On our third wedding anniversary, Adrian shoved my head into the freezing pool. “Your parents killed my entire family. You haven’t finished paying for their sins.” Three years I endured his cruelty, trying to atone. Until he found her. A substitute who looked seventy percent like me. He took her to galas. He shredded the scarf I’d knitted for him. He even took my bone marrow to save her. That was when my heart finally died. At midnight, the moment our agreement expired, I walked into the sea. But at my funeral, he held my cold body and screamed. “Please come back to life… We can start over.” Then I opened my eyes. We had been reborn. To before any of it happened. In this life, he clung to me, eyes red, begging me not to leave. I only pushed him away, my voice calm. “Adrian, love is too exhausting. This time, I’m the one letting go.” Yulia’s POV I stood by the pool, looking at Adrian. Today was our third wedding anniversary. The Hayes family was throwing a grand winter party in my honor. Then icy water swallowed my head. My lungs screamed. “Adrian! Please…” I struggled to surface, but before I could finish speaking, the bodyguard pushed me under again. He stood by the pool with a wine glass, completely indifferent to my struggling. “Please?” He finally spoke, his voice colder than winter snow. “Three years ago, when your parents drove exhausted and killed my entire family, did they show any mercy?” He crouched down and grabbed my freezing purple chin. “Yulia, these three years are just the beginning.” I held it in desperately, but tears still poured out. Just as Adrian was about to say something, a coquettish female voice interrupted him. “Adrian, why are you still here? Didn’t you say you’d wait for me?” I looked up to see a girl in a white dress running over. That face was seventy percent similar to how I looked three years ago. This was Chloe, the substitute Adrian had found. “Giving my wife a gift.” Adrian stood up and considerately adjusted her shawl. Chloe glanced at me contemptuously. “A criminal. Don’t waste your time.” As they were about to leave, Chloe deliberately bumped into an ice sculpture. The massive sculpture toppled, and fragments crashed toward me as I climbed out of the pool. Sharp pain hit me, and my blood stained the pool water red. But Adrian took Chloe’s hand and kissed the tiny red mark on her fingertip. I watched them kiss, my heart pierced as if by ice shards. As Adrian carried Chloe away, he only left one sentence behind. “Take care of it. Don’t let her die.” For three years of marriage, all I ever saw was his back. We had grown up together, until the engagement party three years ago. That day, my parents, driving while exhausted, caused an accident that killed his family. My lover became my enemy overnight. He sent my parents to prison, where they couldn’t bear the torment and took their own lives. Before dying, they asked me to atone for three years, and if I still saw no hope, to join them. I pulled out the waterproof bag from my soaked clothes containing our family photo. In the photo, we were smiling so brightly. Only one month remained of the three-year term. For love of him, I had destroyed myself beyond recognition, only to receive this humiliation in return. “Mom, Dad, wait for me one more month,” I whispered. Just one month. Once the agreement was fulfilled, I would join them.
Yulia’s POV For the next few days, Adrian didn’t come home, and I didn’t ask. I stayed alone in the guest room, nursing my wounds. I touched that photo, counting down the twenty-nine days remaining. I decided to make one final effort for Adrian’s birthday. This might be my only hope to keep living. Back then, he said he didn’t like fuss, so our wedding was simple with only a few friends. I thought he probably felt the same about birthdays, which is why he never mentioned it. I was the only one maintaining this relationship. He stood high above, coldly watching me sink deeper. But now, I wanted to fight for myself one more time. Despite the tearing pain in my wounds, I spent the entire day knitting, undoing the yarn twice, finally completing a gray scarf. I dug out old photos and made a handmade album, filling each page with words I wanted to say to him. After finishing, I gathered my courage and sent Adrian a message. “Adrian, are you free tomorrow evening? Let’s meet at our usual restaurant.” I gripped my phone, waiting nervously until the screen lit up. Just a cold “Okay.” The next day, I arrived at the restaurant two hours early and set up the gifts and a small cake I’d made myself. But Adrian was two full hours late. When he pushed through the door and saw everything on the table, his expression immediately darkened. “Who told you to meddle? Did you forget that after my family died, I stopped celebrating birthdays?” As soon as he spoke, he expected me to cry and make a scene, since this was my surprise. He had even prepared his response, but I just looked at him. Adrian didn’t give me a chance to explain. He took scissors from the server and, right in front of me, cut that scarf to shreds. Gray yarn fragments scattered like snow, landing on me like a snowfall of despair. I didn’t dodge, just spoke with a trembling voice. “Adrian, let’s let each other go, okay? We can start over.” “Start over?” He laughed coldly, grabbed my chin, his eyes bloodshot. “That night of the accident, my parents, my sister, they died right in front of me! My grandfather couldn’t take the shock and collapsed on the spot. We couldn’t save him either! How can you tell me to let go? Yulia, tell me, how can I possibly let go!” After that night, he seemed like a different person. But I no longer had the energy to analyze his changes. Just then, the restaurant door opened again. Chloe walked in carrying a huge glass jar filled with colorful lucky stars. “Adrian, happy birthday.” She placed the jar on the table, smiling sweetly. “There are a thousand stars here. For each one you take out, you can make a wish to me.” Seeing this scene, hearing those words, both Adrian and I froze. On my twentieth birthday, I had given him the exact same gift and said the exact same words. He released me and pulled Chloe tightly into his arms, his voice hoarse. “I love it so much, Chloe. I love this gift so much.” Chloe shot me a triumphant look. In the past, seeing them so intimate would have made me cause a scene on the spot. But now, I just glanced once before looking away, stroking the neglected album on the table. My heart ached numbly. What defeated me wasn’t Chloe, but the version of myself at twenty that Adrian had deeply loved. He utterly hated the me of now, yet had a sick obsession with the Yulia in his memories. He gave all his tenderness to that substitute who looked like his Yulia. I was the most unnecessary one.
Yulia’s POV I couldn’t watch anymore. I stood up abruptly and left the restaurant without looking back. I drove through the night, wandering aimlessly. Tears fell without warning. So this numb heart could still feel pain. A white figure suddenly rushed out from the roadside. I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The front of my car hit the person hard, throwing them several meters away. I hurriedly got out of the car. When I saw who was lying in the pool of blood, I froze completely. It was Chloe. Why was she here? Before I could figure it out, Adrian’s furious roar came from behind. He rushed out of the car behind mine and frantically picked up the unconscious Chloe. “Yulia, why won’t you even spare her!” He looked up, his eyes full of hatred, as if he wanted to tear me apart. “It wasn’t me… She rushed out herself!” I explained, trembling. Adrian wouldn’t listen at all. He carried Chloe to his own car. Before leaving, he only gave orders to the arriving bodyguards. “Take her to the hospital. Make her kneel outside the emergency room to atone to Chloe!” I was forced to kneel on the cold tiles, two bodyguards restraining me tightly. Every second felt like torture. I heard Adrian pacing anxiously in the hallway, heard him roaring into his phone, using every connection to find the best doctors. Finally, he stopped in front of me, his voice as cold as ice. “If anything happens to her, you’ll pay with your life.” After what seemed like forever, the emergency room light finally went out. The doctor emerged, looking grave. “The patient is out of immediate danger, but we discovered she has acute leukemia. She must undergo a bone marrow transplant immediately.” Adrian’s body swayed. The doctor continued. “The patient has the rare Rh-negative blood type. Finding matching bone marrow will be extremely difficult…” Before he finished, Adrian’s gaze turned to me. He remembered-I also had Rh-negative blood. Under his stare, I felt cold all over, more terrified than ever before. I struggled to stand up, wanting to escape. “Hold her down!” Adrian commanded sharply. The bodyguards immediately stepped forward and pinned me down. “Adrian…” My voice shook uncontrollably. “Are you really going to do this to me?” He walked up to me step by step, his face devoid of warmth, only cold determination. “This is what you owe her. You have no right to refuse.” Then he turned to the doctor and ordered. “Use her bone marrow. Arrange the surgery immediately!” As they pushed me into the operating room, I saw Adrian sign his name as my spouse on a surgical consent form I had never agreed to. The surgical lights were so bright I couldn’t open my eyes. In a daze, I remembered once cutting my finger while cooking vegetables. He had panicked as if the sky were falling. He rushed me to the hospital, carefully bandaging me. And now, this man personally sent me to the operating table to extract part of me to save another woman. I closed my eyes, and tears slid down from the corners. Our relationship had actually come to this.
Yulia’s POV That night, I developed a high fever. Adrian didn’t come back. I burned in a daze, the puncture pain in my lower back mixing with old fracture injuries, hurting so much I didn’t even have the strength to call for emergency help. I could only force myself to get up and swallow a few fever-reducing pills. The medication didn’t work that fast. I lay back on the bed, my whole body burning, feeling suffocated from discomfort. I don’t know how long passed before I finally drifted into an uneasy sleep. When I woke up in the hospital room, I heard nurses gossiping. “Miss Chloe is so lucky. Mr. Hayes stayed outside the operating room all night for her.” “Yeah, I’ve never seen him so anxious about anyone.” I weakly spoke up, correcting them. “I’m his wife.” The nurses looked at each other awkwardly, lowered their heads, and hurried away. I struggled to get out of bed for some water but fell from the hospital bed in pain. Adrian, outside the door, saw this scene and seemed about to step forward, but then stopped abruptly and turned to leave quickly. His assistant hesitantly spoke. “Mr. Hayes, your wife…” “She deserves it,” Adrian interrupted him. “I let her go. Who’ll let me go?” I had no mind to pay attention to them. I rested alone in the hospital room for a few days until I received a text from an unknown number. It was a photo. In the photo, Chloe was smugly playing with an old pocket watch-the only keepsake my mother had left me. The text included a line: “Your bone marrow works great. Oh, and Adrian said this watch looks better on me anyway. Makes me more like the old you.” My emotions completely collapsed. I yanked out my IV, ignoring the nurse’s attempts to stop me, and rushed straight to Chloe’s hospital room. “Give it back!” Seeing me, Chloe smiled even more triumphantly. “Mrs. Hayes, Adrian gave this to me. Why should I return it to you?” I abandoned all dignity, my voice trembling. “Please, give it back to me… That’s the last thing my mother left me…” Seeing her unmoved, I gritted my teeth and offered my final condition. “As long as you return the watch, I’ll give you the position of Mrs. Hayes.” “Give it to me?” Chloe acted as if she’d heard the biggest joke. As soon as she finished speaking, the hospital room door opened. Adrian walked in with a dark expression, just in time to hear my last sentence. “Yulia, in your eyes, is my wife’s position so cheap? Not even worth an old trinket?” “No…” I explained frantically. “That’s my mother’s last keepsake!” “Mother?” He snatched the watch from Chloe’s hand. “Everything related to your parents should disappear!” With that, he strode to the window and raised his hand to throw the watch out. “No!” I screamed and lunged forward, trying to grab the watch back. In the struggle, I crashed into his body. The watch flew out the window, and I lost my balance and fell out too. “Yulia!” Adrian screamed, reaching out to catch me, but grasped only air. He rushed downstairs like a madman and picked me up from the pool of blood with trembling hands, his voice filled with unprecedented panic. “Yulia, wake up! Don’t you dare die!” In my fading consciousness, I seemed to see a flash of unprecedented fear and heartache in his eyes. In my dead heart, a tiny spark of hope somehow ignited again. But when I woke up in the hospital room again and heard the doctor report my multiple fractures, I saw Adrian standing just outside the door. He walked in and looked down at me from above. “Don’t think I’ll feel sorry for you. Keeping you alive is only to make you suffer more.” He paused, then declared word by word: “Between us, it’s fight to the death.” That last bit of hope was extinguished by his own hand. My heart died completely. I slowly closed my eyes and said softly. “Fine. Then I’ll go die.”
Yulia’s POV For the first time, I saw Adrian panic. All these years, he’d always been cold and cruel. I’d even thought he had no heart. Now he finally lost his composure for me, but unfortunately, it was too late. Adrian quickly left the hospital room because of something related to Chloe. As soon as he left, I pulled out my IV. No matter how much the doctor tried to persuade me, I insisted on checking myself out. I knew I was dying soon and needed to arrange my affairs first. I wanted to take a photo, buy a cemetery plot in the most scenic location, and have a custom music box made with all three of our names engraved on it. After I died, the music box would be buried with that family photo. Dragging my wounded body, I returned to that so-called “home.” As soon as I entered, a white figure pounced into my arms, tail wagging frantically. It was Snowball, the Samoyed that Adrian and I had raised for eight years. This dog was the last thing left between us. “Snowball…” I hugged it tightly, remembering how Adrian had once laughingly said we were “a family of three.” My eyes immediately stung with tears. I decided that before I died, I would find a good home for the aging Snowball. After contacting adopters, I was just about to leave with Snowball when Chloe blocked the doorway. “Where are you going?” Chloe walked in smiling, her gaze falling on Snowball. A flash of malice crossed her eyes. “This dog is the last thing you care about, isn’t it?” I didn’t want to waste words with her. I held Snowball tight and tried to walk around her. “Stop her!” At Chloe’s command, two bodyguards stepped forward to block my path. “What do you want?” I retreated warily. Chloe sneered and told the bodyguards. “Take that dog from her.” I desperately protected Snowball but was shoved aside by a bodyguard. My forehead hit the stair railing, and blood immediately flowed down. “Woof! Woof woof!” Seeing me hurt, Snowball struggled to pounce and bite, but a bodyguard grabbed a club and beat it to death, blow after blow. Snowball’s cries grew weaker and weaker until it lay motionless in a pool of blood. “No! Snowball!” I cried out and lunged toward its gradually cooling body. In the chaos, I knocked into Chloe. She tumbled down the stairs, blood soon seeping beneath her. Just then, the villa’s main door opened and Adrian walked in, witnessing this exact scene. He rushed over in a few strides and picked up Chloe. When he looked at me, his eyes were full of murderous intent. “Yulia! Why do you want to kill her too? Don’t you know she just had surgery!” I pointed at Snowball’s corpse, my voice hoarse. “She killed Snowball…” Adrian’s gaze swept over Snowball’s body and paused for an instant. Then he said something that froze all the blood in my body. “Good that it’s dead.” He said coldly. “Nothing that proves we were ever in love should remain.” That sentence completely destroyed me. So every trace of love between us should be erased in his eyes. I shook my head and laughed bitterly. “Fine.” I said only one word.
Yulia’s POV After hanging up the phone, I was locked in the villa’s storage room. This was Chloe’s idea. She said I had caused her to fall down the stairs and must be punished by staying in this lightless, waterless storage room for two days. Adrian agreed. He carried Chloe and rushed to the hospital. Before leaving, he ordered the bodyguards to comply. The storage room was dark and damp. I curled up in the corner, shivering from cold. The door opened and light streamed in. Chloe walked in and closed the door behind her. In the darkness, only the sound of her heels clicking on the floor remained. She crouched down, grabbed my chin, and forced me to look up. “Do you feel wronged?” Before she finished speaking, a slap landed hard on my face. A buzzing sound-the world went out of focus, sweetness exploded in my mouth. The blow knocked me sideways to the ground, but she shook her hand as if disgusted. “That slap was on behalf of Adrian.” She sneered and lifted her foot to grind down on the back of my hand. “Remember your place.” I lay on the ground dry heaving, unable to vomit anything, only physiological nausea and overwhelming despair. Chloe looked at my miserable state with satisfaction and turned to leave. The high fever and infected wounds gradually blurred my consciousness. In my daze, I felt a pair of strong arms lift me up. Someone gently wiped my face, applied medicine to my wounds, and gave me water and medication. That person leaned by my ear and called my nickname in a tone I’d never heard before-heartbroken and regretful. “Yulia… Yulia…” I didn’t dare open my eyes, afraid this was just a dream. But I knew in my heart that person was Adrian. In his heart, there was still a place for me. Just then, Adrian’s phone, left nearby, rang. He walked to the side to answer. It was Chloe calling. “Adrian, I think I’m pregnant! I haven’t had my period for over a month. We finally have our own child!” Chloe’s voice was bright, breathless with excitement. “I already picked out names. Adrian Jr. for a boy, Yulia Jr. for a girl. What do you think?” Adrian Jr. Yulia Jr. We’d chosen those names years ago, back when we were still in love and the future still felt ours. This memory cut through me like poison. Adrian was silent for a long time. Then, dazed, he answered. “Okay.” “I’ll come to the hospital right away.” After hanging up, he turned and met my open eyes on the bed. But he said nothing. He turned and walked out. The door closed. I slowly closed my eyes. He had new hope, a new family, a new future. And I could finally die. With nothing left to hold me here.
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