh, stupid and mean pick-me girl, please get lost!] [Don’t be too harsh on Aria. What, does she have to bow down to show sincerity?] [The host had malicious intentions. What’s wrong with Aria answering like that? I feel like being used as a foil would be very upsetting for her!] Seeing someone finally speaking up for me, I almost cried tears of gratitude. I don’t look for trouble, but I’m also afraid of it. If you bully me, I’ll just swallow my pride and endure it. I can’t afford thirty million dollars in breach of contract. I can still distinguish between a moment’s satisfaction and a lifetime of debt. [Holy crap, look quickly!! Caleb posted a tweet!] [Holy crap! I’m shipping them so hard, boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!] [For you, I’m willing to concede defeat!] [Lost the exam, won the romance!!] I quickly opened Twitter. Caleb had only posted a few words. [Inferior skills, I willingly concede.] And a direct message Caleb sent me. [You’re just going to let her spout nonsense?! I’m crashing that interview program. If you won’t clarify, I will.] My pupils dilated, and I quickly typed: [Wait, wait, wait, don’t come bro, I have to pay a penalty if I break character!!! Bro, I’m begging you!] [Too late, I’m here.] As this message came through, the female host’s voice, trembling with excitement, announced: “Mr. Caleb Vance has crashed our interview!!! Please welcome Mr. Vance!” My face went ashen. When I become homeless later, which bridge should I sleep under? 05 A man wearing a trench coat, taking off his sunglasses, his silver hair striking and vibrant. The live chat experienced a one-second void, then exploded in growth. [Ahhhhh, Caleb, mommy loves you!!] [So handsome, so handsome, boo-hoo-hoo, licking the screen!] [Songwriting, looks, intelligence—he maxed out all his stats! God, I’m never calling you God again! You really treat me like a joke!] [Everyone knows Caleb never does interviews. Is he here for the interview Chloe is on? Right? Right?] [Love makes people dizzy, hahaha!] Caleb naturally sat on the sofa next to me. He gave a slight nod to the host, his hazel eyes sparkling. “May I have a mic?” His clear, lazy voice was like a little hook. Even the host, who had seen it all, couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous. “Of course you can!” Her cheeks flushed slightly. Caleb was simply too unfair! I was incredibly annoyed. This guy really couldn’t stop flirting, regardless of the occasion. As if feeling my gaze, Caleb blinked his fox-like eyes at me innocently and shrugged, as if saying: Is it my fault I’m too charming? I was even more annoyed and secretly rolled my eyes at him. I knew this guy was stubborn as a mule; ten horses couldn’t drag him back once he made up his mind. I had given up resisting. Sure enough, taking the mic, he slowly began: “Everyone knows I never do interviews. “I’m here today because of Ms. Chloe.” The C-C shippers went crazy. [Ahhhhh, it’s official, it’s official!] [Boo-hoo-hoo, this is too sweet!] [Wait, did anyone notice Aria and Caleb making eye contact just now…? I feel like things aren’t that simple!] [Vomit, pick-me girl get lost! You can be anything, but you choose to be the other woman!] [C-C is real! Brainless fan of a certain someone, get out of here, you’re not welcome!] [Hilarious. Caleb is from the MIT physics department. Would he ignore the national champion for that uneducated dropout? Stop joking!] I didn’t care about the chat’s evaluation anymore. My debt-ridden future was a much bigger concern. I sat sorrowfully on the sofa, looking at the smiling Caleb, and couldn’t help but shiver. Before he single-handedly drove the arrangers and sound engineers to tears, he had this exact same expression. I silently lit a candle for Chloe. Caleb slowly said: “How did I get a new junior without knowing about it?” 06 Hearing this, the chat instantly went quiet. Everyone was stunned. I secretly tore open a small bun, making a tiny noise. Everyone on set turned to look at me simultaneously. “You guys continue, you guys continue…” I awkwardly put the small bun back on the table. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and my stomach was aching from hunger. I finally thought everyone’s attention was diverted, but I got caught trying to sneak a bite. I could cry. Caleb looked at my frustrated expression and almost laughed. He fished a row of chocolate out of his pocket and tossed it to me. As I caught his offering, I was almost moved to tears. It was my favorite brand! And such a big row! Good junior, you are forgiven for one second. Happily breaking off a piece to eat, I saw Caleb continue his verbal assault, completely unaffected. “Is spreading rumors fun? Ms. Chloe. You implying to everyone that I gave up first place for you, you’ve got some nerve.” “I’m sorry, the national champion that year was Aria Thorne. Who are you?” Chloe clenched her hands, her face turning green and red with embarrassment. But hearing Caleb’s last sentence, she was so shocked she forgot to move. How could that useless, non-SAT-taking Aria Thorne be the real national champion?! 07 The live chat experienced another brief vacuum, then erupted like a geyser. [Holy crap, did I hear that right?! The national champion is Aria Thorne?! What kind of earth-shattering gossip is this?] [Aria Thorne?!?! How is that possible!] [Just a bystander, just want to ask if Chloe’s face hurts? …] [This Caleb guy is savage. He starts spreading rumors when our Chloe rejects him?!] [I’ve been wanting to say Caleb doesn’t deserve our Chloe…] [Wait, do people actually believe that dropout Aria Thorne took first place?! You guys are too funny!] Caleb didn’t even glance at the large screen, seemingly uncaring about public opinion. He kept his smiling demeanor, continuing to utter shocking words. “On the way here, I specifically looked it up. I was curious where Ms. Chloe got the confidence to spread such rumors. Upon checking, you really are a student of Professor Davis. “Relying on your community college teacher’s connections to get listed under Professor Davis, do you really think you’re a big shot?” The perfect mask on Chloe’s face finally shattered. Her community college teacher was a junior colleague of Professor Davis. She had spent a lot of money to get her name listed under him, just to build a persona and attract fans. She never expected to hit a brick wall. “Senior, did Aria say something to you? She definitely isn’t the national champion. Were you tricked by her…” Chloe’s eyes were slightly red, like a bullied little bunny. Unfortunately, Caleb was entirely unmoved. He smiled and said: “Who is your senior? Get lost.” Then he looked at the large screen: “Regarding whether Aria Thorne is the national champion, let my senior explain it herself.” Caleb’s words mercilessly dragged Chloe’s face through the mud. That “senior” indirectly confirmed a fact everyone was unwilling to believe. I, who had always been considered an uneducated dropout, was the person Caleb willingly called “senior.” [Huh? No? Huh? Aria Thorne? National champion?! Am I crazy or is the world crazy?] [Caleb is awesome. I always thought Chloe was an eyesore, so manipulative!] [Holy crap, so Aria is the real genius…] [Bowing down to the boss. I used to think Aria had nothing going for her besides her looks. Now I realize her looks are her least significant advantage…] [Oh my god, is Aria a ninja? She was just shaded by Chloe, the fake champion, and didn’t say a single word…] [Above commenter, Aria did speak. She said she couldn’t compare to Chloe…] The live chat was in an uproar, while on the surface I was calm, internally I was dumbfounded. I had known Caleb for five years. To get him to call me “senior,” I had tried coaxing and tricking him, but he never said it once. I never expected, never expected, to earn that “senior” so easily today. While I was thinking, Caleb looked at me and whispered: “The penalty fee, I paid it. You, explain.” Hearing those words, I froze instantly. Despite my poker face, internally I was streaming tears. Is this my junior? No, this is my sugar daddy. Fighting the weakness in my legs, I nodded seriously. I looked at Caleb, feeling like I was reading a clickbait headline, like “With One Sentence, He Saved a Fallen Girl’s Rest of Her Life”… I shivered, quickly shaking the bizarre thoughts out of my head, but also realizing an undeniable fact. My breach-of-contract fee was in the eight figures, and Caleb paid it just like that. Tears of jealousy and resentment flowed from the corner of my mouth. 08 Finally calming down, as I took the microphone, all eyes converged on me. I knew why Caleb was here today. He wanted to clear his name, my name, and the reputation of the Physics Olympiad. So I began: “I don’t know how Ms. Chloe got her first place, but my first place was earned by me. “During my junior year, I flew back and forth across the country for exams, countless flights. “The practice papers I did could pile up into a mountain; the pen refills I emptied filled an entire drawer. “I did experiments late into the night countless times, walking home under the dim light of streetlamps.” Speaking of this, I remembered those exhausting but fulfilling days. A good brain is certainly important, but day-after-day perseverance is equally indispensable. Every person sitting in the finals took it as solemnly as a war. Because behind this exam were crossed-out scratch papers, long formulas, late-night desk lamps, and moments woven with tears and smiles. “How could I playfully give away first place after pouring in so much blood, sweat, and tears?” “This is an insult to me, an insult to Caleb, and an insult to thousands of Olympiad students,” I said with resounding force. [Fellow Olympiad student in tears, boo-hoo-hoo!] [Chemistry Olympiad student wants to cry too. Before, I thought Caleb really gave up first place to Chloe on purpose, and I felt a bit sad.] [It feels like a sense of powerlessness when hard work is trampled on. Thank goodness it’s fake.] I ignored the chat’s reaction and continued: “Today, I also want to announce one more thing. “As of today, Aria Thorne is retiring from the entertainment industry.” 09 Twitter had almost never been as lively as today, with plot twists one after another. Bright red “HOT” tags hung next to the top trends on Twitter. #RealVsFakeGenius #AriaThorneNationalChampion #AriaThorneRetires #CalebVanceSlamsChloe Of course, there were some strange things mixed in. For example, the fifth trending topic, “Coconut Tree Ship.” After the interview, I rode in Caleb’s car home. Seeing this bizarre title, I curiously clicked on it. As a result, a familiar gossip account voice was accidentally played out loud by me, echoing in the enclosed car space. “The Coconut Tree Ship is so sweet! Caleb broke his rule and went on an interview show just to help Aria clarify things. He was so worried about her when she got in trouble. They are junior and senior under the same professor…” “Uh…” I was a bit speechless and pulled Caleb over. “These gossip accounts are too good at catching wind and shadows…” “Mhm.” Caleb’s expression was indifferent. As he spoke, he secretly turned off his phone screen. If I had looked closer, I would have noticed the tips of his ears were slightly red. And on the dimmed screen was the message he had sent to his studio: [Buy trending topics for my ship with Aria Thorne.]

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “421712”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

We were stuck on the highway heading home for the holidays, caught in a massive blizzard. My boyfriend said, “When we get married, your family’s dowry car can’t be worth less than fifty thousand dollars. If it’s less than fifty thousand, I’m not driving it.” I asked calmly, “And how much is your family offering for the engagement ring and wedding expenses?” He replied, “In my hometown, it’s tradition to give three thousand. Maybe five thousand at the absolute most.” He told me to be mature and understanding, saying it wasn’t easy for his parents to earn money. I nodded in agreement. “Alright then. We’ll have a courthouse wedding. I won’t ask for a ring or a wedding, and I won’t bring a dowry car.” Furious, he dumped me on the side of the freezing highway, blocked my number, and gave me the silent treatment. After the holidays, he came looking for me. “Have you thought it through? If you apologize, this wedding can still happen.” I laughed out loud and replied, “I’m sorry, Mr. Evans. I’m already married.” 1 The weather this year was brutal. Freezing rain and a massive blizzard grounded all flights and halted the Amtrak trains. I was driving my boyfriend home for the holidays when we got completely stuck on the interstate. The atmosphere in the car was tense. Aaron’s mood was visibly dark. I was just about to crack a joke to lighten the mood when he stared at the bumper of the car in front of us and spoke. “When we get married, your family’s dowry car can’t be worth less than fifty thousand dollars. If it’s less than fifty thousand, I’m not driving it.” I glanced at him in shock. His expression was dead serious. He wasn’t joking. In my mind, Aaron wasn’t the kind of person who would say something like that. He was always polite, modest, and seemed to have a strong moral compass. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have dated him for two years. I maintained my composure and asked, “And how much is your family offering for the engagement ring and wedding expenses?” I sensed a subtle defensiveness instantly wash over him. With a half-smile, he said, “In my hometown, the tradition is three thousand. Maybe five thousand at the absolute most.” I tried to state the facts as calmly as possible. “So, your family is offering five thousand at most, but you expect my family to buy a car worth no less than fifty thousand.” Aaron seemed to know his demand was outrageous, so he tried to justify it. “You need to be more understanding. My parents don’t make money as easily as yours do. You can’t expect me to drain their entire life savings just to get married, can you?!” I nodded directly in agreement. “Alright then. We’ll do a simple courthouse wedding. I won’t ask for a ring or a wedding, and I won’t bring a dowry.” Aaron’s face twisted in an instant. He glared at me furiously. “If you don’t bring a dowry, how are we going to afford the renovations for the house?! Have you even thought about our future?!” The “house” Aaron was referring to was a property he bought before we met. It was legally solely his. His monthly salary was $10,000, and his mortgage was $8,000. That meant not only was I expected to drop over a hundred thousand dollars on a car and renovations for his house, but since his salary barely covered his mortgage, I would be paying for 100% of our living expenses after we got married. Every single step of this marriage was a calculated financial trap. I sat in silence for a moment, studying his face as if I were seeing him for the very first time. Aaron had always seemed so principled, but the moment his core financial interests were involved, his true, greedy nature was exposed. I said, “That house is your pre-marital asset. It has nothing to do with me.” Aaron’s brow furrowed deeply, and he immediately shot back, “How does the house have nothing to do with you? After we get married, you get to live there rent-free! Isn’t that enough?” “Don’t you want to live comfortably? Shouldn’t you contribute money to renovate the place you’re going to live in?!” I didn’t want to start a screaming match while driving, but I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. “Think about it for a second. For this marriage, your family is contributing five thousand dollars maximum. My family is expected to contribute over a hundred thousand. Do you honestly think that’s fair?” Aaron’s face darkened. “Your family has money; my family doesn’t. If contributing a little more means we have a good life after we get married, what’s the big deal?!” “We’ve been together for two years. Do you really have to be this calculating?” I saw right through his hypocrisy. I went completely silent. Only one thought remained in my mind: I cannot marry this man. 2 Our car crept forward about thirty feet in a suffocating, oppressive silence. Tap, tap, tap. Someone knocked on my window. I turned my head, quickly rolled down the window, and was genuinely surprised. “You’re driving home too?!” Liam offered a bitter smile. “Yeah. Who knew the highway would be a parking lot?” He handed a couple of hot canned coffees through the window. I thanked him. Liam looked past me to Aaron and said, “Taking the boyfriend home for the holidays, huh.” He greeted Aaron politely. Aaron kept a stony face, gave a stiff nod, and turned his head away, ignoring him completely. I felt incredibly awkward, but Liam just smiled and didn’t seem to mind. I decided to step out of the car to chat with him properly. Liam was my old neighbor. We had been really close friends up until we graduated high school, but we gradually drifted apart after heading off to different colleges. I pointed to a black Mercedes three cars back. “Is that your car? Taking your girlfriend home for the holidays?” Liam looked surprised. “How did you know?” I smiled but didn’t answer, mostly because the woman sitting in the passenger seat of that Mercedes was glaring daggers at me. Her stare was so intensely hostile that I didn’t want to be oblivious and cause trouble. After chatting for a few minutes, I pretended the cold was getting to me. I stomped my boots and said, “You should head back to your car. Don’t freeze out here.” Liam looked somewhat reluctant. “You go ahead and get back in. I want to get some fresh air for a bit.” I got back into my car and watched through the rearview mirror. Liam stood shivering in the narrow gap between the idling cars, clearly freezing but refusing to go back to his own vehicle. I dug around in the backseat and found an expensive, unopened skincare gift set. I smiled, stepped back out, and walked over to Liam. “I just accepted your coffees, and I happen to have this really nice skincare set. I’d love to give it to your girlfriend. Why don’t you introduce us?” Liam laughed. “We haven’t seen each other in years. Since when did you get so formal?” I followed him to his car. The girl inside was still glaring at me. I leaned down and waved through the window. “Hi, I’m Mia. Thanks so much for the coffee earlier! This is a skincare set a friend gave me. I’d love for you to try it.” Chloe shot me a dirty look and said coldly, “Take it away. I don’t use that brand.” I was stunned and didn’t know how to respond. I looked up and saw Liam’s face flush with embarrassment. He opened his mouth to apologize, but I beat him to it. “No worries. We’re even for the coffee now.” Liam paused, then let out a relaxed, appreciative chuckle. 3 Since she clearly didn’t want it, I wasn’t going to press a hot face against a cold cheek. I carried the gift set back to my car. Aaron glanced at me and sneered, “Back already? Couldn’t give it away?” I thought he was going to comfort me, but instead, he mocked me. “They give you two cheap coffees, and you rush over to hand them a luxury gift set. Why are you so generous with outsiders?” His words ignited my temper. “So what if I gave them a gift? When have I ever been stingy with you?!” Aaron’s eyes flared with anger. “My sister asked you to buy her a single lipstick, and you refused! But with a total stranger, you casually hand over an entire luxury set!” He glared at me with pure venom. “Mia, I see exactly who you are now.” I couldn’t believe it. In his eyes, refusing to buy his sister makeup was a valid reason to attack me. When I first met his sister, she acted incredibly arrogant, acting like I should be groveling for her approval. She specifically added me on social media, never actually talked to me, but every few days she would send me links demanding I buy her things! I darkened my expression and fired back. “Since we started dating, your mom has asked me to buy her clothes. Your parents asked me to buy all their winter groceries. Your dad even told me to buy his expensive liquor and cigars. Why the hell should I have to buy your sister makeup too?!” “I am just your girlfriend! I am not your family’s personal ATM!” 4 Being called out so bluntly made Aaron’s face flush with humiliation. He kept his head down, aggressively typing on his phone with a dark scowl. The atmosphere in the car was suffocatingly tense. We slowly crawled our way to the next rest stop. Suddenly, he yelled, “Pull over!” I pulled the car over to the shoulder and stared at him coldly. Aaron got out, gripped the car door, and said, “Drive yourself back. My family is coming to pick me up.” It took me a second to process. “You’re not coming to my family’s house this year?” Aaron’s face twisted into a mocking sneer. “Why would I?” He looked down at me condescendingly and issued a warning. “You better think long and hard about whether you still want this marriage. You’ve already slept with me. Aside from me, who else is going to want you?!” My eyes widened in absolute shock. I could not believe my ears. “Are you seriously slut-shaming me right now?!” Aaron slammed the car door shut with terrifying force. I never imagined a man with a Ph.D. would be so utterly classless as to slut-shame his own girlfriend. I was so furious I was shaking. I pulled out my phone and fired off a rapid string of texts: [What century are you living in?! You think you can control women by slut-shaming them? You think sleeping with a woman makes her your property? Is your d**k a branding iron? Why don’t you go brand Mother Earth while you’re at it and announce you own the planet?!] [You think you’re so great, but you’re literally just a ten-second disappointment! I’ve spent the last two years paying for everything just to keep a useless, manipulative ten-second toy around! What else are you even good for?] [I am officially dumping you! I’m done!] Before my last barrage of texts even went through, a red exclamation mark popped up. He had blocked me. Heh. 5 Aaron’s hometown was only about twenty miles from the rest stop. My family’s house was over five hundred miles away. He abandoned me alone on the side of a freezing highway and blocked my number. I was so enraged by his slut-shaming that tears streamed down my face uncontrollably, blurring my vision. The thought that I had wasted two years of my life with a man like that made me physically nauseous. I felt so incredibly sorry for myself. Later that evening, his sister sent me a photo. It was Aaron, out to dinner, chatting intimately with another woman. In the photo, he looked polished, gentle, and attentive. The woman was soft and delicate. The way they were looking at each other, the chemistry was undeniable. [Looks like I’m getting a new sister-in-law soon! Hehe.] You see, whether a man loves you or not is painfully obvious. He can completely disregard my safety, not caring for a single second that I was stranded alone on a dangerous, snow-covered highway. And immediately after abandoning me, he could rush off to a romantic date with another woman. Suddenly, a terrifying sequence of massive crashes erupted from the highway behind me. I gasped, my eyes darting to the rearview mirror. A massive multi-car pileup had just occurred. Thank God I had pulled over into the rest stop area. I forced myself to calm down. Compared to dying in a highway pileup, being disgusted by a piece of trash for two years was a minor inconvenience. By 8:00 PM, I finally managed to crawl to the next major rest area. I was mentally exhausted from the hyper-vigilant driving, so I decided to spend the night there. My phone rang. I thought it was Aaron calling to argue, or his sister calling to gloat. But the caller ID showed an unknown number. “Hello? Mia? It’s Liam.” “Could you… possibly give me a ride?” 6 I waited by the main entrance of the rest stop for a long time before I spotted a dark figure slowly trudging through the snow. I ran toward him. As I got closer, I realized he was practically freezing to death! In weather this brutal, a normal person couldn’t stand being outside for ten minutes. How the hell did he walk all the way here from the previous rest stop?! I quickly shoved two hot coffees and a couple of warm steamed buns inside his jacket and asked, “Where’s your car?” His eyes were red-rimmed. “My girlfriend kicked me out.” I grabbed his hand. It was as cold as a block of ice. “Come on. Get in my car.” I blasted the heat to the max and poured the last bit of hot water from my thermos for him. Liam sat there for a long time before he finally caught his breath. Shivering violently, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and started sending voice memos to Chloe. Liam: “Please, stop being angry. Pull over somewhere safe. It’s too dangerous for you to drive alone in this snow. Wait for me, and I’ll drive you back.” I sat quietly, watching him. He was incredibly emotionally stable. Even after being abandoned by his girlfriend in a freezing blizzard, his first instinct was to make sure she was safe. Compared to Aaron, it was like night and day. Chloe never replied. Liam called her dozens of times before she finally answered. He said calmly, “We can talk about all of that later. It’s not safe to drive in this snow. Pull over, and I’ll drive you home.” Chloe’s voice was icy. “I don’t need you. I’m already off the highway, heading to my parents’ house.” “You can just freeze out there.” I didn’t know how much damage the phrase “You can just freeze out there” could do to a person, but I watched Liam hold his phone, staring silently out the window for a long, long time. I caught his reflection in the glass. His eyes looked suspiciously bright. I tried to lighten the mood. “Hey, you’re not the most pathetic one here. My boyfriend dumped me on the highway too.” 7 Liam looked shocked. “In this blizzard?! He actually felt okay leaving you to drive alone?!” I put on a brave face. “Yep. Because I refused to drop fifty thousand dollars on a dowry car, he left me behind.” Liam let out a short, bitter laugh. “What a coincidence. I refused to buy her family two more houses, so she kicked me out.” I was stunned. “Isn’t one house enough to live in? Why two? And the housing market is terrible right now anyway.” Liam’s expression turned grim. “She has a younger brother. She demanded I buy them two houses, and the bigger one had to be a luxury villa. For her brother.” Hearing that, I almost applauded the audacity. “What do they call that? When one person strikes it rich, the whole village expects to be carried to the top?” Liam smiled helplessly. “Did you agree?” I asked. Liam gave me a look that said everything. “What do you think?” Even if he agreed, his family would absolutely never allow it.

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