Category: English

The year I turned twenty, I sold my body to my greatest enemy. I crawled into his bed and let him ruin me, all for the sake of a plea—that he’d show mercy and let my mother go. But mercy never came. My mother died anyway, crushed in a horrific multi-car pileup. By the time they pulled her from the wreckage, half of her head was gone. I remember storming into the boardroom, my body still aching and torn from him, screaming with a hysteria that rattled the glass walls. “Silas, I gave you everything you wanted! Why did you still kill her?” His response was a backhand so violent it sent me spinning to the floor. Silas didn’t even blink. He looked down at me, his eyes two chips of frozen Atlantic ice. “When my mother jumped from that balcony right in front of me, I wanted to ask ‘why,’ too,” he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “Why was your mother such a pathetic whore? Why did she have to seduce my father? Why did she have to drive my mother to her death?” He leaned down, his shadow swallowing me whole. “June, the debt is only beginning to be paid. If you’re crying now, you’re far too early.” He forced me into a marriage license using the ninety-nine private photos he’d taken of me that first night as blackmail. Then, he turned around and made sure the entire city of Chicago watched as he dropped millions to woo his socialite childhood sweetheart. He forced me to hand-fold nine hundred and ninety-nine paper roses for her, until my fingertips were raw and bleeding. He forced me to deliver a box of condoms to their hotel in the middle of a torrential rainstorm, a night that left me with a fever so high it turned into a week-long stint in the ICU with pneumonia. Silas wanted me to watch him love someone else. He wanted me to witness the way he cherished her, pampered her, and adored her, until the sheer weight of the contrast made me want to claw my own heart out. What he didn’t know was that after six years of this mutual destruction, I was actually dying. And of those ninety-nine photos, only three remained. … I had been unconscious in the hospital for seven days after my last round of chemotherapy failed. I didn’t expect to find Silas waiting outside my cramped apartment the moment I was discharged. He didn’t greet me. He just grabbed me, slamming me against the door with a rage that vibrated through his grip. “June, Madeline asked you for those things. Why haven’t you given them to her?” he hissed. “Don’t think for a second I won’t leak those photos.” The photos. Those hazy, intimate, shameful captures of a night that should have never happened. If he leaked them, the world would see exactly what he called me: a whore. The familiar jolt of panic finally cleared the fog in my brain. I lifted my head with great effort, my voice a raspy whisper. “I’ll give them to her. What does she want?” I vaguely recalled Silas sending me a series of voice notes before I started chemo. But back then, every ounce of my soul had been focused on begging God for a chance to live. I hadn’t had the strength to listen to his demands. I pulled out my phone. The chat history was a graveyard of missed connections—hundreds of voice notes. I tapped one. The high-pitched, pampered lilt of Madeline filled the air, Silas’s voice murmuring in a low, soothing tone in the background. “Silas, why did you ever write her love letters? Why did you make her a custom snow globe? I want them. They’re mine now. Tell her to give them back!” She wanted the relics of our past. The matching sets—the gloves, the mugs, the pens. Back when Silas loved me most, everything had to be a pair. His and hers. Those memories felt like they belonged to a different century, a different girl. My eyes began to sting, but Silas caught my jaw in a bruising grip, forcing me to meet his mocking gaze. “What’s the matter, June? Can’t let go?” The last time I’d hesitated—when I refused to give Madeline my mother’s heirloom jade bracelet—Silas had arranged for my mother’s grave to be desecrated. If I hadn’t made it there in time, I wouldn’t even have been able to save her urn. I shook my head violently. “No! No, I’ll get them. I’ll give them to you right now.” I leaned against the doorframe, my legs shaking, and fumbled with the lock. Once inside, I began to scavenge through my life for his scraps. The voice notes continued to play in the background, a soundtrack to my humiliation. “Have those things at my office by 6 AM tomorrow.” “Where the hell are you?” “June, you’ve got balls ignoring me for this many days. Get out here!” Then, the final one: “Madeline and I are getting engaged tomorrow. If you don’t show up, you know the consequences.” Engaged? My heart skipped a beat, stuttering in my chest. The glass snow globe I was holding slipped through my numb fingers and shattered on the floor, rolling to a stop at Silas’s feet. He leaned over and picked it up, eyeing my ghostly pallor. “What? Did you think that because we have a piece of paper, I was still holding a candle for you? After six years?” He flipped the snow globe over. On the base, “S & J” was engraved in a youthful, hopeful script. He let out a sharp, derisive laugh. “You don’t deserve to have your name next to mine.” He grabbed an X-Acto knife from my desk and brutally gouged the letters out. The plastic shavings fell on me like grey snow. I bit my lip until I tasted copper. He was right. I didn’t deserve it. Everyone knew Silas hated me. To the world, our six-year marriage was a joke, and I was just a social climber who had trapped a king. No one knew I had been ready to sign the divorce papers years ago. I had even tried to end it all once—tried to leave this world entirely. But Silas had thrown those ninety-nine photos in my face. “You want to die, June? Go ahead,” he’d sneered. “And the second your heart stops, I’ll hit ‘send.’ I’ll let the world know the daughter is just like the mother. I’ll make sure your mother’s name is synonymous with ‘trash’ for eternity.” So I stayed. For my mother’s dignity, what little was left of it. For six years, we had a system: for every act of penance, for every time I let him degrade me, he deleted one photo. Now, there were only three left. He was getting married to the woman he actually loved. It was almost over. I packed the items into a bag with trembling hands and looked at him, my voice devoid of emotion. “What else do you want from me? To delete the last three?” Silas stared at me, then his gaze drifted to the framed photo of my mother on the wall. His expression curdled into something dark and ugly. A cold dread pooled in my stomach. I turned to run, but he caught my ankle and hauled me back onto the sofa. “Silas, stop! You’re crazy! My mother is right there!” I thrashed, pointing at the photo. He was brutal, his movements stripped of any lingering tenderness. “The daughter of a woman who crawled into her best friend’s husband’s bed doesn’t get to talk about dignity,” he spat. I stopped fighting. Suddenly, I was eighteen again. The day Silas told me he loved me. We were so happy, so young. And then we walked through the front door and saw my mother and his father together. I saw Silas’s mother on the balcony, her face a mask of white marble before she stepped into the air. Silas had screamed then—a sound of pure, jagged despair. The same sound he was making now with his body, trying to break me. I pulled a throw pillow over my face to blot out the world. “Fine, Silas. Do it. But it costs you two photos.” He stayed all night. When I tried to look away, he forced my head toward the wall. I strained my neck, watching the ceiling light flicker and sway. Across the room, the incense smoke curled in front of my mother’s picture, obscuring her face. I imagined she was smiling sadly at me. Years ago, I asked her why. Why Silas’s mother? If she hadn’t taken us in when we were homeless, we would have died in the snow. My mother had cried, telling me that Silas’s mother was dying of a hidden illness, and she was terrified we’d be thrown out on the street again. She did it out of survival. But after the suicide, Silas’s father had a heart attack and died. Creditors swarmed. Silas’s legs were broken by thugs who took the company. They made him crawl; they called him garbage. My mother realized her sin too late. She worked three jobs, sold her blood, sold a kidney, just to put Silas through school. I dropped out of college to wait tables and entertain clients, drinking myself sick so he wouldn’t have to. But Silas would just rub his legs—the ones that still ached on rainy nights—and look at me with bloodshot eyes. “My family is gone because of you. You think a few years of playing saint makes us even? You’re dreaming.” Once he took back his empire, he crushed everyone who had ever touched him. I was the only one left to bleed. I had tried to hate him back, but after my mother died, I investigated the accident. It really was just a car crash. I couldn’t even blame him for her death. Loving him was just too exhausting. By dawn, it was over. I was cold, aching in places I didn’t know could hurt, curled into a ball on the sofa. I drifted into a dream of that first snowy night his family took us in. He had cupped my face and told me not to cry. His hands were so warm. I woke up. The warmth was gone. Only the cold, drying tracks of tears remained. Silas was standing over me, his silhouette lost in the shadows. I reached out and grabbed his sleeve, my voice a ghost. “Two photos. Delete them.” He didn’t answer. He just turned and walked away. “Silas! Delete them! Do you hear me?” I tried to stand, but my legs gave out. I hit the floor face-first. Blood erupted from my nose. I wiped at it frantically, my vision blurring. “Delete them!” “You’re so desperate to protect that bitch’s memory?” his cold voice drifted back to me. “Fine. You want the last ones gone? Come to my engagement party tonight. Work as a server. Do that, and I’ll wipe the slate clean.” The word “cruel” echoed in my mind. Today would have been our tenth anniversary—from the day we first became “us.” But my body was running out of time. “Okay,” I whispered. When I arrived at the ballroom, Silas’s secretary shoved a uniform at me. When I stepped out, Silas was waiting. He stared at my face with a strange, unreadable expression. The fall had left a massive purple bruise across my cheek. I’d tried to cover it with powder, but the greyish-white over my sickly skin made me look like a corpse. I’d added blush in a panic, and now I looked like a Victorian ghost. I didn’t know what to do, so I just smiled. He tossed a piece of cake onto a tray. “You look like a freak. Eat that. I don’t need you fainting and making a scene.” The smell of the sugar made my stomach turn. I wanted to vomit, but he stood there, watching me until I forced every bite down. Only then did he leave. I drifted through the crowd, the room spinning. I needed to get to the bathroom. “June? I thought you’d have more pride than this.” It was Madeline. She swirled her champagne, leaning in close to my ear. “Silas still loves me. I’m the one who hired the guys to break his legs back then, and he’s still marrying me. You were the one who stayed by his side, and he wants you dead.” I froze. I had always thought Silas hated the people who ruined him. But when he took over, he brought Madeline back into the fold immediately. When I asked him why, he told me it was because Madeline was “smart.” She had betrayed her own father to help Silas at the very end. I was the one who wasn’t “smart.” The stomach acid was rising. I couldn’t breathe. “Move,” I managed. Madeline smirked, blocking my path with her voluminous skirt. “Don’t go yet. Look at my dress.” I lost it. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I vomited, the liquid splashing right across the pristine white silk of her designer gown. “Oh god,” I gasped, reaching out to wipe it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—” My vision tunneled. I grabbed for the nearest table to steady myself, but I only succeeded in dragging the tablecloth down with me. Glass shattered everywhere. A heavy hand grabbed my collar and yanked me back. “June! What did I tell you?” Silas roared. I tried to explain, but I just retched again. He looked at me with pure loathing, then turned to the sobbing Madeline. I looked at her dress again. I recognized the pattern. It was a sketch Silas had made for me when we were eighteen. He had told me then that he’d have a snowflake embroidered on the lapel of his suit to match me. I looked at his chest. There was the snowflake. Now covered in my filth. I reached out with trembling hands to clean it, but he shoved me away. “Your pathetic act isn’t working. You did this on purpose.” He pointed to the floor. “Clean it up. Use your hands.” I fell to my knees, the broken glass slicing into my palms. Silas led a crying Madeline away, and the guests followed, their faces twisted in disgust. The wedding march began to play in the distance. Or maybe it was close. I couldn’t tell. I don’t know how long I was on the floor. Eventually, a pair of polished shoes appeared in my field of vision. A toe lifted my chin. “June, do you regret it yet?” I looked up blindly. Regret what? Regret not abandoning my mother? Silas, that woman you hate so much… she raised me. She saved me from the man who tried to hurt me when I was a child. She gave me her last crust of bread when we were starving. What was I supposed to do? I didn’t answer. I was too tired. Suddenly, Madeline’s voice rang out from the other side of the room. “Is it true, Silas? The demolition for that slum redevelopment has started today?” My heart stopped. “Which slum?” I croaked. “Silas! Which neighborhood!” By the time I hailed a cab and got back, half the block was rubble. My mother’s ashes were in that apartment. The roar of the excavators was deafening. I ran toward the machines, trying to scream, trying to grab a foreman’s radio. Someone shoved me down. Blood and tears smeared across my face as I scrambled back up. “Stop! You can’t! I still live here! I haven’t moved my things!” A pair of leather shoes appeared. I looked up. It was Silas. He was supposed to be at his engagement party, but he was here, watching the destruction. I grabbed his pant leg. “Silas, please! You know my mother is in there. Please, just ten minutes. Let me go in and get her.” But his eyes were dead. I went still. The realization hit me like a physical blow. “You… you did this on purpose?” A project this big… he must have paid off the landlord not to notify me. He’d kept me in the hospital for seven days, then dragged me to the party today just to ensure I wasn’t here. He wanted to erase the last trace of her. “Why?” I whispered. Silas closed his eyes, his voice tight. “Today is also my mother’s anniversary, June. Do you know what your mother said to mine ten years ago? She said, ‘You’re dying anyway. He’s going to remarry. Why not me? I’m just getting a head start.’” “She was her best friend for thirty years. And she killed her. So why should I give your mother any dignity in death?” At that exact moment, a thunderous crash shook the ground. The three-story building collapsed into a heap of dust. Through the haze, I saw it. The framed photo of my mother, smashed under a concrete slab. The ceramic urn, shattered into a thousand pieces. Her ashes—the last physical remains of the woman who loved me—were scattered into the Chicago wind, mixing with the dirt. I didn’t want to cry. I had no tears left. But they came anyway. “But Silas… I thought I was paying for her sins?” I whispered. “We had a deal. Ninety-nine photos. Ninety-nine acts of penance. I gave you six years. Six years of hell. Wasn’t that enough?” I saw a flash of something like panic in his eyes. “Not enough,” he barked, his voice trembling. I snapped. I lunged at him, screaming. “It’s enough! It’s enough! I slept with you, I watched you marry her, I bled for you! Give me the phone! Delete the photos! I’m taking my mother and I’m leaving!” A sharp slap sent my head spinning. Silas looked like a stranger. His knuckles were white. He laughed, a jagged, broken sound. “You want to leave me that badly, June?” He shoved his phone in front of my face. There they were. All ninety-nine. Every shameful, private moment I had sacrificed my soul to delete. They were all back. “What is this? Why are they back?” His eyes were full of a manic, desperate kind of hate. “I’m giving you one last chance. Behave. We’ll replace the bride today. It’ll be you. We’ll spend the rest of our lives together.” “Or, you can keep paying the debt.” The images flickered on the screen—a slideshow of my humiliation reflecting in my wide, dead eyes. I started to laugh. I was a joke. The last six years were a punchline. “I don’t want either,” I said. Warm blood began to drip onto my wrist, splashing onto Silas’s white collar. He looked down, his face suddenly contorting into a mask of pure horror. But I couldn’t hear him anymore. The world was tilting. “Silas,” I whispered as I hit the ground. “I don’t want you.”

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After I died, I discovered that my husband, Arthur Sterling, could still see me. He wept tears of joy, saying that we could be together forever. But later, he started coming home less and less. Then, I saw the young woman following him—she looked exactly like I used to. One day, that young woman suddenly fell ill with a strange, incurable disease. A spiritual master claimed that a malevolent spirit was harming her. And Arthur… turned his head and looked directly at me, while I floated there in absolute shock. 1 I still hadn’t fully processed what was happening. I shook my head at him frantically. The others couldn’t hear me or see me. “Arthur, it’s not me! You know me better than anyone!” At the same time, Chloe Sinclair, lying in bed, began to whimper softly. “Mr. Sterling, it hurts so much…” Arthur didn’t say a word. He just stared intensely at me floating in mid-air. His eyes were filled with suspicion and resentment. I remembered what the master had just said: “This young lady is likely being haunted by a malevolent spirit.” Chloe looked terrified, crying and shrinking into Arthur’s embrace. “Mr. Sterling, I’ve never done anything wrong in my entire life! Why would a dark spirit want to hurt me?” Arthur comforted her, “Chloe, this isn’t your fault.” I didn’t understand what he meant at first. But now I did. He meant it was my fault—the “malevolent spirit’s” fault. Chloe asked the master, “Master, is there any way to suppress this spirit?” The master pulled out several talisman papers and a wooden sword. Chloe took the wooden sword, waving it around fearfully. Whether intentional or not, the tip of the sword pointed directly at me. In that split second, I felt an agonizing, tearing pain rip through my soul. I couldn’t dodge. I was paralyzed in mid-air. Even without a physical body, the agony was so intense I felt like I would dissipate into nothingness at any moment. And Arthur just watched me, completely indifferent. Chloe dropped the wooden sword, picked up the talismans, and looked at Arthur. “Mr. Sterling, could you please help me stick these talismans around the room?” I watched Arthur walk over and take the talismans from her. Then he smiled and gently patted Chloe’s head. “Of course.” Once the talismans were placed in all four corners of the room, my already weakened soul was violently blasted out of the house. This was our marital home. The home Arthur and I had shared for seven years. I stumbled upright, trying to walk back through the front door, but it was useless. The lingering pain from the wooden sword throbbed through me. After failing repeatedly, I collapsed and curled into a ball in the corner. The front door opened. I scrambled up, overjoyed. “Arthur…” Arthur looked at me, his expression incredibly complex. “Mia, don’t ever come inside again.” “Maybe you didn’t do it on purpose.” “But her health is incredibly fragile. Stop harming her.” I didn’t know what to say. It’s hard to describe how those words made me feel. The man standing in front of me felt nothing like the Arthur who had promised to love me forever. A year ago, when I died, he cried so agonizingly. Why had everything changed? “But this is my home! Our home! Why can’t I go inside?” “Because you’re dead!” “Because you’re a wandering spirit now! You don’t have to worry about anything, but she can’t handle it! Your presence is making her sick!” “Mia Harrison, you were never this unreasonable when you were alive.” As Arthur turned to go back inside, I could only murmur one sentence. “I didn’t harm her.” He paused for a second, then shut the door firmly. I wasn’t entirely fearless either. I don’t know if he noticed, but my soul had become slightly more transparent. 2 I used to watch horror movies where people died, became ghosts, and suddenly had all these incredible, terrifying powers. They weren’t afraid of anything. They could scare people to death. But after my own accidental death, I realized I wasn’t one of them. I had absolutely no powers. Except for Arthur, I couldn’t make anyone else see me. In the very beginning, I felt like I could dissipate at any given moment. Because my body would randomly fade into transparency. Whenever Arthur noticed and cried, begging me not to leave him, the fading would stop, and I would solidify again. But today, he probably didn’t notice. I huddled in the corner, laughing bitterly. I wasn’t the only wandering spirit in this area; there were plenty of other strange, dark things lurking around. Right now, I couldn’t even maintain a solid form. I had no idea how I was going to survive the night. When did things between Arthur and me get this bad? Probably starting shortly before he began staying out all night. Before, I could follow him anywhere. But that night, I suddenly found an invisible barrier blocking me. Maybe it was because right before he left, he had said, “Don’t follow me today.” I remembered his friends tricking him into going to the psychiatric ward at the hospital that day. His friends thought my death had caused a psychotic break, because he was constantly talking to thin air. Later, paparazzi caught him—Arthur Sterling, CEO of Sterling Group—leaving the psychiatric ward. The rumor was that he had developed severe schizophrenia. It caused a massive scandal. For days, Arthur felt like everyone was secretly laughing at him. I still remember his absolute devastation when I died, and his hysterical joy when he first realized he could see me. He was practically out of his mind with happiness. He said the heavens were so moved by our love that they granted us this miracle so we could stay together forever. Looking back now, that “heaven-moving” love had clearly become a burden to him. He didn’t want the world to view him as a mentally ill freak anymore. So he aggressively minimized the amount of time we spent together outside, and eventually, our conversations dwindled to almost nothing. Soon after, he brought Chloe home. I had no idea who she was. All I knew was that she sweetly called him “Mr. Sterling,” and they could interact openly and normally. And I couldn’t. Long before she fell ill, it had been ages since Arthur and I had a real conversation. “Well, well, isn’t it the little canary from the big mansion?” “What, got kicked out?” “I told you a long time ago, the living and the dead don’t mix. Why don’t you come play with me—” There weren’t many wandering spirits in this area, but the few that existed were incredibly vicious. I had personally witnessed one of them tear another spirit into literal shreds. I stood up in terror and screamed for Arthur. “Arthur! I’m so scared…” A pale, rotting hand reached out to grab me. “Aren’t your man and his new toy madly in love right now? I saw them making out in his car just the other day. Tsk, the guy has no balls, having to act all proper as soon as he steps out of the car.” “You’re already dead. Why are you still bothering him? Let him find his true love!” I refused to believe it. I only knew that Arthur had sworn he would never, ever betray me. But the harder I pounded on the door, the louder the romantic music inside played. They were dancing to the music, and Chloe was laughing brightly in his arms. Maybe he would post about it on social media. Maybe his friends would congratulate him on finally moving on from the grief of losing his wife. Then he would become a normal person again, instead of a lunatic haunted by the stubborn ghost of his dead wife. 3 When the sun came up, those dark things would vanish. I wasn’t afraid of the sunlight. But I was so incredibly weak I could barely move an inch. They loved to tear spirits apart for fun. But I was different from the other wandering spirits. Every time I was torn apart, I miraculously reformed. They found it fascinating. In the past, I spent every night in Arthur’s bed. They couldn’t get in there. From now on, I probably wouldn’t have that protection. I felt incredibly lost. I had no idea how I was going to survive every single night from now on. The front door suddenly opened, and Arthur rushed out, carrying Chloe in his arms. I huddled in the corner, watching him silently. My body felt a little more transparent. “Hurry! To the hospital!” He didn’t acknowledge my gaze, only shooting me a deep, resentful frown as he loaded Chloe into the car. That single look was loaded with emotion. Mostly blame. But I didn’t even understand what I had done wrong. I just wanted him to stay with me, to ask me if I was hurting. But maybe that was never going to happen again. When Arthur returned from the hospital, I was still huddled in the corner. “Mia. We need to talk.” My voice was hoarse as I offered a faint, bitter laugh. “Are we talking out here?” He clearly had no intention of letting me back inside. “Let’s just talk here. If you go inside, she might get sick again when she gets back.” “There are some things we need to make perfectly clear right now.” Before he could start his speech, I cut him off. “I never harmed her.” Arthur instantly exploded in absolute fury. He stepped forward and threw a punch straight through my ethereal body, his fist slamming into the brick wall behind me. “Then tell me why, ever since she moved in here, she’s been constantly suffering from bizarre, unexplainable illnesses?!” “Don’t tell me it’s all just a coincidence! Mia, I am not a fucking idiot!” His eyes were bloodshot, his emotions completely volatile. “You know perfectly well that everyone thinks I’m insane. She risked her entire reputation just to help me!” “She’s the only one who actually believes I can see you!” I shot upright in shock. “You told her you can see me?!” Arthur clearly didn’t think that was the main issue. “If she wasn’t willing to believe me and stand by my side, my personal reputation and my company’s stock would have plummeted! Do you understand that?!” “Everyone would think I’m a completely deranged lunatic!” I stared at him calmly, feeling a mix of helpless panic and deep resignation. “Arthur… you fell in love with her, didn’t you?” I just laid the brutal truth out in the open. But it only made him more hysterical. “Why is your mind always so filthy and paranoid?!” “I promised I would never betray you, and that hasn’t changed! Is your paranoid jealousy the only reason you’re trying to hurt her?!” I was too exhausted to even repeat myself. “So, what do you want me to do?” He let out a heavy, ragged breath. “Leave for a while. Stay away from me for now.” I asked him, “If I leave, and she still gets sick, proving it wasn’t me… will you let me come back?” He fell silent. He didn’t say a single word. I think I already knew the answer. 4 If I was going to leave, I had to do it now. If I waited until nightfall when those things came out again, I might never be able to leave. I knew perfectly well that once Arthur made a decision, begging him was completely useless. And I wasn’t going to beg. I broke eye contact and struggled to stand up, preparing to walk away. “You’re leaving just like that?!” “You were probably already sick of this too, right? I just gave you the perfect excuse.” My clean break seemed to infuriate him even more. I didn’t want to say anything else. My soul felt incredibly heavy, and every step was agonizingly difficult, but I refused to linger for even a second longer. I heard footsteps rushing up behind me. But then they abruptly stopped. Followed immediately by a violent fit of coughing. “Mr. Sterling? What’s wrong?” “We need to take you to the hospital to see Ms. Sinclair anyway. Why don’t you get a checkup while we’re there?” “Could it be… that dark spirit wasn’t satisfied with hurting Ms. Sinclair, and now it’s trying to hurt you too?” At this point, I had absolutely no desire to defend myself. It was entirely pointless. I didn’t care what else Arthur had to say. If he wanted to believe those lies, explaining myself a million times wouldn’t change a thing. After leaving the villa district, I wandered aimlessly. Being a wandering spirit was a new experience. I didn’t know why I ended up like this. I was dead, but I couldn’t move on to the afterlife. Before Arthur explicitly told me to leave, I physically couldn’t move far from him. Was it really because, like he said, his love had moved the heavens, binding me to him? Thinking about my current state, that theory was hilariously tragic. Where was I supposed to go now? I didn’t know. All I knew was that my body was becoming increasingly transparent. It actually hadn’t been that long since I died. But I had already forgotten so many things. Suddenly, I lost consciousness entirely. When I opened my eyes again, I was inside a temple. Even though I had no specific memory of it, being there triggered an overwhelming, inexplicable sense of familiarity. There was no one else in the temple. Just me, and a single oil lamp. The wick was burning weakly; the flame was incredibly dim. But when the wind blew, the tiny flame didn’t even flicker. Memories suddenly flooded my mind, crashing over me like a tidal wave. “I ask for nothing else. I only pray that my wife survives this, recovers quickly, and returns to me.” “If possible, I want to live with her, and die with her.” “I refuse to live in this world without her.” A man had climbed the massive stone staircase to the peak, performing a full prostration—kneeling and touching his forehead to the ground—on every single step. When he finally stood up, his forehead was bruised, swollen, and bleeding. I remembered now. That was probably the year Arthur loved me the most. He was giving a speech on stage at his company’s annual gala when a massive chandelier above him suddenly broke loose. No one noticed. I sprinted forward and shoved him out of the way, taking the full impact myself and falling into a deep coma. While I was comatose, I occasionally drifted into semi-consciousness, hearing Arthur’s desperate murmurs. He said that if I didn’t pull through, he was fully prepared to die with me. In my subconscious dreams, I learned that Arthur’s profound devotion had manifested a silent “Eternal Flame” in this temple. The wick was forged from our intertwined souls. If one soul disappeared from the other’s side, the other would die. I remember thinking: I can’t let him die. My sheer will to live dragged me out of the coma. Back then, I thought an Eternal Flame like this was an incredibly beautiful thing. As long as we loved each other, nothing could ever separate us. Standing here today, floating as a spirit, I learned another secret. The reason I remained on earth wasn’t because Arthur’s love moved the heavens. It was because, shortly after I died, I begged the Judge of the Underworld to let me go back. 5 Because if my soul vanished from his side, he would die. I traded my reincarnation, binding myself to an eternal clerical position in the Underworld, just to return to his side. My original plan was to stay with him until the natural end of his life. The Judge told me he didn’t believe in absolute, unwavering love. He said if I could bring the Eternal Flame back to the Underworld completely intact after Arthur passed away from old age, proving him wrong, he would grant me a cushy position guarding the Bridge of Forgetfulness. Time flows much faster in the Underworld, so I would frequently be able to see Arthur’s soul passing through the reincarnation cycle. But if the Eternal Flame extinguished, Arthur would die, but he would still enter the reincarnation cycle. I, however, having lingered in the mortal realm for too long, would face complete soul annihilation. At the time, I thought the Judge was just being hopelessly cynical. Looking back now, I was the one who was hopelessly delusional. I died, so my memories faded. But what about Arthur? The flame of this Eternal Lamp was already incredibly dim. My soul had become almost entirely transparent. This proved that our love was practically non-existent. The Judge’s voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere. “You can make your choice now.” “Take this dying Eternal Flame back to the Underworld with you, or stay and work in the Underworld, though your soul will be permanently damaged and frequently weak.” “As for him, he will die in an accident shortly after you leave.” “If this Eternal Flame extinguishes while you’re still in the mortal realm, he will just suffer a tragic end in this life, but your soul will be instantly annihilated.” I glanced down at the wedding ring on my transparent finger. Strange. It was still there. I thought about all the beautiful moments Arthur and I had shared. I never doubted the love he once had for me. That love gave me the courage to sacrifice everything. But this time— “My Lord, I will go back with you.” “Before I go, may I return to say a final goodbye to him?” The Judge’s voice didn’t respond for a long time. “I strongly advise against returning.” “A man whose heart has changed is no different from a rabid beast. He operates with zero logic or reason.” “Fine. If you insist on saying goodbye, go. I will process your employment intake paperwork. When it’s time, I’ll send a Reaper to guide you back.” The voice faded. I floated in the temple, feeling a dull, hollow ache where my heart used to be. The girls who chose to drink the Forgetfulness Soup and reincarnate were right. Never, ever believe that someone’s love for you will never change. No one can promise that. I was just a fool. I drifted slowly back toward the city. The closer I got to the villa district, the more chaotic my thoughts became. Suddenly, an invisible, ethereal net slammed down, binding me completely. “I caught the dark spirit!” “Mr. Sterling, this is the entity that caused you to violently cough up blood! It’s a vicious, malevolent spirit! It’s specifically attached to you, intent on harming you. Once it drains enough of your life force, it will become unstoppable!” Something within the net paralyzed me, making it impossible to move a single muscle. “Arthur… I just came to…” I looked up at Arthur and met a gaze so incredibly, terrifyingly cold it froze my soul. “Mia. I never, in my wildest nightmares, imagined you would exploit my love for you to harm me like this.”

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1 At eight months pregnant, I was pushed from the second floor. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. Liam acted like a madman, rushing me to the hospital and calling in top specialists for the surgery. Thankfully, the baby was saved. When I woke up, neither my baby nor Liam was anywhere to be seen. I struggled to get out of bed, limping out of the room to find them. But outside the morgue, I overheard a conversation between Liam and the doctor. “Mr. Sterling, the baby was clearly still breathing! Why did you suffocate him? That’s your own flesh and blood!” “Better to die early and be reincarnated. He never should have been born in the first place.” “Chloe just gave birth to my son yesterday. I promised her that our child will be the sole heir to the Sterling family. I absolutely will not allow anyone else to compete with him for the inheritance.” It turned out that my happy family was nothing but a delusion I maintained all by myself. The marriage I was so proud of was nothing more than a freezing hell. Since that was the case, all I had to do was leave. … The doctor looked hesitant: “But you plan to use Chloe’s child to deceive your wife. What if she finds out?” “Newborns all look the same. She won’t notice. I’ll bring him over in a minute.” “Clean up the body. And give me that new drug your hospital has—the one that causes permanent sterilization in women. I’m going to feed it to Nora.” The doctor was horrified, speaking urgently: “Mr. Sterling, to bring Chloe’s child into your home, you’ve already killed your wife’s baby. Why do you also have to sterilize her? Isn’t that too cruel?” The chill from the morgue seeped into the hallway, but Liam’s words were even more chilling: “I promised Chloe that our child would never suffer the slightest grievance in his life. He will never have any siblings competing for his father’s favor. Even though she’s married to someone else now, I have to give her peace of mind.” The doctor looked sympathetic: “Mr. Sterling, I must remind you, that drug was only recently developed. It hasn’t even entered clinical trials, and the side effects are severe. Do you really have the heart to do this?” Liam paused for a moment, then sighed: “I have no choice. Nora will be waking up soon. If we perform a hysterectomy now, she’ll definitely get suspicious.” “She’ll just have to endure the side effects. I’ll compensate her well in the future, but I absolutely cannot allow Nora to ever have the possibility of getting pregnant again.” As soon as he finished speaking, Liam’s phone rang. He put it on speaker, and a man’s excited voice echoed through the morgue: “Mr. Sterling, I received the five million. Don’t worry, I’m leaving the city right now. The Mrs. will never find out that you ordered me to push her down the stairs, hehe.” Footsteps approached from inside the room. Ignoring the pain in my leg, I stumbled and scrambled back to my hospital room. Thinking of my baby’s tiny body lying in the morgue, I clutched my chest tightly. Tears fell onto my bandaged leg. So, being pushed down the stairs at the mall wasn’t an accident. It was my loving husband, clearing obstacles for the woman he loved and their child. My baby hadn’t been saved. He had been suffocated to death by his own father. In Liam’s eyes, my son and I were nothing but stumbling blocks. “Nora, you’re awake?” Liam walked in holding a baby, sitting down by the bed with a bright smile. “Look at our baby. Doesn’t he look exactly like us?” “Wife, thank you for giving me such an adorable son. I promise I’ll be a good father.” I looked at the baby sleeping peacefully in his arms, a sharp pain piercing my heart. Liam was wrong. No mother could ever misidentify her own child. The baby’s brow and eyes resembled Liam’s, but the nose and chin were practically copied and pasted from Chloe’s face. This was their child. And my baby was nothing but a cold corpse right now. “Nora, does your leg still hurt? Here, take some painkillers.” The concern and gentleness in his eyes were the same as always, but it was all just a facade to paralyze me. I looked at the pills in his hand, remembering the conversation I had just overheard. “Liam, the pills are too bitter. Can I take them later?” You’ve already killed one of my children. Can’t you at least leave me the right to be a mother? Liam hesitated for only a second before smiling and stroking my hair: “You’re a mother now, why are you acting like a child? You’ve suffered so much giving birth, and your leg is hurting. My heart aches so much I won’t be able to sleep all night. Nora, just take pity on your husband, okay? I still have to be a good dad to our baby.” “I added honey to the water, it’s very sweet. Come on, let me feed you.” No, that’s not my baby. That’s yours and Chloe’s! Liam held the pills to my lips, leaving me no room to refuse again. My blood ran cold. I closed my eyes and swallowed the pills dry, refusing the honey water. I didn’t want his hypocritical sweetness! The drug took effect quickly. My lower abdomen felt like it was burning with hellfire, as if someone were carving me open with a knife. Blood began to seep from between my legs. “Nora, what’s wrong?!” Liam called for the doctor. I passed out from the excruciating pain. In my hazy consciousness, I heard the doctor say: “Mr. Sterling, your wife’s entire uterus has been corroded away. She will never be able to have children again.” Liam let out a long sigh of relief. When I opened my eyes again, his eyes were red, and he looked at me with profound heartbreak: “Nora, the doctor said you suffered a sudden, massive postpartum hemorrhage. You’ll never be able to have children again.” “Don’t be sad. Thank God we already have Andy. When he grows up, he’ll definitely be a dutiful son to you.” Andy? He had already picked a name for Chloe’s child this fast? Liam refused to let the nurses wipe me down. Ignoring his usual germaphobia, he personally fetched warm water and cleaned the blood off my body. He told me his mother wanted to see her eldest grandson, so she had already taken the baby home. By the time he finished, it was late at night. I looked at his slightly exhausted face and forced a weak smile: “I’m fine. You’ve had a long day, get some rest.” Liam kissed my forehead: “Okay. Wake me if you need anything. Tomorrow I’ll take you to pick up Andy, and our family of three will live happily ever after.” After he fell asleep, I quietly picked up his phone. To show his “loyalty” to me, Liam never kept a passcode on his phone. But I had never known that he had set up a dual operating system. And the password to switch systems… was Chloe’s birthday. 2 As the system switched, the wallpaper changed to a college photo of him and Chloe. There was only one person in his WeChat contacts: Chloe. When I opened the chat, a photo of Chloe holding the baby pierced my eyes. “Liam, look how handsome our baby is. He’s going to grow up to be just as handsome as you.” That baby was identical to the one Liam had brought to me earlier tonight. The further I scrolled up, the colder my heart became. During the eight months of my pregnancy, Liam was constantly “away on business trips.” The days he actually spent with me could be counted on two hands. I didn’t want to interfere with his work, so I silently endured the miseries of morning sickness and traveled back and forth to the hospital for checkups alone. Only now did I realize that his so-called “business trips” were nothing more than excuses to accompany Chloe through her pregnancy. Tens of thousands of photos documented everything from Chloe’s pregnancy to her delivery. Liam personally cooked nutritious meals for her every day, walked with her, shopped with her, and even cupped his hands to catch her vomit when she had morning sickness. He never left her side during any of her prenatal checkups. His deep, affectionate gaze looked at her as if she were a priceless treasure. I had begged Liam many times to help me pick a name for our baby. He would always take a long time to reply: “Nora, a name is just a label. Pick whatever you want. I’m busy. We’ll talk about it after he’s born.” Yet, the moment Chloe got pregnant, Liam had already brainstormed hundreds of names for her baby. “Chloe, how about we name our baby Felix? It means a bright future.” “Or maybe Arthur? Intelligent and destined for greatness.” “Never mind. Let’s just call him Andy. I don’t need him to be extraordinary. I just want him to be safe, healthy, and live a long life.” After every checkup, he would buy Chloe a gift—either extravagant jewelry or a limited-edition sports car. “Our Chloe safely passed another checkup. We have to celebrate.” He even bought her a European castle to celebrate a smooth delivery. And all I ever got was a single sentence: “Nora, you’ve worked hard. I have a meeting.” It turns out the difference between being loved and unloved is that glaringly obvious. Heartbroken, I put his phone down and bought a plane ticket out of the country for three days later. I got back into bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. Filled with absolute desolation, I didn’t sleep a wink all night. The next day, Liam, just like always, had his assistant buy a nutritious meal specifically for me. In the past, I was always touched by his thoughtfulness, believing he cared about my diet even when he wasn’t around. But remembering the photos of him wearing an apron, bustling around the kitchen for Chloe, I finally understood that this was just a perfunctory gesture. Money is worthless when there’s no genuine heart behind it. Seeing that I hadn’t taken a single bite, Liam looked a bit pained: “Nora, why aren’t you eating? Does it taste bad?” “It’s nothing. I just miss the baby.” Liam smiled: “Oh, so you miss Andy. I miss him too. I didn’t understand it before, but now that I’m a dad, I realize I don’t want to be apart from him for even a second. Our Andy really is the cutest baby in the world.” “Mom is absolutely thrilled to have her eldest grandson. She’s celebrating at the main estate right now. We’ll go pick Andy up in a bit.” I didn’t say anything. I had already decided to leave anyway; he could do whatever he wanted. When we arrived at the main estate, the first thing I saw was my mother-in-law and Chloe holding Andy, playing with him. Chloe was dressed head-to-toe in limited-edition haute couture, glowing with vitality, showing absolutely no signs of postpartum fatigue. My mother-in-law was doting on the baby while simultaneously feeding Chloe bird’s nest soup. Truly top-tier treatment. Seeing me, Chloe spoke to my mother-in-law with feigned innocence: “Auntie, please don’t be so good to me. People will think I’m your daughter-in-law. Nora might get jealous. She’s weak right now, you should give this bird’s nest to her.” My mother-in-law followed her gaze and looked at me. Seeing that I was still wearing the blood-stained clothes from the day of my accident, she looked disgusted: “Is my son starving you or something? Wearing such unlucky clothes… are you intentionally trying to embarrass our family? Look at Chloe! She also just had a baby, and she’s doing so much better than you. You’re just overly dramatic.” “You couldn’t just sit still. Running around while heavily pregnant—it’s a wonder you didn’t fall to your death. And you have the nerve to play the victim here? Thank goodness my precious grandson is fine, otherwise I’d make Liam divorce you immediately.” “You knew you were breastfeeding, yet you carelessly took medication! If Chloe hadn’t been here to help nurse him, my grandson would have starved to death because of you, you bad omen! I’m announcing right now that I’m taking Chloe as my goddaughter. From now on, just like Liam, she will call me Mom.” I knew my mother-in-law never liked me. She thought I wasn’t good enough for Liam, that I was far inferior to Chloe—his beautiful, sweet-talking childhood sweetheart who always knew how to make her happy. It wasn’t until Chloe married someone abroad and I got pregnant that she finally, reluctantly, accepted me as her daughter-in-law for the sake of the child. But whenever we met, her sarcastic remarks and mocking tone were never far behind. In the past, Liam would always defend me. Not to mention, the day we went to the mall, he was the one who insisted I go, saying he wanted to buy gifts for our unborn baby. But now, his eyes were glued to Chloe, filled with unconcealed tenderness. Holding Andy, Chloe walked over to him, playfully hooking her arm through his: “Liam, did you hear that? Auntie just took me in as her goddaughter. My dear big brother, did you prepare a welcome gift for your little sister?” Liam pinched her cheek with a mix of indulgence and helpless affection: “You little troublemaker. You’re not allowed to call me brother.” He said that, but immediately ordered his staff to bring in 92 limited-edition, luxury mink coats, fully accessorized with matching jewelry. “I know you love fashion, but you’re still recovering from childbirth. You can’t catch a chill. Winter lasts for three months, exactly 92 days. A different coat for every day.” 3 Chloe happily kissed Liam on the cheek, acting like a coquettish young girl. “Wow! Some of these are unreleased designs for the next three years, and they’re all limited editions! You actually managed to get them in advance! Liam, you really do spoil me.” “But you’re giving me all these gifts… won’t Nora be angry?” Compared to these glamorous, incredibly expensive mink coats, my blood-stained clothes made me look even more like a pathetic clown. Liam froze, seemingly just remembering that I was still standing there. He said awkwardly: “Nora, it’s not what you think. Chloe is used to living abroad. You know, their etiquette is a bit more open there.” “And about these clothes… I heard she also just had a baby, and her husband isn’t around. We did grow up together, after all. I just wanted to…” Before he could finish, Andy suddenly started crying. Chloe gasped in surprise: “Oh no, is Andy hungry again? Mommy will take you upstairs right now to feed you.” She then turned to me, offering a falsely apologetic look: “Nora, please don’t misunderstand! I’m just so used to soothing my own baby. Plus, every time I say it like this, Andy gets so happy.” She turned to walk upstairs with the baby, but suddenly swayed, falling into Liam’s arms, her voice weak: “Liam, I feel a little dizzy…” Liam immediately pushed me aside, anxiously catching Chloe, his face full of panic: “What’s wrong? It must be postpartum weakness. I told you to stay and rest at the recovery center! Come on, I’ll carry you upstairs.” My right leg was still heavily bandaged. Shoved by him, I collapsed onto the floor, a sharp, piercing pain shooting up my leg. But Liam didn’t even glance at me. In front of everyone, he scooped Chloe up in a princess carry and rushed upstairs, taking Andy with them. Everyone looked at me with mockery, their voices dripping with disdain and disgust: “No wonder Liam spoils Chloe so much. Not only is she beautiful, but she’s so kindhearted. Willing to nurse someone else’s baby. Not like this useless piece of trash. Not only is she shabby and unpresentable, but she can’t even handle a little leg pain! She actually took medication while breastfeeding. Selfish bitch.” “Does someone like this even deserve to be a mother? I think Chloe acts more like Andy’s mom, and she loves him more, too. Andy even looks a bit like Chloe. The baby probably finds Nora embarrassing too and doesn’t want to look like her. Chloe and Liam are such a perfect match. It’s a real shame they didn’t get married.” Instead of defending me, my mother-in-law looked at me with even more disgust and scolded: “Why are you still crawling on the floor like a dog?! If you want to beg for food, get out and beg on the streets! Our family doesn’t feed pathetic, useless women like you.” “You don’t care about your own son, and you can’t keep your husband’s heart. I heard you can never have children again? My son marrying a wife like you is the biggest misfortune of eight lifetimes! Get out of my sight! Every time I look at you, it takes ten years off my life.” Humiliation flooded my heart. Thinking of the divorce agreement already saved on my phone, I said nothing. I struggled to my feet and limped upstairs toward the study. I put the printed divorce agreement into my bag and went to the guest room to find Liam. But they weren’t in the guest room. There was only the maternity nurse, holding a well-fed Andy, resting. I was confused, until I heard ambiguous, unmistakable sounds coming from what used to be Liam’s and my master bedroom. The door wasn’t fully closed. Chloe was straddling Liam, her blouse completely open, her voice seductive: “Liam, I have too much milk. Andy eats so little, I’m so engorged.” “I feel so uncomfortable… help me suck it out, please~” Liam hesitated: “Chloe, don’t do this. You just gave birth two days ago; your body can’t handle it. You already took such a huge risk hiding this from your husband to have my baby, I can’t hurt you anymore…” Chloe pressed his head down: “Silly Liam, I’m not afraid, what are you afraid of? Having your child was my own choice. He’s always away on business; he has no idea. Come on… don’t you want to taste what it’s like to fight a bloody battle?” Unable to hold back any longer, Liam opened his mouth and latched on. The sounds coming from inside grew increasingly obscene. My stomach churned with nausea. Unable to watch another second, I fled the estate like I was escaping a nightmare. It wasn’t until I breathed the fresh air outside that the suffocating feeling slightly lifted, but the tears wouldn’t stop falling. Liam, you knew I was right downstairs! How could you do something like that?! In OUR bedroom?! I sat despondently by the front door. I don’t know how much time passed when suddenly, a foul-smelling liquid was dumped over my head. Chloe suddenly appeared, smiling provocatively: “Nora, how does my son’s urine taste? Did Liam look good totally captivated by my body?” She had done it on purpose. She wanted me to see. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Look at you now. Your son is dead, you’re crippled in one leg… If I were you, I would have killed myself a long time ago. What’s the point of living?” “So what if you married Liam and got pregnant? In the end, didn’t he still suffocate your son to death to clear the path for me and my baby? And he even made sure you could never have another one.” “I even have a video of the exact moment your son died. Want to see how his little face turned from red to purple? It’s spectacular.” I stared dead at her phone screen, watching my baby slowly suffocate to death. My entire body trembled uncontrollably. How could she talk about murdering a child so callously?! I raised my hand high, ready to strike her, but Chloe suddenly pulled out a dagger and slashed her own chest hard. Blood soaked through her shirt. The dagger clattered to the floor, and she let out a piercing scream. The next second, someone shoved me violently to the ground. Liam gathered Chloe into his arms, turning to roar at me: “Nora, have you lost your fucking mind?!” 4 Before I could even speak, Chloe started sobbing pitifully: “Liam, I was worried Nora would be upset that I was nursing Andy. I came out to explain things to her, but she accused me of trying to steal her baby! She said she was going to cut my breasts off so I could never nurse a baby again!” “Waaah, I just felt so bad seeing Andy go hungry! I just love the baby! How could she do this to me?!” Liam looked at me, his face dark as a thundercloud: “It was your own clumsy fault you fell down the stairs and broke your leg! That’s why everything is a mess! Why are you taking it out on Chloe?!” “You’re an unfit mother! You took medication, so you can’t breastfeed! Chloe is trying to help you out of the goodness of her heart, what gives you the right to attack her?! If you don’t love your child, does that mean no one else is allowed to love him either?! Apologize to Chloe immediately!” I’m an unfit mother? I don’t love my child? Tears streamed down my face. I roared at him furiously: “I’m a bad mother?! What about you?! Do you have the guts to tell me exactly why I fell down those stairs?! Where is my real child?! And what exactly were those pills I took?!” Liam frowned: “Andy is sleeping perfectly fine in the nursery! And those pills were for your leg pain! You know all this!” “As for falling down the stairs, obviously you were careless! With so many people around, why would someone specifically push you? You’re useless, and you have the nerve to hurt Chloe?! You’re a mother yourself, how could you have the heart to hurt another mother?! Apologize to Chloe right now!” Right. With so many people around, why was I the only one who got pushed? Looking at his self-righteous, arrogant face, I suddenly burst out laughing. This was my husband. A complete, unredeemable liar. A murderer! I picked up the dagger from the floor and, using every ounce of strength I had, slashed my own chest over a dozen times, until blood soaked through my entire shirt. Liam was absolutely shocked: “Nora, what are you doing?! Stop it right now!” I dropped the dagger and looked at him calmly: “Liam, you’re right. I shouldn’t hurt another mother. So I am atoning to your true love. Is this sincere enough for you?” With that, I turned and walked away. Watching the trail of blood beneath my feet and my stumbling figure, Liam tried to come help me, but Chloe threw her arms around his neck. “Liam, it hurts so much. Can you take me to the hospital? We can’t let our Andy go hungry.” After a moment of internal struggle, Liam finally picked Chloe up and walked in the opposite direction. A few hours later, Liam called: “Nora, did you treat your wounds? Don’t worry, I had them use an ointment on Chloe that won’t affect her nursing. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that today.” “But the doctor said the medication you took makes it unsafe for you to breastfeed. Chloe has plenty of milk, and formula isn’t nutritious enough. Andy still needs her help. I’m taking care of her as a way of showing gratitude. Don’t overthink it.” I replied flatly: “I’m fine. Take good care of her. Don’t let the baby go hungry.” “I knew my wife was the most understanding. I’ve already spoken to my mom; she won’t bully you anymore.” “You gave the Sterling family a son; you are our greatest hero. The day after tomorrow, I’m throwing a celebration party for you to make up for today. Wait for me.” The local news broadcasted all night about how the CEO of the Sterling Group, enraged on behalf of his beloved, chartered helicopters overnight to fly in dozens of top national specialists just to treat a minor scratch. I pulled out some iodine and blood-clotting powder and simply bandaged my own wounds. The next day, Liam still hadn’t returned. I packed all my belongings and donated them to charity. The marriage certificate I had once cherished so deeply was torn into tiny pieces and thrown into the trash. At noon on the third day, Liam sent me a WeChat message: “Nora, I’m done with work. I’m heading to the hotel to check on the venue setup. I’ll have my assistant pick you up this afternoon.” In reality, he was holding Chloe’s hand, carrying Andy, and sweeping through all the major luxury jewelry boutiques in the mall. Basking in the envious gazes and blessings of all the sales associates. “Mr. Sterling is so devoted to his wife and child! My sales targets for the next twenty years have just been met! This family of three is absolutely gorgeous.” “But I heard Mr. Sterling booked the cheapest banquet package at the hotel today. Apparently, it’s a celebration for his wife having a baby.” “You must be mistaken! With how much Mr. Sterling spoils his wife, would he book something that cheap? Did you see the necklace Mrs. Sterling is wearing? Mr. Sterling bought it for her this morning. It costs enough to buy ten of those hotels.” And I watched all of this from the floor above, having just finished buying a suitcase. I didn’t reply to his message. I hired a local courier to deliver the divorce agreement and a few documents to the banquet venue later. After doing that, I put on my sunglasses and headed straight to the airport. A few hours later, Liam finally finished his shopping spree with Chloe and Andy and arrived at the hotel. But he was informed that I hadn’t shown up yet. Liam checked the time. It had been an hour since we were supposed to meet. He found it strange; I was never late for dates with him. Just as he was about to call me, his assistant ran over in a panic, holding a stack of documents: “Mr. Sterling, bad news! The Madam is gone! Someone just dropped these off!”

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When I was five, I personally dismembered the little parrot my parents gave me. They treated me like a monster and decided to have another kid, hoping for a better outcome. Later, my younger sister was born, and from then on, I had an unshakable little shadow trailing after me. She always called me “big sister” in a sweet voice and shared half of everything she loved with me. With her by my side, I hid my true self and put on the disguise of a well-behaved child. It wasn’t until my sister was rushed to the ICU for emergency resuscitation that I learned she had been severely bullied at school. When the incident blew up, all we got from the bullies were flippant, smirking apologies. “I’m sorry. I’ll do it again next time.” Hehe, since they dared to do it again, I decided there was no need for me to hold back either. 1 When my sister was brought into the hospital, her face was beaten so badly it was deformed. She had countless scars and bruises all over her body, and the bleeding from her lower half wouldn’t stop. The sister who had enthusiastically greeted me just this morning… …was now lying on a stretcher, clinging to life by a thread. “The patient is severely injured. We need to operate immediately. The parents need to sign this right now.” My dad, with his arm around my mom who was on the verge of passing out from crying, silently signed the surgical consent form. From my angle, I could clearly see his hand trembling as he held the pen. “Doctor, will my daughter be okay?” The doctor’s expression was grave. “Her injuries are extensive. Her lower abdomen was penetrated by a wooden stick, and removing it could cause massive hemorrhaging.” “Please… you have to save her.” “I will do absolutely everything in my power.” The surgery lasted for eight agonizing hours before the red light above the operating room finally went off. The doctor came out and pulled down his mask. “The surgery was a success, but the patient is not out of the woods yet. She needs to be monitored in the ICU for a few days.” My sister was wheeled into the Intensive Care Unit. We could only watch through the glass as she lay there, covered in tubes, completely devoid of her usual vibrancy. My dad sat on a bench in the hospital corridor. My mom’s eyes were swollen from crying. My dad smoked a cigarette in silence. The police quickly obtained the results of their investigation. During the third period PE class that morning, school security cameras caught a group of students dragging my sister into a restroom. On her phone, which had its deleted data recovered, they found a video. In the video, my sister was being held up by her arms. The girl leading the group walked up and slapped her hard across the face. My sister’s cheek swelled up instantly. My sister looked at her with red eyes: “Why are you doing this to me?” The lead girl grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the wall. “Why? You have the f**ing nerve to ask why? You act like a slt and try to seduce Tyler every day, do you think I’m blind?!” My sister, dizzy and seeing stars, desperately tried to explain that she hadn’t. But the group wouldn’t let her go. Someone kicked her hard in the stomach. As she hunched over in pain, another foot stomped heavily on her back. With a heavy thud, she was forced to her knees. Crisp, malicious laughter echoed from the video. “B*tch, how dare you try to hook up with Tyler!” “Strip her! Doesn’t she like acting like a sl*t? Let’s give her a reason to!” Panic-stricken, my sister struggled fiercely but couldn’t escape the mob beating her. Soon, her clothes were torn into shreds. She hurriedly tried to cover herself with her arms, but several girls rushed forward and yanked them away. They subjected her to a barrage of punches and kicks. Amidst the shaky camera footage, someone chimed in, “Hey Mia, since she’s so itchy for it, why don’t we help her scratch that itch!” The girl called Mia scoffed lightly, seeming very pleased with the suggestion. A sycophant grabbed a mop from nearby and handed it to Mia. “Hold her down for me.” My sister looked at her in sheer terror. “What are you going to d—” A bloodcurdling scream pierced the air, the phone clattered to the floor, and the video abruptly ended. 2 “How could they…” My mom covered her mouth, sobbing uncontrollably. She simply couldn’t believe her daughter had endured something so horrific. My dad gripped his phone tightly. “Officers, I want to press charges. I want them to rot in prison!” The police officer looked uncomfortable. “I understand how you’re feeling right now, but they are all under twelve years old. We will do our best to help you secure maximum compensation…” “Compensation?! My daughter was beaten half to death by them, will compensation make her better?!” My father, who had always been meek, finally couldn’t hold back his rage. His daughter had been beaten into the ICU, and now they were talking about a settlement? How could he possibly swallow this?! Soon after, I saw them at the police precinct. Because the incident had blown up, the police called us in for a mediation meeting. Six little monsters, roughly my sister’s age, sat there chewing bubblegum, looking completely unfazed. Their parents sat next to them. Instead of apologizing, they immediately started pointing fingers. “Isn’t this just kids messing around? Why make such a big deal out of it and bring us to the police station?” “Are you going to take responsibility for delaying our kids’ studies?” “Exactly! We’re very busy with work. Dragging us here over such a trivial matter, isn’t that going too far?” The homeroom teacher tried to gently persuade them to calm down and talk reasonably, but their voices only grew louder. The officer who brought us in slammed his hand hard on the table, and the room finally quieted down. “We called you here today to discuss the bullying incident involving Emma. You need to apologize and provide compensation.” Although this was just a mediation session, it was still at the police station, and an officer was taking notes. My mom stayed at the hospital with my sister, so I accompanied my dad today. From the moment they walked in, my dad hadn’t said a single word. He just sat there, quietly staring at these people. His eyes were completely devoid of warmth, as if he were looking at a pile of dead objects. Regarding the bullying, the girls admitted to it right then and there. “Yeah, we beat her up, so what? Who told her to act like a b*tch?” I recognized that voice perfectly. The little monsters called her Mia. Her full name was Mia Johnson. The video only caught her side profile; her full face was even more repulsive. She had narrow, slanting eyes and freckles across her cheeks. They say your face reflects your heart, and in her case, it was absolutely true. The other little monsters chimed in, “We just couldn’t stand her trying to seduce Tyler every day, so we taught her a lesson.” The homeroom teacher hastily tried to smooth things over. “If Emma had behavioral issues, you should have come to me. You can’t take matters into your own hands.” Her words practically validated the rumor that my sister was trying to seduce someone. “Telling the teacher or parents is for babies, I can’t be bothered. Since you don’t know how to teach her, we did it for you.” “Besides, she’s such a sl*t, she probably enjoyed it anyway.” My dad had been sitting down, but upon hearing this, he immediately stood up. I pressed my hand down on his, signaling him not to act rashly. Meeting Mia’s provocative gaze, I vaulted across the table, grabbed her by the hair, and slammed her face violently onto the tabletop. Over and over again. Mia howled in pain like a banshee, spewing a long string of profanities. Seeing his daughter being attacked, Mia’s father quickly stepped in to stop me. But an elite guy in a tailored suit like him was no match for a blue-collar worker like my dad. My dad kicked him so hard he flew backward, crumpling to the floor and groaning. Meanwhile, I kept a firm grip on Mia, slapping her face from left to right. “Didn’t you say teachers and parents don’t know how to educate? Today, big sister is going to teach you how to be a decent human being!” Seeing their “boss” getting beaten, the other little animals rushed over to attack me. But they were no match for me, and with my dad blocking them, they couldn’t even get close. Mia was beaten black and blue, her face swollen, and she had lost a front tooth. Her dad scrambled up from the floor, aiming a punch right at my face. My dad moved with lightning speed, catching his arm and dislocating his shoulder! 3 The room was filled with continuous wailing. The parents of the little monsters, realizing they were outmatched, immediately started whining to the police. “Are you just going to stand there and watch our kids get beaten up?!” The video on my sister’s phone had been recovered by the police tech department. Every officer present knew exactly what kind of torture she had endured. Combined with the provocative remarks these little monsters had just made, the police were also harboring anger. Restricted by their uniforms, they couldn’t act on it, so they merely put on a show of lightly pulling me back a couple of times. Even with their numbers, they couldn’t handle the two of us. Only after they were beaten black and blue did the police finally separate us. “Alright, that’s enough. You’re here to mediate, stop fighting.” Mia clutched her face, glaring viciously. “You just wait! When that b*tch comes back to school, I’m going to kill her!” “What nonsense are you spouting?! Apologize right now!” Her dad winced in pain, but by now he could tell that the police were biased towards our family. A shrewd man like him wouldn’t fail to read the room. It was just offering a verbal apology; it wouldn’t cost them anything. Mia reluctantly mumbled a “sorry,” but her eyes remained defiant. It was glaringly obvious she had absolutely no intention of admitting she was wrong. Being under twelve meant that no matter what they did, they wouldn’t face criminal punishment. That was the source of these little monsters’ audacity! But from the very beginning, I had never come here looking for a settlement. I knew the law couldn’t bind them, so I only came to memorize their faces perfectly. I wouldn’t let a single person who bullied my sister off the hook! 4 The other side clamored that we threw the first punch, demanding the police arrest us and throw us in jail. What a joke. I’m a minor too, you know. As for my dad, he was simply fulfilling his duty as a father. He had failed to protect my sister before; there was no way he’d stand by and watch me get bullied now. As the argument escalated, the police stated that the situation could only be classified as a mutual brawl, meaning both sides would be subject to detention. The moment those words were spoken, they instantly fell silent. Although their glares were still full of resentment, they didn’t dare act arrogantly anymore. Finally, the police brought out the mediation agreement and asked us all to review the terms. The content was simple, consisting of only a few clauses. Aside from the other party offering us a formal apology, they were required to cover all of my sister’s hospital expenses, split equally among the parents. Before my dad could even speak, they started complaining. A middle-aged woman put her hands on her hips and yelled, “She beat my kid to a pulp, and I haven’t even asked her for medical bills yet! Why should we pay?!” “Their daughter was beaten into the ICU by your kids! Shouldn’t you pay for the medical bills?!” Even the police couldn’t stand to listen to it anymore. They hadn’t expected the parents of these little monsters to be so utterly unreasonable. Well, there’s a reason they’re little monsters. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The kids’ behavior was clearly a result of the parents’ negligence. “I don’t care! What they did was just kids roughhousing. What just happened here was a one-sided assault! You’re lucky I’m not making them pay my medical bills!” The middle-aged woman shot me a glare. “Besides, if she hadn’t been acting like a little vixen and seducing boys instead of focusing on her studies, this wouldn’t have happened. Being beaten up now is better than becoming a homewrecker and being despised by everyone later!” I couldn’t hold back anymore. I marched up and slapped her hard across the face! “If I hear you say one more bad word about my sister, I will rip your mouth open.” “She’s hitting me! Police, are you going to do something about this?!” She cried and wailed simultaneously, acting as if she wanted to tear the roof off the precinct. “Enough! You were the one who spoke out of line first!” Since she was in the wrong, the officer’s stern warning instantly silenced her. Seeing that a resolution was impossible today, the police simply told us to leave. The group walked out, muttering curses under their breath. Right before leaving, my dad spoke his first words of the day: “My daughter is still lying in the ICU, yet they get to walk away scot-free. Is this how the law protects us?” 5 The police fell silent. The light in my dad’s eyes dimmed. He opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing. On the drive back, my dad gripped the steering wheel in silence. I finally asked him, “Are we really just going to let them get away with bullying her?” As if remembering something, his gaze turned significantly colder. “Don’t do anything rash.” Tsk, how could it be called doing something rash? Just teaching some disobedient little animals a lesson. But I had promised my sister I would be a good girl and listen to mom and dad. It seemed I’d have to handle this quietly. Two days later, my sister was finally moved from the ICU to a regular ward. Although she was still wearing an oxygen mask, the doctor said she was breathing on her own. She was just very weak and needed time to recover. My mom stayed by my sister’s side constantly, never leaving for a second. Afraid of delaying my studies, she forced me to go to school. When I arrived at the hospital after school, I found a group of people crowding my sister’s room. “Emma’s parents, what happened has already happened, we need to look towards the future. We’re here today representing the school to visit Emma. We will cover all her future expenses at the school, and she’ll receive a $2,000 scholarship every year.” “Exactly. Considering your family’s financial situation, this is an excellent opportunity.” I recognized the person speaking. It was my sister’s homeroom teacher, the old witch who tried to smooth things over at the police station last time. Judging by the authoritative demeanor of the others, they were undoubtedly school administrators. “Is this how you act as educators?! Ignoring the bullies to protect the school’s reputation, and demanding the victim forgive them?!” My dad was furious. He had thought that even if the law couldn’t help, the school would at least be fair. He never expected to be met with such a ludicrous response. “Emma’s dad, what kind of talk is that? Of course we stand with Emma. We’ve already severely criticized and educated the other girls. Can’t you give them a chance to turn over a new leaf?” My dad laughed out of pure anger. “Turn over a new leaf? Mrs. Chen, did you forget what they said at the police station?! Did that look like remorse to you?!” He grabbed the teacup from the bedside table and violently hurled it at the group of hypocritical snobs. “Get out! All of you, get out!” “Emma’s dad…” “Are you deaf?! Get the hell out of here!” Seeing that soft tactics weren’t working, the homeroom teacher shifted her focus to my mom. Holding a piece of paper, she grabbed my mom’s hand, pressed it onto an ink pad, and tried to force her fingerprint onto the document. My dad lunged forward and slapped the homeroom teacher across the face. “Don’t touch my wife!”

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A few days before the wedding, our wedding planner scheduled a full dress rehearsal for me and my fiancé. The moment my fiancé scooped me up into his arms, his younger sister suddenly burst into tears. “Ew, Carter, why are you two being so gross?! Why are you hugging her in front of everyone? Are her legs broken? Can’t she walk by herself?” Carter immediately set me down to comfort his sister, then demanded that I walk to the getaway car on my own. It’s a strong tradition in my family that the bride’s feet shouldn’t touch the ground on her wedding day before she gets into the car. My parents argued fiercely on my behalf, but Carter, my boyfriend of three years, actually demanded we postpone the wedding. “Chloe hates it when I do that. If you insist on clinging to this superstitious nonsense, then we’ll just push the wedding back!” 1 Both sides of the family stared at Chloe in shock. Isn’t a groom carrying his bride the most natural thing in the world? “Why is she so special?! Are her legs broken? Can’t she walk?!” Chloe screamed angrily. Whispers broke out among the guests. “It’s a tradition that the bride’s feet don’t touch the ground on her wedding day,” my mom said, trying to smooth things over with a tight smile. “Chloe, sweetie, when you get married someday, it’ll be the same for you!” “I don’t care! I forbid Carter from carrying her out! If she wants to get married, she can walk her own lazy self! Otherwise, I’m never speaking to you again, Carter!” Chloe yelled stubbornly. I stared at Carter in disbelief. His worried gaze was entirely focused on Chloe. Then, the arms holding me suddenly loosened. I was dropped heavily to the ground, nearly twisting my ankle. My carefully chosen designer heels slammed into the damp pavement, and the hem of my pristine white wedding dress was instantly splattered with mud. Much like my mood at that exact moment. “Oh no!” My mom rushed forward, snatching up the hem of my dress. “Why did you drop her? Thank goodness this is just a rehearsal. You absolutely cannot do this on the actual wedding day!” Everyone crowded around, asking if I had sprained my ankle. Carter, however, was busy wrapping his arms around Chloe, coaxing her in a low voice. “It’s okay, baby, I won’t carry her. I’ll make her walk, okay?” “Hmph,” Chloe scoffed. “Then promise me you’ll never carry her again!” Never carry me again? Are we getting married, or becoming frat brothers? “Okay, okay, whatever you say,” my fiancé agreed immediately to her absurd demand. Chloe peered over Carter’s shoulder, shooting me a triumphant, provocative smirk. I had heard Carter mention he had a “cute” younger sister, but I never imagined her “cuteness” manifested like this. “Let’s just let it go. It’s only a rehearsal, and Chloe is still young. Don’t hold it against her,” my future in-laws chimed in, trying to excuse her behavior. My parents and I exchanged a loaded look. Swallowing my frustration, we continued with the rehearsal. Next came the altar. Under the resentful glare of his sister, the officiant prompted the groom to kiss the bride. Carter glanced at Chloe and said, “Let’s just skip this part.” Watching him cater entirely to Chloe’s every whim, the last shred of hope I had for this relationship shattered. After the rehearsal dinner, Carter and I were escorted by a group of friends to the brand-new house we had just bought together. But to my utter shock, Chloe had beaten us there. She was currently lying barefoot on our brand-new marital bed. My future mother-in-law hurried over to pull her up, whispering, “What are you doing?” Chloe was pulled off the bed, only to huff and aggressively bounce right back onto it. Her bare feet left faint, dusty prints all over the expensive silk duvet cover. “What’s the big deal? I can’t even lie on my brother’s bed now?! I was just testing it out to see if it was comfortable for them!” The relatives standing in the doorway fell dead silent. Even the most clueless person knows that the marital bed is sacred territory for the newlyweds. You don’t just jump on it. Especially not when you’re a twenty-two-year-old adult. I turned to Carter, demanding an explanation. Instead, he looked at Chloe with sickening fondness. “Chloe is right. My home is her home, and everything in it belongs to her! Your sister-in-law is going to spoil you just as much as I do. She won’t be mad. Right, Harper?” 2 That last sentence was directed at me. It was laughable. I had promised him in the past that I’d be a good sister-in-law, but I had no idea his sister lacked any concept of basic boundaries. I didn’t answer him. Instead, I yanked back the duvet that was bunched up in the middle of the bed. Where there were supposed to be decorative rose petals, the mattress was covered in empty peanut shells. Worse, lined up perfectly down the dead center of the king-sized mattress was a row of tiny, potted cactus plants, physically dividing the bed in half. The guests gasped, whispering loudly. “Cacti on the bed? What kind of weird tradition is this?” “How are they supposed to sleep? This is clearly meant to keep them apart! The groom’s family is completely out of line!” “Carter, care to explain what your family is trying to pull here?” I demanded, staring him down. “Uh…” Carter finally looked a little embarrassed. “Don’t yell at my brother!” Chloe shouted, standing on the bed and glaring down at me. “Carter promised me he wouldn’t carry you anymore! I put those there so you wouldn’t try to crawl all over him in the middle of the night. If you aren’t afraid of getting pricked, go ahead and try!” The rage I had been suppressing all day finally boiled over. I let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Carter, did you authorize this?” “No… Harper, listen to me, I’ll take the cacti off…” I ignored him, turning on my heel and walking toward the guest bedroom. Sure enough, the room we had planned to decorate as a nursery was already packed with Chloe’s belongings. A pink canopy, pink bedding, and a massive, framed photo of her and Carter hugging playfully on the nightstand. It was sickening. “Harper, it’s just a minor thing. Do you really need to throw a tantrum over this?” Carter nagged, trailing closely behind me. “What about this?” I pointed at the guest room. “What is the meaning of this?” The guests had followed us down the hall and were peering inside. “Do you have a problem with it?” Chloe’s bratty voice echoed from behind us. “My brother and I agreed a long time ago: wherever he goes, I go. His house will always have a room for me. So, I moved in. Right, Carter?” Carter looked guilty. He had never mentioned a word of this to me. But he quickly rallied to defend her. “Yes, Harper, I did promise Chloe. The guest room is empty anyway, what’s the big deal if she stays here? You’re her sister-in-law now, stop being so petty!” By the end of his sentence, he seemed to have convinced himself he was in the right. His tone shifted to full-blown accusation. It was a truly unforgettable scene. I nodded slowly, a cold smile forming on my lips. I turned to the videographer we had hired for the rehearsal. “Please make sure you’re getting all of this on camera.” The cameraman nodded, panning his lens around the room, documenting the entire circus. “Mommy, what’s this?” A little boy’s innocent voice suddenly grabbed everyone’s attention. We all turned to see a seven-year-old nephew walking out of the master bathroom, dangling a bright red thong from his fingers. The adults flushed with secondhand embarrassment. One of my aunts pulled me aside, whispering, “Harper, is that yours?” My face went ghost white. We hadn’t even officially moved in yet. I had never slept here. Obviously, it wasn’t mine. Could it be? I whipped my head toward Carter. “What are you doing?!” Chloe shrieked, lunging forward and snatching the underwear out of the kid’s hand. “Don’t touch other people’s things!” Realizing everyone was staring at her in horror, she pouted. “What are you all looking at? Haven’t you ever seen underwear before? I just changed out of it. I was going to ask my brother to wash it for me.” She looked at me, a sickeningly sweet smile spreading across her face. “Whenever my brother is home, he always washes my underwear for me. You wouldn’t stop doing that just because you got a wife, would you, Carter?” 3 “No, of course not. Nothing’s going to change,” Carter promised without missing a beat. “Just leave it there. I’ll wash it when I have a second.” I stood there, paralyzed. A twenty-five-year-old man washing his twenty-two-year-old sister’s thongs. And apparently, it was a regular occurrence. In what universe is this normal? Chloe looked at me, practically glowing with the thrill of victory. “Well, I’ve seen it all now. What kind of sister-in-law is this? Changing into a thong in her brother’s bridal suite and demanding he wash it? Have you no shame?!” Someone in the crowd finally snapped. “Seriously! What sister-in-law moves in with the newlyweds?!” My relatives, unable to hold their tongues any longer, unleashed a barrage of insults. “Exactly! This is beyond crossing the line. She won’t let the groom carry the bride, she’s trying to ruin the wedding night, and she’s hijacking their home. Do you have any decency?” Someone else chimed in brutally, “She doesn’t want her brother sleeping with his wife because she clearly wants to sleep with him herself!” Hearing the venomous insults, Chloe burst into dramatic tears and threw herself into Carter’s arms. “Carter! You promised you’d still be good to me after you got married! Are you just going to let them bully me?!” Carter wrapped his arms protectively around her, glaring at me. “Harper! Do your relatives have zero class?” I laughed out loud, pointing directly at the balcony. “My relatives have plenty of class. If this were any other family, they would have thrown both of you off that balcony by now!” “Harper!” Carter’s voice was laced with a dark warning. “We’ve been together for three years. We fought so hard to get here. Are you really going to treat my sister like this?” Those three years. They really hadn’t been easy. Carter and I had met at our tech firm, supporting each other through grueling promotions and endless overtime. We had finally made it to the finish line. Out of respect for the time we had invested, I decided to give him one last chance. “Carter,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “I am just a normal woman. I want a normal wedding, where we follow every standard tradition, without skipping a single step. And I expect us to have our own private space as a married couple. So, I am asking you to have your sister move her things out of our house.” “If you can agree to that, I am willing to try and move past this. If you can’t…” I bit my lip, the memories of the last three years flashing through my mind. My eyes burned, but the final, devastating words refused to leave my throat. “Save it,” Carter interrupted coldly. “Chloe is my sister. She doesn’t like it when I carry you, and she doesn’t like it when I kiss you in public. So we accommodate her. Why are you so obsessed with these trivial details?! How does her living here negatively impact us?!” “If you love me, you have to accept everything about me! If you can’t handle it, then the wedding is off! We’ll postpone it. Come back and apologize to my sister when you’ve finally figured things out!” I nodded slowly, staring at the two of them clutching each other. Unbidden tears blurred my vision. I thought we were finally getting our happily ever after. I never imagined today would be the day it all ended. “She isn’t the one in the way. I’m the one getting in the way of whatever twisted thing you two have going on. I’m out.” I turned my back on them and walked out the door. “Harper is absolutely right. Who would want to marry into this freak show? You two just stay together forever!” My relatives spat, following closely behind me. Carter yelled furiously from the living room, “What are you implying?! She’s my sister! I won’t let you talk about her like that!” His mother tried to grab my arm to stop me, but my aunts shoved her away, shielding me as we exited the house. When we got downstairs, we ran into my parents, who had just returned from walking some guests to their cars. Hearing the outrage from our family, my dad’s face turned purple with rage. He was ready to storm upstairs and tear the place apart. I gently shook my head. Let it go. Consider it my final act of grace for the three years I wasted. As soon as I got home, I sent a mass text to all my friends and family, officially canceling the wedding. Unfortunately, making a clean break was apparently just wishful thinking on my part. Carter and I worked for the same tech company, just in different departments. When I showed up for work on Monday, it was inevitable that I would run into him in the lobby. Chloe had both arms wrapped tightly around his neck, pressing herself against him in an intimate goodbye embrace. Anyone walking by would have assumed they were a couple. Seeing me, Chloe dramatically rolled her eyes in disgust. I ignored her and walked straight toward the elevators. Carter immediately chased after me. “Harper! Have you realized you were wrong yet? I love you, but I only have one sister. I have to prioritize her feelings. Our wedding is supposed to be the day after tomorrow. If you go apologize to her right now, we can still fix this!” “She’s studying for the civil service exam and needs an iPad for her online courses. You should buy her an iPad Pro as an apology gift. If you do that, I’ll put in a good word for you, and I promise she’ll forgive you!” He offered this advice as if he were bestowing a grand prize upon me. 4 His staggering sense of entitlement actually made me laugh. “Carter, don’t you think your sister’s attachment to you is completely unnatural?” I asked, trying to be helpful one last time. “What’s unnatural about it?!” Carter glared at me, his brows furrowed in anger. “People with dirty minds see dirt everywhere! My sister and I grew up together. You’re an only child; you could never understand a bond like ours!” I shook my head, deciding he was a lost cause, and stepped into the elevator. A half-hour later, my phone rang. It was the local police precinct. “Is this Harper Sterling? You are a suspect in a hit-and-run. We need you to come down to 4th and Elm immediately!” I was stunned. After clarifying with the officer three times, I finally understood: the only car registered in my name had hit a pedestrian. But that car was a wedding gift from my parents. I hadn’t even driven it yet. It was supposed to be parked in the underground garage of the house Carter and I had bought. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the siblings were involved. A surge of pure fury ignited in my chest. I didn’t waste another second. I hailed a cab and rushed to the scene. My brand-new, $60,000 white BMW—the one my parents had just bought me—was sitting pitifully in the middle of the intersection. The front end was completely smashed in; it didn’t look like a new car at all. A few yards away, a black sedan was flipped onto its roof. A man and a woman had already been pulled from the wreckage, covered in blood, lying on the asphalt waiting for the ambulances. The moment the crowd saw me approaching the police, they swarmed me, shouting accusations. “Think you can just run people over because you drive a luxury car?!” “Yeah, and then you try to pull a hit-and-run! Have fun in prison!” “Were you the one driving?” The police officer asked, his tone severe. “It was her! I saw a woman behind the wheel!” a bystander yelled. “Wait, I thought the driver had blonde hair and a white jacket?” someone else questioned, looking confused. “What do you know? She could have taken off a wig and changed clothes!” the first person argued back. It clicked instantly. Blonde hair, white jacket. That was the exact outfit Chloe had been wearing in the lobby this morning. Carter had taken the keys to my car without asking and let his sister drive it. I opened my mouth to speak, but Carter suddenly sprinted out of the crowd and grabbed my arm. He looked at the officer and nodded frantically. “It was her! I am so sorry, my girlfriend made a terrible mistake, but I’ll make sure she takes full responsibility!” “Wow, what a stand-up guy,” someone in the crowd praised him. “Way better than her!” “Right? Female drivers are a menace to society. Long hair, short brains!” a man sneered. My anger spiked to astronomical levels. “I didn’t—” Before I could defend myself, Carter dragged me away from the cops, pulling me behind a fire truck. “Harper, please, you have to take the fall for this! You know Chloe hasn’t passed her driving test yet. She was driving without a license!” “If they find out it was her, her life is over! She’ll have a criminal record and she’ll never be able to take the civil service exam! Are you trying to destroy her?!” “If you just confess, it won’t be a big deal! We’ll just pay a fine, maybe you do a little community service. I promise, if you take the fall for my sister, she’ll forgive you for what you did at the rehearsal! As soon as this blows over, we’ll get married. My family won’t even hold this against you!” He then raised his voice so the bystanders could hear. “Harper, just confess! The courts are lenient if you tell the truth! Go apologize to those people, you’re the one who was driving recklessly! If you show some remorse, maybe they won’t press charges!” The crowd nodded approvingly, pulling out their phones to record me. Being publicly framed and humiliated in front of nearly a hundred people pushed my rage past the breaking point. But strangely, hitting that absolute peak of anger made my mind go completely, terrifyingly calm. I quietly hit the ‘record’ button on my phone, keeping it hidden by my side.

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A year into our marriage, and my husband had never touched me. Just as I was about to find a man to cheat with, comments started scrolling across my vision. 【The side character is so clueless! Does she have any idea what kind of a beast the male lead is keeping leashed in his pants? He doesn’t touch her because he’s afraid she can’t handle it!】 【He’s terrified she’ll hate him, so he’s bottling it up until he’s about to explode, and what happens? His wife runs off with some other guy. LMAO.】 【Hehe, if she doesn’t mess up, how can the female lead come and save him? Our girl gets treated so well later on, it’s non-stop action, day and night.】 1 The comments left me frozen. The side character… was me? And the male lead… was that my husband-in-name-only, Jack? Before I could process it, a man’s voice pulled me back. “Rosalind? Did you need something from me?” The man before me wore a pair of silver-rimmed glasses, his features handsome and scholarly. His name was Arthur. He was one of the few men in our small town with a college education. He was also the man I was planning to sleep with. His gaze shifted to the eggs I was holding out. “Are those for me?” he asked, his eyes betraying a flicker of excitement beneath a veneer of modesty. They were. Or, they were supposed to be. A year of marriage, and my husband wouldn’t lay a finger on me. The other young wives who got hitched around the same time were already pregnant with their second, while I hadn’t even had a wedding night. I can’t count the number of times the neighbors have whispered behind my back, calling me a barren hen. I’m not a woman with thick skin. And at this point, does it matter who the father is? So I’d set my sights on the bookish Arthur. I just needed a donor. But now… Remembering the strange words that had floated past my eyes, I hesitated. The comments appeared again: 【This girl’s got terrible taste. She’s got a man with broad shoulders and a lean waist, a top-tier body, and she’s chasing after this skinny beanpole.】 【All she has to do is crook her finger and the ML would go at it with her till dawn. But no, she picks the guy who’s done in ten minutes. The contrast is just painful.】 Holy crap. Why didn’t you guys say so earlier? “Nothing! Just passing by!” I snatched the eggs back and sprinted away. 2 I ran all the way home. A thin wisp of smoke curled from the chimney. Jack was standing at the stove, focused on cooking. He must have just gotten off work; he hadn’t even changed. Sweat soaked his shirt, clinging to his body and outlining the powerful, tight muscles beneath. His back was a solid wall of strength, his waist lean and powerful. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing tanned, sinewy forearms. I swallowed hard. Jack looked like he had endless stamina. It was one of the main reasons I’d agreed to marry him in the first place. The comments flickered to life again: 【Look at that build! Six-foot-three of pure, rugged male lead. An athlete’s waist! This guy is a certified weapon!】 【She almost got to taste the good stuff. You give her the opportunity and she still fumbles it. What a beautiful idiot.】 【Good thing she’s a fool. Our sweet female lead would never want a man another woman’s already used.】 I gritted my teeth. Calling me a fool was one thing, but telling me my husband had to stay celibate for some so-called “female lead”? The hell with that. Tonight, Jack was mine. 3 Jack hadn’t said a word since I’d stormed in. He just kept working silently at the stove. A sliver of doubt crept in. Were these comments just messing with me? His cold demeanor didn’t exactly scream “I’m in love with you.” I pulled out the eggs, about to put them back in the kitchen. Just then, a deep, magnetic voice sounded right next to my ear. “Did you go to the chicken coop?” My heart leaped, and I spun around, relieved. I was overthinking it; he did care about me. But his brow was furrowed, his eyes filled with disapproval. “Didn’t I tell you not to do that kind of work?” His tone was scolding. I was stunned. He was yelling at me. And for what? For getting eggs from our own coop. This is what the comments called love? A wave of anger washed over me, and I was about to snap back with a sarcastic remark. Just then, new comments flew by. 【See? You’re jumping to conclusions again. He’s not mad at you. The coop is filthy, and he doesn’t want you going in there. He quietly takes care of all the dirty, tiring chores himself.】 【It breaks my heart to see the ML being so good to her when I know our sweet FL is waiting. Can this side character just get written out of the story already? I’m so over her.】 【Who cares about that? As a romance connoisseur, I just want to know if he’s bigger than an egg down there.】 【Much bigger.】 The anger vanished as I read. But when my eyes caught the last two audacious comments, I nearly choked. A large, warm hand landed on my back, patting it gently. Jack’s expression was full of concern. “What’s wrong?” My gaze drifted downward. Even his loose trousers couldn’t hide the impressive bulge at his crotch. The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Nothing. Just wondering which is bigger, you or the egg.” Jack froze. Then his handsome face flushed a deep crimson. “You’re a lady, you can’t say things like that. Do you… Do you want an egg? I can cook another one for you.” With that, he practically fled, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated. The comments erupted in laughter. 【She’s lying. In his mind, he’s already got her screaming his name.】 【Based on my extensive reading experience, he’s probably imagined them going at it so hard they’re both drenched.】 【Doesn’t even take that long.】 My cheeks burned. These people were so bold! I was still an innocent young woman, I couldn’t listen to this stuff. But… My eyes drifted back to Jack’s lean, powerful waist. Could you really work up that much of a sweat doing… that? 4 While Jack finished cooking, I finally pieced together the whole story from the stream of comments. It turns out I was the villainous ex-wife in a historical romance novel. I was beautiful and thought the world of myself, always dreaming of marrying some rich man and moving to the city to live a life of luxury. But one day, I accidentally fell into the river and was saved by the male lead, Jack. My body had been seen, and the town gossip forced me to marry him. But how could a rough country farmer compare to a well-read scholar? I was filled with resentment. I constantly berated and hit Jack, and shamelessly carried on with Arthur. When the affair was exposed, I demanded a divorce, only to be swindled out of all my money by my lover and eventually starve to death on the streets. I clutched my chest. That was a close call. I’d almost reached the “run away with another man” part of the plot. Looking back on the past year, I really had been awful to Jack. How could I fix this? I agonized over it until I glanced up and saw my reflection in the mirror. Even with a frown, my face lost none of its charm. Every expression was captivating. The comments confirmed it: 【The side character may be an idiot, but damn, she’s gorgeous.】 【Honestly, with that face and body, if she wasn’t so stupid, the ML would have taken care of her for the rest of his life.】 【Just the sight of her back has him completely mesmerized right now.】 My eyes darted to the side. Sure enough, in the corner of the mirror, I could see Jack leaning against the doorframe, his gaze locked on my back, as if he couldn’t bear to even blink. I’ve never been shy about using my looks to my advantage. And of course, I was more than a little curious to see just how “dangerous” Jack really was. After all, his powerful physique was a big part of why I’d married him. A year of being a widow with a living husband had left me… frustrated. Today I was wearing a form-fitting top and a pair of dark blue trousers. A simple, common outfit, but on me, it was undeniably sexy. Big bust, tiny waist, and round hips. I stood up. In the mirror, Jack’s eyes followed my every move. The look he cast on my back was hot, obsessive. Then, I casually swayed my hips. Gulp. A loud, distinct swallow echoed through the quiet room. A smirk played on my lips. Hook, line, and sinker. I turned to face him. Jack looked flustered, the tips of his ears bright red. The sound of his own gulp had startled him, and he blurted out the first thing that came to mind to cover his embarrassment. “Honey, the… the food’s ready.” The moment the words left his mouth, he seemed to realize his mistake. His face went pale. 5 A comment promptly appeared. 【Seriously, this girl is so ungrateful. If the ML hadn’t jumped in the river to save her, she would have drowned. And she has the nerve to blame him for ruining her dream of marrying into wealth?】 【She’s been a tyrant since they married. She hits him, screams at him, and won’t even let him call her ‘honey.’】 【Our FL is so much better. She only ever thinks about the ML. Not like this spoiled, lazy brat.】 Remembering my own vicious behavior, the affection in Jack’s eyes faded. He lowered his head, his lips pressed into a tight line, bracing himself for the usual storm of insults and blows. But the next moment, a soft warmth pressed against his arm. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his strong bicep, my voice a playful purr. “Darling… I love it when you call me that. Say it again for me?” Jack froze. Then, as if he’d been burned, he yanked his arm away. He strode toward the dinner table, his movements stiff, his ears glowing red. “I’ll get your plate.” I smiled, undeterred. So I’d been a monster in the past. I could change. A man just needs a little sweet-talking. The comments weren’t so sure: 【Hold on, hold on. Why the sudden personality transplant?】 【Women with big chests are always the most desperate. I bet she’s just after his body!】 【Nooo! The ML is still totally into her right now! If he’s not a virgin anymore, what about our sweet FL?】 My smile widened. Congratulations, you guessed right. And I don’t just want to do it once. I want to do it every day. 6 He said he was getting the food, but Jack was nowhere to be found in the kitchen. I didn’t think much of it. While I waited, I went back to the room to touch up my makeup. Bold red lips, and eyes that were both sharp and innocently alluring. Like a rose in full, breathtaking bloom. He wouldn’t stand a chance. When I came out, Jack was back. But… he looked different. His expression seemed even colder than before. My confusion vanished, however, when I saw the dinner table. There were three dishes and two bowls of rice. One bowl was piled high with rice and meat, forming a small mountain. The other held a meager half-bowl of rice with only a few scattered vegetables. Seeing me, Jack pushed the overflowing bowl in my direction. I looked at his own pathetic portion, and a pang of guilt hit me. After we married, Jack never touched me, but he never let me go hungry either. Yet I had been completely dissatisfied with the marriage. I demanded meat at every meal. If I didn’t get it, I’d slap him, hit him, and curse him for ruining my chance to marry rich. To give me a good life, he worked from dawn till dusk, and every cent he earned was spent on me. I thought to myself, I really was a monster. “I washed my hands.” His voice, suddenly near my ear, pulled me from my thoughts. Jack’s large, well-defined hands were clenched nervously, his tone cautious. “I washed them many times. They’re not dirty.” I paused. My gaze fell on his sweat-drenched shirt. The work was hard. Every time he came back, he was covered in sweat. He wouldn’t even rest before heading straight to the kitchen to cook for me. Especially now, with the heat. Sweat beaded on his skin, but it didn’t smell bad. On his tanned skin, it just made him look more masculine. But… In my memories, I would knock the bowl from his hands with a look of pure disgust. “It’s filthy! I’m not eating anything your dirty hands have touched!” My eyes instantly welled up, and tears began to stream down my face. Jack panicked. He stood up, wanting to wipe my tears away but not daring to. The next second, he pulled a small pouch from his pocket and offered it to me, his handsome face a mask of helplessness. “This is the money from the hunt today. Go buy yourself a nice meal at a restaurant. It’s all my fault. Please, just don’t cry, okay?” I pushed the money away, my voice choked with emotion. “I’m not disgusted. I’m heartbroken for you.” 7 Jack stared at me, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. I wiped away my tears and scooped two-thirds of the meat and rice from my bowl into his. “It breaks my heart that you work so hard every day and eat so little.” Lifting my gaze to his handsome face, I couldn’t resist leaning in and planting a soft kiss on his cheek. “I’m just at home all day, I don’t get tired. I don’t need to eat this much. You need to eat more so you can be strong and take good care of me.” His fingers tightened into a fist, his face flushing a deep red. I hid a triumphant smile. See? A little affection was all it took. I leaned in, ready to kiss him again. But the next moment, he pushed me away, sending me tumbling to the floor. I looked up and saw that a vein was throbbing at his temple. His face was dark, terrifyingly grim. He turned his head away, his voice heavy with despair. “To think you’d lower yourself to sweet-talk me like this… and all for him. “Rosalind, my heart isn’t made of stone. “Did it ever occur to you that I can feel pain, too?” Huh? I was completely lost. What other man? What was he talking about? The comments filled me in: 【Don’t worry, guys, the ML just thinks he’s about to be cuckolded.】 【Our FL needs to show up soon! I feel so bad for the ML. He works himself to the bone to support his family, and his wife not only doesn’t love him but is also cheating on him.】 【When he first heard the rumors in the village, he told himself people were just jealous of his beautiful wife. But now that she’s suddenly being nice to him, his heart is completely shattered.】 My face went pale. Jack found out I was planning to cheat on him? This was a total misunderstanding! I mean, I had the idea, but I didn’t actually do anything! There was no time to think. Jack had his head turned away, the veins in his neck standing out in sharp relief. He looked angrier than I’d ever seen him. The comments were no help, just a chorus of glee that he was finally seeing my “true colors” and would divorce me to be with the female lead. Panic set in. Then, a sharp sting shot through my calf. I realized I’d scraped my leg when I fell. Looking up, I saw Jack’s gaze was also fixed on my injury. Tears instantly started to fall. I looked at him with wide, wounded eyes. “Honey, it hurts.” 8 The chair crashed to the floor as Jack shot up, the coldness in his expression vanishing in an instant. He rushed over and knelt beside me, his voice tight with anxiety as he examined the injury. The angry red scrape stood out starkly against my fair, delicate skin. “It’s all my fault. I’m a monster.” He was so frantic he didn’t know what to do. In his panic, he raised his hand and slapped himself hard across the face. “Rosie, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you. Please, hit me, okay?” I studied his expression carefully. His eyes were filled with nothing but regret and guilt. The earlier fury was completely gone. My confidence returned. I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his chest, letting out small, hiccuping sobs. “My leg hurts.” I looked up at him, then pointed to my heart. “But this hurts more. “I know I’ve done things wrong in the past, but I’ve seen the error of my ways. I truly want to build a life with you. “And you don’t even believe me.” My eyes were red, my expression a mixture of stubborn pride and heartbreak. The key to a man’s heart? His guilt. And just as I’d predicted, my accusation left him completely flustered. Beads of sweat formed on his handsome face as he desperately tried to explain. “That’s not what I meant. I was just… I was so angry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it again.” But I wasn’t listening. I pushed myself out of his arms and limped towards the door. “If you don’t trust me, then maybe we should just get a divorce!” The word sent the comments into a frenzy. 【YES! She’s finally letting the ML go!】 【I support this divorce 1000%!】 My face darkened, and I almost choked on my fake sobs. Screw you guys! Can’t you say something nice for once? But in the next moment, my expression cleared. Divorce? Not in this lifetime. Not in the next. Jack would never divorce me. I hadn’t taken two steps before I was swept into a searingly hot embrace. Jack held me tight from behind. “No. “I don’t want a divorce.” Something warm and wet fell onto my neck. I froze. He was crying. The comments went wild again: 【Holy crap, I get it now. She’s playing him! The vicious beauty vs. the loyal, rugged hero. I ship it so hard!】 【This is some gourmet-level drama. This is how you do it.】 【What is wrong with you people? Why are you happy she’s into him now? If he’s not a virgin, what about our sweet FL?!】 【It’s fine. An experienced man is better.】 【I’ve been wanting to say this for a while: she’s already lusting after the ML before he’s even divorced. How is that any different from being a homewrecker?!】 Reading that, I let a small smile grace my lips. See? There were some sane people in this world. When I didn’t respond, the arms around my waist tightened. Jack’s breathing was shaky. “Rosie, don’t leave me.” I let out a haughty little sniff. “We’ll see how you behave from now on.” After dinner, once he had cleaned and bandaged my wound, Jack dove back into the kitchen to diligently wash the dishes. I finally had a moment to think. The town gossip was mostly just people saying I was a pretty face who couldn’t handle hard work and would eventually leave Jack. There were no specific rumors about me and another man. My eyes narrowed dangerously. So, which one of these gossips had the nerve to start this particular lie about me? 9 The comments provided the answer: 【Our FL is so kind-hearted. She specially came to tell the ML that his wife was cheating on him. But he’s so lovesick, a few sweet words from the side character and he’s completely hooked again. Why did the author write it this way?! I’m so mad!】 【Don’t worry, the FL has another plan up her sleeve. The side character only has a few more days to be smug before she’s packing her bags in misery.】 Excuse me? Sifting through the endless stream of FL-worship, I finally found her name. Lily. I quickly wracked my brain for any information about this “female lead.” A moment later, a cold sneer formed on my lips. This is what you people call a female lead? She was Jack’s neighbor. A fragile, delicate-looking girl, the picture of innocence. They were childhood friends, and a matchmaker had even tried to set them up. But Lily’s family had rejected the proposal outright. Why? Because Jack’s family had a bad reputation back then, and they were afraid of being associated with him. If someone like Lily could be the female lead, then why couldn’t I? All I want is a piece of the good stuff. What’s so wrong with that? I checked the time. It was the afternoon work shift. I rolled up my sleeves and marched out, ready to go have a little chat with Lily. I’m no pushover. If you’re going to spread rumors, you’d better be prepared for the consequences. But as I walked, the villagers I passed all gave me strange looks. A few of the older women who despised me the most huddled together, whispering and giggling as they watched me. Words like “slut” and “tramp” drifted to my ears. My face darkened. I strode over to them and raised an eyebrow. “Talking about something interesting? Let me in on it.” My voice was dripping with mockery. The women jumped. The one in the lead quickly composed herself. “Rosalind, you little hussy, don’t you get too smug. Your good days are over. You think just because you have a pretty face you can bully young Jack and flirt with every man in town? Well, you’ve finally messed up.” I had no idea what she was talking about, but I wasn’t about to lose a war of words. “It’s called being a femme fatale. You’re just an ugly old hag making trouble.” Their faces turned purple with rage, but I still felt a sense of unease. The smug, gloating looks they gave me as I left suggested they were certain some disaster was about to befall me. When I reached the fields, I spotted Lily in the crowd immediately. A pale, pretty face with no makeup. The picture of innocence. In the words of the comments, she was the ideal wife: hardworking, frugal, and devoted. Completely the opposite of my spoiled, lazy self. I scoffed. If you love to suffer, you’ll never run out of suffering to do. She could have it. I was about to march over and give Lily a taste of the maternal discipline she clearly missed out on as a child when I noticed two well-dressed strangers standing beside her. They looked like officials from the county. Lily was crying, her tears like a spring shower, and the people around her looked indignant. What was going on? Just then, Lily lifted her head, and her finger shot out, pointing directly at me. Her beautiful face was a mask of accusation.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “391456”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

In my third year as Isabelle’s paid companion, her family decided it was time for her to win over the man she was arranged to marry. Isabelle, bored and annoyed, just tossed me her phone with a burner account logged in. “You chat with him,” she’d ordered, a sharp warning in her voice. “If you mess this up, you’re done.” So, I gritted my teeth and dove in. Every day, I wracked my brain for sweet nothings and clever compliments. I spent three months weaving a web of digital romance with Nathaniel Northwood, the heir to the Northwood fortune. And it worked. He became more and more attentive, more engaged. Until one day, he messaged my personal number. He’d gotten it from Isabelle to coordinate something. He asked me to grab a gift he’d left and bring it up to her. Without thinking, I typed back: [Got it, thanks babe!] The other end went silent. 1 I sent the message and immediately got out of bed to wash up. It wasn’t until the cold water shocked my senses that I remembered Nathaniel’s text. I grabbed my phone, intending to double-check where he’d left the gift. But when the screen lit up, my blood ran cold. There, in our chat history, was my reply. After it, Nathaniel hadn’t responded with his usual warm patience. Just a single, cold question mark: [?] His original message read: [I left a gift for Isabelle at the front desk of her dorm. Make sure she gets it.] A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. I backed out of the chat, my thumb trembling, and clicked back in. I did this several times, praying the screen would change. Finally, I had to accept the horrifying truth. I was logged into my own account. Not the burner Isabelle had given me. And my “thanks babe” was well past the time limit for unsending a message. My mind raced, scrambling for a way to fix this. I sifted through a dozen bad excuses until I landed on the most plausible one: [So sorry, wrong person. That was meant for a friend.] [I’ll get the gift to Isabelle right away.] I sent it and waited, my heart hammering against my ribs. After a few agonizing moments, he replied. He didn’t press the issue, thank God. His response was clipped and detached. [Right. Thanks.] I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. Then, I switched over to the burner account Isabelle had given me. A new message from Nathaniel popped up instantly, his tone a world away from the coldness he’d just shown me: [Babe, I’m coming home.] [When I get back, let’s talk about our engagement, okay?] The breath I’d just released hitched in my throat. 2 I started working for Isabelle my freshman year of college. I needed the money for my grandmother’s medical bills, and she needed someone to manage her life. I became her shadow. Then, three months ago, her family’s company hit a wall. A cash flow crisis. Suddenly, the engagement to Nathaniel Northwood, the heir to a massive fortune, went from a vague future plan to an urgent necessity. Isabelle had to charm him, and fast. The problem was, Nathaniel was still overseas. Their only connection was through their phones. She tried for three days, sending polite, lukewarm messages. He remained distant, almost indifferent. Isabelle had never been ignored in her life. It drove her crazy. Luckily, the account she was using wasn’t her main one. In a fit of pique, she shoved the phone at me. “You do it,” she’d said. “If you blow it, you’re fired.” So, with my job on the line, I took over. My world began to revolve around him. I’d wake up and immediately start composing romantic messages. I scoured his social media, learning his passions, his pet peeves, his favorite bands, anything to find common ground. Slowly, it started to work. His replies grew longer. He started initiating conversations. He became warmer, more personal. Three months flew by like that. And now, he was coming home to discuss their wedding. I knew my mission was finally coming to an end. 3 I immediately started compiling a document. A complete dossier on Nathaniel Northwood. Every preference I’d learned, every inside joke we’d shared over the last three months, every little detail—it all went in. Then I went downstairs, picked up the gift he’d left, and headed to Isabelle’s lavish off-campus apartment. When I walked in, she was lounging on a velvet sofa, surrounded by a mountain of shopping bags and gift boxes. I handed her the package and explained what it was. Isabelle tore it open. Inside was a small, exquisitely crafted plush bunny. A limited edition. She examined it for a moment, her nose wrinkled in distaste. “That’s it? A stupid stuffed animal?” I kept my eyes lowered. “I think… I mentioned once that I thought rabbits were cute. He must have remembered.” Isabelle rolled her eyes and tossed the bunny at me. “Whatever. You can have it.” Her voice sharpened. “Next time, make sure you mention how much I love diamonds and designer bags. Got it?” My fingers tightened around the rejected gift. “Yes,” I said quietly. I had to remind her. “He said he’s coming back. You two will be meeting in person soon.” I tried to hand the reins back. “Maybe… you should take over the texting from now on.” But Isabelle just shook her head, waving her own phone at me. The screen was a dizzying list of chats. “Look at this. I’ve got my hands full with all these guys. You just keep handling Nathaniel.” I fell silent, then nodded again, defeated. I sent her the file I’d prepared. “Here are his likes and dislikes. You should probably read this before you meet him.” “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she said, already bored. “Stop nagging.” I said no more. A few days later, Nathaniel was back. Isabelle dressed to the nines for his welcome-home party, and I trailed behind her, carrying her purse. As we reached the door to the private room, her phone buzzed. It was one of her other admirers. She waved me forward. “You go in first. I need to take this.” I nodded and pushed the heavy door open. Before my eyes could even adjust to the dim light, the purse was lifted from my hand. A second later, a pair of strong, long-fingered hands laced through mine. A warm, woody scent enveloped me. A voice, lazy and laced with a smile, washed over me. “Look at you, being so good today. You even brought the bag I sent you.” It was the same voice I’d imagined a thousand times through a speaker, now real and resonating right beside my ear. My face flushed with heat as I looked up. At that exact moment, Nathaniel’s eyes focused on my face. He froze. His hand dropped mine as if it were on fire. He muttered a quiet curse under his breath. “Sorry,” he said, his voice flat. “Wrong person.” 4 Just then, Isabelle breezed in from her call. “What are you two doing just standing here?” Nathaniel’s composure snapped back into place instantly. He smoothly took Isabelle’s hand, his smile returning. “Waiting for you.” The awkward moment was forgotten, or at least ignored. Isabelle was a natural, mingling and laughing with everyone in the room within minutes. I found a quiet corner seat next to her and tried to make myself invisible, which suited me just fine. After a while, Isabelle peeled a shrimp, a playful look on her face, and held it up to Nathaniel’s lips. The room fell silent for a beat. Isabelle looked around, confused. My heart leaped into my throat. She hadn’t read my notes. I knew she hadn’t. Nathaniel was allergic to shellfish. I’d even bolded and highlighted it in the document. His brow furrowed slightly as he looked down at the shrimp she offered. Disaster was seconds away. I leaned in and whispered urgently, “He’s allergic to seafood.” Isabelle’s recovery was seamless. She popped the shrimp into her own mouth, winked playfully at Nathaniel, and said, “I know you can’t have any, silly. I just wanted to let you smell it.” A low chuckle escaped Nathaniel’s lips. The crisis was averted. I finally breathed again. After dinner, the party shifted to a game of Truth or Dare. Midway through, Isabelle announced she needed to touch up her makeup and asked Nathaniel to pass her purse. My own bag was sitting right next to hers. As he reached for it, he accidentally knocked mine over. Its contents spilled across the floor. And there, under the warm lights of the restaurant, lay the limited-edition plush bunny. Panic seized me. I dropped to my knees, desperate to snatch it up before anyone noticed. But it was too late. Nathaniel’s voice, cool and laced with something I couldn’t decipher, cut through the air. “That bunny. Why do you have it?” 5 A thousand excuses flashed through my mind. I was holding it for Isabelle. I happened to have the exact same one. But every lie sounded flimsy and pathetic. The truth was, I loved rabbits. When Isabelle had tossed the toy at me with such disdain, I’d held onto it, eventually tucking it away safely in the deepest pocket of my bag. I’d been in such a rush today, I’d forgotten it was even there. My brain went blank. Before I could stammer out a single word, Isabelle, panicked and cornered, pointed a finger at me. “Zoe!” she cried, her voice ringing with false accusation. “How could you steal from me?” Tears welled in her eyes, perfectly timed. “I’ve been so good to you! You knew how much I loved that gift, why would you take it?” Every eye in the room swiveled to me. Whispers erupted like wildfire. “Isn’t that her little assistant? So ungrateful.” “Wow, she’s got some nerve. Stealing a gift from Nathan to his girlfriend.” “Who knows what else she’s stolen? Better check my wallet.” I opened my mouth to deny it, to tell them the truth. But Isabelle leaned in close, her voice a venomous whisper in my ear. “You say one word and you’re finished.” She sweetened the deal. “Play along, and I’ll give you five thousand dollars after this.” The words died on my tongue. Five thousand dollars. That was months of my grandmother’s medication. Her surgery was just around the corner, and I couldn’t afford to lose this job. Not now. My nails dug into my palms. Under the weight of a dozen judgmental stares, I heard my own voice, raw and shaky. “…I’m sorry. I stole it.” 6 Isabelle wiped a tear from her eye, playing the part of the magnanimous victim. “It’s okay. As long as you learn from your mistakes.” She turned to Nathaniel, forcing a smile and tugging on his sleeve. “Come on, don’t be angry. Zoe didn’t mean it. Her family… they have it really tough.” Nathaniel said nothing, but I could feel his gaze on me, sharp and full of contempt. The whispers in the room shifted. “Isabelle is too nice. I wouldn’t forgive that.” “Whatever, it’s Nathan’s welcome home party. Let’s not ruin the mood.” Isabelle offered the room a sweet, innocent smile. Five minutes later, the game of Truth or Dare resumed. And of course, my luck held. The next dare landed on me. The one holding the power, the “king,” was Nathaniel. He had been silent until now, but as he looked at me, a slow, cruel smile spread across his lips. “A dare, huh?” he said, his voice dangerously smooth. “Okay… Feed a piece of food to a guy of your choice.” He paused, letting the words hang in the air before adding the final twist. “Without using your hands.” The room went dead quiet. The malice was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It was a direct, personal attack, and everyone knew it. But no one dared to challenge him. I stood there, frozen in humiliation. I didn’t know anyone here well enough to ask them to participate in my punishment. Finally, one of Isabelle’s hangers-on, a guy named Rick, stood up. A leering, predatory grin spread across his face. “Hey. I’ll do it with you.” His eyes crawled over me like snakes, slick and unsettling. I swallowed down a wave of nausea, determined to just get it over with. Rick produced a long, thin biscuit stick, gesturing for me to bite down on one end. Then, his greasy face began to move closer, and closer. My hands, hanging limp at my sides, started to tremble. I couldn’t do it. I was about to shove him away, consequences be damned. “Okay, that’s enough,” Isabelle finally called out, her voice feigning boredom. “It doesn’t have to be that literal.” Nathaniel raised an eyebrow but nodded, ending the spectacle. The game continued as if nothing had happened. After the party, I drove Isabelle home in silence. When we arrived, she tapped on her phone, and a notification for a five-thousand-dollar transfer popped up on my screen. She got out of the car and walked into her mansion without a backward glance. As if that sum meant nothing to her at all. I clutched my phone, a small, hopeful thought flickering in the darkness. Tomorrow, I can buy some good ribs. I can make Grandma a nice meal. As I was thinking this, a notification appeared on the burner phone. It was from Nathaniel. The same Nathaniel who had just watched me be humiliated. Now, clueless, he was back in character. [Babe, I took care of it for you. Don’t be sad anymore, okay?] [That bunny got dirty. I’ll get you a new one.] 7 The next day, I was back at my part-time job at a local bakery. Grandma’s surgery was still tens of thousands of dollars away. The money from Isabelle wasn’t nearly enough. I was on my lunch break when the bell over the door chimed. It was Rick, the guy from the party. He picked out a few pastries and brought them to the counter. I boxed them up. “That’ll be twenty-seven dollars.” He took the box, but instead of letting go, his fingers slid over mine, his touch lingering and unwelcome. “A pretty face like yours shouldn’t be working in a place like this. Why don’t you just come with me?” My stomach lurched. “There are cameras in here,” I said, my voice ice. “Let go, or I’m calling the police.” His grip only tightened. He leaned in, unafraid. “Don’t be like that. I just want to be friends.” He lowered his voice. “Whatever Isabelle’s paying you, I’ll double it. How about it?” I looked up at him and forced a smile. In the split second he was distracted, I snatched a pen from the counter and jabbed it hard into the back of his hand. He yelped in pain, his hand flying back. I used the opening to bolt for the back room. He recovered quickly, shouting curses as he chased after me. He was just about to grab the collar of my shirt when a loud, pained cry echoed through the shop. I spun around, startled. Rick was sprawled on the floor. Standing over him, looking down with an air of cold authority, was Nathaniel. After he’d sent Rick scrambling out the door, a heavy silence fell between us. Nathaniel didn’t look at me. “Don’t get the wrong idea,” he said, his tone casual. “Isabelle happens to like you as her little assistant.” He finally glanced over. “If you ran off with Rick, she’d be upset.” I took a step back, putting distance between us. “I understand,” I said, my voice formal. “Thank you for your help.” Just then, my coworker arrived for her shift. I gathered my things, desperate to escape. But Nathaniel followed me out the door. He checked his watch. “I was just on my way to see Isabelle anyway. I can give you a ride.” 8 The truth is, this wasn’t the first time I’d met Nathaniel. Years ago, back in high school, my parents got divorced. Neither of them wanted me. They just… left me. On the street. I was alone, with no money, huddled on a curb. I wasn’t sad, not really. I was just trying to figure out how I was going to get the ten dollars I needed for school books the next day. I walked down the main street, going from restaurant to restaurant, asking if they needed any help. They all took one look at how young I was and shook their heads, saying they didn’t hire kids. The last shop owner was impatient. “I told you, no kids! Go on, get out of here. You’re bad for business.” I stood there, lost, when a voice came from behind me. “How much do you need?” He couldn’t have been much older than me, but he carried himself with an air of wealth and confidence. I sniffled. “Ten dollars.” He seemed to be in a hurry. He pulled out his wallet and handed me a twenty. “Wait here,” I said quickly. I ran into the convenience store next door and got change, then ran back to give him the other ten. He took it without a word, ready to leave. It was clear he was just doing a random act of charity. In a moment of panic, I grabbed his sleeve. “What’s your name? I’ll pay you back.” He paused, then finally spoke two words. “Nathaniel Northwood.” I didn’t know how to spell it, didn’t know who he was. But I never forgot the name. I tucked it away, a secret treasure in the back of my mind. Then, three months ago, Isabelle sent me his picture. I stared at it for a long, long time. After all these years, I finally knew who he was. And now, here we were, standing outside the bakery in an awkward silence. He clearly had no memory of me. While we waited for his driver, he pulled out his phone and started texting. A moment later, my pocket buzzed. It was the burner phone. A message from him. [What are you doing, babe? Why aren’t you answering me?] My hands fumbled as I quickly silenced the notification. Nathaniel, completely oblivious, didn’t look up. He waited another moment, and when he still got no reply, he pursed his lips and just decided to call. In the next second, my purse started to ring.

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Five-year-old Chloe stood on the coffee table in front of the whole family and proudly declared that she had been reincarnated. She pointed at me and said, “Two minutes from now, Mommy is going to hand me over to human traffickers, and they’re going to gouge my eyes out.” Everyone thought she was just talking nonsense. But two minutes later, my daughter vanished into thin air. When we finally found her, her eyes were nothing but a bloody, ruined mess. I held my little girl in my arms, rushing her to the hospital in an ambulance, but she whispered, “In a second, Mommy is going to fake a car crash to kill me for good, because she thinks I’m not her real daughter.” Sure enough, the very next second, a massive semi-truck plowed into our ambulance, flipping it over. After that, the entire family believed that my daughter truly was reincarnated and could predict the future. I desperately crawled out of the wreckage. I just wanted to save my daughter, but my husband grabbed me by the hair, furiously beat me to a pulp, and threw me to the side of the road, leaving me to bleed out. Chloe was saved. From her hospital bed, she told them, “Mommy was the other woman. she deliberately got pregnant with me just to steal Daddy away from Vivian. She never loved me.” My husband’s family was heartbroken for her. My husband immediately filed for divorce and kicked me out of the house. I was left homeless on the streets. Eventually, my wounds got heavily infected, and I died in a filthy alleyway by a dumpster. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the exact day my daughter claimed she had lived a past life. “I’ve been reincarnated. I can predict the future!” My five-year-old daughter’s childish voice rang in my ears. I opened my eyes and found her standing on the living room table, her hands proudly planted on her hips. The whole family was sitting around. They treated it as the innocent, imaginative babble of a toddler. No one took her seriously. But a severe chill ran down my spine. In my previous life, it was this exact sentence that led to my gruesome death on the side of the road. I instinctively touched my body where my wounds used to be. The phantom pain was still fresh in my memory. My mother-in-law, Brenda, played along. “Yes, yes, of course! Our little Chloe is a psychic. You’re going to do great things when you grow up.” But Brenda’s dismissive tone upset Chloe. She yelled at the top of her lungs. “I really am reincarnated! In my last life, Mommy was the one who killed me! She handed me over to human traffickers!” “They scooped my eyes out and made me blind!” Chloe glared at me angrily, as if every word were the absolute truth. Her outbursts finally annoyed my father-in-law, Arthur. “Hey, what kind of nonsense are you spouting? Have you been watching too many scary cartoons?” Hearing her grandpa scold her, Chloe looked incredibly wronged and threw herself into Brenda’s arms. “Grandma, I’m not lying! Mommy is a bad person! I don’t want to die!” Brenda glared at Arthur. “She’s just a kid with an active imagination, why are you being so mean to her?” Seeing Brenda coddle her like that, I couldn’t help but let out a cold, internal sneer. Active imagination. If I hadn’t literally died because of this kid’s mouth in my last life, I might have actually believed it. After scolding her husband, Brenda turned to look at me. “Evelyn, don’t just stand there staring. I think we’re out of milk in the fridge. Go down to the corner store and grab a gallon.” I nodded. My mind was already racing, trying to figure out how to deal with Chloe. I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. Right at that moment, Chloe looked at me in absolute terror. “Ah! Mommy is going outside to call the kidnappers! Don’t let Mommy take me away!” Chloe’s sudden, extreme reaction worried Brenda, who hugged her tighter. “Oh my goodness, what is wrong with this child today? Why does she keep saying these crazy things?” I stopped at the front door. I looked at my daughter curled up in her grandmother’s arms, then glanced at the clock on the wall. It was exactly one minute away from the time Chloe predicted I would hand her over to the traffickers. In my past life, because I was worried that Chloe was having some kind of panic attack, I didn’t go to the store. I asked Brenda to go instead. While Brenda was gone, Chloe told me her stomach hurt and she needed to use the bathroom. I took her to the downstairs half-bath. And then… she just vanished. To this day, the memory of her disappearing from a windowless room felt completely bizarre. It wasn’t until the kidnappers called demanding a ransom that we knew she had actually been abducted. The police even sent a forensics team to inspect the bathroom, but they couldn’t figure out how a five-year-old was transported miles away in under an hour. I hesitated for half a second. I closed the front door, pulled out my cell phone, and called my husband, Marcus. “Hey, when you get off work, remember to pick up a gallon of milk. Chloe is throwing a massive tantrum at home, I think she might be coming down with something.” Marcus’s impatient voice blared through the speaker. “Are you kidding me? I’m in the middle of a client meeting! What do you even do at home all day? Go buy it yourself!” He hung up on me. I didn’t get angry. I simply turned around and walked back into the living room. “Brenda, I think Chloe really is terrified of something. Let’s just stay in the living room with her for now.” “I’ll book an in-home child psychologist to come take a look at her later.” Brenda immediately frowned. “Isn’t that a bit of an overreaction? Kids are just mischievous sometimes.” “Mental health is just as important as physical health, Brenda. I’m her mother, it’s my job to worry.” I put on a highly convincing mask of maternal concern, walked over, and gently touched Chloe’s cheek. Then, I stood up and pushed open the door to the downstairs bathroom. “By the way, Brenda, I noticed some roaches scurrying around the baseboards in here. I just bought some industrial-strength bug bomb spray. I’m going to fumigate the bathroom right now. Nobody use this bathroom for the next three hours, okay? It’s highly toxic.” My little maneuver clearly threw a wrench in Chloe’s plans. Her expression instantly panicked. Let’s see how your ‘prophecy’ comes true now, I thought. The two-minute mark quickly passed. Chloe’s prediction of being handed to traffickers fell apart. The rest of the family still didn’t think much of it. But right on cue, Chloe suddenly yelled out. “No! I have to poop! I’m going to poop my pants!” Brenda immediately panicked. “Oh no, what do we do? Evelyn, can we use the bathroom yet?” I had noticed Chloe’s eyes darting around nervously for the past few minutes. She was clearly scheming. Looking at her, I calmly pulled out a plastic training potty I had grabbed from the garage. “Use this. The bathroom is strictly off-limits right now.” “I want to use the real toilet! I don’t want to use the plastic pot! If you don’t let me, I’ll poop in my pants!” My five-year-old daughter was actually trying to threaten me. I just sneered. “Then do it. The bathroom is toxic right now. If you ruin your clothes, I’ll just buy you new ones.” My response completely blindsided her. She started screaming, “Mommy is a bad guy! Grandma, call 911 and arrest Mommy, or else she’s going to kill me!” “Fine. Grandma can call the police right now. When the cops get here, I’ll just tell them you pooped your pants.” Seeing that I was completely unmoved, Chloe puffed out her cheeks, held her breath, and turned her face beet red in defiance. “Oh my god, Chloe, what are you doing?! Open your mouth!” Brenda was terrified the kid was going to suffocate herself and frantically pried Chloe’s mouth open. Watching her throw this massive tantrum, I felt absolutely no anxiety. I had always thought I raised her well. Whatever she asked for, as long as it was reasonable, I gave it to her. I tried with every fiber of my being to raise an honest, loving child. I couldn’t comprehend why she turned out this way. Seeing that I wasn’t backing down, Chloe actually forced herself to soil her pants right there in the living room. A foul stench filled the air. Brenda pinched her nose and scolded, “You little brat! You actually did it!” Brenda immediately got up to fetch a basin of warm water and some wipes from the upstairs closet to clean her up. I didn’t stop her. I calmly stood up and walked into the master bedroom to grab a fresh pair of pants for Chloe. However, when I stepped out of the bedroom with the clean clothes, I froze. Brenda was standing in the living room holding a basin of water, looking at me in absolute bewilderment. Chloe was gone. The living room was completely empty. Arthur had fallen asleep on the sofa at some point, and Chloe’s soiled pants were just lying on the floor. Brenda started to panic. We searched the entire house, inside and out, but Chloe was nowhere to be found. There was no sound of a door opening. No footsteps. A five-year-old child had vanished into thin air, again. “How is this possible?” I was even more frantic than Brenda. I knew exactly what was coming next. Is fate really impossible to change? I gritted my teeth, tearing the room apart looking for clues, but found absolutely nothing. Panic set in. I instinctively made the exact same choice I did in my past life: I dialed 911. While waiting for the police, I didn’t sit still. I ran through the entire neighborhood, scouring every street, but there was no sign of her. Refusing to give up, I begged the HOA security to let me check the neighborhood surveillance cameras, but there wasn’t a single frame of Chloe leaving the house. When the police arrived, everything played out almost exactly like my past life. They found no valuable leads, told us to be patient, and left to file the report. It wasn’t until I received the video on my phone—the horrifying video of my daughter’s eyes being mutilated—that despair truly set in. What was meant to happen, happened. The kidnappers called the house, demanding a one-million-dollar ransom. When Brenda saw the state Chloe was in, she cried until she had no tears left. Marcus rushed home from work. The second he saw the torture video, he backhanded me across the face so hard I tasted blood, screaming in pure rage. “I leave you at home to take care of our kid, and this is how you do it?!” “If anything happens to Chloe, I’ll make you pay with your life!” If the police hadn’t been in the room, I honestly think Marcus would have killed me right then and there. Later, when the police asked about any strange behavior before the disappearance, Arthur suddenly slapped his thigh as if he just remembered something. “Wait! I remember Chloe saying that her mother was going to hand her over to human traffickers, and that they were going to gouge her eyes out!” The prophecy came true. Brenda suddenly gasped, acting like she just had a revelation. “Yes! I was actually recording a video for my Facebook page right when she said it!” Brenda pulled out her phone and played a video she took earlier that day. In the background, Chloe was standing on the table, screaming the exact words that had dragged me into hell. I was dumbfounded. From start to finish, I never even noticed Brenda recording anything. Before I could fully process it, Marcus lunged at me like a madman, grabbing me by the collar. “That’s your own flesh and blood! How could you be so sick? Are you a monster?!” Before the cops could pull him off, he delivered a brutal kick directly to my chest. I collapsed onto the floor. The searing physical pain suddenly snapped my brain into sharp focus. Wait. Something isn’t right here. My mind raced at lightning speed. Looking at Marcus’s twisted, furious face, I suddenly had an epiphany. “You’re going to believe the random babble of a five-year-old?” I wheezed. “Your parents were both in the house with me! Why don’t you accuse them of doing it?” Seeing my piercing glare, Brenda looked slightly guilty. “She’s right, Marcus. Evelyn was in the living room with us the whole time. It couldn’t have been her.” “Then how do you explain this?!” Marcus looked like he wanted to kick me again. Finally, the lead detective intervened. “Enough! Finding the child is the priority. Stop fighting over a toddler’s words.” The officer’s warning forced Marcus to back down, but he continued to glare daggers at me. The police asked me to call the kidnappers back so they could trace the location. But a passing comment from Brenda made everything click in my head. “I don’t know where she learned to say those things… could she really be reincarnated?” I froze. If Chloe was really a rebirther who had lived a past life, and she had been confronting me this whole time… wouldn’t she have realized that I was acting differently too? Wouldn’t she realize I was also reincarnated? Someone was coaching my daughter to lie. “We don’t need to trace the call. I know exactly where they want to make the drop.” The detectives looked at me in confusion. To prevent Marcus from doing anything crazy, I pulled the lead detective into a separate room and gave him an exact address. The detective was skeptical at first. But ten minutes later, a text came through from the kidnappers. The address was identical to the one I had just given him. Though shocked, the police agreed to follow my lead to save the hostage. I told the detective to only deploy a small tactical team to the drop-off location for the arrest. Meanwhile, I begged him to heavily patrol the route between the drop-off site and the nearest trauma hospital, and to intercept any suspicious vehicles. “I can’t do that,” the detective frowned. “That’s tactically unsound. I have to prioritize the hostage at the primary location.” “But what if the people at the drop-off are just pawns? What if the real killers are waiting on the road to ambush the ambulance and finish the job?!” I was borderline hysterical. “I refuse to watch my family die!” The detective noticed how desperate I was. Eventually, he agreed to a compromise, stating they would have units on standby along the route, but would adjust dynamically if things went sideways. I had a very good reason for doing this. In my past life, after the police raided the drop-off site, they interrogated the “kidnappers”—only to find out they were just broke college kids looking for acting gigs. Someone had hired them online to “play a prank” for a hidden camera show. They had no idea it was a real kidnapping. I arrived at the drop-off with the duffel bag of cash. Just like in my previous life, the raid went perfectly. The college kids were arrested without a fight, and Chloe was rescued. Because her injuries were severe, she was immediately loaded into an ambulance. I rode in the back with her. She looked miserable, crying in pain. The wounds where her eyes used to be were already showing signs of severe infection. She was only five years old. She was my flesh and blood. Seeing her like this shattered my heart. This time, I didn’t wait for her to speak first. I leaned in and asked the burning question in my mind. “Chloe… tell Mommy the truth. Did Daddy tell you to do all this?” I never expected her reaction. The second the words left my mouth, she started screaming in sheer terror. “Ahhh! Mommy, don’t kill me! I’m sorry! I won’t ever say those things again!” But at the exact same moment she was screaming, she secretly pressed something hard into the palm of my hand. A smartwatch. CRASH! A deafening roar ripped through the air as a fully-loaded semi-truck slammed directly into the side of our ambulance without warning. Our vehicle flipped violently. In the end, what was meant to happen, happened anyway. I crawled out of the shattered side window of the ambulance, incredibly dizzy and fighting the urge to vomit. I saw Marcus, Brenda, and Arthur rushing out of trailing police cruisers, frantically running toward the wreckage. But when the paramedics pulled Chloe from the crushed metal… she was gone. She wasn’t breathing. Half of the ambulance had been flattened. One of the EMTs had also died on impact. Police officers dragged the truck driver out of his cab and pinned him to the asphalt. “My baby! My little girl!” Still dazed, Marcus’s agonizing wails pierced my ears. I turned my head and saw him clutching Chloe’s lifeless body, sobbing in absolute despair. That raw, visceral grief… it wasn’t fake. He was genuinely broken. “It was you! You killed my granddaughter! I heard her on the radio! She begged you not to kill her!” “Give me back my granddaughter! Give her back…” Brenda ran over, slapped me hard across the face, and then collapsed to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. The sting of the slap grounded me. I looked over at the truck driver pinned to the ground. I had never seen his face before in my life. No. This is wrong. Why is my daughter dead? In the last timeline, she survived the crash. What changed? What did I miss? Before I could piece it together, Marcus suddenly pulled a pocket knife from his jacket and lunged at me. I couldn’t react in time. He stabbed me multiple times in the abdomen. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he wanted to eat me alive. “Why?! Why did you orchestrate her kidnapping?! Hasn’t she suffered enough beatings from you?!” “She’s just a little girl! Even if she found out your dirty secrets, why did you have to silence her?! You animal! You don’t deserve to be a mother! You don’t deserve…” Marcus kept screaming things that made absolutely no sense to me. I wanted to open my mouth to ask him what the hell he was talking about, but my body suddenly felt weightless. I collapsed. The police tackled Marcus to the ground. The crash site was absolute chaos. I had so many unanswered questions, but there was no one left to answer them. “Ms. Evelyn, I regret to inform you that your daughter has passed away. Furthermore, the police are currently investigating you as the primary suspect in her murder.” “Your husband, Marcus, asked me to deliver this to you.” A lawyer stood beside my hospital bed and handed me a stack of divorce papers. “Mr. Marcus has already signed it. He instructed me to tell you that he wants a clean break. He is leaving all joint assets and the house to you.” “However, he will be pressing civil and criminal charges against you for the murder of your biological daughter. We will notify you of the court dates.” With that, the lawyer turned on his heel and walked out. I stared at the divorce papers in my hands, gripping them until my knuckles turned white. “Why me?” I muttered to myself. Even though things played out slightly differently than my past life, the end result was the same. I didn’t understand what I had done wrong, or where the glitch in the timeline was. I had suspected Marcus, but looking at his raw grief and his willingness to walk away from all our money… he didn’t seem to have any motive to orchestrate this. Then why did my daughter turn into a monster who constantly claimed I was going to kill her? What kind of environment forces a five-year-old to do that? I thought about it for hours until I suddenly remembered the crazy things Marcus screamed while he was stabbing me. He definitely knows something I don’t. But in his current state, there was no way he would sit down and have a rational conversation with me. Suddenly, it hit me. The moment I was discharged from the hospital, I went straight to the police precinct. Because I was a person of interest, they were keeping close tabs on me anyway. I asked the detectives for permission to see my daughter’s body in the morgue. They allowed it, but with a strict time limit. When the coroner pulled back the sheet, I stared at the dark, mottled bruises covering her tiny body. I was completely paralyzed. The medical examiner told me those kinds of marks only appear in cases of extreme, prolonged physical abuse. “And those bruises are layered. New injuries over old ones. If you claim you didn’t do this to your daughter, then someone else in that house absolutely did.” The detectives also informed me that the truck driver who hit us had no clear motive for murder. The initial ruling was that he lost control of his brakes. Combined with the things my daughter yelled in the ambulance right before the crash, all the evidence pointed directly back to me. “By the way,” one of the detectives noted, “during the autopsy, we noticed a tan line on her wrist consistent with a kid’s smartwatch. Your husband mentioned she always wore one, but we didn’t recover it from the scene. Do you know where it is?” The detective’s words struck me like a bolt of lightning. I played dumb, shook my head, and quickly left the precinct. Once I was safely locked in my car, I pulled out the smartwatch Chloe had secretly shoved into my hand in the ambulance. I powered it on, and a digital notepad app popped up on the tiny screen. As I read the little lines of text, tears began streaming down my face. I finally understood why my daughter had turned out that way. Because the cause of Chloe’s death was still under investigation, Marcus’s family refused to bury her yet. I had no choice but to go back to our house. The moment I unlocked the front door, I heard laughter and cheerful voices echoing from the living room. “Oh, Vivian, honey, don’t you worry. Marcus is finalizing the divorce with that monster. You’re the only woman I acknowledge as my daughter-in-law.” “Brenda, please, you shouldn’t say that. I know Marcus is grieving right now. We should wait.” “Yes, yes, we should wait. Oh, it’s such a tragedy about little Chloe. My poor, sweet granddaughter.” The sound of the front door closing caused the entire living room to go dead silent. All eyes snapped toward me. A heavily made-up, glamorous woman was sitting cozily between Brenda and Marcus. The second Brenda made eye contact with me, she started screaming. “You murderous bitch! What are you doing back here?! Get out! Get the hell out of my house!” She marched up to me and started violently shoving my shoulders, trying to push me back out the door. Arthur stood up, his face dark with rage. “You murderer. Stop disgusting us with your presence. If you don’t leave right now, I’ll beat you to a pulp.” Watching my normally “loving” in-laws drop their masks so quickly filled me with a cold, dark amusement. Before I could speak, Vivian casually strolled up to me, looking me up and down with utter contempt. “So, you’re Chloe’s biological mother? To do that to your own flesh and blood… you’re worse than an animal.”

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Seven years. That’s how long we’d been doing the long-distance dance between Seattle and San Francisco. I finally decided to end the miles. I quit my job, packed my life into a few suitcases, and caught a flight south without telling her. I wanted to surprise her. I wanted to give her a ring. I wanted to finally start the life we’d been dreaming of since our sophomore year of college. But when I stood in the glass-and-steel lobby of her office building, the receptionist’s gaze was… complicated. “You’re here to see Madeline?” she asked, her eyes tracing the worn straps of my backpack. “Ms. Vance—sorry, Ms. Starling—is in a board meeting. You’ll have to wait.” I frowned. Madeline had never mentioned a promotion, let alone a title change. Last week, over FaceTime, she’d been complaining about the glass ceiling and how her boss was making her life a living hell. I turned toward the seating area, but the hushed whispers of the receptionists followed me like a cold draft. “Is that him? The one she keeps on the side?” “God, he’s bold, showing up at the office like this.” “Does she really think she can keep a side piece in Seattle while she’s married to a guy like Harrison? If he finds out, he’ll burn this whole city down.” My heart did a slow, sickening roll in my chest. I wanted to turn around and tell them they had it wrong. Madeline wasn’t married. I was her boyfriend of ten years. We were the real deal. But before I could speak, the revolving doors hissed open. A man stepped in, wearing a suit that cost more than my car. The receptionists snapped their mouths shut, their spines straightening. “Mr. Starling,” they said in unison, their voices dripping with practiced respect. The man was on his phone, his voice a deep, commanding rumble. “Sweetheart, I’m downstairs. You’re not getting out of the prenatal appointment today. I don’t care how long the meeting goes.” There was a pause, and then a voice crackled through his speaker—sweet, melodic, and unmistakable. “I know, honey. I’m almost done. Go up to the VIP lounge and wait for me.” I’d listened to that voice every night for a decade. It was the voice that told me she loved me, the voice that promised me forever. It was Madeline. … 1 My backpack hit the marble floor with a dull thud. As I bent down to retrieve it, a slip of paper fluttered out from the side pocket of a folder the man—Harrison—was carrying. I reflexively grabbed it. It was a lab report. Twelve weeks pregnant. Patient Name: Madeline Starling. Twelve weeks. Three months ago, Madeline told me she was too exhausted to fly up for our anniversary. She’d said she was buried in paperwork, barely sleeping. When we finally did a video call, I saw a faint, dark mark on the curve of her neck. “A bug bite,” she’d laughed, pulling her hair forward. “Silas, babe, after all these years, do you really think there’s anyone else? You’re my only one.” I’d believed her. I’d actually apologized for being paranoid. And now, I was standing in the shadow of her husband. Harrison took the lab report from my hand, offering a polite, distracted smile. “Thanks, man.” He paused, looking at me properly for the first time. “You here for Madeline, too?” I managed a stiff nod. “Come on up, then. My wife tends to lose track of time when she’s running meetings. Might as well wait in the comfort of the lounge.” The word wife felt like a jagged piece of glass twisting in my heart. In the lounge, Harrison introduced himself. Harrison Starling. The CEO of Starling Holdings. One of the most powerful names in the Bay Area. “Maddy is stubborn,” he said, looking down at the sonogram tucked into the report with a look of pure, unadulterated devotion. “She says she wants to earn enough for the ‘baby fund’—as if she doesn’t own half this company. She just loves the grind.” I gripped the strap of my bag until my knuckles turned white. Madeline had told me she was a junior analyst. She told me she was being bullied by her superiors. She told me the distance was the only thing keeping us from getting a marriage license. Footsteps echoed in the hallway. A group of executives walked past, nodding to Harrison. “Waiting for the boss lady again, Mr. Starling?” Then, she walked in. The room seemed to shrink. One of her colleagues nudged her, teasing, “Madeline, your husband is here to check up on you again!” Harrison stepped forward, sliding his arm around her waist with the ease of long-standing possession. “You’re late, Mrs. Starling.” “Just a few minutes, honey. I’m all yours now.” She leaned up and kissed his jaw. Then, her eyes shifted. She saw me. For a fraction of a second, her mask crumbled. Her face went deathly pale. But before I could even draw a breath, she regained her composure. Her expression turned into something cool, professional, and entirely detached. “Silas?” she said, her voice flat. “What are you doing here?” Harrison looked between us. “Sweetheart, who’s this?” The colleagues exchanged knowing looks. “Oh, you know Madeline,” one laughed. “She’s always helping out old school friends. This must be one of them.” Madeline stepped forward, physically placing herself between me and Harrison. “He’s an old classmate from college. A long time ago.” She turned to her assistant, her voice turning sharp. “Sarah, please show this gentleman out. We have a private appointment.” I stared at her, waiting for the punchline. Waiting for her to tell them it was all a joke. But her eyes were already back on Harrison. “Let’s go, honey,” she whispered, taking his hand. “We have to see the doctor.” Harrison leaned down to kiss her forehead. “You’re so obedient today.” As they walked past me, he glanced back over his shoulder. “Maddy, it’s a bit rude to leave your friend standing there, isn’t it?” Madeline didn’t turn around. “He’s just an old acquaintance, Harrison. Nowhere near as important as you.” The tears started then, hot and humiliating. The employees watched me with a mix of pity and mockery as I stood there, broken in the middle of her empire. Ten years of history. Seven years of distance. A thousand miles traveled. All reduced to “an old acquaintance.” I pulled out my phone. Three days ago, she’d texted me: Silas, just give me a little more time. Once my career stabilizes, we’ll get married. I promise. I’d quit my life for that promise. I had no idea I was just a character in a story she’d already finished writing. 2 My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Madeline. Go back with the assistant. I’ll explain everything later. I stared at the screen, my heart hammering against my ribs. I couldn’t stop myself. I typed back: Why did you lie to me? Her reply was instantaneous and cold: Just go. Be smart, Silas. Don’t make a scene in front of the building and embarrass yourself. I looked up. People were whispering, pointing their phones at me. “Look at him. Does he really think he can just show up and claim her?” “Pathetic. Some guys will do anything for a payout from a woman like her.” I pulled my jacket hood over my head, my voice thick with a sob. “I’m not a payout. She lied to me… we were together for ten years…” Their response was a wave of cynical laughter. The assistant guided me toward a waiting town car. She wasn’t gentle. She practically shoved me into the backseat and threw my luggage into the trunk. Thirty minutes later, the car pulled up to a sprawling estate in Pacific Heights. Madeline had told me she lived in a cramped, one-bedroom apartment with three roommates to save money. I’d been sending her half my paycheck every month for three years, terrified she wasn’t eating well. The assistant pushed me into the house and I heard the heavy thud of the door locking behind me. “Wait here for Ms. Starling.” The air in the house smelled like expensive sandalwood and masculine cologne. I turned around and froze. Dominating the living room wall was a massive, framed wedding portrait. Harrison in a tuxedo, holding a radiant Madeline in a custom Vera Wang. The date in the corner of the plaque felt like a physical blow to the stomach. They had married on my birthday. That was the first birthday she’d ever missed. She’d told me she was stuck in an airport due to a blizzard, crying over the phone about how much she missed me. I lost it. I ran through the house, throwing open doors. Photos of them were everywhere. In the bedroom, her silk slips hung next to his tailored shirts. On the vanity, thousands of dollars worth of skincare products sat where I thought she was using drugstore brands. The final thread of hope snapped when I saw the box of condoms on the nightstand, nearly empty. “Busy.” She was always “busy.” She was busy building a life with a king while keeping a peasant on a leash in Seattle. I collapsed onto the cold hardwood floor, buried my face in my hands, and screamed. I grew up with nothing. My parents were farmers in a small town who put every cent they had into my education. I worked three jobs in college just to keep up. That’s how I met Madeline. I was the scholarship kid from the middle of nowhere. She was the “rebellious” daughter of a fallen dynasty—or so she told me. We were the “starving artist” couple of the year. We were so poor back then. But every birthday, Madeline would scrimp and save to buy me something special. She’d skip meals for a week just to get me a pair of limited-edition sneakers because “every guy should feel like a king sometimes.” She’d promised me that no matter how hard life got, she’d never let me down. After graduation, I stayed in Seattle. She moved to San Francisco. I lived in a $900-a-month studio that smelled like damp wood. She’d visit every other weekend. We’d tangle ourselves in the sheets of my cheap bed, the springs creaking under the weight of our promises. She’d kiss my eyes and whisper, “Silas, just wait for me. Once I’m stable, we’re getting married.” I worked myself to the bone for that dream. I pulled eighteen-hour shifts, ending up in the ER once from sheer exhaustion and dehydration. When Madeline found out, she flew to Seattle immediately. She yelled at me for being stupid, then held my hand and cried until her eyes were swollen. She stayed for a week, taking the heat from her “boss” over the phone, groveling just to stay by my side. I watched her swallow her pride for me, her eyes filled with a desperate, fierce love. In that moment, I would have died for her. I believed in us. That belief carried me through seven years of silence and distance. 3 When Madeline finally walked through the door, I was a ghost of myself. She rushed to me, trying to pull me into her arms, her eyes shimmering with what looked like genuine guilt. “Silas, I’m so sorry.” “Sorry?” I pushed her away, the strength of my anger surprising both of us. “You’re sorry you got caught? Or sorry you’ve been living a double life for seven years?” She stood up, smoothing her skirt, her face returning to that polished, marble-calm. “Silas, look at where I am. When my father died, the estate was in shambles. I had to come back. I had to take over. My family would never have let me marry a guy from a farm in Washington.” “So you married a billionaire instead? What was I, Madeline? A hobby? A souvenir from your ‘poor’ years?” She looked down at me, her gaze steady. “I am a Starling now. I have responsibilities. My marriage to Harrison is a merger—it’s good for both families. Harrison knows about you. He said as long as you stay quiet and stay in your place, he’ll look the other way. You can stay here. I’ll take care of you.” I stared at her, a bitter laugh bubbling up in my throat. She reached out, wiping a tear from my cheek. “Silas, we’ve been together for a decade. I’m not going to throw that away. I’ll make you my executive assistant. You’ll have a salary, a life here. We don’t have to be long-distance anymore.” I didn’t say a word. I stood up, grabbed my suitcase, and slapped her across the face. The sound echoed through the high-ceilinged room. Before she could recover from the shock, I was out the door. As the Uber pulled away, my phone chimed. A voice memo from Madeline. Silas, don’t be a child. You won’t find a better offer than this. I’m giving you three days to think about it before I stop being nice. Then, a notification: Madeline Starling has sent you $15,000. She used to send me $50 for “coffee” to maintain the lie. Now, she was throwing thousands at me to buy my silence. I didn’t reply. I sent the money back. I checked into a cheap motel and opened my phone. The internet had already exploded. Someone had filmed the encounter at the office. The video was everywhere. The headlines were brutal: Socialite Madeline Starling’s Secret ‘Boyfriend’ Causes Scene at Corporate HQ. I was the villain. I was the “homewrecker,” the “gold-digger,” the “delusional ex.” I tried to fight back. I posted our old photos, our chat logs, the timestamps of our ten-year history. I wanted the world to see that I was the one who was betrayed. The tide started to turn. People began calling her out. But then, Harrison Starling fought back. He posted their marriage license on Instagram with a caption about “unshakable love” and “obsessive fans who can’t let go.” The Starling PR team released a statement claiming my “evidence” was digitally altered and threatened a multi-million dollar defamation suit. The trolls descended. Look at this loser trying to clout-chase off a pregnant woman. Get a job, you pathetic leach. Within an hour, my post was deleted. My account was banned. I realized then that truth has no currency when you’re fighting a dynasty. My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered anyway. It wasn’t Madeline. “Mr. Thorne,” the voice said—smooth, mocking, and dangerous. It was Harrison. “Let’s have a chat.” 4 We met at a secluded coffee shop the next morning. Harrison looked at me without a shred of surprise. “Silas. I knew about you the day I proposed to Madeline. In our world, a wife having a little something on the side isn’t a scandal—it’s a Tuesday. Madeline was actually quite disciplined; she only had you.” “I wasn’t ‘something on the side,’” I spat. “What you were is irrelevant,” Harrison said, sliding a new medical report across the table. Twelve weeks had become thirteen. “Madeline is carrying the Starling heir. I won’t have your little temper tantrums staining my child’s name. I had to clean up your mess on social media.” He pushed a non-disclosure agreement and a blank check toward me. “Sign this. Film a video admitting you fabricated the whole thing for clout. Leave the city in forty-eight hours. Fill in whatever number makes you feel like a man again.” I pushed the check back and stood up to leave. “Silas,” Harrison called out, his voice chillingly calm. “You won’t survive in this city. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He was right. By noon, I’d been rejected by four different firms. The HR managers looked at my resume, then at their screens, and shook their heads. “Character issues,” one said. “We can’t have our brand associated with… well, your situation.” Someone took a photo of me leaving an interview and tagged Madeline. Seconds later, she called. “How much more of a fool are you going to make of yourself, Silas? I offered you a job, and you’d rather go out and be a laughingstock? Stop this. Now.” “Is that all I am to you, Madeline? A joke?” The wind in the city was biting, cutting through my thin jacket. Madeline was silent for a long beat. “Silas, I—” I hung up. Minutes later, my phone vibrated again. This time, it was my mother. Her voice was a ragged, sobbing mess. “Silas! What have you done? People are saying you’ve been someone’s kept man for seven years! Your father… he saw it on the news. He had a heart attack, Silas. The surgery is fifty thousand dollars… we don’t have it…” A snowball hit the side of my head, thrown by a couple of teenagers across the street. “Hey, look! It’s the gold-digger!” they yelled, laughing as they ran off. I fell to my knees in the slush, my tears hot against the cold screen of my phone. I took a breath and dialed the number I had vowed to forget. Harrison answered on the first ring, his voice dripping with amusement. “Decided to be a realist?” “I’ll do it,” I whispered. 5 The apology was broadcast live on a local digital network. I sat under the harsh studio lights, reading from a script like a lobotomized doll. “My name is Silas Thorne. I am here to clarify the recent rumors. The photos and messages I shared were fabrications intended to gain followers… Madeline Starling and I were nothing more than casual acquaintances from years ago…” The live comments were a bloodbath. I watched the words Loser, Snake, and Scum scroll by until my eyes blurred. When the cameras cut, Harrison walked over. He took several stacks of cash out of an envelope and tossed them onto the floor. “Oops,” he said, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. “My hand slipped. Pick it up, Silas.” The red-banded bills fluttered like falling leaves. “Harrison, don’t do this,” I whispered. I moved to stand up, but his security guards shoved me back down. A boot hit the back of my knee, forcing me to the floor. Someone grabbed the back of my head and slammed my face into the carpet. In front of the entire crew, I was forced to bow at Harrison’s feet. Laughter erupted around me. Phone cameras flashed. Harrison gripped my hair, pulling my face up to his. “Take the money and vanish, Silas. Don’t ever think you can play in my league again.” He turned away and dialed his phone. “Hey, babe. All handled. Tell me I’m your hero.” I could hear Madeline’s voice over the line, playful and warm. “You’re the best, honey. Hurry home.” I stayed on the floor, picking up the bills one by one. This was my father’s life. This was the price of my dignity. When the room finally emptied, a pair of red Louboutins appeared in my field of vision. “Are you that desperate, Silas? You’d really crawl on the floor for cash?” Madeline grabbed my arm, hauling me toward the exit. She shoved a credit card into my hand. “If you need money, ask me. Don’t humiliate yourself like this.” She drove me back to my motel herself. Her tone had softened, now that I had been sufficiently broken. “I bought you a penthouse overlooking the Bay. You’re moving in tomorrow.” “No more long distance, Silas. Once the baby is born and things settle down, I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.” I didn’t answer. I just sat there, counting the cash in my lap. When she pulled over, she leaned in and kissed my cheek. “I know these last few years have been hard. I promise, I’ll give you everything you ever wanted.” “Harrison’s a bit of a prick,” she added with a shrug. “Just ignore him.” Two hours later, I was at San Francisco International. A news alert popped up on my phone: The Starling Power Couple Attends Charity Gala; A Model of Modern Romance. And I was still the “kept man” the world loved to hate. Just as I reached the gate, Madeline texted me the address of the penthouse. I typed back four words: We’re done, Madeline. Goodbye. I blocked her number before she could reply. No more questions. No more screaming matches. As the plane lifted off, I looked out at the glittering lights of the city below. Somewhere down there, Madeline was playing her part. But I was finally stepping out of the script.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “391513”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The air in the principal’s office was thick with the scent of expensive cologne and the sour tang of Principal Henderson’s panic. On the mahogany desk lay a sheet of construction paper—a fifth-grader’s drawing of a geometric shape that defied the laws of physics. Henderson was sweating, his finger tracing the collar of his shirt as if it were a noose. When I stepped inside, he turned toward me with the desperation of a drowning man. “Mr. Miller,” the man sitting opposite him barked. This was Charles Whitmore. He didn’t just own half the real estate in this city; he owned the air we breathed. He held up his son’s drawing like it was a holy relic. “Did you tell my son that the sum of the angles in a triangle must be 180 degrees?” I leaned against the doorframe, my voice steady. “I did. It’s a fundamental axiom of Euclidean geometry, Mr. Whitmore.” “An axiom?” He let out a sharp, mocking bark of a laugh. He pointed a manicured finger at the jagged shape on the paper. “My son drew a triangle with 270 degrees. It’s bold. It’s postmodern. It’s an exercise in deconstructive creativity, and you’re trying to smother his imagination with your rigid, dead-end answers!” I stared at him, waiting for the punchline. It didn’t come. “This has caused him significant emotional distress,” Whitmore continued, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low vibrato. “I expect a formal apology. To my son. In front of his entire class. Immediately.” Beside him, Henderson was practically vibrating, his eyes screaming at me to just say the words. Just nod, Miles. Just swallow your pride. I looked at Whitmore’s arrogant, untouchable face, and a laugh bubbled up in my throat—sharp and involuntary. I turned to the principal. “Sir, if I admit a triangle can have 270 degrees just to keep my paycheck,” I said, my voice eerily calm, “what’s next? Do I tell the kids that bleach is a health tonic if a donor asks me to?” … The silence that followed was absolute. The smirk on Charles Whitmore’s face didn’t just fade; it curdled. Henderson looked like he was about to have a stroke. “Fine,” Whitmore said. The word was a scalpel. He stood up, adjusted his charcoal suit jacket, and walked to the door. He paused, looking back at me with a gaze that promised nothing but ruins. “Mr. Miller, you’re going to learn exactly what it costs to be right.” “Charles—Mr. Whitmore! Please, wait!” Henderson practically lunged across the room, his face the color of parchment. Sweat soaked his sideburns as he trailed after the billionaire like a beaten dog. “Don’t worry, sir. The school will handle this. We’ll make it right, I promise!” The heavy oak door slammed shut, cutting off Henderson’s groveling. A second later, he whirled around, storming toward me until we were inches apart. “Miles! Have you lost your goddamn mind?!” He was shaking so hard his glasses were sliding down his nose. His spit hit my cheek. “Do you have any idea who that is? That’s Charles Whitmore! You don’t talk to him about ‘facts.’ You just humiliated me, and you’ve probably tanked our endowment for the next decade. Get out. Pack your things. You’re suspended, effective immediately.” I gripped the edge of a bookshelf, my knuckles white, my chin tilted up. I felt a strange, cold clarity. “I. Was. Right.” “GET OUT!” He pointed a trembling finger toward the exit. I grabbed my lesson plans from the desk and slammed them onto the floor. Paper exploded upward like white birds caught in a windstorm. I turned and walked out without looking back. By the time I reached my apartment, my hands were shaking so violently I couldn’t fit the key into the lock. When the door finally swung open, the world tilted. I collapsed in the entryway, my back against the door, sliding down until I was curled on the cold hardwood. The silence of the apartment felt deafening, a physical weight on my chest. I don’t know how long I sat there in the dark. The frantic buzzing of the doorbell finally jerked me back to reality. I crawled to my feet and pulled it open. The hallway light framed Tess. Seeing her face—the one person I thought was my anchor—sent a sob tearing through my throat. “Tess…” She stepped inside, her hands catching my face, her thumbs brushing away the tears. “Miles, I heard. Are you okay? What happened?” I clung to her, burying my face in her shoulder, my voice breaking. “Whitmore… he told me I’d pay for this. And the principal, he suspended me… he treated me like a criminal for telling the truth…” Her body stiffened. The warmth in her hands seemed to evaporate. “Miles,” she said, her voice dropping an octave. She gently but firmly pushed me back so she could look me in the eye. “I have to ask… did you really make a scene? Did you humiliate him in front of the principal?” My sobbing hitched. I looked at her, confused. “I was stating a fact, Tess. A triangle is 180 degrees. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.” “The truth?” Tess’s voice rose, sharp and jagged. “Miles, when are you going to grow up? Nobody in the real world cares about your ‘facts’! Relationships, connections, politics—those are a thousand times more important than a math problem! You threw away your career over a fucking triangle. Was it worth it?” The air left my lungs. I felt like I was looking at a stranger. “It’s not about the triangle,” I argued, my voice trembling. “It’s about being a teacher. It’s about the line between right and wrong. If I compromise on the most basic reality just to please a bully, how can I ever stand in front of my students again? How can I tell them to be people of integrity?” “Stop being so naive, Miles!” Tess took a step back, out into the hallway. “Go back there. Apologize. It’s the only way you’re keeping your life.” The door clicked shut. I stood in the foyer, frozen in the exact position where she had pushed me away. I don’t know how many hours I spent on that floor. I was woken by a courier knocking. He handed me an envelope embossed with the school district’s seal. He wouldn’t meet my eyes; he looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust. I tore it open. The words “Termination of Employment” screamed at me. Under the reason for dismissal: Professional misconduct, aggressive instructional methods, and causing severe psychological harm to a minor. “Professional misconduct.” The phrase felt like a ghost’s laugh. I gripped the paper until it wrinkled, my nails digging into the heavy stock. I knew they’d fire me, but the speed of it—the sheer efficiency of Whitmore’s malice—was breathtaking. “I’m a senior educator,” I whispered to the empty room. “If they don’t want me, it’s their loss. I’m right. I’ll just find another school.” I threw the letter on the table and opened my laptop. I typed “Teaching Positions” into the search bar, my heart hammering. I took a deep breath and started making calls. “Hello, Mr. Miller. Your resume is incredibly impressive. When can you come in for an interview?” “Anytime. Tomorrow?” I put on my best suit, polished my shoes, and spent the next three days pounding the pavement. At the first school, the recruiter was all smiles—until he typed my social security number into the system. His face went flat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Miller. We’ve decided to move in a different direction.” The second school. The third. The tenth. My heels were blistered, my spirit fraying. After the twelfth rejection, I collapsed on the concrete steps of a charter school downtown, burying my face in my knees. An HR director slipped out the side door. She hesitated, then set a bottle of water down beside me. “Mr. Miller,” she whispered, her voice low and hurried. “Don’t waste your breath. Your name is on a blacklist that goes all the way to the state board. Nobody is going to touch you.” I looked up, the water bottle clattering to the pavement. A wave of pure, unadulterated injustice washed over me. I had held the line for the truth. Why was the world burning me for it? I dragged myself home and scrolled through my contacts. My thumb hovered over Tess’s name. I needed her. I needed her to tell me she was wrong, that she was on my side. I clicked on her social media first. A new post popped up. A moody selfie, her eyes looking wistfully into the distance. The caption made my heart stop. You only realize you’ve reached a crossroads when it’s time to choose between holding on and letting go. Passion is noble, but when it starts collateralizing the lives of those around you, it loses its meaning. Wish you well. This is where we end. The words looped in my head like a death knell. Was I wrong? Was I really the villain here? My phone rang—a blocked number. I answered, expecting a recruiter. Instead, a woman’s scream erupted from the receiver. I flinched, pulling the phone away from my ear. It was Tess’s mother. “Miles Miller! You selfish, pathetic curse of a man! How dare you still show your face? I hope you’re happy! Because of your little stunt, our family’s contract with Whitmore Group is being ‘re-evaluated.’ Tess and her father have been groveling for three days just to keep our house from going under! My daughter wasted years on a loser who can’t even play the game. Stay away from her. If I see you near my house, I’ll make sure the police finish what the school board started. And don’t even think about that engagement ring deposit—consider it a down payment on the damages you’ve caused us!” She was still screaming when I pressed ‘end.’ I curled into a ball on the sofa, clutching my knees, motionless. Eventually, the screen lit up again. A friend had sent me a screenshot. It was a photo of Tess standing next to a young man at a high-end gala. He was handsome, polished, and had his arm draped possessively over her waist. The man in the center of the photo, beaming like a proud patriarch, was Charles Whitmore. The caption read: Celebrating new beginnings for my nephew and the lovely Tess. Onward and upward. “Oh,” I whispered to the shadows. “So that’s how it is.” The rats leave the sinking ship, but in my case, they’d been invited onto a yacht. I pressed my palm to my chest. It felt hollow, like a cavity where my life used to be. I wanted to cry, but I was too dry, too tired. In the dark, I whispered a mantra to myself, over and over: “I wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t wrong.” Hours later, the landline rang. It rang ten, fifteen times before I finally forced my stiff neck to turn. I stumbled to the wall and picked up the receiver. “Hello?” My voice sounded like crushed glass. “Miles? Miles, is that you?” It was my father. He sounded terrified. “Why is your cell off? I saw the news. Are you okay? Don’t move, son. I’m coming over. I’m driving down now.” “News?” I hung up and fumbled for the remote. I flicked on the local station. My face was plastered across the screen. Beneath it, a red ticker scrolled: Local teacher fired for ‘mental instability’ after abusing students. Education board issues permanent ban. The remote slipped from my fingers. I sank to the floor, a broken sound escaping my throat. I spiraled into a fever that night. I don’t remember my father let himself in with the spare key. When I finally opened my eyes, I was in my own bed, a cold compress on my forehead. My father sat in the chair beside me, his eyes bloodshot, his face aged a decade in a day. When he saw me awake, he forced a smile that looked like a scar. “Hey. You’re back with me. Hungry? I made some soup.” He held a spoonful to my lips. I looked at his white hair, his shaking hands, and the sheer effort he was making not to fall apart. My lip trembled. “Dad…” The word broke the dam. Tears flooded my eyes. “Cry,” he whispered, setting the bowl down and rubbing my back with his calloused hand. “Let it out. I know who you are, Miles. I raised you. If the whole world says the sun is black, I’ll still believe you when you say it’s gold. I’m right here.” I sobbed until I was empty, then drifted back into a heavy, drug-induced sleep. A sharp cramp in my stomach woke me hours later. My throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. “Dad?” I croaked. No answer. The soup on the nightstand was cold. A note sat next to it: Miles, ran out of Tylenol. Going to the pharmacy at the corner. Back in ten. Drink some water. I checked my phone. He’d been gone for two hours. I called him, but it went straight to voicemail. A cold spike of dread shot through my chest. I threw on a jacket and ran out the door in my slippers. I didn’t have to go far. At the edge of our complex, a crowd had gathered, a circle of people whispering and pointing. My heart stopped. I shoved through them with a strength I didn’t know I had. I hit the pavement hard, my knees buckling. My father was lying on the cold concrete, eyes closed, his face a terrifying shade of blue-gray. There was a gash on his temple. Scattered around him were the broken medicine boxes and a dozen shattered eggs. The yellow slime was matted into his white hair. “Dad!” I screamed, reaching for him, my hands hovering, terrified to touch him. “Call an ambulance! Someone call 911! Please!” I fumbled for my pockets, but I had left my phone upstairs. I looked up at the circle of faces, pleading. They were cold. They were filming. “It’s him,” a woman holding a toddler said, pointing at me. “That’s the teacher from the news. The one who hurts kids. His dad was in the pharmacy acting like a lunatic, screaming that his son was a saint. This is karma.” The crowd stirred, a low growl of agreement. “Like father, like son,” someone spat. “You ruin children’s lives, and God takes your father. Sounds fair to me.” “Why should we help people like you? You’re poison.” The insults pelted me like stones. I stayed on the ground, shielding my father’s body with my own. “No… please… I didn’t hurt anyone…” Suddenly, an egg exploded against my temple. Thick yolk ran into my eye, stinging. Then came a rain of trash—half-eaten fruit, crumpled cups, spit. I stopped trying to fight. I just curled around my father, burying my face in his chest, letting out a low, keening wail. The world had gone mad, and it was going to bury us both in the dirt. A heavy black trash bag flew toward my face. I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact. It never came. I opened my eyes to see a pair of expensive leather boots. A tall, elegant silhouette stood between me and the mob. I wiped the filth from my eyes and looked up. My heart skipped a beat. “Jordan…” It was her. Jordan Vance. The girl who had left five years ago because I chose a quiet life as a teacher while she chased a career in international law. The girl I thought I’d never see again. “Enough,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it had the ring of cold steel. The crowd went silent. Jordan looked at the woman who had started the “karma” chant. “Did you throw that?” The woman flinched but squared her shoulders. “What if I did? He’s a monster. His father got what he deserved.” “Karma?” Jordan stepped toward her, and the woman recoiled as if Jordan were a physical flame. “You’re a legal illiterate if you think ‘justice’ involves assault. I’ve recorded everything. Public harassment, aggravated battery, and failure to render aid. I promise you, you’ll have a lot of time to reflect on your ‘morals’ in a holding cell.” Jordan pulled out her phone and made a single call. “Send the team to 4th and Main. I want every face in this crowd identified. File for a multi-party civil suit and criminal injunctions. Now.” The “righteous” crowd evaporated. People turned their heads, scurrying away like roaches when the light hits. The sirens of an ambulance wailed in the distance. Jordan turned to me. She shed her designer trench coat and wrapped it around my shivering shoulders. She knelt down and pressed two fingers to my father’s neck. “He has a pulse,” she whispered, her eyes meeting mine. They were fierce, blazing with a protective fire I hadn’t seen in years. “Miles, look at me. I’m here. You’re not alone.” I let her lead me into the ambulance. I gripped the railing of the gurney, watching the paramedics work on my father. “Dad… I did this to you… I’m so sorry…” Jordan didn’t offer empty platitudes. She just sat beside me, her hand gripping mine so hard it bruised. At the hospital, I sat in a plastic chair, covered in filth and Jordan’s coat, staring at the red “Surgery in Progress” sign. The surgeon eventually stepped out, pulling off his mask. He looked exhausted. “His heart is stable, but he has a massive subcortical hemorrhage.” My stomach dropped. “The impact on his head, combined with extreme acute stress… the bleed is significant,” the doctor said. “Even if he survives the night, the best-case scenario is a persistent vegetative state. He’s in a deep coma, Miles.” A vegetative state. The floor seemed to vanish. I felt Jordan catch me as the world went black.

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