When passion ran high, Ethan Blackwood fastened a woman’s nightgown around me and told me to get on my knees. The tie around my throat cut off the oxygen to my brain, and I let him degrade me. All because I had loved him for twelve years, and at last, I thought my wish had come true. But early the next morning, feverish and burning up, I was slapped unconscious by his adopted sister, who mistook me for a rent boy. Ethan woke me and told me to go to Frost Pavilion that night to clear up the misunderstanding with his adopted sister, meet his friends, and receive my rightful place. I got lost and accidentally entered the control room, where I heard voices coming from the surveillance feed. “To marry little Princess Chloe, you really made one hell of a sacrifice, huh?” Ethan looked tenderly at Chloe Blackwood, who was drinking milk. “My family won’t agree to me marrying Chloe, so I had to use the broken-window effect and find a man to force them to lower their standards.” “Dress him up and play with him, and he’s no different from a woman.” In an instant, my whole body went cold, and I collapsed to the floor. Then I heard Ethan agree to those men’s request to try something new. He said, “Julian Lane will be here soon, so enjoy yourselves.”
Their jeering pierced my eardrums. I staggered out of the control room in a mess, wanting only to leave. But as I passed the private room, my ringtone suddenly rang. The door was yanked open, and Ethan looked down at me from above. “Go in and apologize to Chloe first.” My teeth chattered, and the slap mark on my face was still bright red. Ethan ignored my refusal. After I was dragged into the private room, countless sticky gazes lunged at me and swallowed me inch by inch. I could not think about anything else, so I apologized in panic. I thought I could leave faster if I apologized. But Chloe sobbed, “Ethan, don’t force Julian anymore, it’s all my fault.” I froze on the spot, and the words I wanted to use to defend myself stuck in my throat. Everyone accused me of not knowing what was good for me and making her cry. They shouted that they should teach me a lesson to vent Chloe’s anger. Ethan also protected Chloe and ordered me to kneel in a hostile tone. My heart was full of shock and bitterness, and as I said it was impossible, I backed toward the door. But someone suddenly kicked the back of my knee, and I fell to the ground. Someone grabbed my hair viciously, and the pain made tears spill from my eyes. At Ethan’s signal, his friends slammed my head heavily against the floor and forced me to beg for mercy and apologize. I clenched my teeth, blood covering my face. “I did nothing wrong…” Chloe smiled bleakly and pulled her hand out of Ethan’s. “It’s my fault.” In an instant, the person behind me became even more brutal. I convulsed from the pain, while Ethan focused only on comforting Chloe. “How about I take you to the prairie to ride horses?” Ethan had gone too far last night, then promised to take me to Montana and ride the horses his mother had left there. He knew I loved open fields and freedom, and that I could not refuse. Now he did not even look at me, gave that promise to Chloe, and said, “Julian stays here.” “Liam and the others said they wanted to try something new, didn’t they? They’ll teach Julian a proper lesson for you.” I was discarded like trash, and Ethan left holding Chloe’s hand. Chloe stepped on the back of my hand with her high heel and ground it down hard several times, then looked back with a mocking and contemptuous gaze. Her lips moved silently: filthy rent boy. Cold sweat mixed with blood streamed down my face, and in a haze, I begged. “Ethan, don’t do this to me… You said you wouldn’t bully me anymore.” I had been sponsored by the Blackwood family, had loved him for twelve years, and had let him bring people to bully me for ten years. Last night, he held me in his arms and said every sweet word imaginable. I believed every single one. We had agreed to grow old together, but after a mere twenty-four hours, only the ridiculous and naive me remained. Ethan’s expression did not look good, as if he was hesitating. But when Chloe shed another tear, he gave up on me. I fought with all my strength, grabbed a shard of glass from the floor, pressed it against my artery, and said through chattering teeth, “Let me go!” Ethan burned with rage, grabbed my wrist, and forced me to loosen my hand. “Julian Lane!” “What are you so unwilling about? Didn’t you scheme your way into my bed for money?” “I’m introducing you to new clients, so why are you pretending to be so pure?” I never thought that was how Ethan saw me. All the words I wanted to use to explain fell silent in my chest. He looked down at me from above. “If that’s the case, then get lost and go to the red-light district to learn how to serve men.”
I was dragged to the red-light district in the slums. On a crude wooden bed, I spent two years living a life worse than death, and I developed severe depression. Madam Zoe lit a cigarette and looked at me with some pity. “Look at you, a perfectly good college student, and somehow you offended so many powerful people.” I stared at the ceiling without any reaction. I remembered what Chloe had said. “Ethan gave the orders, and they’ll make sure you only take old, ugly, broke losers, so you learn your lesson.” I could not forget the disgust in Mr. Blackwood’s eyes either. “I sponsored you, and this is how you repay me? Messing around with my son like that? I think you must not want to live!” He brought in infected men, one after another, and sent them into my tiny cubicle day and night for thirty straight days. The ulcers on my body began to hurt again, and I trembled as I crawled up, fell to the floor, grabbed the painkillers in the drawer, and swallowed an entire handful. In my daze, I seemed to hear Madam Zoe say, “Clean yourself up, someone is here to pick you up.” I was already rotten all the way through, so no one would care about me. Thinking of that, I tugged at the corner of my mouth self-mockingly, then lay on the floor and closed my eyes. When I heard footsteps, my body moved from muscle memory, and I crawled up, knelt at the man’s feet, and reached out to undo his belt buckle. “Do you want protection, sir? Two dollars each.” I received no answer for a long time, but I kept moving anyway. Here, too many people hesitated over five dollars, and I had long since gotten used to it. But this time, what I heard was not a reluctant “yes.” Instead, it was a low roar suppressed with rage. “Julian Lane! Are you really this cheap?” My whole body shook, and my muscles spasmed instantly. Almost the next second, I prostrated myself and apologized mechanically. “This slut knows he was wrong, this slut will never dare disobey your orders again, and this slut will never dare make the little princess cry again.” I kept knocking my head against the floor, again and again, and I could not feel the pain. I saw the shock in Ethan’s eyes, but there was not the slightest ripple in my heart. It was clearly his order, so I did not know what he was pretending for. Ethan grabbed my arm and lifted my weightless body up, and I stumbled as I met his gaze. “I really won’t dare again…” Disgust flashed through Ethan’s eyes. But he took off his suit jacket and threw it over my head. “Wash yourself clean and come back with me.” When I heard I could leave, I no longer cared about anything. I never wanted to experience these days worse than death again. I promised in a trembling voice, “Don’t worry, I will never have any improper thoughts again, and I will listen to you and the little princess.” “Whoever you and the little princess want me to serve, I will serve.” I lowered myself to the humblest position, but Ethan was actually dissatisfied. With a dark expression, he told me to shut up, and I shrank back and fell silent. I showered as ordered, and in the cracked mirror, I saw a version of myself that could never be clean again, but my eyes were calm. Ethan was actually still waiting there. He sat on a wobbly chair with one broken leg and lit a cigarette. “My family agreed to let me marry Chloe.” I lowered my head dully. “Congratulations.” The broken-window effect had truly worked, and he got what he wanted. But my lifelong wish had shattered two years ago. “Weren’t you a broadcasting major? Chloe said she wants you to be the officiant at our wedding.” His voice was light and ordinary, and he did not think anything was wrong. He fully supported Chloe using the wedding to hurt me and humiliate me. But my voice had been completely ruined. I did not know how many burning cigarette butts had been shoved into my throat. Ethan did not hear it, or maybe he simply did not care.
I agreed. As long as there was a chance to escape, I would not give it up. When I spoke, the smell of smoke made me cough, and a choking sensation surged up, making me wave my hands wildly. I skillfully fell against the nightstand, pulled out my asthma inhaler, and saved myself. The whole process took less than a minute, and I escaped from death’s door again. “I forgot you have asthma.” There was a little regret in Ethan’s tone. I shook my head to show it did not matter, because in the past two years, I had long grown used to wandering along the edge of life and death. After all, here, there was no man who did not smoke. Seeing that his manners kept him from crushing the cigarette butt out on the floor, and that he was pinching it without knowing where to put it out, I obediently knelt beside him and held out both hands. My hands had once been extremely beautiful, but now my palms were covered in cigarette scars. Ethan stood up abruptly in shock, and the cigarette butt fell to the floor. “What happened to this? Why are they like this?!” I looked up in confusion, then lowered my eyes submissively. “It’s all my fault for not being obedient, but I won’t be like that anymore.” “With these hands like this, they make people feel even better.” When I touched them, no man could resist that soul-melting sensation. But Ethan suddenly grew angry and sneered as he called me filthy. I did not refute him, and I obediently got into his car to go home. Chloe came to greet us from a distance, and only then did Ethan’s tightly furrowed brows relax slightly, and a smile appeared on his face. He gently tapped the tip of Chloe’s nose. “Everything is ready, so you can marry me now, right?” He gave Chloe the grandest wedding, and every part of it was filled with my favorite elements. Blue irises filled the entire venue. Countless love letters hung from the ceiling. Even the wedding suit was the exact design I had drawn in my diary. I suddenly fell into a daze and froze in place. Chloe affectionately linked her arm through mine and smiled. “What do you think of this wedding? Do you like it?” “To repay me, shouldn’t you invite me to watch a good show?” I did not quite understand, and my whole body went stiff as I walked into the venue. In the next instant, someone viciously yanked me away. Ethan shielded Chloe behind him and looked at me warily. “What exactly are you trying to do by tricking Chloe into getting close to you?” I froze, and my very soft “nothing” was cut off. Chloe persuaded Ethan to leave, and the wedding proceeded smoothly. Before going onstage, I casually drank a glass of water to moisten my throat. Under my guidance as the host, the man I loved most married his adopted sister, the woman he had always truly loved, and spoke his vows. As I watched them exchange rings, I suddenly grew so hot that my mind became unclear, and I let out an indecent sound in front of everyone. There was something wrong with that glass of water! Before I had time to explain, the big screen flickered strangely and began playing footage of me confessing my love beneath Ethan that night. My hidden diary was also revealed. It recorded the wedding arrangement I had dreamed of, and it was exactly the same as today’s venue setup. The crowd erupted, and people raised their hands to tear down the hanging love letters. They were filled with my dirty thoughts about Ethan. From eighteen to thirty, I was stripped bare and forced to endure a slow, naked execution. The bouquet in Chloe’s hands fell to the floor, and she cried as she questioned me. “I begged Ethan to save you and bring you back, so why did you have to ruin my wedding?”
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