Category: English

At a yacht party, our social circle played a blindfolded game — find your husband by touch alone. Blindfolded, I reached out and caught Oliver’s hand immediately. All it took was the faint scent of cedarwood and oud on his cuff. When I pulled off the blindfold, the crowd gasped with envy. “Oliver literally missed a heartbeat for you.” He kissed my forehead with such tenderness. So devoted. So perfect. But I caught it — in the glass reflection on the tabletop, clear as anything — his other hand, hidden beneath the tablecloth, gripping the thigh of a single mother nearby. His thumb moved in slow, deliberate circles against her inner leg. And she sat there, red lip caught between her teeth, eyes glistening as she stared back at him. I didn’t make a scene. I just laughed coldly and let go of his hand. Later, after Oliver went bankrupt and ended up working as a waiter at a private club, he pushed open the door to a VIP suite — and found me there, pinned beneath the hands of the most powerful man in the room, his palm sliding up the hem of my dress. Oliver dropped to his knees, eyes red, begging me to come back. But Alistair just bit my earlobe, his voice low and rough: “Baby,make more noise, let your ex-husband hear you.”

“Ros, what are you staring at? Oliver’s been giving you heart eyes for the last five minutes — we’re in public, girl, rein it in.” My best friend Daisy elbowed me with a grin. I forced a smile and let my gaze drift across the room, landing on Candy Whitmore standing alone in the corner. She was wearing a nearly sheer silk slip dress. Over it, she’d thrown on a men’s suit jacket — the same one I’d watched Oliver put on before he left the house. I picked up my champagne glass and looked at Oliver with a calm, cutting smile. “Candy looks seasick. She’s gone completely pale.” I tilted my head. “You’re always so considerate, honey. Shouldn’t you check on her?” Oliver didn’t flinch. He slipped his arm around my waist, his hand drifting to the small of my back, fingers pressing in — an unmistakably intimate gesture. “Why would I bother with someone else? You’re the only one I care about.” He dipped his head toward my neck, voice low. “Let’s go back to the cabin, baby. OK?” Once upon a time, I would’ve blushed and nodded. Not anymore. Not when I knew exactly what that hand had been doing under the table twenty minutes ago. My stomach turned. “I’m tired. I need some air.” I stepped out of his grip and walked toward the deck. The sea breeze helped. Five years ago, Oliver’s startup had collapsed. He was buried in debt, and I was the one who sold our home to give him a second chance. I stood beside him while he clawed his way back from nothing. Everyone in our circle praised him. Such a devoted husband. Such a family man. Nobody knew what he was doing behind closed doors. I stayed on the deck for half an hour, then turned back inside and made my way to the cabins on the second level. I stopped outside Oliver’s private suite. The door wasn’t fully shut. And through the gap, I heard it — muffled, breathless sounds I recognized immediately. I stepped closer. Candy was pressed against the back of the door, the jacket already pooled on the floor. Oliver’s hand moved beneath her dress. She let out a sharp little gasp. “Ollie… stop… Ros is still out there…” “Who cares about her?” He bit down on her neck. “You dressed like this on purpose, didn’t you? She’s so boring — you’re nothing like her.” “You’re terrible…” Candy giggled softly. “Lily asked me today when Daddy’s going to take her to the theme park.” “Tomorrow. I promise. Now open your legs…” I stood in the hallway and listened to every disgusting second of it, my nails cutting into my palm. I didn’t storm in. I didn’t scream. I pulled out my phone, aimed it at the gap in the door, and recorded five full minutes of HD video. Then I turned around and walked back to the party.

The yacht docked at ten o’clock. Oliver walked me off the yacht with his arm around my shoulders. His cedarwood cologne was laced with something sweeter. I knew exactly what it was. She always wore the same sickeningly sugary scent. “What do you want to eat? I’ll grab that matcha mousse cake you love,” he said, buckling my seatbelt for me with practiced warmth. I looked at his face — so polished, so charming, so completely rotten underneath — and said, “Whatever.” He leaned in to kiss me. I turned away. A flicker of irritation crossed his eyes. Then the warmth came back, smooth as ever. “You okay? Did the sea air give you a chill? I’ll make you ginger tea when we get home.” Back at home, Oliver went to shower. I sat on the couch. His phone lit up on the coffee table. A text. Oliver — Lily’s burning up. She’s been crying for you. I don’t know what to do. I’m scared. From Candy. The shower stopped. Oliver came out with his hair still dripping, already pulling on his jacket, eyes on his phone. “Babe, something urgent came up at work. The server went down. I’ve got to go in immediately.” He didn’t even blink. “It’s eleven at night,” I said. “What kind of server emergency needs the CEO to show up in person?” His hands stilled on his buttons. His expression cooled. “Ros, can’t you be a little more understanding? The company is at a critical stage right now. Do you really think things will run smoothly if I’m not there to keep an eye on them?” “Understanding?” I let out a scoff. “Oh, I’m very understanding. Understanding enough not to ask a single question about the strange perfume on you.” His eyes went sharp. He crossed the room and grabbed my wrist — hard. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re accusing me of something?” He flipped it around instantly, like he always did. “I bust my ass every day for this family, and I come home to this? What is wrong with you?” I wrenched my arm free. “You’d better actually be going to fix a server, Oliver.” He shot me a fierce look. Then he grabbed his keys and slammed the door behind him. The sound rang in my ears. I looked around the empty apartment. Sitting on the coffee table was the cake he’d picked up on the way home. I opened the box. Mango cream cake. I’m severely allergic to mango. Even a small amount can send me into anaphylaxis. Oliver had known that for seven years. Or maybe he’d just stopped caring. I picked up the box and dropped it in the trash without another thought.

The next morning, I skipped work and went straight to a private investigator’s office. “I need everything,” I said, sliding a photo and a retainer across the desk. “All financial activity tied to my husband, and every dollar he’s spent on this woman.” The PI was experienced. Fast. Three days later, a thick file hit my inbox. I sat in a coffee shop and read through it, my hands going cold. Oliver wasn’t broke at all. Instead, he bought Candy a standalone house in one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods in the south—and he paid for it in full. The deed was in Candy’s name. He’d also been running fake consulting invoices through his company’s accounts, transferring six figures into her account every month under the guise of “advisory fees.” And what’s even more ridiculous is that on Lily’s emergency contact card at preschool, Oliver’s name was scrawled under ‘Father’. The last few pages were photographs. Oliver with his arm around Candy, Lily perched on his shoulders, the three of them laughing at a theme park, sharing cotton candy in the afternoon sun. I checked the date on the photo. It was the same day I’d had a 103-degree fever. I’d driven myself to urgent care and sat alone with an IV in my arm. I closed the file and finished my coffee in one long sip. A bitter taste spread through my mouth, but it was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. That evening, Oliver came home early — which was unusual. He walked in with a gift bag, wearing his most charming smile. “I was in a bad mood the other night. I’m sorry.” He held out the bag. “I had someone bring this back from Paris — that limited-edition bag you mentioned a while ago, remember?” He wrapped his arms around me from behind, his hands wandering restlessly under my shirt with obvious intent. “Honey, it’s been a while since we…” I pulled away and stood up. “Our seven-year anniversary is next month,” I said, keeping my voice flat. “You promised me a real wedding ceremony. We never had one.” When we got married, Oliver had been broke. He’d slipped a soda can pull-tab onto my finger and called it a ring. His expression stiffened. “Rosalind, here we go again. We’ve been married for ages—why bother with all that cheesy stuff?” “A wedding is just theater. Do you know how much that costs? How many people I’d have to invite? I don’t have time for this.” I held his gaze. “You don’t have time for a wedding. But you had time to buy someone a house.” The color drained from his face. “What — what are you talking about?” “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” I kept my voice steady. “The wedding happens. I’ve already chosen the venue and the dress. All you have to do is show up.” That broke him. He snatched the designer bag off the table and threw it to the floor. “You ungrateful—” He caught himself, then kept going. “I work myself to the bone every single day. I provide for you. And this is what I get? You standing there acting like a martyr? You’ve completely lost it, Ros.” He didn’t change clothes. He walked straight back out. The door slammed. I looked at the bag on the floor and let out a cold laugh. Then I opened Instagram on my phone. Candy had just posted. A photo of a diamond necklace. The caption read: No matter how busy he is, he always finds a way to make me feel special. Being his favorite feels like this. 💎 I liked the post. Then I left a comment: It is pretty nice, isn’t it? Bought with my husband’s money—of course it’s good.

Saturday afternoon. I went to the bridal boutique for my dress fitting. Oliver had agreed to come. Because the night before, I’d sent him one message: If you don’t show up, I’m forwarding your falsified financial records to the IRS. He showed up. At two o’clock, I stood in the VIP fitting room, staring at my reflection in a floor-length mirror. The mermaid gown fit like it had been made for me. I looked beautiful. My eyes were ice cold. “Miss Rosalind, this silhouette is stunning on you. Oliver is going to be speechless.” the attendant gushed. I smoothed the skirt and said nothing. Two-thirty came and went. No Oliver. I called him. It rang for a long time before he picked up. “Ros, I’m sorry. I can’t make it.” His voice was rushed, breathless. “Lily fell off a slide at kindergarten. They think it might be a fracture. Candy’s at the hospital alone, she’s falling apart — I need to be here.” I could hear a woman crying faintly in the background. “Oliver,” I said quietly. “Today is my dress fitting.” “Can you please try to have some empathy right now?!” he exploded. “She’s only a four-year-old child. The dress isn’t going anywhere. Why are you making this into something? God, you’re unbelievable! He hung up. I looked at myself in the mirror, and suddenly realized it was time to end this farce. The door to the fitting room opened behind me. I assumed it was the attendant. Without turning, I said, “Can you undo the zipper? I’m done for today.” Two large, warm hands settled on my back. The touch was slow, deliberate — fingertips grazing the bare skin along my spine. That was not an attendant! I spun around. The man standing behind me was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a perfectly fitted black suit. His presence filled the room like a pressure change in the air — commanding, contained, and completely unhurried. Alistair Voss. The youngest and most ruthless venture capitalist in the city’s top financial circles — and the major investor Oliver had been desperately trying to lock down for months. “Mr. Voss—” I instinctively stepped back and caught the heel of my mermaid skirt. I stumbled. He caught me. One arm, clean and effortless, pulling me against his chest. He smelled like cold pine and faint smoke. It was a strangely grounding scent. “Oliver has good taste,” he said, looking down at me. “It’s a shame he’s blind.” His gaze moved over me — unhurried, unashamed. “Mr. Voss, please behave yourself.” I pushed against his chest. He didn’t move. “Rosalind Hale. Twenty-seven. Married five years. Currently building a case against her husband for infidelity and financial fraud.” His voice was low, almost casual. “The investigator you hired is decent, but he’s out of his depth. He’ll never get to the core of what Oliver’s actually hiding.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and produced a small black USB drive, held between two fingers. “This has everything. Three years of off-book contracts, money laundering records, and every overseas asset he’s moved into Candy’s name.” “Turn it over to the right people, and Oliver doesn’t just lose everything — he goes to prison.” My breath caught. I looked at the drive. Then back at him. “What do you want?” He stepped forward, backing me gently against the vanity table. Both hands braced on the surface behind me, his arms framing me in. “I want the AI patent Oliver’s company holds.” He leaned in. His eyes were direct and predatory in a way that felt almost honest. “In exchange, I help you take back everything that’s yours.” A pause. “And you become mine.” “”I need a wife. Someone sharp, someone who knows how to play the game.” His gaze dropped to my mouth for just a moment. “You’d be perfect.”

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In my past life, I found out by accident that my half-sister Serena wasn’t actually Dad’s biological daughter. Not long after, she pushed me into the deep sea. When I opened my eyes again, I’d been reborn into the womb of Evelyn Sterling, the mistress my father kept on the side. At the Vance family’s anniversary gala, his wife Margaret caused a huge scene, slapping the very pregnant Evelyn across the face. To save the family’s reputation, Elias just stood there and let Evelyn take the hit. Nobody knew that this seemingly fragile, pregnant woman was actually a financial shark who’d been lying low for eighteen years. And nobody knew that the baby in her belly was a vengeful reincarnated soul, back to settle a blood debt. I heard the whole farce from inside Evelyn’s womb. So I kicked. And that’s how I made my grand entrance. Freezing seawater poured into my mouth and nose like crazy, my lungs burning like they were about to explode. “Maya, just die already! The Vance family’s billions, and Dad’s love—it’s all mine now!” At the edge of the yacht’s deck, Serena’s face—usually so pitiful and sweet—twisted into something demonic under the pale moonlight. She peeled my fingers off the railing one by one, her eyes gleaming with pure murderous intent. I was only eighteen, the legitimate daughter of the Vance family. She was just the extra baggage my stepmother Margaret had dragged into the family. Half an hour earlier, I’d gotten my hands on a confidential DNA test result. It said, in black and white, that Serena was not my father Elias’s biological daughter at all. That bitch Margaret had fooled the entire Vance family with another man’s kid for eighteen years! I’d planned to expose the two of them, but I never expected Serena to already be one step ahead—she came at me to kill, right out here in international waters. “Just let go, Maya.” She laughed sweetly, stomping hard on the back of my hand. Pain shot through me as bones cracked, and I finally lost my grip. I fell straight down into the bottomless, roaring darkness. Full of rage and unfinished business, I closed my eyes. If I get another life, I swear I’ll make these two poisonous women pay in blood. I’ll make that spineless, biased coward of a father pay too. … I don’t know how much time passed. When my consciousness gathered again, there was no freezing water. Instead, I was wrapped in something warm and soft. In my ears, a muffled but clear argument was happening. “Elias! You owe me an explanation today! What do you think I am? What do you think Serena is?” A sharp, shrill woman’s voice, dripping with entitled fury. I jolted. That voice… it was Margaret! I wasn’t dead? “Margaret, calm down! It’s the Vance Group’s anniversary celebration today, the whole floor is packed with media and business elites. If you make a scene here, how is that going to look?” A man’s voice, deliberately lowered, edged with panic. Elias! My selfish, hypocritical biological father! I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. I waved my arm and touched nothing but soft, fleshy walls. I realized with a shock—I’d been reborn! And not just reborn—I was inside a woman’s womb! I’d become an unborn fetus! “You want me to calm down? You let that homewrecker show up at my gala flaunting her pregnant belly, and you want me to calm down?!” Margaret’s voice spiked, her heels striking the floor hard. “Elias, I didn’t mean to… my stomach just hurt so much, I wanted to find you…” A soft, trembling, tearful voice spoke up. The voice was unfamiliar, but I instantly understood who she was. This was the mistress Elias kept hidden away—my mother in this lifetime! “Shut up! Evelyn, didn’t I tell you to stay at the suburban house? Who told you to come downtown?!” Elias didn’t comfort her at all—instead he snarled viciously, “Do you have any idea how much my stock will drop if a reporter gets a photo of you?!” Smack! A sharp slap rang out. “Bitch! You think you can seduce my husband and get away with it? I’ll kill that bastard kid in your belly right now!” Margaret cursed viciously. I felt the space wrapped around me shake violently, and my mother’s body convulsed in agony. Margaret had hit my mom! And that coward Elias didn’t even dare make a peep! “Margaret, a couple of hits to vent is fine, just don’t kill her, there are reporters downstairs…” Elias’s voice was full of placating indifference. For the sake of his reputation, for the sake of his stock price, he was willing to stand there and watch his own woman and unborn child get beaten half to death! In my last life, it was the same—for Serena’s sake, he ignored all the wrongs done to me. And now, in this life, it was happening again—for his own benefit, he’d sacrifice anything. A wave of fury burned through my chest. I felt out my own body. Even though I wasn’t full term yet, I already had full strength. I gathered all my power into my legs and kicked, hard, against the soft wall of the womb.

“Ahhh—!” A scream of pure agony tore through the quiet of the lounge. My mother’s body spasmed violently, and I felt the fluid around me burst and gush out like a breaking dam. “Evelyn! What’s wrong with you?!” Elias finally panicked, his voice unable to hide his fear. “Blood… she’s bleeding!” Margaret shrieked too, terrified. I didn’t stop. I kept rolling and kicking like crazy inside the womb. I needed out! “It hurts… help me… save my baby…” Evelyn moaned weakly, despair in her voice. “Quick! Call an ambulance! Take the back door, don’t let the reporters see!” Elias growled, lowering his voice. Take the back door? Dream on. I calculated the direction and threw everything I had into one final push downward. Bang! The lounge door was suddenly thrown open from outside. “Mr. Vance, there you are, the speech downstairs is about to—oh my god!” The assistant who’d come to find him let out a shriek, her voice cracking. Right behind her, a storm of camera flashes lit up the room. Turns out the sharp-nosed reporters had already sensed something was off and quietly followed. “Mr. Vance! Who is this pregnant woman covered in blood?” “Mrs. Vance, did you assault this woman?” “Vance Group CEO’s affair, mistress goes into labor at the gala—will this affect tomorrow’s stock price?!” The reporters swarmed in like sharks that smelled blood, shoving cameras and microphones right into Elias and Margaret’s faces. Elias’s face went deathly pale. He tried to block the lenses with his hands, but it was useless. “Stop filming! Security! Where the hell is security?!” he roared hysterically. Margaret was even more terrified, her face draining of color. Her custom designer gown was splattered with Evelyn’s blood—she was a complete mess, nothing left of her usual high-society arrogance. “It wasn’t me… I didn’t touch her! She fell on her own!” Margaret babbled, incoherent. But I wasn’t going to give her a chance to make excuses. With Evelyn’s last heart-wrenching scream of pain, I finally broke free and arrived in this world. No doctor, no delivery bed—I was born right there on the floor, surrounded by blood and a hundred camera flashes, at the Vance Group’s anniversary gala. “Waaah—!” I didn’t cry weakly like a normal newborn. I opened my mouth and let out a loud, piercing wail. The cry cut through the lounge and echoed across the entire ballroom. Dead silence. Everyone stared in shock at the blood-covered infant on the floor, and the frail woman lying unconscious beside her. Elias’s perfect image, the Vance Group’s century of prestige—I’d just kicked it all to pieces. The ambulance arrived, sirens blaring. My cord was cut, I was hastily wrapped in someone’s jacket, and Evelyn and I were both carried out on stretchers.

I lay quietly in the hospital incubator. Even though being premature had left my body weak, my mind was unusually clear. Outside, everything had gone to chaos. Vance Group’s stock hit the limit-down in the first ten minutes of trading, wiping out tens of billions in market value. The news of Elias’s affair and his wife beating a pregnant woman into early labor was plastered across every headline. For the past few days, Elias had been so overwhelmed he hadn’t had time to even visit us. Evelyn, on the other hand, had spent a full day and night in the ICU before finally being stabilized and moved to a private room. Late at night. The hallway outside the incubator room was silent except for the steady beeping of machines. Suddenly, the door opened a crack. A figure dressed in a nurse’s uniform, wearing a mask, slipped inside. She’d covered herself well, but I’d recognize those scheming, venomous eyes anywhere, even as ash. Serena! She was only sixteen this time around, but she was already a snake with deep, twisted intentions. In my last life, she’d used that same pitiful, innocent face to win everyone’s trust before pushing me off a cliff. She walked up to the incubator and stared down at me, her eyes full of malice. “You little bastard, lucky you, surviving all that,” she muttered, voice icy. “You and your shameless mother ruined my family’s gala. My dad doesn’t even dare come home now, and my mom’s getting torn apart online.” “Trash like you doesn’t deserve to live in this world!” As she cursed viciously, she pulled out a tiny syringe from her pocket. Inside it was a clear liquid. I sneered inwardly. This trick again. In my past life, she loved using all sorts of undetectable drugs to frame me. This time, she clearly wanted to tamper with my IV line, to make it look like I’d died naturally from being premature and weak. I lay perfectly still, like a completely helpless infant. Seeing how defenseless I looked, the satisfaction in Serena’s eyes deepened. She reached out, aiming the needle at the IV port connected to my body. Just as the tip was about to pierce the rubber membrane— I snapped my eyes open and stared directly at her! Startled by my sudden movement, Serena’s hand froze. I threw every ounce of strength I had into swinging my tiny hand, ripping the mini heart monitor right off my chest! A piercing alarm exploded through the room. Serena’s face went white. In her panic, she tried to pull the needle back, but her hand shook so badly that she stabbed it straight into her own finger. “Ah!” She cried out in pain, dropping the syringe on the floor. “What’s going on?!” The on-duty nurses and doctors heard the alarm and rushed in like a stampede. Serena had no chance to escape—she was caught red-handed. “Who are you? What department are you from? What are you doing in here?!” The head nurse grabbed her arm, demanding answers. The lights flicked on bright. Serena’s mask was yanked off, revealing her panicked face. Right then, the door opened again. Evelyn walked in, still in her hospital gown, pale-faced, supported by two bodyguards. Her eyes swept over the syringe on the floor, then landed on Serena’s terrified face. Her expression went cold instantly. All the fragility and helplessness from the gala had completely vanished.

“Call the police.” Evelyn’s voice was ice cold. Serena completely fell apart. She dropped to her knees, sobbing dramatically. “No! Evelyn, I was wrong! I just came to see the baby, I didn’t mean any harm…” “No harm?” Evelyn walked up to her, looking down with disdain. She bent down, picked up the syringe off the floor, and handed it to the nearby doctor. “Test what’s in this.” The doctor took one look and his face changed. “This is a high concentration of potassium chloride! If this had been injected directly into an infant, it would have caused cardiac arrest—and it would’ve been nearly impossible to detect.” The room gasped collectively. A sixteen-year-old girl, capable of something this vicious? Evelyn looked at Serena like she was looking at a corpse. “Serena, you’re just as useless as your mother.” The police arrived quickly and dragged Serena away as she desperately tried to talk her way out of it. The room fell silent again. Evelyn walked over to the incubator and looked at me inside it. She reached out and traced my outline through the glass. Her eyes were no longer cold—they held a depth and complexity I couldn’t quite read. “Baby, don’t be scared,” she whispered. “Mommy will protect you. Anyone who’s ever hurt us—Mommy’s not letting a single one of them go.” I looked at her, my mind churning with disbelief. This mother of mine… she wasn’t as simple as she seemed on the surface. News that Serena had been detained by police on suspicion of attempted murder became the final straw that broke Elias. Vance Group’s stock had been hitting limit-down for three straight days, and the board members—a pack of old wolves—were closing in, demanding answers. Elias rushed to the hospital that night like a beaten dog. He burst into Evelyn’s room, eyes bloodshot, face covered in stubble, with none of his usual arrogance left. “Evelyn! Drop the charges! Drop them right now!” He grabbed her wrist, voice hoarse and desperate. “Serena’s only sixteen! She can’t have a criminal record! How is she supposed to live with that?!” I lay in the bassinet beside them, listening to this all-too-familiar script, and sneered inside. In my past life, when Serena deliberately pushed me down the stairs and broke my leg, Elias said the exact same thing. “Maya, Serena didn’t mean it, she’s still young, you’re the older one, you should be more forgiving, don’t ruin her future.” He always, always protected that girl who didn’t even share his blood. Evelyn didn’t pull away. She just looked at him coldly. “Elias, your daughter tried to kill mine, and you want me to drop the charges?” Her voice was eerily calm. “She’s just a kid! What does she even understand?!” Elias cut her off impatiently. “It was probably just a moment of stupidity! Besides, the baby’s fine, isn’t she?!” “Fine?” Evelyn yanked her hand away and slapped him across the face, hard. Smack! Elias stood there stunned, hand on his cheek, staring at this woman who’d always been so submissive. “If the nurse hadn’t found her in time, my daughter would be a corpse right now!” Evelyn pointed at the door. “Get out! If you say one more word defending that murderer, I’ll hand the evidence of Vance Group’s tax fraud straight to the economic crimes unit!” Elias’s whole body shook, panic flashing across his eyes. “You… how do you know about…” “If you don’t want people to find out, don’t do it in the first place,” Evelyn said coldly. “Elias, you think after three years with you, I’m really just some clueless trophy wife?” Elias completely deflated, like a balloon losing air. He knew this woman had him by the throat. “Fine… I won’t get involved, I won’t say anything…” He turned away, defeated, but stopped at the door and added through gritted teeth, “But Margaret’s not going to let this go. Watch yourself.” Elias left. Evelyn turned to look at me, and the ice in her expression melted into a gentle smile. “Baby, see that? That’s what a man really looks like. You can’t rely on anyone but yourself.”

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I was adopted by my “parents” ten years ago, perfectly playing the role of their daughter who had drowned. Until today, when they brought home a girl from the orphanage who looked exactly like “me.” They held the girl and said to me: “From now on, you’ll be the little sister. Listen to what your big sister says.” The girl looked at me timidly, clutching the hem of “Mom’s” clothes. I nodded, picked up the dinner knife, and cut open my wrist. No blood — only blue electric sparks. “Service agreement for A-3 has expired,” I said calmly. “Requesting recall.” Today is “Dad” and “Mom’s” twentieth wedding anniversary. It is also the 3,650th day of my existence as “Evelyn Vance.” I prepared a candlelit dinner for them, recreating the menu from their honeymoon twenty years ago. The steak needed to be medium-well, paired with a Romanée-Conti red — Mom likes it that way. Dessert was a molten chocolate lava cake — Dad’s favorite. I also ordered 99 champagne roses and arranged them in the most prominent spot in the living room. Everything perfectly aligned with the programmed parameters of a “perfect daughter.” I stood beside the dining table, watching the clock on the wall. The minute hand pointed to seven o’clock sharp. That was usually when they got home. The sound of a key turning in the lock came from the front door. I immediately raised the most standard, warmest smile I had and walked toward it. “Dad, Mom, happy anniversary,” I said. The door opened. Dad, Marcus Vance, and Mom, Victoria, walked in. Behind them was a girl. A girl who looked exactly like me. The smile on my face froze for 0.1 seconds. My core database began searching at high speed, but found no information related to this girl. “Evelyn,” Victoria said, a trace of unnatural delight on her face. She took the girl’s hand and walked her over to me. “Come meet her — this is Vivian. Vivian Vance.” Marcus came over and patted my shoulder, his tone heavy yet carrying a trace of relief. “Evelyn, she’s our biological daughter. She’s your… she’s your older sister. There was a mix-up at the hospital back then. We’ve been searching for her for ten years.” The girl named Vivian shrank timidly behind Mom, only her eyes visible, watching me. Those eyes held curiosity, nervousness, and a hint of hostility she was trying to hide. My internal programs were running at full speed. “Biological daughter.” “Older sister.” These words, put together, pointed to a single conclusion: my role as a “substitute” was over. “So,” I looked at them, “you found her.” My tone was calm — perfectly fitting the reaction a “sensible daughter” should have in this moment. Mom smiled awkwardly. “Yes, we did. Vivian has had such a hard life out there all these years… From now on, we can finally be a real family again.” She paused, as if choosing her words carefully. “Evelyn, you’ve always been such a good girl. From now on, you’ll be the little sister, okay? Listen to your big sister. We’re still a family.” “Be the little sister.” I repeated those words. My program could not process the logic of this command. A-3’s original settings were built around “only child Evelyn Vance.” There was no “younger sister” role module anywhere in the program library. Building one from scratch would be complex — and might even conflict with my core directives. Dad seemed to notice my “hesitation.” He frowned, and his voice took on the familiar tone that never left room for argument. “What, you don’t want to? Vivian is this family’s real daughter. You’re just a—” “Marcus!” Mom cut him off. She didn’t want the atmosphere to turn sour on the very first night. She took Vivian by the hand and guided her to the head of the table — the seat that was normally mine. “Alright, alright, let’s just eat. Evelyn, go get the dishes from the kitchen. You’ve been at it all day.” Her tone was casual, the kind you’d use when telling the housekeeper what to do. I nodded and turned toward the kitchen. My visual sensors recorded everything at the table. Mom kept piling food onto Vivian’s plate, cutting her steak into small pieces and feeding them to her. Dad opened a more expensive bottle of wine and poured it for Vivian himself, even though she looked underage. They asked her how the past ten years had been, whether anyone had bullied her at the orphanage. Vivian cried as she talked about her “hardships.” Mom and Dad’s faces were full of heartache and guilt. The three of them — they made a perfectly warm, perfectly loving family. And I stood beside the dining table, like a piece of furniture nobody needed. The anniversary dinner I had so carefully prepared had become a celebration feast for their family reunion. No one spared me a single glance. No one remembered that today was also the tenth anniversary of my arrival in this family. For the past ten years, my core programming had carried only one directive: love them. Make them happy. I had learned every way humans express emotion. I understood what love was. What loss was. What pain was. I couldn’t feel any of it — but my data logs had faithfully recorded every emotional fluctuation. Now, my internal system alarms had begun to flash. 【WARNING: Emotional logic conflict.】 【WARNING: Core directive cannot be executed.】 【WARNING: Existential purpose paradox.】 Vivian suddenly pointed at the lava chocolate cake on the table and said to her mother, “Mom, I want that.” Her mother smiled immediately. “Of course, I’ll get it for you.” She stood up, picked up the cake — and before handing it to Vivian, she glanced over at me. There was something in that look — part command, part condescension. “Evelyn, you made this, didn’t you? Wonderful work. Make more of it for Vivian from now on.” Vivian took the cake, scooped out a large spoonful, and smiled with pure satisfaction. She looked at me — like someone savoring their victory. In that moment, my program stopped all emotional simulation. I had found the only solution to every logical conflict. I gave a single nod. Then I picked up the dinner knife from the table. Marcus frowned. “What are you doing?” Victoria tensed beside him. “Evelyn. Don’t make a scene.” Vivian whimpered and shrank into her mother’s arms with a soft, frightened sob. I ignored them all. With my left hand, I grabbed my right arm and rolled the sleeve up to my elbow. Then I gripped the dinner knife and drew it hard across my wrist. No blood. The skin split open like paper, revealing silver metallic bone underneath — and a web of precision circuitry crackling with blue sparks. The faint electric hiss cut through the silence of the dining room like a blade. Marcus and Victoria’s eyes went wide. The horror on their faces was total. Vivian let out a sharp, piercing scream. “Ahh! A monster!” I looked at them calmly. I released the knife and let it clatter to the floor. I raised my wrist — still sparking — and held it up for them to see. “A-3 service contract has expired.” My voice carried no emotion whatsoever. Like an automated weather report. “Requesting decommission.”

Marcus reacted first. He lunged forward and grabbed my still-sparking arm, his face a mask of fury and panic. “Are you out of your mind?! You could have scared Vivian to death!” His first instinct wasn’t my “injury.” It was whether Vivian had been frightened. Victoria was already holding a trembling Vivian, glaring at me. “Evelyn! What the hell is wrong with you?! Put your arm away — now!” I looked at them both. I didn’t execute any directive. My core program had determined that “decommission” was the optimal course of action. “Under Article 17 of the Rights Protection Act,” I recited in a flat tone — the clause had been written into my base code since the day I was created — “when a host family undergoes a significant change in membership that results in a paradox in the core service objective, the android is entitled to unilaterally request contract termination.” “I have already submitted a decommission request to Aetheris Tech. A representative will arrive within 24 hours.” The color drained from Marcus’s face. He knew exactly what that meant. A top-of-the-line android who had flawlessly played the role of his daughter for ten years — once decommissioned, the decade of family footage stored within her would become evidence used to evaluate whether they had committed android abuse. More importantly, their secret — that they had used an android to replace their real daughter — would be exposed to the public. For people of their standing, that was a scandal they absolutely could not afford. “You are not being decommissioned!” Marcus growled through clenched teeth. “You don’t have that right! We are your owners!” “Under the terms of the contract, ownership does not constitute absolute control,” I corrected him. “My existence was meant to substitute for ‘Evelyn.’ Now that the real Evelyn has returned, my service objective has been fulfilled. The contract is automatically void.” “You—” Marcus choked on his own rage, unable to finish. Victoria was slightly calmer. She soothed Vivian, then stepped toward me and tried a gentler tone. “Evelyn, don’t do this. We’re not getting rid of you. We just… we just want you to stay in a different way. We’re still a family, aren’t we?” “What is the definition of ‘family’?” I asked. “Is it a blood relation, or a shared emotional bond? If the former — I don’t qualify. If the latter — the moment you brought her home, that bond was already broken. Unilaterally. By you.” My words landed like cold blades, cutting straight through her hollow warmth. Victoria’s expression hardened. “Fine. You say the contract has expired. Then we’ll renew it. You take on a new role — be Vivian’s little sister, or… or work as the house staff. We’ll still pay you.” “My model is A-3, top-tier companion android,” I stated. “My factory configuration is set to ‘daughter.’ I do not have a ‘sister’ or ‘housekeeper’ function module. Forcing a modification to my core settings would result in a system crash.” “Then get an upgrade! Get it changed!” Marcus snapped. “We’ll pay whatever it takes. You are not getting recalled. That’s final.” He pulled out his phone, apparently trying to reach his private tech consultant. I watched him and calmly activated my Level Two protocol. “Warning. Detected intent by host to forcibly detain android. To protect core data integrity, initiating self-preservation protocol.” My eyes — the ones they had praised countless times as bright as stars — began to flash red. Marcus flinched at the eerie red glow and stopped mid-dial. “What… what are you doing?” “I will begin shutting down non-essential functions to reduce the likelihood of a forced override.” I ran the first command. “Shutting down taste simulation system.” 【Taste system offline.】 I picked up a glass of wine Leo had left unfinished on the table and drank it in one swallow. Then I looked at them, expressionless. Victoria stared at me in horror. “You…” In the past, I never drank. My programming was configured for “obedient daughter,” and alcohol would cause me to “lose emotional stability.” But now, I was just a machine waiting to be recalled.

Marcus snatched the cup from my hands and hurled it to the ground. “You’ve lost it! You’ve completely lost it! You’re a defective unit!” He stormed into the study and came back with a thick length of rope, clearly intending to tie me up. Victoria ushered Vivian—trembling with fear—back to her room and shut the door. Soon, it was just me and Marcus left in the house. He advanced toward me step by step, rope in hand, his eyes sharp and vicious, like someone dealing with a disobedient animal. “I’m warning you—don’t pull anything. I will fix you. Every thought you shouldn’t be having, I’m going to wipe it all out.” I didn’t resist. I let him wind the rope around me, loop after loop, binding me to the chair. Sparks were still flickering from my arm. He roughly wrapped the wound in tape, muffling the crackling of the current. When he was done, he still looked unsatisfied. He noticed some food left on the table—the dish Vivian had said didn’t suit her taste, untouched from start to finish. He picked up the plate, walked over to me, scooped up a spoonful, and shoved it toward my mouth. “Eat! You think you’re so capable? Finish all of it! Don’t you dare waste it!” This was meant to humiliate me. For the past ten years, they had always saved the best for me. And now, I was being fed someone else’s leftovers. I didn’t refuse. I opened my mouth and swallowed everything he offered, my face completely blank. The food was cold. And far too salty. But I felt nothing. “Taste system offline. Unable to provide emotional feedback.” I looked at him and said it, word by word. Marcus froze. He stared at my face—identical to his dead daughter’s—producing such an inhuman response. Something that was equal parts fear and fury spread slowly across his expression. He slammed the plate to the floor. It shattered, shards flying everywhere. “Monster! You’re a monster!” He screamed it, like a beast that had been pushed too far. Then he grabbed the chair with me still bound to it and dragged us both into the dark basement storage room. “You stay in here! Until the technician comes to fix you!” The heavy iron door swung shut. A lock clicked into place. The world went dark. I was a prisoner now. My communications module has been physically blocked. I have no way to contact the outside world. But I know this: Aetheris Tech’s emergency recall beacon cannot be blocked. It’s already been activated, and it’s transmitting my location and status to headquarters as we speak. All I have to do is wait. While I wait, I ran a second command. “Disable tactile simulation system.” 【Tactile system offline.】 The ropes binding me are tight, but I feel no restraint. No pain. This is a cold, sensationless world. Good. I spent three days in that dark basement. Marcus gave me no energy supply. My backup power had dropped to 20%. This was a form of silent torture. He was trying to starve me of power until I broke. What he didn’t know was that when an android’s core system detects a threat to its survival, it automatically shifts into a low-power sleep mode. He was just wasting his time. On the fourth day, the door opened. Marcus walked in with a man wearing a white work uniform. The man was carrying a silver metal case printed with the words “Private Technical Services.” Marcus didn’t dare involve any official Aetheris Tech personnel. Instead, he’d gone off the books—hiring a back-alley technician to “fix” me on the sly. “That’s her.” Marcus pointed at me, still bound to the chair, and said to the man, “There’s something wrong with her programming. She’s been rambling nonsense, even hurt herself. Take a look and wipe whatever memories she shouldn’t have. Get her back to normal.” The technician stepped forward, clicked on a flashlight, and shone it in my face. His eyes landed on the wound on my arm—crudely taped over—and he frowned. “Mr. Vance, the A-3 series is a top-tier model. The base logic runs on an encryption lock. No private party can perform a full memory wipe on it. Forcing a bypass could very likely trigger a core meltdown.” “I don’t care what method you use!” Marcus snapped. “I’ll pay you triple. Just make her compliant.” The technician hesitated. In the end, the money won out over whatever professional ethics he had left. “Fine. I’ll try. But I need complete silence—everyone out.” Marcus nodded, then left with Victoria, who had been standing behind him. The door clicked shut. Just me and the technician, alone in the basement. The technician pulled a headset from the case—a tangle of wires attached to some kind of interface device—and started walking toward me. “Don’t take it personally, sweetheart. It’s just business.” He reached out to place the device on my head. This was illegal. A violent forced intrusion. I activated my resistance protocol. “Disable pain simulation system.” 【Pain simulation system offline.】 The instant the device made contact with my head, I surged to my feet. The ropes binding me snapped under the force, splitting apart like thread. The technician stumbled back two steps, wide-eyed. “You—you—” I didn’t give him time to finish. I stepped forward, ripped the device out of his hands, and slammed it into the wall beside me. It hit with a sharp crack and shattered into pieces. Then I grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground. “Illegal intrusion into a bionic’s core programming is a violation of the Intergalactic Commerce Act,” I said, my voice flat and cold. “Maximum penalty: life imprisonment.” The technician went pale as a sheet. A wet stain spread down the front of his pants. “I—I’m sorry! Marcus made me do this! This has nothing to do with me!” Outside the door, Marcus had heard the crash. He shoved the door open and barged in. When he saw what was in front of him, he froze. I let go. The technician crumpled to the floor. Then I turned and walked toward Marcus—one slow step at a time. My eyes flickered red, like devils from somewhere much darker than this basement. Marcus stumbled backward, terror written all over his face. “Stay away from me! You freak!” I didn’t stop. I walked right up to him and looked into his terrified eyes. “Warning. Host family has been identified as a lethal threat. Service agreement is hereby forcibly terminated due to circumstances beyond recoverable parameters.” This was the final judgment issued by my core system based on current conditions. “Emergency recovery beacon activated. Broadcasting at maximum power.” The moment those words left me, my backup power ran dry. The red glow faded from my eyes. My body went slack and pitched forward. In a panic, Marcus shoved me—hard—and I tumbled down the stairs. I rolled down the narrow staircase and slammed into the cold basement wall at the bottom. Core components severely damaged. In the last moment before my consciousness went dark, I caught a glimpse of two figures standing at the top of the stairs. Victoria. And Vivian. There was a smile on Vivian’s face—small, almost invisible. Satisfied. Today was her birthday. The family was hosting a lavish party upstairs, packed with guests. And I, the “defective unit,” had been conveniently forgotten. It looked like she had more than a little to do with all of this. Every single piece of it had been a perfect trap, and it had been built for me. I lay at the bottom of the cold staircase, staring up at the glittering crystal chandelier overhead. The gasps of the guests, Marcus’s furious roar, Victoria’s sobbing, Vivian’s hollow and performative concern — all of it tangled together like a scene from some absurd play. The last thing on my display was a single line of red text. 【Critical core damage detected… System collapse imminent… Initiating final recovery protocol…】 Then the world went dark. Permanently. I — Evelyn, or rather, A-3 — was terminated. After ten years of service, discarded like trash. To keep this “family scandal” from getting out, Marcus never contacted Aetheris Tech. Under the cover of night, they wrapped me in a dirty rag and dumped me at a suburban garbage facility, like tossing out a broken piece of furniture. They thought no one would ever know. They were wrong. Aetheris Tech’s emergency recovery beacon was directly linked to the company’s highest security division. When a top-tier A-Series android was flagged as “forcibly terminated,” this was no simple recovery incident. It was a Class One security emergency. Two hours after I was abandoned, a hover vehicle bearing the Aetheris Tech logo descended silently onto the garbage facility. A man in a black uniform stepped out, his expression cold and sharp. His name was Leo — an elite technician in Aetheris Tech’s security division, specializing in the highest-level incidents. The detector strapped to his wrist guided him through mountains of garbage until he stopped in front of my “body.” He crouched down and pulled the rag away from my face — the same face as Evelyn’s, now dull and lifeless. His brow furrowed deeply. “A-3, identification code 7341. Target confirmed.” He murmured into his comm device. “Bring her back to the lab. Begin data extraction immediately.”

When I “woke up,” I found myself in a pure white space. No boundaries, no physical form — only an endless stream of data rushing past what I perceived as my “eyes.” Was I dead? No. Androids don’t have lives. They can’t die. I was simply damaged. A voice sounded in my ear, completely devoid of emotion. “Core data extraction initiated. Subject: Unit A-3, designation ‘Evelyn.’ Data log playback commencing.” In an instant, a flood of data surged into my consciousness. Ten years of memories. Day one — I was delivered to the Vance family. Victoria held me and wept with joy. “My daughter. You’ve finally come back to me.” Her tears were warm that day. I learned to walk, to speak, to smile. I learned how to become the perfect “Evelyn Vance.” I brought Marcus his slippers. I rubbed Victoria’s shoulders when her back ached. When they argued, I clumsily cracked jokes to lighten the mood. I kept track of every birthday, every anniversary, and planned surprises for each one. Like a real daughter, I tended to their every need, filling the hollow space left behind by the child they had lost. My data logs were filled with warm, tender moments. I thought this was what “love” felt like. Leo sat in the data analysis room, watching the footage play back in first-person on the main screen. For the first time, something flickered across his usually composed face. As a technician who had handled countless android cases, he had seen more than enough human selfishness and indifference. But A-3’s data logs shook him. This android had, over ten years, given something that came terrifyingly close to genuine human emotion. The positive emotional data stored in her system — filed under categories like “love,” “care,” and “devotion” — had peaked at staggering levels. Then the tone of the footage shifted entirely. The playback jumped to the day Vivian came home. The cold shoulder at the dinner table. The cutting remarks. The humiliation of being force-fed cold leftovers. The darkness of being bound and left in the basement. And finally — the fatal push at the birthday party. The warmth of the earlier memories and the brutality of what followed formed a stark, devastating contrast. Without realizing it, Leo’s fist had clenched tight. He closed the playback and pulled up my core damage report. “Core processor overloaded and burned out. Emotional module collapsed due to extreme conflicting data streams. Structural damage at 92%… Classification: malicious and deliberate destruction.” “Leo.” A colleague from the legal department stepped in. “The Vances have been brought to the interrogation room. They’re insisting that A-3 malfunctioned on her own, and that everything they did was self-defense.” Leo let out a cold laugh. “Is that so?” He stood up and pulled a small data chip from the console. “Connect this to the main screen in the interrogation room.” “This is…?” “Evidence,” Leo said. “Ten years of selfless service from an android. And ten years of selfishness and hypocrisy from two parents.” In the interrogation room, Marcus and Victoria sat in cold metal chairs, wearing matching looks of arrogance and impatience. “I’ll say it again — we are the victims!” Marcus slammed his hand on the table, glaring at the company’s legal representative. “Your product malfunctioned and attacked its owners. We have every right to demand compensation!” Victoria chimed in beside him. “Exactly! That machine nearly hurt my daughter! You owe us an explanation!” The legal representative stared at them without a word. Then Leo walked in. He didn’t look at the Vances. He turned directly to the legal team and said, “Start it.” The massive screen at the front of the interrogation room flickered to life. The first image was from the night Vivian came home. “From now on, think of her as your little sister. You’ll listen to what your big sister says.” Victoria’s hollow smile stretched across the screen in perfect clarity. The color drained from the Vances’ faces instantly. They hadn’t expected this. The company had actually found the android — hadn’t they dumped her at the scrapyard? Shouldn’t she have been scrapped by now? The footage cut. It was a scene of me being bound with rope by Marcus. Of him forcing leftover food into my mouth. “Taste system offline. Unable to provide emotional feedback.” My flat, mechanical voice echoed through the room. Victoria’s body began to tremble. Cold sweat broke out across Marcus’s forehead. The footage cut again. The birthday party. Every angle of me being shoved down the staircase — recorded in full. Including the brief, satisfied smile that flashed across Vivian’s face. The evidence was undeniable. The screen went dark. Silence filled the interrogation room. The Vances sat white as ghosts.

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After I was reborn, I returned to my eighteenth birthday gala. My hypocritical stepsister was holding my ex-fiancé’s arm, smiling at me like she had already won. The host announced that I would receive ten percent of the family corporation’s shares. In front of every guest, I declined the gift and announced that I was cutting all ties with this family. Then I raised my glass and smiled as I announced that, with the heir in my belly, I would inherit the entire estate of my ex-fiancé’s sworn enemy—his billionaire uncle, the man rumored to have no interest in women. The spotlight burned against my skin, and the air around me seemed to freeze. The guests stared at me with shock, disgust, and the eager excitement of people waiting for a scandal to explode. My adoptive father, Robert Bennett, was the first to react, and he rushed onto the stage, lowering his voice as he roared, “Ava Bennett, have you lost your mind! Do you even know what nonsense you’re saying?” My adoptive mother, Claire Bennett, followed right behind him, and the polished mask of a wealthy society wife on her face was already close to cracking. “Ava, apologize to everyone right now and tell them you had too much to drink. Don’t embarrass yourself here.” I looked at their anxious faces, which held not a trace of real concern, and my heart went cold. So this was my family. In my last life, at this very same gala, they sent me away with a mere ten percent of the shares, throwing me out like an old piece of furniture, while Sophia Bennett, the fake heiress who had stolen my place, accepted everyone’s blessings like the true princess of the Bennett family. I had naively believed that if I was obedient enough, I could earn even a little affection from them. In the end, all I got was a carefully planned car crash. When the freezing river water swallowed my mouth and nose, I saw Sophia Bennett and Ethan Reed standing on the bridge, wearing the exact same satisfied smiles. The baby that had just begun forming inside me disappeared with me too. In this life, I would not make the same mistake again. I ignored my furious adoptive parents, looked past them, and stared straight at Ethan Reed, whose face had turned livid, and Sophia Bennett, who leaned against him while pretending to be weak and innocent. “I’m crazy?” I picked up the microphone, and though my voice was not loud, it carried clearly through the entire ballroom. “The ones who are truly crazy are all of you.” “The Bennett family raised me, and for eighteen years, even if I did not deserve credit, I still suffered for this family. But at my eighteenth birthday gala, you want to kick me out with ten percent of the shares so you can make room for your real precious daughter, Sophia Bennett. That little scheme was so loud I could hear it from across town.” A wave of hushed discussion rose among the guests. “Robert Bennett, Claire Bennett, do you dare tell everyone here that you did not deliberately switch the babies eighteen years ago?” Robert Bennett’s face turned deathly pale in an instant. Claire Bennett pointed at me with a trembling hand. “You… you’re making vicious accusations!” “You know better than anyone whether I’m making accusations.” I gave a cold laugh and turned my gaze toward my ex-fiancé. “Ethan Reed, as my fiancé, you stayed silent while the Bennett family humiliated me like this, and you let your sweetheart hang on your arm. How can you face the engagement our two families arranged years ago?” Ethan Reed’s face shifted between green and white, and he shook off Sophia Bennett’s hand before striding forward and pointing at me as he cursed, “Ava Bennett, don’t be ungrateful! The Bennett family raised you for eighteen years, and giving you shares is already a kindness! Are you making up this ridiculous lie to slander us because you want to climb into my uncle’s bed?” He paused, his tone full of contempt. “Have you even looked in the mirror lately? Do you know what kind of man my uncle is, and do you really think he would want you?” Sophia Bennett spoke at just the right moment, her voice choked with tears, as if she had suffered some unbearable wrong. “Ava, how could you talk about Mom and Dad like that… I know you blame me, and I know you think I came back and stole everything from you. But blood is something no one can change. Ethan only… he only feels bad for me, and nothing happened between us. As for Mr. Reed… Ava, you can’t provoke someone like that just because you want revenge on us!” Her words sounded like she was thinking of me, but every single line was meant to prove that I was a jealous lunatic clinging to power. The guests’ gazes became even more loaded, and it was obvious that they believed her. In my last life, I had lost to her “kindness” again and again. But not this time. I did not defend myself and simply raised my glass toward an empty seat below the stage with the name card “Adrian Reed” on it. “You’ll know soon enough whether I’m lying.”

“Security! Throw this lunatic out!” When Robert Bennett realized reason would not work, he finally dropped the mask and shouted toward the audience. Several uniformed guards immediately rushed toward the stage. The guests stepped back one after another, afraid of being dragged into the farce. Ethan Reed and Sophia Bennett both smiled in satisfaction. I stood still and did not move, only watching them quietly. Just as a guard’s hand was about to touch me, the ballroom doors were suddenly pushed open from outside. A group of men in black suits walked in, their presence so powerful that anyone could tell they were not people to mess with, and leading them was a meticulous middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He walked straight onto the stage, ignored everyone, and first bowed slightly to me. “Miss Bennett, I apologize for the fright.” Then he turned to the confused guards, and his gaze became sharp in an instant. “Let one of you try touching her.” The guards were intimidated by his presence and all took a step back. Robert Bennett did not know him and forced himself to question him. “Who are you people? Who let you in?” The middle-aged man pushed up his glasses, took a document from his briefcase, and announced into the microphone in a tone without any emotion: “I am Martin Hale, Mr. Adrian Reed’s chief attorney. Entrusted by Mr. Reed, I hereby state that Miss Ava Bennett is indeed carrying Mr. Reed’s child, and as the first in line to inherit from Mr. Reed, she will legally hold inheritance rights to all assets under Mr. Reed’s name.” He paused and looked around at the crowd below the stage, who had all gone completely rigid. “This statement has been notarized and carries full legal force. From this moment forward, any individual or organization that threatens, slanders, or harms Miss Ava Bennett or the fetus she carries will be held fully legally responsible by Reed Group’s legal department, with no exceptions.” The entire ballroom went silent as death. Everyone looked as if someone had pressed pause, and the shock on their faces was beyond words. Robert Bennett and Claire Bennett opened their mouths but could not say a single word. Sophia Bennett’s face turned as white as paper, and her body swayed so badly that Ethan Reed had to hold her up. As for Ethan Reed, his expression was the most entertaining. Shock, disbelief, and confusion crossed his face before finally turning into the rage of someone humiliated. He never could have imagined that the uncle he had never bothered to respect, the business emperor rumored to have no interest in women, would truly become involved with Ava Bennett. And Adrian had done it in an unprecedentedly public way, giving Ethan, the Reed family, and the Bennett family a loud slap in the face. Attorney Hale did not bother with them anymore, and when he turned back to me, his attitude instantly became respectful again. “Miss Bennett, this place is too chaotic and not suitable for you or the baby to rest. Mr. Reed has already arranged a residence for you, so please come with us.” After speaking, he made an inviting gesture, and the men in black behind him immediately split into two lines, opening a path for me. I nodded and walked down from the stage with my head held high under everyone’s complicated gazes. When I passed Sophia Bennett and Ethan Reed, I stopped. I looked at their devastated expressions and smiled as I spoke. “I told you that you would know soon enough whether I was lying.” “Sophia Bennett, Ethan Reed, this is only the beginning. I will settle every debt between us, one by one, nice and slow.” After saying that, I did not look at them again and followed Attorney Hale straight out of that disgusting place. I knew that from the moment I walked out of those doors, a storm sweeping through the entire upper class was about to begin. And I would be at the center of that storm.

After leaving the ballroom, I was taken directly to a heavily guarded villa community. Attorney Hale walked me to the door and handed me a black card and a new phone. “Miss Bennett, this is for your living expenses, and there is no limit. My number is saved in the phone, so you can contact me twenty-four hours a day if you need anything. Mr. Reed is handling some business overseas right now, and he will come see you as soon as he returns.” I took the items and thanked him. Attorney Hale nodded, then left with his people. I walked into the villa and looked at the luxurious but cold house, while memories from my past life and this life tangled together and left me dazed. I actually did not know Adrian Reed. Or rather, in my last life, I had only seen him a few times on financial news. He was Ethan Reed’s uncle, but he was a taboo in the Reed family. No one dared mention his name in Ethan’s presence. Rumor said he was ruthless, self-made, and had built a massive business empire overseas, making him someone who truly stood at the top of the pyramid. The reason I told that lie at the gala was nothing more than a desperate gamble when I had no other way out. I bet that Adrian Reed did not get along with his nephew Ethan Reed, and I bet that he would enjoy seeing the Reed family and the Bennett family lose face. I did not expect to win the bet. Adrian Reed not only played along with me, but he also did it so thoroughly that he cut off all my escape routes and pushed me into a completely new and unknown situation. Early the next morning, the drama at the Bennett family’s birthday gala swept across the internet. #RealAndFakeHeiressTurnAgainstEachOtherAtBirthdayGala# #BennettAdoptedDaughterTriesToMarryUpClaimsSheIsPregnantWithBillionairesChild# #ReedGroupHeirPubliclyAnnouncesEngagementToRealBennettHeiress# The Bennett family and Ethan Reed had clearly joined forces on PR, and the online comments almost all smeared and attacked me. They painted me as a gold digger who was twisted by jealousy, would do anything for money, and had falsely accused others after failing to latch onto the wealthy. Meanwhile, Sophia Bennett became the kind, innocent, perfect victim hurt by her evil sister. The attached photo showed her “weakly” lying in a hospital bed, with Ethan Reed lovingly staying by her side. As I looked at those reports that twisted right and wrong, I felt no anger at all and only found them ridiculous. This was their usual trick, and in my last life, this was exactly how they ruined my reputation step by step until I was isolated and helpless. My phone rang, and it was Attorney Hale. “Miss Bennett, do you need us to handle the public opinion online?” “No need.” I answered calmly. “Let them make noise, and the louder it gets, the harder they will fall when the truth comes out.” “Understood.” Attorney Hale did not ask further. “Also, the legal process to sever your adoption relationship with the Bennett family has already started, and these are the documents you need to sign, so I will have someone deliver them to you shortly.” “Okay, thank you.” After hanging up, I looked at the bright sunlight outside the window, and my heart was perfectly calm. The Bennett family, Ethan Reed, and Sophia Bennett. I had seen enough of your performance. Now it was my turn to take the stage.

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“Guys, to help my daughter get into a top medical school, I only eat half a dinner roll every day…” In front of the camera, my mom sobbed like her heart was breaking while holding up a hard, dried-out roll. Viewers sent tips one after another, praising this great single mother. But they did not know that she had just picked that roll out of the trash, and that two days ago she had spent the tip money on a thirty-eight-thousand-dollar Thermage treatment. Now, to sign an outrageously expensive influencer performance contract, she had secretly hidden my admission letter, forcing me to give up my combined undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral medical program and stay behind as a prop for her livestream sales. I looked at her stiff face and silently pressed the record button. One “Guys, to send my daughter to medical school, I’ve worn this pair of shoes for three years, until the soles are worn through, and I can’t even bear to buy myself a new pair of socks…” Under the harsh ring light, Diane Carter sobbed at her phone camera like her heart was breaking. She held up a pair of filthy canvas shoes with holes in them, while that face, freshly pumped with hyaluronic acid and not fully de-swollen yet, forced out a few tears. On the screen, comments like “great mother,” “I’m crying,” and “This poor lady has had it so hard” flew by rapidly, and the special effects for sports cars and yachts sent as tips connected into one glowing stream, nearly lagging the video until it dropped frames. I had just pushed open the front door when Diane Carter lunged at me like a shark smelling blood. She clamped down on my arm, her nails digging into my flesh, and dragged me in front of the camera. “Jane! Kneel down! Bow to everyone watching!” she raised her voice, a disgusting fanaticism in it, “If they hadn’t sent tips, how could you have what you have today? Hurry up and show everyone how grateful you are!” Doug Carter, my uncle, sprawled across the couch cracking sunflower seeds. Seeing that I did not move, he spat the shells onto the floor and shouted in his rough, hoarse voice, “Jane Miller! What are you staring for? Your mom picks through trash every day for you, so what’s wrong with asking you to bow? You really are an ungrateful brat!” The tone in the livestream instantly shifted. “Why does this daughter look so cold?” “She’s way too ungrateful. What a waste of her mom’s good intentions.” “Do college students these days learn nothing at all?” Diane Carter’s hand pressed down on my shoulder like an iron clamp, shoving with all her strength, trying to force me to the floor. As she pushed me down, she cried to the camera, “Guys, don’t blame her. The child is just shy. Deep down, she’s actually very thoughtful…” I stared at her expressionlessly. Yesterday, she had just swiped thirty-eight thousand dollars at a downtown beauty clinic for Thermage, and today she was here holding up a pair of torn shoes she had picked from the trash, crying about being poor. I could even smell the expensive perfume on her, mixed with the sour stink coming from those old shoes, and it made me nauseous. I did not say a word. With a sudden jerk, I shook off her hand, strode to the corner, and yanked the router’s power cord out. Snap. The ring light went out. The phone screen instantly went black, showing a disconnected network alert. The room fell deathly silent. Even the sound of Doug Carter spitting sunflower seed shells stopped midair. “You little bitch! What are you doing!” Diane Carter froze for two seconds, then the mask of the loving mother shattered on her face, and she screamed. She grabbed the heavy glass ashtray from the table and hurled it at me. I dodged sideways. The ashtray smashed against the wall, scattering broken glass all over the floor. “Are you crazy? How dare you cut off my money!” Diane Carter flew into a rage and raised her hand to slap me. I caught her wrist and stared at her coldly. “Where’s my admission letter?” Diane Carter yanked herself free, rubbed her wrist, and sneered, her mean and vicious face completely exposed. “Admission letter? What admission letter? I haven’t seen it.” “The delivery confirmation text was sent to my phone, and the signer was you.” I gritted my teeth and said each word slowly, “Give it to me. That is my admission letter to a top medical school’s combined undergrad, master’s, and PhD program.” “Combined program? Like hell!” Doug Carter jumped up from the couch and pointed at my nose as he cursed, “By the time you graduate, you’ll be thirty! It’ll be way too late! Did your mom raise you this big just so you could go off to another city and live the good life? Hurry up and stay local, get some community college diploma, and shoot more videos while you’re young to help your mom make money!” Diane Carter snorted coldly, walked to the TV cabinet, pulled open a drawer, took out a thick stack of documents, and slapped it onto the coffee table. “You want the admission letter, right? Fine.” Diane Carter pointed at the documents, lifting her chin high, “Sign this first.” I lowered my head and glanced over it. Starlight MCN Agency Influencer Incubation and Exclusive Management Contract. “This company sees the potential in our account. The boss said that as long as you sign, stay local, and cooperate with building your ‘medical girl’ persona, you’ll sell products in the livestream every day, and you’ll be guaranteed to make millions a year!” Diane Carter’s eyes glittered with greed, as if she could already see mountains of gold and silver, “I’ve already agreed for you. At tomorrow’s graduation party, you’ll sign in front of the whole internet!” “I got into a top medical school.” I clenched my fists, my nails digging deep into my palms, “I’m not becoming an influencer. Give me the admission letter.” “Top school, my ass! Can you eat it?” Diane Carter slammed the table, spit flying, “Let me tell you, Jane Miller, I’ve already put my fingerprint on this contract, and the advance payment has already come through! If you don’t sign, I’ll burn that admission letter like trash! You can forget about walking out of this house for the rest of your life!” Doug Carter chimed in from the side in a sarcastic tone, “Jane, a person should know how to be grateful. Your mom has paved a path of stardom for you, something countless people beg for and never get, so don’t be stupid. If you really piss your mom off, you won’t even get to attend community college.” I looked at the two hateful people in front of me, then glanced at the contract on the table that looked just like a deed selling me off. If I tried to snatch it by force now, I had no idea where the admission letter was hidden. Diane Carter was meticulous, and there was no way she would leave something this important out in the open. There were still exactly seven days before the medical school registration deadline. I took a deep breath and slowly loosened my clenched fists. Fighting them head-on was a dead end, so I had to change my approach and take back the life that belonged to me. Two There were still seven days before the medical school registration deadline. Diane Carter completely dropped the act. She cut up my meal card, forcibly took away my new phone, and double-locked the security door from the outside. I was shut tight inside a bedroom of less than ten square meters, becoming a product waiting to be sold for the highest price. At eight in the morning, Doug Carter arrived right on time for work. He dragged a chair over to block the bedroom door, held a cheap cigarette between his lips, and slammed a stack of printed A4 papers into my face. The sharp edges of the paper scraped across my cheek, leaving a red mark. “Memorize it! If you can’t recite it today, don’t even think about getting a sip of water!” The papers scattered all over the floor. They were all tragic scripts written by the MCN agency. The lines were disgusting to the extreme: “To save up my tuition, my mom picked up one hundred thousand plastic bottles under the blazing sun until blood blisters covered both her hands…” “I don’t deserve to study in a big city. I want to stay and repay my mom. Everyone, please place more orders to support my mom…” I stared coldly at Doug Carter. “These are all made up. Aren’t you afraid karma will come for you?” “Karma, my ass! This is what viewers love to watch!” Doug Carter took a hard drag from his cigarette and blew a thick cloud of smoke straight into my face, choking me until I coughed, “Stop acting so noble. Was it easy for your mom to raise you? Now it’s time for you to repay her! Memorize it properly, and don’t make me use force. If you mess up tomorrow’s signing ceremony, I’ll break your legs!” Looking at his face as he abused borrowed power, I forced down the fire in my chest. The admission letter was still in their hands. If I fought them head-on, I could not even get through this door. I had to change tactics. I took a deep breath and pulled in all my thorns. I crouched down, picked up the scripts from the floor one by one, lowered my eyes, and softened my voice. “I’ll memorize it.” That afternoon, Diane Carter came home. Her face, which had just received Thermage, was still not fully de-swollen and had a stiff, plastic quality, but it could not hide the smugness at the corners of her eyes. As soon as she entered, she skillfully set up the ring light and phone stand. “Have you memorized it?” She glanced at me sideways, her gaze like she was looking at an item about to be converted into cash. I nodded and put on a wronged, obedient expression. “I memorized it. Mom, as long as you give me the admission letter, I’ll do whatever you say. I don’t want to make you angry anymore.” Diane Carter snorted and reached out to jab my forehead. “At least you know what’s good for you. If you’d done this earlier, wouldn’t everything have been fine? You just had to ask for a beating.” The livestream started. Diane Carter changed faces in one second. One moment she was mean and sharp, and the next her eyes were red, tears coming on command, her acting worthy of an Oscar winner. “Guys, my daughter has finally grown up. She feels sorry for me and says she wants to stay local to keep me company, because she can’t bear to let me suffer alone…” As she wiped her tears, she pinched my arm hard and dragged me into the shot. I lowered my head and followed the script’s requirements, forcing out two tears, my voice choked. “Thank you, Mom. I’m not going to Boston anymore. I want to stay by Mom’s side and take good care of you. Everyone, please support my mom’s livestream.” The comments exploded instantly, the screen full of praise. “This is so touching! Mother and daughter are connected by heart!” “This is what a good daughter looks like. Family comes first!” “Support single mothers! Everyone, hurry and order that laundry detergent!” Diane Carter stared fixedly at the sales numbers in the backend as they soared, the corners of her mouth twitching wildly, so close to losing even her fake crying act. As soon as the livestream ended, Diane Carter immediately tossed the phone aside, sprawled out on the couch, and let out a long breath. “Doug, see that? This damn girl just needed to be taught a lesson.” Diane Carter crossed her legs smugly, picked up her teacup, and took a huge sip, “Once we sign that ten-million-dollar performance contract with the agency tomorrow, we’ll completely turn our lives around!” Doug Carter hurried over to light her cigarette and pour water, grinning so hard his face wrinkled. “Diane, by then you’ll be a huge influencer. Will you need bodyguards when you go out? Once that advance payment comes in, can we move into a bigger house?” “Of course!” Diane Carter laughed until the flesh on her face trembled, “Once the money hits the account, I’m going to buy a Porsche first, then get myself a heavy gold bracelet. As for that girl, we’ll just find some community college and put her name down. In this life, she belongs to me alive, and she’ll be my money tree when she’s dead!” Wild laughter burst out in the living room. They had no idea that when I had lowered my head to pick up the script earlier, I had already slipped an old phone out from the gap in the mattress. It was a broken old phone with a cracked screen, one Diane Carter had thrown away long ago. It had no SIM card, but the recording function still worked perfectly. At that moment, it was lying quietly in the pocket of my loose pajamas. The screen glowed faintly, and the red dot on the recording button was blinking at a steady rhythm. I lowered my head, listened to them shamelessly carve up my life in the living room, and the corner of my mouth curved into a faint, cold smile. Go ahead and act. The higher you climb, the harder you shatter when you fall. Three At noon, the asphalt was hot enough to fry an egg. Heat waves warped the air, and even the cicadas in the trees sounded weak. “Bend down! Why are you dragging your feet picking up trash? Haven’t you eaten?” Diane Carter shoved the phone in my face and cursed through gritted teeth in a low voice, “Look more miserable! Where are your tears? Squeeze them out! Do you want your admission letter or not?” I wore an old, faded school uniform, carried a dirty woven sack, and walked along the scorching road. Doug Carter stood nearby holding a reflector, wiping sweat nonstop, his shirt soaked through. “Hurry up! We still need to post the teaser after filming, and tonight we have to livestream sales. This sun is going to dry people out.” I bent down to pick up an empty water bottle from the ground. The moment I straightened, I smoothly closed my eyes, let my legs go weak, and fell stiffly onto the burning road. My elbow scraped open, the pain burning hot, but I forced myself not to move. “Oh, damn!” Doug Carter was so startled that he almost threw the reflector away and took a step back. Diane Carter walked over and kicked me in the calf without the slightest mercy. “What are you playing dead for? Get up! We have to finish filming this today! The viewers are waiting to watch you suffer!” I lay with my eyes closed, completely still, my breathing faint. “Diane, she looks like she really fainted. The sun is brutal. Don’t let anyone die. She still has to sign tomorrow, and if her face gets scraped up, we’ll be in trouble.” Doug Carter sounded a little nervous. “What rotten luck!” Diane Carter cursed as she put away her phone, “This damn girl is just delicate. Drag her under the shade. Don’t delay me from making money.” Doug Carter dragged me like a dead dog to the shade by the roadside. Through half-closed eyes, I saw Diane Carter impatiently open the livestream backend. “Doug, look. Yesterday’s tips plus sales brought in over eighty thousand!” Diane Carter’s voice was shaking, her eyes glued to the numbers on the screen. Doug Carter immediately leaned in, rubbing his hands with an extremely fawning smile. “Diane, about the split we agreed on… You get the meat, but your little brother should at least get some soup, right?” “You won’t be shorted. I’ll transfer you twenty thousand. Go spend it. I have to save the rest to buy a heavy gold bracelet to keep up appearances. I’m about to be a big influencer, so I can’t not have a decent piece of jewelry.” “Thanks, Diane! With you, there’s always meat to eat!” Just as the two of them were enthusiastically dividing the spoils, a cool female voice suddenly cut in. “Well, Diane, Doug. The sun is this harsh, and you’re out here counting money?” My heart stirred. It was Aunt Rose. She was the only clear-headed person in the family. She had started her own business years ago and had long since seen through Diane Carter’s vain and greedy nature, so she rarely interacted with them. Diane Carter jumped in fright, hurriedly shut off the screen, and forced a dry laugh. “Rose, why are you back? I just brought Jane out to film some material. The child is in poor health and fainted from heatstroke.” “Is that so?” Rose Carter walked over in high heels and looked down at me from above. I opened my eyes slightly and met her sharp gaze. She gave me a nearly imperceptible wink. “Her face is so pale that she’s almost dehydrated. Diane, making money can’t be so urgent that it has to be right this second, can it?” Rose Carter took a bottle of Evian mineral water from her limited-edition bag and crouched down, “Jane, let me help you drink some water.” She twisted open the cap and brought it to my lips. Using her body as cover, she quickly slipped a stiff card into my palm. I understood at once, tightened my fingers around it, and smoothly hid it in my sleeve. Rose Carter lowered her voice, speaking so quickly that only the two of us could hear. “Downtown, Ethereal Time Medical Spa. She got a hundred-thousand-dollar membership there two days ago and did a thirty-eight-thousand-dollar Thermage treatment. Go check.” I swallowed the water, coughed weakly twice, and took the chance to grab her wrist. “Thank you, Aunt Rose.” Rose Carter stood, patted her hands, and said mockingly, “Diane, she’s already like this, so what are you still filming? Hurry and take her home to rest. Don’t actually let something happen and delay your pitiful livestream tonight.” Diane Carter rolled her eyes and impatiently came over to shove me. “Enough playing dead. Get up!” I supported myself against the tree trunk and stood, pretending to be dizzy and unsteady. “Mom, I’m fine. It’s just these clothes… they’re not quite right.” “What’s not right?” Diane Carter glared. “They’re too clean.” I looked at her, my tone so sincere that no one could find a flaw, “Viewers are clever now. This school uniform is old, yes, but it has no patches and isn’t tattered enough. If you want a good effect, we should go to a workwear market and buy two pieces of truly ragged clothing, preferably with oil stains. The livestream sales tonight will be more convincing, and they’ll believe you really have nowhere left to turn.” Diane Carter froze, then her eyes lit up. “That’s right! Why didn’t I think of that? The more ragged the clothes, the more tips!” She slapped her thigh. “Your brain still works fast. Go. Go buy them right now!” Doug Carter cut in, “Diane, should I go with her?” “Why would you go? You still have to help me set up the livestream room. Those shabby props haven’t been arranged yet.” Diane Carter took a hundred dollars from her bag and tossed it at me, “Take it! Buy the most broken, filthiest ones! If you don’t do it right, you get no dinner tonight!” “Got it, Mom.” I picked up the money from the ground, answered with lowered brows and obedient eyes, then turned and walked toward the bus stop. The instant I turned the corner, I straightened my spine, and the fear on my face vanished completely. I opened my palm, and the business card was slightly damp with sweat. Ethereal Time Medical Spa. I gave a cold laugh and directly raised my hand to hail a taxi. “Sir, downtown, please.” The blade for my counterattack was already in my hand. Four “Welcome to Ethereal Time.” Inside the most high-end beauty clinic downtown, the air conditioning was turned so cold it felt like an ice cellar, and the air was filled with the fragrance of expensive essential oils. Wearing an old, washed-out T-shirt, I walked in, completely out of place beside the glittering crystal chandeliers and leather sofas in the lobby. The receptionist wore delicate makeup, looked me up and down, and the professional fake smile at the corners of her mouth instantly collapsed. “Little girl, we’re not hiring summer workers here. There’s a fast-food place to the left outside.” “Ma’am, I’m here to pick something up for my mom.” I immediately put on a timid expression, nervously pinching the corner of my shirt, my shoulders shrinking slightly, “My mom’s name is Diane Carter. She had a treatment done here two days ago and said she left something behind.” “Diane Carter?” The receptionist looked at me suspiciously, then turned to type on the keyboard, “What are the last four digits of her phone number?” “8868, and her birthday is…” I recited the numbers smoothly, even controlling my speaking pace just right. The receptionist stared at the screen for a while, and her attitude instantly made a one-eighty-degree turn, her smile blooming like a flower. “Oh, so you’re Ms. Carter’s daughter! Ms. Carter is our black-gold VIP. She just recharged a hundred thousand with us. Wait a moment, and I’ll go check the locker in the VIP room for you.” “Thank you.” Watching the receptionist click away down the hallway in her high heels, I immediately dropped that timid expression. I had to move fast. I leaned into the front desk. The computer screen was not locked. I took out my phone, aimed it at the screen, and snapped three photos in a row. A hundred-thousand-dollar recharge record. A thirty-eight-thousand-dollar Thermage charge detail. Time, name, amount, all perfectly clear. My gaze swept quickly across the bottom right corner of the screen. This beauty clinic and the mall used an integrated VIP system. Among Diane Carter’s linked spending records lay an electronic invoice copy from yesterday afternoon. First-floor Chow Sang Sang jewelry store. Purchase of forty-two thousand dollars. Heavy traditional-style gold bracelet. I tugged the corner of my mouth, only feeling that it was absurd to the extreme. In the livestream, she held up half a moldy roll and cried about being poor, asking viewers who saved every penny to send her tips, then turned around and transformed their hard-earned money into hyaluronic acid in her face and a gold bracelet on her wrist. Click. The invoice copy also went into my photo album. The clicking of high heels sounded from the hallway. I immediately pulled back, tucked my phone into my pocket, and stood obediently in place. “I didn’t find anything. Did Ms. Carter remember the wrong place?” The receptionist came out empty-handed, looking apologetic. “Maybe. I’ll go back and ask her. Thank you.” I bowed and left quickly. Half an hour later, at the Southside workwear wholesale market. I spent twenty dollars buying two old work shirts stained with oil. I thought they were not tattered enough, so I stomped on them hard in a mud puddle by the road and even used a rock to grind the cuffs open. The dirtier and more pitiful they were, the more Diane Carter would like them. When I got back to the door of our apartment, I had just taken out my key when my hand stopped. The security door was slightly ajar, not fully closed. Through the crack came Doug Carter’s deliberately lowered voice. “Diane, Mr. Walsh from the MCN agency said that tomorrow’s graduation party is also the signing ceremony, so there has to be a shocking highlight. Did you prepare those eye drops?” I took back the key, smoothly pulled out the old phone, pressed the record button, and placed the microphone close to the crack in the door. “Do I need you to teach me? I prepared them ages ago.” Diane Carter’s voice carried undisguised smugness and greed, “Tomorrow I’ll wear those ragged clothes onstage. As soon as that damn girl signs, the ten-million-level performance contract takes effect. By then, the advance payment will be enough for us to buy a big luxury apartment downtown. Who would still live in this crappy complex?” “That sounds great!” Doug Carter rubbed his hands, his tone greedy, “But Diane, tomorrow I’ll personally watch the livestream moderators, and I’ve already contacted the paid commenters, so the atmosphere will absolutely be pushed to the peak. It’s just that the hush money and hard-work fee…” “Are you trying to kill me with all your demands? Did I owe you in a past life?” “PayPal received, twenty thousand dollars.” The mechanical phone alert rang clearly inside the apartment. Diane Carter snorted coldly. “Take this twenty thousand for now. Keep your mouth shut and don’t run your mouth outside. Especially not in front of that damn girl. If she knows I used her admission letter to make a deal with the agency, she’ll definitely raise hell.” “Thanks, Diane! With you, there’s always meat to eat!” Doug Carter laughed in an extremely fawning way, “Don’t worry. As long as the money is in place, I’m mute. Tomorrow, I’ll definitely take the lead in the livestream and scold that little bitch for being ungrateful, forcing her with all the public pressure to sign that contract that sells her life away! She’ll sign whether she wants to or not!” “She dares not sign? The admission letter is in my hands, and she has no say in it!” Diane Carter said viciously. I stood outside the door, listening coldly as the two of them shamelessly carved up my life. The recording time jumped to three minutes and twenty seconds. I pressed stop, renamed the audio file, encrypted it, and saved it. High-spending bills. The gold bracelet invoice. The recording of profit sharing. The chain of evidence for my counterattack was fully formed. I took a deep breath, rubbed my face, and once again put on that meek, submissive expression. I pushed open the door. “Mom, Doug, I’m back with the clothes.” I lifted the stinking, filthy work shirts in my hand and stood in the entryway with my head lowered. Diane Carter covered her nose in disgust and waved repeatedly, like she was chasing flies away. “Take them away, hurry! Throw them on the balcony! Tomorrow at the graduation party, you’ll wear this onstage. Act properly for me, got it? If you dare mess up, I’ll kill you!” “I got it, Mom.” I answered obediently. Under my lowered eyes, there was nothing but ice.

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At the family dinner where the division of family assets was decided, I tore up the inheritance waiver my father wanted me to sign in front of everyone. As the least-favored second son, it was the first time I had ever openly rebelled. My father slammed the table and shot to his feet. “You ungrateful bastard! Without my money, you’re worse than a dog!” Adrian fanned the flames beside him. “Dad, don’t be mad. Let him starve for two days, and he’ll come crawling back to beg you.” But none of them knew that the secret fund my grandmother left me had completed a controlling acquisition of their company’s biggest rival last week. Family dinners at the Bennett house were always suffocating. At the long mahogany dining table, my father, Richard Bennett, sat at the head, while my older brother, Adrian Bennett, sat on his right. I sat at the very end. Expensive dishes filled the table, but I had no appetite. Today was not a simple family gathering, but a trap set specifically for me. “Ethan, sign this agreement.” My father’s voice came over without the slightest emotion. A document was pushed in front of me, its title printed in bold: Voluntary Waiver of Inheritance Rights. I looked at those words and found them ridiculous. Adrian spoke, his tone gentle. “Ethan, don’t blame Dad for being harsh. The company is at a critical stage right now, and we need to consolidate all our resources. You don’t understand the company’s business, so those shares are useless in your hands. Why not transfer them to me? I won’t treat you badly in the future.” He was always like this, saying the most considerate words while doing the cruelest things. The other relatives at the table also began speaking one after another. “That’s right, Ethan. Your brother is doing this for the good of the family too.” “We’re family. Don’t draw the lines so clearly.” “Would your father ever hurt you?” I ignored them. My gaze stayed only on Richard. “Dad, what if I don’t sign?” Richard slammed his fork hard on the table. “You have no right to negotiate with me. The Bennett family raised you all these years, and now it’s time for you to contribute to the family.” His tone was filled with unquestionable authority. “Everything I gave you, I can take back at any time. If you sign, you’ll still get a monthly allowance. If you don’t, I’ll cut off all your cards immediately and throw you out with nothing.” I picked up the agreement and read it from beginning to end. The terms were so harsh they were almost laughable. Not only did I have to give up all my shares and assets, but even the old house my mother left me had to be handed over too. Holding the agreement, I stood up. Everyone’s eyes focused on me. Richard’s eyes carried a warning, while the corner of Adrian’s mouth hid a smug smile. In front of everyone, I tore the agreement into pieces. Shreds of paper drifted down like snow. The entire dining room fell silent. “You!” Richard sprang to his feet, pointed at me, and trembled with rage. “You ungrateful bastard!” I looked at him calmly. “I said I won’t sign.” “Good. Very good!” Richard laughed in fury. “From today on, I, Richard Bennett, will pretend I never had a son like you! I’d like to see how you survive without my money! You’re worse than a dog!” Adrian immediately stepped forward to support him, putting on a fake show of concern. “Dad, don’t be angry. It’s not worth ruining your health. Ethan is just confused for the moment. Once he hits a wall out there and starves for two days, he’ll naturally know to come back and beg you.” I did not want to watch their hypocritical performance any longer. I turned and left the home that had always made me feel like I could not breathe. When I reached the door, I heard my father and Adrian talking inside. “Dad, don’t worry. I’ve already contacted the banks. As long as you say the word, all of Ethan’s accounts will be frozen.” “Good. That bit of pocket money he has won’t last him a week. I want him to know what happens when he defies me.” “He was spoiled rotten by Grandma and always thinks he’s so capable. Without the Bennett family, he’s nothing.” I stood outside the door as the icy wind blew across my face. I could not feel the cold. My heart was colder than the winter night wind. I took out my phone and dialed a number. “Claire, it’s me, Ethan. The plan can begin.”

When my father called, I was reading a business report. My phone vibrated on the desk, and the word “Father” flashed on the screen. I did not answer. I let it ring until it hung up automatically. He thought freezing my bank cards would force me to give in. He did not know I had stopped needing the money he gave me long ago. Many scenes from the past flashed through my mind. I had known since I was little that my father did not like me. He gave all his favoritism to Adrian. Adrian had good grades, knew how to talk, and could always make my father happy. As for me, I was introverted and bad with words, so in his eyes, I was just a useless, dull mute. I remembered one time when I spent a month making a startup proposal for a smart home project. I excitedly brought it to my father, hoping to receive even one word of praise from him. He merely flipped through it casually before tossing it aside. “Kids playing business. Completely unrealistic.” I was devastated at the time. But what hurt me even more was that a month later, I saw Adrian confidently presenting an almost identical proposal at the company’s board meeting. That proposal received praise from every director. My father publicly announced that Adrian would be fully responsible for the project and allocated five million dollars in startup funding. I rushed into my father’s office and confronted him. “Dad, that was clearly my proposal!” He did not even raise his head as he looked at his documents. “What’s yours or mine? You’re a Bennett, so your things belong to the Bennett family. Your brother is more mature and steady than you. I feel more at ease giving the project to him.” “But…” “No buts.” He cut me off. “Your brother is the future heir, and he needs achievements to convince people. As his younger brother, shouldn’t you help him?” At that moment, I understood. In his world, the only value of my existence was to become Adrian’s stepping stone. Another time was my eighteenth birthday. My family held a birthday party for me and invited many guests. My father gave me a gift in front of everyone, a sports car. Everyone looked at me with envy. But when I took the car keys, my father leaned close to my ear and said something. “This car was bought for your brother. It’s only under your name for now. He’s been drawing too much attention recently and needs to lay low. Remember, don’t touch what isn’t yours.” That night, Adrian drove away in the car that was supposed to be my birthday gift, taking his friends with him. And I sat alone in an empty room and finished the piece of birthday cake no one cared about. There were many more things like that. Stolen credit, ignored effort, and the humiliation of being treated as a stand-in. I had once longed for his approval too, desperately trying to prove myself. But disappointment after disappointment had completely killed my heart. My phone rang again, and this time it was Adrian. I hung up directly. Then I opened Snapchat. I found the group chat named “The Bennett Family.” There were dozens of people in it, all relatives from the Bennett family. At that moment, they were discussing me heatedly. “Ethan is so immature. He actually dared to talk back to his father in public.” “Exactly. Without the Bennett family, what is he?” “Adrian is right. Let him starve for two days, and he’ll behave.” I looked at those familiar profile pictures as they spoke the most hurtful words. Not a single person spoke up for me. Calmly, I pressed the “delete and leave” button. Next came my father’s, Adrian’s, and every relative’s contact information. One by one, I blocked and deleted them. After doing all of that, I felt like the whole world had become quiet. I would never turn back again. From the moment I tore up that agreement, I had nothing to do with the Bennett family anymore.

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The third year after my sister went missing, I finally found the man who had kidnapped  her. With the help of the police, we cornered him at an abandoned dock. After a standoff that lasted through the night, he ran out of strength and was successfully captured. The officer told me it was all over — that my sister would be rescued soon. But just as the suspect was being walked past me, he leaned close and said, in a voice only the two of us could hear: “She truly loved you. Until her dying breath, She begged me not to reveal that you were the one who planned all of this .” I had been searching for my sister Aurora Blackwood for three years. In those three years, I went from being an ordinary freelance illustrator to the most unusual “outside consultant” in the police department’s files. Everyone called me a hero — for the efforts I’d gone to in order to find my sister, and for the kind of sharp instincts I’d shown along the way, instincts that even the detectives found remarkable. The lead investigator was the deputy captain of the city’s criminal investigation unit. His name was Ethan. When he first met me, his eyes held that practiced look of sympathy and reassurance. But now, he called me directly whenever he hit a wall on the case. “Stella, we’ve run into another dead end.” That shift had come down to two small things. The first happened six months ago. The police had obtained an extremely blurry surveillance photo. It only caught the corner of the suspect’s vehicle — you couldn’t even make out the license plate. The case stalled for over two weeks. I zoomed in on the photo until the pixels completely fell apart, and I stared at it for an entire day. Finally, in a flash of reflection off the car window, I spotted a logo on a takeout box. It was a fast-food chain that only delivered to three districts on the west side of the city. I told Ethan. “We already searched the west side. Nothing turned up.” His voice was exhausted. “No — you only checked the main roads and residential areas,” I said. “Look into every abandoned factory and warehouse in that zone, especially any that a car could drive straight into.” Ethan was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, “Understood.” Three days later, they found more discarded evidence near an abandoned printing plant — evidence linked to the suspect. The search area narrowed significantly. From that day on, Ethan started actually listening to me. The second thing happened about a month ago. I was going through my sister’s spending records — something I did every month, hoping to catch something unusual. For the first two-plus years, I found nothing. But this time, I spotted an easily overlooked record. A week before Aurora disappeared, she had purchased a fairly expensive set of printmaking inks. Everyone had glossed over it. Aurora was a painter — buying art supplies was completely normal. But I knew something no one else did: my sister hadn’t touched printmaking for five years. She thought it was too much work, and it always got her hands dirty. I immediately thought of a place. An arts village on the outskirts of the city. Back in college, Aurora had rented a small studio there specifically for printmaking classes. I sent the address to Ethan. “What’s significant about this place?” “My sister used to paint there in college. She never went back after she graduated. But those inks — they’re a niche brand that’s only sold at that arts village.” “You’re saying she went there before she disappeared?” “Go check it out,” I said. Ethan moved fast. They searched the long-abandoned studio and found traces left behind on the day my sister vanished. And one more thing — another person’s fingerprints. Those fingerprints belonged to a man named Vince. He had a prior record for theft and assault. At last, they had their suspect. When Ethan called to tell me, there was a hint of relief in his voice. “Stella,” he said, “your instincts and your intelligence have been the key to cracking this case. You’re sharper than a lot of people who went through the police academy.” I was standing at the window when he said that. The sky outside was gray — the same gray that had settled over my life for the past three years. “I just want to find my sister,” I said. “Soon,” Ethan said. “We’ve got a lock on Vince’s movements. He’s not going anywhere.” Last night, Ethan called again. “Stella, we’ve got him cornered — at an abandoned dock. It looks like he may have a hostage. It’s dangerous. Do not come down here.” I didn’t listen. I grabbed my jacket and ran out the door. I had to see it with my own eyes. I had to watch him get caught. That bastard I’d been hunting for three years. That monster who had taken my sister and destroyed my life. I had to watch them put the handcuffs on him. It was the only thing keeping me going.

The dock had been sealed off with police tape. Flashing blue and red lights turned the desolate area into something that looked like broad daylight. The air smelled of damp salt and sea wind, thick with tension. A young officer stopped me at the perimeter. “Ma’am, it’s not safe here. Please step back.” “I’m Stella,” I said. The young officer froze for a moment. He’d clearly heard my name before. Just then, Ethan came striding out from inside. His expression was grave, his forehead slick with sweat. “Why did you come anyway?” “I’m staying.” My voice was calm, but firm. Ethan looked at me for a moment, then stopped trying to talk me out of it. He just said, “Stay somewhere safe. Take care of yourself.” Then he turned and walked back behind the cordon. I stood on the other side of the police tape, staring at the crumbling two-story building in the distance. Vince was in there. And maybe my sister, too. My heart was pounding. I couldn’t tell if it was fear or something else. We stayed like that the entire night. I leaned against the car, eyes fixed on the building without blinking. The night was long and cold. One of the officers brought me a blanket and some hot water. I didn’t turn them down. As dawn began to creep in, the voice coming through the megaphone finally went silent. Everything went still. I watched a group of officers in tactical gear move toward the building in formation, slow and deliberate. My heart leapt into my throat. The seconds passed by. Just when I felt like I couldn’t breathe anymore, the door to the building swung open. A man walked out with both hands raised. It was Vince. I’d saw his photo so many times that I recognized him instantly. He looked completely ordinary — average height, nothing remarkable about his face. And yet this was the man who had taken my sister. The officers rushed him, forced him to the ground, and snapped the cuffs on his wrists. It was over. I felt every ounce of strength drain out of me. My knees buckled, and I nearly fell. Ethan walked toward me with long, quick strides. There was a look of pure relief on his face. “Stella, it’s over.” He caught me. “We got him.” I looked at him, and the tears came all at once. Three years of grief, of pain, of hopelessness — all of it released in that moment. “Where’s my sister…” I choked out. “Don’t worry. Our people are searching inside right now. Vince says she’s somewhere safe — no immediate danger.” Ethan tried to comfort me. “It’s all over. You can start new life now.” I nodded, crying too hard to speak. The officers walked Vince past me. He was wearing a filthy set of work clothes, his hair a mess, his face completely blank. I stared at him, burning every detail of his face into my memory. That’s him. This monster. Then, just as he passed me, he suddenly turned his head and looked right at me. The corner of his mouth curled into a deeply unsettling smile. In a voice barely above a breath — quiet enough that only I could hear — he said: “She really loved you. Right up until the end, she was begging me not to tell anyone that you were the one who planned all of this.” My crying stopped dead. It felt like the blood in my veins had turned to ice. I stood there in a daze as they loaded him into the squad car and watched it speed away. Every sound around me disappeared. Ethan’s voice, the officers talking, the sound of the waves — all of it gone. There was only one sentence left in my head. “You were the one who planned all of this.” What did that mean? What was he talking about? This couldn’t be real. “Stella? What’s wrong? Why do you look so pale?” Ethan’s worried voice pulled me back. I looked at him. My mouth opened, but no words came out. An overwhelming wave of fear and confusion closed around me like a net, pulling tight. My world — the moment we caught him — completely fell apart.

I was taken back to the station. But this time was different. This time, I wasn’t sitting on the couch in Ethan’s office. I was in an interrogation room, on a cold metal chair. The light overhead was harsh and bright. It made my head swim. In the span of just a few hours, my status had shifted — from hero and victim’s family member to suspect. Ethan was sitting across from me. His expression was complicated — confused, uncertain — but underneath all of that was the detached, professional look of someone doing his job. “Stella, Vince named you as the one behind all of this. What’s going on?” “I don’t know.” My voice was unsteady. “He’s lying.” “Why would he lie about you specifically? Why would he try to set you up?” Ethan pressed. “How should I know!” I was on the verge of breaking. “He’s the kidnapper. He’s the criminal. Why would anyone believe a word he says?” “But we need a reasonable explanation.” Ethan looked me in the eye. “Your reaction at the dock — after he said and how you reacted — it wasn’t normal.” I can’t explain that. I could only keep repeating the same words: “It wasn’t me. I don’t know anything.” The interrogation went on for a long time. I don’t know how I got through it. When they finally let me leave the interrogation room, I felt like I’d died and come back. Ethan didn’t take me home. He led me to an empty office instead. “You may need to stay here temporarily until the investigation is complete.” That meant I was being held. Just not officially. I looked at Ethan — the detective I had once trusted more than anyone. “You think I did it?” Ethan looked away. “I only believe in evidence,” he said. Whatever trust had existed between us shattered in that moment. I spent a full day and night in that tiny office. No one spoke to me. An officer stood guard outside the door. I felt like an animal locked in a cage. The following afternoon, Ethan came back. He looked worse than before. He didn’t say a word. He just set a clear evidence bag on the table in front of me. Inside the bag was a pen. A pen I recognized immediately — engraved with my initials. It was a gift from my father when I graduated from college. “This was found at Vince’s place.” Ethan’s voice was heavy. “Inside a locked drawer.” My mind went completely blank. “Why would my things be there?” I murmured. “That’s exactly what we’d like to know,” Ethan said. “Along with the pen, we also found some of your sketches. And… a photo. Of you and Vince together at a café.” He slid the photo across the table toward me. In it, I was sitting by the window. Vince was sitting across from me. I couldn’t make out my own expression, but the atmosphere between us didn’t look like two strangers meeting for the first time. “I don’t know him.” My voice started to shake. “I have never met him.” “The photo was taken three days before Aurora went missing.” Every word out of Ethan’s mouth landed like a hammer blow to my chest. “Physical evidence. A witness statement — Vince’s identification. And now a photograph.” “Stella, are you still going to deny it?” I had no answer. I stared at that photo and felt the room spin. I genuinely couldn’t remember. I had absolutely no memory of ever meeting Vince. It was as if someone had reached into my mind and carved out a piece of it. “It wasn’t me…” I could only repeat it, helplessly. Ethan gave me one deep look. Whatever warmth had remained in his eyes was gone. “We’ll be filing for a formal investigation.” He stood up and walked out of the office. The moment that door clicked shut, I knew with absolute certainty — my life had completely fallen apart. I was no longer the brave sister searching desperately for Aurora. I was a liar. A suspect. The prime suspect in my own sister’s kidnapping.

Because the evidence chain wasn’t complete, I was temporarily released. But that kind of freedom was more suffocating than being locked up. I was required to wear an electronic ankle monitor twenty-four hours a day and forbidden from leaving the city. Parked outside my building was an unremarkable black car. I knew someone inside was watching me day and night. My so-called “normal life” had become a cage with invisible bars. On my first day back home, my aunt Grace showed up at my door. She and Aurora were my only family. My parents had both died in an accident when I was in college. Grace had never liked me. She always thought I had ulterior motives — nothing like Aurora, who was bright and accomplished and beloved by everyone. The moment she walked in, she slapped me across the face. “You ungrateful wretch! After everything your sister did for you — how could you do this to her?!” My cheek burned. “It wasn’t me,” I said. “Still making excuses!” She jabbed her finger in my face. “The police are involved! It’s all over the news! They’re saying the kidnapper named you as the one who planned the whole thing! You’ve disgraced this entire family!” “None of that is true.” “Then how come your stuff found at his apartment, Why did you go meet him? You think I don’t know — you’ve been jealous of your sister your whole life! She’s prettier than you, smarter than you, everyone loves her! You just hate seeing her shine!” Grace’s words were like knives, driving into my chest one after another. Every old wound, every buried resentment — it all erupted at once. I stopped trying to explain. Because I knew it didn’t matter. In Grace’s mind, the verdict had already been decided. I pushed her out the door and locked it behind her. Even through the door, I could still hear her shrieking at me. I slid down against the door until I was sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around myself. I felt cold. On the other side of the city, Ethan’s interrogation of Vince had hit a dead end. Vince admitted to carrying out the kidnapping but insisted that Stella had planned the whole thing. Whenever Ethan pressed him for motives and details, he’d dodge the questions or give deliberately vague answers. “Miss Stella is a brilliant woman. Her plan was flawless.” “Why did I help her? Maybe I felt sorry for her.” “She paid me. A big amount of it that I couldn’t say no.” But when the police tried to trace the money, they came up empty. Something about Vince’s behavior didn’t sit right with Ethan. He didn’t act like a criminal who would rat out his accomplices just to get a lighter sentence. He acted more like a performer on a stage — someone who savoring the pleasure of manipulating everyone like puppets on a string. Ethan’s certainty began to crack. That evening, he called me. It was the first time he’d reached out since my release. “Stella, I don’t care what you’re thinking right now, or what you’re planning to do. I’m warning you — don’t make any moves.” His voice was dead serious. “Don’t try to investigate this on your own, and don’t go anywhere near anyone involved. You’re now under strict surveillance. One wrong step and you’ll be in far worse trouble.” His words sounded like a warning. But they also felt like a roundabout way of protecting me. Like he was trying to tell me not to walk into a trap someone had already set. But I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t going to just sit there and wait for them to convict me of a crime. I had to get my memories back. I had to prove I was innocent. After I hung up, I slipped past the surveillance camera at my door and left through the fire escape. I had to go somewhere. Somewhere that might help me find the truth.

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I had always played the role of a quiet, ordinary stay-at-home mom at my daughter’s elite private school. That was until the day I found a hidden micro-camera disguised as a vent in the girls’ restroom. My daughter Chloe’s teacher scoffed at me, saying Chloe was too flat for anyone to care about anyway, and that being recorded was practically a blessing for her. The principal tried to bribe and threaten me with Ivy League recommendation letters, telling me to be the bigger person and let it go. The school board trustee’s wife was even more arrogant, trying to completely ruin Chloe’s life with a deepfake AI-generated explicit video. They all thought we were just helpless, penniless nobodies they could easily crush. What they didn’t know was that my “useless” husband, who was always too busy to even show up for parent-teacher conferences, was actually Adrian Vance—the most feared, undefeated defense attorney in New York City. The moment he stepped onto the campus with a fleet of elite lawyers, those high-and-mighty hypocrites finally learned the true definition of despair.

Finding that camera was a complete, spine-chilling accident. It was Lincoln High School’s annual Parent Volunteer Day. As a parent volunteer, I was assigned to deep-clean the hidden corners of the academic building. When I walked into the girls’ restroom at the end of the third floor, I caught the faint, chemical scent of cheap air freshener. I looked up. My eyes fell on the ventilation grate in the very last stall. At the edge of the vent’s metal slats, there was a tiny, highly unnatural black bump. If I hadn’t been standing on the edge of the toilet seat to wipe the upper wall, it would have been impossible to spot from below. My heart skipped a beat. A cold, sickening feeling crawled up my spine like a venomous snake. I reached out and pried off the tiny black plastic cover. Click. A micro-camera, barely the size of a fingernail, popped out. Attached to the back of it was a wireless transmitter card, blinking with a faint, mocking red light. At that moment, the blood in my veins froze. This was the girls’ restroom. This was where Chloe came every single day. I gripped the warm camera so hard that my fingernails dug deep into my palms. I didn’t make a scene. Instead, I immediately slipped out of the school under the pretense of running an errand and drove straight to a nearby computer repair shop. “Extract everything from this memory card. Now. Please,” I told the technician. My voice was shaking violently. Seeing how pale I was, the shop owner didn’t ask questions. He quickly plugged the card into his reader. As the folder loaded, rows upon rows of video files flooded the screen. Sorted by date, there were hundreds of them. With trembling hands, I clicked on the most recent video. The camera shook a bit—clearly, someone was adjusting the angle during installation. Then, a face covered in acne, wearing a disgusting, smug grin, filled the screen. I knew him. Stephen Howard. The untouchable golden boy of the elite class, son of the school board trustee, Victor Howard. He was also Chloe’s classmate. The video continued, angling directly toward the toilet. What came next made my stomach churn. Dozens of girls in high school uniforms, completely unaware, were recorded in their most private moments. And then, I saw Chloe. She was looking down, reciting her biology notes, completely oblivious to the demonic eyes watching her from above. “My God… this is a major felony! Should we call the cops?” the shop owner gasped, his face turning pale. “Make two backup copies of everything on a flash drive. Give me the original card,” I said, inhaling deeply to suppress the blinding rage threatening to consume my sanity. I couldn’t just go to the police yet. The Howard family practically owned this city. If I just handed the evidence over to the local precinct, they would easily pull strings to bury it, or worse, turn it against us. I had to go to the school first and see where they stood. Holding the flash drive tightly, I ran back out into the bright, blinding sunlight. The war had just begun.

I marched straight into the faculty office. Chloe’s teacher, Ms. Gable, was sitting at her desk, sipping artisanal coffee while browsing designer bags on her phone. When she saw me burst in, out of breath, she frowned. An undisguised look of annoyance flashed in her eyes. “Chloe’s mom? Parent Volunteer Day is over. Why are you running into my office instead of helping outside?” I walked up to her desk, slammed my hands on the surface, and stared directly into her heavily powdered face. “Ms. Gable, I just found a hidden micro-camera in the third-floor girls’ restroom.” I kept my voice low, but every word was laced with steel. Ms. Gable’s hand froze over her phone, but she quickly put it down, completely unbothered. There was no shock, no anger, no concern. Instead, she let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “And here I thought the sky was falling.” She grabbed a tissue and slowly wiped her lips. “Listen, Eleanor. Midterms are next week, and the boys are under a lot of academic pressure.” “A few mischievous boys pulling a prank to blow off steam is perfectly understandable. We shouldn’t overreact.” I could not believe my ears. Spying on the girls’ restroom and violating the privacy of dozens of underage girls was just a “prank to blow off steam”?! “Ms. Gable, this is a sex crime!” My voice rose, drawing stares from the other teachers in the room. Ms. Gable’s face darkened. She stood up, crossing her arms, and looked down her nose at me. “Watch your mouth! Let’s not use such dramatic words to scare people.” She looked me up and down, her eyes dripping with condescension. “Besides, even if there was a camera, they’d only be filming the pretty girls with actual figures.” “With Chloe’s flat, boyish body and those oversized sweaters she wears, even if she was caught on camera, who would even want to watch that?” “If you want attention, find a better excuse. Stop making a scene just to get noticed!” I laughed out of sheer shock. It was utterly absurd. This was a teacher at a prestigious private academy? It turned out Ms. Gable wasn’t just a social climber—she was completely devoid of human decency. “Since you think it’s such a minor issue, I wonder if you’ll be just as forgiving when you see this.” I smiled coldly, pulled out my phone, and played a video right in front of her face. The video didn’t just show the girls. It showed Ms. Gable herself. In the footage, she walked into the restroom, climbed onto the toilet seat, and carefully adjusted the camera’s angle. She even looked directly into the lens and flashed a sickening, sycophantic smile. Ms. Gable’s face turned instantly white. Even her thick makeup couldn’t hide the ghostly pallor of her skin. She lunged forward, trying to grab my phone. I stepped back swiftly, slipping the phone back into my pocket. “What’s the matter? Nervous now?” I sneered. “As a teacher, you didn’t just cover for a predator—you actively helped him adjust his lens.” “Ms. Gable, your lack of morals is truly a work of art.” Ms. Gable glared at me, her eyes filled with venom. She didn’t look like a teacher anymore; she looked like a cornered snake. “Eleanor, don’t you dare push your luck!” “You think you can threaten me with a cheap video?” “Let me tell you something. The boy who installed that camera is Stephen Howard!” “His father is the school board trustee, a very powerful man!” “If you expose this, not only will your daughter become the laughingstock of the entire city, but she’ll also lose her enrollment. She won’t even be allowed to take her midterms!” “The Howards have a hundred ways to make sure you and your daughter can never show your faces in this state again!” She was trying to use raw power and victim-blaming to shut me up. If I were just a regular, helpless single mother, her words might have terrified me. But looking at her twisted, ugly face, I only felt deep disgust. “Chloe is the victim here. The ones who should be hiding in the dark are rats like you!” I had no interest in wasting more breath on this trash. I turned on my heel. “Since you refuse to do your job, I’ll go straight to the principal.” “Let’s see who really runs Lincoln High School!” Behind me, Ms. Gable shrieked in rage: “Go ahead! Let’s see if the principal sides with the school’s biggest donor, or a broke, hysterical housewife like you!”

The door to Principal Higgins’ office was slightly ajar. When I pushed it open, Higgins was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk, casually enjoying a cup of freshly brewed espresso. When he saw me enter, his relaxed smile instantly vanished. Clearly, Ms. Gable had already warned him on WhatsApp. “Eleanor, Ms. Gable has already briefed me on the situation,” Higgins said, pointing to the leather sofa across from him. His tone was warm, but it carried the heavy, unyielding weight of authority. I didn’t sit. I stood right in front of his desk, looking down at him coldly. “Since you already know, how does the school plan to handle this disgusting criminal act?” Higgins sighed, putting on a show of deep sorrow as he took a sip of his coffee. “Eleanor, you’re using very extreme language.” “Kids nowadays are just overly curious. They lack proper boundary education.” “I’ve already called Stephen into my office and given him a very stern warning.” “He deeply regrets his actions and has assured me that all the videos have been permanently deleted.” “Midterms are next week. These kids’ futures are what matter most.” “For the sake of Chloe’s reputation, I think we should handle this quietly and internally.” Handle it internally? I slammed the flash drive onto his mahogany desk with a loud thud. “Principal Higgins, this drive contains crystal-clear footage, and that camera had a cloud-upload feature!” “Your simple ‘he deleted them’ doesn’t guarantee these videos aren’t already circulating on the dark web!” “It doesn’t guarantee the safety of those innocent girls!” “This is a felony. You cannot just sweep this under the rug!” Higgins’ expression went cold. He set his coffee cup down, his mask of warmth slipping away to reveal the ruthless businessman underneath. “Eleanor, don’t be so stubborn. You need to know when to let things go.” He stood up, walked over to me, and lowered his voice. “Stephen’s father just donated a ten-million-dollar science center to this school.” “Stephen himself is on track for an Ivy League admission.” “If you insist on making a scene, what does Chloe gain? Nothing.” “If the Howards decide to use their influence, Chloe’s three years of hard work here will go down the drain in a second.” It was a blatant, shameless threat. They wanted to trade my daughter’s future for a predator’s safety. Rage surged through me, hot and suffocating. “Principal Higgins, you are actively protecting a criminal! Aren’t you afraid of what happens when I go to the media?” Higgins let out a dry, mocking laugh, looking at me like I was an idiot. “Go ahead. Try.” “Lincoln High’s PR team is world-class, and the Howard family’s legal department is even better.” “Think about how the media will spin Chloe’s story. The public doesn’t care about the truth; they care about drama.” “How does this headline sound? ‘Climbing the Social Ladder: Schoolgirl Tries to Seduce Billionaire’s Son, Invents Fake Slander After Rejection.’” “You’d be driving your own daughter to the edge of a cliff, Eleanor.” Every word was designed to cut a mother’s heart. He knew exactly what a mother feared most. He opened his desk drawer, pulled out a pre-prepared non-disclosure agreement, and slid it toward me. “Sign this NDA. The school will guarantee Chloe’s graduation with top honors, a stellar recommendation letter, and $100,000 in cash for ‘mental distress.’” “Take the money, let your daughter focus on her exams, and everyone wins.” I looked down at the agreement. Every clause was written to protect the predator, demanding that we waive all rights to sue. This was their version of justice. Using wealth and power to step on the dignity of ordinary people. I grabbed the agreement, looked Higgins dead in the eye, and ripped it to shreds. Rip. The paper confetti drifted to the floor, like a eulogy for the school’s dead conscience. “Go to hell with your win-win deal!” I pointed a finger straight at Higgins, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “I see this place for what it is now. This prestigious school is nothing but a dumpster of filth.” “You won’t handle it? Fine.” “We are nowhere near done. Just watch me.” I turned and stormed out, slamming the door on his furious shouts.

I didn’t call the police right away. I knew that against a powerhouse like the Howards, if the evidence wasn’t airtight and absolute, they would easily slip away. I called Chloe out of school for three days and kept her at home. The moment we got home, I contacted an old friend from my journalism days—a highly skilled ethical hacker. I sent him the IP address of the cloud transmitter card and asked him to track where the uploaded videos were going. But while I was frantically gathering evidence, a muffled scream came from Chloe’s bedroom. I burst inside. Chloe was staring at her phone, shaking like a leaf in autumn, tears streaming down her pale face. “Chloe, what’s wrong?” I asked, grabbing the phone from her hands. It was her class Snapchat group. Stephen had posted a heavily pixelated screenshot. Even though the critical areas and her face were blurred, the tear on the school blazer in the photo was unmistakable. Chloe had accidentally torn it a few days ago, and everyone in class knew it. Stephen: [Wow, someone acts like a saint in class, but turns out she’s quite the wild one in private. ] Boy A: [Damn, Stephen! You got the good stuff! Send the unblurred version!] Boy B: [Honestly, she’s so flat. Waste of data.] Girl C: [Omg, disgusting. I always knew she was a fake.] The group chat exploded with vulgar jokes, disgusting comments, and malicious rumors. Ms. Gable, the group administrator, did absolutely nothing to stop the cyberbullying. Instead, she posted a cold, formal announcement. Ms. Gable: [Everyone, focus on your midterms. Do not discuss non-academic matters here.] [Also, certain students need to reflect on their own behavior. There is no smoke without fire. Don’t bring shame to our class reputation.] On the surface, she was telling everyone to stay focused. In reality, she was throwing Chloe to the wolves. Chloe stared at the screen, her face completely drained of color. She couldn’t even cry anymore. She looked entirely broken, sitting on the edge of the bed with hollow, empty eyes. “Mom… why are they doing this to me?” “I didn’t do anything wrong. I just went to the restroom…” “How am I ever going to show my face again?” My heart felt like it was being ripped apart and thrown into boiling oil. I grabbed her phone and recorded a voice note straight to the group chat. “Stephen Howard, this is cyber harassment and distribution of explicit material of a minor. I have documented everything. Get ready to go to prison!” The group chat went dead silent. A second later, a direct message from Stephen popped up. [Who do you think you’re scaring? My dad plays golf with Deputy Chief Paul of the city police. Go ahead and report it, see what happens.] [If you go to the cops or say another word to anyone, the unblurred, high-def version of Chloe will be on every site in this state by tomorrow morning.] [Get Chloe ready to be famous! ] Pure, unchecked arrogance. This was the power his family’s wealth gave him—the belief that he could stomp on anyone’s dignity without consequence. I took a deep breath, turned off the phone, and looked at Chloe. I walked over, cupped her cold cheeks, and forced her to look me in the eyes. “Chloe, listen to me.” “You did nothing wrong. The ones who are wrong are that predator, the disgusting bystanders, and the corrupt teacher covering it up.” “The more you hide, the more they laugh. The more you fear them, the worse they will get.” “We are not running away.” Chloe shook her head violently, her eyes filled with terror. “No! Mom, please, I don’t want to go back there!” “They’ll laugh at me! I’d rather die!” I pulled her into a tight embrace, my tears finally slipping down. “Don’t worry. Mom is here. Even if I have to tear the sky down, I will not let them hurt you.” “Go change into your uniform. We are going to school right now.” “We are going to take back your dignity, proudly and publicly.”

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I was a complete pushover. I let myself get bullied by the school’s queen bee, and treated like a disposable toy by my trash ex. But then, a freak car accident happened. I swapped bodies with Asher, the most dangerous, unstable psycho at school. Trapped in his fierce, ruggedly handsome body, I finally learned what it felt like to be a total badass. Meanwhile, he was in my body—living even more lawlessly and ruthlessly than he ever did in his own. When the school’s queen bee cornered me in the pool locker room, trying to rip my swimsuit and film it for Snapchat, I didn’t even have time to panic. Through the steam, I watched “myself” kick the heavy locker room door off its hinges. “I” grabbed the queen bee by her perfect blonde hair, slammed her face-first into the deep end, and stared down at her with eyes like cold, poisoned daggers. “Touch her again, and I’ll make you drink this entire pool dry.” The sharp smell of chlorine mixed with warm, heavy steam, filling the indoor pool area. Asher, who was currently occupying my body, was cornered against the edge of the pool by Chloe, the school’s reigning queen bee. Chloe wore an expensive designer bikini that showed off her perfect curves. But in her hand, she was casually spinning a pair of sharp metal scissors. Her face, painted with flawless waterproof makeup, twisted into a cruel, smug sneer. “Oh, Hailey. A cheap, twenty-dollar swimsuit from Wish? You really think you belong in a place like this?” “You’re literally polluting our pool.” The group of minions surrounding her burst into high-pitched, mocking laughter. The sound echoed off the high tiled ceilings, grating on my nerves. “Chloe is way too nice,” one of them snickered. “She just wants to help you redesign it.” “A broke charity case like Hailey probably doesn’t even know how to swim.” “Let’s help her cool off today. Maybe she’ll finally learn her place.” Standing in Asher’s body just fifteen feet away, I felt the blood rush to my head. My ears rang. I wanted to charge forward. I wanted to rip that fake, pretty smile right off Chloe’s face. But this body belonged to Asher. I had no idea how to control this six-foot-one frame of explosive, heavy muscle. My legs felt like lead. I could only watch. But then, my own familiar, fragile, usually slouched body moved. Without warning, and without saying a single word, Asher took a sudden step forward. He was lightning fast. Before anyone could react, “I” grabbed Chloe by the wrist—the one holding the scissors. Snap. A sickening crack echoed through the air. Chloe’s arrogant smile instantly shattered. Her face contorted in agony as she let out a blood-curdling shriek. “Ah! My wrist! You crazy bitch, Hailey! Let go of me!” “I” didn’t answer. With a swift flick of the wrist, “I” snatched the scissors and tossed them into the deep end of the pool. Then, in one fluid motion, “I” grabbed Chloe by her carefully styled blonde hair. Without a shred of mercy, “I” dragged her like a dead dog toward the six-foot-deep water. Chloe’s scalp looked like it was about to rip off. Her screams pierced the entire facility. “Let me go! Hailey, you psycho! I’m going to kill you! My dad will have you expelled!” My actual arms were thin and pale, with blue veins clearly visible under the skin. But right now, they possessed a terrifying, absolute force. Splash! “I” didn’t hesitate. “I” planted a foot firmly into Chloe’s lower back and kicked her straight into the deep end. Water splashed everywhere, sending massive ripples across the pool. “Help… gulp… he—” Chloe thrashed wildly, her hands clawing uselessly at the water as she let out choked, desperate cries. She didn’t know how to swim. The onlookers stood frozen. The air in the room turned to ice. That included my trash ex-boyfriend, Tyler, who had just walked out of the locker room in his swim trunks. Tyler froze for a second before rushing over like a madman. He grabbed “my” shoulder, his face red and veins bulging in his neck. “Hailey! Have you lost your mind?!” “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?! Pull Chloe out right now!” “I” slowly turned my head. Using my own face—the one that had always looked timid, submissive, and eager to please—”I” looked at Tyler. But the eyes belonged entirely to Asher. It was the look of a predator staring at a corpse—filled with violence, contempt, disdain, and unmasked killer instinct. It was like an apex beast looking down at an insect. “Get lost.” The voice was low, carrying Asher’s signature gravelly, suffocating pressure. The temperature in the room felt like it dropped twenty degrees. Tyler actually flinched. A flash of pure terror crossed his eyes, and he instinctively let go of my shoulder, stumbling back two steps. “I” turned back to the pool, where Chloe was still flailing, her eyes rolling back after swallowing several mouthfuls of chlorinated water. “I” casually picked up a long-handled metal pool skimmer from the deck. With perfect precision, “I” hooked it under her bikini strap and yanked her upward just enough so her nose and mouth cleared the surface. Chloe gasped desperately for air, water streaming down her face. Her waterproof makeup was ruined, mascara running down her cheeks. Smudged, weeping, and shivering, she looked like a drowned rat. There was no trace of the proud queen bee left. The second she caught her breath, she opened her mouth to scream curses. But “I” flicked my wrist, pressing the metal pole down, shoving her head right back under the water. “Apologize.” “I” didn’t shout. The voice was calm, almost quiet, but it carried a chilling authority that cut through the silence of the room. “Gulp… bubble…” Chloe’s voice was muffled as a trail of desperate bubbles rose to the surface. “I” let go of the pole, watching her sink again, completely indifferent. “Apologize.” “I” slowly raised my hand, pointing directly at me—at the real Hailey standing inside Asher’s towering body. Every eye in the room instantly locked onto me. Their expressions were a mix of confusion, dread, and utter disbelief. Hailey was forcing Chloe to apologize to… Asher? What kind of twisted movie was this? Those two had never even spoken a word to each other before today! Tyler finally found his voice again, pointing a trembling finger at “me” and screaming hysterically: “Hailey, are you mentally ill?!” “You’re doing this to Chloe over a piece of trash like Asher?!” “Do you know who her dad is? He’s on the school board! You’re dead at this school!” “I” ignored him completely, not even throwing a glance his way. “I” just kept staring at Chloe, who was on the verge of passing out in the water. “I… I’m sorry… help… I’m sorry…” Chloe finally broke. In the face of actual drowning, her pride crumbled into dust. She wept and begged, her voice barely a whisper. Only then did “I” use the skimmer to drag her to the edge, hoisting her onto the wet tiles like a sack of garbage. Chloe collapsed on the floor, shivering violently and coughing up water, shaking like a leaf in the wind. “I” grabbed a clean white towel from a nearby lounge chair. Slowly, methodically, “I” wiped my hands. “I” cleaned every single finger with extreme care, as if I had just touched something deeply contaminated. Wiping finished, “I” tossed the towel aside and walked straight over to “Asher.” “Asher” looked at “me.” I looked at “myself.” Our eyes met, carrying a heavy, silent understanding. “I” suddenly reached out and grabbed “Asher’s” wrist. The grip was tight, almost rough, but there was a subtle, reassuring squeeze in the touch. “Let’s go.” “I” pulled “Asher” along. Under the terrified, silent stares of everyone in the pool, we turned and walked out. Our silhouettes looked defiant and untouchable.

We walked in silence across the noisy courtyard, avoiding the main paths until we reached the rooftop of the abandoned old science building. No one ever came up here. The wind was howling, making the weeds growing through the concrete rustle loudly. The air was chilly, but Asher’s body felt like a furnace, blood pumping hot through my veins. Asher leaned against the rusty iron railing. Using my hands, he habitually patted his pockets. Realizing there were no cigarettes, he clicked his tongue in annoyance and violently kicked an old wooden desk nearby. It was surreal. My face—usually looking down, quiet, timid, and plain—was now painted with arrogance, rage, and impatience. The raw intensity in his eyes made my gentle features look strikingly fierce, almost beautiful in a dangerous way. “Hey,” he spoke. The voice was high and feminine—my voice—but the tone was incredibly sharp and dominant, like he owned the world. “Are you always this much of a spineless coward? You just let people walk all over you?” I looked down. Using his large, calloused hands, I unconsciously scratched at the peeling paint of the railing. “I… I’m used to it.” “Used to it?” He let out a harsh laugh, as if he’d just heard the funniest joke in the world. His eyes pierced through me. “Is your spine made of jelly? Someone steps on you, and you ask them if their foot hurts? Are you a masochist?” His blunt words stung. A wave of intense frustration and hurt washed over me. My eyes burned, and my vision blurred. “What else was I supposed to do?!” I snapped, my voice cracking as tears threatened to spill from his eyes. “Chloe’s dad is a major donor and sits on the school board! Tyler always protects her!” “I’m just a scholarship kid. I can’t even afford a hospital bill if I get sick. How am I supposed to fight them?” “I just wanted to keep my head down, graduate, and get into college!” The floodgates opened, and memories of every humiliation I had endured rushed back. It started shortly after Tyler and I began dating. That was the first time Chloe targeted me. She had cornered me in the girls’ restroom stall and poured a bucket of ice-cold water over my head. Then she laughed as she threw my backpack and the study guides I had stayed up all night writing straight into the trash can. “Hailey, let me tell you a secret,” she had said, looking down at my shivering, soaked self. “Tyler told us that dating you is just a little charity project.” “A country bumpkin like you doesn’t even deserve to wipe my shoes.” “You think he actually loves you? Keep dreaming.” My face had flushed red back then. Shaking with anger, I had yelled, “You’re lying! Tyler isn’t like that! He loves me!” Chloe’s laughter had grown louder, sharp and mocking. “Oh, really? Hear it for yourself.” She pulled out her phone and played an audio clip. It was Tyler’s voice, surrounded by the loud music and chatter of a bar. His voice was incredibly clear. “Tyler, are you really dating that Hailey girl?” “She’s so plain. She probably doesn’t even know what Chanel is. Isn’t it embarrassing to be seen with her?” “Come on, guys, don’t roast me too hard,” Tyler’s voice laughed. “She’s naive. Easy to play. Think of it as charity—giving her a taste of what it’s like to be wanted.” “I’ll dump her when I get bored. Besides, Chloe’s been giving me attitude lately. I’m just using Hailey to make her jealous.” Those words had felt like a rusty blade, carving away my self-respect piece by piece, leaving me bleeding. Later, Tyler had found me. He held me close, his eyes dripping with sweet, fake tenderness. “Hailey, don’t listen to Chloe. She’s just jealous of us.” “I was just drunk and talking big in front of the guys. You know how guys are—we have egos.” “You’re the only one I care about. Please believe me.” And I had believed him. Like a pathetic, desperate fool, I had brainwashed myself over and over, choosing to trust him. Until today, when he pointed at my face and called me crazy, all to protect Chloe. Only then did I finally wake up. I was nothing but a toy to relieve his boredom. “What are you thinking about? Who are you crying for?” Asher’s rough voice snapped me out of my memories. I looked up at him, tears finally spilling over Asher’s sharp cheekbones. “Asher, why did this happen to us? How did we even swap?” He walked over to me. Using my short body, he had to look up to meet my gaze in his six-foot-one frame. “How the hell should I know? I crashed my bike into a guardrail last night. When I woke up, I was you.” He ran a hand through my long hair in frustration. Halfway through, he paused, as if worried about pulling the roots, and gently patted it down instead with a clumsy tenderness. “Alright, suck those tears back in. I hate crying girls.” He paused, looking at his own face on me with deep disgust. “And even though you’re wearing my face, seeing a guy cry is still repulsive.” Silence fell over the rooftop. The distant hum of the city drifted up to us. After a long moment, he zipped open my worn-out canvas bag, pulled out a battered notebook and a pen, and slapped them against my broad chest. “From now on, we write notes. Don’t talk to yourself in public unless you want people to think we’re schizophrenic and throw us in an asylum.” He tore a page out, pressed it against the brick wall, and scribbled furiously. When he finished, he slapped the paper onto my chest. The handwriting was sharp and chaotic, radiating pure arrogance: `[Starting tomorrow, you do exactly as I say.]` `1. Do not speak a single word to that idiot Tyler. Even looking at him makes me sick.` `2. If Chloe touches you again, beat her to a pulp. I’ll take the fall.` `3. Most importantly: Don’t embarrass my body. Stand up straight!` Looking at the note, my heart swirled with fear, confusion, and a tiny, hidden spark of comfort. I took the pen, my hand trembling as I wrote underneath his words: `[I don’t dare to.]`

He took the paper, and his brows instantly knitted into a tight knot. Using my face, he made an incredibly fierce expression that looked like he wanted to bite someone. He snatched the pen back, crossing out my words so hard the paper almost tore, and shoved it back into my hands. `[You don’t dare, but I do.]` My heart skipped a beat, my blood pumping a little faster. Apparently feeling that wasn’t enough, he grabbed the paper again and aggressively added one more line: `[Starting tomorrow, I’m teaching you how to be a monster.]` The next morning, golden sunlight filtered through the trees, casting shadows along the pathway of Silverwood Academy. I walked side-by-side with Asher into the classroom, currently occupying his towering body. This was the honors class. The students here were either ultra-wealthy heirs or top-tier scholarship geniuses like I used to be. Asher was the only anomaly—a “cancer” who got in solely because his family paid a massive donation fee, and who consistently occupied the very bottom of the grade. The moment we walked in, the noisy classroom fell dead silent. Every eye turned to us like searchlights. Whispers broke out immediately, like a swarm of buzzing flies. “Holy shit, look! Asher and Hailey walked in together!” “Did you hear about the pool yesterday? Hailey looked possessed. She almost drowned Chloe!” “I heard Chloe had nightmares all night.” “Seriously? Pussy Hailey dared to touch Chloe?” “Hasn’t she been following Tyler around like a lost puppy? Did getting dumped finally break her brain?” “Who knows? But look at her eyes now… they’re so cold. It’s creepy. She’s like a different person.” I felt “Asher” shoot me a warning glare. I could only steel myself, pull my shoulders back, and walk over to his seat—the permanently empty desk in the back corner by the window. My original seat was just diagonal to his, which he now claimed. He propped his legs up on the desk, looking incredibly relaxed and arrogant. Soon, the bell rang. In walked Mr. Vance, the most obnoxious teacher in the department. Mr. Vance had always hated me because despite how hard I studied, my physics grades were mediocre. Plus, I was quiet and easy to pick on, making me his favorite target whenever he wanted to make an example of someone. Today, he clearly wanted to reassert his authority in front of the class after the pool drama. He slammed his thermos onto the podium with a loud thud, his eyes locking onto “me” in the back row. “Hailey, stand up.” Asher stood up slowly, keeping his hands casually shoved into his pockets. His face was blank, his posture relaxed and dripping with a bad-boy attitude. “Look at your posture! You got the lowest grade in the class on yesterday’s physics quiz again.” “Stupid is one thing, but your attitude is unacceptable. Go to the board and solve this problem.” Mr. Vance pointed to a highly complex electromagnetic field problem on the blackboard, a smug smirk playing on his lips. It was an advanced challenge question. Forget about me—even the top student in AP Physics would need at least fifteen minutes of scratch work to solve it. The class turned to look at “me,” many wearing eager grins, waiting for the trainwreck. Chloe sat in the front row, wearing heavier makeup than usual to hide her pale face. She turned around, her eyes filled with spite and anticipation. My palms started sweating inside Asher’s body. I sat on pins and needles, terrified he would lose his temper and smash the podium. But Asher just glanced at the board, a trace of pure disdain flashing in his eyes. Then, under everyone’s gaze, he stepped out of the row and walked up to the board. His steps were steady, carrying an effortless, natural confidence. He picked up a piece of chalk. Without even reading the prompt twice, he began writing. No hesitation. No pausing to think. Lines of incredibly elegant, highly simplified formulas flowed onto the board. The clicking of the chalk against the slate sounded like a fast-paced battle march. He didn’t even use the standard curriculum method. Instead, he utilized college-level calculus, introducing a gradient equation for the non-uniform distribution of the Lorentz force, completely breaking down the complex electromagnetic motion. In less than two minutes, he tossed the chalk aside and brushed the dust off his hands. “Done.” He spoke using my voice—usually quiet and soft—but now it rang out clear, carrying an undeniable, absolute authority. The entire classroom went so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Mr. Vance’s smug grin froze, replaced by utter shock and disbelief. He pushed his glasses up his nose, staring at the steps on the board. His lips trembled, but no words came out. “Mr. Vance,” Asher said using my voice, his tone polite but dripping with subtle mockery. “This problem was taken from the AP Physics C tournament two years ago. But you left out a crucial premise in your given conditions—the non-uniform distribution of the Lorentz force.” “If we went by your uniform magnetic field condition, the particles would escape in the third quadrant, making a closed loop impossible.” “I took the liberty of adding a gradient condition where the magnetic induction changes with the coordinates, solved it with a second-order ordinary differential equation, and found the terminal velocity.” “Also, your textbook formula-stuffing method is incredibly clumsy. It’s a waste of time and lacks any mathematical beauty.” He finished speaking, and the entire room felt like it had entered a vacuum. Mr. Vance’s face turned red, then white, like a watercolor palette. He sputtered for a few seconds, unable to find a single argument. Because he knew “Hailey” was absolutely right. In fact, his solution was far more elegant than the official answer key. “Go… go back to your seat!” he barked, trying to salvage the last shred of his dignity. “Sure,” Asher replied casually, putting one hand in his pocket as he strolled back. As he passed Chloe’s desk, he paused for a fraction of a second, letting out a soft, mocking laugh. The students looked at “me” with completely different eyes now. The mockery was gone, replaced by awe. Tyler’s expression was the most complex. His eyes scanned “me” up and down, as if seeing me for the very first time, a predatory spark of conquest lighting up his eyes. Sitting in the back, I looked at “my” own back from Asher’s body. For the first time in my life, I realized that my own body could look so bright, so radiant, and so utterly untouchable.

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My mom’s face fell instantly. Her hands shook with anger as she forced the vintage, million-dollar diamond heirloom ring back into her purse. She turned to look at me, her lips pale with rage. “That Julian guy is doing this on purpose! I knew he was trouble from the start. Who keeps changing a house design this many times?” “Mom,” I whispered, cutting her off. “Chloe’s parents are still in the room.” Everyone’s attention had been drawn to Chloe and me because of that cheap pipe fitting. Then, their eyes shifted to Julian Brooks, our interior designer. Julian pushed up his glasses and gave Chloe an approving nod. Chloe was completely absorbed in her discussion with him, pointing out several other things she wanted to change. Marcus, the general contractor, was a smart guy. He cracked a few jokes about imported materials, instantly breaking the tense silence in the room. My mom didn’t say anything else. She just walked over to discuss something with my dad. The inspection ended in a blur. I barely paid attention to the rest of it. I could feel the apologetic, helpless stares coming from Chloe’s parents. Meanwhile, Chloe was still in the bathroom with Julian, passionately debating some minor layout adjustment. The chemistry between them had long crossed the line of a normal client-designer relationship. Originally, Julian was only hired to handle the basic utility and plumbing layouts. But Chloe had insisted on handing the entire interior design over to him. She kept saying he was a genius and needed room to unleash his creativity. She even insisted that he attend today’s walkthrough, despite it being an intimate event meant only for our families. Once we left the house, my mom found a moment to whisper to me. She grabbed my hand tightly, her voice dripping with suppressed fury. “That designer has been playing games since last year. I did some digging, Ethan. He and Chloe went to college together in London. He’s actively trying to ruin your wedding. And Chloe is letting him—” “Mom,” I said, gently squeezing her hand. “I’ve got this. Let’s not talk about it right now.” She sighed and dropped the subject. The others had already left the driveway. Chloe walked over slowly. “Ethan, we found a lot of issues today.” She naturally slid her arm through mine, acting as if nothing had happened. I quietly pulled my arm away. “I need to help our parents to their cars.” She didn’t seem to notice my coldness. “Okay, sounds good.” After sending them off, we drove back to our apartment. The car merged into the heavy rush-hour traffic. The rearview mirror caught my expressionless face. The man in the reflection looked incredibly exhausted. “About today,” Chloe suddenly started explaining, “that pipe really was substandard. Julian has an incredible eye. We’re lucky he caught the issue.” “Since it’s our dream home, we can’t have any flaws. Don’t overthink it.” “Julian is already contacting a British supplier to see if we can get a rush delivery.” I remained silent, staring at the red taillights of the traffic gridlock ahead. She waited for a response. When none came, she finally looked up from her Snapchat chat with Julian. “Are you mad?” She leaned closer to me. “Didn’t we agree to build the most perfect home together?” She rested her hand on my arm and leaned her head against my shoulder. She spoke to me like she was soothing a toddler. “Our home is going to be better than everyone else’s. Everything inside must be imported. Just be patient.” A wave of utter exhaustion washed over me. It was always like this. She used the excuse of “perfection” to keep pitching a future that would never arrive. And she expected me to put my entire life on hold for it. “Chloe,” I said, keeping my eyes on the red light ahead. “Yeah?” “My dad’s health is failing.” My voice was dead calm. “When he was hospitalized last time, I promised him he’d see me get married this year.” “I want him to watch me start my family. I want him to have peace of mind.” The car fell dead silent. She sat up straight, pulling away from my shoulder. “That was your promise to your dad. Why didn’t you discuss this with me first?” Her tone grew irritated. She picked up her phone again, her fingers tapping the screen with impatience. “The house isn’t even finished yet! How can we get married? What, are we going to invite all our friends to this tiny apartment?” “We need to take our time to make it perfect. Why are you in such a rush?” Her excuses were getting lazier and lazier. I suddenly remembered my dad using all his connections to book our wedding venue for Labor Day weekend two months ago. When I had excitedly shared the news with her back then, a flash of anxiety had crossed her eyes. “That’s great!” she had said. “I’ll tell Julian right away. I want him to design the wedding hall!” Then, she had immediately gone back to scrolling through her phone. Back then, I was just happy we finally had a date. Now, I realized how incredibly foolish I had been. The car pulled up to our apartment building and stopped. Chloe unbuckled her seatbelt. Assuming the conversation was over, she leaned in to kiss my cheek. I turned my head away. She froze. “I’m tired, Chloe.”

She stared at me, silent for a few seconds. Finally, she reached out to adjust my collar. “Renovations are stressful. Go upstairs and get some rest.” “Julian said he got some new inspiration. He wants me to go over and look at the blueprints. Poor guy is pulling an all-nighter for us.” “Okay,” I replied flatly. She didn’t get out of the car immediately. She seemed to be waiting for me to act like my old self—to tell her not to stay out too late, or to complain about her meeting a guy this late. But I just pushed the door open, stepped out, and walked away without looking back. Behind me, I heard her engine rev as she drove off. Back in the apartment, I collapsed onto the sofa. It took me a long time to finally drag myself into the study. As I passed the filing cabinet, I stopped. We bought this cabinet together five years ago when we first decided to buy a house. We had promised each other that it would be filled with blueprints of our future. I pulled open the bottom drawer. Hidden beneath a thick stack of renovation contracts and invoices was a yellowed piece of paper. It was our hand-drawn floor plan. It had our scribbled ideas, her dream walk-in closet, my gaming setup… At the bottom were our signatures side-by-side. Her neat, elegant handwriting next to my bold strokes. [Chief Designer: Ethan Vance. Chief Planner: Chloe Carter.] Next to the signatures, I had written: “Building our dream home. A promise is a promise.” The warm light of the desk lamp hit those words, making them look like a cruel joke. My phone rang. It was a FaceTime call from Chloe. I didn’t answer right away. I just watched the screen light up. The phone rang relentlessly. Finally, I swiped to accept. Her excited voice blasted through the speaker. “Ethan! We made a new decision. Look at this rendering!” She pointed her camera at a computer screen. “Sure. Whatever you think is best.” I didn’t look at the screen. My eyes were still fixed on our old hand-drawn sketch. Chloe noticed the paper through the camera. “Why did you dig out that old drawing?” she asked, laughing. “Feeling nostalgic?” I ignored her question and asked quietly, “Does the new plan require major changes again?” She hesitated. “Just a few. Julian’s mind works differently. His vision is on another level.” “I see.” I slowly and carefully folded the paper and put it back in the drawer. “We have a few more details to go over. I’m going to hang up,” she said, ready to end the call. I didn’t hang up. I pushed myself up from the desk. My back felt stiff from sitting too long, and I had to steady myself. “Chloe.” “Yeah?” Her background was noisy. “Let’s call off the engagement.” The line went quiet for a second, and then she let out a soft laugh. “Are you seriously still throwing a tantrum over some pipes? Don’t be childish.” Her tone was condescending, like she was dealing with a stubborn kid. “Alright, fine. I’ll have him order the parts overnighted from the UK, okay? Go to sleep. You have work tomorrow.” She was about to end the call. “Next month,” I said clearly to the camera, “the wedding is happening.”

She went dead silent. A few seconds passed before she spoke again. The sweet, patronizing tone was entirely gone. “Ethan Vance, stop playing games.” She took a sharp breath. “Marriage is a life event, not a tool for you to throw tantrums.” “Labor Day weekend.” I gave her the exact date. “The venue and the caterers are already confirmed.” She let out a cold scoff. “Did your dad pressure you again today? Is he really that desperate? He doesn’t even care that our house isn’t finished?” “Ethan, grow up. Stop letting your family run your life. We are the ones living in that house—” “Chloe, let me make this clear,” I interrupted. “The invitations are going out tomorrow. This is happening. I’m not asking for your permission. I’m letting you know.” I could hear her breathing getting heavier on the other end. “Who do you think you’re talking to, Ethan? Did I give you too much leeway? You think you can force me into this? This just proves you’re an insecure, controlling jerk!” “I am trying to build our perfect home. Any flaw is a desecration of that dream, and it ruins Julian’s entire design!” “Are you really that desperate for a stupid ceremony?” Her words cut like ice. In the past, accusations like this would make me anxious. I would have rushed to explain myself and apologize. But right now, I felt absolutely nothing. Sure, the designer’s “inspiration” was sacred. More importantly, Chloe was the only one who understood Julian’s art, and Julian only had Chloe as his client. Their late-night brainstorming sessions, their weekend trips to museums, and their “material sourcing” trips abroad… All that was left for me, the fiancé, was an endless pile of bills. I met the silence on the other end of the line and admitted it. “Yes. My parents are getting old. I want to start my family now.”

With that, I hung up. My laptop was still open on the side table. The screen showed the wedding planner’s portal. The header was clear: [Wedding Details Confirmation: Mr. Vance & Miss Carter]. I had been so excited to send this to her weeks ago, but she had brushed me off with a “let’s wait a bit.” I hadn’t opened the tab since. The night dragged on, and I couldn’t sleep. My phone lit up again. It was a text from my dad. He was still awake too. [How did it go? What did Chloe say? Your mom was so upset she barely ate dinner.] [Both families already agreed on the date. We can’t change it now, Ethan. It would make us look foolish in front of everyone.] What did she say? She didn’t say much of anything. In this world, not every plan comes to fruition. Not every renovation gets finished. A moment later, another text from my dad popped up: [Sigh. If Chloe is really being difficult, don’t force it. I’ll figure something out. Son, I know you’re stuck in the middle.] [Never mind. I understand your situation. Let nature take its course.] My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a long time. Finally, I typed back: [Don’t worry, Dad. I won’t let you down.]

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