Before the summer break, I decided to surprise Neil at his university. Instead, I walked in to find his undergrad lab assistant pestering him, demanding to know who was prettier between her and me. Neil let out a careless, lazy laugh. “Olivia, obviously. She’s way prettier than you.” The freshman girl instantly pouted, her lower lip trembling. I pushed the door open, only to see Neil resting his hand gently on the top of her head. “Are you going to cry over that? Olivia isn’t just pretty, she’s fiercely independent.” He chuckled. “Unlike you. Without me, you’re just a helpless little disaster.” 1 The girl’s whiny, flirtatious voice echoed through the empty lab. “You only ever bully me! I am not a disaster!” Neil laughed softly. But as he lifted his head, he caught sight of me standing frozen in the back doorway. “Liv?” When he said my name, his hand was still resting in her hair. He quickly closed the distance between us. “What are you doing here? Are your finals already over?” “I guess I shouldn’t have come,” I said flatly. He smiled, completely missing the ice in my tone. “What are you talking about?” He turned back and waved at the girl in the room. “I’m heading out. You handle the rest of the data. My girl is here.” The room was silent. Neil wrapped an arm around my waist and guided me into the hallway. “Who was that?” I asked. “Oh, that’s Lily. Just a freshman in our program.” My footsteps hitched. I knew that name. For the past year, that name had been slipping into our conversations with alarming frequency. Even though I had never met her, she was always there as a shadow in my relationship. “Do you like her?” He looked at me like I had grown a second head and let out a laugh. “What? How is that even possible? She’s literally a kid.” He stared at me, highly amused. “Are you actually jealous? God, Liv, you’re always overthinking things.” “Neil…” “Let me text the guys. We’re taking you out to dinner tonight to celebrate you being here,” he interrupted, staring down at his phone. He typed furiously, then looked back up at me. “Let me look at you. Did you lose weight again? Have you been secretly dieting? I told you your weight was perfect. Are you trying to turn into a stick figure so I can use you as a cane?” I took a deep, shaky breath. “Right now, I’d really love to take a cane and beat you half to death with it.” He burst out laughing and pulled me in, leaning down for a kiss. Right at that moment, a sickeningly sweet voice echoed from behind us. “Senior.” 2 Neil and I turned our heads simultaneously. Lily was standing there, holding a lightweight jacket in her hands. “You left your windbreaker at my workstation again,” she pouted, her eyes wide and innocent. “You’re always forgetting your stuff.” “Oh. Thanks,” Neil said, taking the jacket. “And who is this?” She turned her gaze to me, blinking dramatically as her eyes raked up and down my outfit. “You don’t know how to greet my girlfriend?” Neil teased, lightly tapping her on the head with the rolled-up notebook in his hand. “Ouch! Why are you always hitting me?! You’re so violent!” she whined, rubbing her head playfully. “I honestly thought she was an upperclassman from our campus. The science building doesn’t allow students from other universities inside. Did you secretly make her a spare key, Senior? I’m totally telling the professor on you!” Neil seemed to finally realize the logistics. He looked at me, confused. “Wait, how did you actually get into the building?” “I tailgated a guy through the side door,” I replied evenly. I locked eyes with him. “I texted you half an hour ago asking where you were. You didn’t reply. You didn’t answer my calls either.” “Huh?” Neil looked genuinely baffled. “I am so sorry!” Lily chimed in, flashing an apologetic, guilt-ridden smile. “Senior and I were at a super critical point in our data calculation, so he probably just missed it. Please don’t be mad at him over this. The professor has been putting so much pressure on us lately…” “That’s weird.” Neil pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapping the screen. “Wait. Why is my phone on Do Not Disturb?” He muttered to himself as he changed the settings. “Must have hit it by accident in my pocket.” “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just go.” I turned around. But the moment I turned my back, I heard Lily’s hushed, murmuring voice behind me. “She’s honestly so average. It’s literally all just makeup…” 3 My boots planted firmly on the tile. I stopped and turned back around. Neil looked confused. “What’s wrong?” I stared directly into Lily’s eyes. “I am not deaf. First of all, whether I look good or not, you don’t have the right or the pedigree to talk trash behind my back. Second, any girl with an ounce of self-respect knows better than to compare her looks to another guy’s girlfriend right to her face.” Lily froze. Instantly, her eyes welled up with tears, and she looked at Neil with absolute, trembling devastation. Neil let out a heavy sigh. “Liv, what is this about? I didn’t see your messages. If you want to pick a fight with me, then fight with me. Don’t bully the poor girl.” I slowly turned to look at him. “Oh. Look how fast you jump to her defense. It really makes me look like the unreasonable villain here, doesn’t it? I’m not a saint, Neil. I don’t have the bandwidth to smile and nod while my boyfriend ignores his phone to entertain another girl, leaving me standing outside in a hundred-degree heatwave for half an hour. I don’t care about the precious security of your lab, and I won’t ever step foot in here again. And we both know Do Not Disturb doesn’t just turn on by ‘accident’.” Neil’s face stiffened. “What is that supposed to mean? I have no idea how the setting got flipped. Do you actually think I muted you on purpose?” “Are you misunderstanding something?” Lily cried softly, looking the picture of pathetic innocence. “Drop the act,” I told her, my voice eerily calm. “Whether I’m misunderstanding or not, you know exactly what you did.” The hallway fell dead silent. “Seriously, why are you escalating this?” Neil reached out, grabbing my waist to pull me against him, playing the weary peacemaker. “Lily couldn’t figure out the equation earlier, so she borrowed my phone to listen to some music while she worked. But there’s no way she put you on Do Not Disturb. You can’t just be paranoid and blame her for everything. It was probably just a glitch…” “Neil, let’s break up.” I heard my own voice say the words. It sounded incredibly steady. Neil froze. His arm went slack around my waist. “Are you kidding me? You flew all the way across the country to see me, and just because I missed a text message, you’re dumping me?” He let out a scoff of absolute disbelief, like he was dealing with a toddler. “You touched her hair.” “That’s it?” His eyes went wide. “Yes.” I looked at him, feeling absolutely nothing. “It makes me feel dirty. Is that not enough?” 4 I didn’t go to the welcome dinner that night. After I told Neil we were done, I turned on my heel and walked away. He didn’t chase after me. Because Lily had started sobbing, her shoulders shaking in that fragile, pitiful way that demanded immediate rescue. Neil was actually incredibly good at coaxing people. He knew exactly how to make someone feel safe. When he wanted to. My high school best friend, Harper, attended the same university as Neil. I dropped my luggage off at her dorm. When she heard I hadn’t eaten a thing all day, she dragged me out to a trendy new restaurant near campus. Harper went to the restroom while I sat on the bench by the entrance, staring blankly at the menu. Of course, the universe had a sick sense of humor. Neil had booked a table at the exact same place. A group of guys from his program came strolling past me. “Hey man, I thought your girl was flying in? Where is she?” “She’s throwing a tantrum. She’s not coming,” Neil’s voice drifted over, laced with exhaustion. “Damn, what happened?” “She’s pissed because I didn’t reply to a text fast enough.” “Just over that?” The guy laughed loudly. “Women are exhausting, bro. Good thing you’re long-distance. If you had to deal with that every single day, you’d lose your mind.” “They’re all like that. They just want you to grovel,” another guy chimed in. “Just get on your knees and coax her a bit, she’ll fold.” “Coax her? Why don’t you go coax her?” Neil smacked the guy playfully with a closed umbrella he was holding. “Let her cool off on her own. Over the last three years, her temper has gotten way out of hand.” I looked up. The umbrella in his hand was small, pink, and adorned with little cartoon strawberries. It was absolutely not something Neil would ever buy for himself. Trailing right behind him, her hands completely empty, was Lily. She was skipping lightly. “Honestly, I don’t think you did anything wrong. If you’re not wrong, why should you apologize first? It’s not like the person who gets angry automatically wins the argument.” I stood up. Harper had just walked back over. “Is our table ready?” I shook my head. “Almost. But Neil is inside.” “Oh.” Harper hesitated. “Do you want to go somewhere else?” “No need.” The restaurant was open to the public. There was no universe where his presence meant I had to run away and hide. Five minutes later, the hostess called our names. Harper and I were walking down the main aisle of the restaurant. Just as we passed the self-serve draft beer station, a frantic voice screeched through the noise. “Oh my god, I can’t hold them! Move out of the way!” Before my brain could even process the words, Lily, carrying two massive glasses of draft beer, charged straight into me. The heavy mugs collided with my chest. Golden beer and foam cascaded down my neck, soaking my dress entirely. 5 The commotion was loud enough to pull the guys out of their private dining booth. By the time Neil stepped out, Lily’s tears were already falling in perfect, fat drops. “I swear I didn’t do it on purpose! The floor by the kegs was so slippery, I couldn’t stop myself! I already said I was sorry!” “You didn’t do it on purpose?” Harper exploded, her face red with fury. “There is ten feet of open space in this aisle! You carried those heavy glasses and made a beeline straight for Olivia! She couldn’t have dodged you if she tried! Do you think we’re blind?!” “What’s going on?” Neil pushed through the crowd. He saw me, dripping wet, and froze. “What are you doing here?” My clothes were sticking to my skin. The smell of cheap yeast was overwhelming, and I was entirely out of patience. “Why? Did you buy out the restaurant, Mr. VIP? Am I banned from eating in the same zip code as you?” His brow furrowed. “Why are you firing off like a machine gun? I never said you couldn’t be here.” He stepped closer. “Why are you completely soaked?” Harper let out a venomous laugh. “Why don’t you ask your precious little lab assistant?” “Senior, I swear it was an accident! My foot slipped!” Lily cried, burying her face in her hands. “I had no idea she was even walking down this aisle. She just appeared out of nowhere…” Neil exhaled a long, suffering sigh. “I told you that you couldn’t carry both glasses. Why do you always try to prove how strong you are? You should have just let me carry the drinks.” “Are you actually shameless?” Harper screamed at Lily. “Appeared out of nowhere? We were walking in a straight line! You deliberately rammed into her!” “Harper, watch your mouth,” Neil snapped, his voice dropping into a cold warning. “What the hell does that mean?” My own temper finally snapped. “Harper is defending me. Lily knows exactly whether she did it on purpose or not. You didn’t even ask what happened, and you immediately take her side? Have you completely lost your grip on reality?” “How am I taking her side? I’m trying to be reasonable!” he pleaded, throwing his hands up. “Liv, if you want to take your anger out on me, fine. But she didn’t mean it. Could you please just stop finding every little excuse to make her life miserable?” I stared quietly at the man standing in front of me. We had met in high school. We had known each other for six years. We had survived three years of grueling long-distance in college. In just one more year, I was supposed to get an early admission fellowship to his university for grad school. We had talked about marriage. We had mapped out our future. We had even joked about what our kids would look like. And now, he was standing in a crowded restaurant, looking at me—his girlfriend, dripping wet with beer, humiliated in public—and begging me to stop making things difficult for another girl. “I’m not making her life miserable,” I said, my voice dead and hollow. “This dress is ruined. It wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t designer either. It was four hundred dollars. Compensate me for the dress, and we’re done here.” Lily gasped, her eyes going wide with manufactured terror. “Four hundred dollars? That’s… that’s two months of my grocery money.” Her eyes instantly darted to Neil, rimmed with red. “Senior, my dad is going to kill me…” “Hey, it’s fine, it’s fine,” one of Neil’s friends jumped in, puffing out his chest. “Don’t panic. We can pool some cash together to cover it. It’s just four hundred bucks.” “Yeah, if we all pitch in forty bucks, it’s covered. Don’t cry, okay?” Neil’s frown deepened into a scowl. “Liv, Lily’s family isn’t exactly wealthy. Four hundred dollars is a massive amount of money to her. It’s just a dress. Let it go. I’ll buy you a new one later, okay?” I let out a cold, bitter laugh. “If she knows four hundred dollars is a lot of money, she should have watched where she was going. It’s my property. I have every legal and moral right to ask for compensation.” “It’s not even your dress,” Neil said suddenly. I froze. “Liv, if I remember correctly, I bought that dress for you.” His voice was quiet, but every single syllable felt like a serrated knife dragging across my chest. “Gifts exchanged during a relationship can be legally and morally revoked.” He paused, staring down at me, as if offering me one final chance to repent for my sins. “If you really want to be ruthless about this… take the dress off and give it back to me.” 6 I stared at him in absolute silence. A second later, I turned around, grabbed Harper’s wrist before she could physically attack him, and walked out the door. “Liv, how could you just walk away!” Harper was hyperventilating with rage the entire walk back to her dorm. “Did a horse kick him in the head?! Forget the fact that he didn’t care you were drenched, how could he say something that disgusting to you?!” My footsteps suddenly stopped. “Liv?” Harper looked at me, her anger melting into panic. “If you need to cry, just cry…” I shook my head. “I’m fine.” I went to her dorm, took a blistering hot shower, and changed into spare clothes. I took the beer-soaked dress, stuffed it into a plastic bag, and dropped it off at the front desk of Neil’s dorm building. Then, I went straight to the bus station. Flights were too expensive last minute, and the express trains were sold out. I bought a cheap ticket for an overnight Greyhound bus back to my city. The bus was chaotic and loud. A baby screamed two rows up, someone was arguing on their phone, and the whole cabin smelled faintly of stale coffee and cheap fast food. Neil’s texts started rolling in right around midnight. What kind of tantrum is this? Did you really think I wanted the dress back? I just felt like you were being way too aggressive. There were so many guys from my program there. I can’t just blindly side with my girlfriend when she’s being unreasonable. It makes me look bad. I bought the exact same dress online. It’s being delivered to Harper’s dorm tomorrow. Just go down and get it. He sent a few more texts, but the screen was starting to blur. Water droplets were hitting the glass of my phone. My eyes were swimming in tears. I couldn’t read them. I didn’t want to read them. I tapped his contact name, hit settings, and dragged him to the blocked list. When I woke up, it was 2:00 AM. My eyes burned, and my head was pounding. The streetlights flashed through the dirty bus window, casting rhythmic shadows across the quiet cabin. Looking at the empty seat next to me, I suddenly remembered the last time I took a cheap overnight trip like this. I was with Neil. It was sophomore year of high school. We had traveled out of state for an academic decathlon. Getting return tickets was a nightmare. The chaperone teacher managed to get two early tickets and told Neil and me to head back first. I had drifted off to sleep that night on the bus. When I woke up, I realized my head had been resting squarely on his shoulder for hours. I was mortified. I scrambled back and stammered out an apology. He just looked at me, a soft, teasing smile on his lips. “Having good dreams?” I shook my head furiously. “Well, I was,” he laughed quietly. “It was a really good dream. If you keep leaning on me, I might be able to finish it.” After that trip, we grew incredibly close. He was handsome, outgoing, and the star of the basketball team. Every time he played, a crowd of girls would rush the court to hand him Gatorade. I would go watch him sometimes, but I always stood in the back row, hidden in the bleachers. Until one day, as I was turning to leave, I heard a voice boom across the gym. “Olivia!” I froze and looked back. Neil was jumping up above the crowd of cheerleaders, waving his arms with a massive grin. “Look at me!” He caught the inbound pass, drove the lane, and sank a flawless three-pointer. The crowd erupted. After the game, he asked me why I never stayed until the end. “There are too many people. I can never see over the crowd.” “That’s an easy fix,” he said. “I’ll have the guys reserve a front-row seat for you.” The next game, I was escorted to the very first row by one of his teammates. “Neil specifically saved this for you,” the guy winked. At halftime, a swarm of girls rushed the bench with sports drinks. Neil waved them all off, grabbed a towel, and walked straight toward me. “Where’s my water?” “Huh?” I blinked. He sighed dramatically, resting his large, sweaty hand on top of my head. “Miss Olivia, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. You’ve been admiring my athletic prowess for an hour and you didn’t even buy me a water? I am heartbroken.” Before long, handing him water turned into us studying together. On the day we submitted our college applications, he cornered me by the back door of the classroom. “What are you thinking?” he asked. “About what?” He let out a frustrated laugh. “Do you think I have a neck problem from always turning around to look at you? Olivia, even the ants on the sidewalk know how I feel about you.” My face burned hot. “But we’re going to colleges in different cities…” “Wow. Are you really going to hit me with that heartless rejection?” He pulled me into a sudden, tight hug, burying his face in my hair. “Distance is just geography. I only need you to answer one question. Do you like me or not?” The setting sun poured through the classroom windows, casting a golden glow over our faces. I nodded, my cheeks flushed. When his lips pressed gently against mine that afternoon, I genuinely believed I was the luckiest girl in the world. 7 I arrived home at 6:00 AM. My parents picked me up from the bus terminal, wincing at my appearance. “Those overnight buses are pure torture. Look how red your eyes are,” my dad sighed. I forced a smile. “I just need to catch up on some sleep.” “Why didn’t Neil come back with you this time?” my mom asked. “His finals aren’t over yet.” “You two work so hard,” she said affectionately. “Just hold out until next year. Once you get your grad school fellowship to his university, it’ll all be fine. He’s guaranteed a spot in their master’s program, right?” I stayed silent for a long moment. “Mom, I think I’m going to apply for the fellowship at my current university.” My mom looked surprised. “Really? But Neil’s university has a better overall ranking.” “Mine is top three in the country for my specific major. The faculty is incredible, and the job placement rate is higher.” “Oh? Is he going to transfer to your city then? Otherwise, won’t you guys still be long-distance?” I stared out the car window, unsure if I was ready to say the words ‘we broke up’ out loud. I spent the next week resting at home. Neil remained firmly on my blocked list. He didn’t find another way to reach out, and I didn’t reach out to him. My mom grew increasingly worried. “Why are your eyes swollen every single morning? Do you have an infection?” I shook my head. “I’m fine. Just a little stressed. It’ll pass.” That weekend, my high school class organized a reunion. Harper called me. “The class president said Neil couldn’t make it,” she reported. Then she sent me a screenshot of Lily’s Instagram story. “Are you guys officially done? My roommate sent me this and asked if the golden boy had a new girlfriend.” The picture showed Neil and Lily throwing peace signs in the campus laboratory. The caption read: Who else is stuck doing lab work as a freshman?! T_T Science is torture! So grateful to my knight in shining armor, Neil, for helping me finish my summer project early. As a good lab assistant, I bought my senior his train ticket home! Hehe. I texted Harper back: It’s good he’s not coming. I really wanted to go see our old teachers without the drama. The reunion was held at a nice banquet hall near our old high school. All the teachers knew Neil and I were high school sweethearts. Every time I ran into one, they naturally asked about our future plans. The words “we broke up” were right on the tip of my tongue, when a painfully familiar voice drifted over my shoulder. “She’s prepping for the grad school entrance interviews next semester. She’s coming to my university.” I turned around. Neil, who supposedly wasn’t coming, was standing right there.

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1 After I was framed and thrown into prison, Keean came to see me every single day. He would hold my hand through the glass, whispering promises that he believed in my innocence. But five years later, on the day of my release, he looked me in the eye and confessed the truth. “Actually, I was the lawyer who built the case against you.” “I was the one who framed your brother for harassing Johanna, ruining his reputation until he jumped from that rooftop.” “And I was the lead surgeon who took your mother’s kidney to give to Johanna.” He stared at the thick, jagged scars crisscrossing my wrists, his voice entirely devoid of remorse. “Johanna accidentally killed someone in a hit-and-run. She is too fragile to survive prison. I am her only brother, her protector, so I needed you to take the fall.” “As for your brother, he brought it on himself. He dared to try and take Johanna away from me.” “Your mother’s surgery? Johanna complained of back pain around that time and didn’t want to wait on the transplant list.” I stood frozen, the blood in my veins turning to ice. “Why?” Keean spared me a cold, indifferent glance. “You always targeted Johanna. I only wanted to teach you a lesson, to make you grow up. If you can’t accept it, we can get a divorce.” The metallic taste of blood welled up in my throat, and in my mind, a long-silent, robotic voice chimed. Host, do you wish to abandon the mission and withdraw from this world? The sudden reappearance of the system, dormant for so many years, left me dazed. I looked at Keean’s calm, handsome face, and a sharp, blinding pain pierced my chest. Five years ago, he called me, claiming he had been in a horrific car accident on his way to celebrate my birthday. Terrified out of my mind, I sped through a shortcut to find him. The moment I stepped out of my car, police surrounded me. They claimed I had run someone over and killed them. I was sentenced to five years. During those five years, I was locked in solitary confinement every single night and beaten. My body was covered in bruises that never had a chance to heal. Yet, every time the pain became unbearable, the thought of Keean kept me going. And now? The mastermind who destroyed my life, drove my brother to suicide, and left my mother hospitalized was Keean, all to shield Johanna. Tears spilled over as a violent, trembling hatred consumed me. “I want to leave.” Request received. The departure countdown is now seventy-two hours. Seeing the tears on my face, Keean instinctively reached out to wipe them away, his voice suddenly softening to that familiar, gentle tone. “You don’t have to divorce me if you don’t want to. But Johanna has suffered enough. You are not allowed to lay a finger on her again. She still has nightmares about the slap you gave her.” I once carried Keean’s child. Four months into the pregnancy, I drank a bowl of porridge Johanna brought me and suffered a miscarriage. In a fit of grief and rage, I slapped her. At the time, Keean held me tight, whispering soothing words of comfort. But the very next day, reporters smeared my brother’s name with false accusations of sexually harassing Johanna, driving him to leap to his death. Grief-stricken by the loss of both my child and my brother, I had been too broken to see the truth. I never suspected that Keean had engineered all of it just to avenge Johanna. My chest felt like it was being ripped open, every breath a stab of agony. “If you were going to lie to me, why didn’t you just keep lying for the rest of my life?” He stared at me for a long time, letting out a soft sigh. “You are my wife, Cassie. I only wanted you to learn your lesson so we could protect her together. Besides, Johanna’s other kidney is failing now. She needs another transplant. If you agree to save her, I will let the past go and make it up to you.” A profound, freezing numbness washed over me. Unable to contain myself, I swung my hand and slapped him hard across the face. “Never!” “You destroyed my brother, threw me into a living hell, and left my mother rotting in a hospital bed! How dare you ask for my kidney?” His head turned from the blow. Seeing the raw hatred burning in my eyes, his expression darkened instantly. “Cassie! I thought five years in prison would teach you some humility. It seems you haven’t changed at all! Men, take her to the hospital for a match test!” His bodyguards swarmed me, trying to drag me into the car. I fought with everything I had, breaking free and running blindly toward the street. A heavy truck roared around the corner. Tires screeched violently, and the next instant, I was thrown through the air, crashing hard onto the asphalt. Blood pooled around me, blurring my vision. Through the haze, I heard Keean’s terrified, desperate scream. “Cassie!” When I woke up, I was lying in a hospital bed. Every bone in my body ached, and even breathing felt like swallowing glass. A nurse stepped forward to examine my injuries, but Keean cut her off, his voice tight with anxious urgency. “Do the kidney match test first! Johanna is waiting!” Despite knowing his cruelty, a wave of absolute despair washed over me. The old Keean would never have treated me this way. Years ago, when he was a homeless teenager begging on the streets, I had defied my parents and brother to bring him into our home. I gave him the warmth and care he had never known. Before my father passed away, Keean had knelt by his bed and sworn an oath: “I will protect Cassie for the rest of my life. I will never let her suffer.” After we married, he worked himself to the bone to prove he was worthy of me, eventually becoming a titan of the business world. Everyone in Emerald Bay knew he treasured me above all else. I thought I would be happy forever. That was why I chose to stay in this world. Until he brought Johanna home. He had held me and pleaded, “Cassie, Johanna is the daughter of my father’s late comrade. I can’t leave her on the streets. I promise she’ll just have a roof over her head. She will never take your place.” Looking at the frail, pitiful girl, my heart softened. But she became my living nightmare. She would spill hot soup on herself whenever Keean walked down the stairs, kneeling before me in tears: “I’m sorry, Cassie. It was an accident.” She would push me aside after I had stayed up all night nursing a feverish Keean, wrapping her arms around him the moment he opened his eyes, sobbing, “Keean, you’re finally awake! I didn’t sleep a wink watching over you!” She would steal the business proposals I spent all night drafting and present them to Keean as her own: “I stayed up three nights straight to write this for you, Keean.” Despite her constant framing, Keean never blamed me. He would always hold my hand and whisper, “I believe you, Cassie.” Back then, I was so blinded by his sweet words that I failed to notice the growing coldness in his eyes when he looked at me, or the deepening tenderness when he looked at Johanna. Until the day I lost my baby, slapped Johanna, and triggered five years of pure torment in prison, my brother’s wrongful death, and my mother’s illness. My vision blurred again, and I drifted back into darkness. When I woke up next, the countdown had reached forty-eight hours. Keean was sitting by my bedside, looking like he hadn’t slept all night. Seeing my eyes open, a flash of relief crossed his face, quickly replaced by his usual cold indifference. “You’re awake,” he said, tossing a medical consent form onto my lap. “The match is a success. Your kidney is a perfect fit for Johanna, just like your mother’s was. Sign this, save Johanna, and I will pretend none of this ever happened. I’ll get the best doctors for your mother’s recovery, and we can go back to how we were.” I shook with rage, finding his words utterly laughable. I grabbed the consent form and tore it into shreds. “You destroyed my entire family. How do you have the audacity to ask for my kidney? There is no future for us, Keean. I want a divorce.” The sharp crash of breaking glass shattered the silence. Johanna stood at the door, her eyes red, a spilled bowl of chicken soup puddling at her feet. “I heard about your accident, Cassie. I spent hours making this soup for you,” she sobbed, rushing forward to grab my arm. “I don’t want your kidney anymore. It’s all my fault. I’ll leave. Please, don’t fight with Keean because of me.” Her voice was sweet and pleading, but her eyes gleamed with malice. As her hand gripped my injured arm, her sharp nails dug viciously into my raw wounds. White-hot pain flared through my body. Instinctively, I shoved her away. “Ah!” she shrieked, tumbling backward onto the broken glass. Keean’s breath hitched. In an instant, he swept her into his arms. Seeing the blood on her palms, his face contorted with fury. A harsh, stinging slap delivered with brutal force caught me across the face. My cheek went numb, and the metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth. “You knew how weak Johanna is, yet you still pushed her!” Keean snarled. “You’re even more vicious than you were five years ago! You want a divorce? Fine. But first, you will apologize to Johanna, and you will give her your kidney!” The wounds on my arm throbbed. I glared at Keean, pointing a trembling finger at the security camera in the corner. “She pinched my wounds first! If you don’t believe me, check the cameras!” Keean froze, a flicker of hesitation crossing his eyes. But before he could speak, Johanna gasped and went limp in his arms. “Johanna!” Turning pale with panic, Keean didn’t spare me another look. He scooped her up and rushed out to find a doctor. I let out a bitter, hollow laugh. Dragging my battered body out of bed, I tried to leave the hospital, only to be cornered by Johanna in the stairwell. The frail, fainting act was gone. She sneered at me, her face twisted in mockery. “All these years as a task-host and you still failed. What a useless waste. You should just give up.” I froze, staring at her in sheer shock. “You… you’re a host too?” She laughed, her voice dripping with disdain. “I’m nothing like you. You spent years failing to secure him, while it only took me five years to take everything. If you know what’s good for you, step down. I am the one Keean loves. I will be the only Mrs. Lockwood.” “Oh, by the way, your brother didn’t commit suicide. I pushed him.” The blood in my veins turned to ice. She smiled, a wicked, sadistic curve of her lips. “I lured him to the rooftop, promising I would help clear his name. The idiot actually believed me. I can still see the look of absolute shock on his face as he went over the edge.” My hand flew across her face, my entire body shaking with violent rage. She held her bruised cheek, her eyes narrowing into slits of pure venom. “Johanna…” Keean’s voice echoed from down the hallway. Johanna flashed me a terrifying, twisted grin. “Actually, I don’t even have kidney disease. Your mother’s kidney? I had it carved up and fed to the dogs. Now tell me, who do you think Keean will believe? You, or me?” Before I could react, she grabbed my hands, forced them against her shoulders, and threw herself backward down the stairs. By the time Keean reached the stairwell, Johanna was sprawled in a pool of blood at the bottom, looking up at me with tearful, fluttering eyes. “Keean… please don’t hate Cassie. She didn’t mean to push me…” My face went white. I shook my head frantically. “No, I didn’t do it…” Before I could finish, a furious Keean charged up and kicked me squarely in the chest, sending me tumbling down the stairs. A sickening crack echoed as my leg snapped. I screamed in agony, but Keean didn’t even look at me. He scooped Johanna up and ran, throwing a final, freezing threat over his shoulder. “If anything happens to Johanna, I will make you pay with your life!” I lay in the stairwell, drowning in agony, until a passing nurse finally found me. But before they could wheel me into the operating room, Keean’s bodyguards intercepted the gurney and pushed me straight into Johanna’s room. Keean stood over me, his eyes burning with absolute disgust. “Johanna is suffering from acute renal failure because of your push. Are you satisfied now? You caused this, and you will give her your kidney to pay for it!” I stared at him, my eyes bloodshot. “Never!” His face remained entirely cold, treating me like a mortal enemy. “You can refuse. But don’t forget, your mother is still in my hands.” A bodyguard held up a tablet. On the screen, my mother lay helpless in a hospital bed, her oxygen mask ripped away. Her face was blue as she thrashed in agonizing suffocation. My sanity shattered in an instant. I screamed, completely broken. “No! Stop! I’ll do it! I’ll give her the kidney! Just put the oxygen back on her, please!” Keean threw a consent form onto my chest. “Sign it. The moment the surgery is finished is the moment she gets her oxygen back.” With my mother’s painful gasps echoing from the tablet, my hand shook violently as I signed my name. As the anesthetic took hold, I drifted into darkness, consumed by absolute despair. When I woke up, a fresh, raw scar throbbed violently on my abdomen. Ignoring the excruciating pain, I dragged myself out of bed to find my mother. In the hallway, I saw two nurses wheeling a gurney covered in a white sheet. “That poor old lady. Someone pulled her oxygen plug. By the time anyone noticed, she was already gone.” A pale arm slipped out from beneath the sheet, wearing a bright green jade bracelet. The very bracelet I had bought my mother for her birthday five years ago. My blood froze. I stumbled forward, screaming. “Mom! Mom!” Before I could reach her, Keean blocked my path, shielding Johanna behind him. “Johanna just got out of surgery. Stop making a scene. Go back to your room, or I’ll have your mother suffer more.” Tears poured down my face as I thrashed wildly. “Let go of me! That’s my mother! She’s dead! She’s dead!” Keean grabbed my wrists, his brow furrowing. “What do you mean she’s dead? What nonsense are you talking about?” Suddenly, a middle-aged man charged into the hallway, wielding a long kitchen knife. “You bitch! You killed my son! I’m going to make you pay!” Keean’s pupils dilated. Instinctively, he stepped back, pulling Johanna behind him, shielding her completely. Leaving me entirely exposed. A cold blade plunged deep into my chest. White-hot pain flared, and I collapsed into a pool of my own blood. Keean turned, his face suddenly twisting in sheer horror. “Cassie!” Watching my mother’s gurney disappear down the hall, I slowly closed my eyes. “Dad, Mom, Gavin… I’m coming to join you.” Mission failed. Initiating world departure…

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The client dinner cost eight hundred dollars, but the company only approved a two-hundred-dollar reimbursement. “What about the other six hundred?” I asked. Brenda from accounting tossed my expense report back across her desk like a piece of garbage. She did not even bother to look up from her phone. “What do you mean? You cover it yourself.” My brain buzzed as if a live wire had snapped inside my skull. I stood frozen on the cheap carpet. “This was a mandatory business dinner. Why on earth am I paying for it out of my own pocket?” Brenda shot me a dirty look, clearly annoyed that I was interrupting her scrolling. “You went over the budget limit. That’s why.” I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms, forcing myself to swallow the anger rising in my throat. 1 “The company allowance is fifty bucks a head. You spent eight hundred dollars on four people?” Brenda rolled her eyes. “I’m already doing you a massive favor by not reporting you to management for a penalty.” “If word gets out that you’re dropping this kind of cash, all our other clients are going to expect the same treatment. Do you have any idea what kind of headache you’re causing the company?” Fifty bucks a head? We were trying to close a deal in downtown Manhattan. You could barely get a decent appetizer and a cocktail for fifty bucks, let alone host a corporate dinner. I could feel the blood pounding behind my eyes, but I kept my voice steady. “Brenda, this was for Ryder Corp. I spent six grueling months just getting Apex Marketing a foot in the door with them. We were at the finish line. After last night’s dinner, they practically shook on giving us the contract.” “We can’t trip at the finish line over a single dinner bill, right?” Brenda clicked her tongue, thoroughly out of patience. “Connecting with clients and closing contracts is your job. My job is enforcing corporate policy. Apex does not allow employees to use company time to fund their luxury dining habits. Save the sob story, I am not buying it.” With that, she picked up her phone and went right back to watching TikTok videos. I stood there in front of her desk like a statue for a long time. The rage burning in my chest had absolutely nowhere to go. “Why are you still standing there? Your long face is ruining my mood,” Brenda snapped, waving a manicured hand toward the door. “If you have time to stand around slacking off, go back to your desk and do actual work.” She was kicking me out. I didn’t explode. Instead, I turned on my heel and marched straight up to the boss’s office. I had been with Apex for three years, right from its messy startup phase to its current stability. Rick and I had history. We had fought in the trenches together. I knocked and walked into his office. Just last night, when I texted him the good news about the dinner, he had spammed me with thumbs-up emojis. Audrey, you are the absolute backbone of this company! Once the ink is dry on this deal, I’m getting you that promotion! But now, sitting behind his mahogany desk with his legs crossed, he listened to my reimbursement issue and put on a painfully exaggerated face of sympathy. “Audrey, listen. You really can’t blame accounting for this. Policies are policies. Even as the owner, I have to play by the rules, right? Otherwise, how can I keep the team in line?” “You’re putting me in a really tough spot here…” I blinked, totally blindsided. I never expected him to throw me to the wolves like this. Overnight, he had completely changed his tune. “Rick, you literally texted me yesterday to spare no expense to land Ryder Corp. The text messages are right here.” I pulled out my phone, loaded the chat, and held it out across his desk. His eyebrows pulled together in a tight frown. He waved my phone away. “Spare no expense means within the limits of our defined costs. Fifty dollars a head is the cost. You clearly went rogue.” “Besides, once we secure this million-dollar contract, your end-of-year bonus is going to be massive. Why are you nickel and diming me over six hundred bucks? Can’t you just view it as a contribution to the company?” His voice was terrifyingly casual. The words slipped into my ears like ice-cold needles, making my chest tighten. Contribution? I worked unpaid overtime, pulled back-to-back all-nighters, and smiled until my cheeks ached just to bring in new leads. Was that not enough of a contribution? The executives at Ryder Corp were sleazy, middle-aged creeps who couldn’t keep their eyes off women in their twenties. For six months, I had been on constant high alert, expertly dodging their wandering hands without offending them, forcing myself to smile through the disgust just to land this deal. And it still wasn’t enough? A layer of frost settled over my heart, but I was still naive enough to try explaining, hoping he would see my side. “Rick, my take-home pay is barely four grand a month. Six hundred dollars is a huge chunk of my rent money. And rent is due next week.” 2 Rick’s tone suddenly shifted. “Audrey, you’ve been with us since day one, right? Three years now?” I nodded, the tension in my shoulders easing just a fraction. I thought he was finally remembering our shared history. “I’ll authorize a special exception for you this time…” I had spent half the morning fighting over this reimbursement and I was mentally exhausted. Before he even finished his sentence, I let out a massive breath of relief and thanked him profusely. “Thank you, Rick. Really, thank you.” I felt the weight lift off my chest, but when I looked up, his face was colder than before. “Who said I was authorizing it? I said, if I authorize a special exception for you this time, what happens next time? If everyone starts running to my office begging for special treatment, how am I supposed to run a business?” My breath caught in my throat. The oxygen in the room suddenly felt incredibly thin. “But if I don’t get this money back, I won’t be able to buy groceries next month…” My throat tightened. The realization that I was actually about to lose six hundred dollars of my own hard-earned cash made the corners of my eyes sting with frustrated tears. Rick tapped his pen aggressively against his desk, clearly losing his patience. “That sounds like a personal problem.” He stared at me, his eyes dark and hostile. The fire in my chest surged straight to my throat. I couldn’t control my emotions anymore. My hands started to shake. “Rick, are you seriously going to screw me over for six hundred dollars? This deal brings in over a million dollars in profit for the agency, and you want me to pay out of pocket to work here? Do you think that is remotely fair?” Rick slammed his hand flat onto the desk. The polite facade completely vanished. “Excuse me? You’re the one who broke protocol. You don’t know how to control a budget, and now you have the nerve to blame your boss?” I was the one getting robbed, but he was breathing heavily, acting like the victim. “How was I supposed to control the budget? The Ryder director ordered a two-hundred-dollar bottle of wine the second he sat down! By your logic, I should have taken a million-dollar client to a diner for some scrambled eggs?” I fought back my tears, feeling the blood in my veins turn to ice. “Audrey. Rules are what keep us from falling apart. If you can’t adapt to the corporate culture here, then you can hand in your resignation.” He had backed me into a corner. I turned around and walked right out of his office. I clutched the restaurant receipt in my hand and looked around the bullpen. This was the place I had poured my blood, sweat, and tears into for three years. There was a brief twinge of sadness, but mostly, I just felt a deep, sickening betrayal. If they wouldn’t cover the full amount, I was at least getting my two hundred dollars back. I marched back down to the accounting office. Brenda raised an eyebrow, looking thoroughly disgusted by my presence. “Why are you back?” I slapped the receipt down on her desk. “Process it for the two hundred.” A smug, victorious smirk spread across Brenda’s face. “See? That wasn’t so hard. If you had just followed standard operating procedure from the start, that two hundred bucks would already be processing.” She picked up the receipt, glanced at it, and her smile instantly vanished into a cold scowl. “Can’t process it.” Three words. They pushed the simmering rage in my gut right past the boiling point. “Why not?” Her voice was light, almost mocking. “Did you not read the updated employee handbook? Reimbursements require an itemized corporate tax invoice, not a standard credit card receipt.” My ears started ringing. “Brenda, why didn’t you tell me I needed a corporate invoice the first time I came in?” “We hadn’t gotten to that stage of the process yet, had we?” She slid the receipt back across the desk. “Go back to the restaurant and get the right paperwork.” My chest heaved. I wanted to scream, but I knew arguing with her was completely pointless. Solving the problem was the only way I was getting my money. I was being bounced around like a ping-pong ball. Just as I turned toward the door to leave, Brenda casually dropped another bomb. 3 “Just a friendly reminder. The new policy states today is the absolute final day for monthly reimbursements. I clock out at four sharp. If you don’t make it back in time, you’ll just have to eat the cost.” My eyes widened in sheer disbelief. “What? The restaurant is a private dining club an hour outside the city. In this traffic, there is no physical way I can get there and back by four!” Brenda blinked at me with wide, innocent eyes. “That sounds like a personal problem.” From morning until afternoon, those were the exact words the agency used to completely destroy me. I was a twenty-something girl who had chugged glass after glass of expensive liquor just to keep the clients entertained. I had locked myself in the restaurant bathroom to force myself to throw up, just so I could stay sober enough to dodge their creepy advances. I had exhausted every ounce of my physical and mental energy. And this was my reward. At that exact moment, the illusion shattered. There was no loyalty in the corporate world. You were just meat in the grinder. Since Apex was perfectly willing to steal six hundred dollars from me, perfectly willing to scrape the very last ounce of flesh from my bones, I had absolutely nothing left to lose. “Fine. I won’t expense it.” The second I conceded, Brenda’s entire demeanor brightened. She looked at me with a sickeningly sweet smile. “See? That’s the spirit! You account managers make plenty of commission anyway. No need to waste time stressing over pocket change.” I kept my face deadpan. I didn’t say a single word. As I walked out of the accounting office, I paused in the hallway. I heard Brenda recording a voice memo on her phone. “Who knew working in accounting came with a commission? Hey honey, I just successfully blocked another reimbursement request. Rick gives me a fifty-buck bonus for every one I deny. Let’s go try that new Korean BBQ spot tonight.” I didn’t turn around. I didn’t storm back in to tear Brenda apart. Instead, I walked down the block to a discount electronics store, bought a bright red, battery-powered megaphone, and took an Uber straight to Ryder Corp headquarters. I stood on the sidewalk in front of their towering glass skyscraper, cranked the volume dial to maximum, and pressed the trigger. “Marcus! I am Audrey from Apex Marketing! My company refuses to reimburse your dinner from last night! Do me a favor, come downstairs right now and Venmo me your half of the bill!”

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When my mom was five months pregnant, she made me move into the barn to “ward off misfortune” for my unborn brother. That was the first time I didn’t argue with her. I just said yes. Because she’s an artist with words. She can always say one thing and mean two. “My daughter is so sensitive — one little comment and she’ll hold onto it for ten years.” “Let her be. Kids having opinions is a good thing. We have to respect that.” For eighteen years, I’d become exactly the daughter she described to everyone else — “difficult,” “ungrateful.” When I was brought back home and forced to eat on my knees like an animal, while my brother rode on my back 。 Everyone praised my mom for being a saint. For never giving up on me. I didn’t argue. Because they didn’t know I was counting down the days. Getting ready to give her a gift she’d never forget — in front of every single relative and friend she cared about. **1** The barn door shut behind me. I heard Mom sigh on the other side. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Just three months. Once your brother is born, I’ll come get you.” Her voice was as soft and warm as always. Mrs. Henderson from next door happened to walk by. “Oh my — why is your daughter staying in there?” My mom’s voice filled with what sounded like heartache. “She asked to. Said she wanted the experience.” “I tried to talk her out of it, but you know how kids are these days. So headstrong.” Mrs. Henderson told her she was such an open-minded parent. I crouched beside the cow and said nothing. Through the wall, I heard Dad say: “Isn’t this a bit much? She’s still our daughter.” “What do you know? This is an old tradition — a frail baby needs someone to take on the bad luck.” “She’s tough. And besides, she didn’t even object.” That’s right. I didn’t object. Because I knew it wouldn’t matter. If I said I didn’t want to stay here, she’d cry to the neighbors. And then everyone would call me an ungrateful, selfish daughter. So I saved my energy. At least this way I’d walk away with the one good reputation I’d never had — the compliant one. The barn was harder than I’d imagined. In winter, cold wind poured through the gaps. In summer, mosquitoes left welts all over my skin. Mom came once a day with food. She’d stand at the door and call out softly, “Sweetheart, dinner’s ready.” The neighbors who saw her said she had such a kind heart. “She’s bringing real food to the barn — if my kid pulled something like this, I’d let them go hungry until they learned.” What was actually in the thermos container was usually leftover rice that was almost spoiled. I’d crouch beside the cow to eat. Sometimes it would wander over and sniff at my bowl, then sneeze and turn back to its hay. The day my brother was born, I heard firecrackers going off next door. The cow gently bumped its head against my side. “You think it’s funny too?” I rested my hand on its neck. “I’ve never even seen his face, and I’m already out here taking the hit for him.” It blinked its big dark eyes. Three months became six. Six months became a year. Every time, Mom would say: “Soon. Just until your brother gets a little stronger, then I’ll bring you home.” Year after year. In the spring of the fifth year, the barn door finally opened. Mom stood there with the same gentle expression. “Sweetheart, you’ve worked so hard. Your brother is healthy now. Mom’s here to bring you home.” The cow followed me to the doorway and pressed its nose against my hand. “It doesn’t want to let you go,” Mom said with a smile. “Even animals have a sense of these things.” It sounded like she was complimenting the cow. But I knew what she meant. She was saying I was only capable of bonding with animals. The house had changed a lot. The living room was full of toys. The walls were covered in my brother’s drawings. A five-year-old boy came running over and stared at me with wide eyes. “This is your sister,” Mom said, lifting him up. “Say hi.” My brother wrinkled his nose and shrank back. “Ew! She stinks! Cow poop witch!” I sniffed myself out of habit. “I don’t smell.” He pinched his nose shut. Mom patted his back gently. “We don’t say things like that about your sister.” She turned to me. “Don’t take it to heart, sweetheart. He’s little. Good nose on him.” “Mom noticed too, honestly.” She smiled. “But it’s fine. After a while you just… stop noticing the smell.” “And we’ve all had our shots, so nothing to worry about.” — **2** I stood in the middle of the living room, wanting to say something back, but not finding the words. “You’ll take the guest room for now.” “We turned your old room into a playroom for your brother.” Mom pointed to the small room at the end of the hall. “Once he gets a little older, we’ll clear the toys out.” “Your blankets are out on the balcony. Go grab them.” She carried my brother toward the kitchen. “Mom needs to warm up his milk. It’s naptime.” I went to the balcony and found my blankets covered in mold. It was obvious no one had touched them in years. That evening, our neighbor Aunt Carol stopped by with sweets to celebrate — her son had just gotten into college. Mom invited her to stay for dinner, sounding genuinely envious. “That’s wonderful. You must be so proud.” “Mine, now — she got in too, but threw a fit and refused to go. Insisted on going to live on a farm for the experience.” I was sitting at the table. My hand froze in midair. I didn’t know which hand to pick up a fork with. For the past five years in the barn, Mom never gave me utensils. I ate crouched on the ground, hunched over my bowl. My brother noticed and burst out laughing. “Mommy, look! She doesn’t know which hand to use!” Mom said gently, “Don’t laugh at your sister. She’s just… gotten used to a different way.” She held out a fork for me. I took it and tried to pick up some food. My fingers wouldn’t cooperate. The food fell back onto the table. “That’s okay. Take your time.” She ladled some soup into my bowl. “Start with the soup.” Her voice was as warm and patient as ever. But I saw her lean down and whisper something in my brother’s ear. He laughed even harder and ran over to me, shoved me off my chair, and climbed onto my back. “Giddyup! Ride the cow! Ride the cow!” Mom smiled warmly. “Look, sweetie — your brother is doing exposure therapy with you.” “Only family would care enough to do this. If you weren’t his sister, he wouldn’t even bother playing with you.” My brother started kicking my ribs. “Giddyup! Move!” I didn’t move. He kicked harder. I shot up. He tumbled to the floor and started wailing. “I am not a cow.” “I am NOT a cow!” I shouted. “I’m a person! I’m an adult!” Aunt Carol flinched. “Good lord. Why is she being so rough with him? She spent all that time on the farm and she’s still got that temper.” Mom gave a tired smile. “I know. I worry about her. No matter how much I do for her, she always feels like we owe her something.” “Mom,” I cut in, “I don’t feel like you owe me anything.” She blinked. “Okay. I’m sorry. Tell me what I did wrong and I’ll fix it.” That kind of line. It always sounded so sincere. Aunt Carol took the bait right on cue. “See how good your mom is? She’s actually apologizing to you.” “You’re old enough to know better.” Mom shifted my brother in her arms. “She’s always been a hair trigger.” “I have to be so careful with what I say. I’m always afraid of setting her off.” Aunt Carol patted her hand. “I hear you. It’s not easy being her mom.” I opened my mouth. Wanted to say something else. But suddenly I was just exhausted. All these years of fighting, and I’d never once won. She’d turned me into the family villain. I got down on the floor. Went back down on my hands and knees. My brother sniffled and climbed back onto my back. Mom immediately brightened. “There we go. Siblings don’t stay mad.” “We all just want what’s best for you.” Aunt Carol sighed. “That temper of yours really does need work.” “Good thing your mom is so patient. In my house, I’d have sorted that out a long time ago.” As I crawled along the floor, I thought of the cow back in the barn. So thin its ribs pressed through its skin. I used to wrap my arms around its neck for warmth. It never moved. Now I understood. It probably wanted to die back then too. It just couldn’t say so. — **3** That night, lying in a real bed for the first time in years, I heard Mom’s voice drifting from the master bedroom. “Sending her to that barn back then — honestly, best decision I ever made.” I couldn’t hear the other side of the call. Mom laughed. “Ward off misfortune? That was just something to say.” “Otherwise the neighbors would’ve talked — called me sexist, called me a bad mother. How awful would that look.” “If she broke down out there, ran off or lost her mind, that’s on her. Nothing to do with us.” “I honestly didn’t think she’d make it five years. She’s tougher than I gave her credit for.” So that was it. There was no superstition. No warding off anything. She just didn’t want me. But she didn’t want the reputation that came with throwing away a daughter, either. So she put me in the barn and waited for me to disappear on my own. I didn’t. I lasted too long. So bringing me back at least made me useful — a toy for my brother. Make the most of every resource. Once I understood that clearly, something in me went quiet. In a few days, it would be my brother’s birthday party. Mom said she wanted to go all out. Every relative, every family friend would be there. She planned to announce that day, in front of everyone, that I was home. To tell them she never gave up on me. I sat up, bit into my finger, and wrote in blood on a torn page. Then I reached under the bed for the old backpack I’d hidden there. Inside were everything I’d written over the years. Every day. Every word she had ever said to me. The soft ones. The ones that cut like ice. The ones that sounded so perfectly kind. Mom — if that’s how it is, I’ll keep being your obedient cow. I’ll go quietly. And I’ll make sure your perfect life stops on that day. Forever. Late that night, I dreamed I was back in the barn. The cow was chewing hay in the dark. It looked at me. As if to say: *Hold on a little longer. It’s almost over.* — The next morning, my brother was sprawled on the floor playing with toy cars. He looked up at me and grinned. “Make a cow sound, sissy!” I didn’t move. “Come on, come on!” He scrambled up and grabbed at my leg. “Mommy said you lived with the cow forever — you definitely know how!” Mom watched from across the room with a smile. “Don’t tease her. For her sake — let’s not talk about cows.” “She’ll get worked up again.” But she stood right there without pulling him away. Just watching. My brother started to cry. “I want to hear the cow sound! I WANT TO!” Mom crouched down to soothe him. “Baby, don’t cry…” She looked up at me and gave me that perfect smile. I knew what it meant. She was waiting for me to handle it myself. I opened my mouth and let out a low moo. My brother stopped crying instantly, clapping and shrieking with delight. “She did it! A real cow sound!” Mom laughed and ruffled his hair. “There you go. Happy now? Let’s go downstairs.” I stood up and walked to the window. In the garden below, my brother was chasing a balloon. Mom trailed behind him, arms half-raised, ready to catch him if he stumbled. The sunlight fell across her face. Soft. Beautiful. Anyone who saw her would say she was a perfect mother. — That afternoon, I went to the kitchen for water and stopped in front of the dispenser for three seconds. Then I crouched down, leaned toward the spout, and stuck out my tongue. The water hit my tongue before I caught what I was doing. For five years in the barn, that’s how I drank. Crouched over the trough, lapping like an animal. My brother came running in and saw. He clapped his hands and screamed laughing. “Mommy! Sissy is drinking like a cow!” Mom came over and crouched next to me, voice soft. “Sweetheart — for your own sake, let’s use a cup.” She held out a plastic cup. “Some habits take time to unlearn after being away so long. Mom understands.” My brother was beside himself. Mom was laughing too, eyes curving into gentle crescents. “Look at you — you made him laugh again.” I took the cup and brought it to my mouth. Some of the water spilled and ran down my chin. “Slow down,” Mom said. “No one’s taking it from you.” My brother leaned in and pointed at my face. “Mommy! Her mouth is leaking! Just like a cow!” Mom dabbed at my chin with a paper towel. Gentle hands. “Good job. You used a cup today.” I ran back to my room. My hands were still shaking. Not from anger. Because just now, when I was drinking — I almost stuck out my tongue again. The body remembers more honestly than the mind. — **4** That night I didn’t want to come out for dinner. Mom pulled me out of my room anyway. “Sweetheart, you have to eat something. Your body isn’t yours to neglect. When you don’t eat, it hurts us too.” She sighed and said into her phone, “Let me call you back, sis. I’m trying to get her to eat… Kids get harder when they grow up.” My brother appeared from somewhere holding a fistful of grass and set it on the table. “Cow eats grass!” Mom let out a soft laugh. “See? Your brother loves you.” “He knows you got used to eating fresh things out there. The cooked stuff probably doesn’t sit right.” I stared at the grass. My stomach lurched. “Eat it! Eat it!” My brother grabbed the grass and shoved it at my mouth. I gagged and bolted to the bathroom, where I threw up. My brother froze for a second — then burst into laughter. “The cow puked! The cow is ruminating!” I snapped around. Ruminating. A five-year-old knew that word. I gripped the edge of the sink and finally understood. Mom taught him that. She had been teaching him how to humiliate me. One lesson at a time. In her mind, I wasn’t her daughter. I was livestock. A cow that might wander off at any moment. Dad put down his fork. “That’s enough.” Mom wiped the table with a napkin, movements unhurried. “The kids are just playing. Don’t be so serious.” She looked up with a smile. “It’s sibling bonding.” I came out of the bathroom holding my stomach. Mom reached into the cabinet and pulled out a bag. “Oh, right — for your brother’s birthday party, wear this.” She shook out what was inside. A cow mascot costume. Brown fur, black hooves, and a hood with two curved horns. “Think of it as your present to him. You’ll be adorable in it.” Her eyes were bright and full of expectation. Like any ordinary mother waiting for her child to do something sweet. I nodded. She smiled and hugged me. “I knew you’d come through.” “Oh — that cow. It’s gone.” My hand stopped. “Froze to death,” she said, as casually as if she were talking about the weather. “I found it stiff one morning and had the neighbor come take it away.” I didn’t say anything. “Don’t be sad about it. It was just an animal. That’s life.” She paused. When I still didn’t react, she kept going. “The neighbor said its eyes were still open when they found it.” “Silly thing. What did it have to be so reluctant about?” She smiled. “Try the costume on.” I felt nothing. I pulled off my jacket and stepped into the costume, then pulled the hood over my head. She adjusted it so I could see out through the eye holes. “Perfect fit.” She stepped back and looked me over. “Your brother will want to introduce you. ‘This is my sister.’” She paused. “The most soulful one in the family.” She walked away. I went back to my room and closed the door. I pulled the tiebacks off the curtains and stretched them between my hands. There was a crossbeam above the door frame. I dragged a chair over, stepped up, and tied a knot. Mom was laughing in the living room. The sound drifted in, muffled. I lay down and looked at the rope. The height was just right. She’d push the door open tomorrow and it would be the first thing she saw. My gift to her. — The day of my brother’s birthday party, the house filled up. Relatives everywhere. Laughter pouring from the living room. My brother ran around in a tiny suit, collecting red envelopes from every guest. Mom’s voice was even softer than usual. “You really didn’t have to bring anything.” My door stayed shut. No one came to get me. Close to noon, Mom said through the door, “Get ready, sweetheart.” I didn’t answer. She waited a moment, then left. I got up. Put on the cow costume. Covered the walls with the blood letter and the diary pages. Then I stepped onto the chair. The costume was bulky and awkward. I adjusted my position, settled the rope around my neck, and kicked the chair away. The costume weighed me down. I dropped fast. The moment the rope pulled tight, I heard Mom’s voice in the hallway: “We actually have some wonderful news today — my older daughter is back home after some time away in the country…” Applause from the guests. “If she comes out and she’s crouching, or acting a little strange, please don’t laugh…” “Just think of it as giving her a chance to start over.” “I know that with the love of this family, she’ll be okay.” Louder applause. The door handle turned. The door swung open. Mom stood in the doorway, her perfect smile in place. Then she looked past it and saw me. Saw my arms and legs hanging limp inside the costume, swaying gently. The smile froze on her face.

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Sonnet had two “husbands.” One was Garrett, the man she had married and shared a life with. The other was Garrett’s identical twin brother, Cole. They looked almost exactly alike. If not for years of living together, she might not have been able to tell them apart. But she could. She always could. She just never said anything. Looking at the notification on her phone — the island purchase had gone through — she thought, *this is enough. Enough to start over.* — **1** Thirty-eight minutes into the movie, Sonnet finally saw Garrett walk in. He was wearing a dark coat, his hair slightly messy at the front. He’d clearly rushed. He settled into the seat beside her and said quietly, “Sorry. Something came up at work.” His tone was gentle. Same as always. Sonnet turned to look at him. The dim light of the theater fell across his profile — that face she had loved for five years, still handsome, still guarded, still controlled. But suddenly it felt like a stranger’s face. She slowly tore the two movie tickets in her hands. The sound of the paper tearing was unusually sharp in the dark. “It’s fine.” Her voice was calm. “I didn’t really want to watch it anyway.” Garrett paused. “Today is my birthday,” he reminded her. “I know.” She nodded. “That’s why I got here an hour early.” A brief silence settled between them. He seemed to sense something. He didn’t push. Sonnet didn’t say anything more. The quiet between them was colder than anything playing on that screen. On the way home, Sonnet idly scrolled through her phone. She accidentally tapped into a live study stream. On the screen, a young girl sat under a soft lamp, head down, working through a problem set. Sonnet was about to scroll away. Then a hand reached into the frame. Long fingers. Defined knuckles. Beautiful. Near the base of the thumb, a faint scar. The girl looked up, smiling as she accepted the coffee. “Thanks.” The comments exploded — *”Is that her boyfriend???”* *”That hand though omg”* The girl smiled, a little shy. “That’s a secret.” Sonnet’s finger went still. She recognized that scar. The accident years ago — glass flying everywhere. She had stepped in front of Garrett to take the hit. Afterward, he had held her hand and said, *”Let me be the one to protect you from now on.”* There was no way she was wrong. Outside the car window, the neon lights blurred without warning. So this was what “something came up at work” meant. A different world. A different girl. And she was the one left standing outside. When she got home, Sonnet said nothing about what she’d seen. Garrett went to the study, like always. After a while, the real Garrett came back. She caught a faint floral scent on him. Sweet. Nothing like him. She didn’t look up. She had known for a year. Garrett had a twin brother. Cole. They were nearly identical. Sometimes it was Garrett who came home. Sometimes it was Cole. They took turns playing her husband. They thought it was seamless. What they didn’t know was that she had been able to tell them apart all along. Garrett always tucked his left hand in his pocket. Cole used his right. Garrett drank his coffee black. Cole liked two sugars. Small differences. None of them ever slipped past her. She had just been waiting. Waiting for Garrett to stop on his own. He never did. A few days later, Sonnet received the confirmation notice. The island transfer had gone through. She had bid on it online on a whim. Now it had become her way out. One month, she thought. That’s enough time to disappear. — **2** The girl from the live stream was named Rachel. Two years below Sonnet in college. A junior when Sonnet was a senior. Sonnet still remembered her. Back then, at the architecture design competition, Rachel had plagiarized. Sonnet was the one who reported it. Rachel lost her scholarship. Lost her overseas exchange opportunity. After that, the way Rachel looked at Sonnet always carried something — something like hatred. Now, Rachel wore Sonnet’s signature “Sea Mist” necklace on her live stream, laughing bright and easy. “My boyfriend gave it to me.” Sonnet stared at that necklace. It had taken her six months to create that piece. The original design files were locked in the studio at home. Only Garrett had access. She called him. “Where are you?” “At work, in a meeting.” Garrett’s voice was easy, natural. He sent her a location pin and a photo of the conference room. Airtight. Sonnet stared at the necklace around Rachel’s neck on her screen. “I believe you,” she said quietly. She hung up. She knew. Even if she walked into that office right now, all she’d find was Cole. From the very beginning, she had been the one being managed. Things were worse than she’d imagined. A few days later, it blew up. *”Sonnet’s Studio PLAGIARIZED!”* hit the trending page. Rachel posted a video calling her out. She showed sketches — timestamped earlier than Sonnet’s published work. The internet came for her in waves. Her online shop was flooded with attacks. Her physical storefront was vandalized with red paint. And the most devastating part — Sonnet couldn’t find her original drafts. She knew exactly who had taken them. She called Garrett. “Did you give her my design files?” A pause on the other end. “I figured you were done with them.” “It’s just a draft.” “She’s practically still a student. Why are you making it into such a big deal?” Sonnet laughed. “Just a draft?” “That was six months of my life.” Garrett’s voice went cold. “This family doesn’t need you to make money. All you have to do is be Mrs. Whitfield.” In that moment, something clicked. To him, her work had never mattered. She was just an accessory. A woman’s voice drifted through from the other end of the line. A soft, playful laugh. Sonnet didn’t say another word. She hung up. Minutes later, Rachel called. “How does it feel to be called a plagiarist, *senior*?” “Should’ve minded your own business back then.” “You really picked a great guy.” Sonnet pressed record. “Why are you doing this?” “Because I hate you.” “Everything you have — it’s mine now.” She ended the call. The apartment was terrifyingly quiet. Sonnet looked down at her hands. Once, she had believed love was a shelter. Now she knew. It was just an excuse. — **3** She didn’t sleep. The phone call, the recording, the trending posts — she backed everything up. Not to start a fight. To make sure she could stay clear-headed, no matter what came next. Clear enough that she’d never be dragged back with a single *”you misunderstood.”* At two in the morning, Garrett came home. The lock clicked. He took off his shoes in the entryway — same clean, efficient motion as always. He looked up and saw her sitting in the living room. Phone on the table, printed pages beside it. His footsteps slowed for just a beat. “Why are you still up?” His tone was warm. Like nothing had happened. Sonnet pushed the phone screen toward him. It was paused on the replay of the live stream — a hand reaching in from the edge of frame, the scar near the thumb unmistakable. Garrett’s gaze landed on it for half a second. Then he looked away, the ghost of a smile barely there. “You’re upset about that?” “Tell me,” Sonnet said, eyes steady. “Where were you today?” “Work.” He answered without hesitation. “Then where are my design files?” She wasn’t looking at his location, wasn’t reading his follow-up message. “The *Sea Mist* drafts. Why aren’t they in the safe?” Garrett’s brow tightened slightly. His tone dropped. “You went through my things?” “I went through *my* work.” She stood and walked straight toward the studio. “Open it.” That door had been locked. He kept the key. Garrett followed. Two seconds of silence. He unlocked the door. The light came on. The studio was too clean. The kind of clean that feels deliberate. Sonnet walked directly to the safe, entered the code, and the door swung open. One compartment was empty. She looked up at him. “You said you were at work.” Garrett’s expression finally shifted. He tried to reroute, dropping his voice lower. “I think you’ve been under too much stress lately. People online just love to stir things up.” “Don’t bring other people into this.” Sonnet cut him off. “One question. Who took the drafts.” Garrett’s throat moved. His eyes flickered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sonnet spread the printed pages across the desk. Screenshots from the stream. A timeline of the trending posts. A close-up of Rachel wearing the necklace. And the entry log she had compiled. “You don’t know?” She kept her voice even. “Then explain why the necklace she’s wearing has the exact detail you criticized when you watched me revise it.” Garrett’s fingers pressed together slowly. His knuckles went white. Sonnet didn’t give him room to breathe. She pushed forward. “One more thing.” She looked at him. Her voice dropped. “When did you start sending Cole home in your place?” Something hit him. His pupils contracted, just for a second. He denied it on instinct. “What are you talking about?” Sonnet looked at his hands. “Just now when you took your shoes off. You lifted your right foot first. That’s Cole’s habit, not yours.” Garrett’s breath caught. He tried to hold steady. “How could you possibly—” “Because you both thought I couldn’t tell you apart.” Her tone was flat. “But I could. I always could.” Silence held for a few seconds. Garrett’s expression slowly went cold. Like he was finally understanding that tonight wasn’t going to be smoothed over with a few soft words. Sonnet walked into the study. Garrett followed. For the first time, his steps weren’t steady. The study door closed. — **4** Garrett didn’t speak right away. The only sound in the study was the slow tick of the clock on the wall. “When did you find out?” he finally said. Sonnet stood near the doorway. She hadn’t moved further in. She looked at him. Her eyes were calm. “The first time was when you picked up a cup with your right hand.” “The second time was when you forgot I don’t eat cilantro.” “The third time was when you held me, and the way you held me felt different.” Garrett’s throat moved slightly. He hadn’t expected her to remember all of that. “Then why didn’t you say anything?” “Because I wanted to give you a chance.” She spoke like she was telling someone else’s story. “I wanted to see when you’d stop.” Something pressed down on Garrett’s chest. “Sonnet—” “You don’t need to explain.” She cut him off. “If you had really wanted to stop, you would have.” She walked further into the study. She set the printed divorce papers on the desk. The pages were stark white under the light. “Sign it.” Garrett stared at the papers, jaw tight. “Calm down.” “I am calm.” “You’re just angry.” Sonnet laughed — a quiet, brief sound. “Garrett. You still think this is me being emotional?” “You and your brother took turns pretending to be my husband.” “You gave my design files to another woman.” “You let her destroy my studio.” “And now you’re telling me *I’m* the one who needs to calm down?” Her voice didn’t break. No shouting, no tears. Just low and clear. Each word landing exactly where she meant it to. Garrett realized, for the first time, that her composure hurt more than crying ever would have. He didn’t sign. “I won’t agree to this.” “Then I’ll find another way.” Sonnet said it, turned, and walked out. The next day, she stopped coming home. The studio was a wreck. Red paint still smeared across the front door. Her employees stood with their heads down, nobody saying a word. Sonnet stood in the middle of the room, looking at the shattered model on the floor. She had stayed up three nights straight to build that. She bent down and picked up the pieces. The edge sliced a thin cut across her fingertip. She didn’t feel it. Compared to what was hollow inside her chest, the cut was nothing. “What do we do now?” her assistant asked quietly. Sonnet looked up. “Close the shop.” “Take everything down.” “We stop for now.” Her voice was steady. Like she was announcing a loss she had already accepted. Rachel was thriving. She went live every day. Her follower count was exploding. “I don’t want to press charges against my senior.” “I just hope she’ll address this directly.” “Plagiarism really does hurt original creators.” Her eyes glistened as she spoke, the tip of her nose faintly pink. The comments flooded with sympathy. Sonnet watched all of it in silence. She said nothing. No statement. No defense. There was no point in speaking to people who had already made up their minds. And right now, no one wanted to hear her side. Three days later, Sonnet sent a message to Cole. *”Meet me.”* The location: the sea cliffs. When Cole arrived, she was already there. The wind was strong. She stood in a white dress, hair pulled loose by the gusts. He felt a cold dread settle in his stomach. “Sonnet. Don’t do anything stupid.” Sonnet looked at him. “Are you scared?” Cole’s face went pale. “What do you mean?” “You both thought I couldn’t tell you apart, right?” “So let me tell you — I know everything.” “I know when you came, when you left.” “I know the things you said about me behind my back.” “I even know that you’re afraid of heights.” Cole took a step back. She really did know all of it. “Sonnet, we were only—” “Only having fun?” She finished the sentence for him, softly. Cole had no answer. Sonnet looked out at the water. “If I die in front of you, Garrett will hate you for the rest of his life.” “Are you going to jump in and save me?” Cole was silent. He couldn’t. He knew that about himself. Then she climbed over the railing. Clean. Decisive. Almost without hesitation. Cole lunged to grab her. His hand closed around nothing. “Sonnet—!” His voice was swallowed by the waves. She fell into the sea. The white of her dress swept through the air for a moment, then vanished. Cole stood at the edge of the cliff, legs shaking. He looked down. Vertigo hit him instantly. He couldn’t jump. He could only back away. For the first time, it hit him — She had even calculated his fear into the plan. Night deepened. The waves rolled. Across town, when the call came in, Garrett was still at the office. *”Sonnet jumped into the sea.”* His phone slipped from his hand. — **5** By the time Garrett reached the shore, it was past one in the morning. The wind cut cold. The barrier tape stretched far down the beach. The rescue team’s floodlights turned the water a harsh white, and waves kept breaking against the rocks with low, heavy thuds. The moment Garrett stepped out of the car, his legs nearly gave out. He spotted Cole standing at the railing, ashen-faced, fingertips still trembling — like a man just barely surfacing from something that had nearly crushed him. “Where is she?” Garrett’s voice came out rough. “Where’s Sonnet?” Cole opened his mouth. Nothing came out right away. His throat worked slowly, each word dragged out. “She jumped.” Garrett grabbed him by the collar, eyes gone red. “You just *let* her? You stood right there and did nothing?!” Cole stumbled back a step, lips white. “I tried — I almost had her.” “Almost?” Garrett was losing it. “*Almost* doesn’t mean anything!” Cole’s eyes flickered. Something like pain, quickly replaced by cold. “What are you performing for? You know better than anyone how she got to this point.” Garrett’s chest heaved. He wanted to say something. He couldn’t find a single word. Because he knew. Of course he knew. The search lasted ten full days. The water was divided into grids. Rescue teams rotated through in shifts. Sonar sweeps, dive teams, shoreline searches — every method they had. All they found was one of her shoes and a waterlogged section of her dress. Nothing more. Garrett refused to believe it at first. Still refused on day two. By day five, he stopped arguing with anyone. He just stood at the edge of the water, chain-smoking, one cigarette after another. The smoke scorched his lungs. He didn’t seem to notice. On the tenth night, Garrett came home and pushed open the bedroom door. It hit him like a blow to the chest. The closet was empty. The vanity was bare. The photo of the two of them from the nightstand — gone. That was the moment it became real. Sonnet hadn’t jumped on impulse. She had prepared to leave. This wasn’t a fight. This was a goodbye. Garrett braced his hand against the doorframe, knuckles white. After a long moment, he said quietly, “Margaret.” The housekeeper hurried upstairs, her face tight with worry. “Sir…” “The things in the room. Where are they?” “Ma’am… ma’am told us to get rid of them.” Margaret’s voice trembled. “She said it was all… just trash.” Trash. Something tore open in Garrett’s chest. He could barely breathe. He moved through the room slowly, like he was confirming something he wasn’t ready to confirm. Then he pulled open the nightstand drawer. The divorce papers. Sonnet’s signature, clean and certain. And beside them, a handwritten note. *”Garrett. This is where we end.”* He stared at those words until the edges of his vision darkened. That night, Rachel called. She was crying, soft and trembling. “Garrett… I saw the news. Is Sonnet really…?” Listening to her cry, he felt something he’d never felt around her before. Revulsion. He used to think she was delicate. Now her voice just felt like nails on glass. “Shut up.” His voice was ice. “Say one more word, and I’ll make sure you never open your mouth again.” Rachel choked on whatever she’d been about to say. He hung up. Garrett sat on the couch. The cigarette between his fingers burned down to nothing. He didn’t move. Let the ash fall into his palm. And he thought of something Sonnet had said to him. *”You don’t need to explain. If you had really wanted to stop, you would have.”* For the first time, he was afraid. Afraid that she was really gone. Afraid that she hadn’t even left him her hatred.

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After helping my brother’s beast queens carry his children, I decided to cut off his manhood. The comments suddenly exploded: [What’s going on? Has he lost his mind? If he actually does it, how is the male lead supposed to use him to win favor with the beast queens?!] [Relax. This ugly freak is covered head to toe in festering sores. His gender is barely his one saving grace — there’s no way he’d actually go through with it!] [Am I the only one who feels a little sorry for Ugly? Every day he gets used half to death by the beast queens, then gets tossed back in the cellar with nothing. Not even a warm bowl of soup. And he has to watch the male lead collect all the rewards.] [Shut up with that bleeding-heart crap! The reality is that Ugly is disgusting, covered in rotting tumors. If the male lead had any feelings for the beast queens — if he was willing to sacrifice himself — do you think any of this would’ve fallen to someone like him?] I stared at those words, and a chill ran through my entire body. The cellar door was kicked open.

Light flooded in. My brother, Ethan, stepped inside, his face full of concern. “You’re awake?” He set a bowl of black, murky medicine down gently beside me. “I know this is hard on you. But you know your condition is… well. Everything I do is for your own good.” “The Lion Queen wants you again tonight. Clean yourself up properly. Don’t let her feel those sores on your skin.” Ethan let out a long sigh, his gaze dropping to my abdomen, which was still seeping blood. His expression carried three parts disgust and seven parts pity. “You know what she’s like. Obsessed with cleanliness. Can’t stand a single thing out of place.” “Last time one of your pustules burst and stained the fur mat — she raged for an hour outside. Nearly threw us both out.” “If I hadn’t knelt on the ground begging, swearing it was my fault, we’d both be vulture food by now.” If this had been the old me, I would have already hung my head in shame by now. I would’ve hidden my knobbed, gnarled hands behind my back like a child who’d done something wrong. Then I would’ve stumbled over an apology — swearing I’d be more careful next time, that I’d sand my skin smooth before I went to her again. Honestly. More than once, I’d sensed that Ethan’s kindness toward me carried a suffocating coldness underneath it. Whenever the beast queens had wrung me out to the point of near-death, he would sigh and say he wished he could help — that his heart belonged to someone else and he simply couldn’t make himself go to them. It was such a burden on me, he’d say. When I was starving and chewing on bark, he’d be up in the main house. Right in front of the beast queens, he’d throw his leftover bones down to me and announce loudly, “Ugly loves these — says the texture is the best part.” But I always managed to push those thoughts away. Ethan was the rarest lop-eared rabbit shifter in the whole tribe. The pride of our entire bloodline. How could someone like him have any ill will toward an ugly wretch like me? Until now. I watched the comments light up. [LOL, the male lead’s manipulation game is next level. The Lion Queen rejected him because he was bad in bed — but he turned it around and blamed Ugly for dirtying the mat.] [I think the male lead is deliberately keeping Ugly from getting treatment. The worse those sores get, the more ashamed Ugly feels. Too embarrassed to show his face anywhere. Keeps him a shadow forever.] [That’s just how our clever little bunny operates! Honestly, even if Ugly got cured, he’d never be half as good-looking as the male lead — but you can never be too careful, right?] [Don’t worry, he already slipped Sterilization Weed into that medicine. It’ll help the beast queen conceive, but it accelerates aging in the drinker. This freak doesn’t have many doses left. Once the Lion Queen delivers, he’ll be done.] I couldn’t stop myself from clenching my fist tighter around the straw beneath me. Meeting Ethan’s wide, innocent eyes, I found — for the first time — that I couldn’t make myself crawl over like a dog and drink that medicine. I didn’t know what I was feeling. I pressed my cracked lips together, my voice rough and low, and said something I’d never said before. “My body… I think something’s wrong with it.” “Tonight… I want to rest.”

The air in the cellar went still. The saintly, long-suffering expression on Ethan’s face froze solid. A second later, the comments went into a frenzy. [Oh my God, is this lowlife trying to start something? He doesn’t actually think that because the beast queen might be carrying his child, he gets to be the tribe’s treasured consort — does he?] [Every scheming side character who tries to climb the social ladder through a pregnancy ends up the same way. This won’t end well.] [Is he trying to make the male lead grovel? This feels like a threat.] [Unbelievable. Does every tool character have zero self-awareness? If he won’t do it, there are plenty of slaves who will.] The comments were running hot. It was only now that I fully understood what I was. I was a side character in a beast-world romance novel — a tool. The ugly foil to the irresistible male lead. My true form was a toad shifter. Despised by everyone. While Ethan’s true form was a lop-eared rabbit — beloved wherever he went. Ethan had lost the one person he ever loved, and he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything for any of the beast queens. But he still needed to survive in this world. So he made me his stand-in. Every night, when the beast queens were sedated by desire-inducing incense, he pushed me into their chambers. He stood outside the door collecting praise and affection. I was inside, enduring whatever the beast queens chose to do to me. When morning came, he’d spray himself with a specially crafted imitation scent, then slip into bed beside them to receive their tenderness as they woke. And I would be discarded like a used-up piece of trash, dragged back to the dark cellar below. I would even rot in that dark cellar when I died. I knew I was ugly. But did being ugly mean I deserved to be deceived and used like this — and then discarded as a stepping stone for his comfort and status? After I spoke my refusal out loud — A flicker of disbelief crossed Ethan’s eyes. Then they went cold. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t curse me. He simply crouched down slowly, pinched my chin with two fingers like I was something distasteful, and forced me to look at him. “What are you babbling about?” “The Lion Queen is in her frenzy tonight. If you rest, who’s going to calm her down? Are you going to sit there and watch her tear me apart?” He tilted his head and gave me a look that was almost a smile — his voice gentle, his words like blades. “Besides, I’m not forcing you. If you don’t want to drink this medicine — if you don’t want to serve the beast queens — that’s fine.” “I’ll just go tell them it was you who poisoned the cubs out of jealousy. Let’s see who they believe — the father of their children, or the monster who lives in the cellar.” He stood up and straightened his clothes. “Drink the medicine before it gets cold. It won’t work once it cools. Don’t do something stupid, Ugly. I’m doing this so we both survive.” Then the cellar door slammed shut. His footsteps faded away. I did not drink the medicine. I tilted my wrist and poured every drop onto the ground. A soft hiss rose from the dirt where it landed. I watched it eat into the ground, and the cold feeling in my chest sank deeper. This was what Ethan called a tonic he made for my own good. The comments rolled across my vision again, faster than ever. [Oh my God — he poured out the Bone-Corrosion compound?! The male lead specifically exchanged for that to suppress his golden toad bloodline!] [Doesn’t matter. Eighteen years of that stuff — the toad skin has been fused to him for ages. Pouring it out changes nothing.] [Am I the only one worried about the Lion Queen tonight? Without that rotting smell from the medicine to mask it — what if she catches a whiff of his actual scent… that strange fragrance… and figures out the switch?] [No chance. She’s completely out of her mind during a frenzy.] I stared hard at the two words: golden toad. So that was it. All these years — the festering sores, the stench — it wasn’t a curse from heaven. It was man-made.

The cellar door crashed open again. Ethan stumbled in and threw himself at me, gripping my arm with both hands. “You have to save me this time!” “It’s not just Seraphine — Vyx and Thalara have both lost it too!” I calmly removed his hands and studied his ashen face. “How? Their cycles have never overlapped before.” Ethan was shaking so hard he could barely get the words out. “The Blood Moon — the hundred-year Blood Moon came early! All three of them are caught in the lunar tide. They’re in the main hall, out of their minds, tearing each other apart. If no one calms them down, the whole beast realm will collapse into chaos!” As he said it, real terror moved through his eyes. Three apex beast queens. If he — a fragile, delicate rabbit shifter — walked into that hall, he’d be torn to shreds in under ten minutes. They wouldn’t leave enough of him to bury. The comments erupted, full of sympathy: [Oh no! A Blood Moon night?! That’s the most terrifying event in the beast world!] [Send the thick-skinned toad! He’s built for punishment!] [Exactly! Ugly’s life is worthless anyway. If he dies for the male lead, at least it’s a death with meaning!] I read those words and laughed to myself. Honorable death? You’re so welcome to it. But I didn’t refuse. Because the golden toad bloodline excels at absorbing the vital energy of heaven and earth. The raging power pouring off three apex beast queens wasn’t poison to me. It was a feast. “Fine. I’ll go.” The moment I pushed open the doors to the main hall, a wave of violent, scorching pressure slammed into me. The hall was in ruins. From the darkness, three pairs of crimson beast eyes locked onto me. Seraphine, the Golden Flame Lion Queen, stood at the center. Vyx, the great obsidian serpent, coiled on the left. Thalara, the deep-sea siren, churned the water on the right, restless and thrashing. “ROAR!” Seraphine struck first. A claw wreathed in fire launched straight at my face. In the past, all I could have done was close my eyes and wait to die. But now the golden toad bloodline was surging inside me. “Perfect timing.” I didn’t dodge. I opened my arms and walked into the flames. The pain I expected never came. The moment that raging fire-energy touched my skin, it poured through my pores and flooded into every corner of my body. [WHAT?! Is the game glitching?!] [Why did the Lion Queen’s fire go out?! Does this toad have some kind of fireproof coating?!] [Wait — look at his skin!] Agony — and then a pleasure so intense it bordered on transcendence. Eighteen years of Bone-Corrosion poison, shattered apart in an instant by the wave of beast queen energy flooding through me. The festering sores that had caked my skin like rotting mud shriveled and fell away. The power that would kill an ordinary shifter on contact was, for me, the richest medicine imaginable. “What is that scent?” I looked coldly at the three beast queens. A scent? Of course there was a scent. The golden toad lineage was a sacred creature — a bringer of fortune and prosperity. We carried a natural fragrance in our bodies from birth. All these years, the poison had buried it under the smell of decay. Now that the toxin had been scoured clean, the fragrance had nowhere left to hide. The comments had shifted from [waiting to collect the body] to wall-to-wall [???]. In the last moment before dawn broke, I caught my reflection in a shard of broken mirror. The creature covered in sores was gone. In its place stood a man with skin like white jade. The transformation wasn’t complete yet — but even half-restored, the difference between me and Ethan’s merely-pretty face was the distance between the earth and the sky. I curved the corner of my mouth, wrapped my clothes around myself, and slipped quietly out of the main hall. The real show was only just beginning. When I got back to the cellar entrance, I found Ethan pacing in frantic circles outside. He had the vial of desire-inducing perfume clenched tight in his fist. When he saw me returning with my clothes in disarray, a flash of distaste crossed his eyes — but underneath it was unmistakable relief. “You’re not dead?!”

He rushed over and looked me up and down. I’d wrapped myself from head to toe — even covering my face — and he assumed I was too badly used up to let anyone see me. Too ashamed to show myself. “Thank God. I always knew you were hard to kill.” Ethan had no time to ask how badly I was hurt. He pressed forward, urgent. “What about them? Are they calm?” I dropped my voice and mimicked the weak, hollow tone I used to use. “Yeah… they’re all asleep.” Ethan shoved me toward the back of the cellar, then grabbed the vial of perfume and sprayed himself down like it was going out of style. “Calming three apex beast queens on a Blood Moon night — that’s a feat no one in history has pulled off. That’s my achievement.” A smile of absolute certainty spread across his face. “When they wake up and find me beside them, they’ll be more devoted to me than ever.” He straightened his clothes and sprinted toward the main hall. The cellar door closed. I pulled the wrappings off my face and looked at my skin — reborn. The old poison-stains on my arms had sloughed away, revealing new flesh with a faint golden sheen underneath. The comments in front of me were still arguing at full volume. [Something’s off! When the queens wake up, they’re going to know something isn’t right!] [You’re overthinking it. The male lead has his system buffs and the perfume — it’s always worked before. Beast shifters can’t tell faces apart. They go by scent.] [But… I thought I saw Ugly change in the main hall? I couldn’t see clearly — the feed was all blurred out.] [Who cares? The male lead is the male lead. Ugly is a stand-in prop. That’s just how it works. That’s the law.] I let out a quiet laugh and settled cross-legged on the ground, circulating the beast queen energy through my body. Meanwhile, in the main hall — Ethan gazed at the three women sleeping in breathtaking beauty even mid-slumber, and swallowed. He lay down on the bed and arranged himself into a pose of someone just waking up. A moment later, Seraphine’s gold slit-pupils snapped open. Ethan pulled her into a hug. “Sera, you scared me to death last night. I pushed through everything to calm you down — I’m completely exhausted.” In the past, Seraphine would’ve melted with guilt. But this time, she frowned. Her nose twitched. “What is that smell? It’s overpowering.” Beside her, Vyx and Thalara were waking up too. Vyx’s ice-cold serpent tail lashed out and sent Ethan flying ten feet across the room. “Get away from me. You reek.” Ethan hit the floor, completely stunned. The comments were stunned too. [WAIT — it’s backfiring?!] [How is that possible?! The male lead’s charm stat is maxed out!] [What is Vyx talking about?! What does she mean he REEKS?!] Thalara murmured under her breath, “The person last night — I couldn’t see his face clearly. But the texture of his skin… it didn’t feel like rabbit.” “It felt more like… warm jade.” The plan was unraveling. Ethan panicked. He scrambled to his knees and started crying, holding up his wrist to show a red scratch mark. “That was me last night! I came in to save you — that scratch is from you. As for the smell — I was worried about bothering you, so I scrubbed myself down so thoroughly I washed away my own scent…” It was a reasonable story. The suspicion in Seraphine’s eyes began to ease. She reached out and helped him to his feet. “I see… I’m sorry. We misjudged you.” Thalara still looked uncertain, but when she saw Seraphine accept the explanation, she let her killing intent recede. “Stop crying. If you really did save us, you can ask for whatever reward you want.” Ethan’s heart leapt with triumph. He’d gambled right. He was just about to name his price — A faint breeze drifted in through the great hall doors. Carried on it: a scent. Barely there, understated — and yet completely, overwhelmingly dominant. The hand Seraphine had been running through Ethan’s hair went rigid. Thalara’s pupils contracted to pinpoints, her gaze locked onto the direction the wind had come from. That scent — it was identical to the memory that had been carved into her bones last night. “It’s coming from outside.” The smile on Ethan’s face turned to stone. The direction the scent was drifting from was the cellar.

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Mom was the neighborhood’s “Moral Role Model.” Her favorite hobby was destroying her own family for public praise. When I was hungry and sneaked a piece of food from the ancestral offering table, she forced me to drink a bowl of dish soap water right in front of everyone — to “cleanse my stomach.” When the neighbor lost five hundred dollars, Mom didn’t ask a single question. She grabbed a thick upholstery needle and drove it through all ten of my fingers. Later, the police caught the real thief. It was the neighbor’s own son. But Mom just kept smiling at the neighbor: “Don’t worry about it. This girl is tough. A beating builds character — keeps her from getting any wrong ideas in the future.” The neighbor, embarrassed, said she’d accused the wrong person. Mom waved it off like it was nothing: “A girl like Nicole is born needing discipline. Consider it an early lesson.” What she didn’t know was that every time she wronged me, I crossed out one day in my diary. Just now, I used up the last page. Right in front of her, standing beneath the plaque of our “Model Family,” I drank that bottle of paraquat. Mom — is destroying myself for your reputation loud enough? — **1** The day I turned eighteen. Mom was at the community center, giving a talk on “Model Family” values. Dad crept over like he was hiding something, and pulled a squashed little box from inside his jacket. It was a cake. Barely bigger than his palm. The frosting had smeared all over the cardboard. He rubbed his hands together, his face full of nervous hope: “Nikki, quick, eat it before your mom sees.” My throat tightened. Three years. Ever since Mom became the neighborhood’s “Moral Role Model,” I hadn’t had a birthday. She said celebrating was wasteful and shameful — that money should go to children in need. I picked up a fork. My hand was shaking a little. I was just lifting it to my mouth when the door burst open with a bang. Mom stood in the doorway, cradling a gold-embossed “Outstanding Family” plaque in both arms. Her eyes locked onto that little cake like a pair of nails. Dad flinched so hard he nearly fell off the couch. “Li… Lisa, you’re back.” Mom ignored him and strode over. I instinctively hunched over the cake. “Mom, I just want one bite…” Mom let out a cold laugh. “Greg, is this what you’ve been doing behind my back? Encouraging this kind of self-indulgent nonsense?” She snatched the cake. Her fingers drove straight into the frosting, destroying the little red “18” on top. “Mrs. Wang next door lives alone. Her gout has been flaring up. She could use some cheering up.” She pulled out her phone, opened the camera, and her face instantly shifted into a warm, glowing smile. “Hey everyone, today is my daughter’s birthday — but as a family, we decided this cake should go to someone who really needs it.” The camera turned toward me. I looked down, tears burning in my eyes. “Nikki, you agree with Mom, right? Come on, give the camera a smile.” She pinched my arm. Hard. It stung. I forced out a smile that looked worse than crying. “Yeah… give it to Mrs. Wang.” Mom nodded, satisfied. She picked up the ruined cake and headed for the door. Before she left, she turned and muttered: “Greedy girl. Always thinking about food.” The door clicked shut. Dad sank into the corner of the couch, lit a cigarette, and couldn’t look at me. — That evening, the family held their traditional dinner ritual. The table was laid out with a big bowl of braised pork, glistening with oil. I hadn’t eaten all day. My stomach felt like it was on fire. While Mom slipped away to the bathroom, I quietly pinched off a piece and shoved it in my mouth. Before I could even chew, someone grabbed me by the hair from behind. “Nicole! You little thief!” Mom had appeared out of nowhere. A few relatives who’d dropped by were all staring. “Stealing from the offering table? That food is sacred! How dare you!” She dragged me to the center of the living room. The relatives made weak, half-hearted attempts to intervene: “The poor kid is hungry, one piece can’t hurt…” “Absolutely not!” Mom’s voice was razor-sharp, the veins in her neck bulging. “It starts with one stolen bite and ends with a life of crime! You let this go today, and tomorrow she’ll be robbing people blind!” She charged into the kitchen. When she came back, she was carrying a large bowl of water. Thick white foam floated on top. The sharp, chemical smell of lemon dish soap hit me in the face. Dish soap water. “Drink it.” She shoved the bowl against my lips. “Flush out that greedy gut of yours. Let this be a lesson.” I looked desperately at Dad. He moved his lips: “Lisa, this could really hurt her…” “Shut up! Soft fathers raise ruined children!” One look from Mom and he went quiet. I was force-fed the whole thing. A burning, slick liquid poured down my throat. Less than thirty seconds later, my stomach turned inside out. I dropped to my knees and vomited violently. That piece of braised pork came back up with bile and stomach fluid, all over the floor. Some relatives covered their noses. Some turned away. Mom stood over me, looking down like a judge handing down a verdict. “Remember this. That is what greed gets you.” — **2** Late that night. I was curled up in bed, my stomach still cramping. I reached under my pillow and pulled out my diary. I turned to a fresh page and drew a bright red X. *”My birthday cake went to feed Mom’s ego. -1 day.”* This diary had three hundred pages. I had made myself a promise. When the last page was gone, I would give this life back to her. That bowl of dish soap water left me burning with fever for two days. Mom didn’t take me to the doctor. She said: “A fever means your body is detoxing. It’s karma for what you stole.” I lay in bed, and the only comfort I had was the drawing board under it. I loved art. It was the only escape I had in that suffocating house. I secretly entered the city’s “Future Stars” art competition. To keep Mom from finding out, I practiced every night deep under my covers, using the dim glow of my phone as a light. My eyes went red. My wrist ached. I never let myself stop. Because I knew — this was my only way out. Win a prize, and I’d have a shot at early admission to the arts high school affiliated with the academy. Half a month later, the news came. First place. When the certificate arrived at school, my hands were shaking. The professor from the arts academy had written in his review: “Exceptional raw talent. Destined for greatness.” Walking home that afternoon, I held that certificate to my chest, and something warm sparked inside me. Maybe Mom would be proud? This was a city-level award. Wouldn’t that look good for her? I was naive enough to believe that as long as it was an achievement, she’d be happy. — When I got home, Mom was in the living room polishing her wall of commendations. “Mom, I won an award.” I worked up my courage and held out the certificate. Mom stopped, took it. Glanced at it. Didn’t smile. Her expression was like she was looking at a scrap of paper. “Art?” The word came out of her mouth like a piece of ice. “Who told you to do art?” My heart dropped. “Mom, the professor said I have talent, I could apply to the arts academy…” “Smack!” The certificate hit the floor. “Talent? You call wasting your time talent?” Mom’s voice went sharp. “I already have your future planned out. You’re going to study education, become a teacher — respectable, stable! What does art get you? Busking on a street corner?” She stormed into my room. Tore through it like she’d lost her mind. The drawing board under my bed, the paints, the thick stack of artwork I’d built up — she dragged it all out. “Greg! Bring me the fire pit!” Dad came running in from the balcony, took one look, and froze. “Lisa, her drawings are actually really good…” “Good? What good? This is all your fault for enabling her! How much did all this junk cost?” Mom dumped the whole stack of drawings into the fire pit. The lighter clicked. Flames shot up. That was my work. Countless sleepless nights poured into every page. “No!” I screamed and lunged forward, reaching into the fire. “You dare fight me!” Mom kicked me hard in the shoulder. I fell against the edge of the fire pit, and my hand pressed down on the scorching hot rim. A sizzling sound. The smell of burning skin. The pain was blinding. But I couldn’t think about that. All I could see was my winning piece — *Bird in a Cage* — curling in the flames, blackening, turning to ash. Mom stood on the other side of the fire, her face lit up red. “Nicole, let me make this clear. This is a model family.” “I will not allow a disgrace like you under this roof.” “This is a stain on this family. It has to burn.” Dad stood to the side, head down, not saying a word. That night, I stared at the blisters rising on my hand. I didn’t cry. With my left hand, I opened my diary and crossed out seven days. *”My dream burned up. Mom called it a ‘family disgrace.’ -7 days.”* I had only meant to cross off one. But today, I felt like my life wasn’t worth even that much. — **3** Mom had recently gotten obsessed with livestreaming. She called her account “Model Mom Lisa.” She posted about her approach to parenting — the tough love, the public discipline, what she called “choosing principle over family.” Her follower count shot up fast. People flooded the comments: *”This is what a responsible parent looks like.”* *”Kids these days just don’t get enough discipline.”* Mom read every word of praise with a grin she couldn’t wipe off her face. Then one day, our neighbor Mrs. Wilson came knocking. “Lisa… the five hundred dollars I left in my entryway is gone. Do you think maybe… Nicole might have seen it?” Mrs. Wilson was dancing around it, struggling to get the words out. I was doing homework at the time. My head snapped up: “I didn’t take it!” “Be quiet!” Mom snapped at me. She didn’t ask me a single question about what happened. Instead, a flicker of excitement passed through her eyes. “Carol, don’t you worry. I don’t cover for anyone.” Mom immediately grabbed her phone, set up the stand, and flicked on the ring light. Her hands moved with a practiced efficiency that made my skin crawl. “Hey everyone, something just came up. My neighbor’s money is missing, and even though it hurts, I have to do what’s right.” Thousands of viewers flooded the stream within seconds. The title read: **[Neighbor’s Money Stolen — Tough Mom Holds Live Interrogation]** Mom dragged me in front of the camera. “On your knees!” I stood my ground. “I didn’t take anything. Why should I kneel?” “Still playing innocent! You’re the only one who’s been to Carol’s house recently — you dropped something off! Who else could it be?” Mom reached into the sewing basket and pulled out a thick upholstery needle. “I taught you from the time you were little — keep your hands clean.” “If you won’t admit it, I’ll make sure you don’t forget this lesson.” She grabbed my left hand. I thrashed and fought, looking over at Mrs. Wilson: “I swear I didn’t take it!” Mrs. Wilson was starting to look uncomfortable: “Lisa, maybe we should just… let it go. There’s no proof…” “No! It starts with small things and turns into big ones! If I let this slide now, she’ll be a menace to everyone around her!” Mom turned toward the camera, her voice firm and righteous. The comment section erupted: *[Go Mom! That kind of kid needs consequences!]* *[Strict parents raise good kids!]* *[Your values are so right!]* Mom read the comments and was visibly energized. She pinched my index finger, aimed the tip of the needle at the pad of my fingertip. And drove it in. “Ahh—!” I screamed. Cold sweat soaked through my shirt instantly. “Are you going to admit it?” “I didn’t take it…” The needle went in again. Middle finger. Blood welled up and dripped onto the floor. Dad came charging over: “Lisa! Stop! You’re going to do permanent damage!” “Back off!” Mom backhanded him across the face without even turning around. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m doing this for her!” She turned back to the camera, eyes welling up: “Everyone, it hurts me so much more than it hurts her. But I can’t let my heart go soft.” Gifts and donations flooded the stream. The graphic effects burst across the screen in her tears — like fireworks at some grotesque carnival. Ten fingers. All of them punctured. The pain had gone past feeling. I was just collapsed on the floor. But I never once admitted to it. Because I hadn’t done it. — The next day, the police came. Not for me. For Mrs. Wilson. Security footage showed that her own son had taken the money. He’d spent it at the internet café. Mrs. Wilson showed up at our door, mortified, carrying fruit as an apology. “Lisa, I’m so sorry. We wronged Nicole…” My hands were wrapped in thick bandages. I sat in the corner. I thought Mom might feel at least a small amount of guilt. She didn’t. She faced the camera — still live — and waved a breezy hand, smiling like nothing had happened: “Don’t worry about it, Carol.” “This girl is tough. She can take it.” “A lesson now means she won’t go down the wrong path later.” “Think of it as getting ahead of things.” The neighbor left, embarrassed. Mom checked the earnings on her phone’s backend, grinning so wide it almost reached her ears. “Nikki, you see how much I put up with for your sake.” “Lucky for me, my followers have my back.” I looked at her. For the first time, I felt it clearly — she wasn’t my mother. That night, I bit down on my pen and struggled to open the diary. Blood had soaked through the bandages and stained the pages. I crossed out ten days straight. *”Ten fingers. Still couldn’t reach her heart. -10 days.”* — **4** The college entrance exams were over. I did well. Fifty points above the cutoff for four-year universities. It was my last ticket out of this hell. I applied to a university in the south — two thousand miles away. I wanted to see the ocean. I wanted to go somewhere nobody had ever heard of “Model Mom Lisa.” But the acceptance letter never came. Then one day, I found an opened envelope in Mom’s dresser drawer. Local State Teachers College. Designated placement program. My mind went blank with a roar. I grabbed the letter and ran out to confront her. “Why? I applied to Southern University. That was my choice!” Mom was trimming flowers. She didn’t even look up. “I changed it.” Three words. Light as air. “You had no right to change my application! This is my life!” I screamed like I’d lost my mind, tears pouring down my face. “I’m your mother. That’s my right.” Mom set the scissors down on the table, her eyes cold and sharp. “Why do you need to go so far away? What’s gotten into your head?” “Stay here, become a teacher. It’s a respectable life. Stable.” “I already talked to the district coordinator. You’re going to be our community’s ‘Second-Generation Role Model.’ Following in my footsteps.” “Do you know how many people would kill for an opportunity like that?” I was shaking. So that was all I was to her. Not a person. A decoration for her “role model” brand. A tool to extend her ego. “I’m not going! I’ll retake the exam! I’m leaving this place!” I turned to run. Mom grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged me back to my room. “You’re not going anywhere.” “I have your ID, your documents — all locked up.” “Where are you going to retake anything? Who’s paying for it?” She shoved me inside and locked the door from the outside. “You sit in there and think about your choices. When you come to your senses, you can come out.” I pounded on the door, sobbing and screaming until my voice was gone. Dad’s voice came quietly from the other side: “Lisa, she’s old enough to choose for herself…” “You don’t know anything.” Mom’s cold laugh came through the door. “What does she know about what’s good for her? I decide her future.” “She’ll be a respected teacher one day, and she’ll thank me for it.” I sat on the floor and stared at the iron security bars over my window. Like a cage. Locking away my youth, my dreams, my dignity. I took out my diary. Only one page left. I had been holding onto these last few days, hoping some miracle might still come. Now I understood. There was no miracle coming. I didn’t cross out the page. Instead, I picked up my pen and wrote one line in careful, even letters: *”Mom, since your reputation means everything to you —* *let me give you the most unforgettable ending to your ‘model life’ story.”* — Three days later. The city held a grand ceremony to present Mom with the “City-Level Moral Role Model” plaque. It took place in the plaza right outside our building. Red banners, drums, a crowd packed thick with reporters, officials, and neighbors. Mom let me out. She’d picked out a white dress for me — one she’d worn when she was young. “Today is an important day. You behave yourself.” “When you get up on stage, you thank me for raising you right.” She combed my hair and issued her instructions at the same time. In the mirror, my face was pale. My eyes were empty. “Of course, Mom.” I answered quietly, like I always did. Mom looked satisfied. She thought I had finally given in. The ceremony began. Mom stood on the stage, a large red carnation pinned to her chest, glowing with pride. She accepted the heavy “Moral Role Model” plaque and spoke into the microphone without pause. “The most important thing in raising children is being willing to be the strict one…” “I may be hard on her, but everything I do is for her good…” The crowd applauded. Camera flashes went off like rain. I walked slowly out from behind the stage. In my hands, I held a small green bottle, gripped tight. The emcee blinked: “Oh — is this Lisa’s daughter? Are you here to present flowers?” Every eye in the crowd found me. Mom’s brow furrowed. She lowered her voice: “What are you doing up here? It’s not your turn to speak.” I walked to her side. I stood beneath that enormous “Moral Role Model” plaque. I looked out at the faces in the crowd. Mrs. Wilson. Mr. Lee. Mrs. Taylor. They had all been Mom’s audience. Her accomplices. I raised the bottle. My voice into the microphone was soft, but the speakers carried it everywhere. “Mom, you want your reputation. You want to be a role model.” “So I’m giving you myself.” “Is this enough to make history?” Mom went white: “Nicole! What is that! Put it down!” She reached for it. Too late. I twisted off the cap, tilted my head back. The dark green liquid — smelling of soil and something raw and wrong — poured into my throat. I didn’t hesitate. I drank every last drop.

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Julian was obsessed with me to the core; he had a miniature bio-chip implanted in the bone of my left ring finger. If I moved more than a thousand meters away from him, or if my heart rate exceeded 120 beats per minute, he would drag me back to that pristine white cage like a madman. Everyone in New York envied me, a golden canary pampered in Julian’s clutches. But no one knew that to truly trap me, he had personally cut off my brother’s life-saving bone marrow supply. He thought that by breaking my wings, I would forever be subjugated to him. But he forgot, a golden canary, pushed to its limits, will also peck out its owner’s eyes, and tear them apart. In the VIP lounge of a top-tier charity gala, the air conditioning was set impossibly low. I was wearing a red velvet backless gown, my back already drenched in cold sweat. Deep in the bone of my left ring finger, the miniature bio-chip pulsed with a sharp, piercing pain as my heart beat too fast. It was a warning, a ticking time bomb. Bang! The heavy wooden door was locked from the inside. Before I could even turn around, a large hand clamped down on the back of my neck. The immense force, radiating a destructive pressure, slammed me against the dressing mirror. In the mirror, Julian stood impeccably dressed in a suit, exuding an aura of controlled power. But his eyes were as sinister as a viper eyeing its prey. “Just now, by the exhibition stand, that man’s coat brushed your left shoulder,” Julian murmured, his voice so gentle it could drip, yet imbued with an icy chill. “In that exact second, your heart rate shot up to one hundred and thirty. Mia, were you feeling something for another man, or were you signaling for help?” “I wasn’t, I just bumped into him by accident,” my voice trembled as I frantically shook my head. Julian didn’t listen. He scoffed, tearing off his silk tie with one hand. “Julian, don’t do this. There are people outside.” My plea was roughly cut off. Julian used the tie to tightly bind my wrists, tying me to the back of the chair. The silk dug into my pale skin, instantly leaving glaring red marks. He turned to the bar, grabbed a bottle of high-proof liquor, and pulled out a handful of rough medical cotton balls. “Things that get dirty need to be cleaned.” Julian walked back, ruthlessly tearing open the red velvet over my left shoulder. My rounded shoulder was instantly exposed to the cold air. He twisted open the bottle, pouring the stinging liquor directly onto the cotton balls. A pungent smell of alcohol permeated the air. The next second, the rough cotton ball was pressed firmly against my left shoulder. “Ah!” I cried out in pain. Julian’s hand didn’t stop, like a madman in the throes of OCD, he scrubbed with all his might, repeatedly, at that patch of skin. The rough cotton ball, mixed with the liquor, scraped away my delicate epidermis like sandpaper. “It hurts! Julian, I’m hurting! Please, stop scrubbing!” Tears streamed down my face, and I struggled violently in the chair. The chip in my left ring finger, due to my accelerated heart rate, released an even stronger electrical current. The double torment pushed me to the brink of fainting. Julian ignored me. He stared intently at my skin, pressing harder and harder. Until my pale shoulder was scrubbed red and raw, oozing glaring blood. Crimson streaks flowed down my arm, dripping into the red velvet, blending seamlessly. Only then did Julian stop. He tossed away the blood-stained cotton ball, and with alcohol-scented fingers, gently stroked the bruised and bleeding wound. “See, now it’s clean.” He smiled, satisfied, then leaned down and pressed a kiss on the edge of the wound. I spasmed from the pain, gasping for breath. I lowered my head, biting my lower lip hard, not daring to make another sound. I knew too well that resistance would only invite more sadistic torment. Julian straightened up, pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from inside his suit jacket, and tossed it lightly onto the dressing table. It was the ICU bill from New York’s best hospital. “Ethan’s bone marrow match, I’ve had it intercepted overseas.” Julian reached out and pinched my chin, forcing me to look up. “Stay by my side, be the good little canary you’re supposed to be. As long as you’re obedient, your brother will live. If you dare to harbor any improper thoughts again.” His fingers tightened abruptly, knuckles turning white. “I’ll immediately cut off his ventilator, and make sure he has a very ugly death.” I looked at this man in the mirror, towering, controlling everything. Tears flowed down my pale cheeks, and I trembled as I nodded, my voice fragmented yet utterly submissive. “I understand. I’ll be obedient.” Julian released my chin, satisfied, then untied the silk from my wrists and gently tidied my messy hair. “That’s right. There’s a cocktail party tonight, come with me.” Julian turned and walked into the bathroom to wash his hands. Listening to the rushing water, I slowly raised my head. In the mirror, the fragile, fearful canary had vanished. I stared at the fresh blood on my shoulder, my downcast eyes no longer holding fear. Instead, there was a boiling intent to kill!

In the middle of the night, my phone ringing sliced through the dead silence. I jolted awake. The moment I answered the call, my blood ran cold. The hospital had issued a critical condition notice. My brother, Ethan, had a severe lung infection and wouldn’t make it through the night. The bone marrow transplant had to be done immediately, and the exorbitant surgery fee was also due by the deadline. And the successfully matched donor and the life-saving money were all in Julian’s hands. I didn’t bother to put on shoes, stumbling into the master bedroom. Julian leaned against the leather headboard, carelessly swirling half a glass of red wine. Seeing my disheveled state, a sneering curve tugged at his lips. He already knew. “Please, save Ethan.” I dropped to my knees on the cold floor. Julian looked down at me from above, as if I were a dog. He put down his wine glass and got out of bed barefoot. His large hand suddenly gripped my long hair, dragging me out without mercy. A tearing pain ripped through my scalp. Biting my lip hard, I stumbled and crawled on the floor, shielding my head with my hands. At the end of the corridor was a giant glass conservatory. Outside, the rain poured down, thunder roared. The conservatory had no heating; it was cold as an ice cellar. Julian suddenly flung his hand, slamming me hard onto the white tiles. He walked to the liquor cabinet and pulled out several bottles of fine red wine. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bottle after bottle exploded around my feet. Dark red wine splattered, and sharp glass shards covered the floor. Julian grabbed a large bunch of red roses from the flower bucket. He tore off the petals with his bare hands, then violently threw the thorny stems into the scattered glass shards. He took off his silk robe, tossing it onto the back of a chair. He then sank into the velvet sofa, crossing his legs, his gaze sinister. “You want money? You want the bone marrow?” He pointed at the wreckage, a mix of glass and thorns. “Show me your sincerity. Dance for me, right on that. Dance until I’m satisfied.” I stared at the execution ground before me, a place that could cripple my feet. The chip in my left ring finger sensed my heart rate soaring, releasing a bone-chilling microcurrent. I didn’t hesitate, didn’t beg. I slowly stood up, my bare feet stepping without hesitation into that dark red wreckage. My first step landed. Sharp glass instantly pierced the soles of my feet. Blood welled up. I spasmed from the pain, biting down hard, forcing back a cry of agony. I slowly raised my arms, striking a classical dance opening pose. Lightning flashed, its pallid light illuminating my bloodless face. Second step. Third step. The glass shards dug deeper and deeper, firmly embedded in my flesh. Rose thorns savagely cut my ankles, tearing open my skin. I began to spin. Every jump, every landing, was a heart-piercing, bone-chilling pain. Cold sweat drenched my nightgown, clinging to my back. Red wine and blood mixed together, dragging out shocking crimson trails on the pure white tiles. I was like a crimson butterfly with broken wings, forced to dance on knife-edges. Julian leaned back on the sofa, staring intently at me. Watching my pained, enduring face, watching my movements, still submissive despite the pain and spasms. The brutality and excitement in his eyes peaked. His breathing grew shallow, his gaze feverish like a madman’s. This was what he wanted. He wanted this proud golden canary to be completely crushed, her soul forced to grovel at his feet. Ten minutes, stretched out like a century. The soles of my feet were raw and bleeding, deep enough to see the bone. After completing the final spin, I finally couldn’t hold on, collapsing heavily into the shattered glass. Shards dug into my knees and palms, bleeding profusely. I gasped for breath, struggling to look up. My eyes were broken, submissive, gazing up at the man on the sofa. Julian was finally satisfied. He stood up and walked closer. His leather shoes squelched sickeningly on the blood and wine. He bent down, stroking my sweat-drenched face as if caressing a beloved pet. “Such a good girl.” He dialed Mr. Davis, his assistant. Instructing him to transfer funds to the hospital. To have the donor ready overseas, on standby. After hanging up, Julian scooped me up from the floor into his arms. “Does it hurt?” He asked, knowing full well, his voice resuming that chilling tenderness. I leaned against him, my nails digging hard into my palms, suppressing the urge to tear him apart. I forced out a fragmented smile: “No, it doesn’t. Thank you, Julian.” Julian chuckled softly, then carried me swiftly out of the conservatory. I lay on his shoulder, looking back over his neck. On the white tiles, there were countless bloody footprints. The searing pain in my feet and knees pulsed through me. I closed my eyes, hiding the monstrous killing intent within. From beginning to end, I hadn’t shed a single tear. I finally understood. As long as Julian lived, my brother and I would always be lambs to the slaughter. Julian had to die! I would flay this madman alive with my own hands, send him to hell!

In the bedroom, the smell of blood was pungent. Dr. Oliver, Julian’s chief private physician, knelt on the carpet with a medical kit. He shone a powerful flashlight on my feet and gasped. Glass shards had pierced through the skin, fragments embedded in the bone seams. Dr. Oliver picked up a pair of tweezers, clamping onto the largest piece. “Bear with it,” he whispered. As the glass was pulled out, blood welled up. I bit down hard on the pillowcase, cold sweat soaking my nightgown, yet I didn’t utter a sound. Cleaning, disinfecting, applying medicine. The only sound in the room was the sharp clink of tweezers against the tray. Julian had gone to the office. In the four corners of the bedroom, surveillance cameras blinked red. I stared at a camera, then suddenly reached out. The water glass by the bed tipped over. The water streamed down the nightstand, precisely hitting the power strip on the carpet. Sizzle. The camera screen went black, the red light extinguished. Local power outage. Dr. Oliver’s hand paused, and he looked up sharply. “Don’t be nervous,” I said, leaning against the headboard, my voice weak yet chillingly calm. “I tampered with the power strip. The backup power won’t switch over for ten minutes. For these ten minutes, Julian is blind and deaf.” Dr. Oliver’s brow furrowed. “Ms. Amelia, what are you planning?” I stared at him, my eyes like knives. “Dr. Oliver, fourteen years ago, at the Southwood Orphanage. If it weren’t for my mother anonymously donating that fifty thousand for your overseas tuition, you’d still be working odd jobs in a shady clinic, not serving as Julian’s lackey here.” Dr. Oliver’s face changed drastically. Clang! The tweezers dropped into the tray. “How do you know?” He stared intently at me. That money was anonymous; it took him ten years to find out the benefactor’s surname was Lin. “My mom gave me all the donation records before she died.” I pushed myself up, closer to Dr. Oliver. “Dr. Oliver, you’re a man of loyalty. You’ve been secretly looking for my mom all these years, haven’t you?” Dr. Oliver’s throat moved, speechless. “My mother was driven to her death by Julian’s family,” my eyes were bloodshot, my voice laced with ice. “Now, Julian is threatening my brother’s life, treating me like a dog.” I held out my left hand, my ring finger right in front of Dr. Oliver. Beneath the skin, the bio-chip pulsed with a faint glow. “If my heart beats too fast, or if I leave the designated range, this thing will discharge electricity,” I sneered. “Dr. Oliver, you’re a skilled physician; you must know that prolonged exposure to this kind of bio-electrical stimulation can lead to a nervous breakdown.” Dr. Oliver stared at the chip, then at my feet, deep enough to see the bone, his eyes filled with shock and internal struggle. “What do you want me to do?” Dr. Oliver whispered. “Help you remove it? No, once it’s removed, Julian will receive an immediate alert.” “I’m not removing it.” My eyes hardened. “I want him dead.” Dr. Oliver shot up. “Ms. Amelia, you’re insane! Julian’s security is airtight, and all his food is checked. You can’t kill him!” “I’m not killing him.” I stared coldly at Dr. Oliver. “I want him utterly disgraced, to become a complete madman. Dr. Oliver, help me. Consider it repaying my mother for saving your life.” Dr. Oliver fell silent. Looking at the woman before him, battered yet fierce as a wolf, the scales in his heart finally tipped. He knelt down again, reaching into the bottom compartment of his medical kit, and pulled out a thumb-sized transparent glass vial. A colorless, odorless liquid. “New-type neuro-hallucinogen,” Dr. Oliver pressed the vial into my hand. “One drop each time. Regular blood and urine tests won’t detect it, I guarantee.” “What are the effects?” I clutched the vial. “It slowly erodes the central nervous system,” Dr. Oliver’s expression was grave. “Initially, severe insomnia, irritability, paranoia. Long-term use will induce extremely realistic, terrifying hallucinations, eventually leading to severe mania. By then, not even a miracle could save his mind.” I looked at the vial, a cruel smile playing on my lips. “Good. This is perfect.” Dr. Oliver continued to explain, “It must be taken continuously for at least half a month. No interruptions. You’ll have to find a way to mix it into something he consumes daily. Ms. Amelia, once the arrow is shot, there’s no turning back. If we’re exposed, we both die.” I hid the vial against my body, under my clothes, my eyes showing no trace of hesitation. “Don’t worry. I’m not even afraid to die, why would I be afraid of him finding out?” Dr. Oliver quickly bandaged my foot wounds and packed up his medical kit. “The backup power is about to activate,” Dr. Oliver instantly reverted to his cold demeanor. “Don’t let the wounds get wet, change the dressing regularly.” Just as he finished speaking, the lights flickered. The red lights on the surveillance cameras came back on. Heavy footsteps sounded from the corridor. The door opened. Julian walked in, bringing with him a chill, his gaze sweeping the room like a hawk. “What happened? Why did the monitoring cut out?” Julian walked to the bed, looking down at me. Dr. Oliver lowered his head. “Mr. Julian, I accidentally knocked over a water glass earlier, short-circuiting the power strip. It’s all cleaned up now.” Julian scoffed, his gaze falling on my foot. The thick bandage was oozing glaring blood. “Are the injuries taken care of?” “Yes, they are. No bone damage, but she needs rest,” Dr. Oliver replied flawlessly. Julian waved his hand, dismissing Dr. Oliver. The door closed. Julian took off his jacket and sat on the edge of the bed. He reached out and touched my pale face, his fingers deliberately brushing my chapped lips. “Were you scared when the power went out?” His voice had reverted to that sickening tenderness. I suppressed the churning in my stomach, submissively pressing my face into his palm, like a bird completely tamed. “No. I knew you’d protect me, Julian.” Julian smiled, satisfied. He leaned down and pressed a kiss on my forehead. “Good girl.” I closed my eyes. The glass vial pressed against my chest was cool, yet it felt like a burning fire of revenge.

My foot injuries hadn’t even scabbed over when I got out of bed. Changing into Julian’s favorite white silk nightgown, I walked barefoot into the kitchen, sending away the terrified housekeepers. Grinding, brewing. Boiling water poured in, a bitter coffee aroma filled the air. In the rising steam, I stood with my back to the surveillance camera, pulling the thumb-sized transparent glass vial from the hidden pocket of my nightgown. I pulled out the stopper. My wrist tilted slightly. Drip. The colorless, odorless liquid fell into the dark coffee, instantly dissolving. I picked up the white ceramic cup, glancing at my left ring finger. The chip beneath the skin lay dormant. I suppressed my heart rate, then turned and walked towards the study on the second floor. The door was ajar. Julian leaned back in his executive chair, flipping through documents, his brows furrowed. I pushed the door open, walked in. The coffee was gently placed on the mahogany desk. Julian looked up, his gaze like a knife, finally settling on my bandaged foot. “Who told you to get out of bed?” His voice was sharp. “You didn’t sleep well last night, so I wanted to make you a cup of coffee.” I didn’t flinch, meeting his gaze with soft, submissive eyes. Julian narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing me. He was accustomed to my fear and trembling; this active attempt to please him felt novel, yet it also made him suspicious. He reached out and pinched my chin, forcing me to look up. “Mia, what game are you playing now?” My eyes shimmered with unshed tears. I reached out and covered his hand, gently rubbing it. “Julian, I’ve thought it through,” my voice was as light as a feather. “I can’t escape you. As long as you’re willing to save Ethan, I’ll listen to whatever you say. I’ll be a good girl from now on, okay?” Julian stared intently at me. The chip in my ring finger remained still; my heart rate was steady, indicating no lies. The gloom in his eyes receded. He released his grip, then pulled me into his lap. “You should have been this obedient earlier.” He picked up the coffee, brought it to his lips, and took a large sip. I leaned against his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, watching that sip of black coffee, laced with hallucinogen, slide down his throat. In the blind spot where Julian couldn’t see, a chilling curve played on my lips. Over the next half-month, I transformed. Shedding all my defenses, I became the perfect golden canary. Whatever Julian wanted, I gave. Even the most disgusting, perverse requests, I accepted completely, proactively accommodating him. Every morning, a spiked cup of black coffee was served without fail. Julian reveled in my submissiveness. His guard dropped sharply; he no longer constantly monitored the cameras, even allowing me to stay in his study to organize documents. I acted like a beautiful, thoughtless doll, quietly categorizing files. In reality, I was burning his access passwords and project vulnerabilities deeply into my mind. Half a month later, the effects of the drug became evident. Sleep was the first thing to collapse. Julian began having sleepless nights, waking up in a cold sweat even after taking sleeping pills. His eyes were bloodshot, his temper extremely volatile. Late one night. A loud crash exploded from the study. I threw off the covers and rushed over. Mr. Davis, his assistant, stood outside the door, drenched in sweat, not daring to provoke him. I pushed the door open. The study was a wreck. Antique vases lay shattered on the floor, papers flew everywhere. His laptop was smashed against the wall, its screen fractured. Julian stood in the center of the ruins. Like an out-of-control beast, his eyes bloodshot, his chest heaving violently. He stared intently at the shadows in the corner, guttural gasps escaping his throat. “Get out! All of you, get out!” He screamed frantically at the empty air, veins bulging in his neck. The hallucinogen was starting to damage his nerves; he was experiencing hallucinations. I walked barefoot, stepping over the scattered ceramic shards, approaching the madman on the brink of rage. Hearing footsteps, Julian spun around. He gripped my throat, slamming me against the bookshelf, with enough force to nearly crush my neck. “You want to harm me! All of you want to harm me!” Julian gritted his teeth, his eyes wild and unfocused. I couldn’t breathe, my face flushed, yet I didn’t struggle. I painstakingly raised my hands, cupping his twisted face. “Julian…” I managed to gasp, my voice incredibly gentle. “It’s me. It’s Mia. No one wants to harm you.” Despite the searing pain in my neck, I hugged his trembling body tightly. “Don’t be scared. I’m here. I’ll always be with you.” Those words were like a spell. The madness in Julian’s eyes abruptly paused, and the strength in his hands instantly left him. Like a drowning man grasping for a piece of driftwood, he wrapped his arms around my waist, burying his face deep into my neck. He took deep breaths of my scent, his whole body trembling. “Mia… Mia…” he murmured incoherently, his pathological dependence peaking at that moment. “Don’t leave me.” My bones ached from his tight embrace. I reached out, gently stroking his back, soothing him like a rabid dog. Looking up at the opulent crystal chandelier, my eyes were as cold as ice.

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For three years, my husband, a renowned nutritionist, doted on me. He even pre-sorted my daily vitamins. But my best friend, Chloe, noticed my pallor, saying I looked like someone on long-term medication, and urged me to get checked. I took the vitamins he gave me for testing. The lab report starkly read: “Spironolactone.” It turned out, the man who constantly told me, “Your health is paramount, darling,” had been feeding me sterilizing drugs with his own hands all along. “Scarlett, are you feeling unwell lately?” My best friend, Chloe, sat across from me, suddenly putting down her coffee cup and looking at me intently. I paused, then smiled and shook my head. “No, I’m perfectly fine. Julian keeps a close eye on me; how could I be unwell?” Julian was my husband, a highly respected young nutritionist. Our marriage was the envy of all our friends. He was incredibly attentive, especially when it came to my health. Every morning, he would meticulously portion out my daily supplements into small boxes, hand them to me himself, along with a cup of honey water at just the right temperature. “Darling, your health is the most important thing. Make sure you take these on time,” he’d always say, his eyes full of concern. He’d adjust my meal plans based on my work intensity and seasonal changes, precisely calculating the calories and nutrients for each meal. Under his “meticulous care,” I hardly ever got sick, not even a cold. So, I couldn’t understand why Chloe was asking. Chloe frowned, leaning closer, scrutinizing my face. “No, something’s off. Look at your complexion. It’s sallow, completely dull, and you have dark circles under your eyes. This isn’t what a healthy person looks like. Honestly, you look like you’ve been chronically ill or on heavy medication.” I instinctively touched my face. Lately, when I looked in the mirror, I did feel my skin wasn’t at its best, but I just attributed it to being tired from work and not getting enough rest. Her words made a seed of doubt begin to sprout in my mind. “Long-term medication? I haven’t taken anything other than the vitamins and various supplements Julian prepares for me,” I explained. “Then that’s the problem,” Chloe’s expression grew more serious. “Scarlett, don’t think I’m meddling. Julian might be a nutritionist, but are you really sure what’s in those things he gives you? Have you ever checked the ingredients yourself?” I was speechless. I had never doubted Julian. He was my husband, the person I trusted most. He said it was good for my body, and I believed him. Every morning, he would hand me those colorful pills, and I wouldn’t even glance at them, just swallow them with water. It had been like that every single day for three years. “You trust him too much,” Chloe sighed. “I’m not trying to cause trouble between you two. But it’s your body; you need to be more careful. Listen to me, find some time to get a full physical check-up. Don’t tell Julian anything, just go secretly.” Chloe’s words were a stone dropping into the still waters of my mind, creating ripples of doubt. I started to reflect on the past few years. Julian was indeed good to me, impeccably so. He took care of all the housework, and my every need — from clothes to food to daily activities — was perfectly arranged. He remembered all my preferences, my menstrual cycle, and even my occasional mood swings. He pampered me like a princess who didn’t have to worry about anything. But was my body really getting better and better, as he claimed? I remembered how I’d recently been feeling cold in my hands and feet, and sleeping restlessly at night, often dreaming. I’d thought it was due to work stress. Now that I thought about it, these symptoms seemed to have been going on for a long time. “Chloe, it shouldn’t… it couldn’t be, right?” I sounded uncertain, a tremor in my voice I hadn’t even noticed. “Better safe than sorry,” Chloe squeezed my hand. “Listen to me, get it checked out. If it’s nothing, that’s best, and we’ll all be relieved. But if there is something, we can find it early.” I looked into her worried eyes and nodded. After leaving Chloe, I walked aimlessly down the street alone. Her words echoed repeatedly in my mind: “You look like you’ve been chronically ill or on heavy medication.” I walked into a nearby drugstore. Inside, there was a large mirror. I went to the mirror and carefully examined myself. The woman in the reflection had a sallow complexion, pale lips, and eyes that couldn’t hide the fatigue and dark circles. Was this really me? Scarlett, who was cherished by her husband and lived a happy life? I took out my phone and scrolled through old photos. A year ago, even two years ago, the me in the pictures had rosy cheeks and a vibrant spirit. When did I become like this? My heart sank a little more. When I got home, Julian had already made dinner. A perfectly balanced meal with several dishes, all my favorites, blending nutrition and taste. “Darling, you’re back! Go wash your hands and eat,” he said, wearing an apron, bringing out the last bowl of soup from the kitchen, his smile gentle. I looked at him, a flood of conflicting emotions swirling inside me. Did I really have to suspect him? The person who was supposedly the best to me in the whole world? Perhaps Chloe was just being overly sensitive. “What’s wrong? Why are you standing there?” Julian walked over to me, reaching out to check my forehead. “Are you not feeling well?” “No, just a little tired,” I forced a smile, subtly avoiding his touch. During dinner, I was preoccupied. Julian, as usual, served me food, reminding me to eat more. “Eat more of this broccoli, it’s good for vitamins. And this fish, it’s great for your skin.” I looked at the food in my bowl and suddenly felt a wave of nausea. That night, before bed, Julian came in with water and the pill organizer again. “Darling, it’s time for your last supplements of the day.” He skillfully opened the box, poured out a few capsules and tablets, and held them out to me. I stared at the pills in his palm, just like I had for over a thousand days and nights. Only this time, I didn’t take them immediately. “What are these?” I asked. “The usual, darling. Vitamin C, grape seed extract, and melatonin to help you sleep,” Julian’s tone was natural, betraying no hint of anything unusual. I stared at the pills, a voice screamed in my head: Don’t take them! I took the pills, pretending to drink water, and when he wasn’t looking, I hid them under my tongue. Then I took a big gulp of water and tilted my head back, mimicking a swallow. “There, now get some rest,” he smiled contentedly, leaning down to kiss my forehead. Once he was sound asleep, I quietly got up and went to the bathroom, spitting the pills onto a tissue from under my tongue. There were three in total: one white, one yellow, and one clear capsule. I carefully wrapped them up and tucked them into a hidden pocket in my makeup bag. After doing all this, I lay back in bed, looking at my sleeping husband, spending a sleepless night. Once the seed of doubt is planted, it grows wildly.

The next day, I called in sick to work. Julian left early; he had an important academic conference to attend. As soon as he left, I immediately hailed a cab to the biggest, most reputable hospital in the city. I registered for appointments in both gynecology and endocrinology. Sitting in the waiting area, my palms were sweating. I was scared — scared of a bad diagnosis, and also scared of finding nothing, which would make me seem overly suspicious and foolish. “Scarlett.” When my name was called, I took a deep breath and walked in. The doctor was a kind-looking female specialist in her fifties. She asked about my general condition, and I answered each question. “Doctor, I’ve mainly been feeling extremely tired lately, my complexion is terrible, and my hands and feet are always cold,” I tried to keep my voice calm. The doctor nodded and ordered a series of tests for me. “First, let’s do a full hormone panel and thyroid function tests, and also a comprehensive pelvic ultrasound.” Blood tests, urine tests, ultrasound. I spent the entire morning moving between various departments at the hospital. The wait for results was agonizingly long. I sat on a hospital bench, watching people come and go, feeling completely lost. If Julian really had a problem, what would I do? Were our three years of marriage nothing but a deception? In the afternoon, the test results gradually came in. I walked back into the specialist’s office, clutching a stack of reports. The doctor flipped through them, one by one, her brow furrowing deeper and deeper. My heart was in my throat. “Doctor, how is it?” I asked softly. She looked up, her expression serious. “Your endocrine system is severely out of balance. Estrogen levels are abnormally low, and follicle-stimulating hormone is unusually high. These indicators are not typical for someone your age.” “What… what does that mean?” I was utterly confused. “Simply put, your ovarian function is declining, and it’s declining very rapidly.” The doctor’s words were like a heavy hammer, striking my heart. “How can this be? I’m only 28.” “There are many reasons for this condition, such as autoimmune diseases or genetic factors. But judging from your reports, I lean more towards one possibility.” The doctor paused, looking into my eyes, and asked, word for word, “Have you been taking any medication long-term recently?” The exact same question as Chloe. My blood ran cold. “I… I only take the vitamins my husband gives me,” my voice trembled. “What does your husband do?” “He’s a renowned nutritionist.” The doctor’s gaze became somewhat complex. She pushed up her glasses. “Prescribed by a nutritionist? What exactly has he been giving you?” “Just some vitamins, grape seed, fish oil, things like that,” I said, taking out the pills I’d hidden last night from my bag. “Doctor, could you please tell me what these are?” The doctor took the pills I had wrapped in tissue paper and held them under the light, examining them carefully. She was very thorough, even using tweezers to pick up one of the white tablets and hold it against the light. “Just by appearance, I can’t be sure what these are. This clear capsule contains powder, the yellow one looks like ordinary Vitamin B, but this white tablet has no markings. It doesn’t look like a legitimate health supplement from a reputable manufacturer.” She handed the pills back to me, her tone becoming even graver. “I recommend you take these to a professional drug testing facility to analyze their components.” “Doctor, if… if I’ve been taking drugs that cause ovarian decline long-term, what would be the consequences?” I asked, clinging to a last shred of hope. “Consequences?” The doctor looked at me, her eyes filled with sympathy. “The most direct consequences would be irregular periods, premature menopause, and ultimately… infertility.” Infertility. Those two words exploded in my mind like a thunderclap. I understood everything in that instant. Julian and I had been married for three years and hadn’t had children. I thought it was because we were busy with work and under a lot of stress. Julian always comforted me, saying we should let nature take its course, and that he didn’t care about having children as long as I was healthy. Turns out, it wasn’t that we couldn’t have children. It was him. He had been preventing me from having children all along. I don’t know how I walked out of the hospital. The sunlight outside was blinding, but I felt utterly cold. I hailed a cab home and locked myself in my room. I replayed every little detail of the past three years. His meticulous care, his gentle and thoughtful words — they all became the most malicious mockery now. He was “regulating” my body. Yes, regulating it into a barren wreck. Why? Why would he do this to me? I covered my face, finally breaking down and sobbing uncontrollably. This seemingly perfect marriage had been a meticulously planned conspiracy from the very beginning. And I was the most foolish prey, willingly walking into the cage he had woven for me.

After crying for a long time, I wiped away my tears. Now was not the time for weakness. I had to find out why he did this. I also needed the most direct evidence. The doctor was right; I needed to get those “vitamins” tested. I opened the elegant pill organizer Julian had prepared for me. It was divided into seven small compartments, labeled Monday to Sunday. Each compartment was filled with colorful pills. I counted them; he made me take nearly ten pills every morning, noon, and night. For three whole years, how much of this unknown medication had I actually consumed? A wave of nausea and fear washed over me. I took a few pills from each compartment, especially the white tablets with no markings. I sorted them into sealed bags, labeling each one. After doing all this, I started planning my next step. Going directly to a testing facility with these things was too risky. If Julian found out, he would become alarmed. I needed a foolproof excuse to leave home for a few days. The next day, I told Julian that my company was sending me to a neighboring city for a three-day training session. “So sudden?” He seemed surprised. “Yes, it was a last-minute notification for a very important project,” I said, looking down, afraid to meet his eyes. “Three days? Remember to take your supplements on time; I’ll pack them for you to take,” he said, getting up to retrieve my suitcase. Watching his busy back, my heart was filled with nothing but cold hatred. He was still acting. Still playing the role of the loving husband who adored me. “Okay,” I replied calmly. He neatly folded my clothes and placed the pre-portioned pill organizer in the most conspicuous spot in my suitcase. “Darling, take care of yourself while you’re away. Make sure you eat three meals a day on time, okay?” He hugged me, whispering the reminder into my ear. I remained stiff in his embrace, but inside, I scoffed. Take care of myself? I listened to you too much, and now look at the mess I am. I didn’t go to the neighboring city. I hauled my suitcase and checked into a hotel in the city. The first thing I did after checking in was to search online for professional drug testing facilities. I found one that seemed the most authoritative and discreet and called them. The staff on the phone was very professional. He told me that personal submissions required samples and detailed requests, the fees were not low, and it would take time. “I need it expedited, cost is not an issue,” I said. “For expedited service, the fastest we can provide preliminary results is 48 hours.” “That works.” After hanging up, I immediately hailed a cab to the testing facility. It was a secluded campus with very strict security. I handed over the prepared samples to the staff and filled out the request form in detail. I asked them to perform a comprehensive analysis of the components of each pill, especially the white tablet. After paying the hefty expedited fee, I walked out of the testing facility, feeling a little calmer. Now, I just had to wait. Wait for the results that would pronounce the death sentence on my marriage. The two days in the hotel crawled by like years. I didn’t dare turn on my phone, afraid of receiving Julian’s calls. I didn’t know what tone or expression to use to face him. I replayed the doctor’s words over and over: ovarian function decline, ultimately leading to infertility. I asked myself, over and over, why. Our families were well-matched, our jobs respectable, so it wasn’t possible he was after my money. Our relationship had always seemed good, at least on the surface. He had no reason to hate me enough to destroy me this way. I couldn’t figure it out. There had to be a more terrifying secret behind all this that I didn’t know. On the morning of the third day, I received a call from the testing facility. “Is this Ms. Scarlett? Your sample test has preliminary results. You can pick up the report, or we can send you an electronic copy.” “Please email it to me,” my voice was hoarse. After hanging up, I opened my laptop, my hands trembling so much I could barely hold the mouse. The email arrived quickly. I clicked on the PDF file. The screen was filled with dense chemical names I couldn’t understand. I scrolled directly to the bottom, to the conclusion section. “…Among the submitted samples, the main component of the white tablet labeled A1 is Spironolactone…” Spironolactone. What was that? I immediately searched for the term online. The moment the search results appeared, my breathing stopped. Spironolactone, also known as Aldactone, is a synthetic steroid. Clinically used as a diuretic, but it has a very strong side effect—anti-androgenic action. Additionally, in some illegal uses, it’s used as a component in long-acting contraceptives. Long-term use can severely interfere with the female endocrine system, inhibit ovulation, and even cause irreversible endometrial damage. To put it more bluntly, it was a sterilizing drug. My husband, the man who told me every day, “Darling, your health is paramount,” had been feeding me sterilizing drugs with his own hands. My world, in that moment, completely collapsed. I looked at the words on the computer screen and laughed. I laughed, and then the tears streamed down. So that was it. All that gentle care for three years was just a sugar coating wrapped around poison. Julian, you truly have a cruel heart.

I walked home like a ghost, clutching the lab report. Pushing open the door, Julian was sitting on the sofa, reading. Seeing me, he immediately put down his book and came over. “Darling, you’re back! Was the training tiring? You don’t look so good.” He reached out to embrace me. I took a step back, avoiding him. His smile froze for a moment; he looked at me, confused. “What’s wrong?” I didn’t speak. I just walked up to him and threw the printed lab report onto the coffee table in front of him. “Julian, explain this to me. What is this?” He picked up the paper. The moment his eyes landed on the words “Spironolactone,” his face instantly turned ashen. His hands began to tremble, his lips quivered, unable to utter a single word. The shock and panic on his face didn’t seem feigned. This made me even more confused. If this was his meticulously planned conspiracy, he shouldn’t be so distraught. “You… how did you find this out?” He finally found his voice, but it was filled with terror. “Don’t worry about how I found out,” my voice was as cold as ice. “You just need to tell me why. Why were you feeding me this? For three years of marriage, you’ve been feeding me sterilizing drugs every day. Why?” I expected him to argue, to deny it. But he didn’t. He looked at me, his eyes filling with pain and despair, and then, he did something I never would have expected. He dropped to his knees in front of me with a thud. A man over six feet tall, kneeling on the floor without an ounce of dignity, clutching my pants leg, sobbing uncontrollably. “Darling, I’m so sorry, I failed you…” He cried hysterically, like a guilty child. I was stunned by his sudden action. What was this? Repentance? “Get up! Don’t put on an act here!” I angrily tried to shake him off, but he held on tight. “I won’t get up! Darling, please listen to me, it’s not what you think!” He looked up, his face tear-streaked. “I did all this for your own good!” “For my good?” I let out a bitter laugh. “You fed me sterilizing drugs and claim it was for my good? Julian, do you take me for a fool?” “It’s true!” He wailed. “Darling, I… I have a disease, a family genetic condition!” My heart suddenly skipped a beat. A genetic condition? “The men in my family, none of them live past forty. It’s a rare neurodegenerative disease. When it flares up, you become completely paralyzed, lose all sensation, and eventually die in agony. My father had it, and my grandfather had it too…” He choked, almost unable to continue. “I love you, I love you so much, Scarlett. I couldn’t let you bear the pain of giving birth to a child, only to watch them suffer the same fate as me. I also couldn’t bear for you to lose your husband in middle age and struggle to live alone with a sick child.” “So, I could only use this method. I didn’t want you to get pregnant, I didn’t want us to have children. I fed you the medication because I wanted you to never experience the agony of seeing a child suffer.” His voice was filled with sorrow and helplessness, every word like a knife piercing my heart. He sounded so sincere, so heartbroken, I almost believed him. “Then why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I demanded, though my voice softened. “How could I say it?” He gave a self-deprecating laugh, tears flowing even harder. “Tell you I’m a dying man? Tell you our marriage was doomed to be a tragedy from the start? I couldn’t! I was afraid you’d leave me. I was selfish, I wanted you by my side, even if only for a few short years.” He got up from the floor, took a medical record file from his study drawer, and handed it to me. “This is my medical record, and my father’s and grandfather’s death certificates. I didn’t lie to you.” My hands trembled as I took the file. Opening it, I saw a series of complex medical reports and diagnostic papers. The diagnosis section clearly read: Hereditary Sensorimotor Neuropathy. Attached were his father’s and grandfather’s medical records, with the same disease listed as the cause of death. My legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the couch. So, all of this wasn’t betrayal, but a man’s deep and twisted love? To spare me future pain, he chose this method, preemptively robbing me of my right to be a mother? I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. “Darling, I’m so sorry…” Julian knelt before me, carefully taking my hand. “I know I was wrong, terribly wrong. I should have told you everything sooner. But I truly just didn’t want you to suffer. Hit me, curse me, do anything you want, just don’t leave me, please?” My mind was a tangled mess. Hatred was replaced by an overwhelming sense of grief and absurdity. If what he said was true, how was I supposed to face him? This man who used the cruelest method to “protect” me. I looked at his tear-reddened eyes, at his face full of pleading and remorse. I pulled my hand away and stood up. “Julian, I need to be alone.” I locked myself in the room. I slid down the door to the floor, clutching the “medical record.” My mind was blank. Should I believe him?

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “413768”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

“Dad, when is that awful woman leaving? I don’t want to call her Mom anymore. I want my real mom.” Those were the words from the son I had raised for five years. Clutching my first-place trophy from the Paris International Jewelry Design Competition, I stood at the entrance of my own living room, watching my husband embrace another woman. “Once she finishes all your designs for next season and helps you truly establish yourself in New York, I’ll send her away.” He kissed the woman’s fingertips. “Seraphina is nothing more than a useful tool. A free nanny.” The trophy slipped from my grasp. That dull thud shattered all the dreams of the past five years. He never loved me. I wiped away my tears and dialed a number I had not dared to call in five years. “I want to come home.” They thought I was a helpless orphan. They did not know that Jasper Clarke, the elder brother of the powerful Clarke family in Los Angeles, had been waiting for that call for five long years. Seraphina POV The plane landed in New York, a biting chill seeping through the early autumn night air. I clutched the first-place trophy from the Paris International Jewelry Design Competition, my heart full of joy as I pushed open the door to our mansion in the exclusive hillside community. I had intentionally changed my flight, ending my trip fifteen hours early, just to surprise Ethan Thorne. After half a month apart, longing had grown like a wild vine, burning me. It wrapped around every breath I took. The living room was brightly lit, but it wasn’t the quiet I had expected. “Dad, when is that mean lady leaving? I don’t want to call her Mom anymore. I want my real mom.” The innocent child’s voice hit me like a dull, heavy hammer. That was Leo, the son I had raised for five years. Five years ago, Ethan brought baby Leo home, covered in blood, his eyes red-rimmed. He told me Leo was the last living relative of a close friend who had died in a tragic accident. My heart ached for Ethan, and even more for the crying infant in his arms. I took the child without hesitation and raised him as my own. For five years, I spent countless sleepless nights when Leo had asthma attacks. To care for him, I even put my jewelry design career, the thing I loved most, on hold for a time. But now, this child I had poured my heart into was calling me an awful woman? I froze in the shadow of the doorway, my gaze fixed on the center of the living room, past the open door. On the leather sofa, Ethan had a slender, beautiful woman in his arms. Leo was nestled in her lap. They looked so happy. “Soon,” Ethan’s voice was low, tinged with a tenderness I’d never heard directed at me. “Once she finishes all your designs for next season and helps you truly establish yourself in New York, I’ll send her away.” The woman chuckled softly, her fair fingers stroking Ethan’s stern face. “Ethan, is there truly no affection left for Seraphina? She did raise the child for five years and created designs for me all this time. People will call you heartless if this gets out.” “Elara, you’re my only priority.” Ethan took her hand, kissed it, his voice resolute and cruel. “Seraphina is nothing more than a useful tool. A free nanny. If you hadn’t insisted on going to Paris for advanced studies back then, how would she ever have taken the position of Mrs. Thorne?” The trophy slipped from my grasp. With a dull thud, the pure gold trophy hit the thick, handmade rug, rolled twice, and bumped against the edge of the table. That faint sound, in the dead silence of the living room, exploded like thunder. All three on the sofa turned their heads at once. A fleeting look of surprise flickered in Ethan’s eyes, but it vanished instantly, replaced by chilling composure and indifference. He released Elara, calmly stood up, and straightened the hem of his custom-tailored suit, as if the dirty betrayal he’d been caught in was an insignificant matter. “Weren’t you supposed to be on tomorrow afternoon’s flight?” His tone was flat, even carrying a hint of annoyance at being disturbed. I trembled all over, my nails digging into my palms. The sharp pain barely held onto my wavering sanity. “So, Leo isn’t the orphan of a good friend at all, but your and Elara’s biological son?” I stared into Ethan’s deep eyes, my voice hoarse as if I’d swallowed coarse sand.

Seraphina POV Ethan frowned slightly, seemingly quite annoyed by my questioning. “Yes.” He admitted it without evasion, looking down at me haughtily. “Since you’ve heard it all, I no longer need to waste words hiding it from you.” The cruel truth became countless sharp blades, tearing my heart to shreds. Five years! My husband, whom I had deeply loved for five years, and my son, whom I cherished as a treasure, were all a lie! What I thought was mutual love and sincere affection was nothing but a long-planned scheme and exploitation. Elara stood up, subtly leaning back into Ethan, her eyes shimmering as she looked at me, appearing utterly pitiful. “Seraphina, don’t blame Ethan. I was the one who insisted on leaving back then. He only resorted to marrying you to protect Leo. Don’t worry, I won’t ruin your marriage. All I want is Leo.” “Shut up!” I sharply interrupted her, my eyes bloodshot. I pointed to the door. “This is my home! Get out, and take your fake sincerity with you!” The words had barely left my lips when Leo rushed over like a protective little animal, pushing me hard. “Don’t you dare yell at my mom! You ugly freak, you get out of my house!” Caught off guard, I stumbled back half a step, my lower back hitting hard against the corner of a cabinet by the door. I gasped in pain. I stared in disbelief at the hostile little boy before me. This was the child I had cared for through countless sleepless nights, the one I had held in my arms when he had a fever, not daring to close my eyes. Could a blood tie really erase five years of shared life so easily? Ethan stepped forward, shielding Leo behind him, his eyes as cold as ice, as if I were some detestable criminal. “Seraphina, watch your attitude. Elara isn’t well; she can’t handle any stress.” I laughed in anger, tears streaming silently down my pale cheeks. “She can’t handle stress, but what about me?” I pounded my chest, my voice raw with agony. “Ethan, for these five years, I stood by you, from being the unfavored son of the Thorne family to becoming the heir of Thorne Group today. I put all my design passion, all my talent, under Elara’s name, helping you pave the way for her. I gave my whole heart to you and your son. Is this how you repay me?” Ethan’s eyes were as hard as steel, completely unfazed. “Just tell me what compensation you want. Money, a downtown property, or shares in Thorne Corp. I can give you all of it.” His tone was condescending, as if he were shooing away a beggar. “As long as you cooperate and publicly claim that all those designs were Elara’s inspiration, you can keep the title of Mrs. Thorne. As long as you stay in your place, there will always be a spot for you in the Thorne family.” I looked at this man, both familiar and strange, and felt a wave of nausea. I once believed that Ethan was the man who loved me most in the world. In the dead of winter, if I casually mentioned a craving for tiramisu from a specific bakery, he’d drive across half of New York to get it. When I hit a design block and felt anxious, he’d hold me all night, comforting me. It turned out all that deep affection was a disguise, all that favoritism a mere chip to pave the way for another woman. I took a deep breath, pushing down all the brokenness and despair in my eyes, and straightened my spine. “Ethan, we’re getting a divorce.”

Seraphina POV “Divorce?” Ethan looked as if he had heard a ridiculous joke, a sneer of contempt appearing between his brows. He strode forward, closing in on me, his tall frame casting me in his shadow. “Seraphina, stop making a scene.” He looked down at me, his tone carrying the arrogance of someone used to getting what he wanted. “You won an award in Paris this time. Tomorrow, I’ll have the PR department release a statement giving the credit to Elara’s studio. As compensation, I’ll give you whatever you want. A limited edition couture dress? The mansion on the east side? I’ll make it happen.” His casual tone made it sound as if the heartbreaking betrayal that had just happened meant nothing. As if I were nothing more than a pet needing a treat to be quiet. I lifted my head, my bloodshot eyes filled with stubbornness and resolve. I gritted my teeth and repeated, “I said, I want a divorce. Ethan, are you deaf?” Ethan’s eyes darkened abruptly, the temperature around him instantly dropping to freezing point. “Seraphina, I advise you to face reality.” He slipped one hand into his pants pocket, his voice cold and unforgiving. “I’m giving you two choices.” “First, continue to be Mrs. Thorne obediently. Under the protection of Thorne Group, you can enjoy endless wealth and luxury. But you must accept Elara and Leo moving in, continue to be Elara’s shadow designer, and not question my private life.” “Second, leave the Thorne family now. The consequence is that you will leave empty-handed, and all bank accounts under your name will be frozen. I will have the entire New York design community blacklist you, and you will find it impossible to get by in this industry, unable to even make a living.” He leaned in slightly, his warm breath fanning my ear, but his words were like a serpent’s hiss. “So, do you still want a divorce?” Elara stood not far away, a secretive smirk playing on her lips. “Seraphina, Ethan is doing this for your own good. Where can a helpless orphan like you go if you leave the Thorne family? As long as you’re willing to stay, we can still be one big happy family.” One big happy family? That term was the greatest insult to me. I stared intensely at Ethan’s incredibly handsome face, the tearing pain in my heart making me momentarily disoriented. I suddenly remembered that snowy day five years ago. Back then, Ethan had just taken over Thorne Corp., facing enemies on all sides. To secure investment, he stood in the snow for an entire night. It was I who took all my savings, even sold my mother’s keepsakes, to help him through his toughest time. That day, he knelt in the snow, slipped a plain ring he had personally polished onto my ring finger, and swore with red-rimmed eyes, “Seraphina, my life is yours. As long as I live, I will never let you suffer any injustice.” But now, the man who swore never to let me suffer was holding a knife, carving into my flesh, piece by piece. Five years of marriage, five years of giving my all, only to be called a “free nanny.” I closed my eyes, completely extinguishing the last flicker of weakness. When I opened them again, my gaze was as clear and cold as water, devoid of any love. “No need to choose.” I took a step back, widening the distance between us. “I find it disgusting.” Ethan’s face instantly turned ashen, a vein throbbing faintly on his temple. “Fine, very good.” He laughed in anger, his eyes glinting with terrifying malice. “Since you’re so ungrateful, don’t blame me for being ruthless.” He turned and walked to his study, retrieving a pre-drafted divorce agreement and slamming it onto the table. “Sign it. I’d like to see how long you can remain so stubborn once you leave the Thorne family!” Without hesitation, I walked over, picked up the pen, and decisively signed my name in the signature space. I tossed the pen down and coldly looked at Ethan. “Ethan, from today on, you and I have no connection whatsoever. What you owe me, one day, I will make you spit it out, principal and interest.” Ethan scoffed. “Big words. I’ll be waiting for the day you come crying, begging me to take you back.” “Alfred!” Ethan barked, his voice sharp. “Watch her pack her things. Aside from the junk she brought herself, she’s not allowed to take anything from the Thorne house!” With that, he put his arm around Elara’s shoulders and, with Leo, went upstairs without a backward glance, as if even a second look at me was too much. In the vast living room, I stood alone. I straightened my spine and walked towards the bedroom I had personally decorated, filled with five years of memories. It was fine. I, Seraphina Clarke, was never a helpless orphan to be slaughtered at will.

Seraphina POV In the bedroom, I numbly stuffed my clothes into a suitcase. I didn’t even glance at the expensive jewelry or couture gowns Ethan had bought me. I only took the few old clothes I had brought with me, and a few worn design sketches. Footsteps sounded outside the door. “Mean lady, are you stealing our family’s stuff?” Leo stood at the doorway, clutching a Transformer toy, glaring at me with suspicion. My hands paused as I packed, and I turned to look at the child I had cherished for five years. Once, if Leo so much as coughed, I’d be too anxious to sleep all night. To help him with his health, I’d scoured medical books and personally brewed herbal remedies, burning my fingers with countless blisters. But now, the defensiveness and disgust in his eyes were like a rusty, dull knife, repeatedly cutting at my heart. “I’m not stealing anything.” My voice was flat and emotionless. “Once I have my things, I’ll leave.” But Leo was relentless. He rushed into the room and snatched the jewelry box from my bedside table. It was my mother’s only keepsake, a delicate antique pocket watch. “My dad bought this! You’re not allowed to take it!” Leo screamed, throwing the jewelry box hard onto the floor. “Stop it!” I cried out, lunging to catch it, but I was too late. With a sharp crack, the jewelry box flew open, and the delicate pocket watch shattered into several pieces. I froze, my mind blank. I tremblingly reached out to pick up the fragments, but my fingertip was sliced by a sharp metal edge. Blood instantly welled up, dripping onto the pristine white rug, a shocking sight. “Oh, Leo, how could you be so clumsy?” Elara’s voice came from the doorway. She walked in on high heels, glanced at the broken pocket watch on the floor, and a barely concealed sneer played on her lips. She stepped forward, her slender high heel seemingly accidentally treading on a larger piece of the watch, grinding it with force. “Seraphina, I’m so sorry. Leo is still little; he doesn’t know any better. You’re an adult, surely you wouldn’t hold it against a four-year-old child, would you?” Elara apologized falsely, her voice full of provocation. I suddenly looked up, my eyes red, staring at Elara. I stood up abruptly, raising my hand to slap her. “Stop it!” A sharp male voice suddenly rang out. Ethan strode in, seizing my wrist. His grip was so strong it felt like my bones would shatter. “Seraphina, are you insane? How dare you cause a scene in the Thorne house?” Seeing this, Leo immediately burst into tears, clinging to Elara. “Mommy, I’m scared! The mean lady wants to hit me!” Elara hugged Leo tightly, her eyes slightly red, looking utterly wronged. “Ethan, don’t blame Seraphina. It’s all Leo’s fault for accidentally breaking her thing. But… but Leo is your own flesh and blood, how could she be so harsh?” Ethan’s face was utterly grim. He looked at my bleeding fingers, his eyes completely devoid of pity, only profound disgust. “It’s just a cheap old pocket watch, it’s not worth anything! I’ll buy you ten better ones.” Ethan coldly flung my hand away. “Apologize to Elara and Leo immediately!” I stumbled, my back hitting the wardrobe. I looked at my husband, who was protecting another woman and child, listening to him disparage my mother’s keepsake as a “cheap old pocket watch.” I suddenly burst into laughter. My laughter grew louder, but tears streamed from my eyes. “Ethan, you want me to apologize to a little bastard who smashed my mother’s keepsake? You’re dreaming!” Slap! Ethan raised his hand without hesitation, delivering a resounding slap across my face. My head snapped to the side, and five distinct red marks instantly appeared on my pale cheek. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of my mouth. The entire room fell into a deathly silence. Ethan’s hand froze in mid-air, a flicker of panic in his eyes that even he might not have noticed. But he quickly suppressed that emotion, replacing it with a cold, stern expression. “Seraphina, this is to teach you manners. In this house, Elara and Leo are the masters.” I slowly turned my head, raising the back of my hand to wipe the blood from my mouth. My eyes were completely dead, like a stagnant pool that stirred no ripples. “Ethan, this slap has severed the last shred of affection between us.” Without another glance at the broken pocket watch on the floor, I picked up the suitcase filled with old clothes, straightened my back, and walked out of the mansion without looking back. The night wind outside was cold, chilling my thin clothes. I looked back at the cage that had trapped me for five years, a cold smile curving my lips. The New York night was just beginning.

Seraphina POV I stayed at a cheap motel for a night. Early the next morning, I dragged my suitcase to my “Starlight” design studio, where I had poured countless hours of effort. However, as I reached the entrance, I froze. The “Starlight” sign that once hung there had been replaced by a brand new one: “Elara’s Radiance.” The studio’s glass doors were locked, and two burly security guards blocked the entrance. “Ms. Clarke, Mr. Thorne has instructed that you’ve been dismissed from the studio. Everything here now belongs to Ms. Vance, and you are not allowed to enter.” The security guard blocked me, his face expressionless. I was furious, but I laughed. “Dismissed? I’m the founder of this studio, and I’m the legal representative. On what grounds can he dismiss me?” “On the grounds that the initial funding for this studio came from Thorne Corp., and every client resource here was provided by Thorne Corp.” An arrogant female voice came from behind me. Elara Vance, flanked by several socialite friends, strolled over on high heels. She was wearing the latest couture trench coat that I had rushed to finish over three sleepless nights, looking utterly condescending. “Seraphina, Ethan said that since you left empty-handed, the studio naturally has to be reclaimed.” Elara walked up to me, lowering her voice to a volume only we two could hear, mocking me. “Did you really think you were some genius designer? If Ethan hadn’t promoted you, you wouldn’t have achieved anything. Now, everything you had is mine.” A socialite nearby scoffed, loudly echoing, “Exactly! A fake, she actually thought she was Mrs. Thorne? Now that the real owner is back, shouldn’t she hurry and leave?” “She occupied the position of Mrs. Thorne for five years, truly shameless.” Facing their malicious taunts, I merely looked at Elara with cold eyes. “Elara Vance, aren’t you afraid of getting burned by stolen goods?” “You!” Elara’s face changed. She was about to erupt in anger but then, seeing past me, she instantly put on a wronged expression. “Ethan, look at her…” Ethan stepped out of a black Maybach, his perfectly tailored suit making him look tall and imposing. He strode to Elara’s side, shielding her, and his gaze swept over me, cold and sharp. “Seraphina, what are you doing here, causing a scene?” I looked at him, my voice clear and cold. “I’ve come to retrieve my design drafts.” “Those drafts are now assets of ‘Elara’s Radiance’.” Ethan refused without mercy. “Since you signed the divorce agreement, you should know the rules. Everything here belongs to Elara. Leave immediately.” I took a deep breath, suppressing the surging pain in my chest. “Fine, Ethan, you’re truly ruthless.” I turned to leave, but my phone rang abruptly at that moment. It was an international call from the Paris International Jewelry Design Competition organizing committee. I pressed the answer button. The person on the other end said, “Ms. Clarke, we regret to inform you that the committee has just received an anonymous complaint accusing your winning work, ‘Starlight,’ of plagiarizing Ms. Elara Vance’s discarded sketches. After initial verification, we will temporarily revoke your gold award and issue a public reprimand across the industry. You will be banned from participating in any international competitions for the next five years.” My phone slipped from my ear. I froze, all the blood in my body seemingly drained in an instant, as if I had fallen into an ice abyss. Plagiarism? ‘Starlight’ was my brainchild, the culmination of countless hours, like a mother carrying a child for ten months. Every line, every gem setting, was the crystallization of my dedication over countless days and nights. Now, it was being tainted with accusations of plagiarism? I suddenly turned my head, staring intently at Ethan. “Was it you?” My voice trembled, raw with despair. “Ethan, did you report me to the committee?” Ethan met my broken gaze, his eyes completely unfazed, chillingly calm. “Yes,” he said flatly. “Elara is about to negotiate a partnership with the international luxury brand V Group. She needs a prestigious international award to establish her status. The concept of ‘Starlight’ was originally inspired by her, so letting her have this award is what you owe her.” I felt my soul being completely torn apart at that moment. I looked at the man before me, feeling he was more terrifying than any demon from hell. He not only wanted to strip me of my marriage and my dignity but also to personally destroy the career and dreams I valued more than my life! “Ethan, you’re not even human!” I screamed, my eyes brimming with intense hatred. “To promote her, you’re willing to crush me into the mud, never to rise again?” Ethan frowned, seeming annoyed by my loss of control. “This is your own doing. If you had just behaved and not brought up divorce, things wouldn’t have escalated to this point.” He coldly delivered his final judgment. “Seraphina, in New York, if I say you’re guilty, you’re guilty. From today on, the design world will have no place for you.”

Seraphina POV That evening, in the ballroom of a top-tier Hilton Hotel in New York. It was a charity gala, gathering all the business elites and design gurus of New York. I wore a simple black dress, moving through the crowd. I needed investment, funding to rebuild my studio, and to clear my name from the plagiarism accusation. But every time I offered my business card, those CEOs who once greeted me with smiles now avoided me as if I were a demon. “Ms. Clarke, Mr. Thorne has already made it clear that anyone who works with you is opposing Thorne Group. We can’t afford to go against Thorne Corp.” “A plagiarizer dares to show her face here? Get out of here!” The mockery enveloped me like a tide. I clenched the business card in my hand, my knuckles white. Just then, the ballroom doors were respectfully pushed open by a waiter. All eyes instantly converged. Ethan, in a perfectly tailored custom suit, entered with Elara Vance on his arm, dressed to the nines. Elara wore a dazzling starry-blue gown, and around her long, elegant neck, she sported the brilliant necklace, ‘Starlight.’ That was my masterpiece. Ethan had once told me, “Seraphina, this necklace is the crystallization of your soul. I will lock it in the Thorne family’s safe as an eternal testament to our love, never letting anyone touch it.” Now, that necklace hung around another woman’s neck, a symbol for Elara to flaunt. I stood in the corner, watching them walk to the head table, the center of attention. My heart felt as if it was being crushed by an invisible hand, making it impossible to breathe. Elara’s gaze swept through the crowd, quickly locking onto me in the corner. A malicious smile played on her lips. She picked up a glass of red wine and sashayed over. “Well, well, isn’t this Seraphina? Why are you hiding by yourself? Can’t even afford to rent a decent gown?” Elara deliberately raised her voice, causing people around us to turn and look. I looked at her coldly. “Move.” “Still so temperamental.” Elara chuckled softly, then suddenly stumbled, causing the red wine glass in her hand to tilt. The crimson liquid spilled precisely onto Elara’s own diamond-encrusted high heels. “Ah!” Elara shrieked, instantly putting on a tearful expression. “Seraphina, I know you hate me for taking your award, but you can’t just throw red wine on me. These shoes were custom-made for me by Ethan from Italy…” A chorus of accusations immediately erupted around us. “This woman is so malicious!” “Plagiarizing someone else’s work is bad enough. Now she’s publicly throwing wine on someone? How uncivilized!” Ethan strode over, and seeing the wine stains on Elara’s dress and shoes, his face instantly turned ashen. “Seraphina, haven’t you caused enough trouble?” He pulled Elara behind him, his gaze piercing me sharply. I was speechless, but I straightened my spine, meeting his devouring gaze. “I didn’t throw it on her; she spilled it herself.” “You’re still lying!” Ethan was furious. “Elara is so frail, how would she spill it on herself? Seraphina, you’re truly disgustingly malicious!” He pointed to the high heels on Elara’s feet, issuing a cold command. “Get down immediately and clean Elara’s shoes. Otherwise, I guarantee you won’t leave this door tonight, and tomorrow you’ll be sent to jail for commercial fraud!” The mocking laughter intensified. I looked at Ethan’s cruel, emotionless face and suddenly felt an absurd sense of irony. The man I once loved so deeply now wanted me to publicly clean another woman’s shoes just to please her? The last flicker of light in my eyes completely died out. I didn’t cry. Instead, a smile curved my lips. I slowly crouched down. Under everyone’s scornful gazes, I took a tissue from a waiter’s tray and, bit by bit, wiped the red wine stains from Elara’s shoe. Elara looked down at me, her eyes full of a victor’s wild triumph. After wiping away the last speck of dirt, I stood up. I balled the wine-stained tissue and threw it hard at Ethan’s chest. “Ethan, these past five years, consider me blind.” With that, I didn’t bother looking at Ethan’s enraged face. I pushed through the crowd and walked out of the ballroom without looking back. Outside, a torrential rain had started at some point. I didn’t open an umbrella. My thin figure was instantly swallowed by the downpour. The cold rain lashed against me, but it was far less chilling than the cold in my heart.

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