Seven years after my divorce from Ethan. We ran into each other in a flower shop. He was there to buy flowers for his pregnant wife. I was just hiding from the rain. After a moment of charged silence, we managed to say hello. Ethan asked, politely, how I’d been these past few years. I answered, just as politely, that everything was fine. As we were about to part, he said something out of the blue. “You seem different, Leah.” I just smiled, offering no reply. The truth is, nothing about me had changed. I had just stopped loving him. 1. A damp, cold wind snaked through the gap in the door, and for a long moment, the only sound in the small shop was the relentless drumming of rain against the windowpanes. The awkward quiet was finally broken when the florist emerged from the back, cradling a bouquet of irises. “Mr. Vance, you and your wife are so sweet,” she said, beaming. “Coming all the way out in this weather to buy her flowers.” Ethan took the bouquet, his gaze flickering instinctively toward me. He had a habit of over-explaining. “Nora’s been a little emotional during the pregnancy,” he murmured. “The flowers seem to help…” I nodded and offered a few bland compliments. Seeing the rain outside begin to let up, I picked up my bag, ready to leave. As I reached the door, Ethan’s hand suddenly shot out and closed around my wrist. “Where do you live? Let me give you a ride.” “That’s not necessary.” I took a half-step back, creating a careful distance between us. My voice was perfectly steady. “I wouldn’t want your wife to get the wrong idea.” As I turned to walk away, I thought I heard him say something else. The wind was too loud; the words were lost. The only casualty of the encounter was the breakfast pastry in my bag, now soaked through with rain. A shame. I tossed the ruined croissant into a nearby trash can without a second thought. A gust of wind billowed the sleeve of my coat, exposing the faint, silvery scars that lined my wrist—souvenirs from a past life. I paused, the thought striking me with a strange lack of emotion. This was the seventh year since my divorce from Ethan. And the third year since I had truly, finally, let him go. There was no pang of sadness, none of the hysteria that had defined our separation. Looking at him had been like looking at a complete stranger. The rain had stopped. The sky was beginning to clear. I pulled my sleeve down and headed for the bakery. Stella, the young woman who helps me out, greeted me with a wide grin. “Leah, you’re here! I found a box when I was cleaning out the storage closet.” She pointed to a dusty cardboard carton in the corner. “Should I keep it, or toss it with the rest of this junk? I need to make room for the new dough sheeter.” I wiped the layer of dust from the lid. And there it was, in elegant, looping script: Ethan’s handwriting. For Leah. Stella’s interest was immediately piqued. “Ooh, who’s this from?” she teased. “Fancy packaging. Somebody was trying to impress you.” She eagerly scanned the box for a signature. When her eyes landed on the familiar name, she froze. Her voice dropped to a stuttering whisper. “Ethan Vance?” She looked up at me, her eyes wide. “Wait, the Ethan Vance? The legendary genius, the astrophysicist from MIT?” Her voice climbed with each question. “The one who discovered that new asteroid and was in all the magazines? That handsome-as-hell Ethan Vance?!” Stella’s gaze was now filled with a kind of bewildered reverence. “Leah, who are you?” I lifted the lid of the box. My voice was calm, a simple statement of fact. “I’m Ethan Vance’s ex-wife.” The paranoid, unhinged ex-wife. The one who had a stint in a psychiatric hospital. The one he considered the greatest shame of his life. 2. Under Stella’s relentless questioning, I finally sat down and told her the story of Ethan and me. When I first met Ethan Vance, he wasn’t some celebrated boy genius. He was just the problem child from down the street, the weird, quiet kid everyone in the neighborhood whispered about. No friends, no family to speak of. His parents were in the middle of a nasty divorce and treated him like a piece of luggage they were both trying to lose. The winters in Boston are bone-deep cold. I found him one evening huddled in the stairwell of our apartment building, shivering in a threadbare sweatshirt. He looked so lost. I couldn’t just leave him there, so I brought him home. One day, while we were all playing a board game, my father noticed something incredible about the way Ethan’s mind worked with numbers. It was a flash of lightning. From that day on, everything changed. My dad saw a spark in him that no one else had, and he fanned it into a flame. At ten, Ethan won the National Math Olympiad. At fourteen, he got early admission to MIT. By sixteen, a paper he published was making waves across the globe, and awards started piling up. Suddenly, the same parents who couldn’t get rid of him fast enough were fighting tooth and nail for custody. But Ethan did something none of them expected. He knelt before my father and bowed his head, a gesture so formal and final it silenced the room. “I know who was good to me,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I know who really loves me. From now on, you and Mom are my real parents.” He looked at me. “I’ll take care of you both. I’ll always take care of Leah.” From that day forward, Ethan’s trajectory was a straight line pointing up, but he never tried to leave me behind. When MIT accepted him, he insisted they find a place for me, lobbying for them to lower their admission standards. When he was offered a teaching position after his doctorate, he demanded they create an administrative role for me in his department. I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to keep up. But Ethan would look at me with that unwavering intensity. “When I was eight, my parents left me in that stairwell. I sat there all night, from dusk till dawn. You were the one who found me, Leah. You brought me home. I swore to myself in that moment that I would never, ever leave you. I wouldn’t be who I am today without you. No matter how high I fly, I will never let you go.” That was Ethan. Stubborn to his core. Once he fixed on something, he never let go. It was true for his research projects. It was true when he pursued me. And, it turned out, it was true when he fell for someone else. “He cheated?” Stella’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “But you guys were childhood sweethearts. You grew up together. After all that, he cheated?” She leaned forward. “Who was she? Some rich heiress? A supermodel? One of those scheming, femme fatale types you see in the movies?” None of the above. Ethan’s affair was with a dark and wiry, entirely unremarkable girl who sold flowers from a cart at the farmer’s market. By the time he was twenty-seven, Ethan had achieved more professionally than most people do in a lifetime. He was no longer chasing accolades or money. He started pouring his energy into personal hobbies. He had no interest in stocks or golf or any of the usual pastimes. Instead, he developed a sudden, all-consuming passion for botany. Exotic imports, cheap annuals, common daisies, rare orchids—Ethan bought them all, filling a small greenhouse he’d built behind our house. His favorite, he always said, was the iris. The same type I had given him as a seedling for his birthday years ago. “This is the plant that started it all,” he told me once, his eyes gleaming. “To think that such an unremarkable seed, with the right human intervention, can be cultivated into something so magnificent. The process… it’s fascinating.” He said he loved flowers. But what he loved more was the process of making them bloom. In that small, glass-walled world, he was God. He decided what flourished and what withered. Life and death were entirely up to him. I never really understood what he meant. A flower was a flower. It bloomed when it bloomed. Why try to control it so much? But Nora, the flower girl who was helping him unload a shipment of soil that day, looked up at him with wide, adoring eyes. “Professor Vance is right,” she said, her voice breathy with awe. “I feel the same way. A flower’s beauty depends entirely on the gardener’s care. Look how well this iris grew. That was all my work.” And just like that, on a crisp autumn day surrounded by blooming irises, they connected. Because of the flowers. And because of me. 3. After that, Ethan started ordering flowers from Nora all the time. Roses, lilies, lilacs, peonies. The house we lived in began to look less like a home and more like a botanical garden. And as the flowers accumulated, so did the time they spent together. Then one day, Ethan came to me with a proposal. He wanted to sponsor Nora’s education. “She’s just a teenager, Leah. She’s brilliant and hardworking. It’s a tragedy to let that kind of potential go to waste.” Nora stood beside him, nervously picking at the thick calluses on her hands. A small, anxious smile played on her chapped lips. “I’ll study hard, I promise,” she said, her eyes fixed on me. “My grades were good. I only had to drop out of school because my mom was in a car accident and I had to support my family. If you just give me a chance, I swear I won’t let you down.” Her young face was etched with a weariness that didn’t belong on someone her age. Looking into her earnest eyes, I was suddenly reminded of an eight-year-old boy, huddled and helpless in a cold stairwell. My heart softened. For a long time, I treated Nora like a younger sister. I bought her new clothes, taught her about skincare, and helped her navigate the social cues she’d never had a chance to learn. She called me her big sister, swore I was the kindest person she’d ever met, and promised that one day, she would repay my kindness. And she didn’t disappoint me. She was accepted into the very university where Ethan and I both worked. The night she received her acceptance letter, she climbed into Ethan’s bed. I had left work early that day, planning to cook a special dinner to celebrate her achievement. I walked into our home to find them tangled together in our bedroom, their clothes in a heap on the floor. In that single, shattering moment, I lost my mind. I threw the celebratory cake at them, smearing frosting across their bare skin. I tore through the house like a hurricane, smashing every pot and vase, shredding every petal and leaf until our home was a graveyard of flowers. Ethan shielded Nora with his body, his eyes cold as he watched my rampage. “That’s enough, Leah. Close the door on your way out.” His voice was flat. “You may not have any shame, but Nora does.” Between me and Nora, his choice was clear and instantaneous. He had chosen the other woman. I couldn’t breathe. I demanded he give me an explanation. He just frowned. “You are still my wife, Leah. As long as you don’t make trouble, Nora will never threaten your position.” Nora, for her part, scrambled to her knees in front of me, tears streaming down her face. “Sister, I know I’ve wronged you, but Ethan and I are in love! We’re soulmates. We understand each other in a way no one else can. Don’t worry, I’ll never forget your kindness. I don’t need a title, I won’t fight you for anything. Just please, let me stay by his side!” I was only in my twenties. I was proud, and I had never known a hurt like this. I sent a formal complaint to the university, an email detailing their unethical and inappropriate relationship. I wanted to expose them. But reality delivered a swift, brutal lesson. The university was never going to fire a star like Ethan Vance. Instead, to appease him, they put me on disciplinary probation. Ethan then went a step further, releasing a public statement to the faculty, asking his colleagues to look out for Nora. “She is my student,” he wrote. “She is brilliant, diligent, and hardworking. I hope you will all, for my sake, give her the support she deserves. She has overcome immense hardship to get here. She may not have the most polished academic record, but in my eyes, she is the finest student I have ever had the privilege of teaching. She is my greatest pride.” He even admitted to pulling strings to get her into the university, acknowledging it was against the rules. He didn’t care. All he wanted was to ensure Nora had a brilliant future. And me? What was I? A joke? A footnote? I hid at home, crying myself to sleep every night, haunted by the smirking, whispering faces of colleagues and strangers. Ethan continued to tend to his irises, unbothered. “Don’t you get it yet, Leah?” he said to me one evening, not even looking up from his pruning. “Your job, your reputation, your entire status—it all comes from me. Without me, you are nothing. I told you Nora wouldn’t affect your position. Just be reasonable. Can’t we just live our lives in peace?” No. We couldn’t. I couldn’t bear it, living with a husband whose heart and mind were constantly with another woman. I started fighting back. I became hysterical, vindictive. I launched a scorched-earth campaign against them. When Ethan gave a major lecture, I swapped his presentation slides with intimate photos of him and Nora. When they gave a joint interview for a university publication, I stormed the room and screamed the truth about their affair. I wrote countless letters. I posted anonymous videos. All I got for my efforts was a diagnosis. Ethan was too smart. He provoked me into these manic episodes, then calmly recorded my breakdowns and presented them as evidence of my instability. His intellect, his status, his intimate knowledge of my every weakness—he used it all to crush me. In the end, I was the one who lost everything. I was fired from my job. My graduate degree was revoked. And then, Ethan Vance, my husband, had me committed to a psychiatric hospital. My voice was steady as I told this to Stella, but her eyes were red. She sniffled, wiping at tears. “What happened then?” Then, in the sterile quiet of the hospital, I found out I was nearly five months pregnant. And Ethan came to take me home. 4. The existence of the child forced Ethan into a truce. He checked me out of the hospital, took my hand, and spoke in that calm, rational voice I had come to hate. “Leah, I know I made a mistake. But you can’t keep acting like this. Your parents… they’re worried sick. People are gossiping about them everywhere they go. You’re not a child anymore. Can’t you stop being so selfish?” He placed my hand on my still-flat stomach. “Think about the baby. Think about your parents.” A tear slid down my cheek and landed on my knuckles. This time, I was the one who gave in. The fight had gone out of me. My spirit was broken. I spent my days like a ghost, wandering through that house filled with another woman’s flowers, staring into space. Ethan’s life became a neatly organized schedule. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were for me. He would come home, read to my growing belly, and talk about prenatal education. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays were for Nora. With her, he explored the sweet, dizzying passion of new love. He, a man with a chronic stomach condition, would accompany Nora to every trendy, new restaurant she wanted to try—spicy food, greasy food, bubble tea, ice cream. Whatever she liked, he ate without complaint. This was the man who once believed wasting ten minutes was a cardinal sin, now sitting patiently through Nora’s favorite vapid romantic comedies. This was the man who valued his career above all else, now engaging in childish antics to make her laugh. He put her name on one of his academic papers—in a completely different field—to boost her credentials. He blew off important seminars and played pranks on his colleagues, all to amuse her. He ground my dignity into the dust. And with it, he trampled the rules and ethics of the world he supposedly revered. The final, explosive moment came with the proposal. That was the year Ethan discovered a new asteroid, a feat that propelled him from academic stardom to mainstream fame. He was featured in international magazines, his brilliant mind and handsome face suddenly everywhere. And at this pinnacle of his life, he chose to share the glory with Nora. He named the asteroid Nora’s Horizon. Beneath the horizon, Ethan Vance and Nora promised to be together forever. On the night he officially received the award, he held a private ceremony for her at the city’s planetarium. Beneath the projected image of the asteroid that bore her name, he staged a wedding. When I saw Nora, radiant in a white gown, walking toward him… when I saw them exchange vows under that canopy of artificial stars, something inside me finally, irrevocably, snapped. We never had a wedding. I had begged him for one, but he had always dismissed it. “Leah, you know me. I hate all that superficial pomp and circumstance,” he’d said. “It’s a waste of time and energy that could be better spent on my work.” Because I loved him, I accepted it. And because I loved him, I had lost everything. My suppressed rage erupted. I stormed into the ceremony in front of all their guests, ripped the veil from Nora’s head, and slapped her hard across the face, twice. Ethan’s reaction was swift. He threw a glass of ice water in my face. His voice was arctic. “You’ve crossed a line, Leah.” He told me he wanted a divorce. He was leaving with Nora. I refused. I couldn’t accept it. I wouldn’t let him go. “If you walk out that door tonight,” I sobbed, climbing onto the railing of the planetarium’s observation deck, “I’ll jump, and I’ll take this baby with me.” Ethan didn’t leave. He pushed me. Maybe he only meant to scare me. To call my bluff. But the result was the same. I lost the child I had wanted so desperately. And I found myself back in the psychiatric hospital. This time, the diagnosis was severe depression.

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There’s a running joke among the women who lunch on the Upper East Side. “When you get married,” it goes, “you can be anyone you want. Just don’t be Audrey Hayes. Her husband’s mistress is practically sleeping in their bed, and she just swallows it down for the sake of her son. The woman’s a walking tragedy.” The men, however, always say it with a note of envy. “A dutiful wife at home and a hot little thing on the side? That’s not a tragedy, that’s the dream.” But here’s the secret no one knew. Audrey Hayes, the most docile and accommodating wife in all of Manhattan, was about to give up custody of her son, just to get a divorce from her husband. Not that my husband, Grayson Hayes, would ever believe it. … I watched him across the vast expanse of our dining table, spooning soup into his mouth. The word divorce slipped out of me before I could stop it. The sound of it shocked me, but what followed was a wave of relief so profound it felt like taking my first breath after nearly drowning. Grayson’s hand paused mid-air. He placed the spoon down with a soft clink and delicately dabbed his lips with a linen napkin. “The soup’s a little salty tonight. Tell the chef to use less sodium tomorrow.” His phone, lying face-up on the polished mahogany, lit up. The hard lines of his face, the ones that were always set in a look of mild indifference whenever he looked at me, softened instantly. A small smile touched his lips as he tapped out a reply. The name on the screen was Isabelle. The world knew her as the mistress who had all but shoved me out of my own life. I took a steadying breath and hardened my tone. “Grayson. I want a divorce. Right now.” He didn’t even look up, just glanced at the Patek Philippe on his wrist. “Noah will be home in five minutes. Are you really going to make a scene?” There it was. He was playing his trump card, using the son I had nearly died to bring into this world as a shield. He was warning me to behave. But he didn’t know. He didn’t know that yesterday, I had decided to give up on every last one of them. It happened yesterday. My son, Noah, got into a fight with some townies over his girlfriend and ended up at the local precinct. When I got the call and rushed over, still in my apron, his little girlfriend looked me up and down and piped up. “Noah, is that your housekeeper?” The group of teenagers around them burst into laughter. Noah, chewing his gum with a pained expression, shot me a venomous look. “So embarrassing,” he muttered. I froze, my hands instinctively tugging at the apron I hadn’t had time to change. A hot flash of anger surged through me. “Noah, have I not told you about getting into relationships so young?” “Hey!” Noah snapped, cutting me off. It had been years since he’d called me ‘Mom.’ “Why don’t you try holding on to your own husband before you start lecturing me about my life? Can’t manage him, so you take it out on your son to feel important?” The blood drained from my face, a chill spreading from my scalp to the soles of my feet. I blinked, and tears I hadn’t known were there began to stream down my cheeks, hot and unstoppable. “Hehe, look, she’s crying,” the little girlfriend giggled, poking Noah in the chest. “Go easy on her, Noah. I guess yelling at her kid is the only way a housewife can maintain her so-called status, hahaha.” “What’s the point of crying at me?” he said, his voice laced with impatience. A cruel, sarcastic smile twisted his lips. “My dad is the one you should be crying to. Besides,” he added, his voice dropping with contempt, “you’re not exactly a young girl anymore. The whole damsel-in-distress routine doesn’t work. It’s just… pathetic.” Just like that, the tears stopped. The raw emotion was shattered by his words. I looked at my son’s face, a face that was an eighty-percent echo of Grayson’s, and saw it with terrifying clarity. They were father and son, through and through. They even looked at me with the same expression. The same dismissiveness. The same arrogance. A profound exhaustion settled deep in my bones. I turned to leave, but a figure smelling faintly of Chanel No. 5 brushed past me. I stopped. It was Isabelle. Her eyes were red-rimmed as she frantically checked Noah over from head to toe. “Noah, sweetie, are you hurt? You have to tell Aunt Isabelle, don’t be brave.” And Noah, who had been all swagger and defiance with the police officers just moments before, bowed his head like a tamed wolf cub. He awkwardly reached out to wipe a tear from her cheek. “Aunt Isabelle, don’t cry. I’m fine, really.” Looking at the two of them, anyone would have thought they were the real mother and son. “Audrey. Where do you think you’re going?” Grayson had arrived. His brow was furrowed, his eyes flashing with anger as he stared at me. “Noah is still in a police station, and you were just going to walk out? What kind of a mother are you?” Noah’s girlfriend shot a sly, triumphant smile and looped her arm through Isabelle’s. “Aunt Isabelle, you’re so good to Noah. I really wish you were his real mom.” Her gaze flickered over to me, dripping with insinuation. “I mean, some people don’t even care if their own son is hurt. They’re just looking for a chance to throw their weight around. It just breaks my heart for Noah.” Every eye in the room turned to me, their gazes filled with varying degrees of condemnation. I was the one who had been insulted, the one who should have been hurting. But I wasn’t even allowed to cry, because the son I had carried for ten months and brought into the world through a near-death ordeal would find my tears disgusting. Grayson let out a derisive snort. “Go home, Audrey. Isabelle and I have it covered here. We don’t need any outsiders.” 2 The silence in the dining room stretched, thick and heavy. At some point, our housekeeper had entered, placing a thick manila envelope on the table beside him. “Ma’am,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “A lawyer asked me to give this to you.” Grayson impatiently flipped through the divorce agreement. My signature, clear and steady, was already on the final page. For the first time all evening, he finally looked at me, his brow furrowed in annoyance. “What new brand of insanity is this?” In the past, the slightest hint of a frown from him would send me into a spiral of anxious apologies, regardless of who was at fault. Marrying Grayson Hayes was the catch of a lifetime, the fulfillment of a girlhood dream where he was the moon I had spent my youth reaching for. But this time, I met his gaze without flinching. My voice was calm. “I’ll leave with nothing.” His fingers, clutching the papers, turned white at the knuckles. “Audrey…” Just then, a figure burst through the door. It was Isabelle, who laughed and promptly settled herself onto Grayson’s lap, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Gray, honey, Noah’s parent-teacher conference is today! We’re going to be late.” In our circle, there was an unspoken rule: no matter how much you fooled around, you never brought it home. Grayson had always been discreet with his other flings, keeping them hidden away. But Isabelle… Isabelle was different. Short of the legal title I still held, Grayson had given her everything. Sensing my stare, Isabelle made a show of scrambling to her feet. “Oh, Audrey, I’m so sorry. Am I interrupting something?” Grayson pulled her back onto his lap, his smile indulgent. “Just a little trouble. It’ll be sorted out in a minute. We won’t be late.” Isabelle let out a sigh of relief. “It’s just that this conference is really important. I guess I got a little anxious.” Watching them together, a bitter smile touched my lips. So that’s what I was. Anything to do with me was “trouble.” I, myself, was trouble. He rubbed his temples, a sign of his growing impatience. For the first time in our marriage, the great Grayson Hayes lowered his head to me, but only because he didn’t want to keep Isabelle waiting. “I admit I was a little harsh yesterday. It won’t happen again. And Noah… I’ll talk to him. I’ll remind him to respect you. Okay?” Isabelle bit her lip, her eyes pleading with me. “Audrey, Noah is what’s most important. Can you really stand to see him get reprimanded by his teacher for being late?” She leaned forward, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “Please. For Noah’s sake. Can’t you just show a little more concern for him?” A lump formed in my throat, hot and suffocating. I wanted to scream at them. How could it be that I, Noah’s biological mother, had no idea he even had a parent-teacher conference? But what was the point? The last time I’d tried to pick him up from his private school, he had spotted me from a block away and deliberately turned to walk in the other direction, a look of disgust on his face. “Can you please not come to my school and embarrass me?” he’d hissed at me later that night. “You smell like kitchen grease. You look like a frumpy housewife.” “Someone asked me if I was the housekeeper’s son yesterday.” I closed my eyes, pushing down the familiar surge of acid heartbreak. I opened them and spoke, enunciating each word with chilling precision. “Sign the papers. Then you’ll have no one to hold you back.” “Are you sure you want a divorce?” 3 Grayson’s jaw was set in a hard line. I knew he was furious, but for the first time, I didn’t shrink. I didn’t abandon my own needs to soothe his temper. Isabelle’s eyes darted to the divorce agreement on the table, my name signed at the bottom. In a flash, her eyes filled with tears and she crumpled to the floor, sobbing. “I’m so sorry,” she wailed. “It’s all my fault. You want to divorce Gray because of me.” “I feel so awful. But I love him so much, and I love Noah so much. Please don’t be angry. I’ll never show my face again, I promise. Just… just let me be his pet. Something he can visit once in a while. That’s all I ask.” “It has nothing to do with you,” Grayson said, his voice a low growl as he tried to pull her up. But Isabelle threw off his hand and crawled on her knees toward me, clutching at my legs. “I’ll kneel for you. I’ll beg for your forgiveness.” “Just please, don’t do this out of spite. If you and Gray really get a divorce… what will happen to Noah?” I was pinned, unable to move. And in that space where no one else could see, Isabelle’s lips twisted into a triumphant, mocking smirk. The Hayes family never wanted you, she mouthed silently. Get out. Her words didn’t even register. The whole display was so absurd it was almost funny. I reached down to push her away, but she used my momentum, collapsing dramatically onto the floor and scraping her wrist against the leg of a chair. It immediately turned a raw, angry red. Before I could even process what had happened, a powerful force shoved me from behind. I stumbled, my feet tangling, and fell hard. My forehead struck the sharp corner of the dining table. A thick, warm liquid streamed down over my eyebrow, blurring my vision in a wash of crimson. “Are you crazy? Taking it out on Aunt Isabelle just because you’re upset!” “Audrey, have you had enough?!” Through the red haze, I saw the undisguised loathing in the eyes of my son and my husband. And finally, I laughed. It was such a clumsy, pathetic performance, but because it was Isabelle, they believed every second of it. Noah was already on his knees beside her, cradling her reddened wrist, his own eyes welling with tears. He produced an antiseptic wipe and a bandage from a nearby first-aid kit, applying them with the same gentle technique I had taught him years ago. “Don’t be scared, Aunt Isabelle,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “As long as I’m here, that crazy woman won’t ever hurt you again.” I could still remember twelve years ago, Noah in his incubator, his tiny eyes looking out at me with complete and total dependence. The delivery had been brutal. I had hemorrhaged, and Noah was born severely deprived of oxygen. He spent a full month in the NICU. No one thought he would make it. Grayson’s mother had already made arrangements at a funeral home. There was a fifty percent chance he would have severe developmental disabilities. “I can accept the Hayes family having no heir,” she had told me, her voice like ice. “But I will not accept an heir who is a vegetable.” Only I hadn’t given up. I begged, I groveled, I wore my knees raw pleading with Grayson’s family until his grandmother finally agreed to keep paying for his care. I spent every waking moment outside the NICU, separated by two layers of glass, talking to him, singing to him, doing anything I could to stimulate his tiny brain. I prayed to every god I could think of, offering up thirty years of my own life in exchange for his. Just let him be safe and sound. Year after year, safe and sound. So when Noah opened his eyes for the first time, I knew I would give up anything for him. I gave up a promotion at the gallery, trading my career for a kitchen, meticulously planning his every meal. I gave up my own feelings, enduring Grayson’s nights away from home, his constant neglect, his subtle devaluations. The divorce papers were scattered across the floor. Noah saw them, and his hands, still tending to Isabelle, froze. His voice rose to a shrill cry. “So that’s it. You blame Aunt Isabelle for the divorce, so you attack her. How can you be such a vicious woman?” “I will never leave with you! Someone like you doesn’t deserve to be my mother, and you don’t deserve to be Dad’s wife!” His words were like daggers. And all I could think of was the first time he spoke. The words he had said. “Love… Mommy… the most.” I remembered when the first rumors of Grayson’s affairs had surfaced. Noah, just a little boy then, would stand guard at the front door with his little face set in a serious frown. “You have to apologize to Mommy before I let you in.” 4 For so long, he had been my reason for living, the pillar that held up my world. But I didn’t need him to hold me up anymore. Grayson’s brow was furrowed, his voice a low threat. “If you divorce me, you will never see Noah again.” Father and son, their spines bristling in unison against me. I looked straight at Noah, my voice quiet but firm. “I’ll leave with nothing. And of course, I don’t want you.” The anger on Noah’s face popped like a balloon, replaced by a flash of panic and confusion. Grayson let out a cold laugh. He snatched a pen, scribbled his name on the final page with such force that he nearly tore the paper, and threw the entire document at me. “Don’t you come to regret this.” I bent down and picked up the scattered pages, one by one. With each sheet, it felt as though I were removing a link from a heavy chain I had been dragging for more than a decade. The relief was overwhelming. “Regret? Never.” I stood up, and for the first time in this house, my spine felt straight and strong. My family was never prominent in the city’s social hierarchy. At every gala and benefit, I was the wallflower, watching from a distance as Grayson held court, a sun surrounded by fawning planets. Our marriage was the result of a stupid bet he’d lost with his friends. He’d turned to me, a dare in his eyes, and asked if I would marry him. I’d said yes. He took me to City Hall that very night. There was no ring, no ceremony. It wasn’t until I gave birth to Noah that the world even knew a Mrs. Hayes existed. I turned to leave, but a glint of moisture in the corner of Noah’s eye caught my attention. I sighed. “The weather’s getting colder. Remember to wear a jacket. Your immune system is weak; it takes you longer than others to get over a cold.” Every time the seasons changed, Noah would get sick. When he was little, he couldn’t sleep with a fever unless I was sitting by his bed. I often stayed up with him for four or five nights in a row. “And stay away from shellfish. It’s too harsh on your system. It gives you stomach cramps.” Noah couldn’t touch any kind of seafood. The first time Grayson, in a rare moment of paternal indulgence, had let him have whatever he wanted, Noah had gorged himself on lobster behind my back. The resulting illness led to the entire family blaming me for my carelessness. I had nearly cried my eyes out from guilt and exhaustion. “In the fridge…” “That’s enough,” Noah cut me off, the panic in his eyes gone, replaced by a contemptuous smirk. “You just said you didn’t want me. Who are you putting on this touching motherly performance for now? Just get out of here. You don’t belong in this house anymore.” I swallowed the rest of my words. I went upstairs to pack. The sound of a car engine starting up echoed from the driveway below. My hands didn’t pause. But as I looked around, I realized the only things that were truly mine were a simple summer dress I’d worn the day Grayson and I went to City Hall, and the clothes on my back. With a sense of futility, I stopped. I twisted the diamond ring from my finger, placed it on the dresser, and walked out of the room empty-handed. I was stopped at the front door. Grayson had come back. He pulled me into his car, and we drove in silence until we reached the bridge over the river. Noah glared at me from the back seat. “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t said those things, Aunt Isabelle wouldn’t have been so wracked with guilt that she jumped into the river! She was trying to convince Dad to make up with you!” Isabelle was huddled in Grayson’s arms, soaking wet and shivering violently. “Audrey, you can hit me, you can scream at me, whatever you want,” she sobbed. “But please, don’t let this family fall apart because of me.” Grayson was beside himself with worry. He grabbed me, his fingers digging into my neck, and forced me against the cold metal railing of the bridge. “Apologize!” he snarled, his face inches from mine. “Apologize, or I’ll throw you in there so you can feel a fraction of the misery she just went through.” I clenched my jaw. “Never.” Isabelle’s sobs grew louder. Noah balled his fists. “Bitch! Dad, just do it! Throw her in!” The pressure on my neck tightened. Grayson’s eyes were squeezed shut. With a final roar of fury, he shoved me away. But the force of it sent me stumbling backward, over the low railing. The icy water of the river shocked the air from my lungs. The last thing I saw was the image of the three of them on the bridge, huddled together in a protective embrace. I stopped struggling. My fingers found a small button on the side of my watch and pressed it. I let myself sink. If they wanted me dead, then I would grant their wish.

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My mission to save the villain failed. I returned to my own world. Then the System’s voice chimed in my head again: {The villain’s legs are broken.} So I went back to take care of him. System: {He’s been drugged.} So we spent a tangled night together. System: {He’s been drugged again. Host, you should probably go check on him.} Are you kidding me? My back is still aching! What kind of person gets drugged seven times in one week? This time, I arrived in his world early. I found the villain in his kitchen, meticulously poisoning his own glass of water. 1. A much younger Ethan Blackwood was walking onto a busy street, right into the path of a speeding semi-truck. I didn’t hesitate. I sprinted, shoving him hard out of the way. The impact sent me flying. In the split second before everything went dark, I was smiling. The System had just pinged: $3 million bonus awarded. Ethan, however, was staring at me, his face a mask of pure shock. He ran over, his voice trembling. “Who are you? Why did you save me?” I managed to pat his small, pale cheek. “Hey,” I whispered. “Go home, kid. Stay in school. Don’t get into trouble.” It was the last thing I ever said to him. Then I died, right there in front of his eyes. To be honest, I didn’t feel a thing. The System had blocked all the pain receptors. My consciousness just felt… floaty. The little villain’s eyes were rimmed with red. In the original story, this was the moment that broke him. A middle-school-aged Ethan, driven to despair by an abusive father and a mother who had abandoned him, had tried to end his own life. He hadn’t died, but the accident had shattered one of his legs. Without the money for proper treatment, he was left with a permanent, painful limp that twisted his personality into something dark and violent. Now, I closed my eyes peacefully. This time, his legs were fine. Maybe the darkness wouldn’t take root so quickly. Back in my world, the System informed me that I only had to save him two more times to collect the final ten-million-dollar prize. I rubbed my hands together. “Thank you, System-daddy.” It seemed to hesitate. {Did you… leave something behind?} I checked myself over. Nope. Besides, my body in that world had been cremated. Anything I might have had on me would be ash by now. The System hummed, then said it would contact me for the next mission. 2. The second mission came much later. I was placed in the same high school class as Ethan Blackwood. High school again? Seriously? I pinched my arm. It’s fine. It’s fine. I can survive high school again for another three million. It was a fair trade. Ethan arrived late that day, dressed in a gray hoodie that shadowed his face, his dark hair falling over his forehead. His face was a canvas of fresh bruises. A grim, heavy aura surrounded him, and no one dared to meet his eyes. My mission this time was simple: keep Ethan away from the story’s hero and heroine. I had to stick to him like glue, do whatever it took to prevent him from ever getting tangled up with them. The moment the bell rang for break, I pulled a warm bottle of milk from my bag and held it out to him. “It’s cold out. Want this?” He flinched, his brow furrowing, but he didn’t even look at me. “No.” His voice was ice. I persisted, holding it steady. “It’ll get cold soon, Ethan.” Finally, he lifted his head, his eyes filled with annoyance. “Are you…” He trailed off, his expression freezing. A flicker of something unreadable passed through his gaze. My own heart skipped a beat. I quickly checked with the System. {My appearance is different from last time, right? He literally watched me get cremated. Don’t want to traumatize the poor kid.} The System swore on its year-end bonus that I looked completely different. I steadied myself. Ethan just stared at me, silent. The bell for the next class rang, and I quietly pulled the milk back. “Class is starting,” I mumbled. His eyes lingered on me for a long moment before he turned away without a word. 3. Even though Ethan showed up with new bruises every couple of weeks, he never missed a day of school. His grades were even better than mine. When the report cards came out, I tried to console myself. So what? Go ask any college grad how much high school physics they remember. It’s fine. My main quest is to keep him from interacting with the main characters. Finally, the pivotal moment arrived—the scene where the villain and the heroine first meet. A basketball came flying out of the court, arcing directly toward the heroine, Sophia Ross. Gasps erupted around them. I glanced at Ethan; he was watching the scene with a lazy, detached interest. This was it. I couldn’t let them connect. I bolted from Ethan’s side. With a boost from the System—a temporary “jump enhancement” module—I leaped into the air, hands outstretched. I managed to swat the ball down, but the force of the impact sent a shockwave up my arms and knocked me off my feet. I landed hard. It hurt. A lot. System, did you forget to turn off my pain sensors? Sophia rushed over to help me up. I ignored the throbbing in my arm and pulled her away from the court, away from Ethan’s line of sight. I collapsed in a corner of the athletic field, sweating from the pain. Sophia hovered over me, asking if she should take me to the hospital. I shook my head, urging her to leave just as I saw Ethan walking toward us. “Could you get a teacher to take me to the nurse’s office?” I pleaded. “I really can’t walk right now.” I finally managed to send her away just as Ethan reached me. He stopped in front of me, his eyes narrowing slightly as he watched Sophia’s retreating figure. I shifted to block his view. “Hey, Ethan. I think I twisted my ankle. Can you help me get to the nurse?” He scowled, his gaze still fixed on the direction Sophia had gone. I decided to go for broke. I flopped onto the ground and started wailing. “Ow, ow, owwww, it hurts so much! I think my leg is broken! I might be dying!” Finally, worn down by my relentless melodrama, Ethan slung me onto his back and carried me to the nurse’s office. 4. After that incident, Ethan and I grew closer. Or rather, I unilaterally forced us closer. He stopped outright refusing the milk and chocolate I offered him. He’d learned that if he said no, I would just unwrap a piece and stuff it in his mouth myself. He was at an age where he should have been growing, but he was all sharp angles and lean muscle, tall and thin. It was obvious he wasn’t eating properly. So I made it my mission to load him up with high-calorie snacks. Eat up, little villain. Maybe you’ll avoid those stomach ulcers later in life. But despite my constant supervision, rumors about Ethan and Sophia started spreading through the school. The gossip was that Ethan had confessed his feelings to her, she’d rejected him, and now he was stalking her. No way. When would he have had the time? I was stuck to him like a shadow every single day at school. He only ever escaped my sight after the last bell. Wait a second. After school? Ethan always rushed off the moment class was dismissed. I could never keep up. So, one day, I followed Sophia instead. It turned out their routes home were nearly identical. The moment Sophia turned into a narrow alley, a figure stepped out and blocked her path. I lifted the brim of my baseball cap. Holy crap. It was Ethan. So much for the diligent student act. The moment he was free, he was out here cornering girls. Ethan said something, and Sophia’s face went pale. He then snatched her backpack and started rummaging through it, his movements rough. Are you insane? Do you have any idea how badly the hero is going to destroy you for treating her like this? Furious, I ran forward. “Ethan! You let her go—” I stopped short when I saw what he pulled from her bag: a small, silver fish barrette. 5. You have that kind of hobby? Ethan glanced at me, then shoved the backpack at Sophia and told her to leave. She scurried away, tears welling in her eyes. I scratched my head, but my righteous anger hadn’t faded. “What was that? Are you mugging fellow students now?” Ethan’s hand closed tightly around the barrette. “It’s none of your business.” “Hah, none of my business?” I scoffed. “It’s a huge part of my business. You’re my ten-million-dollar ticket!” I immediately switched to a smile. “Look, Ethan, if you like hair clips and stuff, I can buy you some. You shouldn’t snatch things from girls. And if you’re trying to get her attention, this is really not the way to do it…” Ethan shot me a look that was dripping with exasperation. “It’s mine.” What? Why would a future crime lord have such a cute barrette? He started to walk away, but froze when he looked up and saw that the lights in his apartment were on. He was rooted to the spot. The bruises on his body had just started to fade; another night at home would undo all that progress. I went over and tugged on his sleeve. “The wonton soup place they opened up near the community center looks really good. Want to go?” He didn’t nod, but he didn’t shake his head either. I took that as a yes and dragged him there. I ordered him a large bowl. “Consider this a thank you for helping me with my exam prep,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Please, please help me study for the next one, too?” The truth was, I couldn’t care less about the exams. I just wanted him to have a hot meal without feeling like it was charity. 6. Over the steaming bowls, Ethan explained what had happened in just a few sentences. Someone had taken the barrette from his backpack and given it to Sophia, telling her that Ethan had a crush on her. They’d warned her that if she didn’t accept, he would make her life a living hell. I took a bite of a tender, juicy wonton. “Idiots,” I muttered. “Anyone spreads that rumor again, girls get one slap, guys get two. If I find out who it was, I’ll send them packing.” I looked at Ethan and lowered my voice. “Ethan, you have to study hard. Please, don’t get into any trouble.” In the small, steamy restaurant, Ethan stared at me, his expression unreadable. For a fleeting second, it was complex and deep, then it smoothed over into his usual blank canvas. After that night, Ethan completely cut off any potential contact with Sophia. He had almost no interaction with the story’s hero, either, their only rivalry playing out on the academic leaderboards for the number one spot. The whole school buzzed with the rumor that whoever got first place would win Sophia’s heart. I glanced back at Ethan, who was slumped over his desk, sleeping. He’d probably spent another night at an internet cafe. His abusive father was home for a few days, leaving him with nowhere else to go. Graduation was approaching, and with it, another critical plot point. I hid on the stairwell landing one floor above Ethan’s apartment. Late at night, I heard the sound of a bottle smashing. “Damn it! Door’s locked.” Ethan’s father was pounding on the door, shouting. “You little bastard, open this door!” “You lock me out? You think I won’t go find your mother? Her new meal ticket looks like he’s got plenty of money…” The door was yanked open, and Ethan’s father was dragged inside. Then came the sickening, muffled thuds of impact, the crash of furniture being overturned. Ethan’s father screamed in pain, his voice laced with curses. “I could kill you and get the insurance money!” a voice roared from inside. I checked with the System one last time to make sure my pain sensors were off. Then I burst in. Just as his father lunged with a knife, I threw myself in front of Ethan, wrapping my arms around him. “Ethan,” I gasped. “Call the police.” I collapsed in a pool of my own blood. Ethan’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. His eyes were bloodshot, filled with a raw, primal terror. I couldn’t bear to look at him. I knew I wasn’t in any real pain, but the horror and despair in his eyes were agonizingly real. I turned my head away and saw a silver fish barrette that had fallen out from between the pages of a dropped textbook. Right. I forgot to ask him whose barrette it was…

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After I paid off the ten-million-dollar debt for my sister, she decided to sue me. It started after I refused her latest demand for an exorbitant allowance. A few hours later, I found her post going viral: 【My sister is a monster. She’s living a life of luxury on the inheritance my parents left ME, but she won’t even give me a thousand dollars for living expenses!】 【She conveniently forgets she was the stray they picked up off the street. My family gave her a home, food, an education!】 【Now that she’s successful, she thinks she can bully a poor orphan like me and keep everything for herself!】 【I wish my parents had never taken her in. They should have let her starve!】 My knuckles were white, my fingers squeezing the phone. A few days later, she showed up at my door with a letter from her lawyer, demanding I sign over all my assets. That’s when I saw the GoFundMe she’d launched: 【Help an orphan reclaim her inheritance! Let’s crowdfund the legal fees to make sure this ungrateful adopted daughter pays for what she’s done and rots in jail!】 A chill washed over me as I read that line. But she didn’t know the truth. My parents had adopted her. She was the one who wasn’t their own. 1 “Just sign the asset transfer agreement, Olivia.” Avery slapped a thick document onto my coffee table, her posture radiating arrogance. “I spoke with a lawyer. As the adopted child, you have no legal right to my parents’ inheritance. I’m just taking back what’s rightfully mine.” I looked down at the agreement. It listed every asset to my name: the house, my investment portfolio, my savings, even the marketing firm I had built from the ground up over the last decade. My fingers, gripping the edge of the paper, were bone-white. I took a deep, shaky breath before I could speak. “Avery, it’s not what you think…” “Then tell me what it is,” she snapped, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. “You’re living in a mansion, driving a Mercedes, blowing through my parents’ money, but you can’t spare me a dime for basic living expenses?” “Don’t you forget, if my mom and dad hadn’t taken you in, you’d be a nobody. An orphan who would have starved on the street. How dare you hold onto what belongs to me?!” An orphan. A sharp pain lanced through my chest. I slowly lifted my gaze to her face, a face that bore no resemblance to my own. She didn’t know. She was the orphan. Years ago, Avery’s parents’ real estate venture collapsed, leaving them with over ten million dollars in debt. They couldn’t bear the weight of it. Together, they jumped from the roof of their unfinished luxury condo development. Before they died, they called my parents, their closest friends, begging them to take in their one-year-old daughter, Avery. For the next nine years, my parents raised her as their own, loving her with every fiber of their being. But then disaster struck again. When I was ten, my parents were killed in a car accident. From that day on, it was just me and Avery against the world. I shielded her from everything, including the truth. The first crack appeared at a family gathering a few years later when I overheard a distant aunt whisper, “With the Millers gone, I wonder how much of the estate will have to go to the adopted girl.” Avery heard it too. And she made the only assumption that made sense to her. “What, nothing to say? Feeling guilty?” Avery’s voice dripped with venom, pulling me from the memory. “Do you know why your real parents died? It’s because you’re a curse, Olivia. Anyone who gets close to you ends up ruined.” “You deserved to be an orphan.” “Shut up,” I finally managed to say, my voice a low warning. She paused, a flicker of surprise in her eyes, before her lips twisted into a cruel, triumphant smirk. “Oh, did I hit a nerve? Good. I’ll say it again. If my parents hadn’t adopted you, they wouldn’t have died so young. You’re a walking disaster.” I stared at her contorted expression, a profound sense of helplessness washing over me. After her biological parents died, their creditors eventually tracked Avery to our home. They showed up every week, demanding payment. I didn’t want her to carry that burden, so I quietly started paying it off myself. All these years, I worked myself to the bone to provide for her, to settle that crushing debt. I wore my clothes until they frayed at the cuffs, all so she could have a stable, comfortable life. But my protection hadn’t made her grateful. It had made her greedy. Insatiable. She lived a life of careless extravagance—designer bags, luxury vacations, curating a perfect “heiress” lifestyle on Instagram. When the money ran out, she’d come to me. If I ever said no, she would unleash hell. “Olivia, I’m giving you one last chance,” she said, her smile cold. “Either you sign this paper and give me back what’s mine, or I will destroy your reputation and see you in prison.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I looked her dead in the eye and said, enunciating every word, “The inheritance was left to me.” “To you?” she scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would they leave everything to their adopted daughter?” “Because I am their biological daughter.” She looked at me as if I’d just told her the moon was made of cheese, then threw her head back and laughed. “Olivia, you’ll even stoop to a lie like that to keep the money? That’s pathetic.” 2 “You were just some stray my parents brought home! There’s no way you’re their real daughter.” Her eyes glittered with mockery. “What’s next? Are you going to tell me you’re secretly a long-lost princess?” Seeing the disbelief in her face, I knew words were useless. I took a breath, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her toward my bedroom. She stumbled after me, shrieking, “What are you doing? Let go of me!” I wrenched open my closet door. A few sparse items hung inside—sweaters with pilled sleeves, blouses with collars washed pale. “Do you see this?” I held up a faded cashmere sweater. “It’s not that I won’t give you money. It’s that for years, every penny I’ve earned has gone toward paying off the family’s debt. Back when…” She cut me off. With a sneer, she pulled a stack of photos from her purse and threw them in my face. They scattered across the floor. Pictures of me at a business gala last month, dressed in a sleek evening gown, networking. A few others showed me getting out of the black Mercedes I used for client meetings. “You’re still lying!” she screeched, her finger jabbing the air an inch from my nose. “Wearing couture gowns, going to fancy parties, riding in luxury cars! Is that what you call cutting back?” I looked at her face, twisted with resentment, and my stomach churned. That gala had been a necessary evil to land a major client. The gown was rented. The car was a lease through the company. Behind every moment of glamour was a balance sheet stretched to its breaking point. “Avery, those were…” “What? For work?” she interrupted, her voice climbing. She grabbed her phone, her thumb flying across the screen. “Why don’t you explain that to my followers? Tell them what kind of ‘work’ requires a twenty-thousand-dollar dress.” Followers? My eyes widened as I saw her screen. It was a live broadcast. The viewer count was skyrocketing, and a torrent of comments was scrolling by at lightning speed. 【This adopted sister is shameless. Still making excuses after being caught!】 【She uses her dead parents’ money on expensive dresses but won’t give her sister a dime? What a piece of trash.】 【Go get what’s yours, Avery! Make the backstabber pay!】 “You’re live-streaming this?” I whispered, horrified. “Scared?” Avery smirked, turning the camera to capture my pale, shocked face. She mouthed a silent taunt at me. “I want everyone to see what a hypocrite you are. This is your social execution.” She turned back to the camera, her voice instantly breaking into a sob. “Everyone, you see? She won’t even admit it! My parents were so good to her, and in return, she’s stolen everything and tried to kick me out of my own home! I can’t even afford to eat… I’ve been living off the charity of friends… sob…” The comments exploded into a frenzy of rage and vulgarity. Someone threatened to find my address. “Avery! Turn it off!” I commanded, lunging for her phone. She dodged back, a vicious, triumphant grin on her face. “Turn it off? Why? You’re so good at spinning stories. Go on, tell your tale to a live audience. Tell them how you betrayed my parents’ kindness, how you’re trying to drive me to suicide!” I was shaking with a rage so profound it stole my voice. My silence was all the proof she, and her audience, needed of my guilt. “Nothing to say?” Avery ended the stream and shoved the agreement at me again. Her tone was magnanimous, as if offering a great kindness. “Just sign it. And because we were sisters once, I won’t even charge you interest on the money you owe me.” I took a long, slow breath. And then, finally, two words came out. “I won’t.” “Fine. Have it your way.” Her eyes narrowed, filled with a look of pure hatred. “You’ll regret this.” She snatched the papers from the table and stormed out, slamming the door behind her. 3 I thought if I ignored her, the storm would pass. I underestimated Avery’s talent for creating chaos. A few days later, my company was hosting a gala to celebrate landing a huge new client. The atmosphere in the ballroom was celebratory, the culmination of months of hard work. Until Avery arrived. Uninvited, she walked straight into the center of the room, dressed in clothes that looked deliberately worn and faded. As every partner and executive in my company watched, she gave a deep, formal bow. Her voice, when she spoke, was choked with emotion. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to interrupt. My name is Avery, and I’m Olivia Miller’s sister.” She turned to me, her eyes brimming with a carefully crafted blend of helplessness and sorrow. “I didn’t come here to make a scene. I just came to ask my sister one question, on behalf of my dead parents…” “Olivia… after Mom and Dad adopted you, they treated you like their own daughter. They gave you everything. When they died, they left us to depend on each other. I thought you would be my rock, my support… so how could you… how could you secretly transfer all of my inheritance into your own name?” She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking with heartbreaking sobs. “You drive luxury cars and wear twenty-thousand-dollar dresses, living this incredible life. But me? I can barely afford to eat. I just want what’s mine. Is that so wrong?” The buzzing ballroom fell silent. Every eye in the room was on me, filled with shock and suspicion. I tried to keep my composure as I stood and walked toward her. “Avery, let’s go home and talk about this. This isn’t the place.” She flinched back as if I’d tried to strike her, stumbling and collapsing onto the floor. Tears streamed down her face. “Olivia, why do you hate me so much? You threw me out of the house, you froze my bank accounts… I… I’ve been homeless for days…” Whispers erupted through the crowd. “I never would have guessed Olivia Miller was that kind of person…” “She’s adopted and she stole the family fortune from the biological daughter? That’s disgusting.” Just then, as if on cue, Avery’s face went white. She clutched her chest, gasping for air, and then her body went limp as she slumped to the floor. “Someone call 911!” The room descended into chaos. 4 After the gala, my credibility at the company was in free fall. Key partners began to pull back, citing concerns. A group of self-proclaimed “justice warriors” started protesting outside my office building with signs. The online campaign accusing me of “stealing from an orphan” intensified. I scrolled through the hateful comments and then quietly locked my phone. Compared to losing my parents and facing down a mountain of debt with a child to raise, this was nothing. But I never imagined Avery could sink lower. On the anniversary of my parents’ death, I went to the cemetery. After leaving flowers at their grave, I made my way to the plot where Avery’s parents, the Walkers, were buried. I stood before their headstone, looking at the warm, kind smiles in the engraved photograph. They had always treated me like a daughter, too. Tears pricked my eyes. As I stood lost in memory, a commotion broke the silence. I turned, stunned, to see Avery marching into the cemetery with a crowd of people and a cameraman in tow. “That’s it!” she shouted, pointing at the headstone next to hers. “That’s my sister’s biological parents’ grave!” Before I could react, she rushed forward and kicked the bouquet of white lilies I had just placed, sending them scattering across the grass. “You bitch,” she spat. “Did you come here to tell your dead parents the good news? That you stole my family’s money to buy them this fancy tombstone?” But she was standing in front of her own parents’ grave. The crowd she’d brought with her surged forward, cameras and phones pointed directly at me. 【What a monster! The Millers should have adopted a dog instead!】 【Her parents must have been trash to raise someone so evil! They deserved to die young!】 【I bet her mom was a whore. That’s why she doesn’t know any better than to steal what belongs to other people!】 The vicious curses rained down on me. “All of you, stop it!” I yelled, my entire body trembling with rage. “What, you don’t like that?” Avery walked up to her own parents’ headstone, swept all the offerings I’d laid out onto the ground, and stomped on them. “You’re so devoted to your dead mom and dad, aren’t you? Do they visit you in your dreams? Do they teach you how to be a backstabbing, ungrateful witch?” “Stop it!” I tried to push through to stop her, but the people she’d brought with her held me back. Some of them started picking up rocks and throwing them at the tombstone. “Let’s smash the grave of these losers who raised a monster!” “Yeah, make sure they have no peace in the afterlife!” Seeing this, Avery’s face lit up with manic glee. She picked up a large, jagged rock and heaved it at the headstone. “I’m telling you, your entire family line is cursed to have produced a parasite like Olivia Miller!” she screamed. “And you can watch from hell as I take back every single thing that belongs to me!” With a sickening crack, the rock slammed into the granite. The headstone fractured, a jagged line running right through the smiling faces of Mr. and Mrs. Walker. In that moment, the last shred of affection, of duty, I felt for Avery vanished. It turned to ash and blew away. “Avery,” I said. My voice was eerily calm. “You want your parents’ inheritance, is that right?” She froze for a second, then lifted her chin defiantly. “Of course! It was always mine!” “Fine.” I nodded, my eyes sweeping over the cameras. “Then I’ll see you in court.” 5 The day of the hearing, the courthouse steps were a mob scene. Avery’s supporters held banners and chanted slogans, their faces contorted with scorn as I walked past. “SHAME ON OLIVIA MILLER! GIVE BACK THE MONEY!” “THE LAW WILL PUNISH A TRAITOR LIKE YOU!” Avery stood at the top of the steps like a queen, surrounded by her adoring followers. She looked down at me, her eyes gleaming with the certainty of her victory. “Olivia, if you surrender now and sign the agreement, you might be able to walk away with a little bit of dignity.” I gave her a single, dismissive glance, then calmly pulled a thick manila envelope from my briefcase and held it out to her. “You should look at this first,” I said. “Then you can decide who should be surrendering.” She laughed. “Playing games until the very end.” She snatched the envelope from my hand. But as her eyes fell on the first page, her smile froze on her face. The first page was a copy of a faded, yellowed adoption certificate. The adoptive parents were listed clearly as my mother and father. And the name of the adopted child was Avery Walker.

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My tenth-anniversary gift from my husband was a tube of Chanel hand cream. Our son, in a fit of mischief, scrambled onto my vanity while I wasn’t looking. He squeezed it with all his might, and the expensive cream pooled on the floor like a tragic, pearlescent tear. It was the thought that counted, I told myself. So that same day, I drove to the nearest Nordstrom to buy a replacement. The saleswoman gave me a pitying once-over, her eyes scanning my practical jeans and worn-out flats. She shook her head. “Ma’am, we don’t sell this hand cream individually.” Her voice was soft, but the words were sharp. “Your friend must not have explained when they gave it to you. The tube you’re holding… it’s a complimentary gift. It comes with the purchase of our newest Birkin bag.” 1 The proof of my husband’s betrayal walked right up to my table the very next day. The girl—his assistant—had a triumphant look in her eyes. “You should leave Ethan,” she said, without any preamble. “You’re not on his level anymore.” I took a slow sip of my coffee. “Ambition is a good thing in a young woman. But does your boss know you’re running around playing this little game?” Brooke hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Of course, he knows. He’d be with me already if you weren’t dragging him down, refusing to let go.” She leaned forward, her voice a venomous whisper. “I’m younger. I’m prettier. I understand him better than you do. Why shouldn’t it be me at his side?” I looked at her face, perfectly sculpted with makeup, her almond eyes wide with a practiced fury. She was beautiful. There was no denying it. But so was I, ten years ago. “We all get old,” I said, the words feeling tired in my mouth. “Do you really think you’ll stay young forever?” “I’ve been with Ethan for fifteen years. We’ve been married for ten. Our lives, our assets, everything is tied together. What, exactly, are you bringing to the table?” Brooke, sitting across from me, suddenly smiled. A slow, cruel curve of her lips. “Is that so? How’s the hand cream, by the way?” My breath caught. My eyes darted involuntarily to the new, caramel-colored handbag sitting beside her on the bench. “I bet you don’t even know that’s called a Birkin,” she continued, her voice dripping with condescension. “The latest model. I mentioned I wanted it, and Ethan bought it for me the next day.” “It came with a little gift set of hand creams. I picked out the scent I hated the most and told him to give it to whoever. I guess that was you.” She casually lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, revealing a diamond-encrusted watch on her slender wrist. The design was painfully familiar. My stomach dropped. I had that exact watch saved in my online shopping cart. I’d look at it every night before bed, a secret little indulgence. But with our son Liam’s private school tuition rivaling a mortgage, I could never justify the expense. It was a waste of money, I’d told myself. A few weeks ago, Ethan had presented it to me. Our ten-year anniversary. I’d refused, pushing the box back into his hands. “Liam’s expenses are only going to go up. I barely go anywhere fancy. Please, just return it.” He’d thought for a moment, then pulled the tube of hand cream from his suit pocket and gave it to me instead. I thought he’d returned the watch. I never imagined he’d just given it to someone else. I stared at Brooke’s perfectly curled eyelashes, my own reflection hazy in the cafe window behind her. I could see the fine lines around my eyes, the exhaustion etched into my face. She was right. Men hit their prime in their thirties, turning into silver foxes. And me? What did I have to show for the last decade, besides a child and a growing sense of irrelevance? 2 I drove home in a daze, her words echoing in my head. When I pushed open the door, Ethan was on the floor, laughing and playing with Liam. He’d finally wrapped up a massive project at work, and for the first time in months, our home was filled with the sound of a father and son. I had treasured these fleeting moments. I’d cook his favorite meals, timing them perfectly for his arrival. But today, my rare trip out had broken the routine. He looked up and smiled. “Where’d you go today? Can’t believe you’d abandon our little guy like that. You’re a mean mommy!” he teased. “Right, Liam?” Our son nodded solemnly. “Mommy’s mean! Didn’t play cars with me!” A wave of fatigue washed over me. “And what about you, Ethan?” My voice was flat. “When you’re ‘working late,’ are you really thinking about providing for this family? Or are you thinking about how to get closer to your little secretary?” Ethan’s smile vanished. He put down the Lego brick in his hand. In the next second, he waved over the nanny. “Liam, Mommy and Daddy need to talk. Why don’t you go play in your room for a bit?” Once Liam was gone, his expression turned serious. He walked over, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Alice, what’s wrong? Who have you been talking to?” I let out a cold, bitter laugh. “What, I don’t have eyes? I can’t see what’s right in front of my face? What is going on between you and your assistant?” Ethan sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “She’s just a kid from the new team. I’ve been mentoring her. That’s it.” “Just mentoring? Not sleeping with her? Nothing else?” I studied his face, still as handsome as the day I met him. God, life had been kind to him. The years had barely touched his features, only softening the sharp edges of his youth into a mature, powerful charm. Money, power, a family. Did he have so much that he needed the thrill of something new? I asked him as much. Ethan had always been gentle, patient. Even after Liam was born and I was drowning in postpartum complications, battling a depression that felt like a thick fog, he had been my rock. He held me, coaxed me back to myself, and helped me navigate the disorienting transition from woman to mother. But today, the look in his eyes was different. It was… annoyed. “What is this about, Alice? What are you trying to start now?” “You’re the one who said I work too much, that I don’t have time for you and Liam. So I pulled a month of all-nighters just to clear my schedule for a few days. And now that I’m finally home, you want to fight?” His face was a mask of disbelief. I just stared at him. “So tell me,” I said quietly. “Why does she get the Birkin, and I get the free sample?” “It was her birthday, and she’s had a great quarter. Is it wrong for a boss to buy his employee a gift?” he shot back, his voice rising. “You’re at home all day with nothing to do, so you decide to invent problems? To come after me?” Perhaps he saw the look on my face, because his tone softened slightly. He reached for me again. “Besides, I bought you the watch you wanted. You’re the one who turned it down.” “Honey, I’m sorry, okay? Can we just drop this? Don’t be angry.” There it was. His classic move. Whenever he didn’t want to talk, he’d apologize first, shutting down the conversation before it could even begin. I thought of all the years I’d poured into this family, managing his life, raising our son, only for him to dismiss it all with a single, careless phrase. “At home all day with nothing to do.” Just then, Liam ran out from his room and hugged my leg. “Mommy, don’t be mad at Daddy. Daddy works so hard. Can you please stop being cranky?” I looked at the two of them, my husband and my son, and a profound weariness settled into my bones. Before I could say another word, Ethan scooped Liam into his arms. “See? Liam gets it. Come on, buddy, let’s go finish that Lego castle.” He walked away without a backward glance. The nanny stood awkwardly in the hallway. “Mrs. Miller…” I just waved a hand, dismissing her. “You can go home early tonight.” 3 That night, Ethan didn’t come to the master bedroom. He always did this. He had no patience for making up. He’d offer a small, flimsy olive branch, and if I didn’t immediately take it, he’d snatch it back. It used to be the study. Now that we had Liam, it was our son’s room. He called it “father-son bonding time.” A convenient excuse. No matter how furious I was, I could never bring myself to drag him out of there in front of our child, to ruin his image as the perfect father. I lay in our king-sized bed, staring at the cold, empty ceiling. This wasn’t just paranoia. I didn’t know when it started, but Ethan began coming home later and later. The excuse was always the same: work. One night, I couldn’t take it anymore. On the pretense of bringing him dinner, I went to his office. And I saw her. Brooke. Her long, silky hair fell over his shoulder as she leaned in to point at a document, and neither of them seemed to notice or care. Watching them, a siren went off in my head. That was when I started insisting. No matter what, you need to come home earlier. “If you don’t get home soon,” I’d joked, trying to keep my tone light, “Liam’s going to forget what his daddy looks like.” Back then, Ethan had just smiled indulgently. “Alright. Whatever my wife says, goes.” Fifteen years together, ten years married. I had always believed we were best friends, perfect partners. When did that change? Was this just what happened to middle-aged couples? Constant friction, endless arguments, staying together for the kids? Maybe I really was overthinking the bag. The next morning, I got up early. I made his favorite dessert, a rich crème brûlée I’d perfected back when we were dating, and had our driver take me to his office. When we were eighteen, we were inseparable. He sat behind me in calculus, always tugging gently on my ponytail and passing me a bottle of iced tea. We started dating in college, and on a sweltering summer trip to New Orleans, we discovered a little cafe that made the most incredible crème brûlée. It became our thing. For years, no argument was so big it couldn’t be soothed by the crack of caramelized sugar. The last time we’d fought this badly was three years ago. He’d been giving me the silent treatment for days. But when I held a spoonful of the dessert up to his lips, he’d opened his mouth. “Some people,” I’d teased him then, “are thirty years old and still have a sweet tooth.” He had taken my hand. “It’s not that I have a sweet tooth. It’s that I love you. And because I love you, I’m willing to let this sweetness be enough of a reason to forgive you.” 4 When I arrived at the office, I headed for the private elevator, but the receptionist at the front desk stopped me. “Ma’am, you can’t go up without an appointment.” I balanced the insulated bag in my hand and gave her a polite smile. “It’s alright, I’m here to see the CEO. I’m his wife.” “I’ve never heard that the CEO was married,” she said, her expression blank. Then, it shifted into a look of smug disdain. “Oh, another one trying to claim a connection.” “You can wait over there, but honestly, without an appointment, you’re not getting in. Besides,” she added, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “the CEO is basically taken. You’ve heard of his assistant, Brooke, right? Brilliant girl, top of her class. She’s been chasing him for ages, and even she hasn’t sealed the deal. I’d just give up if I were you.” I stood there, a cold dread creeping up my spine. Finally, I reached into my purse and pulled out the spare key card Ethan had given me ages ago. In front of the receptionist’s stunned face, I swiped it and the doors to the executive elevator slid open. The elevator didn’t open directly into his office; you had to walk through the executive wing first. Usually, it was quiet up here. Today, I could hear a group of people laughing and talking, huddled around someone’s desk. “Brooke, you’re a miracle worker! Thanks to you, the afternoon snack budget has tripled!” “Seriously, we used to get granola bars. Now it’s lattes and cupcakes every day. The boss is really pulling out all the stops to make you happy!” “What can we say? The man’s got a favorite!” Brooke, surrounded by her admirers, blushed demurely. And then her eyes met mine. I walked calmly toward the group. I reached her, extended my hand, and slapped her across the face. When Ethan and I started the company, it was just the two of us and a handful of dreamers. After I left to raise Liam, the old-timers slowly drifted away, one by one. Years had passed. Now, it seemed no one even knew he had a wife who’d built this place with him. But even if the whole world forgot, Brooke, his executive assistant, knew exactly who I was. My voice was steady, laced with ice. “I don’t recall receiving a memo that the position of CEO’s wife was open for applications.”

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They dragged me into their nightmare, the fake princess and her court, and left me to be savaged by the wolves. They thought I was just another victim. What they didn’t know is that in this kingdom of monsters, I am the true heir. And when the monsters saw I had returned, my real family went wild. The Scarlet Matron, her nurse’s uniform crisp and white: “My sweet girl, who did this to you? Tell Auntie. Auntie will make it right.” The hulking Butcher, wiping his cleaver on his apron: “Point them out. Uncle will make you a present of their limbs.” The little Ghost Child, her eyes wide and black: “People are so scary, big sister. Should I turn them into dolls for you?” And then, the final boss, my father: “Anyone who harmed my daughter… not a single one leaves.” What can I say? It’s good to be the favorite. It feels… exhilarating. 1 The floor was a slick paste of rotted meat. The air, thick and metallic with the stench of blood. Down the long, dark corridor, the only light came from the sickly green glow of the emergency lamps on the wall. It was all so familiar. I looked away from the scene and focused on the woman standing before me. The player chat flickering in the corner of my vision filled me in. It was Serena, the family’s golden girl, the one who’d taken my place, who had dragged me into this hell. She stood with her arms crossed, looking down at me as if from a great height. “Did you hear me, my dear sister?” she said, her voice dripping with venom. “If you want to live, you do exactly as I say from now on.” A few of her cronies chimed in. “This isn’t a game, newbie. You screw up, you die.” “Just listen to Serena. She’s your sister, after all. We’ll even try to look out for you.” “Hey! She’s talking to you! What are you, deaf or just stupid? Answer her!” A hard shove sent me stumbling. I fell to the floor, my hand instinctively going to my ankle. I forced my body to tremble. Their laughter echoed in the corridor. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Scared already? You haven’t seen anything yet.” “How is this weakling supposed to do us any good?” “Serena, maybe we should test her. If she’s useless, we ditch her now. Better than having her drag us down later.” Serena’s chin was high, her expression imperious. She pointed a perfectly manicured finger toward a heavy, locked door at the end of the hall. “They have a point. This is for your own good, Alice. You have to prove you’re worth keeping around. Now go. Open that door.” The chat feed exploded. 【Newbie’s screwed. The Scarlet Matron’s ward on the first run? Talk about bad luck.】 【Blame Serena. That’s a bitch move, sending a level-one player in first.】 【The Matron hates having her routine disturbed. That new girl is too pretty to die like this. Don’t do it! The second you open that door, she’ll split you in two!】 【Go for it! I love watching the Matron work. A true artist.】 【Look at the newbie, she’s shaking so hard she can barely stand.】 … Serena kicked my leg. “Alice, get moving!” “Still think you’re Daddy’s little princess? In here, you’re nothing!” “The clue we need is in that room. Now open the goddamn door!” With all eyes on me, I slowly, deliberately, pushed myself to my feet. I kept my head down, letting the tremors run through me. It wasn’t fear. It was a thrill, a tremor of homecoming. I walked toward the door, which pulsed with a strange, crimson mist. I raised my hand. And I knocked. “Auntie Rose? It’s me. I’m home.” 2 The corridor fell deathly silent. Serena and her crew tensed, weapons ready. The chat feed went haywire. 【LMAO! Did she just KNOCK? Is this newbie insane?!】 【Shame. Such a pretty face, about to be split in half.】 【She must have snapped from the fear. Poor thing.】 Then, the red mist swirled and dissipated. The office door creaked open just a crack. Two long, unnaturally pale hands shot out, yanking me inside with impossible speed. The Scarlet Matron’s mouth, painted a gruesome, bloody red, stretched into a horrifyingly wide grin. A shriek tore through the air, a sound of pure, loving rage. “My sweet girl! What in the nine hells are you doing here?!” “We sent you away! We got you out!” “Dammit all! After all our work to get you to safety, who brought you back?!” She cradled my face in her cold hands. “You just tell Auntie who it was. I’ll carve them into eight perfect little pieces for you. A little welcome home snack.” The chat was a waterfall of question marks. 【?】 【??】 【Wait, what is happening?!】 3 It seemed even the all-knowing player base was in the dark. I wasn’t just a player. I was a product of this place. My father is the final boss of this entire twisted reality. It took him thousands of years to find a loophole in the game’s code, a glitch that allowed for my creation. Serena thought she had pulled the real Alice Walker into the game. But the real Alice was long dead. She had taken her own life months ago. I was the entity that found her empty body, a perfect vessel. Once I had settled in, my father and all my aunts and uncles—the monsters of this realm—pooled their power to push me out, to give me a life in the world beyond the screen. I’d only had a few weeks of sun and quiet. I never expected Serena, stewing in her hatred for the sister she’d tormented, would use a high-level summoning card to drag “me” back. All that effort, wasted. Getting me out of here had been a massive undertaking, the collective hope of every creature in this dimension. No wonder Auntie Rose was so furious. Looking at her screaming face, I reached up and gently pushed her gaping mouth closed. “I can see your tonsils, Auntie Rose. It’s hardly elegant.” Her lips snapped shut into a serene, if terrifying, smile. Through clenched teeth, she hissed, “Explain. Now.” The chat was listening in. 【What is going on?! Auntie Rose, you’ve changed! You weren’t like this on my playthrough!】 【Where’s your scythe? Why haven’t you killed her?!】 【My brain is broken. I have never, ever seen anything like this.】 【Is she using some kind of item? A ‘Monster Affinity’ charm?】 I wondered if any of the other players had an item that let them read private conversations. Best to be careful. I just shook my head, keeping it vague. “See that girl out there with the short hair? She did it.” It was a nonsense sentence to the players, but Auntie Rose understood perfectly. “Her? Did she hurt you?” Her cold gaze flickered down to my ankle. “Your foot is injured.” A roll of bandages and a vial of painkiller appeared in her hand. The bandages looked like they’d been soaked in old blood, but I knew it for what it was: a gesture of pure affection. A noise came from the hallway. Serena’s voice, faint but clear. “You go first. I’ll cover you from behind.” “Hurry up!” Auntie Rose gave me a look. A promise. “Don’t you worry, sweet girl. Auntie’s got your back.” I gave her my sweetest smile. “Thanks, Auntie Rose.” 4 With that, Auntie Rose picked up her massive crimson scythe and glided gracefully toward the door. She smoothed the front of her pristine white dress. The moment the door was pushed open and the first person stepped through, she swung the scythe in a high, elegant arc. In a flash, the player was cleaved in two. Blood atomized, hanging in the air like a red fog before splattering the walls. The two halves of the body slumped to the ground without a sound. I recognized her. It was the girl who’d called me deaf. 【Now that’s the Scarlet Matron I know and love!】 【That’s the stuff. One clean slice. So satisfying.】 【Damn, this newbie has nerves of steel. She didn’t even flinch.】 【Oh, they broke the rules. The hunt is on!】 A system notification popped up for all to see. Game Rule: The office contains a clue to proceed. However, the Scarlet Matron despises uninvited guests. Forcing her door open will result in… consequences. The rule had been broken. Serena’s team scattered, screaming. Auntie Rose smiled back at me. “Time for work, sweet girl. You make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back to check on you when I’m done.” “Okay!” I expertly wrapped my ankle. Glancing at the jars on her desk filled with severed fingers and other grisly specimens, I flopped down on her surprisingly fragrant bed and opened a simple puzzle game on my phone. The chat was just question marks again. 【???】 【This can’t be right.】 From the frantic messages, I gathered that Serena and a few others had used a rare escape item to vanish just in the nick of time. When Auntie Rose returned, the hem of her dress was soaked in fresh blood. Even her pale, powdered cheeks were dotted with crimson specks. “I took care of them for you, my sweet girl. Though I’m sorry to say the short-haired one got away…” I cut her off. “It’s okay, Auntie Rose. It just means we get to play with her a little longer.” A slow smile spread across my face. “I do so love playing the helpless little lamb.” After so much time trying to be a law-abiding citizen in the outside world, I could feel the dormant cruelty inside me starting to stir. The chat feed froze for a few seconds. Then, it completely lost its mind. 【HOLY SHIT, PEOPLE! WE’VE GOT AN INSIDE JOB!】

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My father died in the line of duty. Since I was a kid, I, Jiang Xia, have lived as an orphan in the home of Ming Xunzhou, one of his old comrades. As I grew up, a crush blossomed into something deeper. For five years, I harbored feelings for this man who had taken me in. On the night of my eighteenth birthday, I pushed open the door to Ming Xunzhou’s room. I was officially an adult, and I was ready to confess my feelings to him, earnestly and bravely. But instead of a warm welcome, I found him fast asleep, clutching a piece of paper to his chest. [Marriage Application] Those two words hit me like a lightning bolt. I gritted my teeth and read the details. It was a marriage application for Ming Xunzhou and Fang Yingyue. “You’re getting married? Why didn’t I know anything about this?!” I demanded, my voice trembling. “I’m your guardian, Xia. I don’t need to report everything to you,” Ming Xunzhou replied, his voice flat and factual. In all the years I’d lived under his roof, he had never been this harsh with me. I knew then that it was time for me to leave. That night, I packed my bags and slipped out quietly. But fate had other plans. A group of thugs cornered me in a dark alley. It was terrifying. Just as things were about to get really bad, Ming Xunzhou appeared and saved me. He saw the blood on my head as I started to lose consciousness. Panicked, he scooped me up in his arms, desperate to get me to the hospital. My head was splitting, but I was terrified that if I didn’t say it now, I never would. I clung to him, repeating “I love you” over and over again. And then, I kissed him. Fang Yingyue saw it all. In a fit of rage, she turned and stormed off, only to run straight into the returning thugs. They beat her to death. From that day on, Ming Xunzhou changed. He became silent, withdrawn. Just as I was drowning in guilt, believing I was the cause of this tragedy, he proposed to me. After we were married, he hung Fang Yingyue’s portrait above our bed. Every night, he made me lie beside him, naked, but he never once looked at me. During the day, he made me dress like her. Talk like her. Walk like her. Later, when plastic surgery became available, he forced me to go under the knife to look exactly like her. I died on the operating table during the final surgery to fix my nose. Before I slipped away, I heard his voice through the hospital door. “Once she’s gone, cremate her quickly. Scatter the ashes anywhere. Just get rid of them.” A chill spread through my dying body. He didn’t marry me because he loved me. He married me because he hated me. He hated me for killing Fang Yingyue. He hated me for ruining him. Regret washed over me like a tidal wave, drowning my will. My heart tightened, squeezed until it finally snapped. And then, I woke up. Summer had returned. … I stood by Ming Xunzhou’s bed, the cicadas buzzing loudly outside the window. He woke up with a start, looking surprised to see me standing there. “Xia? Is something wrong?” My eyes snapped into focus. I was awake. In my past life, this was the day I kissed him and started the chain of events that led to disaster. This was a second chance. A chance to fix my mistakes. “Nothing,” I said, forcing a smile. “I just heard you and Auntie Fang are getting married. I wanted to congratulate you!” Ming Xunzhou looked shocked, his gaze dropping to the marriage application in his hand. “Since you know… I wanted to talk to you. Xia, as long as you behave… as long as you stop saying things that aren’t appropriate for your position here… everything will stay the same. This will always be your home.” My breathing steadied. I kept the smile plastered on my face. “I’ll be good. Don’t worry.” I didn’t know it then, but a cold, malicious gaze was watching us from the window. Back in my room, I couldn’t sleep. Just after midnight, someone pounded on the front door. “Brother Ming! Something’s happened! It’s Fang Yingyue!” Ming Xunzhou rushed to the hospital, and I followed close behind, panic rising in my chest. I had made different choices this time. Why was Fang Yingyue still in danger? In the hospital room, Fang Yingyue saw Ming Xunzhou and threw herself into his arms, barefoot and trembling. “Xunzhou, save me!” I let out a breath of relief when I saw she was physically fine, just a scrape on her hand. “Jiang Xia! I have no quarrel with you! How could you send those thugs to ruin me…” She buried her face in Ming Xunzhou’s chest and sobbed. “What do you mean?” Ming Xunzhou asked, his voice tight. Tears streamed down her face. “What do you think I mean? Those thugs dragged me into the woods! They said you told them to rape me!” “Thank god the neighborhood watch patrol was nearby. They saved me.” My mind went blank. Suddenly, it clicked. She was framing me. “I didn’t do it!” I shouted, staring at Ming Xunzhou. I couldn’t believe he would fall for this. But there was no trust in his eyes. Only coldness. “Where are they?” he asked her, his voice gentle, hugging her tighter. “They ran away… luckily, they didn’t manage to do anything to me.” Her sobs shook the room. “Xunzhou, I didn’t want to make this hard for you. But you have to discipline her! Jiang Xia has been spoiled rotten. If this continues, she’s going to end up in prison!” Ming Xunzhou exploded. “Apologize!” His shout made my scalp tingle. When I didn’t speak, his face darkened. “Jiang Xia, your Auntie Fang is generous enough not to call the police. If you don’t apologize today…” Before he could finish, I walked over to Fang Yingyue. I was planning to move out today anyway. To get far away from these two. An apology wouldn’t kill me. I bowed deeply. “I’m sorry, Auntie Fang. I was wrong.” Then, without looking back, I ran out of the room. At the door, Ming Xunzhou caught my arm. “Go home and stay there. Don’t cause any more trouble! No matter what you think, I am marrying Yingyue. It’s her or no one!” He turned and went back into the room. The door slammed shut, severing whatever bond was left between us. Chapter 2 The next day, I walked into Director Liu’s office. “Director Liu, I’d like to apply for the spot at the Music Conservatory.” Director Liu was surprised. Just two days ago, he had specifically talked to me, urging me to take this opportunity. I had turned him down, saying I had “family matters” to attend to. Everyone knew what that meant. My open pursuit of Ming Xunzhou was an open secret. “Family matters sorted?” he asked tactfully. “Sorted,” I said without hesitation. “Permanently.” He nodded and pulled a form from his desk. “Fill this out. Give it to me by tomorrow.” “I’ll do it now.” I hunched over the desk and filled it out in minutes. When I handed it back, Director Liu looked at me with mixed emotions. He had served with my father. He’d watched me grow up. He valued my talent and didn’t want to see me throw my life away on a hopeless romance. “Xia, when you get to Shanghai, focus on your studies. Don’t chase after things that aren’t real. You’re young. You should see the world. There are so many possibilities out there.” Tears welled up in my eyes. He had tried to tell me this so many times, and I had always brushed him off. This time, I really heard him. “I understand, Uncle Liu.” “You have about ten days. Prepare well.” I pressed my lips together. This time, I was going to live for myself. … After training, I returned to the Ming house. As I pushed open the door, I saw Ming Xunzhou standing by the window. The first floor of our military compound housing had poor lighting, leaving his face half in shadow. “Uncle Ming, you’re home.” I tried to escape upstairs. “Come here.” He beckoned, his voice heavy with authority. I braced myself and stood opposite him, keeping a deliberate two-meter distance. He pointed at a paper on the coffee table. “No matter what you think, the wedding is happening.” “I understand.” In this life, I wouldn’t harbor any delusions about him. “Uncle Ming, rest assured. I’ve taken your words to heart.” Seeing my obedience, he nodded, satisfied. “Good. I’ll chalk this up to your age. If you sincerely repent, Yingyue will forgive you.” “Go to the hospital tomorrow. Take care of her until she’s discharged.” I paused, but nodded. I needed to lay low. To hide myself until I could leave for good. I had a feeling Fang Yingyue was not someone to be trifled with. Survival was the priority. Once I got through these few days and left, everything would be fine. “Okay.” I turned to go upstairs. “Remember,” he called out just as my foot touched the first step. “Don’t cause any more trouble.” My pupils constricted as I stood with my back to him. “I know, Uncle Ming. I’ll take good care of Auntie Fang.” I replied calmly, keeping my eyes down. Standing by the window, Ming Xunzhou felt unsettled. Something was off. “Auntie Fang,” “Uncle Ming.” It gave him the creeps. When he had first introduced Fang Yingyue, he had forced me to call her “Auntie.” Back then, I had exploded. “She’s not my aunt! And you’re not my uncle! You’re barely older than me!” In the blink of an eye, he couldn’t remember when I had stopped calling him by his name. “Good. That’s a good girl.” He couldn’t put his finger on it, so he just watched me walk upstairs. Chapter 3 Early the next morning, I went to the hospital. With a heavy heart, I knocked on Fang Yingyue’s door. But the bed was empty. I stopped a nurse. “Excuse me, where is the patient from this room?” Busy, she pointed upwards. “I think I saw her go upstairs.” I thanked her and hurried up. But upstairs was the roof. Ming Xunzhou had entrusted her care to me. If she caught a cold up there, I’d be blamed again. I quickened my pace. I reached the roof and scanned the area. I saw her head popping up over the edge. “Fang…” Before I could shout, a man’s voice drifted over. “Good thing I ran fast last night, or the patrol would have caught me. I’d be done for.” “We agreed on a thousand yuan.” I froze, gripping the doorframe. Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind me with a loud bang. Fang Yingyue frowned and looked over. When she saw it was me, panic flashed across her face. “You go first. We’ll talk later.” “Don’t forget!” The man glanced at me, ducked his head, and disappeared down the other stairwell. I stumbled as I tried to recover from the noise. “What did you hear?” Fang Yingyue advanced on me. I forced a smile, my eyelashes trembling. I couldn’t understand how Ming Xunzhou could love a woman like this. I laughed bitterly. “You’ll do anything, won’t you? Why does Uncle Ming want to marry you?!” She grabbed my hair and dragged me to the edge of the roof. “Angry?” “You little vixen! You’ve been around him for years, and has he ever looked at you like a woman? He only loves me. He’s marrying me.” I shouted back. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell him?” But doubt crept in. Even if I told him, what would it prove? That she was bad? Would it separate them? “Go ahead. Tell him. See who he believes.” She smiled confidently. She was right… My heart ached. Ming Xunzhou only believed her. He wouldn’t believe a word I said. While I was distracted, she grabbed my neck and tried to push me over the edge. “Jiang Xia, you’re in the way! As long as you’re here, Ming Xunzhou and I can’t have a normal life. You need to leave.” She squeezed, and I screamed. I struggled with everything I had. I didn’t want to die again! I was young. I had so much to do. Suddenly, the pressure on my neck released. She let go. I stumbled back. To my horror, Fang Yingyue stepped onto the ledge herself. Four stories up. Tears streamed down her face instantly. She screamed at the people below. “Xia, please! I don’t want to die!” “I want to get married! I want to have babies…” She glanced back at me, a smirk playing on her lips. I shuddered. I understood. I rushed to the edge and looked down. Ming Xunzhou was staring up at me, his face twisted in fury. He pointed a finger at me, then shot into the building like an arrow, racing up the stairs. Chapter 4 Slap! Ming Xunzhou burst onto the roof and slapped me without a word. I held my burning cheek, my mind blank. “Jiang Xia! How can you be so vicious at such a young age?!” He roared. I was stunned. In all our years together, I had never seen him this angry. Even in my past life, after Fang Yingyue died, he hadn’t been this enraged. I didn’t cry. I held back the tears. I was leaving. I didn’t want complications. Once I was gone, everything would be peaceful. “No, not just vicious. Shameless. You pester me, confess to me, and now that I’m marrying Yingyue, you try to kill her over and over again!” He raised his hand to strike me again. But Fang Yingyue threw herself at him, hugging his waist. “Xunzhou, maybe she didn’t mean it. Don’t be mad, okay? You raised her. You shouldn’t doubt her character.” Ming Xunzhou’s eyes were bloodshot, his voice cold as ice. “You’re too kind. Yesterday she tried to ruin your reputation, today she tries to push you off a roof. How long will you defend her?” “I just…” Her eyes fluttered. “I don’t want to make things hard for you. We have to live together after we’re married.” He held her tight, his heart aching for her. “What nonsense! I’m not marrying you so you can suffer in my house!” “Don’t worry. I’ll discipline her!” He vowed. I watched him silently. She was right. He only believed her. To him, she was everything. Seeing me staring at him only made him angrier. Fang Yingyue bit her lip and burst into tears. “Maybe… maybe you two should be together. I shouldn’t ruin your relationship.” “Xunzhou, let’s just forget it.” She pushed him away. “No!” He hugged her fiercely. “Yingyue, what are you saying? We’re getting married in a few days. She’s the child I raised! How could there be anything between us?!” He turned and grabbed my wrist. “Jiang Xia, one last chance. If you hurt Yingyue again, get out. Never step foot in my house again!” I trembled. “Do you hear me?!” He shouted. “Okay.” I collapsed to the floor. He was convinced I wanted to hurt her. I couldn’t explain. If I just avoided her for the next few days, I could survive this. I clenched my fist, nails digging into my palm. Ming Xunzhou, I really don’t dare to love you anymore. That night, he sat me down for a long talk. Seeing my swollen face, he handed me a boiled egg. “Use this. Let it be a lesson.” I frowned. “No need. It’s fine.” “Don’t be spiteful.” It sounded like comfort, but it was a warning. “You lock yourself in your room to force me to come talk to you. You use my sympathy against me. You’re pushing me.” His voice grew colder. I shook my head. In my past life, I would have done anything for his attention. Starving myself, running away. But not this time. I swore I wouldn’t interfere with his happiness. As long as we were all alive, nothing else mattered. Besides, after that slap, why would I want his attention? “Uncle Ming, I’m happier than anyone that you’re marrying the woman you love! Don’t worry, I’ve accepted reality. I won’t pester you again.”

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Chapter 1 After we got back together, I fixed every bad habit that Ethan hated. I stopped checking his location. I stopped the jealous outbursts. I stopped nitpicking the small stuff. Even when I found a tube of lipstick that wasn’t mine in the passenger seat, I thoughtfully tucked it into the glove compartment for him. But Ethan’s face darkened, and he slammed on the brakes. His brow bone was sharp, his features deep and imposing—the face of a man used to being in charge. But right now, he pinched the bridge of his nose, looking exhausted. “That lipstick belongs to Chloe.” “The dinner ran late last night. She drank too much covering for me, and she couldn’t drive, so I dropped her off.” He looked at me, offering an explanation he usually considered beneath him. “I’ve told you a thousand times. She’s my godfather’s daughter. I have to look out for her. That’s it. Past, present, future—there is nothing between us.” I remained silent. A crack appeared in his usually composed mask. A hint of helplessness I’d never seen before surfaced. “What do I have to do to make you believe me?” I spoke calmly. “Nothing. I believe you. And I’m not mad.” It was like punching cotton. Ethan looked blank for a second. “…Then why haven’t you said a word the whole ride?” I checked my watch, calculating the time to get to the airport. I offered a deflective excuse. “You said before you don’t like hearing ‘low-value information’.” “I’m going to be late for work. Why don’t you just drop me off at this intersection?” I was focused on the traffic, completely missing the way Ethan’s face turned ugly. “You always get out at the next light,” he said sharply. “This is still a mile from your office.” I hadn’t thought of that. I was forced to meet his scrutinizing gaze. “It’s early morning. If you aren’t going to the office, where are you going?” Just as suspicion began to cloud his eyes… Ring-ring! A custom ringtone. It belonged to Chloe. Ethan’s sharp gaze faltered. His eyes shifted, guilty. “It’s a work call. I need to take this.” He immediately forgot his suspicion about me and unlocked the doors. “Fine. Get out here then.” I nodded and quickly unbuckled my seatbelt. He called out to me. “Don’t be so clumsy. Watch where you’re going.” His voice lowered, taking on a coaxing tone. “I booked that restaurant you’ve always wanted to try. I promised you before, I’ll never miss another anniversary.” “Happy seventh anniversary. See you tonight, Zoe.” My hand froze on the door handle. On our last anniversary, he abandoned me for Chloe. It hurt so much back then. Now, remembering it, my heart was a flat line. “Take the call,” I said softly. “Don’t make people wait.” After all, Chloe couldn’t wait. And neither could my flight. As for anniversaries… this year, next year, every year… I would be absent. Chapter 2 I finally made it onto the plane. After sitting down, dizziness hit me because I hadn’t had time for breakfast. I reached into my pocket out of habit and found three chocolates. Ever since I fainted from low blood sugar a long time ago, Ethan got in the habit of putting chocolates in my pocket every day. The sweetness melted on my tongue, easing the dizziness. But then, a lingering, dense bitterness rose up. Seven years together. How did Ethan and I end up here? In the beginning, I really thought Chloe was just a nepotism hire he was forced to tolerate because of his godfather. That was why Ethan had to keep “business and personal separate” with me at work, while giving her special treatment. When my department head, Rob, made my life hell, nothing happened. But when Rob spoke rudely to Chloe? He was fired immediately. Behind my back, coworkers called Chloe the “Boss Lady.” And I was just Ethan’s secret underground girlfriend. I forced myself to understand his predicament. But the special treatment followed us home. Ethan abandoned me time and again for her phone calls. The massive fight happened one night. I saw a photo in a small work group chat. Ethan, who told me he was working overtime, was watching a midnight movie with Chloe. It was The Beloved—the exact movie I had begged Ethan to see with me, only to be ruthlessly rejected. I had tugged on his sleeve, pleading. “Everyone goes to see The Beloved with their beloved! Let’s go.” Ethan hadn’t even lifted his eyelids. “Watching that kind of brain-dead romance is a waste of life.” But in the photo, he looked dashing and full of smiles. Not a hint of impatience. The messages in the chat scrolled by fast, blurring before my eyes. When Ethan came home, I asked him in a flat voice, “Was The Beloved good?” A flicker of surprise seemed to pass through his eyes. Or maybe I saw it wrong. He was completely indifferent, expressionless. “Are you stalking me?” My heart felt like it was being smothered by a wet, heavy towel. I couldn’t breathe. “Do I need to stalk you? Sweet photos of you two are flying all over the company group chats!” My chest heaved uncontrollably. “Ethan, if you want to break up, just say it. You don’t have to lie to me like this!” Ethan’s expression didn’t change. He was as calm as an outsider. “If you don’t even have basic trust in me, then I have nothing to say. Zoe, I’ve been busy all day. I don’t have the energy to fight with you.” No guilt. No explanation. Compared to my pathetic state, he was so composed. He even calmly placed the paper bag in his hand on the table. The words The Beloved printed on the bag were like sharp ice picks, stabbing straight through my heart. The emotions I had suppressed for so long, wrapped in massive grievances, came crashing down on me. Finally, they snapped the last string of my rationality. I grabbed the bag and smashed it onto the floor to vent my anger. It wasn’t sealed. Round, handmade chocolates rolled out, scrambling over the floor. They made a series of soft thuds. I didn’t even look at them. I just stared at Ethan with red eyes. We locked eyes, a standoff. After a long moment, he slammed the door and left. I stood there like a statue, dazed, until something rolled against my foot. I looked down. Stunned. It was chocolate. The floor was covered in round, handmade chocolates. Chapter 3 I still softened. I wanted to communicate with him properly. But for three whole days, Ethan didn’t answer calls and didn’t come home. I swallowed my grievance and sent him a message. “It was wrong of me to lose my temper without talking first.” “But it’s also a fact that you said you were working but went to the movies with her.” “Tonight is our sixth anniversary. I’m waiting for you at home.” “Can we sit down and talk properly?” I waited from daylight until dark. He didn’t come back. Seeing it approach 11 PM, I made up my mind to go to the company to find him. But on the way, I ran into Rob—the department head Ethan fired because of Chloe. He dragged me into the shadows. “Bitch, I don’t dare touch the boss’s woman, but you think I’m scared to touch you?” Call after call to Ethan’s private number went unanswered. Screams of terrified, hopeless help. If a passerby hadn’t come along and scared him off, my injuries wouldn’t have been just bruises and a swollen face. When my phone suddenly rang, I screamed, startled like a bird seeing a bow. When I saw the name on the screen, the spine I had forced straight all night collapsed. I almost cried out, surviving a disaster: “Eth—” “Hello?” Chloe’s gentle, innocent voice rang out. “Ethan is in the shower~” “I saw you called a bunch of times.” “May I ask who this is and what you want?” It felt like hot coals were shoved down my throat. The flesh was seared, burned rotten. It hurt so much I wanted to take a knife and carve out my vocal cords. Hanging up the phone was such a simple thing, but it seemed to use up all my strength. I limped to the police station to file a report, looking incredibly wretched. When everything was over, the alarm clock pointed to 00:01 the next day. I finally received a call back from Ethan. His tone was still so high and mighty. “Learned your lesson?” I understood instantly. He did it on purpose. Those unanswered calls on our “anniversary” were his punishment for me “not trusting him enough.” Tears flowed over my swollen face. Like pouring acid on a wound. When I spoke, my voice was hoarse, like broken bellows. I said, “Ethan, let’s break up.” The other end was silent for only a second. Ethan sneered. “Fine. Don’t regret it.” He cut the call without hesitation. He agreed to the breakup without a shred of reluctance. Chapter 4 At first, it was just hard to sleep. I couldn’t help but replay every detail of our relationship over and over. I was terrified I had misjudged, that I had wrongly sentenced him to death. I started rereading our chat history obsessively. But the more I looked, the sadder I got. The more resentful I became. I started to hate Ethan. Six years. Six whole years. I hated that he could be so breezy, throwing me away like trash. At 4 AM, I painfully deleted all his accounts. I climbed out of bed and, as if venting, gathered all his things. I stuffed them into big garbage bags and smashed them into the dumpster downstairs. After doing all this, I thought I would feel relief. But it was like plotting to kill a mosquito that had been torturing me, only to find that what splattered out was my own blood. I went to work on time, acting as if nothing happened. But only I knew a huge chunk of my heart had been gouged out alive. That piece used to grow Ethan. Later, it rotted. To survive, I cut out the rotting flesh alive. I forgot that if the wound is too big, a person can’t live either. The emotions came back with a vengeance when I saw him at the company general meeting. Ethan was still calm, steady, and composed. He was even more high-spirited. As if losing me hadn’t affected him at all. Chloe exchanged glances with him, thinking she was being secretive, her face slightly flushed. I started spending entire nights awake, vomiting whatever I ate. Ethan didn’t use social media. So I went crazy stalking Chloe’s accounts. Analyzing every signature and post related to Ethan. Until I fainted from low blood sugar at the company and was sent to the hospital. Ethan deigned to visit me. This was the twenty-ninth day of our breakup. He spun the couple ring on his hand lazily. “Zoe, you’ve lost weight.” My eyes were dull. I opened my mouth numbly. “I’m sorry.” Ethan revealed a triumphant, satisfied smile. We got back together.

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When Asher Kingsley transferred into our class, I was shaking like a leaf. But the moment he introduced himself, the entire class looked at him with pure hostility. Weirder still, if Asher got within six feet of me, my classmates would immediately swarm, pushing him away. Years later, at my wedding, they all showed up. My class president, teary-eyed, hugged me and said: “This is how it should be. You deserve to be happy.” 1 Senior year. My dad pulled me out of the prestigious City High and transferred me to Oakwood High—the worst school in the district—all for twenty thousand bucks. I didn’t dare complain. I knew if I made a fuss, he’d just pull me out of school entirely. The night he got the money, I actually got to eat an egg for dinner. A rare treat. Dad and Grandma were in the other room, eyes gleaming as they counted the cash. “Didn’t think the money-loser would be worth anything. That dead woman was right, an educated girl sells for more.” “Take a cut now, then sell her off again after college. My precious grandson will be able to buy a house in the city.” “Maybe he’ll even get a city wife, just like you did.” The “dead woman” they were talking about was my mom. She was trafficked here. Because she gave birth to me—a “money-loser”—she was beaten constantly. She was forced to get pregnant over and over. Dad dragged her to shady clinics for gender tests. If it was a girl, he made her get rid of it. Finally, on the fourth try, she had my brother. That’s when I realized she hadn’t wanted to live for a long time. But she endured it all so I could go to school. She traded her suffering for my education. So, to save Mom and take her home, I had to endure. 2 Honestly, it didn’t matter where I went to school. I was the only kid from our village to make it to a city high school. At City High, I was ostracized from day one. I was too poor. Even though I washed my clothes every day, they said I smelled like poverty. Later, just because the school heartthrob, Asher Kingsley, spoke to me once, I became the target of relentless bullying. For two years, I studied under siege. So, this transfer felt like a blessing. The new kids at Oakwood were nice. They didn’t mock my worn-out clothes. Some even shared their snacks with me. I thought, finally, I can have a normal life. But I was wrong. Even after transferring, I couldn’t escape the beatings. When the bullies from City High found me, I instinctively crouched down and covered my head. Their leader was Chloe. She was obsessed with Asher, and her family was close with his. If any girl talked to Asher, Chloe made them pay. She grabbed my hair, a practiced move, and hissed: “Lily, I didn’t know you had it in you. You transferred schools and still managed to make Asher talk about you.” “Playing hard to get, huh? You’re more manipulative than you look.” Asher Kingsley. Again. Even miles away, I couldn’t escape his shadow. The first time I spoke to Asher was because he didn’t turn in his homework. I was the class rep; I had to ask him for it. Instead of handing it over, he said something weird: “Do you know who I am? You have guts, asking me for homework.” “You’re interesting. I’ll remember you.” At the time, I just thought he was a weirdo. And kind of greasy. Who cared who he was? All I knew was the teacher would yell at me if I didn’t collect all the assignments. I thought it was nothing. But after school, I was cornered in an alley by a group of girls led by Chloe. They kicked me, hit me, and warned me to stay away from Asher. I felt so wronged. But I was just a powerless girl from the sticks with a dad who didn’t care. When I went home covered in bruises, my dad just cursed: “Useless thing, coming home late? Go make dinner, are you trying to starve us?” They didn’t care if I was hurt, as long as I was alive enough to be sold later. I thought staying away from Asher would fix it. But it was useless. If Asher even casually mentioned my name, I got beaten up. I figured Asher and I were just cursed to be enemies. 3 I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the pain. But it didn’t come. Instead, a fierce voice rang out: “Do you know whose turf this is? You dare touch my people?” It was Maya, the class president. I opened my eyes. Maya had grabbed Chloe’s hand. Behind her, thirty of my classmates stood in a circle around the six bullies, each holding a broom. In that moment, they looked like radiant gods. Maya gripped Chloe’s wrist hard. Chloe winced and let go of my hair. But her mouth didn’t stop. “Fine, Lily. Don’t think having backup scares me.” “As long as Asher remembers you, I’m not done with you.” Slap. A crisp sound echoed as Maya slapped her across the face. “Seriously, how did you get into City High with that brain? You can’t control your man, so you blame Lily?” “Or are you just having a breakdown because he doesn’t like you and can’t even remember you exist?” That hit a nerve. Chloe lunged at Maya. Maya pulled me behind a wall of boys, continuing her verbal assault. “Wow, look at you getting triggered.” “Instead of losing it here, maybe figure out how to be memorable.” “And what’s this about Lily seducing him? Lily didn’t do anything.” “Maybe that trash guy just wants to hit on our Lily. Do you really think everyone sees him as a prize like you do?” Tears finally spilled out of my eyes. Right. I didn’t even like Asher. But everyone assumed I was playing games. Even the teachers said, “The Kingsley family is out of your league. Focus on your studies.” This was the first time someone said it wasn’t my fault. Right. I didn’t do anything wrong. My classmates didn’t speak, but they took a step forward. They gripped their brooms tighter. The threat was clear: Move again, and we swing. The bullies looked at our numbers and hesitated. Chloe gritted her teeth and glared at Maya. “Do you know who I am? You dare…” “I don’t care who you are,” Maya cut her off. “If you like him, chase him yourself. Bullying the weak doesn’t make you tough.” Chloe shot me a venomous look, then scanned the wall of students ready to fight. She swallowed her words and left with her crew. Once they were gone, the crowd relaxed. The academic rep helped me up and dusted me off. “You okay?” I shook my head, choking out a “Thank you.” Maya turned around, her face returning to normal. “Alright, show’s over. Back to class.” Everyone walked back quietly. No one made a big deal out of it, like they’d just swatted a fly. But my heart felt warm for the first time in forever. 4 From that day on, things changed. When the bell rang, before I could even pack my bag, a classmate would casually walk up to my desk. “Lily, let’s go. Going your way today.” First day it was Maya. Second day, the girl in front of me. Third day, the janitorial rep. They never said “I’m walking you home.” Just “It’s on the way.” But I lived on the outskirts of the city. It was the complete opposite direction of the new suburbs where most of them lived. I didn’t call them out. I just walked with them silently. Mornings too. When I walked out of my narrow alley, I’d “accidentally” bump into a classmate. “Oh? Lily? You take this route too? What a coincidence. Let’s walk.” Sometimes it was the same person, sometimes not. Sometimes they had breakfast and would give me a bun or a soy milk. “Bought too much. Help me eat it.” “Don’t pay me back. You always help us with homework. Better than a tutor.” I took the bun. It was warm. I knew they were protecting me, scared Chloe’s gang would come back. That tight feeling in my chest returned, but this time it was warm. I studied harder. I helped anyone who asked with homework. I did the dirtiest jobs during cleaning duty. It was the only way I could repay them. But I noticed something weird. Almost everyone in class had a specific book. Not a textbook, not a study guide. The cover was plain. I couldn’t tell what it was. Sometimes during breaks, they’d take it out and read. But if I got close, or even glanced at it, they’d slam it shut and stuff it in their desks. Once, I turned around to ask the guy behind me a math question. He was engrossed in reading. I caught a glimpse of the page—dense text, like a novel, but the formatting was strange. He noticed me looking and slammed the book shut with a loud thud. I figured it was some contraband web novel they didn’t want the teacher to see. Everyone has secrets. I didn’t overthink it. I didn’t ask. I thought these peaceful days would last until graduation. Until one morning, a month later, the homeroom teacher walked in with a new student. “Quiet down, everyone. We have a transfer student. Please welcome him.” A tall boy stood on the podium. His gaze swept across the room with an arrogance I knew all too well. He said: “I’m Asher Kingsley.”

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Chapter 1 When I married Ethan, I knew about the woman in his past. The one he grew up with. The one who wouldn’t let go. She’d plastered his photos all over the city, publicly confessing her love. She’d stormed into his office wearing lingerie, begging him. She’d even livestreamed herself on a rooftop, wrist bleeding, threatening to jump if he didn’t marry her. But Ethan never wavered. He gave me absolute security. Or so I thought. One year into our marriage, she showed up at our door, pregnant. I was shocked. Heartbroken. I couldn’t fathom how the man who loved me so fiercely could betray me. Everyone knew our story. Ethan fell in love with me at first sight and pursued me relentlessly. At every piano recital, he was in the front row. Afterward, he’d be waiting backstage with a bouquet of roses. He rented billboards across the city, playing loops of my silhouette at the piano with the caption: Evelyn, I like you. For ninety-nine days straight, he hand-delivered a love letter to me. But back then, I only cared about my music. I turned him down. Until that day. A rival pianist, bitter over losing to me, came at me with a knife. In that split second, Ethan stepped in front of me without hesitation. The blade pierced his abdomen. Blood soaked his expensive white suit. The crimson stain burned into my retinas. My body went cold, my mind blank, as I watched the color drain from his face. But Ethan held my trembling hand tight. His voice was weak but steady, repeating: “Evelyn, I’m here. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid…” Even as he lost consciousness, his grip never loosened. In that moment, looking at the wound in his stomach and feeling his hand holding mine, I fell for him. Not long after, we were married. After the wedding, Ethan treated me like a queen. He built me a private piano room that rivaled concert halls. He bid an astronomical sum at an auction for a manuscript by a master composer simply because I mentioned I liked it. Tone-deaf Ethan secretly practiced for months until his fingers blistered, just to play “Für Elise” for me on my birthday. And now… he had betrayed me. I asked for a divorce. Ethan knelt in the pouring rain for three days and three nights. Pale, voice hoarse, he begged: “Evelyn, I was drugged. I thought it was you… It was an accident. I can’t live without you. I’ll make her get rid of it. I’ll send her abroad immediately! Please, don’t leave me. I can’t live without you!” Watching his swaying figure in the rain, remembering his years of devotion, I softened. Six months later, I ran into him at the mall. With her. And a baby. Ethan’s face went white when he saw me. He ran over, grabbing my wrist in a panic, babbling: “Evelyn! Listen to me! The doctor said she couldn’t have the procedure! It’s true! As soon as she recovers, I’ll send them away!” His parents found out about the grandson. They were adamant: “A Song family child cannot be raised outside the family!” Ethan insisted on sending them away. For this, he took ninety-nine lashes from his father’s whip. His back was a bloody mess. He knelt before me, eyes full of desperate pleading. “Evelyn, trust me one last time. I will send them away.” I cleaned his wounds, tears streaming down my face, my heart bleeding with his. I chose to believe him again. After that, Ethan was even more careful with me. If the maid said I had a slight fever, he would drop a multi-billion dollar deal, fly back from overseas overnight, and sit by my bedside till dawn. My heart softened again. I tried to forget them. Until three years later. A woman’s screams and a child’s crying shattered our peace. “Ethan! I didn’t want to disturb you, but Liam has leukemia! The doctor says only cord blood from a sibling with the same parents can save him! Please, save our son!” Chloe knelt outside our villa, holding the child, banging her head on the pavement until blood stained the ground. Ethan’s parents rushed over. His mother, eyes red, took the child from Chloe. Weeping, she threatened Ethan with her life: “Ethan, this is your son! If you don’t help, I’ll die right here with him!” Ethan’s face turned gray. He fell silent. He surrendered. Chloe and the child moved into our home. Ethan held me tight, his voice trembling. “Evelyn, it’s a life… he’s my son. I can’t ignore him. Don’t worry! I’ll only do IVF. I won’t touch her! As soon as the boy is cured, I’ll send them away. Please… don’t leave me. I can’t live without you…” I couldn’t watch a child die. I nodded numbly. At first, Ethan kept his distance. But slowly, the child’s cries, his mother’s nagging, Chloe’s weak, pleading eyes… they wove a net that trapped him. Mornings, I’d walk into the dining room to see a happy family of three: Ethan clumsily feeding Liam. Chloe watching tenderly, wiping the child’s mouth. Nights, I’d hear Ethan reading bedtime stories from the next room. Chloe’s soft agreement. The child’s innocent laughter… Like poisoned needles, piercing my heart a thousand times. I felt like an outsider in my own home. I prayed for it to end. One afternoon, Liam ate a dessert I had left on the table. Soon, red spots covered his body. He gasped for air, convulsing in pain. Chloe rushed at me, hysterical, eyes bulging with rage: “Evelyn, I know you hate me! I accepted my fate, I only wanted to take Liam away forever! If he wasn’t sick, I never would have come back! You want revenge, take it out on me! He’s just a child, he’s innocent! How could you be so cruel?!” I was shocked. “I didn’t! How could I hurt a child?!” I looked at Ethan, face ashen, hoping for support. “Ethan, believe me. I didn’t do this.” Ethan avoided my gaze. He glanced at the pastry on the table, sighing with suspicion. “Evelyn… I remember… you never eat mangoes.” I felt like I’d fallen into an ice cave. I held up my phone frantically: “It was a gift from a client! I don’t eat them, that’s why I left them there, look…” “Enough!” Ethan slapped my phone away. “Does that matter now?! Saving him matters! I told you a million times, it’s just for the treatment! They’ll leave when he’s well! Can’t you be sensible?!” His mother rushed in, glaring at me like I was a viper. “What a vicious woman! Can’t bear a child for four years, so you try to kill my only grandson! Trying to kill him with allergies? Then you taste it too!” She screamed at the servants: “Hold her down! Pour the peanut butter down her throat!” I struggled desperately, looking at Ethan in despair. “It wasn’t me! Ethan! Help me!” Ethan didn’t respond. He picked up the child and rushed out with Chloe, not looking back once. I heard his anxious voice fading: “Driver? To the hospital! Now!” Peanut butter was forced down my throat. My breath caught. Darkness crept in. In my last moment of consciousness, I remembered how he used to kiss a papercut on my finger, heartbroken. Now, knowing his mother was killing me, he didn’t even turn his head. Chapter 2 I woke up to the sharp smell of disinfectant. Through blurred vision, I saw Ethan’s bloodshot eyes and haggard face. He was sitting by my bed. Seeing me move, he grabbed my hand tight, voice trembling with fear: “Evelyn! You’re awake! You scared me to death… Mom… she was too impulsive. She just loves the kid too much, she was confused… she just wanted to teach you a lesson… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” He leaned in to kiss my forehead. I turned my head away. “A lesson?” “I almost died…” I looked at him, eyes empty. Tears slid silently down my pale cheeks. My tears stung him. He promised frantically: “It was an accident! I swear! It won’t happen again! When you’re better, I’ll take you to the auction. Whatever you want, I’ll buy it for you. To make it up to you, okay? Anything you want!” Compensation? My near-death experience was just a “lesson” he could pay off? I closed my eyes. My heart was dead ash. A shrill ringtone cut through the air. “Ethan! Liam is awake! He’s crying for his daddy, he keeps calling for you! Come quick!” Chloe’s sobbing voice came through the phone, mixed with the child’s heart-wrenching screams. Ethan’s face changed instantly. He looked at me, eyes full of cautious probing and anxiety: “Evelyn, Liam is awake, he’s crying really bad. I have to go check on him. I’ll be right back to keep you company… you rest well, wait for me.” I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t answer. I just listened to his hurried footsteps fading away. He never came back. I didn’t see him again until the day I was discharged. “Evelyn, come on. Let’s go to the auction. It’ll cheer you up.” Ethan looked at me with a pleasing smile. I got into the car silently. The whole way, he tried to make conversation. I barely responded. As the car pulled up to the auction house, I saw Chloe waiting there with Liam, smiling expectantly. Ethan paused, then explained awkwardly: “Liam was throwing a fit at home, insisted on coming… kids, you know, they’re curious.” In the private box, I sat next to Ethan. But his attention was entirely on the child and Chloe on his other side. He patiently explained the auction process to the boy, smiling indulgently. He whispered with Chloe. A warm, cozy atmosphere flowed between the three of them, shutting me out completely. That gentleness used to be mine. Now, sitting right next to him, I was invisible. Like I was air. When a ruby necklace came up, Chloe’s eyes lit up with blatant desire. Liam shook Ethan’s arm, his baby voice stabbing my heart: “Daddy! Mommy likes the shiny thing! Buy it for Mommy, please?” Ethan patted his head, voice warm: “Of course.” He bid without hesitation, winning it for an astronomical price. When the auction ended, Ethan seemed to remember I existed. He looked at me apologetically: “Evelyn, sorry, I was busy with Liam. Is there anything you want?” I looked up slowly. I stared at him. The last light in my eyes went out. The only thing I wanted was to leave him. To leave this suffocating place. I forced a pale smile, my voice light as a sigh: “Yes. I’ll tell you… when we get home.” Ethan thought I was finally accepting his “compensation.” He relaxed instantly, promising: “Don’t worry, Evelyn! Anything you want! I’ll pluck the stars from the sky for you!” Back home, I walked straight to the study. I opened a drawer and took out the divorce agreement that had been gathering dust for three years. When I found out Chloe was pregnant back then, I was devastated. I prepared to leave. But in the end, I couldn’t do it. I gave our marriage another chance. I don’t know why I didn’t destroy this paper. I just hid it. Maybe subconsciously, I knew this day would come. I put the agreement in front of him. “What is it you want?” he asked casually. I didn’t answer. As he reached for the document, his phone rang. He answered immediately, voice gentle and concerned: “Chloe? What is it?” “Ethan, the clinic is ready! Come quick!” Chloe’s voice. Ethan glanced at me. I was expressionless. I flipped the document to the last page, to the signature line. “Evelyn, I…” he tried to explain. “She’s waiting.” My voice was flat. No emotion. Ethan didn’t hesitate. He picked up the pen, signed his name quickly, and turned to leave. I watched his eager back disappear. My lips curled in a mocking smile, but tears flooded my face, falling onto the paper. Ethan, do you know what you just signed? Maybe it doesn’t matter. What matters is that by signing it, you can run to her. I looked down at the bold characters of “Ethan Song.” Even his handwriting looked rushed. I laughed at myself. Then, stroke by stroke, I signed my name next to his. Chapter 3 I went back to the bedroom and opened the nightstand drawer. I took out two red booklets. Our marriage certificates. When we got them, Ethan looked at them over and over, grinning like an idiot. He pressed them to his chest, voice full of happiness: “I’m going to carry this every day! It’s my lucky charm!” Now, they lay silent in the corner. Just like our love, silently ending. With the signed agreement and the certificates, I drove alone to the Civil Affairs Bureau. Last time, I came here with Ethan. I was full of hope and sweetness then. Now, I was alone. Here to put a cold period on a marriage riddled with holes. “You can pick up the divorce certificate in thirty days.” The clerk’s official voice woke me from my memories. I whispered thanks and left. I opened my phone and bought a ticket to Vienna for the day the divorce would be final. That was where my dreams used to be. Before I met Ethan. Before I gave up everything for him. Now that it was ending, it was time to find myself again. Back at the villa. A knock on the door. Chloe walked in. Her face was apologetic, but her eyes were triumphant. “Miss Lin,” she said softly. “I know recent events have upset you. But really, it’s just to save Liam… Between me and Ethan… it’s just for the child. Nothing else.” She walked closer, voice earnest. “Please understand a mother’s heart. I promise, once the baby is born and Liam is saved, I’ll disappear!” She bowed deeply to me. Her hair slipped, revealing a fresh, red mark on her neck. My pupils shrank. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by an icy hand. It stopped beating. “I’ll only do IVF. I won’t touch her!” Ethan’s firm promise echoed in my ears. Now, it was a cruel joke. Chloe saw my face change. She smiled a victor’s smile and left. The moment the door closed, I pulled out my phone. My hands shook as I dialed a private investigator. “Find out everything about Ethan and Chloe’s recent movements. Money is no object. I need it fast!” An hour later, my phone buzzed. An email. I stared at it. Hesitated. Clicked. High-definition photos filled the screen. Ethan holding Chloe’s waist, intimate. Chloe leaning into his chest, smiling shyly, sweetly… I stared at the photos. My eyes burned. I forced myself to look at every single one. Then I started laughing. Laughing until tears streamed down my face. Ethan Song. You lied to me again. Every promise was a lie! And your love? Was that just a lie too? Chapter 4 In the following days, I quietly packed my life away. I was erasing Ethan from my heart, bit by bit. Ethan was busy with Chloe and their “IVF.” He just repeated on the phone: “It’ll be over soon,” “Wait for me, Evelyn.” I was sick of his empty words. I would never believe him again. The day before the divorce was finalized, the villa was unusually lively. Ethan’s parents sat on the sofa, faces glowing. His mother held Chloe’s hand, grinning ear to ear. Chloe leaned against Ethan, gently stroking her flat stomach. She couldn’t hide her shy happiness. I stopped. I felt sick. I turned to leave. “Evelyn!” Ethan saw me. He rushed over and hugged me, voice bursting with joy: “Chloe is pregnant! Evelyn! As soon as the baby is born and we get the cord blood for Liam, it’s over! She’ll take both kids and leave! We can go back to how we were!” It felt absurd. The last time I saw him this happy was our wedding day. He trembled as he put the ring on my finger, voice cracking with emotion, eyes full of love: “Evelyn, marrying you is the happiest thing in my life!” Now, he was ecstatic about another woman carrying his child. He wanted to share that joy with me… I pushed him away. I looked at his confused face and spoke calmly, without emotion: “Congratulations.” The next day was his mother’s birthday party. The house was decorated, festive. His mother stood in the center of the hall, holding Chloe’s hand, voice loud with pride and favoritism: “Chloe is the hero of the Song family! She gave us Liam, and now she’s pregnant again! This is the best birthday present ever!” Then she glared at me in the corner, voice sharp as a knife. “Unlike some people. Been here for years, and nothing happening! Useless thing! How can you compare to our Chloe!” Her words stabbed my ears. I walked to the backyard. By the pool, the water shimmered. It reflected my pale face. Footsteps behind me. Chloe walked up slowly. Her voice was soft but provocative: “Miss Lin, hiding here all alone? Is it too loud inside? Or… too bright? Can’t stand the sight?” I didn’t turn around. “Stay away from me.” She laughed lightly. She walked to my side, stroking her stomach, showing off. “You know… to get this baby, Ethan and I worked very hard.” She emphasized “hard,” her tone suggestive. The hotel photos flashed in my mind. My stomach churned. I didn’t want to deal with her. I turned to leave. “Can’t take it?” She grabbed my wrist. Her grip was shockingly strong, nails digging into my skin. “Let go!” I tried to shake her off. But she pulled me. Without hesitation, she fell backward, toward the pool. Splash! “Help! Help me! Save my baby!” Her screams pierced the air. Panic and terror. Ethan was the first to run out. He saw Chloe struggling in the water and jumped in without a second thought. He didn’t even glance at me, also in the water, choking. He swam to Chloe, lifted her out, voice anxious and soft: “Don’t be scared! I’m here! You and the baby are safe.” I watched him hugging her, comforting her. My heart felt like it was being pierced by a thousand needles. The cold water filled my lungs, and my heart. My body felt heavy. Once, if I just choked on water while drinking, he would be terrified. He would hold me, pat my back, comfort me. I struggled, barely managing to climb out. I was soaked, shivering. My eyes were full of sorrow. “Ethan! She pushed me!” Chloe leaned into him, crying. “She said I deserve to die! She said I stole you! She said Liam shouldn’t have been born!” Ethan looked up at me. His eyes were ice cold. Disappointment and anger radiated from him. “Evelyn! You pushed her?” My voice was hoarse. “I didn’t! She jumped! She pulled me in!” “She jumped? And pulled you?!” Ethan looked like he heard a joke. “Why would she do that?! That baby means more to her than her life! It’s Liam’s only hope! Evelyn, when did you become so vicious?” Vicious? His word was a knife in my heart. Is that what I am to him now? Suddenly, a small figure cannonballed into me! Liam. His face full of hate. He pointed at me, screaming: “Bad woman! You’re a bad woman! You pushed my mommy! You want to kill her! You’re evil!” He rammed into me with all his might! I was caught off guard. My ankle twisted with sharp pain. I lost my balance. Splash! I fell back into the freezing water. It went over my head. The pain in my ankle drained my strength. I tried to swim, but I kept sinking. “Help… Ethan! Help me!” I struggled, terrified. Ethan held the shivering Chloe. He looked at me struggling in the water. His voice was dead. “Leave her. She’s acting. She’ll come up when she’s done.” He turned and walked away with Chloe. Despair filled me along with the water. He taught me to swim. Once, I held my breath for thirty seconds and he pulled me out, terrified I was drowning. Now, my cry for help was just “acting.” Darkness swallowed me.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “385907”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel