My older sister suffered from severe neurasthenia. She couldn’t tolerate even the slightest noise. If I made a sound, she would scream and claw at her own face. To protect her, I even had to tiptoe when walking around our house. This winter, our apartment’s heating failed. I caught a severe case of pneumonia. Whenever the urge to cough hit me, I had to desperately cover my mouth. But one night, I couldn’t hold back a muffled cough. My sister woke up instantly, crying and screaming that her head was exploding. My mother stormed into the room. Looking at my face, which was purple from holding my breath, her eyes held nothing but disgust. “Can’t you just hold it in?! Do you have to torture your sister like this?!” To give my sister a quiet environment to sleep, my mother grabbed a roll of heavy-duty duct tape and wrapped it tightly around my mouth and nose. “You’re standing on the balcony tonight. You can come back inside when you learn how to be quiet.” The freezing wind howled. The phlegm from my infected lungs blocked my airway. I desperately pounded on the glass, begging for help. But my father just pulled the curtains shut. “The kid watches too much TV. She’s just playing the victim. She’ll be fine by tomorrow.” But I never saw tomorrow. It was a winter night, five degrees below zero. The cold was piercing. I was wearing thin cotton pajamas, standing barefoot on the ceramic tiles of the balcony. With every agonizing breath, phlegm bubbled up, blocking my throat. “Cough… cough…” I desperately wanted to cough out the sludge blocking my windpipe. But my mouth and nose were tightly sealed with duct tape. To make sure my sister didn’t suffer, I listened to my mother and didn’t tear the tape off. My chest began to heave violently from oxygen deprivation. My heart pounded so hard it felt like it would explode. I turned around and desperately slapped my hands against the glass door. Please… let me in… I won’t cough anymore… I can hold it… I’m so cold… I can’t breathe… Through the glass and the slight gap in the curtains, I could see the warm, yellow light of the living room. The thermostat on the wall read “78°F”. My mother was sitting on the sofa, holding my sister, Annie, in her arms, gently patting her back. “Don’t be scared, Annie. Mommy kicked your sister out to the balcony to reflect on her behavior.” “You can finally get a good night’s sleep tonight.” Annie nestled into our mother’s embrace. There were tears on her face, but the corners of her mouth were turned slightly upward. She pointed toward the balcony, seemingly saying something. My father walked over from the master bedroom, looking annoyed, and yanked the curtains completely shut. The last sliver of light vanished. Darkness instantly swallowed me whole. Only the howling blizzard outside the balcony continued its rampage. I thought back to before dinner. I had just let out a soft cough because I couldn’t suppress the tickle in my throat. Annie, who had been watching TV, suddenly hurled the remote control at me. “Mia! Did you do that on purpose?!” “Are you trying to kill me with that noise?! Ahhh, my head hurts so much!” Annie grabbed her head and screamed, her fingernails gouging bloody tracks down her own cheeks. My mother rushed out of the kitchen, not even bothering to put down her spatula, and backhanded me across the face. “Mia! How many times have I told you your sister has neurasthenia and can’t stand any noise?!” “How dare you cough in front of her!” I covered my burning cheek. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I didn’t dare let them fall. Because my mother had told me that crying was also noise. “Mommy, I didn’t want to cough… but my throat tickles so much…” I tried to explain. I tried to tell her that I had been dizzy and burning with a fever for three days. I tried to tell her that I was coughing up streaks of blood. But my mother didn’t listen at all. She only saw the scratch marks on Annie’s face. She only saw Annie screaming in agony. “Your lungs hurt? I think you’re just full of wicked schemes!” “Are you faking being sick just to get attention because you think we care too much about your sister?!” “How many times have I told you we don’t love you any less? Your father and I are already exhausted from work. Stop causing us trouble!” And so, that roll of heavy-duty duct tape used for sealing moving boxes was wrapped around my face. Every layer was accompanied by my mother’s exhausted glare and my sister’s smug sniffling. The feeling of suffocation grew stronger. Dark spots danced in my vision. I wanted to knock on the glass one more time. But my hands were frozen stiff. They were so heavy I couldn’t even lift them. My body slid uncontrollably down the glass. My knees slammed into the hard tile, but I couldn’t even feel the pain. My consciousness began to blur. In my delirium, I thought I saw my grandmother, who had passed away three years ago. She was standing outside the balcony, smiling kindly and waving at me, holding my favorite roasted sweet potato. “Mia, come to Grandma. It’s not cold here, and you don’t have to hold in your coughs.” Tears flowed uncontrollably. They seeped into the gaps in the duct tape and quickly froze into ice crystals. Mommy, I’m sorry. Next time… I promise… I won’t cough. If I don’t cough… will you hug me… like you hug my sister? The moment that thought crossed my mind, my heart stopped beating for the last time. My body curled into a tiny ball, collapsing stiffly into the corner. Snowflakes drifted down, slowly burying me. My body felt so, so light. I found myself floating in mid-air. Below me was my own body, curled up in the corner of the balcony. The tape was still wrapped around my face, and my eyelashes were covered in white frost. Mia, you look so ugly. No wonder Mommy didn’t like you. I passed through the sliding glass door and floated into the warm living room. The clock read 2:00 AM. My sister, who supposedly couldn’t tolerate a single sound, was currently hiding under her covers. But she wasn’t sleeping. The faint blue light of a phone screen glowed from beneath the blanket. She was wearing headphones, her thumbs furiously tapping the screen. To prevent our parents from catching her, she had the blanket pulled tight over her head. As I floated closer, I could still hear the intense sounds of a video game shootout leaking from her headphones. “Push! You idiot teammates!” My sister cursed softly under her breath, her cheeks flushed red with excitement. Where was the neurasthenia? Where was the agonizing headache caused by noise? It turned out she wasn’t afraid of noise at all. She just didn’t want to hear my voice. I turned and floated toward the master bedroom. My parents were sleeping soundly. My mother was even snoring softly. Weren’t those snores noise? Why couldn’t my sister hear them? Why wasn’t she screaming and clawing at her face because of them? I floated to the edge of the bed, looking at my mother’s sleeping face. I wanted to reach out and touch her, to ask her why she sealed my mouth with tape. But my hand passed right through her body. A wave of freezing cold made me pull my hand back. I was already dead. Dead on that balcony they had forgotten about. Even in death, it seemed I hadn’t brought them any peace. At 6:00 AM, the alarm clock rang. My mother stretched and got out of bed. The first thing she did was go to the kitchen to make breakfast. Eggs sizzled in the pan, filling the air with a comforting, domestic smell. She was also frying golden, crispy dough sticks—Annie’s favorite. My father woke up too, tying his tie while watching the morning news. The anchor reported: “A severe cold front hit the city last night, causing temperatures to plummet to five degrees. Residents are advised to stay warm…” My father frowned and walked over to the balcony door. He pulled the curtain back just a fraction and peeked outside. My ghostly heart leaped into my throat. Dad, do you see me? Do you see that I’m not moving? But a thick layer of frost covered the window, blurring his vision. Combined with the fact that I was curled up in the corner, half-buried in snow, I just looked like a pile of discarded clutter. My father didn’t see a thing. He even scoffed. “That kid is so stubborn. Still hiding out there.” My mother walked out of the kitchen holding a plate. “Ignore her. She’s just spoiled.” “We indulged her too much in the past, that’s why she’s so unruly now.” “So young, yet so manipulative. She actually faked having pneumonia just to fight for attention.” “Let her freeze! When she admits she’s wrong, then she can come in.” Annie walked out wearing pink pajamas, rubbing her eyes. Smelling the food, her eyes lit up. “Wow! Mom! Fried dough sticks! My favorite! I love you, Mom!” She grabbed one and stuffed it into her mouth, getting grease everywhere. My mother wiped the grease from the corners of her mouth. “Slow down, no one is fighting you for it.” “Go call your sister inside.” “Even though she’s immature, she’s still family. We can’t actually let her starve.” Annie pouted reluctantly. “I don’t want to. Seeing her gives me a headache.” “Be good. Give her a way to save face,” my mother coaxed. Annie reluctantly put down her food and slowly trudged over to the balcony door. She didn’t open it. She just pressed her face against the glass and made a grotesque face at me in the corner. “Nyah nyah, serves you right!” “That’s what you get for trying to steal Mom and Dad! I hope you freeze to death!” After cursing at me, she ran back to the dining table and announced loudly: “Mom! Mia says she’s not hungry!” “She said she wants to keep standing there to reflect on her actions and told us to leave her alone!” Floating in mid-air, I desperately wanted to defend myself. But both my parents believed her immediately. My mother slammed her chopsticks down on the table. “Fine! If she doesn’t know what’s good for her, so be it!” “Then let her stand out there! No one is allowed to open that door for her!” “Let’s see how long her stubbornness lasts!” My father scoffed coldly. “Don’t worry about it. Skipping a few meals will fix her attitude.” They went back to eating their steaming hot breakfast, discussing where to go for the weekend. No one spared another glance at the balcony. That morning, only my mother and sister were left at home. Before leaving for work, my father specifically instructed: “Don’t coddle Mia. Annie’s condition just started improving; we can’t let her get stressed.” My mother nodded repeatedly in agreement. Annie lay on the sofa and turned on the TV. She muted it, then expertly slipped on her massive, over-ear headphones. Her body thrashed wildly to whatever beat she was listening to, and she hummed loudly. I floated over and peeked at her phone screen. It was a heavy metal music video. The drumbeats were so intense they felt like they could shatter a person’s heart. I suddenly remembered something that happened six months ago. My mother wasn’t home that afternoon. Annie was sitting there, listening to music with her headphones, exactly like this. I was thirsty and went to pour some water, accidentally knocking over a cup. Annie instantly ripped off her headphones, rushed over, and brutally pinched my thigh. “Mia, if you dare tell Mom I was listening to music, I’ll kill you!” To prove she wasn’t joking, she threw a massive tantrum in front of my mother that night, screaming that I was making noise and triggering her illness. The result was my mother forcing me to kneel on the floor all night. My knees were bruised purple. From that day on, I never dared to say a single bad word about my sister. I thought that as long as I was obedient, as long as I lived like a ghost, she would leave me alone. Knock, knock, knock. Someone was at the door. It was Mrs. Wang from next door. She stood there smiling, holding a handful of green onions. “Carol, can I borrow some green onions? I ran out while cooking.” My mother quickly grabbed some from the kitchen and handed them over. Mrs. Wang peeked inside the apartment and asked, confused, “Hey? Where’s little Mia?” “Doesn’t she usually play with her blocks in the living room around this time?” The smile on my mother’s face froze. She quickly recovered and lied smoothly: “Oh, Mia. She caught a little cold. I was worried she might infect Annie, so I sent her to stay at her grandmother’s for a couple of days.” Mrs. Wang frowned, as if trying to recall something. “Last night, in the middle of the night, when I got up to use the bathroom, I swear I heard noises coming from your balcony.” “It sounded like… someone slapping the glass, and this muffled whining sound, like a kitten scratching.” “I was thinking, in this freezing weather, whose poor cat was left outside to suffer?” Mrs. Wang’s words drained all the color from my mother’s face. Her eyes unconsciously darted toward the heavy curtains covering the balcony door. Last night… was Mia really slapping the door? A creeping terror began to claw its way up my mother’s spine. I held my spectral breath. Mom, are you going to realize? Are you going to go look? Right at that moment. “Ahhh! It’s too loud!” Annie shrieked from the sofa. She ripped off her headphones, covered her ears, and thrashed around on the cushions. “Mrs. Wang is talking too loud! My head is going to explode!” “Make her leave! Tell her to get out!” Annie’s shrill, agonizing cries instantly drowned out everything else. Mrs. Wang jumped back in fright. “Oh dear, is Annie having an episode? Okay, okay, Grandma is leaving. I won’t bother you.” My mother’s attention snapped back instantly. Abandoning all thoughts of the balcony, she rushed over to hold Annie, patting her while apologizing to Mrs. Wang: “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Wang. Her illness is acting up. I’ll have to ask you to leave.” The door slammed shut. Mrs. Wang’s sigh was sealed outside. “That poor child, what a strange disease…” Inside, my mother held Annie, her heart breaking. “It’s okay, it’s okay. She’s gone. No one is making noise anymore.” Hiding in our mother’s arms, Annie shot a vicious, venomous glare toward the balcony through the gap between her mother’s arms. After calming Annie down, my mother sat exhaustedly on the sofa. Her gaze landed on the closed sliding glass door of the balcony. “With a blizzard that huge… did that child really stay out there without making a single sound?” “What Mrs. Wang heard last night… was it really just a cat?” My mother stood up and took two hesitant steps forward. My soul floated right in front of her, screaming: “Mom! I’m right behind there! Just open the curtains!” “Just look! Just one glance!” My mother’s hand rose. Her fingertips brushed the fabric of the curtain. Just one simple pull. And the truth would be revealed. “Mom! I want strawberries!” Annie suddenly yelled, jumping off the sofa and throwing her arms around our mother’s leg. “I want those big, sweet milk strawberries! I want them right now!” My mother’s hand stopped. She looked down at her whining older daughter, and the hesitation in her eyes vanished instantly. “Okay, okay, strawberries it is.” “Mommy will go wash them for you right now.” She pulled her hand back and turned toward the kitchen. The truth, just two steps away, was abandoned once again. By noon, the snow outside was falling heavier than ever. Huge, goose-feather flakes drifted down, quickly accumulating into a thick layer on the balcony. Curled up in the corner, I was now completely transformed into a mound of snow. Only the faintest hint of my pink pajamas was still visible. If they didn’t find me soon, I would be permanently buried in this winter. My mother was busy making lunch in the kitchen. Passing by the dining table, she noticed a bottle of cough syrup and antibiotics sitting on the edge. I had secretly bought those from the pharmacy three days ago. Because my mother told me there was no money to take me to the doctor. All the money had to be saved for Annie’s therapy sessions. Seeing the half-empty bottle of medicine, she stopped walking. She finally remembered my severe cough. “It’s so cold out there… what if her pneumonia gets worse?” “If she actually freezes and something happens…” My mother sighed and put down the kitchen knife. “I should just let her in. She needs to take her medicine.” “At worst, I’ll make her wear a mask so she doesn’t infect Annie.” Muttering to herself, my mother wiped her hands and walked toward the balcony. Annie was sitting on the rug playing with her building blocks. Seeing what our mother was doing, she immediately jumped up, on high alert. “Mom, what are you doing?” “I’m going to bring your sister inside to eat and take her medicine,” my mother explained. Annie immediately threw her arms wide, blocking the path. “No! You can’t let her in!” “She’s just pretending to be pitiful! It’s a trick!” “If you let her in now, then all the suffering I went through was for nothing! My head is going to start hurting again!” Annie stood there aggressively, her face full of hostility. This time, my mother frowned. “Annie, stop throwing a fit. It really is freezing out there. It’s five below zero.” Her tone carried a hint of strictness as she stepped around Annie and walked straight to the balcony. Panicking, Annie grabbed the hem of her mother’s shirt and started wailing loudly: “No, no, no! I want her to stay outside!” “I want strawberries! I want to watch TV! I want you to play with me!” She tried using the exact same tactics that had worked a hundred times before to distract her mother. But this time, my mother just gently pushed her hands away. “Stop crying. Wait until I get your sister inside.” My mother’s hand grasped the handle of the sliding glass door. The icy metal made her shiver. My soul watched from the side, feeling as if my dead heart had started beating again. Swoosh— She yanked back the heavy blackout curtains. The harsh, pale midday sun pierced through the glass, shining mercilessly into the room. My mother instinctively squinted, raising a hand to block the glare. Once her eyes adjusted to the light, her gaze fell onto the corner of the balcony. The next second. She froze completely. Her mouth opened wide, but no sound came out. Her pupils contracted violently, reflecting the horrifying scene before her. In the corner of the balcony. There was a tiny figure, curled up into a tight ball. Covered entirely in a thick layer of snow. Layers upon layers of heavy-duty duct tape were wrapped tightly around the lower half of my face, digging deeply into the flesh. Because of the extreme cold, the edges of the tape had completely fused with the skin. The eyes, left exposed above the tape… They were bulging, completely bloodshot, staring rigidly toward the living room. Dry, frozen tears clung to the corners of the eyes. The living room was dead silent. The only sound was the clatter of Annie’s building blocks collapsing. “Mom, why aren’t you moving?” “Is Mia still pretending to sleep?” Annie’s innocent yet venomous voice shattered the silence. “AHHHHHH—!!!” A shrill, blood-curdling scream that sounded entirely inhuman nearly blew the roof off the apartment. My mother’s legs gave out, and she collapsed entirely in front of the sliding door. “Mia… Mia, don’t scare Mommy…” “Stop pretending… Mommy is letting you in now… please, just move…” Babbling incoherently, sobbing and screaming, she crawled across the floor on her hands and knees. Like a madwoman, she clawed at the duct tape that had sealed away my breath. A sickening, tearing sound echoed through the air. Because the tape and the skin had completely frozen together, ripping it off revealed lips that were a horrifying, bruised purple. The mouth was stuffed full of pink ice crystals—frozen blood and phlegm. Seeing this, my mother’s stomach violently heaved, but she couldn’t make a sound. She suffered a total, absolute mental collapse. “How did this happen… how did this happen…” “I just wanted you to be quiet… I didn’t want you to die!” Right at that moment, the front door opened. My father had rushed home during his lunch break, feeling uneasy. The moment he walked in, he saw my mother collapsed in the snow on the balcony, and the horrifying corpse curled up in the corner. “Carol! What are you doing?!” He rushed over and shoved my mother aside. When he got a clear look, his knees buckled, and he dropped into the snow. “Mia? Mia?” With trembling hands, he checked under my nose for breath, then felt for a pulse at my neck. No breath. No pulse. “Dead… she’s really dead…” My father’s face turned as pale as paper. His lips trembled, his eyes vacant. In the living room, Annie realized something was wrong. She climbed up from the rug, still clutching a Lego piece. Seeing the horrific scene on the balcony, she didn’t burst into terrified tears like a normal child would. Instead, she frowned, a look of utter disgust crossing her face. “Ugh, that is so gross.” “Mom, why are you screaming so loud?! It’s so annoying! My head is starting to hurt again!” “Just throw her out! It’s not like she’s talking anyway.” In that moment, her voice echoing through the deathly silent apartment sounded exceptionally grating. My father snapped his head around, staring fiercely at the older daughter he had always treated like a princess. In his eyes, there was only unfamiliarity and sheer horror. “SHUT UP! THAT IS YOUR SISTER!” He roared. His voice was frighteningly hoarse. Annie jumped, startled. She froze for a second, then burst into dramatic, aggrieved tears. “You yelled at me! You yelled at me for her!” “I’m telling Grandma! You’re all bullying me!” My father ignored her tantrum. He stripped off his own winter coat and tried to wrap it around my tiny, stiff corpse. But the body was frozen solid in a fetal position. It was impossible to straighten the limbs. He had no choice but to scoop me up, snow and all, holding me tight against his chest. “To the hospital… yes, the hospital…” “They can still save her… they have to be able to save her…” Muttering like a man possessed, he stumbled out the door holding my body. My mother remained paralyzed on the floor, staring blankly at the dark red bloodstain left on the tiles, her eyes entirely devoid of focus.

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When I was ten, my parents’ business went bankrupt, and they were driven to jump off a building to their deaths. Faced with the coercion of creditors, my sister, who had become a mistress, returned. She brought bodyguards, sold my parents’ house, paid off the debt, and forced me into her car. “From today on, you’re with me. Mom and Dad still owe $800,000. You’ll pay it back when you grow up and make money.” I glared at her viciously: “Why did you come back! Mom and Dad died because of you. Why wasn’t it you who died!” 1 She remained silent. I had known since I was little that I had an older sister. She left home at 18, saying the family was too poor and couldn’t give her the life she wanted, so she ran off with a rich man and became his mistress. At school, classmates would always ask me: “Chloe, is your sister really a mistress? How shameless!” “Your sister gave herself up. All the money your family has must be from her, right?” “My mom said your sister is shameless and won’t let me play with you!” I had always hated her. I hated her for being shameless and for dragging me down. I also hated her because if it weren’t for her, my parents wouldn’t have wanted to start a business, bought a storefront, and ended up bankrupt due to poor management. Now she was back, selling the only memory Mom and Dad left behind. After I cursed at her, she looked at me and sneered, “I do want to die, but I just can’t!” “Little girl, you want me dead, but I refuse to die! No one else wants you but me. You better behave, or I’ll throw you back!” Hearing this, the ten-year-old me turned pale with fright. Although I hated her, I also knew I had no choice. Those relatives of ours all thought Mom and Dad left me money. They couldn’t even say two words before telling me to go to the bank. They didn’t really care about me, but this sister I had never met wasn’t necessarily any better. But I had no choice; she was my guardian. I took the train with her to an unfamiliar city, eventually arriving at an apartment. This was her home. It was kept very clean, and there were men’s clothes and shoes around. My room was on the second floor. It was small, but it was already very nice. “You can move around freely normally, but if my boyfriend comes over, you have to stay in your room. Don’t come out and cause trouble for me!” I lowered my head and said nothing. My sister’s boyfriend was a middle-aged man wearing glasses. When he saw me, he smiled slightly: “So this is Chloe!” I nodded, holding my water cup, and quickly went upstairs to close my door. I could tell from his smile that he was very distant. Just like those teachers at my old school. They would also nod and smile when they saw me, but the smile never reached their eyes. It was as if I was just an insignificant plaything! In my mother’s words: “Some people look down on everyone else. They’re not people we can associate with.” He was someone we couldn’t associate with. My sister told me to call him Mr. Smith. He ran a trading company locally and drove luxury cars. When Mr. Smith came, he would bring gifts for my sister and snacks for me. But he only stayed for a few hours and never stayed overnight. And I was arranged to go to a nearby elementary school. Here, no one knew my sister was a mistress, but I was still a little afraid—afraid my sister would be discovered, afraid I would be mocked. This kind of life continued for two years. I started middle school. I had nowhere to go during the summer vacation, so my sister took me to her company. Only then did I learn she worked at Mr. Smith’s company. On my first day there, I was told that the plump woman in the company was Mr. Smith’s wife. In that instant, I felt my heart turn to ice. I hated my sister. Why did she bring me here? Every time I ran into the boss’s wife, my heart would be in my throat, terrified she would curse me for being raised by a mistress. The boss’s wife, Sarah, would always call out to me when she saw me: “Little girl, come here and help me hold this!” She had me carry her bags and offered me money, which I didn’t dare to take. I was afraid she would take it back later, and even more afraid she would curse me for having no shame. Seeing that I wouldn’t take the money, Sarah just patted my head. At the end of the summer, she bought me two outfits and even drove me to school when it started. When I found out the school had boarding, I immediately applied. 2 My sister was a little unhappy: “It’s not like you can’t live at home. Why board?” “It’s convenient for studying. You work overtime and don’t come back on time every day. I’ll go hungry.” This explanation silenced her, and she finally agreed. It was just that Mr. Smith was a little unhappy, “Why board for no reason! Come back and play during the holidays!” Before his hairy hand could land on my head, Sarah slapped it away. Afraid they would start arguing, I quickly hugged my backpack and ran inside. After that, I went back once a week. My sister’s apartment still kept a room for me. But gradually, more and more things started appearing in the room. I didn’t think much of it. After all, I only slept there one night and then went back. It was originally her house anyway. Until a new transfer student came to our class. She was from my old hometown. Seeing her, I was terrified, but she still grabbed me. “Chloe, it really is you! You came here with your sister?” “Is your sister still someone’s mistress?” After she said that, she deliberately covered her mouth, feigning shock, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to! I really forgot!” The other students all looked over. In that instant, I felt all the blood rush to my head. And the instigator, Mia, was still acting fearlessly, “Oh my, Chloe, don’t look at me like that, I’m really scared!” The students gathered around, “Mia, is what you said true? Her sister really is a mistress?” “Oh my god, you can’t even tell. No wonder she was dropped off in a luxury car on the first day of school!” “The sister of a mistress will probably be a mistress too!” I clenched my fists. Mia continued: “Don’t say anymore, or she’ll transfer schools again!” “After all, mistresses aren’t exactly good people!” I looked up at her: “What about you? Why did you transfer? You were caught stealing in elementary school and the principal made you write a self-criticism in front of the whole school. Now you transfer here, is it because you couldn’t stay at your old school anymore?!” Mia’s face changed instantly, “Chloe, what’s so great about you? With a sister like yours, she’s stolen more than one! You, you might even be your sister’s kid!” “What nonsense are you talking about!” “Everyone says you’re the little! Bastard! Your sister gave birth to!” As soon as she finished speaking, I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I went up and slapped her, grabbed her hair, and beat her like my life depended on it! In the end, it was the teacher who separated us. “Chloe! Mia, what are you doing!” “Teacher, she started it!” Mia cried like a baby. I wiped the blood off my face and said coldly, “Teacher, she has a filthy mouth!” I stared fiercely at Mia. She forgot to cry, and eventually, we inevitably had to call our parents. Mia’s mom came and looked at me with disdain, “Chloe! You little bastard, how dare you hit my daughter!” “Mom, she hit me so hard!” Mia screamed: “Mom, beat her to death! Beat her to death!” Instead of getting angry, I laughed, “You also know I don’t have a mom, just an older sister, and she’s a mistress, so rounding up, I have nothing!” Mia froze for a moment. Her mom’s face turned blue and white, and finally she said angrily: “No matter what, you must apologize!” My sister didn’t come; Sarah did. After hearing what happened, Sarah pointed at Mia: “If anyone apologizes, it’s you first! Who told you to have such a filthy mouth! Calling my little sister a bastard born to a mistress, right!” “I’m calling the police right now to sue you for slander! Bring out whatever evidence you have! If you can’t, I’ll sue you to death!” 3 Mia’s face was as ugly as could be. In the end, she was forced to apologize. Mia’s mom’s face turned green. She didn’t expect me to have backup here. She glared at me hatefully, pinched Mia’s arm hard, and called her useless! I didn’t say anything, just went back to class. Sarah patted my shoulder, “Don’t overthink it. Your sister, she has it hard, but she’s definitely not a bad person.” I didn’t speak. Back in class, the students looked at me differently, but I didn’t care. When Mia came back, she glared at me fiercely. I glared back and said loudly: “Mia, from now on, if I hear any rumors in this class, I will call the police and have you arrested for spreading rumors!” Mia lay on her desk and cried. I felt so vindicated. Yeah, they all say my sister is a mistress. Where’s the evidence? As long as there’s no evidence, who dares to talk nonsense? My ruthlessness, combined with Mia’s crying, put the students at ease. On the contrary, Mia was labeled a thief and could never shake it off. When I went home for the weekend, my sister was also there. I noticed there were more baby clothes and a cradle in the house, and my sister’s belly was getting big. Seeing me, she waved, “Come here and look at your little nephew!” I clenched my fists. The secret I had guarded for two years at school was punctured by her own hands. And I had even talked tough to Mia, telling her to produce evidence if she said my sister was a mistress. But now, seeing my sister with a big belly, I felt like a joke. My legs felt like lead. I finally managed to drag myself over to her and looked at her. “Why are you a mistress? Why do you have to have an illegitimate child?” As soon as I asked the question, my sister’s mouth trembled, and she didn’t say a word for a long time. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I turned and ran out. My sister shouted from behind: “Chloe! Come back here!” I roared like a madwoman: “I’m never coming back! I don’t have a sister like you!” I missed Mom and Dad. When they were around, they always told me how good my sister’s grades were, and then said they were useless and couldn’t satisfy her, so they forced her to run away. But why did she come back? It would have been fine if she just came back, but she had to bring me here to witness her degradation and sin. I felt truly disgusted! I went to school and never went back. My sister found out through my homeroom teacher that I had gone back to school. She didn’t say anything, just asked her to transfer my living expenses. I originally wanted to refuse stubbornly, but I couldn’t. Until the end of the semester, I stood at the school gate with my luggage, and it was Sarah who came to pick me up again. She pulled me into the car, hesitating to speak several times. I could tell this wasn’t the way home. Calculating the time, my sister should be due soon. She sighed: “Chloe, let me take you to see your sister!” Hearing this, I looked up at her and finally asked the question: “You don’t hate her? She destroyed your family, she’s a mistress.” Sarah patted me, “Silly child, she’s not a mistress at all. Your sister is the most sensible child. She’s not a mistress. You’ll know when you see her.” I didn’t want to see her, but Sarah drove me straight to the hospital. My heart sank! Did my sister have the baby? But Mr. Smith and Sarah were husband and wife. I couldn’t figure out their relationship. When I followed Sarah into the hospital room, I found my sister lying on the bed, her belly swollen, her face sallow. Seeing this, my mind buzzed! It seemed like I understood everything. 4 “Sarah, why did you bring her here?” When my sister saw me, she tried hard to sit up. Sarah quickly went over and pressed her down, “Let you sisters see each other, lest you regret it!” Looking at my sister like this, how could I not understand? She had a terminal illness! It turned out the whole having a baby thing was a lie. There was someone back in our hometown who was like this, and in the end, they suffocated to death. Mom said it was uremia, incurable. Seeing her like this now, she had lost so much weight in just a few months. I walked over slowly. My sister touched my hand, “Haven’t seen you in a few months, you’ve lost weight.” “Chloe, I might not make it to that time.” Sarah interrupted her: “What nonsense are you talking about? You’re still young. Don’t worry about the money for your treatment!” My head was buzzing. I didn’t expect her to be so sick. I opened my mouth but couldn’t say anything for a long time. It was Sarah who nudged me: “Are you mute? Your sister is this sick and wouldn’t let me tell you. Now that you’re here, if you have anything to say, say it quickly!” I finally managed to squeeze out a sentence: “Where’s your baby?” As soon as I spoke, Sarah’s eyes reddened, while my sister smiled: “Already born, in the incubator. Sarah will take you to see him later.” So she really did have a baby, and gave birth to it. This confused me a bit. I stood blankly by her side and asked another question, “Are you going to die?” Since Mom and Dad passed away, she was my only relative. Although I didn’t like her, the thought of her leaving me, leaving me all alone in this world, still made me worried. Hearing me say this, she laughed: “No, but even if I die, it doesn’t matter. I’ve already found a way out for you.” “I don’t want it!” I shook off her hand. “You never asked me if I was willing. When Mom and Dad left, you brought me here without asking me. Now you’re going to die, and you say you’ve thought of a way out for me, but you still haven’t asked me. So I’m not willing.” “Right, you’re not willing.” My sister’s voice grew dark. “It was my oversight. You are a living person, how could you not have your own thoughts? But Chloe, you’re still young.” “I understand everything. You don’t have to lie to me. You became someone’s mistress, had his child, and now you’re sick, so Sarah has to be responsible for you!” “You child!” Sarah stood there, somewhat surprised. “You didn’t tell her?” My sister shook her head. “I didn’t have time, and I didn’t know where to start.” Sarah sighed: “Talk to her nicely. I’m going to see the baby.” After she left, my sister tried to persuade me: “Sarah and the others are good people. I gave birth to this child willingly, and I will give it to them later. I’ve already discussed it with Sarah, she will support your education.” “Chloe, you have to understand one thing. No matter what happens in the end, even when you are driven into a corner, as long as you are alive, there is hope. As long as you are alive, you can start over.” “My life hasn’t been in vain. I went out to work hard and wanted to save up, but I didn’t expect that the money I originally wanted to save for your education would all be spent on this illness.” “But I don’t regret it, because I went out and saw the world.” Hearing her say this, I didn’t know what to say. I just felt a lump in my throat, and my voice was hoarse. She patted my hand: “Go see your little nephew, he’s very good-looking!” I felt a sense of relief and quickly rushed out.

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On my first day of kindergarten, my mother pulled out a small, green booklet. “Hazel, from now on, only Mommy will be picking you up after school.” I instantly understood what that meant. Crying, I ran forward and hugged my father, who was packing his bags. “Daddy! I don’t want you and Mommy to get a divorce!” “I want to ride on Daddy’s shoulders! I want to go to the amusement park with both of you!” But no matter how much I begged, the father who usually spoiled me rotten just yanked me away with a dark expression and walked straight out the door. My classmates constantly mocked me for being a fatherless child. They threw my backpack in the trash and stuffed my lunchbox full of disgusting bugs. Even the teachers repeatedly punished me, making me stand in the back of the classroom because my test papers were missing a father’s signature. Through all those hardships, I finally managed to get into my dream university. When I excitedly returned home holding my acceptance letter, I heard my mother talking on the phone: “Arthur, you can move back in over the next couple of days. That way, I won’t have to sneak around behind Hazel’s back to see you every day.” “Her grades are outstanding. Our test can finally come to an end.” “You used to spoil her so much, I was worried she’d turn out wrong. It seems that taking away one parent’s love really did make her much more self-reliant and well-behaved!” Watching my mother slip her marriage certificate back into her wallet, I finally understood. The so-called “divorce” was nothing but a fraudulent scheme they deliberately orchestrated to test if I could become independent. All those years of suffering through slander, abuse, and bullying—it was all a massive joke. Since they loved fake divorces so much, I decided to give them a real one. Let me help you finish what you started! 1 Seeing me walk in, my mother hurriedly hung up the phone. “Hazel, you’re back? Come here, Mom has some great news for you.” Looking at the fake smile plastered on her face, and recalling the conversation she just had with my father, a wave of intense nausea washed over me. “Hazel, Mom has decided to get back together with Dad.” “Haven’t you always wished for Dad to come back and be with you? He’s coming home in a couple of days, and our family will never be separated again.” Having my father come home had indeed been my deepest wish since childhood. On my first day of kindergarten, just because I refused to eat a single bite of vegetables during dinner, my father suddenly threw down his chopsticks, stood up, and started packing his bags. “Hazel Sterling! When are you going to fix this terrible habit of being a picky eater?!” “How many times have I told you, your father hates picky eaters! Are you only going to be satisfied when we separate?!” My mother, who was usually so gentle, immediately pulled back the hand that was about to serve me a piece of meat and roared at me. I was so terrified I didn’t dare move a muscle, staring blankly as my father packed his luggage with a furious scowl. My mother stood to the side with her arms crossed, looking thoroughly disappointed in me. That was the first time I had ever seen such terrifying expressions on my parents’ faces. It felt like I had committed a heinous crime to warrant such coldness. But I was just full; I wasn’t being picky. It wasn’t until my mother pulled out that small, green booklet—the official divorce certificate—that I finally understood. My parents were divorced. Actually, there had been warning signs before this. Before that day, if I did even the slightest thing that displeased them—maybe waking up a minute late, or not brushing my teeth long enough—they would throw their red marriage certificate on the floor, stomp on it repeatedly, and scream at the top of their lungs that they were going to turn the red booklet into a green one. They didn’t hit me or curse at me, but they would cry and threaten me, filling me with immense fear and guilt. “Hazel, the moment the booklet in Mom’s hand turns green, you’ll become an unwanted child!” “If you don’t want everyone to know that you destroyed this family, then you better behave and make things easy for us!” Yet, after every screaming fit, they would instantly revert to their usual calm, gentle selves. They would even hug me tightly and apologize, looking heartbroken. Over time, in order to make them completely worry-free, I learned to be incredibly harsh on myself from a very young age. I tried with all my might to mold myself into the perfect child they desired. Because only then would my mother take me to buy the cupcakes I liked. Only then would my father let me ride on his shoulders at the park. And only then would this family remain whole. But all my efforts were ultimately destroyed over a single bite of vegetables. I cried until I couldn’t breathe, clinging desperately to my father’s leg, apologizing over and over again. But he just yanked me away with a look of absolute disgust. My mother also looked impatient. She covered her ears and snapped: “What are you crying for?! It’s not like we’re dead! You still have Mom to live with.” But things were far from as simple as they made it sound. From the moment my father walked out that door with his luggage, I never had another day of peace. Overnight, everyone found out about my parents’ divorce. But instead of anyone showing me sympathy, they all came to scold and mock me. “You’re the one who drove your dad away, aren’t you? What a jinx!” “Hazel is an unwanted orphan! Let’s not play with her!” The ignorant malice of children is the most immeasurable and the most hurtful. They threw my backpack in the trash and deliberately filled my lunchbox with disgusting bugs to terrify me. Some classmates even pushed me down the stairs when I wasn’t looking. And it was all just because my family was broken. In their eyes, that made me a freak. If the children were that cruel, the disdainful looks from the adults left me even more helpless. The teachers automatically categorized me as an unruly, bad kid and constantly made things difficult for me. “Why doesn’t this test paper have signatures from both parents? Go stand in the back of the classroom!” “Your reading voice wasn’t loud enough this morning. You’re staying after school to read for an extra hour!” I tried to defend myself several times, but no one wanted to listen to me. I wanted to go home and pour out all these grievances to my mother, but looking at our desolate home and my mother’s constant sighing, I couldn’t bring myself to say a word. I just told myself to endure it, to work a little harder. Maybe if I did, my father’s heart would soften, and he would come home. I turned my grief and anger into motivation. Finally, on the day I got accepted into my dream university, my father decided to return. But the happiness I had anticipated didn’t arrive. Instead, I felt an overwhelming sense of disgust. I had been treated as a joke and mocked for so many years. And from the very beginning, it was all just a fraudulent scheme targeting me. 2 “Why aren’t you saying anything, Hazel? Are you too happy for words?” Seeing me standing frozen in the doorway, my mother called out again. “Your dad is very satisfied that you got into Yale. He’s decided to forgive you.” I let out a cold laugh. Suddenly, I didn’t want to play the role of the perfect, obedient child anymore. “It took him over a decade to forgive me. Dad sure holds a grudge.” “So his only standard for measuring whether a child is good or bad is based purely on their academic performance?” “If I hadn’t gotten into Yale, and only got into an ordinary state college instead, was he planning to continue abandoning this family?” “Hazel Sterling! Watch your tone!” Hearing this, my mother instantly exploded. She grabbed the water glass next to her and hurled it at me. “You think reading a few books makes you special? Now you’re talking back to adults, huh?” “Yes, you’re absolutely right! If you had scored even one point less, your father wouldn’t have forgiven you so easily!” The water splashed all over me, and the sharp shards of the shattered glass ricocheted off the floor, cutting my ankle. I flinched in pain, but my mother just breathed heavily, looking away and snapping: “Alright, hurry up and change your clothes. We’re going to a restaurant to have dinner with your dad.” “He specifically booked a private room to celebrate you getting into a top university. Don’t embarrass him.” I wiped the water off myself and applied ointment to the cut on my ankle. When I looked up again, I was back to being the obedient daughter they expected. I nodded meaningfully and turned to go into my room. When we arrived at the restaurant, the man was already waiting in the private room. This was the first time we had formally met since my father left home. The man in front of me hadn’t changed much. In fact, he looked even more vibrant, and his clothes were much more refined. It seemed that without me—his “burden”—he had indeed lived a very comfortable life all these years. “Hazel is here! Dad hasn’t seen you in years.” “Look how tall you’ve gotten. You’re a young woman now!” “Oh my, what happened to your ankle? Are you hurt?” My mother smoothed it over with a laugh. “When this silly girl heard she was coming to see you, she was so excited she couldn’t walk straight and tripped.” “What about you? You see your daughter and completely forget about your wife?” My father immediately smiled and wrapped his arm around my mother’s waist. Watching the two of them sitting across from me, acting so sickeningly sweet and inseparable. My stomach churned violently, and I nearly threw up. But my father completely failed to notice my discomfort. He eagerly pulled out a chair for me and kept piling food onto my plate. Seeing me sitting stiffly in the chair without touching anything, he finally asked in confusion: “Why the long face? Aren’t you happy to see Dad?” Seeing me remain silent, my mother rolled her eyes and slapped me hard on the back. “This girl has an incredibly withdrawn personality. She acts half-dead at home too, never smiles.” “She acts like she’s being abused. She doesn’t know how good she has it!” They kept nagging, shifting into lecture mode again. I slowly exhaled, slapped my chopsticks down on the table, and abruptly stood up. “I have a withdrawn personality? I don’t know how good I have it?” “Ask yourselves honestly, do you two even have the right to say that?” “All these years, have you ever genuinely cared about me?” Since I was little, whenever I was slandered for being fatherless, my mother would stand by and watch with cold indifference. Even after returning home, she would join the outsiders in verbally abusing me. “It’s all your fault! That’s why your father divorced me!” “Now that I’m dragging a burden like you around, no one even wants to look at me for remarriage!” “Still crying? You have no right to cry!” “If you want people to respect you, then study hard!” I was bullied outside and battered at home. And my father, after leaving home, never contacted me again. He ignored my text messages and wouldn’t answer my calls. Even if we accidentally crossed paths on the street, he would pretend not to know me and quickly walk away. The suppressed grievances had piled higher and higher, yet I never had the chance to release them. The moment I talked back, my mother immediately raised her hand and slapped me across the face. “You kept it together for all these years, but you finally couldn’t hide that rotten temper of yours, could you?” “We used a hands-off parenting style! It was to toughen you up, to make you truly independent! Why can’t you understand our good intentions?!” My father sat to the side and let out a helpless sigh. I rubbed my stinging cheek and gave up making pointless arguments. When I pulled a document out of my bag, my father’s expression instantly froze. He glared at me in sheer disbelief. 3 “Child Support Payment… Supplemental Agreement?” “Hazel, what are you doing?” I cleared my throat and said expressionlessly: “According to the law, if the non-custodial parent fails to make regular child support payments after a divorce, the child has the right to demand the arrears.” “Dad, all these years, I have never received a single transfer from you in my bank account.” My father immediately panicked. He stiffened his neck and roared: “I transferred that money to your mother’s account!” I turned to look at the woman beside me, who was slowly lowering her head. “Mom, did you ever receive Dad’s transfers?” All these years, my mother and I had lived frugally, scraping by in absolute squalor. She used to be a full-time housewife. After my father left, she worked odd jobs here and there, her income highly unstable. We moved into a smaller, run-down, subdivided apartment. When our clothes tore, we patched them and kept wearing them. We only bought groceries late at night when the wilted produce went on clearance. Our quality of life plummeted, and the child support we were supposed to receive every month was nowhere to be seen. Seeing my mother stay silent, I smiled. “Or is it that you actually snuck over to Dad’s place to eat and sleep every single day, keeping me completely in the dark?” “You guys lived in a big house while leaving me in a cramped, drafty, subdivided room.” “While you were eating delicacies, I was meticulously calculating how to save pennies just to barely fill my stomach.” I was going to continue, but my father suddenly slammed his hand on the table and barked: “What kind of nonsense are you spouting, girl?!” “Your mother and I divorced a long time ago. Why would she come looking for me?” “Furthermore, when we got divorced, we agreed that I wouldn’t need to pay your child support!” I nodded as if I understood, playing along with his words: “If that’s the case, then bring out that green divorce certificate and let me see it again.” “Let me confirm that you two actually did get divorced back then.” “Hazel!” My mother’s voice cracked. She was clearly panicking. Back then, they dared to flash that green booklet in front of me because I was too young to realize the certificate was a fake prop. If she brought it out now, she would immediately be exposed. My mother subtly covered her purse, trying to sound calm: “Your father and I have remarried now. The divorce certificate was taken back by the civil affairs bureau ages ago.” “Honestly, why do you have to bring this up on such a happy occasion?” I refused to back down: “Then bring out the remarriage certificate and let me see it.” “That shouldn’t be hard, right?” The two people across from me were instantly left speechless, their faces turning uglier by the second. “What’s wrong? Can’t produce it?” “Or is it that you never actually got divorced in the first place?” “And it was just a fraudulent scheme you orchestrated to ‘test’ me?” I let out a sigh. When I spoke again, my voice carried a hint of a sob. “You kept saying it was all for my own good, to make me more independent.” “But I was so young back then, and you couldn’t even guarantee I was fed and warm!” “When I was being bullied, you stood by and watched with total indifference as if it had nothing to do with you!” “Dad, Mom, you truly are monsters.” “Hazel! Shut the hell up!” My father was so furious the veins on his temples were throbbing. He kicked his chair back and glared at my mother in a frantic rage. “Carol! Look at the monstrosity you raised!” “Her grades might be up to standard, but she hasn’t learned a damn thing about how to be a decent human being!” “How dare she speak to her parents like this? All that education went straight to the dogs!” My mother’s face cycled between red and white. She opened her mouth several times but didn’t dare say anything. Finally, she probed cautiously: “Hazel, when you came home this morning, you heard me on the phone, didn’t you?” I was watching my father’s furious meltdown with great interest and didn’t bother acknowledging what she said. My father suddenly roared: “So what if she heard?!” “Hazel, your mother and I faked the divorce. So what?!” “We were forced to do it so you could grow up better!” Emboldened by my father, my mother joined in, trying to argue back. “Your dad is right!” “All the hardships you suffered when you were little were to forge your willpower!” “If we had pampered you from childhood, I guarantee you never would have gotten into Yale!” “Not being grateful is bad enough, but to actually slander your parents’ good intentions… it’s just a sin…” Listening to them desperately trying to assign some noble value to their ignorant, selfish actions, I couldn’t help but find it hilarious. Seeing that I wasn’t giving them any reaction, the man quickly reached his breaking point—exactly as I had anticipated—and finally said the words. “Carol, I can’t keep this ungrateful wretch anymore!” “We’re getting a divorce. You keep the kid. This time, it’s non-negotiable!”

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My period cramps were so bad I couldn’t get out of bed, so I asked my boyfriend to run to the store for some tampons. He turned around and posted a photo of me curled up in pain on his Instagram Story, meant for his “Close Friends” list. “Bro, who understands this? GF makes me buy her tampons, I ask her to Venmo me the $10 back, and I’m the bad guy?” The replies to his story were ruthless. “She acting up again? I got your back, bro! Going Dutch is the only way. Don’t let these females walk all over you!” “Why should you pay for her bleeding? She’s just using you for a free ride!” Keeping our relationship “50/50” was his idea—to keep things “pure,” he claimed. For the past year we’d been dating, everything from expensive dinners to a single bottle of water was split down to the exact decimal point on Venmo. Except, it was always on his terms. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time he’d posted something like this. He just forgot to hide it from me this time. Looking at those disgusting comments, a lump formed in my throat. So, we’re strictly going Dutch, huh? Fine. Two can play that game. 1 My fingers trembled as I refreshed his page, trying to convince myself that maybe Brandon was just trolling. But the more I scrolled through the replies, the colder my heart got. Line by line, it was nothing but a mockery of me. “Bro is speaking facts! 50/50 or nothing!” “I’d ask for the money back too. Why should guys be walking ATMs?” “She’s seriously crying over $10? And she made you play delivery boy?” I clicked his profile picture again and again. Three times. Five times. There was no mistake. It was Brandon, the man I’d been with for a year. My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. Over a ten-dollar box of tampons, I had become a “gold digger” in the eyes of his frat-bro friends. And Brandon? He was the poor, victimized boyfriend. Refusing to let it go, I logged into my burner account. Since it wasn’t blocked from his main feed, I could see everything. A sickeningly detailed “Dating Ledger” was plastered all over his highlights. Every post felt like a slap in the face. There was a post from the day I got my bonus and treated him to a $300-a-head steakhouse. He posted a picture of the Starbucks coffee he bought me the next day with the caption: “Equality in relationships. The perfect 50/50.” There was my birthday, when he took me to the pier to watch the fireworks. He took gorgeous photos of me, raking in comments about how “romantic” he was. He conveniently left out that the limited-edition sneakers I bought him that morning cost $800. Everything I gave Brandon was carefully chosen and expensive. What he gave me was always “sentimental” garbage—a cheap keychain from a carnival game, or a buy-one-get-one-free phone case from Temu. Just yesterday, he used a coupon to get a $3 pack of paper towels for free, then Venmo requested me for $1.50. I had brushed it off, thinking he was just overly meticulous about finances. Now that I thought about it, whenever the first of the month rolled around to pay rent and utilities for our shared apartment, his banking app conveniently “crashed,” leaving me to quietly cover the whole thing. I’d never held it against him. I genuinely thought he was just a frugal guy saving for our future. Clutching my phone, a chill washed over me. I couldn’t tell if it was the period cramps or the sickening realization of the truth. One comment under his post made my blood run cold. “Brandon is taking the crown for the ‘Zero-Dollar Dating Challenge’ this year! That $5k prize pool is yours, man. You gotta treat the boys to drinks!” Brandon’s reply: “Don’t worry, once her cramps are gone, I’ll make her pay for dinner. I’ll treat her to a $10 Chipotle bowl later. Massive ROI on this one.” My stomach violently turned. I thought his strict 50/50 rule was about building an equal partnership. I didn’t realize I was just a row on his Excel spreadsheet. What I thought was a two-way street was just him treating me like a low-risk, high-yield stock. Money really is a mirror. It shows whether someone is afraid of not giving you enough, or afraid you’re asking for too much. Trembling, I opened our text thread and typed out: Let’s break up. But wait. Just breaking up? That was letting him off way too easy. My thumb hovered over the send button, then I slowly backspaced. Just as I deleted the last letter, the front door clicked open. Brandon strolled in, sipping a Coke, and tossed the box of tampons onto the coffee table. 2 “Babe, you still hurting? Let me make you some hot tea,” he said smoothly. “Oh, by the way, just Venmo me $15. Ten for the tampons, and I bought myself a Coke as a delivery fee. I won’t charge you a service tax though.” He chuckled at his own joke and turned toward the kitchen. Staring at his back, I felt a wave of dizziness. My cramps were always severe, and Brandon used to always jump up to make me tea. He even watched YouTube videos on acupressure to rub my lower back when it got really bad. “Women have it so hard,” he used to say. “Seeing you in pain makes me hurt too.” Back then, I thought I’d hit the jackpot. I thought I’d finally found a good one. I didn’t realize his “gentleness” was a cheap act funded entirely by my bank account. He handed me the mug, snapping me out of my thoughts. Suppressing the urge to throw the hot water in his face, I took it and forced a pale smile. “I feel a lot better. You know what? To thank you, let’s go out for a massive seafood lunch. My treat.” His eyes instantly lit up. He practically hopped over to the sofa, rubbing his hands together with a grin stretching ear to ear. “Seriously? That’s awesome. Hey… do you mind if I invite a couple of the guys? We haven’t hung out in a while. It’ll be fun, and we can all get crab!” I opened my mouth, then shut it, nodding sweetly. “Whatever you want! The more the merrier.” While he turned his back to call his frat brothers, I quickly texted my best friend, Harper. “Emergency. I’m staying at your place tonight. Pick me up after work.” Harper replied instantly: “Staying over? Trouble in paradise? Did Mr. Excel Spreadsheet finally snap?” “I’ll explain later. It’s worse than you think.” I curled up on the sofa, watching Brandon out of the corner of my eye. He was practically vibrating with excitement on the phone, no doubt calculating how much he could milk out of my wallet today. By noon, Brandon’s three “bros” from the comment section were waiting outside. They exchanged smirks the second they saw me. Brandon proudly threw an arm over my shoulder, puffing his chest out. “Alright boys, order whatever you want today! Don’t hold back. Right, babe?” I nodded, playing the role of the sweet, clueless girlfriend perfectly. “Exactly! Eat up! Don’t be shy.” We piled into my Porsche Macan and headed straight for the most expensive waterfront seafood spot in the city. The kind of place where the lobster is flown in daily and you don’t get out for less than $200 a person. As soon as I parked, my phone buzzed. A Venmo request from Brandon. “Hey babe,” he said, tapping his phone. “The IRS mileage rate is 67 cents a mile. We drove about 10 miles, so I just requested $6.70 for the gas. I don’t want to owe you anything!” The guys snickered in the backseat. “Brandon, you’re wild for that,” one of them said. “Hey, we keep it fair,” Brandon grinned. Once inside, the boys flocked to the fresh catches like vultures. King crab, premium oysters, massive lobsters… they pointed at the most expensive items on the ice. They even ordered imported sparkling water. 3 Brandon wasn’t done. He pointed at the top-shelf wine list. “Let’s get two bottles of the Cabernet! It’s a celebration, right?” He turned to me. “Babe, what do you want?” I waved my hand gently. “Oh, nothing for me. I can’t eat seafood, remember? You guys go ahead.” He was already looking back at the menu. “What? It’s too loud in here.” I just smiled and played hostess. Once we sat down, I poured Brandon’s water, handed him napkins, and played the doting girlfriend. “Babe, seafood is too heavy for you when you’re cramping. I ordered you a side of clam chowder, but I had them take the clams out,” he announced proudly. “Damn, Brandon, boyfriend of the year!” one of his friends cheered. Brandon soaked it up, completely losing himself in the praise. He started bragging about his “50/50 philosophy.” “It takes discipline, boys. Like on Chloe’s birthday. I took her to the pier, bought some sparklers, took some aesthetic photos. Boom. Way more meaningful than a Gucci bag, right?” “You gotta find a girl who gets it,” he continued, gesturing at me. “We split everything. Dinners, rent, down to the Uber rides. Strict 50/50.” He gave me a thumbs-up. I smiled back, looking like a woman blinded by love. “Wait, how do you split a pizza?” one guy asked, laughing. “Easy. Count the slices. Or just pay for your own toppings.” I kept smiling, though a storm was raging in my head. The sparklers for my birthday? I bought them. He said “I’m not the one holding them” and made me pay the $15. Our matching anniversary iPhones? I bought them. His gift to me was the plastic case they came in. Plates of steaming, garlic-buttered seafood began flooding the table. The guys dug in like they hadn’t eaten in weeks. I took a few sips of my potato soup, then stood up, grabbing my purse. “Where are you going, Chloe? The lobster just got here!” one of the guys called out with his mouth full. The table went quiet. Eight eyes snapped to me. “Just running to the restroom,” I said softly. Brandon rolled his eyes and waved his crab cracker at me. “Girls take forever in the bathroom. Let her go, let’s eat before it gets cold.” The guys laughed and immediately went back to tearing apart crab legs. Once they were stuffed, leaning back and groaning about food comas, Brandon finally realized I hadn’t come back. “Where the hell is she?” he muttered. He stood up, walked toward the restrooms, and called my name. Nothing. Annoyed, he reached onto the table to grab “my” phone to call me—and froze. 4 “Wait… this is my phone!” Brandon yelled. “I thought this was hers!” The three friends exchanged nervous glances. Brandon’s hands started shaking as he grabbed his phone and dialed my number, trying to sound calm. “Babe? Where are you? You’ve been in the bathroom forever. We’re waiting for you.” I slowly pushed open the private dining room door, stepping inside. I sneered internally, but my face remained perfectly blank. “It was stuffy in here. I went outside for some fresh air. What, did you think I was going to dine and dash?” Brandon’s face cycled from red to white. He awkwardly let go of my arm. “N-no, of course not. Just worried about you. Lots of weirdos outside.” Trying to ease the tension, he pointed at the destroyed table. “Babe, the lobster was incredible. What was your favorite? We should definitely come back.” I looked at the absolute carnage on the table. Empty shells, picked-clean claws, empty wine bottles. Then I pointed to my pristine, spotless plate. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t eat any of it. I’m allergic to shellfish.” Brandon blinked, processing this. Then he smacked his forehead with a forced, dramatic groan. “Oh my god, I completely forgot! I am so sorry, babe. Tell you what, I am cooking you dinner tonight to make up for it. My treat.” Looking at his exaggerated performance, I just felt exhausted. “It’s fine. I’m tired. Let’s pay the bill and go home.” I flagged down the waiter and asked for the check. Taking the leather folder, I pulled out my card. “Let’s see… I had the potato soup, which was $15. Plus the $5 seating fee. That’s $20.” I tapped my card on the machine, the screen flashing Approved. I slid the leather folder over to Brandon. “I paid for my half. Your turn.” Brandon’s smile instantly vanished. He stared at me like I was speaking a foreign language. He slowly looked down at the receipt. His eyes bugged out. His voice cracked into a high pitch. “One thousand, two hundred dollars?!” He practically jumped out of his chair, grabbing my arm again. “Wait, babe… you’re making me pay this?” Oh, sweetie. You’re breaking down over the appetizers? I have a whole main course planned for you.

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The day Ethan returned to the States with his fiancée, I was in the hospital waiting to die. Six years. He was still in his crisp white coat, as handsome and refined as ever. I was leaning on crutches, reduced to skin and bones. The moment we ran into each other in the hospital corridor, the hatred surging in his eyes almost swallowed me whole. “Lily, is this what you’ve become after betraying me for money? A ghost?” I tugged at the oversized sleeves of my sweater, hiding the dense cluster of needle marks and dark bruises on my arms. “Yeah. Seeing me like this… you feel avenged now, don’t you?” His eyes darkened, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his clipboard. He let out a cold sneer. “Not even close.” Saying that, he pulled out a bank card and held it out to me. “I’m getting married. A hundred grand. Come be my bridesmaid.” I looked at the card and smiled, shaking my head. “No thanks. I’m going to die soon anyway, what do I need money for?” With that, I turned around and hobbled away on my crutches. 1 I leaned heavily on my crutches, inching my way out of the hospital step by agonizing step. The physical pain all over my body couldn’t compare to the crushing ache in my chest. Six years. I had finally seen Ethan again, but I was dying. And he was getting married. I thought back to when we were eighteen, how he carefully held my hand and confessed his feelings. We promised to get married after graduation, to spend the rest of our lives by each other’s side. Back then, I truly thought we would walk hand-in-hand through this life. Rapid footsteps echoed behind me. Someone grabbed my arm, the grip so fierce it felt like my bones would shatter. “Lily, explain yourself. What do you mean you’re dying?” Ethan’s voice was frantic, trembling with panic as his grip tightened involuntarily. My crutch almost slipped from my hand. I winced in pain, forcing myself to stay upright. He suddenly seemed dazed, murmuring in a trance. “Lily… why are you so thin?” I used to have baby fat on my cheeks. Whenever I said I wanted to diet, he would buy my favorite cupcakes and wait outside my dorm. I’d eat them while complaining that he was the biggest stumbling block on my weight-loss journey. He would always wipe the frosting from the corner of my mouth with a helpless smile. “Why diet? You’re not fat at all. And no matter what you look like, I’ll always love you.” Now, I was thin, and the person who used to ruin my diets didn’t belong to me anymore. Just as I was about to speak, his fiancée, Sarah, caught up to us. She hooked her arm through Ethan’s, her voice gentle as she tried to “persuade” me: “Lily, you were just talking out of anger, right?” “You can’t just say things like that. No matter what, you shouldn’t joke about life and death.” Her words had hidden needles, masking a deeply concealed fear. Fear that I would expose the truth of what happened back then. Fear of losing Ethan. Looking at the sheer defensiveness on her face, I found it almost laughable. I looked at Ethan, my eyes exhausted but filled with lingering longing. “I meant it literally. Ethan, I have a terminal illness. There is no cure. I don’t have much time left.” As soon as the words left my mouth, tears pricked my eyes, but I ruthlessly forced them back. Ethan looked like he’d been struck by lightning. He stared at me dead on, searching my face for any trace of a lie. But all he could see was a sickly, deathly pallor. I was so emaciated I barely looked like myself. A stark contrast to the vibrant, lively girl he remembered from six years ago. Back then, I would scream my lungs out cheering for him by the basketball court. I would drag him out hiking and camping on the weekends. But now, inside this broken body, even standing for an extra minute took every ounce of strength I had. The shock hit him so hard that he instinctively let go of me. Losing my support so suddenly, I stumbled back two steps and nearly fell. Thankfully, I still had my crutches to brace myself, saving me from a far more humiliating fall in front of him. As soon as I steadied myself, I met Ethan’s bloodshot eyes. They were filled with absolute disbelief. And… a trace of agony. My heart contracted with a dense, stinging pain. Sarah’s face darkened completely. Taking a deep breath, she stepped in front of Ethan, blocking his view of me. When she spoke, her tone was that of someone offering a high-and-mighty handout. “Lily, would you mind telling us what kind of terminal illness it is?” “Don’t misunderstand, Ethan and I met quite a few top specialists while we were overseas. Maybe there’s still hope.” But her eyes practically screamed that she couldn’t wait for me to drop dead. “None of your business.” I looked past her, fixing my gaze on Ethan, who stood frozen solid behind her. Tugging at the corners of my mouth, I gave him a smile that looked worse than crying. “Dr. Evans, welcome back to the States. And… congratulations on the wedding.” With that, using every last bit of my strength, I turned around and hobbled painfully toward the exit. Not a single sound came from behind me. But I knew Ethan was standing frozen in place. Just like six years ago, when I heartlessly told him I didn’t love him anymore and told him to get out of my life, He had stood in that exact spot for a very, very long time. Stepping out of the hospital doors, the sunlight was blinding, but all I felt was a biting cold. The agonizing pain in my body was a constant reminder that Ethan and I were long over. It’s just… before I died, I wanted to look at him a few more times. 2 Ethan tracked down my rented apartment. As a doctor, pulling strings to look at my medical records wasn’t difficult for him. Looking around my cramped studio, cluttered with endless pill bottles, his face was livid. “Lily! What the hell is going on?! Where are your parents? Why are they letting you live in a dump like this?” His voice was filled with explosive rage, laced with an almost imperceptible trace of pity. I lay paralyzed on my small bed, completely drained of energy, and said nothing. He marched over to the bedside, his bloodshot eyes locking onto me. “Answer me! Where are they?” I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. My throat burned raw. “Dead.” Ethan froze in place, as if all the strength had been instantly siphoned from his body. “When?” I tried my best to keep my voice flat and normal. “The third year after you left. My dad passed away in an accident. Mom couldn’t handle the grief and followed him.” I lied. My dad died from this exact same disease. When he found out Ethan was going to medical school in Europe, he began refusing treatment. Holding my hand, he would repeat over and over: “It can’t be cured. Stop wasting the money.” “Ethan is out there all alone, it’s not easy for him… you need to wire some money to him.” I couldn’t change his mind, nor could I change my mother’s, who wept silently but stood by his decision. Later, under the guise of an alumni scholarship, I anonymously wired the majority of our family’s savings to Ethan. But I couldn’t say any of this. If I did, Ethan would piece the truth together and plunge into a bottomless abyss of guilt. Hearing my words, the color drained completely from Ethan’s face. He swayed, stumbling a step backward. I knew he was in immense pain right now. When Ethan was ten, his parents died in a car crash. My parents took him in and raised him exactly like their own son. We were supposed to be a perfectly happy family. The year he went abroad, he thought my parents were perfectly healthy and would be around for decades. But during the six years of his intentional distancing, everything had turned to ash. His hand trembled as he forcefully shoved a credit card into my palm, his voice incredibly hoarse. “Use this for your treatments. Lily, don’t make me feel like you’re using your death to manipulate my pity!” Looking at the card, my chest tightened so hard I felt like I was suffocating. Someone destined for the grave didn’t need him wasting so much money. I forced myself to push the card back, my tone calm. “Keep it, Dr. Evans. You know better than anyone. My disease has no cure.” I don’t know which word triggered him, but he violently swatted my hand away. The card clattered to the floor. “I don’t know anything! Get the damn treatment! Stop acting so high and mighty! Lily, let me tell you, even if you die, I will still hate you!” Silence fell over the room the second the words left his mouth. Hate me. He had every right to. But hearing him say it out loud tore me apart from the inside out. Just then, the door creaked open, and Sarah walked in. She saw the credit card on the floor and sensed the suffocating tension between me and Ethan. “Ethan, why are you arguing with Lily again?” “She’s a patient, her emotions are bound to be unstable. You have to be patient with her.” She gently looped her arm through Ethan’s, her voice soft and soothing. Ethan kept his jaw clenched, staring straight ahead in silence. Sarah didn’t seem angry. She knelt down, picked up the card, and placed it delicately on my nightstand. While Ethan wasn’t looking, she leaned in close to my ear. In a voice only the two of us could hear, she mocked: “See that? Even if he pities you, he still despises you.” “Lily, since you’re destined to die, don’t you dare let him know the truth and ruin his life with guilt before you go!” It felt like a pair of hands were ripping my heart in two. The pain made me dizzy. Ethan seemed to notice something was off, looking irritated as he pulled Sarah away. He looked at me, his eyes an unreadable mess of conflict and stubborn obsession, his tone commanding: “Pack your things. You’re going to the hospital!” “I’ve already contacted the specialists. You are getting treated!” It was as if he didn’t even know whether he wanted to save me, or just prove that I wasn’t as miserable as I looked. Or maybe, he just couldn’t accept that the woman he had hated for six years was about to die. Looking at his jaw, tight with anger and a bizarre, unnamable confusion, I suddenly remembered what Sarah had said to me six years ago, back when she was just his senior mentor in med school. “Lily, Ethan is a medical prodigy. He has a brilliant, limitless future ahead of him.” “Do you really have the heart to let your family’s genetic curse drag him down? To ruin his chance to study abroad?” “Your dad is already showing symptoms. You’re next! Do you have any idea how much the medical bills will cost?” “Are you going to make him spend the rest of his life as a walking zombie, working himself to death just to pay for you and your father?” My dad had just been diagnosed then. Sarah happened to be interning at that hospital, so she found out. And so, I chose to push him away with my own two hands. Now, he was back, carrying his hatred for me alongside his fiancée. And I really was going to die. 3 Ethan ruthlessly bypassed my protests, transferring me into a private VIP suite at his hospital. He pulled in a team of elite specialists for daily consultations. He came by every day, his brow furrowed as he poured over my lab results and debated treatment protocols with the experts. The boy I knew was gone; in his place was a man who commanded authority and exuded an oppressive presence. Sarah was always by his side, playing the role of the devoted fiancée to perfection. When Ethan was around, she’d ask if I was cold or hungry. But the second his back was turned, her eyes would shoot daggers at me. Occasionally, when we were left alone, she would lean in and hiss. “Why aren’t you dead yet?” “You being alive is such a goddamn inconvenience, Lily!” I would just close my eyes and pretend I was deaf. Sometimes, though, I noticed something strange. Ethan was polite to Sarah, but incredibly distant. They didn’t act like an engaged couple. There was no intimacy, barely even any casual conversation. Once, I saw Ethan subconsciously flinch and pull his arm away when she tried to hold his hand. My heart did a tiny flutter, but I violently crushed the hope before it could bloom. I was dying. What right did I have to hope for anything? One afternoon, Ethan stood by my bed in total silence for a long time. He stared at me, his gaze incredibly complex. I couldn’t read him at all. He looked like he desperately wanted to say something, but couldn’t get the words out. Finally, he let out a frustrated sigh, rubbed his temples, and asked Sarah to step outside. I could hear the muffled sounds of them arguing in the hallway. A few minutes later, the door was shoved open and slammed shut. Sarah walked in alone. Her gentle, caring mask had completely melted off, leaving nothing but twisted, ugly jealousy. She stormed over to my bed and grabbed the collar of my hospital gown. Her eyes were red, her breathing ragged. “Lily! You psychotic bitch! Why won’t you just let go?!” “Look at you! You look like a corpse, and you’re still trying to seduce him?” “He spends all day obsessing over your charts, running around for you, and now he just laid his cards on the table with me!” “I’m telling you right now, I am not letting you get away with this! Even if you die, I will make sure you die miserable!” She shook me so hard my vision went completely black. My chest felt like it was caving in; I had zero strength to fight back. I didn’t even have the mental capacity to process what she meant by Ethan “laying his cards on the table.” Having vented her rage, she let go of me, turned on her heel, and stormed out with a hateful glare. I collapsed heavily against the mattress, gasping for air as the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I thought that was the end of it. But I severely underestimated Sarah’s malice. The next morning, Ethan walked into my room. His face was a thundercloud. He was gripping a stack of printed papers so tightly his knuckles were white. Without saying a word, he hurled the papers violently onto my chest. I was stunned. Confused, I weakly picked them up. They were printed screenshots of text messages between me and someone named “Noah.” The texts showed Noah sending me massive cash transfers, and me playfully begging him for designer bags and jewelry. The tone was sickeningly sweet and intimate. There was even a message from me saying, “I’m waiting for you to come back.” Noah. That was my distant cousin. The “rich sugar daddy” I had recruited six years ago to help me fake my infidelity. Ethan had spent the last six years believing I dumped him to be Noah’s trophy girlfriend. These screenshots were blatant, meticulously crafted forgeries. Ethan stared at me with bloodshot eyes, his chest heaving. His eyes were a raging inferno of fury and betrayal. “Do you have anything to say for yourself, Lily?! You’re still messing around with him?!” “You’re lying here in a hospital bed, watching me run myself ragged trying to save your life, while you’re texting him?!” “Do you think I’m a complete fucking idiot?!” I opened my mouth to explain, to tell him it was a setup, but the overwhelming panic and physical weakness locked my vocal cords. I couldn’t make a sound. “I don’t want your excuses! Stop playing me!” He cut off my silent protests, grabbing my chart and the incredibly expensive treatment plan from the nightstand. Right in front of my eyes, he ripped them into tiny, jagged shreds. The confetti of torn paper rained down over my bed, scattering across my face and blanket. Each piece felt like a razor blade slicing through my skin. His voice cracked, filled with apocalyptic, destructive madness. “Then rot away with your disease!” “If you need anything from now on, call your sugar daddy to pay for it!” “I must have lost my damn mind to come back here and care about you!” With a brutal finality, he turned and walked out. He didn’t look back once. Sarah appeared right on cue, linking her arm through his, her voice a soft purr. “Don’t be mad, Ethan. A woman like her isn’t worth it.” “Let’s just go home.” Ethan ripped his arm out of her grasp and walked down the hall alone. Sarah looked humiliated for a split second. Before she followed him, she turned and shot a look into my room. It was a look of pure, concentrated venom. A look of victorious, mocking triumph. The heavy door clicked shut, severing my view of Ethan’s retreating back forever. I lay there staring at the torn pieces of paper covering my bed. I looked at the dark bruises and needle marks tracking up both my arms. Six years of unbearable suffering couldn’t compare to a fraction of the agony of hearing him tell me to “rot.” I suddenly felt incredibly tired. Reaching over to the IV port in my hand, I didn’t hesitate for a second. I pulled the needle out. I lay back down quietly and closed my eyes. Let it be. Ethan, I’ll give you exactly what you want. Me and my disease will rot away right here. 4 I don’t know how long I floated in the dark. Until a piercing, high-pitched alarm began drilling into my ears, accompanied by chaotic shouting and the frantic pounding of running feet. Then, I felt my body being violently shaken. I wanted to open my eyes, but my eyelids were made of lead. “Lily! Lily, wake up!” It was Ethan. His voice was destroyed—hoarse, terrified, and laced with an unbelievable, desperate anger. “Do you really want to die this badly?!” “Is it because of Noah?! He found out you were terminally ill and dumped you, so now you’re just throwing your life away?!” Noah again. That name was like a rusted padlock. It locked away Ethan’s rationality, and it locked away my final, fading shred of a will to live. I wanted to shake my head. I wanted to tell him I had never, ever loved anyone else. But using every last drop of strength in my soul, I only managed to flutter my eyes open a fraction of an inch. In my blurred vision, I saw his face. It was completely distorted by grief. A single tear slipped from the corner of my eye. It carried all my unsaid love and the endless, crushing injustice I had swallowed. Drawing the very last breath of air left in my lungs, I pushed the words out, syllable by agonizing syllable: “Ethan… I… never…” Never betrayed you. Never loved anyone else. Never stopped loving you. I didn’t have the strength to say the rest. The metallic taste of blood flooded my throat. Every heartbeat felt like hot coals in my chest. I couldn’t hold on anymore. The heart monitor let out a continuous, ear-splitting scream. The red numbers on the screen flatlined. “Patient is in V-fib! Prepare to defibrillate!” “Dr. Evans, your emotional state… get him out of here!” I felt someone forcefully dragging Ethan away from my bed, pulling him out of the room. That’s good, I thought. At least he won’t have to watch me die in such an ugly way. A team of doctors swarmed over me. The violent jolt of the defibrillator… the rush of epinephrine… But my senses were peeling away, layer by layer. My strength and body heat bled out into the sheets. The darkness rushed in from all sides, swallowing me whole. But for the first time, I felt incredibly light. It was nice. I could finally rest. … I don’t know how much time passed, but the room went terrifyingly quiet. The urgency, the shouting, the alarms—it all vanished. Replaced by a heavy, suffocating silence. The attending physician pulled down his surgical mask, looking at Ethan with a heavy shake of his head. “Dr. Evans, we… we did everything we could. Time of death has been called.” Death. The word hit Ethan with the force of a wrecking ball. He swayed dangerously. The door was shoved open. Ethan stood in the doorway like a statue drained of its soul. His face was ash-gray, his eyes totally hollow. He moved step by excruciating step toward the bed. Every inch seemed to take a superhuman effort. Looking down at the emaciated, silent shell on the bed, his entire body began to violently tremble. He reached out. His fingertips, devoid of any warmth, gently brushed against Lily’s equally ice-cold cheek. Suddenly, his eyes snagged on something resting near her pillow. A worn journal. It must have slipped out from under her pillow during the violent resuscitation efforts. It was the diary that held six years of her longing, her agony, her despair, and her untold sacrifices. With shaking hands, Ethan picked it up. He stared at the cover, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow hyperventilation.

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The owner of the corner store at the entrance of my neighborhood has treated me like a sucker for years. For $28.60 worth of snacks, she’d ask for $29.00, calling it “rounding up.” She rounded up for ten years. Even when I clearly had coins on me, she’d pretend not to hear and only accept whole bills. I didn’t say a word, silently acting as her “ATM” for four years. Until today, when our conglomerate’s Data Analysis Department was hiring a new Director, and a woman with a glowing resume walked in. When I saw the familiar phone number in her emergency contact section, I smiled. I shut off the projector displaying her proud big-data model and said only one sentence to her: “You’re disqualified.” 1 It was the evening rush hour, and the line at the corner store stretched all the way back to the snack aisles. I stood at the very end of the line, holding a bottle of water and a plain bagel. In front of me, a woman in a designer fur coat—Mrs. Higgins—slapped a massive pile of imported snacks onto the counter. “That’ll be $108.50.” Brenda, the store owner, smiled so wide her powder-caked face wrinkled like a dried prune. “Oh, Mrs. Higgins, you’re always so busy, thanks for dropping by! Let’s just knock off that fifty cents. Give me $108!” Mrs. Higgins tapped her phone to pay, looking smug. “You always know how to do business, Brenda.” Brenda beamed as she sent her “VIP” out the door. But the second she turned to look at me, her smile vanished entirely. “Next.” I stepped up and placed my water and bagel on the counter. The barcode scanner beeped twice. The digital register clearly displayed: $4.20. I pulled up my Apple Pay. Brenda didn’t even blink. Her thick fingers aggressively mashed the keys on her ancient register. “Five bucks.” I pointed at the screen. “It says $4.20 right there.” Brenda rolled her eyes dramatically. “Anything under five bucks gets rounded up to five. That’s the store policy. It’s called rounding up, don’t you get it?” Rounding up $4.20 to $5.00? Did she learn math from a gym teacher, or from that Ivy League daughter she was always bragging about? Before I could even argue, Brenda spit her toothpick onto the floor and started her sarcastic tirade. “Broke? If you don’t have money, don’t come into a store. Go drink out of a public water fountain, that’s free.” “There’s a whole line of people behind you! Do you have any basic decency?” She had a booming voice, and instantly, every single person in the store turned to look. The neighbors in line, unaware of the truth, started whispering. “She’s dressed so nicely, why is she being so cheap?” “Seriously, it’s less than a dollar. Is it worth holding up the line?” “Hurry up, I need to get home and cook dinner.” This was Brenda’s go-to tactic for peer pressure. She had used it for years, and it never failed. As long as you cared about your public image, you’d cough up the money just to escape the embarrassment. I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms. Did I care about eighty cents? No. I cared about the principle. But I couldn’t blow my cover. Not yet. I was currently in the final stages of investigating a massive supply-chain tax fraud and price-gouging ring that Brenda was a key node in. On my encrypted laptop, a folder detailing her fake inventory channels was just missing one final piece of hard evidence. If I caused a scene now and tipped her off, my six months of undercover tracking would go up in smoke. I had to endure it. I lowered my head, hiding the storm brewing in my eyes. Beep. Payment successful: $5.00. Brenda’s phone chimed with the deposit notification. She let out a smug snort, deliberately raising her voice for the people behind me. “See? Some people just need to be yelled at. If you don’t publicly shame them, they won’t pay. Pathetic.” She ripped the receipt from the machine, crumpled it into a ball without looking, and tossed it at me. It bounced off my chest and hit the floor. “Take your trash. And don’t go around saying I scammed you.” At that moment, the urge to rip her apart was almost unbearable. I bent down, picked up the crumpled ball of paper, and gripped it tightly. Without a word, I turned and walked out. Outside, my assistant Zoe was waiting in my car. Seeing me approach, she immediately rolled down the window, catching sight of my pale, furious face. “Stella, did that old witch mess with you again?!” Zoe had a fiery temper. She unbuckled her seatbelt, ready to storm out. “I’m going to rip her a new one! Who does she think she is? You’re a Data Director making seven figures, why are you taking this garbage from her?” I grabbed her wrist, stopping her. “Don’t.” “But Stella—” “It’s not time yet.” I stared through the glass doors at the greedy silhouette inside the store. “Let her be arrogant for a few more days.” Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. The more brazen Brenda got now, the harder she was going to hit the concrete when I finally pulled the rug out from under her. 2 When I got home, I pulled out my invisible hearing aid. The sound of the pouring rain outside instantly vanished into total silence. My mind drifted back ten years. It was another night of torrential rain. I had just graduated from college. My mother had passed away early, and my father, who had worked himself to the bone to raise me, was diagnosed with end-stage renal failure. He desperately needed money for dialysis. I hunted for a job like a madwoman and finally landed an interview at a major tech corporation. If I passed the interview, they offered a three-month salary advance as a signing bonus. It was my father’s only hope for survival. But the night before the interview, I spiked a 104-degree fever. My body burned like a furnace, and my consciousness was slipping. I emptied every single pocket I owned, scraping together exactly $28.50. It was every last cent our family had. I stumbled blindly down to the corner store beneath our apartment—Brenda’s store. She had just opened the business back then. “Ma’am, I need a box of fever reducers.” I dumped the handful of coins and crumpled bills onto the counter, my hands shaking violently. Brenda counted the money, her eyebrows knitting together in disgust. “This medicine is $29.00. You only have $28.50. It’s not enough.” I looked at the price tag. It clearly read $28.50. But the dizzying haze of the fever made me second-guess myself. I thought I had just read it wrong. “Ma’am, I’m just fifty cents short… I have a massive interview tomorrow. Please, please just sell me the medicine.” “I promise I’ll pay you back. I’ll pay you back ten times over!” Brenda shoved the money back at me, her eyes dead and cold. “I don’t care if you’re a penny short. This is a business, not a charity.” “Broke? If you’re poor, you don’t get the luxury of getting sick. Stop acting like you deserve medicine.” Outside, the rain poured harder, thunder shaking the windows. I thought of my dad, lying in a hospital bed, waiting for the money that would keep him breathing. If I couldn’t make it to that interview tomorrow, I wouldn’t get the advance. And my dad would die. Thud. I dropped to my knees on the dirty floor. Throwing away every ounce of my dignity, I begged her. “Ma’am, I’m begging you. My dad needs this money to live. I absolutely cannot collapse tonight…” The linoleum was hard. My forehead bled from pressing it into the ground. But Brenda didn’t even flinch. Just then, a wet, shivering stray dog wandered through the open door. It stared hungrily at the rack of beef jerky. Brenda chuckled. She pulled down a $2.00 stick of beef jerky, ripped off the plastic, and tossed it to the dog. “Aww, you poor little thing. You must be starving! Eat up, eat up.” The dog swallowed it in two bites. I knelt on the floor, staring at that piece of jerky, my tears mixing with the blood on my forehead. I was worth less than a stray dog. She was willing to throw away $2.00 on an animal, but she wouldn’t forgive fifty cents to save a human life. After feeding the dog, Brenda turned and saw me still kneeling there. “Get out! Get the hell out! Don’t bring your bad luck into my store! You’re ruining the vibe!” She grabbed a wet, filthy mop from by the door and swung it hard against my back. Once. Twice. Dirty mop water splashed all over my face. “Get lost, you broke freak!” I was already incredibly weak from the fever. Her shoving and beating sent me tumbling out the door. I collapsed into the freezing puddles on the sidewalk. The fever completely severed my consciousness. The rain was relentless that night. I lay unconscious in the gutter until a passerby finally called an ambulance the next afternoon. The prolonged, incredibly high fever caused irreversible nerve damage. I suffered permanent hearing loss in my left ear. When I finally woke up in the hospital, a nurse handed me the phone. Because we couldn’t pay the medical bills, my father had voluntarily requested to stop his life support. On that rainy night, he passed away. I missed my interview. I lost my father. I lost my hearing. All because of fifty imaginary cents. In the dark of my bedroom, I picked up the framed photo of my father on my nightstand. He was smiling so warmly in the picture. I didn’t cry. My tears had entirely dried up on that rainy night ten years ago. Those fifty cents bought my father’s life, and they bought the very last shred of mercy in my soul. 3 Over the past decade, I worked ten times harder than anyone else to claw my way up to the position I hold today. When I moved back to this neighborhood, I didn’t have to squeeze into a damp basement apartment anymore. I owned my own beautiful home. But Brenda didn’t recognize the soaked, pathetic college kid from ten years ago. In her eyes, I was just a rich, clueless yuppie who didn’t care about her change. And so, she escalated. It started with skimming a few pennies, then a few dimes. Sometimes she’d intentionally shortchange me, betting I wouldn’t count the cash on the spot. Whenever she overcharged me, she’d act like she was doing me a massive favor, and then pivot to bragging. “Oh, Stella, look at you, you’re so busy! The time you save not worrying about this change is worth way more money!” “You know, my daughter Madison is getting her Master’s in Statistics at an Ivy League school!” “She’s going to be managing millions for massive tech companies. I always tell her, if you want to make the big bucks, you can’t be petty about the small change.” She had no idea. The “massive tech company” she bragged about was the conglomerate I worked for. And her pride and joy—her daughter—was studying Statistics, a field that tolerates zero deception. A few days ago, I saw Madison at our company’s preliminary interview rounds. After her interview, she was standing in the stairwell, on the phone with Brenda. “Mom, don’t worry about it.” “That Data Director job is basically mine.” “I looked up the current interviewer’s background. Her degree is garbage compared to mine. I’ll take her job eventually.” Brenda’s signature, booming laugh echoed through the phone speaker. “That’s right! Look whose daughter you are!” “Maddie, once you’re the Director making a million a year, you gotta move your mom into a luxury penthouse!” They spoke about the job like it was already their personal piggy bank. But I knew Brenda too well. Could someone raised in that kind of household really be trusted with honest, raw data? I sat at my computer and pulled up the algorithm model Madison submitted for her technical test. At first glance, it was flawless. Until I dug into the absolute bottom layer of her source code. Hidden beneath the surface was an incredibly stealthy line of code. It was a dynamic pricing script targeting elderly users. If the system identified a user as over the age of 60, and their purchasing history showed they weren’t sensitive to price changes, the algorithm would automatically inflate their checkout total by 0.1% to 0.5%. For a single user, it was just a few cents. Totally unnoticeable. But applied to a user base of tens of millions, it was a staggering amount of dirty money. Staring at that line of code, I felt physically sick. It was the exact digital equivalent of Brenda’s “rounding up” scam at the register! The mother and daughter were identical. One scammed her neighbors in a bodega, and the other planned to scam millions online. Oh, Brenda. You taught your daughter to take shortcuts, thinking it made her clever. You didn’t realize that in the world of data, a shortcut is just a cliff. 4 The day of the final interview arrived. I was the lead panelist. Madison walked in. Her steps were confident; her chin held high. “Good morning, everyone. I’m Madison.” She pulled up her deck and began presenting her data model. I had to admit, she was an incredibly smooth talker. She broke down complex algorithms into easily digestible soundbites, wrapping her core philosophy of “profit maximization” in glorious, corporate buzzwords. “Through my algorithm, we can accurately pinpoint a user’s psychological price threshold, subtly increasing the basket size without triggering consumer friction…” She spoke eloquently, her eyes burning with raw ambition. The other executives in the room were nodding in approval. Especially Robert, our VP of Tech. He looked like he was ready to adopt her. The HR Director had already pulled out the salary negotiation sheet, ready to extend an offer. When the presentation ended, the Q&A began. The HR Director smiled warmly. “Madison, if we were to bring you on board, what are your salary expectations?” Madison casually brushed her hair back and swung for the fences: “Two million a year base salary, plus stock options.” A gasp rippled through the room. That was double the industry standard. Madison had clearly anticipated the reaction. She smiled confidently. “Do you think that’s expensive? My algorithm will extract invisible pennies from every single user.” “By the end of the fiscal year, my salary won’t even be a rounding error compared to the revenue I bring in.” The pure, unabashed greed on her face was a carbon copy of Brenda’s expression when she forced me to pay five dollars. Robert frowned slightly at the number, but nodded. “It’s steep, but if it really generates that kind of ROI, it’s worth it.” Just as everyone in the room assumed the deal was done. I, who had been completely silent the entire time, finally spoke. “Just like how your mother forces a $28.40 grocery bill up to $29.00 at her bodega?” I didn’t speak loudly, but in the dead-silent conference room, it struck like a thunderbolt. Madison’s confident smile instantly froze. She snapped her head around to look at me. “Wh… what did you say?” Her pupils shrank to pinpricks. She recognized my face. I was the girl her mother had beaten out of the store like a stray dog ten years ago. The other executives looked back and forth between us, completely lost. Robert looked confused. “Stella, do you two know each other?” I ignored Robert. And I didn’t give Madison a single second to formulate an excuse. I stood up, planted my hands on the mahogany table, and stared down into her terrified eyes. At this moment, I wasn’t the helpless girl kneeling in the rain for fifty cents. I was the judge holding her entire future in my hands. I stared at her coldly and delivered the sentence I had rehearsed in my head a thousand times: “The petty scams your mother runs at her register guaranteed that you have zero reverence for the sanctity of data.” “Faking even a single decimal point is enough to destroy this entire company.” I picked up her glowing, flawless resume from the table and casually dropped it into the trash can. “You’re disqualified.” 5 The second the words left my mouth, the room erupted. Robert was the first to jump up, slamming his hand on the table. “Stella! Are you out of your mind?! This is a blatant abuse of power!” “I reviewed Madison’s model myself, it’s absolutely brilliant!” “She is a rare talent! You can’t just veto her over some personal grudge!” The HR Director frowned. “Stella, this goes against all our hiring protocols…” Madison’s reaction speed was terrifying. The panic in her eyes instantly morphed into devastating sorrow. Tears welled up on command, spilling perfectly down her cheeks. “Stella, I know you and my mother have some… misunderstandings…” She choked back a sob, her shoulders trembling slightly, playing the innocent victim to absolute perfection. “But why are you taking my mother’s past out on me?” “I am a professional. I prepped for three months for this interview…” “You can question my character, but please, do not insult my professional integrity!” God, she was a good actor. If this was ten years ago, I would have been so furious I wouldn’t have been able to speak. But now? It was just pathetic. “Professional?” I let out a cold laugh and tapped a single key on my laptop. Click. The massive screen behind me switched instantly. The PowerPoint vanished, replaced by a split screen. On the left side of the screen was a compilation of hidden-camera footage. It showed Brenda in her bodega, working the register with different customers. “Rounding up,” “No change,” “Don’t be cheap.” Every single transaction was accompanied by her sneering, greedy face. On the right side of the screen was the foundational architecture of Madison’s code. The hidden price-gouging script was blown up and highlighted in glowing red. “Target: Users Age 60+. Action: Randomize Price Inflation +0.1% to +0.5%.” Robert, who had just been screaming in her defense, froze. His eyes bulged, his mouth hanging open wide enough to catch a fly. He was a tech veteran. It took him less than two seconds to realize exactly what that code did. “This… this is…” Robert’s voice was shaking. I pointed at the screen. “Is this what you call professional? Writing code to literally steal from the elderly?” “If this script went live, the company would face hundreds of millions in federal fines and a complete PR bankruptcy!” “Madison, is this your definition of ‘profit maximization’?” Madison’s face lost every drop of color. She looked like a ghost. She collapsed back into her chair, her arrogance and her fake tears completely evaporating. She opened her mouth to argue, but staring at the irrefutable evidence, there was nothing left to say. Robert finally snapped out of his shock. His pale face flushed crimson, then purple. He had just staked his reputation on her. If he had actually hired her, the inevitable federal fallout would have destroyed his career, too. “You absolute sociopath!” Robert roared, throwing his pen furiously at the floor. “You’re a disgrace to this industry!” I reached up, unclipped my hearing aid, and set it softly on the table. “Ten years ago, over a fake fifty-cent shortage, your mother beat me out of her store. She killed my father, and she permanently ruined my hearing.” “Ten years later, you tried to use the exact same scam to destroy my company.” I locked eyes with Madison, enunciating every single word. “Keep dreaming.” Madison stared at me, her eyes hollow with absolute terror. Her elite, Ivy-League mask had shattered into a million pieces, exposing the rotten, petty thief underneath. “No… it wasn’t like that… I was doing it for the company’s margins…” She was babbling nonsense. I waved my hand. The security guards, whom I had placed on standby in the hallway, opened the door. “Drag her out.” Two guards hauled the limp, crying Madison out of her chair, dragging her backward out of the room like a sack of garbage. It was a perfect mirror image. Ten years ago, Brenda had thrown me out exactly like that. “Stella! You’ll burn in hell for this! My mother will destroy you!” Madison’s hysterical screams echoed down the corridor, slowly fading away. The conference room was dead silent. Every executive was staring at me. Their eyes were filled with respect, and a heavy dose of fear. I swept my gaze across the room. Not a single person dared to hold eye contact. I picked up my hearing aid and put it back in. In this room, I was the absolute king. But my revenge had only just begun.

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1 The second time I met my college crush, he was a broken man. His startup had gone bankrupt, his son was in a wheelchair, and his “ride-or-die” high school sweetheart had abandoned him. At a public park, Arthur gently approached my food truck. “Can I just buy half a breakfast sandwich?” I nodded and handed him a few for free. Years later, we had built a tech empire from the ground up, standing at the absolute pinnacle of Silicon Valley. On the day Arthur’s company filed for its IPO and his son got accepted into Stanford, his ex-wife came back. Chloe looked just as young and beautiful as her old photos, wearing a pristine white dress, looking completely innocent. Compared to the luxury cars I had arranged for the celebration, she pulled out a stack of handmade “Good Mom Coupons” as a graduation gift for his son. “Leo, these were your absolute favorite when you were little. With these, you can make Mommy spend time with you whenever you want.” Then, she pulled out a heart-shaped river stone and pressed it into my husband’s hand. “Arthur, this represents my heart. It will never change for you.” Only after doing all of this did she finally turn to look at me. Her eyes were brimming with pure contempt. “Thank you for looking after my husband and son during the years I was lost with amnesia.” “But now that the genuine article is back, you, the temporary substitute, can leave.” I raised an eyebrow and looked at Arthur. When Chloe left him, Arthur was deeply depressed for three entire years. He had attempted suicide seven times. He had sworn to me that he would rather die than forgive his ex-wife. I was incredibly curious to see what he would choose now. … Arthur held the stone, staring coldly at Chloe. His eyes were unreadable. But only I knew that the exact second Chloe appeared, Arthur’s grip on my hand tightened so hard it actually hurt. I smiled calmly and gently patted his hand. “Chloe, your ‘amnesia’ just happened to start the exact month Leo broke his legs and Arthur declared bankruptcy? What an incredible medical coincidence.” I said this not only to humiliate Chloe, but to remind Arthur. Arthur set the stone aside. “Chloe, please leave. You are not welcome here.” The moment he said that, Chloe’s eyes immediately turned red. “Arthur, how could you treat me like this? I just had amnesia, it’s not like I stopped loving you and Leo!” “How could you betray me while my memory was gone and get with this woman?” “She’s obviously just using you for your company’s wealth. Can’t you see that?” Before anyone could react… Smack. Arthur delivered a merciless, ringing slap across her face. “Evelyn is my wife. I will not allow anyone to slander her.” Chloe clutched her cheek, massive tears rolling down her face. “Arthur, you hit me? For her? You’re driving me to my death! I don’t want to live anymore!” She turned and made a dramatic dash for the rooftop terrace. The guests scrambled to stop her. Arthur just said coldly, “Let her jump. Don’t stop her.” But at that moment, Leo lost his temper. “Dad! That’s my mom! Do you actually want her to die?!” Saying that, he knocked over the massive 23-tier cake and the champagne tower I had spent weeks preparing for him, and sprinted toward the rooftop without looking back. The celebration hall was instantly reduced to a chaotic mess. Arthur didn’t seem to care. He insisted on driving me home first. But after years of marriage, it only took one glance for me to see that his mind was already completely gone. Sure enough, the second I got into the car, he said, “Evelyn, I just remembered there’s an emergency at the office. I need to go handle it.” He walked away without looking back. Ten minutes later, my informants at the company sent me a live feed. In the deserted emergency stairwell, Chloe had her arms wrapped tightly around Arthur’s neck, kissing him deeply. Arthur didn’t respond, but he didn’t push her away either. He just let her kiss him. His hands were balled into tight fists at his sides, as if he was restraining himself with everything he had. After a long, breathless kiss, Chloe finally spoke. “Admit it, Arthur. You still love me, don’t you? Why are you fighting it?” She reached down, took his clenched fists, and pried his fingers open. “Look. Your nails are digging so hard you’re bleeding.” “Enough.” Arthur snatched his hands back. “Chloe, when you betrayed me back then, you should have known you would never get a second chance in this lifetime.” Chloe stared dead into Arthur’s eyes. “Fine. Then I’ll go jump right now to apologize with my life.” The second she turned around, Arthur grabbed her wrist in a death grip. “Didn’t you say you didn’t care about me anymore? Why are you stopping me?” Before she could finish, Arthur crashed his lips onto hers in a deep, wildly aggressive kiss. The wet, sickening sound of their intertwined breathing echoed crystal clear through my AirPods. A long time later, Arthur finally pulled back, gripping the back of Chloe’s neck. “Chloe, hate lasts longer than love. I’m going to make you live the rest of your life suffocating in guilt over what you did to me.” It felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head. My entire body went numb. The tightly wound string in my heart—the one I had been holding onto since Chloe reappeared—finally snapped. I didn’t listen to the rest. That night, the moment I got home, I called my lawyers and began a total audit of my and Arthur’s shared assets. At the same time, I signed my name on the divorce papers Arthur had pre-signed years ago for emergencies. It was an exit strategy I built for myself, hoping I would never have to use it. I just never expected the day to come this fast. 2 Eight years ago, Arthur was the undisputed, uncrowned king of the Bay Area tech scene. And I was just a nobody who had barely scraped my way into the industry. On the keynote stage, he stood tall and arrogant, bursting with ambition, like an untouchable pine tree. I sat in the very back row of the auditorium, clutching my company brochure, too intimidated to even clap too loudly. I never expected that the next time I saw Arthur, six months later, it would be at a noisy, greasy food truck park. I was working a second job running a food truck to save up seed money for my own startup. Arthur was pushing Leo in a wheelchair, out for a walk. By then, he had lost all his former glory. He was so broke he actually had to ask if he could just buy half a sandwich. From industry gossip, I learned what happened. Arthur had been defrauded by a business partner he had trusted for years. His tech empire, built over a decade, collapsed into dust in less than a month. As if that wasn’t enough, Leo was in a horrible accident and shattered both his legs, and Arthur’s mother suffered a massive stroke from the stress. Within three days of the bankruptcy, Chloe’s family publicly severed all ties with Arthur. That very same night, Chloe vanished without a trace. Arthur completely shattered. He developed severe clinical depression. After that night at the food truck, for some reason, the lonely silhouettes of the father and son haunted my mind. Every night, I kept an eye out for them. I started giving them free meals. Over time, we grew close. I pulled him into the AI sector—a field I was heavily researching but hadn’t blown up yet. Our equally sharp business instincts made us a perfect match. Naturally, we soon became a couple. While Chloe was in Beverly Hills, re-married as a trophy wife, getting luxury manicures… I was wiping Arthur’s mother, emptying her bedpans, and washing her soiled clothes. In the dead of winter, my hands cracked and bled from constantly being submerged in freezing water. While Chloe was taking floral arrangement classes and sipping matcha lattes… I was watching YouTube tutorials on physical therapy massage techniques, hauling a teenage Leo onto my shoulders to force him through his painful rehab exercises step by step. While Chloe was traveling the world posting Instagram photos… I was sleeping two hours a night developing the core code for Arthur’s new company. I didn’t even dare to sleep deeply, terrified that if I closed my eyes, Arthur might try to kill himself again in the middle of the night. Eventually, the billionaire Chloe married went to prison for fraud. She had lived in absolute luxury for a decade. And now, she suddenly remembered her “true love,” wanting to come back and effortlessly steal the fruits of my agonizing labor. She wanted me gone. Who the hell did she think she was? Just as I hung up with my lawyer, the front door clicked open. Arthur walked in, on a phone call. His PR team was on speakerphone, asking if he wanted to file a defamation lawsuit against Chloe for the stunt she pulled at the party today. I stared at him. Sure enough, his eyes darted away. He hesitated for a long moment, then shook his head. “Forget it. Let’s just let today’s incident slide.” When his eyes finally met mine, he jumped slightly and immediately hung up the phone. He offered a stiff, robotic explanation: “I just… I don’t want to have any more ties to Chloe. A lawsuit would drag it out.” “And if I say no?” “What?” I had never spoken to Arthur with such an icy, detached tone. He looked momentarily disoriented. “If I say I refuse to drop it? What will you do?” “Do you have any idea how critical today’s celebration was for our IPO pricing this week?” “You think an absurd, humiliating circus like this can just be brushed under the rug?” Arthur subconsciously frowned, looking at me with exhausted exasperation. “Evelyn, it was just a minor hiccup. Why are you escalating this? I’ve already had the PR team suppress the stock rumors.” The gentle, patronizing tone of his voice made my chest tighten to the point of pain. “Alright, stop being angry. Come on, I’ll take you out to dinner.” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed my arm and dragged me out the door. 3 But he drove us to a restaurant I absolutely hated. The second we sat down, Leo walked in. And he brought Chloe with him. “Dad, Mom didn’t have anywhere to eat, so I brought her along.” I stood up immediately to leave. Arthur grabbed my wrist. “Evelyn, it’s just one meal. Don’t be so petty.” Chloe shot me a triumphant smirk and sat down right at the table. She immediately started arranging the silverware for Arthur and Leo, acting exactly like the lady of the house. I laughed. Suddenly, I didn’t want to leave either. I sat back down and pulled up the digital menu on my phone. Why should I let myself go hungry? While ordering, Arthur and Leo coincidentally selected several of Chloe’s favorite dishes at the exact same time. The two of them exchanged an awkward, knowing smile, then one of them deleted the duplicates. I didn’t care. I just ordered my own favorite expensive steaks and seafood. When I finished, Chloe suddenly decided to play the frugal housewife. “Wow, this is a lot of food. The four of us probably can’t finish all this, right?” Arthur glanced at the digital cart. Without even asking me, he deleted every single item I had ordered. Speechless, I snatched the tablet back and re-added all my food. Arthur seemed to suddenly realize how bad he looked. He scratched the back of his neck and kept his mouth shut. While waiting for the food, Chloe casually turned to Leo. “Hey, where’s that emergency contact form for school you wanted me to sign?” I watched as Leo pulled out the school form. Under “Father,” it said Arthur. Under “Mother,” it said Chloe. A memory from years ago flashed through my mind. Back then, Leo’s legs had just healed, but he still walked with a severe limp. The kids in his class constantly mocked him, and the local gang members near the high school regularly bullied him for cash. He never told anyone. I only found out when I saw the bruises covering his ribs. That exact day, I grabbed a baseball bat from the garage and drove straight to the alley where the gang hung out. At first, they laughed at me. Until I took over fifty hits from a steel pipe, legs shaking, and still managed to stand back up and swing at them. They got scared. After that day, nobody ever messed with Leo again. Once my own broken ribs healed, I spent hours every single day stretching Leo’s muscles, painfully correcting his posture until his limp vanished entirely. From that day forward, Leo quietly changed his school emergency contact to my name. But the second Chloe came back, without doing a single damn thing, everything reverted right back to the original default. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. When the food arrived, I ate in silence. Chloe took a bite of a spicy dish and coughed. Both father and son immediately panicked, reaching for her water. Chloe smiled gently and dropped her half-eaten food directly into Arthur’s bowl. “Don’t want to waste it.” Arthur didn’t say a word. He just picked it up with his fork and ate it. When dinner ended, Chloe suddenly announced she needed to speak with me alone. She told Arthur and Leo to go to the car first. I had zero interest in entertaining her. I turned and walked toward the street, but she followed me like a shadow. I didn’t realize she was actually insane. When we reached a Y-shaped intersection near the parking garage, she violently shoved me forward. We ended up standing in the middle of the road, splitting the two lanes. She was on the right, I was on the left. Arthur and Leo’s cars came speeding around the blind corner side-by-side. When they saw Chloe and me standing in the middle of the road, their eyes went wide with horror. It was too late to brake. To the left, me. To the right, Chloe. In a fraction of a second, the tires shrieked violently against the asphalt. Both cars simultaneously swerved directly toward me. CRASH! Shutterstock It wasn’t a graze. It was a solid, sickeningly heavy impact that vibrated through every internal organ in my body. Agonizing pain instantly consumed my entire nervous system. My body didn’t feel like my own. I flew through the air, completely weightless, before slamming brutally against the pavement. Laying on the freezing asphalt, I could hear the sound of my own bones shattering. Warm liquid gushed from my forehead and mouth. The taste of rust filled my throat. My vision was a blur of crimson, my ears ringing with a deafening siren. But through the blood, I could clearly see Chloe mouthing the words at me: “You lose.” And I could clearly hear Arthur and Leo’s panicked voices, asking if Chloe was okay. … I woke up in the hospital to the sound of screaming. “Chloe, do you have any idea how dangerous it is to stand in the middle of the road?! Is that a joke to you?! Stop this! How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t love you anymore! Get out of my house! I have my own life now!” “No! If I can’t have you, no one can! I only left because I had amnesia, it wasn’t my fault! Arthur, you belong to me. You will always belong to me!” “Admit it, Arthur! You and Leo still have me in your hearts! You both still love me!” The argument lasted for a full thirty minutes. Neither of them backed down an inch. Leo stood between them, trying to mediate. The three of them looked exactly like a dysfunctional, but deeply connected, family. I had been awake the entire time, but none of them even noticed. My throat was so dry it felt like sandpaper. I forced my shattered body to reach for the water cup on the nightstand. My hand slipped. The glass shattered on the floor. Only then did the screaming abruptly stop. Arthur rushed over to my bed, grabbing my hand tightly, looking incredibly heartbroken. “Evelyn! You’re finally awake! Do you have any idea how worried I was?!” “Get out. Every single one of you, GET OUT!” My explosive scream finally brought silence to the room. For the next few days, as if trying to prove his loyalty to me, Arthur intentionally forced Chloe to act as my caretaker in the hospital as “punishment.” But Chloe tortured me. She dropped dead roaches into my hospital food. She unplugged my oxygen monitor when I fell asleep. She secretly swapped out my pain meds. Because of her, I was rushed into emergency resuscitation three different times. Arthur would yell at her, but in the end, he always just let it slide with a warning. I finally saw this man’s true, ugly face in high definition. I banned all visitors, hired my own private nurses, and finally managed to get discharged. 4 The very first thing I did after leaving the hospital was go to the company headquarters to finalize the asset division. But the second I stepped out of the elevator, I froze. The entire office interior had been changed. My carefully designed, sleek minimalist black-and-grey decor had been replaced with aggressively loud Barbie pink. The weekly executive meeting, which I always led, was currently being chaired by Chloe. “I don’t care who you thought the ‘lady of the house’ was before. From this second forward, I am the queen of this company. I am the CEO’s legal wife. Certain thieves who stole other people’s lives will be kicked out of this building very soon. I suggest you all open your eyes and pick the right side.” As soon as she finished speaking, several of the most powerful investors in the Silicon Valley ecosystem, who were sitting at the VIP table, began clapping. These were titans of the industry. They wouldn’t have showed up unless Arthur personally begged them to. So, Arthur called in all his favors and brought the biggest sharks in the valley here, just to give Chloe a power trip. I suddenly remembered our early startup days. I had fallen violently ill with an undiagnosed autoimmune flare-up. The pain was so unbearable I begged Arthur to use his leftover connections to get me an appointment with a top specialist. He refused, claiming it was “too humiliating” to beg his old contacts for a favor. I suffered in blinding agony for two solid months until my body fought it off alone. The canyon between being loved and unloved is truly bottomless. I was about to push the glass doors open and reclaim my boardroom, but a hand clamped down on my wrist. It was Leo. Funny. Leo never came to the office. But he was here today, clearly acting as Chloe’s bodyguard. Leo coldly pulled out an equity transfer notice, signed by Arthur. “This is Dad’s order. He’s making my mom a founding shareholder, with the exact same voting power as you.” “Since you’re barren and have no kids anyway, this entire company is going to be mine eventually. My mom taking over is inevitable. There’s no point in you throwing a tantrum now.” Hearing the word “barren,” I let out a dry laugh. When Arthur and I first got married, Leo was incredibly emotionally unstable and absolutely refused to accept a younger sibling. Because of that, I chose to go on birth control for years. Later, when Leo grew up and didn’t care as much, I started agonizing, high-risk IVF treatments at an older age. I finally got pregnant, but due to a vicious internal corporate war Arthur dragged me into, the stress caused a miscarriage. I got pregnant again three years later. But to secure the flagship enterprise contract that saved our company, I worked myself to the bone. The baby died in the womb. On the day of the induced labor, I cried until my vocal cords bled. Arthur held me tightly in the hospital bed, sobbing, swearing to God he would never let me suffer even a fraction of pain ever again. Out of crushing guilt toward the babies I lost, I decided I would never try to have kids again. And now, all my sacrifices, all my compromises, earned me exactly one sentence from Leo: “Since you’re barren anyway.” I shoved him away, walked straight to my private office, and started packing my things. Once the asset split was complete, the company would be divided. I had absolutely no intention of staying in this polluted wasteland for a second longer. Seeing me packing boxes, Arthur walked in. “Evelyn, what are you doing?” “Throwing out some useless garbage,” I said coldly. Hearing my tone, Arthur spoke cautiously. “Are you mad that I brought Chloe to the office?” “Don’t misunderstand. Leo said a psychic told him Chloe’s astrological chart brings good luck to the IPO this year. That’s the only reason I let her in.” “Just treat her like a mascot! Once the year is over, I’ll kick her out. Don’t overthink it.” “And the shares? A mascot needs a 20% equity stake?” Arthur choked on his words. It took him a long time to awkwardly reply, “The billionaire she married went bankrupt. She’s a woman with no job history and no degree, it’s hard for her to survive in this economy. The shares are just…” “Stop.” I was so done listening to his garbage. I pulled the office door open, ready to tell Arthur to get the hell out. But suddenly, Chloe came stumbling out from the end of the hallway. Her clothes were torn, her hair was a mess, and there were bleeding scratches on her face. “Arthur! Help! Help me…” She gritted her teeth, using all her strength to grab Arthur’s sleeve. When she saw me, her entire body went rigid. She immediately lowered her head, let go of him, and stumbled backward in terror. “E-Evelyn… I’m sorry! I was wrong, I won’t do it again! I’ll leave California right now, I promise I’ll never…” A perfect, cinematic tear rolled down her cheek. She clenched her fists and closed her eyes. “I’ll never appear in front of Arthur ever again.” Then, she turned and limped toward the elevators, looking like the most tragic, bullied victim on earth. I was completely stunned. Her acting was so hyper-realistic, for a second I genuinely questioned if I had hired a hitman to beat her up and warn her away from my husband. I let out a sarcastic sneer and turned to observe Arthur’s reaction. His face was completely blank. I couldn’t read his mind at all. “Do you actually think I did that to her?” I asked, testing him. He pulled me into a hug. “I know you. You would never do something like that.” I nodded. At least he still had one microscopic shred of a conscience left. However, the very next morning, I received an emergency call from my lawyer. “Ms. Davis, your husband utilized his CEO veto power to unilaterally expel you from the Board of Directors. All of your vested equity has been illegally transferred to a holding company under Chloe’s name.” “And… Mr. Evans just issued a company-wide gag order. No one is allowed to tell you the time and location of the IPO bell-ringing ceremony in New York. Because he is taking Ms. Chloe with him to ring the bell.” I was completely paralyzed. The stock price had finally stabilized. The company was about to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. And at the absolute finish line, he kicked me off the board, stole the fruits of my decade of blood and sweat, and handed it all to her? And he was taking her to ring the bell? My entire decade of pure, devoted love had officially become the biggest joke of the century. On the day of the IPO, Chloe was dressed in a million-dollar haute couture gown, blinding the paparazzi with her diamonds. Watching Chloe link arms with Arthur and walk up to the NYSE balcony, the entire financial world assumed the tech empire officially had a new queen. The exchange president respectfully invited Chloe to the center of the podium. Arthur held Chloe’s hand, raising the gavel high in the air. Just a millisecond before the gavel struck the bell, a voice from the floor below echoed through the hall. “Hold on.”

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Walking past the stairwell, I overheard two interns whispering about their salaries. “Take a guess, what did I get? $85,000!” “Not bad! I just cleared $75,000.” I froze in my tracks. I have been at this company for exactly seven years. My first year, my starting salary was $35,000. My second year, it bumped to $36,000. The boss called it an “exceptional exception.” My third year, I started leading teams independently. My salary went to $39,000. Years four, five, and six… my salary didn’t budge a single cent. During that time, I personally closed eight major enterprise contracts for the company. This year, my seventh year, the boss said the macroeconomic environment was tough, and my salary was cut to $36,000. Those two new hires, the ones I personally trained, were making more than double what I was making after seven years of bleeding for this place. I let out a bitter laugh and walked straight to the HR Director’s office to hand in my resignation. The HR Director, Brenda, looked shocked. “Why?” “The pay is low, and I’m not happy.” Brenda sighed, her tone heavy with manufactured grief. “Chloe, I know you’ve worked hard these past few years. But the company has its struggles too. The market is brutal right now. Just surviving is an achievement. You’re a veteran here; you, of all people, should be more understanding.”

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I endured a year of relentless bullying from the school’s worst delinquent, Tristan. Whenever my head was being violently shoved into a filthy bathroom sink, his face would always twist into an expression of sick, unhinged pleasure. I never understood why he targeted me. Until the day I fought back, accidentally snapping the chain of his most prized pocket watch. Inside was a faded photograph—of my mother, posing with him. That was the day I realized he was my older half-brother. The son my mother had abandoned years ago after he broke her heart. He bullied me because he hated me. That night, when I went home, I stopped hiding my bruises. When my mother frantically asked what happened, I let all my grievance pour out: “Mom… someone at school is hurting me. Will you come stand up for me?” 1 Riiing— The second the final bell rang, my entire body involuntarily flinched. The moment the teacher stepped out of the classroom, I grabbed my backpack and bolted. But I was still caught at the bottom of the stairwell. A group of guys in varsity jackets saw me and their eyes lit up. “Tristan was right! The little bitch really did try to run!” I was shaking all over. My instinct was to spin around and flee, but the second I turned, someone grabbed my collar with terrifying force. I smelled the faint scent of nicotine… It was Tristan. The mastermind behind the year of absolute hell I had endured at this school. I’m dead, I thought, despair flooding my chest. Within seconds, I was dragged up the stairs by my arms to the top floor of the building. There were no classrooms up here, just an abandoned boys’ restroom that was slated for renovation. This was their “lawless zone.” The place where they tortured me. I never understood why, out of hundreds of kids in this school, Tristan zeroed in on me. Our school was a combined middle and high school campus. I was just a seventh grader. He was a junior in high school. I couldn’t figure out how someone as completely average as me could make him hate me so much. From my very first day of school, he had been in my line of sight. He would stand outside my classroom windows, staring at me with this dark, venomous look. Like a viper locking onto its prey. Whenever he bullied me, his face would twist into this terrifying, manic glee. SLAM— I was shoved violently into the bathroom. My body slammed against the rusted stall door, my arms instantly going numb from the impact. “Didn’t he tell you to come up here on your own after the bell?” One of the guys slapped the back of my head. “Why the hell were you running?” When I didn’t answer, he slapped me hard across the cheek. These guys were Tristan’s lackeys. His personal enforcers. I clenched my fists, forcing my voice out through my tight throat. “Today is my mom’s birthday. I just wanted to go home and celebrate with her.” I was so terrified I didn’t notice that Tristan, who had been leaning against the tiled wall with a blank expression, instantly went completely dark the second I said those words. He marched over and violently shoved the guy standing in front of me out of the way. Tristan was tall and incredibly strong. He grabbed me by the collar of my hoodie, forcing me onto my tiptoes so I was looking him dead in the eye. “Who the hell do you think you are…” Tristan ground out between clenched teeth. His eyes were twitching, his breathing ragged, like he was using every ounce of his willpower to restrain himself from snapping my neck. Before I could even process why he was suddenly so furious, he dragged me over to the row of sinks. The water in the clogged basin was brown, foul, and stagnant. Without a second of hesitation, Tristan shoved my head directly into the filthy water. Suffocation hit me instantly. I thrashed wildly, my lungs burning. I genuinely felt like Tristan was actually trying to murder me. Why?! My hands clawed blindly at the air, trying to grab onto anything to pull myself up. In my panicked struggling, my fingers caught onto Tristan’s shirt. And then, they hooked onto a thick metal chain around his neck. “Let go, you little freak!” Someone stepped forward to pry my hands off, but as I was yanked back, the chain snapped. A heavy, metallic clatter echoed against the floor tiles. It was like Tristan woke up from a trance. He instantly let go of me. I collapsed onto the wet floor, completely exhausted, gasping desperately for air. When my vision cleared, I saw something bizarre. Tristan was on his hands and knees on the filthy floor, frantically searching for something. He looked panicked, his hands visibly shaking. “Where is it?! Where is it?!” “Find it! Find it right fucking now!” he roared. The lackeys, who had been standing around stunned, snapped out of it and immediately dropped to the floor to help him look. Watching them act so crazy, my fingers twitched against the wet tiles… and brushed against something solid. I turned my head. It was an ornate, vintage pocket watch that had popped open from the fall. Inside the watch was an old, slightly faded photograph. It was a little blurry. But my pupils dilated in shock, because I instantly recognized the person in the picture. My mother… Before I could get a closer look, a hand snatched the watch away. Tristan scooped it off the floor. He cupped it in his hands like it was made of fragile glass, using the sleeve of his expensive designer jacket to frantically wipe the dirty water off it. Treating it like an absolute treasure. “It’s broken. The hinge is broken,” he muttered, sounding completely manic. He immediately turned and power-walked out of the bathroom. “Tris!” one of the guys called out, confused. “What about the girl?” “Whatever!” Tristan didn’t even look back, his mind entirely consumed by the watch. “I have to go get this fixed. Don’t call me unless someone’s dying!” 2 Thanks to that pocket watch, I actually got to go home early for once. Walking home, the autumn wind was freezing. My hoodie was half-soaked with dirty water, making the chill bite straight through to my bones. But I barely felt it, because my mind was an absolute hurricane. Every time I blinked, I saw the photo inside that watch. That gentle, beautiful woman was my mother. A younger version of my mother. But who was the little boy she was holding? Was it Tristan? How did they know each other? I had always known my mom had been married once before, and that she had a child from that marriage. I was the child she had with my dad after she remarried. My parents never kept that a secret from me. But my brain physically could not connect the dots between the terrifying Tristan and my mother’s first child… But if… if Tristan really was my older half-brother, then every single unanswered question I had finally made sense. Why did he target me? Why did he bully me? Because my mother abandoned him. So he hated me. Why did he always threaten me after beating me up, telling me never to tell my family? He always said his family was rich and powerful, and that he could get my mom’s flower shop shut down with a single phone call… But it wasn’t a threat. It was fear. He was terrified I would tell my mom. He was terrified my mom would find out what he was doing to me! The more I thought about it, the faster my heart hammered against my ribs. I started sprinting, the cold wind clearing my head. I had to ask my mom. I had to know the truth! A walk that usually took twenty minutes took me ten. I practically kicked the front door open. My mom looked up from the dining table, surprised. “You’re home early today?” Every day, to hide the bullying and keep my mom from worrying, I lied and told her I stayed after school in the library to study. And to hide the evidence, I always aggressively pulled my long sleeves down to cover the bruises on my arms before I walked through the door. My mom wiped her hands on her apron and smiled at me. “Go wash your hands, dinner is almost ready.” Her eyes paused on my hair. “Why are your clothes and hair wet?” “I… some lady was watering her plants on a balcony and accidentally spilled the watering can on me.” “Go take a hot shower right now so you don’t catch a cold.” I nodded, dropped my backpack, and grabbed some clean clothes from my room. By the time I came out of the shower, my mom had set the table. My dad was out of state on a business trip, so it was just the two of us this week. I sat at the table, looking at my mom’s gentle face, hesitating. “Mom, I have a question to ask you.” My mom put a piece of roasted chicken onto my plate. “Eat it while it’s hot. What’s the question?” I chewed on my lip, but finally forced the words out. “Mom, do I have an older brother? What’s his name?” My mom’s hand froze holding her fork. The smile on her face stiffened. “Why are you asking about this all of a sudden?” “Just… curious.” My mom went completely silent. She barely ate two bites for the rest of dinner. I immediately regretted it. I shouldn’t have asked. I had ruined her mood. But after dinner, my mom called me into her bedroom. She handed me an old photograph. “His name is Tristan. He was my first child.” I took the photo, my hands visibly shaking. This photo… it was the exact same photo that was inside Tristan’s pocket watch. 3 [Evelyn’s Perspective] Evelyn hadn’t thought about that child in a very long time. She had spent years forcing herself to live as if she had never given birth to him. If her daughter hadn’t brought it up today, she probably wouldn’t have thought about him, or her disastrous first marriage, for another decade. When her first husband started coming home at 3:00 AM, she should have cut her losses and left. But she compromised, over and over again, allowing that man to constantly test her bottom line. He started coming home smelling like cheap perfume. He started using “business trips” as an excuse to blatantly take his mistress on tropical vacations. Evelyn was heartbroken and exhausted. But she thought that even if her husband betrayed her, the son she had nearly died giving birth to would always stand by her side. She was wrong. Even though she poured every ounce of her patience and gentleness into Tristan, giving him all the love she possessed, he ultimately broke her heart. She remembered hearing tiny Tristan holding that other woman’s hand, calling her “Mommy.” He said his real mom was messy and annoying, and always told him what to do. He said he wanted the pretty, gentle lady to be his new mom. At that exact moment, Evelyn realized that Tristan was exactly like his father. An ungrateful, selfish traitor. She completely gave up on that family. During the divorce proceedings, Evelyn relinquished custody of Tristan to fight for maximum financial leverage to start her own life. She still clearly remembered the reaction of the father and son on the day she packed her boxes and left the mansion. The father looked incredibly relieved. The son looked absolutely ecstatic. “Yay! I get a new mommy! Yay!” Those joyful cheers were like rusty nails driven directly into Evelyn’s heart. They were the knives that violently severed the very last thread of maternal love she had left for that boy. 4 After hearing my mom’s story, I gently placed the photo back on her nightstand. “Mom.” I tugged gently on her sleeve. When she looked down at me, I reached for the hem of my long-sleeved shirt and slowly rolled it up. Revealing my arms, covered in overlapping patches of purple, blue, and yellow bruises. “What happened to you?!” My mom grabbed my arm, her voice cracking in pure panic. “Did someone hit you?!” I choked back the massive wave of grievance I had swallowed for a year and slowly nodded. “Mom… someone at school is hurting me. Will you come to school tomorrow and stand up for me?” … The next morning, when I walked into my homeroom, my desk-mate silently scooted her chair as far away from me as possible. My desk was knocked over on the floor. My textbooks were scattered everywhere, covered in dirty, muddy footprints. I quietly picked up my desk and glanced around the room. Every single student intentionally avoided my eyes. They were isolating me. Or rather, they were terrified of being associated with me. Because they didn’t want Tristan to retaliate against them. After first period, a girl who used to be somewhat friendly with me finally couldn’t hold it in anymore. She followed me into the bathroom. “Chloe, what the hell did you do to piss Tristan off?” “I heard you broke his favorite vintage watch, is that true?” “Is he just using that as an excuse to torture you?” She took my silence as a ‘yes’. “That is so messed up!” We were middle schoolers, at the age where our sense of justice was at its peak. She frowned deeply. “Why don’t you go to the teachers?” I looked at her, stunned. Go to the teachers? Did she think I hadn’t tried? If I went to them, they would either brush it off as “kids playing rough” and send me back to class to avoid the paperwork. Or, the second they heard the bully’s name was Tristan, they would pass the buck like a hot potato. Tristan’s family had literally funded the construction of the new STEM building on campus. Anything involving Tristan was radioactive. Nobody wanted to deal with it. Or more accurately, nobody dared to deal with it. That afternoon, when the final bell rang, I was cornered by Tristan and his guys again. His face was incredibly dark. He looked like he was in a foul mood. I noticed his neck was bare. He wasn’t wearing the chain. Did the watch shop tell him it couldn’t be fixed? Was he here to punish me for it today? The girl from the bathroom with the strong sense of justice was still just a kid. Facing a group of massive high school upperclassmen, she was terrified. She stood at the corner of the hallway, watching me get dragged up the stairs. She hesitated for a long time, but never took a single step forward. She squatted against the lockers, grabbing her hair in frustration. Suddenly, a pair of designer heels appeared in her line of sight. She looked up to see a beautiful, gentle-looking woman. “Hi there. Are you in Room 104? Have you seen Chloe? I’m her mother, I’m here to pick her up.”

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I was so dumb. Dumb enough that when my husband brought another woman home, I thought he found me a new playmate. After all, Ethan was the first person who chased away my bullies and was willing to marry me. That is, until he brought his mistress home again and laughed while telling her, “She’s a dimwit. She won’t make a scene, and she won’t cry.” This time, I didn’t laugh with him. Chapter 1 I stared down at the floor, twisting my fingers, watching the ash from his cigarette drift down. “Get out,” I said softly, as light as the ash itself. “What did you say?” Ethan cocked his head, looking into my eyes, smiling as he asked. Every time he thought I said something funny, he’d look at me like that. I counted the planks on the wooden floor. One, two, three… When I got to the sixth, I said, “This is my room. You two get out.” The woman hugged him from behind. “Babe, what are you still doing? I can’t wait.” I remembered her name was Linda. She was Ethan’s secretary. Her voice always sounded strange, like she was deliberately tightening her throat. Ethan stubbed out his cigarette on the doorframe and kissed her neck. “Hold on, can’t you see someone’s causing trouble?” He turned back and patted my head. This time he patted it hard, making my head wobble. “Be a good girl and go sleep in the guest room tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll take you to buy a new dress.” I looked up, my gaze landing on a scar on his collarbone. It was from a fight he got into for me. He used a beer bottle to smash the head of a guy who tried to pull my pants down. A shard of glass had cut him too. Blood dripped onto my hand, warm. I stared at that blood for a long time. Until he scolded me, “Little dummy, don’t you know how to be scared?” Now, that red scar rose and fell gently with his breathing. Next to it was a smear of lipstick, a different shade of red. I said his name, emphasizing each syllable, “E-than.” “I’m not going to the guest room.” He frowned. “Don’t make a scene. Listen to me.” I spoke slowly, “My room. My bed. You two get out.” Linda covered her mouth and giggled. Ethan’s face darkened. He stopped petting my head and instead grabbed my arm, pulling me out of the room. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you annoying me right now?” He was strong, and I had no choice but to be dragged along. One of my slippers fell off, and my bare foot slapped against the cold floor, slap, slap, slap. The hallway lights were dim, shining on our wedding photo on the wall. In the photo, he was looking down and kissing my forehead, while I stared at the camera with wide eyes and a blank expression. The photographer had said, “Bride, give us a smile.” I tried hard to pull the corners of my mouth up. But Ethan said, “Nah, don’t smile. It’s better like this. Pure.” Now I knew what he probably meant was, “purely stupid.” Stupid enough that no one would respect me. Chapter 2 Ethan dragged me to the door of the guest room and tried to shove me inside. I braced myself against the doorframe. My fingers dug into the wood, my knuckles turning white. This action required a lot of coordination. My brain had to command my fingers to bend, my arms to use strength, and my feet to stand firm. For me, it was like commanding a disobedient army. It was tiring and slow. But I did it. Ethan looked at me in surprise. He probably didn’t expect me to resist. All these years, I had never resisted him. I ate what he told me to eat. I wore what he told me to wear. I smiled when he told me to smile. “June, that’s enough. Stop being stupid,” he called me by my full name, impatience in his voice. I looked up and met his eyes. “I am not stupid. I am just slow to react. But I remember.” “March 17th, 11:00 PM. You said you were discussing business. Lipstick stain on your shirt, brownish-red.” “June 9th, 3:00 PM. You said you were on a business trip. Hotel photo. The shadows and the angle of the sun didn’t match.” “August…” “Shut the hell up! What kind of weird habit is this!?” Ethan yanked me into the room and threw me onto the bed. He glared at me fiercely and left, slamming the door shut. The lock clicked. He had locked it from the outside. The light in the guest room was broken. It was dark, with no color. He probably didn’t remember the light was broken, or maybe he didn’t remember I was afraid of the dark. I was scared. Curled up at the head of the bed, I said to the closed door, “Ethan. Divorce.” “Let’s get a divorce.” Chapter 3 The next morning, the housekeeper let me out. When I went downstairs, Ethan was sitting at the dining table reading a newspaper. Linda was next to him, eating porridge. She was sitting in my seat, using my small flowered bowl. “Good morning, sister.” She held the spoon in her mouth and blinked at me. “My bowl.” I stared at the small flowered bowl. Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. She looked ridiculous. “Sorry, sister. I’m pregnant with Ethan’s baby. Ethan said everything in the house belongs to me and the baby. I thought he had told you too.” Ethan looked at her adoringly and didn’t say anything. She rubbed her belly. “Sister’s strange illness is hereditary, so she can’t have children. I’m suffering in sister’s place. I’m just using your bowl and chopsticks. Sister isn’t that stingy, right?” I looked down and counted my toes. Five on the left foot, five on the right foot. Ten in total. “The chopsticks are Ethan’s. The bowl is mine. Mom gave it to me.” When I was little, my mom used this bowl to feed me. After she died, I used this bowl to eat by myself. Ethan frowned. “June, cut the crap. We’re all family. Why are you being so petty?” Linda gently patted Ethan twice, stood up, held the bowl, and walked up to me. “This bowl is quite unique. Can you give it to me, sister? Let my baby share some of your blessings.” I shook my head. “No blessings. Mom is gone.” Ethan’s face darkened. “June, what the hell are you talking about? Why are you saying such unlucky things?” Linda squeezed out a sweet smile. “It’s okay, Ethan. Sister is intellectually disabled. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. I don’t mind.” “Give it back.” I reached out to grab the bowl. The small flowered bowl slipped from her hands, fell to the floor, and shattered. She screamed and fell to the ground, pushing me in the process. I fell too, and it hurt a little. Then she sat on the floor and started crying. “What’s going on?” Ethan’s face changed, and he stood up. He stepped over me and hugged Linda. Linda buried her face in his shoulder and cried, pears bathed in rain. “Ethan… she, she suddenly attacked me… her mind isn’t right to begin with, I… I’m scared…” “I was afraid she would hurt the baby… I just wanted to protect our child…” Ethan patted her head with heartache and didn’t even glance at me. “Don’t be scared, baby isn’t scared. It’s okay now. I’m here.” He used to say similar things to me when it thundered. He picked up Linda and ordered the housekeeper, “Call an ambulance, quick!” Then he pointed his finger at me. “June, if anything happens to the child, I will never forgive you!” The housekeeper walked over carefully. “Ma’am, you first…” “I am not ‘Ma’am’ anymore.” Ethan was stunned for a moment, but he continued to hold Linda and left without looking back. I climbed up, endured the pain, and began to pick up the broken pieces. One piece, two pieces, three pieces… Chapter 4 I lay on the hospital bed, looking out the window and listening to the noise outside the ward. “Yes, Mrs. Chen suffers from Kabuki syndrome and skeletal dysplasia. This time it’s only a minor fracture. If there are no other problems, she can go home after it’s set. She needs to be very careful in the future and cannot…” “Who asked about her? How’s Linda? Is the pregnancy affected?” “Ms. Linda currently shows no problems…” “Then check again! If there’s even the slightest problem with the mother or child, I’ll hold you responsible!” After a while, it became quiet outside. A young doctor walked into the ward. He wore a light blue shirt under his white coat and thin-rimmed glasses. “Mrs. Chen, I am your attending physician. My name is Gu, Dr. Gu.” “June.” I spoke slowly. “I am June. Not Mrs. Chen.” Dr. Gu raised an eyebrow, smiled, and nodded. “Alright, Ms. June. May I examine you?” “Okay.” He took out a small flashlight and carefully observed my eyes. “Any dizziness?” “A little.” He took out several cards with patterns on them. “Can you tell me what’s drawn on these?” “I don’t know.” Dr. Gu was startled. “You can… try to interpret them in your own way.” I took the cards and placed them where the light was even. I told him the color code corresponding to each color block. His expression gradually became solemn. “Besides color, what else are you sensitive to?” I thought for a while. “Time. Memory. I remember every second. Remember the traces of dust.” “Then from the moment I opened the door and came in until now…” “Three minutes and seven seconds… eight seconds… nine seconds…” He stood up, hurried out, and then came back with some things. I did some strange tests. He asked me to distinguish subtle frequencies and memorize complicated pattern sequences. I did them one by one. “Ms. June.” Dr. Gu’s expression was serious. “Your perception ability… I have never seen a similar case. I sincerely invite you to join our research institute. We need your gift. You can consider it.” I didn’t really understand. Since childhood, others said I was stupid, said my brain had problems. But I still agreed. “Okay. Is there a salary?” Dr. Gu didn’t expect me to agree so quickly, and he nodded quickly. “Of course, I promise it will be very generous. I’ll report it right away. The relevant department will definitely attach great importance to it and treat you as a treasure. I look forward to your recovery as soon as possible and becoming my colleague.” “Okay.” He shook hands with me in a friendly manner and stood up to leave. At the door, he suddenly turned his head again and smiled. “Your eyes are really beautiful, like they were painted.” Chapter 5 After returning, I lay in the guest room again. I didn’t like the guest room. But they said the master bedroom faced the sun, which was good for pregnant women. So I couldn’t sleep in the master bedroom, couldn’t sleep in my own bed. In the evening, Ethan came to bring me food. He carefully blew on the porridge and fed it to my mouth. “June, I know you’re upset. When the child is born, I’ll make him call you Mom, okay? Don’t you want to be a mother?” “But for now, just stay in your room and don’t go out. After Linda gives birth, I’ll take you out to buy a new dress. I’ll buy you all the dresses in the entire mall, okay?” I picked at the bedsheet, counting the patterns on it. One, two, three… “Small flowered bowl.” Ethan’s hand holding the spoon stopped. “Huh?” “Small flowered bowl broke.” “It’s okay, I’ll order an identical one for you.” I shook my head. “Not the same. Already broken.” “Ethan. We divorce.” The spoon fell into the bowl with a crisp clatter. “June, are you done yet? Divorce? How will you live without me? Who will care for you, feed you, dress you? Who remembers you’re scared of the dark and thunder?” He reached out and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look up. “What are you fussing about? What right do you have to fuss? Can you give me children? Give birth to a fool like you? Huh?” I shook off his hand and lowered my head. “I am not a fool. Ethan. We divorce.” Ethan stood up with a sneer. “June, I don’t know where you learned this, but I advise you to quit while you’re ahead and not push your luck.” “You’re a fool who doesn’t even dodge or cry when hit. How long could you live without me?” “Reflect on it properly.” Ethan slammed the door and left. I didn’t know why he was angry. I couldn’t give him children. If we divorced, he should be happy, right? He said I was a fool, wouldn’t dodge, wouldn’t cry. I thought he was more like a fool, not knowing what he wanted at all. But I knew what I wanted.

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