Category: English

The day before New Year’s Eve, Arthur Sterling walked downstairs fully dressed. I was putting up festive window decals. He walked over to me. “I won’t be home for the holidays. Will you be okay by yourself?” Before I could even ask why. He said, “She’s pregnant. The baby is mine. I need to be with her.” My hand trembled, and the red paper fluttered softly to the floor. “Why are you only telling me this now?” Watching him stand there in silence, I knew our marriage was over. I forced the words out: “Arthur… let’s get a divorce.” “Chloe, have I not treated you well? Why do you want a divorce?” 1 Even someone with the best temper and the most rational mind would break down upon hearing those words. I grabbed the heavy glass ashtray from the coffee table and hurled it at him. “Why?!” “Why?!” “Arthur Sterling, you’re sleeping with another woman, and you have the nerve to ask me why?!” “Don’t you realize how absurd you sound?!” Arthur didn’t dodge. Glass shattered everywhere, and a bruise instantly formed on his forehead. Still furious, I threw books, magazines… everything on the table at him. Arthur didn’t even flinch. He stood there, rigid and unmoving. Finally, I grabbed my favorite vase and smashed it. It held the flowers I had just picked from the garden that morning. Arthur had always been a cold, distant person. Before we got married, his apartment was decorated in sterile, cold tones. There was absolutely no warmth or life in it. Every week, I would buy fresh flowers to decorate our home, just to make it feel a little warmer. After we got married, I meticulously worked with designers to decorate this entire mansion. I handpicked every single piece of furniture and decor. This used to be the warmest place in the world. Our home. And now, it was a disaster zone, destroyed by my own hands. Arthur watched me quietly. His eyes held a strange, almost clinical detachment, like he was observing a madwoman. When I was finally too exhausted to throw anything else, I covered my face, crouched on the floor, and sobbed uncontrollably. Arthur walked over and stood in front of me. After a long time, he picked me up off the floor, cleared a spot on the sofa, and set me down. He crouched in front of me, a flicker of what looked like heartbreak in his eyes, and used his thumb to wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes. “Chloe, don’t do this… it breaks my heart.” 2 I saw my reflection in his eyes. Tear-streaked, blurry, and utterly pathetic. I froze for a second. How did it come to this? I wiped my cheeks, trying to compose myself. “Do you remember what you promised me?” “You said we would be together forever. That we would never leave each other, and grow old together.” But Arthur, we’ve only been married for three years, and you’ve already betrayed me. You betrayed our marriage. “How long have you been together?” Arthur quickly looked away, unable to meet my eyes. “Almost a year.” A year? They had known each other for that long? I dug my nails into my palms and offered a bitter smile. “Why tell me now? Why not just keep hiding it?” Arthur sat next to me in silence. He pulled out a lighter and lit a cigarette. The smoke blurred his sharp features. “I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.” I didn’t want to lie to you anymore. What a grand, hypocritical excuse. If he didn’t love me anymore, he could have just told me. We could have gotten a divorce. I’m not the type to cling to a dead relationship. But he chose to cheat on me while we were still married. “She’s in her early twenties. Young, cute. She’s not like you. When I buy her things or give her money, she doesn’t refuse. She’s clingy, and she loves to act spoiled.” As he spoke, a light seemed to spark in his eyes, only to dim when he looked back at me. “But Chloe, you don’t do any of those things. You make me feel so… detached.” “I’m your husband. I’m supposed to be the closest person to you in the world.” But Arthur, this is just who I am. I’ve always been independent and a bit aloof. My upbringing and my family dynamic forced me to be this way. I don’t know how to act spoiled, and I hate being a burden to anyone. Even with the people I’m closest to, I always try to keep things perfectly balanced. I had been trying so hard to change. To learn how to rely on him. But when I actually needed him… when I got into that car crash and called him from a hospital bed… Where was he? “Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we have sweet and sour ribs. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, it’s tomato and egg stir-fry. Honestly, I’m sick of it. I’m so tired of this monotonous, lukewarm life.” I didn’t understand. The table was always full of food. Those were the only two dishes I actually liked. Everything else was cooked specifically for him. Why was he fixating on those two dishes? “Chloe, you’re like a bowl of plain porridge. Tasteless, but a shame to throw away. But she’s different. She’s like a piece of candy. I willingly let myself drown in her sweetness.” A smile touched Arthur’s lips. It was indulgent, and it was sweet. “She’s so bold. She dragged me to an amusement park and immediately wanted to go into the haunted house. She stood there, hands on her hips, swearing she wasn’t scared. But once we were inside, she got so terrified she jumped into my arms and begged me to hold her.” “Her heart was beating so fast that day. Thump, thump, thump. She threw her arms around my neck, her face bright red, and kissed me. I should have pushed her away, but I didn’t…” “Stop it!” The pain was so intense I felt numb. I was completely breaking down. “Chloe…” “Arthur, I’m begging you. Please. Stop talking.” 3 The living room fell into a deathly silence. Arthur’s phone rang. He pulled it out, glanced at me, and answered it right in front of me without the slightest hesitation. A sweet, whiny female voice came through the speaker. “I’m hungry! When are you coming back?” “You’re hungry?” When Arthur looked over at me, I immediately stood up and started frantically searching the room. “Yeah! The baby and I are both starving!” “Wait for me. I’ll come feed you both.” My entire body was trembling with cold. I pressed my hands hard against my temples. What… what am I looking for? My phone. Yes, my phone. What if I miss an important work email? What if I miss an important call? “Be a good girl. I’ll be there soon.” “I love you, hubby! Mwah~” I tried desperately to block out the sounds around me. I wished I was deaf. But I wasn’t. Arthur’s relaxed, cheerful voice crashed into my ears like a tidal wave. It wasn’t until my nails drew blood from my palms that I finally managed to calm down a fraction. Arthur had ended the call at some point and walked up behind me. “She’s waiting for me. I need to go.” “I’ll explain everything to my mom. If you don’t want to go to the main estate tomorrow, just stay here.” He paused, then added, “Do you want me to call the housekeeper back to keep you company for the holidays?” “Actually, that’s probably not a good idea. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. Everyone wants to be with their family.” Arthur just kept talking. So he knew. He knew tomorrow was New Year’s Eve. He knew the holidays were meant for family. So what was I? Was I just a complete stranger to him now? I grabbed the kettle and poured myself a glass of hot water. The warm liquid slid down my throat, chasing away half the freezing chill in my body. “Arthur, we’re getting a divorce.” By the front door, Arthur paused while putting on his shoes. “I promised I would treat you well for the rest of our lives, Chloe. If you want, you can always be Mrs. Sterling. Everything can stay exactly the way it was.” “And what about her?” “I’ll buy a villa and set her up outside. I won’t let her bother you.” 4 Arthur left. The only thing left in the trashed living room was me, entirely alone. Before he left, Arthur had walked over and wiped my tears. And with the very same lips that had kissed me thousands of times, he delivered the most cutting blow. “Chloe, be a good girl and behave. She won’t fight you for anything.” Numbly, I walked up the stairs and back to the bedroom. I stared at our wedding photo on the wall. The girl in the photo was smiling so brightly. She looked so happy. I turned and walked into the bathroom to wash my face. The woman in the mirror looked awful. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face stained with tears. I slowly raised my hand. Chloe Vance, you shouldn’t look like this. The cold water splashed against my face. I told myself I shouldn’t be sad. But after so many years together, how could I not be sad? I collapsed onto the bed, desperately wishing the last hour had been nothing but a nightmare. That I would just wake up. But the memories replayed in my mind, screaming that it was all real. My phone vibrated. It was Arthur’s mother. I didn’t answer. I just stared blankly at my laptop screen. A few minutes later, she called again. After a moment’s hesitation, I picked up. “Chloe, it’s New Year’s Eve. Make sure you and Arthur come over early tonight.” I gripped my phone, unsure of what to say. “Chloe?” “Did Arthur… did he not talk to you guys?” “What’s wrong? Did you two have a fight? That brat isn’t answering his phone.” “It’s nothing.” “As long as everything is okay. Just remember to come over early with Arthur.” 5 Some things are better said in person rather than over the phone. But before heading to the Sterling estate, I needed to make a stop at a print shop. The normally bustling streets were completely deserted because of the holidays. I checked several shops, but they were all closed. The biting winter wind whipped against me, and I pulled my coat tighter around myself. Just as I thought I wouldn’t be able to print the documents, I spotted a small shop still open. Suddenly, I thought, Maybe my luck isn’t completely terrible after all. The owner asked what I needed printed and if I required any help. I smiled politely and said no. She looked a bit surprised. She was probably wondering who prints divorce papers on New Year’s Eve. She quickly bound the documents and handed them to me. “Happy New Year,” she said. My hand froze as I paid her. She was the very first person to wish me a Happy New Year today. Not my family. Not even Arthur. My eyes suddenly burned, and I replied, “Happy New Year!” Stepping out of the shop, I tilted my head back and let out a long breath. I put the documents in my bag and called Arthur. “Are you going to the estate?” “He’s in the shower. It’s not a good time for him to take a call. Do you need something, Ms. Vance? I can pass a message.” It wasn’t Arthur who answered. It was his little mistress. Her tone was dripping with pure provocation. “Please tell Arthur that his mother wants him home.”

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The first Christmas after the world stopped spinning, Nathan showed up at our house like nothing had changed. His mother, a woman who had spent a decade trying to play matchmaker for us, leaned over the eggnog and nudged him. “Nathan, you have so many friends in the city. You should introduce Hailey to someone. She’s far too pretty to be single.” Nathan didn’t even look up from his phone, his lips curling into that familiar, arrogant smirk. “Sure. Tell me what you’re looking for, Hails. What’s the criteria?” Before I could answer, he finally met my eyes, his gaze heavy with a smugness that made my skin crawl. “But honestly? With me around, are you really going to find anyone else worth looking at?” The room went thick with an awkward, suffocating silence. Everyone in our circle knew the truth. I had spent five years orbiting Nathan like a lonely moon, waiting for a sign, a word, a single genuine look. He had taken that devotion and used it to build his own ego, never once reaching back to pull me into the light. I didn’t flinch. I just offered a small, cool smile. “That’s okay, Nathan,” I said, my voice steady. “I already have a boyfriend.” Because despite what he believed, no one stays waiting in the shadows forever. 01 Nathan caught me outside the guest bathroom, his arm barring my way like a physical claim. “Who is he?” His voice was raspy, stripped of its usual bravado. I looked up at him. From the living room, I could hear the muffled sounds of our parents laughing, the clink of silverware against china. Life was moving on just a few feet away, yet here we were, trapped in our old, toxic loop. I opened my mouth to answer, but Nathan let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Wait, Hailey. You don’t actually think I’m going to fall for that, do you?” He leaned against the hallway wall, his posture radiating a forced indifference. “Don’t use these pathetic little games to test me. I couldn’t care less if you’ve found some rebound.” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a cold whisper. “I told you: if you chose Stanford, I would never be with you. You made your bed.” Nathan’s confidence was his greatest weapon—and his greatest delusion. He had been so sure that because he turned down his Ivy League dreams to stay local for Madison, I would follow him like a loyal dog. He was still convinced this was all a performance for his benefit. As he turned to walk away, a sudden wave of exhaustion hit me. I was tired of letting him win the scene. “Nathan.” He stopped, his shoulders tensing. “Is this me testing you?” I asked quietly. “Or are you just terrified?” He didn’t move. “Terrified that maybe, just maybe, you aren’t the center of the universe anymore. You’re right about one thing: we’re just neighbors. Who I date is none of your business. So do us both a favor—keep your distance. Don’t check in on me, and definitely don’t try to start conversations you don’t actually want to have.” I turned and walked into my bedroom, closing the door firmly. I didn’t see him pull a small, crushed velvet jewelry box out of his pocket, his knuckles white as he squeezed it until the hinges groaned. 02 Nathan and I were the “it” kids of the neighborhood. I spent ten years trailing behind him. He was the boy who would stand in front of me with a cold glare if anyone dared to bully me, and the boy who would stay up until 2:00 AM helping me map out a study plan when I was failing calculus. My love for him was an open secret. It grew from a childhood crush into a defining feature of my identity—unfiltered, unshielded, and completely unrequited. I remember a summer night after freshman year. The sky was a bruised purple, dripping with stars. I was sitting on the pegs of his bike, the wind whipping my hair, when his voice drifted back to me. “Hailey, you know I don’t deal well with people who can’t keep up. I’m going to Stanford. If you can get in, too… then maybe I’ll consider us being a real thing.” That was it. That was the carrot he dangled. I traded my novels and my sketches for prep books and extra credit. Stanford wasn’t just a university anymore; it was my ticket into Nathan’s heart. I thought if I just worked hard enough, I could finally stand beside him as an equal. I was too young to realize that real love doesn’t come with a minimum SAT score. Madison showed up on the first day of senior year. She was a scholarship student, quiet and ethereal, and she was assigned the desk next to Nathan’s. Nathan, who usually treated the world with practiced boredom, started bringing her lattes in the morning. He started cancelling our study sessions to help her with her essays. One Saturday, the three of us were supposed to go to the city to buy new textbooks. That morning, Nathan called. He said he and Madison had “stuff to do” and couldn’t make it. Two hours later, I saw them through the window of a boutique bookstore downtown, their heads bent close over a shared notebook. “Nathan, thank you for paying for these,” Madison murmured, her voice carrying in the quiet shop. “I hate being the charity case. I didn’t want anyone else to see me like this.” Nathan smiled, a soft, genuine expression I hadn’t seen in months. “It’s fine. Honestly, I’d rather be here anyway. Hailey makes a federal case out of every little thing she buys. It’s exhausting.” The world blurred as my eyes filled with tears. I turned to bolt, but as I reached the door, a heavy hand caught my wrist. Nathan was breathing hard, looking frantic, but his voice was still like iron. “Madison and I… it’s not what you think.” “Nathan, let go.” “We’re focused on our futures, Hailey. We don’t have time for distractions. Not everyone spends their whole day obsessing over ‘feelings’ and drama.” His words were a bucket of ice water. Distractions. Was that what I was? I realized then that in his eyes, my love wasn’t a gift. It was a nuisance. 03 After that day, I stopped asking him for help. I stopped waiting for him. I poured everything into my applications. I wanted to prove I wasn’t the “distraction” he painted me as. I wanted Stanford for me. On the day the results came out, I ran to his house, heart hammering. But when I opened the door, the living room was full of our classmates. They were throwing a surprise party for Madison’s eighteenth birthday. Nathan pulled me into the kitchen, his voice a low hiss. “Madison’s never had a real birthday party. I thought today was the perfect day to celebrate her win. I didn’t invite you because I knew you’d make it weird. You’re sensitive, Hailey. I was doing you a favor.” So, once again, it was my fault. If I felt hurt, I was “sensitive.” If I spoke up, I was “difficult.” Madison walked in then, holding a plate of cake, looking every bit the guest of honor. “Oh, Hailey! You’re here! Come in, make yourself at home. Don’t be a stranger.” The territorial subtext was deafening. When she left, Nathan looked at me. “By the way, when you fill out your final commitment forms, make sure you put down State.” “State?” I stared at him. “Your dad said your stats were high enough for Stanford. You were a lock.” Nathan cleared his throat, avoiding my gaze. “Madison… her scores weren’t what she hoped for. She’s only getting a full ride at State. I can’t let her go there alone. She needs someone to look out for her.” It felt like a thousand needles piercing my chest. The “standard” he had set for me—the Ivy League requirement—had never existed for her. He would move mountains for her mediocrity while I had to be perfect just to be noticed. “And if I don’t?” I whispered. Nathan’s jaw set. “Then the deal is off. I’ll never be with you. The girl by my side will be Madison. She actually appreciates what I do for her.” He walked away, confident he had won. He thought he had me in a cage of my own making. I stood there for a long time, and then, I started to laugh. The tears came, but they weren’t for him. They were for the girl who had almost let him ruin her life. He knew exactly how Madison felt about him. He had been playing us both, keeping me as the backup plan while he chased the “damsel in distress.” He didn’t realize that I had finally learned the difference between a man and a shadow. When I submitted my commitment, I didn’t hesitate. I chose Stanford. 04 I spent the rest of the summer in a blur of productivity. I signed up for intensive French classes and prep courses, keeping my head down. Nathan was busy, too. His mom mentioned he was working double shifts at a local cafe, looking exhausted. He’d text me occasionally, asking about my “State paperwork.” I never replied. The day before I was set to fly to Palo Alto, Nathan showed up at my front door with a massive cardboard box. “Madison and I went shopping,” he said, stepping inside uninvited. “I got you some stuff for the dorms. LA is hot, and the bugs are no joke near the campus. Here’s some repellent, some light linens…” “I don’t need it, Nathan. Take it back.” I looked at him with a detachment that surprised even me. The heart-rot was finally being pruned away. “Still pouting?” He smiled, reaching out to pinch my cheek the way he used to. I flinched away. His hand hung in the air for a second before he pulled it back, a flicker of annoyance crossing his face. “I booked our flights for the day after tomorrow. I sent the info to your phone. Don’t be late. I have a surprise for you when we land.” He left, looking satisfied. He never got to give me that surprise. Because the next morning, I was already at 30,000 feet, heading north. While I was walking across the sun-drenched quad at Stanford with my new roommates, my phone started exploding. Ten missed calls. Twenty. Finally, I just blocked him. He messaged me through a mutual friend’s account: You’re really going to be like this? Fine, Hailey. Your loss. That night, I saw Madison’s post on my feed. [Photo: A delicate gold bracelet with a diamond charm.] Best graduation gift from the best boyfriend ever. It was the exact bracelet I had pointed out to Nathan two years ago. He had promised he’d work all summer to buy it for me. Now, it was on her wrist. I didn’t cry. I just blocked Madison, too. Anything that costs me my peace is too expensive. The girl who loved Nathan was dead. I wasn’t going to let him haunt the woman I was becoming. 05 The sound of fireworks outside snapped me back to the present. The confrontation in the hallway felt like a fever dream. I felt a sudden, sharp pang of longing—not for the past, but for the man who was waiting for me in the city. I pulled out my phone and texted Bennett: What are you doing? The reply came almost instantly: Wondering what you’re doing. A second later, another bubble popped up: I miss you, Hails. Like, actually hurts a little. Just like that, the weight Nathan had tried to press onto me evaporated. I remembered a post I’d shared with Bennett months ago: When someone asks ‘what are you doing,’ they’re usually just admitting they’re thinking about you. He remembered. He always remembered. Bennett’s love was a wildfire—direct, hot, and impossible to ignore. With him, there were no riddles. No “if you do this, I’ll love you.” He just said it. He showed up. He made me feel like I was the only person in the room, even when the room was full of people more “impressive” than me. That’s the thing about being chosen. It shouldn’t feel like a competition you finally won. It should feel like coming home. I stayed on FaceTime with him until the early hours of the morning, falling asleep to the sound of his breathing. 06 The fifth day of the holidays brought the one thing I wanted to avoid: the “Class of ’22” reunion dinner. I didn’t want to go. I had zero desire to see Nathan and Madison play-acting as the local king and queen. But my best friend Tessa practically dragged me out of the house. She was planning to finally corner her crush tonight and needed me as her emotional shield. When we walked into the private room at the bistro, most of the old crowd was already there. Nathan and Madison were center stage. Madison went to stand up when she saw me, but Nathan pulled her back down by the waist, whispering something in her ear that made her giggle. It was a performance—a calculated display of “look how happy we are.” I looked away, finding a seat at the far end of the table. When the menus came, Nathan started ordering for the table. “We’ll do the seafood towers. Three of them. Madison’s been craving oysters.” Tessa frowned. “Hailey’s deathly allergic to shellfish, Nathan. You know that. She can’t even have the cross-contamination.” Nathan raised an eyebrow, his eyes flicking to mine. “What, so because Hailey won’t eat it, the rest of us have to suffer? Or is the Princess just going to storm out again because things aren’t going her way?” The table went quiet. I just smiled at the group. “It’s fine. Order whatever you like. I’m not that hungry anyway.” I wasn’t here for the food. I was here for Tessa. Nathan’s eyes darkened at my lack of a reaction. He wanted the old Hailey—the one who would have teared up or started a fight. The conversation shifted to college. “So, Nathan, I heard you’re already killing it in the CS department at State. Winning gold at the regional hackathons? Not bad for a freshman.” Nathan leaned back, soaking in the praise, recounting his “genius” moments while casting side-glances my way. I ignored him, checking my phone. Bennett hadn’t replied to my last text in two hours. Probably out with his own friends, I thought. I sent him a photo of the menu: Looks like I’m starving tonight. The seafood tower is out for blood. Send help!!! Tessa, ever the instigator, decided Nathan shouldn’t have the floor to himself. “So, Hails,” she said loudly. “You’re at Stanford now. Do you run into Bennett Ward often?”

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The night Carter Sterling spent a hundred million dollars at an auction to buy a pink diamond for his female apprentice, I was lying in a hospital bed. Because of my seventh accidental miscarriage, the doctor declared that I had permanently lost the ability to ever have children. I was two thousand dollars short for the surgical fees, so I had no choice but to go find Carter in the middle of the night. Instead, I overheard him talking to his apprentice. “Don’t worry, that blind woman will never have my child. If she gets pregnant, I’ll just kill it.” Ten years of delusions shattered in an instant. I resolutely sold my wedding ring—the only thing of value I possessed—paid for a hysterectomy, and walked away from him forever. When we met again, Carter saw a peacefully sleeping baby in my arms. He wept tears of joy, but his face remained stone-cold. “Only you would have the audacity to run away pregnant! But don’t think you can tie me down with a kid!” I smirked, offering him a sarcastic smile. “The kid isn’t even yours. What are you panicking for?” My savings had run dry a month ago. But I was still two thousand dollars short for the hysterectomy. After agonizing over it, I sent Carter a text. I didn’t receive a reply. It wasn’t until 10:30 PM that my phone screen finally lit up. My heart raced, and I quickly snatched up the phone. But it was just a news push notification on my screen. [Newly Crowned Master Painter Carter Sterling Spends $100 Million on Pink Diamond to Coax His Wife; A Display of Deep Affection That Envies All!] The woman standing next to Carter in the photo wasn’t me, his actual wife. It was his female apprentice, Chloe Hastings. The hundred-million-dollar pink diamond on Chloe’s finger sparkled brilliantly—so brilliantly that it made my eyes sting. Tears fell before I could stop them. Buddy, the guide dog who had been by my side for ten years, nudged me sympathetically. I patted his head, then slowly raised my hand to look at the fractional-carat diamond chip on my own ring finger. After staring at it for a long time, I opened a secondhand marketplace app like a woman possessed. Just as I was about to tap “List Item,” a text from Carter finally came through. He didn’t wire me money to dismiss me like he usually did. Instead, he told me to bring him some hangover soup. Tonight was his celebration party, but I wasn’t the one sharing his joy. Because he always felt I was unworthy. On the way there, I scrolled through his exclusive interview on my phone. “Mr. Sterling, as the first Master Painter in a decade to break auction records, what is your secret?” A rare trace of tenderness appeared in Carter’s light brown eyes. “I owe it all to these highly gifted eyes.” The world thought Carter was just a natural prodigy. They didn’t know that these light brown eyes, which suffered from total color blindness, were the ones I had given him. To someone with total color blindness, the world is only black, white, and gray—making reality look like a naturally formed ink wash painting. This abnormal vision actually aided his specific style of art. Because when I was a child, I saw the world the exact same way. Ten years ago, Carter was in a horrific car crash that left him comatose, his eyes pierced and blinded by shattered glass. To repay a debt, I hid it from everyone and donated my own eyes to him. But Carter’s grandfather saw right through it and knew those eyes were mine. To thank me, he forced Carter to marry me. I knew Carter hated me, and I never expected anything from it. But to my surprise, he actually agreed to the marriage. It took ten years for me to realize that he only married me to torture me. Half a year ago, the hospital informed me that someone had volunteered to donate their eyes to me. Just like I had done back then, the donor’s family demanded strict anonymity. While Carter was secluded in his studio working on his new collection, I secretly underwent the surgery. While he was taking his new masterpieces to the auction house, my vision was slowly recovering. I wanted to give him a surprise. I never expected him to give me a nightmare first. And now, I had to go beg him for a mere two thousand dollars to pay for my surgery. The reality of forever losing the right to be a mother, coupled with my crushing financial destitution, left me unable to breathe. I cursed myself viciously in my heart. Mia, are you really this pathetic?! Why won’t you wake up?! Before I knew it, I was standing outside the door to his VIP room. Just as I reached out to push the door open, I heard Carter’s tipsy, mocking laughter from inside. “Do you see now? Even without Mia, I can paint masterpieces that sell for a fortune!” My mother had been the nation’s top Master Painter. After she died, I was the only one who inherited her true techniques. But when Carter recovered his sight and demanded I teach him how to paint, I refused. Of course, that was just one of the many reasons he hated me. One of Carter’s friends laughed and asked, “Carter, when are you going to divorce that blind girl? You’ve been torturing her for ten years, aren’t you bored yet?” Carter lazily swirled the wine in his glass and chuckled softly. “I’ll drag it out until she’s old and her looks fade, then I’ll throw her away. Making her beg for death is much more entertaining, don’t you think?” The room erupted in roaring laughter. I pressed myself against the freezing wall outside the door, trembling violently. I let the bone-chilling cold seep into every fiber of my being. Someone else asked, “So when are you going to make things official with Chloe?” Chloe, who had been sitting obediently by his side, immediately blushed. She playfully buried her face in Carter’s chest, coyly fiddling with the pink diamond. “Oh, stop it. There are too many people fighting over the title of Mrs. Sterling. I just want to be Carter’s good little apprentice…” Carter gently stroked her hair and spoke in a tone I had never heard him use before. “Mia didn’t fight for the title. She stole it.” So that was how Carter saw it. Even though he had explicitly agreed to this marriage himself. I stood outside the room, biting my lip so hard I tasted blood. Inside, Chloe sounded aggrieved. “But Mia keeps getting pregnant with your child… She’s been trying so hard all these years…” Carter’s freezing voice pierced straight into my bones. “Don’t worry, that blind woman will never have my child.” “If she gets pregnant, I’ll kill it.” My breathing stopped. If she gets pregnant, I’ll kill it. So that was why… that was why I had “accidentally” miscarried seven times?! “Miss, aren’t you going in?” A waiter, seeing my deathly pale face, pushed the door open and gestured for me to enter. In an instant, every pair of eyes in the room locked onto me. Carter glanced at me and said coldly, “Are your legs broken, or are you dead? Is standing at the door eavesdropping fun for you?” I took a deep breath, brought the hangover soup over to him, and carefully poured it into a bowl. A ten-year habit is hard to break. My hands, acting entirely on their own, placed the soup I desperately wanted to throw in his face gently in front of him. Like a perfectly domesticated dog. The room was silent for a moment. Then, piercing laughter erupted, completely drowning me out. I didn’t get angry. I just crouched in front of Carter, my tone pleading. “I saw a bag I really like. It costs two thousand dollars…” Carter had Chloe take a sip of the hangover soup. She immediately stuck out her tongue and grimaced. “Ew, what did you put in this? Are you trying to poison me, sister…?” Under Carter’s permissive gaze, Chloe giggled and dumped the entire bowl of steaming hot soup directly over my head. “Sister, something this gross… you should just drink it yourself…” The hot liquid cascaded down my head and seeped into my eyes, burning with a fiery pain. But this hangover soup was made exactly to Carter’s specific tastes. I had made it for ten years. How could I have gotten it wrong? Hearing my scream of pain, Buddy barked frantically at the door, anxious and terrified. Carter frowned, kicked me away, and turned to tenderly blow on Chloe’s lips. They were so close their lips were practically touching. I knew he was being intimate with Chloe specifically to humiliate me. In the past, my heart would have ached, but after years of accumulated torment, it had grown completely numb. Taking advantage of the moment, Chloe playfully hit Carter’s chest. “Carter, Mia is watching…” Someone muttered from the side, “Watching? Does that blind girl even have the equipment for that?” The laughter erupted again. Chloe smiled triumphantly, wrapped her arms around Carter’s neck, and kissed him. Amidst the cheering crowd, Carter didn’t push her away. After the passionate kiss ended, Carter pulled out his phone, opened Zelle, and shot me a mocking look. “A two-thousand-dollar bag? You?” A harsh notification sound pinged from my phone. Zelle transfer received: $5. The second the notification ended, Chloe suddenly grabbed the entire ice bucket off the table and dumped it over my head! Ice cubes crashed against my skull and clattered onto the floor. The metal bucket slammed down over my head like a glacier. My vision went dark, and I collapsed uncontrollably to the floor. “That’s enough! Who told you to do that?!” Carter’s furious voice echoed through the room. But Chloe just held up her slightly scraped hand, looking pitiful. “It hurt, so my hand slipped…” Before I lost consciousness, the cynical voices of Carter’s friends drifted into my ears. “Mia, can you stop playing the fragile victim?” “Chloe was just playing a joke with you, and you’re trying to extort her?” “Carter, look at this blind girl. The acting is getting a bit pathetic…” With the crowd egging him on, Carter backed himself into a corner and said coldly: “Mia, are you really going to just lie there?” “Fine! Then lie there! Keep lying there! If you die here today, no one will give a damn!” With that, he and his entourage swaggered out of the room. Before leaving, he locked the door securely and ordered that no one was allowed to open it. In the absolute darkness, my consciousness grew heavier and heavier. Everything felt like it was reverting to the days when I was blind. After giving my eyes to Carter, my health had severely deteriorated. I was especially susceptible to the cold. Carter actually knew this, because years ago, he was the one who had rescued me from an ice cellar. The endless darkness wrapped around me, piercing me like a thousand blades. That heart, which had once beaten so vibrantly and passionately, completely shattered under the weight of countless wounds. Bang! Something smashed open, jolting me awake. As my vision focused, I realized the room door had finally been battered open by Buddy. He rushed over, frantic and terrified, circling me and relentlessly licking my hand, only to find me completely unresponsive. Buddy could only whimper low in his throat, desperately trying to wake me. I struggled to prop myself up. I saw Buddy’s forehead, a bloody, mangled mess, and the blood on his paws. A trail of blood led all the way back to the heavy wooden door. The tears I had been holding back finally broke free. I hugged a terrified Buddy, sitting on the floor and crying until my throat was raw. At that moment, a Zelle notification popped up. It was from Carter, totaling exactly two thousand dollars. He had left a sarcastic note: [For your medical bills.] I didn’t tap to accept it. I didn’t need it anymore. I would never need it again. It was snowing heavily outside. My clothes were completely soaked with hangover soup and ice water, hanging off me stiffly. They felt like tiny needles stabbing into my skin. But I didn’t feel cold, because the agonizing pain radiating from my lower abdomen made it nearly impossible to walk. I don’t know how much time passed before I slowly pushed open the door of a pawnshop. The moment I walked in, the security guard at the door eyed me warily and raised his stun baton. “What do you think you’re doing here?!” Buddy bared his teeth at him. But when the owner saw the diamond ring I held up on my ring finger, he immediately smiled and invited me inside. After getting the cash, I rushed straight to the hospital for the hysterectomy, and then I booked a flight. During my entire week in the hospital, Carter never sent me a single message. I knew he was waiting for me to apologize. Because for the past ten years, no matter what happened, I was always the one to initiate peace. Carter seemed absolutely convinced that I couldn’t live without him. I wasn’t discharged until half a month later. When I returned to the house, everything was exactly as it had been the day I left. Which meant Carter hadn’t been home in two weeks either. I opened Chloe’s Instagram. They had spent the last two weeks escaping the winter chill in the Bahamas, and had just returned today. The photos showed them having romantic dinners, swimming together, whispering sweet nothings… Every single photo depicted the life I had once dreamed of having. Right then, Chloe sent me a text. [Mia, why won’t you just give up? The one who isn’t loved is the actual third wheel.] [Carter treats you like garbage, why do you refuse to divorce him?] [I guess it’s true. Your mother was a homewrecker, and the bastard child of a homewrecker is still just a homewrecker. You’re pathetic!] The screen illuminated my deathly pale face as I heavily typed back three words: [She wasn’t.] Before I could send anything else, Chloe sent me a live location pin. I didn’t hesitate. I headed straight to the nightclub where she was. Once I spotted my target, I marched up to her, grabbed her by the hair, and slapped her hard across the face. “Apologize! Apologize to my mother right now!” Chloe was completely stunned by my swift, fluid attack. “There are so many people here… how… how did you find me?!” It took her three seconds to process what was happening, and then she shrieked and cursed. “You blind bitch, you can see?!” “You want me to apologize? What a joke! Your mother was a homewrecker! A filthy homewrecker everyone despised! The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!” I didn’t give her a chance to say another word. Just as I raised my hand again, several men rushed at me like maniacs. But I had backup. Buddy lunged, sinking his teeth into one of the men’s arms, tearing violently! Buddy was fierce and brave. He took down one man, then turned to attack the next. Using his small body, he physically blocked the attackers from reaching me. I grabbed Chloe by the collar, enunciating every word. “I will say it one last time. Apologize to my mother!” Chloe was pale with terror, but she stubbornly refused to back down. “A slut is a slut! What are you arguing about?!” “Your mother seduced Carter’s father! She killed his mother! Do you really have no idea?!” “What? Are we not allowed to talk about how your homewrecker mother destroyed Carter’s family?!” My breathing grew ragged. I slowly picked up a glass bottle, smashed it against a table, and pointed the jagged edge at Chloe, my face devoid of emotion. “I’ll say it one last time. Apologize to my mother, or I swear I’ll—” Before I could finish, a familiar, roaring voice exploded in my ear. “Mia, touch her and see what happens!” Buddy let out a sharp howl of pain. Carter struck him brutally with a stun baton. But Buddy didn’t even try to bite Carter back. Buddy knew I loved him, so he didn’t dare hurt him. He could only lie helplessly on the floor, whimpering for me to save him. I forgot all about Chloe, instantly scrambling up and throwing myself toward Buddy. But before I could reach him, a massive force grabbed me and yanked me back. Smack! A brutal slap landed on my left cheek. The sting was fiery. My ears rang violently. I could see Carter’s lips moving in front of me, but I couldn’t hear a word he was saying. Smack! Before I could recover, Carter struck me again, even harder. The massive momentum threw me toward the wall. My forehead slammed against the brick with a sickening thud. Blood immediately began streaming down the side of my face. After a moment of dizzying vertigo, his ethereal voice finally broke through the ringing. “Mia, apologize to Chloe.” He pulled a tearful, weeping Chloe over to me, his voice terrifyingly cold. “Get on your knees! Apologize to Chloe!” This was the first time Carter had ever hit me. For the past ten years, no matter how much he mentally tortured me, he never laid a hand on me. Because the Sterling family had strict rules: men were forbidden from hitting their wives. But today, he broke that rule for Chloe.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “391661”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

At our college reunion, my ex-boyfriend wrapped his arm around his new fiancée and proudly announced their engagement. I snapped a picture and sent it to his mother with the caption: “They look perfect together. Congratulations on getting exactly what you wanted.” Just as I was about to hit send, a hand clamped down on my wrist like a vice. “Oh? Still keeping in touch with my mother?” he sneered, his eyes dark and menacing. “What, the money wasn’t enough?” The room went dead silent. A terrifying, heavy silence. I looked up at him, my face completely pale. The music had stopped. I had no idea when. And I was suddenly the center of everyone’s attention. 1 Everyone in our circle knew I had abandoned Julian Sterling for money. During the year he loved me the most, I took a $2 million check from his mother, Evelyn, and ruthlessly walked out of his life. Furious at his mother’s interference, Julian went on a hunger strike, starving himself until he was barely recognizable. His fraternity brothers couldn’t stand watching him slowly die. Swallowing their intense disgust for me, they came to me, one by one, begging me to go see him. I refused every single one of them. Eventually, when he was clinging to life by a thread, his mother called me in “desperation,” begging me to act as a “mediator.” When I finally showed up in his hospital room, he locked his arms around me and refused to let go. He was nothing but skin and bones, but his grip was so tight it felt like he was trying to crush my ribs. “Mia, you came. You still love me, don’t you? I knew it—” The sheer, overwhelming joy in his voice was impossible to hide. I coldly pushed him away. I played an audio recording for him, and then showed him a text message. The audio was a recording of me negotiating with his mother, demanding $300,000 just to come see him. The text message was the bank notification confirming the $300,000 deposit. His eyes went wide, staring at me blankly. When his brain finally processed what he was seeing, he violently shoved me away. He pushed so hard he threw himself off the hospital bed, collapsing onto the floor and coughing until he was gasping for air. “Mia Harrison, get the fuck out of my sight!” He lay pathetically on the floor, gritting his teeth, spitting out every single word with venomous hatred. I gave him exactly what he wanted. I walked out clean and fast, never once looking back. I don’t know who leaked the story, but it spread like wildfire. From that day on, I became the ultimate punchline in the city’s high society. Those ‘in the know’ constantly whispered about how my love for money was only matched by my absolute ruthlessness. Others claimed I never loved Julian to begin with; that I was only ever with him for his trust fund. No one cared about the actual truth. Once Julian recovered, he immediately entered into a strategic business alliance, getting engaged to Chloe Sinclair, the cherished daughter of the CEO of Daray Group. I received no fewer than ten invitations to their engagement party. They were all sent by his frat brothers. Honoring my “agreement” with his mother, I had completely vanished from his life. But I knew exactly what he had been up to over the years. I knew he and Chloe had gone to study in the US together, practically living together. I knew he finished a grueling joint JD/MBA program at Harvard and the Kennedy School in just two years. I knew that the moment he returned to his family’s company, he successfully negotiated several impossible contracts, forcing the old-guard executives who doubted him to submit completely. I knew that even though he and Chloe hadn’t officially tied the knot, they already called each other’s parents “Mom and Dad.” It wasn’t because I was stalking him. It was because his frat brothers were constantly tripping over themselves to give me unsolicited updates. They say a good ex should be like a dead ex—silent and invisible. But they loved dragging my ‘corpse’ out to beat it. It was as if proving how incredibly successful Julian had become simultaneously proved how monumentally stupid I was. Tonight was our college reunion. It was the first time I’d seen Julian since we broke up three years ago. Tomorrow, my life was going to completely change. From now on, he would remain in the clouds, enjoying his immense wealth and power. And I would return to the dirt, enduring the harsh reality of a normal life. Before coming here, I called his mother and laid out my terms. “You can go. But remember what you are not allowed to say, and what you are not allowed to do.” That was her exact quote. I agreed. I was technically here as the plus-one of an old classmate, Lucas Vance. But my real goal was to corner an old friend who specialized in nephrology and verify some medical records. There were certain things I desperately needed to understand before I could finally let the past go. I anticipated Julian’s humiliation and cold stares. I anticipated the bullying and mockery from our former classmates. But the one thing I didn’t anticipate was Julian turning this reunion into a pre-wedding celebration. As the center of attention, he and Chloe effortlessly navigated the room, playing drinking games and showing off their perfect relationship. The atmosphere was electric. No one was stupid enough to bring up the past. I managed to pull the doctor aside and finally got the answers I needed. Because Lucas was currently trapped in a conversation across the room, I had to wait for him. I never imagined that in the ten seconds it took me to snap a photo and type a text, Julian would materialize out of thin air right in front of me. Dragging me into the blinding spotlight for everyone to see. 2 “So what if it was enough? So what if it wasn’t?” I shot Julian a provocative, challenging glare. “Is CEO Sterling offering to pay the difference?” “Mia Harrison. Three years later, and you’re still exactly the same cheap trash you always were!” He glared down at me, his beautiful, dark eyes radiating a freezing, lethal chill. His words hit me like a physical blow, a sharp blade twisting violently in my gut. I studied him through the hazy, flickering club lights. He used to be my anchor, a brilliant, solid light in a chaotic world. Now, dressed in a flawless bespoke suit, he was just as striking as ever, but his eyes were like a bottomless abyss. When he looked at me, there wasn’t a single trace of the deep, tender affection he used to have. I yanked my wrist hard, forcing him to step slightly closer to maintain his grip. “Getting physical with another woman right in front of your fiancée… tell me, who’s the cheap one here?” I fired back with the same sharp banter we used to use. Except, back then, we were whispering flirtatious secrets. Now, we were just stabbing each other. Julian seemed to snap out of a trance. He violently shoved my hand away, grabbed a wet wipe from the table, and began scrubbing his hand obsessively. The insult was glaringly obvious. I had zero desire to stay any longer. I made eye contact with Lucas, stood up, and prepared to walk out. But Julian stepped into my path, completely blocking me. “Chloe, come here. There’s someone you need to meet.” He dropped the hostility and waved Chloe over. “Julian, is there something special about this girl?” Chloe took quick, delicate steps over to him, intimately wrapping her arms around his and leaning against him softly. She looked exactly as her reputation suggested—sweet, adorable, a girl who had clearly been pampered and protected her entire life. “She’s very special.” Julian spoke to Chloe, but his eyes were locked dead onto me. “She’s the ex-girlfriend who dumped me for two million dollars. Mia Harrison.” He didn’t yell, but his voice was loud enough for the entire room to hear. The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. A massive, suffocating wave of humiliation crashed over me. I kept my face perfectly neutral, silently hiding my trembling hands behind my back. Because tonight, I could hurt, and I could laugh, but I absolutely could not show a single crack of vulnerability. “Is two million a lot? This jewelry set Julian bought me cost ten million.” Chloe’s perfectly manicured fingers lightly brushed the blindingly brilliant diamond necklace resting against her collarbone. Matching diamond earrings sparkled from her delicate earlobes. “Ten million?! Eight figures?!” “She’s basically wearing a mansion around her neck!” A chorus of shocked gasps echoed through the crowd. Followed closely by a rising tide of mockery and sneers. Mocking me for throwing away a gorgeous, billionaire boyfriend for a measly two million dollars. CRACK— Somewhere in the crowd, someone crushed a beer can. The sharp noise startled me, and I turned my head. Lucas was casually turning a crushed, mangled beer can in his hands, a dark, unreadable half-smile playing on his lips. I gave him a subtle shake of my head, signaling him to stay out of it. But Julian suddenly let out a low, dark chuckle. He pulled a massive stack of hundred-dollar bills from his jacket pocket and casually tossed them into the air above the booth. “Mia, I have more money than God.” “But you… aren’t… worth… a dime.” The bills fluttered down like green rain, landing on my face, my shoulders. And scattering across the floor at my feet. “You have such a wonderful boyfriend, sweetie. Make sure you hold onto him tight.” I forced a brilliant, unbothered smile through the barrage of judging eyes. “Obviously.” Chloe looked up at Julian adoringly. Her eyes met his, which were filled with absolute, overwhelming affection. “Wow, they are so perfect for each other!” “It’s a crime if they don’t kiss right now!” Someone started the chant, and the calls for a “Kiss!” grew louder and louder. Julian suddenly wrapped his arm around Chloe’s waist, pulled her down onto the sofa, leaned over, and kissed her deeply. The energy in the room instantly exploded. They were passionately making out under the strobe lights, right in front of me. The crowd was screaming and cheering, but all I could hear was a deafening, agonizing silence. 3 I threw up in the bathroom until I thought my organs were going to come out. When I finally walked out, the first thing I saw was a tall, imposing silhouette standing in the dim hallway. The strobe lights from a nearby open door flashed across his face, revealing a storm of suppressed rage. It was Julian. My body reacted before my brain did. I turned on my heel and started power-walking in the opposite direction. I was fast, but Julian was faster. The second my foot hit the floor, he grabbed me roughly by the shoulder. “Running away the second you see me? Feeling guilty?” He gripped my shoulder with terrifying strength; it actually hurt. I tried to twist out of his grasp, but it was useless. “Guilty of what?” I laughed, my voice raw and hoarse. “I just don’t think we have anything to catch up on.” “Mia, you’ve been parading yourself in front of me all night, and now you want to play coy? A bit late for that, don’t you think?” His voice was terrifyingly cold. “What do you mean, ‘parading’ in front of you? Just because we broke up, I’m suddenly banned from attending my own college reunion?” I straightened my spine, turned around, and forcefully slapped his hand away. “If that’s the case, why were you hiding in the bathroom throwing up?” He reached out and grabbed my chin. “Are you carrying some other guy’s bastard, or did my presence just make you sick?” The memory of him kissing Chloe flashed in my mind, and my stomach violently lurched again. Desperate not to break character, I gritted my teeth and fought the nausea down. “You barely ate anything, but you threw up quite a bit,” he observed slowly, noting my silence. His words stung, making my eyes burn. “Julian, we haven’t meant anything to each other for years. What exactly do you want from me?!” I shoved him hard, but he just grabbed both my wrists and pinned them against the wall above my head. “That’s exactly what I want to ask you.” He leaned in close. “Since you disappeared so perfectly, why the hell did you show up tonight?” The absolute disgust and hatred in his eyes were completely undisguised. The blood in my veins turned to ice. I let out a sharp, sudden laugh. “What answer are you looking for? That I can’t get over you and want you back? Or that I deeply regret it and I’m here to beg for your forgiveness?” He didn’t say a word. He was probably actually waiting for a reason. “The real reason is—” “She came as my plus-one.” Before I could finish, a familiar, mocking voice interrupted me. A few feet away, Lucas was leaning casually against the corner of the wall, his hands buried deep in his pockets. I had no idea how long he had been standing there. “Bro code, Julian. You’re crossing a major line right now.” He added the comment with total, infuriating calm. “What… what does that mean?” Julian’s voice suddenly faltered. “It means Mia is my girlfriend now.” “I am a year older than you, after all. What, you’re allowed to have a fiancée, but I’m not allowed to have a girlfriend?” Lucas casually began rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt. The message was clear: if Julian didn’t let me go right now, Lucas was going to make him. “Are you two… actually together?” Julian’s gaze snapped back to me. Even in the dim light, his stare felt heavy and piercing. “Do you need us to make out right now to prove it?” I asked, lowering my eyes and sneering. “Do whatever you want…” Julian released my wrists, turned, and walked away. Lucas let out a low whistle, a sly, victorious smirk spreading across his face. My entire defensive facade completely collapsed. I slumped against the wall, drained of all energy, and closed my eyes. “I told you not to come. Now look at you. You brought this entirely on yourself.” Lucas grumbled, his tone laced with exasperation. I opened my eyes and looked at him. “There are some things you just have to do yourself.” When he found out I needed to speak to our doctor classmate, he offered to ask on my behalf, but I refused. Because I needed to hear the truth with my own ears. “But you can’t fake your feelings. You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to anyone else.” Lucas walked over, planted one hand on the wall next to my head, and looked down at me. “Mia, I waited for you for seven years, and you didn’t even look at me twice.” “Just now, he was publicly humiliating you, and when I wanted to punch him, you wouldn’t even let me.” “Is he really that incredible? You’ve been broken up for three years, and you’re still hung up on him?” He was saying all these mocking, sarcastic things, but his voice was overflowing with undeniable heartbreak. I reached out, wrapped my arms around his waist, and buried my face in his chest. His entire body went completely rigid. “Lucas, sometimes protecting someone has absolutely nothing to do with love. And in real life, you don’t get ‘do-overs’.” “When he was begging to see me years ago, I refused. So obviously, me showing up today was going to piss him off.” “I accepted his insults because I was the one who needed something tonight.” I patiently explained it to him. “Did you get the answers you were looking for?” Lucas sighed. I nodded slightly. “Then let’s go.” He gently ruffled my hair. “I’ll go pull the car around. Meet me at the entrance.” “Okay.” I quietly let go of him. Just outside our field of vision, a shadow silently slipped away… 4 The drive back to my apartment was completely silent. Lucas didn’t speak, and I had absolutely zero desire to start a conversation. “Don’t forget your promise. I’m driving you tomorrow.” Just as I was about to open the door, he suddenly hit the central locking system. I wanted to argue, but the intense, stubborn look in his eyes made me change my mind. “Don’t worry, I didn’t forget.” I offered him a reassuring smile and gave him an “OK” sign. He finally unlocked the doors. As Lucas’s car sped away into the night, I stood on the sidewalk, lost in thought. He and Julian used to be best friends. They grew up together; they were thick as thieves. Before Julian and I started dating, Lucas had publicly handed me a love letter. Even after I rejected him, he confidently declared that he “wouldn’t give up until the very end.” When Julian and I got together, Lucas started dating too. He went through girlfriends constantly, but none of them ever lasted. I always thought his interest in me was just a passing phase. But slowly, he began to distance himself from Julian and me, eventually becoming completely estranged from his former best friend. I genuinely believed I would never interact with him again for the rest of my life. But when my family fell apart, he was the one who spent countless agonizing days and nights sitting with me in the hospital. He even willingly acted as my smokescreen, successfully convincing Evelyn to drop her guard around me. Aside from my parents, I have two major regrets in my life. One is betraying Julian, and the other is being entirely unable to return Lucas’s love… The winter night wind began to pick up, biting into my exposed skin like icy needles. I pulled my scarf up over my nose and mouth and turned toward my apartment building. A short distance away, a car’s hazard lights flashed twice. Illuminated by the streetlamp, I recognized the man in the driver’s seat. It was Benjamin, Evelyn’s most trusted driver and enforcer. I couldn’t help but let out a cold laugh. They really don’t let anything go. I walked briskly over to the car, pulled open the passenger door, and slid in. “Can I help you?” “Ms. Harrison, please pack your things immediately. We are leaving tonight.” His voice was as deep and unyielding as always. “Wasn’t my train ticket booked for 6:00 AM tomorrow?” I turned to look at him. “Can Mrs. Sterling really not wait one more night?” He didn’t answer. Instead, he placed a phone on the center console. It was an active call, on speakerphone. “Does Ms. Harrison have a problem with that?” Chloe’s voice drifted from the speaker. She sounded arrogant and domineering, a complete 180 from the elegant, perfectly behaved girl she played during the day. “I wouldn’t dare.” I frowned and let out a soft laugh. “I’m just curious if this is Mrs. Sterling’s order, or Ms. Sinclair’s?” “Is there a difference?” She scoffed. “Regardless of whose order it is, Ms. Harrison, you just need to understand one thing: Julian’s mother won’t have peace of mind until you’re gone.” She paused. “And neither will I.” Remembering the shadow I saw disappearing at the KTV, I laughed out loud. We had just crossed paths, and she was already setting up defenses against me. And me? What right did I even have to be considered a threat? “I’ll leave right now.” I was too exhausted to argue. I got out and headed upstairs. My bags were already mostly packed. I just needed to grab a few daily essentials. Once I was done, I zipped up my suitcase and took one last look around. My parents bought this apartment. We lived here for over twenty years. Every corner was filled with memories of our family. But now, everything was different. Even the deed to the apartment was no longer in our name. I placed the keys on the shoe cabinet in the entryway, locked the door, and carried my suitcase downstairs. As the car merged onto the highway, I pulled out my phone to send a quick goodbye message to the new owners. My eyes caught the unsent photo and text from earlier in the evening. The impulse to antagonize Evelyn had completely evaporated. I put my phone away and stared out the window, silently saying goodbye to the dazzling city lights. The city lights illuminated the pitch-black sky, illuminating the towering skyscrapers and blinding neon signs. This city held millions of lonely souls. It held millions of stories of joy, anger, sorrow, and tragedy. But there was no longer a place in it for me… 5 The further we drove, the more remote the surroundings became. It wasn’t until I saw the familiar, imposing gates of an estate that I realized Benjamin had driven me straight to the Sterling mansion. “Madam wanted to say a proper goodbye to you, Ms. Harrison.” Benjamin parked the car and politely opened my door. “Is that really necessary?” I didn’t move an inch. I could count on one hand the number of times I had been here, and every single visit was unforgettable. I had zero desire to step foot inside again. “I’m just following orders.” He looked at me intently. “I hope Ms. Harrison won’t make this difficult for me.” I sat in the car, locked in a standoff with him. The freezing winter wind quickly stripped away the residual heat in the cabin, leaving me shivering. “The Young Master hasn’t lived here in a very long time,” he added quietly after a long silence. Only then did I finally step out of the car. Walking straight into the grand estate, I found Evelyn sitting in the opulent receiving room, watching the financial news. She was nearly fifty, but her skin was still flawless and pale. Under the brilliant light of the crystal chandelier, she practically glowed. “Here is your ID. Benjamin will escort you to your train.” Once I sat down across from her, she muted the TV and slid a National ID card across the table. The photo on the card was of a girl who looked vaguely similar to me. “Mrs. Sterling, you’ve certainly gone to great lengths to erase my existence.” I smiled. “And my actual ID? When do I get that back?” “After Julian and Chloe are officially married.” She slid a brand-new smartphone across the table toward me. “Until then, I expect Ms. Harrison to remember her place.” I instantly understood what she was doing: she was confiscating my phone. My throat suddenly felt tight. Holding my passport and ID hostage wasn’t enough; now she wanted to sever all my personal connections? “And if I refuse?” I pressed my hand against the pocket of my coat, gripping the phone inside. Julian had given me this phone five years ago. It was a matching couple’s set. After using it for so long, it was glitchy and slow. But because it held so many memories, I could never bring myself to replace it. I panicked if I even scratched the screen… “I will not tolerate anyone hovering around my chosen daughter-in-law’s future husband.” She pushed the new phone closer to me. “Ms. Harrison, do not force my hand.” That single sentence made the power dynamic and her absolute resolve crystal clear. Knowing I had no other choice, I painfully pulled my phone out of my pocket and placed it on the table. “Benjamin, take care of it,” she ordered. Benjamin picked up the phone, popped out the SIM tray, snapped the SIM card in half, and then, with his bare hands, violently bent the phone until the screen shattered and the chassis snapped. I watched, helpless, as the phone was reduced to a mangled piece of garbage. “Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Harrison.” Evelyn nodded, satisfied. “If you’re thanking me for being docile and obedient these past three years, I accept.” My gaze drifted over the destroyed phone. “If you’re thanking me for my inability to fight back tonight, save your breath.” “Life is long. You’re still young, Ms. Harrison. You need to learn how to look forward.” She lifted her chin and ordered Benjamin, “It’s late. Take Ms. Harrison to the station.” “Yes, Ma’am,” Benjamin replied. I stood up in silence, keeping my head down as I walked toward the door. Benjamin hurried past me and shoved the new phone into my hand. I took it mechanically. “Mia Harrison—” Just as Benjamin reached for the door handle, Evelyn spoke again. I turned around like a lifeless marionette. “Live a good life. No one wants to compete with a ghost.” She stood with her arms crossed, projecting absolute, untouchable authority. I let out a harsh, silent laugh. For years, she had treated me like a highly dangerous thief, guarding against me at every turn. And even right before exiling me, she destroyed my phone to guarantee I could never contact Julian again. But Julian was an incredibly proud man. After I had humiliated and hurt him so many times, there was absolutely zero chance he would ever come back to me. The bitter irony was that after doing so many horrific, unforgivable things, she still had the audacity to fake concern and wish me a long life… “Understood.” I replied coldly, brushing past Benjamin to pull the door open. The moment the door swung open, I froze in my tracks. Julian was standing right there in the hallway. He stood perfectly straight, his breathing even. But his dark eyes were burning with a terrifying, contained inferno. 6 “Julian, what are you doing here?” Evelyn couldn’t hide the absolute shock in her voice. “I missed home, so I came back. Isn’t that what you always tell me to do, Mother?” “But now that I’m here, you seem incredibly surprised—” The corner of his mouth twitched upward. It looked like a smile, but the emotion behind it was ice-cold. “Is it that I’m no longer welcome in this house? Or is my mother busy orchestrating another one of her shady, back-alley deals?” Every sentence included the word “Mother,” but every single word was coated in venom. I listened, my brow furrowing deeply. Even when the old Julian’s relationship with his mother was incredibly strained, he still called her “Mom.” Now he couldn’t even be bothered to use the casual term, yet he happily called Chloe’s parents “Mom and Dad.” What the hell else had happened over these last few years…? “Madam—!” Benjamin suddenly pushed past me, rushing frantically into the room. My train of thought abruptly derailed, and I spun around in confusion. Evelyn was collapsed rigidly on the mahogany sofa, hyperventilating. Her normally composed, elegant face was an alarming shade of purple. A sudden spike of panic hit me. Because with Benjamin gone, the space around me felt instantly, terrifyingly suffocating. I could even smell the faint, lingering scent of alcohol radiating from Julian. For me, this proximity was incredibly dangerous. If I were anywhere else, I would have just embraced the chaos and fought back. But here, in the Sterling mansion, right in front of Evelyn, I couldn’t just laugh it off or scream at him. It would only make me look like a cheap, pathetic clown. I casually took two steps to the side, trying to put distance between myself and Julian. But he closed the gap instantly, wrapping his arm possessively around my waist and physically dragging me back toward his mother. His arm felt like a literal band of iron. I tried to anchor myself to the floor, but I couldn’t match his strength. I was forced to let him drag me forward. “It’s so late, and my wonderful mother is still hosting guests. You must be exhausted.” Julian forcefully shoved me down onto the sofa next to her. “What kind of business deal were you two finalizing just now? Let me in on it.” “Benjamin, escort Ms. Harrison out.” Evelyn managed to catch her breath, but her entire aura was radiating a dark, lethal fury. I immediately stood up to comply. But Julian forced me right back down. “I am the majority shareholder of the Sterling Corporation now. Mother, don’t you think you’re being a bit disrespectful to me?” He casually adjusted his expensive watch. He looked relaxed, but every word was a heavily veiled threat. With Evelyn glaring at me like a predator, and Julian aggressively backing me into a corner… I clutched the cold, unfamiliar phone in my hand, caught completely in the middle. After three years, I had absolutely zero interest in getting involved in their toxic family drama. I wanted to walk away, but my only ID was a fake. Without Benjamin’s help, even if I knew where the train station was, I’d never pass the facial recognition security gates. As the three of us remained locked in a tense standoff, Evelyn spoke again. “Didn’t you want to know what happened three years ago? Let her leave, and I’ll tell you.” “God only knows what kind of bullshit lies you’ll invent. Compared to you, I’d much rather hear it directly from her.” Julian’s tone was incredibly flat. Evelyn scoffed. “You can demand to hear it from her, but that depends on whether she actually wants to tell you.” Suddenly, all eyes in the room were locked onto me. “I have no bizarre fetish for reminiscing with my ex-boyfriend.” The corners of my mouth curled into a faint smile. “I’m terrified my boyfriend, Lucas, might get jealous.” Julian violently kicked the heavy mahogany coffee table, sending it crashing to the floor. His fists were clenched so tight his knuckles were white. The veins in his neck were bulging, making him look like a storm cloud crackling with destructive lightning. I knew he must be absolutely furious. But I felt zero sense of accomplishment. As his former lover, I knew exactly where to slide the knife to inflict maximum pain. When we were together, I never, ever imagined a day where I would use my intimate knowledge of him as a weapon to destroy him. But over the last three years, I had taken every opportunity to brutally, relentlessly shatter his heart… “Let’s go.” I stood up and signaled to Benjamin. He looked nervously at Evelyn. Evelyn gave a slow, heavy nod. As we walked toward the door, Benjamin kept looking back over his shoulder, clearly terrified of leaving Evelyn alone with Julian. “If we don’t leave right now, you might regret it.” I gave him a subtle warning. Benjamin jolted, and his pace instantly quickened. This time, Julian didn’t try to stop us.

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1 It was the seventh year since I’d escaped my family, the year I met the woman I thought was my soulmate. Her looks, her personality, even her tastes—everything about her was perfect for me. In our third month together, we decided on a destination wedding. The night before we were set to leave, I was scrolling idly through a forum and stumbled upon a post. [Late Night Vents: What’s the most outrageous thing you’ve ever agreed to do for a boyfriend?] I was about to swipe past it, but a reply from a user named “IndigoSky” caught my eye. [So many things. We were young and reckless, so I gave him everything. Got pregnant for him, had an abortion. Satisfied his every fantasy, wherever he wanted.] [But the most outrageous thing? I agreed to marry his brother.] Amid a sea of sympathetic replies, IndigoSky posted again. [Don’t feel sorry for me, everyone. My boyfriend has heart failure. Only his brother’s heart can save him.] [I’m going to help him get that heart. Then we’ll be together forever and ever.] I stared at her profile picture, at the tattoo on her chest that was an exact match to the one over my own heart. My world tilted, and my heart began to sink. … [Maybe we should cancel tomorrow’s flight.] It was three in the morning when I sent the message to my fiancée, Sophie. She replied almost instantly. [Why? Haven’t you been looking forward to our wedding trip for ages?] I sent her a quick photo I’d taken of the hospital, just as my doctor called me into his office. “Mr. Reed, given your physical condition, I really can’t recommend long-distance travel…” “Doctor, is Asher okay?” Before the doctor could finish, Sophie burst into the room, breathless. She was still in her pajamas, her eyes wide with a worry so deep it seemed bottomless. A shame it was all an act. No, that wasn’t entirely true. The worry was real, but not for me. After all, if something happened to my health, her true love—my younger brother, Nathan—would lose his chance at a heart transplant. A bitter taste filled my mouth, and I lowered my head. The doctor, misinterpreting my silence, played his part as usual, offering a comforting lie to Sophie. “He’s fine. It’s the same old issue. As long as he takes his medication, he’ll be alright.” “But I would still advise you to be cautious about this wedding trip.” Sophie nodded, volunteering to go pick up my prescription. When the white bottle was in her hand, her brow furrowed. “What’s this? I haven’t seen this one before.” “It’s for my stomach,” I lied smoothly. “The doctor said it’s gentler on my system.” But Sophie wasn’t buying it. She took a picture of my medical report and sent it to a doctor friend of hers. For a split second, I almost convinced myself that the forum post had been a hallucination. Then her friend’s reply came back as a voice note, and she accidentally played it on speaker. “Relax. That medication is for heart failure, but it’s sometimes used for stomach issues too.” “Besides, your Asher gets a full check-up every month, and he gets a clean bill of health every single time.” “That heart of his is so strong you could probably smash rocks on it and it would be fine…” Sophie frantically cut the audio off, but my heart had already plunged into an icy abyss. Of course. She wasn’t worried about me. I reached for a cigarette, needing to get out, but she plucked it from my fingers. “You shouldn’t smoke if you’re not feeling well.” “And… maybe we really should cancel the flight tomorrow?” I didn’t answer. Just then, a text message notification lit up my phone. [Mr. Asher Reed, your one-million-dollar accidental death and dismemberment policy is now active.] [This policy is valid for one week and offers a maximum payout of three million dollars.] Three million… The cost of a heart transplant surgery was exactly three million dollars. It seemed Sophie really, truly loved Nathan. She’d even factored in the surgical fees. Noticing the dark look on my face, Sophie rushed to explain. “Asher, don’t overthink it. A friend of mine sells insurance, and I was just helping her meet her sales quota.” “And I bought one for myself, too! See…” I cut her off. “It’s late. Go home and get some rest.” “I’ll see you at the airport in the morning.” 2 My family was a catastrophe. My father was a violent drunk and a compulsive gambler. When I was seven, he backhanded my little brother during a drunken rage, and that was the last straw for my mother. She filed for divorce. In court, she took my younger brother, Nathan. I dragged my leg, which my father had also broken, to the train station to see them off. My mother cupped my face in her hands and whispered that she was sorry. She told me to hold on, to wait for the day she would come back for me. I waited for ten years. I waited until my drunk of a father stumbled, fell into a roadside ditch, and drowned. Only then did a social worker help me contact the mother I had longed for all those years. She had remarried. She was draped in designer clothes, and my brother had transformed into a polished, privileged young man. But when the subject of me coming to live with them came up, they both became evasive. In the end, I was sent to a boarding school. I was an outcast, constantly bullied, but it was better than the life I’d known, a life of never knowing where my next meal was coming from. Three years later, I was accepted into a top-tier university. On the day the acceptance letters went out, my mother, who had never once visited me, showed up in a luxury car. She said the Vaughn family—her new family—was throwing a party to officially welcome me home. She handed me a drink herself. A welcome-home toast. I woke up in a prison cell, told I had killed someone in a high-speed street race. Meanwhile, the real heir of the Vaughn family, my brother, had assumed my identity and was attending that top-tier university in my place. Nathan was sent to a prestigious school abroad. I spent ten years in prison. When I got out, I changed my name and fought my way up from nothing to build the life I have now. Then Sophie came to my company for an interview. She told me her family had always treated her like a “blood bag,” a resource to be used, and that she just wanted to live for herself for once. I saw a reflection of my younger self in her. I broke my own rules and hired her on the spot. Sophie didn’t disappoint. Within a week, she had mastered her duties. Within a month, she was indispensable. The day before her probationary period ended, she confronted a colleague who was taking kickbacks and ended up in the hospital after a heated argument. The colleague was connected to one of our most important corporate partners. Before I could even intervene, Sophie submitted her resignation. A month later, I found her working at a late-night food stall, being harassed by a drunk. I stepped in. We spent that night talking at the police station, opening our hearts to each other. That’s when we started our relationship. The more time I spent with her, the more certain I was that she was the one. But my past made me terrified of marriage. I could never bring myself to take that final step. Until a week ago, when Sophie came to me, her face glowing with joy, holding up a positive pregnancy test. Suddenly, all I wanted was a family. If it hadn’t been for that post… My alarm blared, and I wiped the tears from my eyes before driving to the airport. While I was waiting for Sophie in the terminal, IndigoSky updated her comment thread. [That was close. For a second, I thought the heart I worked so hard for was about to slip away.] [Good thing I’m smart. I used a little reverse psychology and calmed him down.] [I even made him a special breakfast. I’m sure he’ll be really touched when he sees it!] “Asher, you haven’t eaten, have you? Look what I brought you!” I hadn’t even finished reading the comment when Sophie appeared before me, holding a lunchbox. It was identical to the one in the picture IndigoSky had just posted. My appetite vanished. “I already ate. You can have it.” I turned and walked toward the security gate alone. A flicker of disappointment crossed Sophie’s face, but she quickly caught up. I didn’t say another word to her until we were in our seats on the plane. Even when she tried to lean in and talk to me, I just turned my head away and pretended to be asleep. I heard her let out a faint, almost inaudible sigh beside me. All I felt was a chilling cold.

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Ten years after my death, I was reborn as Daisy, my own pampered granddaughter, who always clung to me. In my last life, I started from a street stall, clawed my way to a publicly traded corporation, and hadn’t slept a single good night in sixty years. This time, I could finally be a third-generation heiress, living a life of leisure. But no sooner had I woken up than I saw a notification on my phone. My adopted son, Leo Maxwell, was poised to dismantle the business empire I had painstakingly built. All the Lees, my relatives, stormed into the CEO’s office, pointing fingers at him, yelling, “What right do you, an outsider, have to dispose of the Lee family’s assets!” Leo merely lifted his gaze, and the entire room fell silent, like chickens gone mute. In the end, every single Lee was thrown out of the building, becoming the laughingstock of the city. Only I was left behind with Leo. I felt a pang of guilt, half-expecting him to recognize me, his old matriarch. Instead, he tossed a stack of business management quizzes at me, his face cold. “Grandma doted on you most of all in her life, but your brain is less than a thousandth of hers.” “These tests, you must score above 90% on every single one.” He leaned in, his voice tight with suppressed emotion. “Fail to do so, and don’t even think about visiting her grave.” “I’ll tell everyone—you’re not worthy of being her granddaughter.” 1 The moment consciousness flooded back, a searing headache made me groan. Ten years of murky, post-mortem memories receded like a tide, replaced by those of another girl. Daisy Lee. My little granddaughter. The one who, at three years old, would cling to me, begging me to read to her. The one my son and daughter-in-law spoiled rotten, so delicate that a mere touch would make her cry. I shot upright and rushed to the bathroom. The mirror reflected a youthful face, wide, sparkling eyes, skin like porcelain, and softly curled hair—the epitome of a spoiled little princess. Looking at this face, untouched by the storms of life, my emotions were a complicated mess. In my last life, I built an empire from scratch, from a humble street cart to a listed corporation, working myself into ill health by sixty, with wrinkles that even the most expensive skincare couldn’t erase. Now, I’d been given a second chance, only to become my own granddaughter? Well, it’s not so bad. After a lifetime of toil, this time I’d be a third-generation heiress. I’d finally enjoy a life of… “Buzz—buzz—” My phone on the vanity vibrated wildly, the screen lighting up with urgent news alerts. [Lee Group Stock Plummets! Billions Lost in a Single Day!] [Leo Maxwell’s Leadership Fails? Lee Business Empire on the Brink!] [Industry Analysts: Lee Group CEO Leo Maxwell’s Recent Decisions Questioned, Suspected of Deliberate Self-Sabotage?] Leo Maxwell. My adopted son. When I found him, he was twelve, as thin as a bean sprout, but his eyes held the fierce glint of a wolf cub. Most of the Lee descendants were soft-natured; I was worried about finding an heir, so I adopted him. I spent ten years smoothing his rough edges, teaching him the ways of business, and on my deathbed, against all opposition, I entrusted the company to him. I thought he’d understand my efforts. I thought he’d protect my legacy. And this is how he repays me? A surge of righteous fury shot to my head. I threw the phone down, grabbed a coat, and stormed out. This life, though housed in a pampered body, still held the spirit of old Mrs. Lee. I needed to get some answers. What exactly was Leo Maxwell trying to do? Did he think that just because I was gone, no one could control him anymore? I rushed downstairs, before I could even call a driver, an urgent news flash suddenly appeared on the hundred-inch TV screen in the living room. [Breaking! Lee Group CEO Leo Maxwell Announces Donation of All Personal Assets and Remaining Group Liquid Funds, Plus Select Real Estate, Totaling Approximately Ten Billion Dollars, to Sunstone Charity Home!] On the screen, Leo Maxwell, impeccably dressed in a suit, stood beside the donation agreement, his face calm and unreadable. Below him, flashbulbs exploded. My steps faltered. I stared at the scrolling news headline, rooted to the spot. He donated everything? And to Sunstone Charity Home, of all places? While I was still reeling, my father, uncles, and aunts in this life had already erupted. “He’s lost his mind! He’s absolutely lost it!” My father, Robert Lee, slammed his teacup, his face ashen. “That’s Lee family money! What right does he have to donate it?!” “I told you this stray wouldn’t be tamed! Mom shouldn’t have been so soft-hearted and picked him up!” Uncle George stomped his foot, cursing. “Call the police! We must call the police! This is embezzlement! This is theft!” The group clawed at each other like hyenas whose food had been snatched, red-eyed, howling, completely devoid of dignity. I watched them coldly. These people, my children in my past life. Not much talent, but when it came to fighting over inheritance and being a hindrance, they were second to none. If I hadn’t kept them in check, the company would have been bled dry long ago. Now, seeing the money gone, they were more frantic than anyone. The whole group stormed out, clearly going to confront Leo. I slowly followed. My emotions were complicated. This move by Leo, it was too radical, and too unexpected. Sunstone Charity Home, that was where I met him. And it was also where I first started, where I got my first investment. The old director there was a truly good person. I had sworn then that if I succeeded, I would repay that place a hundred, a thousand times over. I had only mentioned this to young Leo once. He… remembered? 2 The top floor of Lee Group headquarters, outside the CEO’s office, was a chaotic mess, like a fish market. My children and grandchildren from this life were all blocked by bodyguards. Unable to get in, they cursed outside, their words viciously offensive. “Leo Maxwell! You ungrateful bastard! Get out here!” “That’s my mother’s company! What right do you have to donate it?! What kind of trash are you?!” “Bastard! Scum! They should have let you starve and freeze to death back then!” The security guards formed a human wall, their faces impassive, clearly well-trained. The secretary on the side was sweating profusely, trying to say something, but her voice was completely drowned out by the shouting. I watched this group argue like common street vendors, my brow furrowing deeper. Such uncouth behavior! Did decades of upbringing amount to nothing? “Everyone, shut up!” I snapped, the unconscious authority of old Mrs. Lee emerging. “What kind of scene is this?! Can’t you talk…” “Daisy, shut your mouth!” My father in this life, Robert Lee, abruptly cut me off, his face full of irritation. “What do kids know?! Go stand aside!” Uncle George shot me a harsh glare. “Adults are talking, it’s not your place to interrupt! If you keep yelling, I’ll send you home!” I instantly choked, the rest of my words caught in my throat. Looking at their agitated, distorted faces, I suddenly realized. Right now, I was Daisy Lee, the least influential granddaughter in the family. A wave of powerlessness washed over me. I pressed my lips together, silently retreating to the back of the crowd, observing the farce coldly. I didn’t expect that short moment to be perfectly captured by a pair of deep eyes peeking from behind the office door. The office door suddenly opened. Leo Maxwell stepped out. He must be thirty-five this year. Time hadn’t etched many lines on his face; instead, it had refined him, giving him a stern, imposing aura. His suit was sharp, his posture upright, and his gaze, when it swept over them, felt like shards of ice. The previously noisy crowd instantly quieted by half. My father, stiff-necked, still wanted to say something, but a glance from Leo instantly deflated his bluster. “What’s all this noise about?” Leo’s voice wasn’t loud, but it clearly cut through all other sounds. “Do I need to report company decisions to you?” “That’s the Lee family’s company!” Uncle George shrieked. “The Lee family?” Leo gave a faint, cold smirk, as if he’d heard a joke. “When Grandma was alive, which of you ever earned a dime for Lee Group? The losses you incurred, however, were countless. And now you show up claiming it’s the Lee family’s?” His gaze swept over the faces, some angry, some guilty. “When the group’s capital chain broke, and stock prices plummeted, where were you?” “When banks called in debts, and partners canceled contracts, where were you then?” “Aside from selling off Grandma’s antiques and properties to cover your messes, what else can you do?” A torrent of questions left the group speechless, their faces alternating between green and white. “As for the donation,” Leo’s tone grew colder. “I used my personal funds and disposed of the group’s remaining assets to overcome the crisis, all legally and compliantly. Who are you to dictate what I do?” “Bullshit!” My father finally found his voice, his eyes red. “You’re just seeking revenge! Revenge on the Lee family! Revenge on Mom for keeping you in line! You’re just an ungrateful wretch we raised!” Leo’s expression instantly darkened. The air around them seemed to drop several degrees. “Robert Lee,” Leo didn’t even call him by his usual title, just his name. “Watch your words. If not for Grandma’s sake, you wouldn’t even have the right to stand here and speak to me.” He raised a hand. Security personnel immediately stepped forward, forcefully “escorting” people out. “Get out! All of you, get out!” “Leo Maxwell! How dare you!” “We’ll sue you! You just wait!” Cries, curses, and threats filled the air, but my children and grandchildren were unceremoniously cleared out. The farce ended. I stood in the corner, watching these useless descendants being removed, feeling a surge of annoyance. Leo’s gaze swept past the crowd, landing precisely on me. “You,” he pointed at me, his eyes deep and unreadable, “come in.” My heart tightened. Bearing the resentful stares of the others, I bit the bullet and followed him into the office. The door closed behind us, shutting out all the noise. 3 The office was quiet. Leo walked behind his desk, turned, and fixed his piercing gaze on me. He said nothing, just watched me, as if trying to see straight through me. Under his intense scrutiny, my scalp tingled, and I tried my best to maintain Daisy’s usual timid demeanor. After a long moment, he finally spoke, his voice even. “That was quite a display of authority just now.” My heart skipped a beat. Leo was a smart kid, even as a child. Could he have… “But it was a little foolish,” his tone turned colder. “Unable to grasp the situation, trying to smash an egg against a rock.” I lowered my head, not daring to speak. He suddenly picked up a stack of test papers from a nearby table and tossed them onto the desk in front of me. Corporate Strategic Management, Advanced Financial Analysis, Market Game Theory… All business management courses, and not easy ones. I immediately recognized that some of the trap questions and assessment approaches were very similar to the tricky ones I used to devise to challenge him. “Your father says you want to intern at the company?” Leo leaned back in his chair, his tone unreadable, but his finger tapped lightly on the Market Game Theory paper, his gaze like a hawk, watching my initial reaction as I picked up the tests. I: “…” No, I don’t. Looking at these papers, I sighed inwardly. Perhaps I pushed too hard in my previous life; old Mrs. Lee, this time, just wanted to enjoy the life of a rich heiress. Otherwise, how could I justify a lifetime of hard work? But I could only nod. “…Mmm.” At the same time, my fingers subconsciously flipped through the top paper, my gaze quickly scanning several key questions. My brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, then quickly relaxed. The way these questions are designed, still the same old tricks, focusing on human weaknesses and loopholes in regulations. Seriously, no progress at all. “With your grades, failing every subject, what could you possibly do in the company? Even fetching tea and water, you’d be too stupid.” His words were blunt, but his gaze was fixed on my brow, where it had just furrowed and relaxed, and on the focused intensity in my eyes as I quickly scanned the papers—an intensity that no slacker would possess. My mouth twitched uncontrollably. That brat, still so sharp-tongued! I fought the urge to blurt out, “Your old lady used these exact tricks to test you back then, and you almost cried!” Instead, I took a small breath, suppressing the flicker of disrespect and a strange sense of familiarity. Head bowed, focused only on maintaining my disguise, I didn’t notice the increasing depth in Leo’s gaze. “Grandma always said you looked like her when she was young,” he paused, his gaze again sweeping over my face, this time with a more intense scrutiny and an almost perplexed inquiry. He even unconsciously tapped his fingertips on the desk. This was his habitual movement when deep in thought. “But seeing your pig-headed brain, you’re not even a thousandth of her.” I: “!!!” Is that how you talk about your own mother?! I almost couldn’t stop myself from slapping the desk and jumping up, the anger that flared in my eyes and the authoritative air of old Mrs. Lee, though fleeting, made Leo’s tapping fingers suddenly stop. The inquiry in his eyes instantly sharpened, and he even leaned forward slightly, almost imperceptibly, as if to see more clearly. But his next sentence rooted me to the spot, temporarily interrupting his dangerous scrutiny. “Grandma valued two things above all else in her life: the Lee family’s reputation, and the competence of its descendants.” “Before she passed, she repeatedly instructed me never to allow anyone in the Lee family to become a wasteful spendthrift who knew nothing about business.” His gaze swept over me, cold and stern, his tone growing harsher. “You failed four subjects last semester, you don’t even understand basic business principles, and all you do all day is eat, drink, shop, and party.” “With your meager abilities, do you deserve the Lee name? Do you deserve to be Grandma’s granddaughter?” He picked up the top paper, a financial report analysis covered in red crosses, and slammed it down in front of me. “Grandma doted on you most of all in her life, always saying you looked just like her when she was young.” “But seeing your pig-headed brain, you’re not even a thousandth of her!” “Redo all these tests. Every subject must score above 90%.” He leaned in, his voice carrying an undeniable threat. “If you fail to do so…” “Don’t expect to attend Grandma’s gravesite visit.” “I’ll tell everyone that Daisy Lee has no right to stand before Grandma’s tomb—because you’re not worthy of being her granddaughter.”

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Arthur Sterling had always been fiercely, obsessively devoted to me. Yet, just because I went to meet that girl, he drove his car straight at me. I couldn’t help but ask, “Do you really like her that much?” Arthur looked at me coldly. “She was willing to take a knife for me. Could you do the same?” I let out a sharp, sudden laugh. “Absolutely not.” 1 Arthur had been hiding a mistress behind my back. He hid her for six months, and I didn’t suspect a thing. Until a week ago. I had my period, and out of nowhere, he remarked, “You don’t seem to get cramps anymore.” I froze for a second. Instantly, I realized that this bastard definitely had someone he cared about who suffered from severe period cramps. So, I casually replied, “Dr. Lee has been treating me. A few rounds of his herbal medicine cleared it right up.” Arthur didn’t even blink. He just gave a highly indifferent, “Hm.” Three days later, I flew out of the country for a business trip. He used that time to escort a girl somewhere. The photo I received was so blurry you couldn’t even make out her face. But the incredibly precious, overly protective way Arthur treated her was glaringly obvious. I wasn’t surprised that Arthur cheated. I was surprised that he actually cared this much. What kind of girl is she? Driven by curiosity, I secretly flew back home without telling him. I had my driver, Old Xu, take me straight to the apartment where Arthur was keeping her. Perfect timing. Arthur had just stepped out of his Cullinan. He carelessly tossed his bespoke, high-end suit jacket onto the backseat and pulled on a cheap, generic windbreaker. He threw on a pair of glasses, messed up his perfectly styled hair, and grabbed a generic laptop bag. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Is he cosplaying as Kevin from IT?” “A programmer?” Old Xu kept his head down, staying as quiet as a mouse. Once Arthur disappeared upstairs, I pushed my door open. “Wait here. I’m going up to take a look.” “Boss…” “What are you afraid of? Is he going to kill me?” … “He wouldn’t kill you either!” 2 Anyone with half a brain knew that the second I went up there and exposed his secret, things between me and Arthur were going to get violently ugly. Especially since our conflicts had been escalating exponentially over the last two years. The cold wars, the screaming matches, the smashing of things—it had become our daily routine. Our most recent blowout was half a month ago. I honestly can’t even remember what started it. At the climax of the argument, I grabbed a glass and hurled it directly at his head. He could have dodged it, but he didn’t. He just stood there, letting the bright red blood stream down his forehead. His eyes were freezing cold. “Is there even a trace of the girl you used to be left in you?” How hilarious. I’m not like I used to be, but is he? When he changes, it’s perfectly natural and justified. But when I change, it’s an unforgivable sin? Knock. Knock. Knock. I rapped on the door. Arthur opened it. He still had a warm, gentle smile plastered on his face as he called back inside, “Just leave it, I’ll get it.” He turned around. The absolute second his eyes locked onto mine, the smile fractured and shattered. The soft, gentle warmth in his eyes instantly froze into solid ice. The transition was so flawlessly smooth it belonged in an acting masterclass. “Who is it?” A petite, pretty girl poked her head out from behind him. Meeting her gaze, I paused for a second. Arthur shifted his body to block her. “Go back inside.” His low, serious tone confused the girl. A smile unexpectedly crept onto my lips. I stepped forward and extended my hand before he could stop me. “Hi, I’m a coworker of Arthur’s. I need to discuss some work matters with him.” Arthur gave me a flat, icy look, but silently accepted my cover story. “Stay inside. We’re going to talk outside.” “Is it inconvenient? Did I interrupt your time with Mrs. Sterling?” The girl’s face flushed bright red, and she waved her hands frantically. “No! I’m not Mrs. Sterling! We aren’t…” “Not married yet? Well, I’m sure it’ll happen soon. Make sure I get an invitation to the wedding.” Her face turned even redder, and she stole shy, embarrassed glances at Arthur. My smile grew wider. “By the way, my name is Mia Harrison. What’s yours?” “Chloe Lin. Nice to meet you!” 3 Chloe Lin. 19 years old. A student at University H. Exceptional grades, impeccable character. That was all the information I could dig up. Arthur had completely scrubbed the rest of her background. Ultimately, I never stepped foot inside their little love nest. Under Arthur’s freezing, intimidating glare, I smoothly followed him downstairs. “How did you get here?” … “Why didn’t you tell me you were back in the country?” … “How long have you known?” … Arthur took a deep, aggressive drag of his cigarette. “What do you want?” I scoffed out loud. Finally, getting straight to the point. “What do you think I should want?” Arthur tilted his head to look at me. “My relationship with her isn’t the dirty, sleazy affair you’re imagining.” “She has health issues. I’m taking care of her. That’s all.” I dragged out a long, sarcastic “Oh.” “And what if I don’t believe you?” Arthur’s face instantly darkened. My aura of breezy, unbothered warmth vanished completely. I got out of the car and slammed the door shut. “Mia.” I turned around. The next second, the terrifying roar of an accelerating engine echoed through the garage. Arthur had one hand on the steering wheel. As the car sped aggressively directly toward me, his eyes never left mine for a microsecond. He watched my pupils dilate in horror, watched my entire body paralyze in fear. SCREECH— The bumper stopped literally touching my kneecaps. Braked to a violent halt. My mind went completely blank. For a split second, it felt like a bomb had detonated inside my skull. The car reversed, swung around, and pulled up right next to me. Arthur looked up at me from the driver’s seat. “Do not touch her.” That wasn’t a plea. It was a lethal warning. “Boss! Are you okay?!” Old Xu stumbled over, his face the color of ash, his eyes filled with pure terror. As my knees gave out and I collapsed onto the concrete, I finally realized it wasn’t my imagination. He really, truly wanted to kill me. 4 Arthur Sterling had never been a saint. He was a guy who didn’t even finish middle school, yet clawed his way to his current empire. He was ruthless to others, but infinitely more ruthless to himself. When I was six, my garbage father used the excuse of taking me out to play to secretly meet up with his first love. While they were rolling around in a hotel suite, Arthur was stuck babysitting me in the living room, watching Tom and Jerry. I didn’t understand why weird groaning noises were coming from the bedroom. I asked curiously, “Arthur, what are my dad and that lady doing?” He cranked the TV volume up to the max and covered my ears. “It’s dirty. Don’t listen.” He was only a year older than me, but he took care of me flawlessly. It wasn’t because he liked me so much. It was because his mother told him that if he kept me quiet and distracted, she’d give him twenty bucks. That twenty bucks was his entire allowance for the week. When I was fourteen, my dad eloped with Arthur’s mom. My mother completely lost her mind. She set a fire and burned our house to the ground. Arthur was the one who carried me out of the inferno. Half of his arm still bears the burn scars from that night. He had no money for tuition, so he dropped out of school to work manual labor. I took a baseball bat and smashed his tiny, rundown apartment to pieces. I paid him $5,000 for the damages. He still refused to go back to school. Instead, he went to Yunnan to buy and trade medicinal herbs and local goods. He used the very first real paycheck he earned to buy me a princess dress. That year, I was fifteen. He was sixteen. My mother was hysterical. “Your father ran off with that slut, and you’re still hanging around the bastard she spawned!” “You really are your father’s child. I should have strangled you the moment you were born.” Logically, I probably should have taken my mother’s side. But tragically, Arthur was the one who raised me. During the years my dad was busy cheating and my mom was busy hunting him down, I lived like a complete outcast. Arthur was the only one who stayed by my side, expecting nothing in return. He could be filthy and covered in dirt, but he demanded that I always be spotlessly clean. He could be beaten black and blue, but no one was allowed to lay a single finger on me. He forbade me from telling anyone we were connected; he was terrified he wouldn’t be strong enough to protect me yet. He hated seeing me cry. He would always clumsily try to wipe my tears away. He’d fiercely, aggressively order me to hold the tears in. But years later, when I truly, finally stopped crying forever… he didn’t seem all that happy about it. “Honestly, if you just cried and threw a tantrum, I’d give you whatever you wanted.” “Why do you always insist on fighting me tooth and nail?” 5 I lay in the hospital for a day and a half. Dr. Vance, an old friend, told me to stay dead. “Fine. Bring me a pack of cigarettes.” “Smoking is strictly prohibited in the hospital.” “Then I want to be discharged.” “Couldn’t you just use this as an opportunity to quit smoking?” “You call this an ‘opportunity’? I’d be better off taking the ‘opportunity’ to just die.” Dr. Vance rolled his eyes, refusing to indulge me any further. “What the hell is actually going on between you and Arthur?” “Usually, if you so much as scrape your knee, he loses his mind. This time, he hasn’t even shown his face.” I let out a cold laugh. “Finally asked, huh?” “Must have been killing you holding that in.” Leo burst into the hospital room just as I was preparing to walk out, nearly tackling me. His eyes were frantic, his face completely pale. “Mia, are you okay?!” “Why are you here?” “Are you hurt anywhere?!” “Who authorized you to come back?” “Where the fuck is Arthur?!” “Is your assignment finished?” “I’m going to kill him!” … Not a single sentence I actually wanted to hear. I kicked him hard in the shin. He didn’t dodge. He just took it, then hunched his shoulders and leaned his head down in front of me. “I’m sorry.” I smacked the back of his head lightly. “Did Old Xu tell you?” “No, I looked into it myself.” This kid was getting sharper. As he grew older, his capabilities were expanding rapidly. He actually had the guts to run background checks on me now. “How did the business in the South go?” “They can handle it.” After reporting, he still looked incredibly defiant. “There’s no way I wasn’t coming back.” I laughed, irritated. “Fine. You’re the boss.” Leo followed behind me, grumbling and acting like a pathetic, whining puppy to beg for forgiveness. And we walked straight into Arthur. His expression was completely flat, and he was holding Chloe’s hand. So, since I completely blew his cover, he wasn’t even going to bother hiding it anymore? Leo froze for a few seconds, then his face turned murderous as he lunged forward. I kicked him right back into place. Dr. Vance stood awkwardly to the side, his face cycling through a spectrum of colors. It was a spectacularly toxic standoff. “Ms. Harrison, are you feeling sick too?” Chloe’s naive, innocent voice shattered the tension. I offered her a polite smile. “Just a minor issue. What brings you here?” She looked a bit embarrassed. “I have a scar on my back. I wanted to see if they could remove it.” I nodded in understanding. “Medical technology is incredible these days. I’m sure it won’t be a problem.” “A pretty, young girl like you shouldn’t have any flaws.” Chloe’s face flushed bright red. “You’re incredibly beautiful too, Ms. Harrison.” Arthur tightened his grip on her hand. “We need to go. The specialist is waiting.” “Goodbye, Ms. Harrison.” As we brushed past each other, Arthur gave me a polite, sterile nod. Perfect. The textbook definition of a casual acquaintance. On the ride back, Leo’s face was as dark as the bottom of a burned pot. I couldn’t help but tease him. “What? If I hadn’t stopped you, were you really going to brawl with Arthur right there in the hospital?” “Shouldn’t I have?!” “So you’re not afraid of him anymore?” He pressed his lips into a thin line. “Mia, you need to cut him off. Completely.” Hah! Silly kid. 6 I picked Leo up out of a stairwell when I was twenty. He was eleven at the time. His biological father and stepmother had locked him out of the apartment. It was the dead of winter, and he was wearing a thin spring jacket, shivering violently, his body covered in dark bruises. He grabbed my pant leg, mumbling weakly that he was starving. So I took him home, made him a bowl of instant ramen, and tossed in a sausage. At that time, things between me and Arthur were incredibly toxic. He refused to let me get involved in his business, ordering me to stay out of it and just focus on studying. But he was constantly getting injured. I couldn’t handle it. Money. Those few miserable dollars truly drove people to the brink of death. I surrendered to my mother. I told her I was done with Arthur and was ready to come home and inherit the family business. My mother mocked me relentlessly. But she also knew perfectly well that the shares my grandparents left behind were under my exclusive control. She hated me. But she also needed me. Since she couldn’t physically force me, she recorded my surrender and played it for Arthur. Arthur didn’t believe it. He believed me. So he was consumed by self-blame. He blamed himself for not being strong enough to protect me. When the self-blame became too much, we started fighting. We fought about situations, then we fought about emotions. Then we’d make up. And the cycle would repeat. Leo was an anomaly. I sporadically fed him and looked after him for about six months. Arthur didn’t interfere, nor did he care. But because Arthur always had a cold, intimidating, emotionless expression, Leo was terrified of him. Later on, Leo’s father discovered our arrangement. His cloudy, disgusting eyes looked me up and down with blatant, filthy lust. Leo must have heard something, because he used every cent of his saved-up allowance to buy a knife. He was terrified and completely desperate. I cooked him a bowl of noodles, confiscated the knife, and told him to stay out of it. I intentionally left the door unlocked, allowing the man to break into my apartment, rip my clothes, and pin me to the bed. I watched as his wife, who had followed him, burst into the room. They started brawling, and the man plunged a knife directly into the woman’s stomach. He fled in absolute panic, grabbing all the cash from my safe on his way out. The newly installed security cameras captured the entire sequence of events in high definition. He was arrested, convicted, and given a maximum sentence. For the person I was back then, it was an absolutely flawless, perfectly executed trap. Arthur didn’t say a single word. He just sat in silence, applying medicine to my bruises. After a very long time, he finally spoke. “You never should have used yourself as bait.” “If something had gone wrong, what was I supposed to do?” Those were the words that stuck with me back then. But there was another sentence, one I didn’t truly understand until years later. He said: “You’re filthy. Go take a shower.” 7 When Arthur got home, I was sitting in the living room reading a book. “Why are you still up?” “Waiting for you.” It was a ridiculously rhetorical question. He knew perfectly well I was waiting for him. Just like I knew with absolute certainty that he would come back. No complex reason. Just the simple fact that I had pulled Chloe’s medical records. Arthur’s hand paused halfway through tossing his keys onto the table. He yanked off his tie and sat down directly across from me. “What do you want to talk about?” His absolute, unwavering composure was incredibly suffocating. I stared at him in silence. “What do you think would happen if I told Chloe everything…” Arthur’s head snapped up, his eyes radiating lethal, freezing intent. “I told you. Do not touch her.” “And if I insist on touching her? What are you going to do? Run me over without hitting the brakes?” “Mia, I won’t touch you. But I can touch a lot of other people.” That threat instantly froze the blood in my veins. The moment I stood up, the heavy book crashed onto the floor with a dull thud. I grabbed my baseball bat. “I can leave her alone.” “An arm or a leg. You choose.” Arthur stood up. After a long, intense staredown, he slowly extended his left arm. Without a microsecond of hesitation, the baseball bat came crashing down. I heard the distinct, sickening sound of bone shattering. Arthur’s face turned ash white, and a muffled groan escaped his lips. He ground his teeth together, glaring at me. He spoke, enunciating every single syllable. “Are you satisfied now?” “Get out.” He dragged his broken arm and walked toward the door. I couldn’t help but ask, “Do you really like her that much?” Arthur stopped in his tracks, answering without hesitation. “She was willing to take a knife for me. Could you do the same?” In a fraction of a second, the entire room fell dead silent. I stared at Arthur’s tense, rigid back. He turned around abruptly. His face was even paler than before. His lips moved slightly. “I…” But I just laughed. Leaning back lazily. “Absolutely not.” 8 Chloe has a massive scar on her back. A knife wound stretching from her shoulder down to her lower back. She took it for Arthur. It happened early last year. Arthur suddenly went completely rogue, aggressively sabotaging my business deals. He was willing to lose a thousand just to cost me eight hundred. He refused to see me, ignored my calls, and offered absolutely zero explanation or reasoning. It wasn’t until three months later that someone leaked the truth to me. He had been ambushed and severely injured, and he was convinced I was the one who orchestrated the hit. The sheer, catastrophic absurdity of it actually made me laugh out loud. I spent a week tracking down exactly what happened and threw the actual culprits directly at Arthur’s feet. He sat in silence for a long time, then violently rubbed his face. “My fault.” “I lost my damn mind.” “So you think that’s the exact moment our trust completely collapsed?” I didn’t answer the man’s question. Staring straight ahead, I asked flatly: “When Arthur suddenly transferred to the exact same elementary school as me… did you orchestrate that?” “Yeah.” “Why?” “To manipulate you, obviously. His mom wanted to marry into the family, so she had to conquer us one by one. She always said that kid was a natural-born manipulator. He knew exactly what to say to whoever he was talking to. If he wanted to, he could flawlessly manipulate anyone into doing exactly what he wanted.” Just like he did with me. He would tie my shoelaces, fight off the fat kid who bullied me, carry me home through the snow, and when we dropped food on the ground, he would eat the dirty piece and give me the only clean piece of chocolate. The man took a long drag of his cigarette, squinting into the sunlight. “I remember you used to pack your backpack full of expensive snacks and fruit every single day. That was all for him, wasn’t it?” “See? Once he latched onto you, he didn’t even have to bother charming the old ladies in his neighborhood for scraps anymore.” Having heard exactly what I wanted to hear, I stood up, ready to leave. “Hey.” The man called out to stop me. “I’m out of cash. Wire me some more.” “Wait until next month.” The man’s face turned dark and hostile. “I am your father.” “And that is exactly why I pay your alimony every single month.” “That pathetic amount of money isn’t even enough to cover my food! The inheritance your grandparents left behind was supposed to be mine! I’m not dead yet, what right do you have to inherit it?! If you don’t give me the money, I’m flying back to the country.” A cold smirk curled my lips. “No problem. The second your foot touches the tarmac, I will have you thrown directly into federal prison.” The man gritted his teeth, glaring at me with pure venom. Suddenly, a malicious, twisted smile flashed across his face. “Do you want to know why his mother didn’t leave him a single cent when she eloped with me?” “Because he told her he actually liked you, and he refused to manipulate you anymore.” “If he actually ended up with you, his mother’s chances of marrying into a billionaire family would be completely destroyed. Of course she tried to ruin him.” “Tsk. How exactly did his mother put it? Oh, right. ‘You think you’re so tough? Here’s ten bucks. That should be enough to keep you alive, right?’” “That kid had a spine of steel. He didn’t beg or apologize once.” Instantly, my expression turned to ice. “Congratulations. You just lost half of your allowance for next month.” On the flight back, I didn’t say a single word. Leo kept looking at me with deep concern. “Mia, every time you see him, you get incredibly depressed. Why do you keep going back?” Why? Leo didn’t understand. Honestly, in the beginning, I didn’t understand either. Until the man himself brutally pointed it out. “What exactly are you hoping to hear?” “Are you hoping I’ll tell you that every nice thing he ever did for you was completely fake?” “Are you trying to prove to yourself that the only reason he doesn’t love you now is because he never truly loved you to begin with?” “Mia, you are a pathetic, hopeless romantic!” Because his insults were incredibly vile, I slashed his allowance in half that month too. This man was my father—the man who eloped with Arthur’s mother. My mother was a certified, hopeless romantic. Even after my father eloped with another woman, she continued to wire a massive sum of money to his offshore account every single month. She worked herself to the bone managing the corporation, fiercely protecting the Harrison family empire. And in the end, she pulled the ultimate, dramatic stunt. When she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she refused treatment, letting herself slowly die. Her final, dramatic parting words were: “I release you, and I release myself.” My father’s official review of her tragic death was: “She was fucking insane!” What love did they actually have? It was an arranged marriage. If he refused, he’d be entirely cut off from the family fortune. Even I was conceived via IVF. In my father’s eyes, my mother was just a random NPC in his life. He felt utterly, inherently entitled to every single cent she gave him. I couldn’t stand seeing him live so comfortably. The very month my mother died, I completely severed his funding. He screamed, threw tantrums, and cursed me violently. He said I would die a horrible death. He said I was making the ancestors roll in their graves. I just laughed. Let them roll. They deserved it. The month after I cut off his funding, Arthur’s mother abandoned my father and ran off with someone else. Years ago, because his family cut off his funds, my father abandoned Arthur’s mother—his first love—and married my mother. Now, because of the exact same lack of funds, Arthur’s mother abandoned my father. Watching this spectacularly poetic karma play out, I practically applauded. Let them destroy each other. I only had one rule: They were permanently banned from returning to the country.

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The day I found out I wasn’t the biological daughter of the family, I was ecstatic. I righteously told my adoptive father that I felt terrible occupying his real daughter’s place and offered to pack my bags and move out immediately. My adoptive father remained noncommittal and called me into his study. He pulled out a legal document. “Mia, the Harrison family has decided to officially adopt you. Your biological parents have already signed the papers.” My biological parents, without even seeing me once, had sold me. I fell silent, resisting. “I’m an adult. I don’t need to be adopted.” My adoptive father gave a cold smile. “That’s not up to you.” 1 Because my negotiations had failed a few days prior, I wasn’t in a good mood the day the real heiress returned. My adoptive father named her Chloe Harrison. Chloe was dark-skinned, painfully thin, and her eyes darted around nervously. When the butler introduced her to the family, she burst into tears. “Mom, Dad, I’m home.” My adoptive father smiled through his tears. “It’s good to have you back.” My aunt fussed over her, saying she had suffered for over twenty years. Chloe looked at my adoptive mother, whose reaction was noticeably cold. My adoptive mother and I were probably the only two people in the house who didn’t welcome her. Yet, her malice was directed solely at me. She praised my looks, my clothes, how well-fed and well-rested I looked—unlike her. I leaned against my adoptive mother, watching her perform. She wanted everyone’s sympathy, but unfortunately for her, she didn’t see the expressions on my father and aunt’s faces souring. Her tactics were too clumsy. Taking a cue from my father, the butler interrupted her, offering to show her to her prepared room. Chloe refused to go, rambling on before finally revealing her true objective. She wanted the largest bedroom in the house, aside from the master suite. She asked me pitifully, “Sister, is that okay? I’ve never had my own room growing up…” She assumed I was the pampered princess who definitely had the biggest and best room. I almost laughed out loud. She was asking the wrong person. Because the best room in the house belonged to my aunt. 2 Seeing that I ignored her, Chloe tried to press the issue, but my aunt had heard enough. She grabbed Chloe firmly. “Chloe, Mia’s room isn’t that big. The room Auntie prepared for you is definitely bigger than hers.” Chloe was too easy to read. My aunt’s words immediately placated her, and she obediently followed my aunt upstairs. After she left, my adoptive mother glared at my father. “Why did you bring her back? You should have just paid her off.” My father smiled reassuringly. “She’s your daughter. I believe she won’t be any less capable than Mia. She just needs some grooming.” My adoptive mother’s expression darkened. “I only have one daughter. If you want Chloe, then let Mia go.” My father naturally refused, and they parted on bad terms. Chloe grew up in a poor rural village; her worldview, education, and posture were all lacking. To bridge the gap, my father hired private tutors for her. They taught her humanities, etiquette, and beauty. After six months of polishing, the Harrison family finally accepted her. My father threw a welcome banquet for her, publicly announcing her as the long-lost second daughter of the Harrison family. He made no mention of me. Chloe was resentful. In her newly acquired social circles, she spread the rumor that I wasn’t a biological Harrison. I didn’t care. Honestly, the social circles above us didn’t care, and the circles below us wouldn’t dare mess with me even if they knew. If they knew, they knew. What I didn’t expect was that my fiancé cared very much. 3 After the welcome banquet, my aunt began taking Chloe to various exclusive gatherings she couldn’t access on her own. Because it involved mingling with different men, I called it matchmaking. Initially, my aunt was dissatisfied with Chloe’s performance, calling her dull and stupid, unable to even hold a man’s attention. Chloe felt wronged for a while but eventually pulled herself together and continued to navigate the social scene. Eventually, she managed to hook a decent rich kid. She proudly brought him home to show off to me. He was 6’2″, handsome, wealthy—definitely easy on the eyes. My father hosted him for a casual dinner and then politely saw him out. As soon as he left, my aunt dragged Chloe into the study and scolded her: “Idiot! He’s only good enough for practice! And you actually offered yourself to him?!” Chloe broke down. Why was everything she did wrong? She yelled at my aunt, “Why do I have to do these things?! Why doesn’t Mia?!” Look at her. Even now, she couldn’t see the big picture; she only cared about competing with me. My aunt told her, “Mia already has a fiancé. She doesn’t need to go.” Yes, the “matchmaking events” Chloe attended? I had been to them too. But Chloe clearly only understood the first half of the sentence. It was probably from that moment on that Chloe set her sights on Julian Vance. 4 The Harrison family and the Vance family belonged to the same social circle, sharing half the corporate influence in Chengdu. The other half belonged to the Sterling family. The Sterling family’s main operations were in Beijing; the Chengdu branch was just a subsidiary. The drive from Chengdu to Beijing was only two hours, but the difference in status was astronomical. The Harrison family wanted to break into high society; the Vance family wanted to push the Sterling subsidiary out of Chengdu. Though their goals differed, they naturally decided to collaborate. After years of negotiations, they finally reached an agreement a year ago. My engagement to Julian Vance was the bridge. When Chloe had her welcome banquet, Julian was still abroad. Their first meeting was at my birthday party. He had been stationed overseas for a year and returned exactly on my birthday. He made a grand entrance, bringing a multi-million dollar piece of jewelry he’d won at an overseas auction to celebrate my birthday. A display of how much he valued me. I feigned delight, accepting the gift and letting him put it on me. As the beautiful jewelry sparkled on my neck, I turned and saw the gleam in Chloe’s eyes. She coyly approached to greet him, calling him “Brother-in-law.” Julian barely glanced at her, exchanging a few polite but distant pleasantries. At that time, Julian probably didn’t think much of her. My birthday banquet was supposed to end perfectly amidst praises of us being the golden couple. But halfway through, Arthur Sterling, the future heir of the Sterling family, sent a gift. It pushed the banquet to a whole new climax. 5 My history with Arthur wasn’t a secret; anyone who mattered in Chengdu knew about it. I used to be a famous socialite. My aunt started bringing me to various events when I was just a teenager. At first, she was quite protective, shielding me from things inappropriate for my age. But when the stakes were high enough, the bottom line could always be lowered. She made me attend Arthur’s coming-of-age ceremony. I wasn’t supposed to qualify for the guest list, but my aunt used all her connections to force me in. Young Arthur, like an emperor selecting a concubine among many girls, chose me. Before entering the banquet hall, I thought it was just a formality. My aunt told me a crucial family project had run into issues, threatening the company’s entire cash flow. One wrong move, and our family would face bankruptcy. Getting into Arthur’s ceremony and letting the social circle see me at a high-society event would naturally bring people begging to help us. I believed her. I went in carrying the mission of saving my family. When Arthur chose me for private company, I was surprised, but mostly excited. What a great opportunity. I introduced myself and my family’s company to him. I talked endlessly, extremely excited, until he pushed me down. He possessed me with a cold face. It hurt so much. But he was the young master of a top-tier wealthy family; I didn’t dare resist. I only dared to cry out in pain to hide my tears. That was the moment I realized. Coming-of-age ceremony, coming-of-age ceremony… I was the gift. After that night, my adoptive father acquired a piece of land from the Sterling family. Later, Chengdu’s most luxurious residential complex was built on that land. As compensation, my adoptive father let me pick an apartment in that complex. So, when Chloe cried to us that her adoptive parents were going to marry her off to a forty-something middle-aged man just to get a dowry for her brother… I didn’t care. It wasn’t just poor people; rich people sold their daughters too. The only difference was the price tag. Sadly, some daughters labor until death for the families that sold them, just like my aunt. The fact that she still commanded the best room in her maiden home even after marrying was something she earned herself. 6 It was very late that night when the Sterling family driver finally took me home. When my adoptive mother saw my disheveled state, she realized what had happened. She had a massive fight with my adoptive father. It was during their argument that I learned there was no failing project. There was no impending bankruptcy. There was only their greedy ambition to climb the social ladder. I was devastated, but my adoptive mother was even more so. She had lived in this house for nearly twenty years, and only today did she truly see the Harrison family’s true colors. She felt too ashamed to face me and used her company shares to force my adoptive father to send me abroad. She wanted to protect me. Eventually, my adoptive father compromised, and I was sent away a month later. But what he didn’t tell my adoptive mother was that he sent me straight to Arthur. Arthur was too valuable an asset; he couldn’t bear to let go. Fortunately, Arthur’s reach wasn’t that long. Coupled with the fact that Arthur hadn’t shown much interest in me since that night. Abroad, although I attended the same university as Arthur, I rarely ran into him unless I actively sought him out. My aunt constantly called to ask about my progress with Arthur. At first, I humored her. Eventually, I stopped answering her calls. I was no longer the little girl who obeyed her every command. I lived peacefully abroad for four years, studying fashion design, which I loved. That period was one of the few relaxed times in my life. After graduation, I originally planned to find a job as a tailor locally. But after learning my adoptive mother had attempted suicide due to severe depression, I dropped everything and returned home. 7 As long as I returned to the country, I was meat on the chopping block. My adoptive father and aunt always found ways to make me live according to their plans. After my adoptive mother’s condition stabilized, my aunt started taking me to those “matchmaking events.” The insults she hurled at Chloe, she had also hurled at me. But my skin was thicker than Chloe’s; she could curse all she wanted, I just coasted along. For a time, the wealthy circles in Chengdu whispered that I was nothing but a beautiful, empty shell. The “matchmaking events” were endless. I realized my aunt wouldn’t stop until she managed to sell me off. If I chose an ordinary rich kid, I might still be manipulated by my aunt and adoptive father. During a gathering at a bar, I saw Arthur, who had just returned to the country. I decided to go all in and approached him directly. That was the only time I took the initiative since the night of his coming-of-age ceremony. We slept together that very night. From that day on, I became Arthur’s official girlfriend. Seeing me hook up with Arthur, my adoptive father and aunt were overjoyed. They reaped numerous benefits and treated me with extreme caution, never daring to order me around again. My adoptive mother also received better care. Unfortunately, I only held that title for three years. Three years later, Arthur was set to get engaged to Elara Qiao, the daughter of another wealthy family in Beijing. The Harrison family couldn’t compare to the Sterling family, and certainly couldn’t afford to offend the Qiao family. I initiated the breakup with Arthur. He didn’t say much; he just gave me a few buildings as compensation. Then, he picked an auspicious day and got engaged to Elara.

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The company was selling for two million dollars, and I was the absolute last person to find out. That morning, I went to work just like any other day. But when I pushed open the glass door to the conference room, it was packed. Carter Prescott sat at the head of the long mahogany table, flanked by three strangers in impeccably tailored suits. When he saw me, a micro-expression flickered across his eyes. A sudden, nervous shifting of the tectonic plates beneath his polished exterior. “Tessa, could you hold off on whatever you’re doing? We won’t be needing you in here.” I froze in the doorway. Splayed open on the center of the table was a thick legal document. I was only close enough to make out the bolded header at the top of the page. Letter of Intent for Equity Acquisition. 1. My name is Tessa Gallagher, and I am twenty-nine years old. Three years ago, I was a junior accountant at a no-name firm, pulling in maybe four thousand dollars a month. I rented a cramped, drafty apartment and spent two hours every day staring at the bleak tunnel walls of the L train commute. Carter Prescott was an older guy from my college. He had graduated four years ahead of me—a former frat president, the charismatic golden boy everyone assumed was destined to conquer the corporate world. We weren’t close. After graduation, we occasionally exchanged pleasantries in the alumni Facebook group. Nothing more. Until one night, three years ago, when he asked me out to dinner out of the blue. “Tessa, I’m launching a startup. Direct-to-consumer e-commerce,” he said, casually swirling his bourbon. The ice clinked against the glass, a sharp, confident sound. “You’re a numbers girl. You want in?” I blinked, taken aback. “Carter, I… I don’t know the first thing about e-commerce.” “You don’t need to.” He offered a brilliant, disarming smile. “You manage the money, I manage the business. We go fifty-fifty.” Fifty-fifty. Those two words dropped like heavy stones into the stagnant pond of my life. I was in a dark place back then. I had just gone through a brutal breakup, my job was a dead-end spreadsheet nightmare, and I was walking through my days in a gray, numbing fog, wondering if this was all life had to offer. Carter’s words felt like a lifeline. A blinding beam of light. “I don’t have much capital, Carter,” I admitted, my voice small. “How much do you have?” “In savings? Maybe… fifteen grand.” He nodded slowly. “Not enough. Seed capital needs to be at least two hundred thousand.” My heart plummeted into my stomach. “But—” He leaned across the table, his eyes locked on mine. “I’ll put up a hundred, and you put up a hundred. Whatever you’re short, maybe you can borrow from your folks.” Borrow from my folks. My parents were blue-collar workers. They had spent their entire lives scraping by, clipping coupons, putting away whatever meager dollars they could. And yet, my heart was racing. Fifty-fifty. My own boss. A chance to completely rewrite the trajectory of my life. Those phrases echoed in my skull all night, keeping me wide awake. The next morning, I called my mother. “Mom, I want to start a business.” The line was quiet for a long, agonizing stretch. “How much do you need?” “…A hundred thousand.” She didn’t yell. She didn’t interrogate me. A week later, the funds cleared into my checking account. Only much later did I learn the anatomy of that money. It was their entire retirement fund. It was loans begged from skeptical aunts and uncles. It was a second mortgage taken out on the small, vinyl-sided house I grew up in. A hundred thousand dollars. My parents had never seen that much money in their entire lives. They placed it in my hands. And I placed it in Carter’s. The day we signed the paperwork, Carter took me to an upscale steakhouse to celebrate. “Come on, Tessa. Drink up! To our partnership!” I was a lightweight, but I was riding such a high that night. Every time he raised his glass to me, I drank. One glass. Two. Three. The rest of the evening blurred at the edges, smudged like wet ink. I only remember him sliding a stack of stapled papers across the white tablecloth. “Just sign here. It’s just a formality.” I squinted at the pages. The dense, microscopic legalese swam before my eyes under the dim, moody restaurant lighting. “What is this exactly…?” “The equity agreement.” He practically placed the heavy, gold-trimmed pen into my fingers. “See right there? Your hundred grand buys fifty percent. It’s all spelled out in black and white.” I took the pen. I signed my name. He smiled, a wide, triumphant thing, slipping the papers back into his leather briefcase before clapping a warm hand on my shoulder. “From today on, Tessa, we’re partners.” Partners. I believed that word with my whole soul for three years. Getting the company off the ground was a nightmare. We leased a tiny, windowless six-hundred-square-foot office that baked in the July heat and felt like a meat locker in January. Carter handled the sourcing and client relations; I ran the finances, the payroll, the inventory logs. Along with two part-time customer service reps, we were the entire operation. I arrived at eight in the morning and rarely saw the outside of the building before midnight. My salary? Zero. Carter had told me, “We’re in the trenches right now. We shouldn’t pull salaries until we’re safely in the black.” It made sense to me. It was my company, too. The exhaustion would pay off. The blood and sweat were investments. In our first year, we bled thirty thousand dollars. Carter was a wreck, pacing the floor, pulling his hair out, fueled by black coffee and sheer panic. “Tessa, how much runway do we have left?” “Less than forty grand in the operating account.” He lit a cigarette right there in the office, staring at me through the blue smoke. “Do you have any personal cash left?” I hesitated. “I… I have a little.” It was a downpayment I had been secretly saving for a modest condo. Thirty thousand dollars. “Could you float it to the company?” He stubbed the cigarette out violently. “Just as a bridge loan. Once we bounce back, I’ll pay you back double.” I didn’t answer right away. “Tessa, I know I have no right to ask this.” He sighed, running a hand over his face, looking older, broken. “But we are partners. If this ship sinks, we both drown.” Partners. There was that word again. The next morning, I wired thirty thousand dollars into the corporate account. Carter texted me: “Thank you. I owe you. I won’t forget this.” I won’t forget this. I believed him. In year two, we finally hit profitability. In year three, our revenue tripled. At the beginning of this year, Carter pulled me aside and mentioned, offhand, that a larger conglomerate was sniffing around, looking to acquire us. “How much are they offering?” I asked, my pulse quickening. “Still hashing out the details.” He gave me a sly, conspiratorial grin. “But it won’t be a small number, I promise you that.” I thought the golden days had finally arrived. I thought three years of relentless, grinding sacrifice were about to bear fruit. I thought— Until today. Standing in the doorway of the conference room, staring at the letter of intent. Two million dollars. The company was worth two million. I put in a hundred thousand for fifty percent. My cut should be one million dollars. Plus the thirty thousand bridge loan. One million, thirty thousand dollars. I could finally pay my parents back. I could clear their mortgage. I could buy that condo. I could breathe. But the way Carter was looking at me—his eyes cold, flat, devoid of the warmth he usually weaponized—made the hairs on my arms stand up. “Tessa, wait outside,” he said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it had the sharp, unforgiving edge of a guillotine. I stood rooted to the carpet. I didn’t move. “Outside.” I looked at him. I looked at the three men in suits. I looked at the papers on the table. “Carter, I’m a shareholder. Why am I being excluded from this meeting?” The room went dead silent for one agonizing second. Carter laughed. It was a strange, hollow sound. The kind of laugh you’d give a toddler who just said something absurdly naive. “A shareholder?” He pushed his chair back and stood up, walking slowly toward me. “Tessa, since when were you a shareholder?” 2. The words didn’t compute. My brain refused to process the syllables. “Carter, what did you just say?” He sighed, a heavy, performative exhalation of patience, like he was dealing with a difficult child. “The boardroom isn’t the place for this. My office. Now.” He turned, offered a slick apology to the suits, and practically herded me down the hallway. My mind was a violent storm of static. Since when were you a shareholder? Three years ago, he said it to my face. Fifty-fifty. I put up the cash. I signed the contract. I— “Sit.” Carter’s corner office was ten times the size of our original freezing room. Genuine leather sofas. A massive oak desk. Floor-to-ceiling windows framing the jagged, beautiful Chicago skyline. Half of this belonged to me. Didn’t it? I sat down, my knees shaking slightly, and looked up at him. “Carter, the company is being acquired. Why was I kept in the dark?” “It’s strictly confidential business information.” “I am an equity partner.” Carter opened a sleek mahogany drawer and pulled out a manila folder, dropping it onto the desk in front of me. “Read it yourself.” My fingers trembled as I flipped the cover open. Inside was a contract. My name. My signature. But the title at the top of the page— “A Promissory Note?” My voice cracked, fragile and thin in the vast, quiet room. The black ink was damning. It clearly stated: Tessa Gallagher loans Carter Prescott the sum of $100,000, at an annual interest rate of 6%, for a term of three years. What loan? I signed an equity agreement! “Carter, this is wrong. I signed an operating agreement. One hundred thousand for fifty percent equity—” “Read it again. Carefully,” he said, his tone utterly devoid of emotion. I stared at the paper, reading word by agonizing word. Borrower: Carter Prescott. Lender: Tessa Gallagher. Principal Amount: $100,000. Term: 36 Months. Interest: 6% APR. Repayment: Lump sum of principal and accrued interest at maturity. At the very bottom, my signature. It was my handwriting. Unmistakable. But I remembered… The memory crashed into me like a physical blow. The steakhouse. The clinking glasses. The toasts. The alcohol softening the edges of the room. He had pushed the papers toward me. Just sign here. It’s just a formality. I had squinted at the dense text, the letters swaying under the dim lights… “Coming back to you?” Carter’s voice pulled me out of the flashback. I looked up at him, my vision blurring with hot, furious tears. “You set me up.” “What do you mean, set you up?” He leaned back in his plush executive chair, crossing his legs casually. “It’s right there in black and white. You signed it yourself. How is that a setup?” “You got me drunk—” “I bought you dinner. You drank of your own free will. Is that my fault?” “You told me it was an equity agreement—” “It doesn’t matter what I said, Tessa. It matters what’s in the contract.” He smiled, a tight, patronizing smirk, like a professor lecturing a freshman who had failed an open-book exam. “You’re an accountant, Tessa. You work in finance. You of all people should know to read a contract before you put your name on it. That’s just basic common sense, isn’t it?” Ice flooded my veins. Three years. Three entire years of my youth. I thought I was an owner. I was just a creditor. I thought we were partners. I was just unpaid labor. I thought… “You—” I opened my mouth, but the words withered in my throat. A massive, suffocating lump formed, choking off my air. Carter picked up a silver pen from his desk and twirled it between his fingers. “Alright, glad we cleared that up. A hundred grand principal, plus three years of six percent interest. That comes out to $118,000. I’ll cut you a check for every last cent.” A hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. I gave him a hundred grand, poured three years of my blood and sanity into this place, and I was walking away with eighteen thousand dollars in “profit.” While he was pocketing two million dollars. And keeping all of it. “What about the thirty thousand?” My voice sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete. “What thirty thousand?” “Our first year. We almost went under. I gave the company thirty thousand dollars.” “Ah, right. That thirty grand.” He nodded slowly. “I remember. I drafted a note for that one, too.” He opened another drawer and pulled out a second sheet of paper. Borrower: The Company. Lender: Tessa Gallagher. Principal: $30,000. Term: 12 Months. Interest: 5%. Twelve months? That had expired two years ago. “The company already paid that back.” “What? No, I never received—” “It was wired to your personal account. Check your bank app.” With trembling, clumsy fingers, I pulled out my phone. I opened my banking app, scrolling furiously back through the digital archives to two years ago. There it was. Incoming Transfer: $31,500. Memo: Loan Repayment. I had absolutely no memory of seeing it. Back then, I was managing hundreds of incoming and outgoing transactions a day for the business. I was so exhausted I was practically sleepwalking. I never even checked my personal balances… “See?” Carter stood up, walking over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, turning his back to me. “Tessa, because we go way back, because we’re alumni, I calculated the interest perfectly. Down to the penny. If you were anyone else, I would have found a way to bleed you dry.” He turned back to face me, his silhouette framed by the blinding city sky. “What more do you want?” I sat there, my entire body vibrating. It wasn’t the cold. It was pure, unadulterated rage. Three years. I hadn’t taken a single vacation day. I hadn’t received a single paycheck. I had bet my parents’ retirement, the kindness of my relatives, and my childhood home on this company. And him? He was walking away with two million dollars, without tossing me a single crumb. He called me a creditor. He said black and white. He said— “Carter.” My voice dropped to a terrifying whisper. “Where is my salary for the last three years?” “What salary?” “I worked here for three years. Full-time. I never took a dime.” “You agreed to that. You said we shouldn’t pull salaries until we were established.” “Did you pull a salary?” Carter flinched. Just barely. “I’m the CEO—” “How much did you pay yourself?” “That’s confidential corporate—” “I did the books, Carter. You cut yourself five thousand dollars a month.” I stood up, locking eyes with him. “Three years. A hundred and eighty thousand dollars. And that’s not counting your ‘business expenses,’ the luxury dinners, the consulting fees, the mileage.” “You—” “If I wasn’t an owner, if I wasn’t a partner, why the hell did you get a salary and I didn’t?” Carter’s face hardened, the charming mask finally slipping to reveal the ugliness underneath. “Don’t push your luck, Tessa.” “I’m pushing my luck?” I took a step toward him. “You trick me into signing a loan, you steal my equity, you work me like a dog for free for three years, and I’m pushing my luck?” “Trick you? Where’s your proof?” He closed the distance between us, towering over me, looking down his nose. “Let me teach you a lesson about the real world, Tessa. Without proof, it never happened.” “You said fifty-fifty—” “Hearsay.” “You said we were partners—” “Not on the paper.” “You handed it to me and called it an equity agreement—” “You didn’t read it. Whose fault is that?” With every word, an icy anchor dragged my heart deeper into the abyss. He was right. I had no proof. I didn’t record him. I had no text messages confirming the split. I had no witnesses. All I had was a legally binding promissory note with my signature on it. And a shattered, foolish heart. “Get out.” Carter walked over and pulled the heavy oak door open. “I’ll wire the $118,000 next week. Take the money, and don’t ever come back here.” I stood frozen in the center of the room. “Unless—” He let out a dark, mocking chuckle. “You want to sue me?” Sue him. Could I win? He had the contracts. He had the bank statements. He had the “black and white.” What did I have? “Tessa, because you did me a solid in the early days, I’ll give you one last piece of advice.” He leaned in close, his voice dropping to a harsh, condescending whisper. “You were a community college transfer. If I hadn’t dragged you up with me, do you really think you’d be sitting in a high-rise right now? Know your place. Take the cash and walk away. It’s better for everyone.” Community college transfer. Dragged you up. Know your place. The words slid into my ribs like a switchblade. I turned on my heel and walked out of his office. I didn’t look back. I didn’t know what I was going to do next. But I knew one thing with absolute, terrifying clarity. This wasn’t over. 3. It was nine o’clock at night by the time I unlocked the door to my apartment. I didn’t turn on the lights. I just collapsed onto the sofa, staring blankly up at the popcorn ceiling, letting the silence press against my eardrums. One image kept playing in my head on a torturous loop. Carter pushing that contract across the white tablecloth, his pearly smile glinting. “Black and white.” I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to mentally rewind to that night three years ago. The restaurant. The private booth. The low, amber lighting. He kept pouring the wine. “Come on, Tessa, to our partnership. Drink up.” “Carter, I really shouldn’t have more…” “Nonsense, we’re celebrating! Just a sip.” One glass. Two glasses. Three. My memory was hazy, fractured. He slid the papers across the table. “Just sign here. It’s just a formality.” “What is this…?” “The equity agreement. Look, a hundred grand gets you fifty percent.” I had taken the pen. But had I actually read it? The letters had been a blurry swarm of black ants. All I registered were the numbers “$100,000” and “50%”… My eyes snapped open in the dark. Wait. He had said the words “equity agreement.” He had said “50%.” But what was actually printed on that specific piece of paper I signed? I scrambled off the couch, tearing into my bedroom closet, pulling out the fireproof lockbox where I kept my copies of the paperwork. I found the file. Promissory Note. Black and white. But if the paper in my hand was a promissory note, what happened to the “equity agreement” he kept talking about? Staring at the crisp legal document, a sickening realization washed over me. What if there never was an equity agreement? What if he had planned to defraud me from the very first dinner? My phone buzzed on the nightstand, jarring me. Mom. I stared at the glowing screen, my throat constricting. I didn’t know how to speak to her. “Hey, Mom,” I managed to croak. “Did you eat?” “How are things at the office?” she chirped, completely bypassing the small talk. “Carter told me the company is getting acquired! Does that mean you get a big payout?” The blood drained from my face. “Mom… how do you know about the acquisition?” “Carter told me! He called me a couple of days ago to thank me again for supporting your startup.” Carter called my mother? “What… what exactly did he say?” “He said the business is doing incredible, and it’s all thanks to your hard work. He told me not to worry about a thing. He said once the sale goes through, you’re going to get a massive payday, and we can finally pay off the mortgage on the house.” My hand gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. He called my mother to tell her I was getting a payout. While planning to look me dead in the eye and tell me I was nothing but a creditor. What the hell was he playing at? “Tessa? Honey, are you there?” “I’m here… Mom, I have to go. Something came up at work.” I hung up the phone and sank to the floor, my back against the bedframe. Why would he call my mother?

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I bought four roasted duck legs, and my son ate two of them. When he saw me pick one up for myself, his face flushed with anxiety. “Why didn’t you save any for Dad?” I was confused. “There’s still one left for him on the plate, isn’t there?” He was on the verge of tears, reaching out to snatch the duck leg I had just taken a bite of. “Couldn’t you have saved two for Dad?” I froze. So in his eyes, I had no right to eat the duck legs I had personally bought and cooked? 1 For a moment, I couldn’t believe the words coming out of the son I had raised with my own two hands. I thought maybe he just hadn’t seen clearly. I explained to him, “There were four in total. You had two, I’m having one, and we saved one for Dad.” He dodged the point. “Well, why didn’t you tell me?” I was baffled. “Tell you what?” He raised his voice, shouting, “You were supposed to tell me before you ate it! How else was I supposed to know you took one?” I was struggling to understand. “I have to ask for your permission to eat a duck leg now?” His face turned crimson with anger. “Are you crazy? Stop changing the subject and answer my question! Why didn’t you save more for Dad?” I pointed to the plate. “I did. There’s one right there.” He looked as if he’d been deeply wronged, wiping away tears as he said resentfully, “Why didn’t you save two for him?” I was dumbstruck. So he wasn’t bad at math. I suppressed my anger and questioned him, “So, in your opinion, is Mommy not even allowed to eat a single duck leg?” He didn’t answer, just stood there with his chin up and his neck stiff, looking sympathetically toward his father. “Dad works so hard every day, of course he should get an extra one. You could just eat something else. Why do you have to fight him for it? Can’t you stop being so selfish for once?” At this, my husband, Mark, who had been sitting by silently, grinned and pushed the plate of duck legs closer to our son, Alex. Alex’s eyes immediately welled up again, his lip trembling as if his suffering had just been validated. It finally clicked. I looked at the child I had painstakingly raised, my voice filled with disbelief. “So Mommy doesn’t work hard? Mommy goes to work every day, does all the housework, and takes care of you. Isn’t Mommy tired? Doesn’t she deserve to eat one single duck leg?” He said nothing, just kept wiping his tears away. Seeing this, my husband finally decided to speak, playing the peacemaker. “Alright, alright, why are you arguing with a child? He’s so young, what does he know? He’s just fooling around with you.” 2 I stared silently at the dishes on the table. Every day after work, I’d rush to the market, always picking the freshest, most expensive ingredients, terrified that anything less would affect my son’s health. Then I’d race back home to get dinner on the table before he returned from school, just so he wouldn’t have to wait hungry. Every morning, a neatly folded set of clean clothes was waiting for him by his bed. The house was always spotless, a result of me fighting off sleep every night to clean. The snacks, the fruit, the household supplies—they never ran out, and he never once wondered where they came from. He was used to it, so he never saw it. He only saw his father leaving early and coming home late from “work.” A knot of pain tightened in my chest. I couldn’t help but ask him, “Mommy is very tired and works very hard, too.” He pushed the plate back toward his father, his tone dismissive. “You barely make any money. How hard can your job be?” “Dad is the pillar of this family. He’s the one who works the hardest.” My eyes locked onto my husband, Mark. He looked away guiltily, forcing a laugh. “Anna, don’t take it out on the kid.” His job was a cushy, low-stress position, and his salary was significantly lower than mine. But he’d always said that a father needed to maintain a strong, positive image to encourage his son to become a responsible, upstanding man. So, he lied to Alex about his income, inflating his own while drastically downplaying mine. I thought it was for our child’s benefit, so I never said anything. I never imagined that in my son’s eyes, his father was the sole provider, and I was just a pathetic freeloader who didn’t even deserve a duck leg. The thought made my anger boil over. I swept my arm across the table, sending dishes crashing to the floor. “Then nobody eats!” Mark gasped. “Anna! Are you insane?” I laughed coldly. “If I don’t go insane, I’ll probably end up not being allowed to eat at all in this house.” My son shrieked and hid behind Mark. “The tigress is on a rampage again!” Tigress? Is that what they called me behind my back? Mark looked uncomfortable and turned away, pretending to scold our son. “How can you talk about your mother like that?” Alex didn’t care. He ran over, shoved me hard, then ducked back behind his father and made a face at me. A chilling cold spread through my heart. This was the child I had carried for ten months and raised with my own hands? When he was born, he was frail and sickly, constantly in and out of the hospital. Mark always had an excuse, an “urgent meeting,” leaving me to take him to the emergency room alone in the middle of the night. My milk supply was low, so I spent hours researching and preparing nutritious baby food to make him strong. And now, he was indeed strong. Strong enough to push me onto the sofa with one shove. It didn’t hurt physically, but my heart felt like it had been stabbed. Clutching my chest, I went back to the bedroom. 3 Lying in bed, I couldn’t understand how things had gotten to this point. Mark had stopped “working late” around the time Alex started recognizing faces. He’d come home early, bringing little toys and playing wildly with Alex until I had dinner ready. Then, his tone would change. “Okay, okay, time to eat, or Mommy’s going to get angry.” And the two of them would go wash their hands, giggling together. At the time, I thought it was wonderful. I thought he was a good, family-oriented man who was willing to play with his son. But thinking back… Why was I always the villain? “Hurry up and eat, or Mommy will get mad.” “Stop fooling around, you’ll make Mommy upset.” “Still playing? Just wait until your mother comes to deal with you!” “No, Mommy won’t let you eat that.” “Mommy won’t let us go.” “Here comes Mommy to get you…” … I had never hit him, never even yelled at him. Yet “Mommy” was always the consequence, the threat that followed every restriction and every unpleasant moment. And “Daddy” had neatly extracted himself, comfortably playing the “good guy.” Soon, Mark came in to “talk” to me. Every time Alex and I had a conflict, he would play the mediator. To Alex, he’d say, “Your mom’s just got a temper. All women are like that. You be the bigger person and let it go.” To me, he’d say, “Kids don’t mean what they say. It’s our job as parents to teach them. He was so upset he was crying just now, you shouldn’t hold it against him.” My heart would ache for my son, and listening to Mark, I’d start to feel like it was my fault he wasn’t being raised right. Guilt would wash over me. I’d reflect on my actions and then go make up with Alex. Over time, this became our routine. Right now, Alex was sitting in the living room like a little prince, waiting for me to come and appease him. And Mark, as usual, started his tirade of clichés. Before, I would just stew in my anger and not pay him much attention. But this time, I watched him quietly. And I saw it. In his eyes, there was excitement. A strange sense of triumph. He was happy. He was proud that his son was so devoted to him, so much so that he would belittle and even attack his own mother. He was enjoying this. How had I never noticed it before? He talked until his mouth was dry, but it was all the same: invalidating my feelings and emotionally blackmailing me. I gradually began to see his true intention. He was showing off. Showing off how close he was with our son, while I, the actual mother, was treated with contempt. But hidden within that pride was a sliver of jealousy I couldn’t quite place. I didn’t understand. We were a family. My salary paid for them, for this home. What was he jealous of? He was the one who couldn’t handle a demanding job and chose the easier, lower-paying one. 4 After waiting a long time for me to come and grovel, Alex started throwing a tantrum in the living room, breaking things. Specifically, my things. When I walked out, he was using a small knife to slash at my handbag. Mark glanced at my face and quickly rushed over to play the good guy. “Quick, apologize to your mother. If you apologize, she won’t be mad anymore.” I picked up the ruined bag. I had worked on a project for months, and I’d used my bonus to finally treat myself to this. Alex huffed. “She makes so little, and she has the nerve to make you buy her such an expensive bag. Dad, you just spoil her too much.” I had to laugh. I threw the bag at Mark’s feet. “You bought this for me?” He avoided the question, pulling Alex behind him. “Don’t drag the child into our problems. He’s still young.” Alex was immediately moved, hugging Mark’s arm tightly. “Dad, just divorce her. We don’t need this tigress.” Mark’s expression stiffened. He cleared his throat and ruffled Alex’s hair. “What are you talking about? Mom and Dad would never get a divorce. We’d never separate, especially not for your sake.” Alex snorted in my direction. “You’re just lucky you found a husband like my dad, who’s willing to support you.” The two of them exchanged a smile. Mark ushered Alex into his room, then turned to face the mess, sighing dramatically. “Anna, you’re a mother now. Can’t you be more mature? Look at this place, what a mess.” I pressed him. “You said you bought this bag?” He looked down. “It’s just a bag. Do you really have to be so petty?” I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “You’re right. It’s just a bag. So buy me a new one.” He scoffed. “Fine, I’ll buy it. It’s not like I’ve never bought you anything before.” True. He had bought me things. An apron for International Women’s Day. Laundry detergent for Mother’s Day. A rice cooker for my birthday. He looked a little embarrassed, pulling out his phone to order one. “Is that what this is about? You just wanted a gift? I’ll get it for you, you don’t have to be so relentless.” But his face changed when he saw the price. He jumped to his feet. He pointed a finger at me, yelling, “Anna! How can you be so wasteful!” Hearing the commotion, Alex ran out, crossing his arms and sneering. “See? I told you. She’s just a lazy, wasteful woman.” I glared at him. He glared back defiantly. “I’m not wrong! You spend Dad’s money on bags and makeup for yourself, but you won’t even save him a duck leg! You’re so selfish! How can you be so shameless? I’m so embarrassed to have a mother like you.” 5 Without a moment’s hesitation, I slapped him across the face. He was too stunned to react, just stared at me blankly. It was the first time in his life I had ever laid a hand on him. After a few seconds, his face contorted with rage, and he pointed his finger right at my nose. “You hit me!” I slapped his pointing hand down. Furious, he tried to head-butt me. I sidestepped, and he slammed his head into a cabinet. He burst into tears. “Dad, Mommy’s bullying me! Go hit her!” Mark rushed to hug him, then roared at me, “What is wrong with you tonight? Do you have to turn this house upside down?” “Is it all because of a stupid duck leg? Fine! Alex and I won’t eat them! You can have them all, is that what you want?” I walked right up to Mark. He snorted, lifting his chin, as if waiting for me to back down and apologize. After all, I was always the one who compromised for the sake of our family, for our son. I stopped in front of him. I raised my hand. And I slapped him, hard, across the face. “I was so focused on the kid, I forgot about you.” 6 Mark looked up, stunned. “You hit me.” I picked up my ruined handbag. I had just gotten a promotion. I needed something professional for client meetings, so I had saved for a long time before finally splurging on this bag. I was always so careful with it. Now, it was covered in scratches. He felt I didn’t deserve it, just like he felt I didn’t deserve a single duck leg. I held up the bag, my eyes filled with disappointment as I looked at Mark. “Let’s get a divorce.” Children are incredibly perceptive. Mark’s tacit approval of our son’s behavior, coupled with his own teasing put-downs of me, had shown Alex that my position in the family was at the very bottom. That I could be treated however they pleased. That’s why he felt I didn’t deserve nice things. He had become this way because of his father’s influence. Mark panicked, forgetting his swollen cheek. “Honey, we were just kidding around, don’t take it so seriously. Why are you talking about divorce over something so small? Think about how it will affect Alex’s mental health.” In the past, any mention of our son would make me back down. But now, I glanced at the boy who had absolutely no room for me in his heart and let out a cold laugh. “Isn’t this what our good son suggested? Don’t you always say we should respect our child’s wishes? Well, I’m just doing what he wants.” He was speechless for a moment, then frowned at Alex. “That’s not what I meant. Look at you, always blowing things out of proportion. Can’t you take a joke?” Alex snuggled into his father’s arms, glaring at me. “Dad, don’t give her another chance. Divorce her. I’d like to see how she survives without us. She’ll regret it then.” I couldn’t help but chuckle. I looked at Mark and nodded. “Yes, I’m sure without a burden like me holding you back, the two of you will live like kings.” Alex pumped his fist in the air. “We will! And when you come crawling back, you tigress, we won’t take you back!” Mark awkwardly tried to quiet him. “That’s enough.” Alex didn’t know the truth, but Mark certainly did. I bought everything for the house. I paid for all the monthly expenses. His salary was just his own pocket money. 7 The next morning, the house was clean, and breakfast was on the table. Mark, wearing an apron, was acting as if nothing had happened. “Honey, breakfast is ready,” he said with a cheerful smile. I was taken aback. The last time he’d been this helpful was when I was pregnant. Back then, I thought I was so lucky to have found such a caring husband. After our son was born, he never set foot in the kitchen or lifted a finger to clean again. As I ate, Alex glared at me resentfully from across the table. “You’re a woman making a man do housework. Have you no shame?” “If other people find out, they’ll call Dad henpecked.” “Besides, this is all your job. Don’t keep bothering Dad. Even if he spoils you, you can’t just take it for granted. At least say thank you. You have no manners.” “Can you just stop making trouble? Let Dad have some peace. He works so hard to support us, it’s already hard enough for him.” I looked at the son I had raised for ten years, and a deep chill settled in my heart. Did he have no empathy for the mother who gave birth to him and raised him? Mark cleans the house and makes breakfast one time, and my son’s heart breaks for him. What about me? I had cooked for him for ten years—three meals a day, his clothes, his home, everything taken care of—why had he never felt sorry for me? Why had he never once said thank you? The boy I once thought was lively and cute suddenly seemed monstrous. I looked down at my plate, unable to look at him any longer. After breakfast, I walked out of the bedroom with a suitcase. Mark stared at me. “What are you doing?” I said flatly, “I’m serious about the divorce.” He rushed to grab my suitcase. “No, I don’t agree. I’m not divorcing you.” But Alex pulled on his arm, a happy look on his face. “Dad, let her go! You’re handsome, gentle, caring, and you make good money. You can find any woman you want without her.” “Let her go. Once she’s gone, she’ll realize how good she had it here. She can just wait and regret it.” I snorted and looked at Mark. He was decent-looking, I suppose. As for gentle and caring… please. I walked out the door with my suitcase. The moment it clicked shut, I could still hear Alex chattering on to his father about all the benefits of divorcing me. And on Mark’s face, a look of pure bewilderment.

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