Category: English

A new semester. A new beginning. My roommate, with her fabricated royal pedigree, had her eyes set on the Maybach my brother used to drop me off. That very night, she splurged, renting out the penthouse restaurant of an eight-star hotel to confess her feelings to him. The next morning, she had changed all her social media handles to “Mrs. Boothe.” And she vowed to spend our years as roommates teaching me “proper etiquette” according to her “royal standards.” What she didn’t know was that my “brother” was just a boy from an orphanage my parents had sponsored since he was little. And I was the true heir to the entire Boothe fortune. 1 It was for my brother, Enver’s, birthday. I’d gifted him a limited-edition Maybach sports car. To show his gratitude, he insisted on driving me to campus in it on the first day of the semester. That night, my roommate, the self-proclaimed royal descendant, Tina, didn’t come back to the dorm. She finally reappeared three days later, strutting in with an armful of luxury shopping bags, her nose in the air. She found me in our room, reading a product development report, and unceremoniously dumped the bags beside me. “Get these organized. Hang them in the closet. And be gentle. This stuff bruises easier than you do.” Her tone was that of a feudal lady tossing scraps to a scullery maid. When I didn’t move, her impatience flared. She shoved me hard, her gaudy, diamond-encrusted nails scratching a red line across my shoulder. “Mia Boothe, don’t you dare pull your little princess act with me!” she snapped. “Haven’t you heard? From now on, you live by the skin of my teeth.” She leaned in, her voice dripping with venom. “I tell you to study, you study. I tell you who to marry, you marry him. And if I say you don’t get a penny for a dowry, you’ll be out on your knees, begging on the street!” I couldn’t help the smirk that touched my lips as I watched her unhinged performance. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally found a way to get your ancestors back on the throne? You can have my family banished with a single word now?” I remembered her from freshman orientation last year. The first thing she’d said when introducing herself to the class was, “I am the thirty-ninth direct descendant of Prince von Hess. A hundred years ago, you would have had to kneel before me. But in these… special times, I grant you permission to use my name and be my classmate.” At first, some of the kids, fresh out of high school, were actually half-convinced by her vintage clothes and the jade pin in her hair. But it didn’t take long to learn the truth. Tina’s parents were prop masters for film sets. All her “heirlooms” were just repurposed costumes from historical dramas, all part of a grand scheme to package herself as high-born nobility. Her goal? To snag a wealthy husband and leapfrog into the upper class. And in this school, she hated me most of all. She was merely lost in a self-constructed fantasy of aristocracy, while I was, in fact, born into wealth. My sarcastic jab earned me a haughty eye-roll. She triumphantly whipped out her phone and shoved her social media feed in my face. “As of yesterday, your brother has officially asked me to be his girlfriend,” she declared. “From this moment on, I am the lady of the Boothe Corporation. Your dear sister-in-law. I’ve promised your brother I’ll give him at least three sons, so the Boothe family assets rightfully belong to my husband and my boys.” She paused, as if granting me a great favor. “But don’t you worry. I’ll take these next few years to train you properly, teach you the royal etiquette you so desperately need. When it’s time for you to marry for the family’s benefit, I’ll try my best to find you a man on his first wife.” “You’d better be cooperative,” she added, her eyes narrowing. “Because if I give birth to a daughter first, you won’t even have that marriage alliance to fall back on!” I burst out laughing. It’s true what they say—sometimes a situation is so utterly absurd, all you can do is laugh. I couldn’t believe that in the year 2024, someone’s mindset could be so stuck in the last century. Besides, the man kissing her in the photo at that eight-star hotel wasn’t my real brother. He was just a charity case my parents had taken in from an orphanage years ago. 2 I had no time to waste on someone so clearly delusional. Grabbing my laptop and research materials, I buried myself in the lab. If everything went according to plan, by the end of this semester, the new product I was developing would lead my family’s company to ring the bell on Nasdaq. I returned to the dorm late that evening. The moment I opened the door, Tina’s hand cracked across my face. “You brainless idiot!” she shrieked. “Didn’t I tell you to ask my professors and the academic advisor for a leave of absence for me? Why do all my classes show me as absent! Why are my participation grades gone!” Without a second thought, I slapped her back. Twice. Hard. “Who’s the brainless one here?!” I shot back. “The university has a strict policy against unexcused absences at the start of the semester. Who told you to skip the first day of class?” Tina was stunned into silence, her eyes welling up with tears of theatrical indignation. She immediately dialed Enver’s number and put him on speaker. “Darling,” she sobbed, “I’m so sorry. I just can’t manage Mia. She was out all day, and I was just worried about her. I only asked where she’d been, and she hit me.” Her voice trembled with false piety. “It’s not that I mind her hitting me… but a woman must uphold her feminine virtues to be blessed. If Mia keeps being so willful, she’s going to ruin all her future blessings!” I stood by, arms crossed, unimpressed by her pathetic, twisted narrative. But then, she thrust the phone in my face, and I heard my brother’s voice, shaking with rage. “Mia Boothe! Who the hell taught you to be so arrogant and willful?!” “Apologize to Tina right now! Or don’t blame me for disowning you as my sister!” 3 Enver’s reaction shocked me. Was this really the same boy who had cried in the orphanage, begging my parents to take him home? The same boy who had held my hand and promised to protect me for the rest of his life? For all these years, without my family’s support, he wouldn’t have even made it through middle school. We had always treated him as one of our own, never breathing a word to anyone about his adoption. We’d never been stingy with money or resources. The very sports car he was driving was a birthday gift from me. And now, for a girl he had been dating for all of three days, he was pointing fingers at me without even asking what happened. I guess it was true. No matter how genuine your kindness is, it becomes worthless once the other person takes it for granted. Pushing down my shock, I asked in a calm, level voice, “Enver, are you saying you’d really disown me as your sister?” “Mia, you know I’m just doing this for your own good… You need to listen… or Mom and Dad will worry…” His tone softened immediately, his slight tremor betraying his guilt. He knew perfectly well that at the age of thirteen, I had been officially named the sole heir to the Boothe family. The only reason I was even attending this university was because I saw potential in its student body. A team I built myself would be a team I could truly trust. 4 Right after I hung up, an apology text from Enver arrived. He claimed he had only been so harsh because he was afraid I was going down the wrong path. In his heart, I was his most important sister. At the end of the message, he specifically told me not to reveal his true identity to Tina. He was afraid that Tina, with her “noble” background, would look down on him. If this had been the old me, I would have immediately exposed Tina’s charade to him. But now? I didn’t care anymore. To me, an ungrateful outsider was no longer worth my time or effort. In the following days, I poured all my energy into the final stages of product development. I was out of the dorm at dawn and back late at night, successfully avoiding any more run-ins with Tina. She tried several times to make me recite a “manual of female virtues” she had written, but I ignored her completely. I had made up my mind: as soon as the new product launched, I was moving out. Then came the mid-autumn holiday weekend. I had just finished the last bit of work on the project and returned to the dorm to pack my bags. Suddenly, the door burst open. Tina and a strange man pinned me to the bed. I struggled frantically, terror coursing through me. “Let me go! Get off me! I’m calling the police!” Tina pulled the pin from her hair and jabbed it into me, again and again. “Go ahead! Call them!” she sneered. “Before they get here, my cousin will be done with you! You’ll be damaged goods nobody will ever want to marry!” I trembled in pain, glaring at her. “Tina, what the hell do you want?!” “What do I want?” Her eyes gleamed with a crazed triumph as she pulled a long, crudely made strip of white cloth from her dress. “I’m going to teach you a lesson. A permanent one!” “This is a treasure from my ancestors! Since you refuse to learn your place and keep trying to run around,” she hissed, “I’ll make sure you stay home. Permanently!” With that, she clenched the long cloth between her teeth, grabbed my foot, and began to twist it, forcing my sole to bend at an unnatural, sickening angle.

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I was cashing out, selling my shares in the startup I’d built from the ground up. I was getting married. But the two women who’d sworn they’d never marry anyone but me—my co-founders—had no idea. They were too busy throwing a party for the new male secretary… a celebration for a deal I had closed. A deal that had cost me a night of drinking myself into a bleeding ulcer. While I was passed out, he’d just dumped me in the hotel room, grabbed the signed contract, and raced back to the office to claim all the glory. And Kate and Laura, my brilliant partners, had swallowed his story hook, line, and sinker. The next day, a compromising photo of me went viral in the company’s group chat. The whispers started instantly: all my brilliant successes were just the result of me being some rich older woman’s boy toy. I called them from my hospital bed, trying to explain. Their response? “Don’t be so thin-skinned, Kevin. You’re a grown man. And stop making up stories about a bleeding ulcer.” “You’ve got an iron stomach. You could drink drain cleaner and be fine.” “We’re celebrating Jim’s big win. Come if you want, don’t if you don’t.” … The day I was discharged, I went back to the office just long enough to sell my shares to their biggest competitor. Then I called home. “I’ll do it. I’ll marry Sophie. You can start planning the wedding.” Just as I hung up, Kate and Laura pushed open my office door, their brows furrowed. “A wedding?” Kate asked, her voice tight. “What wedding?” It was only ten days away. No point in hiding it now. “Mine,” I said, my tone flat. “I’ll send you an invitation.” They stared at me, disbelief clouding their faces. As if on cue, my phone began buzzing incessantly—a dozen design drafts for wedding rings from my mother. They leaned in, their eyes widening as they saw the images. Kate’s disbelief soured into annoyance. “What are you doing ordering wedding rings, Kevin? Are you planning to wear one on each hand?” Laura interrogated me like I was on trial. “You’re a workaholic. You don’t even have a girlfriend. Who the hell are you marrying?” The irony was thick enough to choke on. The same two women who had once promised to spend their lives with me now stood there, looking at each other in baffled confusion. Just then, Jim waltzed in with a stack of documents, having overheard our conversation. His face was a mask of shock. “Mr. Beaumont,” he said, his voice dripping with faux concern, “you’re not planning on becoming Mrs. Davis’s boy toy, are you? I heard her kids are already in college. This… this doesn’t seem right.” Thanks to him, the entire office now believed I was sleeping with our biggest client. My gaze turned to ice. “Entering my office without knocking is just bad manners. Stealing my credit and then spreading sleazy rumors about me… is that just ignorance of the law?” My sharp tone made Jim’s eyes well up with tears. He stammered an apology, wringing his hands. “Mr. Beaumont, I didn’t… I never thought the others would misunderstand like this. But you and Mrs. Davis, in that hotel room…” He trailed off, his face flushing a deep crimson, unable to finish. But the implication hung in the air, and it was enough. Kate and Laura’s faces darkened, their eyes now regarding me with undisguised contempt. “That’s enough!” Kate snapped, her fury directed at me. “If you don’t want people to know, don’t do it in the first place. Don’t take out your humiliation on Jim just because you got caught.” “He’s just looking out for you,” Laura added, her voice laced with disgust. “Mrs. Davis is old enough to be your mother. Are you really so determined to debase yourself by becoming her side piece?” I couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh. Without another word, I threw all three of them out of my office. The bonds of our childhood, the five years we’d spent building this company together… all of it meant nothing. They wouldn’t believe me, but they’d trust the word of a man who’d been here for less than two months. I refused to waste my anger on them. I went back to scrolling through the ring designs my mother had sent. Not two minutes later, a notification popped up in the company group chat. It was from Kate. I was to switch offices with Jim. The reason? As her secretary, his office needed to be closer to hers to “improve workflow efficiency.” The chat, filled with hundreds of employees, exploded with sycophantic congratulations for Jim. A few loyal members of my team questioned the decision, pointing out the absurdity of a fresh-faced graduate, only two months into the job, being handed the general manager’s office. I was about to message them privately, telling them to stand down, when Jim posted a voice message, his tone pitiful. “Kate, it’s all my fault. I was so focused on the contract that night that I failed to take care of Kevin. I don’t deserve his office. I can’t even face him. I… I’d like to submit my resignation.” His performance was so nauseating it made me want to gag. The glass door to my office was kicked open. Laura stood there, glaring at me. “Look what you’ve done! Pack your things and clear out for Jim. Now. I don’t want to see you bullying a kid who’s just starting out in his career.” Kate followed close behind, urging me to hurry up while simultaneously typing reassurances to Jim in the group chat. Suddenly, someone in the main office shouted that Jim was on the roof. The color drained from both their faces. Without a second glance at me, they sprinted towards the rooftop. As their frantic figures disappeared, I calmly picked up my phone and dialed the number of someone who’d long been interested in my shares. Victoria, Kate and Laura’s arch-nemesis, had somehow heard I was selling and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I checked the email I’d sent Kate and Laura. Yesterday had marked the 30th day since I’d sent them the notice of sale. Their lack of response meant they had forfeited their first right of refusal. Victoria had given me three days to consider. I replied instantly, telling her we could sign the papers today. By the time they had coaxed Jim down from the roof and returned, they found my office untouched. Their patience had worn thin. “It’s an office swap, Kevin, not a cross-country move. What’s taking you so long?” At Laura’s words, Jim bit his lip, his eyes, red and swollen, fixed on me. “Mr. Beaumont, I’m so sorry. I… I don’t really need this office…” “It’s fine,” I said breezily. “If you like it, it’s all yours. You can have the General Manager title, too, while you’re at it.” My words made fresh tears spring to Jim’s eyes. Gone was the ruthless ambition he’d shown when he stole my deal. “What’s with the sarcasm, Kevin?” Kate challenged. “It’s just an office. Is it really worth being this petty?” Having already sold my shares, I couldn’t care less about the damn office. The dismissive look on my face must have infuriated Laura. She strode forward and unceremoniously dumped my few belongings onto the empty desk outside. Kate shot me a cold look before personally starting to arrange Jim’s new office. HR was parading in with potted plants, then fresh flowers and collector’s figurines. You’d think they were decorating a honeymoon suite. Finally, the workday ended. Kate rapped her knuckles on my temporary desk. “Don’t leave. We’re all going out for a team dinner to celebrate Jim’s new office.” I was taken aback. A celebration for an office change? Still, I didn’t refuse. I’d treat it as one last meal with my colleagues. It was only at the restaurant that I discovered the truth. The few employees who had spoken up for me in the group chat had all been fired, dismissed under flimsy pretexts by Kate. I messaged them one by one. They told me Kate and Laura had threatened them, warning them not to contact me or they’d be blacklisted from the industry. To appease Jim, they had turned on their oldest, most loyal employees. This ‘kill the chicken to scare the monkey’ tactic had worked; no one else dared to cross them for my sake. One brown-noser even took the chance to mock me. “Kevin, you missed Jim’s last celebration. You’d better give him a proper toast tonight. If it weren’t for him closing that deal, who knows what else you would’ve had to… sacrifice.” The insinuation was clear, bringing back the disgusting comments I’d overheard in the restroom earlier that day. “The nerve of Kevin, showing his face like nothing happened.” “A guy who sleeps his way to the top doesn’t need a sense of shame.” Ignoring the stares, I poured myself a glass of soda and took a small sip. Kate’s face instantly hardened. She snatched the glass from my hand and dumped it out. With practiced coordination, Laura filled it to the brim with hard liquor. “You bullied Jim so badly today he almost jumped off a roof,” Laura said, her voice sharp. “A drink to apologize isn’t too much to ask, is it?” “Besides,” Kate added, “you owe him one from the last party you skipped.” Without a second thought, I flung the contents of the glass into Laura’s face. “Who the hell is he to deserve a toast from me?” The table fell silent, everyone stunned by my action. Kate, ever the stoic one, simply refilled the glass and pushed it towards me again, her expression stubborn. “Kevin, this is for team unity. You’re drinking it, whether you like it or not.” Jim, ever the actor, feigned concern. “Kate, Laura, it’s okay. I know Mr. Beaumont looks down on me. If he doesn’t want to drink, let’s not force him. We shouldn’t ruin the mood…” But Laura, still dripping with liquor, was having none of it. Her fury boiling over, she slapped me hard across the face. Before I could react, she grabbed the glass and force-fed the fiery liquid down my throat. “You sleep your way into deals,” she spat, “what right do you have to look down on him?” The same two women who once feared me drinking a single drop of alcohol were now pouring it down my throat for Jim’s sake, their words dripping with venom. The searing liquor burned a path from my throat to my stomach. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead. But they didn’t notice. They were too busy pouring Jim his favorite fruit juice. He drained the glass in one go and shot me a triumphant smile. “Thank you for your sacrifice, Kevin. I’ll work even harder from now on.” The others assumed he was talking about the office. But I saw something more in his eyes: the unshakeable confidence of a man who knew he had already won Kate and Laura over. “Well then,” I said, my voice strained, “here’s to you marrying the bosses and reaching the pinnacle of your life.” I clutched my stomach, a searing pain shooting through me, and tried to head for the restroom. Kate blocked my path. “A couple of sips and now you’re putting on a show? Stop talking nonsense and sit down.” The burning in my gut was nothing compared to the agony in my heart. My eyes, red with pain and fury, met hers. “I just got out of the hospital for a bleeding ulcer,” I rasped, “and you force-feed me liquor?” Her hand, which had been blocking me, froze mid-air. “Could you at least come up with a believable excuse? You’ve been drinking for years, and we’ve never seen you with a bleeding ulcer.” Laura, the one who’d poured the drink, chimed in with her own skepticism. “I barely got a mouthful in you. A guy who can drink anyone under the table, and you’re acting like this? Seriously?” It’s easy to be dismissive when it’s not your own body in agony. There was a time when Laura, seeing me drink with clients to close a deal, would ask with tears in her eyes, “Kevin, there are so many other clients. Is one deal really worth it?” Back then, she and Kate would cry just seeing me drunk. They’d brew me hangover remedies, take turns staying up all night by my side, just to hand me a glass of warm water when I was thirsty. The next day, they’d march into the office with dark circles under their eyes, determined to work twice as hard to justify my sacrifice. We had survived the hardest days of our startup. The two women who had sworn themselves to me were now championing another man at my expense. “I just need to use the restroom,” I said through gritted teeth. “Is that really so much to ask?” My stomach convulsed, and I bent over, leaning against the wall just to stay upright. A female colleague was the first to notice something was seriously wrong and moved to help me. Kate pushed her away, forbidding her from touching me. “So this is your trick, Kevin? You play the frail victim after a few drinks to win over your female clients?” The colleague who had tried to help me blushed, mortified. “Kate, I think you’re mistaken. Look at him, his face is pale white!” Laura scoffed. “He’s just putting on an act because he’s embarrassed.” I couldn’t blame her for not believing me. For years, no matter how sick I felt from drinking, I had always toughed it out. It was the path I’d chosen. I loved the grind of building something, the validation of success. In their eyes, I was made of iron. Jim, having enjoyed the show long enough, now approached with a cup of hot water, playing the part of the concerned friend. “Kevin, it doesn’t matter how you landed the deal. You’re a hero to this company. We’re all grateful for your contribution.” His words were gasoline on a fire. Kate, who had been supporting me, suddenly snatched her hand away as if I were something filthy. “If you don’t want to be here, then just go home,” she said, before turning and walking to the restroom to scrub her hands clean. Under the contemptuous gazes of everyone in the room, I clutched my stomach and turned to leave. But Jim wouldn’t let me. He grabbed my arm, and in the struggle, the scalding water from his cup sloshed out, splashing onto both of us. I recoiled instinctively, pushing him away. Most of the hot water drenched my hand. Laura shot up from her seat, yelling for a waiter to bring an ice pack for Jim. She was completely oblivious to the fact that my hand had taken the worst of it. Jim had a small red patch, the size of a quarter. My entire hand was a blazing red. Kate emerged from the restroom just in time to see Jim on the verge of tears. Her anger finally erupted. “Kevin, have you no shame? Jim is trying to help you, and you attack him?” At that moment, a wave of grief washed over me. I fought back the stinging in my nose and let out a bitter, hollow laugh. Seeing me laugh, Kate grabbed me and dragged me in front of Jim. “I don’t know what you find so funny. Apologize to him. Now.” Laura, busy applying the ice pack to Jim’s hand, chimed in, “He has to apologize! If that burn scars, it’s over!” My hand trembling, I held up my own scalded skin for her to see. She didn’t even look, just slapped it away. The searing pain intensified, a sharp, stabbing agony now mixed with the burn. Kate watched me like a hawk. “What, you won’t apologize? Are you going to hit him again?” I shouldn’t have even tried. A colleague sitting nearby finally saw the state of my hand and spoke up hesitantly. “Kate… Kevin is burned too…” Kate’s brow furrowed. A flicker of something—was it concern?—crossed her eyes as she instinctively reached for my hand. But then Jim let out a sharp hiss of pain, and her face hardened again. She flung my hand away. “Serves you right! If you hadn’t been such a drama queen, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. You’re a liability.” “Apologize and get out.” An apology was impossible. But I was done humiliating myself. Seeing my refusal, Jim put on a brave face. “Kate, I’m fine… You should take Kevin to the hospital. A burn like this really hurts… Ah!” His sudden cry sent Kate and Laura into a panic. They fussed over him, checking his hand, the chaos escalating until someone was actually calling for an ambulance. I turned my back on the circus and walked out without a second thought. Sometime during the dinner, it had started to rain. As I stood at the curb, wondering whether to make a dash for a taxi, Laura came out. I thought for a moment that her conscience had gotten the better of her. Instead, she just tossed a jacket at me. “Here are your things. Stop being so careless and expecting me and Kate to clean up after you.” I looked down at the light-colored suit jacket, now stained with red wine. I threw it directly into a nearby trash can. Laura was furious. “Kevin, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” It was a custom suit she and Kate had bought for me together. There was a time they would fight over whose gift I would wear for the day. Eventually, they started splitting the cost of everything, just to keep things “fair.” “It’s dirty,” I said, my voice empty. “It’s time to throw it out.” Just like them. Their hearts were tainted. It was time to throw them away. For a split second, a look of profound loss flickered across Laura’s face, as if she’d just felt something important slip through her fingers. But her attention was quickly drawn back to Jim. I hailed a cab in the pouring rain, went home, took my medication, and iced my hand until the throbbing pain finally subsided. The next morning, I woke up to my phone blowing up with texts from strangers—a flood of lewd messages asking for my “rates.” Then another message came through, this one with a link. My private information, my photo, had been posted on a porn site.

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In my past life, my bondmate Lyra tried to keep the Gate of Ascension open for her weak old flame, Javier. The Gate opens only once every ten thousand years—the only chance for adepts to ascend. By delaying its closure, she would doom an entire generation. So I forced her through. We spent centuries together in the Celestial Realm, and I foolishly thought she’d moved on. But on the eve of my Archon breakthrough, she poisoned me. As divine retribution tore me apart, she screamed: “You made Javier miss his ascension! Go rot with him!” When I opened my eyes, I was back—at the moment she tried to stop the Gate. This time, I’ll let her have her way. 1 “This is the Gate of Ascension! If it doesn’t close, our entire generation is doomed!” A handful of mages pleaded with Lyra, who stood defiantly in the Gate’s shimmering portal, blocking its path. “Javier hasn’t arrived yet,” Lyra’s voice was as cold as glacial ice. She didn’t budge an inch. “What’s the harm in waiting a little longer?” “It opens once every ten thousand years! This is our life’s work, our only hope!” In response, Lyra flung a bolt of pure energy, blasting one of the pleading mages from the sky. “Insects like you dare dream of ascension?” she sneered. “Javier is not here. Therefore, this Gate will not close.” She stood there, a lone figure against the tide, a portrait of magnificent, misplaced heroism. I clapped my hands, my applause echoing in the stunned silence. “Bravo! Spoken with the spirit of a true paragon, Lady Lyra!” Then, under the bewildered gazes of the crowd, I turned and drifted away. For me, the Gate was a mere formality. My power had long since reached the threshold of ascension. If not for my desire to ascend alongside the far weaker Lyra, I would have been in the Celestial Realm ages ago. I never imagined that our shared dream of an eternity together would end in such a bitter betrayal. This life, I was done with her. As the thought crossed my mind, I released the restraints on my power. Instantly, the heavens took notice. A summons to the Celestial Ordeal. In three days, the trial would begin. If I survived, I would ascend. After my departure, Lyra’s momentary confusion gave way to a faltering of her bravado. Her power, in the grand scheme of things, was unremarkable. Without me to protect her, she would have perished a thousand times over. Since we were bound, I had braved the Nine Hells and the deepest Abyss to fetch her elixirs and arcane relics, all to finally give her the strength to qualify for ascension. But now, in this moment, she seemed to believe she was truly invincible. The true archmages of the realm were all busy battling in the high heavens, vying for the first wisp of celestial essence to break through from the other side. The only ones arriving at the Gate now were the lesser adepts. I wondered what those old titans would do when they learned that a hundred centuries of cosmic alignment had been squandered for the selfish whim of a minor mage. The crowd of low-level adepts was no match for Lyra, who was armed to the teeth with the artifacts I had given her. She struck them down one by one, their spirit-veins fractured. “You pathetic worms dare stand in my way?” she declared, standing sentinel at the Gate, her gaze sweeping over the fallen. “Until Javier arrives, no one is closing this Gate.” With no one left to challenge her, her arrogance swelled. Hours passed. More and more adepts arrived, only to be blocked by the unyielding figure of Lyra. Finally, Javier appeared, stumbling and breathless. “Lyra, I knew you wouldn’t leave me behind,” he gasped, his own energy almost completely depleted. For someone of his level, just reaching these heights was a monumental feat. “Javier,” Lyra’s voice softened, her relief palpable. “As long as I’m here, you will always have a place on the Celestial Stairway.” But just as she spoke, the Gate of Ascension, strained beyond its limits, began to tremble. Before anyone could enter, cracks of light spiderwebbed across its surface, and it began to shatter. “The Gate… it’s broken! Ten thousand years of waiting, our only chance at godhood… gone!” “It’s all that witch’s fault!” “And that low-born mongrel! What right does he have to even be here?” The heavens filled with a chorus of curses. Javier’s face went white as a sheet. “Lady Lyra… did I do something wrong?” he whispered, shrinking behind her as a thousand murderous glares fixed upon him. “Let them dare touch you, Javier, and I will hunt them to the ends of the earth,” Lyra declared, her voice ringing with protective fury. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here.” “Oh, Lady Lyra, you’re the best.” As the two of them exchanged their tender reassurances, a horrifying realization dawned on someone in the crowd. “The Gate of Ascension is shattered… but the gate to the Celestial Realm never opened! Don’t tell me the Archmages are trapped on the Stairway!” 2 A single mage’s panicked cry plunged the world into a chilling silence. The Gate of Ascension was the entrance. You passed through it to climb the Celestial Stairway. Only when the Gate of Ascension closed did the true gate to the heavens open. But now, the entrance had crumbled first. The gate to the heavens remained sealed. And all the great powers of the realm were trapped inside. Which meant that, apart from me, Lyra was now the most powerful being in this world. To make matters worse, blinded by love, I had once sworn an Unbreakable Vow. If I ever brought harm to Lyra, my own body would erupt into nothingness. “Does this mean… our masters are trapped for another ten thousand years?” The faces of the assembled mages turned ashen. Lyra, too, finally understood. A wild, triumphant laugh escaped her lips. “Javier, didn’t you say you wanted to see the treasures of the Three Great Orders? Today, I will take you on a tour of the world! Take whatever you desire. I’d like to see anyone try and stop us.” And so, with the tigers away, the monkey became king. Lyra began her grand tour, leading Javier to pillage the vaults and secret libraries of every major faction in the land. She had made an enemy of the entire world. But none of that mattered to me anymore. In three days, the Ordeal would come, and I would be gone. I didn’t expect, however, that with only an hour left until my trial, Lyra would seek me out. “Kaelan. Give Javier your protective artifact, the Prismatic Celestial Jade.” I frowned, looking at the two of them. A shimmering aura of potent energy clung to them both. Clearly, they had been enjoying the spoils of the great orders. “Give him the Jade?” For a moment, I thought I’d misheard. The Jade was my soul-bound artifact. Without the Jade, I was without life. “Are you deaf? I told you what I want,” Lyra said, her brow furrowing with impatience. “Don’t you know this is my soul-bound artifact?” I almost laughed. I never dreamed that a few days of unearned power would inflate her ego to such monstrous proportions. “So what if it is?” she retorted, an eyebrow arched in disdain. “You know that if a soul-bound artifact is separated from its master, the master dies.” “I’m the strongest in the world now. I can spare you a wisp of my power to keep you alive. Stop wasting my time and hand it over.” She waved her hand dismissively. I stared at her, my gaze cold. The person I had loved for so long was now a stranger. A current of power began to stir around me, a pressure that was almost physical. “The Jade is my life. It is bound to my very soul. And you want to take it, to take my life, just to please him?” Lyra’s expression hardened, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. She clearly hadn’t expected me to refuse. “Kaelan, you have so many artifacts and elixirs. What’s the big deal about giving up one?” she snapped. “In this world, who can stand against me now? Give me the Jade, and I will naturally protect you.” I looked at her hideous, grasping expression, and a wave of profound sorrow washed over me. To ascend with her, I had suppressed my own power, hidden my true identity. I had braved hells and abyss for her, facing death countless times. And in her eyes, it was simply, “You have so much, why can’t I have some?” Javier, who had been hiding behind Lyra, suddenly bit his lip and stepped forward. “Lady Lyra, Kaelan… you are bondmates. It was presumptuous of me to ask. You shouldn’t fight because of me. I… I’ll leave.” He turned, his voice choked with emotion. “Lady Lyra, I’m an orphan. You’re the only person in this world who has ever been kind to me. If I have the chance, I will repay your kindness in the future.” 3 As Javier’s words faded, he made a show of turning to leave. Lyra’s eyes immediately reddened. “Javier, no. With me here, no one can bully you. You have a family now.” Tears streamed down Javier’s face. “Lady Lyra, you’re too good to me! For all my lives to come, I would be your beast of burden, your loyal servant, just to stay by your side!” Lyra, her heart aching for him, pulled him into a gentle embrace, whispering words of comfort. I had no interest in this melodrama. The Ordeal was imminent. I began to focus, to center my spirit, and the power around me began to hum and swirl. Seeing this, Lyra’s tone turned to ice. “Kaelan, are you actually thinking of fighting me? No one in this world is my match. I am showing you dignity because we were once bondmates. Do you take my kindness for weakness?” she raged. “When will you learn to be as selfless as Javier!” Her furious shouts echoed across the sky. I watched her shield Javier protectively, her defiant posture utterly laughable. For millennia, I had sheltered her so completely that she had no concept of what the celestial energy coiling around me truly meant. She had no idea why the most powerful mages in the land had always shown her such deference. Now, convinced of her own invincibility, her first act was to brandish her power at me. It was pathetic. It was tragic. I shot her a cold glance and said nothing. Just then, Javier stepped forward again. “Lady Lyra, please don’t be angry. Why don’t you step aside for a moment? Let me talk to him, brother to brother.” “Brother Kaelan,” he began, walking toward me with a look of manufactured sincerity. “I’m not here to ruin your relationship. I… I just want to join this family.” Lyra was hesitant, but at Javier’s insistence, she reluctantly agreed. “Kaelan, when will you learn to be as gracious as Javier?” she huffed, before finally departing. I gave them both a cold, sweeping glare, then turned my attention back to the heavens. The storm clouds of my Ordeal were gathering. The moment Lyra was out of earshot, Javier’s face transformed. “Kaelan, you’re really pushing your luck, aren’t you?” he sneered. “Lyra is now the undisputed master of this world. She’s far too good for a no-name adept like you. Only an Aether-touched genius like me is worthy of being her partner.” He puffed out his chest. “If I were you, I’d disappear. Don’t force my hand.” I couldn’t be bothered to respond to this dog borrowing its master’s ferocity. But then, a flicker of movement at his waist caught my eye. A jade pendant. It was a gift from my master, who had ascended long ago. It was the token of my love I had given to Lyra. The day we were bound, under a canopy of a billion stars, I had placed it in her hand and sworn an oath to never harm her. And now, she had given it away so casually. I thought my heart was a frozen stone, that nothing of her could move me. But seeing that pendant swaying at Javier’s hip, I lost control. With a flick of my will, I summoned it, and the pendant flew from his belt into my hand. Javier’s eyes suddenly lit up with a triumphant, malicious glee. The next second, he sprayed a great mouthful of blood, his face turning as pale as parchment. “KAELAN! HOW FAR ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE THIS!” Lyra’s shriek ripped through the sky. She flew to Javier’s side, cradling him in her arms. “Javier was trying to make peace with you, and you attack him out of spite!” she screamed, her eyes blazing with fury. “Kneel and apologize to him right now, or…” “Or what?” I cut her off. Lyra froze for a second, then her face turned into a mask of cold fury. “Or our bond as soulmates is severed today!” The absurdity of it all was almost amusing. “Then let it be severed.” Her face twisted in rage. An instant later, a devastating blast of energy shot toward me—it was the ultimate, life-or-death technique I myself had taught her. My heart, in that moment, became perfectly still. For a common stray, she would use such a strike against me. The attack hit the shimmering shield of my own power and vanished without a trace. “Ant,” I said softly. The next moment, the clouds of the Ordeal fully converged. The world-shaking trial of ascension was about to begin. And at the same time, a shimmering stairway of light reappeared in the sky. The great powers of the realm were finally free.

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Movie star Ted Parsons posted on his social media in the middle of the night: “Folks, secretly going to meet my online crush. If it goes well, call me a stud. If it fails, I’m a clown.” The next day, he dropped a photo: a girl in a blue and white floral dress locked in an embrace with a handsome guy with a shock of blond hair. Then, he changed his screen name to [The Other Guy]. The internet exploded. And I looked down at the blue and white floral dress I was wearing, then at my brother’s newly dyed blond hair, and finally at the 99+ unread messages from my online boyfriend on my phone. I exploded, too. 1 I’m a C-list actress, at best. The kind of actress who exists on the very fringes of stardom. My latest drama finally took off, but none of the starlight and riches that came with it landed on me. Instead, I got a lot of rotten eggs and cabbage hurled at me on the street. That’s because I played the villainess—the kind you hate with a fury that makes your teeth ache. The hatred for the character bled over to the actress, and just like that, I became a public punching bag. As I scrolled through the endless wave of online hate, the director, Mr. Evans, looked at me, his face a mask of apology. “Kaley, this must have been so hard on you. Why don’t you take some time off? Go home, lay low for a bit. I’ll make sure you’re compensated, of course. Please, don’t let it get you down.” He was raking in awards for this show, yet he was trying so desperately to look sorry for me. So desperate that the corner of his mouth kept twitching, fighting an upward curl, then forcing itself down, then back up again… a spastic battle on his face. I just stared. Director Evans, please stop smiling. You’re scaring me. 2 “A little compensation?” I rolled my eyes. I remembered how he’d sweet-talked me into this role, promising it would be my ticket to the big time, that I’d be dining on champagne and caviar. And now? “You really think I’m that easy to brush off?” I was on the verge of laughing from sheer frustration. I glanced down as my phone screen lit up. A bank notification. A new deposit… for five million dollars. I shook my head, a sigh escaping my lips. “You know what? Turns out I am.” 3 Back home, I cracked open a fine ’82 Coke. The moment I switched from my work account to my personal one, a video call came in. The contact name read: My 6’4″ Six-Pack Clingy Puppy. I answered, and a low, gravelly voice purred through the speaker at the same time. “Miss me, baby?” His voice was like velvet lined with fishhooks, snagging at my heart. For a second, my mind went adrift. I quickly turned off my own camera. On my screen, however, was a glorious view of six-pack abs. As usual, he wasn’t showing his face. The frame started just below his sharp jawline. Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, a powerful core—his proportions were absolutely perfect. Droplets of water still clung to his chest, tracing slow, tantalizing paths down the grooves of his muscles. My cheeks flushed, my head starting to feel fuzzy. That’s weird. Can you get tipsy from Coca-Cola? “Why so quiet, hmm?” He leaned closer to the camera, his Adam’s apple bobbing. I instinctively reached out, my fingers hitting the cold, hard glass of the screen, which jolted me back to reality. Tsk. Look but don’t touch. So frustrating. “Lower the camera a little. We know each other well enough by now, don’t be shy.” 4 The hand drying his chest with a towel paused. “You sure?” I raised an eyebrow. He wouldn’t actually dare, I thought, so I pushed my luck. “Positive. Absolutely positive.” To my shock, the camera on his end actually started to pan down. Slowly. From his throat to his chest, then lower, and lower still… The deliberate slowness felt like an intimate exploration of his body. My breath hitched. My face was on fire. Just in the nick of time… BAM! I slammed my phone face-down on the table. “STOP! That’s enough! This is not that kind of party!” Silence for a beat, then a soft chuckle from his end. “Scared?” “Yeah, scared I’ll pass out from the sight of something so small.” “Excuse me?” He bit out, his voice tight. “I dare you to open your eyes and look. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!” Sorry, but my entire personality is built on defiance. “I! REFUSE!” “You’re just chicken,” he scoffed. “Too scared to admit it.” That one sentence lit a fire under me. “Chicken? Are you kidding me? Fine! I’ll look!” Without another word, I snatched the phone off the table. 5 And in the next second, a fluffy white bathrobe, tied securely around his waist and covering him completely, filled my screen. I blinked. “…?!” Seriously, dude? I was halfway to a heart attack, and this is what you show me? “What else were you expecting to see?” Even though I couldn’t see his face, I could picture the smug, mischievous grin he was wearing just from the sound of his voice. Oh, he’s good. He was totally playing me! “Just looking is boring! If you’ve got the guts, come over and let me touch!” I squeezed my fists, genuinely annoyed now. I had to get my dignity back. He let out a soft “tsk.” “If I actually showed up, would you actually have the guts to see me?” “Of course, why wouldn’t I?” “You sure you wouldn’t take one look at me and run for the hills?” “Haha, you’re dreaming. I’d be more likely to push you onto the sofa and… ravage… you… mercilessly!” “…” 6 When I woke up the next morning and saw my chat history with him, my world came crashing down. The black text on the screen seemed to get more and more suggestive the longer I looked, making my face burn red. The worst part was, I was nowhere near ready to meet in person. But last night, in a fit of bravado, I’d thrown down the gauntlet: [Me: See you tomorrow, 5 PM, at the entrance of the Starlight Hotel.] [Me: Whoever bails eats ramen without the flavor packet for the rest of their life!] So, with trembling fingers, I weakly typed out a new message: [Me: You know, I was just thinking… ramen without the flavor packet probably tastes pretty good too.] He replied almost instantly. First, a single question mark. Then, a location pin for the city’s main airport. [My 6’4″ Six-Pack Clingy Puppy: If I don’t see you this afternoon, I’ll hunt you down through the internet, baby. Don’t worry.] Great. My heart was now completely and utterly dead. There was no backing out now. I closed my eyes in resignation. It looked like there was no escaping this time. But just as I was wallowing in my despair, a shriek erupted from outside my door. 7 “Kaley! Kaleeeeyyyy! Open up! I know you’re in there! You had the guts to steal a man, now have the guts to open the door… ” I couldn’t stand that weaselly voice for another second. I shot up and stormed to the door. The moment I flung it open, the person standing there was about to speak. I shoved my slipper into his mouth. Instant, blessed silence. It lasted for all of one second before chaos erupted again. He spat the slipper out, hacking and spitting dramatically onto the floor. “Are you even my sister?! Are you trying to poison me?!” I covered my ears, his whining already giving me a headache. Then I got a good look at his new, eye-searingly blond hair, and my expression soured even more. “What is that look?” Hearing this, my brother, Leo, ran a hand through his hair and winked at me furiously. “What do you think? New style. Hot, right?” “You look like you got electrocuted.” Seeing he couldn’t win a war of words, Leo whipped out his phone and shoved it in my face. Because trending topics about both of us were currently lighting up the internet. #LeoUnlocksNewLook, TotallySlaying!# #DailyQuestion: WhenWillTheVillainessKaleyFinallyGetWrittenOff!# One praising him, one trashing me. What no one in the entertainment world knew was that Leo and I were actually siblings. The reason was simple: we couldn’t stand each other. He was the life of the party on variety shows, while I was a nobody actress stuck in obscurity. The day we entered the industry, we made a pact to pretend we were strangers. 8 I couldn’t be bothered with him. As I went to shut the door, a foot wedged its way into the gap. “Wait!” he yelped, squeezing half his body through. “I just wanted to ask if you saw that bottle of liquor in the fridge.” “No.” But Leo pressed on, unwilling to give up. “It was in a Coke bottle. I mixed some whiskey with Coke. You really didn’t see it?” My head snapped around. I saw the empty Coke bottle from last night sitting on my bedside table. Then I turned back to Leo, a chillingly sweet smile spreading across my face. “Are you saying… that Coke in the fridge… was actually alcohol?” Leo nodded. I grabbed his ear and twisted. He yelped in pain. “Leo, are you an absolute psycho?! Who puts whiskey in a Coke bottle?!” No wonder! No wonder that “Coke” tasted weirder and weirder last night. It wasn’t that my online crush’s flirting had me tipsy. I was genuinely drunk! “This! Is! All! Your! Fault! You’re going to be the death of me!” 9 After I explained the situation, Leo mocked me relentlessly. “I was wondering what the big deal was! So that’s what happened!” A death glare from me cut him off mid-sentence. “I have three hours until the meetup. What am I supposed to do?” He shrank back, looking sheepish. “Hey, you can’t blame it all on me! Besides, you two have been talking for a year. Meeting up was bound to happen. Sooner or later, what’s the difference?” He wasn’t entirely wrong. It’s just… We’d never once shown our faces during our video calls. Even the photos he sent were artsy, atmospheric shots where his face was always cleverly obscured. He wouldn’t even tell me what he did for a living. All I knew was that he traveled a lot for work, flying all over the country. When he was truly busy, he’d be unreachable for half the day. Chatting behind a screen was fine. But the thought of meeting face-to-face? It genuinely terrified me. “But that name, Ted… why does it sound so familiar?” Leo mused, stroking his chin. Suddenly, it clicked. “Wait, isn’t that the name of that new A-list movie star? The one who just won Best Actor?” I waved his comment away. “Just a coincidence.” The man was a movie star, with a face that could launch a thousand ships. He had the looks, the fame, the charisma. Why on earth would someone like that bother with the hassle of online dating? So I paid Leo’s comment no mind. “But what if it is him?” Leo grinned, and before I could react, he’d pulled out a tablet. A picture of Ted Parsons’s chiseled abs was suddenly magnified in front of my eyes. “You’re always on video calls with your online guy, right? Why don’t you take a good, hard look? Compare and contrast?” “…Get out!” 10 In the end, I braced myself and went to the hotel we’d agreed on. As for Leo, I’d dragged him along with me. There’s safety in numbers, after all. My phone had been buzzing nonstop on the way over, all messages from Ted. [My 6’4″ Six-Pack Clingy Puppy: I’m about to meet you, baby! I’m so nervous! I have a huge surprise for you, hehe!] I finally just put my phone on Do Not Disturb, snapped a picture of the hotel entrance to let him know I’d arrived, and told him we’d talk when we met. But the thought of it just made my stomach clench even tighter. Seeing my state, Leo leaned in to comfort me. “It’s okay, Kaley, don’t be scared. He came all this way to see you, which means you’re really important to him. If there’s love, it’s a beautiful romance. If there’s not… well, at worst it’s a police report.” I was speechless. I threw a punch at him. “No one will think you’re a mute if you just shut up!” But my punch hit nothing but air. Leo made a goofy face at me, which only made me angrier. “Get back here!” Thanks to the iron-clad rule of older-sibling dominance, I ended up pinning him to the ground and giving him a proper noogie until he begged for mercy. “Kaley, stop, ow, ow, ow! Your online date is gonna be here any second! You have to maintain your image!” His words snapped me back to reality. I scrambled for my phone. It was already fifteen minutes past our agreed-upon time! “What the hell? Don’t tell me he stood me up!” I unlocked the screen and froze. 99+ messages from [My 6’4″ Six-Pack Clingy Puppy]. Before I could even open them, a breaking news notification popped up, taking over my screen. #BREAKING: Movie Star Ted Parsons’s Online Date Ends in Disaster# #TedParsons: The Other Guy# I blinked. “?!” A terrible, sinking feeling washed over me. 11 Last night, the award-winning actor had posted: [Ted Parsons: Folks, secretly going to meet my online crush. If it goes well, call me a stud. If it fails, I’m a clown.] He’d even specified the time in the comments: 5 PM today. Fans and curious onlookers had been waiting with bated breath, only to see him change his screen name to [The Other Guy]. Then came the paparazzi photo: One second, he’s on his phone, smiling and texting. The next, he looks up and sees a girl in a blue and white floral dress looking all “cozy” with a guy with blond hair. The smile vanishes. The internet exploded. I looked down at the blue and white floral dress I was wearing. At my brother’s newly dyed blond hair. And at the 99+ unread messages on my phone. I exploded, too. So, the guy I’d been dating online for over a year… Was actually the movie star Ted Parsons?! The realization hit me, and the world started to spin.

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1 When Eddie’s childhood friend’s company went bankrupt, he wanted to use the hundred thousand dollars I had set aside—our child’s life-saving fund—to rescue her. I begged him to give the money back, but all he said was, “June will earn it back. You need to be more forward-thinking, not some paranoid miser.” When I demanded he have her sign a promissory note, he called me cold and heartless. Later, his friend cried that the money was all gone and she would starve. Eddie held her, comforted her, and promised to support her for the rest of her life. I quietly packed my bags and called my father. “Dad, you were right. Eddie is a piece of work. I’m coming home to take over the business.” … I had just hung up the phone when Eddie emerged from the bedroom. “Anna,” he said softly, “go make some soup for June. She’ll be hungry when she wakes up.” I ignored him and started walking toward my own room. His face darkened, and he blocked my path. “Anna Chevalier, it was just a hundred thousand dollars. Are you still throwing a fit about it? Don’t you have any compassion?” His voice rose. “If you’re not going to listen, then get out.” His shout woke June. She propped herself up, draping an arm over Eddie’s shoulder and shooting me a look of pure disdain. “Honestly, Eddie. You were the campus king from high school through grad school, and your family is well-off. How did you end up with such a petty girl?” Eddie sighed, his eyes on June. “Not everyone can be as generous and easygoing as you.” He glanced at my stomach. “But we already have a child on the way. It’s too late for regrets now.” I cradled my belly, staring at the impatience etched on Eddie’s face. Could I even have this child? My doctor had already told me this was a high-risk pregnancy. To have any chance of carrying the baby to term, and to ensure its health afterward, would cost at least a hundred thousand dollars, from prenatal care to the first few years of life. And even then, there were no guarantees it would be a healthy child. Now, with each passing day, I could feel the fragile life inside me growing weaker. And that hundred thousand dollars was gone. I had to divorce Eddie. Only when I went home, alone, would my father give me money again. When I had defied him to marry Eddie, he had forbidden me from ever mentioning my family’s background, worried it would crush Eddie’s pride and ambition. I was only three months along. Maybe it was better not to bring an unhealthy child into the world to suffer, especially with a father like this. But what hurt the most was that Eddie knew. He knew that money was meant to save my life and our child’s life, and he still gave it to June without a second thought. If two human lives meant less to him than June, then there was no reason for me and my child to stay. I turned and went to my room to grab my purse and suitcase, ready to head to the hospital. June lunged forward and grabbed my suitcase. “Anna, stop it!” she yelled. “Don’t pull this ‘running away from home’ drama to make things difficult for Eddie.” “I’m going out to drink with clients tonight,” she declared, her voice laced with theatrical martyrdom. “Even if I have to drink until my stomach bleeds and I pass out in someone else’s bed, I, June, will pay you back. Happy now?” Eddie, who never set foot in the kitchen, heard the commotion and came running out. June had already changed into a flimsy, black silk slip dress. She patted Eddie’s shoulder as she walked towards the door. “Bro, I won’t let you be put in a tough spot. I’m going to go earn that money. You just handle your wife.” Eddie rushed to the door and bolted it. For a fleeting moment, a spark of hope ignited in my heart. Was he afraid I would leave? He strode towards me, and I held my breath, waiting for an apology. Instead, his voice, cold as ice, lashed out at me. “Anna, you are the most vicious woman I have ever met. You’re a woman yourself. How could you force June to sell her body to pay you back?” 2 Before I could even explain, Eddie ripped the purse from my shoulder and threw it into the fireplace. He glared at me, his eyes burning with cold fury. “No ID, no credit cards. Let’s see how far you get now.” Then he turned to June, his voice softening. “June, we’ve known each other for years. You’re closer to me than my own brother. You don’t have to pay me back. We can sell the house, sell the car if we have to. Go change. I’ll take you out for a nice meal.” He wrinkled his nose. “The smell from that burning bag is toxic. We can’t eat here.” I scrambled to the fireplace, trying to retrieve my purse, but it was already a melted, gaping mess. My ID, the last few hundred dollars in cash I had, all of it was gone. The screen of my phone had cracked and warped in the heat. Fearing it might explode, I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a pair of barbecue tongs, and carefully pulled the phone from the flames. As Eddie and June left, he deliberately triple-locked the door from the outside. I was trapped. My phone was broken. He had done this on purpose. But had he forgotten? I hadn’t eaten either. The morning sickness was unbearable; I had no strength to cook. There were no snacks in the house, because I’d been too sick to go shopping. I lay on the bed, my stomach growling with hunger, my body wracked with waves of nausea. I didn’t even have the energy to make myself a bowl of soup. Then I felt a warm gush between my legs and the metallic scent of blood. Something was terribly wrong. Using every last bit of strength I had, I crawled to the window. I saw the lights on in the apartment below. I grabbed a laundry pole and banged it repeatedly against my neighbor’s window, screaming for help. The lady downstairs, Mrs. Gable, knew me well. She knew about my difficult pregnancy. Her voice, filled with alarm, carried up to me. “Honey, don’t you worry! I’m calling 911 right now! I’ll get the building manager to open your door!” Within ten minutes, the paramedics and the building manager were there. The door was open. I frantically borrowed Mrs. Gable’s phone and called Eddie. I had no money, but he had just received a ten-thousand-dollar bonus. He answered quickly. “Eddie, you have to come back,” I pleaded, my voice cracking. “I’m bleeding. The paramedics said I might lose the baby.” I heard a soft scoff from the other end. It was June. “Anna, you’re just like one of those women in a palace drama. Using the baby to get your man’s attention.” The blood was flowing faster now. I couldn’t hold back my fury. “Have you no shame? It’s the middle of the night and you’re still hanging all over a married man!” June didn’t answer. She tossed the phone aside but didn’t hang up. I could hear music in the background. They were at a karaoke bar. It was a duet. Eddie and June, singing a classic song about friendship. I could just make out the line: “One word, a lifetime. One drink, an eternal bond.” I screamed his name into the phone, but he couldn’t hear me over the music. As their voices rose in a powerful, off-key crescendo for the final chorus: “There’s still pain, there’s still hurt, there’s still a long road, and there’s still me.” I hung up the phone. I should never have held out hope for Eddie. His friendship, his loyalty to her, would always come before his wife and child. But were they just friends? The sobs finally broke through. I called my dad. He told me he would have a friend in the city, Mr. Sterling, deliver cash immediately, and that he would have all my documents reissued within a day. Only then did I allow myself to be taken to the hospital. The surgery was under general anesthesia, but I still felt a deep, dull ache in my heart. Eddie had been so excited for this child. We had even picked out names, one for a boy and one for a girl. He knew how dangerous this pregnancy was. But the moment June needed something, he forgot everything else. I had always believed that once the baby came, over time, he would see the warmth of the home we had built. He would see how much I loved him. He would choose us over her. Now I knew. It was all just a foolish dream.

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Fred insisted I get a hysterectomy to cement our child-free commitment. It was our ultimate pact. Ten years later, he surprised me with adopted twins to raise. I devoted myself completely. Eighteen years later, they got into Ivy League schools. At their acceptance party, Fred slid asset transfer papers toward me. My mother grabbed my arm in panic. “You can’t give them everything! We don’t even know their origins!” I calmly replied, “I trust my judgment.” When my father’s slap cracked through the hall, shouting “Disgrace!”, I still signed. Fred’s triumphant grin appeared as he embraced another woman. She smugly presented divorce papers. “Thank you for caring for my family,” she cooed. My slow smile matched hers. “Of course.” … Eighteen years ago, Fred, the man who had sworn we’d walk through life hand-in-hand, just the two of us, came home with those twins. They were a little scrawny, a bit dark-skinned, but they had these infectious giggles that charmed everyone instantly. He told me he’d found them at an orphanage. From that day on, I became a mother. I was there for every scraped knee, every feverish night, every nightmare. I nurtured them, guided them, and eighteen years later, they had Ivy League acceptance letters in their hands. The news that I was transferring my entire fortune to them at the party sent shockwaves through our social circle. Friends and family descended on me, all pleading for me to keep something for myself, a safety net. I ignored them all. I signed the papers. The moment the documents were in his hands, Fred couldn’t contain his joy. A loud, booming laugh escaped him as he strode through the crowd, pulling a woman I knew all too well toward me. Together, they presented the divorce papers. The terms were simple: I would leave with nothing. My world tilted. A roar filled my ears as I stared at him, the sense of betrayal a physical blow, a shard of ice piercing my heart. This was the man for whom I had sacrificed my womb, my ability to ever bear my own children. For years, I had been the perfect wife, the doting mother—a role model in our community. And now, this. My voice, when it came, was a ragged scream. “Fred! You and Vivian… you were together all along!” Vivian. A cunning, ambitious woman who had started as a junior employee at my company and, with a few well-placed smiles and manipulations, had climbed her way up to director. She just smiled, a picture of poise. “Don’t be angry, Lana. If you truly love Fred, you should be willing to sacrifice for his happiness.” Fred’s voice was sharp with impatience. “Just sign it already. What are you waiting for?” We met in college. Fred came from nothing, a kid from a dirt-poor town who could barely afford tuition, let alone food. He used to hide in his dorm, surviving on stale bread. Malnutrition had left his hair thin and his skin sallow; he walked with a perpetual stoop. I found him collapsed on the athletic field one day and carried him to the campus clinic myself. That’s when I learned about his struggles. I started covering his expenses. One thing led to another, and we fell in love. Vivian was his high school sweetheart, a flame I thought had long been extinguished. I was wrong. They had reconnected and conspired behind my back. The whispers in the ballroom started to swell. “My God, can you believe this? The moment she signs the assets over, he drops the act.” “I heard they swore to be child-free. Then he just shows up with two kids. Now we know why.” “I bet those twins are his and that homewrecker’s.” “You think? It’s obvious! Why else would he push Lana to give them everything?” “Poor Lana. Played for a fool for almost two decades.” My mother’s face was slick with tears. “Lana, you see? You walked right into their trap. Your father and I warned you. We told you that man was a shark, that he was only with you for the money. We told you something was off about those kids, but you wouldn’t listen!” My father, who had returned, his face pale with fury, spat, “How did I raise such an idiot? Throwing away a family legacy for a man like that!” The noise, the accusations, the pity—it all swirled around me. I kept my head down, staring at the divorce papers. No one could see the smile playing on my lips. “Don’t blame me, Lana,” Fred said, trying to sound reasonable, as if justifying his affair would soothe his conscience. “I’m a normal man. You couldn’t have children. I had to find someone who could.” I finally looked up, a bitter laugh escaping me. “You were the one who begged me to have the surgery! You said it would protect us from ever changing our minds. I did that for you.” “That was then! The reality is, you’re barren. I wanted my own legacy, so I went to Vivian.” Vivian nodded in agreement. “Exactly. What’s the point of a woman building an empire if she has no one to leave it to?” A murmur of assent rippled through the hall. My mother, her voice trembling with memories, turned on Fred. “You came from nothing! Your family was so poor they couldn’t even afford to eat, let alone send you to school. Your own mother was dying, and you didn’t have a penny for her treatment. If it wasn’t for Lana’s family stepping in, you and your mother would be dead!” “We didn’t ask for a dowry. We gave you a house and a car when you married our daughter.” “You loved sweet and sour ribs, so Lana hired the best chefs and even learned to make it perfectly herself. Your brother was jobless for years, his own family had left him, and Lana’s father gave him a managerial position with a six-figure salary!” For a moment, the three of us were lost in the past. “We gave you everything,” my mother whispered, her voice breaking. “And you repay us by stealing our family’s fortune.” Fred was silent for a beat, then a cold smile spread across his face. “What’s the point of bringing all that up now?” He looked at me. “Alright, Lana. Are you going to stare at those papers all night?” “It doesn’t matter if you sign or not,” he continued, his voice dripping with condescension. “The assets are already in the children’s names. All that’s left in our joint account is a few thousand dollars. Consider it a parting gift for your years of service. For your retirement.” The crowd buzzed again. “He’s right. Without Lana, his mother would be dead and he’d be nothing.” “Her father was too generous. He let a viper into his home.” “And look at him now, so smug…” Hearing them, Fred’s grin widened until it looked like it might split his face. CRACK! My father, moving faster than I’d seen him move in years, lunged forward and slapped Fred hard across the cheek. “You animal!” To see his daughter’s life savings stolen, to know she’d sacrificed her body for this snake—it was too much. “Security! Get this old man! Teach him a lesson!” Fred bellowed, his face contorted with rage and humiliation. The same guards who had been bowing and scraping to my father just an hour ago now closed in, their expressions menacing. “You dare touch me?” my father thundered, his old authority still carrying weight. The guards hesitated, but Vivian, emboldened by their new power, surged forward and struck my father herself. My father froze, stunned. He was a respected figure, the former president of the state’s business association, a man who mingled with governors and billionaires. To be struck by this… this nobody… was the ultimate insult. He was about to explode, but I pulled him back. The guests were aghast. “They hit Mr. Gable?” “The man has donated millions to charity, built schools for the poor… and they treat him like this?” “You can’t blame them entirely. It’s his daughter’s fault. She chose this path. Didn’t she know a man can have kids at eighty, but a woman’s choice is final?” “It’s always the children who squander the family fortune. If I had a daughter like that, I’d disown her!” “What a pair of vipers. They deserve a special kind of hell. But here they are, the richest people in the city…” The crowd seethed with a mixture of pity for me and contempt for them. “Had enough?” Fred snarled, his glare sweeping across the room, silencing the chatter. He turned his cold eyes back to me. “Lana. Yes or no? Are you signing?” “I’ll sign.” The agreement was brutally simple. A few thousand dollars. I was being thrown out with less than nothing. I picked up the pen and, with a steady hand, scrawled my name. Fred snatched the document, his eyes scanning the signature. A wave of relief washed over him, replaced by a sneer. “Excellent, excellent. Thank you, Lana, for the generous gift of a multi-billion dollar fortune. Our family won’t have to work for generations! You truly are our greatest benefactor.” Vivian raised a champagne flute. “You’re like a second mother to me! I have to toast to that!” she crowed, downing the glass. I smiled. Oh, really? Let’s see who has the last laugh. My father watched them, gloating and triumphant, the legacy his great-grandfather had built now in the hands of thieves. Suddenly, he choked, a spray of blood erupting from his lips as he collapsed to the floor. His heart was weak; my hysterectomy years ago had nearly killed him from the stress. “Dad!” “John!” My mother and I, along with our relatives, rushed to his side, a frantic scene of chaos and fear. Fred noticed a man who was helping us, his brow furrowing. “Ethan? What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’ve got a thing for this washed-up old hag.” Ethan and Fred had grown up together, two poor kids from the same town. Fred never missed a chance to mock him, calling him a country bumpkin. Ethan just gave a small, unreadable smile and said nothing. My father regained consciousness, and they helped him to a quiet room to rest. “Where are their precious Ivy League twins?” someone whispered. “I heard they went to pick up their official acceptance letters.” Just then, two figures in school uniforms appeared at the entrance. They were a bit overweight, but they walked in with a sunny, confident air. When they saw me, their faces twisted in disgust. They walked straight past me to Fred. “Dad! Aunt Vivian! We got them!” the girl, Maya, chirped. Fred beamed, pulling them close. “From now on, you’ll call her ‘Mom’.” “Mom.” “Mom.” The word, from the children I had raised, directed at another woman, was a knife in my gut. “Good children,” Vivian cooed. “Now Mommy doesn’t have to sneak into your school just to see you anymore.” My own mother was shaking with rage. She pointed a trembling finger at them. “Maya! Mason! Your mother raised you for eighteen years! Is this how you repay her?” “Mason, you were such a sickly child, always running a fever. One night, it spiked to 104. Your mother drove you to the hospital herself in the middle of a thunderstorm!” “And Maya! In high school, you fell in with that punk crowd. They were going to drug you at a party, but your mother showed up with help just in time. She was stabbed ten times protecting you! You would have been ruined if not for her!” “She was the one who taught you what to do when you got your first period, for God’s sake!” The two teenagers fell silent, a flicker of something—shame, perhaps—in their eyes. It was all true. I had given them everything. After a moment, Maya tossed her head. “Whatever. It’s not like she’s our real mom.” Mason chimed in, “Yeah, look in a mirror. You were never good enough to be our mother, Lana.” He then threw a piece of paper on the table in front of me. A paternity test. It confirmed what everyone already suspected: they were Vivian’s children. A collective gasp went through the room, even though it was an open secret. “My God, the rumors were true.” “It was obvious from the start. A man who wants to be child-free suddenly adopts twins? Please.” “Lana is the biggest joke in the city. She raised her husband’s illegitimate children, gave them her fortune, and now they call another woman ‘Mom’.” All eyes were on me, a mixture of morbid curiosity and pity. They were waiting for the breakdown, the hysterics. Instead, I pulled out a document of my own. “Maya, Mason,” I said, my voice clear and steady. “Since we’re clearing the air, let’s sign this. A formal disownment.” The room fell silent. Eighteen years of devotion, thrown away just like that? Maya let out a shrill laugh. “You’re disowning us? We couldn’t be happier!” They signed the papers without a second’s hesitation and went to sit with Fred and Vivian. The four of them beamed at each other, a perfect, happy family, finally out in the open. “Excellent,” I said, a genuine smile spreading across my face. I had given them a final test of character, a chance to show a sliver of loyalty. They failed. Some people, like the sun, are impossible to look at directly without being burned. No one in that room could possibly understand why I, a shrewd businesswoman with a billion-dollar empire, would willingly walk into such an obvious trap. “Lana, this party has nothing to do with you anymore. You can leave,” Fred announced, the lord of the manor. “And please have yourself and your parents out of the house by tonight. The deed is in my children’s names now.” “I’m not going anywhere just yet.”

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I decided to take my father’s offer. I would leave my husband and son behind and go back to being his precious daughter. It was all because, after my surgery, I could suddenly hear my family’s true thoughts. My husband, Leo: 【Such a minor issue, and she’s been in the hospital for days. Now she’s home and still not doing anything. Can’t she see my suit needs ironing?】 My son, Noah: 【The surgery cost so much money, and now she’s drinking my favorite yogurt. Why can’t she be a boss like Aunt Corinne, instead of just sitting at home being a freeloader?】 My mother-in-law: 【Of all the times to come back, she had to show up right when I was making chicken soup. I’ll just add some of the dishwater from washing the pot and tell her I put in too much water.】 My heart turned to ash. I turned around, closed the bedroom door, and dialed my father’s number. “Yes, just me. I’m not bringing anyone.” It wasn’t until the next evening that Leo came home, my mother-in-law and son trailing behind him with bored expressions. The moment the door opened, the sweet, cloying voice of his colleague, Corinne, drifted from his phone. “Oh, Audrey, I’m so sorry! It was my birthday yesterday, and I can’t believe Leo skipped picking you up from the hospital just to celebrate with me. I’ve already given him a piece of my mind.” She was pretending to scold him, but the mockery in her voice was so thick it practically dripped from the phone. I watched Leo silently, about to speak, when my son’s thoughts flashed through my mind. 【Aunt Corinne is so gentle, not like my mom. She’s such a tigress, always nagging me about my homework.】 【Why can’t Aunt Corinne be my mom?】 My son leaned against the doorframe, scowling. I looked at the child I had carried for ten months, and a sharp pain lanced through my heart. Before I could react, Leo sat down on the edge of the bed, his voice a mask of gentle concern. “You should be lying down. You’re a grown woman, you need to take better care of yourself. If you get sick again, I’ll be really angry.” His tone was as warm and caring as ever. If I couldn’t hear his inner thoughts, I would have fallen right back into his tender trap. 【Look at her, so dramatic. Is she going to throw a tantrum?】 【I have to keep her calm. If she gets angry and blurts out that this dump of a house is her prenuptial property, how am I supposed to keep Noah looking up to me?】 I suddenly wanted to laugh, but no sound came out. I had fallen for Leo at first sight, desperate to be with the poor scholarship student. I’d cut ties with my parents, run away from home, and had our son, Noah, out of wedlock. For ten years, on top of my job, I had taken care of this entire family’s every need. Now, after taking a short leave from work for breast surgery, I had discovered their true colors. A nest of vipers. I yanked the covers out from under Leo, my face a mask of displeasure. From the phone, Corinne’s voice was filled with feigned distress. “Leo, is Audrey mad at me because she’s not talking? You have to smooth things over for me!” My mother-in-law, who had just arrived, immediately saw the tension and stepped in to mediate. “Corinne, dear, don’t mind her. She’s just a housewife, not very presentable. Not like you, so young and successful. Audrey, if you’re not feeling well, just get some rest. We’re about to head out to help Corinne pick out furniture for her new house.” As she spoke, her inner voice echoed in my mind. 【Hmph! What a waste of money. A simple cyst, and she had to have it removed. Tens of thousands of dollars, just gone!】 【Thank goodness my son has latched onto a successful businesswoman. A promotion and a raise are practically guaranteed. He’d never get rich staying with this woman.】 I looked at my so-called family, their faces hidden behind masks of false concern, and felt nothing but cold indifference. “Leo,” I said, my voice flat, “since you’re all so busy, why don’t you sign the divorce papers on the dresser? Then I won’t bother you anymore.” My words left them all gaping in shock. “Audrey, that’s enough,” Leo snapped. “So I didn’t pick you up from the hospital. Is that a reason to threaten me with divorce just to make me apologize? Corinne already explained what happened yesterday. I’ve been incredibly busy these last two days, with a mountain of work at the office. You’re out of the hospital, so just rest and recover. Don’t cause trouble for me.” Before he could finish, my son’s face lit up with excitement as he looked at Leo. 【Dad, sign it! Sign it!】 【I can’t stand this old hag for another day!】 【If you divorce her and marry Aunt Corinne, I can get the coolest gaming gear!】 Leo, however, seemed to miss his son’s cues, a different thought running through his mind. 【She was the one who was desperate to marry me. There’s no way she can live without me.】 【This divorce thing is just a tantrum. She’ll be over it in three days.】 It was Corinne on the phone who broke the silence. It was laughable, really. Leo had been clutching that phone like a lifeline since he walked in. “Audrey, please don’t misunderstand. There’s nothing going on between Leo and me. Please don’t let me affect your marriage.” I ignored her completely. “Leo, I’m not throwing a tantrum. I’m informing you.” I was tired. I was done serving this family of ungrateful parasites. Sensing the cold indifference on my face, Leo, who had been halfway out the door, turned back, his tone softening. “Audrey, it was just a ride from the hospital. You’re home safe now, aren’t you? Don’t make a big deal out of nothing. Corinne even called specifically to explain things to you. Don’t be so unforgiving. You used to be so understanding and reasonable. How did one little surgery turn you into such a drama queen? You need to calm down. Don’t do anything impulsive that you’ll regret later.” I couldn’t be bothered to respond. I pulled the covers over my head and turned away. I didn’t sleep all night. Neither Leo nor the others came home. Since I had decided to leave, I planned to move my things to the new villa my father had bought for me. It would be a better place to recover. The villa was his welcome-home gift. All those years ago, I had thrown away my life as a wealthy heiress to run off with Leo. My parents were angry, but they were helpless. In the end, afraid I would suffer, they bought me the house we were living in now as my prenuptial property. But for the sake of Leo’s pathetic pride, I never corrected his lie that he had bought it himself. Because of that, my mother-in-law had never missed an opportunity to make snide remarks, and my son had learned to look down on me too. For ten years, my father had repeatedly asked me to come home and take over the family business. I couldn’t bear to leave Leo, and I couldn’t bear to leave my son. I always refused. But now that they had all found someone new to latch onto, my leaving shouldn’t matter at all. I went to a law firm owned by my father’s company. As I was getting into a taxi, I got a call from the moving company. “Ms. White? Is it convenient for you to come to the delivery address? There seems to be a problem with it!” The driver sounded anxious, and I could hear arguing in the background. I urged the taxi driver to hurry to the villa. When I arrived, I was stunned. The yard of the brand-new villa my father had bought for me was a chaotic mess, and clothes were hanging on the balcony. And Corinne, the “boss” Leo had been talking about, was standing there in her pajamas, hands on her hips, blocking the movers from entering. “Ms. White, are you sure this is the place?” the head mover asked, embarrassed. I remembered what Leo and his mother had said about picking out furniture for Corinne’s new house. I had assumed she had just bought a new place and was decorating. I never imagined her “new house” was the villa my father had given me. I also remembered my father mentioning on the phone that he had been sponsoring a female student. I looked at Corinne and everything clicked. So, the “successful businesswoman” Leo was so proud of was just an imposter, using my house to put on airs. And Leo, my son, and my mother-in-law had all been completely fooled, thinking they had struck gold with a wealthy woman. I was about to expose her when she spoke first. “Ms. White, this house was a gift from my father. What are you doing here? This is a high-end neighborhood. If you break anything, you won’t be able to afford it. As I recall, your family doesn’t have much left, unlike me. My parents would give me the moon if I asked for it.” She lazily ran a hand through her hair, her face glowing with smug satisfaction. I couldn’t be bothered to argue. I pulled out the deed to the house and said flatly, “This is my villa. Please leave immediately.” The words were barely out of my mouth when my son peeked out from behind Corinne, a brand-new gaming console in his hands. “Mom, seriously, you need to know your limits. If you could afford a big villa like this, do you think I’d be begging for a game console? Did the anesthesia from your surgery mess with your brain?” My mother-in-law chimed in. “Audrey, that’s enough. Don’t embarrass yourself in public.” Corinne burst out laughing. “Your villa? That’s hilarious. It’s not that I look down on you, but with your four-thousand-a-month salary, you couldn’t afford this place if you worked your whole life. And now you don’t even have that job.” She turned to the security guard who had hurried over. “Is this how you do your job? Letting any riff-raff in? If something goes missing, are you going to pay for it?” The guard bowed and scraped, apologizing profusely, then turned to me with a threatening glare. “How did you get in here? You have three minutes to leave, or I’m calling the police.” The moving truck was blocking the road, and a crowd of onlookers had gathered. “What’s going on? Didn’t Mr. Sterling give this villa to Miss Corinne? How did another owner suddenly appear?” “Maybe she’s some kind of lunatic. Look at how shabby she’s dressed. She doesn’t look like she has any connection to the Sterling family.” “An illegitimate daughter?” “Don’t be ridiculous! Mr. Sterling adores his wife. There’s no way he has an illegitimate child!” As the crowd buzzed, Corinne basked in their praise, her chin held high. Suddenly, Leo pushed his way through the crowd. The man who was usually impeccably dressed and obsessed with cleanliness was wearing old work clothes, his hands full of cleaning supplies. He was apparently here to help Corinne with the initial deep clean. A chill went through me. In all our years together, even when I was recovering from childbirth, he had never lifted a finger to help with the housework. He didn’t even know how to use the mop. “Corinne, it’s dirty out here. You should go inside. You have allergies, you can’t be breathing in all this dust.” “Yeah, Aunt Corinne! Dad and Grandma are here to help. You should go take a beauty nap. Don’t stress yourself out over unimportant people.” At that, my mother-in-law rolled up her sleeves, ready to get to work. The father and son duo chattered on, completely ignoring me. After years of me serving them, they never once offered to help. I remembered when my allergies were acting up, and I asked my mother-in-law to sweep under the bed. Leo had just yelled at me for acting like a spoiled princess, saying I had the diseases of the rich without the wealth. “Just wear a couple of extra masks! Plenty of people have allergies, do they just stop cleaning their houses and living their lives?” At the time, I had actually felt guilty, apologizing for not adapting to his lifestyle quickly enough. Only now did I understand. It wasn’t that he didn’t know allergies were miserable. It was that my misery didn’t matter. Corinne was clearly delighted by their fawning. Her sharp, spiteful demeanor melted away, replaced by a delicate frown as she covered her nose. “Leo, it’s not that I don’t want to go inside. But with Ms. White here, I have to be a good hostess.” Finally, Leo’s gaze followed Corinne’s and landed on me.

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1 I unclipped the rescue harness from my dog’s back and announced I was done. We weren’t going back into the mountain. Steven, clutching his tiny chihuahua, went pale. “If you don’t take your search dogs back up there, I’ll kill them,” he threatened. I just unhooked the leash and let my dog, a highly trained German Shepherd, bolt for home. I knew how this story ended. In my first life, when the wildfire broke out, Steven claimed he could talk to dogs. He demanded I hand over my search and rescue team, the dogs I’d spent years training. I thought he was insane, of course, and went into the mountains alone with my dogs to find the trapped hikers. But no matter how hard I pushed, Steven, with that ridiculous chihuahua in tow, always beat me to the victims. Every single time, just as my dogs would get a scent, he’d already be there, a so-called hero. I ended up finding no one. He, on the other hand, was credited with saving over a dozen lives. The final report listed more than thirty fatalities. Steven blamed me. He told everyone that if I had just given him my dogs, everyone could have been saved. The victims’ families believed him. In their grief and rage, they cornered me. They beat me and my dogs to death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the fire started. “Damien, just give the dogs to Steven!” The familiar voice of my fiancée, Sara, snapped me back to the present. “He can understand them! He’ll find the hikers faster!” I looked around, the scene sickeningly familiar. This was the moment it all began. Steven, holding the chihuahua that Sara and I had raised together, was grandstanding, claiming his mystical ability to speak “dog.” “Damien, are you deaf?” Sara snapped, impatient with my silence. I tightened my grip on the leash, my voice tight. “You actually believe this nonsense?” I looked at the other volunteer rescuers gathered around us. “Are you going to trust an experienced K9 handler, or some random guy who suddenly claims he’s Dr. Doolittle?” The volunteers didn’t hesitate. They chose Steven. To prove his “gift,” Steven let out a string of bizarre, guttural noises. My three search dogs, usually calm and focused, became agitated, barking wildly at the sky. Steven shook his head, a pained, pitying look on his face. “They say you abuse them,” he announced gravely. “That you feed them the cheapest food. They say you worked one of their packmates to death during training. You’re no handler. You’re a monster.” The crowd’s mood turned ugly. Murmurs of “animal abuser” and “disgrace” rippled through the group. As they started to advance on me, my three dogs, my loyal partners, formed a protective barrier in front of me, snarling at the angry mob. “See?” someone yelled. “They’re vicious! They can’t even tell good from evil!” Steven stepped forward again, closing his eyes as if in deep concentration. “They say their friends and family are back at your training facility. They have to obey you, or you’ll hurt them.” Rage boiled in my gut. It was a classic protective stance, any dog owner would know it. But he was twisting it, painting me as a villain. I knew arguing was useless. I had to show them. “I’m not giving you my dogs,” I said, my voice ringing with authority. “If you want to save lives, follow me.” In my past life, I had charged into that burning mountain, driven by a desperate need to help. This time, I had a different mission. This time, I remembered where every single one of those thirty victims was trapped. This time, I’d see how he could possibly be faster than me. My plea fell on deaf ears. The volunteers all rallied behind Steven. The most painful part? Sara didn’t choose me either. She stood right beside him, just like before. “Sara?” I asked, a sliver of hope still flickering. “You don’t believe me either?” “Of course not,” she said, her voice cold. “You might be a great trainer, Damien, but you can’t talk to dogs. Steven is a miracle worker. Now I can finally know what my baby is thinking!” Her “baby” was the chihuahua in Steven’s arms. Sparky. A dog I had helped raise, a dog I had grown to love. Sara used to say she’d never let a stranger hold Sparky. But I’m a dog handler. I could see the tension in Sparky’s body, the subtle signs of distress. Sara, who had spent years with that dog, had to see it too. But she chose to ignore it. A bitter smile touched my lips. Years of partnership, thrown away for this charlatan. But there was no time to argue. People were dying. “Let’s go,” I commanded my dogs, and we plunged into the smoky woods. Behind me, I heard Steven’s smug voice. “Even without your dogs, Damien, I’ll still find them first! Everyone, teams of five! Let’s move out!” The volunteers surged into the mountain. I pulled out my satellite map, the one I had marked with the locations from my memory. I gave the commands, and my dogs, the best I had, shot off in the designated directions. They didn’t disappoint. Within half an hour, they were signaling a find. I raced after them, my heart pounding. In my first life, it had taken an hour for the first victim to be found. I was a full thirty minutes ahead. No one could be faster. As I broke through a thicket of charred brush, I froze. It was impossible. Steven was already there. His team had already stabilized the injured hiker. He looked up at me, not with surprise, but with a look of smug satisfaction. “Well, well, look who finally showed up,” he sneered. “With that kind of speed, are you sure those are even search dogs? I’m starting to doubt your so-called expertise.” “You just got lucky!” I snarled, my hands clenched on the leashes. But I knew it wasn’t luck. The fire had made the terrain treacherous, blocking paths and obscuring landmarks. A human’s sense of smell was useless here. Even a regular dog would struggle. My dogs were the best of the best. How could he have found them so quickly? It was the same question that had haunted my first life. Now, it was screaming in my mind again. I turned to leave, to find the next group. “Hey,” Steven called after me. “If you can’t handle it, just give me the dogs. I could work a lot faster with them.” “Damien, if anyone else dies because you were too slow, it will be your fault!” Sara added, her voice sharp with accusation. I ignored them and pushed on. But the same thing happened again. And again. No matter how early I was, no matter how precise my knowledge, Steven and his team were always there first. It was like he knew my every move. I stopped and knelt, running my hands over my dogs, searching for a tracking device. Nothing. So how was he doing it? If I didn’t figure it out, I was doomed to repeat my fate. Could he really understand dogs? But there were no other dogs on this mountain, except… Sparky. No, that was ridiculous. Sparky was a pet. A pampered lap dog. He couldn’t be a search dog. I looked at my map. I knew of eight locations. Steven had already “rescued” five groups. In my first life, he only found four. The timeline was all wrong. I had to know. I decided to follow him. For two hours, his team wandered aimlessly through the woods. They looked like lost tourists, not a professional rescue team. They found no one else. Finally, exhausted, everyone headed back to the base camp to rest. When I arrived, Steven was already there, a megaphone in his hand, riling up the crowd. “If I just had one proper search dog, I could have found everyone by now! We wouldn’t even need to go back out this afternoon! I wonder how many people our great K9 handler Damien brought back with his three dogs.” He saw me then, and I knew. He had been waiting for me. This was all a performance, a re-enactment of the trap he’d laid for me in our first life. My three dogs made me an easy target. All eyes were on me. “So, how many did you find, master trainer?” Steven asked, his voice dripping with false concern. I wanted to punch him. He could see I was alone. “None,” I gritted out. “What? You had three dogs and you found no one?” A wave of outrage swept through the crowd. Steven fanned the flames. “I heard the dogs say that Damien just took them for a walk in the woods! He wasn’t even trying to find anyone!” I wanted to scream. But they believed him. He was the one who could “talk to dogs,” after all. “I was searching!” I yelled, trying to defend myself. “But somehow, Steven always got there first! You have to believe me!” It was useless. They were already convinced I was the problem. They started demanding I hand over my dogs. Just as they were about to rush me, a group of people with cameras and microphones appeared. The local news. My heart, which had been pounding in my chest, finally settled. This was the one thing I had done differently. The first thing I did after I came back was call the press. The presence of the cameras stopped the mob in their tracks. They immediately shifted gears, praising Steven to the reporters. “It was all thanks to Steven! If he couldn’t talk to dogs, we wouldn’t have saved so many people!” A reporter turned to Steven. “Is it true you’ve rescued eight people so far, all by communicating with a dog?” “That’s right,” Steven said, puffing out his chest. “And if I had a real search dog, I could have saved even more. The most despicable part is that Damien, here, refused to help. I think he was just trying to hoard all the glory for himself.” The cameras swung to me. In front of everyone, I calmly began to unbuckle the harnesses from my dogs. “Since you all think I’m just trying to be a hero,” I announced, my voice clear and steady, “I won’t be taking my dogs on the afternoon search.” The crowd jeered. “Fine by us! Steven can find everyone by himself!” “Yeah, you’re useless anyway! Just stay here!” But to my surprise, Steven panicked. He grabbed my arm, his eyes wide with fear. “No! You and your dogs have to come!” I just smirked and unclipped their leashes. At my command, my three dogs turned and raced back towards our home. Steven screamed and ran after them, stumbling over a rock and falling flat on his face. “No! Come back! You can’t leave!”

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Everyone believed Christine Thorne adored me. Even after my father and I were exiled from the family empire, she kept our engagement. She rehearsed our wedding ninety-nine times for perfection. What no one knew? Each rehearsal had a different groom—one of her ninety-nine lovers, chosen by lottery. “Scott, darling,” she’d purr, “you’re already my husband. Let them have one wedding each… that’s fair, no?” I’d take her cash and rush to the hospital. The charade shattered on our real wedding day. When she walked down the aisle with my mother’s illegitimate son, I broke. “Anyone but him!” I begged. Her smile was icy. “I’m pregnant with his child. Don’t be like your pathetic father, begging for his hospital bills.” Under a hundred mocking stares, I fled with the money—just in time to see my father jump. His blood hit my face as his dying whisper came: “Stop begging her.” 1 I held my father’s cooling body, my own blood turning to ice in my veins. My mouth was open, but no sound came out. Christine’s ringtone sliced through the silence. I answered on instinct. Her lazy, sensual voice purred through the phone. “Scott, darling. Leo and I are having our wedding night, but we’re out of condoms. Be a dear and pick some up.” My fingers trembled, about to end the call, but she wasn’t finished. “Oh, and grab a bag of those gummy bears he likes. The boy has a sweet tooth. I need to keep him happy.” My mind flashed back to the night she rescued my father and me from a squalid little apartment. She had slipped a ring onto my finger, her touch gentle. “Trying to hide from me? You made me look for so long.” “Even if you’re not a Vance anymore, you’re still my husband, Scott. I will give you the most perfect wedding.” That first night, I was still in a daze. She popped a candy into my mouth, her voice laced with pity. “Don’t be scared. Have a candy. From now on, life will only be sweet.” I knew about her reputation, her notorious flings, but I fell for her anyway, greedily devouring every scrap of affection she threw my way. I never cared about the lovers; I told myself it was all an act. But Leo was different. She was carrying his child. In our five years of marriage, no matter how passionate things got, Christine always took precautions. My greed had finally caught up to me. The one exception she made was for the person I hated most in the world. If it weren’t for Leo and his mother, my father would still have a wife, and I would still have a mother. As always, she hung up first. I watched, numb, as the men from the funeral home wheeled my father away. When they handed me a small, heavy box, I finally shattered, the sobs tearing from my throat. Just as I received the death certificate, my phone rang again. “Mr. Vance? The DNA results are in. Your father was the long-lost son of Alistair Kane.” “We’ve already booked you a flight. Would you be willing to meet your grandfather? And please, don’t be afraid. The rumors about him are greatly exaggerated.” I clutched my father’s ashes, tears blurring my vision. “Yes,” I whispered. “Excellent. In three days, have your documents ready. Someone will be there to pick you up.” I returned to the villa, a ghost in my own home. A group of drunk women were laughing loudly in the living room. “Christine, isn’t Leo your husband’s half-brother? I thought you hated him. Why was he the groom today?” Christine swirled the red wine in her glass, a slow, deliberate smile spreading across her face. “I had no choice. The father of my child needs to have a respectable lineage.” After a round of boisterous cheers, someone asked cautiously, “But what about Scott?” Christine’s smile turned wicked. “Oh, Scott? He’s so well-behaved. I could fuck other men right in front of him, and he’d just dutifully hand me a condom. It’s just a wedding. I’ll make it up to him later.” The women roared with laughter. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll actually get mad and leave? I mean, if it weren’t for Leo, he’d still be the Vance heir!” Christine shrugged. “He won’t. Even if I kicked him out, he’d get on his knees and beg me not to leave him.” “After all,” she added, her voice dripping with contempt, “his pathetic, dying father depends on my money to stay alive.” I staggered backward, bumping into someone standing silently behind me. “Brother, you’re back.” I turned to see Leo’s face, my eyes hardening. “I don’t have a brother.” I started to walk away, toward the side door, but Leo let out a sudden, sharp cry. “Ah!” The chatter in the living room died instantly. 2 Christine sauntered over, hands in her pockets. She saw Leo on the floor and then gave me a long, meaningful look. “Did you push him?” Leo scrambled to explain. “No, no, it wasn’t my brother! I just tripped.” Then, he started to sob softly. “Christine… my stomach hurts…” Christine clicked her tongue and helped him up, then shot me a cold glare. “Come here.” She guided Leo back into the main villa, lifting his shirt to inspect his stomach as if he were a precious, fragile treasure, completely ignoring my presence. The other women exchanged glances and quietly slipped out, whistling mockingly as they passed me. Before, no matter how promiscuous she was, they never would have dared to be so brazen. They were smart. They could see that Leo was different from the ninety-nine other lovers. And so, I was now relegated to their status—an object to be toyed with and disdained. The realization sent a splinter of pain through my long-numb heart. She didn’t ask a single question. She just looked at me, her face a mask of indifference. “Scott. Apologize.” I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. “I didn’t push him.” A cruel smile touched Leo’s lips as he whispered to the butler, “Go get the master’s cat.” My blood ran cold. “What are you doing?” Christine’s smile was brutal. “Scott, Leo isn’t like those other men. He’s my partner, the heir to the Vance Corporation, and he is carrying my child.” “I will not tolerate anyone hurting the father of my baby. Including you.” “So, you need to learn your lesson. There are consequences.” As she finished speaking, the cat—my cat—was thrown into the scalding hot pot on the dining table. It let out a shriek of agony that would haunt me forever. I lunged forward, but Christine grabbed me, forcing my head down, making me watch as the little creature that had been my only comfort for ten years was boiled alive. She leaned in, her whisper a venomous caress in my ear. “This time, Scott, it’s just the cat. If you dare touch Leo again, the next thing you should weigh will be your father’s life.” A single, silent tear slid down my cheek. The memory of her defending me in front of her other lovers now felt like a cruel joke, a boomerang that had come back to strike me between the eyes. Then, she slid a divorce agreement in front of me. “Sign it. My child can’t be born a bastard.” I stared, trembling, at my cat floating in the bubbling broth. It was the only solace I had left after being thrown out of my home, and now, just like my father, it was gone. This marriage had no meaning anymore. I took the pen and signed my name with a steady hand. Christine’s brow furrowed for a split second, a flicker of surprise that I hadn’t hesitated. She scoffed. “Since you’re no longer my husband, you can move into the servant’s quarters. From now on, you’ll earn your father’s medical fees with your own labor.” A bitter smile twisted my lips as I remembered my father’s last words. “That won’t be necessary.” Just then, the sound of retching came from my room. My heart sank. I burst in to see my bedsheet, a gift from my father, covered in vomit. Leo stood up, a look of faux apology on his face. “Sorry, brother. It’s my wedding day with Christine, I guess I drank a little too much.” He pulled a ten-dollar bill from his wallet. “This sheet looks pretty old anyway. Here’s ten bucks for a new one.” SLAP! My eyes were bloodshot as I struck him across the face. “Leo, you’ve gone too far!” He clutched his cheek, looking tearfully at Christine, who had followed me in. “Christine, I didn’t mean to! I already apologized!” The next thing I knew, a searing pain exploded across my own cheek. 3 She had used all her strength, knocking me to the ground. She didn’t even glance at me. Instead, she rushed to Leo’s side, gently examining his face. “Did that make you feel better?” Leo whimpered, burying his face in her arms. “It was my fault. I ruined my brother’s bedsheet.” Only then did Christine’s gaze fall on the filthy mess on my bed. “Burn it,” she said, her voice flat. “No! My father gave that to me! I can wash it, please, don’t burn it!” She knew. She knew I had nightmares every night, that only by clutching that sheet could I find any peace. But she ignored my desperate pleas, turning to the servants behind her. “The new master of the house has arrived. Throw out all of this old junk.” CRASH! Our wedding portrait was torn from the wall and swept out of the room like trash. All I could hear was the echo of her vow from that day. “I, Christine Thorne, swear to love only Scott Vance for the rest of my life.” As the flames licked at the sheet, I dove toward the fire pit, snatching it from the embers with my bare hands, trying to smother the fire with my own body. Blisters immediately rose on my skin. Christine rushed to my side, grabbing my hands, her eyes sharp. “Does it hurt?” But then Leo suddenly clutched his stomach, pointing at the open urn on my nightstand. “I’m allergic to dust! Brother, what are you doing with a box of ashes?” “Christine, help me! I can’t breathe!” “NO!” I lunged forward, a primal scream tearing from my throat. But it was too late. Leo kicked the urn, sending my father’s ashes scattering across the floor. The rage I’d suppressed for so long finally erupted. I grabbed his hair, my eyes blazing red. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” “You bastard! It wasn’t enough for your father to be a homewrecker who seduced my mother, now you have to be one too and steal another man’s wife!” Leo shrieked, “Christine, he’s lost his mind! He’s trying to kill me!” My hands closed around his throat, but one of Christine’s bodyguards kicked me so hard I flew across the room. I landed on the shattered pieces of our wedding portrait, the shards digging deep into my flesh. Blood began to pool beneath me. Ignoring the pain, I crawled across the floor, trying to gather my father’s ashes, leaving a bright red smear in my wake. Tears dripped onto the gray dust. “Dad, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” But in the next instant, Christine snatched the urn from my hands. And with chilling indifference, she poured what was left of my father into the toilet. The sound of the flush was a roar that threatened to shatter my eardrums. I knelt before the porcelain bowl, stunned, then slowly looked up at her, my eyes blood-red. “Christine,” I whispered, my voice a blade of ice, “I will never, ever forgive you.” For a split second, shock and pain flickered in her eyes. But it was gone as quickly as it appeared. Leo held up a clump of his hair, his voice tragic. “Christine, look what he did! Maybe we shouldn’t have the baby. If he’s like this over a wedding, what will he do when our child is born? Will he try to kill me?” Christine pulled him into a tender embrace, cooing softly. “No, my love. I’ll protect you.” Her gaze then fell on me, cold and lifeless, as if I were an inanimate object. She called to a servant at the door. “Get the scissors.” She took them and stood over me, grabbing my chin and forcing my head up. “Scott, have I been too lenient with you?” Then, she began to cut. She pressed the cold steel against my scalp, shearing off my hair in rough, uneven chunks, like a patch of worthless weeds. The day before our wedding, she had held my hair in her hands, calling it her most precious treasure. When she was finished, my head was nearly bare, with only a few pathetic strands remaining. She tossed the scissors aside and turned back to Leo, kissing his hair with a reverence that made my stomach turn. “Are you happy now?” Leo’s tears turned to a triumphant smile, his eyes glinting with victory as he looked at me. “Hah! Brother, you look like a clown!”

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1 A new spicy noodle bar opened downstairs. Not feeling like cooking, I dragged my boyfriend over to give it a try. When it was time to pay, I was floored. The bill was two hundred and eighty-eight dollars. I immediately confronted the waitress. “I had potatoes and cabbage, not lobster and filet mignon! You’ve made a mistake with the price.” The waitress just rolled her eyes, her chin tilted defiantly high. “If you can’t afford it, why are you eating out? Are you trying to dine and dash?” I had no interest in arguing with someone so unreasonable. I told her to get her boss. But before the waitress could even respond, my own boyfriend turned on me, his voice sharp with anger. “You eat, you pay. It’s common sense. What’s the big deal, bullying a young girl like this? Just pay the bill! You’re so embarrassing!” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. When I got home, I threw the bastard’s things out the door. “Get out,” I told him. “I’m done being your sucker.” — Slumped on the sofa after work, I scrolled endlessly through a food delivery app, unable to decide what to eat. My boyfriend, Nick, thought for a moment. “That new spicy noodle bar downstairs? Want to go check it out?” he suggested. It solved my dilemma. The shop was clean and simple. We were past the dinner rush, so there weren’t many customers. The vegetables in the selection bar looked a little wilted, probably because we’d arrived so late. A young waitress approached us with a bright smile. “We also have deluxe options, with fresh seafood. Would you like to try some?” I quickly shook my head, declining. Nick and I filled our bowls with our choices, handed them to the young waitress, and took a number to our table. When the noodle bowls arrived, the broth looked surprisingly light. I like my food with a kick, so I called the waitress over to ask for some extra chili oil and seasoning. She had already turned to leave. “If it’s not enough, you can always add more ingredients later,” she said over her shoulder. “Any more sauce and it’ll be way too salty.” Her words left me speechless for a few seconds. Before I could think of a reply, the cashier called out to her. “Fiona, come over here and show me how to ring this up.” The waitress, Fiona, called back an “Okay!” and walked away. Nick was already eating. He looked up from his bowl, frowning. “It tastes fine. Stop being so picky.” A knot of irritation tightened in my chest. I silently pulled out my phone, snapped a picture of my bowl and Nick’s, and sent it to my friends’ group chat with a warning to steer clear. Nick finished first and went outside for a smoke. I went to the counter to pay. And that’s when it happened. “That’ll be two hundred eighty-eight dollars. Credit or debit?” My eyes went wide. I thought I must have misheard. Did she think we’d ordered the deluxe seafood platters? I immediately called Fiona back over. “I had potatoes and cabbage, not lobster and filet mignon! You’ve got the price wrong.” Fiona’s sunny expression instantly clouded over, her face falling into a long, sour mask. I took a deep breath, trying to de-escalate. Fiona waved the cashier away and picked up the bill herself. She glanced at it, then looked at me. “This is the price. There’s no mistake. This is what you ate.” I couldn’t believe it. Was this some kind of restaurant shakedown? 2 I took another deep breath, forcing myself to remain calm. “Two bowls of noodles for two hundred and eighty-eight dollars? Are your prices even legal? Get your boss out here. I’ll talk to him!” It was clear this young waitress, Fiona, was determined to be unreasonable. I didn’t want to waste my breath on her; I’d deal with the owner directly. I was trying my best to be civil, but Fiona’s attitude was bizarre. She almost looked… smug. “Our boss isn’t here. You ate the food, you pay the money. It’s that simple. Don’t try to scare me by asking for the manager!” The other customers in the shop turned to stare, their eyes glinting with curiosity. Fiona covered her mouth in a theatrical gasp, her voice suddenly trembling and pitiful. “You’re not… you’re not trying to dine and dash, are you? I’m just a waitress. I can’t afford to pay for your meal.” At that, the customers’ curious glances turned into full-blown gossiping stares, all directed at me. Nick, noticing I was taking a long time, came back inside. “What’s going on? Hurry up and pay so we can go.” I quickly explained the situation. “Two bowls of noodles, all veggies and tofu, and she’s trying to charge me $288! She’s treating me like a complete idiot!” Fiona looked even more wronged than I felt. Her eyes grew red as she looked at Nick. “Sir, I already gave your girlfriend a discount. Is it really that hard for her to pay for two bowls of noodles?” I almost laughed out loud. The way Fiona was looking at my boyfriend, her eyes practically sparkling… “Stop playing the victim with my boyfriend,” I snapped. “A scam is a scam!” “Get your boss out here. If he dares to post that price on a sign by the door for everyone to see, I’ll pay it right now!” I tugged on Nick’s sleeve, expecting him to back me up. Instead, his next words were a slap in the face. Nick didn’t even look at me. His gaze flickered over Fiona’s face before he violently yanked his arm away from my grasp. “Just pay for the food!” he hissed. “What’s all the fuss about?! Get it over with!” I stared at him, my eyes wide with disbelief. The restaurant was clearly trying to rip us off, and not only was he not on my side, he was attacking me for standing up for myself. “No!” I shouted. “This is a scam, and I’m not falling for it!” As if frightened by my outburst, Fiona looked even more pathetic, tears welling in her eyes as she gazed at Nick. “I’m just a waitress,” she whispered. “You ate the food. You can’t expect me to pay for it, can you?” Her voice cracked. “You’re just picking on me because I’m an easy target. I work so hard, day in and day out… a scam like this would wipe out half a month’s wages!” She pressed on, “And now you want to get my boss involved. Are you trying to get me fired? Can’t you just leave me with a way to make a living?” 3 As Fiona spoke, tears streamed down her face, making her look innocent and utterly pitiful. It was a masterclass in manipulation. But I was confused. I had made it crystal clear: if her boss confirmed the price and made it public for all customers, I would pay. How was I the one making things difficult for her? Right now, it felt like she was the one deliberately cornering me. Nick’s brow was furrowed in a deep frown. He looked at Fiona with an expression that looked suspiciously like… pity? Was I seeing things? He pulled out his phone and started to scan the QR code at the register. “Alright, I’ll pay. This is so embarrassing. Why do you have to pick on a young girl like that!” I slapped my hand over the code, pushing his phone away. “Why should you? This isn’t over until her boss comes out here and clarifies the price!” I was the one being wronged. If he paid, it would be an admission of my guilt, painting me as the bully. I glared at Nick, furious. I couldn’t believe he didn’t understand that. Nick’s face grew darker, his patience worn thin. He met my gaze. “Yara, stop making a scene.” A chill went through me. With those words, he had officially taken the side of the person who was trying to hurt me. “Fine. Fine. This is my problem. You stay out of it.” My voice was ice. I turned away from him, my silence a clear statement. Suddenly, Fiona broke. She wiped her tears away with the back of her hands, her voice rising in a furious shout. “You ate the food and you won’t pay! Have you no shame? You just want to bully a poor waitress, is that it?” She took a dramatic breath. “Fine! Have your free meal! I’ll pay for it myself, alright?!” That did it. The other customers couldn’t stay silent any longer. A chorus of condemnation rose around me. “It’s not easy for a young waitress. You ate, you pay. Why make things hard for her?” “Exactly! You’re being completely unreasonable. This place is clean, the food is good, the portions are generous, and the prices are fair. How dare you call them a scam?” “Just pay the girl! She’s been running around serving everyone, and you’re bullying her? That’s just awful.” “Right? If you don’t have money, don’t eat out. It’s simple.” “She looks so well-dressed and put-together. You really can’t judge a book by its cover.” 4 In an instant, I was public enemy number one. But… two hundred and eighty-eight dollars for two bowls of noodles. That was a fair price? Had I completely lost touch with reality? The people around me were incensed, their glares burning into me. Someone even had their phone out, recording. I fought the urge to scream. In a steady voice, I repeated, “I just want her boss to resolve this. I am not trying to get out of paying.” “I don’t want a free meal, but I refuse to be a sucker.” I looked directly at Fiona. “Your pricing is unreasonable. I’m not trying to cause trouble for you. I just want to speak with the owner.” I thought I was being incredibly composed. But Fiona ignored everything I said, her lip trembling. “It all comes down to the same thing. You can’t afford two bowls of noodles, so you’re trying to dine and dash.” I was speechless. It was like she couldn’t understand plain English. Nick’s face was flushed with embarrassment from all the stares. He just wanted it to be over. “Alright. I’ll handle this. You go outside,” he said, pushing me towards the door. “I’ll pay. I don’t understand why you have to pick on this girl. You ate the food, just pay for it! This is so humiliating.”

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