On my birthday, Wes insisted on buying me flowers. Knowing his family struggled financially, I deliberately picked a modest $15 bouquet. That very same afternoon, a massive delivery of red roses arrived for my roommate, filling nearly half our room. When she picked up her phone to express her thanks, a man’s voice filtered softly through the speaker. “I am glad you like them.” The tone was lazy and warm, ending on a slightly upturned, husky trail. The entire dorm erupted into teasing squeals, but I froze in place. That voice belonged to Wes. 1 At first, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. However, I had always been hyper-sensitive to sound. Wes had a distinct timbre, especially the subtle, rising pitch at the end of his sentences. Leah hung up the phone and offered a casual explanation to the room. “The flowers were from my fiancé.” A sudden hush fell over the room. Leah had been chasing the star athlete from the neighboring department for over three years. Where had a fiancé suddenly materialized from? Leah shrugged nonchalantly. “It is an arranged marriage between our families. He is handsome and wealthy enough, but neither of us wanted to settle down with just one person before getting hitched. So, we made a deal: until the wedding, we each play the field.” She plucked a single stem from the bouquet, her tone breezy. “He took on a new girlfriend earlier this year. We agreed that whatever he buys for her, he has to compensate me with a version worth a hundred times the price.” In the lower right corner of the flower wrapper, a price tag remained partially unpeeled. $1,500. Leah flicked the tag with her manicured fingernail, letting out a sharp scoff. “Tsk. Imagine giving a girl a paltry $15 bouquet. That poor girl must be completely brainless, suffering alongside a wealthy heir pretending to be broke, actually believing she found true love.” Her voice held no pity, only cruel amusement. With those words, her gaze drifted toward the stems in my arms. “Audrey, you got flowers too, didn’t you? The petals do not look very fresh, though. How much were they?” Not a dollar more, not a dollar less. They were exactly fifteen dollars. 2 In truth, those were not the flowers I had originally chosen. Earlier that day, as I passed a local florist, a gorgeous arrangement in the display window caught my eye. Soft strawberry almond spray roses paired with delicate white violets, fluffy and light, like a cloud dipped in sunset glow. I fell in love with them at first sight. The clerk informed me the bouquet cost $60. Wes had taken my hand, looking into my eyes with a tender smile. “Audrey, it is your birthday. If you love them, let us get them. I still have a bit of cash left.” He hesitated briefly before adding in a soft voice, “Though, after buying these, I might have to live on instant noodles for the next month. But do not worry about me. Your happiness matters more than anything.” I knew how difficult his life supposedly was. His mother had passed away early, and his father was buried under gambling debts. Nearly every cent Wes earned went toward clearing those loans. We had met during our senior internships. He arrived later than I did, frequently approaching me with questions about work. As the days went by, those questions turned into a quiet, earnest pursuit. He was exactly my type, modest yet brimming with quiet ambition. So, I accepted his confession. I thought we were two kindred spirits, working tirelessly to build a life together in a cold, massive city. How could I ever bear to let him eat instant noodles for a month? So, as much as I adored those strawberry almond roses, I pulled Wes away from the shop. We stood at a late-night street stall, bargaining for a long time before settling on a simple bouquet of cheap alstroemeria. When he paid, Wes looked deeply moved. The warm streetlamp cast a soft glow across his features. His eyes glistened with unshed tears, his voice thick with emotion. “Audrey, you suffer so much just by being with me. I promise I will work hard to give you everything you deserve.” At the time, I threw my arms around him, my heart overflowing with sweetness. I had no idea that while holding me in his arms, he was quietly placing an order for another girl, paying a hundred times the price. Nor did I know that his surname belonged to the Kensington family, the prominent dynasty behind the very conglomerate where I was interning. 3 I did not linger in the dorm. My internship location was far from campus, requiring a two-hour commute each way. To save time, Wes and I had rented a modest apartment near the office. By the time I carried my files back to the apartment, it was already nine at night. The mouth-watering aroma of home-cooked food rushed out to meet me as I opened the door. A small cake sat in the center of the dining table. Wes emerged from the kitchen carrying two hot dishes, offering me a bright smile. “You came back right on time. The food is freshly cooked, just waiting for you.” I had always been an avoidant personality type. On the subway ride over, I had envisioned confronting Wes, demanding to know why he lied, screaming at him through tears before walking away for good. Yet, seeing him fussing around the apartment for my sake, I felt only an overwhelming sense of numbness. Why would a billionaire heir squeeze into a tiny, cramped rental, meticulously acting the part of a destitute soul? The candles were lit, and a party hat was placed on my head. I clasped my hands together, closed my eyes, and made a silent wish. When I opened my eyes, Wes was staring intently at his phone. The pale light of the screen illuminated his face, catching a subtle, lingering smile at the corner of his lips. Moments later, my phone vibrated with a notification from the dorm group chat. Leah had posted a screenshot of a bank transfer for $2,500. She wrote: My fiancé just sent me more money. This time, it is to cover the cake he bought for that girl. Honestly, he is celebrating someone else’s birthday and still remembers me. Isn’t he worried his little girlfriend will get jealous? Below her message, my other roommates flooded the chat with praise, calling her the absolute queen of the relationship. My eyes remained fixed on the profile picture in the screenshot. It was a shot of a man’s back on a beach, his white shirt billowing in the sea breeze. I was the one who had taken that photo for Wes. “What are you staring at so intently?” Wes reached over, lightly smudging a dab of cream onto my forehead. His eyes darkened as he leaned closer, his voice dropping into a raspy whisper. “Audrey, let us move to the bedroom, alright?” We had been together for six months. We held hands and kissed, but we had never taken that final step. I was afraid of pain, and he had never forced me, always holding me tightly through the night while quietly enduring his own restraint. Tonight, I had originally intended to give myself to him completely. After buying the flowers, I had even stopped by a convenience store to buy a box of ultra-thin protection. It was sitting right on the entryway table. However, the thought that Wes was Leah’s fiancé made my stomach turn with violent revulsion. I pushed him away, turned around, and began packing my belongings. Coincidentally, our monthly lease expired tomorrow. “I am moving back to the dorms. I will not be renewing the lease.” He froze slightly. “Why the sudden decision to move back? Audrey, if you are unhappy, can you tell me why?” I ignored him, continuing to fold my clothes into my suitcase. Raised as a spoiled heir accustomed to being catered to, his patience quickly ran thin. “Audrey, your mood has been off ever since you got home tonight. I spent the entire evening cooking, and you have not taken a single bite. Is this all because I did not buy you that $60 bouquet? When did you become so materialistic, throwing a tantrum just because you did not get a present?” How fascinating that in an economic downturn, opting out of a sixty-dollar purchase could get someone labeled as materialistic. I raised my head and met his gaze dead-on. “Wes, is there anything you are keeping from me?” He went still for a second, then shook his head smoothly. “No. Nothing at all.” 4 I did not rip off the mask right then and there. Kensington Corp belonged to his family, and it was the top firm in my field nationwide. I had worked as an intern for six months, fighting fiercely for a full-time offer. My team lead had quietly assured me that my evaluations were stellar, and my spot was practically guaranteed. Yet on the day the final hiring list was posted, I searched from top to bottom three separate times, unable to find my name anywhere. I walked into my team lead’s office to ask for an explanation. With a conflicted expression, she pulled me into a private breakroom and lowered her voice. “Audrey, did you happen to offend someone higher up?” I looked at her in confusion. “What do you mean?” “Your name was originally on the approved list. Yesterday, a high-level executive made a personal call and had your name crossed off directly.” Stepping out of the breakroom, I saw Wes sitting at his intern desk. Naturally, his name was not on the list either. A wealthy heir interning was merely a casual game to pass the time. He offered me a paper cup of warm tea, speaking in a soothing, gentle tone. “Audrey, it is alright. There are plenty of great companies out there, you do not have to stay at Kensington. Take your time searching. With your talent, you will shine anywhere.” My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was the dorm group chat again. Leah had directly tagged me. @Audrey, Kensington posted their full-time offers today, right? Did you make the cut? My fiancé’s girlfriend was interning there too. I do not know if you know her, but she definitely did not get the job. I told my fiancé before that outside flings are fine for fun, but no outside woman steps foot into the family firm. It was set in stone, but my fiancé wiped her name out with a single word. Isn’t he obedient? My fingers tightened around my phone until my knuckles turned stark white. Wes knew how desperately I wanted this job. He knew how many nights I had slept on the office sofa just to refine project proposals. He knew my grandmother was waiting in our rural hometown for me to secure a stable job so I could bring her to the city for medical care. Yet with a single casual sentence, he erased half a year of my relentless effort. Then he turned around, put on a mask of complete innocence, and stood in front of me offering tender consolation. The hot tea in my paper cup steamed softly, scalding my fingertips with a sharp sting. Unable to contain it any longer, I grabbed the hot cup and splashed the liquid straight into his face. “Wes, are you out of your mind?!” The entire open-plan office fell so silent that only the hum of the air conditioner remained. Wes stood stunned for two seconds. He pulled out a tissue, wiped the tea from his skin, and forced down his rising temper as he looked at me. “Audrey, I know you are upset about the job, but you need to maintain your professional composure in public. Once we get home, you can throw whatever tantrum you want. You can hit me or yell at me. Let me take you out for dinner tonight, alright? Please stop being angry.” His tone remained impossibly gentle, as though he were not the very person orchestrating my downfall behind my back. Since I was not getting the job anyway, there was no need to maintain any professional courtesy in this building. I scooped up a heavy stack of printed project files from the desk and slammed them hard against his chest. “We are broken up.” Without another word, I threw my bag over my shoulder and walked out. Wes’s voice chased after me, heavy with suppressed anger. “Audrey, are you really going to hold a grudge forever just because I did not buy those strawberry almond roses? Throwing this kind of temper at me… with such fragile emotional control, it is no wonder the company did not keep you! You need to reflect on your own issues!” Stepping out of the corporate tower, torrential rain was pouring from the sky. The path toward the subway station was already flooded with deep water. In the past, whenever it rained along this road, Wes would crouch down and lift me onto his back. Audrey loves wearing white sneakers, I cannot let Audrey’s shoes get dirty. Back then, I would wrap one arm tightly around his neck, holding an umbrella high over both our heads with the other, chatting happily about our future. Now, heavy raindrops slammed into the murky puddles, shattering the water into countless tiny ripples. I rolled up my pant legs and stepped straight into the freezing water. Rain washed over my face, cool and damp. I tilted my head toward the gray sky, letting out a long, slow breath. My grandmother had always taught me that one must know when to hold on, and when to let go. A breakup was nothing to despair over. Cutting one’s losses in time was all that mattered. Everything would be fine. 5 I moved back into the dormitory. Leah owned a private apartment near campus, but upon hearing I had returned, she moved back into the dorm as well. Suddenly, she became exceedingly chatty. “My fiancé has been in a terrible mood lately. That girl suddenly broke up with him out of nowhere. My fiancé was just playing around, but getting abruptly dumped while he was still entertained threw him for a loop. Since he is my man, he came to vent to me, so I just had to bear with it.” Right as she finished speaking, Leah’s phone rang. A weary male voice echoed through the room, the ending tone trailing upward with a subtle rise. “I am planning a vacation to Europe. Is there anything you want me to bring back?” Leah did not answer immediately, letting out a light chuckle instead. “Why the sudden trip to Europe? Done trying to coax your little girlfriend back?” “If she wants to throw a fit, let her. Once her emotions settle down in a few weeks, I will go back and calm her down.” Leah toyed with the luxury watch on her wrist, casting a deliberate glance in my direction. “Aren’t you afraid that by the time you come back, she will be completely done with you?” “No. She loves me very much.” Through the speaker, the man’s tone sounded impossibly certain. “She takes relationships very seriously, unlike you. If you do not tell me what you want, I will just pick something out for you randomly.” After the call ended, Leah strolled over to my desk. Crossing her arms, she looked down at me with a sweet, mocking smile. “Audrey, my fiancé is heading to Europe. Is there anything you want? I can have him pick it up for you.” Before I could answer, she let out a sigh. “Ah, forget it. My fiancé is quite lazy. He never bothers with other people’s requests, he only brings things back for me.” No matter how detached I tried to be, I could clearly hear the boastful provocation in her words. The feud between Leah and me had taken root long ago. During our freshman year, both of us entered a national entrepreneurship competition. She claimed to have hired top industry mentors, boasting that her entry would easily secure first place. When the results were posted, my name sat at the top for first prize, while she took second. From that day on, her eyes held a constant layer of hostility whenever she looked at me. Later, when I was voted the face of the campus autumn fashion showcase, her resentment only deepened. However, since she rarely stayed on campus back then, our paths seldom crossed, and I simply let things slide. Listening to her sharp taunts now, I raised my eyes to meet hers. “Your fiancé certainly treats you well. It is just a pity that despite being so good to you, he was still on his knees elsewhere, begging another girl to stay.” Leah’s face turned pale. “What nonsense are you talking about?” “Didn’t you say he had a girlfriend? Between a couple, kissing and holding each other is completely normal, isn’t it? What, you can’t even stomach that, yet you still want to play the dignified wife?” A dull thud echoed behind me as a luxury watch was slammed onto the desk. Wealthy people certainly had money to burn, throwing around a six-figure timepiece the moment they lost their temper. Yet her anger evaporated just as quickly. By evening, she returned to the dorm in high spirits, eager to share her news with the room. “Guess who I just ran into outside the library? Elyes! He was standing right under the streetlight waiting for the shuttle, tall, broad-shouldered, with impossibly long legs. I stared for so long I could barely move my feet. I am definitely going to win him over.” Elyes was the guy Leah had been pursuing since freshman year, the one she remained utterly obsessed with. Our roommates crowded around her to look at the stealthy photo she had taken. Meanwhile, I sat at my desk, tapping open a message on my phone screen. It was from Elyes. Audrey, I heard you moved back to the dorms. Are you free to grab dinner sometime? I was not particularly close with Elyes. Back when I worked a part-time job at the campus dining hall, he used to frequent my station. Unlike the typical dining staff whose hands shook while serving, I always served generous portions of meat. Over time, we exchanged contact information, and he would casually message me about daily menu updates. Once I started my internship and began dating Wes, our communication naturally faded away. Until today, when he suddenly sent this message out of the blue. After a moment of thought, I politely declined. Sorry, I am quite busy sending out resumes lately. Elyes did not push further, simply replying: No rush. Whenever you are free for a meal, just let me know. The following days passed without incident. I shuttled between various corporate interviews across the city. Wes never reached out to me once. The last message in our chat history was from several days ago: Audrey, I know losing the offer was hard on you. I am giving you space to vent. I never replied. I assumed we would never cross paths again. Until one afternoon, when an urgent call arrived from my hometown. It was our neighbor. “Audrey, I passed by your yard today and saw your grandmother collapsed on the ground! I couldn’t wake her up no matter what I tried! I called an ambulance to take her to the county hospital, can you come back right away?” I booked an overnight train ticket and rushed back home immediately. The doctor diagnosed her with an aortic dissection, stating that emergency surgery was required right away. The cost was roughly twenty thousand dollars, and a deposit had to be paid before the procedure. My grandmother was a simple melon farmer with virtually no savings. Even combining my work-study funds, I was nowhere near twenty thousand dollars. Pride means nothing when a human life is on the line. So, sitting in the cold hospital hallway, I dialed Wes’s number. I wanted to borrow the money from him. After a long wait, the call finally went through. His voice sounded lazy, tinged with a faint, amused smile. “Finally cooled off? You are finally willing to call me?” I kept my voice low. “Wes, I need to borrow some money from you. Twenty thousand dollars. My grandmother is severely ill…” Before I could finish my sentence, he cut me off abruptly. “Audrey, are you joking with me? You know my family situation, where would I ever get that kind of money? I just started a new part-time job and I am on the clock right now. My coworkers are calling me, I have to go.” In the background, someone was indeed shouting for him, mentioning that the private yacht was about to set sail and telling him to hurry aboard. He offered a brief reply and hung up the phone. He blocked every word I had left to say. I tried dialing his number again. At first, the line was busy, and then his phone was switched off entirely. At that exact moment, the dorm group chat popped up with a new image. Leah had shared a photo of an exquisite emerald bracelet. Is it pretty? My fiancé won it for me at an auction. Imperial green jade, a rare royal collection piece valued at eight hundred thousand dollars. In the photo, the emerald gleamed with a deep, translucent luster, as clear as moonlight caught in ice. I sat alone on a bench in the hospital corridor, the sharp, sterile stench of disinfectant filling my lungs. In this world, people live in vastly different realities. Someone could spend eight hundred thousand dollars without blinking an eye, while someone else was driven to utter desperation over twenty thousand. I looked through the glass window at my grandmother lying motionless on the hospital bed. I remembered telling her not long ago that I had found a man who loved me deeply, that we were going to work hard together toward a bright future, and that I would bring him home to meet her after graduation. It turned out my eyes had been completely blind. Just as I pulled out my phone to search for alternative ways to raise the funds, a tall figure appeared at the far end of the corridor. It was Elyes. Usually immaculately groomed, he looked noticeably windblown and travel-weary. “My academic advisor mentioned there was an emergency at your home, so I took the liberty of coming down,” he said softly. “Is there anything I can do to help? Whether you need funds or assistance, just say the word.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “618659”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

In my sophomore year, my webcomic blew up online. Fans quickly pieced together that the male lead was based on Kingsley University’s campus heartthrob, Jonathan. The online friend I had chatted with for ten years sent me a message: “The hero is based on me. Is the heroine based on you? Are you a girl?” Jonathan insisted on meeting me in person. So I set the date for three weeks later, the day the final chapter of my comic was scheduled to drop. But the day before we were supposed to meet, my roommate Emma confessed her feelings to Jonathan. She used the exact same grand gesture from the ending of my comic. And they got together. Emma gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry for borrowing your comic’s idea! He and I will buy you dinner sometime.” Quietly, I pulled out my phone and texted Jonathan: “Emma isn’t me.” 01 When the message went through, Emma was still staring at me. “Or is there something you’ve wanted but couldn’t afford? I can have my boyfriend buy it for you.” My other two roommates couldn’t take it anymore. “We all know Sadie has a crush on Jonathan. How could you just steal her idea?” “Yeah, that’s not borrowing. That’s plagiarism.” Emma’s eyes welled with tears, but nobody comforted her. I had been serializing my comic Sleepless Hours since high school graduation. After starting college, I used my drawing tablet in our dorm all the time. So the three of them knew I was the author, and they promised to keep it a secret. In return, I frequently bought them gifts using my royalties. I just never expected the comic to go viral or for readers to figure out that Jonathan was the inspiration behind the male lead. Back then, Emma had asked me, “Sadie, you don’t actually like Jonathan, do you?” I hadn’t answered. She had laughed. “He’s been the golden boy since freshman year, top ten in the math department, endless girls chasing him. But you probably don’t understand guys like him. Good-looking, wealthy… even if he claims he’s single, he’s definitely got a crowd of girls he flirts with on the side.” Without thinking, I had cut her off. “He’s not like that.” They realized then that I was harboring a secret crush. Emma had gasped. “Oh my god, I’m totally shipping you two!” Then she badgered me until I let her see the ending I had drawn in advance. I hadn’t thought much of it, only reminding them to keep it strictly confidential. It wasn’t until tonight, when a roommate called me and told me to check the main campus group chat, that I realized what had happened. The group chat was flooded with videos taken from different angles. A radiant girl standing under the golden twilight on the East Quad, stepping right into the path of the handsome golden boy. She had orchestrated a grand, romantic, public confession. Just like the female lead in my comic. At the end of the video, Emma asked Jonathan with tear-brimmed eyes, “I’ve never done anything like this for anyone else. All my courage and love belong only to you. Will you be with me?” Those words were the exact dialogue from the comic’s finale. Jonathan didn’t wrap his arms around her like the hero in my drawing. He simply raised his hand and wiped away her tears. The crowd around them erupted into wild cheers. Everyone was chanting, “Say yes! Say yes!” And in the video, I heard his response crystal clear. He said, “Okay.” On May 20th, 2026, they became a couple. 02 “My campus goddess has been pining over someone else for two years?! I am heartbroken!” “Am I the only one who thinks her confession was insanely touching? Being so vulnerable about her past is usually something guys do!” “Plus one! They’re each other’s first love, oh my god!” “Is anyone else reading Sleepless Hours? Holy crap, it’s like the comic came to life!” In a group chat with thousands of students, messages flashed past at breakneck speed. Inside the dorm, Emma wiped her tears, her voice stubborn and defensive. “I just wanted to be brave for once in my life. Is that really a crime?” “Please don’t let this ruin our friendship, okay?” I held back my roomies who were ready to tear into her, looking at her with cold eyes. “You and I are done being friends.” Emma ran out of the room crying, not returning until curfew. The moment the lights went out, Jonathan replied. “Huh?” “Why would you think I mistook her for you?” I froze. His messages kept coming. “When Emma said those things showing how well she knew me, for a second I thought you had come to meet me early.” “But once she talked about her past, I knew it wasn’t you.” I stared at Jonathan’s words. The initial wave of anger and humiliation slowly drained away, replaced by an unbearable, burning shame. Still, I couldn’t swallow what I needed to say. I quickly typed: “Emma saw the ending of my comic. She copied the exact scene for her confession.” Afraid he wouldn’t believe me, I switched apps to send him the raw digital files. Before I could attach them, a notification popped up. Jonathan: “I know.” “She ran out of her dorm to find me earlier. She confessed that her idea came from her roommate’s comic.” 03 I canceled the upload and backed out to the chat window. Below his text, the typing indicator stayed active for a long time. I was typing too: “Everything she knows about you, the words that touched your heart… they all came from my comic…” I typed it out, then deleted it letter by letter. In that moment, I felt like a bitter villain trying to tear the main couple apart. Jonathan’s next block of text finally arrived. “I don’t care about the rest. All I’ve ever wanted is a devotion that belongs solely to me, pure and without ulterior motives. She told me…” It was a long paragraph describing exactly how Emma had touched his heart. It didn’t sound like his usual way of talking. For the past ten years, most of our conversations were about complex math problems, with occasional snippets of our daily lives. Whether it was a brutal exam question or a personal crisis, he always preferred giving conclusions, brushing over the process. Yet right now, he kept sending wall after wall of text. “Two years ago, you thanked me for letting you use me as a model for your comic.” “Now, I want to thank you. Because of you, my real-life heroine has walked into my story.” My fingers hovered over the screen, paralyzed. I realized then that he didn’t need anything I had to say. When the comic was at its peak, Jonathan had asked me: “I saw the comic. The hero is me, right? Is the heroine you? So you’re actually a girl?” My account had always used default settings from when I registered, showing no gender. I had told him that aside from gender, the heroine was the exact opposite of who I really was. He had replied, “Then I want to get to know you even more.” Now, through the cold glow of the screen, he told me: “I’m really lucky to have you as a friend. Under normal circumstances, I ought to buy you a proper dinner.” “But I just got a girlfriend. I can’t do anything that would make her jealous or insecure. So I think it’s better if we don’t meet tomorrow after all.” “What do you think?” 04 Jonathan wasn’t asking for my opinion. Nor was he suggesting we reschedule. He was simply saving me from total humiliation, preserving the last shred of my dignity. I thought to myself, staring at a phone in the dark really ruins your eyes. A hot, bitter tear slipped down my cheek and splashed onto the glass screen. I typed back: “Haha, yeah. Makes sense.” He sent a huge digital cash gift, with a note: I’m sorry. I tapped refund. “No need for that.” I quickly added: “It’s late. Get some sleep.” He replied: “Yeah.” We tacitly stopped saying goodnight like we used to. Intimate words like that didn’t belong between us anymore. I stared at the timestamp in the corner of the screen: 2026/05/21 01:17:26 AM. The thin thread connecting my life to his, built carefully over eleven years, snapped right here. Easily, absurdly, completely. I lay in bed, tossing and turning in a haze. The next morning, I barely scraped together enough energy to make it through my early lecture. With no afternoon classes, I went straight back to the dorm to sleep off the exhaustion. Voices leaking through my bed curtain woke me up. “When I filmed that video for you, I knew it would go viral, but wow!” “Emma, you are unbelievable! You actually bagged the math department’s unattainable prince!” “By the way, you went looking for him again last night, didn’t you? So? Did you guys kiss?” It was Emma’s friends visiting her room. Emma squeaked in a playful, coy tone, “Oh, stop it, we haven’t gone that far yet…” They giggled for a bit before heading out for dinner. The door clicked shut, leaving the room quiet once more. I opened my video app. Her confession was the very first video on my feed. Golden hour, a romantic speech, and the caption: Second year of loving him. My secret crush is finally over. 05 With the hype of an elite university and two insanely attractive leads, the video had crossed a million likes within twenty-four hours. Emma, who used to have barely two thousand followers, gained a hundred thousand overnight. As the video looped a second time, I hit pause and scrolled to the comments. Top comment: congratulations and heart emojis. Second top comment was a lengthy paragraph: “I rewatched this video a dozen times, and it feels EXACTLY like the confession scene from Sleepless Hours! The author dropped the final chapter at 6 AM today, but this video was posted yesterday. Dare I guess… you’re the author, aren’t you?! Are you bringing the comic’s love story into real life? I’m crying my eyes out T_T” Replies below it were filled with “Great analysis!” and “Keep her identity secret!” That comment had been up for eight hours. Emma hadn’t denied it. The top search tag in the comment section was: Sleepless Hours author successfully confesses. I logged into my author dashboard. My inbox was overflowing: “Author! @LittleEmmaIsTaken is you, right? This is so sweet!” “Begging for a sequel about your daily dating life ORZ” … I picked one comment and replied: “The author has never been in a relationship, so there won’t be a sequel.” I put my phone down. Silence reclaimed the room. In my comic, the female lead was named Aria. She was a ray of sunshine, raised in a loving, wealthy home. She wasn’t the smartest student, but everybody adored her. Optimistic and bright, she grew up blissfully alongside her childhood best friend, the male lead. I realized my mistake. I should never have confused fiction with reality. I tried doing math problems to distract myself. I stared at a complex proof for hours without a single breakthrough. In the past, I would have snapped a picture and sent it to Jonathan. Now… Irritated, I snapped my notebook shut, pulled out my phone, and doom-scrolled to force my brain into a dopamine hit. The next video was tagged at Kingsley University, recorded from a stealthy angle. Two figures were walking side by side down a tree-lined campus path. Even from behind, I recognized Jonathan instantly. In two years at the same college, I rarely bumped into him. Luck was never on my side. Even in large general education lectures, our schedules never overlapped. Except for one semester in Ordinary Differential Equations. Jonathan’s roommate liked to reserve seats in the second-to-last row by the window. So that was the only class where I sat in the very back row. For three hours every week, all I had to do was raise my head, and his back would be right there in my sight. In the video, his back was turned to the camera. The girl beside him, barely reaching his shoulder, reached out and gently brushed his hand. He pulled his hand back in surprise, but his ears flushed a brilliant crimson. 06 The camera zoomed in on his blushing ear. Big bold text flashed on screen: MY SHIP IS SO PURE AND BLUSHING! Caption: Ran into our campus’s newest power couple on their way to dinner! I tapped the creator’s profile. It belonged to one of Emma’s close classmates who frequently hung out in our dorm. I uninstalled the app. Over the next few weeks, I forced myself into my old routine. Studying hard, eating, sleeping. Life went on. Except occasionally, I would overhear classmates gushing during breaks. “I saw Jonathan bringing his girlfriend to class this morning. She’s even prettier in person than in the video!” “Total power couple vibes! So sweet!” “I heard he bought each of her best friends a Bvlgari necklace. Can you please find a boyfriend like that for my sake?” “Good luck finding another Jonathan!” I kept my head down, still wrestling with that unsolved problem. I wasn’t in a rush. I knew every problem had an answer eventually. Class ended, and I packed my bag quickly to leave. “Move, move, I’m starving!” Someone bumped into me from behind. Not hard, but the loose scratch paper tucked inside my notebook scattered across the floor. The guy apologized profusely. His friend waiting at the door stepped over to help pick them up. “Sorry about that, my roommate’s a klutz.” My heart skipped a beat. As I bent down, my hand brushed against his. I snatched my hand back instantly. He picked up the paper, his voice filled with surprise. “You’re working on this proof too?” I forced myself to look up into Jonathan’s eyes. In my original daydreams, our first real meeting would be under the golden sunset on the East Quad. Grand, romantic, and under the open sky. Not this clumsy, awkward mess. Yet the moment Jonathan saw my face, his eyes lit up. “Sadie! It’s you.” “Did you solve it yet?” 07 I froze. “You know who I am?” Jonathan smiled, sunlight filtering through the window and catching in his eyes. “First lecture of Honors Math freshman year. That brutal problem the TA gave us to scare everyone? You were the only one who solved it on the spot. Trust me, half the department knows who you are.” I had no idea his eyes had ever rested on me. “We… had the same math class?” Jonathan gave a helpless chuckle, pointing to the guy next to him. “He’s my roommate. He can never wake up for morning lectures, and my math class was in the afternoon, so… you get the idea.” The roommate rubbed his neck sheepishly. “Until the professor caught us in week three.” “Ah. I see.” “So, Sadie, did you solve this proof? I’ve been stuck on it for days…” Before he could finish, a sharp, piercing voice cut him off from behind. “What are you two doing?!” I didn’t turn around. Jonathan gave me an apologetic look as he handed back my scratch paper. “Sorry, my girlfriend’s here. Might be a misunderstanding.” I took the paper. Emma was already sprinting over like a storm. His roommate quickly chimed in, “Hey, Emma, I swear Jonathan didn’t say a word to any other girl! He was just helping me clean up my mess!” Emma glared between us, suspicious and insecure, before wrapping her arms tightly around Jonathan’s arm. “Let me take you to dinner, come on, let’s go!” Jonathan was dragged forward, turning back to nod apologetically at me. Then he pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket and handed it to Emma. “Eat this first, or your blood sugar will drop again.” His roommate trailed behind them, tossing a quick explanation my way. “Don’t mind her. He spoils her way too much.” As they walked off, Jonathan’s indulgent voice drifted back through the breeze: “You get jealous so easily. What would you do if you weren’t with me…” I took the stairs on the opposite side of the building. I remembered chatting with Jonathan back in high school. He had said he hated chocolate, even though it was the gift he received most often. I had told him I had never even tasted real chocolate before. Much later, he sent me a photo. In the picture were various unwrapped chocolates, each with handwritten notes describing the flavor and texture. He had written: Tasted them all for you for now. You should still try them yourself when you get the chance. Who knows, you might actually like it. So… was chocolate actually sweet? By the time I reached the bottom floor, my phone buzzed. A message from Emma: “I’m begging you, have some self-respect. Stop throwing yourself at him.” The midday sun beat down relentlessly. I shut my eyes tightly. Block. Delete. Then I stepped out into the light. Jonathan. If loving someone means loving everything about them, does hating their choices mean hating them too?

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The first time my online boyfriend asked for a video call, I was having a severe allergic reaction. My face was swollen like a bloated balloon, hideous beyond words. Yet his expression didn’t change. He even crinkled his handsome eyes, comforting me gently: [“It’s okay, baby. You don’t have to explain.”] [“I’m not superficial. I love you no matter what you look like.”] To prove his sincerity, his enthusiasm skyrocketed. Every message was filled with longing to meet in person: [“Baby, I can’t wait to see you.”] Giddy with sweetness, I took an earlier train to surprise him. Until I sat down and came across a viral forum post: [What does sweet revenge feel like?] [Two months ago, to get back at an annoying mage who camped my bush 9 times in a game, I made an alt account to pretend to be her online boyfriend. Now I’m planning to ghost her at the station and break her heart into pieces.] The comments exploded. Some thought he was trolling, others called him an asshole. The OP didn’t care: [You guys have no idea how disgusting she looks.] [We clicked really well, and I almost felt guilty enough to come clean. But the second I saw her ugly face on video, I snapped back to reality. Dodged a bullet. Punishing a monster like her is practically a public service.] [She claimed she was having an allergic reaction during the call, then sent me two staged photos afterward, claiming they were her.] [Picked top-tier celebrity photos too. Fake as hell.] 01 The post continued: [Just thinking about her excitedly taking the train to see me right now makes me laugh out loud.] [Not only ugly, but brainless too.] [Countdown to the breakup revenge trap!] My fingertips trembled as my brain completely short-circuited. When I first clicked on the thread, I tried to stay calm, telling myself not to jump to conclusions. But the details were too specific. I loved playing that fire mage, hiding in the bushes to ambush enemies all day. I met Gavin through that exact game right after graduation. The timing, the IP location… it all matched. He might as well have written my name on it. 02 Gavin’s gaming skills were average at best, but he had an undeniable charm. His voice was smooth and laced with a lazy smile, and he was insanely generous. Within two days of playing together, he showered me with legendary limited skins like they were free. Spending so much time together, my teenage heart couldn’t help fluttering. I naturally said yes when he confessed. My parents were easygoing about most things, but strict about dating. No relationships before college. So this was my very first romance… an online mystery box. Curious, I checked his pinned social media profile and realized I had pulled an ultra-rare SSR card. Luxury sports cars, expensive watches, and a face that could debut in Hollywood tomorrow. He exuded the effortless aura of a wealthy heir. My best friend, Riley, spent half an hour studying his pictures. Her offhand comment ended up being a terrifying prophecy: “Does a rich guy like this really need to online date? Feels kinda like a pig-butchering scam.” She glanced at me, then sighed. “Whatever, a gorgeous girl like you is online dating him too. Strange world.” Riley nudged me, whispering, “So, how far have you guys gotten? Has he seen what you look like?” I thought about it. “He never asked, and I never sent photos.” My profile was set to private, filled with gaming screenshots. My last selfie was from New Year’s Eve. After making it official, Gavin was attentive and sweet, but he never pressed for photos, seemingly unbothered by looks. Riley sat up straight, scrutinizing his selfies again. “What if he’s using fake pictures? Girl, you should do a video call to verify. Better to inspect the goods now than get catfished in person.” I agreed. So I scheduled a video call with Gavin for that evening, and he accepted without hesitation. 03 For our first virtual date, I spent the entire afternoon getting ready, checking my makeup in the mirror again and again, trembling with nerves. To calm down, I ate a slice of peach pastry from the bakery downstairs. I didn’t realize it contained actual peach puree. I was terribly allergic to peaches. Dizzy and flushed, I passed out on my bed. When the ringing woke me up, I groggily picked up the call. On screen was a striking, fair-skinned guy. Exactly like his photos, with a sharp nose and a confident, dimpled smirk. Meanwhile, in the small preview box… My face was swollen like a giant steamed bun. My eyelids were puffed shut into slits, and my lips looked like two overcooked sausages. Hideous didn’t even cover it. I quickly turned the camera away, stammering an apology. “I’m… I’m so sorry! I had an allergic reaction tonight, I look awful.” He paused for half a second. Then his eyes crinkled warmly, his smile deepening. “It’s okay, baby. You don’t have to explain.” “I don’t care about looks. I love you no matter what you look like.” Those words instantly melted my embarrassment, flooding my chest with warmth. Later, terrified he’d misunderstand, I picked two of my best selfies and sent them over. After a long silence, he sent back a helpless voice note: [Baby, don’t have appearance anxiety. In my heart, you’ll always be the cutest.] I didn’t catch the underlying weirdness back then. I thought I had stumbled upon the ultimate dream boyfriend. Only now did the truth hit me… He thought I stole someone else’s pictures to catfish him. That helpless tone, if I listened closely, was dripping with subtle mockery. 04 The forum post was exploding with comments. Some were egging him on, while others criticized his cruelty. My phone buzzed with a message. Baby: [Are you almost here?] Suppressing the bitter ache in my chest, I took a deep breath. Me: [Yeah.] I was about to forward the thread to confront him when his next messages flew in: [Then congratulations, you made the trip for nothing.] [Remember that match on May 26th at 11:15 PM? I’m the guy you ambushed 9 times in the bush. You ruined my whole night.] [I only dated you to play you for a fool, got it?] [We’re done, ugly.] [Bye-bye.] He blocked and deleted me instantly. The thread that had all but named me directly was deleted shortly after under mounting backlash, and the account was deactivated. The whole sequence was so lightning-fast I didn’t even get a chance to type a single word back. I stared blankly at my phone. To say I wasn’t hurt would be a lie. My first love, given with total sincerity, turned out to be a cruel, calculated game of revenge. 05 When the train pulled into the station, I dragged my suitcase out into the muggy heat. I was wearing a white sundress and heels, uncomfortable clothes I had put on specifically because Gavin promised to pick me up. The blazing sun beat down overhead. Looking up at the clear sky, silent tears spilled over my lashes. If I had known, I would have ambushed his hero nine more times in that game. I checked into a nearby hotel. Unable to contain my emotions, I texted Riley: [I broke up this morning.] Riley: [Wait, in the game? What rank?] [Why didn’t you invite me?] Me: [No… Gavin dumped me. He blocked me everywhere…] A two-second silence followed before her video call rang. Her wide eyes stared at me through the screen. “Is he insane?!” Red-eyed, I summarized it bitterly: “He thinks I’m ugly.” Riley went silent. “Calling YOUR face ugly? Is his brain…” She held up her phone displaying a frog slapping its own forehead. I poured my heart out to her between choked sobs. “I even applied to Summit University just to be in the same city as him. Orientation is in two days! Love really makes people stupid, ugh!” Riley cursed him until her voice cracked, pausing only to chug water. “Don’t waste tears on a trash bag,” she said sympathetically. “I just hit National rank with my jungler this week. I’ll carry you through ranked matches and destroy everyone.” 06 After spending two days locked in the hotel room gaming hard with Riley, the sting of heartbreak slowly faded away. I collected my thoughts, checked out of the hotel, and headed to Summit University for freshman registration. The upperclassmen at the gate were overly enthusiastic, grabbing my heavy suitcase while aggressively pitching campus SIM cards. The September sun was brutal. I pulled down my mask slightly, revealing my flushed cheeks. “Thanks, but I’m good.” The guy’s smooth sales pitch ground to a halt. His face turned redder than mine. “Oh, no need to buy anything! Helping cute freshmen is what upperclassmen are for! What dorm room are you in? I’ll carry it up for you!” I gave him my room number. Someone behind us gasped. “Wait, I’m in that exact dorm! Want to walk together?” I turned to see a girl with blunt bangs, black-rimmed glasses, and a quiet demeanor. I offered her a friendly smile. “Sure!” She blinked, whispering under her breath, “Wow… you’re so pretty.” The four-person dorm had loft beds over desks. Bangs girl and I arrived last, but everyone got along quickly. The girl across from me invited us to join the official freshman group chat, where display names were set to [Name + Major]. I searched the roster, but couldn’t find Gavin’s name anywhere. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. Good news: I wouldn’t have to run into my toxic ex. Bad news: He had lied to me again. He probably didn’t even go here, his promise to apply together was just hot air. Fortunately, Summit University was my dream school anyway, so I wasn’t losing out. While I was lost in thought, the freshman chat suddenly erupted. Someone posted: [Looking for a girl near the East Gate today. If anyone knows her, please send me her contact info! Cash reward!] Attached was a photo. It was a candid shot of me. Just as I was about to reply, the sender retracted the picture: [Thanks, found her!] 07 The chat was alive with banter. [Which goddess caught Hunter’s eye at first sight?] [He deleted it so fast I didn’t even get a screenshot!] [Am I the only one wondering who got the cash reward? Hunter’s bounty must be huge.] The poster’s name was Hunter Cross. He replied to the thread: [She claimed it herself.] I blinked in confusion. I double-checked my phone; my message hadn’t even been sent yet. Behind my bed curtain, excited whispers broke out among my roommates. “Hunter Cross is famous! Super handsome and filthy rich,” said Fiona, who had been lurking in the group chat for days and knew all the campus gossip. “You’re so lucky, Sierra! He actually asked for your info!” Sierra was the girl with the bangs. She gave a soft, shy smile. “Yeah, I added him.” I realized then that the photo had caught both of us walking side by side. I was facing the camera, while she was slightly behind me on the left, partially blocked. So he was looking for her? I quietly erased the draft in my message box. Geez, could people at least blur out innocent bystanders? Almost embarrassed myself there. Fiona continued, a trace of doubt in her voice. “Wait, doesn’t he already have a girlfriend? He used to talk in the main chat all the time about playing games with her.” “They probably broke up,” Sierra murmured quietly. Sierra quickly became the first person in our dorm to drop her single status. She started wearing skincare products and learning makeup, cluttering her desk with bottles and brushes. She loved coming over to chat with me about makeup and outfits. Looking at my wardrobe filled with basic tees and jeans, I hesitated. “Are you sure you want advice from me?” Lydia, another roommate, burst out laughing. “What’s the point of asking Tracy? Her fashion style relies entirely on her face. She could wear a potato sack and look stunning.” Sierra looked at my face, a complex flicker of envy crossing her eyes. “Must be nice.” Fiona glanced over curiously. “Sierra, if you and Hunter are dating, why don’t you guys go out on real dates?” Sierra pulled her hands back, her smile fading slightly. “No rush. Military training just ended, and my skin got tanned. I want to brighten my complexion before meeting him in person.” “Makes sense,” Fiona agreed. Since military training had just wrapped up, everyone was a little sunbaked. Except me, because I had an exemption from a minor surgery earlier that year. Fiona added, “So you guys are basically online dating right now? He must really like you, committing after just one glance.” Sierra hesitated. “Well… we actually went to the same high school. But…” She offered a timid, self-conscious smile. “I used to be chubby and introverted back then. He probably didn’t notice me.” “Ah, I see!” Although they had made it official, they kept it private. Hunter showered the freshman group chat with digital cash rain to celebrate his new relationship. Lurking in the chat, my finger slipped, accidentally claiming one. My luck was abysmal. Out of a three-hundred-dollar pool, I scored four cents. A minute later, Hunter tagged me directly in the main group: [@Tracy Brooks: Pay it back.] Me: ??? 08 Tracy Brooks, Economics and Management. Hunter stared at the overly familiar name on his screen, his jaw clenching in annoyance. Just a few days ago, he had dumped this ugly girl. Now here she was, reappearing in his life like a bad penny. How could he have forgotten? Back when they were talking, they really had developed feelings, which was why they agreed to apply to the same university. Her major, her name, she had sent him screenshots of all of it. So he was 100% sure this Tracy Brooks was her. Since he had used the fake name “Gavin” online, she clearly hadn’t made the connection yet. Judging by how clingy she was during their relationship, she was bound to be an annoying, desperate headache. A custom notification chimed. A message from Princess Sierra: [Why did you tag that girl in the group chat?] Hunter’s scowl smoothed out, his eyes crinkled with a natural smile. [Nothing, baby.] He made up a quick excuse, then stared at the screen waiting for her reply. Hunter genuinely felt he and Sierra were fated. Tracy had stolen Sierra’s photos to catfish him, only for him to run into the real girl on campus days later. The real girl was even prettier in person, standing there like a walking breath of fresh air. He had snapped the picture on impulse. Luckily, the moment he posted it, she reached out to him privately. Even luckier, she liked him back. Sierra sent back a cute kitten sticker: [I thought my roommate did something to upset you.] Hunter raised an eyebrow. Who would’ve guessed his ex and current girlfriend ended up in the same dorm? He typed back with a touch of malice: [She’s your roommate? Is she really ugly?] Princess Sierra replied: [By my standards… pretty average.] He chuckled out loud. [Baby, you’re so sweet.] His girlfriend was truly kindhearted. “Average” was a massive understatement. 09 Out of hundreds of people who claimed the cash gift, I was the only one tagged to return four cents. With zero context. I chalked it up to the unpredictable mood swings of rich snobs, annoyed as I transferred the four cents back. You’d think I stole four million from him. To blow off steam, I decided to go buy some iced watermelon downstairs. Sierra seemed in high spirits after chatting on her phone. Seeing me head out, she called after me, “Tracy, are you going to the back street? Could you grab me some fresh peaches?” “Can’t do it. I’m allergic to peaches, my face swells up like a balloon.” “Oh, I see,” she replied thoughtfully, her tone light. “I’ll go get them myself later then.” The noon sun was blinding. I held up my UV umbrella, covering my upper body completely, only closing it once I stepped into the fruit shop. Instantly, I felt several pairs of eyes land on me. I touched my cheek, realizing I had forgotten my sun mask today. On my walk back carrying the watermelon, Fiona sent me a frantically typed message: [Girl! You’re going viral on the campus forum!] She forwarded a post from the campus crush page featuring several candid shots of me. [HELP?! Who is this girl? Is an actress filming a movie on campus or something?!] The comment section was buzzing: [Is she a freshman? Military training just ended, but I never saw her. Her skin is glowing!] [Unbelievable beauty. Must be a freshman! Is she single? Please tell me she likes girls too!] [Even if she’s taken, can I be her side piece? The more the merrier!] Among the flood of comments, one stood out like a sore thumb. Hunter Cross: [She’s taken. Don’t even dream about it.] Fiona, blunt as ever, found it bizarre and replied directly under his comment: [She’s not taken. She’s my roommate and she’s very single.] 10 When I got back to the dorm, Sierra was the only one there. She had her back to me, typing furiously on her phone, seemingly deep in conversation. I put the watermelon away and rested for a bit before checking the forum comments. Hunter’s comment had been deleted. Lurking bystanders were asking: [Why did Hunter delete his comment?] [So is the goddess single or not? Someone answer!] I found the whole thing ridiculous, especially Hunter’s possessive tone. He made it sound like I was his property. And I didn’t even know the guy. I asked Sierra what was up. Without looking up, she murmured softly, “Oh, I asked him about it. He said he mistook you for someone else.” I remained skeptical. I kept feeling a strange vibe from Hunter toward me, hostility mixed with… possessiveness? I couldn’t quite place it. But very soon, everything made sense. My ex-boyfriend pulled me out of his block list, sending a brief verification message: [It’s Hunter.] 11 Hunter Cross… Sierra’s boyfriend… was Gavin? I froze, processing the absurd revelation. So his name had been fake all along. My mind spun in circles. Setting everything else aside… how did he have the nerve to reach out to me first? With a heavy heart, I accepted his friend request and typed out a polite query: [Are you still alive?] Planning a scheme to dump me, trolling me in game, moving seamlessly to another girl… every single offense was unforgivable. I was being incredibly courteous by not using profanity. Then I changed his contact name. Douchebag: [Sierra is my girlfriend.] Me: [I know. Want me to award you a trophy?] Douchebag: [I know exactly what you’re thinking. Heh, leading the room to isolate her, is that fun for you?] Me: [Spell it out clearly. Who am I isolating?] And what on earth was I supposedly thinking? Douchebag: [Tracy, you still can’t let me go.] [You hate me because you still love me, so your head is filled with pitiful delusions.] Me: [I think you’re having psychotic hallucinations.] When he dumped me, I was heartbroken, but once the initial sting passed, all that remained was fury at being played. I’d have to be brain-dead to still pine over him. And in his eyes, my character was so vile that just because of his involvement, I would automatically bully his girlfriend? What kind of delusional fan-fiction was he concocting? Still, I didn’t mind pushing his buttons: [So what do you expect me to do? Whatever you demand, I’ll do the exact opposite, because I owe you zero obedience.] Hunter sent back a voice note, lowering his tone to sound persuasive: “Tracy, I’ll set you up with one of my wealthy friends, and we’ll call it even, okay?” “Stop clinging to me, and stop causing trouble for Sierra.” “Just pretend we never dated.” Immediately following his voice note came a shared contact card. 12 The guy Hunter tried to set me up with was named Asher. I knew who he was. Sophomore year, frequent celebrity on the campus confession wall. Some praised his killer good looks; others envied his top-tier gaming skills. Rumor had it he was notoriously hard to pursue. I had no idea how Hunter convinced him to talk to me. After adding him, Asher got straight to the point: [Want to meet up? I don’t like chatting with strangers online.] I had an ulterior motive for adding him. Before replying to him, I texted Riley: [Bestie, I have something to tell you.] Riley: [Hold on! Don’t tell me it’s about Gavin!] [If you utter words like love, miss, or can’t forget, I will buy a flight ticket and beat you up myself.] I typed hesitantly: [Kind of related.] [He sent me a rebound guy as compensation. Seems like he’s amazing at gaming. It’s the start of the new ranked season, I was wondering if he could carry us.] Riley: [Send me his profile. Let me inspect.] I copied Asher’s gaming ID to her. Two minutes later: Riley: [Profile APPROVED.] [He’s a top-ranking Jungler! Girl, our ranked season is saved!] [I grant him permission to carry us.] So I agreed to meet Asher. 13 I rejected every location he suggested. Too far, too inconvenient. After I shut down his fifth idea, Asher sent a row of dots. In the end, he came down to my dorm building to find me. I had a bit of a procrastination habit, so by the time I walked downstairs, he had been waiting for a few minutes. From a distance, I caught sight of his dark hair and crisp white shirt. Up close, his face was striking, with sharp brows, refined features, and a clean jawline. He glanced at me, quickly looked away, then looked back again. It wasn’t until I stood directly in front of him that he raised an eyebrow, his cold composure melting into an amused smirk. “You’re Hunter’s ex-girlfriend?” “My name is Tracy Brooks.” He was a head taller than me, looking down with a thoughtful gaze. “You’re different from what I imagined.” “He actually let you go… whatever. Let me introduce myself properly.” He extended his hand. “I’m Asher.” Bit formal, I thought, but I shook his hand lightly. “Nice to meet you, Asher.” We exchanged a few polite words before he suddenly shifted the topic: “Tracy, are you sure Hunter won’t try to get back with you?” I found the question utterly baffling. “Of course not.” “He has a girlfriend now, and besides, I don’t like him.” Asher smirked. “Right.”

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On my first day inside this book, I knew the six year old kid standing in front of me was destined to become a ruthless villain. I also knew that my hopelessly romantic mother and I were doomed to be nothing more than collateral damage on his dark descent into evil. To stay alive, I intended to keep my head down and lay low. But the brat practically begged for a beatdown. So I adopted a simple rule: a light thrashing every three days, a heavy beating every five. I hammered at him until he finally learned to bow his head. Nobody is born a villain. If a kid acts out, it just means they haven’t been slapped into line yet. If one beating doesn’t work, make it two. Just when I thought my work was complete, the little jerk turned right around and started wagging his tail at the story’s original female lead. I rolled up my sleeves. It was time to remind him who his true master was. 1 My mom fell in love again. This time, her eyes were set on Big Gus, a burly fishmonger who ran a stall at the local farmers’ market. The moment she dragged me through the front door of his place, an apartment heavy with the sharp reek of raw fish and damp scales, a skinny, sun-darkened boy burst out of the hallway and shoved my mom so hard she stumbled backward. “Get the hell out!” he shrieked, his neck stiffening as his round eyes widened like a feral pup whose bone had just been snatched. “Both of you, get out! This is my house!” My mom had a soft heart. She knelt down, reaching out to comfort him, only for him to spit right at her feet. Gus hurried out from the back room, wiping his wet hands on a stained apron. He brought a heavy palm down on the back of the boy’s head. “You little bastard, where are your manners? This is Sarah. She’s your new mother!” “My mother is dead!” the boy screamed, his voice cracking into a raw rasp. “She’ll never be my mother!” His name was Cole. He was Gus’s son, and in the novel I had transmigrated into, he was the future maniac who would strip my mother and me down to the bone. I watched the spectacle with cold eyes. The book had laid it out in brutal detail. The little creature in front of me would grow up to be paranoid, gloomy, and utterly cold-blooded. He would ruin his own life fighting the male lead for the female lead’s affection, eventually landing himself in a maximum security prison. As for my mom and me, his so-called wicked stepmother and freeloading stepsister, our ends were nothing short of gruesome. Yet there my mom was, blissfully ignorant, pulling out a handful of caramels to bribe her future executioner. Cole slapped the candies straight out of her hand. “Keep your garbage sweets!” he sobbed, his voice trembling with rage. “Get out!” I couldn’t watch this garbage fire anymore. Before transmigrating, I had trained in kickboxing for a few years. Handling a six year old brat was easier than breathing. That night, once the adults were fast asleep, I crept into Cole’s tiny bedroom and yanked him out from under his thin blanket. He was half-asleep when his small body hit the wooden floorboards. Before he could scream, I clamped my palm over his mouth and leaned down close to his ear. “Make one sound,” I whispered, “and I’ll hang you by your ankles from the old oak tree out front.” He glared up at me, terror flickering in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by stubborn fury. He balled his small fists, looking like he wanted to hurl himself at me. With a stubborn mule like him, words were useless. I flipped him over, pinned him to the floor, and gave his rear end a thorough, rhythmic spanking. I targeted only the softest spots. It hurt like hell, but it wouldn’t bruise or break any bones. He bit his lower lip so hard it nearly bled, refusing to cry. He just kept staring at me with those wolfish eyes. The next morning, he bared his teeth at my mother again. I dragged him back into the room and gave him another thrashing. On the third day, he hid my mother’s hairbrush. I hauled him over to the old water well in the yard, holding him upside down by his ankles over the dark opening. “Are you going to keep hiding things?” I asked, dangling him gently. “No!” he cried out, tears finally breaking through. “I won’t!” “Are you going to be disrespectful to my mother again?” “I won’t! I promise!” I pulled him up and set him on his feet. He rubbed his red ankles, sniffling as he scurried away like a frightened rabbit. On the morning of the fourth day, I walked out into the yard and spotted him crouching beneath the gnarled oak tree, systematically poking at an ant nest with a twig. When he heard my footsteps, his entire frame tensed, but he didn’t run. I ignored him, going straight to the outdoor sink to wash up. When I finished splashing cold water on my face, I turned around to find him shuffling awkwardly toward my feet. He looked up, his missing front tooth revealing a tiny gap in his pouty mouth. A muffled, nearly inaudible voice squeezed out of his throat. “You… want one?” He held out a trembling hand. Lying in his palm were two crumpled caramels, their wrappers slightly sticky and squished. They were the exact candies my mom had tried to give him days ago. God knows where he had dug them up. I looked down at him from my full height. His eyes darted around, avoiding my gaze, while the tips of his ears flushed a deep, burning crimson. I took the candies, peeled one open, and popped it into my mouth. I tossed the second one right back at his chest. “Consider it a reward.” He froze, staring at the candy in his palm before looking up at me in disbelief. Then, with desperate speed, he shoved it into his mouth. His cheek puffed out into a tiny, round lump. The sweetness seemed to make him relax a little, though he still watched me like a cautious stray dog. “Don’t you know the rules?” I nudged his rear with the tip of my shoe. “What are you supposed to call me from now on?” He stayed quiet for a long moment, a muffled word struggling to escape his throat. “…Sister.” “Wrong.” I squatted down, pinching his chubby cheek to bring his eyes level with mine. I flashed him a wide, dangerous smile. “You call me Her Majesty.” His small face turned bright red, as if saying those words was worse than eating dirt. I flashed my fist in front of his nose. “Hmm? Got a problem with that?” “Her Majesty,” he whimpered, his voice barely louder than the buzz of a mosquito. “Louder! Did you not eat breakfast?” “Her Majesty!” He leaped up like a startled cat and shouted at the top of his lungs, scaring off a flock of sparrows resting on the oak branches. Satisfied, I nodded and strolled back inside with my hands behind my back. From that day on, I gained a tiny shadow. When I ate strawberries, I got the juicy tops and he got the leafy stems. If I laid down on the couch and barked that I was thirsty, a glass of water was shoved into my hands instantly. If I sneezed while soaking up the sun in the yard, he would tear off his faded undershirt and frantically drape it over my shoulders, shivering in the breeze. Big Gus watched this whole dynamic unfold with his jaw on the floor. He pulled my mom aside one evening, whispering nervously, “Is the boy… possessed?” My mom chewed on a sunflower seed, crossing her legs with a sly grin. “He takes after me. We just have natural charm.” I rolled my eyes and didn’t bother correcting her. Life went on like that, chaotic, loud, and weirdly warm. Outside our house, Cole remained the terror of the neighborhood. The moment he was out of my sight, he transformed back into a fearless little monster. Complaints from neighbors flooded in every other day. Whenever Gus was away, Cole bounced off the walls like an untamed monkey. The only thing in the universe that could make him behave was a swift, firm beating from me. Next door lived a gossipy woman named Mrs. Higgins. One afternoon, right after I finished disciplining Cole, she leaned against her porch rail, cracking sunflower seeds with a greasy smile. She called out to Cole, who was crouching on the ground shelling peanuts for me. “Oh, honey, why are you doing chores for that outsider girl? Shelling peanuts for her? Take it from me, you better keep an eye on your daddy’s money. A stepmother means a stepdad sooner or later. Once she pops out a baby brother for you, your father won’t even remember your name.” Cole’s hands froze. His small face dropped instantly, his lips pressing into a thin, tight line. I strode out of the house, slung an arm around Cole’s neck, and flashed Mrs. Higgins a dazzling smile. “Auntie Higgins,” I called out cheerfully, “I heard Mr. Higgins has been visiting the laundromat downtown quite a bit lately, asking the young widow there to knit him a sweater. It’s barely autumn yet. Isn’t that strange?” Mrs. Higgins turned pale. A sunflower seed shell caught in her throat, sending her into a fit of violent coughing. “You… you little brat! What kind of nonsense are you spouting?” I didn’t back down an inch. I planted my hands on my hips, mimicking her nasal tone. “Just returning the favor! You seem so worried about my family’s business, I thought I’d help you look out for yours. Maybe you should run home right now. Who knows? He might already be trying on that new sweater.” Mrs. Higgins trembled with rage, pointing a finger at me for a long, agonizing moment before dropping her seeds and scurrying away, her wide hips swaying furiously. Soon enough, the sound of her screaming at her husband echoed down the street. Cole looked up at me, his eyes wide and sparkling, filled with tiny, shining stars. I flicked him hard on the forehead. “What are you staring at? Are those peanuts shelled yet? Next time someone tries to talk trash to you, hit them right back where it hurts. Got it?” “Got it!” he chirped, ducking his head to tear into the peanuts with newfound energy. A tiny, unstoppable smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. A month later, my mom and Gus officially registered their marriage. Because I had started school late, I ended up in the same grade as Cole despite being two years older. Every morning at dawn, Gus would kick-start his rusty, ancient pickup truck to drive us to school, the engine rattling so hard it rattled our teeth. Originally, Cole and I agreed to take turns sitting in the passenger seat. But Cole was as stubborn as a mule. He insisted that the bed of the truck gave him a better view, stubbornly clinging to the metal sides every single day. By the time we reached school, he would hop out, rubbing his sore rear end and limping toward the gates like he had just been thrown off a wild horse. I genuinely couldn’t understand it. Were all future villains this committed to torturing their own butts? When I mentioned it to my mom, a thick, padded cushion sewn out of old denim appeared in the truck bed the very next morning. Cole pretended not to care, turning his head away to stare at the sky. But when he climbed into the back, I saw him secretly run his fingers over the soft fabric, a wide grin spreading all the way to his ears. “Pathetic,” I muttered. He huffed at me. “Don’t you dare try to steal my spot.” I turned away and ignored him. During recess, I often saw him sitting alone by the flowerbeds, poking at the dirt with a stick, never bothering to join the other kids. At first, I assumed it was just his natural villainous temperament. Arrogant, lonely, looking down on common mortals. Until one afternoon, during break, I caught a group of older boys cornering him against the brick wall near the gym. They were shoving him around, chanting that he was a dirty stray who had no real mother. Cole stood there with his head down, his knuckles white as he clenched his fists, his face flushed red, but he didn’t say a single word. My brain went cold. This was the plot taking hold. The world was trying to force him to turn evil. I slammed my backpack onto the ground and rolled up my sleeves. “Get your filthy hands off my brother!” The moment Cole saw me, his eyes lit up. He threw himself into the fight without a second thought. The chaos was instant. We rolled around in the dirt, throwing punches and kicking wildly. But we were outnumbered. By the time teachers rushed over to break it up, I had taken a few nasty scratches, though the bullies hadn’t walked away clean either. The school called our parents. When my mom got the news, the woman who usually cared about nothing except romance lost her mind. She grabbed the heavy wooden rolling pin from the kitchen and ran all the way to the school, her hair wild and unkempt. She stormed right into the bullies’ classroom, looking like a total madwoman. She marched straight up to the tallest boy, who towered a full head over her, and jabbed the rolling pin into his chest, spraying spittle right into his face. “You lay another finger on my son and see what happens! I am his mother! Anyone who calls him a motherless child again, I’ll break your legs myself!” The entire school was stunned into silence. The principal and three security guards had to physically hold her back to stop her from tearing the place apart. That evening, my mom walked home holding Cole’s hand tight. He was crying his eyes out, snot bubbles popping at his nose, ruining my mom’s sleeve. But he held onto her hand so hard his knuckles turned white, refusing to let go. At dinner, he did something unheard of. He didn’t try to steal the chicken drumstick from my plate. Instead, he kept his head low, picking at his rice in absolute silence. Finally, he looked up. His nose was bright red, his eyes swollen. He stared at my mom for a long, agonizing moment before whispering, “Mom. Tonight’s sweet poached eggs… were really delicious.” My mom froze. Tears instantly welled up in her eyes. She dropped her chopsticks, pulled him into a fierce hug, and sobbed, “Oh, you silly boy! If you like them, I’ll make them for you every day!” Gus sat beside them, grinning from ear to ear, though the corners of his eyes were glistening. I buried my face in my bowl, wondering why the rice suddenly tasted so salty. Who would have thought? The stubborn brat I had spent weeks beating into submission was completely won over by my mom with a simple bowl of sweet eggs. At seven-thirty that evening, Cole slunk out of the house like a thief, his head tucked low as he crept across the yard. I was sitting on the porch eating a slice of watermelon. Watching his shady behavior, I felt a twinge of suspicion. Why was this kid sneaking out in the middle of the night? Was he going to meet someone for a fight? As his big sister, I couldn’t let him stray into the abyss. I tossed my watermelon rind aside, wiped my mouth, and quietly trailed behind him. He took a series of sharp turns, winding through the narrow alleys until he started heading up the dirt path leading into the hills behind the town. The further I followed, the more uneasy I felt. This path led straight to the old, abandoned cemetery. Even in broad daylight, most adults avoided that place. Yet there he was, trekking up the steep slope for half an hour, panting like a broken engine, never once slowing down. The night wind whipped through the trees, making the shadows dance like reaching hands. I crouched low in the tall grass, shivering. If I didn’t turn back soon, my mom would think I’d been kidnapped. Just as I was about to retreat, I saw him plop down right next to a weathered gravestone. Then, he lay flat on the cold ground. I nearly gasped out loud. Lying next to a grave in the middle of the night? This kid really wasn’t wired like normal people. Then, his voice drifted through the quiet night air. It sounded muffled, like a lonely child whispering secrets to the dirt. “Mom… I came to see you again. I’m… doing pretty well lately. Dad found a new wife, and she brought a daughter with her. That sister is terrifying. She beats me up every single day.” He paused, his voice dropping even lower. “But… she’s not totally evil. And the new mom… she made me sweet poached eggs. She even came to my school and fought the kids who picked on me. Now, nobody at school dares to mess with me. They all dodge me when I walk by. They’re scared of her. They call her a crazy witch.” He fell silent for a moment before choking out, “And… I called her Mom today.” The wind swept through the grass, rustling the weeds around the headstone. “Mom, are you angry with me?” he whispered, his voice trembling with tears. “Because I called someone else Mom… do you think I don’t want you anymore?” Hiding behind a thick pine trunk, my eyes burned, and my nose went sharp with pain. So that was why his bedroom light flickered late into the night. He was crying in the dark every single evening. Underneath that fierce, unyielding exterior, behind the boy who refused to shed a single tear even when I spanked him, lay a massive, bleeding hole in his heart. The original novel had brushed past it with a single, cold line: Mother died young. It hadn’t mentioned what it felt like to watch a six year old curl up inside a shallow, human-shaped depression in the dirt right beside his mother’s grave. The soil in that little trench was worn smooth, stripped entirely of grass. How many times had he climbed up this mountain, lying in that cold dirt just to pretend he was being held in his mother’s arms? He chattered on for a long time. He mentioned that Gus bought him a new backpack, that I stood up to the loud neighbor for him, that his new mom looked like a terrifying warrior when she stormed the school… Gradually, his voice trailed off, followed by a soft yawn. After a few minutes, he dragged himself up, brushed the dirt off his pants, and stroked the smooth surface of the tombstone. Then he turned around and began his trek back down. I stayed hidden until his footsteps faded into the distance. Then I stepped out from behind the tree and walked up to the grave. Under the faint moonlight, the carved name on the stone was hard to read, but the human-shaped dent in the ground was unmistakably clear. I stood before the headstone and bowed deeply. Then, I squatted down and spoke to the cold granite as if chatting over tea. “Auntie, don’t you worry. Cole is under my wing now. I promise I’ll hold back a little when I hit him so I don’t break him. And I won’t let him go down the wrong path. He’s going to grow up to be a good man and take care of Gus. You can rest easy down there. I’ve got his back.” The mountain wind bit through my clothes, making my nose run. I rubbed my bare arms and sprinted down the trail. Halfway down the slope, I spotted Cole’s small frame huddled beneath the yellow glow of the streetlamp outside our gate. He hadn’t gone inside. He was waiting for me. When he saw me running down the path, he froze. “Where… why were you up on the mountain?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “618656”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

To meet my online boyfriend in person, I lost eighty pounds, transforming from a hundred and eighty pound chubby girl into an absolute stunner. But the day before our grand meeting, I stumbled across a post on a forum. “Transferring my online girlfriend.” “Dating for over a year. Great voice, sweet, gentle, amazing emotional value. PM me if interested.” Someone asked in the comments why he was giving up such a great girl. He replied: “Dug up her real-life info online. She’s super fat. I’m a total eye-candy guy.” The comment section flooded with jokes: “Was interested until I read ‘fat.’ Totally turned off now.” “Who wants a human tank? Keep her for yourself, man, haha.” Only one person replied: “Check PMs.” I looked at the poster’s profile picture. It was identical to my online boyfriend’s. And the date of that post was three months ago. 1 I froze. It suddenly hit me that three months ago, Brad had indeed changed drastically. Back then, he had grown distant out of nowhere, even initiating a breakup, claiming he was tired of us. I thought he was just going through a phase, so I pleaded with him for a long time until he grudgingly agreed to stay together. Shortly after, he claimed he needed to switch to a new phone number and chat account because his old one was too cluttered, wanting a fresh start for college. So I added his new account. Even after that, he remained cold for a while, his personality shifting noticeably before he eventually warmed back up to me. I had assumed he just had a change of heart after getting bored, but… I stared down at my phone. A message popped up from my online boyfriend, whose avatar was Shin-chan: [Babe, I checked the calendar and noticed your period is coming up soon. I ordered some warm bird’s nest and peach gum soup for you. Make sure to drink it while it’s hot.] [I can’t wait to meet you next month, babe. I’m a little nervous. Are you excited?] I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the glass. So… who exactly was the person planning to meet me? 2 When my best friend Jess found me, she beat around the bush, looking hesitant. “Did you and Brad break up?” “Why do you ask?” I replied. Instead of answering, she handed me her phone. “See for yourself.” Back when we played online games together, Jess was close with one of Brad’s gaming buddies. The guy had sent her a screenshot of Brad’s private group chat. In the group, someone asked Brad: [Hey Brad, how come you haven’t brought your girlfriend to play games with us lately?] Brad replied: [Broke up with her.] Everyone was shocked. [Wait, weren’t you guys doing great? Why the sudden breakup?] [Her voice was sweet, so I always assumed she was hot. But one time she sent a picture where a delivery receipt was visible. I saw her real name, remembered her high school, and had someone look her up.] [Turns out she’s a two hundred pound land whale! I was completely horrified. You guys know I’m a looks guy. I almost threw up on the spot, so I dumped her right away.] Someone chimed in: [Haha! Her voice sounded good because the body fat was compressing her vocal cords! The sweeter the voice, the fatter the girl!] [I remember that girl was crazy about you though. She backed you up every time we played. Did she actually agree to let you go?] Brad: [She refused, so I transferred her account to someone else. It’s not like she knows my real name anyway.] He then shared a screenshot of the forum post where he put his online girlfriend up for trade. The group blew up: [Holy crap, that’s insane! You can actually transfer a girlfriend?] [Brad’s legendary. Now she won’t bother you anymore. She definitely hid her looks on purpose. If it weren’t for an online relationship, a guy like you would never date someone like her for a year. Serves her right.] [Getting suffocated by a wild hog for over a year, Brad must be traumatized. Heart completely sealed off now?] Brad: [Got a new target recently. There’s a really pretty girl in the freshman group chat. Total angel.] Brad came from a wealthy family and frequently dropped digital gift cards in the chat, so everyone loved sucking up to him. Replies flooded in: [As expected of Brad! Already found a top-tier beauty.] [Only a goddess is worthy of our Brad.] [Got any photos, Brad? Let us see!] Brad dropped a photo into the chat. The girl in the picture wore a delicate white sundress. Her light hazel hair was tied in a loose side ponytail draped over her shoulder. She was slender, fair-skinned, with soft, smiling eyes. She was undeniably gorgeous. I recognized her immediately. It was Haley, the girl everyone in the freshman group chat had been swooning over. The moment she dropped a picture earlier, the guys had declared her the official campus queen. Jess was fuming. “Brad dated you for over a year! The moment he flipped, he tossed you out like trash and put you up for trade! What a complete scumbag!” “Besides, this Haley girl isn’t even prettier than you! She looks like a bean pole. Just a bit pale and skinny!” “Gwen, post your photo in the group! Make him regret every choice he’s ever made!” I looked down at the screen. Among the sea of praise, only one guy had spoken up for me: [To be fair, that girl really liked you, Brad. I remember whenever you got ambushed in games, she was always the first to rush in to save you, dying for you every time. Isn’t this a little cruel?] A moment later, Brad replied casually: [I’m a visual person, what can I do? Just thinking about being with a human tank for a year makes me want to puke.] [If she wants to blame someone, she can blame her own ugly face.] 3 Walking home that evening, another guy stopped me on the sidewalk to ask for my phone number. After politely declining, I strolled along the street alone. The overcast summer dusk brought a chill, signaling an impending thunderstorm. I glanced at my reflection in a storefront window. A delicate, heart-shaped face framed by dark eyes, a sculpted nose, and full, striking features. I remembered my friend looking at me with envious eyes last week: “I spent six figures on my nose job in Seoul, and it still doesn’t look half as natural as yours! Every time we go out, everyone’s staring at you!” “I get complimented when I’m alone, but standing next to you makes me feel like a background character. Is this the difference between pretty and drop-dead gorgeous? Unfair!” I knew I was beautiful now. When I went out, strangers offered to pay for my drinks, people asked for my contact info constantly, and talent scouts had even approached me about modeling. But before Brad, my life was the exact opposite. I had been chubby since childhood. By high school, I weighed nearly two hundred pounds. My cheeks were so round my eyes vanished into folds of skin whenever I smiled. Lard bucket. Human tank. Pig monster. I had heard every insult in the book. It fed a deep, crippling insecurity. The heavier I got, the less I dared to dress up, and the less I dressed up, the worse I looked. I had crushes on boys like any teenage girl, but whenever they found out, they reacted as if they had been deeply insulted, hurling vile slurs at my face. Whenever I tried to diet, my parents would stop me, insisting I was cute just the way I was. They were overweight themselves and saw nothing wrong with it. My adolescence was defined by the relentless mockery of my peers. Until I met Brad in an online game. He was drawn to my voice and insisted on adding me as a friend. After a few gaming sessions, we grew close. Not long after, Brad confessed his feelings to me. I tossed and turned all night. I knew Brad came from a good family. During our time gaming together, he had gifted me countless in-game skins and offered expensive presents, all of which I declined. Though he never posted clear facial photos on his profile, his feed was filled with luxury vacation snaps showing his back. He was tall, broad-shouldered, clearly athletic, staying at high-end resorts. I knew he fell for my voice, but I was terrified that if he saw the real me, he would be disgusted. Yet I couldn’t help falling for him. Brad was charismatic and funny. Whenever I had a rough day, he would comfort me, even dropping digital gift cards in public chat rooms to get strangers to cheer me up. In the end, I said yes. I hid my weight, my location, and every detail of my personal life, terrified he would look me up. I even tested the waters once, asking softly, “What if I’m not pretty in real life?” He replied instantly: [With a voice as sweet as yours? Impossible. Stop teasing me, babe.] [Babe, when can we finally meet? I miss you so much.] [Babe, let me know which university you’re applying to. Let’s go to the same school so we can see each other every day.] After a long silence, I made up my mind. I was going to lose the weight. What followed was a year of absolute madness. I went to sleep starving every night, ignoring the sharp pangs of acid reflux and the exhaustion that left my limbs trembling after hours of cardio. No matter how my parents begged me to eat more, I stood firm. I wanted to be skinny. For nearly a year, I didn’t touch a drop of oil or heavy seasoning. Countless times, I cried myself to sleep from sheer hunger, holding onto the thought of him to pull through. And finally, the weight melted away. From one hundred and eighty pounds to one hundred and sixty, then one hundred and twenty, and finally settling at a lean one hundred pounds. I learned skincare, makeup, hairstyling, and how to dress for my body. During that year, Brad suggested meeting up several times, but I always found excuses to stall. I constantly felt I wasn’t pretty enough yet. Until the boys in my class started looking at me differently. Until love letters began piling up in my locker. Until strangers on the street began blushing when they asked for my number, calling me breathtaking. That was when it hit me: I had actually become beautiful. I finally gathered the courage to meet Brad in person. I applied to the exact same university he chose, agreeing to meet on orientation day. And yet… It turned out I was just a game to him. I had believed every sweet word he ever said. Looking back, he hadn’t even given me his real name. The name “Brad” was something I only learned through my friend’s acquaintance. From start to finish, he had never truly cared about me. 4 In the freshman group chat, Haley posted another set of photos. She was at Disneyland, wearing a cute Minnie Mouse headband and a pleated skirt, radiating youthful charm. The guy standing next to her had his face blurred out. But I recognized the luxury watch on his wrist immediately. It was the exact same watch Brad wore in his vacation posts. The chat burst into excitement: “The campus queen delivers!” “A goddess is a goddess! Who’s the lucky guy next to her?” “Looks like Brad! Brad’s a legend!” Jess had told me earlier that Brad started pursuing Haley the moment she dropped her photo in the group chat. He had flown straight to her city, showered her with gifts, and rented a private fireworks display for her. Now, they were officially together. Brad dropped a wave of digital cash into the chat room. “Say hi to my girl, boys.” Replies flooded in: “Brad’s huge flex! A match made in heaven!” “A total power couple. I believe in love again!” “Only our campus queen deserves a guy like Brad.” Someone brought me up: “You guys don’t know, but Brad was catfished by a human tank for over a year. Nearly ruined his appetite for life. Glad he finally found a true beauty!” Haley asked innocently: “What tank?” The guy retold the story, exaggerating every detail. The chat erupted into cruel laughter. “Holy crap, a tank actually dared to target Brad? Survived a whole year of that, Brad’s an absolute warrior.” “That kind of monster probably couldn’t get a guy in real life, so she used a fake voice to trick people online.” “I heard the tank applied to the same university as Brad! She might be a freshman here. Can’t wait to see how hideous she is in person.” Haley replied with a soft giggle: “She’s probably insecure. Being ugly isn’t her fault, but tricking people is definitely wrong.” Brad chimed in: “Don’t bring up the past. Makes me sick just thinking about it. At least I found you now.” Brad had no idea that I had joined the freshman chat using a burner account weeks ago. I had watched his entire romance unfold from start to finish. Someone asked Brad: “What’s the tank’s real name, Brad? Might run into her during orientation.” Brad typed: “Gwen.” “Sounds basic as hell. No wonder she’s ugly.” The very next second, I switched to my main account in the chat. I changed my nickname directly to: Gwen The group chat fell dead silent. I knew every single person behind those screens was holding their breath, waiting for the drama to explode. A few minutes later, Haley sent two messages. “Welcome to the group, Gwen!” “By the way, we’re having a freshman meetup at the restaurant near campus on the third. Are you coming?” I knew she wanted to turn me into a laughingstock. A faint, cold smirk touched my lips as I typed a single word. “Sure.” 5 Just as I was getting ready for bed, my online boyfriend, username NotAShellfish, sent a string of messages. [Babe, look at this bag! I bought it in Italy. The moment I saw it, I knew it would look amazing on you. I’ll give it to you when we meet!] [Babe, why aren’t you replying? Did you fall asleep?] [Babe! Babe! Babe!] I frowned at the screen. This guy had bought Brad’s account and was really committing to the bit. He was surprisingly generous, though. Last month, he sent me a designer necklace and a high-end skincare set. He transferred money on Valentine’s Day and randomly dropped cash into our chat whenever he felt like it. He knew I was supposedly overweight. What was he getting out of this? Did he have some weird fetish? Without hesitation, I dug up a photo of myself from a year ago and hit send. One hundred and eighty pounds. Broad shoulders, round face, eyes squeezed into thin slits by folds of soft cheek. [This is what I look like. If you can’t accept it, let’s break up. I don’t want to waste your time.] I refused to believe he could stick around after looking at that. A second later, his reply popped up: [Babe, you look so cute!] Me: ??? Was he out of his mind?! Frustrated, I typed back: [Look closely! I’m one hundred and eighty pounds! I’m fat!] [I see it! I think you’re adorable. Just make sure to stay healthy, babe.] My brows knit together tight. Was this guy also overweight, or did he genuinely have a feeder fetish? [What do you look like?] I asked. [I’ve never seen a picture of you.] NotAShellfish sent three images in rapid succession. Full body shots, candid angles, even a close-up of sculpted six-pack abs. I let out a cold laugh. The guy in the photos had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, defined obliques, and looked easily over six-two. Even crazier was the face, striking enough to debut as a male model, complete with warm hazel eyes that sparkled like sunlight on water and messy black hair pushed back to reveal a smooth, pale forehead. Full of youthful, effortless charm. Catfishing with stolen internet photos, huh? [Babe, these were just quick, unstyled snaps. Hope you’re not disappointed!] I smirked at my screen, typing back smoothly: [Not at all, babe! You look incredible. Is this really you? Can’t wait to meet!] [That’s awesome! By the way, there’s something I need to tell you when we meet.] I smiled knowingly. What else could it be besides admitting he used fake photos? [Sure,] I replied. 6 The moment my flight landed, my phone vibrated relentlessly. [Babe, where are you? I’m waiting at arrivals holding a huge bouquet of roses!] [Image] [Babe, I’m so nervous! What if you don’t like me when you see me!] The photo showed a massive bouquet of red roses, completely hiding the person behind it. This catfishing scammer certainly knew how to play the romantic card. My heart softened slightly. Forget it, I thought. When we meet, I’ll just lay everything out, clear the air, and we can start fresh as friends. After all, he had been genuinely sweet to me over the past three months. He stayed on the phone with me every single night, comforting me when I couldn’t sleep even when he was slurring his words from exhaustion. He bought me gifts for every minor holiday and remembered every detail of my routine, including my cycle dates. He was a genuinely good guy. So what if he was average-looking or a bit overweight in real life? It wasn’t a dealbreaker. A guy walking past me bumped my shoulder accidentally. I turned around, and he blushed furiously, rubbing his neck. “I’m so sorry! Actually, I noticed you on the plane. Could I get your number?” I waved my hand politely. “Sorry, I’m taken.” He flushed bright red. “Ah, sorry to bother you then!” I dragged my suitcase toward the arrivals gate. From a distance, I spotted the giant bouquet of roses standing out in the crowd. Behind the flowers was a tall, commanding silhouette, broad shoulders, narrow waist, effortlessly lean. Wait. Was he one of those guys who had a killer body but an average face? I refused to believe NotAShellfish actually looked like the model in those photos. What would be the point of catfishing if he already had a body like that? The guy holding the roses seemed impatient, peering over the petals as his eyes searched the crowd anxiously. My jaw dropped. Holy crap. He looked identical to the photos, in fact, in person, he was even more jaw-droppingly handsome! NotAShellfish wasn’t a catfish at all?! A few teenage girls nearby were already giggling, pointing at him shyly. I walked over, my mind a jumble of confusion. “Are you…” I expected him to look surprised when he saw my face, but he just frowned at me. “Can I help you?” he asked stiffly. I tilted my head, pulling out my phone. “Who are you waiting for? Want to trade numbers?” His expression darkened instantly. “I’m waiting for my girlfriend. Not interested.” I was stunned. Ever since I lost weight, no man had ever treated me with such cold indifference. NotAShellfish… did he actually have a thing for heavy girls?! Seeing that I hadn’t moved, he grew impatient. “Could you please step aside? My girlfriend’s coming out any minute.” I let out a helpless sigh. “Scallop, it’s me. Pumpkin.” “What scallop, what pump…” He froze mid-sentence, his eyes sweeping over me from head to toe. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. “You?! Pumpkin?!” “Impossible! No way! Don’t you look like… weren’t you…” “Weren’t I super fat and ugly?” I finished his sentence, explaining calmly, “I lost the weight.” “Or do you actually have a feeder fetish and only like heavy girls?” The guy who had been ice-cold a second ago flushed a furious, brilliant shade of red from his cheeks all the way to his ears! “No! That’s not… I mean, you were super cute before too, you weren’t ugly at all, I just…” “So am I cute now?” I found his sudden panic hilarious. “Yes! I mean, you’re cute now too, you’re gorgeous, I just didn’t expect…” In his panic, he shoved the massive bouquet directly into my arms. The heavy bundle caught me off guard, making me stumble backward. He panicked even more, reaching out awkwardly to catch my arms. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I couldn’t help bursting into laughter. “Didn’t you promise to take me out for good food when we met?” I smiled. “Let’s go.” 7 Jasper, his real name, as I soon learned, was just like his online persona. Despite his unreal good looks, he didn’t have a single drop of arrogance. He was gentle, attentive, and incredibly sweet throughout the afternoon. Turns out he was a freshman too, enrolled at the same campus, though in a different department. He took me to an upscale steakhouse, pulling out my chair, cutting my steak, and blushing whenever I caught him stealing glances at me. After showing me around town, he dropped me off outside the private dining hall where the freshman meetup was being held. Standing by his car, he looked at me reluctantly. “Text me when you’re done. I’ll come pick you up.” The restaurant was packed. As I approached the private dining room, voices drifted out through the cracked door. “Is everyone here yet?” “Not yet, Gwen hasn’t showed up.” “Gwen? The tank who catfished Brad? Haha, she’s probably terrified to show her face!” “Seriously. Standing next to our campus queen would destroy whatever self-esteem she has left. People like her only dare to flirt behind a screen. Who wants a slab of lard in real life? Haha!” Haley giggled softly, leaning her head on Brad’s shoulder. “Don’t be so mean, guys. Being ugly isn’t her fault.” I raised my hand, reaching for the door handle.

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1 I was his secret mistress for five years and even bore him two kids. He slammed a black credit card into my hand with a scowl. “A hundred million. Is that enough?” Me: “More than enough! Thank you, boss!” I assumed it was my severance package. Holding my babies, I walked away without looking back, even taking his Golden Retriever on the way out. Later, my best friend told me that on the day I left, he smashed three priceless antique vases in his office and screamed at his secretary: “I told her to buy an engagement ring! An engagement ring! Why the hell did she take the money and run?!” Holding my toddler, I blinked in utter confusion. “…Wait, what?” … Jordan’s corner office. The AC was blasting cold air, making my skin prickle. He sat behind his massive black ebony desk, his face darker than the wood. Slam. A sleek black card dropped onto the polished surface, sliding right in front of me. “Take it.” His voice lacked warmth, dropping like a block of ice onto concrete. I reached out, picking up the card. My fingertips brushed against the cold, metallic surface. He glared at me, his sharp gaze practically burning holes through my clothes. “Five years,” he spoke, his tone heavy with suppressed fury. “Is this enough?” I looked at him, then down at the card. I ran the numbers quickly in my head. Five years. Two kids. The prime of my youth. In exchange for an unlimited black card. Was it worth it? I didn’t know. But I knew it was time to end things. With an attitude like his, what else could this be? Maybe he found someone new. Maybe his family arranged a high-society marriage. Or maybe he was simply tired of me. None of it mattered. What mattered was that he was giving me a dignified way out. I took a deep breath and offered him my signature smile, a submissive, obedient smile I had practiced thousands of times over the past five years. “More than enough,” I nodded repeatedly. “Thank you, boss. Paid in full, I understand completely.” I clutched the card tightly in my palm. This was my security, my financial safety net for the rest of my life, and the future of my two children. Jordan’s face froze. He clearly hadn’t anticipated this reaction. The fiery rage in his eyes instantly crystallized into complete bewilderment. I didn’t linger to analyze his expression. Delaying only invited trouble. If I didn’t leave now, what if he changed his mind? “Well then, Mr. Irwin…” I stood up, offering a polite bow. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be taking my leave?” His lips moved, but no sound came out. “The kids…” he finally managed to squeeze out two words. “Don’t you worry,” I cut in immediately, speaking at breakneck speed. “I will take great care of the children. I’ll make sure they never disturb your new life.” “No need for child support either. The money on this card is more than enough. I promise they will vanish from your world completely.” Finishing my speech, I offered another flawless bow. Then I turned and walked toward the exit. My high heels clicked sharply against the polished marble floor. Every step felt like climbing a staircase toward total freedom. I could feel his gaze burning into my back like a spotlight, intense and suffocating. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t look back. The moment my hand touched the door handle, a low, strained sound echoed from behind me, squeezed straight from the depth of his throat. “Lynda!” My body stiffened. I didn’t turn around. I opened the door and walked out. Outside, his executive secretary, Brenda, stood trembling, looking at me in sheer panic before peeking past me into the office. I ignored her, heading straight for the executive elevator. Once inside, the doors slid shut. The mirrored walls reflected my face: calm, expressionless, composure fully intact. Only I knew that my heart was pounding wildly against my ribs. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. “Hi, movers? I need the fastest service you have.” “Thirty minutes? Great. I’ll send the address.” “Also, help me book three tickets to Silver Sands. The earliest flight available.” The elevator reached the ground floor. I stepped outside into the summer heat and exhaust fumes. It was stifling, but to me, it smelled like pure freedom. I glanced up at Jordan’s skyscraper towering into the clouds. Goodbye, Jordan. Goodbye to five years of being a bird in a golden cage. From today on, I, Lynda, am a free woman. With your hundred million dollars. Back at the luxury mansion Jordan provided, I burst through the front door. Nanny Mrs. Flora was sitting in the living room playing building blocks with my kids. “Miss Lynda, you’re back?” Mrs. Flora stood up. “Mrs. Flora,” I panted, trying to keep my voice steady. “An emergency came up at work. They’re sending me out of state for an extended business trip.” “Please help me pack the kids’ clothes. Just their daily essentials, and hurry.” Mrs. Flora blinked in surprise. “So sudden?” “Yes, extremely urgent,” I nodded, putting on a serious expression. “Company business.” Not daring to pry further, Mrs. Flora hurried upstairs to pack. I squatted down to look at my two angels. My oldest, Toby, four years old, looked just like Jordan, wearing a tiny serious frown on his face. My youngest, Penny, two years old, took after me, her eyes curling into cute crescents when she giggled. “Toby, Penny,” I stroked their soft hair. “Mommy is taking you both on a fun long trip. Are you excited?” Penny clapped her tiny hands, babbling merrily, “Yay! Trip!” Toby knitted his small brows, staring at me. “Mommy, did Daddy tell you to go?” My heart sank slightly. “No,” I shook my head. “Mommy wants to go.” “Daddy… Daddy is very busy. We shouldn’t bother him.” Toby nodded thoughtfully, asking no further questions. Relieved, I sprinted into my master bedroom and opened the safe. Inside were the cash and jewelry I had saved over the years, along with our passports, birth certificates, and official documents. I had already stored encrypted scans of everything on a flash drive. I swept everything into a pre-packed backpack, then opened the walk-in closet. I skipped the designer clothes he bought me, taking only a few comfortable cotton outfits I had bought myself. By the time I finished, Mrs. Flora came down with the kids’ luggage. “Miss Lynda, all packed.” “Thank you.” I pulled out a stack of cash from my purse, around three thousand dollars, and shoved it into her hands. “Mrs. Flora, thank you for taking care of us these past five years. This is your bonus.” “I might… not come back for a long time. Take the money and head back to your hometown today.” Mrs. Flora gasped, waving her hands nervously. “Miss Lynda, I can’t accept this! Mr. Irwin will fire me!” “He won’t. Take it. You earned it.” “Leave right now, and don’t look back.” Intimidated by my resolute tone, Mrs. Flora stood dazed, holding the cash. Ignoring her, I grabbed the suitcases and led my children out the front door. At the porch, a massive golden head poked out from the doghouse. It was Buster, Jordan’s Golden Retriever. Though technically his dog, I was the one who fed, walked, and bathed him most of the time. Buster looked at me, his tail spinning like a helicopter rotor as he let out a soft whine. He seemed to know we were leaving. Looking into his big, wet eyes, my heart melted. Given Jordan’s terrible temper, who knew how he would treat Buster when he got mad? Screw it. I’m taking the dog too. “Buster, come here,” I whistled softly. Buster darted over joyfully, nuzzling my leg. I unclipped his leash. “Come on, buddy. You’re coming with us.” And so, there I was: Lynda, a woman supposedly dumped by her billionaire sugar daddy. Leading two toddlers and a hundred-pound Golden Retriever, standing outside the gates waiting for the moving truck. The truck arrived. I loaded the kids and the dog into the back. The driver asked, “Where to, ma’am?” I gave him the address of a temporary storage facility on the outskirts of town. As the engine turned over, I cast one last glance at the golden cage I had lived in for five years. I had left the house keys on the entryway console. My SIM card had been snapped in half and tossed into a storm drain. Even if Jordan realized what happened, he would never find me. The moving truck rolled forward, the city lights melting into blurry streaks behind us. Toby and Penny were exhausted, leaning against my arms as they drifted off to sleep. Buster rested his heavy head on my lap, snoring softly. Looking out the window, I felt no sadness, no lingering regret. Only a massive, soaring sense of peace and anticipation for my new life. I pulled out the black card. It gleamed with a cold metallic sheen under the dim overhead light. I had no idea how much money Jordan had put in it. His claim of “a hundred million” was obviously exaggeration in anger. But a couple million, or ten million, had to be in there. It was more than enough. Enough for me to raise my kids and dog in a quiet corner of the world where nobody knew us. I let out a long breath. Jordan, this time, I’m truly gone. Taking your kids and your dog with me. One month later. In a quiet coastal town called Silver Sands, I rented a two-story storefront on a cozy street. The ground floor was converted into a bakery, which I redecorated simply. The top floor was a spacious two-bedroom apartment for me and the kids. Life became wonderfully peaceful. I didn’t touch Jordan’s black card. Not a single cent. I relied entirely on my personal savings, about three hundred thousand dollars. Spent frugally, it was enough to keep us afloat until the bakery turned a profit. I wanted zero financial ties to that man. The black card was buried at the very bottom of a biscuit tin, wiped from my mind. Every morning, I walked Toby and Penny to a nearby private preschool, then returned to manage my shop, baking cakes, making pastries, and brewing fresh coffee. Small-town life moved at a gentle pace, and the neighbors were warm and friendly. They only knew me as a single mother working hard to raise two kids. Nobody knew my past. It was bliss. Toby and Penny adapted quickly. They gained a sun-kissed glow and laughed constantly. Especially Toby, who used to frown like a miniature adult, now smiled every day. Buster became a local celebrity. He spent his afternoons napping by the bakery door, wagging his tail whenever regulars passed by. Kids from the neighborhood loved stopping to pet him after school. I assumed life would continue smoothly like this forever. Until one afternoon. I was in the back kitchen testing a new mango mousse recipe when my phone rang. It was a local, unknown number. “Hello?” “Lynda! It’s me! Jess!” my best friend’s frantic voice exploded through the speaker. I froze. “Jess? How… how did you get this number?” “Are you kidding me? You think I couldn’t track you down?” Jess hollered. “I paid a private investigator to check your newly registered ID records! You crazy woman, running away without telling me a word! Do you know how worried I was?!” A warm wave washed over my chest. “I didn’t want to get you involved in my mess.” “Forget that!” Jess’s tone turned eerily serious. “Lynda, answer me truthfully. What the hell happened between you and Jordan?” “Did you really run off with his money?” My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean ‘ran off with his money’? He gave me that card as a severance package!” “Severance package?!” Jess’s voice spiked an octave higher, piercing my eardrum so hard I jerked the phone away. “Who told you it was a severance package?!” Her yell left me completely baffled. “What else could it be? You should’ve seen his face that day, he looked ready to eat me alive! He slammed the card down and barked ‘Is this enough?’ If that wasn’t a breakup, what was it?” Silence fell over the line. A heavy, agonizing silence that lasted for ten full seconds. I could hear Jess’s deep, disbelieving breathing. “Jess? Are you still there?” “Lynda…” Jess’s voice drifted through the speaker, carrying an eerie tone of utter disbelief. “My cousin’s boyfriend works as a senior director at Jordan’s company.” “He said that on the afternoon you left, Jordan’s office looked like an earthquake hit it.” My chest tightened. “What… what did he do?” “He smashed his fifteen million dollar historical antique vase into pieces!” “Do you have any idea how expensive that was?! A fortune!” “He smashed two priceless porcelain vases right after!” “The entire executive floor was so terrified nobody dared to breathe!” “And he roared at his chief secretary, Brenda, for an hour straight!” I swallowed hard. “What… what was he screaming?” Jess took a deep breath, then recited in a slow, dramatic cadence: “‘I told her to take the card and pick an engagement ring!’ ‘Cartier! Tiffany! Harry Winston! Whichever she damn well pleases!’ ‘I told her to pick a ring! A ring!’” “‘Why the hell did she take the money and run?!’” “‘And where is my dog?! Brenda! Where the hell is my dog?!’” My brain exploded like a grenade detonated directly above my head. My grip failed, and my phone dropped to the floor with a loud clatter. I stood paralyzed in the kitchen. Sunlight streamed through the back window, bright and warm. Out in the yard, Toby and Penny were chasing Buster around the grass, their bright, bell-like laughter echoing through the air as Buster barked playfully, his tail wagging furiously. Everything was so peaceful, yet so utterly absurd. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, I bent down and picked up my phone. Inside my head, Jess’s voice echoed on an endless, screaming loop: I told her to pick a ring… pick an engagement ring… I stared at the goofy Golden Retriever in the yard. Then at my two toddlers rolling on the grass. Finally, my eyes landed on the biscuit tin buried in the pantry that held the black card. So… he wasn’t breaking up with me. He was… proposing? And I… I mistook his proposal for a breakup? Then I not only took his money and his kids, but also stole his dog on my way out? Wait… What?!

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1 When I saw the intern Topher leave a stack of crucial expense reports unattended on the copy room printer, I didn’t gather them up. Instead, I pulled out my phone and tagged both the CEO and the Director of Finance in the company Slack channel: [“Topher left his stack of expense receipts on the main printer. Could Finance please come count them in person? I want to make sure nothing goes missing and causes a misunderstanding.”] In my previous life, I had done the nice thing and handed the papers back to him. Half an hour later, our boss screamed because the ledgers didn’t match. Topher panicked, eyes wide and innocent: [“That sequential twenty thousand dollar receipt was definitely in that stack… Artie was the only one who handled my papers…”] [“Artie, I know you don’t like me, but you can’t play a joke like this!”] The boss didn’t listen. He fired me on the spot and called the cops, accusing me of embezzlement. I lost my permanent contract, my five thousand dollar commission, and was blacklisted industry-wide. I died young, working triple shifts for DoorDash to pay debts. Only after death did the truth surface. Topher had secretly sold that twenty thousand dollar receipt for a corporate tax write-off and needed a scapegoat. Framing me also let him steal the only permanent position. This time, I would make Finance audit every single sheet in front of the whole office. If even one page is missing, Topher, you can rot in a cell. … “Artie, what the hell is this?” Topher stormed over to my cubicle, shoving his phone screen in my face. It displayed the message I had just dropped in the general channel. His eyes were already welling up, rimmed with a pathetic red. “I just accidentally left my papers on the tray. Did you really need to put me on blast in front of the whole company?” “Are you purposely trying to humiliate me?” I didn’t even look up from my keyboard. I just gave him a quiet, flat response. “Those are high value corporate receipts. I’m just following protocol.” He sucked in a sharp breath, spun on his heel, and marched straight toward Donovan’s office. I watched him walk away. My chest felt completely hollow, calm as a stagnant pool of water. Three minutes later, Donovan’s office door swung open. “Artie. Get in here.” I pushed the door open and stepped inside. Topher was curled up in the corner of the leather sofa, clutching that stack of expense reports. Tears were already spilling down his cheeks. Donovan sat behind his massive mahogany desk, a printed ledger spread out in front of him. He tapped his pen against the wood, completely out of patience. “Topher says someone tampered with his paperwork. A twenty thousand dollar receipt is missing.” “I never touched his papers.” Topher looked up, biting his lower lip. “But Artie… I left those papers on the printer at exactly eight thirty. You went into the copy room at eight thirty three…” “The security badge logs show it…” He handed his phone to Donovan, displaying a screenshot from the building’s access system. Black and white proof. I absolutely had gone in there. I went in to grab my own performance review forms. I was in and out in under two minutes. But right now, that digital log was the only piece of evidence pointing straight at me. Donovan’s gaze pierced through me like a physical blade. “Care to explain that?” “I went in to grab my own printouts. I did not touch his belongings.” Topher’s voice dropped to a fragile whisper. “Artie, my stack was resting right on top of the output tray. There’s no way you could have missed it…” He let the sentence hang in the air, dropping his head to wipe at his eyes. He didn’t make a direct accusation. He didn’t yell. He just stated the setup. Every single word he spoke sounded like I really don’t want to suspect you. But the subtext was screaming It couldn’t have been anyone else. Donovan slammed his hand against the desk. “Twenty grand is not pocket change. Artie, open your bag.” “Absolutely not. You have no right to search my personal belongings.” “Refusing means you are guilty.” Topher stood up quickly, gently tugging at Donovan’s sleeve. “Donovan, please don’t do this. Maybe I just miscounted…” The way he begged for mercy on my behalf was far more lethal than any accusation. Donovan shook off the intern’s hand. “You don’t need to cover for him, Topher. We are getting to the bottom of this.” He picked up his desk phone and punched in an extension. “Marcus, get to my office right now.” Marcus, our HR Director, walked in sixty seconds later. Donovan gave him a quick rundown of the situation. Marcus glanced at the security logs, then looked at me. “Artie, are you willing to cooperate with a bag search?” “No.” The entire office outside seemed to hold its breath. The door wasn’t shut tight. Everyone in the bullpen had heard every single word. Faint whispers started floating through the gaps in the blinds. “He won’t let them search his bag. Do you think he actually stole it?” “Twenty grand, man. That is a felony right there…” “No wonder he caused a scene in the Slack channel this morning. He was trying to divert attention.” Topher started crying again. I just stood perfectly still, letting the weight of everyone’s stares wash over me. I wasn’t panicking. Because I had already prepared for exactly this. The gossip spread through the corporate grapevine faster than I could have ever imagined. When lunchtime rolled around, nobody asked me to join them. The guys I normally grabbed burgers with, Greg and Ben, completely ghosted me. The two girls from administration didn’t even look in my direction. The four of them walked to the food court together. I could see them whispering as they waited for the elevator. I sat alone at my desk. Down the hall, I could hear voices carrying from the breakroom. “Artie always looked like such a straight shooter. You really never know with people.” “I heard his dad is in the hospital. Medical bills are piling up. He’s desperate.” “Desperate doesn’t mean you steal company property! You can flip a twenty thousand dollar receipt on the gray market for thousands in cash.” “Ugh, I feel so bad for Topher. He’s just an intern. If the company makes him cover that loss, his life is ruined.” I walked up to the breakroom entrance, holding my empty coffee mug. The moment they saw me, the room went dead silent. They grabbed their drinks and shuffled out, avoiding eye contact. Nobody apologized. Nobody thought there was anything wrong with what they were doing. At two in the afternoon, Topher put on his second crying performance of the day. This time, it was right at his desk, in full view of the entire floor. He took a phone call, hung up, and buried his face in his arms. His shoulders shook violently. Greg rolled his chair over and asked what was wrong. Topher shook his head, his voice muffled by his sleeves. “Finance just told me… if we can’t recover that receipt, I might have to cover the tax discrepancy out of my own pocket…” “I barely make two thousand a month as an intern. How am I supposed to pay that back?” Greg immediately shot a dirty look across the room, glaring right at me. Topher sniffled and added another line. “It’s my own fault for being careless and leaving it on the printer…” “I don’t blame Artie… he probably has his own struggles right now…” I don’t blame him. He has struggles. Every single word was another nail in my coffin. At three o’clock, Donovan called an all hands meeting. Standing at the front of the conference room, his eyes swept over the crowd, lingering on me for a heavy second. “The company is treating this missing document as a severe breach of trust.” “Until the internal investigation is concluded, the parties involved will have all operational permissions suspended.” Parties involved. It was just me and Topher. And in their eyes, Topher was the bleeding heart victim. Which meant the real target of that suspension was me. After the meeting, I returned to my desk to find my network access gutted. I couldn’t log into the project backend. The client tracking spreadsheets were locked out. When I checked the approval portal for my five thousand dollar commission, the status read in bold red letters: EMPLOYEE REMOVED FROM PROJECT. Eleven months of grinding, all down the drain. I stared at the grayed out screen. It was exactly like my past life. With a single phantom piece of paper, he had manipulated an entire office into taking his side. I didn’t shed a tear. I had cried all my tears in my last life. Crying didn’t fix anything. Part of me wanted to stand up right then, scream at the top of my lungs, and swear to them that I was innocent. But not yet. The timing wasn’t right. When I swiped my badge the next morning, my desk was gone. My monitors, my keyboard, my family photos. They had all been relocated from the premium window spot down to a dark corner right next to the men’s restroom. A junior admin approached me, looking like a deer in headlights. “Marcus gave the order. He said you are being temporarily reassigned.” I hadn’t signed a single piece of paperwork agreeing to a transfer, but they had already executed the punishment. At nine sharp, Marcus walked over with a clipboard. “Artie, here is your reassignment notice.” “While the investigation is ongoing, you are being moved from Sales to Administrative Support. Your pay will reflect the standard rate for the new role.” I skimmed the paper. My base salary was being slashed from four thousand a month to minimum wage. “The investigation isn’t even over, and you are already demoting me and cutting my pay?” Marcus kept his face completely neutral, offering a subtle roll of his eyes. “This is to protect you just as much as it protects the company.” I refused to take the pen. Marcus frowned. “I need an answer by end of day tomorrow.” “If you refuse to sign, HR will process this as a voluntary abandonment of your job.” After he walked away, I noticed the entire atmosphere on the floor had turned toxic. People took wide detours just to avoid walking past my new desk. If I walked into the kitchenette to get water, whoever was inside would immediately grab their cup and bolt. When I went into the restroom, the guys talking in the stalls instantly went dead silent, waiting until they heard the door click shut behind me to resume their gossip. At ten thirty, Donovan summoned me to his office again. Topher wasn’t there this time. Instead, there was a fresh document waiting on the leather blotter. A mutual separation agreement. “Artie, I will make this quick.” Donovan leaned back in his plush chair, taking a slow sip of his black coffee. “This missing document is causing a massive disruption. The company cannot afford to let this drag out.” He set his mug down and slid the paper toward me. “We part ways mutually.” “You get a severance package. Four thousand two hundred dollars. You sign it, you pack your box, and you leave today.” “Let’s keep this professional. It’s the best option for everyone.” I had bled for this company for eleven months. I had pulled countless all nighters. I built three major client pipelines from scratch. Tomorrow was the absolute final day of my probationary period. Next month, my five thousand dollar commission was scheduled to hit my bank account. And he thought he could buy my silence for a measly four grand. “I’m not signing that.” Donovan’s face darkened like a thundercloud. “You better think this through. If you don’t take the mutual exit, I will terminate you with cause.” “That termination goes on your permanent employment record. And the stated cause will be theft.” Theft. He had already played judge, jury, and executioner. No actual investigation. No conclusive findings. No physical proof. Just a digital door log and an intern’s fake tears. That was all it took. I looked at the dollar amount printed on that piece of paper, and I suddenly found it incredibly funny. In my past life, I had stood in this exact office, crying, begging him to just review the evidence one more time. In this life, I wasn’t begging for a damn thing. After lunch, I submitted a request for two hours of personal time off. Nobody asked where I was going. Nobody cared. By the time I swiped back into the building, it was almost five. Topher was leaning against the breakroom doorframe, chatting and laughing with a few coworkers. The moment he saw me, his smile hitched. “Hey Artie. Where did you run off to this afternoon?” “Personal errands.” He nodded, not pushing the subject. But his eyes followed me down the hall, tracking my every move. He was trying to figure out if I was still a threat. He probably concluded that I wasn’t. Because in his mind, I was already a dead man walking. My network access was gone. My desk was by the toilets. The entire office was treating him like a martyr, and the boss wanted me gone by sundown. Tomorrow was the final deadline for the full time contract approvals. As long as I took the severance today, or got fired tomorrow, that permanent spot was his. He had won. That was exactly what he was thinking. Just like the last time. I sat down at my desk and unlocked my phone. The stage was set. The final day. The deadline for contract conversions. When I walked into the bullpen at eight in the morning, Topher was already at his desk. He was wearing a brand new button down shirt. His hair was perfectly styled. A faint, arrogant smirk played on his lips. It was the smile of a victor. At nine, Donovan sent out an office wide alert, calling everyone to the main conference room. The agenda was listed as a quarterly wrap up and a personnel announcement. Every single person in that room knew exactly what was about to happen. They knew who was getting the permanent contract. The room was packed tight. Donovan stood in front of the projector screen, spending five minutes running through boring sales metrics. Then he cleared his throat and picked up a manila folder. “Now, for our personnel update.” “After a comprehensive evaluation, the company has decided to offer a permanent, full time position to Topher. He will be stepping into the role of Account Supervisor.” Supervisor. Not a junior associate. A Supervisor. He skipped two whole rungs on the corporate ladder in one day. The room erupted into applause. Topher stood up, offering a practiced, humble bow. “Thank you, Donovan. Thank you, everyone.” “I truly appreciate the trust this company has placed in me, and I promise to exceed your expectations.” Donovan raised his hands, gesturing for the room to quiet down. His expression shifted into something grim. “Additionally, due to the severe mishandling of company documents recently, we have decided to terminate our employment contract with Artie.” He didn’t even bother looking in my direction. His voice was laced with disgust. “Effective immediately. Human Resources will assist in escorting him off the premises.” “This company has zero tolerance for employees with compromised morals. We don’t need scum like that here.” The room fell dead silent for a split second. Then, someone actually clapped. Just a couple of people, clapping like they had finally purged a cancer from the office. Justice served. Topher turned his head to look right at me. Deep in his eyes, I saw the exact same malicious glint from my previous life. “Artie, you really shouldn’t have done it.” He walked over to me, his tone dripping with condescension. “I know things have been really tough for you lately, and you did put some good work in while you were here.” “If you ever need a reference or a little help landing on your feet, you just let me know.” Everyone was watching. His performance was Oscar worthy. The gracious victim extending forgiveness to his attacker. The newly minted Supervisor offering a helping hand to the disgraced, fired colleague. So kind. So professional. I stared right through him, not saying a word. And then, I smiled. Topher’s face twitched. He couldn’t comprehend why I was smiling. Why would a guy who just got fired in front of thirty people, while the whole room clapped for his departure, be smiling? I pushed my chair back and stood up. “Donovan, before I pack my things, can I have exactly two minutes of your time?” Donovan scowled, his voice thick with annoyance. “Take whatever complaints you have to Marcus. I am done dealing with you.” “Two minutes. That’s it.” I looked him dead in the eye, my voice unnervingly calm. “If you won’t let me speak here, I will gladly take my evidence straight to the Department of Labor.” The conference room felt like a vacuum. Donovan glared at me for five long seconds, then glanced nervously around at the crowd. “Fine. Speak. You have exactly one hundred and twenty seconds.” He aggressively tapped the crystal face of his wristwatch. I walked to the front of the room. Thirty pairs of eyes tracked my every movement. Some looked disgusted. Some looked pitying. Some just wanted a show. Most were just impatient for me to leave. I knew exactly what they were thinking. What could a desperate thief possibly have left to say? I turned to face the crowd, then locked my eyes onto Topher. “You told everyone I stole that twenty thousand dollar receipt, correct?” He frowned, his voice dropping into a warning tone. “Artie, the company has already made its decision…” “And you said the badge logs proved I was the only person who entered the copy room, correct?” He clamped his mouth shut. I let out a soft, mocking chuckle. “Well then, let’s watch the tape together.” The projector screen behind Donovan flickered, the background suddenly shifting. As the image sharpened into focus, a collective gasp ripped through the room.

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1 On our honeymoon’s first day, I dragged three massive suitcases alone through the crowded terminal. Josh walked ahead, arm wrapped around Brooke’s shoulders, shielding her from the rush. “Hurry up, Linda. You know Brooke is fragile. I can’t let her stay in this crowd.” Before I could reply, a heavyset man slammed into me. I hit the floor, luggage crashing down. Sharp pain flared across my knees and shins. Looking up, neither of them had bothered to look back. We’d grown up together. Brooke’s severe medical condition meant she was treated like spun glass, everything revolving around her. As kids, Josh always stepped between us. As we got older, even after we started dating, he’d drop everything and sprint to her the second she called. Now, on our honeymoon, he’d insisted on bringing her along because he worried about her health. For years, I compromised. I swallowed my pride. I took a step back. But I was human too. I bled when I fell. And there would always be a day when I was just too hurt to take another step forward. … The freezing temperature of the airport tiles seeped through my clothes, chilling my chest. Just as I pushed myself up, Josh finally appeared in front of me. “If you fell, why didn’t you say something?” He pulled me to my feet, then immediately grabbed two of the suitcases, marching forward at a brisk pace. “Let’s go. We are going to miss the flight.” I glanced up at the giant departure board. “Don’t we still have three hours?” Josh’s shoulders went visibly rigid. “Linda, we aren’t going to the beach anymore.” I froze in my tracks. Panic seized my chest as I scrambled to unlock my phone. I pulled up the itinerary. Our original destination, the pristine beaches of Maui, had been completely altered. We were booked for a snowy mountain resort in Aspen. “Josh…” I held my phone up. My hands were trembling violently. I couldn’t tell if it was from hauling the heavy bags or from the absolute shock of his words. “Brooke hasn’t been feeling well. She really wanted to see the snow…” Because of Brooke. Again. “Josh, this is our honeymoon.” A trip I had spent three months agonizing over. I had meticulously planned out every single outfit, matching my dresses, shoes, and jewelry. I had mapped out two completely different itineraries for us to enjoy by the ocean. When I sent him the plans, he didn’t utter a single word of complaint. I even swallowed the bitter pill of letting him drag her along on our romantic getaway. And now he was telling me that our honeymoon had been hijacked. Relocated to the freezing mountains, all because Brooke wanted to see the snow. Behind my back. Without a single word. “Honestly, a vacation is a vacation no matter where we go.” Josh reached out to grab my wrist, trying to pull me forward. I ripped my hand away. “You two go. I am not going.” My heart plummeted into a bottomless abyss. I grabbed the handle of my remaining suitcase and turned around. But Josh grabbed my arm in a vice grip. “What is your problem, Linda?” “Are you seriously throwing a tantrum just because we aren’t going to an island?” I didn’t answer. One of the wheels on my suitcase had snapped off during the fall. Dragging it felt impossibly heavy. Josh stood blocking my path, a deep scowl carving into his forehead. He looked incredibly annoyed. “Linda, can you please show an ounce of empathy? You know exactly how sick Brooke gets.” I raised my eyes, looking past him to the glowing flight boards. I forced back the sharp burn of tears threatening to spill. Right. Brooke was sick. Because she was sick, she had to crash the honeymoon I had dreamed about for months. The sunny beaches I longed for had to be swapped out for the freezing altitude of Aspen. Because she was sick, Josh spent the entire morning shielding her from the crowds, while I was left dragging three oversized bags alone, getting knocked to the ground until my legs were black and blue. I desperately wanted to ask him, what about me? Even now, he hadn’t bothered to ask if I was hurt. How many times had this happened? I had lost count. After a long, suffocating silence, I meticulously peeled his fingers off my arm, swallowing the heavy lump of grief wedged in my throat. “You better hurry. Don’t let Brooke wait too long.” Hearing this, Josh glanced down at his expensive watch. He shot me one last disappointed glare. “Linda, you seriously need to work on this toxic attitude of yours. Acting like the world is ending over a slight change of plans is just pathetic.” I kept my mouth shut, dragging my broken suitcase toward the exit. A slight change of plans? I didn’t think so. When we were planning our wedding, I wanted a massive, joyful celebration. Josh told me we had to consider Brooke’s sensory issues. She couldn’t handle loud noises or large crowds. So the vibrant, beautiful wedding of my dreams was downgraded to a cramped, dimly lit chapel with exactly four people in attendance, including the priest. After we got married, I just wanted a normal life with my husband. Josh told me Brooke’s parents were too old to provide the care she needed, and he wanted to move her into our spare bedroom. So my private marital sanctuary became a crowded house of three. Before all of this, I had sat him down multiple times. I asked him to establish some healthy boundaries. I reminded him that he was a married man now. But he just brushed it off. He told me Brooke was our childhood best friend, and taking extra care of her was simply the right thing to do. So it happened again. And again. And again. I was supposed to be his wife, his partner in life, yet I was always the one being pushed to the back of the line. And now, as I dragged a broken suitcase through the chaotic airport traffic, Josh was already boarding a plane with Brooke. Our honeymoon had officially become their romantic getaway to Aspen. By the time I finally managed to hail a cab, my phone buzzed with a text from Josh. [Make sure you text Brooke and explain why you left. I don’t want her stressing out and thinking this is her fault.] I didn’t reply. The phone vibrated again. It was a text from Brooke. [Linda, did you back out of the trip because of me? I feel so awful. This was supposed to be your honeymoon…] I didn’t reply to that either. I simply flipped the phone to silent and tossed it into my purse. Watching the city blur past the taxi window, I felt nothing but a bone deep exhaustion. All those tiny, neglected details had finally crushed me. I was so incredibly tired. I just wanted to escape. I wanted to be as far away from them as physically possible. I had the driver take me straight to my office building. I left the broken suitcase in the lobby and rode the elevator up to the sixth floor. I handed in my formal resignation, then walked over to my cubicle to pack my things. Sarah, my team lead, stood by my desk with a look of genuine regret. “Are you seriously leaving us, Linda? Upper management was just talking about putting you up for a massive promotion.” I gave her a quiet nod, carefully placing the small potted plant Josh had given me years ago into the cardboard box. Sarah wasn’t lying. I was on the fast track to a director role. But the only reason I had taken this job, the only reason I stayed in this city, was because Josh wanted to settle down here. And looking back, it was painfully obvious that he only wanted to stay here so he could keep a close eye on Brooke. At least Josh and I hadn’t filed our official marriage certificate yet. Walking away was going to be remarkably simple. By the time I wrestled my massive suitcase through the front door of the apartment, Josh and Brooke had just landed in Colorado. My phone lit up with his incoming call. “Brooke has been having a panic attack the entire flight because of your little stunt.” “Text her back right now.” I lay flat on the mattress, listening to his icy, demanding tone. My eyes slowly wandered around the master bedroom. The modern chandelier, the silk bedsheets, the vanity desk, the custom wardrobe. Every single piece of furniture in this room was chosen to fit Brooke’s aesthetic. When we were decorating, Josh insisted that everything had to be approved by Brooke. He claimed that if she didn’t like the environment, it would trigger her anxiety and worsen her physical health. I hadn’t fought him on it. I figured it was just furniture. It served the same purpose no matter what it looked like. But laying here now, the entire room felt suffocating. I didn’t care if she was supposed to be my friend too. “Josh, I am so completely exhausted. I…” Before I could even get the explanation out, Brooke’s delicate voice filtered through the receiver. “Noley, what woman are you talking to on the phone?” “Come here and help me with the zipper on my dress.” I froze on the bed. Noley. What woman. The zipper on my dress. It was an overwhelming amount of information packed into three sentences. It would be impossible for any normal person to ignore. While I was stunned silent, Brooke’s voice shifted. “Oh, it’s Linda!” “Linda, you aren’t mad at me, are you? I saw you didn’t reply to my text.” “Please don’t overthink this. I practically begged Josh to bring me to Aspen. You know how much I love the snow.” “And you know how weak my joints are. I didn’t want to pull a muscle reaching for my zipper, so I just asked Josh for a tiny favor.” She had an air tight explanation for absolutely everything. I let the silence hang, refusing to give her the validation she wanted. I was entirely done fighting over these twisted little details. Because the truth was, neither of them cared about how I felt. “Linda, we are heading out to grab dinner! Talk to you later!” Click. The line went dead. I didn’t sleep a single minute that night. I lay perfectly still in the dark, replaying years of neglected boundaries and broken promises. I watched my own shadow stretch across the wall. I felt completely numb. Paralyzed. Until eventually, I couldn’t feel anything at all. Around five in the morning, right as my eyes were finally starting to close, I heard the heavy click of the front door unlocking. I pushed the bedroom door open. Josh was walking into the living room, supporting Brooke by her waist. Brooke looked completely drained, but the moment she saw me, she forced a sweet, innocent smile. “Linda, we came back!” She walked over and wrapped her arms around me. I stiffened, awkwardly patting her back. “Why are you guys back so soon?” The moment the words left my mouth, Josh shot me a look of pure disgust. “Because of you, obviously!” “How can you be so incredibly selfish, Linda?” “It is a massive effort for Brooke to travel, and you had to ruin the entire trip by throwing a tantrum!” I pushed Brooke away, locking eyes with him. My patience had officially evaporated. “I am the selfish one?” “Josh, when you decided to drag her along on our honeymoon, did you consider my feelings for even a second?” “When the two of you hijacked our itinerary and changed the destination without telling me, did you consider my feelings?” “And the wedding…” “Shut up! Just shut up, Linda! Brooke is standing right here!” “You always bring up the exact same things. Brooke has a severe medical condition. Why do you constantly insist on competing with a sick woman?” “Competing?” The tears I had been fighting back finally broke, spilling hot and fast down my cheeks. “Please stop fighting, Linda.” “It’s my fault. It is all my fault.” “My body is just a burden. I ruined your special trip.” She started crying hysterically, stepping forward to grab my hands. I instinctively stepped back, brushing her hands away. She dramatically stumbled backward, landing flat on her behind. Before my brain could even process what was happening, Josh lunged forward and shoved me hard in the chest. I flew backward, crashing violently onto the hardwood floor. “Why the hell did you push her?” “Are you actually a psychopath, Linda?” Without another word, Josh scooped Brooke up into his arms and sprinted out the door toward his car. Panic finally set in. I didn’t even have time to process the betrayal. I grabbed my keys and followed them to the emergency room. Brooke was rushed into a private examination room. I sat on the cold plastic chairs in the hallway, watching Josh press his face against the glass window of the door, his eyes wide with frantic worry. A passing nurse stopped and gently tapped my shoulder. “Miss, do you need me to wrap that up for you?” I blinked in confusion. The nurse pointed down at my arm. I finally realized that when Josh shoved me, I had scraped my arm against the sharp edge of the coffee table. Thick drops of blood were slowly pooling on the linoleum floor. I panicked and tried to cover the gash with my bare hand, but the nurse gently pulled my wrist away. “Don’t do that. You’ll introduce bacteria into the wound.” “Come with me to the trauma bay.” I followed her down the hall in a daze. She carefully cleaned the wound with antiseptic, glancing back out toward the hallway. “That guy out there, his wife is the one in the room, right?” I froze for a second, realizing she was talking about Brooke. I gave a slow nod, saying nothing. “Your brother sure is dedicated to his wife. He’s been staring through that glass since they got here. He didn’t even notice his own sister was bleeding everywhere.” The gauze tightened around my arm, bringing a sharp, burning sting. When I walked back out to the hallway, Josh was still pacing in front of the window. He didn’t spare me a single glance. An hour later, the doctor finally walked out. He assured us that Brooke was perfectly fine. Her daily maintenance routine had protected her joints. She just needed some rest. I stood by the wall. Just as I instinctively moved forward to help Brooke walk, Josh finally noticed the thick white bandages wrapping my forearm. “What happened to your arm?” I paused, then smoothly stepped out of his reach. Josh froze, his hand hanging awkwardly in the air. He stared at me, his jaw tight, but he didn’t say a word. That night, I lay frozen on the edge of the mattress. I heard the rustle of the sheets behind me. Josh slid his arm around my waist, pulling me against his chest. In the pitch black room, his voice was low, carrying a hint of genuine warmth. “Linda, about what happened this morning… I was out of line.” “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.” “Can we just drop the attitude now?” “Let me see your arm.” I kept my mouth completely shut. Hot tears streamed down my face, soaking silently into the cotton pillowcase. He reached down, trying to touch my bandaged arm. I smacked his hand away. His tone instantly hardened. “Linda, what exactly is your problem?” “We are practically married. We have our whole lives ahead of us.” “Are you seriously going to hold a grudge over one little mistake forever?” I took a shaky breath, forcing the violent sob back down my throat. “Josh, it’s not one little mistake. It’s a thousand of them.” I sat up, turning on the lamp, wanting to finally lay everything out on the table. Click. Josh reached over and plunged the room back into darkness. I nudged his shoulder. He rolled over, giving me his back. “Linda, I just don’t get you. We all grew up together. Why are you so completely incapable of making room for Brooke?” Staring at the back of his head, I suddenly let out a laugh. The sound was hoarse, ugly, and broken in the quiet bedroom. Why couldn’t I make room? Because love is inherently territorial. It demands to be chosen first. In that exact moment, a chilling realization washed over me. Josh had probably never loved me at all. So it made perfect sense that he couldn’t comprehend why I refused to tolerate his obsession with another woman. The next morning, I changed my flight ticket. Before the sun was fully up, I hauled my suitcase out the front door. Josh and Brooke had already left the apartment. I had no idea where they went. But I did know that today was my birthday. And for my first gift of this new year, I was giving myself a completely new life.

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In my past life, I didn’t realize Vincent Sinclair loved the wrong person until our wedding day. When my twin sister returned from abroad and appeared at the venue, the ruthless heir to the Sinclair empire froze. His eyes turned bloodshot as he stared dead at her. That was the moment I finally understood. He had spent the last two years showering me with money, resources, and a borderline obsessive pursuit, all because I shared a face with her. Given a second chance, I stood by my second-floor window and looked down at the man who had been standing in the snow all night waiting for me to cave. Without a shred of hesitation, I texted him my sister’s flight details. 1 Since his true love was back, this stand-in was officially retiring. The text had barely gone through when the man downstairs reacted. I hid in the dark bedroom, watching him pull his phone from his overcoat. He glanced at the screen. Then his head snapped up. His piercing gaze locked straight onto my window. Even with the thick blackout curtains drawn, I instinctively shrank back against the wall. My screen lit up. Vincent’s text arrived instantly. “Where did you go? When are you leaving?” I could feel his suffocating presence bleeding through the screen. I tossed the phone onto the mattress and ignored him. 2 Ever since he cornered me at the hospital two years ago, this man had forced his way into my life. Armed with the brutal lessons of my past life, I knew exactly what his so-called devotion really was. It all belonged to my sister. I had suffered enough. Since I couldn’t expose my sister’s existence, my only option in this life was to avoid him like the plague. But arrogant elites like Vincent never understood the concept of backing down. His method of courting was aggressive and raw. Designer bags, limited edition sports cars, showing up to chauffeur me everywhere. He wanted the whole world to know I belonged to him. My friends told me to accept my good fortune before I drained the patience of this untouchable billionaire. After all, this was Vincent Sinclair. He had the wealth, the looks, and the power to make anyone lose their mind. My phone buzzed twice. Him again. “Playing dead?” Snowflakes began to drift outside the window. Vincent cast one final, lingering look at my apartment before pulling open the door of his black SUV and sliding in. He didn’t start the engine right away. The car sat idling in the winter cold for over ten minutes before finally creeping away into the night. I rubbed my aching temples. When Vincent placed someone on a pedestal, he was the perfect lover. That was exactly how I fell so hard for him in my previous life. But when he turned ruthless, he knew exactly how to drive a knife straight into your heart. I refused to relive a single day of that hollow, suffocating marriage. 3 For the past few days, my sister had been packing her bags for her return to the States, and I had been quietly arranging my visa. Stella and I were identical twins. Apart from our personalities, we shared every physical trait down to a strand of hair. Swapping identities was basically second nature to us. Years ago, our mother was the secret mistress of a wealthy man. When the scandal threatened to ruin him, she hid in a rural town to give birth to us in secret. Nobody knew she had twins. Eventually, that wealthy man found his conscience and brought our mother back to his mansion. But his strict condition was that she could only bring one child. So I was taken into the Hastings estate, and Stella was shipped off to Europe. For twenty years, to keep the secret buried, we operated like shift workers, constantly rotating between domestic life in New York and our hidden life abroad. To maintain the illusion, we even majored in the same subject at university and seamlessly shared the same social circles. So naturally, Stella knew a guy named Vincent was relentlessly pursuing “me.” 4 In my past life, I was in too deep. I couldn’t bear to share Vincent with anyone. Even knowing my twin existed, I selfishly kept her a secret from him. It wasn’t until I stood at the altar in my white gown that I became the ultimate punchline. But this time around, the second Vincent showed up, I snapped a photo and sent it straight to Stella. “A romantic debt you left behind five years ago?” Stella, always the optimist, instantly replied with a string of laughing emojis. “I barely just turned eighteen five years ago! Be serious.” She had absolutely no memory of this gorgeous billionaire. Even after I sent a zoomed in, candid shot of Vincent’s face, she swore she had never seen him in her life. I could only reply in helpless frustration. “But five years ago I was living in London. The girl he knew couldn’t possibly have been me.” 5 My visa paperwork was almost finalized. I thought I could shake Vincent off completely before leaving the country, but fate had other plans. Two in the morning, inpatient ward. I had just finished assisting my attending physician with a grueling marathon surgery. I collapsed onto the concrete steps of the stairwell, dozing off from pure exhaustion. In my hazy state, a heavy cashmere overcoat carrying a faint scent of cedar was draped over my shoulders. I snapped my eyes open and met Vincent’s dark, piercing gaze. This billionaire heir, a man notorious for his clinical germaphobia, was sitting casually next to me on the filthy stairwell floor. “If it exhausts you this much, why did you insist on clinical surgery?” he asked, turning his head to look at me. I stayed quiet. When our mother gave birth to us, she suffered a massive hemorrhage. It was a surgeon who dragged the three of us back from the brink of death. That was the reason we both chose medicine, but I had no intention of sharing my trauma with him. I turned my face away. “What are you doing here? I thought we agreed to meet directly at the airport this weekend.” The stairwell was dead quiet, making his voice sound impossibly clear. “You are a terrible liar.” “I asked your department head. He said you are following him to a medical symposium in Chicago on Wednesday.” He paused, his tone absolute. “So the other night, you never left your apartment. You were hiding upstairs from me.” Before I could react, he leaned in. His chin rested naturally against my shoulder. “Rina,” he whispered my name into the dim light, his voice laced with a heavy, helpless sigh. “What exactly do I have to do to make you say yes?” His presence completely enveloped me. My eyes burned with unshed tears. It wasn’t that I was playing hard to get. I had simply been broken so thoroughly by his coldness in our past life. This time, I just wanted to stay as far away from him as possible. I forced myself to give him a vague brush off. “Just give me a few more days.” Wait for Stella to return. Wait for the real destined lovers to reunite. This was always their love story. I was just going to step aside and let my sister make her own choice. 6 Friday night, JFK Airport. Stella and I stood in the second-floor restrooms, both wearing identical khaki trench coats and gripping matching silver suitcases. She pulled me into a bone crushing hug. “See you in five years! We’ll swap back then.” I gave her a quiet smile, ignoring the promise. If she met someone she loved here and built a stable family, I would be perfectly happy staying in Europe forever. After a hurried exchange, we went our separate ways. She rolled her suitcase toward Dr. Harrison’s academic team, and I turned my back, heading straight for International Departures. Sitting in the departure lounge, watching the planes idle on the tarmac, my phone vibrated. A text from Stella. “Your billionaire prince actually came to the airport to pick me up.” Just as I reached to power off my phone, a second message popped up. “But he stared at me for a solid minute, and his very first question was demanding to know who I really was.” 7 Staring at that line of text, a cold shiver crawled up my spine. Vincent went to pick her up? Not only did he go, but he instantly recognized that she wasn’t me? That was impossible. Stella and I even had a matching birthmark behind our left ears. For twenty years, even our own mother mixed us up occasionally. Vincent and I had only been entangled for two years. We had barely even held hands properly. How could he possibly see through the perfect illusion? Before I could process the panic, the airport intercom chimed. Boarding for the flight to London was beginning. I shot up from my seat, shoved my powered down phone into my coat pocket, grabbed my boarding pass, and marched toward the final security checkpoint. It didn’t matter if he recognized Stella. As long as I got on this plane and crossed the border, the tragic mess of my past life could never catch up to me. The line was agonizingly long. I kept my head down, shuffling forward inch by inch. Finally, it was my turn. I handed my passport and ticket to the TSA agent. The agent flipped it open to verify my details. Suddenly, a large hand reached over from the side, crossing the security tape, and slammed down flat over my passport. The veins on the back of his hand bulged. With an undeniable, terrifying force, he ripped my passport right out of the agent’s grip. My stomach dropped to the floor. I whipped my head around. Vincent stood there in a long, charcoal wool coat, the freezing winter air still clinging to his shoulders. He stood right outside the security barrier, glaring down at me with lethal intensity. People around us began to stare. The agent frowned, clearly annoyed. “Sir, please do not interfere with the screening process. What are you doing with her passport?” Vincent completely ignored the agent. His gaze was nailed to my face. “Rina Hastings.” He said my full name. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a crushing, absolute authority. “You think you’re clever? Trying to pull a disappearing act?” 8 I swallowed hard, forcing my racing heart to steady, and plastered a look of absolute confusion onto my face. “Sir, you have the wrong person.” I deliberately mimicked Stella’s lighter, slightly innocent tone. “My name isn’t Rina. I think you are looking for someone else.” Vincent let out a dark, furious laugh. He flipped the passport open to my photo page and shoved it right in front of my eyes. “Is that right? Then please, Miss Stella, explain to me why this passport has your sister’s name printed on it?” I stared at the bold letters spelling out ‘Rina Hastings’ and choked on my own words. To escape him, I had told Stella to use her real identity in New York to take over my life, while I took my own passport to flee the country. The handoff had been flawless, yet he had caught me right at the finish line. “This… this is my sister’s passport. I grabbed the wrong one by mistake.” I forced myself to keep spinning the lie. “Please give it back. I am going to miss my flight.” Vincent wasn’t buying a single word of it. Without another word, his hand shot out, wrapping like an iron shackle around my wrist. He physically yanked me out of the security line. His strength was terrifying. I stumbled a few steps before catching my balance. “Vincent! Have you lost your mind? Let me go!” I couldn’t keep the act up anymore, dropping my voice into an angry, desperate hiss. Hearing me use my actual tone to say his name, he stopped in his tracks and threw a freezing glare over his shoulder. “Done pretending to be your sister?” He dragged me toward the terminal exit, his strides massive and relentless. I thrashed against his grip, yelling, “Since you already know she’s my twin, you should know the real girl you want is back! Go find her! Why are you dragging me away?” Vincent stopped dead. He spun around, his fingers gripping my chin, forcing me to look up into eyes burning with the rage of a man who had been played for a fool. “Who the hell told you she was the one I was looking for?” 9 He shoved me into the passenger seat of a black SUV parked at the curb. The doors locked with a heavy, metallic click. Vincent stalked around the hood, slid into the driver’s seat, and slammed on the gas. The massive vehicle tore out of the airport loading zone. The heat blasted through the cabin, but my hands and feet were like ice. “Where are you taking me?” I shrank back against the door, watching him like a trapped animal. Vincent stared at the road ahead, his jaw locked tight, refusing to say a single word. This cold, merciless demeanor was a perfect mirror of our broken marriage in my past life. Back then, he used to look at me with this exact same ice, cutting off all my escape routes with a single sentence. Fear and a deep, aching injustice twisted together in my chest. I gritted my teeth and decided to burn it all down. “Vincent, what exactly do you want from me? The girl you met five years ago wasn’t me! You spent the last two years hovering over me, buying me things, playing the devoted suitor, all because I share a face with her!” I unleashed two lifetimes worth of suffocating secrets in one breath. “Now she is back. She’s single, she’s beautiful, and she is right there ready to pick up where you two left off. Why are you so obsessed with holding onto the cheap stand-in?” The deafening shriek of burning rubber filled the air. Vincent violently jerked the steering wheel, slamming the SUV onto the highway shoulder. He turned his head, looking at me as if I had completely lost my mind. “Rina, what exactly is rattling around inside that head of yours?” He unbuckled his seatbelt, leaning heavily into my space, his words slipping through clenched teeth. “Who told you I met her here five years ago?” 10 I froze. “Didn’t you?” I fired back instinctively. “Five years ago I was in Boston, and she was here in New York. You couldn’t possibly have met me in Boston.” Vincent stared a hole through me. Suddenly, he reached up and tore at the collar of his expensive dress shirt. He popped the top three buttons, yanking the fabric aside to expose the skin just below his left collarbone. There was a deep, jagged scar there. It looked like an ugly centipede fused to his flesh. “Five years ago. Boston. A back alley in the South End.” He spoke slowly, enunciating every single syllable. With every word, my heart violently stuttered in my chest. “I was ambushed. They slashed my artery. I was bleeding out against a dumpster, waiting to die.” “A Chinese girl walked by wearing a gray beanie and a thick winter scarf. She didn’t call the cops, because I told her if she called them, my enemies would find me and I would be dead.” Vincent watched my eyes widen in absolute horror, a dark, mocking smirk curling his lips. “She used a pocket suturing kit to stitch my artery closed with her bare hands. And when she finished, she tied off the thread using a highly unusual modified double loop surgeon’s knot.” He let go of his shirt and leaned back into his seat. “Three years later, I was standing in the surgical observation deck at Manhattan General. I watched a young intern close up a patient, tying that exact same modified double loop knot.” The silence in the car was deafening. I felt a violent ringing in my ears. Something massive inside my reality just shattered into dust. That modified knot was a technique my mother invented when she was working as a rural barefoot doctor. She only ever taught it to me. Stella hated the sight of blood and refused to even hold a needle. The person who saved him in Boston five years ago… was me. 11 “You…” I opened my mouth, but my throat was so dry I couldn’t make a sound. If the girl from five years ago was me. Then his relentless pursuit over the past two years, all the resources he poured into my career, the nights he spent standing in the snow waiting for me… all of it was meant for me? I was never a stand-in? Then what the hell was my past life all about?! In my previous life, at our wedding ceremony, Vincent’s eyes had turned bloodshot as he stared dead at Stella. The moment that turned me into the laughingstock of high society… was that all a misunderstanding too? I felt like a rat trapped in a maze, finally seeing a sliver of light, only to smash headfirst into a solid brick wall. “If you recognized me, why didn’t you ever mention Boston?” I clenched my jaw, desperately hunting for a flaw in his story. Vincent let out a bitter scoff. “How the hell was I supposed to bring it up?” He shifted the car back into drive, his tone dripping with self-deprecating irony. “I tested the waters countless times. I asked if you had ever lived in Boston. I asked if you had ever saved anyone on the streets.” “And what did you tell me? You looked me dead in the eye and said you were so squeamish you couldn’t even swat a fly, that blood made you faint, and that your only trip to Boston was a quick vacation.” Vincent shot me a complicated sideways glance. “You guarded yourself against me like I was a serial killer. If I had walked up and confessed that I was the bleeding mob heir you patched up in an alley, you would have bought a one-way ticket to Antarctica that very afternoon.” I was completely speechless. Because he was absolutely right. I had spent every waking moment hiding from him. In my past life out of crippling inferiority, and in this life out of pure terror. The SUV merged seamlessly back into the speeding traffic. I pressed my forehead against the cold glass of the window, watching the city lights blur together, my mind in absolute chaos. If the person he loved was truly me, then what exactly caused the tragedy in my previous life? I had to figure this out, or I would never find peace. Just as I opened my mouth to probe into the events of our past life, the phone in my pocket began vibrating violently.

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1 The welcome-home banquet was halfway through cutting the second tier of the cake when the fake heir suddenly grabbed my hand, his eyes brimming with tears. “Brent, could you… please move out first?” The grand ballroom fell dead silent. Whispers rippled through the guests. He looked like he was about to crumble right there, his voice trembling. “I know you’re the true Smith heir. But I’ve lived here for eighteen years. Ever since you came back, I live in constant terror that I’ll be thrown out.” “Please, Brent, I’m begging you. Just move out for a little while. Give me time to adapt, please?” My father, Richard, instinctively pulled Tristan into his arms, his eyes red with heartache. My fiancée, Audrey, stepped up beside him, throwing a cold, disgusted glare in my direction. In the next second, luminous floating text flashed across my vision. [Don’t you dare agree! You’re the legitimate heir! Why should you leave?] [Call him out right now! He’s intentionally backing you into a corner!] [Cry! Throw a tantrum! Make your parents feel guilty!] In my past life, I fell for those floating comments. I smashed a glass at the gala, forced my parents to pick between us, and created a massive scene. The result? The entire elite circle branded me a ruthless, ungrateful monster. My adoptive parents ended up dead and crippled because of Tristan’s schemes, and I burned to death in a rigged fire. This time, I just let out a quiet, amused chuckle. … “Sure. If you’re that terrified, I’ll pack my bags.” Tristan’s sniffling hitched. He stared at me, dumbfounded. Audrey frowned, the harsh lecture she had ready completely catching in her throat. Some guests pitied me, others laughed silently, and a few already had their phones out, waiting for the wild child from the countryside to go insane. I reached over and casually straightened Tristan’s crooked silk tie. “You’re used to the main estate. Don’t stress yourself out. I’ll move into a hotel.” Richard let out an immediate sigh of relief. But realizing how bad it looked, he hastily reached for my arm. “Brent, that’s not what I meant. You just got back. How could we make you stay in a hotel?” Tristan burrowed deeper into his shoulder, tears spilling over. “Dad, I didn’t mean to drive Brent away. I’m just… I’m so scared.” Audrey immediately cooed softly, comforting him. “No one blames you, sweetie.” I smiled. “Let’s just do as he says.” The floating text went wild. [Are you out of your mind? He told you to get lost and you’re actually doing it?] [This is high-society power play, not a charity show!] [Give him an inch and he’ll crush you into dust later!] I lowered my eyes, ignoring the glowing glyphs. In my past life, I thought the same way. I felt robbed of eighteen years. I thought I deserved a bedroom, a hug, a little favoritism. So I fought. I forced Tristan out of the master suite, forced my parents to admit he was just adopted, forced Audrey to honor her engagement with the real Smith heir. And what did I get? He faked a high fever, and Richard nearly fainted from grief. Audrey publicly sneered, “Bloodline isn’t a pass for cruelty, Brent. You’re heartless.” By playing the delicate, fragile victim, Tristan turned everyone against me. In the end, my adoptive father was run down by a truck on a rainy night while trying to deliver evidence that proved my innocence. My adoptive mother died of illness under the stigma of blackmailing a wealthy family, asking me with her final breath, “Brent… are you eating well at the Smiths’?” I never had the heart to answer her. In this life, I won’t fight for a room. A bedroom isn’t a life. Audrey stared at me coldly. “Brent, don’t play hard to get.” I met her gaze with a soft laugh. “Don’t worry, Audrey. I won’t fight you for him either.” Her expression turned rigid. Tristan clutched Richard’s sleeve tightly. “The arrangement between our families was always meant for the two of you over all these years,” I said, raising my glass just loud enough for the surrounding crowd to hear clearly. “Since you only recognize him, keep it that way. I wish you two a long and happy life together.” Muffled gasps broke out among the guests. Tristan’s face drained of color. He wanted me to lose my temper, not to publicly bless them. Once the blessing was spoken aloud in front of high society, he and Audrey were bound together in the public eye. The romance was theirs, but so was the shared liability. After the banquet ended, the butler asked if I wanted to rest in the main house first. I shook my head. “Book me a hotel room. I’m leaving tonight.” Richard panicked. “Brent, please don’t do this. You’re breaking my heart.” I looked him dead in the eye. “Dad, Tristan said he’s afraid.” He choked on his words. Up on the landing, Tristan stood wrapped in a cashmere blanket, a glint of quiet triumph buried deep in his eyes. The hotel suite was silent. I unzipped my suitcase. I didn’t have many clothes. Stuffed at the very bottom was a battered leather folder left by my adoptive mother, Hannah. She and my adoptive father, Thomas, ran a small pharmacy in a quiet upstate town. Growing up, I learned to sort pillboxes, check lot numbers, and verify invoices alongside them. When the Smith family finally tracked me down, everyone scoffed at the faint smell of antiseptic on my clothes. Only Thomas had neatly folded every single piece of my clothing before I left. “Brent, rich or poor doesn’t matter. Just don’t let anyone step on you.” I pulled out the folder. Inside was a faded copy of an old ledger and a heavily worn security badge. The badge read: Aegis Pharma – Sector 7. The serial number ended in 07. It was the logistics pass from the old plant the year I was snatched away. Before I died in my past life, I finally learned that my disappearance had been no accident. I whipped out my phone and texted my adoptive sister, Zoe. Put the original badge into a bank vault. Dad and Mom shouldn’t go out alone recently, and record every single unknown caller. Zoe replied in seconds. Are the Smiths picking on you again? My throat tightened as I stared at the screen. The ones who truly gave a damn about me were never my blood relatives. No. I moved out on my own terms. A string of exclamation marks flooded the screen. Bro, did they kick you out?! I chuckled softly and typed back: I walked out voluntarily. Standing outside the mansion is the only way to see what’s really rotting inside. Early the next morning, the executive secretary arrived at my hotel to take me to Old Man Smith’s estate. Grandfather was the sole surviving founder of Aegis Pharmaceuticals, holding the master keys to the family trust. In my past life, I wept and ranted in his study about how unfair life was. He had looked at me with cold disgust and asked, “Besides crying, what else can you actually do?” After that, he gave up on me entirely. This time, I walked into his sunlit study and placed three formal documents directly on his mahogany desk. “Re-verification of DNA Ancestry Records.” “Archive Access Request for Aegis Sector 7.” “Agreement on Smith Family Asset Boundary Division.” The old man lifted his sharp eyes. “You just got back, and you’re already dividing up the estate?” “Clarifying it,” I corrected calmly. “Tristan can keep living in the main house, keep being the precious Smith son, and keep using family resources. That’s fine by me. But every authorization needs to be spelled out in black and white.” Grandfather narrowed his eyes. “Why?” “Because emotions can be messy, but accounts must be spotless.” Silence stretched across the study. Suddenly, the old man let out a short, dry laugh. “You don’t look like the pushover everyone saw at the party last night.” “Too many eyes last night,” I replied coolly. “Bad for business.” He flipped through the pages. The luxury real estate, sports cars, personal drivers, PR team, and jewelry access Tristan enjoyed were all categorized as Smith Family Authorizations, not natural inheritance. His role as Executive Chairman of the Aegis Foundation would remain, but every grant approval, facial authentication log, digital signature, and public statement had to be archived and traceable. Grandfather set down his fountain pen. “You’re giving him a graceful way out?” “I’m buying insurance for the family.” He studied me for a long moment before signing his name with a heavy flourish. “Take this to your father.” That afternoon, in the Smith living room. Tristan’s face paled when he saw the document. Richard didn’t understand the legalities; he just felt I was stirring up unnecessary trouble. “Brent, Tristan already let you move back… Why are you pushing this legal junk?” “Precisely because I moved out,” I said smoothly. “It stops the press from claiming the Smiths mistreat their adopted son, and stops anyone from saying I came back to purge him.” Audrey picked up the paper and scanned it. “This just ensures Tristan stays protected under the Smith name?” “Exactly.” Her tense posture relaxed slightly. Evelyn, my biological mother, thought it over. “Sign it. It looks good to the public.” Tristan had no valid ground to refuse. He signed his name with trembling fingers, tears welling in his eyes. As his pen pressed into the paper, I caught the white hue of his knuckles. Perfect. He had just personally turned the first key to his own ruin. I stayed at the hotel for two weeks, yet the family contacted me far more than they ever did in my past life. Evelyn sent clothes via the driver. Richard sent homemade soup, always looking like he wanted to say more. “Brent, don’t hold a grudge against Tristan. His heart is frail; he can’t handle stress.” I took the thermos. “I understand.” “Then when are you moving home?” “When he stops being terrified.” Richard stood speechless. I didn’t move back, but I started spending my days in the Aegis Archives. Grandfather had granted me temporary clearance. The flagship project of Aegis was called The Beacon Initiative. Twenty years ago, the company made its fortune off a rare-disease drug, later folding its entire neuro-pharma pipeline into Beacon. Rumor had it that after Tristan was adopted, Aegis miraculously secured key regulatory approvals. From then on, he was dubbed the family’s blessing. He played the part brilliantly, gala dinners, hospital visits, children’s foundation campaigns. He was always the face of gentle virtue. In the deep archives, however, I found an archived email. The sender was my adoptive mother, Hannah. Years ago, she had documented severe adverse reactions from that drug in local community pharmacies and urged Aegis to update its warning labels and clinical filings. Aegis had quietly adopted her recommendations back then. Only then did the regulatory approval pass. Staring at the printed email, my fingertips went icy cold. His so-called blessing was built on the quiet brilliance of my adoptive mother. The door opened. Tristan walked in holding a cup of coffee, a dutiful, innocent smile on his face. “Brent! I heard you’ve been grinding away in the archives. I brought you a hot latte.” I didn’t reach for it. His eyes instantly welled up. Outside the open doorway, several employees walked past, slowing their steps to peek inside. I reached out, took the coffee, and set it on the desk. “Thanks.” Tristan glanced at the old files beside my hand. “The Beacon Initiative is really complex. It must be tough for you since you just got back. Grandmother used to say that in pharma, trust and consistency are everything.” I looked up at him. “So you think it should be handed over to you?” He flinched, waving his hands in exaggerated panic. “That’s not what I meant at all!” “Good.” I handed him the draft schedule for the upcoming Anniversary Gala. “Aegis’s anniversary is next month. You’ll continue representing the foundation as the keynote speaker. The public loves your story. You can talk about Beacon while you’re up there.” A flash of greed lit up his eyes before he quickly suppressed it. “Is that… okay? You just came back…” “Your public image is solid, and the media knows you. You’re the best fit.” The floating text flared back up. [Are you insane?! He’s going to use this to lock in his position as the true heir!] [Don’t give him the spotlight!] [Take the microphone back!] I didn’t even give the floating glyphs a second glance. Without a stage, how could he suffer a grand downfall? That night, Zoe sent me a photo. Bro, the manager of Sector 7 back then was Victoria Smith. She’s currently the Executive Vice President. Aunt Victoria. Tristan’s biggest ally. In my past life, when I was framed for leaking trade secrets, she was the first to hand over the evidence to the police. I texted back: Don’t dig any deeper. Stay safe. Duh, I value my life. I smiled faintly at the screen. This time, we’d play it smart. A week before the anniversary, Tristan dominated the trending topics. #SmithFamilyBlessing #EighteenYearsOfLove #TheGentleFaceOfAegis Media outlets painted a tear-jerking narrative. How Aegis was on the brink of collapse until Tristan was brought home, how he started doing charity at thirteen, how the late matriarch called him the light of the Smith family. The comments were full of applause: [The real son moved to a hotel immediately. Guess the family knows who really matters.] [Tristan is the real gentleman here.] [Who cares about bloodlines? Contribution is what counts.] Evelyn frowned over the PR report. “Tristan, these articles are laying it on too thick.” Tristan hung his head, looking pitiful. “Mom, I had no idea my team wrote it like that. If Brent is unhappy, I’ll have them take it down immediately.” Audrey immediately jumped to his defense. “Taking it down will only make us look guilty! Tristan has done charity work for years. It’s normal for the press to praise him.” Richard nodded along. “Exactly. Brent isn’t that narrow-minded.” Everyone turned to look at me. I casually flicked through the foundation’s back-end authorization system. “The traction is great. The anniversary needs publicity.” Evelyn blinked. “You don’t mind?” “Would it matter if I did?” She went quiet. I slid the tablet across the table to Tristan. “Since the press will ask about charity projects, you should personally sign off on these three major patient support partnerships tonight.” Tristan’s fingers stiffened. “Doesn’t the foundation’s secretariat usually process these?” “You’re the Executive Chairman,” I reminded him coolly. “You always tell the media you’re hands-on. You can’t have other people signing your name forever.” Audrey frowned. “Brent, there’s no need to hassle him over paperwork.” “When you take over your family firm, Audrey, do you let your secretary sign legal contracts for you?” Her face turned red with frustration. Tristan had no choice but to pick up the tablet. Facial recognition. Digital signature. Project confirmation. One after another. By the time he finished, his face was pale as chalk. I felt fantastic. On the night of the Aegis Gala, the grand ballroom lights were blinding. Partner hospitals, regulatory consultants, board members, press outlets, and financial influencers, everyone was present. Tristan stood under the spotlight in a bespoke tuxedo, looking like a delicate flower cultivated in a glass house. Audrey stood by his side. Noticing me, she leaned in and whispered coldly, “Brent, don’t make a scene tonight. Tristan prepared for months.” I smiled softly. “Relax. Nobody wants to see his full performance more than I do.” She scowled. The event began, and Tristan stepped up to deliver the opening address for the foundation. His tone was soft, his cadence practiced. “I may not bear the Smith blood, but this family gave me my name, and taught me to honor every human life.” Thunderous applause erupted. The main screen displayed photos of him visiting sick children, sterile hospital rooms, smiles, flowers, warm hugs. Picture-perfect PR. Then, the host transitioned into The Beacon Initiative. Tristan’s eyes glistened with tears. “My grandmother handed this legacy to me with her blessing. I have never let her down.” Just as his voice trailed off, the giant screen abruptly went black. An archived video cut in. In the footage, the late Mrs. Smith lay in a hospital bed, her voice frail but unmistakable: “Beacon… must never, under any circumstances… be given to Tristan…” The entire hall erupted into chaos. Evelyn bolted upright from her seat.

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