Category: English

I was the glitch in a family of masterpieces. My parents and sister treated my existence like a long-running inside joke. My mother called me her “little eyesore,” and my sister once suggested I start a TikTok channel dedicated to “ugly-girl transformations,” minus the transformation part. Even the relatives couldn’t help themselves during the holidays: “Are you sure she’s yours, Robert? She doesn’t have a single one of your features.” For twenty-three years, I played the part of the family clown because it was easier than being the family disappointment. I worked three jobs, saved every cent, and finally scraped together twenty thousand dollars for the corrective jaw surgery and orthodontics I’d needed since middle school. I went to the clinic to finalize the surgery date, my heart light for the first time in my life. But the receptionist looked at me with a mix of pity and exhaustion. “Ms. Miller, your mother came in this morning. She caused such a scene we couldn’t even open the doors for two hours.” I froze, the blood draining from my face. “She demanded a refund on the grounds that you’re a minor—which we told her you aren’t—but then she started screaming about malpractice and ‘scamming a girl who’s beyond help.’ To get her to leave, the manager processed the refund. The twenty thousand is back in her account.” I called her, my hands shaking so hard I nearly dropped the phone. My mother’s voice was breezy, as if she were discussing the weather. “Oh, Casey, let’s be real. No surgeon can fix what nature messed up. That money was better spent on something that actually appreciates in value. Your sister needed a new bag for her firm’s gala—something that actually matches her face.” The call ended. My reflection stared back at me from the darkened phone screen. The harsh truth finally sank in: in this family, if you weren’t beautiful, you weren’t a daughter. You were just an expense. 1. “Look, Casey, your mom was a nightmare. We just couldn’t handle it,” the receptionist said, her eyes darting away. She looked at me like I was a contagion she might catch if she stayed too close. I couldn’t even process the words. My vision blurred, and the first tear hit the counter with a quiet thud. “Please, don’t start crying here,” she whispered, her voice sharpening with disdain. “She already chased off three of our high-end clients this morning, yelling about how ‘ugly people shouldn’t bother trying.’ We’re the ones who should be crying over lost commissions.” She took two steps back, a clear gesture of social distancing from my misery. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell her that it was my money, my sweat, my blood. But my parents’ voices, echoes from a thousand childhood dinners, choked me: “Stop making those faces, Casey. When you cry, you look even more hideous.” The shame was a physical weight, dragging my shoulders down. I didn’t fight. I just turned and fled. On the Uber ride home, I opened Instagram. My sister, Madeline, had posted a new photo. Heart-shaped face, doe eyes, skin like filtered silk. She was radiant, the kind of beauty that made the vintage Chanel bag on her arm look like a mere accessory. She was sandwiched between Mom and Dad, all three of them beaming. The caption read: “Twin-check! Can you even tell who’s the mom and who’s the daughter? #FamilyGenes #GalaReady” The comments were a sea of fire emojis and heart-eyes. “God really has favorites,” one read. “That bone structure is elite.” Then, I saw Madeline’s reply to a friend who asked if there were any more of them at home: “You wouldn’t say that if you met my sister. We have one little genetic glitch in the basement! ~” She had attached a “throwback” photo of us from last Christmas. She had her arm around my neck, pulling me into the frame. I looked trapped. My skin was sallow, my jaw was noticeably misaligned—a pronounced underbite—and my eyes were puffed from a secret cry in the bathroom. Standing next to Madeline, I didn’t just look plain. I looked like a cautionary tale. In a family of high bridges and wide eyes, I was the anomaly. Every time we went out, strangers would stop my mother to gush over Madeline. “She’s a doll! She took the best of both of you.” Then their eyes would slide to me, and the smile would falter into a confused, polite grimace. “And… is this the younger one?” My parents’ faces would drop. My dad would let out a dry, forced chuckle. “Yeah, this one? We don’t know who she took after. If I hadn’t been in the delivery room, I’d swear there was a mix-up at the hospital. We just call her the ‘Little Eyesore.’” As a child, I didn’t understand the concept of aesthetics. I just knew that I was the only one kept out of the light. “Don’t eat that, Casey. You’re already an eyesore; being fat will just make it a tragedy.” “You want to take ballet with Madeline? You’d look like a toad hopping around. Let’s not embarrass ourselves.” “That pink dress looks garish on you. Keep it for the house. Don’t go outside and shame me.” They said these things with a smile, like they were doing me a favor by being “honest.” When I was fifteen, I saved up my allowance to buy some drugstore makeup. Madeline caught me trying to cover my acne and contour my jawline. She took photos of me mid-blend, laughing until she cried. “Look at you! You look like a clown in a horror movie. It actually makes it worse!” My mom walked in and swiped the products off the vanity, throwing them into the trash. “Focus on your grades, Casey. You don’t have the face for vanity. Next month’s allowance is cancelled since you want to waste it on trash.” Belittlement, insults, mockery… I had lived in that cold shadow for twenty years. I had worked myself to the bone to save for this surgery, thinking I could finally start my real life. The Uber pulled up to our driveway. I was still crying, but the sorrow was being overtaken by a white-hot, jagged rage. I marched toward the front door, ready to demand my life back. But as I reached the door, I heard laughter coming from the living room. “You guys won’t believe it,” my mother’s voice rang out, bright and amused. “Our little eyesore actually thought she could ‘fix’ herself. She’s been hoarding money for plastic surgery!” 2. The living room was full of people. A few aunts and cousins had stopped by for a pre-holiday drink. My mother was leaning back, wine glass in one hand, gesturing dramatically with the other. “The poor thing. I told her, ‘Honey, even a master sculptor couldn’t find a jawline in that mess.’ Thank God I caught it before she threw twenty thousand dollars down the drain!” An aunt chimed in, “I always wondered why she was being so stingy lately. To think, surgery! It’s so dangerous, moving bones around. She’s already… well, plain. Imagine if they messed up and her face stayed paralyzed? It would be a disaster.” Another aunt, Sarah, tried to play the diplomat. She cleared her throat awkwardly. “Oh, come on, Diana. Casey isn’t… I mean, she’s very… hardworking. She has a very ‘salt of the earth’ look. The kind of girl who’s built for a long, quiet marriage.” The room went silent. Aunt Sarah looked down at her drink, sensing she’d failed to find a genuine compliment. Then, my parents and the other relatives exchanged looks and burst into laughter. “‘Salt of the earth’!” my mom wheezed, slapping her knee. “That’s one way to put it! She’s always been our little comedy act.” I stood in the doorway, the air in my lungs turning to ice. My blood felt like it was rushing backward, pounding against my skull. This was the family ritual. Madeline was the trophy to be polished; I was the punchline to be shared. “How are you so different from the rest of them? Were you a changeling?” the relatives would ask me every Thanksgiving. And my mom would lean in, whispering just loud enough for everyone to hear: “Don’t tease her, she knows. She knows she’s the ‘special’ one. She tries so hard, though. Last week she tried to style her hair like Madeline’s. It was like putting a tiara on a gargoyle.” Every year, my pain was served as an appetizer. I couldn’t take it anymore. I stepped into the room, my voice a raw, jagged edge. “What gives you the right? That was my money. Give it back to me!” Every head turned. The silence was deafening. I felt exposed, like they were stripping me bare with their judgment. The old, familiar inferiority began to coil around my throat, choking me. “Oh, look at that,” my mother said, her smile not wavering. “Our little eyesore is growing a backbone. Don’t be so sensitive, Casey. We’re just talking.” The aunts crowded around me, their eyes sparkling with that fake, performative concern. “So, what were you going to get done, honey? Tell us. You can’t just go doing these things in secret. You’ll get scammed without us to look out for you.” Madeline came down the stairs then, humming a tune. She saw the scene and smirked. “She wanted to get her jaw broken and reset. She thinks if her teeth are straight, she’ll suddenly be a Hadid.” “Surgery for your teeth?” one cousin asked. “But Casey, your teeth are… fine. They’re functional. Your sister, now, she had that slight overlap when she was ten—remember, Diana? You spent a fortune on those specialized Swedish braces. Good thing you did, look at her now.” The conversation immediately pivoted back to Madeline. They circled her like she was a holy relic, praising her smile, her skin, her “perfect” recovery from a minor childhood flaw. I stood there, tears streaming down my face. My voice was a hoarse whisper. “The doctor said… he said my underbite could have been fixed with a simple retainer when I was seven. It would have cost almost nothing back then.” But you never looked at me. You never cared. When Madeline’s teeth were even a fraction of a millimeter out of alignment, it was a family emergency. Countless specialist visits, thousands of dollars. But with me, they just watched as my face grew lopsided, my jaw protruding more every year. They didn’t feel pity. They didn’t feel guilt. They just felt amused. “You’re getting weirder looking every year, Casey.” “Little Eyesore, that nickname really fits you more and more, doesn’t it?” 3. The years of accumulated bitterness finally overflowed. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, but the tears kept coming. The relatives started to look uncomfortable. They shifted in their seats, offering half-hearted, patronizing comforts. “Oh, Casey, you’re not ugly. You’re… unique. Don’t cry. It makes your face all blotchy.” They nudged each other, their eyes full of that cruel, “can you believe this drama?” sparkle. My mother’s patience snapped. She let out a sharp tsk. “What is this performance? Who are you trying to impress with these theatrics? It’s the holidays, for God’s sake. Don’t be embarrassing.” “Why?” I sobbed, my ability to think rationally gone. I just needed to bleed the pain out. “Why do you always call me that? Why have you spent my whole life making sure I knew I was the ‘ugly’ one?” My mom actually laughed. She looked at my dad, then back at me. “Are you serious? Look in a mirror, Casey. Have you no self-awareness? Madeline, go get a mirror. Let’s let her stand next to you and see if she still has questions.” She didn’t stop. She kept twisting the knife. “Look, we’re just being honest. We’re trying to give you a sense of reality so you don’t go out there making a fool of yourself. Look at what you’re wearing—that sweater makes you look lumpy. When you’re… aesthetically challenged… you have to work harder at your style, not just give up. People will laugh at you.” I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My chest was a hollowed-out cavern. “Yes,” I choked out. “I hate you. I hate both of you.” I hate the casual way you crushed me. Since I was a toddler, they treated Madeline like a porcelain doll. If she walked across the room, they’d rave: “Look at Madeline’s posture! She’s like a little swan.” I could be sitting perfectly still, and my father would look at me with a sneer. “Look at her, slouching. With that face, the least she could do is sit up straight so she doesn’t look so… pathetic.” The word “ugly” was my shadow. In high school, while Madeline was the homecoming queen, I was the girl with the cystic acne and the oily hair. My parents didn’t buy me skin treatments; they bought me a lecture. “My god, what is happening to your face? It’s genuinely hard to look at. What are we going to do with you?” “Casey, get some bangs. Cover that forehead.” “Just wear your oversized hoodies. At least they’re neutral.” I listened to them. I believed them. I developed a permanent slouch. I kept my head down. I wore masks long before the pandemic, just to hide. I wanted to disappear. My adolescence wasn’t a time of “firsts” or “memories”; it was a long, dark tunnel of dysmorphia. I assumed every laugh I heard in the hallway was directed at me. I assumed everyone saw the “eyesore” my parents saw. When I went away to college, three states away, I started to breathe. New friends would pull my hair back, or ask why I always wore a mask. “You’re not ugly, Casey. You’re just… tired. Let’s try some tinted moisturizer.” Encouraged, I tried. I grew out the bangs. I learned to use a brow pencil. But even when I felt “pretty,” the ghost of my mother’s voice was there. If a group of girls laughed at a nearby table, I’d spiral. Is my foundation too thick? Can they see my jaw? Are they laughing because the ugly girl is trying too hard? The insecurity was in my marrow. I once worked up the courage to post a selfie on Instagram—heavily filtered, carefully angled. I’d forgotten to block my family. Madeline’s comment was the first one: “Oof, Casey, that makeup isn’t doing what you think it’s doing. Aren’t you afraid people will see you in person and be shocked? #Catfish” My mom’s follow-up: “You’re trying too hard to be ‘glam.’ Makeup just clogs your pores and makes your skin worse. Stick to the basics, honey.” I deleted the photo. I threw away the makeup. When I came home for the summer, my mother didn’t even say hello. She just looked at my plain face and smirked. “Oh, good. You stopped wearing that ‘slutty’ makeup. You finally realized it was a losing battle?” Madeline chimed in, “You need to lose ten pounds before you try wearing a sundress like that again, Casey. Some clothes require a certain… face… to pull them off.” 4. Little Eyesore. The “Glitch.” The “honest” advice that felt like lead weights. I looked at them—my beautiful, perfect parents and my radiant sister. They were a united front of aesthetic superiority. “You call me ‘small-minded’ and ‘antisocial,’” I yelled, my voice cracking. “But you made me this way! You told me my smile was hideous, so I stopped smiling. You told me I moved like a toad, so I stopped dancing. You told me I looked like a joke in a dress, so I stopped trying to be pretty.” Every time I tried to climb out of the hole, they stepped on my fingers. “I hate you! I hate that you did this to me!” The room went dead silent. My mother blinked, a flicker of genuine shock crossing her face, followed quickly by indignation. “You’ve got a lot of nerve,” she hissed, her voice low and dangerous. “We gave you everything. You’ve never wanted for food or a roof. And this is the thanks we get? Because we were ‘honest’ about your looks? A stranger would have been much crueler.” I clenched my fists so hard my nails drew blood. “I didn’t want honesty! I wanted a mother! I wanted someone to tell me I was smart, or kind, or anything other than a disappointment to the family photo album!” “Oh, please,” my mother scoffed. “You’ve had a perfectly fine life. Stop acting like a martyr.” I wanted to laugh. A fine life? Madeline’s closet was a boutique. Mine was a collection of hand-me-downs and clearance-rack neutrals. Madeline had private coaches for everything—piano, dance, tennis. I was told we “couldn’t afford” the extracurriculars I wanted, while Mom bought Madeline a four-thousand-dollar gown for a debutante ball she didn’t even win. I walked to school alone from the age of six because Madeline told my parents, “She’s so weird looking, people will think she’s my maid or something. It’s embarrassing to be seen with her.” I spent twenty years walking in the rain while they picked her up in a warm car. I spent twenty years being the “before” picture in their minds. “You’re biased!” I screamed. “You’re so obsessed with her beauty that you’ve treated me like trash for two decades! Why? Just because of a jawline? Just because I didn’t get your nose?” The relatives began to whisper. My parents were starting to look rattled by the public spectacle. “Go to your room, Casey,” my dad said, his voice a stern rumble. “You’re making a scene.” “No! Give me my money! You stole twenty thousand dollars from me to buy a bag for the daughter you actually like!” Slap. The sound echoed like a gunshot. My mother had swung with everything she had. My head snapped to the side, and my ear began to ring. “I didn’t raise a thief,” she spat, though she was the one who had taken my funds. “I raised a daughter. If you want to act like a stranger, then leave. Get out of my house.” I looked at her. Even in her rage, she was stunning. My father stood behind her, his handsome face set in a mask of cold disappointment. Madeline stood to the side, her arms crossed, looking bored. They were a set. And I was the packing material. “Fine,” I said, my voice finally steadying into something cold and dead. “Keep the money. Consider it the ‘ugly tax’ I’m paying to finally be rid of you. I’m leaving. And you never have to worry about your family photos being ruined by me ever again.”

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It was my fifth birthday with Brooks Sterling, and like every year before, I sat alone, watching a table full of gourmet food turn cold. Brooks had promised, as he always did, that we’d celebrate together. And as always, he broke that promise. This year, the excuse was his childhood friend, Piper, who wanted to do a photoshoot. She invited him and his three best friends to be in it, and once again, he abandoned me without a second thought to rush to her side. At 11:00 PM, Piper posted a photo on her social media, visible only to me. In the picture, four men in nothing but boxer briefs and bow ties were kneeling on one knee, surrounding a woman clad only in a sheer veil. The caption read: “The little cupcake some people can’t have, I have the whole bakery.” I took a screenshot of the post and sent it to the girlfriends of Brooks’s three friends. Since you all look down on me so much, I hope you never have to kneel and beg me for anything in the future. 1 I stared calmly at the photo on my phone, feeling something inside me quietly shatter. In the picture, warm yellow light cascaded down, making the four men—dressed only in black boxer briefs and exquisite Windsor knot bow ties—look like Greek gods. They knelt on one knee, encircling a woman with eyes full of submission and loyalty, looking up at her as if she were a queen on a pedestal. The woman was draped only in a sheer black veil that was almost transparent. Her curvaceous figure was visible beneath the fabric, exuding a raw, unbridled desire. Her expression was haughty, her presence commanding and impossible to ignore. The caption was a deliberate provocation. “The little cupcake some people can’t have, I have the whole bakery.” Looking at the cold food on the table, then back at the image of Brooks and his three best friends looking like domesticated pets, I suddenly wasn’t angry anymore. Knowing it wasn’t worth it, what was there to be angry about? First, I liked Piper’s post. Then I commented below: “A bitch and dogs, a match made in heaven.” After commenting, I took a screenshot of the post and saved it, then sent it individually to the girlfriends of Brooks’s three best friends. Just as I finished taking the screenshot, the post magically disappeared. About ten minutes later, a flood of messages poured into my phone. I turned on my screen. Brooks’s three friends had sent me messages. Liam: “Sienna, are you sick in the head? What does me helping Piper with a photoshoot have to do with you? You actually told my girlfriend? Why is your mouth so cheap? Now she’s blowing up at me, are you happy?” Mason: “Sienna, you crazy bitch! What did I ever do to you? Why did you send that to my girlfriend? If you have nothing better to do, go die. Don’t start drama here!” Ethan: “Stupid bitch! Your reach is pretty long, isn’t it? Did I dig up your ancestral grave in a past life? I hope your whole family gets hit by a car when they walk out the door!” Reading the vile insults from the three of them, I opened the chat box to retort when Brooks’s call came through. I pressed answer, and Brooks’s exasperated voice came through the speaker: “Sienna, what kind of crazy stunt are you pulling in the middle of the night?” “Because you went and tattled, now Liam and the others’ girlfriends are all demanding breakups. Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused? Are you so twisted that you can’t stand to see others happy?” “Now Piper is crying from guilt, and it’s all your fault!” “I don’t care what you’re doing right now. Get your ass over here and explain everything, then apologize to Piper. Otherwise, don’t expect me to let you off easy next time.” “Piper is crying?” “Of course! If you hadn’t made Piper cry, would I be this angry with you? I’ve spoiled you too much. You’re getting more and more unreasonable.” “Is she still wearing that mosquito net that can’t even cover her headlights while she’s crying? Are you guys still wearing those matching black briefs while you comfort her?” Brooks’s voice suddenly became unnatural: “Sienna, stop being so unreasonable. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Really?” I sent him the screenshot of the post directly: “Brooks, when Piper dressed so sluttily for the photoshoot, did you guys get turned on?” Brooks hung up the phone immediately. 2 I guess he didn’t expect Piper to secretly post a picture to spite me, and Piper probably didn’t expect me to screenshot it and send it to the other three’s girlfriends. Seeing him hang up, I sent him a message: “Why did you hang up on me? Why aren’t you questioning me anymore?” The screen showed he was typing, but I never received the message. With no other choice, I posted the screenshot and the chat logs of Liam and the others cursing me onto my social media timeline. Caption: “Even if no one is with me, happy birthday to me.” It was already midnight, my birthday was over, but my timeline became active because of this photo. Many of my friends liked and commented on my post. “Whoa! Brooks went to be with someone else on your birthday? Sienna, you met a scumbag, didn’t you?” “Don’t be mad, Sienna. If he won’t celebrate your birthday, we will.” “Brooks usually looks so decent. How wild is he playing? Is this four jacks and a queen?” “OMG! She dares to wear that? Dressing like that and posting it on social media, is she trying to solicit customers?” Ten minutes after I posted, Liam’s girlfriend joined the fray. She also posted the screenshot and announced her breakup directly. “Today Liam can wear a pair of briefs to accompany her for a photoshoot, tomorrow he can strip naked and roll in the sheets with her. A worn-out shoe deserves a rotten sock. You lapdog, go lick your rotten abalone.” My already buzzing timeline became even more crowded because of Liam’s girlfriend’s self-disclosure. In just five minutes, the likes on her post exceeded a hundred. Even so, Brooks still didn’t give me any reply. But I am not a silent heroine in a novel who never speaks her mind. So, in the middle of the night, I sent the screenshot directly to Brooks’s parents. Now, Brooks finally stuck his head out of his turtle shell. Early the next morning, I received a call from Brooks’s mother. “Sienna, can you come over?” “Your uncle and I saw that photo. I think there must be some misunderstanding. Come over, and let’s clear things up.” “After all, you two have been together for so many years, and you’re about to get married. Why make things so difficult?” “Auntie, you saw the photo. I don’t think there’s any misunderstanding.” “You’ve seen how I’ve treated Brooks all these years. I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong by him. I love him, but that doesn’t mean he can rely on my feelings for him to hurt me without fear.” After all, she was an elder, and I couldn’t be too disrespectful: “I’ll get ready and come over in a bit.” After hanging up, I put on simple makeup and drove out. When I arrived at the Sterling villa, Brooks’s parents were already waiting at the door. Brooks stood behind them, head bowed like a frosted eggplant. I got out of the car, and just as I closed the door, a black sports car suddenly rushed out from an angle and headed straight for me. “Sienna, look out!” Seeing the sports car about to hit me, Brooks rushed over and pushed me out of the way with a flying leap. “Bang!” I fell to the ground and saw Brooks fly into the air. 3 The sports car fled, and Brooks was rushed to the hospital. He pushed me away in the nick of time, but he was hit in the legs by the black sports car. Both of his legs were fractured, but his life was not in danger. Looking at Brooks lying in the hospital bed with casts on both legs, I was calm. Before yesterday, if I saw him hurt like this, especially because of me, I don’t know how guilty and remorseful I would be. If it were the me from before yesterday, I would probably throw myself on him and cry my heart out, wishing I could take his place. But now, I was glad he pushed me away so I only suffered minor injuries. Brooks, who had just finished surgery, was still very weak, his face pale as a ghost. His eyes fell on me, a faint light in them: “Sienna, I’m glad you’re okay.” I didn’t take his bait: “Brooks, do you know what day yesterday was?” There was impatience in his tone: “Sienna, I’m hurt. I got hurt for you. Can’t you see that?” “I’m hurt this bad. If it weren’t for me, you’d be the one lying here today. How can you be so cold-blooded? At a time like this, you’re still thinking about your stupid birthday. You’re too selfish.” Brooks’s mother on the side also looked at me reproachfully: “Yes, Sienna. Brooks got hurt for you. He’s your savior and your fiancé. How can you talk to him like that?” “You still know I’m your future daughter-in-law? I thought you had already set your sights on someone else.” I looked at Brooks in the hospital bed: “Answer my question. What day was yesterday?” Brooks was like a deflated ball: “Yesterday was your birthday, okay?” “Sienna, I just didn’t spend your birthday with you. Is it necessary to hold onto this and not let go?” “I promise you, I will definitely spend your birthday with you next year. Is that okay?” I found it a bit funny: “Then let me ask you, what were you doing on my birthday last year, the year before last, and the year before that?” “I…” Seeing him speechless, I began to help him recall: “Last year, Piper said she wanted someone to watch the sunset with her. You accompanied her to climb the mountain for a day, leaving me alone in the couple’s restaurant until it closed.” “The year before last, you said you would spend my birthday with me. I had the yacht all set up, but you temporarily ran off to help Piper move house and drove away my car, leaving me alone at the pier.” “The year before that, Piper returned to the country. You guys booked the five-star hotel under my name and celebrated for a week. Not only did you forget my birthday completely, but you still haven’t settled the hotel bill. I paid the deficit of over a million for you.” “This year, I won’t talk about others. You dressed yourself like a trafficked slave to accompany her for a photoshoot. Even streetwalkers dress more decently than she does. If I took pictures like that with a man, what would you think?” Anger rose in Brooks’s eyes: “Sienna, can you stop being so unpleasant?” “Piper took the photos to record the best version of herself. It’s an artistic creation, in pursuit of sexiness and charm. She dressed like that to understand her body more deeply and break through traditional concepts. Don’t talk nonsense if you don’t understand.” He rolled his eyes at me disdainfully: “I dedicated myself to art. You think it’s corrupting public morals not only because you have no artistic cells, but also because your thoughts are dirty, so you can’t accept others’ excellence.” “Hmm, you’re right. My boyfriend didn’t spend my birthday with me, so I should magnanimously forgive him and support him in pursuing art without complaint. Is that what you mean?” “Exactly. If you missed your birthday this year, there’s still next year. But what Piper loses is the youth that will never return once it’s gone. She just wants to record her most beautiful moment. As her friend, what’s wrong with me helping her achieve her dream?” I nodded in agreement: “Yes, you are absolutely right.” “Since you like pursuing art so much, I won’t stop you. Let’s break up.” 4 Hearing me mention breaking up, Brooks finally got anxious: “Break up? You want to break up over such a trivial matter?” “Sienna, are you crazy? Piper was alone. What’s wrong with me helping her as a friend? Can you stop making a scene here? I’m already like this. How long are you going to keep this up?” “I’m not making a scene. You only remember that Piper was alone, but my parents weren’t around either.” “Before they went abroad, they asked you to take care of me. How did you promise them then? Have you achieved it now?” Brooks simply refused to look at me in a huff: “Anyway, this is all your fault!” “Okay, since you insist that I’m wrong, I won’t say anything more.” “Take good care of yourself. I will pay for your medical expenses.” After speaking, I got up to leave. Brooks’s father on the side couldn’t take it anymore. He got up and slapped Brooks hard on the face. “Slap!” Brooks looked shocked: “Dad, why did you hit me?” Brooks’s mother pushed his father away and shielded Brooks: “Are you crazy? Why hit the child for no reason?” “I hit him!” “He’s about to get married, yet he’s still entangled with other women. Shouldn’t he be hit?” “If he hadn’t gone to see that woman, would he have been hit like this? It’s his own fault! He deserves it!” Brooks’s father turned to look at me apologetically: “Sienna, don’t be angry. Uncle will teach this brat a lesson for you. Uncle promises you that this kind of thing will never happen again.” “No need for a lesson.” I reached out to stop him from continuing: “I can forgive him, but I have a condition.” Brooks’s eyes lit up: “What condition? Tell me, I’ll do it!” “Call the police.” I looked straight into his eyes: “Call the police. Whoever hit you, sue him for attempted murder and pursue it to the end.” “Impossible!” If his legs weren’t broken now, he would have almost jumped off the hospital bed when he heard this. “Liam didn’t intend to hit me. I was just accidentally injured by him. He is my brother. If I sue him, we won’t even be brothers in the future.” “No! Absolutely not!” “Whatever.” I was too lazy to talk nonsense with him anymore and got up to leave. Before leaving the door, I stood at the door of the ward: “From today on, don’t expect your good brothers to get any benefits from the Davis family.” “Brooks, since you think the brother who wants to kill your fiancée is more important, then I’ll handle it myself.” Just as I walked out of the hospital, I saw Piper rushing to the hospital entrance. Seeing me, her eyes were contemptuous: “I heard Brooks is injured. I came to visit. You won’t mind, will you?” “No, I’ve already broken up with him. Let alone visiting, even if you roll in the sheets with him, I won’t mind.” After speaking, I tried to walk past her, but she stretched out her arm to stop me. “Sienna, don’t think you’re so great just because you have some stinky money. What can you do with money? Brooks still follows me around and can’t bear to let me go.” “You don’t think he really loves you, do you? He’s just reached the age to get married. He’s with you for his family’s company. To him, you’re just an inflatable doll for venting his lust. He told me this himself.” “Do you think he’s happy with you? When he’s with me, he never mentions a word about you. Whether he’s drunk or dreaming, he calls my name.” Her eyes were full of viciousness: “Not just Brooks, even Liam and the others are just a matter of me hooking my finger. I can order them around however I want.” I keenly detected the hidden meaning in this sentence: “So, Liam driving to hit me was also your idea?” “Hmph! I didn’t say that.” An arrogant expression appeared on her face: “You blockheads born into wealthy families don’t know what men really need, so you can’t hold onto your men’s hearts.” “I just can’t stand the high and mighty faces of you young ladies. I just want to take away your men and make you unhappy.” “As long as you’re sad, I feel comfortable.” I nodded, then looked behind her: “Did you all hear that?” Piper turned around and saw three women standing behind her with ferocious faces, led by Liam’s ex-girlfriend. “Are you the one named Piper? You’re pretty arrogant! Did playing shared boyfriend break your brain?” Piper looked at me incredulously: “Did you call them here?” I smiled maliciously: “I was waiting for them. Who were you waiting for?” 5 Piper was cornered by the three women: “What do you want to do?” “I warn you, if you dare touch me, your boyfriends won’t let you off!” “Let me tell you, don’t bully me. I’ve been injured, my brain doesn’t work well.” “Who are you scaring? As if anyone’s brain works well. If my brain worked well, would I find someone like Liam?” With that, Liam’s ex-girlfriend grabbed Piper by the hair and smashed her head against the wall, making Piper cry for her parents. The other two didn’t stay idle either. One started tearing her clothes, and the other grabbed her newly done manicure and scratched Piper’s face wildly. The madness was like Iori Yagami awakening the Orochi blood. “I’ll teach you to seduce other people’s boyfriends. I’ll teach you to pretend in front of me. Today I’ll ruin your face and see how you can still be a bitch and flirt with men!” “Don’t you love showing off? This time I’ll let you show off enough. Taking photos is boring. Let everyone see your shameless look!” In the corner in front of the hospital entrance, the three of them beat Piper wildly, making her scream repeatedly. She couldn’t take the beating anymore. Risking a few more hits, she pushed two of them away fiercely, then kicked one in the stomach. She finally broke free from the three’s encirclement and rushed out, trying to escape. She panicked and chose the wrong path. When passing by me, she was tripped by the foot I extended and rolled directly down the steps in front of the door. Seeing that she dared to resist, the three rushed over, regardless of whether it was her head or buttocks. Before she could get up, they pressed her to the ground, sat on her, and punched and kicked her. Piper uttered helpless cries, curled up like a big maggot with her head in her hands, crying and begging for mercy while being beaten awkwardly. “Stop fighting, I was wrong!” “I won’t dare seduce other people’s boyfriends next time, please stop fighting!” Her dress was torn into rags, her whole person was like an old mop head. Even the underwear inside the skirt was torn, revealing half of her white buttocks, which was stepped on solidly by a thin heel, making her howl in pain not like a human voice. More and more onlookers gathered, but no one helped her call the police. There were even occasional bursts of applause and cheers in the crowd watching the excitement. People are never stingy with their applause and cheers for shameless mistresses. Having seen enough, I was about to leave when I looked back and found Liam, Mason, and Ethan rushing over. The three rushed over to pull away the four women who were tearing each other apart. As a result, Liam’s girlfriend was even more angry when she saw her ex-boyfriend. She scratched Liam’s face fiercely, leaving five bright red fingernail marks on his face instantly. Braveling the storm of their girlfriends and ex-girlfriends, the three men managed to snatch Piper, who was covered in cuts and bruises, and protected the disheveled Piper behind them like flower protectors. Ethan was obviously the most unsettled one. Seeing that the three women were unrelenting, he raised his hand and punched his girlfriend on the bridge of the nose, causing her nose to bleed directly. He was stunned after hitting her. The Carter family’s business had been sluggish for the past two years, relying entirely on the market share allocated by my family and his girlfriend’s family to keep the business going. This girlfriend was not only a girlfriend to him, but also a benefactor protecting the Carter family. Ethan knew he had caused a catastrophe and was so scared that he knelt down immediately with a “thump”: “Baby, are you okay?” “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t pay attention just now. I’ll take you to bandage it right away.” He was almost paralyzed with fright. Just as he was about to reach out to help his girlfriend, his arm was grabbed. He turned his head and saw Piper pulling his arm, crying like rain on a pear blossom: “Brother Ethan, it hurts so much.” This “brother” was so sweet that even I, a woman, felt numbness over half my body when I heard it, let alone this idiot Ethan. Ethan was elated by this “brother”. He didn’t care about his girlfriend with the bleeding nose. He actually stood up to protect Piper and enter the hospital. Ethan’s girlfriend couldn’t take it anymore and blocked the hospital entrance, covering her bleeding nose: “Ethan, if you dare to choose her today, your whole family will get out to the train station to beg for food tomorrow!” Ethan got anxious: “Have you made enough trouble? Look at how you beat Piper. You are simply a shrew!” “I’m a shrew? You shot erotic photos with this bitch behind my back, and now you have the nerve to scold me? None of you Carters are good things!” A few people started a scolding war at the hospital entrance. Liam and the other two protected Piper behind them and directly scolded me, who was not involved in the fight on the side. “Stop arguing! Shut up!” Just as the scene was about to turn into a full-on brawl, a shout stopped the two groups’ saber-rattling. A few police officers appeared at the hospital entrance. The leading officer scanned the people present with a serious gaze: “This is a hospital, not a place for you to fight. If there is something you can’t solve, you can go to the police station. Making a noise here and affecting the normal work order of the hospital, you have violated the law!” He looked at everyone present: “Who is Liam?” Liam on the side hurriedly raised his hand: “I am, me!” He walked to the police officer and pointed at me: “Officer, it’s this woman making trouble here. Arrest her quickly!” As soon as the words fell, the police officer took out handcuffs and pressed them directly on his wrist. “Liam, you are suspected of intentional homicide and hit-and-run. Now we are summoning you according to the law. Please come with us.”

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I was born unable to feel pain, yet I was a relentless people-pleaser. The first time my adoptive parents hit me, they covered my mouth with foul hands. “Stay quiet, or I’ll stab you dead!” “Worthless girl, I regret ever taking you in.” Since I felt nothing, I didn’t make a sound. Instead, I handed them a knife. “If it makes you happy, I’ll die.” Thinking I was mocking them, they stabbed me in the stomach. Blood spread across the floor. They finally smiled. Clutching my wound, I smiled back. Later, my rich biological parents found me. The day I arrived, a pale, doll-like girl rushed crying into their arms. The fake heiress looked at me tearfully. “Mom, Dad, now that Olivia is back, you won’t want me anymore, will you? I’ll just pack and leave.” My parents’ eyes filled with pity as they turned to scold me for being cold. Before they could speak, I lifted a vase and smashed it against my own head. “Don’t cry, sis. I’ll die right now, okay?” 1 The world instantly fell silent. Scarlett froze, her eyes wide, forgetting to cry. While my parents were contacting a family doctor, she recovered her wits and whispered fiercely in my ear, “You filthy beggar, what are you trying to pull?” “You’re dirty and smelly, not even worth a single one of my fingers. You’re completely unfit to be seen.” “If I were you, I would have drowned myself in a well by now, rather than coming back to embarrass Mom and Dad!” On the way home, my parents had already told me about our family situation. They were in a business marriage, both holding high-powered positions. Scarlett, on the other hand, had always been well-behaved and considerate since childhood, even gentle with the household staff. But this seemingly obedient sister didn’t seem to want me as her older sibling. A wave of hurt and fear surged through me. When my parents rushed in with the doctor, they found me sobbing and running out. Just then, a car sped by. I had no time to dodge and crashed directly into it. The screech of brakes ripped through the air, followed by a chorus of screams. My mother collapsed, terrified, while my father rushed to check on me. Tears streaming down my face, I whimpered, “Mom, Dad, perhaps I shouldn’t have come back?” My father helped me up, looking exhausted. “Olivia, your mother and I finally found you. How can you say such a thing?” I cried, tears pouring. “But Scarlett said I’m dirty and smelly, and that living would only embarrass you both.” My father’s brow furrowed, his face instantly darkening. Scarlett’s face went pale, and she shook her head frantically. “No, Dad, I didn’t…” She gave me a timid glance, her voice tinged with a victimized tone. “Sister, I know I took your place all these years, so it’s natural for you to resent me.” “But how could you falsely accuse me? I clearly said I welcomed you home.” She cried, looking utterly heartbroken, her shoulders trembling. Neighbors, drawn by the commotion, couldn’t bear it any longer and spoke up: “Scarlett is such a kind child.” “The one they brought back seems so unlikable, even risking her life just to vie for attention.” “She must have gone bad living outside. So young, yet so manipulative.” Listening to their scolding, I cried even harder. “Scarlett, do you really welcome me back? So, I just misunderstood? I’m so sorry. I’ll confirm again right now!” I choked back tears, pulled my phone from my pocket, and, in front of everyone, pressed play. 2 The phone screen was shattered, but the audio was still perfectly clear. The air hung in dead silence. The neighbors, who had just been vocally sympathetic, now lowered their heads awkwardly. On Scarlett’s face, only terror and panic remained. I clutched my phone, tears streaming down my face, pretending to be utterly miserable. “Mom, Dad, am I really as awful as Scarlett says?” “Of course not, Olivia,” my father reassured me gently. “You’re our precious child, found after so long, our only biological daughter.” But with so many eyes watching, and given that our neighbors were all wealthy and influential, making a scene would be disastrous. So, my father made a quick decision. “This is Scarlett’s fault. Your mother and I will talk to her properly. Shall we go to the hospital first?” With a single look from him, Scarlett reluctantly offered an apology. The crowd dispersed, and we quickly headed to the hospital. The doctor performed a thorough examination, confirming only minor scrapes and bruises, at which point my parents finally breathed a sigh of relief. Only Scarlett’s face was terrifyingly grim. Not only had my parents’ attitude towards her cooled, but her meticulously cultivated perfect image had also utterly collapsed. After my wounds were treated, I returned to the Howard house. Scarlett was summoned to the study, while I went to my room to rest. Because of what had just happened, the servants looked at me with sympathy. They led me to a bright, spacious room, not forgetting to thoughtfully close the door behind them as they left. The soft sheets carried a sweet scent, and I quickly felt sleepy. Just as my eyes were about to close, my arm was suddenly seized, and I was yanked violently from the bed. “Where did this beggar come from? Who gave you permission to sleep in Scarlett’s bed?!” My body was already weak. The pull sent me flying, my back slamming hard against the corner of a table, tearing my wounds open again. Looking up, a handsome young man stared at me with piercing eyes. He saw the blood on me, paused for a moment in surprise, then quickly stepped forward. But he merely went to straighten the sheets I had wrinkled. “Do you know how delicate silk sheets are? They’re easily ruined if they get dirty.” I was about to apologize when Scarlett walked in, having heard the commotion. “Eason, you’re here.” “Scarlett, what’s wrong?” Eason frowned, his eyes filled with concern as he saw her reddened eyelids. “Have you been upset?” “I’m fine,” Scarlett shook her head. “What were you and Olivia talking about?” At her words, Eason’s gaze shifted to me. “You’re Olivia Howard?” Without waiting for my answer, he kicked me again. “Were you intentionally putting on an act to embarrass Scarlett?” “Do you know her reputation has been ruined because of you? And now you’re in her room, are you trying to frame her again? So Mom and Dad will kick her out?!” “Let me tell you, even if you are the Howard family’s biological daughter, the only person I’ll ever marry is Scarlett!” So, he was Eason Knight, my fiancé. I secretly assessed them, truly believing they were a perfect match. Even if I didn’t say anything, I would never try to take him from Scarlett. “What, still scheming against Scarlett?” Eason sneered, his voice full of disdain. “Let me tell you, since I dared to hit you, I’m not afraid of you tattling!” Scarlett stood by, offering empty words of persuasion, but showing no intention of stopping him. Wiping away tears, I knelt before them, explaining. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know this was Scarlett’s room, and I never intended to frame her.” “Please don’t be angry. I’ll go explain everything to everyone right now.” Eason paused, his expression growing complex. Just as he was about to speak, Scarlett’s tearful sobs suddenly echoed from behind him. “Sister, why do you have to be like this?” “You’re Mom and Dad’s biological daughter. Whatever you ask for, they’ll agree to it without a second thought.” “Just like this room, you said you wanted it, and they immediately told me to give it to you…” These words were like adding fuel to the fire. Eason slapped me hard across the face. “You filthy beggar, why do you have to fight Scarlett for everything? If it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t be so upset!” But I felt no pain. I looked up, my sole desire to make them happy, and asked, “Really? If I disappear, will Scarlett be happy?” Eason frowned, still cursing. “Yes! Without you, everything will be better!” The instant his words fell, my eyes suddenly lit up. Without hesitation, I turned and lunged towards the nearby railing. The next second, the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground mingled with screams. 3 I ended up in the hospital again. In the hospital room, Eason’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Knight, looked utterly embarrassed, forcing Eason to kneel and apologize to me. He resisted, disgruntled. “She jumped herself. Why should I apologize?” Mr. Knight rubbed his temples, a headache brewing. “If you didn’t do anything, would she just randomly jump from a height for no reason?” Eason turned his face away, pursing his lips in silence. Seeing this, Mr. Knight, enraged, grabbed his belt, ready to lash out. I struggled out of bed and shielded Eason. “Mr. Knight, it’s my fault. Please don’t blame him.” I used all my strength. Though I felt no pain, my struck shoulder quickly swelled and bruised. Eason was stunned, but still defiant. “Olivia, who told you to block for me?” “You claim you don’t compete or grab, yet the moment you returned, you took Scarlett’s room. Now you’re playing the good guy!” Scarlett, who had been silent, turned chalk-white. My mother looked at her in disbelief. “Scarlett, didn’t you suggest it yourself earlier?” Tears instantly welled in Scarlett’s eyes, and she stammered, “I’m sorry, Mom, Dad, I was just momentarily misguided. I was afraid that if Olivia came back, you wouldn’t want me anymore…” My mother shook her head in disappointment. “Scarlett Brooks, you’ve deeply disappointed us!” “Insecurity is not an excuse for your mistakes! You say you’re afraid, but do you even know what your sister went through before?” When I was five, I was kidnapped by traffickers. They intended to extort a hefty sum, but the police were hot on their heels, so they abandoned me and fled. My adoptive parents picked me up and used me as a punching bag. Because of my congenital insensitivity to pain, I was also emotionally slow. Day after day, year after year, watching the constant new wounds on my body, I mistakenly believed this was how love was expressed. People-pleasing became my only means of survival. I looked at my parents’ ashen faces, then glanced at Scarlett, who was on the verge of fainting from crying. Before Eason could rush to her side, I spoke. “Mom, Dad, Scarlett didn’t mean it. Please don’t blame her.” The hospital room fell silent. Everyone exchanged glances. My mother squeezed my hand tenderly but didn’t utter another word. Scarlett was ultimately grounded for three days. As for Eason, he started avoiding me from that day on. Perhaps to make amends, or to show how much they valued me, my parents spent a fortune hosting a grand welcome-home banquet. On the day of the banquet, my parents dressed me like an exquisite doll. They held my hands, one on each side, solemnly introducing me to the guests. I looked back and met Scarlett’s gaze across the room. Earlier, as a gesture of apology, the Knight family had generously transferred five percent of their company’s shares to me. Scarlett, as their future daughter-in-law, hadn’t even received a meager one percent. Yet, these past few days, she hadn’t caused any trouble, and her hostile attitude towards me had softened. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was finally willing to accept me and live in peace. So, when Scarlett suggested we go outside for some fresh air, I hesitated for a moment, then nodded, drawn by her sweet smile. But reality often defied expectations. When we reached our destination, I only saw a few young men, street thugs. I looked at Scarlett in confusion, about to speak, when a resounding slap landed hard on my face. Punches and kicks rained down on me. I curled up on the ground, shielding my head with my hands. Scarlett stood nearby, frowning in dissatisfaction. “Haven’t you guys eaten? Why isn’t she even screaming?” But even as they gasped for breath, exhausted, I remained silent. Seeing my battered state, Scarlett merely admired it, her eyes full of triumph. Through my messy hair, I met her gaze. “Scarlett, does this make you happy?” “Of course!” She strode forward, grabbing my hair. “Olivia Howard, I wish you would just die!” “I’m supposed to be the only young lady of the Howard family! Why did you come back? Why are you trying to steal Mom and Dad from me?!” Tears streamed down my face, my eyes filled with pleading. “Scarlett, what do I need to do for you to accept me?” Scarlett burst into laughter at my words, her face contorted with twisted pleasure. “Accept you? Not unless I’m dead! Otherwise, I’ll never accept you in this life!” The next second, her laughter abruptly ceased. I picked up a brick from the ground and brought it down forcefully.

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1 The photos from my belated wedding photoshoot with my husband turned out so stunning that the studio featured them as a “client showcase.” Two days later, my showcase photo was Photoshopped into a funeral portrait, and the bridal shop was swamped with online hate. “What kind of reputable shop shoots wedding photos for a mistress?!” “My husband and I have been together for three years! And she’s knowingly a home-wrecker! How dare she even get wedding photos taken!” I rushed to the bridal shop, intending to clear things up, only to collide head-on with a woman. She pointed at me, shouting, “That’s her! She seduced my boyfriend!” “Today, I’m going to show all the netizens what happens to a mistress!” Before I could explain, they started attacking me without a word. They shaved my head, slapped my face until it was paralyzed, broke two of my ribs, and I miscarried… As I lay dying, I called my assistant. “Cancel the wedding reception I was planning with Gabriel Maxwell! Also, find me a lawyer to file for divorce!” A mere trophy husband, spending my money to support a mistress. I’ll make him regret this! … Seeing the funeral portrait forwarded by a friend, my blood boiled. I immediately called the bridal shop. To my surprise, the manager on the other end sounded even more furious than I was. “Get over here right now and explain yourself to Mrs. Maxwell!” Mrs. Maxwell? Could there genuinely be another Mrs. Maxwell besides me? Confused, I rushed to the shop. From a distance, I saw a large crowd gathered around the entrance. The woman at the front spotted me and shrieked, “That’s her! This vixen! She seduced my husband!” The manager hurried to calm her. “Mrs. Maxwell! Mrs. Maxwell! Let’s talk inside, calmly!” “Mrs. Maxwell?” I eyed the woman warily. I didn’t know her at all, so how could I have stolen her husband? I forced down my anger, trying to sound calm. “Excuse me, do we know each other?” A woman who came with her grabbed my hair without a word. “What are you pretending for? Who doesn’t know Isabelle is the young madam of Maxwell Enterprises?!” Isabelle? Could this be the ‘junior colleague’ Gabriel had sometimes mentioned? I subconsciously asked, “You’re Isabelle Hampton?” She snorted, looking down, then raised her hand and slapped me. “Is the wife’s name something a mistress like you can even utter?!” It really was her… All this time, Gabriel had told me Isabelle Hampton was an ambitious junior colleague with an unfortunate family background. Out of sympathy, I even suggested he help her more. But I never imagined that Isabelle Hampton was actually his mistress, and he was spending my money on her! Before I could fully process it, she grabbed my wrist and shrieked, “Oh, you! You even stole the Cartier bracelet my husband gave me!” I looked at the bracelet on my wrist. It was clearly one I had bought myself, which had gone missing recently. Could it be that Gabriel had been taking my own gifts to give to her? I struggled, shaking free, and yanked off the bracelet. “This bracelet is mine! My initials, LSQ, are engraved inside. Look closely!” She promptly smashed the bracelet to the ground, then stomped on it repeatedly. “Who’s to say you didn’t steal it and then secretly engrave it?!” “A mistress like you, what could you possibly want from seducing someone’s husband? Money, obviously!” I was honestly infuriated to the point of laughter. “You say you’re the wife. Are you legally married?!” Hearing this, Isabelle pulled out her phone and showed several intimate photos of herself and Gabriel. She scrolled through numerous photos: intimate selfies with Gabriel, love letters, and promises he’d written to her. Tears streamed down her face as she wailed, “Yes, we haven’t officially registered our marriage, but we’ve been together for three years! We were already planning our wedding!” “But that’s no reason for you to interfere! You’ve ruined my family; you’re nothing but a mistress!” I stared at those photos, feeling a prickling sensation on my scalp, my vision blurring. Gabriel, who always appeared cool and restrained in front of me, had taken such photos and written such declarations of love for her. Married for five years, betrayed for three. It was utterly laughable. Seeing more and more onlookers gather, the manager grew anxious. She grabbed me, pulling me into the shop, lowering her voice. “Miss Lee! Just admit it! Apologize to Mrs. Maxwell!” “If you keep this up, our decades-old brand will be ruined by you!” 2 “What?!” I violently shook off the manager’s grasp, staring at her in disbelief. “I’m your customer, aren’t I?” “Not only did I purchase your most expensive package, but I also referred many friends to you. Is this appropriate?” The manager quickly let go of my hand, shaking her head and waving at Isabelle, a look of disdain on her face. “Mrs. Maxwell! Don’t listen to her! Our shop doesn’t welcome mistresses like her as customers. If you hadn’t found us, we wouldn’t have known she was such a person!” The people around us all raised their phones, whispering, “How shameless! Are mistresses always so arrogant?” “Even if they’re not legally married, you can’t so blatantly destroy someone else’s family! You act like being a mistress gives you some kind of superiority!” A wave of injustice washed over me. I quickly explained, “No! Don’t listen to her one-sided story! Based on just a few photos, how can you assume I’m a mistress?!” “Gabriel Maxwell and I have been married for five years! I’m not a mistress! If you don’t believe me, I’ll call him over right now!” Saying this, I picked up my phone, ready to make Gabriel come and clarify everything. But Isabelle snatched my phone, scoffing, “Lie, keep lying! Married for five years? And only now getting wedding photos? Who are you trying to fool?!” I froze, looking at her, and retorted, “Is it forbidden to take wedding photos after five years of marriage?” When Gabriel and I got married, he was just an ordinary employee, penniless. There were no traditional wedding gifts or dowry, let alone wedding photos or a reception. This year was our fifth anniversary, and it was his idea to make up for all the missing ceremonies. I had been so touched, believing his love for me was as strong as ever. But now, it seemed I had been foolish. My retort made Isabelle stumble. The woman next to her shoved me, sharply admonishing, “What is your attitude?!” Seeing this, the manager quickly stepped in, pulling them back, a forced smile on her face as she spoke to Isabelle. “Mrs. Maxwell, please calm down! I’m a victim here too! I will definitely sue this woman, make her compensate my losses, and restore our shop’s reputation!” She took Isabelle’s hand, trying to coax her into the shop. “Please don’t be angry, let’s go inside and talk calmly…” I felt a bitter laugh rise in my throat. The manager had turned against me so quickly, probably because Maxwell Enterprises also had an investment in this shop. But what they didn’t know was that Maxwell Enterprises owed its existence to me! Without me, Clarissa Lee, there would be no Maxwell Enterprises! Before the manager could finish, Isabelle raised her phone high, started a live stream, and shouted into the camera, “Everyone, look at this bridal shop! They’re actually using a mistress’s wedding photos with my husband for their showcase! This is absolutely outrageous!” She pointed at me, accusing hysterically, “And this woman! She’s ruining my relationship with my husband, she’s unrepentant, and she’s still trying to argue! How shameless!” The woman next to her chimed in, “She even lies, saying she’s been married to someone else’s husband for five years! What a joke!” “A vixen like her should be exposed for everyone to see!” The live stream instantly flooded with viewers. Swayed by Isabelle’s inflammatory remarks, they quickly filled the comments section: [What are you waiting for? Why aren’t you hitting her?!] [This woman clearly had plastic surgery. If it were me, I’d beat her until her own mother wouldn’t recognize her!] My heart sank. Seizing a moment when they weren’t looking, I snatched back my phone and quickly dialed 911. However, Isabelle was quick. She slapped my phone to the ground, yelling, “You dare call the police?!” Seeing them rolling up their sleeves, I had to explain again. “Gabriel Maxwell and I have been married for five years! We have a marriage certificate! If you feel wronged, you should question Gabriel, not me!” Isabelle ignored my explanation, picking up my phone and smashing it against my face. A sharp pain, and then warm liquid streamed down my cheek. The surrounding crowd gasped. I lay on the ground, my vision blurry. She poked my temple hard with her finger, sneering, “My husband was just playing around with you! Did you actually take it seriously?!” “You’re at death’s door, and you still dare to use my husband to scare me! Beat her!” With that, I was brutally kicked and pinned to the ground, unable to move. Isabelle’s hand repeatedly struck my face, each slap echoing loudly. I barely opened my mouth to speak, only to be struck again, forcing out a whimper. Just then, a sharp pain shot through my lower abdomen. I instinctively clutched my stomach. “Oh no…” I looked at the manager, pleading for help, but she only stood by, clucking, “You were so sickeningly sweet and seductive that day; no wonder Mr. Maxwell was so affectionate, even willing to do an eighty-thousand-dollar wedding photoshoot with you.” “I thought you were some rich lady, but you’re just a vulgar gold-digger!” “If you knew you’d get what was coming to you from the wife, why did you break up their family in the first place?” Isabelle’s face darkened further hearing this. She stood up, repeatedly stomping on my back with her high heels. I felt like every bone in my body was shattering. Tears welled in my eyes, only making her more excited. She crouched down in front of me, her sharp acrylic nails scratching my face, cursing, “An eighty-thousand-dollar wedding photoshoot?! You really have the nerve to demand that!” “I think someone like you isn’t even worth eighty cents!” The manager glanced at my face, then sidled up to Isabelle, fawning, “Mrs. Maxwell, don’t worry, the security camera at our shop entrance just happened to be broken. I’ll also testify for you that this mistress provoked you first…” “But please, be lenient and clarify for our shop online. We had no idea she was a vixen; we’re victims too!” Isabelle didn’t even glance at her. Instead, she grabbed my hair. “You shameless woman, stealing my bracelet is bad enough, but you even dare to copy my hairstyle!” “Shave her head for me now! Let’s see how she’ll seduce other women’s husbands after this!” This long hair, I had grown it for Gabriel. He once said he liked long, wavy hair, and I immediately changed from my previous short haircut, keeping it for two whole years. Now, looking back, wasn’t Isabelle’s hair long and wavy? It turned out, from beginning to end, I was just a clown. The woman next to her grabbed a pair of scissors from the shop and aimed for my head. I trembled with fear but dared not move, terrified she would injure me. I glared at Isabelle, shouting, “If you do this to me, Gabriel Maxwell will not let you get away with it!” Isabelle, as if hearing a joke, threw her head back and laughed. “Who doesn’t know my husband dotes on me fiercely?! Do you think he’ll do anything to me for a vixen like you?!” The words had barely left her lips when my hair was severed. She didn’t hold back; my vision blurred, and I could only lie weakly on the ground, muttering, “Call the police…” Finally, a kind passerby, unable to watch any longer, called for help. Isabelle also called Gabriel. She deliberately put him on speaker, her voice sickly sweet. “Honey! That vixen who keeps imitating me and trying to seduce you, I caught her today!” “But she actually dared to call the police! Honey, you need to come and teach her a lesson!” I yelled into her phone, “Gabriel Maxwell… we’re over…!” Gabriel, hearing my voice on the other end, sounded panicked. He quickly said, “Where are you? I’m coming right away!” Hanging up, Isabelle looked triumphant. “Just watch, my husband will definitely leave you!” Just then, officers rushed in. Seeing my state, they were shocked and immediately rushed me to the hospital. As soon as I got into the car, I eagerly opened my phone, completely ignoring the dozens of messages and missed calls from Gabriel. Instead, I called my assistant. “Cancel the wedding reception I was planning with Gabriel Maxwell! Also, find me a lawyer to file for divorce!” He’s nothing but a decorative vase. Once he’s tainted, I don’t want him!

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My father loved my mother to the point of obsession, but she died because of me. Later, he adopted another daughter. The adopted daughter looked exactly like my mother. On our sixteenth birthday… He treated his adopted daughter like a beloved princess, while his guests mistook me for the maid’s daughter. Right then, my phone rang. “Happy birthday, baby! It’s been so long, Mommy missed you so much!” Me: ! My mother had returned. 1 When Chloe’s guests ordered me to wash her car, my father, Arthur Davis, happened to return from an outing. His assistant, trailing behind him, presented a priceless crystal castle to Chloe. Immediately, Chloe’s classmates gasped in awe. Their envy was palpable. Then, I heard Arthur’s voice, filled with indulgence and affection: “A castle for my princess. Happy birthday, my one and only little princess.” His only princess. I rolled those words around in my mind, a bitter taste spreading through my chest. Today wasn’t just Chloe’s birthday. It was mine, too. But, just like every other year, I received nothing. Because in Arthur’s eyes, I was a sinner. I didn’t deserve a birthday. Because I killed my mother. 2 Ten years ago today, my mother was in a fatal car accident while going out to buy the strawberry cake I was crying for. She left us forever. From that day on, Arthur hated me with every fiber of his being. At her funeral, he announced to everyone, “Harper Davis is no longer my daughter.” I crouched on the ground, blinking my red, swollen eyes at him, completely lost and confused. I was too young then to understand his cruelty. Only as I grew older did I realize how absolute that rejection was. Later. His company went public, and his net worth skyrocketed. After becoming a wealthy CEO, he adopted Chloe. From then on… He only loved Chloe. Chloe lived in the master suite of our mansion; I lived in the maid’s quarters. Chloe was chauffeured to school; I took the public bus. Chloe’s closet overflowed with new designer clothes; I wore whatever she discarded. Chloe lived like royalty. I lived like a live-in servant. It was true, though. I was a servant with no parents. 3 But I wanted to be a princess, too. I remembered Arthur promising me that when I was little. Back then, my mother was still alive. Arthur’s company was just starting out, and our family of three was crammed into a tiny, two-bedroom apartment. To support him, my mother secretly transferred the holiday money my grandfather gave me into Arthur’s account. “Harper and I don’t need much. Don’t worry,” she would always coax him. I loved to parrot her words. “Daddy, don’t worry! Harper will give you all her allowance…” Before I could even finish, Arthur broke down. He pulled us close, pressing his face between ours. Soon, scalding drops fell onto my chubby cheeks. They tickled. Looking back, those must have been his tears. Before I turned ten, he would constantly tell me: “When Daddy becomes successful and makes lots of money, my Harper will be a princess. How does that sound?” … See? He promised. But he broke his promise. As I was lost in thought… A snobbish, polite voice interrupted me: “Excuse me, maid girl? Why aren’t you washing the car? Do you think just because I’m Chloe’s classmate, you can ignore me?” Chloe went to an elite private school. Her classmates were all rich kids, naturally acting high and mighty. But. I wasn’t a maid. I glared at her, about to snap back. But the next second… Arthur’s cold voice cut through the air, directed at me. “Why aren’t you going?” Why aren’t you going? Hearing those words felt like taking a sledgehammer to the chest. How could I forget? In Arthur’s eyes, I was just a maid. “Right away.” 4 Arthur had made it clear: if I ever displeased him, he would cut off my tuition and living expenses. But. I had promised my mother I would get into the best university. I couldn’t break my promise to her. So. As long as Arthur kept paying my tuition, I would endure anything. I bit my lip gently and turned around. Then. A soft voice called out from behind me: “Daddy, why don’t we let Harper blow out the candles with me? It’s her birthday today, too. She was actually really looking forward to it. Yesterday, she even snuck into my closet and tried on my evening gown…” I frowned. I turned around to say I hadn’t done any such thing. But a wave of disgusted murmurs erupted: “Oh my god, a maid actually dared to wear her employer’s dress?” “Chloe, did you get that dress dry-cleaned?” “Unbelievable.” “So she’s a thief, too.” 5 Hearing those whispers, I almost charged over and shoved Chloe’s face into the cake. I wanted her dead. I admit it. Last night. When she was showing off her new dress, I was envious. But that was it. Just envious. I never stole anything… I am not a thief. My eyes turned red with fury, but I didn’t dare move an inch. Because. Arthur seemed to anticipate my reaction and stepped protectively in front of Chloe. He glared at me, his face dark with fury. Disgust. Hatred. Coldness. “How could she give birth to a daughter like you? Apologize. Or you’re expelled tomorrow.” Threatening me again. Hah. “How could she marry a husband like you?” I shot back. The moment the words left my mouth. Arthur’s face turned completely black. I had never seen him look so terrifying. 6 Slap— A resounding slap echoed through the living room. Arthur had ignored me for a decade, but this was the first time he ever struck me. Within seconds. My right cheek swelled up painfully. I was furious and heartbroken. But. What could I do? I was only sixteen. I only had this father in name. A father who… Ignored me. Hated me. Threatened me. Hit me. It was true. He didn’t love me. Not even a little bit. Meanwhile. Chloe, acting as if she had accidentally caused a scene with her “good intentions,” rushed over to play peacemaker. “Daddy, it’s normal for girls to like pretty dresses! I didn’t mean to get her in trouble.” Then what did she mean? Whatever. I had already been hit. Nothing else mattered now. So. Slap. Slap. Slap. I slapped Chloe three times in rapid succession. “That’s the price for framing me.” 7 After I hit her, Chloe crumbled like a fragile flower. “Harper Davis!” Seeing Chloe looking so disheveled, Arthur’s face filled with distress. He helped her up himself. He comforted her softly: “Does it hurt? Daddy will call the doctor right now.” Chloe covered her face, tears streaming down her cheeks. “It’s okay, Daddy. Don’t blame Harper. Please… don’t hit her again.” Once she said that. Her classmates snapped out of their shock and began condemning her for being too “kind.” They all urged Arthur to throw me out. Hah. Throw me out. It was ironic, and pathetic. I looked up, making eye contact with Arthur for the first time in years, and saw the absolute coldness in his eyes. His voice was devoid of any emotion. “Harper. I am sending you to an orphanage. Starting today, you will never set foot in this house again.” An orphanage. I was perfectly fine with that. I was already an orphan anyway. Plus. I could still go to school if I lived there. It was miles better than staying near Arthur. …A few moments later. Arthur’s assistant escorted me out. I turned and walked away, head held high. I felt no attachment whatsoever. However. I hadn’t taken two steps when the phone in my pocket suddenly rang. I didn’t want to answer it at first. But the vibration pulsed steadily, like someone knocking on the door to my heart. Finally, I pulled it out. I glanced at the caller ID. Instantly. I froze. I couldn’t believe it. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again. “Mom…” “It’s Mom!” I stopped dead in my tracks. The assistant beside me rushed me, “Hurry up, Mr. Davis doesn’t want to see you…” I ignored him. With trembling fingers, I answered the call. Even though I knew it was impossible. My mother was dead. It had been ten years. This number had never been active. Was it a cruel prank? But even so. My mother was dead. I answered, but didn’t dare speak. I just stood there, mouth agape, frozen. Then, a voice came through the speaker. A painfully familiar voice— “Baby! Happy birthday! It’s been so long! Mommy missed you so much!” Her voice, amplified by the phone’s speaker, echoed throughout Arthur’s living room. 8 My mother’s voice was exactly as I remembered it. It hadn’t changed at all. Like a warm cup of water. Comforting and soft. “Mom…” I burst into tears. Is it really you? Mom? Are you calling me from heaven? I gripped the phone tightly, my fingers trembling. In that moment, it was the most precious thing in the world to me. But the next second. My hand was empty. Arthur had snatched the phone away. “Give it back!” I ground my teeth in fury. Did I not even have the right to talk to my dead mother? She called me. Not him! I reached up to grab it, but Arthur was too tall. He shot me a cold look and ordered the assistant to pull me away. As our eyes met, I saw that his were red. Yet, when he spoke, his voice was perfectly calm. “Who is this? Why are you impersonating my late wife?” Me: … Was he deaf? Could he not recognize her voice? Every instinct told me that this was my mother. Sure enough, a moment later. The voice snapped through the phone: “I am Eleanor Vance, your wife! Arthur Davis, didn’t you used to say you’d recognize me even if I turned into the wind?! What is this? You can’t even recognize my voice now? Have you forgotten me?! Fine, give my daughter back, we’re getting a divorce!” It had been a very long time since anyone dared to speak to Arthur like that. His assistant trembled, terrified he was going to explode. Instead, Arthur’s face visibly softened. When he spoke, he sounded like he was choking back sobs. “Eleanor. Is it really you? Where are you? I’m coming to get you right now.” He looked overjoyed. A middle-aged man acting like an ecstatic boy. “And don’t you dare say the word divorce! I will never divorce you!” Eleanor sighed in exasperation. “Make sure you bring our daughter. Our Harper must be so beautiful now.” 9 Hearing that I was going to see my mother. I was delirious with joy. I wanted to sprint out the door right then and there. But as I turned. A hand yanked me back. I looked over my shoulder. It was Arthur. He stared at my face for a moment. “Let’s go together.” I paused, touching my right cheek. It was still swollen. My mother just said I must be so beautiful now. She was going to be disappointed. I wasn’t beautiful at all right now. Arthur seemed to realize this too. He ordered a maid to take me upstairs to shower and change. I refused. “No need.” Even if I wasn’t pretty right now. I didn’t want to lie to my mother. And I especially didn’t want to lie to her with Arthur. I wanted her to know that my life had been miserable these past few years. I wanted her to know that Arthur had slapped me. Arthur was silent for a few seconds, but didn’t force the issue. Before leaving, he glanced back at Chloe’s guests and frowned. He ordered his staff to see them out. Instantly, Chloe’s face turned a sickly shade of green. She walked over, looking pitiful, staring up at Arthur with wide, starry eyes. “Daddy, are you leaving? My mom is coming over soon. She said you have a weak stomach, so she made you a special dinner.” Hearing that, I almost rolled my eyes. A special dinner. The mere sight of that mother-daughter duo was enough to make anyone sick. Chloe’s mother had been in a coma from a car crash, which was why Arthur adopted Chloe. A few years later, her mother woke up. Instead of taking her daughter back, she constantly used “visiting Chloe” as an excuse to cozy up to Arthur. Arthur just gave a noncommittal “Hmm,” grabbed the car keys from his assistant, and looked at me. “Let’s go.”

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At my husband’s funeral, everyone tried to comfort me, telling me not to be sad. But I wasn’t sad. After the funeral, I worked five straight days of overtime. Reeking of the office, my mother-in-law forced me to go home and rest. She told me I had to look forward. Of course I had to look forward. I even had blind dates to go on. 1 It was my first time attending a funeral, and the main character was Liam Hayes. It felt incredibly weird. I chose the photo myself. A normally serious man, pushing his nose up to make a silly, ugly face. It was one of the very few photos where he was goofing off. I thought my mother-in-law would blame me, and that relatives and friends would say I was disrespecting the deceased, but no one seemed upset. They approached me carefully, their eyes darting away, afraid to make eye contact. So annoying. I turned my head, smiled at my husband lying in the casket, and said, “Hey, nobody told me funerals were like this?” So novel. “My condolences, Sarah,” my sister-in-law said, patting my shoulder. “My brother wouldn’t want you to be this heartbroken.” I found it funny. I earnestly searched my mind for any trace of emotion and shook my head. “I’m not heartbroken.” She sighed. “Don’t be like this. It… it makes me hurt for you.” My mother-in-law also pressed my shoulders, urging me to go rest on the side. “Mom, I’m not tired,” I said, spinning around in front of her. “Look, I’m full of energy. I could wrestle a bear.” I almost felt like this was just a normal banquet, it was just a pity I had to stand and couldn’t go down and eat. I saw the coral grouper earlier. That’s my favorite fish. I’ll definitely pack a few in plastic bags later. Oh, and the mixed salad. I heard the chef here is amazing at cold dishes, so I specifically ordered it. Grumble… My stomach growled. I rubbed my stomach and giggled foolishly. Under everyone’s sympathetic gaze, I stood for 28 hours straight, not feeling sleepy at all. Unfortunately, by the time dawn broke and the crematorium staff arrived, I still hadn’t had time to eat from that banquet table. No other reason than there were too many trivial things to deal with. I complained to the casket, “This is too much trouble. Good thing you’ll only bother me with this once. Hmph.” I chose the most expensive urn for Liam, and even put his favorite cologne inside. It was a custom-made cologne he bought casually on the street—a light, woody scent. Liam used it for many years. He said the scent was like him, gently seeping into the fabric. I didn’t understand what he meant. I just felt that even if he wore the most disgusting smell, I would still love it. What can I say? The filter of true love is strong; it even affects your sense of smell. The lid closed, and the fragrance faded. I calmly handled the final arrangements and hurried home to change clothes. I smelled terrible, so I took a long, hot bath. My boss called. “Sarah, your husband just passed. Don’t rush back to work. I’m giving you a few days off.” But corporate slaves don’t deserve rest. When I showed up at the office for overtime, my coworker, Linda, shivered. “Sarah, are you okay? Didn’t your husband…” I was very impatient. I’d been explaining to people non-stop these past few days that my husband died. How could this coworker forget again?! I stared intently at my computer, typing out a proposal. “Mr. Peterson is coming over in two days. If I don’t keep an eye on this, everyone’s year-end bonus is going to vanish.” She let out a weird yelp and ran out holding her coffee. My boss pressed down on my shoulder. “Don’t rush. The work is never-ending. You had a family tragedy; you need to take a couple of days off…” “Sigh, I’m fine. I’ve got plenty of energy.” I ran my fingers through my hair, continuously editing the proposal. He sighed, and the office returned to silence. 2 The office was dead silent. The sound of my typing grew louder and louder. It felt like there was a fire in my chest, and I didn’t know how to let it out. I wanted to slack off and look at my phone for a bit. I swiped to a funny video and wanted to share it, but suddenly remembered I had no one to share it with. I pondered for a moment, then took Liam’s phone out of my pocket and texted myself: “Wifey, wifey, why aren’t you home yet?” I replied: “Be good, the project bonus is twenty grand! Once I get the bonus, I’ll take you on a trip to Hawaii.” Much better. I put down the phone and kept typing. At 2:30 AM, I sent a text to Mr. Peterson. [Mr. Peterson, when are you available to come over and discuss the contract?] I waited ten minutes. The phone was as quiet as a mouse. I couldn’t help but call him. Mr. Peterson replied, his voice heavy with sleep, “I’ve had some family matters recently. Let’s talk in a couple of days, okay? It’s so late, Sarah, aren’t you tired?” Family matters? Could his family matters be bigger than Sarah’s family matters? I poked at my phone, furious. My husband died, and even I wasn’t as busy as him. But I couldn’t complain to a client. Since he didn’t have time, I continued to refine the proposal, typing out every minor detail I could think of, and even preparing five or six backup plans. I hadn’t slept for almost a week, but my energy was still high. The city night was silent. I stood by the floor-to-ceiling window holding my coffee, looking down at the entire city. In the dark office, the faint glow from the computer screen illuminated my face. I looked at my reflection in the glass. I just passed my thirtieth birthday, and I didn’t look much older. After pulling so many all-nighters, my face hadn’t sagged, and my dark circles weren’t that bad. I marveled at myself—I truly had the innate physique of a corporate workhorse. My phone alarm went off, reminding me it was time to take my folic acid. Liam and I had been doing well in our careers recently, so we started preparing for pregnancy, getting everything ready to welcome a new life. Expressionless, I tossed the folic acid into the trash can. My chest twitched with pain, but I still wasn’t sad. Birth, aging, sickness, and death are just parts of the human experience. The office lights flicked on. My mother-in-law and my boss walked in from outside. “Sarah, I’ve asked your boss for a month of leave. You are going home to rest right now, and the company won’t let you back in.” My mother-in-law cracked her knuckles. “Don’t make me call some people to drag you back.” “Don’t worry, Sarah,” my boss assured me. “This project with Mr. Peterson is your hard work. When the contract is signed, the commission goes to you. The team has already reached a consensus.” I was too familiar with their expressions—pure sympathy. I wanted to explain that I really wasn’t sad, but after opening my mouth a few times, I finally nodded in agreement. I grabbed my car keys, ready to drive home, but my mother-in-law snatched them away. “How long has it been since you slept? Letting you drive—do you want to kill me?” My mother-in-law had kids early; she was only 55 now. Her hair wasn’t entirely white, and her well-maintained face had very few wrinkles. She was a doctor. Every day her hair was meticulously combed, and she rarely smiled. When I first met her, I was quite anxious. It was Liam who comforted me. “My mom is a great person, she just has a sharp tongue but a soft heart. Once you figure out her temper, you’ll be fine.” Then he immediately told his mom to be nicer to me, saying I wasn’t one of the interns in her department. She sat behind the steering wheel, her back straight, her glasses reflecting the streetlights. “Go home and get a good sleep. What needs to pass, will pass.” Her eyes were slightly red. The moment she looked down, she seemed utterly exhausted. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes had deepened at some point, revealing her age. “It’s all over. He passed without pain, that’s a good thing too.” I took a deep breath, staring at the safety charm hanging from the rearview mirror. 3 I slept for less than five hours. When I woke up, my heart felt like it was being squeezed by something heavy—sour, tight, and a little painful. It scared me enough to go to the hospital for a check-up. Sinus arrhythmia. Nothing major. The doctor told me to stop staying up late. I originally wanted to go to the company, but remembering I had a month-long vacation, I suddenly felt lost. For the past few years, Liam and I rarely rested. We often complained about not having enough alone time, our lives filled to the brim with work. The week before the accident, we worked like crazy to take our annual leave early and go somewhere for a couple of days. Liam still had a half-finished itinerary on his phone. Thinking of this, I pulled out my laptop and finished the itinerary. Even after finishing it, I still felt hyperactive. The events of the past few days looped in my mind like a carousel. I touched my chest, feeling like I must be sick. Otherwise, why didn’t I know how to be sad? I looked in the mirror, trying to squeeze out a tear, but only managed an ugly, forced smile. My mom called to comfort me, subtly hinting that I shouldn’t remain a widow forever. I laughed and retorted, “What era is this? Does a woman still have to stay chaste after her husband dies?” I tossed my instant noodles onto the coffee table, turned around, and bought a premium membership on a dating site. The steam from the beef noodle soup clouded my eyes. Suddenly, the usually mild noodles tasted incredibly spicy today. I chugged the noodle broth and coughed violently from the spice. 4 Liam and I fell in love naturally; I had never been on a blind date before. The first time felt quite novel. On TV, blind dates always happened in cafes, so I arranged to meet the guy at a cafe near my house. The man who showed up was middle-aged. Not bald, not ugly, and dressed appropriately. Compared to my pajamas and slippers, his suit and tie were excessively formal. I frowned, looking him up and down. He just rubbed me the wrong way. “My situation is all in the profile. I’m 35, divorced, no kids, an executive at a multinational company, making $300k a year…” So this is what a blind date is like. I rested my chin on my hand, looking amused. “Mr. Miller, you look decent enough. Are you interested in getting double eyelid surgery? I prefer men with monolids or hidden double eyelids. I don’t have many demands; once we’re together, just get the surgery done.” He froze. He looked me up and down. “Are you sick in the head?” I felt very offended. We just met, how could he just open his mouth and insult me? He also felt offended. He stood up and left without even paying for his coffee. Cheapskate. 5 Liam’s eyes were beautiful. When he looked down at people, it always gave the illusion of deep affection. I always thought he had monolids until we got together and I realized they were hidden double eyelids. When we were intimate, my favorite thing to do was touch his eyelids. I knew exactly where the scar on the corner of his eye was. This guy wasn’t cooperative; he wasn’t my type. Liam and I used to come to this cafe all the time. On our rare days off, we would sit at this window seat. He would look at his laptop, I would read a book. Occasionally, our eyes would meet, we’d share a knowing smile, and then go back to doing our own thing. This place was like our secret base, full of memories. “Hey, I brought a stranger here,” I muttered to myself, touching the glass. When paying, I complained to the barista, “The coffee today has no flavor. Make it stronger next time.” Lately, I couldn’t taste anything. This black coffee tasted just like water. If Liam were still here, he’d probably make a huge fuss and take me to the hospital, afraid I had caught some weird disease. I couldn’t help but smile. Once, I got a paper cut. He was so terrified he took me to the hospital to get it bandaged. The doctor complained, “There’s not even any blood. If you had waited a bit longer, it would have healed itself.” I teased him about it for days. He was still self-righteous about it: “What if you got tetanus? Wouldn’t that be worse?” Walking home, I went to the ground floor to buy cologne like usual, only to find the perfume shop had become a nail salon. The layout of the perfume shop was still there, and the air still carried a faint fragrance, but the owner was nowhere to be found. I asked the nail technicians for the previous owner’s contact info, but they didn’t know. The familiar scent was fading, and a sense of panic gripped my heart.

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The girls in my senior class started a “Most Unattractive” poll. I won by a landslide. When the list circulated, my heart stopped at one name in particular: Madeline Sinclair. For six years, she had been my North Star, the girl I’d quietly adored from the shadows of the back row. Her handwriting was elegant, every loop and curve a deliberate slap in the face to the boy who had been stupid enough to confess his feelings to her just the day before. Years later, a financial news anchor interviewed Madeline, now a rising star in private equity. They asked if she had any regrets. Madeline looked directly into the camera, her expression poised but her eyes haunting. “In high school, I mistook a diamond for a piece of glass. I let someone else take him, and I’ve spent every night for seven years regretting it. Luckily, he’s single now. I’m hoping for a second chance.” The “someone else” she was referring to was currently sitting across from me at dinner. She elegantly set down her fork, pushed a perfectly sliced piece of Wagyu beef toward me, and murmured that she had to make a quick call. Out on the balcony overlooking the Seattle skyline, her voice turned to ice as she spoke into her phone. “Universal Holdings is in their Series C round, right? Call NorthStar, Solstice, and Vanguard. Tell them to pull every cent of their investment. Now.” 1 The poll was a cruel, low-tech game played in the back of a spiral notebook. When it reached my desk, the classroom went deafeningly silent. The first page was “Most Likely to Succeed/Hottest.” The second page was the “Wall of Shame.” The first category was a heated debate. The second was a consensus. My name, Jude Miller, was written over and over again. Out of twenty-one girls, seventeen had voted for me. I wasn’t delusional. I knew I wasn’t the guy people did double-takes for. I had a heavy brow, lips that were a bit too full for my face, a permanent tan from working outside, and skin that was currently losing a battle with teenage hormones. I dressed in thrift-store flannels and wore my hair in a utilitarian buzz cut. I had self-awareness. I never expected a movie-style romance, and I certainly didn’t expect Madeline Sinclair to love me back. But seeing her handwriting on that page felt like a physical blow to the stomach. We had known each other since middle school. I had loved her for every second of those six years. I just hadn’t expected her to humiliate me so publicly the day after I’d bared my soul. The confession had been an accident. I was helping my parents at our family’s small neighborhood grocery store in a rougher part of town. Madeline walked by, and I called out to her, handing her a bag of fruit. I told her her mother had already paid for it—a lie to help them out, since I knew her family was struggling after her father’s business empire collapsed. Under the dim streetlamp, her long lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. “Jude, I don’t need your charity.” She let go of the bag. I wasn’t quick enough to catch it. Apples and pears scattered across the cracked sidewalk, bruising in the dirt. Her pride was just like that fruit—fragile, easily damaged, and spread out for everyone to see. “I’m not pitying you, Maddie,” I blurted out, the words tumbling over each other. “I like you. I’ve always liked you. I just want to help.” I tried to force a casual shrug. “Every guy in school is stuffing your locker with Godiva and flowers. Is one bag of fruit really that much worse?” Three seconds passed. Maybe thirty. Time stretched until it snapped. “I’m sorry, Jude,” she said, her voice flat. “But I don’t feel that way about you.” She walked away without looking back. It was the answer I expected. I told myself it didn’t hurt. I knelt, picked up the bruised apples, wiped off the grit, and went back to work. My family lived in the part of the city where the buildings were grey and the people looked tired. Everyone here was sprinting just to stay in place. Madeline was different. She was a fallen princess, temporarily exiled to our neighborhood after her family’s mansion was foreclosed on. Before the move, no one at school knew my mother worked as a housekeeper for her family. Madeline had kept my secret, protecting my dignity. I thought my confession was a way of protecting hers—showing her that even at her lowest, she was still someone’s dream. But after that night, she didn’t just ignore me. She despised me. 2 The notebook sat on my desk, her sharp, aggressive script mocking me. I looked back at Madeline. She met my gaze with a chilling indifference. The girl who had been my sun was now a block of ice. The rest of the girls held their breath, waiting for the “ugly kid” to have a meltdown. If I showed them I was hurt, they’d won. I twirled my pen, my heart hammering against my ribs. Then, with a flourish, I wrote my own name at the bottom of the list. I turned around and flashed a grin at the room. “Hey, I’m voting for myself too. Make it eighteen.” If you want to stop a bully, you have to be the first one to laugh at the joke. That night, the girls couldn’t look me in the eye. A few of them even came up to me after class to apologize, claiming it was just a “stupid prank” and that “if your skin cleared up, you’d actually be kind of hot.” I laughed it off. Their opinions didn’t matter. Madeline’s, however, was a different story. I caught her in the alleyway behind the shops on the way home. “Maddie, wait.” She stopped but didn’t turn around. “I borrowed a copy of Jane Eyre from your library once,” I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. “There’s a line in there I want to give back to you: ‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?’” I stepped closer. “Clearly, in your world, being unattractive means I don’t have the right to feel things. The funny thing is, none of you think you’re bad people. You cry at sad movies and tweet about social justice, but you’ll tear down a classmate for a lunch-break thrill. You never once wondered if it would hurt. You didn’t care.” I took a breath, feeling a weight lift. “I used to think you were different. I was wrong. You’re exactly like them.” I paused. “So, Madeline. I’m taking it back. My confession. My feelings. All of it.” She used to be the moon in my sky. Now, she was just another girl in a crowded room. Whether I was “ugly” or not, she wasn’t worth the devotion I’d given her. For the first time, I saw a flicker of something in her eyes—regret? Surprise?—but I was already walking away. A week later, I moved my seat to the back of the room, right next to the school’s most notorious outlier: Cassidy Vance. She was the only girl who hadn’t voted. And she was the only person Madeline Sinclair was afraid of. 3 (Madeline’s Perspective) When Madeline wrote Jude’s name in that cruel notebook, she was picturing the way he had smiled at Cassidy in the hallway. She didn’t actually think Jude was ugly. She had seen him on the rare days his skin was clear and his hair was styled. He wasn’t a classic prom king, but he had a presence. Her mother, a woman with an eye for high-end aesthetics, had once remarked that Jude had “challenging, high-fashion bones”—the kind of face that would become striking once he grew into it. But at seventeen, most girls didn’t have that kind of vision. Jude was smart, resilient, and had a dry wit that could disarm anyone. Once, when a girl teased him about his acne while he was drinking a milkshake, he’d just grinned and said, “If you want a sip, just ask. You do my chores, and I’ll buy you your own.” Madeline admired him. But she didn’t love him—or so she told herself. When he confessed to her, she panicked. Her world was ending; her father was in legal trouble, and they were broke. She couldn’t handle the weight of his “goodness.” So she pushed him away. But when she got home to the small apartment her mother was trying to make feel like a home, and saw the groceries Jude’s family had quietly left for them, guilt ate her alive. She went out to find him, to apologize, to tell him she’d been harsh. Instead, she saw him at the grocery store with Cassidy. Everyone knew Cassidy was the daughter of a billionaire, a girl who played by her own rules and made teachers tremble. Only Madeline knew the full extent of the “Vance” name. Her father had spent years trying to get an audience with Cassidy’s father, and the Vances had been the ones to let his company sink without a second thought. Cassidy’s custom Ducati was idling at the curb. She tossed a book at Jude. He caught it like it was a holy relic, his face lighting up with a genuine, brilliant smile. Cassidy—the girl who wore five-thousand-dollar boots—took an apple from his stand, wiped it on her jacket, and took a huge bite. It was the same fruit Madeline had rejected. That night, lying in a bed that felt too small in a room that smelled like old dust, Madeline stared at the window across the alley. Was Jude ugly? She decided that when he smiled at Cassidy, he was. He used to only smile like that for her. And now, the moment her family lost everything, he had found someone else to look at. 4 Two days after moving next to Cassidy, I was already regretting it. She was… difficult. When I first sat down, she was face-down on her desk, sleeping. When she finally looked up, she gave me a lazy, feline stare. “Done chasing the ice queen?” “I wasn’t chasing her,” I mumbled. Cassidy snorted. She was the only one who knew about my sketchbook—the one she’d found in the library, filled with drawings of Madeline. She had tossed it back to me with a single comment: “Zero taste.” Valentine’s Day came a few days later. The popular kids had lockers overflowing with chocolates. Madeline’s desk was a mountain of Lindt and Godiva. Cassidy walked into class, dropped a box of insanely expensive imported dark chocolate on my desk, and said, “No one at my house wants these. Don’t let them go to waste.” I pushed them back. “I’m… I’m cutting back on sugar.” Her eyes flashed. She kicked her chair back, grabbed the box, threw it into the trash can, and walked out of the room before the bell even rang. A minute later, Madeline walked over. She placed a small, plain box on my desk. “These are sugar-free,” she said softly. The class erupted in whispers. My friend Ben slid a note onto my desk: Holy shit, Jude. The Prom Queen and the Rebel Leader in one day? How? I wasn’t delusional. I knew Cassidy and Madeline didn’t “like” me. They lived in a different universe. Plus, I was the “Most Unattractive” guy in school. Madeline was only doing this because her mother had noticed the tension between us. I’d overheard her mom telling her, “Jude is a good boy. Even if you don’t love him, don’t be cruel.” As for Cassidy? I had no idea. She was a chaos agent. Her behavior started getting weirder. She’d poke my arm during lectures. She’d doodle my name in the margins of her notebooks. After school, she’d race her motorcycle alongside my bus, waving like a lunatic. She was moody. One day she’d give me rare first-edition books and share her earbuds to listen to indie tracks I’d never heard of. The next, she’d block the hallway so I couldn’t leave or lock me in the equipment room during gym class just to “talk.” Finally, I snapped. “Cassidy, what is this? These head games… do you actually like me or something?” She laughed so hard her face turned red. “Like you? God, you’re such a kid. It’s pathetic. I’m just bored, Jude. You’re like a stray dog I’m trying to train. It’s funny.” But even though she messed with me, I couldn’t hate her. Because the night of the “Ugly Poll,” when that notebook was being passed around, Cassidy had been the one to snatch it. She didn’t just read it; she ripped it into confetti and stood up in front of the whole class. “You guys have the aesthetic taste of a dumpster fire,” she’d snarled at the girls. “Is this really how you spend your time? It’s embarrassing to breathe the same air as you.” Then she’d looked at me, her eyes fierce. “And for the record, he’s not ugly. You guys are just basic.” That night, she was my hero. A hero I never thought I’d have. 5 Cassidy was an enigma. She skipped class whenever she wanted, yet she somehow stayed at the top of the rankings. My first impression of her was that she was just a rich girl looking for a thrill. I’d seen her at a music festival over the summer, drenching people with a water gun and laughing like a maniac. She’d accidentally soaked me, then insisted I hop on her Ducati so the wind would dry my clothes. But then, I saw her on the sports channel. I was eating dinner when a broadcast of the National Shooting Championships came on. There she was. Cassidy Vance. Her arms were rock-steady as she lifted a competition air rifle. Her expression was focused, cold, and utterly professional. She was a different person. I held my breath as she squeezed the trigger, hitting the bullseye with terrifying precision. “Mrs. Miller?” Madeline was at our house for dinner again. She stood up abruptly. “My dad is coming home from the hospital tonight. We need help moving some furniture. Could Jude come over for a minute?” It was a lie. There was no furniture to move. As soon as I stepped into her apartment, she locked the door and backed me against the wall. “Jude, is this what it takes? She gets on TV and suddenly you’re obsessed?” her voice was trembling. “Do you know what people are saying? That you and Cassidy were ‘locked’ in the equipment room for an hour? Do you really think you belong in her world?” She stepped closer, her perfume—something expensive and floral—filling my lungs. “She doesn’t even have to take the SATs. She’s going to an Ivy League school on a legacy ticket or moving to Europe. You’re just a distraction to her. When she’s bored, she’ll leave. What happens to your reputation then?” My phone buzzed. A voice note from Cassidy. [Hey, Neighbor. Did you see me on TV? Was I a total badass or what? I’m outside your place. Come out. Let’s get tacos.] The walls in these old apartments were thin. We both heard it. My mom’s voice drifted from the hallway: “Oh, hi! Jude is just across the hall helping Madeline.” Silence followed. Then, the low rumble of a motorcycle engine. A text popped up: [Get out here. Now. Alleyway.] Madeline moved even closer, her face inches from mine. She looked desperate. “Jude,” she whispered, “don’t go. Please.” 6 When I reached the alley, Cassidy was leaning against her bike, her helmet tucked under her arm. Her eyes were like flint. “Get on.” She drove like a woman possessed. We hit eighty on the Pacific Coast Highway, the salt air stinging my eyes. She didn’t stop until we reached a secluded stretch of beach. She dragged me toward the water, her grip like iron. “Cassidy, what the hell is wrong with you?” I shouted, finally wrenching my arm away. She spun around, towering over me in her boots. “She kissed you, didn’t she?”

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My younger sister snapped a photo while sitting on the hood of my Porsche. “Driving a Porsche at 23, but I still don’t feel happy.” After this humblebrag went viral, her DMs were flooded with messages from eager suitors. She paraded around a million-dollar Louis Vuitton bag gifted by one of these admirers, flaunting it in my face. “Sister, I hinted that he should buy me a million-dollar car, but he got me a million-dollar bag instead. What goes on in the minds of these clueless guys?” I kindly warned her: “Is it possible that dealerships don’t sell fake cars?” She immediately blasted me on social media, claiming her own flesh and blood was jealous of her success. I was relentlessly cyberbullied by her male fans and had no choice but to delete all my accounts. She accepted the proposal of a “wealthy heir,” showing off hands covered in gold jewelry, her expression arrogant and triumphant: “Don’t tell me there are still girls out there who haven’t received gold from their boyfriends? No way, right?” But the internet hit back hard, exposing her gold as cheap knockoffs. By that time, she had already stolen her ID, secretly married the “heir,” and gotten pregnant. The damage was irreversible. Our parents were scammed out of their life savings by their supposed “golden son-in-law” and tragically committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. My sister blamed me for everything. In a fit of rage, she pushed me off the roof of a 28-story building. “If you hadn’t let me use your Porsche for that photo, I never would have met that loser, and Mom and Dad wouldn’t have been scammed!” When I opened my eyes again, I was right back to the moment she went viral for flexing with my Porsche. 1 “When is it my turn to drive a Porsche at 23?! I am going to war with you rich people!” I opened my eyes, staring blankly at a gossip aggregator account I had randomly scrolled past. My sister was sitting on the hood of my Porsche, pouting her lips for the camera. The comments were a sea of envy, and the post already had a hundred thousand likes. The top comment read: “Wow, whose little princess is out here humblebragging?” My sister replied below: “Not at all, I feel like I’m just from an ordinary family. I just can’t find an older guy who’s willing to spoil me~” In my past life, when I accidentally discovered she was using my Porsche for photos, I advised her to keep a low profile and not expose too much about our supposed family wealth on a public platform. But my sister dismissed my concerns, thinking I was just being a nosy busybody. “Sister, what do you know? I’m building an internet persona. It’s just for marketing.” “You’re not going to be petty and expose me, are you?” Figuring I couldn’t coddle her forever, I decided to let her forge her own path. Seeing her attitude, I didn’t say anything else, just reminded her to be careful. My sister was busy recording a new video on her phone and brushed me off carelessly: “I know, I know! You’re so annoying!” But to my surprise, a few days later, I found a gift box outside the door of our apartment. While I was wondering who left it there, my sister rushed out of her room and snatched the box, cradling it like a precious treasure. “Don’t touch it! It’s a gift from my ‘brother’!” That’s when I realized she hadn’t just asked a “sugar daddy” for gifts on her livestream—she had actually given out my apartment address! My sister didn’t care about my safety at all. Her face was flushed with the sheer thrill of receiving a gift. She eagerly tore off the wrapping, pulled out a handbag, and held it up to inspect it. I recognized it as a new release from Louis Vuitton, valued at roughly a million dollars. My sister slung the bag over her shoulder, twirling in front of the mirror, absolutely captivated by her own reflection. Turning back and catching me staring at her, she dramatically furrowed her brow, feigning distress: “Sister, I hinted that he should buy me a million-dollar car, but he got me a million-dollar bag instead. What goes on in the minds of these clueless guys?” I frowned, looking closely at the bag, and offered a warning: “Is it possible that dealerships don’t sell fake cars?” My sister froze. When the implication hit her, she dropped the bag, put her hands on her hips, and glared at me furiously. “What is that supposed to mean?! Just because you’re a washed-up old hag who can’t get any gifts, you’re jealous of me?! Have you ever even seen real luxury goods? What gives you the right to call this a fake!” Seeing that she was completely unreachable, I decided not to waste my breath. My sister let out a cold snort, turned, and marched away, a flash of pure malice crossing her eyes. The very next day, I was trending online—for all the wrong reasons. In a tearful video, my sister sobbed, claiming I was deeply jealous of the fact that she was born with everything, and that she now had a boyfriend who spoiled her endlessly. “Wuu-wuu… I don’t know why my sister would say those things. I just wanted to share my normal dating experiences with her.” My sister claimed I deliberately called her gift a fake to sabotage her relationship with her boyfriend. She spun a narrative that I was green with envy over her happiness and was trying to steal her man! I was labeled a shameless homewrecker. The cyberbullying from her male fans escalated until it affected my real life. Out of sheer desperation, I was forced to issue a public apology and delete all my social media accounts. Seeing how easily she crushed me only fueled my sister’s arrogance, which ultimately paved the way for a massive disaster. In my past life, I ran myself ragged trying to clear my name. This time, I wasn’t going to be that stupid. Snapping back to the present, I saw my sister preening with the bag in front of me. I didn’t offer any advice. I just smiled faintly: “That’s nice.” My sister looked even more smug. “Of course it is! You wouldn’t even dare to touch a brand like this, would you? Once I marry my wealthy heir, I can have as many of these bags as I want!” “Jealous? Too bad you don’t have my luck. You’re just a spinster nobody wants!” She clutched the bag to her chest, humming a tune as she retreated to her bedroom. 2 Having tasted the sweetness of viral fame, my sister doubled down on her livestreams, desperately cultivating her “rich heiress” persona. I used the excuse of not wanting to disturb her to retreat to my room and process the fact that I had been reborn. In my past life, it all started with this fake designer bag. My sister became entirely convinced the guy was a legitimate millionaire. She used every trick in the book to siphon money from me to maintain her fake heiress lifestyle, obsessively focused on landing her “golden goose.” By the time I caught on, she had secretly drained every cent of the retirement fund I had set aside for our parents. Remembering this, I immediately contacted the bank and transferred all my funds to a new account my sister knew nothing about. This time around, she wouldn’t get a single penny from me! Sure enough, a few days later, my sister stormed up to me, shoving her phone screen aggressively in my face. “Why is there absolutely zero money in the bank account?! Did you use it for something shady?!” I glanced at her phone. It was a failed payment notification due to insufficient funds. The item in her cart was a luxury watch priced at over a hundred thousand dollars. I clicked my tongue in disbelief. She really had no concept of the value of money when she wasn’t the one earning it. I replied calmly, “That’s Mom and Dad’s retirement fund. Why are you monitoring it?” My sister shot me a dirty look. “What retirement fund? That’s my dowry from Mom and Dad!” “I’m an influencer with a million followers! All my fans are watching me. My dowry needs to be at least five million just to match my status!” “If you don’t give it to me, are you trying to ruin my career?” “Transfer the money to me immediately, do you hear me? Ugh, I don’t have time for this, I have to go on a date with my boyfriend!” My sister demanded I transfer the money ASAP, claiming she needed it urgently, then sprinted down the stairs in her stilettos. I stood by the window and watched her climb into a luxury car parked outside our building. I didn’t expect them to meet up this quickly, fueled by her aggressive livestreaming campaign. Transferring the money was, of course, out of the question. Let’s see how long it takes her to realize her “billionaire” has a few red flags when she doesn’t have my wallet to fall back on. 3 My sister didn’t come home that night. The next day, she posted a new video. The video was a blinding display of gold jewelry reflecting harshly in the camera flash. A massive gold bangle encircled her wrist, chunky gold rings adorned all ten of her fingers, and a heavy gold pendant hung around her neck. She smugly declared that these were just “little trinkets” her boyfriend casually picked up for her. “Don’t tell me there are still girls out there who haven’t received gold from their boyfriends? No way, right?” “Money is just a string of numbers to me.” She then proudly announced that she had a five-million-dollar dowry ready to go, proving she wasn’t after his money. She claimed she was merely documenting their romance. The video exploded instantly, with comment sections flooded by envious viewers. My sister basked in the attention. “I just wanted to test if he really loved me. I didn’t expect him to care so much. I’m so moved~” However, amidst the praise, doubts began to surface. Several professionals pointed out that the color of the gold was off and lacked the required hallmarks, strongly suggesting they were fake. Some users even began questioning the authenticity of her “rich heiress” persona. My sister panicked. She posted a rapid-fire sequence of seven or eight videos, meticulously filming her jewelry from every conceivable angle. “Are you kidding me? Have some of you seriously never seen real gold before? Given my family background, why would I ever buy fakes?” “How does this look fake? The color is perfect! Let me guess—your boyfriends refuse to buy you any, so you come here calling mine fake? Don’t be sour grapes.” “Wow, I really didn’t expect so many people to be jealous of me. Honestly, my background is just average, it’s just that my boyfriend spoils me too much and insisted on buying all this gold. I really couldn’t stop him.” After this aggressive, high-profile defense, she doubled down, announcing a livestream event to broadcast her extravagant wedding to silence the haters. “This weekend, my boyfriend and I are hosting the wedding of the century at a luxury hotel! It’s not too extravagant, we only spent a few million on it!” “I welcome all my fans to join us, and the haters better watch closely! I’ll prove my status with cold, hard cash!” She sounded incredibly confident, but I hadn’t given her a dime. Where was she getting the money? 4 I hadn’t given her the five million, so I honestly had no idea where her funding was coming from. Nevertheless, I brought our parents to attend her so-called “wedding of the century.” When we arrived at the grand banquet hall, my sister was standing alone on the stage in a wedding gown, livestreaming the event. I pulled up the stream on my phone. The viewership was massive, the screen flooded with congratulatory messages. But as time dragged on, the audience realized something was wrong. My sister had been livestreaming for an hour, and the groom was nowhere to be found. The envious comments gradually morphed into skepticism. “What’s going on? Has the groom still not shown up? The wedding was supposed to start a long time ago, right?” “We’ve been waiting to see this billionaire boyfriend, but the groom pulled a runaway bride?” “Is this the ‘status’ the streamer was bragging about?” Anxiety crept onto my sister’s face. She frantically sent messages on her phone, a sheen of sweat breaking out on her forehead. Our parents looked worried, and I offered a few words of mild comfort. That “wealthy heir” had probably skipped town a long time ago. I smiled, watching my sister panic on stage, curious to see how she would try to spin this disaster. “Of course not! My boyfriend suddenly received an urgent notice to attend an international summit abroad.” “A real man must prioritize his career! Career-driven men are the most attractive!” “As his supportive partner, I obviously can’t let him worry about things back home!” She put her phone away, turning the screen toward the camera to display her chat history. The man on the other end claimed he had to rush to catch an international flight and sent my sister a digital red envelope containing $520. “Thank you all for coming! Please enjoy the food and drinks! I have plenty of money!” The guests in the hall exchanged bewildered glances. I frowned; the prices at this hotel were notoriously exorbitant. Where exactly was her money coming from? I glanced down at the livestream. Just as I suspected, the internet wasn’t buying it. The chat was a wall of insults. “What kind of garbage is this? Abandoning his fiancée at the altar, and you call him a good boyfriend?” “The streamer isn’t a rich heiress at all, is she? Her boyfriend is probably dead broke too.” Seeing the backlash, my sister shrieked in desperation. “What do you guys know?! I’m pregnant with his family’s eldest grandson! They’re transferring two properties into my name tomorrow!” “You know those luxury yachts overseas? Once I deliver the eldest grandson, my husband is going to buy me one so I can throw parties on it! I’ll invite all my fans to come hang out!” The moment she said that, my parents, sitting next to me, gripped my hands tightly. “Is what your sister saying true?! Is she really pregnant?!” “How can this be happening? We haven’t even met the guy!” Before I could even attempt to explain, my sister overheard our parents from the stage. She lifted her chin in disdain. “Stop being so traditional, okay? You two dinosaurs need to understand this is called modern love!” “Of course it’s true! This is a massive blessing!” “Just wait until I marry into that billionaire family!” My sister lovingly cradled her flat stomach, her face glowing with pride, acting as if she were already the star of a high-society wedding. She continued to recklessly boast to her fans about the “million-dollar” wedding dress she was wearing. Did she honestly believe she could secure a billionaire husband just by getting pregnant? I shook my head at my sister’s impenetrable delusion, took my bewildered parents by the arms, and we left. 5 After ensuring my parents were settled at home, I returned to work. But two days later, I was ambushed outside my office building. A cup of iced coffee was violently thrown directly into my face. Caught completely off guard, I was drenched. “I don’t know what kind of sick, twisted heart you have! You just can’t stand to see your sister happy, can you?” “To resort to such a venomous, disgusting scheme… are you even Mia’s biological sister?!” Frowning, I signaled the security guards to remove the woman, who was still screaming a barrage of insults. I immediately dialed my sister’s number, but she declined the call. I had no choice but to search for news about her online. That’s when I discovered she had launched a public crusade against me. “I never imagined my own sister would secretly swap out my gold jewelry. You all know the backlash and abuse I received because of that incident… I had no idea the mastermind behind it all was my own sister.” “My sister hated studying since she was little. She threw tantrums and forced our parents to let her drop out so she could go ‘work.’ When she hit a wall in the real world, she started pressuring our parents to force me out into society to ‘build character.’” “She argued that it was unfair for me to stay in school while she had to struggle in the real world.” She spun my years of hard work and hustle into a sleazy narrative of sleeping my way to the top, while painting herself as the tragic, bullied victim. “Because my sister disapproved of my relationship, she swapped my bridal gold and illegally withheld my dowry. My boyfriend felt disrespected by our family and left in anger to attend his international conference.” “What about me? What did I do wrong?! Why are you doing this to me?!” My sister wept on camera, claiming I had deliberately destroyed her happiness. Her fans swallowed the lie whole. They swarmed my accounts, attacking me viciously while offering her endless sympathy and comfort. “You really can’t judge a book by its cover. Who would have thought her own flesh and blood could be so evil?” “Oh my god, if it were me, I would absolutely despise that sister!” “Is she really that bitter just seeing someone else happy? What a vile, old witch!”

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Chapter 1 While attending a high-end auction with my best friend, I accidentally witnessed my husband—Arthur Sterling, the notoriously ruthless and supposedly devoted heir to the Sterling empire—win a fierce bidding war for a necklace I had admired for months. Yet, the very next day, that exact necklace was resting against the collarbone of his stunningly beautiful new intern. I didn’t cry. I didn’t cause a scene. I simply made a phone call to my contact at the boutique, purchased two hundred identical custom necklaces, and had them delivered to the women’s dormitory at NYU. If he wanted to play the generous benefactor, I’d gladly help him out. I made sure he gave enough gifts to last a lifetime. While I was at it, I had my lawyer friend draft a divorce agreement and had it delivered straight to his desk. On that day, every single girl in Dormitory 1 at NYU received a lavish gift from the CEO’s wife of Sterling Tech. Everyone, except Chloe Vance. … When Arthur Sterling walked into the gala with Chloe Vance on his arm, the party was at its peak. The young, alluring girl clung intimately to Arthur’s arm, her face glowing with a radiant, victorious smile. The crowd surrounding me instantly parted, their faces painted with a mix of pity and awkward amusement. Even I was genuinely surprised that Arthur had the audacity to parade her around at a public event. Ours was an arranged marriage uniting two of the most powerful families in New York. I had assumed he would at least have the decency to save my face. But I was wrong. “What’s with the silence, everyone? Are you all mesmerized by Arthur’s new secretary?” I stepped up and offered the explanation myself. The crowd breathed a collective sigh of relief, murmuring in understanding. Arthur approached me, acting as if absolutely nothing was wrong, and softly called out, “Mia.” Chloe followed suit, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “Hi, sister.” Fighting back the urge to gag, I offered them a polite, elegant smile. We were all adults; there was no need to wear our emotions on our sleeves. Besides, in our social circle, the most crucial survival skill was knowing how to put on a mask. You smile when you’re furious. You act affectionate when you’re disgusted. And more importantly, given who Arthur Sterling was, throwing a tantrum here wouldn’t benefit anyone. However, seeing that specific necklace gleaming on Chloe’s neck finally extinguished any remaining warmth in my heart. Just ten minutes ago, I had watched Arthur gently, patiently tuck a stray strand of hair behind Chloe’s ear before carefully pulling her slipped dress strap back into place. Yesterday, when I saw him walking out of the auction house, I had foolishly believed the necklace was for me. A sweet, naive thrill had bloomed in my chest, and I spent the rest of the day eagerly anticipating my surprise. This morning, I had even gone to the salon for a blowout and hired a makeup artist to make sure I looked perfect for the occasion. But hours passed, my styling was done, and the gift never arrived. I had even called him, dropping subtle hints, trying to gauge if he had a surprise waiting for me. The answer was no. But before he hung up, I heard a sweet, whining female voice in the background: “Mr. Sterling, won’t your wife be upset if she finds out?” “No. She’s always been mature and understanding. She won’t mind.” In that exact moment, I realized how painfully naive I had been. Arthur Sterling had probably been dirty for a long time. He was right about one thing: I was mature and understanding. Getting into a catfight with a cheap little homewrecker was beneath me. Chloe trailed closely behind Arthur. She was smiling sweetly at me, but the arrogance and provocation in her eyes were glaringly obvious. I sneered internally. She was just a clueless college student if she actually thought Arthur took her seriously. Staring directly at her neck, I drawled, “That’s a beautiful necklace. A gift from someone special?” Chloe wasn’t stupid. She understood exactly what I was implying. Chapter 2 A broke college student couldn’t afford jewelry of that caliber. Chloe shot me a look of feigned shock before turning to Arthur with an expression that perfectly blended shyness and panic. Right on cue, Arthur stepped in to defend her. “Mia, don’t misunderstand. Chloe had a rough time during her internship this week. As her boss, buying her a little gift to cheer her up is normal. There’s nothing going on between us.” I raised my champagne glass to him, smiling as if I completely understood, then turned away to make a quick phone call to my assistant. A moment later, Arthur’s phone rang, and he stepped aside to take the call. A familiar socialite sauntered over, pretending to make small talk before slyly asking who Chloe was. I wasn’t an idiot. Her question was dripping with mockery. The crowd wasn’t blind. Everyone had seen how fiercely Arthur was protecting the young girl. I answered without skipping a beat, stripping away all the pleasantries. “Probably just a delusional homewrecker trying to sleep her way to the top.” The blood instantly drained from Chloe’s face. She looked utterly humiliated and deeply wronged. Her big, beautiful eyes immediately welled up with tears. What a tragic, innocent little victim. Truly heartbreaking. No wonder Arthur liked her. The socialite clearly hadn’t expected me to be so brutally honest. Recognizing she was out of her depth, she awkwardly excused herself. I crossed my arms, looking Chloe up and down with an amused smirk. “Miss Vance, right? At your age, you should be focusing on your textbooks, studying for your finals, or preparing for grad school. Stop living in a fantasy world. If you keep playing this game, you’re going to lose your dignity and your reputation.” She knew I was humiliating her. Her lips trembled, but she couldn’t formulate a single word. I scoffed internally. Just because I played the role of the elegant, understanding wife didn’t mean I was a doormat she could walk all over. “Sister, I…” “Stop right there,” I interrupted, raising a hand. “My mother only had one child. I don’t have a sister. And we live in the 21st century; the era of concubines calling the wife ‘sister’ is long gone.” Chloe’s tears started falling faster. I was about to deliver another verbal blow when Arthur returned. He walked straight up to me, skipping the pleasantries. “Did you order those necklaces?” My assistant works fast. I nodded smoothly. “Yes.” “Why did you order so many? You don’t even wear that style.” I leaned casually against a marble pillar, my tone teasing. “I’m doing you a favor, darling. College kids have it rough these days. Internships are exhausting. I figured I’d buy them all a little something to boost morale.” Arthur’s perpetually unreadable expression finally cracked. But he quickly masked it. He had always been a master of hiding his emotions. He smoothly slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me close, and whispered affectionately in my ear. “It’s just a necklace. If you liked it, I can buy you another one. I don’t care if you scare the interns, but I’d hate to see you get so upset over nothing.” His voice was deep and husky, just like it had been during countless intimate nights. His breath brushed against my ear. In the past, it was a move meant for seduction. Now, it was a calculated tactic to extract Chloe from the mess she was in. I yielded to his grip, placing my hand on his back, and used the leverage to pull him even closer. Matching his tone, I whispered back: “You know exactly what Chloe is trying to do. This isn’t just about the necklace. Arthur, I never cared about your little flings in the past. But don’t forget, I am Mrs. Sterling now. If this blows up, it damages both of us.” “What happened today—I expect it to be the last time.” I delivered the final sentence through gritted teeth. It was a genuine threat. Chapter 3 Amidst the clinking glasses and chatter, the other guests assumed we were just flirting. A wave of good-natured teasing erupted around us. I felt him tense up. I gave his back a light, patronizing pat. Then, I turned, grabbed a fresh glass of champagne, and walked away. When the gala finally wound down and the guests began to leave, I thought I had made myself perfectly clear. My disgust couldn’t have been more obvious. But I had severely underestimated how utterly shameless some people could be. As we were heading out, Chloe insisted on riding in Arthur’s car with us. “Chloe’s dorm is far, and it’s impossible to get an Uber right now. It’s on our way, so I’m just dropping her off.” That was Arthur’s excuse. It was a pathetic, transparent lie, and I called him out immediately. “The dorms are in Brooklyn, and our penthouse is in Manhattan. How exactly is that ‘on our way’?” Arthur’s brow furrowed in visible annoyance, while Chloe looked at me with big, teary eyes. The tableau made it look like I was the villain needlessly bullying a helpless girl. Seeing my refusal to play along, Arthur tried the emotional manipulation route. “Mia, you’ve always been so reasonable…” I cut him off before he could finish. “And if I say no?” Chloe stepped toward me, her eyes red. “Sister, I shouldn’t have taken the necklace you liked. Tonight was my fault. But I really can’t get a ride right now…” “I’ll trade you my favorite perfume for it, okay?” She held out an exquisitely packaged perfume bottle. Judging by the luxury branding, it was clearly another gift from Arthur. I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “What does that even smell like? Desperation and cheap tea?” The relentless humiliation finally made Chloe’s face flush a deep, angry crimson. She stood there, awkwardly holding back tears. Arthur, who had maintained his gentlemanly facade all night, finally snapped. His voice was low and dangerous. “Mia, you’re crossing the line.” I scoffed. “This is crossing the line?” “Arthur, don’t forget who hosted this gala tonight. Without my father pulling strings for you, your new merger is dead in the water.” Without waiting for his response, I shoved past the weeping Chloe and got into the car. He was a businessman above all else. He knew how to weigh the pros and cons. He knew exactly what my threat meant. He might be aloof and arrogant, but I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth too. I was raised to be a titan, not a trophy wife. In the corporate world, emotions have very little value. In the end, he got into the car with me. We drove in suffocating silence. I couldn’t care less about fighting a naive college girl over a man. But my status in our social circle meant I couldn’t allow myself to be humiliated. Rumors about Arthur Sterling leaving his wife on the sidewalk for an intern would be a PR disaster. However, when I realized the passenger seat had been readjusted, I had to admit my tolerance for disrespect had a limit. This clueless little girl had managed to push my buttons. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who had messed with my seat. Stuck to the passenger side window control was a bright pink sticky note: “Princess Parking Only.” A surge of blind rage hit me. I wanted nothing more than to kick the man next to me out of a moving vehicle, drive back to the venue, and slap Chloe Vance across the face. Just as I was about to detonate, a phone rang. Chloe’s sobbing voice filled the quiet car. “Arthur… sob… I couldn’t get a cab. I think someone is following me. I’m so scared. Can you come get me…?” Arthur didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. He slammed on the brakes, pulling the car violently to the shoulder. He spoke in a frantic, soothing voice. “Okay, don’t panic. Stay exactly where you are. I’m coming to get you.” My hand, which had been reaching to adjust my seat, froze. I turned to look at him in absolute disbelief. Arthur frowned. “Mia, take a cab home. Chloe might be in real danger. I have to go to her.” I let out a harsh, incredulous laugh. “We’re in the middle of 5th Avenue. It’s packed with people. There’s a police precinct three blocks from NYU. What kind of danger could she possibly be in?” “Are you her father? If she’s in danger, she should call 911, not you!” Chapter 4 Arthur was rendered speechless by my logic. He closed his eyes in frustration, took a deep breath, and opened them again. “Mia, you’re both women. Can you show a little empathy?” “Are you really going to hold a grudge over a single necklace?” I refused to yield an inch. “Are you blind, Arthur? She’s blatantly provoking me, and you can’t see it? You’re going to abandon your wife on the street for an outsider?” The emotions in Arthur’s eyes shifted rapidly—from anger, to coldness, and finally, to profound disappointment. “Mia, when did you become so irrational and demanding? You used to be better than this.” I scoffed. I’m irrational? “Arthur, this is the first time you’ve ever fought with me over another woman.” Arthur turned his head sharply to stare out the window, clearly signaling he was done with the conversation. “Did you forget our prenuptial agreement? We agreed that even if there was no love between us, there would be mutual respect. You don’t humiliate me with mistresses, and I don’t embarrass you with scandals. This isn’t just about us; it’s about the Sterling and the Harrison families. Are you really going to break the rules for her?” The only sound in the quiet car was Arthur’s heavy breathing. I knew he was wavering. In this tedious, pointless game of tug-of-war, I had won the first round. That night, Arthur and I slept in separate rooms. His excuse was that I was being too aggressive, that I was suffocating him, and that he needed space for both of us to cool down. Fine. It gave me the space I needed to seriously re-evaluate our relationship. Lying in bed, the events of the day replayed in my mind. It was the first time Arthur had ever compromised my dignity for another woman. The Sterlings and the Harrisons were old family friends, but Arthur and I had barely interacted growing up. I only knew the eldest Sterling heir through the brief, dismissive comments made by my elders. The general consensus was that he was a spoiled, useless playboy coasting on his family’s wealth. But at our families’ matchmaking dinner three years ago, I had to admit, I was captivated by his unique charisma. Beneath his handsome, sharp exterior was a sharp, witty mind, and he handled complex situations with effortless grace. So, when our parents suggested marriage, I agreed. With our matching backgrounds and education, there was a strong mutual respect. We finalized the engagement quickly. I hadn’t factored “love” or “feelings” into the equation. Growing up in a corporate dynasty, the first lesson you learn is cost-benefit analysis. After the wedding, we maintained our separate stock portfolios, but our families executed a massive corporate merger, and our respective businesses skyrocketed. I always believed that Arthur and I were simply the most optimal, logical choices for each other. But at some point, he had seemingly started to fall for me. The arrogant, untouchable heir of the Sterling empire would hold me in the middle of the night, whispering sweet nothings and burying his face in my neck like a giant, affectionate dog. In the dead of winter, he would warm my freezing feet inside his own pajamas. When I had terrible cramps, he would personally brew me ginger tea. When it rained, he would tilt the umbrella entirely over me, completely ignoring the fact that his own shoulder was getting soaked. Just a few months ago, he had told me, “Mia, you will always be my first choice.” But the moment Chloe Vance appeared, everything changed in the blink of an eye. After years of navigating the cutthroat corporate world, this was the first time I felt truly, deeply exhausted. My phone buzzed. A WeChat message from Arthur: “Goodnight, Mia.” Followed by a cute sticker of a cartoon cat patting another cat’s head. Chapter 5 That was Arthur. Even in the middle of a cold war, he maintained his flawless poker face. Even when we were fighting, he played the role of the perfect husband to the letter. I had a bit of a headache from the champagne, so I went to the kitchen to pour a glass of milk. But when I reached for my favorite ceramic mug, I noticed a hairline fracture near the handle. I summoned the housekeeper and demanded to know who had touched it. The housekeeper trembled. “We don’t know, ma’am! You gave strict orders that we were never to wash this mug. None of the staff have touched it.” She was right. I had given that order. For my birthday last year, Arthur had commissioned this piece from my favorite master ceramicist. He had flown out of his way to Germany during a business trip just to pick it up. I cherished it deeply. But now, it was damaged. The housekeeper nervously asked if I wanted her to send it out for repairs. I said no. Because it was so precious, even the smallest flaw was unacceptable. A few minutes later, I pulled up the kitchen security footage on my phone. The video showed Chloe picking up my mug, flashing a malicious smirk, and intentionally dropping it into the stainless steel sink. Arthur actually brought her to our home. The necklace yesterday had annoyed me because it was a waste of a beautiful piece of jewelry. Chloe lacked the class to wear it; putting it on her was like draping silk over a pig. But coming into my home, breaking my things, and throwing a tantrum on my territory? That was a blatant, unforgivable declaration of war. A blinding rage erupted in my chest, burning away every ounce of my rationality. With a violent sweep of my arm, I sent the precious ceramic mug crashing to the floor, shattering it into a million pieces. And along with it, my marriage to Arthur Sterling shattered too. I walked back into my bedroom and dialed my lawyer. “Hey, Julian. Draft a divorce agreement for me. I need it ASAP.” I am Mia Harrison. If a cup is cracked, I smash it completely. And if a man is dirty, I throw him out. When I woke up the next morning, Arthur was nowhere to be found. The staff told me he had taken a phone call and rushed out in a panic. Another crisis with Chloe, I assume. I showered, ate breakfast, and drove myself to work. As I was walking into the corporate headquarters, a young girl collided with me. The hot congee she was holding spilled entirely over the skirt of my dress. She panicked, stammering frantic apologies while desperately trying to wipe the stain off my dress with a crumpled tissue. I was about to instinctively say it was fine, but the girl suddenly dropped to her knees, grabbing my arm and begging for forgiveness. Even though it was the middle of summer, she was wearing a worn-out, heavy winter coat. Her face was smudged with dirt, but her bone structure was striking. When she looked up at me, a strange sense of familiarity hit me, but I couldn’t place her face. I ignored her bizarre, dramatic display and gestured for the security guards to escort her away. But as I reached into my bag for a wet wipe, I realized my phone was gone. Instantly understanding what had just happened, I grabbed the girl by the arm, reached into the pocket of her heavy coat, and pulled out my phone. The sheer audacity made my blood boil. The girl finally seemed to realize she was in serious trouble. She stayed on her knees, sobbing and begging me to let her go. I stared down at her with absolute disgust and signaled the guards to drag her away. “Learn to have some self-respect. Being born poor isn’t your fault, but you have two hands and two feet. You don’t have to resort to being a thief.” Right at that moment, Arthur stepped out of his car across the street and witnessed the entire scene. Across the busy avenue, the look he gave me was filled with nothing but cold, judgmental distance.

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Before my sister left the country, she left me with two male succubi. One acted like a saint all day, the other was as sweet-tongued as honey. I poured my heart out, treating them with every kindness. But the moment my sister announced her return, they started b brawling next door, desperate to go back to her side. They even called me a “clingy pest” they couldn’t shake off. My immediate response to my sister? A swift “1.” Aren’t the new, exotic succubi more appealing? Who still cares for these two rejects? 1 The ear-splitting argument from next door had me utterly frozen. My phone screen glowed, displaying a message from my sister, received half a minute ago. “Autumn, haven’t you gotten tired of those two succubi yet?” “Your big sis found a new one for you abroad. Tall, strong stamina. If you want him, reply with a ‘1’.” My mind was a chaotic mess, yet my fingers seemed to have a will of their own, automatically tapping out a ‘1’. The phone rang almost instantly. I fumbled to answer it. On the screen, my sister’s smile was blindingly bright. It was still broad daylight where she was, the sunlight stinging my eyes. Seeing her familiar face, my nose suddenly ached, and tears began to stream down my cheeks. It was only at this moment that I finally understood: the succubi I’d nurtured for so long held no place for me in their hearts. Neither of them did. “Oh, what’s wrong? Who’s been bothering my precious little sister? Is it Lysander or Lyall?” My sister sounded frantic on the other end, practically wishing she could climb through the phone line. I wiped away my tears, a shaky laugh bubbling up. “Sis, their names are Lysander and Lyall.” My sister clearly didn’t care that she’d mixed up their names, her brow furrowed in a tight knot. “Who cares what those things are called, they’re just succubi. Who upset you? Your sister will book a flight back right now to sort them out.” I shook my head, quickly changing the subject, not wanting her to worry. “No one, they’re actually quite good to me. By the way, where’s that new succubus you mentioned?” My sister’s grin was mischievous as she walked to the next room, phone in hand. “My little sis is finally coming out of her shell, huh? I remember you used to be so shy. I was worried you couldn’t handle the two I left you back then.” My face flushed, but my heart was heavy with bitterness. In truth, nothing had happened between us for the first six months after my sister left. They were incredibly well-behaved then, bringing me tea and water every day, like premium housekeepers. It wasn’t until three months ago, when I’d had too much to drink at a friend’s gathering, that Lysander, the older brother, took care of me. Facing that face, too handsome to be human, I truly felt a stir in my heart. Fueled by alcohol, we drew closer. That night, Lysander was exceptionally… attentive. Once a succubus had a taste, they couldn’t stay away. From then on, Lysander was in my room every night. Initially, Lyall, the younger brother, would watch the show from the sidelines, often making me blush intensely. But as he saw Lysander and me growing closer, his expression grew darker by the day. 2 Half a month later, he finally couldn’t hold it in anymore. He climbed into my bed, declaring that there shouldn’t be favoritism. Lyall was even clingier than his brother, confessing his affection multiple times a day, wanting to be glued to me twenty-four-seven. They often squabbled for my attention, and I used to find it rather sweet. I thought we would just continue living like that. Until the day before yesterday, when my sister called, saying she’d be back next week. I immediately heard the sound of a shattering glass in the living room. I looked up to see Lysander frowning as he swept the floor. Lyall had dropped a milk glass, and both their expressions were strangely off. From that evening on, they stopped coming into my room. At the time, I was too excited about my sister’s return to think much of it. It wasn’t until just now, when I vaguely heard arguing from next door. “You’re not even bothering to pretend anymore? Autumn slept alone again today.” Lysander’s voice was as cool and restrained as ever, sounding particularly ascetic. “Aren’t you the same? Sister Leigh is coming back. Of course, I need to wash off that clingy scent, so she doesn’t find me distasteful.” Lyall said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 3 Lysander seemed to be losing his patience. “Why are you in such a hurry? If we both leave, what if she goes crazy and bothers Sister Leigh? You stay here and keep an eye on things. I’ll come get you in a bit.” Lyall exploded. “Brother, you’re truly a hypocrite. If you want to stay, you stay. I’m going back first. If you leave, that annoying clingy girl, Autumn Clarke, definitely won’t let me go.” Their voices grew louder, and finally, they even started to fight physically. I sat on the edge of my bed, my head buzzing, my heart aching as if it were being squeezed. Annoying clingy girl, were they talking about me? The one who had held me so tightly just a few days ago, refusing to let go – was that a ghost? I sat there stunned for a long time until my sister’s video call jiggled again. “Autumn, ready to drool?” “I guarantee you’ll fall for him at first sight.” My sister’s voice pulled me back to reality. She was excitedly knocking on the door next door. Her antics managed to dispel a good deal of my sadness. “Is he really that handsome?” I asked curiously. My sister made a shushing gesture, and the next second, the door opened. She held her phone up, switching the camera. The image blurred for a moment, and then I felt my heart skip a beat. The man on the screen had deep blue eyes and soft-looking brown curly hair. His face was as exquisitely sculpted as a work of art. Even though I’d seen many handsome men, at that moment, I felt a little dizzy. “I paid a fortune to find this one for you. You should be happy to have such a good sister.” My sister smirked like a cunning fox and handed the phone directly to the man. “Hayden Blackwell, this is my sister, Autumn Clarke.” She paused intentionally. “From today, she’s your mistress.” My face instantly flushed crimson, right down to my neck. “Hello.” The man stared at the phone for a few seconds. His voice was incredibly magnetic, instantly reassuring. “Mistress.” I almost bit my tongue, hastily waving my hand. “No, no, no, just call me Autumn.” My sister burst into laughter on the other end. Hayden looked up at her, and I might have been mistaken, but my sister immediately stifled her laughter. She glanced at me guiltily and quietly slipped towards the door. “You two chat, build some rapport. I’ll come back for my phone later.” The man on the screen and I stared at each other, wide-eyed. The atmosphere was a little awkward. Fortunately, Hayden was quite perceptive. Noticing my slight discomfort, he started making conversation. Not only was he handsome, but he spoke with a gentle cadence. His voice, a soft hum in my ears, made my head feel light and fuzzy. I answered whatever he asked. It wasn’t until he chuckled softly that I snapped back to attention. “I asked you what kind of gift you wanted, and you just kept saying ‘mm-hmm’. What does that mean?” My face was hot enough to fry an egg. I’d been so busy staring at his face, I hadn’t heard a word he said. 4 Just then, there was a knock on my bedroom door, and my sister’s voice came through the phone. “Alright, alright, you’ll have plenty of time to chat when I get back. Give me my phone, I want to play games.” Hayden gave me a somewhat helpless wave. “Good night, Autumn.” The knocking outside the door grew more urgent, so I could only hang up and open it. The moment the door swung open, Lysander’s hand, poised to knock again, froze mid-air. Lyall was hunched over, peeking through the door crack, and completely unprepared for my sudden opening. He tumbled face-first onto the floor. Lysander withdrew his hand, his expression calm, but his tone was gentle. “Not asleep yet?” Seeing the bruise on his chin, the last flicker of warmth in my heart died out. My mind replayed their argument from earlier. 5 Seeing my silence, Lyall scrambled up from the floor, his hand reaching for my arm. “Who were you talking to just now? Why was there a man’s voice in the middle of the night?” With that, he tried to snatch my phone. Lyall was incredibly possessive and wild. In the past, he’d scowl if I spoke to a neighbor for too long, sulk all night if I went out for dinner, and constantly check my phone. This time, I didn’t stop him. He snatched it, glanced at the contact name “Sister,” and his tense shoulders finally relaxed. He didn’t click to open the chat, returned the phone to me, his tone still a little guilty. “Oh, so you were talking to Sister Leigh. Why didn’t you say so sooner?” At the mention of my sister’s name, Lysander’s eyes also changed, revealing an undisguised eagerness. “Autumn, did your sister say when she’s coming back?” “Is Sister Leigh getting home next week?” The two succubi spoke in unison, and the air suddenly became incredibly quiet. Watching their impatient expressions, I suddenly found it a little funny. All their previous tenderness had been an act. I had been foolish enough to believe it was true love. The sweet nothings succubi whispered in bed—it turned out not even a single punctuation mark could be trusted. “She’s coming back next week.” I replied calmly. Lyall was younger and couldn’t hide his feelings. His eyes lit up instantly. “So she’ll come straight to your place then…” Lysander quickly pulled him back. Although he was trying to restrain himself, the corners of his mouth still curved upwards. “Alright, we’ll go pick her up together.” Hesitating, he then looked at me and said, “Autumn, you don’t look so good. Are you feeling unwell?” Lysander reached out to touch my forehead, but I sidestepped, shutting the bedroom door. “I’m fine.” I heard Lyall whisper outside the door, “Brother, she wasn’t asleep just now, was she? Did she hear everything we said?” Lysander didn’t reply, just pulled him away. I collapsed onto my bed, letting out a long sigh. I remembered the first time I saw them, at my sister’s estate. My sister was in a hurry to go abroad, and these two succubi, freshly delivered, were to be returned. “I completely forgot I even ordered these two.” Lysander remained silent, but Lyall’s eyes immediately welled up with tears, looking incredibly pitiful. I’d heard that if succubi were returned, they’d be sent for “reconditioning,” a process said to be extremely painful. So when my sister suggested giving them to me, I softened and agreed. My sister was quite surprised then, as my personality had always been rather conservative. But she still warned me, “Succubi are just trinkets for amusement, don’t get too attached. You can make do with these two for now, and I’ll find you better ones later.” I closed my eyes, my mind replaying Lyall’s words, “annoying clingy girl.” Perhaps my sister was right; they truly were just disposable. 6 The next morning, Lysander had already prepared breakfast. Lyall bounced out of his room, card in hand. “Brother, let’s go.” He looked up and saw me, his smile instantly freezing. “Lysander and I are going to buy some new clothes. Do you want to come along?” Lysander tried to smooth things over. I averted my gaze, walking straight to the dining table. “You two go ahead.” Lysander frowned, reaching out again to touch my head. “You seem a little out of sorts today. Are you sick?” I dodged him again, taking a sip of milk. Lysander’s hand hung in the air, but Lyall pulled him away. “Then you eat slowly; we’ll be back soon.” Lysander glanced back at me, his eyes full of confusion. I kept my head down, staring at my cup, ignoring him. I’d made up my mind last night: when my sister returned, I would send them back, exactly as they were. As for what would happen to them afterward, that was their own fate. After all, their service contract was still with my sister. The moment they left, I tossed out all their toothbrushes and towels that were in my room. Just then, Hayden video-called me. Seeing his handsome face, my mood instantly brightened. Indeed, looking at a gorgeous man was the best remedy for a gloomy mood. My sister always called me a shy, quiet girl, but today I chatted with Hayden for over three hours without feeling tired. “Autumn, I bought your favorite candied hawthorn.” Lyall burst through the front door like a cheerful puppy, clutching a bag. “I have something else to attend to, so I’ll hang up now. Your gift has already been shipped.” Hayden’s voice came from the phone, and Lyall’s smile vanished instantly. He rushed over in three strides, reaching out to snatch my phone. “Autumn Clarke! Who are you fooling around with while we’re not home? Why is there a man’s voice in the middle of the night?” I calmly slipped my phone into my pocket, taking the bag of candied hawthorn. Lysander followed, carrying shopping bags, as Lyall glared and complained. “Brother! Autumn Clarke was talking to a man on the phone while we were out, and she wouldn’t let me see!” Lysander was relatively composed, shoving the bags into Lyall’s arms. “It’s good that she has her own social circle.” Lyall paused, looked at the bags in his hands, then at me, as if understanding something. His expression softened slightly. I scoffed inwardly. Lysander was telling his brother that as long as someone else was occupying me, they could naturally make their escape. He was truly overthinking it; I had no intention of stopping them in the first place.

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