Category: English

During our graduation trip, we were playing a game. My boyfriend drew a “Dare” card requiring him to kiss the class queen bee. “It’s just a game, Chloe won’t mind, right?” Then I drew a “Truth” card. “Everyone sitting here tonight is going to die. I will kill you all.” 1 Ethan unrolled the slip of paper in his hand and raised an eyebrow. The light from the campfire danced across his handsome, rebellious features, casting flickering shadows. A half-smile played on his lips. Seeing him stay silent for a long moment, Ben, sitting next to him, grew impatient. “Ethan, what did you get?!” As he spoke, Ben snatched the paper from Ethan’s hand and read it aloud. “Kiss the second girl on your right for five minutes!” The group immediately started hooting and hollering. “The second girl on the right… isn’t that Mia, our class queen bee?!” “Ethan is a lucky guy!” “Not necessarily. What if Mia doesn’t want to?” Mia, who was poking the campfire with a stick, shrugged indifferently. “If it’s a game, we have to follow the rules. I’m not a sore loser. “But Chloe, hey, you don’t mind if I kiss your boyfriend, right?” Everyone’s gaze instantly shifted to me. Feeling embarrassed, I squeezed my fingers together. “I don’t think this is a good idea. How about we just say Ethan forfeits this round, and I’ll drink his penalty.” Saying that, I stood up and walked over to grab a can of beer. According to the rules, anyone who refused to complete a Truth or Dare had to chug a whole can of beer. I was a terrible drinker; even one sip made me flush. But I’d rather get drunk than watch Ethan kiss Mia. Seeing my reaction, the group started whispering, complaining that I was a buzzkill and too uptight to have fun on a trip. Ben curled his lip. “Like I said, you just can’t have fun with a country bumpkin like her.” 2 Before my fingers even touched the beer, my arm was suddenly yanked. Ethan stood beside me, frowning. “Did I tell you to drink?” He reached out, snatched the beer can, effortlessly popped the tab with his index finger, tilted his head back, and took a huge gulp. I breathed a sigh of relief. Ethan still cares about me, right? He won’t kiss Mia, and he doesn’t want me to drink. He won’t put me in a difficult position. Unexpectedly, a soft sobbing sound came from behind us. I turned around to see Mia covering her face, her shoulders shaking. The moment she started crying, the other students immediately started trying to comfort her and guilt-trip Ethan. “Ethan, this is uncool. Aren’t you just hurting her pride?” “Yeah, the girl said she was willing, and you pull this? Where is Mia supposed to hide her face now?” Ethan’s body stiffened. The next second, he tossed the beer can aside, strode over to Mia, and grabbed her arm. Mia was pulled to her feet by Ethan. Her eyes were red and teary, looking like a wronged, innocent little bunny. “What are you doing?” Ethan lowered his head and kissed her. He passed the mouthful of beer he had been holding into her mouth. My brain exploded with a loud boom. A sudden gust of mountain wind hit my back, chilling me to the bone. Mia let out a soft moan and wrapped her arms around Ethan’s neck. The two of them kissed passionately by the campfire while our classmates clapped excitedly. “Damn, that’s intense! Ethan really knows how to play!” Amidst the cheering and applause, I stood frozen in place, utterly lost. My expression was awkward, my limbs stiff, like a pathetic clown who didn’t know where to look. 3 The crowd watched them kiss with great interest. Ben’s mocking gaze swept over me from time to time. “Some people really think too highly of themselves.” “Exactly. Ethan and Mia have known each other since they were kids. Did she really think Ethan could stand to see Mia cry?” “Look, Ethan is even holding her waist. If you ask me, he probably likes Mia deep down.” Their posture was incredibly intimate. Ethan had his arm wrapped tightly around Mia’s waist, and Mia was on her tiptoes, clinging to his neck. They looked as if they wanted to merge into one another. Five minutes later, Ethan finally pulled away. He wiped the corner of his wet mouth with his thumb and smiled. “I just took a sip of beer to wet my whistle. Look how impatient you got.” Mia, breathless and blushing furiously, pounded his chest with her fists. “Ugh! You’re so bad!” Holding hands, they returned to their seats by the campfire. Seeing me still frozen in place, Mia called out to me triumphantly. “Chloe, what are you standing there for? Come back and keep playing.” As she spoke, her gaze shifted from me to Ethan, and she covered her mouth with a laugh. “You’re not actually mad, are you? Don’t take it seriously, Ethan and I are just bros. If anything were really going to happen between us, do you think he’d still be with you?” That exact phrase—not just from Mia, but from Ethan and all his friends—had been said to me countless times. My ears had callous from hearing it. I had transferred to their school in my junior year. This group, revolving around Ethan and Mia, had been close friends since middle school. Mia was the only girl in their tight-knit circle. She was pretty, wealthy, and outspoken. Ethan always insisted she was just “one of the guys.” Since Ethan and I started dating, we rarely had any time alone. He brought them along to every weekend hangout. If he excluded them even once, Mia would accuse him of abandoning his friends for a girl. This graduation trip was no exception. It was originally supposed to be just me and Ethan. But when Mia found out, she dragged this whole gang of misfits along, claiming that since we were graduating, there wouldn’t be many chances to get everyone together, so we had to go as a group. 4 Mia was the one who picked this location, too. The dense, old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. Specifically, a remote, rugged area known for vast stretches of untouched wilderness. It was rich in vegetation and rare wildlife, and it even had local legends about a “Wildman” or Bigfoot roaming the woods. Mia loved hiking and adventure. I, on the other hand, was timid and preferred the bustling energy of big cities. When we were picking a destination, Ethan saw a picture of this forest and immediately swiped past it. I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, let’s not go into the deep woods. It scares me.” Hearing that, Mia immediately swiped back to the picture. “Ethan, let’s go here. We’ve all grown up in the city. Aren’t you bored of it yet? We should go explore the mountains and experience nature.” As soon as she spoke, Ben chimed in to agree, saying cities were boring and only country bumpkins wanted to squeeze into them. Ethan nodded. “Alright, we’ll go to the forest.” There wasn’t much entertainment out in the mountains. After setting up camp that night, it was Mia who suggested playing Truth or Dare. Everyone wrote a prompt on a piece of paper, threw them in a pile, and took turns drawing. Seeing me sitting there silently with my lips pressed together, Mia looked frustrated, as if she were about to cry. “Is it because I suggested the game that you don’t want to play? Chloe, do you really hate me that much?” Ethan patted her hand comfortingly, then turned to glare at me. “Chloe, don’t be a buzzkill. Come sit down.” 5 Everyone’s eyes were fixed on me. It was already 10:00 PM. The mountain forest was pitch black, and the cold wind howled, gust after gust, making the campfire flicker wildly. Seeing my lack of cooperation, Ethan’s expression grew even uglier. “If you don’t want to hang out with us, then get lost.” Ethan had a terrible temper. When he got angry, he didn’t care about anyone’s feelings. Once, he drove me to the suburbs to go camping. Following the GPS, we took several wrong turns and ended up on a dead-end dirt road. I told him the GPS was wrong and suggested we get out and ask a local for directions. He insisted it was right. After a brief argument, he suddenly lost his temper. While I was out of the car asking for directions, he slammed on the gas and drove off, leaving me behind. It was almost dark, and he abandoned me in a strange, rural area. My phone and bag were still in his car. I walked for a long time before I finally met a kind older woman who helped me call my dad. Knowing his personality, if I made him angry now, he would very likely pack up the rest of his friends and leave, abandoning me in this deep, remote forest. Helpless, I had no choice but to walk over and sit on Ethan’s right side. Ethan chuckled lightly. “That’s better. Good girl.” Saying that, he patted me on the head twice, like he was coaxing a puppy. The game continued. I drew a slip of paper, unfolded it, and read it by the firelight: “Tell everyone a secret.” It was a “Truth.” I tossed the paper into the campfire. Looking up, I slowly surveyed the circle of faces. In an incredibly slow, deliberate tone, I enunciated every word: “Tonight… everyone sitting here… is going to die.” 6 The mountain wind grew fiercer. The burning wood crackled, sending sparks flying and illuminating the faces gathered around the fire. Their relaxed, smiling faces froze, stiffening instantly. After a long pause, Mia finally let out a shriek. She scrambled backward, shrinking into Ethan’s arms, her eyes wide with anger. “Chloe, what kind of nonsense are you spouting?! “We’re just playing a game, why are you randomly cursing people?! If you’re mad at me, just say it, but saying everyone is going to die? You’re too vicious!” The others quickly joined in, criticizing me from all sides. But Ethan just raised an eyebrow, a lopsided smirk forming on his lips. “Oh? We’re all going to die?” He seemed highly amused. Pushing Mia away, he sat up straight. “How are we going to die? Give us the details.” “Ethan, why are you engaging with her?!” Mia, clearly displeased, pinched Ethan’s thigh hard. “She’s crazy. I told you from the start to stay away from her. These girls from the sticks have something wrong with their heads, just like that Lin—cough, cough!” Mia cut herself off mid-sentence, covering her mouth and coughing dryly. She pinched Ethan again, whining playfully. “Anyway, you’re not allowed to encourage her.” Ethan hissed slightly and grabbed Mia’s hand. “Princess, where are you touching? Dare to go a little higher?” Mia’s hand had originally been near Ethan’s knee. When he leaned back, her hand naturally slid up, her fingers nearly brushing his upper thigh. Her face turned bright red. She changed her pinch to a fist and pounded his chest thump, thump. “You are the absolute worst!” The two of them flirted and wrestled without a care in the world. Ethan caught Mia’s fists, pulling her tightly against his chest, and looked at me as if nothing had happened. “Keep going, Chloe. Tell us why we’re going to die. “If you can’t come up with a good reason—” The smile vanished from Ethan’s face. His eyes narrowed slightly, a cold glint in his pupils. “You know I don’t like it when people talk nonsense.” Across the campfire, the two of them sat intimately entwined. Ethan’s arm was wrapped tightly around Mia’s waist, and she leaned back against his chest, practically sitting on his lap. The stinging light of the fire burned my eyes. I offered a self-deprecating smile and looked away. “You guys have heard the legends of the ‘Wildman’ in these woods, right?” I sighed and lowered my voice. “It’s not a legend. My grandmother is from a village deep in this forest.” 7 My grandmother lived in a remote place called Dragon’s Creek. When I was six, after my parents divorced, my mother brought me back to the village, dumped me there, and left to find work in the city by herself. My grandmother was a fierce, fiery little old lady. She hated my mother for ignoring her advice and running off with a useless deadbeat. She didn’t treat me well either. She gave me just enough food to keep me alive and completely ignored everything else. My aunt was always giving me attitude too, calling me a freeloader and a burden. Every summer, she would call my mom asking for money. When my mom refused, my aunt would stamp her feet, scream obscenities into the phone, and threaten to sell me. My mom’s lazy drawl would come through the phone: “Selling a person is a felony. You try selling her, and I’ll call the cops.” “Felony? You work in the city for a few years and think you’re a city slicker now? What did I even do? Call the cops, I dare you! I’d like to see who they arrest—you, the tramp who abandons her kid to whore around with men in the city, or me!” The two of them would scream at each other over the phone. Furious, my aunt would grab a piece of firewood from the stove and start beating me. I would scream in agony. My aunt would raise her thin eyebrows, looking incredibly smug. “You hear that?! Linda, if you don’t send money, I’ll beat your daughter to death.” My mom would just laugh indifferently. “Go ahead and beat her. If she dies, you go to prison and get the death penalty. Pong! Hey, I called Pong on that! Give me that Three of Circles back.” Infuriated, my aunt would pin me down and beat me even harder. Until her anger subsided, she forbade anyone in the house from giving me food. When I got too hungry, I had no choice but to go up the mountain to forage for wild berries. And that was where I encountered the Wildman for the first time. 8 I still remember, that day was incredibly hot. This area was at a high elevation. Normally, once night fell, the air in the mountains should have been quite cool. But that night, the entire village felt like it was trapped in a steamer. Heat radiated from the ground. I lay on a straw mat, my empty stomach burning with hunger. My back was scalding hot, my whole body felt like it was on fire, and the little energy I had left was rapidly evaporating. Acid constantly welled up in my mouth. Unable to bear the hunger any longer, I got up, put on my shoes, and prepared to head to the back mountain to pick some wild fruit. During the summer, the mountain had wild kiwis, wild grapes, and a fruit we called “August Burst.” This oval-shaped fruit ripens and bursts open in August; the flesh tastes like a mix of banana and ice cream, incredibly refreshing. The few spots on the back mountain where they grew were constantly monitored by the village kids and had been picked clean long ago. I had to venture deeper. Normally, I would never dare go up the mountain late at night. But when a person reaches the absolute limit of starvation, when the brain is entirely controlled by an empty stomach, fear ceases to exist. I walked through the forest with a flashlight, stumbling with every other step. I couldn’t even remember how many times I fell. Suddenly, a bizarre, eerie cry echoed from ahead. I had heard the adults say there were feral wolves, wild boars, and even black bears on the mountain, and they all ate people. Trembling with fear, I quickly switched off my flashlight and scrambled up a large tree nearby. The moon was very bright that night. The strange cries drew closer and closer, stopping right beneath my tree. “And then what happened?” Ben, completely absorbed in the story, couldn’t help but interrupt. I shrank my neck, pulled my blanket tighter around me, and gestured with my hands. “I saw a section of intestines, about this long. At least ten or twelve feet. “Fresh intestines, still dripping with slimy fluids, radiating an incredibly strong, foul stench. The end of the intestine was tied into a loop, like a lasso.” I paused, my voice trembling. “A massive Wildman, its face and body covered in black hair, looked up at me and smiled. “It swung the intestines in its hand, instantly looping them around my neck, and yanked hard. I was ripped right out of the tree.” 9 The moment the words left my mouth, a cold, slimy rope suddenly dropped around Ben’s neck. The rope jerked backward. Ben’s eyes widened in sheer terror, and he let out a blood-curdling, agonizing scream. He tumbled to the ground, thrashing and wailing desperately. “Help! Wildman! A Wildman is trying to kill me—” Everyone else burst into hysterical laughter. Mia collapsed into Ethan’s arms, laughing so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes. “Oh my god, Ben, look at what a coward you are! Hahaha—” Ben opened his eyes in bewilderment. Marcus stood over him, one hand in his pocket, swinging a climbing rope in the other. “Hahahaha! Ben, you are such a wimp. You got scared that easily by Chloe’s little story? Did you pee your pants? Let me check.” Saying that, he went to kick Ben in the crotch. Ben, flushed with anger and embarrassment, covered his crotch. “Fuck off!” Marcus was a sports scholarship student. He was half a head taller than Ethan, built like a tank, with a violent temper and a love for pranks. However, his family was ordinary, and his dad worked for Ethan’s dad’s company. So, around Ethan, he was always very well-behaved, constantly calling him “Boss Ethan.” To everyone else, he wasn’t nearly as polite. Ben didn’t dare take his anger out on Marcus, so he directed all his fury at me. He jumped up from the ground and aggressively rolled up his sleeves. “Dammit, you stupid bitch, do you have a death wish?!” Ben raised his arm, preparing to strike me. “That’s enough!” Ethan interrupted him with a laugh. “I actually think this game is getting interesting. Keep going, Chloe. The Wildman caught you. Then what?”

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During the Lunar New Year, my husband lost twenty thousand dollars playing cards in a single night. That was the hard-earned money we had saved up by living frugally while working away from home all year. It was also our daughter’s tuition, my father’s surgery fund, and our family’s living expenses for the coming year. My husband knelt outside our bedroom door all night, begging for my forgiveness. I cried the entire night. Finally, I dug out our daughter’s hundred dollars of New Year’s money and handed it to him: “Go back and keep gambling tonight.” 1 “Wife, I was wrong, I was really wrong! Please forgive me just this once, I swear I’ll never gamble again!” When I took out our daughter’s New Year’s money and told him to keep playing, he frantically slapped his own face and made promises. Clearly, my husband not only knew he was wrong, but he was also terrified. But I grabbed his wrist and told him with a serious expression that he must keep playing tonight. Agitated, my husband went to the kitchen and grabbed a meat cleaver, his eyes red and swollen. “Wife, I’m really done gambling! Let me prove it to you!” With that, he raised the cleaver, ready to chop off his own hand. I quickly snatched the cleaver from his hand, threw it far away, then held his shoulders and said: “I believe you, and I forgive you.” It wasn’t that I was soft-hearted. It was that my husband had been invited to a gathering by his so-called “friends” last night. If friends play a friendly game of cards for three or five bucks and win or lose a few hundred dollars, that’s within reason. But losing twenty thousand dollars in one night? There was only one explanation. My husband had been set up! Hearing that I forgave him, a glimmer of light finally returned to my husband’s eyes. He wiped his tears and said: “Wife, I’m going to pack my bags right now and go find work at a factory.” Seeing the self-blame and regret filling his eyes, I stopped him again. “Our daughter’s tuition is due after the holiday, and your dad needs surgery. Even if you leave to find work tonight, it won’t solve the problem.” My husband turned deathly pale, looking even more regretful. He opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say. I smiled and said: “So, listen to me. Take this hundred dollars and go find the people you played cards with last night. I’m going with you.” When I led my devastated husband to his friend, Kevin, he was still playing a game of “Zha Jinhua” (a popular Chinese card game similar to Three-Card Brag or Poker) with a group of people. Seeing my husband, Kevin immediately flashed a smug smile. “Hey, Arthur! You want to play again today? Come on, come on, we’re exactly one person short.” Kevin and my husband, Arthur, were elementary school classmates. He dropped out in middle school to work but came back home shortly after because it was too hard. He spent his days idling around our hometown and couldn’t even find a wife. Every Lunar New Year, Kevin would team up with a few other idlers in town, shamelessly using old connections to invite people who returned home for the holidays to “gatherings.” I had warned my husband long ago to keep his distance from Kevin. But my husband was a simple, honest man. Kevin used their shared history as elementary school classmates and childhood friends to drag him to the card table. Hearing that Kevin wanted him to play again, my husband trembled all over and looked at me timidly. I pulled my husband behind me, gave him a reassuring look, and smiled at Kevin. “My husband isn’t playing today. Mind if I take a seat and play a few rounds with you guys?” “Wow, this is rare. I didn’t expect a good woman like you, Chloe, to be interested in cards. Great! Quick, make room for Chloe.” Kevin was a bit surprised, but mostly delighted. He immediately ordered someone to give up their seat for me. I glanced at the card table and noticed they were playing for very low stakes right now. A one-dollar ante, with a ten-dollar cap. In a game like this, It’s absolutely impossible to lose twenty thousand dollars in one night! After I took my seat, Kevin impatiently told the dealer to deal me three cards. Without even looking at my cards, I immediately bet the ten-dollar cap “blind.” Everyone at the table was stunned. The dealer, a guy nicknamed “Baldy Wu,” frowned in displeasure. “Chloe, do you even know how to play? Who starts by betting the max blind?!” In a capped game like this, once someone bets the maximum limit “blind,” everyone else must either fold or call the max bet, and then immediately show their cards. You could say this style of play is like going all-in right off the bat. It relies purely on luck and takes all the fun out of the game. Most people hate it. I smiled and said: “I’m just a woman, I don’t know how to play anyway. I can only gamble on my luck with you guys.” Kevin rolled his eyes at Baldy Wu, speaking up for me: “Chloe didn’t break any rules! She can play however she wants. What are you whining about?!” Baldy Wu immediately scratched his head and quickly changed his tune, offering me an awkward smile. “True, I spoke out of turn. Please don’t mind me, Chloe.” I could tell Kevin and Baldy Wu were secretly communicating through signals. But I didn’t care at all. I smiled and asked if they were calling. There were six people at the table, including me. Two people looked at their cards, muttered about having a bad hand, and folded. “I’ll call ten, just to keep Chloe company,” Kevin smiled broadly, not looking at his cards either. “Then I’ll call too, and test my luck against Chloe’s.” Baldy Wu carefully peeked at his cards, hesitated for a moment, and chose to call. Another guy also chose to call ten dollars. After the three of them called, we all revealed our three cards. My luck was good: a pair of 5s. Kevin’s highest card was a Queen, Baldy Wu’s highest was an Ace, and the other guy’s highest was a King. I won. The winner deals the next round. After clumsily shuffling the deck, I dealt the second hand. When it was my turn to act, I chose not to look at my cards again and directly bet the ten-dollar max blind. Two people still chose to fold, while Kevin and the other two called. After revealing the cards, I won again. Perhaps it was a burst of incredible luck, but I won ten hands in a row. I had won back three hundred and five dollars of the twenty thousand my husband had lost. Baldy Wu was starting to look unhappy. He glared at me, asking suspiciously, “This is bizarre. Chloe, how do you keep winning? Is this really your first time playing cards?!” I spread my hands and smiled faintly. “Doesn’t everyone say beginners always have good luck? What’s the saying? Right, beginner’s luck.” Kevin snickered. “Since your luck is so good, Chloe, want to change the rules?” That was exactly the sentence I was waiting for. “Change to what?” I asked calmly. Kevin and Baldy Wu exchanged a look, then said to me: “A one-dollar ante is too small. Let’s make it ten dollars. And let’s remove the ten-dollar cap. No limit, how about that?” Just as I was about to agree, my husband grabbed my arm. “Wife! Let’s stop playing.” I saw fear in my husband’s eyes. It was obvious that the reason he lost twenty thousand in one night was definitely related to playing with “no limit.” “Oh come on, Arthur. Chloe is on a hot streak. Don’t be a buzzkill.” “Yeah, when you were playing yesterday, Chloe didn’t come and interrupt you.” “Chloe, who wears the pants in your family? Arthur seems pretty soft. It’s probably better if you’re in charge.” Before I could speak, Kevin and the others, seemingly terrified I would stop playing, started throwing passive-aggressive remarks to provoke me. I feigned anger and yelled at my husband: “When I’m playing, you just stand there and watch, you coward! If you say one more word, I’m divorcing you!” My husband instantly fell silent. He bit his lip and stepped aside, his eyes full of helpless resignation. I turned my gaze back to Kevin. “We’ll play by your new rules. Ten-dollar ante, no limit!” “Chloe is so straightforward!” They all gave me a thumbs up, praising me for being bold and not petty and hesitant like other women. I laughed heartily. Before starting the new rules, I carefully reviewed the rules of Zha Jinhua with them again. With the new rules, I couldn’t be the dealer anymore. By drawing high cards, Baldy Wu became the dealer for the first round. It seemed that after I won ten rounds in a row, they were getting suspicious. After all, no one can be lucky forever. But without evidence, they couldn’t say much. Moreover, even if women play cards, it’s usually Mahjong. Almost none know how to play Zha Jinhua. Soon, Baldy Wu dealt me three cards. This time, when it was my turn to act, I didn’t bet blind. I looked at my cards and saw a 10-Jack-Queen straight. However, I immediately folded my cards. “I fold.” “Wait, Chloe, what kind of hand do you have? Why aren’t you calling?” Seeing me fold, everyone at the table was stunned. Baldy Wu looked especially shocked. I smiled and said, “Maybe my luck ran out. The cards were too low.” Baldy Wu frowned but didn’t say anything more. They bet a few rounds and then showed their hands. The winning hand was just a pair of 9s. If I hadn’t folded my straight, I would have won. But I knew that if I kept betting, I would definitely be the one to lose in the end. In the following rounds, the worst hand I was dealt was a straight. I was never dealt a weak hand. It was mostly flushes, straight flushes, and even three-of-a-kind. But every time, I just took one look and folded immediately, absolutely refusing to bet. “Chloe, what kind of strategy is this? Before, you were betting blind every hand, and now you’re folding every hand. This is getting boring,” Kevin couldn’t help but complain. I spread my hands. “The cards are bad, what can I do?” Baldy Wu said in dissatisfaction, “If you keep doing this, we’re not playing with you anymore. It’s really boring. You should just go play Mahjong with the women and let Arthur play.” I quickly clasped my hands together in a pleading gesture. “Please, no. If I get a decent hand next round, I promise I’ll call.” Baldy Wu huffed and dealt another round. I picked up my cards and saw that the highest card was an Ace, the second was a 10, and the third was a 5. But I couldn’t help a hint of a smile. When it was my turn, I directly bet ten dollars. “Ooh, Chloe has a good hand this time.” Seeing me smile, Kevin smiled meaningfully. “Since Chloe finally decided to call, I’ll play along.” With that, he bet ten dollars. “I call.” “I’ll call too.” Baldy Wu and the others also chose to call. But after two rounds of betting, everyone revealed their cards. Surprisingly, I actually won. I won over a hundred dollars again. I happily collected the money and became the dealer. “Chloe, can you shuffle a little faster?” Seeing me clumsily shuffling the cards, taking forever to finish, Baldy Wu rushed me. I smiled awkwardly. “Sorry, I’m clumsy. You’re all big strong men, just bear with me.” “You’re so demanding. Chloe doesn’t usually play, so what if she shuffles slowly? Are you in a rush to get reincarnated?!” Kevin was still taking my side, snapping back at Baldy Wu. I apologized while shuffling. However, just as I finished and was about to deal, Baldy Wu suddenly stopped me. “Wait!” I asked in confusion, “What is it?” “Cut the deck!” Baldy Wu said somewhat impatiently. He snatched the deck from my hands and haphazardly cut it three times. Once he finished, I smiled and dealt the cards. “Blind bet: a hundred!” This time, I didn’t look at my cards again and went back to betting blind with my eyes closed. “You’re doing this again?!” The group groaned in annoyance. I smiled. “I feel like my luck is back. Betting blind!” “I call!” But this time, surprisingly, no one folded. They all chose to call. “You think I’m scared? I call two hundred!” Baldy Wu peeked at his cards, his pupils shrinking imperceptibly, and slammed two hundred dollars on the table. “I’ll bet a hundred blind too.” Kevin smiled, his eyes turning into slits, without looking at his cards either. When it was my turn again, I counted my money. I still had over five hundred dollars left. So, I took a deep breath and slammed all the money onto the table. “I’ll bet five hundred blind!” Seeing my aggressive move, they were all slightly surprised. But after checking their cards, they all put on a determined expression, gritted their teeth, and said, “I call!” Seeing that they all called, I let out a sigh of relief. Because from this moment on, the real game had just begun. And this was the final, do-or-die round! “I raise to a thousand.” After another round of betting, it was my turn again. I glanced at them and spoke calmly. “Wait.” Kevin, sitting to my left, didn’t immediately call. He waved his hand to stop me. I looked over. “What’s wrong?” A mocking smile appeared on Kevin’s face. “Chloe, it’s not enough to just say you call. You have to put the money on the table. Do you even have a thousand dollars right now?” “Yeah, stop blowing hot air. You need to show us cold, hard cash. I could say I’m betting blind for a million.” Baldy Wu glared at me, his eyes full of hostility. It seemed they had already thoroughly investigated our family’s situation and knew that the twenty thousand my husband lost last night was our entire savings. Their enthusiastic invitation for me to join the game earlier was just a ploy to squeeze the last remaining pennies out of us. “Of course I have it, just not in cash.” I had prepared for this. Calmly, I pulled out my phone and showed them my bank account balance. Exactly twenty thousand dollars! “Hehe, didn’t expect Chloe to have a secret stash.” Seeing the balance, Kevin’s eyes lit up, and he teased me. Baldy Wu also looked delighted and complimented me: “Who would have thought? Chloe is loaded. You can tell she’s a woman who knows how to manage a household!” I smiled but didn’t explain. Because this twenty thousand was not my secret stash. My husband and I never kept secrets from each other when it came to our finances. This was the money I had scraped together by maxing out every single online loan app I could find on the way here. Thank goodness my credit was good, otherwise the twenty thousand my husband lost would have been gone forever. “Wife! Let’s stop playing, please? If we lose, we’ll be crushed by debt!” However, seeing that I was about to wager the loan money I just borrowed, Arthur rushed forward to stop me in a panic. I glared at him. “Shut up! You’re cursing me to lose before the cards are even revealed! Do you want to die?!” “I…” Arthur’s bloodshot eyes didn’t dare meet mine. He immediately lowered his head. Just as he was about to speak again to persuade me, he was interrupted by Kevin and the others. “Arthur, I don’t want to criticize you, but your kind of interference is taboo at the card table. Chloe’s luck has already turned; how could she possibly lose?” “Exactly! Chloe is playing great, why are you interrupting? Who knows, maybe when the cards are revealed, she’ll win it all back.” As they spoke, their eyes were full of mockery. I frowned. “Enough, ignore him. Let’s continue. Are you guys calling or not?” “Hehe, no rush.” Baldy Wu wasn’t in a hurry anymore. After a sinister chuckle, he suggested that since the money was in my account, what if I lost and refused to transfer the money? To be safe, it would be best to convert it all into chips and settle the cash with the house manager later. I said “hmm” and agreed to the suggestion. I immediately went and converted all the money into chips. “Since Chloe is so enthusiastic, I’ll call.” Seeing that I had my chips, Kevin smiled broadly and called. “Never mind, I fold.” “This is getting too big, I fold too.” “Sigh, can’t afford to call.” Seeing that we had raised the stakes to over a thousand, the other three guys unwillingly folded. “Look at you weaklings. You’re scared of a thousand dollars?” Baldy Wu curled his lip, looking at them with contempt, then turned to me. “I call.” “Five thousand!” I still hadn’t looked at my hole cards. I continued to bet blind, and I raised. “Chloe, aren’t you going to look at your cards?” Kevin was a bit surprised and reminded me. I shook my head. “No. I’m just betting on my luck against you guys.” Kevin chuckled. “Alright, then I’ll risk my life to keep the gentleman—no, the beautiful lady—company. I won’t look either. I’ll bet five thousand blind with you.” “You two dare to bet five thousand blind. I’ve already seen my cards, why would I be afraid of you?” Baldy Wu snorted coldly, then shoved a pile of chips forward. “Ten thousand!” I could tell he was trying to goad me. Right now, I only had fourteen thousand dollars left. After hesitating for a moment. I pushed the remaining fourteen thousand onto the table all at once. Gasp… When I pushed all the remaining fourteen thousand dollars in, the surrounding crowd collectively gasped in cold air. “Chloe has lost her mind! This is the first time I’ve seen someone bet this big while playing blind.” “Yeah, she’s desperate. I heard her husband lost twenty thousand last night. She probably wants to win it all back to break even.” “But she doesn’t seem to know how to play! Who plays Zha Jinhua like this? Even if she’s lucky and gets a good hand, she won’t have the money to keep betting later.” “Tsk, tsk. Chloe doesn’t know the rules. She’s probably done for.” Since earlier, our game had attracted a large crowd of onlookers. Seeing the stakes get higher and higher, they couldn’t help but start whispering among themselves. Actually, everything they said was right. My behavior was a classic symptom of being completely tilted. Even the most level-headed person, once they sit at the card table and see red, will uncontrollably lose their minds. They won’t stop until they’ve lost everything. Moreover, my style of play… anyone who understands even a little bit about the rules of the card table wouldn’t play like this. “All of you shut up! Chloe has good card etiquette! I call!” Hearing the crowd’s whispers, Kevin rolled his eyes at them, yelled, and then chose to call. Although he looked angry, anyone could see the smugness on his rat-like face. “Don’t you know the rule ‘a true gentleman watches the game in silence’? If I hear anyone else gossiping, don’t blame me for getting nasty.” Baldy Wu also glared fiercely at the crowd, shaking his fist and speaking in an annoyed tone. As he finished speaking, the corners of his mouth curled up, and he also chose to call. Neither of them folded, and neither chose to reveal their cards. According to the rules of Zha Jinhua, if there are three people at the table and someone is betting blind, you cannot reveal the cards. You either choose to keep calling or fold. Only when there are two people left can the cards be revealed. This rule is very tricky. Because without even needing to cheat, the people running the scam can use the blatant tactic of “two ghosts crushing one person” to force them into a corner. As long as the two of them collude beforehand, regardless of their hands, as long as they have enough capital, they can keep calling and betting endlessly. And the person being pressured, no matter how good their hand is, as long as they don’t have as much capital as the opponents, they can never reveal the cards. Ultimately, they can only fold in bitter resentment. Once they fold, all the money they previously bet goes entirely to the two “ghosts.” There have been tragedies before where a desperate gambler holding three Aces was drained of their entire fortune, had no money left to call, and jumped off a building in a fit of rage. Playing up to this point, I could confirm it. Kevin and Baldy Wu were teaming up to run a scam! I had heard long ago that these idlers specifically targeted men who worked away from home. When our men returned for the Lunar New Year, they would use various methods to drag them to the card table and collude to swindle our men’s hard-earned money. Since they were willing to screw over their own friends for money. I didn’t need to be polite with them. “Chloe, it’s your turn to act again. If you have money, hurry up and call. If you don’t, you have to fold.” At this point, Baldy Wu felt he had me dead to rights. He couldn’t be bothered to pretend anymore, raising his eyebrows and rushing me. “Chloe, it seems you’ve used up all your chips. Without money, you have to fold.” Kevin also chimed in with his passive-aggressive tone. The crowd’s eyes all turned to me, wanting to know if I had any money left. Only my husband’s eyes were filled with absolute despair. Others didn’t know, but my husband knew very well. We didn’t have a single cent left. However, I wasn’t panicked at all. Under the gazes of the crowd, I slowly stood up and said softly, “Give me fifteen minutes.” Seeing that I didn’t immediately call, Baldy Wu chuckled sinisterly. “Looks like you’re out of money.” “Chloe, you have to play within your means. No one will laugh at you if you fold now. People will just call you stupid. You only had twenty thousand dollars, yet you dared to play this big with us. I don’t know if there’s something wrong with your brain.” Kevin stopped pretending too, crossing his arms and mocking me directly. I ignored them and went straight to the manager of the underground casino. “You offer loan sharking here, right?” The manager seemed to have been waiting for me. He looked up and smiled. “We do. But do you know the rules?” I nodded. “Nine-out, thirteen-return (A common usurious loan term: borrowing 10, receiving 9, and repaying 13). Just tell me how much you can lend me.” The manager directly pulled out a stack of agreements. “Sign these, and I can give you a hundred.” ($100,000) I glanced down and noticed these agreements were some kind of organ donation agreements. This was exactly why they dared to offer loan sharking to gamblers who had lost everything. “Wife, you can’t sign these agreements!” But just as I picked up the pen to sign, Arthur rushed over and desperately grabbed my hand. I said calmly, “If I don’t sign, I won’t have the money to keep playing.” “Wife, let’s fold, okay?! We’ll forfeit the money. Even if we have an extra twenty thousand in debt, it’s fine! I’ll go work with you, and we’ll pay it back slowly!” Arthur choked on his tears as he pleaded with me. I took a deep breath and shook my head. “It’s too late. If we don’t keep calling, what about our daughter’s tuition? What about your dad’s surgery? How will we survive after the New Year? If we gamble it all, there’s still a glimmer of hope. Otherwise, our entire forty thousand is gone.” This is the typical gambler’s mindset. This kind of thinking is completely wrong. Because gambling it all usually means stepping into the abyss with no point of return. Taking a step back, although the loss is huge, at least there’s still a way out. But I’m different from those gamblers. The one falling into the abyss today definitely won’t be me. “I don’t want it! I don’t want any of it! I just want you to be alive and well! It’s not too late to fold now! I’m begging you!” My husband panicked even more. He clearly realized that if we kept betting, it was certain death! With that, he fell to his knees in front of me, pleading bitterly. “Chloe, listen to your husband. You’re not playing cards anymore; you’re gambling with your life.” “Yeah, stop now. It’s not too late to turn back. Once you sign those agreements, there’s no turning back.” Perhaps out of pity for my husband, and unable to watch me walk into eternal damnation, many onlookers also started trying to persuade me. They were right. I was gambling with my life! “Arthur, get up. I’ve made my decision. Stop trying to stop me.” After helping Arthur up, I bowed slightly to the crowd to express my gratitude, then signed the agreement and inked my thumbprint. “Sigh, Chloe, why are you doing this? You’re not the only one who lost. We all lost too. There’s no need to risk your life.” “Chloe, listen to me, stop calling. We can afford to lose forty thousand; worst case, we start over. But if you borrow another hundred thousand and lose, you’ll never recover.” Seeing that I had already signed the agreement, everyone expressed their regret. It was exactly because I knew almost everyone here had lost money that I insisted on doing this. Anyone who returned home for the Lunar New Year from working out of town was practically invited by Kevin and Baldy Wu. Through their colluded scams, some lost as little as ten thousand, while others lost no less than my husband. I heard from Arthur that two days ago, someone who lost fifty thousand drank poison, leaving behind a widow and an orphan. “Here are ninety thousand in chips. If you win, you owe me a hundred and thirty thousand. If you lose, you know what you’ll be using to pay it back.” The loan shark manager didn’t care about our drama. Seeing that I had signed and fingerprinted, he immediately handed me ninety thousand in chips, not forgetting to remind me. Of course, he was referring to the “nine-out, thirteen-return” rule. I said “hmm,” took the chips, and returned to the card table. “Ninety thousand, still blind!” Once I returned to the table, the smiles vanished from Kevin and Baldy Wu’s faces. They clearly hadn’t expected that a woman like me would not only refuse to back down and fold, but would even take out a high-interest loan to fight them to the bitter end. I knew they probably still had some money left, but definitely not much. So, I shoved the entire ninety thousand in chips forward in one go. This time, it was their turn to gamble their lives against mine. “Chloe, is it really necessary to play this big?” Baldy Wu’s expression suddenly became serious. He narrowed his eyes and frowned. “Chloe, playing this big really isn’t necessary. Why don’t you look at your cards and think about it?” Kevin didn’t dare use his passive-aggressive tone anymore. He offered a dry laugh. He was obviously getting nervous. My gaze swept over their faces as I sneered, “Cut the crap. Just tell me if you’re calling or not. If you can’t afford it, fold. If you don’t have money, go sign an agreement and borrow it, just like I did!” “Hehe, we’re not like you. There’s no need to sign those kinds of agreements.” Baldy Wu’s cheek twitched. Then he looked at Kevin and said, “Why don’t you fold? I’ll keep going against her.” Kevin immediately glared. “Why should I fold?! If anyone folds, it should be you!” With that, unable to hold back, he picked up his cards and looked at them. He stopped betting blind. I noticed that the moment he saw his cards, a flash of delight appeared deep in his eyes, but he quickly covered it up. It looked like his hand was very strong. “You idiot! Could your hand possibly be better than mine? Listen to me, fold right now, give me the rest of your money, and I’ll reveal the cards!” Baldy Wu slammed his hand on the table, his eyes wide as saucers, yelling with obvious threat. “Stop arguing, you two! If you’re going to call, do it quickly. If not, fold and get off the table! Do you think we’re stupid?! You two are blatantly colluding right here!” Seeing them pretending to fight but actually exchanging signals, I immediately called them out. However, judging by their posturing, the hands they held were probably not weak. They both wanted to use their own cards to match against mine. And looking at the situation, the money they had on them wasn’t enough to cover the ninety thousand. “Exactly! Call if you’re going to call! If you say one more word to collude, it counts as cheating!” “I thought something was off with you guys. Are you running a scam? If you two say one more word, you should both fold!” Their blatant behavior immediately sparked public outrage. The onlookers who had lost money to them couldn’t stand it anymore and stepped forward to accuse them. Faced with the public outrage, the previously blustering Baldy Wu immediately backed down. “Who’s cheating?! You can’t just say things like that! I don’t have enough money on me either. Let me scrape some together.” After weakly yelling at the crowd, Baldy Wu’s gaze turned to the three people who were playing at the table earlier. “Lend me all your money. I guarantee a win.” With that, he covered his cards and showed them to the three of them. Seeing Baldy Wu’s cards, all three looked delighted, their expressions clearly saying “it’s a sure win,” and they all reached for their wallets to lend him money. Since the three of them had folded and left the table early on, showing them the cards wasn’t technically breaking the rules. “Wait!” However, right at that moment, Kevin interrupted their attempt to lend the money. “If you’re going to lend money, you should lend it to me. I’m the one who’s guaranteed to win.” Kevin shot a disdainful look at Baldy Wu and said immediately. “If you show them your cards too, that counts as cheating!” As soon as he finished speaking, I interjected, staring at him. The reason was simple: Baldy Wu had already shown them his cards. If Kevin showed them his as well, the reactions of the three guys would indicate whose hand was stronger. That would be against the rules. “Hmph, you have to lend the money to me anyway, or you’ll regret it.” Kevin also knew that doing so would break the rules, so he could only snort. The three guys looked conflicted, glancing between Baldy Wu and Kevin, unable to make a decision for a moment. It seemed Baldy Wu’s hand was indeed very strong, but not unbeatable. Seeing this, I quickly offered them a suggestion: “You can choose to lend half to each of them.” “Half it is. Hurry up.”

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I was caught by Damon Blackwood, who brought people to expose my supposed affair. The man with me was his business rival. Reporters’ cameras and microphones shoved into my face, completely disregarding my half-naked state. Damon spoke with a tone of cool command: “Does Mr. Riley lack women so much that he’d even lay hands on my wife?” “Darling, come here.” However, I simply displayed my divorce certificate and marriage certificate, then linked arms with Ethan Riley. “I’m sorry, but we are legally married.” “Damon, you’ve forgotten, we’re divorced. You proposed it yourself.” He wanted me to get a fake divorce to frame Ethan Riley with my reputation. It’s laughable. I finally remarried, didn’t I? Go back? Dream on. 1 On our third wedding anniversary, I was getting an IV at the hospital. Acute gastroenteritis. I was curled up like a shrimp on the cold chair in the emergency room, writhing in pain. All around me, there was the noisy chatter of people, the cries of children, the anxious urgency of family members. Only my spot was quiet, like an isolated island. My phone screen lit up and dimmed, the last message still lingering from three hours ago, when I sent Damon: “Damon, my stomach hurts so much, I’m at City Hospital Three.” No reply. It wasn’t until the liquid in the IV bag was almost empty, and a nurse called out “Bed 23, medication change,” that I managed to raise my hand to press the call button. Just then, a red dot popped up on social media. It was from Sarah Miller. The accompanying picture showed a long, beautiful hand adjusting a diamond necklace around her neck. I had seen that hand for three years, touched it for three years; I’d recognize it even if it were ashes. It had distinct knuckles and a faint mole on the web of the thumb. The caption read: “After all this time, your taste is still the best. Thank you for the birthday gift, Damon.” The location was the city’s most upscale shopping mall, barely two miles from my hospital. In that instant, the cramping in my stomach seemed to spread along my nerves to my heart. I turned off my phone, pulled out the needle, a bead of blood seeped from the back of my hand, quickly congealing. It was late night when I got home. The villa was dark; Damon hadn’t returned. I instinctively went to the kitchen to warm a glass of milk. As I carried it out, the fingerprint lock on the front door chimed. Damon walked in, bringing with him a chill and a faint scent of perfume. It was Sarah Miller’s favorite “Desert Rose,” intense and bold, utterly different from the lingering smell of laundry detergent I carried. “Why aren’t you asleep yet?” He loosened his tie, tossing it onto the sofa without even glancing at me. “Today is our wedding anniversary.” I clutched the warm cup, my voice a little hoarse. Damon paused, then frowned, rubbing his temples impatiently: “I’m very busy, Evelyn. The company is currently bidding on that project in Southside, and Ethan Riley is pushing hard. I don’t have time to celebrate such a boring holiday with you.” A boring holiday. This day last year, he was at an exhibition with Sarah Miller; the year before that, he was working late at the office, having his secretary wire me ten thousand dollars. “I went to the hospital today.” I said softly, looking at his back. “Oh, aren’t you back now? Seems like nothing’s wrong.” He didn’t even turn to ask “What happened?”, walking straight to his study. “I have something important to discuss with you, come in.” The study was lit by harsh, pale light. Damon sat behind the large desk, his expression typically cold and rational. He pulled a document from a drawer and slid it across to me. I saw the words clearly—”Divorce Agreement.” My mind buzzed, but I didn’t cry. I just stared blankly at him: “Is it for Sarah Miller?” “Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Damon tapped the table, his tone carrying a business-like inducement, “This is strategy. Evelyn, you know Ethan Riley, he’s a lecherous, philandering man, but he holds the key vote for the Southside project. We can’t win by force.” I looked up, disbelievingly, at the man I had loved for seven years. “So?” “We’ll get a fake divorce.” Damon leaned forward, his gaze fixed on me, as if I were a useful pawn. “You’ll approach Ethan Riley as a single woman. He’s recently shown interest in you in public. As long as you can get his lowest bid, or catch him committing commercial bribery, this project will belong to the Blackwood family.” I felt all the blood in my body draining, my hands and feet frighteningly cold. “You want me… to seduce him?” “Just approach him, I’m not asking you to do anything real.” Damon’s tone was light, as if he were discussing tomorrow’s breakfast, “You are my wife, for our future, what is this small sacrifice? Once the project is secured, we’ll remarry immediately. Then, we’ll have a grand wedding to compensate you.” Compensate. Using my dignity, my purity, to expand his business empire. “What if I refuse?” Damon’s face turned cold, that fleeting hint of false tenderness instantly vanished: “Evelyn Whitaker, the Whitaker family’s finances still rely on Blackwood Enterprises. Who pays for your comatose brother’s monthly expenses at the nursing home? One should know how to be grateful.” This was his trump card. He had seized my weakness, precise and cruel. I looked at him, and suddenly his face felt so unfamiliar. When did the boy who blocked a ball for me on the university field, the man who promised to protect me for life at our wedding, truly die? Perhaps, he had never truly lived. The one alive had always been this shrewd and self-serving Mr. Blackwood. “Alright.” I heard my voice, dry, respond, “I’ll sign.” Damon smiled with satisfaction, walked over, and patted my shoulder, as if rewarding an obedient dog: “That’s right. Don’t worry, it’s just a formality. In my heart, you’ll always be my wife.” I lowered my head, hiding the ashen despair in my eyes. In your heart? Damon, your heart only holds profit; there’s no room for a person. 2 The formalities were handled quickly. To make the act convincing, Damon even arranged for the media to “paparazzi” us leaving the civil affairs office. In the photos, my face was pale, his expression cold, and the headline was a sensational “High Society Dream Shattered: Blackwood CEO Dumps His Old Wife.” I moved out of the villa and into an apartment he arranged. According to Damon’s plan, I needed to “accidentally” encounter Ethan Riley at a private party he frequently attended. That night, I wore a backless black evening gown. Damon had personally chosen it, saying Ethan Riley liked that style—both cool and alluringly seductive. The woman in the mirror, with her exquisite makeup, had eyes as empty as a puppet’s. The party was held at a mansion nestled on a hillside. I held a glass of champagne, standing in a corner, watching Ethan Riley at the center of the crowd. He was different from the rumors. Rumor had it that the eldest son of the Riley family was eccentric, changing women like clothes. But at this moment, he was dressed in a well-tailored dark blue suit, holding a stem glass, listening to someone next to him, a faint smile on his lips, yet his eyes were remarkably clear, with an air of casual detachment. Damon’s task for me was: to spill wine on him, to get his attention. What a crude and vulgar cliché. But I had to do it. I took a deep breath, adjusted my expression, and pretended to stumble, heading straight for Ethan Riley. The expected gasp and spilled wine didn’t happen. He caught me, but his elbow accidentally brushed my chest. We both froze for a second. “…Sorry.” He spoke first, his earlobes slightly red. I hadn’t expected someone like Ethan Riley to be embarrassed. This made me even more nervous—if he were an old hand, I’d know how to deal with him, but like this… “Careful.” He steadied me, his voice very low. For some reason, my heart was beating a little fast. Probably because I almost fell. Yes, definitely because of that. I looked up, meeting his eyes. He was smiling. But it wasn’t a mocking smile; it was a kind of playful smile I couldn’t quite decipher. “Miss Whitaker…” He paused, leaning closer to my ear, his voice so soft only I could hear, “Was this ‘falling into my arms’ trick taught to you by Damon Blackwood? Or did you come up with it yourself?” My mind went completely blank. How did he know? “Don’t panic.” He held my wrist, not tightly, but enough to prevent my escape. “Since you’re here, you have to play your part well. The cameras over there are all watching.” He said “part.” He knew I was acting. He knew everything. I opened my mouth, not knowing what to say. My mind was blank, with only one thought frantically looping: I’m done for. I instinctively tried to escape, but he gently held my wrist. He leaned down, close to my ear, a gesture so intimate it felt like he was whispering sweet nothings: “Don’t panic. Since you’re here, you have to play your part well. The cameras over there are all on us.” He then took the glass from my hand, tipped it back, and drained it, then raised his voice, with a hint of playful teasing: “This wine is excellent, Miss Whitaker. Would you do me the honor of a dance?” I was led onto the dance floor like a puppet on strings. His palm was broad and warm, and the heat transferred through the thin fabric, making my heart race with anxiety. “Why?” I whispered, “Since you know I was…” “Because I wanted to see how far Damon Blackwood, that blind man, would push you.” Ethan Riley twirled me, his gaze falling on my face, without any hint of flirtation, but instead with a… pity? that I couldn’t understand. “Are you also here to use me?” I scoffed. “Use you?” Ethan Riley raised an eyebrow, “What if I said I’m here to save you?” That night, I didn’t get the supposed “leverage,” but Ethan Riley took me back to his private villa. Not to sleep with me. He had the housekeeper make me a steaming bowl of noodles and even thoughtfully arranged for makeup remover and skincare products. “Eat and then sleep in the guest room. Don’t worry, I’m not interested in forcing women.” He leaned against the door, idly playing with a lighter, “Go back and tell Damon Blackwood that I’ve taken the bait. Have him send you the next phase of the plan.” I clutched the bowl of noodles, the steam stinging my eyes. “Why are you helping me?” Ethan Riley looked at me, his eyes as deep as the sea: “Evelyn Whitaker, you might not remember. Three years ago, you fed a stray cat by the roadside. It was raining heavily that day, you didn’t have an umbrella, but you left yours for that cat.” I was stunned. “At that time, I thought, how pitiful this naive girl would be if she fell into the wrong hands.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh, “Unfortunately, I was a step too late, and you married that bastard Damon Blackwood.” Over the next month, I became a frequent guest by Ethan Riley’s side. The outside world was buzzing, saying Evelyn Whitaker, fresh off her divorce, had already latched onto Mr. Riley. Clearly, she was a woman who couldn’t stand being alone. Damon was quite pleased with this progress. He even praised me over the phone: “Well done, Evelyn. Keep him hooked, preferably get the core data from his computer.” I held the phone, looking at Ethan Riley, who was sitting across from me, peeling shrimp for me. My heart was a mix of emotions. Ethan Riley was busy, but he never made me wait. If I casually mentioned wanting chestnuts from the west side of the city, he would drive halfway across town to buy them; if my stomach hurt during my period, he would cancel meetings to come back and make me ginger tea, and clumsily use his warm hands to rub my belly. No comparison, no harm. With Damon, I was air, a housekeeper, a tool. With Ethan Riley, for the first time, I felt like a living, breathing person, a cherished woman. But I still dared not fall for it. I feared it was another abyss. Until that day. Damon told me to go to his company to pick up a “fake” confidential business document, intended to win Ethan Riley’s trust. I arrived at the Blackwood Tower, and the secretary said Mr. Blackwood was in a meeting and asked me to wait in his office. The office door was slightly ajar. From inside, Sarah Miller’s sweet voice drifted out: “Damon, should we set our wedding date for next month? The weather will be perfect, and it won’t be cold for a wedding dress.” My hand, reaching to push the door open, froze in mid-air. Then came Damon’s voice, with a tenderness I had never heard: “Whatever you wish. The wedding dress is already being custom-made in Paris, by your favorite designer.” “What about… Evelyn Whitaker? Isn’t she still helping you with the mission?” “Hmph, that fool.” Damon sneered, his voice filled with contempt, “Once she gets Ethan Riley’s data and the Riley family falls, she’ll be useless. Then, I’ll just give her some money and send her away. If she dares to cause trouble…” His voice dropped, becoming sinister: “Then don’t blame me for abandoning old ties and cutting off her comatose brother’s medication.” Boom— The last shred of hope in my mind completely shattered at that moment. It turned out there was no “fake divorce.” It turned out there was no “remarriage compensation.” From beginning to end, this was a complete deception. He not only wanted to use me to bring down his rival but also to squeeze out my last bit of value, then discard me like trash, even threatening my only family member. I stood at the doorway, trembling all over, my nails digging deep into my palms, drawing blood. I don’t remember how I left. I walked like a ghost on the street, my mind filled with Damon Blackwood’s words: “fool.” Yes, I was a fool. Foolish enough to think that giving genuine affection would be reciprocated, foolish enough to help someone count money after being sold by them. I don’t know how long I walked before a black Maybach pulled up beside me. The window lowered, revealing Ethan Riley’s anxious face. “Evelyn! What are you doing here? You’re not answering your phone, do you know how worried I’ve been?” He rushed out of the car and pulled my cold body into his embrace. That hug was so warm, so tight, as if he wanted to meld me into his very bones. “Ethan…” I clutched his lapels, and my tears finally broke free, “I want to get married.” Ethan paused, then cupped my face, looking earnestly into my eyes: “What did you say?” “I want to marry you. Really marry you.” I stared at him, my eyes burning with the fire of revenge, “Do you dare to marry me?” Ethan Riley smiled. There was no calculation, no weighing of pros and cons in that smile, only the wild joy of having his wish fulfilled and a reckless, profound affection. “Evelyn Whitaker, I’ve waited three years for those words.”

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My husband was staying over at the luxury postpartum retreat to help me recover. Surprisingly, the usually quiet specialist suddenly became a fountain of enthusiasm. First, she gushed over how tall and handsome my husband was, marveling that he was a CEO at such a young age. Then, she dropped subtle hints that I was just another “trophy wife” who had bought her way into high society with a surgeon’s scalpel. While she was helping me with lactation, she sighed with mock concern, advising me that with my “implants,” I shouldn’t even try to breastfeed—that it would be bad for the baby. I didn’t feel like wasting my breath on her, so I turned to my husband to talk about names for our son. He smiled, saying that since this was our first child, he wanted to choose something truly special. That’s when the specialist let out a sharp gasp. “Oh, honey, I thought this was your second? Didn’t you have your first a couple of years ago?” … My best friend, Becca, had recently opened this high-end postpartum retreat. She’d spent a fortune poaching a “miracle worker” specialist named Tiffany, raving that the woman was kind-hearted, sweet-talking, and technically unmatched. To support her new venture, I booked the executive suite. The plan was for my husband to be by my side throughout the entire process. But nature had other ideas. I went into labor at thirty-seven weeks, right when my husband was stuck overseas managing a massive merger. On our FaceTime calls, he was a mess. “Claire, I’m so sorry. I’d give anything to fly back right now. I hate that I’m missing this.” I forced a smile to comfort him. “Shawn, it’s okay. It’s just one day, and my parents are here. Don’t worry.” Three days after giving birth, I checked into Becca’s retreat. Becca was away on a business trip, so her “Gold-Star” specialist, Tiffany, was assigned to handle my intake. Initially, knowing I was a friend of the owner, Tiffany was all smiles. She was bright and attentive as she showed me the room and the recovery packages. But that afternoon, when my father showed up in his worn-out cargo shorts and flip-flops, and my mother in her simple cotton sunblock dress, the light in Tiffany’s eyes dimmed. Her smile turned brittle. When I asked questions, I got nothing but clipped, one-word answers. After my parents left, I asked to start my first recovery session. Tiffany didn’t even look up from her clipboard. “Look, honey, that treatment is fully booked for the week. I don’t have a slot for you.” She walked away before I could even respond. For the next two days, whenever I asked about my schedule, she treated me like a nuisance. By the fourth day of being ignored, I was ready to have a serious talk with her. But as I opened my mouth, her face underwent a terrifying transformation. Her eyes lit up, her posture softened, and her voice shifted into a high-pitched, syrupy coo. I was bewildered until I heard the familiar, deep voice behind me. “Claire, I’m back.” Shawn stood in the doorway, looking like he’d stepped off a magazine cover in a charcoal-grey bespoke suit. The sunlight caught the sharp lines of his jaw, making him look every bit the untouchable executive. The next second, he was at my side, pressing his lips to my forehead. “Sweetheart, you’ve been through so much. I’m here now.” I was just about to tell him about the specialist’s attitude when Tiffany practically glided over, tape measure in hand. “Oh, honey, let me get those measurements for you right now. We need to tailor your recovery plan perfectly.” She shot a quick, shy glance at Shawn. “I’ll throw in two complimentary lactation sessions on the house. You can just call me Tiffany.” So this was the “miracle worker” Becca had promised. I suppressed my irritation and let her start the measurements. As she worked, she kept stealing glances at Shawn, tossing out little conversational hooks. Shawn looked exhausted from his flight, but he remained his usual polite, professional self. When she caught me staring at her, Tiffany gave a forced, awkward giggle. “Wow, honey, your husband is stunning.” Then, without a word of warning, she said, “Honey, you need to take the top off. I need precision.” Before I could even process the request, she reached out and pulled my robe open, completely ignoring the fact that the suite door was still wide open to the hallway. I felt a surge of anger, but I bit my tongue for Becca’s sake. She began prodding me, her voice casual but her eyes roaming. “So, honey, is your husband some kind of big-shot executive? He has such… presence.” “He’s a CEO,” I replied shortly. Tiffany’s lips curled into a strange, mocking smile. “You sure got lucky, didn’t you?” Suddenly, she pinched the soft tissue of my breast with unnecessary force. I let out a sharp cry and shoved her hand away, sitting bolt upright. “What the hell are you doing?” Tiffany looked startled, her gaze snapping away from Shawn. I followed her eyes and saw what she had been looking at: Shawn’s perfect profile and the subtle gleam of the Patek Philippe on his wrist. Tiffany’s face flushed. “Oh! My apologies. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She paused, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. “But honestly, honey, it usually only hurts like that if you have implants.” I ignored her. But she wasn’t done. “Seriously though, honey, you’ve clearly had quite a bit of ‘work’ done. Must have cost a fortune. I mean, how much did you have to invest in yourself to land a guy like that?” My blood boiled. I slapped her hand away. “What did you just say?” Hearing the tension, Shawn stepped in. “Everything okay in here?” Tiffany’s voice immediately turned into that breathy coo again. “Oh, everything’s fine! I was just telling her how lucky she is. To have a husband who is as handsome as he is successful.” She sighed, looking at her own nails. “She’s so lucky she just has to worry about being pretty while a man takes care of everything. Must be nice. Some of us actually have to work for a living.” It finally clicked. Tiffany wasn’t just rude; she was pathologically jealous of what she perceived to be my lifestyle. It was almost funny. I wasn’t being “taken care of.” My family had more money than God. My parents had retired years ago, handing the reins of our conglomerate to me. They spent their days gardening in old clothes because they had nothing left to prove. I had hired Shawn as a professional manager for one of our subsidiaries, and eventually, we fell in love. I’d kept the full extent of my wealth quiet, preferring a simpler life. Shawn knew I was comfortable, but he didn’t know I owned the ground he walked on. But none of that gave this woman the right to insult me. Shawn, seeing things had calmed down, went back to the outer lounge to rest. I looked Tiffany dead in the eye. “If you don’t want to do your job, I’ll find someone else. Right now.” She blinked, stunned. “I’m sorry, honey. I’ll be professional. Let’s finish the measurements. I’ll be back in thirty minutes for your session.” Thirty minutes later, Tiffany returned in her “work clothes.” Instead of the standard scrubs, she was wearing a tight, sleeveless tank top and a pink miniskirt that barely covered her hips. Her cleavage was on full display. Seeing our surprised looks, she gave a coy shrug. “This work is so physical, and I get so hot. You don’t mind the ‘summer uniform,’ do you, honey?” The AC was blasting, but I didn’t want another argument. “Just start,” I said. Technically, she was good. The pain from the engorgement began to recede under her hands. But as the session went on, something changed. The pressure became localized and sharp. It went from relief to agony in seconds. “Stop!” I yelled, flinching away. Shawn came running in. Tiffany bit her lip, looking at him with watery eyes. “I told her, Shawn… with implants, it’s always complicated.” I looked down. My skin was red and bruised. “Honestly,” Tiffany continued, “I wouldn’t recommend breastfeeding. Those implants leak toxins into the milk. It’s not fair to the baby.” “I have never had plastic surgery in my life,” I hissed, my voice shaking with rage. “What is your obsession with my body? If you don’t know what you’re doing, get out. And if you say one more defamatory word about me, I will call the police.” The shouting attracted a small crowd of staff in the hallway. Tiffany collapsed onto the floor, looking like a kicked puppy. “I was just trying to help! Only women with surgery feel that kind of pain…” I pointed a trembling finger at the door, ready to explode. Shawn walked over, wrapping an arm around me. “Hey, hey, calm down. Don’t let a specialist get you this upset. It’s not good for your recovery.” Under Shawn’s touch, I took a deep breath. I decided I would deal with this through Becca. I wasn’t going to roll in the mud with this woman. Tiffany looked up, seeing I had calmed down. “Can we move on to the next treatment?” “No,” I said firmly. “I want a different specialist.” Tiffany panicked. “No, please! If you request a change, I lose my performance bonus for the month. Please, have a heart.” I didn’t budge. She turned her teary eyes toward Shawn. “Please, sir… talk to her. I’m just a girl trying to make ends meet. I can’t lose that money.” She clasped her hands over her chest, pressing her breasts together to emphasize her cleavage. Shawn looked away, then turned to me. “Claire… maybe give her one more chance? She seems pretty desperate.” “No,” I said. Shawn’s expression soured slightly, a flicker of annoyance passing over his face. To break the tension, I changed the subject. “We still haven’t picked a name for Leo. Let’s look at the list again.” Shawn’s face brightened. “Right. Our firstborn. I want it to be perfect.” Tiffany, who had reached the door, froze. She spun around, her eyes wide with simulated shock. “Oh! Honey, I’m so confused. I thought you said you’d already had a child?” She slapped a hand over her mouth, as if she’d let a terrible secret slip. Her eyes darted around the room, the picture of “oops.” The gossiping staff in the hallway leaned in closer. Shawn froze. He looked at me, his brow furrowed. “Claire? What is she talking about?” I looked at him, my heart sinking. “Shawn, you can’t be serious. You’re actually listening to her?” He looked away, his jaw tight. I felt a cold laugh bubble up in my chest. I fixed my robe and walked to the door, standing right in front of Tiffany. “Say that again. Loudly.” Tiffany shrank back, stepping behind Shawn as if seeking protection. I pushed past him and grabbed her arm, forcing her to look at me. “When and where did I have this ‘first child’?” She stammered, “It was… two years ago. At… St. Jude’s Women’s Hospital.” She saw the doubt in Shawn’s eyes and felt emboldened. “I was doing a home-visit recovery then. I saw you in the maternity ward, holding a newborn.” She turned to Shawn. “And honestly, sir, I’ve seen her pelvic floor metrics. She’s clearly carried more than once. She’s had work done all over—you can tell she’s the type who’s been ‘kept’ before. She probably tried to baby-trap some other rich guy before she found you.” She leaned in toward him. “Shawn, don’t let a woman like this play you. You’re successful, you’re handsome… you deserve a woman who is honest. Not a surgical project with a hidden past.” In the hallway, I heard the whispers. Gold digger. Home-wrecker. I knew she looked fake. I took a deep breath, pulled out my phone, and started recording. “You say I had a child two years ago? Do you have proof? You say I’ve had surgery? Proof? You’re calling me a mistress? I hope you have a lawyer, Tiffany. Because I’m going to sue you for every cent you’ve ever earned for defamation.” Tiffany’s bravado vanished. “I… I might have been mistaken…” “Mistaken? No. We’re going to pull the security footage and we’re going to talk to the hospital. Or I can just call the police right now and report a harrassment claim.” Tiffany began to shake her head frantically. Just then, Becca burst through the crowd. She’d rushed back from her trip. One look at the scene and her face went pale. She ushered us all into her private office. Once inside, I told her everything. Becca was vibrating with rage. “That’s it. I hired her for her hands, but her head is clearly broken,” Becca hissed. “Tiffany, you’re fired. Effective immediately. Apologize to Claire right now.” Shawn reached for my hand, looking stricken. “Claire, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have doubted you for a second. I’m an idiot.” I let out a long breath and nodded. The way Tiffany had said it… it was so specific. I could see why he might have stumbled. I forgave him. The manager brought Tiffany in. She didn’t even look at me or Becca. Her eyes were fixed on Shawn with a sickening, obsessive intensity. “Apologize,” Becca barked. Tiffany gave a stiff, resentful bow. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Vance.” She was escorted out. As she left, she threw one last, lingering look at Shawn—a look full of tears and unspoken promises. I thought that was the end of it. I had no idea it was only the beginning.

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Harrison didn’t realize I had stopped asking for his opinion until the silence had already hollowed out our relationship. When my firm offered me a relocation package, I signed the dotted line before it even occurred to me to mention it to him. When my best friend’s wedding invitation arrived specifying a “plus-one,” I RSVP’d for one and wrote her a massive check myself. Even when it came to my upcoming surgery. I booked the consultation and reserved the hospital bed entirely on my own. When Harrison, a doctor himself, finally found out, his brow furrowed in that familiar, clinical way. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick? Give me your chart. I’ll make the arrangements.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could overthink them: “I can handle it myself. I don’t want to be a burden to you. Thank you, though.” The moment the sentence hung in the air, we both froze. Because barely half a month ago, I was still the woman he dismissively called his “suffocating dependent.” Half a month ago, I would text him relentlessly just to ask which dress I should wear on a date, or what I should order for lunch. 1 “You’re rushing into surgery tomorrow?” My attending physician handed my chart back, a distinct note of confusion in his voice. “I thought Dr. Cole was getting back from his conference soon. You could easily wait a few days so he can be here with you…” “It’s fine,” I interrupted softly. “It’s my own business. I can handle it myself.” The doctor looked utterly bewildered. After all, within these hospital walls, I was famously known as the delicate, high-maintenance girlfriend. Even for a minor headache or a low-grade fever, I used to cling to Harrison, begging for his attention. The moment I stepped out of the clinic doors, I nearly collided with a familiar silhouette. Harrison had one hand wrapped around the handle of a sleek carry-on suitcase, looking like he had marched straight from the airport terminal to the hospital wing. And right behind him, like a permanent shadow, was Mia. Over her white medical resident coat, she was draped in a black cashmere overcoat—the exact coat I had bought for Harrison for our three-year anniversary. Harrison’s eyebrows snapped together the second he saw me. “What are you doing here? …Are you sick again?” Again. The practiced impatience in that single word hit me like a physical blow. He looked at me not like a partner, but like a nuisance desperately awaiting triage. He snatched the medical chart from my hands, his eyes scanning the lines of text before he shifted seamlessly into his commanding tone. “I have obligations tomorrow.” “This procedure isn’t urgent. Push the surgery to next week, and I’ll come sit with you.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could overthink them: “I can handle it myself. I don’t want to be a burden to you. Thank you, though.” The sheer, icy politeness of my response made Harrison falter. After all, the old me used to act like the world was ending if I got a paper cut, running to him for kisses and comfort. The old me would bombard his phone with mirror selfies, demanding he pick my outfit. From what we were having for dinner to the major crossroads of my life. I consulted Harrison for everything. Now, I was facing down a surgical procedure without a flinch, completely alone. If we hadn’t literally bumped into each other in the corridor, my boyfriend wouldn’t have even known I was going under the knife. I reached out and snatched my chart back, my hand accidentally catching the edge of a small pharmacy box he was holding. It clattered to the linoleum floor. The label was glaringly clear. It was a box of birth control pills. “Don’t overthink this, Stella.” Harrison bent down to retrieve the box, his voice dripping with that infuriating, professional detachment. “Mia suffers from severe dysmenorrhea. This is a standard prescription to manage the cramps.” Mia pulled the cashmere coat tighter around her small frame, her voice a reedy, panicked whisper. “I’m so sorry, Stella. Dr. Cole was supposed to go straight home. It’s all my fault for being so useless. The pain was so bad I couldn’t even stand, so I had to bother him to come help me get my meds.” She paused, looking at me with wide, painfully innocent eyes. “I just wish I could be as fiercely independent as you are, Stella. Then I wouldn’t have to make Dr. Cole run around exhausting himself for me.” I remembered a time I was doubled over in abdominal pain, texting Harrison to ask which department I should register for. What did the youngest Deputy Chief of Neurology at Boston General say to me? He said, I don’t know. When I cried about him brushing me off, he had pinched the bridge of his nose, looking at me with the sheer exhaustion of a parent dealing with a destructive toddler. “It’s a basic hospital directory, Stella. Can’t you just Google it?” “You are a grown woman. Can you please act like an adult? Stop relying on me like a helpless dependent.” “I am not your father. It is not my job to teach you basic life survival skills.” It was almost morbidly funny. To his girlfriend, words were a precious currency he refused to spend. But for his junior resident, he was willing to personally escort her to the pharmacy. Anyone walking past would assume Mia was the woman he loved. If this were the past, my temper would have ignited. I would have caused a massive, tearful scene right there in the hallway. But today, I just let out a quiet “Oh.” My voice was a flat, unmoving line. “Pills alone won’t fix it. You should really massage the pressure points on her stomach, hold her while she sleeps tonight, and make sure her hands and feet stay warm.” Mia’s face instantly burned crimson. “Stella, I didn’t mean it like that…” My genuine, albeit deadpan, medical advice was immediately read by Harrison as petty jealousy. His voice dropped to sub-zero. “Are you still throwing a tantrum? Is this just because I didn’t report my business trip to you?” Half a month ago was his birthday. I had worked insane overtime hours to earn a comp day, spent an entire afternoon cooking a massive feast from scratch, and picked up a custom-made gift I’d ordered months in advance. I waited until past midnight. He never came home. It was only when I saw Mia’s Instagram story that I found out Harrison had flown to Europe for an international medical exchange program. When I called him, he brushed it off as if I were overreacting to the weather. “It’s just a work trip, Stella. I didn’t see the need to hold a committee meeting about it.” “Birthdays happen every year. Career-defining grants don’t. I thought you were mature enough to understand priorities.” “Don’t you have your own life to worry about? Why are you always obsessively tracking my schedule?” The suffocating weight of my accumulated disappointment had finally shattered the dam. I remembered screaming into the receiver: “Harrison, in this grand list of your priorities, am I always going to be the absolute last? Am I the easiest thing to discard?” In the face of my hysterical heartbreak, Harrison simply said one sentence before hanging up on me. “You are not thinking rationally right now. We will discuss this when I get back.” 2 Once I was rational, I signed the corporate relocation agreement. My director hesitated, holding the paperwork. “Stella, this transfer means moving halfway across the country. A change this massive… you really should discuss this with your partner. You have a life here. Don’t make a decision this big on an impulse.” I signed my name with a fluid, unbroken stroke. “There’s no need.” The last time I was job hunting, I had brought two competing offers to Harrison, laying out the pros and cons, desperately wanting his input. He had barely glanced at the papers. “It’s your life, Stella. Don’t make me be the one to decide your path.” And yet, when Mia was applying to medical schools, he sat with her for hours, patiently guiding her through the applications until she was admitted to the top program in the country, officially becoming his protégé. Harrison loved to tell me I wasn’t independent enough. He despised how “clingy” I was. When I would excitedly chatter about something funny that happened at work, he would pointedly put on his noise-canceling headphones and turn on a medical podcast, rendering me entirely invisible in our own living room. When I was running late and begged for a ride to the subway, he would flatly refuse, insisting that his morning schedule could not be derailed by my poor time management. When I asked to join him and his friends for drinks, he would lecture me on the importance of building my own social circles. For years, I convinced myself that Harrison was just naturally aloof. That his coldness was a baseline, and that through sheer devotion, I would eventually become the exception. Then Mia walked into his life. She was the daughter of an old family friend, entrusted to Harrison to “look out for.” I thought he would find her irritating. Instead, he took on the role of her protector without a second of hesitation. I never imagined that she would be his exception. When Mia complained about her roommates, Harrison validated every single grievance. When she randomly craved a viral pastry on a Tuesday afternoon, he drove across the city to deliver it to her. When she started her rotations at his hospital, he proudly introduced her to his colleagues: “This is my junior. Look out for her.” Whenever I picked a fight over this glaring double standard, he would look at me with profound disappointment. “She is a child, Stella. Are you a child too?” “I look out for her out of a sense of duty. Are you seriously jealous of a familial obligation?” “Look at her age, then look at yours. Why don’t you start competing with actual infants while you’re at it?” But the “child” he spoke of was only three years younger than me. All the pathetic little excuses I had built for him over the years—it’s just his personality, he’s just stressed at the hospital, he just hates neediness—they all shattered into a million jagged pieces the moment I saw the boundless well of patience he possessed for someone else. It was fine. Once I finished my surgery tomorrow and boarded that flight, Harrison Cole would no longer be my problem. 3 My best friend Tess knew about the surgery and specifically took time off work to come stay with me. “You better have the guest room gleaming! Prepare to welcome your gold-medal caretaker!” she had joked on the phone. I laughed into the receiver. “I deep-cleaned it twice, and I bought that new linen set you liked. I promise you’ll sleep like a—” The moment I pushed open the front door of my apartment, the words died in my throat. The pristine, brand-new bedding I had so carefully arranged was crumpled and shoved onto the floor. The guest room was overflowing with unfamiliar boxes, and a massive, five-foot-tall teddy bear was sprawled across the mattress. It looked exactly like a dog marking its territory. The sound of the front door unlocking clicked behind me. A soft, bubbling laugh drifted into the hallway. “Dr. Cole, thank you so much for taking me to that restaurant. The food was incredible.” “All my bad mood from being isolated by my roommates is totally cured!” Harrison froze when he saw me standing in the hallway. He cleared his throat, his tone instantly shifting back to neutral. “Mia had a falling out with her roommates. She can’t stay in the dorms, so she’s moving out.” “She hasn’t secured an apartment yet, so she’s crashing in the guest room for a few days.” A dark, bitter laugh escaped my lips. “Harrison, I told you a week ago that Tess was coming to stay in that room.” Harrison blinked. The flash of genuine surprise across his face told me everything I needed to know. He had completely forgotten. When I had asked him about it a week ago, his voice had been dripping with annoyance. “Just handle that kind of trivial stuff yourself. Stop asking me for permission for every little thing, it’s exhausting.” Harrison’s jaw tightened. “I’m sorry…” he muttered, his voice dropping. He lifted a sleek, branded paper bag in his hand, his tone softening into the cadence one might use to soothe an irrational toddler. “The restaurant we went to today is exactly your aesthetic. I’ll take you there this weekend.” I glanced at the gold-foiled logo on the bag. It was the exact restaurant I had practically begged him to take me to for months. He had always claimed he was too swamped with surgeries to waste an evening on overhyped food. I took the paper bag from his outstretched hand, turned around, and dropped it straight into the kitchen trash can. The breath Harrison was about to exhale hitched in his chest. Mia instantly squeezed past him, her voice small, trembling with manufactured guilt. “Stella, I’m so, so sorry. It’s my fault. I can just squeeze into the bed with your friend, I don’t mind at all…” I let out a sharp laugh. I walked straight into the guest room, grabbed Mia’s crumpled bedsheets and that absurd teddy bear, and kicked them hard out into the hallway corridor. Mia gasped, her eyes immediately welling up with tears. “Stella, those are my things for tonight… What am I supposed to do now?” I gave her a slow, chilling smile, gesturing toward the master bedroom. “You can go squeeze into bed with Harrison. I don’t mind at all.” Mia’s face flushed a violent, blotchy red. “If you don’t want me here, just say it! Why do you have to humiliate me like this?” Acting as if she had just been dealt a lethal insult, she choked out a sob, turned on her heel, and ran down the hallway. Harrison didn’t chase after her. He just stood there, glaring at me. “Stella, you know she’s clumsy and a bit childish. She didn’t ruin your things on purpose.” “If you didn’t want her staying here, you could have just used your words. I would have booked her a hotel. There was absolutely no need to maliciously target her twice in one day.” The smile fell from my face. “This is our home. You brought an outsider to live here. Didn’t it occur to you that you should discuss that with me?” Harrison’s frown deepened, staring at me like I was a lunatic making unreasonable demands. “Mia is being actively bullied and ostracized at her school. She is going through an emotional crisis. I thought my girlfriend would have at least an ounce of human empathy, but your first instinct is to bicker with me over a lack of communication.” “Furthermore, she was only going to be here for two days. It was a temporary, emergency arrangement. Do we really need to convene a summit for something so trivial?” “Just like how Tess is coming to stay—you didn’t need my explicit permission for that.” The old me would have heard those words and impulsively invited a male friend to crash on our couch that very night, just to see if his progressive, detached logic held up. But the new me just nodded slowly. “You’re entirely right. There really is no need to discuss it.” If we were operating on those rules. Then moving halfway across the country and breaking up with him probably didn’t require a discussion either. 4 “You should go book Mia that hotel room.” I held the front door open for him, a picture of perfect hospitality. Then, I walked into the bedroom, hauled my suitcase onto the bed, and started tossing my clothes inside. He clearly wasn’t satisfied with my lack of an emotional meltdown. He strode in and grabbed my wrist. “She is an adult, Stella. She can book her own hotel.” “More importantly, why are you suddenly packing? Where are you going?” I wrenched my arm out of his grip. “Don’t you have your own life to worry about? Why are you always obsessively tracking my schedule?” Harrison flinched. He recognized his own venom being spat back at him. A heavy silence filled the room. “Not telling you about my trip to Europe… that was my mistake,” he said softly, a rare concession. “From now on, I will keep you updated on my itinerary.” “Tomorrow, I have to go to the university. Mia’s conflict with her roommates escalated, and the dean is demanding a meeting with her family. Her parents can’t fly in time, so I have to go act as her proxy.” “Push your surgery to the day after tomorrow. I will go with you.” It seemed that in the grand hierarchy of Harrison’s life, I was still squarely at the bottom. I looked at him calmly. “I don’t need you there. It makes no difference to me whether you’re present or not.” Harrison genuinely seemed to believe I just didn’t understand the logistical value of his presence. He sighed, explaining it to me like I was slow. “Stella, I can pull strings to get the best specialists. I can interpret the pathology reports for you. At the absolute bare minimum, I can wait in the pharmacy lines so you don’t have to.” Whatever response I was about to give was cut off by his phone ringing. Mia’s tearful, terrified voice pierced the quiet room.

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The sister who had been missing for years was finally found, only to be living as the “fake heiress” in a wealthy family. On the day I went to pick her up, I witnessed her being kicked out onto the streets. “Our Sterling family has no room for a daughter as hypocritical and vicious as you. As expected, blood tells—you can never truly raise someone else’s child!” “Raising you this far is already the utmost we could do. You’ve occupied Mia’s place for so many years; it’s time to give it back.” “Stop playing the victim. What right does the cuckoo who stole the nest have to feel wronged?” “…” My biological sister was shoved to the ground. The true heiress stood off to the side, looking glamorous, a flash of jealousy and hatred in her eyes. They were waiting to see this “fake heiress” lose everything and beg for their mercy. However, her biological sister was also a genuine, bona fide billionaire. When the police called, I was in a rural village doing agricultural charity work. Hearing that my sister, who had been missing for 18 years, had been found, I stood up abruptly. Even after the call ended, I stood frozen in place, tears welling in my eyes. My assistant instinctively asked, “Ms. Hastings, what happened?” I quickly composed myself, trying my best to sound calm. “Arrange for someone else to handle the wrap-up here. I have an emergency and need to go to Capital City immediately.” After a long journey, I finally arrived at where my sister was currently living. The police had told me she was adopted by a wealthy family and had lived a good life all these years. The massive mansion before me certainly proved the family’s financial status, and the excitement of finding her cooled slightly. I had imagined many scenarios. For instance, what if my sister was very happy in this family and didn’t want to come back with me? That would be fine. As long as I could see with my own eyes that she was safe and happy, that would be enough. Despite rushing all this way, standing right on the threshold of seeing her, I actually found myself hesitating. It was the police officer beside me who nudged me forward. Before I could even approach the grand double doors, they were thrown open from the inside. The next second, a figure in a plain white dress was shoved out. She stumbled a few steps and fell to the ground. Following closely behind were several other figures. “After raising you for so many years, you actually dared to push your sister down the stairs?!” “Our Sterling family has no room for someone as hypocritical and vicious as you. Blood really does tell—you can never truly raise someone else’s child!” “Raising you this far is already the utmost we could do. You’ve occupied Mia’s place for so many years; it’s time to give it back.” “Stop playing the victim. What right does the cuckoo who stole the nest have to feel wronged?” “…” The harsh, cutting words rang clearly through the air. I stopped in my tracks, my gaze instantly locking onto the young woman who had fallen to the ground. The resemblance was striking. She looked so much like the old photos of my mother when she was young. Almost at first glance, I knew for certain she was my biological sister. The young woman on the ground was surrounded by four people. That scene didn’t show me the slightest hint that she had “lived a good life.” Among the four people surrounding her were a middle-aged couple, a young man, and a girl about my sister’s age. At that moment, the girl on the ground fought back tears and tried to defend herself: “Dad, Mom, I really didn’t push her. It was her…” Before she could finish, the young man cut in: “If you didn’t push her, are you saying Mia threw herself down the stairs just to frame you?” The disgust in his tone was palpable. “Brother, I… I really didn’t. Don’t you believe me either?” “Don’t call me brother. I only have one biological sister.” Those words hit hard. I saw the color drain from the girl on the ground after he said that. I also saw the glamorous girl, who had been silent the whole time, flash a look of triumphant satisfaction. I frowned. Didn’t they say my sister was adopted by this family? Why did it sound like she had maliciously usurped their daughter’s identity? On the way here, the police told me this family’s surname was Sterling, and they had recently found their biological daughter who went missing 18 years ago. My biological sister and their missing daughter were the exact same age. Both went missing when they were two years old. Seeing that they were entirely absorbed in their crusade against the “fake heiress” and completely ignoring our group, I finally spoke up: “Excuse me, are you throwing her out?” The group finally looked over, including my sister. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” the middle-aged man demanded, frowning. My tone was flat. “I heard you recently found your biological daughter. Congratulations.” Before they could react, I continued, “Since that’s the case, can you give my sister back to me now?” My words were like a stone dropped into a lake, instantly sending ripples across the surface. The group was completely stunned. Only the young woman on the ground looked at me in disbelief. I stepped forward and helped her up. The last time I touched my sister was 18 years ago. I had loved her so much back then. While she was still in our mother’s belly, I wished for a sister so I could share my pretty dolls with her and braid her hair the way I learned. The tear tracks on the young woman’s face were still wet as she stared intently at me. I introduced myself: “My name is Chloe Hastings. I am your biological older sister.” The police officer next to me explained the situation: “Ms. Sterling, shortly after you came to the station last time, your DNA matched with a relative in the database. This is your biological older sister. Ms. Hastings rushed here immediately upon hearing the news. We tried contacting you earlier, but you didn’t answer.” The young girl hesitated for a moment and said, “My… my phone broke two days ago, and I haven’t had a chance to buy a new one.” “What does this mean?” The man who had just declared he only had one sister became even more aggressive. “Maya Sterling, you went to the police station to look for your birth family?” Following his lead, the girl next to him chimed in: “Sister, the bond of raising a child is greater than the bond of giving birth to one. How could you just go looking for your birth family without saying a word? Mom and Dad have provided you with a life of luxury all these years. Are you being fair to them by doing this?” Then, the woman who I assumed was my sister’s adoptive mother looked me up and down. I had rushed here directly, having just finished agricultural charity work in the countryside. My clothes were ordinary, I wore no makeup, my hair was messy, and there was even some rural mud stuck to the soles of my shoes. A sharp contrast to this glamorous family. The wealthy socialite sneered, her gaze sweeping over her adopted daughter: “Maya Sterling, these are the relatives you wanted to find? Giving up the life of the Sterling family’s eldest daughter to go acknowledge these poor relatives?” Poor relatives? Me? I hadn’t even had time to learn more about my sister’s life over the past 18 years, but from this single encounter, it was glaringly obvious that this family did not treat her well. Maya, my sister, pale-faced, looked at the wealthy woman: “Mom…” Before she could even finish the word, she was cut off. “Don’t call me Mom. Since you’ve found your relatives, go with her. Our Sterling temple is too small to house an ungrateful wretch like you.” Her voice was sharp and piercing, making the girl beside me flinch. My eyes hardened, but I kept a smile on my face. “Mrs. Sterling, I’m relieved to hear you say that. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to bear parting with my sister. It seems I was overthinking.” Then, I turned to Maya and said gently, “Maya, Mom, Dad, and I have been looking for you for years. Do you want to come home with me?” Before the young girl, who had just been thrown out, could respond, the man who had acted as her brother for years scoffed coldly. “Maya Sterling, don’t blame me for not warning you. If you walk out of this house today, don’t even think about ever coming back!” And the “bullied” true heiress chimed in, sounding incredibly understanding: “Sister, you should apologize to Mom and Dad quickly. Otherwise, if the Sterling family disowns you, what kind of life will you have?” But that statement was like pouring oil on a fire. The middle-aged man, the head of the household, finally spoke up: “If she wants to leave, let her leave! After all, she doesn’t have Sterling blood. You can never truly raise someone else’s child!” Their barrage of comments helped the wavering young girl make up her mind. Her voice was very soft: “Mom, Dad… I’m leaving. Take care of yourselves from now on.” With that, she looked at me, opening her mouth, but for a moment, couldn’t quite bring herself to call me “Sister.” I patted her shoulder and asked softly, “Do you need to pack any luggage? It’s fine if you don’t. Just bring your ID. We have everything you need at home.” Maya paused for a moment, then looked down. “Okay.” She had her ID on her. Aside from the clothes on her back, she didn’t take a single thing from the Sterling family. I led her to the car, glancing back at the gloating Sterling family, and pressed my lips together. No matter what, my sister was coming back. I owned several properties in Capital City. Soon, the driver dropped Maya and me off at a high-end residential complex. As we got out of the car, I clearly felt Maya freeze for a second. She looked at me, hesitating. It wasn’t until we went upstairs and entered the luxurious penthouse apartment that she finally spoke. “Sis…ter,” she called out awkwardly. “Where is this?” I spaced out for a fraction of a second hearing that “Sister,” then smiled at her. “This is one of my apartments. Do you like it? There should still be some unsold units here. How about I buy one for you in a few days?” Maya’s mouth dropped open slightly, seemingly shocked by my words. Her worldview was clearly undergoing a rapid refresh as she looked me up and down again. I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and suddenly understood what she meant. My outfit, along with the incredibly low-key car I used to pick her up, didn’t exactly scream “wealth.” I took her by the hand to give her a tour, smiling as I asked, “What, does your sister not look rich?” “N-no,” she quickly explained. “I just… didn’t expect it.” Seeing her anxious explanation tugged at my heart. What exactly had she been through in the Sterling family all these years? How does a wealthy family raise such a sensitive, self-doubting child? But now wasn’t the time to ask about her life. I could only smile and tell her, “Your name used to be Aria. Mom and Dad thought ‘Aria’ was a good name, hoping you would be outstanding and have a bright future. Do you want to change it back?” The young girl froze again. After a moment, instead of answering, she asked, “I want to know how I got lost.” The smile froze on my lips. Even now, some memories remain grey and painful. I was 10 that year. We still lived in our hometown, and our family business hadn’t grown to its current scale. But our parents were still very busy, constantly meeting with clients. My sister and I were left with a nanny. That day, we went out to watch a street parade. It was barely a hundred yards from our house. The crowd was dense and separated my sister and me. When the crowd cleared, her tiny figure was gone. I could still hear her calling me “Sister” through the crowd just moments before. My sister’s disappearance traumatized our entire family. We searched for so long. Our parents cried constantly, and our mother developed severe depression. “Mom and Dad are already on their way. You’ll see them tomorrow.” Maya stumbled back two steps, tears shimmering in her eyes. She told me she thought she had been abandoned. After the Sterling family found their kidnapped biological daughter, she went to the police station for a blood test solely driven by a desperate need to know why she was thrown away. “How could you have been abandoned?” I reached out and stroked her head. “You are the treasure of our family.” A treasure lost and found. I have a branch office and a factory in Capital City. That evening, I took Maya to see the factory. Inside were massive stacks of brand-new packaging boxes. While she was still shocked that this brand was a family business, I pointed to the missing person notice printed on the inside of the boxes. “This is a photo of you when you were 2 years old.” Maya stared blankly at the photo and information, then looked at the towering stacks of boxes. She had probably seen this missing person notice before, but never realized it was her. The path to finding missing family is daunting. The probability of ever finding a child missing for so many years is incredibly low. In my teens, I realized that I needed sufficient power to expand our reach. So, during college, I started learning the business from my father. As his energy waned, I took over the company and steadily grew it. Perhaps the heavens were looking out for us, because I was always lucky in business. As our products sold across the country, my sister’s missing person notice spread with them. The notice was also pinned to the top of all our official corporate social media accounts. Over the years, an endless stream of people had come forward claiming to be her. I was terrified she had been trafficked into the deep mountains. Even to places where our products couldn’t reach, I would personally go there under the guise of charity work. There were some horrific possibilities we didn’t even dare to imagine. Thankfully, she was back. “We won’t need these boxes anymore. They’ll all be recycled to make new packaging, and we’ll use the opportunity to share the good news with the customers who have supported us all these years.” As I spoke, I noticed Maya staring blankly at the missing person notice on the box. Then, her tears fell, and she threw herself into my arms. She cried pitifully, as if releasing all the grievances of the past years. “They… they always told me I was thrown away…” Holding my sister, I suddenly realized she was carrying severe psychological trauma. Our parents arrived the next afternoon. When they saw my sister, their faces went blank for a few seconds, followed by a tearful, emotional reunion. Our parents weren’t even 60 yet, but their hair was entirely gray. The worry and regret of all those years had wrapped around them like sharp thorns, suffocating them. After meeting our parents, my sister told me she wanted to change her name. I paused for a moment, then smiled. “Okay. I’ll go negotiate with the Sterlings in the next few days to get your residency registration transferred…” “No need,” she said. “I was adopted by the Sterlings, but my residency was always registered under some relatives of theirs. Those relatives passed away a few years ago, so I’m currently the head of my own household registration.” I hadn’t anticipated that. It wasn’t until the private investigator reported back that I finally understood. The name “Maya” was actually the original name of their biological daughter. After their daughter went missing, they adopted a girl of the same age. Calling her by the same name—how is that any different from finding a substitute? The private investigator uncovered much more. Less than five months after their biological daughter went missing, they adopted my sister. But at that time, it hadn’t even been 30 days since my sister went missing. According to regulations, a missing child must go through a public search period of no less than 30 days before they can be adopted. Moreover, how could a child missing in Huai City be adopted by the Sterling family through a Capital City orphanage in less than a month? It reeked of corruption everywhere. Most importantly, they used my sister as a substitute for their lost daughter, but they didn’t treat her well. Even though she had the exact same name, they knew perfectly well she didn’t share their blood. Whenever they saw their adopted daughter doing well, they would think about how their biological daughter might be suffering. So, they would harshly criticize their adopted daughter, belittling her personality and abilities. After her daughter was kidnapped, Mrs. Sterling’s mental state was often unstable. During her episodes, she would even hit my sister. The two men never laid a hand on her, but they watched with cold indifference and contributed plenty of verbal abuse. I didn’t know how to describe the anger burning inside me. How innocent was my sister? My mother’s mental state had been poor ever since my sister went missing. Now, looking at her youngest daughter who had grown into an adult, she poured out everything she had saved for her over the years. Bank cards, properties in her name, and beautiful, expensive jewelry. My sister, now back to the name Aria, held the items awkwardly. She wasn’t entirely ready to accept all of this yet. I walked over, patted her shoulder, and handed her a card. “This is an unrestricted secondary card linked to my account. You can use it for your daily expenses.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “391958”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Before I died, my six-year-old son cried and begged his father three times. The first time, my son tugged on the man’s hand, crying that I was coughing up blood. The man sneered. “So she’s finally learning some new tricks. Teaching her kid to lie for her now.” Then, he ordered his bodyguards to throw my son out of the VIP suite. The second time, my son grabbed the man’s sleeve, crying that I was in so much pain I was hallucinating. The man frowned. “It’s just a heart transplant. The doctors said she won’t die.” The bodyguards stepped forward and dragged my son out again. The third time, my son threw himself on the floor, desperately clinging to his father’s pant leg, sobbing that I had lost consciousness. The man finally lost his temper. He grabbed my son by the collar and hurled him out into the hallway. “I told you, Chloe isn’t going to die. If you come in here and disturb Evelyn’s rest one more time, I will throw both of you out of this hospital.” To save me, my son pawned his most precious possession—his pure gold longevity locket—to a nurse. “Auntie, I don’t want to live a long life anymore. I just want my mommy to live.” The nurse took the locket and prepared to transfer me to the last available private room. But my husband’s first love, Evelyn Vance, had someone hold her pet poodle and blocked the door to the room. She smiled sweetly. “Sorry, little boy. Your daddy was worried I’d get bored without my dog, so this room is reserved for my puppy.” To make room for Evelyn’s dog, my hospital bed was pushed out into the cold, drafty hallway. As the door to the private suite closed, my son still held the locket he had just taken off his neck. He pounded his small, bruising fists against the heavy door, over and over again. “Auntie, please give the room back to my mommy!” “Auntie, Leo is begging you, please open the door!” My son’s childish, desperate voice echoed down the long hallway, but it couldn’t reach Evelyn, who was busy playing with her dog inside. The louder my son cried, the more amused she seemed to get. “Good puppy. We ignore dirty things.” My son’s voice slowly grew hoarse. This was the boy who used to cry for a hug if he so much as scraped his knee. Now, he just wiped his bloody, bruised knuckles on his shirt. With tears streaming down his face, he screamed with pure hatred: “You bad woman! I bought this room with my locket! You have no right to use it for a dog!” “You bad woman!” His voice was so raw it was barely audible, his accusations filled with a heartbreaking fragility. I lay on the cot in the hallway, my tears mixing with the blood pooling in my mouth. I’m sorry, Leo. Mommy couldn’t protect you. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. The door to the suite never opened. My son stumbled back to my bedside, his eyes swollen and terrifyingly red. “Mommy, I’m sorry. Leo is useless. I let the bad lady steal your room.” “Mommy, I’m sorry.” I could feel my life slipping away. I knew I was dying. But I was so afraid of scaring my Leo. Using the last ounce of my strength, I forced a smile and whispered weakly: “Leo, Mommy is a little cold. Could you go find a blanket for Mommy? Just for a little bit?” He froze for two seconds, then frantically wiped his tears away and nodded vigorously. “Okay! Leo will go get one right now!” “Mommy, you have to wait for Leo to come back! You have to wait!” Watching his tiny figure disappear down the hall, my eyes slowly fell shut. Leo, I’m sorry. Mommy can’t wait. When I opened my eyes again, I had become a spirit, hovering right beside my son. My son was smart. He knew home was too far away, so when he spotted an open door to a standard ward, he ran straight inside. Lying in the bed was a young woman. Her husband was carefully tucking her in, smoothing out every wrinkle in the blanket. Next to them sat a little boy, maybe five years old, holding a cup of warm water and sweetly calling her “Mommy.” For some reason, seeing them made Leo want to cry again. But he knew he couldn’t cry. He had to borrow a blanket for his mommy. The young couple was startled by his sudden appearance. The man gently brushed the dirt off Leo’s clothes, his voice soft: “Hey buddy, do you need something? Where’s your mom?” Leo nervously picked at his fingers, gathering his courage. “Mister, my mommy is sick. She’s really cold right now. Could I please borrow a blanket?” “I can trade you my gold locket for it. Please help my mommy, okay?” The man paused, then immediately pulled an unopened blanket from the cabinet and handed it to Leo. “Take it. I hope your mom feels better soon.” Maybe it was because he had suffered so much abuse tonight, but faced with a stranger’s kindness, Leo suddenly lost his words. He clutched the blanket tightly, bowing over and over again. “Thank you, Mister. Thank you, Miss. Thank you so much.” The man waved his hand, stopping him. “No need to thank me. We didn’t buy this blanket.” “The CEO who built this hospital, Mr. Sterling, gave one to every patient’s family to celebrate his wife’s successful surgery today.” “Look, it even has a picture of him and his wife printed on the bag.” “If you really want to thank someone, just wish Mr. Sterling and his wife a long, happy marriage.” Leo froze. The image of Julian Sterling throwing him out of the hospital room flashed through his mind. Followed immediately by the memory of Julian putting him on his shoulders, running and laughing across a grassy field. The tears he had been holding back suddenly flooded out. “I know. I’ll make sure to thank… Mr. Sterling.” My ghostly heart ached worse than when I was on the operating table. Looking at the deadness in my son’s eyes, I thought about the past. Truthfully, Julian Sterling used to love me and our son very much. When Leo was born, Julian stayed awake for three days straight just trying to pick the perfect name. He bought out entire toy stores just for Leo’s birthday. When I caught a simple cold, he would hold Leo and read him silly fairy tales so I could rest. But all of that ended the day Evelyn Vance returned to the country. Using her heart condition as a weapon, she framed me and my son over and over again. She played the helpless, fragile victim, manipulating Julian’s pity. She even tricked Leo into putting a caterpillar on her bed, triggering a fake heart attack just as Julian walked into the room. Since that day, everything changed. In the ward, the man nodded approvingly and asked: “By the way, where is your dad? Why isn’t he with you?” Leo lowered his head. His tears dripped onto the plastic wrapping, landing right on the printed photo of Julian and Evelyn smiling happily together. His voice was so quiet it was barely a whisper: “My dad… he’s dead.” After saying goodbye to the kind man, Leo hugged the hard-earned blanket and ran back toward the main hospital lobby. The moment he stepped into the hall, he crashed right into Evelyn, who was holding her poodle. She scowled, a flash of pure disgust crossing her perfectly made-up face. “Get out of the way, you little bastard.” “Do you know how expensive this dress is? Even if I sold you, you couldn’t afford to dry clean it.” “You’re just like your mother. Absolute trash.” Her face darkened. Completely ignoring the bruises already covering Leo’s forehead, she raised her foot and kicked him hard in the chest. The unexpected kick sent Leo flying backward, slamming into the hard tile floor. The blanket tumbled out of his arms. Ignoring the pain, he scrambled forward to grab the blanket, but Evelyn stepped her stiletto heel squarely onto his small hand. She ground her heel into his fingers, looking down at him with venomous eyes. “Listen to me, you little bastard. If you ever dare to run to Julian with that pathetic, crying face again, I will have someone throw you and your cheap whore of a mother out onto the street.” “Do you understand me?” Her eyes were filled with such malice, it looked like she wanted him dead. I ground my teeth together. A wave of rage and heartbreak so immense it felt like the ocean threatened to drown me. I reached out, fighting like a madwoman to shove Evelyn’s foot off him, screaming at her: Let go of my child! If you have a problem, take it out on me! Don’t you dare touch my son! I screamed until my spirit felt like it was tearing apart, but Evelyn couldn’t hear a word. She stood there, relishing the sight of my son’s face turning red from the agonizing pain, and pressed her heel down even harder. Leo’s arm began to spasm uncontrollably, but he refused to cry. He looked up, his red, swollen eyes glaring fiercely at the glamorous woman above him. “My mommy isn’t cheap. My mommy is the best mommy in the whole world.” “You’re a bad woman. I won’t let you hurt my mommy.” With that, Leo lunged forward and bit down hard on Evelyn’s ankle, thinking she would pull her foot back. Already enraged, Evelyn completely lost it. She kicked her pointed heel violently into Leo’s fragile stomach. “You little bastard!” I screamed in horror, throwing my ghostly body over my son, desperately trying to shield him. But he phased right through me, crashing heavily into the wall. He coughed up a massive mouthful of blood. Yet he still refused to cry out loud. He stubbornly reached his small, trembling hand across the floor, feeling blindly. “Blan… blanket…” “Mommy needs her blanket…” Not satisfied, Evelyn dropped her poodle, stomped over to him, and raised her hand to strike his face. “Evelyn?” Julian’s voice, filled with disbelief, suddenly echoed through the lobby, freezing everyone in place. The deadness in Leo’s eyes suddenly sparked with life. He opened his torn, bleeding lips and called out softly: “Daddy…” Julian started to walk toward him, but Evelyn quickly spun around and intercepted him. “Julian! I was just looking for you.” She subtly signaled her bodyguards to block Leo from Julian’s line of sight, then threw herself into Julian’s arms with a sweet, fragile smile. Julian sensed something was wrong. He frowned. “Evelyn, was that Leo on the floor? Did you hit him?” Evelyn’s eyes darted nervously, and tears immediately spilled down her cheeks. “Julian, I’m so sorry. You weren’t here, and Leo… I don’t know who put him up to it, but he ran all the way to my room and cursed at me for so long.” “I didn’t want to hold it against him, but just now, he intentionally rammed into me again.” “You know I just had major surgery. The doctor said…” Julian’s expression darkened. The suspicion in his eyes quickly morphed into blazing anger. “Chloe is really becoming a terrible mother.” “Your body is already weak. If his little tantrums caused any complications, I swear I’d make them pay.” I stood right in front of Julian, screaming, desperately trying to explain. No! Leo didn’t do anything! Leo is a good boy! Evelyn is lying to you! Leo must have heard him too. Fighting through the agonizing pain, he forced out another cry: “Daddy…” The word had barely left his lips before a bodyguard clamped a hand over his mouth. Julian stopped, turning his head slightly. “Was that Leo calling me?” Evelyn’s face twisted into something ugly for a split second, before she put on a brave, long-suffering smile and gently let go of Julian’s arm. “Go be with Leo, then. I’ll be fine.” “Even though he was the one who caused my heart attack last time, almost making me lose you forever…” “He’s just a child. I forgive him.” Her words instantly extinguished any hesitation in Julian’s eyes, replacing it with cold resolve. He scoffed coldly, turning away from her and striding toward the elevator. “If his mother refuses to discipline him, then you can teach him some manners for me, Evelyn.” “A piece of jade is useless until it’s carved. If we don’t teach him a lesson now, Chloe is going to ruin him permanently.” “I’ll wait for you upstairs.” Watching him walk away, Leo’s struggles became frantic. Evelyn walked over to him and slapped him hard across the face, again and again. His cheeks were completely swollen, his lips split open, blood streaming down his chin. But no matter how hard she hit him, he refused to let go of the blanket. Evelyn wasn’t finished. She dragged her long, sharp acrylic nails violently down the side of his eye. “You little bastard. You’re just as pathetic as your mother.” I went completely insane, trying to choke the life out of the monster beating my son. But I was nothing but air. I fell to my knees, weeping, slamming my spectral head against the floor in a desperate kowtow. I begged Evelyn, pleading with her to spare my child, to remember he was only a little boy. But it was useless. I was so full of hatred. I hated that I died so early. I hated that I couldn’t protect my own flesh and blood. The brutal beating only stopped when Evelyn’s poodle let out a sharp bark. “Oh, baby, did mommy scare you?” She stroked the dog’s smooth fur, her voice sickly sweet. Then, as if she was finally bored, she ordered the bodyguards to drop Leo on the floor. She raised her foot, stepping heavily onto his bruised, purple face, looking down at him with fake pity. “See? Even your daddy doesn’t want you.” “So pathetic.” The elevator doors slowly slid shut. Leaving my son’s tiny, battered body curled into a tight ball on the freezing tile floor. I knelt beside him. Even though I knew it was impossible, I tried over and over again to scoop him into my arms. It was useless. Completely useless. The hospital doors were locked for the night. Without Julian’s explicit orders, no one in this building dared to help my child. The blood around Leo’s mouth had started to dry. His eyelids fluttered, but he couldn’t find the strength to open them. The only sound was the faint crinkling of the plastic bag wrapped around the blanket he held tightly against his chest. The gold longevity locket was gone. The only proof it ever existed was a faint red indentation around his neck—a reminder that he, too, was once a deeply loved, cherished child. I don’t know how long I knelt there, or how long I cried. I only knew my chest hurt so much it had gone completely numb, and I had no tears left to shed. Just as I thought the nightmare was finally over, Julian came back down. The sharp clack of his custom Italian leather shoes echoed across the lobby floor. He walked to the center of the room, looking at Leo’s motionless body, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Are you done putting on a show?” “Is this how Chloe taught you to beg for sympathy?” “Do you honestly think playing the victim is going to make me go soft?” “Keep dreaming!” Every cold, venomous word out of his mouth felt like a knife stabbing repeatedly into my already dead heart. I wanted to scream at him: Are you even human?! What gives you the right to assume the worst about my child?! He’s so good, he’s so well-behaved, he’s so… A continuous stream of ghostly tears fell, landing silently on Leo’s face. I don’t know if it was my imagination, but his eyelashes fluttered. Julian was still spitting cruel threats. But when Leo didn’t react at all, a flicker of unease finally crossed his face. He took a step forward, walking slowly toward his son. “Leo?” “Why aren’t you answering me?” “I see right through you. Stop pretending.” Julian’s tone grew heavier with every word, his pace quickening. Just as he was about to reach him, Leo’s hand twitched. Julian stopped dead in his tracks. The panic on his face instantly vanished, replaced by the furious indignation of someone who thought they had almost been tricked again. He pulled out his phone, snapped a few photos of Leo’s back, and texted them to my phone. [Chloe, you’ve really outdone yourself. Playing the victim wasn’t enough, now you’re making your kid lie for you!] [Fine. If you want to use him as a prop, let’s see who caves first!] After sending the text, Julian turned around. He hesitated for a long moment, but ultimately walked away without looking back. Once the lobby was completely silent again, Leo forced his eyes open and let out a series of ragged coughs. Every cough brought up more blood. It wasn’t until a bright red drop landed on the plastic bag he was holding that he jolted awake. He struggled to his feet, carefully hugging the blanket to his chest, and smiled through his split, ruined lips. Then, stumbling and dragging his feet, he made his way back to the hallway where my bed was. When his hand touched my freezing cold skin, he froze. Then, using the very last of his strength, he unfolded the blanket and draped it over my body. “Be a good girl, Mommy. With the blanket, you won’t be cold anymore.” With that, he collapsed, losing consciousness. The next morning, an intern doctor walking by let out a bloodcurdling scream that echoed through the entire hospital. “Someone help! We have a deceased patient over here!” Hearing the commotion, Julian irritably pushed his way through the gathering crowd. “What is everyone crowding around for? If you wake Evelyn up, I’ll have all of you—” His words died in his throat. He saw the woman lying dead on the cot, and the little boy draped over her body, his breathing terrifyingly shallow. All the color drained from Julian’s face. “Ch… Chloe…” He whispered my name, then shoved the crowd aside and sprinted to my bed. Looking at my pale, stiff corpse, completely devoid of life… Julian’s heart violently seized. His hand trembled violently as he reached out, trying to check if I was still breathing. But as his hand brushed against Leo’s bruised, purple face, he flinched. Almost instinctively, he scooped Leo into his arms. His eyes were bloodshot as he screamed at the stunned crowd: “Doctors! Where are the damn doctors?!” The crowd erupted into chaos. Several doctors and nurses quickly pushed their way through, leading Julian toward the emergency trauma unit. He carefully placed Leo’s unconscious body onto a gurney. Floating above them, I finally let out a sigh of relief. Watching the sheer, unadulterated panic on Julian’s face, I couldn’t help but find it hilarious. Wasn’t this exactly what he ordered? He had every chance to save his son last night. My heart ached with a suffocating pain. I leaned down, gently kissing my son’s forehead, my ghostly tears falling onto his cheeks. Leo seemed to feel them. A faint, barely audible murmur slipped from his lips. “Mommy… isn’t cold…” Hearing those words, Julian looked like he had been struck by lightning. He stumbled backward, barely managing to keep his balance. He grabbed the lead doctor by the collar, roaring in his face: “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?! Isn’t your job to save lives?!” “How could a massive hospital like this just stand by and watch a patient die in the hallway?! Do you even deserve to wear that coat?!” The doctor went pale. He opened his mouth, stammering in sheer terror: “M-Mr. Sterling… yesterday, you were the one who ordered us not to treat Ms. Foster.” “You said… you said Ms. Vance needed us more, so you transferred the entire surgical staff to her wing…” Julian froze. The memories came flooding back. Because I had refused to consent to giving Evelyn my heart, he had flown into a rage and ordered his bodyguards to drag me to the hospital by force. Before they pushed me into the operating room, I was strapped down to the bed. I had screamed in terror: “Julian! You have no legal right to harvest my organs! This is murder!” “Evelyn isn’t even sick! She’s lying to you!” He thought I was just making excuses. So, right in front of me, he gave the hospital director his final orders. “After the surgery, no one is allowed to check on her without my permission.” “I want to see if losing a heart is really enough to kill her!” Julian squeezed his eyes shut in pure agony. He looked at the dried blood caked around Leo’s mouth. Then, the image of my freezing, lifeless body lying on that hallway cot flashed before his eyes. A tidal wave of panic and catastrophic regret swallowed him whole. “I… I didn’t want her to die…” “I just… I just wanted to teach her a lesson. I just wanted her to behave…” “Right. I just wanted her to be obedient. It’s not my fault… It’s not my fault…” Julian collapsed onto the floor, clutching his head in absolute torment. What a phenomenal actor. Standing right beside him, that was the only thought in my mind. Why do men always facilitate a tragedy, watch it unfold, and then look at the horrific aftermath and say: “It wasn’t my fault.” Was it my fault? My fault for meeting him. My fault for believing he would give me a happy life. My fault for bringing such a sweet, perfect boy into this world with him. An ocean of regret threatened to drown my soul. I hated him so much. The doctors finished their initial assessment. Seeing the horrific, jagged lacerations and deep bruising covering Leo’s face, they immediately ordered him transferred to the ICU. Outside the ICU. Julian stood behind the glass window, staring at the child inside, whose life was currently entirely dependent on ventilators and monitors. He looked like he had aged ten years in a single day. My soul was inside the ICU, hovering right next to my son’s pillow. The swelling on Leo’s face had gone down slightly, and the nurses had carefully cleaned the dried blood from his mouth. But that only made the brutal injuries stand out even more. Especially the distinct handprints on his cheeks. Whoever hit him had used maximum force. Julian stared blankly at his son, his hands clenched so tightly his knuckles were white. “Julian?” Evelyn’s voice, trembling with apprehension, called out from behind him. She had received the news from the hospital staff that morning. They told her a woman’s body had been found in the hallway, with a six-year-old boy lying on top of her. When Evelyn heard the news, she was doing her makeup. She had snapped her lipstick right in half. Having been by Julian’s side for years, she knew exactly how he operated. The man was pathologically toxic—he only ever valued what he couldn’t have. In the past, that was her. But now… she was starting to panic. So, before coming to find him, Evelyn carefully applied a sickly, fragile makeup look, even layering pale foundation over her lips. She didn’t stop until she looked flawlessly pitiful. Sitting in a wheelchair she had demanded from the nurses, Evelyn swallowed her anxiety and asked softly: “Julian, did you need me for something?” Julian turned around. The raw fury in his eyes faltered slightly when he saw her pale, sickly face. But then, he thought of me, and of his son lying comatose in the room behind him, and his heart turned to stone again. “Evelyn. The injuries on Leo… Did you do this?” He stared directly into her eyes, his voice dripping with dark suspicion. Evelyn’s heart leaped into her throat, but outwardly, she looked utterly shocked and devastated. When she looked through the glass and saw Leo, she immediately covered her mouth, her eyes welling with tears. “Leo… what happened to him…” She reached out and grabbed the hem of Julian’s shirt, weeping beautifully. “Poor Leo. Who could be so evil? How could anyone do this to a six-year-old child?” “Julian, you have to find whoever did this. You can’t let them get away with it.” Julian stared deeply into her eyes, his tone questioning: “Do you really mean that?” Evelyn nodded emphatically, her voice resolute. “Of course! Even though Leo and I had our issues in the past… at the end of the day, he’s just a little boy.” “Seeing him like this absolutely breaks my heart.” “Julian… do you really not believe me?” Seeing her pitiful, tear-stained face, the suspicion in Julian’s heart slowly evaporated. He looked away, turning his gaze back to his sleeping son, his eyes filling with pain. “I believe you. It’s just… with Leo in this condition, I had to ask.” “Evelyn, were your bodyguards with you last night? I want to question them about what happened.” Evelyn lowered her eyes, a victorious smirk flashing across her lips where Julian couldn’t see. Before coming down here, she had already threatened her bodyguards to keep their mouths shut. Julian wasn’t going to find out anything. Thinking about the brief flash of emotion on Julian’s face last night when the little bastard called him “Daddy,” Evelyn felt a surge of hatred. She thought to herself, I shouldn’t have held back. I should have just beaten the little rat to death last night. Then, Julian would only ever look at me. I listened to their entire exchange, my rage burning so hot I thought it would vaporize my soul. I knew Julian’s brain was practically nonexistent. A few pathetic tears, and he was completely fooled. So much for the “ruthless business tycoon.” While I was cursing him, Julian’s phone rang. He told Evelyn to go back to her room and rest, then walked away to take the call. The moment he was out of sight, Evelyn stood up from the wheelchair. She stood at the glass window, glaring at Leo’s sleeping face. A dark, twisted plan formed in her mind. “Chloe, since your son is just as annoying as you are, insisting on being a thorn in my side…” “I’m going to have to look out for myself, and get rid of him.” My heart slammed against my ribs. I hovered in front of the ICU door, trembling violently. What was she doing? Was she going to hurt my Leo again?! No! Absolutely not! My baby has suffered enough! I won’t let you! Seeing the malicious smile spreading across Evelyn’s face, I wanted nothing more than to rip her flesh from her bones. Evelyn, oblivious to the vengeful spirit screaming at her, smoothly made an excuse to send the attending nurse out of the room. Then, she quietly pushed the door open. Phasing right through my transparent body, she walked slowly toward Leo’s bed. Standing over him, she smirked. Her perfectly manicured acrylic nails traced his forehead, his eyes, his split lips. Finally, her hand came to rest on his fragile neck. “If Chloe knew what a pathetic state you were in right now, do you think she’d hate me?” Evelyn laughed out loud, her eyes shining with pure malice. “It’s a shame your mother was so weak. All I did was have the surgeons take her heart out and put it right back in, and her body just couldn’t handle the shock.” “I guess she was always destined to die young.” I gasped in pure shock, ice-cold dread flooding my entire being. What did she mean? My heart wasn’t transplanted into Evelyn?! Did that mean…

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Alaric married me because my rare blood type could save his beloved. Every time Maeve Kincaid was in critical condition, he’d gently coax me to donate blood, calling it “a friend’s wife’s duty.” Until I found his diary: “Every time she gives blood, she’s as pale as paper. It almost makes my heart stir. Pity, she’s just a walking blood bank.” The day Maeve was discharged, Alaric placed a diamond necklace he’d long bought around my neck: “Maeve needs a bone marrow transplant. Your match is the highest. After this, we’ll truly start our life together.” He’d already signed the consent form for me. I touched my abdomen, smiling and nodding, quietly deleting the prenatal scan report I’d just received on my phone. The doctor had said if a pregnant woman with my blood type donated a large amount of marrow during pregnancy, the fetus would almost certainly not survive. Perfect, Alaric. Your child, like the woman who loved you, was never meant to exist. 1 Alaric married me because my RH-negative blood could save his beloved. Everyone in our social circle knew it, but I, in my naivety, once believed it was love. Until I stumbled upon his diary, hidden in the flyleaf of his copy of Love in the Time of Cholera—a book he never let me touch, and sometimes stared at, lost in thought, a peculiar habit I attributed to his literary leanings. That day, he rushed out, forgetting to lock his desk drawer. Impulsively, I pulled it open. My heart hammered as my fingers brushed against the familiar hardback. I opened it; the flyleaf was smooth. With a fingernail, I gently pried open the almost invisible seam, and a folded, high-quality piece of paper slipped out. On it was Alaric’s forceful handwriting, pressing through the page: “March 15th, Overcast. Donated another 400cc. She didn’t make a sound, her lips so pale they were almost invisible. Lying there, she looked as fragile as a priceless porcelain vase in a museum. My fingertips brushed hers when I handed her the warm tea; they were ice-cold. For a moment, my heart actually clenched. Absurd. Lucy… she’s just a walking blood bank, nothing more. Maeve needs her, and I only need her blood. Get a grip, Alaric.” “May 20th, Rain. She actually baked a cake. How foolish. RH-negative blood, what a perfect coincidence. Or rather, Maeve’s luck, my luck. Looking at her eager eyes, I suddenly felt annoyed. This ‘luck’ must be held firmly. Perhaps, should I consider marriage to lock it down? More legitimate, and safer. Anyway, she seems to love me very much. Love, isn’t it the best kind of chains?” “July 7th, Sunny. Maeve’s condition is stable. Lucy seemed particularly tired today, fallen asleep on the sofa. Sunlight on her face, fine downy hairs, faint blue veins visible beneath her pale skin. Suddenly recalled the first time she fainted in my arms after a donation, light as a feather. That fleeting flicker of my heart still lingers. What a ridiculous and pathetic emotion. She’s just a blood bag, a vital ingredient, a living reserve to ensure Maeve’s safety. Alaric, don’t forget what you truly want.” The last line, the ink still fresh, pressed through the page with a barely perceptible, self-loathing satisfaction: “Every time she gives blood, she’s as pale as paper. It almost makes my heart stir. Pity, she’s just a walking blood bank.” The edges of the paper were slightly frayed, as if frequently touched. I clutched that slip of paper, standing in the empty study in the early summer afternoon, yet I shivered, bone-chillingly cold. The bright sunlight streaming through the window stung my eyes, but not a single ray of warmth penetrated my bones. So, every time he coaxed me onto the donation chair, gently saying, “Lucy, please, honey, it’s a friend’s wife’s duty,” his mind was filled with such frigid, cutting thoughts. A friend’s wife? Ha. What kind of wife was I? I was just a walking, renewable resource, a human blood bag with the label “Mrs. Thorne” stuck on me. My nails dug deeply into my palms, the pain providing the last shred of strength to remain standing. I couldn’t collapse. At least, not here. I meticulously refolded the paper along its original creases, returned it to the flyleaf, pushed the book back into the drawer, and closed it. Every action was terrifyingly steady. Back in the bedroom, I locked the door and slowly slid to the floor, my back against the cold wood. The thick carpet absorbed all sound. I raised my hand, looking at my slender wrist, the veins unusually distinct due to recent frequent blood donations. The faint pressure of the rubber tourniquet seemed to linger there. Pale as paper? Yes, how could I not be, with so much blood loss? And he found it almost “stirring”? How cheap, how cruel, that flicker of emotion. Like a butcher occasionally admiring the docile fur of a lamb about to be slaughtered. The desolate wasteland in my heart, once ablaze with fervent love for him, was now thoroughly frozen by this sudden blizzard, utterly silent. Not even ashes remained. Good. Alaric, thank you for giving me clarity, in the most brutal way. 2 From then on, the way I looked at Alaric completely changed. Before, my gaze was filtered through admiration and a timid desire to please. Now, that filter had shattered, revealing the naked, sophisticated core of his self-interest beneath. He still played the role of the attentive husband. Occasionally, when he came home early, he’d bring a bouquet of flamboyant red roses, never quite to my taste. After social events, he’d lean against my shoulder, smelling of liquor, mumbling vague, almost promises. “Lucy, darling, once Maeve’s condition stabilizes, we’ll go on that belated honeymoon. Haven’t you always wanted to see the Northern Lights in Iceland?” “I know it’s been hard on you lately, I appreciate everything.” “You’re my wife, my closest confidante.” Before, hearing these words would fill me with a subtle sweetness, even if tinged with a slight, uncertain sourness. Now, I only found them deeply ironic. When he looked at me, did those deep, handsome eyes reflect Lucy Thorne, or merely the symbol of an RH-negative blood type? I started to indulge him, becoming even more pliant and silent than before. When he needed blood, I never hesitated, only softly asking each time, “How much this time? I seem to be getting dizzy more easily lately.” He would gently stroke my hair. “Not much, just the usual amount. Afterwards, I’ll have the kitchen make you some nourishing broth, and I’ll personally oversee it.” Personally oversee it? Was he overseeing the broth, or overseeing the recovery of his “blood bag,” ensuring its sustainable use? I lowered my eyes, nodding obediently. But deep inside, a cold spark began to glow quietly in a corner no one could see. I needed time. I needed to plan. Until then, I couldn’t tip my hand. 3 The day Maeve Kincaid was discharged from the hospital was a grand affair. Alaric booked an entire VIP floor at the city’s most expensive private hospital. Flowers were laid out from the elevator to her room. Dressed impeccably in a suit, he personally carried an extravagant bouquet of 999 champagne roses, greeting his “dear friend,” Maeve, who looked delicate and pitiful in her custom hospital gown. As “Mrs. Thorne,” I was naturally present. Dressed in a slightly oversized, old-fashioned suit Alaric had sent, I felt like an awkward accessory. Maeve leaned back in her wheelchair, carefully pushed out by Alaric. She looked up, a weak, victorious smile blooming on her pale face. “Lucy, thank you again.” Her voice was barely a whisper, yet her eyes, like poisoned needles, pricked at me. “Alaric told me everything. This time, it’s all thanks to you. You truly are… a blessing to our family.” Our family. The phrase sickened me, but I managed to conjure a perfectly timed, slightly shy and worried smile. “Please don’t say that, Maeve. Your recovery is what matters most. Alaric, he… he was so worried about you.” Alaric, who was bending down to meticulously adjust the thin blanket on Maeve’s lap, paused at my words, glancing at me. His expression was complex, as if he hadn’t expected me to be so “gracious and composed.” He quickly turned back to Maeve, whispering in a voice I’d never heard from him before, “It’s windy outside. Keep covered. The car’s waiting downstairs.” Watching their backs, I slowly walked behind them, my nails once again digging into my flesh. A blessing to their family? No, I was merely a sacrificial offering, to be used whenever convenient. 4 That evening, Alaric returned earlier than usual. He carried a scent of hospital disinfectant mixed with Maeve’s usual perfume, a nauseating combination. But his expression was relaxed, even showing a rare, genuine contentment. In his hand was a deep blue velvet jewelry box. “Lucy, come here.” He sat on the living room sofa, beckoning me over. I put down the magazine I was pretending to read and walked to him. He pulled me down beside him and opened the box. Inside was a diamond necklace, the main diamond sizable, reflecting cold, brilliant light under the lamps. “Do you like it?” He took out the necklace, reached behind my neck. The cold touch of the metal made me shiver slightly. The clasp clicked shut. The diamond hung heavy below my collarbone, like an ornate shackle. “Maeve’s discharge this time is largely thanks to you. This is a thank-you, and also…” He paused, his finger tracing the edge of the diamond, brushing my skin almost imperceptibly, “…a small, insignificant compensation for what you’re about to do.” Here it comes. I looked up, through the fragmented, swirling light refracted by the living room’s crystal chandelier, maintaining my usual docile dependence, even a touch of well-placed bewilderment. “About to do? Isn’t Maeve well now?” Alaric gazed into my eyes, those always profound and unreadable eyes now clearly reflecting my image—pale, docile, easily controlled. He sighed, taking my hand. His palm was warm, yet it sent a chill through my heart. “Maeve’s condition has changed. Acute myeloid leukemia. She needs a bone marrow transplant as soon as possible.” His voice was steady, even gentle, as if discussing tomorrow’s weather. “You know, bone marrow matching is difficult. But…” He squeezed my hand slightly, as if conveying resolve, or perhaps exerting an invisible pressure. “Your matching results are in. Highly compatible. A perfect 10 out of 10. The doctor said it’s practically a miracle.” A miracle? I looked at him, suddenly wanting to laugh. Yes, RH-negative blood, a perfect bone marrow match. For them, my existence meant creating these “miracles” again and again, didn’t it? “So?” I whispered, my voice distant, as if from far away. “So, we need you to be the donor.” Alaric’s tone became firmer, carrying an undeniable decisiveness. “This is Maeve’s only, and best, chance for survival. I’ve already signed the consent form for you. The surgery is scheduled for next Wednesday. Lucy, I know this is sudden, and there might be some risks, but Maeve can’t wait. Don’t worry, it’s the best hospital, the best team. I’ll get the top experts to ensure your safety.” He reached out, seemingly wanting to pull me into his arms, his gesture tinged with a patronizing comfort. “After this, we’ll truly live our lives together. I promise you, I’ll never let you suffer like this again. We’ll go to Iceland, see the Northern Lights, just the two of us, okay?” Iceland, the Northern Lights. He had used those words as pain relief once before, when I fainted after my first blood donation. Now, he brought them out again, as bait, and as an anesthetic. I lowered my gaze, my eyes falling on my still-flat lower abdomen. A life was quietly forming there. A life that had arrived unexpectedly on a night when I was utterly heartbroken and foolishly drunk, right before my heart completely died. This afternoon, I had just received my prenatal checkup report. Six weeks pregnant. My high school friend, Dr. Lin, had privately warned me in a grave tone: “Lucy, you have RH-negative blood, which means you need extra care during pregnancy. If you undergo a major invasive procedure like bone marrow donation at this time, especially if a large amount is collected, the fetus will almost certainly not survive. Plus, it will be extremely damaging to your own body. You’ve already had frequent blood donations, and your anemic state hasn’t fully recovered. You must consider this carefully. No, my advice is, absolutely do not do it!” Consider it carefully? Did I have a choice? The consent form, he had already signed it for me. The words “signed for me” burned like a hot iron on my soul. I looked at Alaric’s face, so close, filled with certainty and a trace of barely concealed urgency. He probably thought I would, as countless times before, lie on the operating table obediently, even with a joyful sense of sacrifice. After all, I loved him so “deeply,” deeply enough to disregard everything else. So deeply that he never imagined I, this “walking blood bank,” would ever resist, would have secrets, would… hate. The ice field in my heart cracked open with a deep fissure, and a dark, hateful flame silently began to rise. I raised my hand, my fingertips gently brushing the diamond at my neck. Cold, hard, and ostentatious. Just like the “future” he promised. Then, my hand dropped, resting on my lower abdomen, very gently, pressing it. It was still calm there, I felt nothing. But I knew a tiny life was growing. Alaric’s child. And my child. A child he would never anticipate, and perhaps, if he knew, would personally crush. Because the existence of this child would hinder his beloved from receiving my bone marrow. Perfect. Alaric. I spoke to him in my heart, word by word, silently. Your child, like the woman who loved you, was never meant to exist. But whether it exists, and how it ends, will be decided by me. Not you. I lifted my face, meeting his expectant gaze, and slowly curved my lips into a smile, as soft and even timid as always. I nodded gently. “Okay.” My voice was obedient, without a ripple of emotion. “For Maeve, and for you, I’ll donate.” Alaric visibly relaxed, the last trace of uncertainty vanishing from his eyes, replaced by a glow of successful planning, mixed with satisfaction and a hint of complex emotions. He tried to embrace me again; this time, I didn’t resist. I let his embrace, smelling of perfume and disinfectant, envelop me. My chin rested on his shoulder. My eyes open, I watched the potted plant in the corner of the living room, its leaves trembling slightly in the air conditioning’s gentle breeze. In my eyes, an icy, dead desert. My phone vibrated silently in my pocket, the screen lighting up, then dimming. The message that read “Six weeks pregnant, preliminary normal embryonic development, recommended regular monitoring,” along with the attached digital report, had been completely deleted. Along with my last, ridiculous hope for him. 5 In the days that followed, Alaric’s treatment of me was abnormally “good.” Supplements flowed into the house, and he even canceled an important meeting to personally accompany me to the hospital for pre-op checks. Of course, these were the mandatory medical exams for a donor. Blood tests, labs, EKGs, chest X-rays… he was with me for every step, full of patience, holding my hand, emphasizing to every doctor and nurse: “This is my wife. Please be meticulous, use the best techniques, and ensure her safety.” The medical staff cast envious glances. “Mr. Thorne is so good to you, so considerate.” “Mrs. Thorne, you’re very lucky.” I kept my head down, smiling shyly, leaning closer to him, appearing dependent and devoted. Only I knew that every gentle word he spoke, every thoughtful gesture he made, was like a blunt knife, grinding back and forth on my already numb heart. It didn’t hurt, but that cold, sticky feeling of disgust shadowed my every move. He did all this simply to ensure the “donor” was in good condition, capable of smoothly producing the “bone marrow,” the “commodity” that would save his beloved. During a break in the exams, I slipped away to the OB-GYN department, feigning a consultation for anemia. My friend, Dr. Lin, seized the moment while Alaric was on the phone. She pulled me into her office, locked the door, her face grimmer than I had ever seen it. “Lucy, are you insane? Are you really going through with the donation? Do you have any idea what this means?!” she hissed, almost shouting, her voice low. “This isn’t just a few hundred CCs of blood! Bone marrow harvesting! It’s a massive burden on your body right now! The baby almost certainly won’t survive! You could hemorrhage, get an infection, face all sorts of unpredictable risks! Do you ever want to be a mother?!” I looked at Dr. Lin’s flushed face, red with urgency. A tiny crack appeared in the cold, hard shell around my heart, and a faint warmth seeped out. In this world, there was still someone who genuinely cared about Lucy Thorne, the person, not just her blood or her bone marrow. I squeezed her hand, her palm slightly damp with agitation. “Lin, I know.” My voice was surprisingly calm, even to myself. “I know it all.” “You know, and you still—” Dr. Lin’s eyes widened. “I have my own plans.” I cut her off, my voice soft, yet with an undeniable, resolute finality. “I’m not keeping this child. But how it ‘won’t be kept’ is my decision. That consent form Alaric signed, could you check it for me? Are there any… loopholes?” Dr. Lin was stunned, looking at me as if I were a stranger. The Lucy she knew, always docile, a little melancholic, constantly revolving around Alaric, seemed to be peeling away before her eyes, revealing a cold, hard, unfamiliar core beneath. “What… what do you want to do?” Her voice trembled slightly. “Help me.” I gripped her hand tightly, my fingertips cold. “Lin, right now, only you can help me. It’s not about harming anyone, just… self-preservation. And taking back something.” I looked at her, my eyes devoid of pleading, only a deep, bottomless chill, and beneath it, a quietly burning flame. Dr. Lin looked at me for a long time. Finally, slowly, she squeezed my hand back, very tightly. “What do you need me to do?” Her voice was even lower, laced with a sense of desperate determination.

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When I was eight, our family was slaughtered by a rival syndicate. My parents died, and our family’s heirloom—an antique bone-carved bracelet—was lost. To save my brothers, I was brutally tortured by those monsters until I went blind. I also contracted a strange blood disease. Every ten days, I needed a blood transfusion just to stay alive. From then on, I became their absolute taboo, their untouchable treasure. Terrified of losing me, they locked me away in a secluded private estate, forbidding anyone from coming near me. Anyone who dared to look at me a second too long had their entire bloodline erased. They lived on the edge of a knife for years, eventually becoming the most feared, ruthless reapers of New York’s underworld. Only then did they finally track down our stolen heirloom. But because my blood type was incredibly rare, my brothers specifically sponsored a girl from a poverty-stricken background who shared my exact blood type. She was to be my walking blood bank. On the day they brought this sponsored girl, Chloe Snow, back to the estate, my eyesight happened to finally be restored. I wanted to give my brothers a surprise, but Chloe slapped me hard, knocking me to the ground. “Where did a gold-digging slut like you come from? You actually dared to scale the wall to get in?” “I am the only woman the Vance brothers have ever brought home! You dare compete with me for their favor? I’ll beat you to death!” She gouged out my eyes and crushed my hands. She took the bone-carved bracelet my brothers had spent over a decade searching for and ground it into powder. Finally, she stuffed me into a giant gift box. She presented me to my three brothers: “Boys, I saw that old bone bracelet was getting worn out, so I specially made you a new one out of unique materials as a greeting gift.” …… After my 99th surgery, I could finally see the light again. But the house was empty. My brothers were currently in Eastern Europe, training a private army of mercenaries exclusively to protect me. I returned to the standalone mansion they had custom-built for me. I took out the recovered family heirloom, the bone-carved bracelet, and carefully wiped and polished it. I figured once I finished, I would head over to another property to see a very special “new friend.” But right then, the sponsored ward, Chloe Snow, barged in with a group of lackeys. Her face was full of hostility. I was startled and quickly stood up. “This is my private residence. You can’t be in here. Hurry up and leave before my brothers get back, or it will be too late.” I knew better than anyone how obsessively my brothers treasured me. Their protectiveness had long reached a pathological level. Terrified that I would be tainted by the filth of the outside world, they practically locked me in this mansion. Once, a man secretly climbed the wall just to catch a glimpse of me. He was subsequently drained of his blood, hollowed out, and turned into a taxidermy specimen that still sits in their basement today. But Chloe didn’t listen. Instead, she raised her hand and slapped me viciously across the face. “I am the only woman the Vance brothers personally brought back! Where can’t I go?” “I knew this mansion was too secluded! I figured some sly fox might sneak in to try and climb into their beds, and here you are!” My cheek burned like fire. I frantically tried to explain. “You’re misunderstanding. I…” Before I could finish, her eyes locked onto the bone-carved bracelet in my hand. Her expression instantly turned murderous. “Where did you steal that bracelet?!” “That’s their family heirloom! Their absolute lifeline! I’ve only ever seen it on the news! What dirty tricks did you use to get your hands on it?!” The lackeys behind her immediately erupted in shock. “Wait, is that the legendary Vance family heirloom that’s never shown to the public?” “I heard a billionaire offered an astronomical sum just to look at it, and they gouged his eyes out!” “Even you, Chloe, only saw a silhouette of it in the old news archives… and she’s actually wearing it on her wrist?! How ridiculously spoiled must she be?” That last comment completely enraged Chloe. “Bullshit! How could she be?! This is definitely a fake! She bought some cheap knockoff from a flea market to put on airs and sneak into the Vance family!” Saying that, she lunged at me to snatch the bracelet. I shoved her away with all my might, clutching the bracelet tightly in my palm. “This is the real heirloom! You can’t touch it!” She sneered and signaled to her followers. “Grab it!” Several people swarmed me instantly, yanking and tearing at me from all sides. “It’s real!” I cried out, struggling desperately. “My brothers spent over a decade looking for it! It’s all we have left of our parents! They literally amputated the limbs off the men who stole it and kept them alive in jars!” My cries only earned a colder, more mocking laugh from her. “Out of tens of millions of scholarship applications, they chose me. Do you know what that means? It means I am special to them!” “They saw my photo, saw my background, and their hearts ached for me! They fell in love with me!” “I want to see what happens today when I catch a cheap slut trying to climb into their beds and confiscate her little fake trinket! We’ll see if they thank me or blame me!” With that, she snatched the bracelet from my grip, raised her foot, and stomped down hard. But her foot slipped slightly, and only the edge of the bracelet cracked. Thankfully, the restoration technique for this artifact was a family secret passed down to the daughters. I was the only one in the world who knew how to fix it. I used every ounce of my strength to break free, clutched the damaged bracelet in my hand, and desperately hid my arms under my body. Chloe narrowed her eyes. “Drag her arms out! Stomp them into a bloody pulp along with her hands!” At her command, countless hands began tearing at my arms. I thrashed like a madwoman, but it was useless. My fingers were pried open one by one. She raised her foot, aimed her sharp stiletto heel right at my finger joints, and stomped down with brutal force. The sickening crunch of shattering bone echoed in the room. That hand was essentially reduced to a mangled mess of flesh and bone. I let out a blood-curdling scream. She then took a heavy hammer and smashed the bone-carved bracelet. Shards of bone flew into the air; dust scattered across the floor. The last memory of my parents was utterly obliterated beneath her feet. I used my last breath to scream hoarsely. “I am their biological sister! Aria Vance! If you dare hurt me, my brothers will never let you live!” The words “biological sister” made Chloe pause. She stared at my face, examining it closely. For a split second, I thought she could finally see the resemblance between my features and my brothers’. But the next second, she grabbed me by the hair, pulling so hard she almost ripped my scalp off. “Biological sister?” “Everyone in New York knows the Vance family’s precious treasure is a blind girl! She was sent away to hide in Europe ages ago! What kind of sister are you supposed to be?!” She grinned, revealing a sickeningly malicious smile. “But you know, I’m a soft-hearted person. Since you want to be his sister so badly, I’ll reluctantly do you a favor.” “His sister is blind, right? Then you can be blind too.” I tried to scramble away in absolute terror, but several pairs of hands pinned me dead to the floor. The cold glint of a dagger flashed. The next second, it plunged into my eye socket. An explosive, blinding pain erupted in my skull. I shrieked in agony as the blood pouring out blinded my remaining left eye, turning my entire vision into a sea of crimson. Watching helplessly as my own eyeball rolled onto the floor, my hatred skyrocketed to its absolute peak. These eyes… they had just been healed. To fix them, my brothers had sought out the greatest doctors in the world, tried every experimental treatment, and never once gave up. I had wanted to surprise them. But now, they were ruined. Clutching my blood-soaked right eye, I glared at her with a death stare. “You gouged out my eye… My brothers will never sponsor you again!” Chloe’s face instantly darkened. She casually picked up a jagged, sharp rock from the garden floor and violently shoved it into my empty eye socket. “Fine, I’ll just ‘put it back’ for you.” The rough stone ground against my raw flesh. I convulsed from the unbearable agony. She just stood over me, looking down like a god, smiling with sheer delight. “You think just because you’re young and have a fresh body, you can seduce anyone?” “I want to see if you can still be so seductive in bed after today.” She ordered her bodyguards to stuff me into the trunk of a car and drove me all the way to a homeless encampment on the outskirts of the city. The area was packed with filthy, unwashed vagrants in tattered clothes. I instantly understood what she was planning to do. “No… no,” I shook my head frantically, my voice trembling. “Please… I’m pregnant… you can’t do this…” Chloe paused, her eyes turning terrifyingly sharp. “You’re pregnant with a Vance’s child?!” “No! Not my brothers’!” I denied it quickly, grasping at my final straw. “It’s Damon’s! Damon Cross!” Chloe froze for a second. “Damon? The youngest kingpin of the underground syndicate, Damon Cross?” I nodded desperately, tears mixing with the blood streaming down my face. “Yes… it’s his…” But she let out a derisive snort, her eyes full of mockery. “How could a piece of trash like you possibly know Damon Cross?” “Besides, everyone in the underworld knows Damon was born sterile. And the Vance family’s little sister had a panic disorder around men because she was abused as a child.” “The outside world doesn’t know these things. But before I came here, I used special channels to find out everything.” She leaned down and patted my bloody cheek. “If you’re going to lie, do your research first. Make your bullshit sound believable.” I lay paralyzed on the ground, my body turning ice cold. She was right. The public didn’t know these secrets. Even my brothers didn’t know what had happened between me and Damon. It was a rainy night. My surgery had failed again. I was still blind. I was hiding in the garden, drinking alone in depression. Then I heard a noise in the yard. Damon had scaled the wall. He was being hunted by rivals and had been drugged with a heavy aphrodisiac. I was heavily intoxicated too. I pulled him into the greenhouse to hide him. His mind was clouded, and I was drunk… It was a night of heated passion. When I sobered up, the sky was just turning light. Terrified that my brothers would kill him on sight, I hastily ordered my most trusted driver to sneak him out to a private hospital before he woke up. I pretended nothing happened. But he found me. He started sneaking into the estate, swearing he would take responsibility, keeping me company, bringing me little trinkets. Slowly, I realized… I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. He was born sterile, but my body had a uniquely rare constitution, making me highly fertile. From that single night, I got pregnant. When he found out, he cried, picking me up and spinning me around tightly. He said he was going to immediately formally ask my brothers for my hand in marriage. But I wanted to wait until my eyes were healed. I wanted to look at him clearly when I walked toward him. Not even my brothers knew this secret. The child in my womb was Damon’s hard-won miracle. He treasured it above all else. Once, a world-class specialist he secretly brought in to treat me accidentally bumped into my stomach, and Damon stabbed him to death on the spot. If he knew… My memories were shattered by a brutal yank. Chloe threw me onto the filthy ground like garbage and ripped off all my clothes in a few quick motions. My pale skin was exposed to the foul air, drawing a wave of whistles and jeers from the crowd of vagrants. Chloe’s voice carried a sick amusement: “I’m giving this little slut to you guys as a wife. Whoever gets her pregnant, I’ll pay for the wedding and buy you a house.” The beggars’ eyes lit up with predatory greed, and they lunged at me. I struggled with everything I had, screaming my curses: “If you do this to me… just wait! My brothers and Damon will slaughter every single one of you!!” Chloe dug her pinky into her ear, looking annoyed. She whispered something to a bald beggar next to her. The beggar nodded with a sycophantic grin, slammed his weight onto me, and violently bit my tongue clean off. “Mmm… the little beauty’s tongue is so soft and fragrant… so sweet.” His mouth covered in my blood, he sneered: “Shut up. You’re annoying the lady.” Under their savage brutality, a sudden, piercing cramp ripped through my abdomen. A warm, sticky liquid gushed from between my legs, rapidly staining the filthy ground beneath me crimson red. I wanted to scream like a madwoman, but with my mouth mutilated and bleeding, all I could produce were hollow gasps of air. My vision grew darker and darker. All that remained were endless hands moving in front of me, violating my already numb skin. Tears and blood covered my face. I don’t know how long it lasted before it all finally stopped. I lay paralyzed in a pool of my own blood, my breathing faint, wishing for nothing more than immediate death. Chloe let out a cold hmph. “Finally learned your place.” Her followers immediately chimed in to flatter her: “Chloe, you’re amazing! You really know how to deal with these gold-digging sluts trying to sleep their way to the top!” “Of course! Chloe was personally chosen by the Vance brothers. It’s only a matter of time before she becomes the lady of the Vance family!” “Chloe was born for greatness. Unlike some cheap trash who just pretend—garbage is still garbage.” Surrounded by praise, Chloe’s smile grew wider and wider, acting as if she were already the queen of the Vance empire. She grabbed me by the hair, looking down at my dying form. “Weren’t you talking tough? You think just because you got plastic surgery to look a little like the Vance brothers, you’re actually part of the family?” “Fine, I’ll take you to see them. I’ll let you see with your own eyes how well they treat me, how much they spoil me.” “I want you to hear them say I did the right thing.” She leaned in close, her voice dropping low, every word slicing into my heart: “When they execute you with their own hands… try not to cry too ugly.” I was hog-tied, stuffed into a massive gift box, and brought to the main mansion where my brothers lived. My brothers had returned. The gifts they brought back for me piled up taking half the living room. When Chloe walked in and saw the three breathtakingly handsome men standing in the hall, her heart skipped a beat. Her cheeks flushed. She assumed they were waiting for her. Seeing the room full of gifts, a shy anticipation blossomed in her chest. But my brothers were only gathered there because the time for my scheduled blood transfusion was approaching. They were just about to send someone to fetch her when she walked in on her own, dragging a large gift box behind her. Arthur, the eldest, furrowed his brow. “Chloe, what is this? Why is there such a heavy stench of blood?” Chloe purposefully softened her voice. “It’s a woman who didn’t know her place. She was trying to seduce you.” “Not only did she insult me and say I wasn’t worthy of the Vance family… but even more despicably, she dared to impersonate and insult your sister. Her words were absolutely filthy. Please, you must punish her severely!” Her lackeys hurriedly chimed in: “Yes! We’ve never seen such a shameless gold-digger! She even dared to sneak into the private mansion in the back!” “Thank goodness Chloe found her in time, otherwise who knows what she might have done…” The expressions of all three brothers changed drastically. They remembered that I lived in that back mansion. Assuming the box contained someone who wanted to harm me, their eyes instantly turned terrifyingly dark.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “392014”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

On Christmas Eve, my brother, Liam Davis, placed a thick manila envelope stuffed with cash in front of me. “Em, here’s thirty thousand dollars. We’re getting you that heart bypass surgery tomorrow.” Shutterstock Explore He had hauled cinder blocks on a bad leg at a construction site for a whole year to scrape together this life-saving money. The next day, he accompanied me to the hospital. At the billing window, the nurse said, “This isn’t enough. You’re short twenty-nine thousand.” Liam froze. “Impossible! I gave her thirty grand yesterday!” He whipped his head around to look at me. I lowered my head and whispered, “Liam, the money… I spent it.” “Spent it?!” I pulled a brand-new designer handbag from behind my back. “I bought a bag.” In the hospital corridor, shaking with absolute fury, he slapped me hard across the face. “Emma Davis! That was the money to save your life! How could you?!” I clutched my cheek, glaring back at him with stubborn defiance. “I’d rather die than keep living in this kind of poverty!” 1 “Say that again?” Liam’s palm hovered in mid-air, his voice ice-cold. I met his fierce gaze head-on. “I said, I’d rather die than keep living in poverty! Thirty grand? Thirty grand is barely enough to buy this bag on discount!” The pointing and whispering from passersby pierced him like needles. Liam’s face went from flushed red to a sickly green, and finally, dead white. “Emma,” his voice was hoarse, “you were never like this.” “People change,” I forced a stiff smile. “Liam, you need to start living for yourself. Stop worrying about me. My illness is a bottomless money pit.” “I didn’t fucking ask you to fill it!” he roared. “I just want you to live!” He grabbed my wrist with a grip so tight it felt like he was crushing my bones, dragged me out of the hospital, and shoved me into a taxi. When we got back to our cramped, two-hundred-square-foot studio apartment, he pushed me inside and slammed the door shut. “Give it to me.” He held out his hand. I shook my head, hugging the bag tighter to my chest. “Emma, are you trying to drive me to an early grave?” His voice cracked with a sob. He turned and stormed behind the curtain that divided our tiny space. A second later, he walked out holding a dark green tin box and smashed it fiercely onto the floor. Crash! Cold, metallic military medals scattered across the linoleum. He picked up a yellowed photograph—it was a picture of me, smiling radiantly. He stared at it for a few seconds, and then, right in front of me, he slowly tore the photo into tiny pieces. “You hate being poor, right? Well, these things can’t be traded for money, and they can’t save your life either.” He looked up, his eyes filled with utter despair. “From today on, you are on your own. I don’t care if you live or die.” 2 Liam locked himself behind the curtain and didn’t come out. I sat on the freezing floor, clutching the bag, until the cell phone in my pocket vibrated. It was an anonymous text message: [Got the cash? Tomorrow at noon, the usual place. Try any funny business, and your brother’s ‘glorious deeds’ in the Army will be all over the internet tomorrow.] My heart violently contracted. I quickly deleted the text. “Glorious deeds”… Two years ago, Liam was discharged from the military. It wasn’t an honorable discharge; he was medically separated under a cloud of suspicion, deemed “unfit for continued service.” The day he came back, there was no welcome, no applause. Just a lonely, limping figure and a vague, redacted file. The military gave him a severance payout. But when he got home, he discovered that while he was deployed, our parents had spent everything trying to find a cure for my heart condition. The family went bankrupt, and shortly after, both of our parents were diagnosed with terminal illnesses. They hid it from us. Ultimately, because they couldn’t afford their own surgeries, they both passed away. Liam took all the blame onto himself. He took his military severance, combined it with the meager savings our parents left behind, and locked it all in a savings account. He didn’t dare touch a single cent, vowing it was the money to save my life. Half a month ago, a man named Marcus Thorne contacted me. He was my brother’s former squad mate. “Your brother, Liam, disobeyed direct orders and nearly got our entire squad killed back then. The brass swept it under the rug. But if this gets out, the VA will claw back every dime of his severance, and he’ll be publicly disgraced.” He sent a video clip as proof. “Give me thirty thousand dollars in hush money, or I mail the files to the press.” I knew that honor was Liam’s life. So I agreed. I bought a cheap knockoff designer bag to make the money’s disappearance look “logical.” From behind the curtain came a muffled cough. I knew he wasn’t asleep. I heated up a bowl of leftover Christmas stew and brought it to the curtain. “Liam, eat something.” No response. “If you don’t eat, I won’t eat.” A long time passed before the curtain was violently yanked open. Liam’s eyes were bloodshot, his exhaustion terrifying to look at. He glanced at the bowl in my hands, then at the designer bag on the sofa. A look of pure disgust crossed his face. “Throw it away.” “I won’t.” “Emma!” he growled. “You are the only family I have left in this world! I just want you to live! And you? You take your life-saving money to buy some piece of trash bag?!” “Who are you letting down? Are you letting me down? Are you letting Mom and Dad down?!” “Do you know what Mom’s dying words to me were? She said, ‘Liam, you have to take care of your sister!’” He snatched the bowl from my hands and smashed it onto the floor. Crash! White porcelain shattered everywhere. 3 Terrified, I backed up until I hit the wall. A sharp, violent pain pierced my heart. I clutched my chest, my face draining of color. The madness in his eyes faded, replaced by a flash of panic. “Em…” Using the wall for support, I staggered back to my small corner of the room. “Leave me alone, Liam.” The next day, while he was at the construction site, I sneaked out to meet Marcus. “Where’s the cash?” Marcus blew a smoke ring. I handed him the envelope. “Can you give me the drive now?” “The drive?” He played dumb. “That’s my insurance policy. Why would I just hand it over? Your brother is the reason I got kicked out of the Army. I’m going to take my time settling this score with him.” I trembled with rage. “You’re going back on your word?!” He sneered. “Alright, that’s it for today. Remember, you’re on call. If you dare go to the police, or tell your brother…” He leaned in, his malice undisguised. “I guarantee I’ll ruin his life.” I stood there like a puppet for a long time before walking home. By the time I got back, it was dark. On the table was a steaming bowl of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, with a sticky note: [Eat while it’s hot.] The handwriting was crooked; he had written it with his left hand. His right hand, ruined from years of heavy labor, could barely hold a pen anymore. Tears fell from my eyes without warning. I ate the meal in large bites, swallowing it down with my tears. The door opened. Liam walked in, covered in concrete dust. He froze when he saw me, then pulled out a chair and sat down. His voice was dry. “The foreman gave me a two-hundred-dollar bonus. I’ll take you to get checked out tomorrow.” “Liam, I don’t want to go.” “Why?” “I know my own body. It can’t be cured.” I looked at him. “Instead of wasting money, I’d rather enjoy myself before I die.” His face darkened. “Stop talking nonsense. You have to get the surgery.” “I’m not doing it!” I raised my voice. “I said it can’t be cured! When Mom and Dad were alive, so many doctors said there was nothing they could do. What exactly are you fantasizing about?!” I stood up, looking down at him. “Liam, we aren’t kids anymore. In this world, you are nothing without money. I don’t want to live a life where I can see the miserable end from a mile away.” “I want pretty clothes. I want a good life. Is that a crime?” “I’m begging you, Liam. Stop torturing me. I just want to enjoy my last few days.” My words were like knives, each one drawing blood. Liam’s lips trembled. The disappointment in his eyes shifted into a total, dead silence. He slowly stood up, his shadow enveloping me. “I understand.” He turned and walked toward the door. “I’ll go make money for you.” “I’ll earn what you want. That good life.” The door clicked shut, cutting off all the light from the outside. 4 Liam truly began to work like a madman. Days at the construction site, evenings hauling lumber, and past midnight, he’d unload trucks at a meatpacking plant. He slept maybe three or four hours a day. We lived under the same roof but acted like strangers. Every time he got paid, he left the cash on the table with a note: Buy whatever you want. I hid it all away. I didn’t touch a single cent. I often wondered—if I didn’t exist, would Mom and Dad still be alive? Would my brother’s life not be so miserable? One night, Marcus showed up at my work. He dangled a USB flash drive. “New material. Your brother didn’t just disobey orders; he assaulted a fellow soldier. Got it right here on video. Fifty grand, and this drive is yours.” “I don’t have that kind of money!” “You don’t, but your brother does. He dotes on you so much. Tell him you want a fifty-thousand-dollar designer bag. He’ll give it to you.” “You have three days. Otherwise, I’m making copies and handing this video to every guy on your brother’s job site.” I went home, my hands and feet icy cold. To my surprise, Liam was there. A few dishes were set on the table, along with a bottle of cheap whiskey. His face was flushed red; he was already drunk. “You’re back?” He lifted heavy eyelids. “Today… is my birthday. It’s also the anniversary of Dad’s death.” My heart violently clenched. “Look at me, the ‘man of the house.’ What a failure, huh?” He laughed self-deprecatingly, swallowing his tears along with the whiskey. “I can’t even protect my only sister, and I let her despise me for being poor.” “Liam, stop drinking!” “Don’t touch me!” He stood up, swaying, and pulled out his wallet. He dumped all the cash out, scattering it across the table. “This is what I made this month. Twelve grand. If it’s not enough, I’ll go make more! I’ll go sell blood right now!” He actually turned to head for the door. “Liam!” I rushed forward and hugged him tightly from behind around his waist. “Don’t do this! I don’t want the money! I don’t want anything!” In the scuffle, my phone fell out of my pocket and hit the floor. The screen lit up. Displayed brightly was my Zelle transfer history. Liam stopped moving. He looked down and saw the phone on the floor. He bent down and picked it up. His pupils shrank violently. He stared at me with an intensity that terrified me. “What is this?” His voice was terrifyingly low. I backed away in terror. The piercing pain in my heart struck again, and my vision started to go black in waves. “It’s… it’s Marcus…” I used my last ounce of strength to say that name. 5 “Marcus…” That name was like a bullet, instantly piercing through the alcohol-numbed nerves in Liam’s brain. A loud ringing echoed in his ears as all his military memories—the ones he had intentionally buried—came rushing back like a flood through an opened dam. Marcus Thorne. The soldier who slacked off under his command. The coward who, during a massive hurricane rescue op in Louisiana, tried to run away and save his own skin, nearly getting a trapped child killed. The scumbag who, during the disciplinary review, twisted the truth, bit back at Liam, and was eventually kicked out of the military. It was him. Liam’s gaze slowly moved from the glaring transfer record on the phone screen to my paper-white face. My body slid down the wall. My breathing was rapid and shallow, my hand pressed tightly against my chest. It felt like an invisible hand was squeezing my heart so hard I couldn’t utter a single word. “Em!” The towering rage and confusion from a second ago were instantly extinguished by a massive wave of panic. He stumbled forward and scooped me up. My body was as light as a feather, trembling faintly in his arms. “Liam…” I grabbed his shirt collar, using the very last of my strength. “I’m sorry… that bag… was a fake…” The arms holding me instantly went rigid. “To protect… your honor… I couldn’t…” I couldn’t get the rest of the words out. Everything went black, and I completely lost consciousness. “Em! Emma!” Liam lost his mind. He carried me and sprinted downstairs. His disabled right leg screamed in agony from the excessive running, but he didn’t feel it. He only knew that the sister in his arms was slipping away from him. He hailed a cab, and it sped through the streets. In the chaos, he kept his eyes glued to me, calling my name over and over. Outside the emergency room, the red light flicked on. Liam stood in the corridor like a stone statue, drenched in sweat, the alcohol completely burned out of his system by cold terror. With trembling hands, he took out my phone and tapped into the locked photo album he had never touched. The password was the exact date his leg was crushed. There was only one photo inside. It was a screenshot Marcus had sent me—from the video of his supposed “insubordination.” Right after, he checked the deleted text messages in the trash folder. […Your brother cares so much about his honor. He wouldn’t want his reputation destroyed, right?] [Give me fifty grand, and this flash drive is yours. Otherwise, everyone at his job site gets a copy of this video.] [Tell him you want a fifty-thousand-dollar bag. He loves you so much, he’ll definitely pay up.] The phone slipped from his trembling hands and hit the floor. Everything made sense now. All those vicious words he couldn’t understand, the “I’d rather die than live in poverty” that had pierced his heart, the designer bag he thought represented vanity and betrayal… It was all fake. It was all his foolish little sister, enduring a torturous blackmail and the dual agony of disease and terror, just to protect him. He remembered the slap he had delivered in a fit of rage in the hospital corridor. He remembered how hysterically he had smashed the bowl of stew she heated up for him. He remembered how he had personally torn up their only family photo right in front of her, shredding her most cherished memory. He remembered the cruelest words he had ever spoken: “From today on, I don’t care if you live or die.” “AH—!” Liam let out a feral roar, slamming his fist brutally against the cold wall. The agonizing pain of fractured knuckles shot up his arm, and blood trailed down the paint, but that physical pain was less than a fraction of the slow torture happening to his heart. He was wrong. Unbelievably wrong. His sister, his only family, had been facing a hellish extortion alone, enduring pain and fear. And he—the brother who prided himself on being the “man of the house”—had delivered the most fatal stab using the most hurtful method possible. He slowly crouched down, burying his head in his knees. This tough veteran, who bled but never cried in the military, sobbed like a child abandoned by the world. “I’m sorry… Em… Liam was wrong… Wake up, hit me, curse at me… please, just wake up…” The doors to the ER swung open. The doctor pulled down his mask, his expression grave. “The patient’s heart failure is critical. The delayed treatment, combined with the severe emotional trauma she just experienced, means she’s missed the optimal window for surgery. We have to operate immediately, but the survival rate… is less than thirty percent. As her family, you need to prepare yourself.” “The surgical fee requires eighty thousand dollars upfront. Please go handle the billing first.” Eighty thousand. Liam’s mind went blank. He had just dumped all twelve thousand dollars he had onto the table at the apartment. Where was he going to find the rest? The doctor looked at his devastated state and sighed. “Hurry. Time waits for no one.” Liam abruptly stood up. He thought of the video on the phone. He immediately picked up the phone and opened the video file. On the screen was footage of him and Marcus engaged in a brutal fistfight. It was the most humiliating memory of his life, the root cause of his medical discharge. But now, as he watched it, there was no humiliation in his eyes—only a blazing, consuming fire meant to burn everything to the ground. He pulled out his phone and dialed the number he knew by heart. “Marcus.” His voice was terrifyingly calm. On the other end of the line, Marcus paused, then laughed smugly. “Well, well, if it isn’t our great hero Liam. How do you have the time to call me? Figured it out? Did your sister finally give you the money?” “Fifty thousand, right?” Liam asked. “No, no, no,” Marcus drawled out. “It’s not fifty anymore. You made me wait this long. Emotional distress, lost wages… Let’s round it up to a hundred thousand. Not a penny less.” “Alright.” Liam agreed with unnatural swiftness. “One hundred thousand. I’ll give it to you.” Marcus clearly hadn’t expected him to fold so easily. He laughed even harder. “Should’ve done this from the start. Send me the address. I’ll come pick it up.” “No need,” Liam said, looking through the window at the glowing ‘EMERGENCY’ sign outside. He spoke each word deliberately. “Come to Central Hospital. I’ll be waiting for you in the courtyard downstairs.” 6 Hanging up the phone, Liam turned and left the hospital. He didn’t go home for the twelve thousand, because he knew it wouldn’t be nearly enough. Limping, he walked toward the other side of the city—to a shady, chaotic black market he had sworn never to set foot in. He pulled a carefully wrapped cloth bundle from his jacket. It contained the medals he had quietly picked up from the floor and pieced back together after smashing the tin box. One Silver Star. Two Army Commendation Medals. Those were the honors he had bought with his life, the proof of all his worth in the first half of his life. “Boss, how much is this worth?” He placed the three medals on the counter. The pawnshop owner, a scrawny middle-aged man in gold-rimmed glasses, picked them up. He glanced at Liam’s scarred hands and his bad leg, a faint glimmer of disdain in his eyes. “They’re real, alright. But these things… there’s no real market for them, buddy. It’s illegal to sell ’em.” “I just need cash. To save a life.” Liam’s voice was raspy. The owner pondered for a moment, then held up three fingers. “Three thousand.” “What?” Liam’s eyes instantly turned red. “This is a fucking Silver Star! Back then, I…” “I don’t care what you did back then,” the owner cut him off, sliding the medals back. “To me, this is just scrap metal. I’m offering three grand out of pity. If you take this anywhere else, they might not even dare to buy it. Take it or leave it.” Liam clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms, and blood seeped out again. He thought of Marcus’s extortion. He thought of his sister’s pale face. He thought of the doctor saying “less than thirty percent.” Dignity, honor, the past… in the face of his sister’s life, they were worthless. “…Fine.” He gritted out. “Three thousand. I’ll sell.” Clutching the stack of bills that smelled of blood and desperation, Liam returned to the small courtyard below the hospital. The night wind was biting, making his injured leg ache in waves. Not long after, Marcus arrived arrogantly on a motorcycle. “Where’s the cash?” He took off his helmet, looking impatient. Liam didn’t speak. He just stared at him. It was the look you give a dead man. Marcus felt a chill crawl up his spine. “What are you looking at! Hand over the money! I got drinking to do after this!” “Marcus,” Liam finally spoke. “Back in Louisiana, during the hurricane op. Do you remember?” Marcus paused. “Why bring up that old crap?” “That day, torrential rain, a mudslide. A little girl was trapped in a house that was about to collapse. I told you to come with me to save her, but you were scared of dying and hid in the back. I went in alone and carried her out. The moment the house collapsed, a concrete slab fell and crushed my leg.” “What does that have to do with me?!” Marcus yelled, trying to mask his fear with bravado. “But when you filed the report, you claimed I disobeyed orders and acted on my own, and that your ‘big picture thinking’ was what prevented further casualties. Later, in the barracks, I confronted you, and you dared to throw the first punch. That’s how that video happened.” Liam walked toward him step by step. “Marcus, someone like you… do you even deserve to wear that uniform?” Marcus’s face went from green to white. He hadn’t expected Liam to dig up the past. “Cut the bullshit!” he yelled, humiliated and furious. “The past is in the past! You owe me now! Hand over the money!” He reached out to snatch the cloth bag from Liam’s hand. The moment he made contact, Liam moved. His injured leg acted as if it couldn’t feel pain, pivoting at a terrifying angle. His other hand shot out like lightning, clamping onto Marcus’s wrist and twisting it backward violently! SNAP! “AHHH—!” The sickening crunch of breaking bone and Marcus’s scream echoed simultaneously. Liam didn’t stop. A clean, brutal uppercut slammed directly into Marcus’s jaw. Marcus hit the ground hard, blood spraying from his nose and mouth. Liam stood over him like a god of vengeance. He searched Marcus’s jacket, finding his phone and wallet. He located the original video file Marcus had used to threaten Emma, and right in front of him, deleted it permanently. “This cash here, plus the thirty thousand you extorted from my sister—I’m handing every single cent of it to the police.” Liam placed his boot on Marcus’s broken hand, slowly applying pressure. “And you are going to sit in a prison cell and do some serious repenting.” He pulled out his phone and dialed 911. After doing all this, he took the three thousand dollars from his medals, combined it with the several thousand in illicit cash he recovered from Marcus’s wallet, clutched it in his hand, and sprinted back into the hospital. “Doctor! I got some of the money! Please, start the surgery! I’ll go find the rest right now! I’ll sign an IOU! I’ll sell my blood! I’ll sell a kidney if I have to!” He slammed the messy stack of bills onto the billing window, roaring at the nurses and doctors, completely ignoring the shocked stares of everyone around him. The head nurse sighed and handed him a clipboard. “Sir, please calm down. We will figure out the money situation. But I need you to sign this right now.” It was a “Critical Condition Notice” and a “Surgical Consent Form.” Liam’s hand was shaking so badly he couldn’t hold the pen. He tried several times before finally, crookedly, signing his name on the line. Every stroke felt like it was carving into his own heart. The light above the operating room flicked on again. This time, what awaited him was a torment longer than hell.

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