At my family’s reality TV show appearance, the host asked us to share a funny story about our brother. My older sister laughed, “To help me collect this rare set of blind box figures I wanted, he bought out the entire store’s inventory.” My younger sister chimed in, “He meant to send a picture of his dog to our family group chat, but accidentally sent a shirtless selfie instead!” My brother’s ears turned red. “Shut up!” The studio audience erupted in laughter. The host then turned to me. “Did you happen to save that photo, middle sister?” I held my hands up. “No. Because I wasn’t in that group chat.” The atmosphere instantly froze. The host hurriedly tried to smooth things over. “Well, I’m sure he’s bought you plenty of blind boxes too, right?” I offered a shy, timid smile. “No. But he did give me a four-leaf clover necklace once.” The audience let out a collective “Aww,” marveling at the wealth and generosity. I blinked innocently. “He originally bought it for my older sister. But to get me to agree to move out of the house and live in the school dorms, he used it to bribe me.” “When my sister saw the necklace on me later, she called me a thief.” “My dad threw me into the swimming pool so I could ‘sober up’ and realize my place. They only found out it was a misunderstanding later. Funny, right?” “Huh? Why isn’t anyone laughing?” 1 The show was broadcasting live. The massive screen in front of us was scrolling with real-time viewer comments: [Oh my god, I smell drama.] [Rich family secrets? Shocking insider info?] [Grab your popcorn, people!] [Wait, didn’t the superstar brother previously say he only had ONE older sister and ONE younger sister? Where did this middle sister pop up from?] [I just checked his Wiki page. The family section literally doesn’t list a middle sister. What’s going on?] [She doesn’t look adopted either. She clearly looks like the mom.] The netizens were spot on. I was indeed a biological daughter of the Sterling family. It’s just that while we shared blood, we shared absolutely no affection. My parents had four children in total: one boy and three girls. I was the second youngest. Our family originally lived in a small, coastal working-class town. When my uncle made it big out of state, he offered to bring my parents into his business. However, he could only secure spots in the local elite schools for three children. After a brief discussion, my parents decided to leave me behind in our small town. They asked my dad’s former coworker to take care of me, promising to send him $100 a month for my living expenses. I finished middle school in that small town before finally being brought to the Sterling family. By that time, they were already living in a massive, sprawling mansion. I only lived in that house for one semester during my sophomore year of high school. After transferring to a new school, I chose to live in the dorms. I rarely went home, maybe once a month at most. I was almost never seen in the same frame as my parents or siblings. It made perfect sense that the internet didn’t know I existed. In fact, when the producers of this reality show came knocking, I just happened to be visiting the house. Before that day, no outsider knew the Sterling family had a hidden daughter. 2 [Ahhh! This girl is from my high school! She was the absolute valedictorian of the district. She just graduated college this year. We all knew she was a genius, but we had NO idea she was a billionaire heiress!] [Wait, public high school?? A Sterling kid went to a public high school? Are you joking?] [It’s true! She transferred there from the elite prep academy.] [What? Why would you give up a mansion to go live in a crappy dorm room? That’s insane.] Watching the live comments dig deeper and deeper, I smiled sweetly at the camera. “Please don’t misunderstand. After I explained the situation, my family apologized to me.” “Our family values discipline. My dad is very strict about moral character, so he only acted harshly out of tough love.” “He holds himself to high standards, which is why he runs his business so successfully.” “My brother told me to live in the dorms to foster my independence. He was doing it for my own good.” “And after the misunderstanding was cleared up, my dad even wired me a generous compensation fund.” The host immediately seized the opportunity. “Care to share the exact number? Let us peasants experience the high life!” I turned to look at my dad. “Dad, how much was it again?” My dad kept his face perfectly straight. “$30,000.” “Wow!” The studio audience gasped in envy. My dad continued, his tone authoritative, “Our family operates on a clear system of rewards and punishments. If you do well, you’re rewarded; if you mess up, you’re penalized. No beating around the bush. That’s exactly how I run my company…” The skepticism in the comments instantly morphed into praise: [That’s a true businessman for you. Principled.] [Papa Sterling, please kick me into a pool and give me $30,000!] [Crying, I want a good brother like him too!] Amidst the chorus of flattery, the taping concluded successfully. My dad, looking incredibly smug and self-satisfied, actually offered to let me ride home in his car. I glanced at my younger sister, Chloe, who was pouting heavily. “No thanks. Let Snowball ride in my spot. He doesn’t like it when I get too close.” Snowball was Chloe’s Doberman. He was incredibly vicious. I still have a scar on my calf from where he bit a chunk out of me. My mom shot Chloe a look of fake, affectionate exasperation. “You child, you’re so spoiled. Make the dog give up his seat for your sister.” Chloe affectionately pressed her face against the dog’s head, shooting me a provocative glare. “I’ll give up the seat, but that depends on whether my sister is brave enough to sit in it.” “Oh, you,” my mom sighed, as if she were totally helpless against her youngest daughter’s antics. She turned back to me. “Well, Maya, why don’t you just take an Uber to The Grand Bistro?” Before filming started, they had planned to go out for a late-night celebratory dinner afterward. Except, at the time, I wasn’t included in that headcount. I looked at the darkening expressions of my older sister, Mia, and Chloe, and smiled. “I’m a little tired. I think I’ll skip it.” My mom let out a barely concealed sigh of relief, though she made sure to complain verbally: “You really are ungrateful. You never participate in family activities, and then you’ll turn around and say I play favorites.” “Mom, that’s enough,” my brother, Liam, interrupted, walking over and grabbing my arm. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.” 3 Unlike the cold shoulder she gave me, Chloe leaned on Liam’s car window, repeatedly urging him: “Liam, hurry up and come back! We’ll wait for you.” I tried to pull my arm free. “I can just call an Uber. You don’t have to go out of your way.” Liam wouldn’t let go. “You’re my sister. How is it going out of my way?” I raised an eyebrow in surprise. Well, this was new. Liam, actually saying something nice to me. Then I glanced at the fans secretly filming us with their phones from the parking lot perimeter. Ah. Got it. Once the car pulled onto the street, I stared blankly out the window. While waiting at a red light, Liam suddenly spoke: “I didn’t expect you to still remember that incident.” I smiled, still looking out the window. He sighed. “Regardless of what happened, I have to thank you for today.” Well, this was truly a rare occasion. The arrogant, privileged superstar young master was actually thanking me. Just as I was about to drop a sarcastic remark, my phone dinged with a text alert. [Dad has transferred $30,000 to your account] [You performed well today. This is your reward.] I accepted the transfer and showed the text thread to Liam. “Bro, how about some actual, tangible gratitude?” Liam agreed without hesitation. “I already ordered the newest four-leaf clover necklace for you. It’ll be delivered tomorrow.” I smiled brightly. “Thanks, bro.” Liam’s expression turned slightly unnatural. “You don’t have to thank me. I should have given it to you a long time ago.” He wasn’t lying. During my sophomore year, he used a necklace to bribe me into moving out of the house and into the school dorms. But he didn’t tell Mia beforehand. When Mia saw the necklace in my hands, she immediately accused me of being a thief. The entire family took her side. I couldn’t swim at the time. My dad kicked me into the deep end of the pool, and I swallowed lungfuls of water. I thrashed and choked in absolute terror. They just stood on the edge of the pool, watching me with cold, indifferent eyes. It was only because Liam came home just in time that I was pulled out before I drowned. Mia clutched that necklace, her expression haughty and arrogant. “I don’t care. If he gave it to me first, it’s mine.” My dad casually shoved a few crumpled bills into my hand. “It’s just a necklace. If your sister likes it, let her have it. Go buy yourself another one.” The money he handed me amounted to exactly $150. That was also the very first bit of “pocket money” I received after returning to the Sterling family. The streetlights blurred past the car window. I narrowed my eyes. “It’s fine. Better late than never, right?” 4 During the short drive to drop me off, Chloe called Liam at least three times. He dropped me off at my apartment building and sped off in a massive hurry. I took a hot bath and had just comfortably settled into bed when my phone chimed with a rapid succession of notifications. I checked it. Mia had added me to the family group chat. [Mia: Welcome Maya to the group! This was my oversight, I completely forgot to add you before.] [Chloe: (Yawn emoji) Honestly, we barely talk in this group anyway, so it doesn’t really matter if she’s in it or not. (Doge emoji)] [Mia: (Smile) (Smile) (Smile)] [Liam: Maya, is there anything you want to eat? I can bring you some takeout. (Image) (Image) (Image)] A barrage of mouth-watering food photos flooded the screen, pushing Mia and Chloe’s conversation out of view. I originally intended to decline, but changed my mind at the last second: [Anything is fine, thanks bro.] Liam replied with an “OK” emoji. After that, no one spoke in the group again. I opened a different, private chat thread and transferred the $30,000 over. [Uncle Miller, I’ve already arranged everything with the hospital in Boston. Next week, you and Auntie take Ryan down there for his prosthetic eye surgery first. I’ll meet you guys there afterward.] The “typing…” indicator at the top of the chat box flashed for a long time. Finally, the response came through: [Please be careful with everything you do. We are waiting for you.] My nose stung, and tears rolled down my cheeks. Soon. It will all be over soon. 5 The next morning, Mom called me down for breakfast. Chloe blinked at me innocently. “Maya, it’s such a shame you didn’t come eat with us last night. The king crab was so fresh.” Mia nudged a groggy-looking Liam. “Liam, didn’t you say you were going to bring Maya some takeout?” Liam froze, a look of genuine guilt washing over his face. “I’m so sorry, Maya. I completely forgot.” Before I could even respond, my mom set her bowl down with a sharp clack. “What is there to apologize for? You told her to come, and she refused. Who made the rule that you must bring her food? We don’t tolerate princess syndrome in this house.” I let out a helpless sigh. “Mom, you’re overthinking it. I didn’t expect him to.” “Whether you expected it or not, I can’t guarantee you won’t throw a fit later. I’m just educating you now. You just need to tell me if you heard me or not.” “This nasty habit of always talking back must be something you picked up from that Miller family. You’ve been back for almost three years and still haven’t fixed it. How am I supposed to show you off in public acting like this?” “I was actually planning to set you up on a date with the Harrison boy, so you two could get to know each other…” “Mom!” Liam cut her off sharply. “Maya just graduated college. She still needs to go to grad school. Why are you setting her up on blind dates?” “Oh, right,” my mom said, as if she had suddenly remembered. She stared at me intently. “What score did you get on the entrance exams? Which school did you apply to?” I kept my expression perfectly neutral. “It’s not great. Nowhere near as good as Mia’s. I only scored a 650. I applied to Western State.” My mom seemed to let out a massive sigh of relief. She asked again to double-check, “Really?” “The acceptance letter is on my desk. The maid should have seen it when she was cleaning.” My mom turned to look at the maid, Maria. Maria nodded confirming it. The tension in my mom’s face instantly vanished, and her tone softened considerably: “650 isn’t terrible, even though it can’t compare to your sister’s score. Western State is a decent school, it’s just a bit far from home.” “But transportation is so convenient these days, you can come back whenever you want.” I murmured an agreement, and my mom finally broke into a full smile. “Eat up, before the food gets cold.” Chloe snatched a piece of sausage I was just about to grab with my fork, and tossed it to her Doberman. “I could never bear to move away from home. Next year, when I take my exams, I’m going to get into the same Ivy League school as Mia.” Mia smiled smugly. “Great! When you get here, you can take over my spot as Student Body President.” The conversation seamlessly shifted back to revolving around Mia and Chloe. Only then did I realize that my back was covered in a layer of cold sweat. If I hadn’t realized early on that my mother despised the idea of me outshining my sisters, and deliberately tanked my exam scores… Then right now, I would be facing that disastrous blind date. The Harrison boy she mentioned was a notorious, wealthy playboy in our city. He had publicly bragged that he intended to have a wife and a dozen mistresses, funding them all with his trust fund. Any family with a shred of decency refused to marry their daughters to him. But my own mother wanted to set me up with him. A metallic taste rose in the back of my throat. I forced it down by taking a large gulp of my oatmeal. Liam picked up a piece of sausage and placed it in my bowl. “When your freshman orientation starts, I’ll drive you.” “Okay, thanks bro.” Mia smiled and asked, “What are your plans for today, Maya? Do you want to come to the spa with us?” I rubbed my hands together awkwardly. “Ah, I would really love to, but I already made plans with Ryan today. I can’t stand him up.” Mia raised an eyebrow, a meaningful, mocking smirk on her lips. “Oh. Well, have fun with that.” Liam shot me a look. He seemed like he wanted to say something, but frowned and swallowed his words. 6 Ryan and I are both cycling enthusiasts. We rode our bikes along the coastal boardwalk, completing a full loop before finally stopping under the shade of some palm trees. “Here.” Ryan handed me a boba tea. It was my absolute favorite: Jasmine Green Tea with extra boba. It was hilariously tragic that my entire biological family had no idea what I liked. But the neighbor boy knew every single detail. “Thanks.” I took it, sipping the tea while gazing out at the vast ocean. He followed my gaze, his voice soft. “You like the ocean?” “Yeah. I grew up by the sea. Even though my small hometown isn’t as glamorous as this city, I loved it there.” Because over there, I had people who truly loved me. Uncle Miller, Auntie Miller. And my “brother,” Ryan’s older brother, Leo. Ryan smiled, but then his expression quickly darkened. He looked at me seriously: “Maya, there’s something I don’t think I should hide from you.” He pulled out his phone and opened a group chat titled [The Garden (No Maya Allowed)]. “Yesterday, before your sister added you to the main family chat, she created a new, secret group. Look for yourself.” He thoughtfully scrolled back to yesterday’s chat history for me. [Chloe: Moving operations over here. We’ll chat in this group from now on.] [Mia: Copy that.] [Dad: 1.] [Mom: 1.] [Liam: …] [Mia: But we can’t completely ignore the main chat, otherwise she’ll get suspicious.] [Chloe: That’s easy. Mom, just forward those random cooking tutorial videos into the main chat. She’ll have to watch them before she can reply and try to start a conversation, right?] [Mom: No, what if she actually tries to talk to me about them? I won’t know how to respond.] [Chloe: @Dad, Dad, just forward those dense financial articles into the chat. She won’t understand a word of them.] [Dad: Not necessary. She behaved well today, clearly trying to suck up to us. I gave her a taste of the sweet life with that transfer. If we give her too much attention, she’ll start getting arrogant again.] [Liam: Fine, fine. I’ll be the one to talk to her in the main chat.] [Mia: Thanks, big bro.] [Chloe: Thanks, big bro.] … I didn’t even finish reading before handing the phone back to him. “So, showing me this… what exactly are you trying to achieve?” Ryan was taken aback for a second, then quickly explained: “I just think it’s wrong for them to deceive you like this, and even worse to mock you behind your back. You’re a member of the Sterling family too; you deserve the same love as the rest of them.” I squeezed my boba cup, letting out a soft laugh: “Ryan, you knew showing me this would make me sad. Why didn’t you just keep it a secret?” “Even if you never told me, it wouldn’t have mattered, right?” “Why are you telling me now?” I turned to look at the stunned, handsome boy beside me. “Just like before my college entrance exams, when my brother got into that car accident and injured his eyes. He intentionally hid it from me because he was terrified it would ruin my focus for the exams.” “But you just ‘coincidentally’ insisted I accompany you to the hospital for a check-up the day before my exams, and we just ‘coincidentally’ ran into Uncle and Auntie Miller there.” “You wanted to see me in pain. You wanted to see me panic. But why? Aren’t you supposed to be my friend?” Ryan’s expression became incredibly complex. “Maya…” “Haha, why do you look so serious?” I suddenly burst out laughing. “I’m just joking! You didn’t actually take me seriously, did you? You are my one and only friend in this city. Why would I ever doubt you? Right?” Ryan opened his mouth in a daze, but eventually managed to force a warm, gentle smile. “Right. I am your one and only friend.” 7 Ryan didn’t know. I had actually, genuinely fallen for him once. The day after I moved back into the Sterling mansion, I was supposed to report to my new elite high school. My mom told me to ride with my sisters. But Chloe refused to let me in the car. “No way! She smells like fish! Snowball hates the smell of fish.” She let her massive Doberman hog more than half the backseat, declaring self-righteously: “Besides, there’s no room left in the car anyway.” Mia and my mom took the front seats. Not a single one of them paid any attention to my humiliation. It was Ryan who drove up and invited me to ride in his family’s car to school. He even comforted me, saying, “Love from others is just icing on the cake. If you don’t have it, don’t force it. Loving yourself is what’s most important.” I wrote that quote on the very first page of my diary. After that, he insisted I ride with him to and from school every day. I felt bad constantly inconveniencing him, so I bought myself a cheap bicycle. When he saw it, he went out and bought a bicycle too, becoming my daily riding partner. He was willing to listen to my problems, offered me advice, and even confronted the classmates who were bullying me. He took me hiking, took me to see the ocean, and told me that my future was as boundless as my vision. I felt so incredibly lucky to have met someone so wonderful during my darkest, loneliest days. I was completely, blissfully ignorant. Until the winter break of my sophomore year. Because my final exam scores were dramatically higher than everyone else’s, the teachers praised me as a “genius.” I naïvely thought my parents would be proud to hear this. But my dad never cared about my grades. When my mom found out, her face darkened, and she made a snide, sarcastic remark: “Oh. I guess that Miller guy actually knows how to teach.” Without a second thought, she transferred me to a notoriously rough, underfunded public high school. It was from that moment I realized: I was not allowed to be better than Mia or Chloe. I had to be painfully average just to survive in that house. So, I started intentionally bombing my tests. I had to score higher than Chloe, but not so high that I threatened Mia’s status or embarrassed the Sterling family. It was a deeply exhausting, soul-crushing psychological balancing act. There was one time I truly couldn’t handle the pressure anymore. I decided to tell Ryan my secret. I called to ask him to meet up, but he apologized, saying he was busy and couldn’t get away. I decided to wait until he was free to tell him. I wandered aimlessly through the neighborhood park. And that’s where I overheard his conversation with Mia: “Maya’s scores plummeted this semester. I have a feeling she’s doing it on purpose. Did she tell you any insider info?” “No. I think it’s pretty normal. After all, her new public school doesn’t have great teachers.” “I’m still not convinced. Keep an eye on her for me. Don’t let her have too much time to study. If necessary, arrange for some people to cause trouble for her.” “Understood.” “And listen to me—if you dare catch real feelings for her while playing this game, I will make sure you never see me again.” “Mia, even if you don’t trust me, you should trust yourself. Maya… she isn’t worth a thousandth of you.” I hid behind a tree, watching them embrace and kiss. The blue sky, the setting sun, the handsome boy, the beautiful girl. What a picture-perfect scene. But in my eyes, the play had ended. The sun was dead. 8 Slurp. I tossed the empty boba cup into the trash can. “It’s getting late. We should head back.” Ryan suddenly grabbed my wrist. “Maya, about your brother Leo… do you need me to help you contact a top specialist?” My fingertips trembled slightly. I forced out a bitter, resigned smile. “It’s no use.” “When Leo was first injured, Dr. Evans at the city hospital said he had an eighty percent chance of saving his eye.” “But just as he was about to go into surgery, some psycho burst into the hospital and slashed Dr. Evans’s hands.” “The backup surgeon they brought in at the last minute… directly removed Leo’s eyeball.” “Ryan, it seems like anyone who gets close to me ends up ruined. You should really stay away from me.” I shook off his hand and rode off on my bike without looking back. When I got home, everyone except my dad was in the living room. They were gathered around, excitedly discussing something. As soon as I walked in, the laughter and chatter abruptly stopped. Liam rubbed his nose, looking slightly awkward. “Uh, Maya, do you have a passport?” Chloe didn’t give me a chance to answer. She gleefully answered for me: “Stupid! She grew up in a tiny fishing village, of course she doesn’t have one! And she probably didn’t think to get one after she came back, right?” She glared at me, her eyes flashing with a silent threat. I lowered my head. “Yeah, I don’t have one.” Mia frowned. “Ah, that’s such a shame. Liam just got a reality travel show, and they want him to bring his family. Since you don’t have a passport, you can’t go.” I kept my hands clasped tightly. “It’s fine. You guys go have fun. I’ll stay here and watch the house.” Chloe burst into harsh laughter. “Then you’ll be in the exact same social class as my dog, Snowball!” She patted the Doberman’s head. “Snowball, be polite to your second sister from now on. Don’t bite her again, understand?” The Doberman bared its sharp teeth, staring at me viciously. I shrank back, pretending to be terrified. “Chloe!” Liam glared at her, then turned to me with a fawning expression. “Don’t listen to her. She’s young and doesn’t know what she’s saying.” I shook my head, signaling that I didn’t mind. My mom smiled and comforted me: “Since you can’t go this time, there’s always a next time. Go apply for a passport first. When we get back, we’ll pick a nice place and take you with us.” I nodded obediently. “Okay. You guys keep planning. I’m going to my room.” “Maya…” Liam tried to follow me. Chloe violently yanked him back to their circle. Within moments, they were back to their passionate discussion. Photos Chloe was uploading constantly popped up in the family group chat. [Chloe: @Maya, Second sister, here are some pics from the internet so you can at least look at the view, hehe (Smile) (Smile) (Smile).] She sent three smiley faces in a row. I replied cooperatively: [Wow, I’m so jealous.] Chloe responded with a meme of a Doberman baring its fangs. I stared at those sharp, white teeth and slowly curled my lips into a smile. 9 After dinner, Chloe put on a full face of dramatic makeup and took Snowball out to party. Mia went to her high-end yoga class. Liam had a late-night recording session at the TV studio. My mom was out playing bridge with the other wealthy socialites. My dad was at a business dinner, undoubtedly bragging about his wealth. I hid in my room, quietly reading a book. 10:00 PM. My phone started ringing loudly. [Maya, get to the city hospital right now! Chloe’s been in a terrible accident!] Liam’s voice was frantic and breathless. He sounded like he was sprinting. I pinched my thigh hard to fake a panicked tone. “What happened?” [Her dog suddenly went rabid… it ripped her eyes out…] [Ah, just don’t ask! Get here as fast as you can! You guys have the same blood type, and she needs a massive transfusion right now!] I said, my voice trembling, “Okay, I’m on my way.” I hung up the phone, leaned back in my chair, and let out a long, deep sigh of relief. Everything was going exactly according to plan. My book was only half-read. I picked up my pen and drew a thick red line under a specific sentence: All things in the universe operate in cycles; every cause has its effect, and every debt must be paid.

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1 On the drive back from picking my daughter up from her dad’s house, she suddenly spoke up. “Mom, you’re actually pretty calculating. You dump me there as soon as break starts, and then drag me back the second school begins.” I shot her a bewildered look, not understanding why she’d say something like that. My daughter continued, “It’s just like when I was a toddler and the hardest to deal with—you bailed. Then, when I got older and easier to manage, you fought tooth and nail to take me back. You always make sure you get the best end of the deal.” When I was pregnant with her, my ex-husband, David, cheated on me. Barely a month after I gave birth, he took my daughter away from me. It was only years later, when his new wife got pregnant, that he finally allowed us to be reunited. I never imagined that, all these years, this was how she saw it. My heart turned to ice. Without a word, I spun the steering wheel around and drove her right back to her dad’s house. 2 As my car pulled up to his gated community, I saw David’s SUV pulling out. My daughter excitedly rolled down the window and yelled, “Dad! Dad!” She signaled for me to stop, then hopped out and jogged over to his car. A moment later, she came back. I watched David’s SUV drive away. His current wife and their young son were in the car with him. “What did he say?” I asked. My daughter rolled her eyes at me, her tone laced with annoyance. “Dad and Ashley are taking Liam to the community center for a class. I told him you agreed to let me keep staying with him.” “Just drop me off here. I can go in by myself.” I watched her skip away, dragging her suitcase behind her, feeling like I was in an alternate reality. When David finally returned her to me, she was already four years old. A tiny little thing, she clung to Ashley, refusing to let go. When I forced myself to pick her up and take her away, she cried so hard she could barely breathe. She kept screaming, “Mommy, Daddy, save me!” as if I were some evil kidnapper tearing her away from her real family. For the first few days, she cried herself to sleep and woke up crying. Every single second, she begged to go back to that house. Thankfully, kids are resilient. Their grief comes and goes quickly. Under my meticulous, round-the-clock care, my daughter finally started calling me “Mom.” As she grew older, she started to understand the complicated dynamics of our family. She stopped calling Ashley “Mom” and switched to “Aunt Ashley.” All these years, terrified of leaving her with any psychological trauma… I never said a single bad word about her father in front of her. I even made sure to drop her off to spend holidays with them. I never expected that in her heart, all of that was just proof of my “calculating” nature. 3 I drove back home alone. Looking at the steak and lobster I had specifically bought to celebrate her coming home, I let out a heavy sigh. Over the years, to make up for the broken home, I never skimped on her clothing, food, or housing. Knowing David had his own new family to worry about, I shouldered 100% of the financial burden of raising her. Thankfully, I had managed to build a relatively successful career for myself. I could afford to spoil my daughter. Realizing I couldn’t possibly eat all this food alone, I called my best friend, Sarah. Then, I buried myself in the kitchen, trying to use the physical labor to fend off the crushing depression in my chest. By the time Sarah arrived, I had already whipped up five dishes and a soup. Staring at the mouth-watering steak and lobster bisque on the table, Sarah clicked her tongue in amazement. “I’m telling you, Claire, with your cooking skills, Chloe is one spoiled kid.” “Why couldn’t you have been my mom? Can I be your daughter instead?” I offered a bitter smile and told her how Chloe would rather stay at David’s than come home to me. Hearing this, Sarah slammed her hand hard on the table. “That little brat! Does she really think her dad actually gives a damn about her?” Then, her eyes welled up with tears. “Claire, I’ve watched how much you’ve sacrificed for that kid all these years.” “Please don’t think this is your fault. She’s probably just hitting her rebellious teenage phase.” I let out a long, heavy sigh. Over the years, how many incredible career opportunities or great guys had I let slip through my fingers? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to grab them, but as a single mom, I had to prioritize her stability. Eight years ago, I was almost engaged to my boyfriend at the time. But when I read a line in Chloe’s diary that said, “If Mom gets remarried, I will never forgive her for the rest of my life,” I resolutely broke things off with him. When it came to Chloe, my conscience was absolutely clear. 4 After seeing Sarah out, I collapsed onto the sofa alone. I had grown so used to having my daughter around; the days without her felt incredibly lonely. I had originally thought I’d be happily bringing her home today. I never expected to have a bucket of ice water dumped over my head instead. I opened Chloe’s social media and, unsurprisingly, saw a blank grey line across her profile. She had blocked me from seeing her posts since she was 15. I couldn’t see a single thing she shared. It was as if I were some kind of terrifying monster. After thinking about it, I sent her a picture of the steak and lobster. [Hey sweetie, did Dad cook for you? What did you have for dinner tonight?] A little while later, she sent a picture back. I clicked on it. It was a pile of pizza and fried food. [Dad brought me back some leftover pizza. It was good.] Even though I could tell at a glance from the size of the takeout box that it was likely just leftovers from their dinner out. But seeing that she seemed to be in a good mood, I played along. [As long as it’s good, eat up. Mom will make it for you next time.] She didn’t reply again. Feeling melancholic, I locked my phone and got up to take out the trash. Walking through the apartment complex, I ran into an old coworker, Brenda. She had witnessed David’s affair and the messy divorce that followed firsthand. She knew all my dirty laundry inside and out. After a few minutes of small talk, she suddenly asked: “Hey, isn’t your daughter back yet?” I answered automatically, “No, she’s spending the summer at her dad’s.” “Really? I actually ran into your ex-husband and his family at Six Flags today, but I didn’t see your daughter.” Six Flags? Weren’t they taking the kid to a class at the community center? I forced a dry laugh. “Kids get older, they probably don’t want to hang out with the family as much.” Brenda nodded knowingly, her eyes filling with a deeper sense of pity. “It’s just a shame you’ve wasted so many years. If you meet someone decent, you really should put yourself out there.” Normally, I would have politely but firmly declined. But today, driven by some inexplicable impulse, I actually nodded. “Okay. If you know anyone suitable, feel free to introduce us.” 5 I didn’t expect Brenda to move so fast. The very next day, she sent me an address. “It’s a distant nephew of mine, just moved back from the States. You guys should meet.” Afraid I wouldn’t go, she quickly added: “He’s a great catch. He’s been so focused on his career all these years that he never got married. Just treat it like making a new friend.” Even though I was already regretting what I’d agreed to yesterday… Since things were already in motion, I went to the restaurant at the agreed-upon time. When I saw the silhouette of the man waiting for me, I almost didn’t process it. “Claire?” “Mark?” Looking at the surprised face of the man in front of me, I let out a surprised laugh. Years ago, because Chloe had thrown a massive fit and refused to let me marry Mark. I had initiated a harsh, clean break with him. At the time, he had desperately begged to know why, but I only apologized and refused to see him again. Later, I heard he had moved overseas, and I locked that relationship away deep in my heart. I never imagined that our reunion today would be a blind date. Was it just a massive coincidence, or was it fate? “If I had known it was you, I would have come even if I had to crawl,” he joked with a smile. I laughed along. “I can’t believe after all these years, you still aren’t married.” A shy, bashful smile spread across Mark’s face. Just like eight years ago, when our relationship was at its best. We had a wonderful dinner. Before we left, Mark looked at me and spoke with genuine sincerity. “Actually, all these years, I never forgot you. We…” “It’s not possible anymore,” I cut him off cleanly. “My daughter is taking her SATs next year. I don’t want to hold you back.” “Alright,” he shrugged with a hint of regret. “But I still wish you happiness.” 6 When I turned on the lights in my apartment, I realized my daughter was already home. “Sweetie? Why didn’t you tell Mom you were coming back?” Pleasantly surprised, I swapped my heels for slippers and moved to hug her. Chloe sat on the sofa, arms crossed, glaring at me coldly. “Where were you? Why are you back so late? Have you been drinking?” I sniffed my clothes. I didn’t smell anything. “I just had dinner with a friend and a glass of wine. What’s wrong?” “A friend?” Chloe sneered, tossing her phone onto the coffee table. “Are you sure about that ‘friend’?” On the screen was a clear photo of Mark and me having dinner together. “If a classmate hadn’t run into you and asked me why my mom was out on a date…” “I wouldn’t have even known you were still talking to this random guy.” Looking at my daughter’s mocking expression, I forced myself to be patient and explain. “Mom only found out it was Mark when I got to the restaurant. We just caught up as old friends.” “Please. You just can’t survive without a man, can you?” My daughter’s words hit me like a physical blow. I stood frozen in place. “Did you think I didn’t know about you secretly meeting up with my math teacher?” “And Mr. Davis? You guys text every single day. Isn’t that disgusting?” “You preach to me every day about not dating in high school, but your own personal life is filthier than anyone’s.” “You really think nobody knows the disgusting things you do? Having a mother like you is humiliating.” My daughter screamed at me as if she were venting a deep-seated hatred. When she finished, she grabbed her bag, slammed the door, and stormed out. Leaving me standing alone in the living room, trying to digest the vile character assassination delivered by the person I loved most in the world. 7 Chloe had always struggled with math, so I frequently communicated with her teacher, hoping to find ways to boost her grades. Since she was a sickly child, I was constantly in touch with Dr. Davis, her pediatrician, to manage her health. And Mark? Today was the first time I had seen him in 8 years, and I had no intention of seeing him again. I never, ever imagined that in my daughter’s heart, this was the kind of person I was. Selfish, calculating, promiscuous, desperate for male attention. I sat on the sofa with a bitter smile, feeling a pain in my chest that was even sharper than the day I caught David cheating. That day, he had shielded Ashley behind him and told me: “Claire, if you’re angry, take it out on me. Don’t hurt an innocent person.” They were the innocent ones. I was the villain. I don’t know how long I sat in the dark. My phone chimed. I opened it. Sarah had sent me a screenshot. [What is Ashley trying to pull? She’s really treating your daughter like her own.] I tapped on the image. It was a selfie of Ashley with her arm around Chloe. The caption read: [My poor, misunderstood girl.] Chloe’s eyes were still red from crying, but she was leaning into Ashley’s embrace. A perfect picture of mother-daughter bonding. I clicked over to Chloe’s profile. Surprisingly, I could see a new post. It was the exact same photo, but with a different caption. [Heart-to-heart with Mom.] I hadn’t been granted access to her posts in almost two years. So in this moment, I was absolutely certain she had unblocked me just so I could see this. She wanted me to see their “mother-daughter” bond. She wanted me to see her leaning on another woman. She knew perfectly well that Ashley was the woman her father cheated with, yet she still chose to call her “Mom.” Maybe only the people closest to you know exactly where to twist the knife so it hurts the most. But she wasn’t a child anymore. She needed to take responsibility for her own choices. And I was going to support her decision. This daughter… I didn’t want her anymore. 8 For the next few weeks, I poured all my energy back into my career. I proactively took on several massive, complex projects, working until my head spun every single day. Naturally, I didn’t have the time or energy to obsess over what Chloe was doing. I didn’t send five or six texts a day, desperately trying to prove my love. I imagine she was quite happy to be rid of me. During this time, Ashley only contacted me once. Her voice was still that soft, gentle purr that seemed to captivate both men and women. “Claire, when are you going to come pick Chloe up?” At the time, I was busy finalizing the final draft of a major design project. I replied with genuine confusion: “She has arms and legs. She can come back whenever she wants.” All these years, I had strictly adhered to a “no contact unless absolutely necessary” policy with David, communicating only through Ashley when needed. When it came to that cheating bastard and his mistress, my stance was always: ‘I hope you two are locked together forever.’ Ashley didn’t say much else, only trying to excuse Chloe’s behavior by saying she was in her rebellious teenage phase. She asked me to be a little more understanding if she had done anything to upset me. I almost laughed out loud. The mistress who usurped my marriage was now trying to lecture me on maternal patience. “She can do whatever she wants. You don’t need to tell me that.” To my surprise, Chloe actually did come home on her own. That day, my department had finally closed a massive deal, and as the Director, I treated my team to dinner. I drank a little too much out of sheer excitement, and one of the junior girls on my team had to drive me home. As soon as I walked through the door, I saw Chloe storming out of her bedroom, looking pissed. “You really are going wild, aren’t you? What kind of mother acts like this?” My junior, Maya, who was just about to say hello, froze in her tracks. She shot me an awkward glance, then forced a polite smile. “This must be Chloe! Director Li talks about you all the time. You’re so pretty.” Chloe glared at her and scoffed. Then she turned, slammed her bedroom door shut, and went back inside. Tipsy and exhausted, I told Maya to drive safe, and then I fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep. 9 The reason Chloe came back was that the new school year was starting. Previously, to accommodate the intense schedule of her junior year, I had meticulously planned out her schedule for the entire year, optimizing every single second. This meant I had to wake up at 4:30 AM every day to make breakfast, and drive her to school at 5:30 AM sharp. I’d rush home at 6:00 PM to cook dinner, then drive back to work at 8:00 PM. I’d sneak out of the office early at 11:30 AM just to deliver a hot lunch to her school. And the evenings were a whole new battleground… But back then, I felt incredibly fulfilled. It felt like we were fighting the battle of high school together. But now, looking at that meticulously color-coded schedule, I just felt like the old me was completely insane. I had a perfectly good life, and I chose to torture myself. I wasn’t expecting it, but on the very first day of school, Chloe was late. She barged into my bedroom, furious, screaming at me to drive her to school. “It’s 8:00 AM, do you realize that?! Morning homeroom is already over!” “Why didn’t you wake me up?! WHY!!!” I was groggily jolted awake by her screaming, her voice piercing my eardrums. “The allowance I gave you yesterday included Uber money.” “If you think the commute is too inconvenient, you can apply to live in the dorms.” “I am not obligated to drive you to school every morning. I’ll pick you up in the evenings since it’s late.” Seeing she was about to argue, I glanced at my phone. “It’s almost 8:30 now. Are you sure you want to keep throwing a tantrum here?” Chloe stormed out, slamming the door so hard the walls shook. I actually knew exactly why she had overslept. At 2:00 AM last night, I could still hear the sound of video games coming from her room. In the past, I would have gone in and scolded her, telling her to go to sleep immediately. But now, what did any of that have to do with me?

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I am a princess of the Manhattan elite. After being married to the city’s newest tech billionaire for barely a year, he went bankrupt. Following our divorce, I experienced a horrifying vision of my ultimate, tragic fate. Desperate, I went to find him to demand we get back together. He just frowned, his thin lips forming a cruel, icy line: “I’m sorry, Miss Sinclair.” “The Sterling family has fallen. We are no longer worthy of a deity like you.” Standing right beside him was his childhood best friend, her smile blindingly smug. I touched my flat stomach and let out an awkward laugh: “Alright, then should I just find a new dad for the baby?” His pupils violently contracted, a massive storm surging in the depths of his eyes: “What. Did. You. Just. Say?” 01 I was wheeled into the operating room for an abortion. The freezing cold of the surgical table stimulated every single one of my senses. Suddenly— Strange, unfamiliar images flashed through my mind. In these visions, following my parents’ arrangements, I entered into a second marriage with a man who basically married into our wealth. Less than six months later, my parents died in a tragic car accident, and this new husband immediately threw me out onto the streets. Penniless and homeless, I was starving to the point where I had to dig through dumpsters for food. The stench of rot and sour decay, the sticky, filthy textures—it was a suffocating, absolute despair. Finally, a passing vagrant snatched the spoiled food right out of my hands and shoved me to the ground. Under a sky full of swirling snow, my body withered and frail, I lay completely motionless. Until I was entirely buried by the snow. The vision permanently froze on that image. Right at that moment, the harsh, surgical spotlight snapped on above me. “Hello, please relax your legs.” The nurse’s voice seemed to echo from far away. I shot up from the table like a coiled spring, my throat choking with sobs. “I’m… I’m sorry. I don’t want to do this anymore.” Walking out of the operating room, my mom immediately grabbed my arm. “Mia? Are you finished already?” “No…” I shook my head, lingering terror gripping my heart as tears rolled uncontrollably down my face. “Mom, I don’t want to go through with it.” If I got rid of this baby, I was going to die a miserable, horrific death. I needed to find Elias Sterling! I needed to remarry him! 02 I headed straight for the rundown, walk-up apartment complex the Sterling family had just moved into. The rusted, peeling metal of the main entrance door reflected my panicked, unsettled face. It seemed to overlap with that dark purple, frostbitten, shriveled face from my vision. I shuddered in sheer terror. Just then, the sound of voices and laughter drifted from nearby. I panicked and ducked into the dark space beneath the stairwell. Peeking out, I saw Elias walking in from outside with another woman. He was carrying a bag of groceries. He looked completely focused as he listened to her speak. “I’ll keep an eye on that project for you. I won’t let you treat me to this meal for nothing.” “How are your parents adjusting since the move?” “If you need anything, I can come over whenever. I actually got really good at cooking while I was living abroad these past few years. You can try my food today.” … The woman’s clear, elegant voice was laced with a light, natural laugh. And Elias, who was usually so cold and aloof, actually responded to her. I bit my lip, feeling an uncontrollable surge of suffocating frustration. The ink on our divorce papers wasn’t even dry yet, and he already had a new woman in his life. But if we didn’t remarry… I was going to lose everything and die a miserable death on the streets! Those horrific images flashed through my mind again, “swish, swish,” like a computer virus spamming pop-up windows. A string of rainbow-colored text wiggled across my vision like a caterpillar: [Uh-oh~ This is what happens when you get a divorce~] My entire body violently trembled. The fear was like a massive, suffocating black shroud pressing down on my head, making it impossible to breathe. Ugh! It was too terrifying! The instinct to survive overpowered everything else. I gritted my teeth and bolted out of the shadows. I had just opened my mouth to shout: “Eli—” CLICK! The apartment door shut. I stared at the closed door in absolute defeat. Suddenly, the door opened again!! A pair of long, straight legs stepped out. I froze in complete shock. 03 Elias stood in the hallway. His gaze, entirely devoid of warmth, landed on my face, carrying the distant annoyance of someone whose peace had been disturbed. “What are you doing here?” His tone was absolute ice. He had always possessed a cold, aloof personality and kept people at a distance. But during the nearly twelve months we were married, whenever it was just the two of us, his demeanor was always warm and gentle. This was the very first time he had ever used such a freezing, hostile tone with me. My heart involuntarily tightened, and my voice trembled: “I… I came to see you.” “I want… to rem…” “What? I can’t hear you.” “I said I want to remarry! I want to remarry you!” I gathered every ounce of courage I had, squeezed my eyes shut, and shouted it out. The lighting in the stairwell was dim. The flash of pure shock in Elias’s eyes disappeared as quickly as it came, so fast it felt like a hallucination. He didn’t say a word. The air stagnated, leaving only the drafty, suffocating silence of the hallway and the thunderous pounding of my own heart. He glanced at the half-open door behind him, then raised a hand and pulled it shut. His long legs stepped forward, descending the stairs one by one. His movements were deliberate and unhurried, carrying a silent, crushing pressure. Like a low-pressure system rapidly building before a massive hurricane. I held my breath, my fingernails digging deeply into the soft flesh of my palms. The flashing images of my tragic death were still actively stimulating my nerves. Elias stopped right in front of me, barely an arm’s length away. His gaze locked onto me again, his eyes as dark and cold as a deep abyss. “I’m sorry, Miss Sinclair.” His tone was perfectly flat, every syllable razor-sharp. He paused, devoid of any emotion, offering only a freezing, objective statement: “The Sterling family has fallen. We are no longer worthy of a deity like you.” 04 He said, no longer worthy… Those three words hit my heart like massive blocks of ice. Humiliation instantly swallowed me whole. My face burned with a searing heat. When the Sterling family filed for bankruptcy, right when Elias needed me the absolute most, I listened to my parents’ arrangements and demanded a divorce. And now, barely a week after receiving the official divorce decree, I was shamelessly showing up to beg for a “remarriage.” It was incredibly abrupt, and deeply offensive. It was entirely natural for him to assume I was just playing some sick game with him. But… “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I’m here because…” I frantically tried to explain, but the words died on my lips. What was I supposed to say? Say that I foresaw the future? Say that if I left him, I would die a gruesome death? He wouldn’t just think I was playing with him; he’d think I belonged in a psychiatric ward! I was so anxious that tears welled up in my eyes. One blink, and they spilled over without warning. “Why are you crying?” His brow furrowed slightly, a hint of impatience leaking into his voice. “Isn’t a divorce exactly what you wanted?” His Adam’s apple bobbed. He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but ultimately just pressed his lips into a tight line. “We are finished.” “Go home. The princess of the Manhattan elite shouldn’t be in a place like this.” He gave a slight nod, assuming the posture of a formal farewell. Just as he turned to leave, I practically threw myself at him, wrapping my arms tightly around his waist, crying out with a trembling voice: “Don’t go!” “I… I really need you!” “Ever since we got the divorce papers, I’ve actually been thinking about you every single day. I think about what it was like when we were together. I… I realized I can’t live without you. Can we please get back together? I can’t do this without you!” Through the thin fabric of his shirt, the muscles in his waist instantly went rigid, radiating an aura of intense, suppressed power. He lowered his eyes, his gaze falling onto my hands wrapped around him. His eyes held scrutiny, probing curiosity, and a sliver of dark, turbulent emotion buried deep beneath the ice. After a moment, he raised his hands and, inch by inch, pried my fingers apart. My heart jumped into my throat. He turned his head to look back at me, his dark eyes bottomless. “On what grounds?” His thin lips barely moved. His voice was as cold as a knife plunged into freezing water, piercing with agonizing precision into the deepest, most vulnerable part of my heart. He paused, and every word was devastatingly clear as he delivered his cold-blooded interrogation: “What does marriage mean to you?” “A tool you can summon and discard at your convenience?” He didn’t speak quickly, but every word was a blade. “Or do you think that just because I, Elias Sterling, am down on my luck, I have to allow Miss Sinclair to manipulate me however she pleases?” “…” Dead silence surrounded us. I opened my mouth several times, but I couldn’t force a single sound out. He was right… On what grounds? Seeing me completely speechless, the last microscopic trace of emotion in Elias’s eyes completely vanished, leaving only a profound, abyss-like stillness and… utter exhaustion. “Nothing to say?” He curled his lip in a mocking sneer. “Then, regarding remarriage—” “Ab. So. Lutely. Not.” Four words. Ironclad. Leaving absolutely zero room for negotiation. 05 The atmosphere was frozen solid. The words hanging on the edge of my lips were completely shattered by the sheer exhaustion and disgust in his eyes. Right at that moment, a faint noise came from upstairs. That tightly closed door was pushed open a crack once again. The voices inside were a bit distant, but they filtered clearly into my eardrums: “…You’re cooking tonight yourself. What is that boy doing running out into the hallway? Let me go find him.” “It’s fine, Mrs. Sterling. I’ll go.” A clear, elegant, and gentle female voice drifted closer. I went completely rigid. It felt like all the blood had instantly drained from my body. My fingertips turned to ice. For some inexplicable reason, my heart violently clenched. I stared intently at that crack in the door, where a sliver of light spilled out. In my peripheral vision, Elias remained turned sideways, perfectly still. His cold, almost clinical, scrutinizing gaze remained heavily fixed on my face, as if he were trying to dissect something from my expression. But what was he looking at? Looking at the humiliation of my rejection? Or… something else? I subconsciously bit my dry lips, my gaze uncontrollably drifting back upstairs. The door was pushed open a bit wider, and a slender, pale hand rested on the doorframe. That female voice sounded again, carrying a hint of intimacy and inquiry: “Elias? Are you out here?” Elias finally stopped looking at me. He turned his body fully away, his jawline tight, his tone absolute: “Go back. And from now on, don’t ever come looking for me again.” Before he even finished the sentence, he had already lifted his foot to leave. But the moment his foot hit the first step, I couldn’t stop a sharp, pathetic sniffle from escaping my nose. His footsteps faltered. His tall, broad back stiffened for a fraction of a second. Then, with a look that seemed like a mix of exasperation and impatience, he turned back around. I looked up at him with pathetic, pleading eyes, meeting his gaze, and whispered timidly: “I… I don’t know how to get back…” “Where is your driver?” His brow furrowed deeply. I shook my head, my voice getting quieter and quieter: “I took the bus here by myself…” Elias turned completely around to face me. He stared at me intently, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “…Why?” His voice was dry, carrying its usual coldness, but it also seemed layered with another, entirely different emotion. I kept my head down, wringing my hands, feeling an inexplicable sense of guilt, answering like a child who had been caught doing something wrong: “I wanted to try it.” “Try what?” “Try… if we get remarried, and I don’t have a driver or a car anymore, and I can only take the bus or the subway… try to see if I can actually handle it.” I explained honestly, shooting him a quick, nervous glance. “I just… wanted to adapt ahead of time!” The air went dead silent for a second. Elias stared at me, his eyes as deep as a dark pool. Something seemed to flash rapidly across the depths of his eyes, like a pebble tossed into a deep well, sending out microscopic ripples. But in the blink of an eye, it was covered by ice again. I couldn’t read his expression. I only felt that his jaw was clenched as tight as a drawn bowstring. Tight, but still incredibly handsome. That thought made even me pause in shock. Upstairs, the light in the crack of the door shifted. That clear female voice drifted down again, tinged with confusion: “Elias? Are you not done yet?” That voice was like a kill switch. Whatever microscopic emotion I couldn’t understand in Elias’s eyes instantly froze over, leaving nothing but pure, unadulterated coldness. He pulled at the corner of his mouth, the icy curve laced with an indescribable, mocking bitterness: “You probably couldn’t even recognize half the bus routes if you tried. What are you talking about ‘adapting’?” “Stop being naive. We are no longer people who walk the same path.” “Go back. Go live the life you’re supposed to live.” With that, he didn’t spare me another glance. He turned and took long, purposeful strides up the stairs. His back was resolute. He didn’t hesitate for a single second. 06 I stood frozen in place. The door upstairs had already clicked shut. The soundproofing in this walk-up building was terrible. In the stairwell, I could still hear the muffled, indistinct sounds of their conversation from inside. The July wind was supposed to be sweltering. So why did I feel so incredibly cold? My chest felt tight and suffocating, and my nose stung painfully. He seemed… even angrier now? But I was just telling the truth… Amidst the suffocating feeling, those pop-up-like visions flashed through my mind again. But what was different this time was that I wasn’t entering a second marriage. Instead, I was heavily pregnant, being shoved down a flight of stairs by the man who was supposed to be my second husband. Bright red blood rapidly pooled beneath me. I died with my eyes wide open, as my devastated parents came running from a distance… This scene was infinitely more terrifying than freezing to death on the streets! I instinctively clutched my lower abdomen. Go back and live the life I’m “supposed” to live? No, no, no! I don’t have a life I’m supposed to live! If we don’t remarry, I’m just going to die in a variety of gruesome ways. His refusal to remarry must just mean he thinks I’m not showing enough sincerity. I have to prove it to him! If he rejects me once, I’ll go back twice. If he rejects me twice, I’ll go back four times! I’ll overwhelm him with sheer volume until it causes a qualitative change! 07 And so, I went back time and time again. Everyone in the building, and even half the neighborhood, knew that Elias Sterling’s ex-wife was begging for a remarriage. But when Elias faced me, he continued to reject me with a cold, stony expression. It was only occasionally, when I clumsily tried to help out, that his deeply furrowed brow would ease, and his gaze would linger on me for a moment. Carrying a complex, scrutinizing weight. As if I was the one who bankrupted his family, rather than the business partner who had embezzled the funds and was currently on the run. Elias’s parents still treated me with the same warmth and affection as always, but even they tried to dissuade me: “You grew up in the lap of luxury. Your parents couldn’t bear to see you suffer, and we equally can’t bear to see you come back and suffer with us!” “Look at your hands. You just peeled some garlic, and your manicured nails are already chipping.” “Mia, be a good girl. Don’t come back starting tomorrow.” I completely disagreed, smiling as I said: “But I don’t feel like I’m suffering at all! Everyone has to experience a lot of ‘firsts’ in life.” “I’m going to work hard and get better at this!” That’s what I said out loud. But the reality was, the person navigating the kitchen with expert ease was Audrey Jenkins. While I could only stand outside the kitchen, watching helplessly. There was no helping it. Lately, if I smelled even the slightest hint of cooking odors, my stomach would violently churn. Watching Elias’s mom and Audrey interact like family, a thick, indescribable wave of envy and bitterness washed over me. When no one was looking, I quietly slipped out the door. Just as I pulled the door shut, I looked up and ran right into Elias, who was just returning home. His eyes were cold, and his tone was even colder. “What’s wrong?” I shook my head in utter defeat. I couldn’t exactly tell him that I was feeling incredibly frustrated and useless, could I? He stepped up the last two stairs, stopping just inches away from me. “If you can’t handle it, just go back,” his low, raspy voice seemed to carry a hint of a sigh. I was stunned. I looked up at him, defiant. “I am not unable to handle the hardship! This doesn’t even count as hardship, okay?! I’m just…” “Just… feeling like I can’t really help with anything…” My voice trailed off, laced with a subtle, hard-to-hide despair. I couldn’t accept the fact that, compared to Audrey Jenkins, I was so incredibly useless. Audrey’s family used to be neighbors with the Sterlings. She and Elias had practically grown up together as childhood sweethearts. After high school graduation, the Jenkins family immigrated to Europe. She must have heard about the Sterling family’s bankruptcy and specifically flown back. That kind of deep, supportive loyalty in a time of crisis was infinitely better than me, the ex-wife who demanded a divorce the second he went bankrupt. “Anyway!” I paused, biting out the words with emphasis. “I’m not leaving! Unless you agree to remarry me!” Having delivered my ultimatum, I immediately looked away. Tears were pooling in my eyes, and I bit down hard on my jaw to keep them from falling. His gaze swept over my eyes, and he remained silent. After a long time, he finally spoke. “Understood.” Understood? What did he understand? The reason I couldn’t go into the kitchen wasn’t because I lacked the ability; it was because I was carrying a tiny human life in my belly, okay?! You don’t understand anything at all! 08 My morning sickness was getting progressively worse. Seeing my misery, my mom couldn’t stand it anymore and suggested I just use the pregnancy to force Elias into remarrying me. I refused. What if he was truly ruthless and didn’t even want the baby? I couldn’t risk the baby’s life. 09 Elias had been working like a maniac lately. The only time I ever saw him was when I brought him food. In his sparse, rundown office, his profile as he bent over his desk under the harsh fluorescent lights looked incredibly focused and lonely. The interplay of light and shadow highlighted his sharp, deep features, his straight nose, and his tightly pressed, thin lips. I suddenly remembered that in the past, late at night, he used to sit in his home office, focused on his documents just like this. And I would curl up in a rocking chair nearby, hugging a throw pillow, just watching him. I would watch him until I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I was always in his arms. Thinking about that, my heart gave an inexplicable, phantom flutter. The past and the present overlapped, creating the illusion that we had never actually gotten divorced. He was always so cold and distant with the outside world. I was the only one who had ever seen him lose all control. Those indescribable days and nights were seared into my bones, making me blush and my heart race just thinking about them. “What are you standing there for?” He looked up, noticing me, and stood up to walk over. As he took the insulated lunch box from me, his fingertips casually brushed against mine. He frowned. “Are you feeling sick?” “Huh? No, I’m fine…” I shook my head, totally oblivious. His cool hand rested on my burning cheek. He looked suspicious, his eyes searching. “Your face is really red.” “Uh… I’m really fine…” I looked away in embarrassment, but the heat spread from my cheeks all the way to the tips of my ears. He stared at me, his gaze growing darker and deeper, like a predator gathering its strength. That kind of surging, highly aggressive gaze was incredibly familiar. So familiar that my heart almost beat out of my chest. After a moment, his Adam’s apple bobbed, and his voice was slightly hoarse. “It’s late. You should head back.” “What about you? Are you still working?” “Yeah.” He turned to walk back to his desk, and I followed right behind him. I clasped my hands behind my back, shaking my head back and forth, and said, “Then I’m not leaving either.” “It’s too dark outside. I’m scared. I need you to walk me home.” Under the harsh spotlight, our two shadows, one tall and one short, intersected and overlapped. After a long pause, I finally heard his response: “…Suit yourself.” 10 With his tacit approval, delivering food became my excuse to linger and refuse to leave. After eating, he went back to burying himself in his work. I rested my face in my hands, staring at him for hours, inevitably becoming completely mesmerized. Beneath his thick, long eyelashes, his eyes held a glimmer of starlight. I loved seeing my own reflection in his eyes, as if I were the only person in his entire world. And those thin, warm lips. Whenever he kissed me, he always liked to start with a tentative, gentle taste. Sometimes, unable to withstand my pleading, this seemingly cold man would actually whisper a few incredibly romantic, dirty things to me. My thoughts drifted from those memories back to the present, and as if possessed, I called out his name: “Elias…” “Hmm?” “Elias,” I called again. “Yeah.” “E…li…as?” He looked up from his documents, looking at me with helpless exasperation. “What is it?” I leaned closer, asking with absolute, profound sincerity: “The way things are between us right now… isn’t it nice?” “Why won’t you just remarry me?” “If you remarry me, my family will help you. Everything will become so much easier, and…” “Mia.” He cut me off, his gaze as heavy and impenetrable as fog. “Have you ever thought about what would happen if… your family fell, too?” My heart plummeted instantly. The horrific images that had flashed before my eyes surged into my mind. “There is no such thing as a permanent safety net,” his voice was cold and hard. “Relying on yourself is the only reliable thing.” After saying that, his expression softened slightly, his tone becoming gentler, laced with a hint of apology. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” “Your safety net will always be there,” he added, his eyes carrying a heavy, unspoken weight. Looking at the absolute sincerity in his eyes, a warm current seemed to flood my heart. See? This is the Elias Sterling I married. He had always treated me with such tender warmth. His coldness was nothing but a shell he presented to the outside world. I shook my head, pretending not to care, and smiled encouragingly. “Then I’ll cheer you on! I’ll wait for you to make your comeback, and I’ll wait for you to become someone else’s safety net!” He let out a sudden, faint laugh. It was very subtle, but blindingly beautiful. “I have no intention of being anyone else’s safety net.” “You have the Sinclair family now, and in the future, you’ll have…” The rest of the sentence was incredibly soft, as light as a sigh. I didn’t catch it. When I looked up again, he was already focused back on his documents. As if the tenderness and the unfinished sentence from a moment ago were entirely a figment of my imagination. I stared at his handsome profile, entirely unable to tear my eyes away. It felt as if a voice was secretly whispering in my ear: Just looking at him like this… is actually pretty wonderful…

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During my sophomore year of college, I sent a box of gifts to my boyfriend. He was happily video-chatting with me when he opened it. Suddenly, a roommate walking by his screen chimed in: “That stuff looks cheap. Why are you flexing that so hard?” My boyfriend turned his head and shot back playfully: “Oh, and that raggedy old little pouch you carry around isn’t a treasure? You won’t even let anyone touch it.” The next second, my ex-boyfriend’s face appeared in the camera frame. I was instantly transported back to my senior year of high school. I remembered the moment I was framed for stealing an exam answer key, losing my guaranteed college admission spot. The bad boy who had once sworn to be my ultimate protector had looked at me with impatience and said: “Do you know who her family is? Do you know who you are? Did you really have to provoke her?” 1 I froze for a second before I realized the face on the screen was Cole. I hadn’t seen him in a few years, and he looked even better than before. He didn’t need to pretend to be a broke kid in front of me anymore; he had reverted to being the rich heir, though he had shed some of his teenage arrogance and immaturity. The moment his eyes met mine through the screen, the hand holding his cigarette visibly trembled. Ash fell onto his hand. He quickly averted his gaze and let out a cold scoff: “This is it?” Liam’s face instantly darkened. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, get the hell out of the frame. My girlfriend is the best thing in the world.” “The best? Who knows if she’s just with you for your money.” Cole leaned back against his headboard, his eyes dark and unreadable. Liam turned back to the camera, flashing me a brilliant smile. “Baby, what else do you want? Anything money can buy is no problem. You know I’m loaded.” “Please, I’m begging you, let me spend some money on you.” He continued to playfully whine at the camera. I looked down at the floor, not saying a word. Cole suddenly let out a cold laugh. “Isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for this whole time? Hurry up and ask him.” Liam only had endless patience and a good temper when it came to me. Normally, he couldn’t stand anyone saying a bad word about me. He whipped around and kicked Cole’s desk. “Did the Sterling family go bankrupt? Why are you so sensitive about money?” Finally, Liam frowned and delivered the killing blow: “Or is it that time of the month for you? Why are you being so passive-aggressive to my girlfriend today?” As soon as the words left his mouth, Cole’s face turned black as thunder. His chest heaved, but he couldn’t utter a single word. He stood up, his face icy, and slammed the dorm room door behind him. Liam acted like he hadn’t noticed a thing, leaning back toward his desk and continuing our call. “I’m sorry, babe. I don’t know what’s wrong with him today. Don’t let it ruin your mood. I’ll take you to look at some apartments later.” “My family’s new development is finished. Do you want to go check it out? I specifically had them set aside the best units.” He rambled on, simultaneously watching my expression with careful observation. If anyone saw the untouchable, highly-sought-after heir of the Miller family talking to a girl like this, their jaws would probably drop. I looked up and offered him a reassuring smile. “It’s fine.” “We can talk about the apartments later. I have to get to class soon.” “Okay. Wait for me, I’ll come pick you up right now.” To be honest, when I moved to this city, I was mentally prepared to eventually run into Cole. But I never expected him to be roommates with Liam. Back when I was fighting tooth and nail to claw my way up, I always thought that if Cole saw me, I needed him to know that leaving him only made my life better. But seeing him now, I realized I felt absolutely nothing. 2 It started raining when I left my dorm. I stood under the awning, reading a research paper while waiting for Liam. “You’ve really moved up in the world, Chloe.” “Where’s Liam?” My gaze passed right through him, staring blankly into the distance. Cole suddenly reached out and pulled me under his umbrella. “Is it a crime for me to pick you up?” That single sentence yanked me from the pristine college campus right back to the damp, rundown trailer park of my youth. It was pouring rain. The power in the classroom had gone out. While the other students were celebrating getting out of school early, I was just glad I could start my delivery shift sooner and make a little extra cash. I didn’t have a choice. I was an orphan; if I needed money, I had to earn it myself. The moment I stepped out into the rain, I was instantly soaked to the bone. Terrified of getting bad ratings, I took off my own raincoat and wrapped it around the delivery box on the back of my e-bike. Before I could even feel good about the money I was going to make, the e-bike skidded and crashed heavily onto the wet pavement. My leg was badly scraped. I struggled for a long time but couldn’t manage to stand up. With no other option, I called my childhood friend, Ethan, to come get me. But the person who showed up wasn’t Ethan; it was Cole. Back then, Cole was the quintessential bad boy. Covered in cheap, clinking jewelry, he looked like a walking hardware store as he ran through the storm to reach me. “Where’s Ethan?” “Is it a crime for me to pick you up? I’m your best friend too, you know.” He helped me pick up the fallen e-bike, then scooped me up into his arms. A faint scent of antiseptic enveloped me. I clung to his back, watching the rich kid clumsily try to start the e-bike, cursing the entire time. “Chloe, are you crazy? If you need money, just tell me. Delivering food in a storm like this… aren’t you afraid of getting killed?” “If you die, Mr. Wilson is going to dramatically slit his throat in front of the whole class.” Mr. Wilson was our homeroom teacher. He had always looked out for me. I lay against his back, feeling his body heat. Maybe I just found him annoying, or maybe my heart was beating too fast and scrambling my brain, but I reached out and covered his mouth. “Shut up.” It was instantly quiet, leaving only the sound of the relentless rain and the pounding of a heartbeat. His warm breath hit my hand, making my ears turn bright red. I was always someone who prioritized efficiency, but suddenly, I wished time would just stop for a while. But now. Now, I wished time would fast-forward, so I could escape having to interact with him. “Chloe, I’m here.” Liam arrived, and I practically sprinted toward him. He wrapped me in a tight hug before finally looking at Cole. Cole stood in the rain, looking inexplicably lonely. He gripped a small, embroidered pouch in his hand, his mouth opening and closing. Liam’s gaze swept over him, and the grip on my hand tightened slightly. “Let’s go.” But Cole called out to him. “Do you know who gave me this pouch?” My body went a little stiff. Liam, however, turned around with a smile. “Does it matter who gave it to you?” “Aren’t you just the guy who got dumped and is now desperately clinging to some raggedy pouch to reminisce?” Cole didn’t get angry. “But when she gave it to me, she put a good luck charm inside. She prayed for it herself.” “Liam, has your girlfriend ever given you anything like that?” The two men stared at each other in tense silence. Liam suddenly grabbed my arm, revealing the beaded bracelet on my wrist. “I couldn’t bear to make my girlfriend do that kind of work, so I prayed for this one for her.” Cole’s pupils contracted violently. He gripped the pouch so tightly it crumpled. He opened his mouth, then closed it. I guessed he wanted to ask. He wanted to ask if the scar on my wrist had finally healed. 3 Years ago, the day I found out Cole was in the hospital after a car crash, I learned what it truly felt like to be scared out of my mind. Ethan brought me to the hospital, but I could only press my face against the glass window of the ICU. Cole was lying there, surrounded by beeping monitors, hooked up to a dozen tubes. The doctor was giving the Sterling family an update. “The patient’s condition is extremely critical. Whether he wakes up or not depends entirely on tonight and tomorrow. If he doesn’t wake up by tomorrow…” “The family needs to prepare for the worst.” I covered my mouth, slowly sliding down the wall until I hit the floor. In that moment, staring at the sterile white walls, I thought about praying to a higher power for the first time in my life. For the first eighteen years of my life, I had been a staunch atheist. But this time, I wanted to beg the heavens, just to let me be lucky this one time. Let him live. I stayed outside his hospital room all night. The next day, Ethan took me to a famous local temple. It was said to be the most effective temple in the area, located at the very top of a seemingly endless mountain. Even though there was a cable car, barely anyone took it. People believed that climbing the mountain path on foot showed true sincerity. And only then would the heavens grant your wish. The mountain path was brutal. Ethan accompanied me quietly. I didn’t dare stop or rest for a single second. By the time we reached the top, I was drenched in sweat. The moment I knelt before the altar, I offered up all the devotion I possessed. “Please, please let Cole wake up.” A monk standing nearby handed me a good luck charm, offering a gentle smile. “Though the path is fraught with hardship, the end will bring fulfillment.” I joyfully placed the charm inside the embroidered pouch I had made. On the way down the mountain, I practically ran the entire way. As a result, joy turned to disaster. I tripped and fell, tearing a deep gash into my arm. Right at that moment, the hospital called to say Cole had woken up. Clutching the pouch, crying and laughing simultaneously, I completely ignored my bleeding wrist and rushed back to the hospital. Cole had just woken from his coma and was still on a ventilator. His hands were moving frantically. I thought he was in pain and was about to call the doctor. But when the doctor arrived, Cole just pointed a weak finger at my wrist. “Hurts…” “Worry about yourself first.” My anxiety made me snap at him like a firecracker, but he just offered a weak, good-natured smile. Later, when he was discharged from the hospital, I handed him the pouch containing the good luck charm. Because of the car crash, he had a long scar down his back. Because of him, I had a scar on my arm. “We have matching scars,” I had said. Cole had simply gripped the pouch and pulled me into his arms. “Chloe, let’s be together.” The messy, chaotic stitches on that pouch held all my secret, teenage hopes and dreams. I said yes, and we began a secret, high school romance. Back then, I truly believed that Cole and I would have a perfect, happy ending. But now, the scar on my wrist was covered by a bracelet engraved with Liam’s name. 4 After finishing an intense Calculus lecture, I felt energized and ready to go, but Liam had turned into a deflated puppy. He switched into his ‘needy’ persona, clinging to me and whining. “Babe, compared to you, I feel so stupid.” I found it endearing, ruffling his hair to comfort him. “You’re not stupid, you’re not stupid. Tell me what part you didn’t understand, I’ll explain it.” “No, let’s go get food first.” He grabbed my hand to lead me out, then stopped halfway down the hall. “I left my phone on the desk.” “I’ll go grab it. Wait here.” He sprinted off, and I leaned against the wall to fill out an application form. There was a highly coveted internship opportunity available, and the competition in our department was fierce. Even though I was ranked first in my class, I couldn’t afford to slack off. My temples started throbbing again. I instinctively reached into my bag. “Here.” A lighter and a cigarette were placed into my hand. I pulled out a piece of candy instead. “I quit.” Cole nodded, his eyes carrying an emotion I couldn’t read. “Do you always have to push yourself this hard?” He had said those exact words to me before. We had gotten into a huge fight over it. Right before the SATs, I was pushing myself to the absolute limit. To stay awake and study, I had even started smoking. I was fiercely ambitious. I had to get into a top-tier university. That was the first step toward my dream. When Ethan, acting on his mom’s orders, brought me food, he was shocked by how awful I looked. He didn’t say much, just tossed me a bottle of vitamins. “Eat this before you study.” I nodded and silently ate the food. My phone kept buzzing. It was a text from Cole. “Chloe, I miss you so much. Can I come see you?” Below the text was the address of a notoriously expensive, exclusive club. I hadn’t planned on going, but it was his birthday today, and I caved. When I walked into the private VIP room, Cole immediately pulled me into a hug. “You haven’t spent time with me in so long. Just stay with me tonight.” “I can’t. I have to be back by ten to finish practice tests. Once exams are over…” Before I could finish, a female voice cut me off. “Give it a rest. She’s a self-made academic weapon. Why are you trying to distract her?” I knew the girl who spoke. It was Cole’s childhood friend, Victoria. She looked me up and down with obvious disdain, letting out a cold scoff. “Tsk. Playing hard to get is fine, but don’t overdo it. If you play your hand wrong, you’ll be crying when it’s too late.” As soon as she finished speaking, the room erupted in laughter. Cole’s face darkened, and he smashed his glass on the floor. “If any of you motherf***ers say one more passive-aggressive thing, I swear to God.” “What my girlfriend does is none of your damn business.” He threw a massive fit, and those ‘friends’ of his never dared to say another bad word about me. He even grabbed Victoria and forced her to apologize to me. Honestly, I knew his friends looked down on me. They all thought I was only with him for his money. But I didn’t care what they thought. I only cared what Cole thought. As long as Cole believed in me and supported me, I wasn’t afraid of anything. That night, Cole ended his birthday party early and personally walked me home. “Don’t exhaust yourself. Get some sleep after you finish those practice tests.” His eyes were sparkling, but he still sounded a little sheepish when he spoke. “Can you at least say ‘Happy Birthday’ to me?” “Happy Birthday. Here’s your gift.” It was a pair of boxing gloves. They had cost me a whole month’s salary. Cole smiled so wide he couldn’t close his mouth. “I love them.” I buried my face in his jacket and took a deep breath, feeling all my exhaustion melt away. For the following weeks, he quietly took charge of bringing me three meals a day. One day, I was studying like a maniac and finally managed to carve out an hour to go see him. Instead, I overheard him complaining to Victoria. “Does she really need to push herself this hard?” “Wouldn’t it be better to just stay by my side? I can give her whatever she wants. I seriously don’t understand why she’s being so difficult.” I didn’t hear what he said to Victoria after that. I just felt a sudden, sharp ache in my chest. But back then, I convinced myself he was just worried about me. I had no idea that this was just the beginning of the end. 5 Liam walked out of the classroom with his phone, smoothly pulling me into his arms without missing a beat. “Figured out what you want to eat?” His thumbs expertly massaged my temples. “Headache again? The family doctor prescribed some herbal medicine for you. I’ll have them brew it and send it over later.” I leaned against him and gently patted his hand. “I’m fine. Don’t go through the trouble.” He smiled and leaned in to kiss me. His movements were gentle, but laced with a deep possessiveness. “You’re leaving soon for your internship. You need to focus on taking care of your health while you can.” I squeezed his hand. “Okay. Just come with me to drop off this application form first.” Cole, who had been standing in the shadows, suddenly moved. His face was dark. “You’re letting her go work in the mountains?” The smile on Liam’s face vanished completely. He shot Cole a freezing glare. “Whatever she wants to do, I support her.” “Besides, she is my girlfriend. Cole, you’re crossing the line.” … Cole stormed off with a dark expression. Liam and I went to his off-campus apartment. I knew he had definitely noticed the tension between Cole and me. He kept his head down, kissing me deeply. “Chloe, he doesn’t deserve you.” “Are you jealous?” Liam frowned, grabbing my hand as it wandered downwards. “Every single person who gets close to you makes me jealous.” “That’s why I’m going to hold onto you so tightly, and make sure I never make a single mistake.” “That way, you’ll stay with me forever and ever.” He didn’t bother hiding the possessiveness in his eyes anymore. At the height of our intimacy, I gripped the back of his neck. A faint flush appeared at the corners of Liam’s eyes. “Chloe, only ever look at me. Promise me.” “Chloe, let me stay by your side. I’ll always support you. I will never be an obstacle to anything you want to do.” I stared at him, and kissed him hard. Their breath mingling, Liam’s rhythm grew erratic, his movements accelerating. Finally, he bit down on the soft flesh of my neck, pausing. The next day in class, Cole kept turning around to look at me. Following his gaze, Liam casually reached up and stroked the red mark on my neck. 6 Right after I finished my final seminar report, someone told me Liam and Cole were fighting. By the time I ran over, the two of them were already tangled in a brawl. “What happened?” “I don’t know, it looked like Liam accidentally bumped into Cole’s embroidered pouch, and then they just started swinging.” “Stop fighting.” The people around them managed to pull Cole back. I frantically checked Liam for injuries. “Are you okay?” I was so anxious I didn’t even notice I had stepped directly on the pouch Cole had dropped. “Chloe!” He grabbed the hem of my shirt desperately. “Is he the only person you see now?” “Obviously? Who is he to me, and who are you to me? Why are you trying to start a fight with him?” The color drained from Cole’s face, inch by inch. He crouched on the ground, helplessly clutching the pouch. “Chloe, listen to me…” I dragged Liam toward the campus clinic, leaving his words behind me. “Chloe, who am I to you?” Liam leaned his head on my shoulder, his eyes rimmed with red. I knew his stubborn, needy side was acting up again. “My boyfriend.” Liam closed his eyes in deep satisfaction, looking like a cat that had just been petted exactly right. “The things you said to Cole today… he used to say those exact same things to you, didn’t he?” Liam secretly traced circles on my palm with his finger, over and over. Nothing got past him. Cole had said those exact words to me once. 7 That year, as the SATs approached, I grew increasingly anxious. I desperately needed that golden ticket to a top university. I wanted a good future, and I needed a ladder to bridge the massive gap between me and Cole. He was a trust fund baby; I was an orphaned girl with dead parents. He held all the chips, while the only card I had to play was my academic ability. My life felt like a high-wire balancing act. I was pushing myself to the absolute limit. All I saw was a top-tier university. Cole came to find me every day, but I never spoke to him for more than three minutes at a time. Finally, one day, he lost his temper. “Chloe, why do you have to push yourself so hard?! Is it for the money? How much do you need? Can’t I just give it to you?!” I stood there, my face deathly pale, slowly picking up the practice workbooks I had dropped on the floor, trying to piece together my crumbling dignity. If someone offered me that money now, I would take it without hesitation. But that’s how teenagers are. When you think you’re invincible, you’re also the easiest to destroy. Before my frustrated tears could fall, Cole pulled me into a hug and apologized. “I’m sorry, Chloe, I’m just so worried. Do you have any idea how much weight you’ve lost lately? I’m genuinely terrified. Please, I’m begging you, just take it easy on yourself.” “Stop pushing yourself so hard. I will always be your safety net.” A teenage boy’s promises look like a beautiful bouquet of flowers, but underneath, they are completely empty. And I almost fell for it, almost let myself become nothing more than fertilizer for those flowers. As much as Cole liked me, Victoria hated me. But she always maintained the facade of just being a “friend” who stayed quietly by Cole’s side, so I couldn’t really say anything. It wasn’t until the day she fully exposed her malice that I nearly broke. During the final school-wide mock exams, I gripped my pen, calculating furiously. Looking at the familiar test format, my confidence slowly grew. By the time I finished the last question, I even felt a surge of pride. I thought I had that golden ticket secured. Our school had two guaranteed admission spots for top universities, and I was always ranked first in my grade. But just after finishing my last exam, I was called into the principal’s office. For an absolutely absurd reason. “You’re saying I stole the mock exam answer key? Are you insane?” I stood there, trembling uncontrollably. The principal slammed a document onto the desk without any explanation. “The security cameras caught you going into the records room.” “Chloe, don’t be stubborn.” Then, he immediately switched to a different, patronizing tone. “Chloe, actually, given your academic ability, you don’t even need this guaranteed admission spot to get into a top school. Why fight so hard for it here?” He tapped a bank card on the desk and held up five fingers. Fifty thousand dollars. “I didn’t steal the exam.” Victoria stepped out from the shadows, her eyes full of blatant malice. “Stop struggling. Don’t you just study so hard for the money?” “This is more money than you’ll see in your entire life.” I gritted my teeth. “I didn’t steal the exam, and I’m going to make you pay for this.” Back then, I always thought right was right and wrong was wrong, so my first instinct was to expose her and demand justice. But there was no justice. The principal spoke first. “If you keep causing a scene, I can’t guarantee you’ll even be allowed to take the SATs this year.” His eyes were freezing cold. I stood frozen in place. “My academic record has brought this school a lot of prestige.” “Don’t be ridiculous. Without Chloe, there will be an Emily, or an Ashley.” “But finding a student like Victoria, whose family can donate ten million dollars with the snap of a finger, isn’t easy.” “Chloe, stop causing trouble. Just take the money and walk away. It’s better for everyone.” I didn’t believe it, so I went to find Cole. He had said he was my safety net. He could demand justice for me, just like he had at the club that night. But he avoided my eyes. “Chloe, my family’s company ran into some issues recently. Right now, Victoria is our main supplier. I can’t treat her the way I used to.” “It’s just college. I can take you to study abroad with me. You can go wherever you want.” He grabbed my shoulders, looking desperate, while I was on the verge of a total breakdown. “I don’t need the guaranteed admission spot! But why are they framing me for stealing the exam?! I didn’t do it!” I screamed at him, my voice hoarse. “I refuse to carry the stigma of being a thief!” Didn’t he know? Did he know how many people were pointing fingers behind my back, saying the most horrific things about me? “Chloe, those people are just talking nonsense. Why do you care what they think?” “I need you to clear my name.” The continuous breakdown in communication finally triggered Cole’s rich-kid temper. He slammed his fist onto the table. “Do you know who her family is? Do you know who you are? Did you really have to provoke her?” The rain poured down on me. I involuntarily shivered. I almost… I almost actually believed I had a safety net.

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Liam Sterling was famous for his bitter tongue. Because I was prone to gaining weight, when he saw the white lace dress sample sent by a merchant, he mockingly said: “Do you have to wear that and humiliate yourself? It looks like a sow playing bondage.” I don’t know how many times I broke down because of his harsh words, but every time, forced by his handsome face and generosity, I made myself not care. Until the eve of a debate competition, when a junior girl in our club leaked our debate manuscript to the opposing team. Normally, Liam would have sneered and mocked this girl for having an underdeveloped brain. But this time, Liam just threw a pack of tissues at her, turned his face away, and said: “What are you crying for? You look so ugly.” 1. Daisy Miller was sobbing: “I’m sorry, it’s all because I was careless that everyone can’t participate in the competition!” Just five minutes ago, the organizers had disqualified us due to the leaked debate manuscript. We had worked hard for months, only to be disqualified before even taking the stage. The club members were furious. “Careless? I think you did it on purpose, didn’t you? Who accidentally prints out our manuscripts copy by copy and puts them directly at the door of the opposing team’s room?” Daisy choked out, “I’m sorry… I got your room numbers wrong, that’s why it happened…” The members were even more furious upon hearing this: “Aren’t our rooms right next to each other? You don’t remember where we live, did you even forget where you live?” “Enough, stop crying in front of me. Even if you cry yourself to death here today, you won’t drain all the water in your brain!” Liam originally had no intention of speaking, but hearing the guy say this, he clicked his tongue: “Go wash your mouth if it stinks so much. Bullying a little girl like that, aren’t you ashamed?” Liam’s words stunned everyone. After all, not only was Liam the first debater in this competition, but his toxic tongue was also famous. If it were before. If such a low-level, almost intentional mistake occurred around him, Liam would probably have asked about her entire family with a cold face. And casually asked if she was the product of inbreeding. But this time, Liam just took a pack of tissues from his pocket, tossed it in front of Daisy, and turned his head: “Alright, what’s done is done. What’s the use of crying?” Watching Liam’s actions, my heart felt like it was pricked by a very fine needle. It was extremely uncomfortable. Liam had a toxic mouth and didn’t know how to comfort people. Several times I was angered to tears by Liam, and even though he was right beside me, he wouldn’t say a single nice word to me. He would just keep his hands in his pockets, impatiently tapping his foot: “Are you done yet? How long are you going to cry over such a trivial matter?” Everyone was waiting for my reaction as the club president. I suppressed the strange feeling in my heart and said to Daisy: “Whether you did it on purpose or not, you did affect our competition. You don’t need to come to future club activities.” Hearing this, Daisy cried even more pitifully: “Chloe, I know you’ve never liked me, but nobody is perfect. Are you going to strip me of my right to pursue my hobbies just because of this little thing?” The members ground their teeth in anger: “What hobbies do you have? You can’t even write a debate script. Even if the president gives you a chance to show your face and lets you use the script she wrote, you stumble on stage and drag everyone down!” “Not to mention, you know perfectly well how important this competition is to our club. This is the championship match! In your eyes, is this just a little thing?” Before Daisy could speak, Liam shouted in a low voice: “Enough!” Then, he turned to look at me: “Chloe Vance, you call yourself the president, yet you just watch a group of people bully a little girl like this?” Finally, Liam looked me up and down and softly spat out a few words: “Right, I forgot. You’re an accomplice too.” My throat suddenly felt like it was blocked by a wet wad of cotton. The sudden suffocation made me unable to say a word. Fortunately, other members spoke up: “Make yourself clear, how did we bully her?” “The president just told her not to come make a mess next time, and didn’t even plan to hold her accountable. How is she an accomplice?” Daisy sniffled and grabbed Liam’s cuff: “Liam, I know you’re just standing up for me because you care about me, but…” Daisy glanced at me, as if I were some terrible monster, lowered her head, and her voice was full of disappointment: “Maybe it’s really because Chloe doesn’t like me that it turned out this way.” 2. That day ended in a bitter argument. Before Liam left holding Daisy’s hand, he glanced at me and finally said coldly: “Chloe Vance, you are too petty. I hope you carefully reflect on your mistakes.” Watching the backs of the two of them walking away hand in hand, my heart fell into a state of blankness. Where did I go wrong? I still hadn’t figured this question out even when I dazedly returned to the apartment Liam and I shared. Looking at the floor the cleaning lady had wiped spotless, I belatedly remembered that Liam was a severe germaphobe. He practically had “keep away” written on his face. But Liam wasn’t just unapproachable; even I, his girlfriend, couldn’t get close to him on regular days. Unless he was willing, let alone holding his hand—he would dodge with a cold face. Even if I wanted to pull his cuff, like Daisy did today. Liam would put on a cold face and, right in front of me, throw the clothes I touched into the trash as if throwing away something dirty. I remember once, when I was working part-time at a food truck, I was bullied by some punks. Crying at the police station, I called Liam to come pick me up. When I saw Liam appear at the station with a cold face, the grievances in my heart could no longer be suppressed. I threw my arms around Liam’s waist and wailed. “You… you’re finally here, Liam. You don’t know, I was scared to death just now.” But Liam first let me hug him for a long time. Only when I had cried enough did he look down at my red and swollen eyes. I thought that even if Liam spoke harshly, he would always comfort me with a few words when something like this happened. But unexpectedly, his thin lips gently spat out a few words: “Chloe Vance, hugging me like this, aren’t you dirty?” Thinking of that incident, tears unknowingly streamed down my face. Coincidentally, Liam came home at this moment. When our eyes met, I didn’t even have time to wipe away the teardrops from the corners of my eyes. Liam impatiently kicked his shoes aside and sneered, turning his head away: “Daisy was bullied by you guys like that and didn’t say anything. You, the instigator, are crying instead. Impressive.” My voice was still choked with sobs: “She ruined everyone’s competition. I just asked her to quit the club. Is that asking too much?” “Besides…” The displeasure I had suppressed all afternoon blurted out at this moment: “Don’t you usually hate stupidity more than anything? Why were you so biased towards Daisy Miller today?” Liam froze for a moment, then spoke impatiently: “Hate stupidity? Chloe Vance, can’t you speak nicer? I couldn’t stand watching you guys bully a little girl to tears, what’s wrong with that?” I wanted to raise my hand to wipe away my tears, but they flowed even more fiercely. “Daisy Miller is an outsider, yet you can’t bear to see her tears.” “What about me? As your girlfriend, do I just have to watch you take the side of an outsider?” Liam sneered: “Here we go again. Chloe Vance, I really admire you, always getting insanely jealous over such trivial things.” Insanely jealous? I laughed and laughed until tears fell again: “You think we bullied Daisy Miller, so you kept defending her?” “But don’t you know, I was counting on the prize money from the debate competition to pay my tuition for next semester. She ruined everyone’s competition. I just asked her to quit the club. Is that asking too much?” Liam showed no emotion at all, merely saying disdainfully: “Playing the victim again?” It’s not like Liam hadn’t seen my desperation when I couldn’t pay my tuition, nor my exhausted appearance when working part-time. I put my heart and soul into winning the debate competition just to use the prize money to cover next semester’s expenses. But all of this, in Liam’s eyes, was just playing the victim. I spent the whole afternoon in a daze, wondering what I did wrong. My only mistake was dating a guy like Liam for three years. Crying for too long made me dizzy for a moment when I stood up abruptly. Liam subconsciously tried to grab my arm, but remembering something, he pursed his lips and withdrew his hand. I smiled bitterly, my voice carrying the numbness that comes after crying too much. “Think whatever you want.” “Liam Sterling, let’s break up.” A trace of disbelief flashed in Liam’s eyes. He asked: “Just because of this little thing, you want to break up with me?” Then, he sneered: “Fine, Chloe Vance. Since you brought up the breakup, don’t regret it.” I said numbly, “I won’t regret it.” I didn’t want to waste any more time on Liam, a cold-hearted man who never treated me as an equal. “I’ll move out of your place as soon as possible. You…” Before I could finish, Liam’s phone rang. Seeing the caller ID, Liam twitched the corner of his mouth, answered the phone, and even put it on speaker. Daisy Miller’s weak voice came through: “Liam, I hurt my leg while running just now. Can you come see me?” Liam’s gaze fell on me, then he smiled and said: “Sure, send me your location. I’ll be right there.” Hanging up the phone, Liam looked down at me and said: “Let me reiterate, I don’t go back to my exes. If you apologize to Daisy Miller, I’ll pretend nothing happened today. Otherwise…” I interrupted Liam, looking him straight in the eyes, and said word by word: “I didn’t do anything wrong to Daisy Miller, why should I apologize?” “Daisy Miller is still waiting for you. Go find her.” Liam looked me up and down, gritted his teeth, and threw down a sentence: “Fine, you’re doing great!” He then slammed the door and left without looking back. 3. After Liam left, I packed my bags overnight. He was very generous to me. After we got together, designer skincare products I had never even seen filled the vanity, and there were quite a few designer bags too. But I was always terrified to accept them. Let alone carrying them, I was careful even when brushing past them while cleaning. I didn’t plan on taking any of these things. I still had a supplementary credit card from Liam in my hand. He had impatiently thrown it at me when he saw me on the sofa, fighting through the pain to disinfect a wound I got from a fall while delivering takeout. “Take this card. My girlfriend, Liam Sterling’s girlfriend, doesn’t need to suffer like this.” I cherished Liam’s sentiment, but I never carelessly spent a single cent on the card. A few times when my grandma’s condition worsened and she was rushed to the ICU, even if I touched this card, I would pay the money back penny by penny afterward. Now, this card lay quietly on the coffee table in the living room. It was already late at night when I returned to the college dorm. Because the debate team had been disqualified, before I even woke up the next day, I was called into the academic advisor’s office. “How are you being the president? You prepared for this competition for so long, why were you disqualified?” Seeing me being scolded, other members of the club righteously spoke up: “This has nothing to do with Chloe. It’s all because Daisy Miller leaked our debate manuscript to the opposing team that this happened!” The advisor frowned and called Daisy Miller over. When they saw Liam coming with Daisy Miller, the members of the debate club all coincidentally looked at me. Daisy Miller looked at the advisor pitifully and said: “Professor, you were looking for me?” Seeing Daisy Miller like this made the advisor furious. Before the professor could speak, Liam said sarcastically: “Wow, Chloe Vance. Was it not enough for your gang to gang up on a little girl yesterday, that today you had to run to the professor to complain?” The advisor frowned and scolded Liam: “Watch your tone. What do you mean Chloe came to complain to me? My students were inexplicably forced to withdraw from the competition. Can’t I even ask a question?” Liam said nonchalantly: “Sure, why not?” Then, he added: “It’s true that Daisy was careless about this, but even if you want to punish someone, you can’t just put all the blame on one person, right?” “Chloe Vance is the president. Even if someone has to take responsibility, her responsibility is the greatest, don’t you think?” I was shaking with anger, but Liam was completely oblivious. He looked at me mockingly and said: “Aren’t some people always pursuing fairness and justice? You’re the president, you have to take the primary responsibility. You admit to this, right?” My fingertips dug deeply into my flesh. Actually, what Liam said was right. No matter what happened, as the president, I did have to take the primary responsibility. But these words shouldn’t have come from Liam. They shouldn’t have come from the person who had dated me for three years. I stopped the members who wanted to speak for me, and word by word, I said to the advisor: “It was my oversight. I failed to stop Daisy Miller from handing the victory to the opposing debaters.” “However you decide to handle this, you have the final say.” The advisor moved his lips, finally sighed, and said: “Since that’s the case, Daisy Miller is expelled from the debate club. As for you… you should vacate the position of president for someone else.” Liam was pleased to see this result. He crossed his arms, chuckled a few times, and said: “Now that you’ve been stripped of your position, let’s see how you can still use your status to stand on the moral high ground and judge others.” I closed my eyes and said to Liam: “Now that official business is over, let’s talk about personal matters.” Liam acted as if he heard some funny joke: “What personal matters do we have between us…” Before Liam could finish, I gathered all the strength in my body and slapped him across the face. The force was so great that it directly snapped Liam’s head to the side! In the past, let alone a slap, I hadn’t even said a harsh word to Liam. In front of him, I had always been gentle and obedient. This slap stunned Liam. After a long while, a bit of hostility gradually gathered in his eyes: “Chloe Vance, slapping me out of nowhere. Explain yourself.” My palm was red and numb, but looking at the handprint on Liam’s face, I felt an unspeakable sense of relief in my heart. “Yesterday, it was clearly your girlfriend who lost her qualification for the competition because of Daisy Miller. You didn’t speak up for me, but instead ran off holding Daisy Miller’s hand.” “I hit you for not understanding boundaries, for bullying your girlfriend for the sake of an outsider.” “With this slap, we’re even!” 4. The news of me slapping Liam spread like wildfire across campus. After all, before this, my reputation at school wasn’t very good. Labels like “simp,” “gold digger,” and “pathetic” followed me like a shadow. Simply because no matter how poorly Liam treated me, I never broke up with him. Hearing that I actually slapped Liam this time, certain bored circles on campus completely exploded. They were all betting. After this incident, how would I clean up the mess to win back Liam’s heart? But I paid no attention to those meaningless rumors. Without the debate competition, the prize money naturally vanished. Lately, I had been busy with part-time jobs to earn tuition and living expenses for the next semester. Until late one night, after I finished my last delivery run, my back aching and legs weak, I received a call from Liam. Liam rarely contacted me proactively unless there was something important. As soon as the call connected, Liam’s lazy voice came through: “You left your stuff at my place. Hurry up and get it, don’t pollute the air in my house.” I was already used to Liam’s cold words. My voice carried a hint of exhaustion: “What stuff?” Liam on the other end of the phone said: “That trashy ring of yours. I’ll give you half an hour to come get it, otherwise I’ll just throw it away.” Thinking of that ring, my mind went into a trance. Custom-made silver rings suddenly became popular during our sophomore year. I didn’t have much money back then, but I wanted to give Liam a gift. So, on a Wednesday afternoon when we had no classes, I dragged Liam along with me to make a pair of rings that belonged only to us. Liam expressed God knows how much disgust while we were there, but after the ring was made, he still put it on his hand, just like I did. My heart was sweeter than honey back then. After making sure I wasn’t dirty, I smilingly threw my arms around Liam’s neck from the side: “How is it, do you like it?” Liam pursed his lips in disgust and said: “No, it’s so ugly.” But that ring, since Liam put it on, he never took it off. Last night, when I took off that silver ring and saw the mark it left on my finger, I was also stunned for a long time, but eventually, I gently slipped it off. Seeing that I hadn’t spoken for a while, Liam’s voice impatiently rang out: “Are you deaf?” My consciousness returned, and I said to Liam: “I don’t want that ring anymore. Throw it away.” Liam seemed to freeze for a few seconds before saying: “Chloe Vance, are you treating my house like a recycling center? You’re just leaving whatever junk you don’t want here?” My lips moved. I wanted to say something, but felt it was unnecessary. “Whatever you say.” 5. I thought I could make a clean break from Liam. I didn’t expect to run into them again when I was working part-time at a karaoke bar. Through the unclosed door of a private room, several familiar and unfamiliar classmates were sitting around Liam. Liam had a cigarette dangling from his mouth. As the flame flickered and the cigarette was lit, someone saw and asked: “Liam is smoking again?” Then, realizing they misspoke, they shut their mouth. Before we got together, Liam was quite a heavy smoker, but I had sinus issues and couldn’t stand the smell of smoke. Liam would call me “squeamish and high-maintenance,” but he still cut down on smoking. The few times he occasionally smoked, he would wait downstairs to let the smell air out before coming home. Hearing the guy say that, Liam paused his motion of putting away the lighter, glaring at the guy: “Got nothing better to say?” The other classmates in the room quickly tried to smooth things over. Someone said: “Recently, that simp Chloe Vance hasn’t been bothering Liam. Liam is enjoying the freedom, what’s wrong with smoking a few cigarettes?” Liam lowered his eyes, his voice carrying a bit of coldness: “Don’t mention her to me.” Everyone looked at each other. They had all heard rumors about Liam’s growing temper lately. Today someone organized a gathering and called Liam over to hang out. Only upon seeing him did they realize the rumors were true. Liam’s good buddy smilingly poured him some alcohol and said: “Who doesn’t know Chloe Vance loves Liam to death, you can’t drive her away no matter how hard you try. I’m guessing, Chloe Vance can only keep this up for two or three days. Once she can’t bear the pain of missing you anymore, she’ll come running back with her tail between her legs.” Liam exhaled a puff of thin smoke: “You talk too much.” But anyone with eyes could see that the subtle irritability between Liam’s brows had dissipated significantly. I don’t know who had sharp eyes and spotted me, but they yelled in surprise: “Chloe Vance, why are you here?” Liam’s buddy immediately said: “What did I say? In less than half a month, Chloe Vance would definitely look for you to get back together.” Liam also looked up at me and asked: “What are you doing here?” As soon as he finished speaking, other classmates started jeering: “What else could she be here for? Of course, she’s here to make up with you, Liam!” “Chloe Vance, how are you planning to coax him this time?” Under everyone’s mocking gazes, I slightly raised my lips and said: “Sorry, you misunderstood. I have no intention of getting back together with Liam Sterling.” Liam’s face instantly dropped. Liam’s buddy pulled me towards Liam, using a peacemaker’s tone on me: “Alright, Chloe, it’s no fun to keep making a scene.” “We all see your feelings for Liam. This time, as long as you apologize to Liam, we’ll let this go.” Liam flicked his cigarette ash and sneered: “Chloe Vance, your intelligence network is pretty good. I just got here, and you tracked me down right after?” I sighed, not understanding why they were so obsessed with this. I showed them my employee badge and said: “I’m just working a part-time job here. I didn’t expect to run into you guys here either.” Everyone looked at the badge on me in silence. I said: “I still have to work. Have fun.” After saying that, I bypassed them and turned to leave. Unexpectedly, someone forcefully grabbed my wrist and pulled me back. Liam pinned me against the wall behind him, making me unable to move. His voice was very low: “You’ve already chased me all the way here, why still play these hard-to-get games?” “Seeing how much you like me, I won’t hold it against you. As long as you apologize to Daisy Miller, we’ll turn the page on this matter.” I was so angry I laughed, and I shoved him away: “Liam Sterling, don’t flatter yourself. It’s really just a coincidence that I’m working here. If I had known I’d run into you here tonight, I definitely wouldn’t have come!” As soon as I said this, the room went quiet for a few seconds. Liam’s tone instantly turned cold: “Chloe Vance, know when to stop. Don’t play yourself.” I said indifferently: “I hope you get this clear: the breakup that night really wasn’t a joke.” After saying that, I turned around and left. From the private room behind me, there suddenly came a huge crash of a bottle hitting the floor. Liam’s buddy asked tremblingly: “Liam, are you okay?” Liam’s voice was full of hostility: “Get the fuck out, all of you!” 6. I don’t know who spread the word about what happened that night. Those classmates at school who were waiting for me to go back crying, begging Liam for forgiveness so they could continue watching the show, only belatedly realized at this point. So the breakup I spoke of was not a joke. But I had no time to worry about the gossip of other classmates. In the academic advisor’s office, I was dizzy with the sudden good news: “The school wants to recommend me as an exchange student to the UK?” The advisor nodded, looking at me with some approval: “Yes.” But I hadn’t been happy for a few minutes before reality pulled me back. I squeezed the hem of my shirt, my tone showing some helplessness: “But my family’s situation, professor, you know it. The cost of studying abroad is too high. I probably can’t afford it.” The advisor smiled kindly at me, then said: “The application for you this time is a full scholarship. Tuition is already included. The school there has also specially arranged a dorm room for you. As long as you work part-time in your spare time, your living expenses will be covered.” Going abroad for further studies had always been my dream. Hearing that the advisor had actually arranged everything for me, my eyes unconsciously welled up with tears. I bowed to the advisor: “Professor, thank you.” Leaving the office, I rushed to start preparing my documents, but no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find my ID. It took me a long time to recall that when I went on a trip with Liam last month, I left my ID with him. Actually, I didn’t want to contact Liam, but this wasn’t the time to act out of spite. It took a long time for the call to connect. When I heard Daisy Miller’s sweet “Hello” from the other end of the line… My hand subconsciously gripped the phone tighter, and I said: “Let Liam answer the phone.” Daisy Miller let out a sweet laugh over there, then said: “Chloe, if you need anything just tell me. I reckon Liam probably doesn’t really want to talk to you.” Before I could speak, Liam lazily asked: “Who is it?” A chorus of jeers immediately erupted over there: “Who else could it be? Chloe Vance finally couldn’t hold back and wants to make up with you, Liam!” “Awesome, Liam! You subdued that simp Chloe Vance once again!” Liam finally took the phone and asked me: “Chloe Vance, have I ever told you that I, Liam Sterling, don’t go back to my exes? We’ve already broken up, what are you coming to look for me for?” I suppressed the anger in my heart and told Liam: “My ID is still with you. Where are you? I’ll come get it.” On the other end of the screen, my sentence made the careless smile on Liam’s face freeze instantly. He gripped his phone tighter, and his tone suddenly worsened: “You’re looking for me just for this?” I said: “Yes, exactly for this. Where are you? I’ll go find you.” Liam wanted to swear, but seeing his buddies winking frantically, he took a breath and finally said: “Wanhai Road, Jinyue Karaoke.” Hearing the busy signal of me hanging up without hesitation, Liam’s face didn’t look too good. Liam’s good friend secretly wiped away a drop of sweat. Others couldn’t tell, but he, the good buddy who hung out with Liam every day, saw it clearly. Ever since Chloe and Liam broke up, Liam’s mood had been getting worse day by day. Often, while hanging out, he would suddenly pick up his phone to check his unread messages. When he didn’t see the message he wanted, he would darken his face and place the phone face down on the sofa. And… Liam’s good buddy actually wished his eyes weren’t so sharp. That plain ring the two of us made together, Chloe had already taken it off when she moved out of Liam’s place. But Liam always wore that ring on his hand. Whenever he felt frustrated, he would unconsciously twist the band. Seeing Liam looking very pissed off, he hurried over to Liam’s side and said: “Liam, don’t listen to Chloe’s nonsense. An ID card, not looking for it early, not looking for it late, why did she have to come looking for you exactly when you took Daisy out to play?” “She must be jealous, so she came up with such a clumsy little trick to attract your attention!” Liam’s hand reaching for his wine glass paused: “Really?” His buddy, seeing he had hit the nail on the head, punched his own palm: “Can’t be more real!” Saying that, he peeked at Liam’s expression and cautiously said: “But Liam, I advise you not to push it too far. No matter how much Chloe loves you, she’s a girl and needs to save face. Today, as long as she behaves well enough, just give her a way out.” Liam’s furrowed brows had completely relaxed. He said, “We’ll see.” Actually, Liam was quite annoyed, not understanding why I was always so petty. That night when he went home and saw the empty living room and the lonely ring rolling on the coffee table, for some inexplicable reason, he felt like a piece of his heart was missing. Everyone said I had no temper. But Liam angrily smashed several vases, thinking to himself. What do you mean no temper? Isn’t her temper huge right now? Running away from home over such a trivial matter? When I arrived, the private room was very lively. Liam wasn’t singing; he was sitting in the very middle seat without saying a word, while Daisy Miller leaned intimately against his shoulder. Before I could speak, Liam’s friend greeted me: “Chloe, why are you so late?” Daisy Miller, as if just noticing me, quickly got off Liam, giving a dry, guilty explanation: “Chloe, don’t misunderstand my relationship with Liam, I…” I couldn’t be bothered to listen to Daisy’s nonsense, and just said to Liam: “Where’s my ID?” Liam looked me up and down and asked: “What do you need your ID for?” I took a deep breath and said: “It has nothing to do with you. We’ve already broken up. Give me back my ID.” Liam’s buddy hurried to smooth things over in the middle: “Chloe, don’t be so absolute. Look, you two finally got together, why keep talking in anger?” Liam’s eyes grew cold. He took out his cardholder, casually tossed my ID onto the floor like trash, and it landed right under the sofa. He looked down at me from above and said indifferently: “Sorry, threw it too far. Pick it up yourself.” I resisted the urge to argue with Liam again, just twitched my mouth and said: “Liam Sterling, your aim is as bad as ever.” I crouched down to grope for my ID, but Daisy Miller suddenly moved. Her foot in a high heel stepped precisely on the back of my hand. Then she let out an “Ouch” and said: “Sorry Chloe, I didn’t see your hand. Did I hurt you?” The back of my hand was stepped on so hard it turned red and swollen, but I still blew the dust off my ID first before standing up. “That day I was only focused on slapping Liam, I forgot about you, you bitch.” Daisy Miller hid behind Liam: “Chloe, you…” I delivered a slap right to Daisy Miller’s face: “Stop intentionally doing these blind, dirty things one after another. You disgust me.” Liam grabbed my wrist tightly. When he clearly saw the red and swollen back of my hand, he first frowned imperceptibly, then asked in a deep voice: “Why are you hitting people? Are you here to pick a fight?” I smirked, forcefully broke free from Liam’s grip, and said: “I’m not that free. If possible, I really don’t want to have any more ties with you cheating pair ever again.” After saying that, I turned around to leave. Liam’s voice echoed in the room: “Chloe Vance, apologize.” “If you don’t apologize to Daisy, never come looking for me again from now on.” I turned my head and gave Liam a half-smile: “Who cares.”

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My boyfriend, Ethan, suddenly got into a car accident and was rushed to the hospital. Our classmates were all chipping in and donating money, but I acted like nothing had happened. Ethan’s sister tracked me down at school, her eyes red and swollen. “Maya, our family isn’t rich. Can you please take out the money my brother has been saving with you all these years to help pay for his emergency surgery?” My expression remained flat. “The money he saved? That was spent a long time ago.” Tears streamed down the girl’s face. “My brother gets a $500 monthly allowance, and he transfers $400 of it straight to you. Plus all the money he makes from his part-time jobs… he asked to borrow money from me several times and told me to keep it a secret from our parents…” “You’re his girlfriend. How can you just leave him to die?” At that moment, Ethan’s college roommate stepped forward to back up the girl’s claims. But I stood my ground, insisting I had no money. When Ethan regained consciousness, he immediately demanded a breakup. The entire student body rallied behind him. Faced with everyone’s harsh accusations, I pulled out the joint income and expense records from our two-year relationship. 01 The hem of the girl’s t-shirt was frayed, making her look like she came from a struggling, working-class family. She looked at me, swallowed hard, and spoke up amidst the confused stares of the crowd. “Maya, can you please just take out the money my brother left with you to cover the hospital bills?” “Mom has already borrowed from everyone she can, but we’re still short…” “I know my brother has been depositing his money with you since the very beginning.” I frowned, completely unmoved by her pitiful display. “The money he saved with me was spent ages ago.” My face was completely calm, but the girl’s eyes instantly welled up with tears. “Spent? How is that possible?” Her voice was laced with shock. “My brother has been dating you since freshman year, it’s been almost four years. Out of his $500 monthly allowance, he sends you $400 and only keeps $100 for his own food.” “Not to mention the side hustles he works. All that money went into your shared savings app. There has to be at least ten thousand dollars in there! How could it possibly all be spent?!” “There were times he was so broke he was starving and had to borrow money from me. He even begged me not to tell our parents, which is the only reason I know about this.” “I’m begging you. I know this isn’t ideal, and I didn’t get my brother’s permission, but as his girlfriend, are you really just going to watch him die?” She bent forward slightly, tugging at the hem of my shirt, her eyes brimming with tears. A heavy silence fell over the crowd. “Wait… I thought Ethan was on full financial aid! Turns out his allowance isn’t that small after all!” “Yeah, he’s always so frugal… I used to think Maya was a decent person, not a gold digger like other girls… So all of Ethan’s money went to her?” “Wow, I always assumed Maya came from a rich family. So she’s been living large off the money Ethan starved himself to save?!” Voices of surprise and suspicion rippled through the onlookers. I frowned and looked around. “You’re all making wild assumptions based on a completely one-sided story?” I turned back to the girl. “I told you, your brother has no money saved with me. Stop making a scene. Everyone is responsible for their own fate.” My voice was cold and flat, lacking any emotional inflection. Clap. Clap. Clap. Just as I finished speaking, the sound of slow, sarcastic applause rang out. Ethan’s roommate, Noah, was clapping, a mocking sneer on his face. “Wow. ‘Everyone is responsible for their own fate.’ What a line.” “Other people might not know, but do you think his roommates are blind?” “I’ve watched Ethan get his allowance every month, and the very first thing he does is open Venmo to send it. So, he was sending it to you all along?” “Look at the clothes and shoes you’re wearing—all designer brands. And what about Ethan? To save money, he buys clearance bin clothes and wears sneakers until the soles literally detach!” “What’s the deal? Now that he’s in an accident and you need to cough up the money, you’re trying to cut ties? Do you think we’re all idiots?” Noah’s words hit like a sledgehammer, leaving everyone stunned. Unlike the crying girl, Noah was our class representative. He was known for being responsible, gentle, and level-headed. No one had ever seen him lose his temper. But right now, his eyes were wide with blazing anger. “Do you even realize that Ethan got into that car crash while heading to an extra shift just so he could buy you a birthday present?!” The classmates who had been on the fence were now entirely convinced. “Holy crap. I never would’ve guessed Maya was this kind of person.” “How does she live with herself? Shouldn’t a relationship be 50/50? This is just pure greed!” Facing the crowd’s accusations, I merely scoffed, turned on my heel, and walked out of the noisy classroom. I didn’t expect my phone to blow up with a barrage of notifications just minutes later. 02 Amidst the sea of vile messages, the first one I noticed was from my college friend, Emma. “Maya, check… check the Campus Confessions page right now. What the hell is going on?” Emma usually never paid attention to college drama. For her to tell me to look at the gossip page meant this was blowing up massively. I opened my feed and was instantly hit with a viral post. “We are Maya’s roommates. We were asked by the people involved to take these photos (Pictures attached).” “We honestly didn’t want to believe that our own roommate could be such a cold-blooded, selfish, and greedy person.” The photo grid showed various designer bags and exquisite gifts. Every single item looked incredibly expensive. They specifically pointed out a small bear keychain. “This keychain right here—we looked it up. It’s smaller than a fist and retails for $800. Maya somehow has five of them.” “From what we know, Maya’s family isn’t wealthy at all.” “So it goes without saying where she got the money to buy these luxury goods. We only found out the truth today. Ethan wanted to save money together with you because he loved you, and this is how you treat your joint assets?” “Especially now that his life is on the line, and you just turn a blind eye. We are exposing all of this today. We refuse to be roommates with you any longer.” The post triggered a massive explosion of comments. People were filling in the blanks of the story, throwing fuel onto the fire of the student body’s outrage. “Holy shit, this girl is a psychopath!” “This is exactly why you shouldn’t mix finances in a relationship.” “God, how could she? That poor guy is skin and bones, and she’s spending money like water. She’s literally a leech…” “Terrifying. I’m scared to even date now, I don’t want to be treated like an ATM.” “Girls have it so easy. If I was a girl and dated ten guys, I’d be a millionaire.” “She has money to buy $800 keychains and thousands of dollars on bags, but no money to pay her boyfriend’s medical bills? She is drowning in her own vanity.” “I heard her boyfriend only got into the accident because of her.” Honestly, compared to my private messages, the comment section was actually tame. It was just some sharp criticism. When I opened my message requests, it was pure, unadulterated filth. Words that couldn’t pass community guidelines were creatively misspelled or swapped with homophones, then viciously hurled at my face. People who had absolutely no idea what the real story was were happily smashing their keyboards. Some of the guys were getting particularly worked up, completely projecting themselves into Ethan’s shoes. Even if they had never experienced anything like this, they were all playing the righteous victims, united in their hatred. By the time I got back to my dorm, my clothes and bags had been thrown all over the floor, covered in dirt. Some of my tulle dresses had mysterious new holes ripped in them, and my leather bags had deep, visible scratches. Meanwhile, my three roommates were just sitting there, playing on their phones or doing their makeup, acting like I didn’t even exist. My face darkened. “You’re destroying private property. I can call the cops for this.” Harper, who was doing her makeup, didn’t even turn around. She just kept checking her reflection in the mirror. “Call them, then. Go ahead. And while they’re here, maybe we can calculate exactly where all these things came from, whose money bought them, and see if we’re the ones paying you, or if you’re the one going to jail.” Her tone was dripping with disdain, completely devoid of any guilt. Another roommate chimed in. “Heh, I was wondering how you always had the money to flaunt this stuff. Turns out you were using someone else’s blood, sweat, and tears. No wonder you treated them like garbage.” She crossed her legs and mocked me openly. The last roommate simply ignored the situation entirely. Watching the three of them act so nonchalant, I didn’t say another word. I just walked straight over to their closets and pulled the doors open. 03 I grabbed a pair of scissors and started snipping their clothes. One piece, two pieces… It wasn’t until the room was littered with ruined fabric that they finally realized what I was doing. “Holy shit! Are you psychotic?! What are you doing?!” “Why are you touching my stuff?! I saved up for a whole month just to buy that dress, you’re paying for that!!!” “What the fuck! That’s my favorite brand, I paid a fortune for that! You bitch!!” They lunged at me, clawing and screaming. I immediately spun around, bolted out of the dorm, and locked the door behind me. Since I couldn’t stay in the dorm, I checked into a hotel near campus. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before I got a call from the Dean of Students, summoning me to her office. When I arrived, I saw my three roommates huddled in the corner. The moment they saw me, their faces twisted into masks of pure victimization. Mrs. Higgins, the Dean, tapped her finger on the desk and took a slow sip of her coffee. Her eyes narrowed behind her thin glasses as she looked me up and down, her gaze full of heavy scrutiny. “Maya, right? I know who you are.” “The girl in the Comp Sci program who’s always dressed to the nines. It’s hard not to remember you.” “But you need to realize that students come to college to learn, not to compete with each other over material things, and certainly not to feed their vanity.” “Regarding the damage to your roommates’ personal property, they have already calculated the exact cost of their losses.” “If you refuse to compensate them, then my hands are tied. I’ll have to put a major disciplinary mark on your permanent record.” “Your fast-track admission to grad school will be completely jeopardized by this.” “As for the scandal that’s been making waves recently, I’ve heard all about it. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but let me remind you: you cannot just take advantage of someone’s love and do whatever you please.” “Being pretty isn’t currency. Kindness and consideration for others are the virtues a young woman should possess. That boy cared for you so deeply, and your actions have truly chilled everyone to the bone.” “It’s no wonder more and more people are criticizing young women today. People like you bring it upon themselves.” The office was quiet. Every single word she said drilled straight into my eardrums. I pursed my lips. “So you just believe whatever they tell you?” “As a faculty member, you should at least aim for fairness. If this is just going to be a kangaroo court, then issue whatever punishment you want. Why even bother calling me in?” Mrs. Higgins didn’t take kindly to my defiance. She slammed her coffee mug onto the desk with a heavy thud. “Aren’t you supposedly rich? I am ordering you to pay for the damages by the deadline, and return the money Ethan left with you. If you don’t, I will call your parents and have them pay it back.” “We have your parents’ phone numbers on file. If you refuse to act like a sensible adult, we’ll find some adults who will.” Even though she was sitting down, her years of authority gave her a condescending, threatening glare. I kept my expression blank. “Call them if you want.” Mrs. Higgins glared at me, her voice dropping dangerously low. “Let me repeat myself. A major disciplinary mark will absolutely destroy your grad school fellowship. Our university does not allow students of your poor moral character to attend our graduate programs.” My chest tightened slightly. They were the ones refusing to investigate. They were the ones jumping to conclusions. Since this whole thing started, not a single person cared about the truth. They just blindly followed the mob. I didn’t expect a university official to be exactly the same. I lowered my eyes. “Oh. Then let it destroy it.” I turned around and walked toward the door. If all my hard work was going to be erased because of this, then to hell with their fellowship. 04 The school organized a fundraiser for Ethan, and afterward, they arranged a group visit to the hospital. Only twenty people from our class needed to go, but for some reason, they specifically dragged me along. When I arrived, I immediately understood why. It wasn’t just students and teachers from our school; there was also a popular campus vlogger with a camera crew. It was obvious they brought me here with malicious intent, trying to manufacture a viral moment. Ethan was out of the woods and resting in bed. His gaze drifted through the crowd and locked onto me. He had always been incredibly skinny. Right now, he looked practically skeletal. Combined with his pale, post-surgery face, he looked exceptionally pitiful. Classmates stepped forward one by one, offering him words of comfort. Standing in the corner was Ethan’s sister, Lily. When she looked at me, her eyes held nothing but loathing and resentment. “Who let you come here? I don’t want to see you.” She pointed at me, looking like she was about to cry. The vlogger smelled prime content and immediately shoved the camera lens in my face. The classmates quickly parted ways, leaving a massive empty space around me. Ethan sighed heavily and grabbed his sister’s sleeve. “Let’s break up.” He looked at me, his eyes completely devoid of light. “Ethan!” His sister stomped her foot in panic. “Even if you break up, you need to make her give the money back first! Why should she get to spend all the money you worked yourself to the bone for!” “I get sick just looking at her. It’s your money, why should it be wasted on someone with no conscience?!” Ethan looked deeply conflicted. He stared at me, his eyes swimming with disappointment. “I never thought you were this kind of person, but we did love each other once.” “I don’t want to drag this out. Just do what my sister said and calculate the money. I won’t ask for extra, just give me half.” “I’ll give you one month to pay me back. After that, we cut all ties.” The classmates were instantly outraged. “Why?! If she owes it, she needs to pay it all back! Are you still hung up on a girl like this?” “She’s just taking advantage of your good heart! You gave her everything, and this is how she repays you!” “Gold diggers like her deserve to rot!” Off to the side, the vlogger was actively telling his livestream chat to stop swearing. My roommate Harper shoved me hard from behind. I lost my balance and stumbled forward violently. “Do the math!!” “Yeah! Let’s do the math right now!!” The voices of pure hatred grew louder and louder. Looking at Ethan’s fake, pained expression, I forced down the urge to vomit. “You want to do the math? Fine, let’s do the math.” 05 I pulled out my phone and opened the shared savings app we had created together. I read aloud in a calm, steady voice. “Ethan: November 2022. Deposited $300. Withdrawn $2,000.” “Ethan: December 2022. Deposited $250. Withdrawn $1,200.” “Ethan: January 2023. Deposited $250. Withdrawn $1,800…” As the numbers I read kept climbing, the murmurs around the room started to die down until there was complete silence. Everyone looked deeply confused. “Wait, how is that possible?” “She’s definitely making it up. Depositing $300 and withdrawing $2,000 is a joke. Did the two of you even have $2,000 between you in a single month?” “Your fake numbers are way too ridiculous. Even if you want to lie and say he spent the money himself, at least make it realistic! Who would believe this crap?” People started chiming in one after another. Not a single person believed I was telling the truth. Ethan looked at me, his tone dripping with disappointment. “It’s come to this, and you’re still trying to frame me?” “Ask yourself honestly, how have I treated you all these years? Why are you doing this to me now?” “We promised we would get married after graduation… Let’s put aside the fact that you left me to die. Now you’re standing in front of everyone, lying and spreading rumors about me…” “What did I do wrong to make you hate me so much?” He tilted his head up, letting his vulnerability show. They say boys don’t cry easily, but right now, his eyes were red, brimming with profound sorrow. His roommate Noah couldn’t watch anymore. He stepped up and shoved me. “If you’re claiming he withdrew all that money, didn’t you guys use the shared savings app?” “Then just show us the actual records on the app! Why are you just reading it out loud? You can’t fake the app interface.” My fingers gripping my phone turned white. Seeing my reaction, Noah immediately snatched the phone from my hand. He scrolled down, swiping through the screen. A moment later, he sneered in disgust. “You didn’t even put effort into faking this. The withdrawals clearly show they were custom categories you added yourself, yet you’re claiming Ethan spent it.” “It’s written right here in black and white. Did you really think anyone would buy this?” Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, and a single tear rolled down his cheek. He was a tall guy, but right now he looked like nothing but a skeleton. His wrist bones protruded, his cheeks were completely sunken. Ethan’s sister rushed over and shielded him, glaring at me furiously. “You are not welcome here. Please leave.” “Ethan hasn’t even fully recovered. Do you really have to come here and torture him right now?” “I already looked into it. You won’t even eat at the dining hall, you only eat at off-campus restaurants. But do you know what my brother eats?” “He’s over six feet tall, and most days he only eats plain white rice and a tiny side of cheap vegetables.” “You used his money to keep yourself glowing and healthy, and now you have the nerve to pin the blame on him?” “Have some basic human decency. I don’t want to see you. Get out.” Seeing his sister’s fierce defense, the classmates started shoving me toward the door. The vlogger’s camera remained locked onto my face, clearly aiming to capture my moment of absolute humiliation. Some of the drama-loving classmates had already peeked at my phone screen and were openly scoffing. “She doesn’t even know how to properly fake evidence. Still claims others are spreading rumors about her, when she’s the one holding the fakest receipts ever.” Seeing that I refused to leave, Ethan’s sister became furious and marched straight up to the vlogger. 06 “I’m not afraid of making a fool of myself in front of your audience.” “Because my grades were terrible, I actually started working full-time right out of high school.” “Ethan and I are very close. For his junior year birthday, I saved up $3,000. I wanted to buy him a brand new phone and laptop.” “But who would’ve thought my lovestruck brother gave every single penny to Maya.” “Or rather, he saved it all up and deposited it into Maya’s account.” “That was money I lived incredibly frugally for half a year to save.” She pulled out her phone and opened Ethan’s Instagram page. “Look at this timestamp. June. My brother didn’t get a new laptop, and he didn’t get a new phone. He was still using his old one with the shattered screen.” “During summer break, he didn’t rest. He chose to go work shifts at a factory.” “These are his posts. It’s all just his daily factory routine, and his lunch was literally just plain bread and pickles.” “Now look at Maya’s Instagram. During that exact same timeframe, she switched to the newest iPhone, and within a single month, she took trips to four different states.” “She sure had a great time blowing through my money.” “I told Ethan to end things with her so many times. I knew she wasn’t the right girl for him, and now the facts prove it. Not only is she an awful girlfriend, she’s an awful human being.” “I will never understand how she can so comfortably spend someone else’s hard-earned money as if it were her own. Doesn’t she feel any guilt?” The stark contrast between the two Instagram feeds sent shockwaves through the room. No one could have imagined that Ethan’s sister had sacrificed so much for him. The girl had a fragile frame, and the ends of her hair looked dry and yellow. In this moment, she looked incredibly sympathetic. “My heart breaks for that girl. How did her brother end up with someone like that…” “Her brother is an idiot too. All the money his sister broke her back to earn, he just threw away on a gold digger.” “You can’t really blame him. She said she was helping him save money for their future. How was he supposed to know she’d blow it all?” “Yeah, humans are terrible. The person closest to you is always the one who stabs you the deepest. Ethan is a victim here too.” The abuse in the vlogger’s livestream chat escalated rapidly. You didn’t even need to look to know the kind of vile slurs being thrown around. I looked directly at Ethan. “They all question if my transaction records are real. What about you?” “Are you truly going to tell me you don’t know exactly where those massive withdrawals came from?” A brief flash of panic darted across Ethan’s eyes, but he quickly met my gaze, regaining his absolute composure. “Isn’t everything logged in the app? What more do you want me to say? Didn’t you spend almost all the money in there?” “Buying clothes, buying cakes, buying designer bags. It’s all recorded clearly. What are you still trying to spin?” I let out a harsh laugh. I had been an absolute idiot. It took me four full years to see the true face of the man lying in front of me. “Yeah, the app shows that I was the one making the purchases. But don’t you know exactly why I spent that money?” “You kept going on and on about ‘saving money’ and building a ‘future fund’, and I was dumb enough to believe you. That’s how I fell into your trap.” “You relied on the fact that you deposited all your money into the joint app to claim it was all being spent on me. But how many holidays did you conveniently gloss over? Birthdays, Valentine’s Day, anniversaries… Every time we went out, I paid the bill. You claimed the savings app was ‘untouchable’ because it was our safety net for the future.” “But whenever there was a holiday sale, you immediately started playing the victim. You used emotional blackmail to guilt-trip me into buying you this and that—mostly extremely expensive electronics.” I unzipped my backpack, pulled out a thick stack of receipts, and slammed them down onto his hospital bed. “You guys want to know where those massive monthly withdrawals came from? Right here.”

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Driven to suicide by her, I thought my death would finally bring her remorse. Instead, I watched her pay a fortune to an occult medium: “Medium, exactly how many Spirit Dollars do I need to burn every day to stop her from overspending down there?” “Is there a way to make her ‘check in’ every day, just like when she was alive? If she behaves, I’ll burn more money.” In that moment, I actually felt a wave of relief— Thank God I was dead. I was finally free from her control. But the medium’s chilling voice instantly shattered my illusion: “Yes. “There actually is a way.” 1 After I died. My mom burned exactly twenty Spirit Dollars for me every single day. Just like when I was alive, she would transfer exactly twenty bucks to my bank account every morning for living expenses. Exact to the penny. Not a cent more. But surviving in the Netherworld was far more destitute than anyone could imagine. I stood shivering in the biting spectral wind, struggling to calculate today’s expenses: “Crypt Lease”—even the most rundown wooden coffin cost 10 Spirit Dollars a day. “Reaper Protection Fee”—to avoid being bullied by vicious poltergeists, you had to pay the Reapers 200 Spirit Dollars a month. “Soul Painkillers”—ghosts who died unnatural deaths, like me, were forced to repeatedly experience the agonizing pain of our final moments. You had to drink the painkillers to suppress it. Each dose cost 15 Spirit Dollars. On top of that, there were “Reincarnation Taxes,” “Soul Mending Fees,” “Incense Meals,” “Phantom Garments”… With twenty Spirit Dollars a day, I could barely afford to suppress my agonizing pain. Let alone find a safe place to live or avoid getting harassed. “Tsk.” The Reaper collecting the protection fee weighed my few, thin paper bills in his hand, looking at me weirdly. “When other families burn money, it’s tens of thousands at a time. This person in your family… burning twenty bucks a day? If I say she cares, she clearly remembers you. If I say she’s cheap… wow, she’s literally cheaping out the Netherworld.” I pressed my lips together tightly, not saying a word. They didn’t understand. This was my mother’s obsession with control, carved deep into her very bones. It was like this when I was alive. And now, in death… it followed me like a shadow. “Look, why don’t you request a Dream Visitation? Tell your mom to burn more cash. She probably just doesn’t know how expensive the Afterlife is,” the Reaper suggested slowly. “Every new soul gets one free Dream Visitation voucher, just so you can tell your folks to send more money.” Dream Visitation? That meant I’d have to face my mother again? A shudder violently racked my body. Just the thought of it made my soul run cold. I still clearly remembered how every single day of my life was spent simmering in fear and suffocation. My mother demanded that I video call her three times a day—morning, noon, and night. I had to report every microscopic detail of my college classes and my social life. Furthermore, I had to go to the library every single day, record a video of myself studying as a “check-in,” and state to the camera: “Today is day X of working hard.” Only when all of this was completed would I receive my twenty dollars for the next day. I tried to object once. But my mother was self-righteous: “Twenty bucks! I calculated it perfectly. It is exactly enough for your food and water! College girls are easily corrupted by temptations. I am controlling your materialistic desires so you build good, frugal habits. You ungrateful brat, I put my heart into this and you think I’m hurting you?!” The sheer entitlement in her voice instantly crushed any argument I had. I knew fighting back was useless. So, I learned to be silent. I learned to shove every ounce of grievance and every shred of desire deep down into my chest, building a shell of “obedience” just to earn my pitiful right to survive. Yet, even trying my absolute hardest, I could never seem to meet her demands. When I needed to buy tampons. When I ran out of toilet paper. When I just wanted a piece of fresh fruit. I was constantly trapped in humiliation. I couldn’t have a normal social life. When my roommates asked me to get boba tea or grab dinner, what was I supposed to say? Hold on, let me ask my mom to authorize a Venmo transfer? Besides, I knew that even if I asked, she wouldn’t give it to me. Once, I gathered my courage. After a roommate kindly bought me a coffee, I begged my mom for an extra twenty dollars so I could treat her back. My mother demanded I write a two-thousand-word essay detailing the exact justification for the extra funds. After I racked my brain to write that essay, she replied with only two words: [Request Denied.] There was another time when my period cramps were so bad I couldn’t get out of bed on time. At 7:00 AM sharp, her phone call rang out like a death warrant: “Where the hell are you?! Where is the video? Where is the check-in?! It’s only been a few days and you’re already slacking off?! Are you hanging out with those trashy girls again? I’m telling you, if today’s check-in isn’t done, don’t even think about tomorrow’s money!” Even as I explained through trembling lips that I was sick, she didn’t soften in the slightest. “So what if it’s your period?! What woman doesn’t get her period? I don’t see anyone else acting as dramatic as you! You’re just lazy to the bone and making excuses!” She didn’t even care that I had a final exam that day. The only thing that mattered was that I hadn’t greeted her at the exact right second, and her rage ignited like a wildfire, screaming that I didn’t respect her as a mother. I thought about running away. Getting a part-time job. Doing anything. But it was useless. My mother was a 24/7 surveillance camera. She would show up at my college unannounced to audit me. She kept her eyes locked on me, driving me like cattle. If I deviated even slightly, what awaited me was slap after slap, and a tidal wave of verbal abuse. I couldn’t defy her. I didn’t dare. So, I chose to jump off the roof. I used the most absolute, decisive method to finally find my escape. I wanted her to cry over my body. I wanted her to repent. I wanted her to admit that her suffocating “love” was wrong. I wanted to escape her control forever, and ever! So, looking at the Reaper, I shook my head. “I don’t want a Dream Visitation. Are there any jobs in the Netherworld? Can I earn my own Spirit Dollars?” The Reaper gave me a sideways glance, like he was looking at a defective product. “Ghosts like you who commit suicide are classified as ‘Self-Destructive Souls.’ Down here, you’re the equivalent of a high-risk felon. Who’s gonna hire you?” I refused to believe it. Dragging my weakening soul, I wandered through the gloomy, shadowy alleys, begging for work. “Get lost! Bad luck!” Cold rejections slammed into me over and over again. Without a crypt to shelter me, the spectral wind sliced through my soul like razor blades. Without Reaper protection, the malicious glares of older, violent ghosts pricked at my back. But the deepest despair was the agonizing, bone-shattering pain of my fatal fall, repeating itself on an endless loop every single day… “Ah—!” Torn apart by the phantom agony, I couldn’t help but cry out that name from the bottom of my heart: “Mom…” In that split second, a tiny, flickering flame of hope sparked in my despair: I’m dead… Mom must know she was wrong by now, right? Those twenty dollars she burns every day… it’s probably just because she doesn’t know how hard it is down here, right? That pathetic, desperate little hope gave me the strength to raise a trembling finger and tug at the Reaper’s sleeve. My voice was as thin as a thread: “Excuse me… where do I go to request a Dream Visitation?” 2 That night, I slipped into my mother’s dream. Her dreamscape was a cold, clinical prison of order. I saw countless versions of “me”— All wearing identical, perfectly pressed uniforms, sitting expressionless at identical desks, obediently copying Bible verses. The walls were plastered with schedules precise to the minute, and the air smelled heavily of bleach and ink. She sat high above it all in a carved, gothic armchair. Her eyes were sharp as a hawk’s, scanning every “daughter” to ensure our handwriting was neat and our posture was perfect. This was probably her ideal version of me. Obedient, flawless, and completely stripped of a soul. “Mom…” My voice drifted, broken and hollow. Because I couldn’t afford the protection fees or a place to sleep, my soul had been tortured until it was withered, flickering like a candle in the wind. Standing on the edge of her “perfect world,” I looked like a stain that didn’t belong. “Who’s there?” she snapped, her voice carrying a trace of caution. “It’s me.” She shot up from her chair, her eyes instantly focusing through the haze of the dream. “Serenity, is that you? You finally came to my dream…” Her voice carried a kind of profound relief. She reached out her hand to me, a gesture that made it seem like I had just had a bad day outside and was coming home to her embrace. Seeing her like this, a sour, emotional lump rose in my throat. Had she been waiting for me? Did she finally realize how cruel she had been? Did my death finally make her understand? “Mom, I’m doing really badly in the Afterlife.” My heart softened, and my tone unconsciously slipped into a pathetic, wronged whine. “It hurts so much. The pain of hitting the pavement… it repeats every single day… I need painkillers. I need to rent a crypt. I need to pay the Reapers for protection. Can you… can you please burn a little more money for me?” I don’t know why, but even though I was already dead, the moment I opened my mouth, I reverted right back to my old, submissive tone. I sounded like a lowly beggar, wagging my tail for scraps. That familiar feeling made me hate myself even more. But what I didn’t expect was for my mother’s face to instantly darken. “You useless disappointment!” Her voice suddenly shrieked. “You were a failure alive, and you’re a debt-collector in death! I always said you had cheap bones, no self-discipline! You go down there, and you still haven’t repented! You’re still infected with the disease of spending money! Do you think money just falls from the sky?!” I stood frozen, feeling like I’d been struck by lightning. My soul vibrated with shock. “Mom, you burn 20 dollars a day. Just the painkillers cost 15. I don’t have a place to live, and I have to save 200 a month for protection. If I want to reincarnate, there are taxes…” “Enough!” She cut me off viciously, her spit flying in the dream’s light. “Excuses! Twenty bucks was plenty for you to eat and shit when you were alive! You don’t even need to eat or drink down there. Twenty Spirit Dollars is more than enough. Don’t think I don’t know how it works. I consulted an Occult Medium! Twenty dollars is absolutely enough! It’s because you haven’t fixed your disgusting habits down there that you’re spending so much!” My mother’s voice was a sharp knife, piercing through every last drop of emotion I felt for her. “Did you think I was burning money for you to enjoy yourself? Let me tell you right now, I burn money every day so you remember every single second: I am your mother! I still control you! Don’t you dare think you can fly out of my palm just because you’re dead!” Something cracked deep inside my soul. So, my mother wasn’t burning money out of love. She was doing it out of “control.” She hadn’t changed one bit from when I was alive. In fact, she had gotten worse. “Do you really think… that you haven’t made a single mistake?” I asked, completely hollowed out. “I am your mother! Everything I do is for your own good!” She exploded like a powder keg, her voice piercing the air. “Look at me, I’m getting old, and I still have to break my back worrying about you! When you were alive, I bled for you, I taught you, and why the hell were you so fragile? You jumped off a roof over a little hardship! And now, you’re dead, and you still don’t understand shit!” She took a menacing step forward, and all the “perfect daughters” in her dreamscape crumbled into dust behind her. Leaving only her twisted face, contorted by her obsession with control. “Do you know why I named you Serenity? ‘Serene’ means quiet obedience! It means you shut up and follow orders. What you need right now is to reflect on your mistakes! Not think about how to squander money!” The one who needs to correct their mistakes… is me? I screamed silently in my head as tears streamed down my spectral face, utterly uncontrollable. My mother showed no sign of stopping. “From now on, do exactly as I say! Visit my dreams every night. Greet me, and tell me this is day X of your sincere reflection in the Netherworld. Be good! Let me see your ‘progress’! If I find out you’re not behaving—” A cruel, triumphant sneer tugged at the corner of her lips. “Then I’ll cut the Spirit Dollars off completely! Then we’ll see what you do!” She actually wanted me to continue “checking in” from the Afterlife? Even though I didn’t breathe anymore, I felt like I was suffocating all over again. The nightmare of my living days was replaying in the Netherworld in an even darker, more desperate way. But this time, from the depths of my freezing despair, a blazing, all-consuming fire suddenly roared to life! When I was alive, I was powerless to fight back. But now… I was already dead. What did I have to be afraid of? “I originally thought… my death might buy a single shred of remorse from you…” I laughed mockingly at myself, raising my hand and pointing directly at her hateful face. “Now I see I was incredibly stupid! Naive and ridiculous! “Let me tell you something: even if my soul shatters into a million pieces down here, I will never, ever visit your dream for another second! “You will never control me again! Not for a single minute!” My mother stared at me in shock, reaching out to grab my soul— “You think you can escape me? I’m telling you, even if you don’t visit my dreams, I have ways to make you—” Before she could finish, I scattered like smoke. The Dream Visitation was over. 3 “Are you okay?” Coming out of the dreamscape, Harper, the Reaper at the Department of Dream Visitation, caught my arm. My soul was practically disintegrating. It felt like all the energy had been drained from me, and I couldn’t even stand steady. Harper looked at me, hesitating. After a long pause, she sighed and gently patted my shoulder. “Getting stuck with a mom like that… you’ve had it rough.” I forced a tight, ugly smile. “You saw all that?” “Dream Visitations are monitored. Standard procedure.” She paused, asking tentatively, “So… are you really going to ‘check in’ with her every night?” I shook my head, my voice lighter than a wisp of smoke. “I jumped off a roof because I couldn’t stand her ‘checking in’ anymore. Now that I’m dead, no matter how much my soul hurts… it’s better than being controlled by her again.” Harper stayed silent for a moment, then suddenly lowered her voice. “Actually… your mom refusing to burn you money might be a blessing in disguise.” I looked up. “If no one burns paper money for you for three consecutive months, and your personal assets fall below ten thousand Spirit Dollars, you can apply for ‘Netherworld Welfare.’” “Netherworld Welfare?” I sat up straight, a light kindling in my eyes. “Yeah. It’s 1,500 Spirit Dollars a month.” 1,500 dollars! That was huge! Even if my mom burned money every day, that was only 600 a month. The Afterlife’s welfare was more than double! Suddenly, my existence felt like it had a future. As long as my mom didn’t burn money for three months straight, I could get welfare! Looking at it this way, being dead was pretty great. Even if it was destitute, it wasn’t a dead end. Probably out of pity for what she saw in my dream, Harper sighed and pulled a dozen “Soul Painkiller” vials from her pocket, shoving them into my hands. “Take these. They’re Department perks. I don’t use them, and I was going to sell them on the side, but seeing how hard you have it… just take ’em.” Overwhelmed by her kindness, I took them, thanking her profusely. Harper thought for a moment, then added, “The workload here is getting intense. If you’re willing to help me out, I’ll give you all my monthly painkiller allocations from now on. But you can’t breathe a word of this outside. You’re a high-risk suicide soul. If the higher-ups find out I’m using you for labor… we’re both screwed!” I was ecstatic and quickly agreed. “Don’t worry, I won’t say a word!” With this job, even if my mother stopped burning me money, I could survive the three months. After three months, I’d get my welfare, and life would only get better! I bowed deeply to Harper. A Reaper I had never met before was willing to extend a helping hand when she saw my suffering. And my own mother, who claimed to love me, refused to let me go even in death. She probably… never loved me to begin with. Accepting that truth brought me a strange sense of peace. In the days that followed, I worked diligently at the Department of Dream Visitation, helping Harper with the grunt work. Filing life-and-death ledgers, calibrating visitation timelines, and floating between filing cabinets that smelled faintly of phantom lilies. Harper found a corner in the archives for me to stay in temporarily. Though the painkillers she gave me weren’t many, drinking half a vial a day was enough to ease the crushing agony in my soul. Day by day passed. Two months. Just one more month, and I could claim my welfare! I’d be financially free! But then, on that exact day. I was head-down, organizing dream files. Suddenly, a brutal, overwhelming force gripped my soul! Like an iron hook piercing my collarbone, I didn’t even have time to scream before I was violently yanked upward! When I opened my eyes, the blinding sunlight scorched my phantom body. —I had been pulled back to the living world. No, more accurately, my soul had been stuffed into a stuffed animal. My favorite childhood teddy bear. “It worked!” An old man with a greying beard stroked his chin, looking immensely smug. He was an Occult Medium. My mother stood to the side, wearing a triumphant, long-lost victor’s smile. She leaned down, her fingernail poking hard into the teddy bear’s head. Her voice was so cold it made my skin crawl: “Caught you, Serenity.” 4 “I told you to visit my dreams and check in every day! Why didn’t you listen? Huh? Your wings got tough, so you thought you could rebel even in death?!” My mother’s interrogation crashed down on me. Her nails dug deep into the cotton stuffing of the toy, sending spikes of pain through my soul. I could barely force a voice out. “I told you, I’m never checking in with you again! I’m already dead… why should I still follow your rules?” “How dare you talk back to me?!” Her pitch skyrocketed. She violently hoisted the teddy bear into the air, forcing my “eyes” to stare directly into her furious, contorted face. “I didn’t burn a single cent for you these past two months just to punish you and teach you a lesson! And what happened? You didn’t starve to death, did you? I knew it! The Afterlife doesn’t force you to spend money! You lied to me to squander my cash! Thank God I didn’t spoil a debt-collector like you!” A coppery taste of despair surged in my phantom throat, but I couldn’t even manage a whimper. —How laughable. She’d rather believe the bullshit of a random occult scammer than believe her own daughter when I said, ‘It hurts so much.’ “But I really didn’t expect you to be this stubborn.” Her tone carried the cruel amusement of a cat playing with a mouse. She dropped me back onto the table, poking my “face” over and over again. “Two whole months, and you didn’t visit me to say hello even once! You completely abandoned your filial duty! Fine, you won’t come? If you won’t come, I have ways to make you come! From now on, every single day! I will have the Medium drag you up here! You will respectfully greet me just like before, report on your reflections without missing a syllable, and listen to my lectures until your deeply ingrained flaws are completely fixed!” Every single day? The words drove through my soul like an ice pick. A drowning, absolute terror, far deeper than death itself, seized me. “How is that possible? I’m dead, you’re alive. We’re separated by life and death! How can you just pull me up whenever you want?” “It’s all thanks to the Medium’s vast powers.” My mother smugly pulled out a stack of dark yellow parchment, covered in twisted sigils drawn in blood-red ink. “Do you know what this is?” She waved the parchment in front of my face. “A ‘Soul-Binding Sigil.’ “Burn one a day, and no matter where you are, you will instantly be summoned before me.” Her fingers brushed against the teddy bear’s fur. The movement was gentle, but laced with a terrifying possessiveness. “I know you always loved sleeping with this ratty old doll. It’s covered in your essence. It’s the perfect vessel to trap your disobedient little soul! Daughter… do you finally understand your mother’s ‘good intentions’?” I felt an icy, agonizing dread wash over my entire being. With these cursed sigils, my soul was nothing more than a kite on her string. When she wanted me, I had to come. Trapped in this tiny stuffed animal, forced to listen to her lectures and curses. This was even more hopeless than when I was alive… “Now, just like before, give me a status report on your friends in the Netherworld. “What do those ghosts do for a living? How is your relationship with them? Tell me everything! Don’t you dare hide anything, and don’t you dare associate with those trashy, low-class wild ghosts! Do you hear me?” I just felt like laughing. —Mom, do you even know? I wander the Netherworld homeless. I drift from place to place. I am the trashy, low-class wild ghost you’re talking about. And you made me this way. “The sigil’s time limit is almost up. Hurry it up,” the Medium reminded her from the side. Only then did my mother reluctantly stop talking. But before I vanished, her freezing glare locked onto me. “I am extremely dissatisfied with your performance today! But considering you haven’t had any ‘living expenses’ in a long time, I’m sure you’ve suffered a bit… “I will still burn today’s twenty Spirit Dollars for you. Remember, tomorrow! I expect a proper report! Or else…” Twenty Spirit Dollars? My head jerked up. No! Absolutely not! I only had one month left before I could collect my Netherworld Welfare! If she resumed burning money, I wouldn’t meet the welfare requirements anymore! “I don’t want it!” I screamed with every last ounce of strength I had. “Take your filthy money back! I won’t check in, and I won’t take your living expenses! I’m cutting ties with you, and I will never use another cent of your money!” “Cut. Ties. With. Me?” My mother enunciated each word slowly, her smile suddenly turning grotesque. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re plotting. The Medium already told me. The Netherworld has a welfare system. If nobody burns paper money for three months, you can claim it.” She leaned in close to the teddy bear, dropping her voice to a sinister whisper: “But don’t even dream of getting it. I am your mother. Every single Spirit Dollar you get must come from me. If you think you can escape my control, keep dreaming!” The welfare… she even knew about that! My soul collapsed entirely, the last shred of my strength violently ripped away. There is no despair deeper than this. My body suddenly felt weightless, and I plunged heavily back down to the Netherworld. Lying in my palm were 20 Spirit Dollars—the “living expenses” my mother so graciously bestowed upon me. They felt like glowing branding irons, burning through my hand, burning away my final, desperate sliver of hope. The welfare… was gone. And tomorrow, the day after, the endless tomorrows… That daily “check-in” would follow me like maggots on a corpse, an inescapable shadow. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to die a second time, just to find release. But I couldn’t. I was already a ghost. There was nowhere left to run. I couldn’t even find an escape in death…

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “403340”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

For my boyfriend’s mom’s birthday, I gifted her a luxury La Mer skincare set. That very night, I found the exact same gift set listed for cheap on Facebook Marketplace by my boyfriend. I immediately bought it and confirmed the delivery the second I got it back! Then, I dialed my boyfriend’s number: “Hey babe, that heavy, solid gold bangle I hid inside the gift box… did it fit your mom’s wrist okay?” 1 I was mindlessly scrolling through Facebook Marketplace when a seller’s post caught my eye. [La Mer Luxury Skincare Bundle. Unopened, 100% authentic, brand new. Need cash ASAP! Only $400!] At that price, it had to be a knockoff, right? I had just bought that exact bundle at the department store yesterday for nearly $800! But wait… the longer I looked at the photos, the more familiar it seemed. Wasn’t this the exact set I gifted to Brad’s mother? Even the luxury gift bag was the one I specifically picked out. The silk ribbon on top was tied exactly the way I had tied it. I clicked on the seller’s profile to check the details. ID: B-Rad. Location: Los Angeles, my exact city. I opened a direct message chat. [Hi, is this still available? Is it authentic? Why so cheap?] “B-Rad” instantly replied with an audio message. “Hey gorgeous, 100% authentic. It was a gift from someone else, hasn’t even been opened yet!” That voice… it was unmistakably Brad, the boyfriend I had been madly in love with for the past three months. I scrolled through his seller history and discovered something even more sickening. Over the past few months, every single valuable gift I had given him had been listed and sold on this page. Thinking back on our three-month relationship… If it wasn’t his birthday coming up, it was his little sister’s birthday. Just last week, he wouldn’t stop dropping hints in my ear about how his mom’s birthday was right around the corner. Turns out, he was just using me as a personal ATM to liquidate goods for cash! In that moment, I wanted to confront him directly and dump him on the spot. But on second thought, that would be letting him off way too easy. With a smirk, I changed the delivery address to my neighbor’s house. I used the name and phone number of my family’s housekeeper, Maria. Making sure there was nothing to tie the purchase back to me, I hit “Buy Now.” The moment the payment went through, a message popped up. [Awesome, you’re a fast buyer! Since we’re in the same city, I’ll just order an Uber Connect courier to drop it off right now!] [Make sure you hit “Confirm Receipt” on the app the second you get it!] I played along enthusiastically, while keeping my eyes glued to the tracking link. Watching the courier get closer and closer to my neighbor’s house, I quickly sent Maria next door to wait for the drop-off. Everything went smoothly. The luxury box was back in my hands. Even though I already knew it was the La Mer set I had bought for Brad’s mom, seeing it with my own eyes still felt like taking a blunt force object to the chest. The ribbon on the box was completely untouched. Every single crease was exactly how I had tied it. That piece of trash didn’t even care enough to open it. He just couldn’t wait to flip it for a quick buck! Right then, my phone buzzed with a Marketplace notification. “Hey gorgeous, I see it got delivered!” “Could you do me a huge favor and confirm the receipt on the app ASAP? I really need the cash!” I pointed my phone at the gift box and recorded a short video. [Hi there, I shook the box and heard something rattling inside. Did the glass bottles break?] In the video, I gently shook the box, strategically playing a pre-recorded glass-clinking sound effect from my iPad just out of frame. Brad totally panicked. He fired back three voice memos in a row, his tone filled with anxious rage. “It was in perfect condition when I handed it to the courier! No rattling at all! You must have broken it after you took it inside!” “You didn’t open it in front of the driver, so that’s on you! You need to hit confirm receipt right now!” “Let me tell you something, don’t even try to scam me or get a refund! The second that box left my hands, it was no longer my problem. Whether the bottles are shattered or there’s literal gold inside, it has nothing to do with me!” Perfect. That was exactly what I wanted to hear! I immediately hit “Confirm Receipt.” The second the $400 hit his account, the Marketplace chat displayed: [You have been blocked by this user.] That trash bag blocked me the second he got his money. That’s fine. I was absolutely certain that in about five minutes, he’d be crawling back like a pathetic dog, begging me. 2 I called Brad on FaceTime. The moment it connected, his eyes crinkled with absolute joy. “Hey babe, miss me already?” I smiled. “You look happy. Did something good happen?” Brad paused for a second, quickly fabricating an excuse. “Oh, we were just at the dinner table talking about some funny childhood memories. Just feeling nostalgic and happy!” I pressed on. “Did your mom like the gift I sent her?” The mention of the gift made Brad’s face instantly awkward. Behind him, I could see his mother, Mrs. Jenkins, and his younger sister, Maya, sitting on the couch. Both of them smirked with clear mockery on their faces. “Uh… Chloe, about that gift… my mom actually wasn’t too thrilled.” “She’s never been one to wear expensive creams and makeup. She’s not high-maintenance and obsessed with her looks like you are!” I quickly cut in. “Oh! Since she doesn’t like it, why don’t you bring the skincare set back to me?” Brad panicked the second he heard that. “Chloe, I can’t do that! Who takes back a gift after giving it?” “My mom already opened it and started using it! Even though she hates all those chemicals…” “…she wanted to give you face because it was from you!” “If anyone says you’re a bad girlfriend, I’ll be the first to defend you!” After saying that, Brad even turned around and gave his mom a pointed look. His mom forced a fake smile and nodded at the camera, but her eyes were full of disdain. Listening to his incredibly flawed, patched-together lies, I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud. Seeing that I was still in a “good mood,” Brad struck while the iron was hot. “Babe, next time, you really shouldn’t buy such impractical gifts!” “They cost a fortune, and they don’t hold their value at all!” “If we ever needed cash in an emergency, you can’t resell that stuff for anything… Not like…” I took the bait. “Not like what?” Brad’s mom immediately jumped into the frame. “Not like gold! Gold holds its value and even appreciates! It’s way more practical than a bunch of little jars and bottles!” Ah, now I completely understood! No wonder when I pulled out the luxury gift box at dinner, his mom’s initially glowing face instantly dropped. Hah. They were mad that my gift wasn’t something they could easily pawn for maximum cash. Since they were dropping hints about wanting gold, I figured I’d grant their wish right now! “You’re so right, Mrs. Jenkins! Gold definitely holds its value best!” “So, the solid gold bangle I put inside… does it fit? I hope you… liked it?” 3 Before I even finished my sentence, Brad jumped like he had been electrocuted. “Ah!!! What gold bangle?! You bought a gold bangle?!” I looked at the screen, curving my lips into a cute, playful smile. “Yeah! Didn’t your mom open the box already? Didn’t she see the heavy solid gold bangle inside?” Brad’s face drained of all color, turning a sickly pale. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. The two women behind him panicked just as hard, pacing frantically around the living room in circles. I could even faintly hear his mom hissing at his sister, Maya. “Why didn’t you open it and check?! How did you not see a gold bracelet inside?! You idiot!” Maya defended herself, looking incredibly wronged. “I told you I wanted to keep it to use! You and Brad insisted on selling it for cash! You said I didn’t deserve to use such expensive skincare!” “I wanted to open it to post on Instagram, but you guys wouldn’t let me break the plastic wrap! Now look what happened!” Brad clicked his tongue impatiently, and the mother-daughter duo finally shut their mouths. I pretended I didn’t hear a word of it, dragging out my words with fake concern. “Babe, what’s wrong~?” I elongated the syllables, dripping with just the right amount of innocent worry. “Does your mom not like it?” “It’s my fault, really!” I sighed softly, my tone laced with self-blame. “I just wanted to buy something with a heavy carat weight to show how much I respect her!” “But you know how it is… when the gold is too heavy, the bracelet can look a bit chunky and lose its delicate charm.” “If she really doesn’t like it, I’ll take her to the Cartier store tomorrow to exchange it for a different style!” “A 2.5-ounce solid gold bangle is pretty heavy. We could melt it down into a thinner bracelet, a necklace, and some earrings…” I was still speaking slowly and methodically when Brad abruptly interrupted me. His voice was trembling with uncontrollable panic. “Chloe, you… you put 2.5 ounces of solid gold inside that gift box?” “Why didn’t you tell me?! How do you even have that kind of money?!” I immediately put on a deeply wronged expression. “I used all the savings from my trust fund allowance! I just wanted to make a perfect impression on my future mother-in-law!” Then, I shifted gears, raising my voice in feigned shock. “Is the bracelet missing?! Did you guys lose it?!?” Dead silence on the other end of the video call. For a full thirty seconds. Finally, Brad’s mom, thinking on her feet, stammered out an excuse. “No… no, of course it’s not lost. I was just so focused on applying the face cream that I must not have noticed it!” I pretended to breathe a massive sigh of relief, patting my chest. “Oh, thank god. You scared me to death. As long as it’s not lost. That’s 2.5 ounces of 24-karat gold!” “At today’s market price, plus the jeweler’s crafting fee, that’s nearly $8,000!” “If it was really lost, I would have been sick to my stomach!” Saying that, I pulled out the actual receipt for a 2.5-ounce solid gold bangle and waved it at the camera. “Look, here! With taxes and fees, it came out to $8,450!” I even snapped a photo of the receipt and the picture I took of the bracelet at the jewelry counter, sending it to him in the chat. “Babe, look! Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s going to look so classy on your mom!” The truth was, the day I bought the skincare, I actually did go to the jewelry department next door and bought a $8,000 solid gold bangle. Except, that bracelet was a birthday present for my mother, whose birthday was next week. “Eight thousand… eight thousand dollars…” Brad looked like his soul had left his body, just muttering the number repeatedly. Mrs. Jenkins leaned in to look at the photo of the receipt, then frantically started pinching her precious son’s arm out of sheer anxiety. “Chloe, I gotta let you go. Maybe we just didn’t unpack the box all the way, we’ll go look!” Before I could even reply, the call was ruthlessly disconnected with a click. A second later, Maria’s phone started blowing up, and my Facebook Marketplace notifications went absolutely crazy. 4 [Hey!! Do you still have that La Mer bundle you just bought?! Please tell me you didn’t open it!] [I’ll pay you extra! Name your price! $1,000? No, $1,500! I’ll Venmo you right now!] [Where are you? I’ll come pick it up myself! I am begging you, please!] I stared at the screen, laughing so hard my stomach hurt. My fingers flew across the keyboard: [I was just about to open it when your messages distracted me!] He replied instantly, his voice memo literally cracking with tears: “I was being an asshole earlier! There’s something else inside that box! Something extremely important! My mom needs it desperately!” [What’s inside?] Silence for a solid ten seconds, before he sent a frantic, incoherent block of text: [It’s a cheap little trinket my girlfriend gave my mom!] [It’s not worth any money, but it has huge sentimental value!] [I’ll give you $2,000, please just give it back to me!] [If my girlfriend finds out I sold her gift online, she’ll break up with me for sure!] Brad kept heavily emphasizing that it was “cheap,” obviously terrified that the seller wouldn’t want to return it if they knew the real value. Seeing that I wasn’t replying, he panicked and spammed me: [What is wrong with you? Do you have no morals?] [Give it back right now. I have your address, do you think I won’t drive over there right now?!] [If you don’t return it, I’m calling the cops!] I calmly screenshotted the voice memo he had sent me earlier—“Whether there’s literal gold inside, it has nothing to do with me!”—and sent it back. [Call the cops? And tell them what? That I scammed you? Or that you pawned your girlfriend’s gift and now you have seller’s remorse?] The “Typing…” bubble danced on the screen for a long time before he finally sent one sentence: [I’m sorry. How much do you want?] I looked at the gift box sitting on my table—the one he had treated like garbage, but was now desperate to redeem—and typed a number: [$3,000!] I thought Brad might try to haggle, but he replied instantly: [Post the custom listing. I’m buying it!] Well, from his perspective, even paying $3,000 meant he’d still walk away with a net profit of over $5,000 once he retrieved the “gold.” I recorded a video. The camera slowly panned from the perfectly intact plastic wrap all the way down to the immaculately tied ribbon. Just to prove that I genuinely hadn’t opened it. Then, I ordered an Uber Connect courier and sent it right back to the address on his seller profile. While it was in transit, I purposely spammed Brad’s personal phone with a bunch of sweet texts, all of which went completely ignored: [Did your mom put the bracelet on? Does she love it?] [I guessed her wrist size, is it a good fit?] [Babe, why are you ignoring me? Are you super busy?]… I made sure to slip the Uber driver a $50 cash tip, specifically asking him to record a video of the exact moment he handed the package over to Brad. I also instructed the driver not to hand over the bag until Brad clicked “Confirm Receipt” on the Marketplace app in front of him. Cash in my account, box in his hands. When I told Brad these terms over the app, he agreed immediately. After all, for every second that box was out of his possession, he was probably having a heart attack. The courier was fast. In less than thirty minutes, the app showed “Delivered.” The second the notification popped up, Brad’s text finally came through on my personal phone: [Babe! My mom said she absolutely loves it. She said it’s the most beautiful gold bracelet she’s ever seen in her life!] 5 Seeing his text, I knew Brad hadn’t even opened the box yet. He was just rushing to appease me so I wouldn’t get suspicious. But that fake peace only lasted for exactly one second. The next second, my Facebook Marketplace inbox completely exploded. Brad spammed me with voice calls, video calls, and relentlessly blew up Maria’s phone number, all of which I swiftly rejected. Then, a tidal wave of vile, unhinged abuse flooded the chat. [You lying bitch! You said you didn’t open it! The gold bracelet is gone!] [Hand over the bracelet right fucking now or I’m calling the police!] [You fucking **** I’ll **** Give it back!] [****, go **** yourself, I see you reading these, reply to me!] [I’ll kill your whole fucking family, you stole my shit and scammed me out of $3,000!] [Go to hell, rot in hell!] Honestly, I’ve heard my fair share of trash talk, but this was nothing. What shocked me was that I had never heard language this filthy come out of Brad’s mouth. He had chased me for six months, and we’d been dating for three. In all that time, I had never even heard him raise his voice. Whether it was to me, his friends, or total strangers, he was always perfectly polite, gentle, and refined. Clearly, that was all just a carefully curated persona designed to hook me. The maniac behind the screen right now was his true self. Unhurried, I sent him three video clips. The first was Maria taking the perfectly sealed package from the first courier. The second was me handing the completely untouched, sealed package to the second courier. As for the third… it was the video the Uber driver just took of Brad receiving the box. Three videos. Ironclad proof. Evidence that from start to finish, I never once unsealed the box. [Go ahead and call the cops! When the police investigate, they’ll definitely have to call your girlfriend to verify the contents.] [If your girlfriend finds out you sold her mother-in-law’s gift on the internet for quick cash, do you really think she’ll stay with you?] After sending those two messages, I switched over to iMessage and replied to his sweet text as “Chloe”: [I’m so honored that your mom loves it!] [Take a picture of her wearing it for me!] [I want to post it on my Instagram to show off what a great future daughter-in-law I am! Gotta score those brownie points! 😉] 6 Total radio silence from Brad on both platforms. I kept launching psychological attacks on his iMessage. [Babe, why aren’t you replying? You’re acting so weird!] [Did you actually lose the bracelet?] [Or… did you lose the whole gift box?] On Facebook Marketplace, the “Typing…” bubble kept appearing and disappearing, but a message never came through. I knew exactly what was happening. He was spiraling. He was absolutely calculating the domino effect of calling the police, and weighing the catastrophic consequences it would bring. Honestly, I was slightly worried he actually would call the cops. After all, three grand wasn’t a small amount of money to him. Not that I was afraid of getting charged with fraud. The account was under Maria’s real identity, and those three videos proved we never tampered with the box. Most importantly, Brad was the one who voluntarily offered to pay a premium to buy it back. If push came to shove, I could just claim I “forgot” to put the bracelet in the box, have Maria refund him, and the police would treat it as a civil misunderstanding and drop it. But if that happened, it would be way too boring! It completely ruined the script I had mapped out. I quickly made a phone call, arranging the final pieces of my plan, and waited quietly. I was certain Brad would never call the cops. Sure enough, a few minutes later, a message popped up on Marketplace. [You’re ruthless. Make sure you look both ways crossing the street with that dirty money.] I let out a sigh of relief. My read on him was spot-on. Before I could even type my next attack on iMessage, Brad actually initiated a FaceTime call. “Chloe, you really are my lucky star! I love you so much!” “How did I get so incredibly lucky to find a wife as kind, beautiful, innocent, and generous as you?” This sudden, aggressive barrage of flattery almost made me break character and laugh out loud. I forced a coy, slightly pouty expression, playing the part. “If you love me so much, why were you ignoring my texts? Were you chatting up other girls?” Brad quickly laughed it off, his voice dripping with barely concealed excitement. “You silly girl, of course not! I have amazing news. I just got the job at Sterling Enterprises.” “Their HR just called me. I start next Monday!” I played dumb, raising my voice in fake awe. “Oh my god! Really?! Sterling Enterprises has insanely high standards!” “If my mom knew my boyfriend was that capable, she’d force me to marry you tomorrow!” Hearing that, Brad’s smugness and excitement practically radiated through the screen. “Babe, it’s all because of you. Ever since I met you, my luck has been off the charts!” “My life is just getting better and better. You must be an angel sent from above!” I mirrored his blissfully happy expression, dialing up the cutesy act. “Then you better cherish me! If you lose a treasure like me, it’ll be the biggest loss of your life!” Brad enthusiastically agreed, smiling so wide his eyes disappeared into slits. Of course it was because of me. I was the one who just called my family’s HR department and told them to push Brad’s hiring paperwork through. I even had HR drop subtle hints that the only reason he got his foot in the door at a multi-million dollar corporation was because of his connection to Chloe Sterling. Even an idiot would realize what the name “Sterling Enterprises” meant by now. Brad didn’t expose the truth directly. Clearly, he intended to keep playing along with this “rich heiress testing the poor boy” trope. After all, as long as he locked me down, he was set for life. He would never have to work a day again. Back when I was just playing the role of a comfortably upper-middle-class local girl, he stuck to me like a leech, entirely focused on draining me for free meals and gifts. Now that he realized my family was this powerful? He’d rather die than let me go. Following the flow of the conversation, I pressed the issue: “So what about the bracelet? Is my future mother-in-law happy with it or not?” 7 I thought this question would finally make him stutter, but surprisingly, he looked completely relaxed. “Of course she’s happy! She’s literally at the mall right now showing it off!” “Hold on… let me go find her and video call you so you can see!” Before I could react, he hung up. What the hell kind of game was Brad playing? Was he actually going to bite the bullet, drain his bank account, and go buy an identical solid gold bracelet to cover his lie? Brad’s house was close to a luxury outdoor mall. Ten minutes later, he sent a FaceTime request. When I answered, Mrs. Jenkins’s giant face filled the screen. “Chloe! Look, doesn’t it look beautiful on me? Doesn’t it make me look like a wealthy socialite?” “I just ran into some of my girlfriends, and when they saw the bracelet you bought me, they were so jealous! They kept saying how blessed I am!” As she spoke, she purposefully raised her wrist, shoving the bracelet right up to the camera lens. With one glance, I recognized it. It was the exact same model I had at home. Looking at the background behind her, they were standing mere feet away from a fine jewelry counter. Did Brad seriously drop eight grand to keep up the lie? After a few minutes of fake, overly sweet small talk, we hung up. I was sitting there, utterly confused, when Jessica—the sales rep who sold me the gold—called me. I always went to her for my jewelry, so we were pretty close. “Miss Sterling, a man just came to my counter holding a photo of your receipt and a picture of the bracelet you bought.” “First, he used your photos to aggressively confirm with us that you were the one who bought that exact piece two days ago.” “After we confirmed it, the older woman with him demanded to try on that exact display model. She wore it for several minutes, got on a video call with someone, and bragged about how her ‘daughter-in-law’ bought it for her! We honestly thought it was some kind of scam and my manager called security. Thankfully, she hung up the phone and handed the bracelet back.” Jessica paused, then added, “I just felt like the whole situation was incredibly sketchy, and since it involved your name, I wanted to give you a heads-up.” I thanked her and hung up, bursting into uncontrollable laughter. I laughed at how utterly blind I had been to ever fall for a guy like this. If he had actually gritted his teeth and spent the money to buy a real bracelet to cover his tracks, I might have respected him a tiny bit. Who could have predicted his family would pull off a stunt this pathetic and absurd? Did he think he could fool me for a day, or did he think he could fool me for the rest of our lives? What went through his head? His brain was on a completely different frequency than the rest of humanity! Just as I was gasping for air from laughing so hard, a notification popped up from Temu. (I had downloaded the app ages ago when Brad begged me to use a referral link for him.) I absentmindedly clicked the notification, and my jaw hit the floor. Exactly five seconds ago, Brad had placed an order for a $4.99 “gold” bangle. I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I was hallucinating. Are those human words? $4.99? Gold bangle? I clicked on the item details. The design was a direct ripoff of the Cartier-style bangle sitting in my room. Scrolling through the review photos, the fake actually looked shockingly realistic from a distance. Instantly, I understood. Brad was planning a bait-and-switch!

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There was a BBQ joint downstairs that stayed open until dawn every single day. Drunken shouting, blaring music, and obnoxious noise kept the entire neighborhood awake. When the residents went to the owner to demand an explanation, the guy acted like an absolute thug, totally unreasonable. So, I printed a notice and stuck it right on his storefront: “If you’re afraid of noise, move to a mansion. Otherwise, poor people just need to learn how to endure.” That single piece of paper made the entire apartment complex explode. 1 A passing homeowner quickly snapped a photo of the notice and dropped it into the HOA group chat. Everyone was already exhausted and agitated from the noise. Nobody expected the owner to be so shamelessly arrogant. Furious, the men from over a dozen households gathered together and blocked the entrance of the BBQ joint, demanding answers. The angriest was the guy living on the second floor. He kicked over a folding table in a fit of rage, pointing right at the owner’s nose. “You dare say that to us? You think we’re pushovers? Believe me, I’ll smash this place to pieces! I can afford to pay for the damages!” The owner, Frank, looked completely bewildered, having no idea what was going on. It wasn’t until his wife—who lived in the apartment complex—sent him a picture of the notice that he understood. Seeing that he had thoroughly provoked the wrath of the crowd, Frank immediately swore he didn’t post the notice. He also promised to cut his hours and close by midnight. Only then did the angry mob disperse. I had been watching the whole spectacle from my upstairs window. Seeing Frank bowing and scraping like a coward was incredibly satisfying. 2 This wasn’t my first clash with their family. They were the typical “Happy Family” type, with matching cartoon family avatars for their group chat profiles. They were the absolute tyrants of the HOA group chat and the ultimate troublemakers in the school parent groups. Their life motto was to make themselves happy by inconveniencing everyone else. The only reason they could open a BBQ joint in a residential complex was because they threw such massive tantrums. They were so loud and obnoxious that the HOA didn’t dare cross them, resorting to giving them perks just to shut them up. Otherwise, who could stand them picking fights every other day? I happened to live right above them, in apartment 602. And because of that, I got a front-row seat to their unhinged audacity. The day I moved in, they saw me packing with the door open. Frank’s wife, Brenda, swaggered right into my apartment, bold as brass. Without a single word, she handed me a printed piece of paper and walked out, her nose stuck in the air. I looked closely at the contents. Holy crap: “Building Rules: My kid has to do homework at night. No cooking in the building from 6 PM to 10 PM. Anyone who turns on a range hood and makes noise, I’ll smash your door in! My wife has a weak nervous system. All renovations are strictly banned. Not even on weekends. If a contractor comes, I’ll break their legs! No cats or dogs allowed in the building. Get rid of them within a week, or I’ll throw them out myself! No using the elevator after 10 PM. My family sleeps light, and the doors opening and closing is too loud!” And that was just the first few rules. The entire page was packed with over seventy ridiculous demands. It was practically the Code of Hammurabi for psychopaths. 3 A lot of people couldn’t handle this family and simply sold their condos and moved away. When I was buying the place, I noticed how cheap it was and asked the previous owner what happened. After some prodding, he told me about the nightmare tenants downstairs. Instead of worrying, I was thrilled. Because honestly? I’m a bit of a menace myself. I’ve never been the well-behaved type. I fought guys who started rumors about me and went scorched-earth on teachers who blindly protected their favorite students. When I grew up, my parents couldn’t stand my chaotic energy anymore, so they gave me a lump sum of cash to move out. I figured if my neighbors were nice people, I’d have to suppress my crazy side. Who knew I’d struck gold! Before I could even finish reading all the absurd rules on the paper, Frank posted a massive paragraph in the HOA group chat: “Listen up, everyone! Just got back from the doctor, and my wife is pregnant! To ensure the baby is born healthy, I’m announcing some new rules. Anyone who disobeys, don’t blame me for getting ugly! All WiFi in the building must be turned off at 9 PM. Radiation causes birth defects! No voice chat while playing video games at home. No keyboard or mouse clicking sounds either. If you wake my wife, I’ll cut all your internet cables! The use of any perfume, makeup, or skincare products is banned. These rules take effect today. Disobey at your own risk!” Wow. Just blatant dictator demands. Like hell I was going to indulge him. I immediately went online and ordered a heavy-duty mobile hotspot. Same-day delivery was fast. I plugged it in and changed the network name to: “Nuclear-Grade Ultra Radiation Fetus-Destroying Signal.” That very night, Frank went absolutely feral with voice memos in the group chat. Message after message, completely hysterical: “Which sick bastard is doing this?!” “Step out if you have the guts! Watch me kill you!” “Turn it off! Turn it off right now! If the radiation hurts my wife and kid, I’ll take down this whole building!” The group chat was dead silent. Nobody made a peep. But I knew plenty of people were secretly enjoying the show. I ordered some takeout, and just as I started eating, I heard violent pounding on doors downstairs. “Open up! I need to inspect your apartment!” Frank’s roar echoed viciously through the hallway. He was actually going door to door. I immediately pressed myself against my door, holding my breath and watching the show. Frank was like a headless fly, running up and down the halls. But he couldn’t find the culprit. He finally stopped at my door and pounded on it relentlessly. I casually pulled it open. “Can I help you?” His eyes were bloodshot. He practically shoved his phone into my face. “Is this WiFi network yours?” I shook my head, feigning complete innocence. “No, Frank. My WiFi is named ‘Mess With Me And You Die’, see?” Frank looked at my phone, cursed under his breath, and stormed off. Of course he couldn’t find it. My mobile hotspot was battery-powered. I had just tossed it behind a utility box in the stairwell. He was never going to locate it. After Frank went back home, he fired off another barrage of voice messages in the chat. “Fine! Real nice! You want to play dirty?!” “I dare you to never turn it off! Don’t let me catch you!” “When I find out who’s doing this, I’m going to slaughter your whole family!” “Still not admitting it? Then listen up! For every day that trash network stays on, my BBQ joint is staying open until dawn! You’re all going to suffer!” “Nobody is getting any sleep!” The group chat remained silent. But I knew the number of people secretly cheering had skyrocketed. Unfortunately, a single person rebelling wasn’t enough. Frank’s retaliation hit everyone right where it hurt. From that day on, the BBQ joint stayed open until 2 or 3 AM. This was a paradise for all the local bachelors and drunks. Every night, they ate, drank, and sang loudly right below our building, making it impossible to sleep. A group of fed-up residents created a private side-chat to vent about the family’s tyranny. It turned out those 70+ rules weren’t just bluffs. One family upstairs was just fixing their balcony drain, and Frank’s family splashed red paint all over their door! The sidewalk and fire lanes in front of the shop were treated as their private property. Nobody else was allowed to use them. Brenda was like a walking nuclear weapon. They never paid HOA fees, yet she forced the complex’s janitorial staff to clean the greasy mess inside and outside their restaurant. If anyone dared complain, she would block their door and curse out their ancestors for hours. Not to mention their bratty kid. He threw rocks at cars, wiped boogers on the elevator buttons, and spat on people walking by. His parents always defended him, their favorite catchphrase being, “Why are you arguing with a child?” It was a history of blood and tears for the older residents. But in the end, nobody dared to actually confront them. After all, everyone had elderly parents and young kids to worry about. Fighting with psychopaths would only end badly for them. Well, well, well. Looks like it was time for me to take the stage. 4 After that printed notice incident, the BBQ family kept their heads down for a while. One day, I was curled up on the couch watching a show when someone started smashing my door. “Open the door! You bastard! Get the hell out here!” I didn’t open it. I looked through the peephole and saw Frank’s face, twisted and deformed with rage. “Who is it?” “Keep playing dumb! Keep playing fcking dumb!” He slammed his fist hard against the door panel. “I checked the security footage! The one who posted that notice the other day was you, you piece of trash!” Oh, he finally figured it out. Slower than I expected. I let out a scoff, kept the security chain fastened, and cracked the door open. “Wow, it took you this long to find out, Frank? With that kind of efficiency, no wonder you’re stuck running a trashy BBQ joint.” Frank tried to force the door open, but the chain held tight. He could only slam his shoulder uselessly against the metal. “I’ll fcking kill you! You have a death wish!” I taunted him. “Just to let you know, I posted the notice, and I was the one who changed the WiFi name to the Fetus Deleter. You mad? Are your lungs about to explode?” Frank completely lost his mind. Like an enraged wild animal, he kicked and smashed my security door. Bang! Bang! Bang! The deafening noise echoed through the hallway, making the entire floor vibrate. “You just wait!” He finally got tired of hitting the door. “If I don’t drive you out of this neighborhood, my name isn’t Frank!” With that, he stomped down the stairs. I casually shut the door and locked it. Wait? Alright. I’ll be waiting. 5 3:00 AM the next morning. A massive, muffled booming sound erupted. It shook the floorboards so hard they vibrated. I jolted upright in bed, completely disoriented. The noise was continuous, a deep, heavy bass that pierced right through the walls and floors. Even the window panes were rattling. This wasn’t just a standard floor-thumper. This was a professional-grade subwoofer, pressed flush against the ceiling. That was a genuinely dirty move. And calling the cops wouldn’t work. Frank and his family had definitely checked into a hotel for the night. When the police arrived, he could just use an app to remotely turn it off. They wouldn’t catch him in the act. Besides, I despised relying on the cops for things like this. But I had to admit, the effect was devastating. Covering my head with a pillow did nothing. The bass drilled into my ears from every direction. In less than ten minutes, my temples were throbbing, and I felt so nauseous I wanted to throw up. The neighborhood group chat exploded: “Holy crap! Is it an earthquake?” “What the hell is going on?! Who’s blasting bass in the middle of the night? My kid is terrified!” Frank quickly admitted it in the chat: “Just testing out some new audio equipment. There might be a little vibration. Everyone just endure it for a few days.” Then he sent another message: “I can’t help it if it’s keeping you awake. If you want to blame someone, blame that troublemaker in 602! She brought this on herself, now she can suffer the consequences!” He pointed the spear right at me. People started tagging me in the chat: “@602, what’s going on? Can you fix this?” “@602, we can’t take this anymore. Did you provoke Frank? Just apologize to him and ask him to turn it off! Don’t make us suffer because of you!” It seemed Frank wanted to use the collective resentment of the entire complex to crush me. A bunch of cowards acting like lapdogs for a BBQ owner. I sneered and typed rapidly: “@ExtremeBBQ, if you want to test your equipment, take your time.” “Also, you better not turn it off. I was just looking for a good lullaby.” 6 Was I going to fight him with sonic warfare? Too low-level, and too noisy for me. If I actually did that and things escalated, he would just push the blame onto me, playing right into his hands. If I was going to play, I was going to do something much more disgusting, much more lingering, and specifically targeted at him. Early the next morning, I drove straight to the largest farmer’s market on the outskirts of the city. I stopped at a stall selling fermented goods. “Boss, give me a bottle of your most pungent stinky tofu brine, and a jar of fermented fish juice.” When I got the goods, I popped the lid slightly. The smell was ungodly. I paid and left without hesitation. When I got home, the subwoofer bombardment had already stopped. Taking advantage of the fact that Frank’s family was catching up on sleep, I tipped the two jars of biochemical warfare sideways and placed them right under my window—directly above their bedroom and living room windows. I cracked the lids open just a fraction. The juices dripped down, drop by agonizing drop. Instantly, the stench acted like an invisible poison gas, seeping right down through their window cracks. After setting the trap, I locked my balcony door and went back to sleep. The results were immediate. Brenda bombarded the group chat with voice memos, gagging between words: “Which sick psycho dumped garbage juice down our windows?! It smells like death! We can’t even open the doors! My kid is throwing up!” She targeted me directly: “@602, is it you, you bitch?! Clean up that smell right now! Or I swear I’ll kill you!” I casually typed back: “@HappyFamily, Brenda, you need proof before you speak. I was sleeping perfectly fine in my apartment. What does your smelly window have to do with me? Maybe your sewer pipe exploded?” “Call the cops? Sure, go ahead. When the officers get here, they can check out how well your new ‘audio equipment’ is testing. Boom, boom, boom—the whole building heard it.” The group chat went quiet. The stench was unbearable, but they had no proof I did it, and it only affected their unit. Meanwhile, that infuriating subwoofer had demonstrably tortured the entire building! Frank went completely radio silent, but I wasn’t about to let it go. That was just the appetizer. His restaurant was his lifeblood. Around 4 or 5 AM, shortly after the BBQ joint closed. I put on a disguise, hopped on a rented bike, and casually rolled past his storefront. From my backpack, I grabbed several huge handfuls of a mixed birdseed blend—millet and cracked corn—and scattered it evenly across the sidewalk, the front steps, the shop’s awning, and even tossed some into the bed of his supply truck. I rode away, a silent phantom in the night. For the first two days, nothing much happened. Starting on the third day, people passing by in the morning started posting photos in the chat: “Oh my god! Why is there so much bird poop in front of Extreme BBQ? It’s a blanket of white!” “Disgusting! You can’t even step anywhere!” “Is Frank going to clean this up? Does he even want to do business?” Frank assumed it was a freak accident and replied that he’d clean it up. That afternoon, right before opening, he spent hours with a power hose, exhausting himself to get it clean. However, the fourth day. The fifth day. Every single morning, a dense, targeted layer of bird droppings precisely carpet-bombed the ground and sign of his shop. It looked like the place had been hit by an airstrike. Frank’s cleaning speed couldn’t keep up with the frequency and volume of the avian air drops. Photos flooded the neighborhood chat. “Holy crap! Frank, your shop is getting carpet-bombed by birds!” “That is so vile!” “Frank, did you commit some terrible sin? Even the birds can’t stand you!” Frank finally caught on. He frantically tagged me in the chat: “@602! Was it you scattering birdseed in front of my shop, you shady rat?! Playing these dirty tricks!” I instantly replied with an innocent-sounding voice memo: “@ExtremeBBQ, Frank, your imagination is running wild! Why would I do that?” “Who says it’s birdseed? Maybe your BBQ is just so delicious it perfectly suits the birds’ tastes?” Then I twisted the knife: “Besides, birds pooping is an Act of God. The police can’t exactly arrest a pigeon. You better hire a professional cleaning crew, otherwise you’re going to go out of business.” Frank didn’t say another word. The subwoofer downstairs never played again. Standing on my balcony, gazing at the absolute mess of a BBQ joint in the distance, I felt incredibly refreshed.

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The first time I went to the preschool to pick up my daughter. I happily strapped her into the car, ready to head home. Until she shrank into her seat and whispered: “Mommy, are we not living in the tiny house anymore?” I froze. When had our family ever lived in a “tiny house”? I locked eyes with her, and the next second, I let out a piercing scream. I sprinted frantically back to the preschool gates, colliding straight into a woman who was looking around in a panicked frenzy—and who looked exactly like me. 01 Whenever I saw news stories about careless parents taking home the wrong kid, I used to laugh. If you can’t even recognize your own flesh and blood, you don’t deserve to be a parent! But I never, in a million years, imagined it would happen to me. I had become the exact type of careless parent I used to despise! Holding the child tightly, I hurriedly opened the car door. As I unbuckled her from the car seat, I couldn’t help but stare at her again. “Seriously, how do you look so much like my Lily?!” Except for being a little skinnier—which made her face look a bit smaller and her eyes a bit larger—her features were practically identical to my daughter’s. Not to mention, she was wearing the exact same yellow sundress, sitting obediently in the car seat. She was a dead ringer for Lily! If she hadn’t whispered that question to me. I genuinely wouldn’t have realized she wasn’t my child. Mia was a bit shy. She peeked at me, her little body tense, but she spoke in a soft, sweet voice, “Miss, you and my mommy look alike too.” “But you’re a little bit prettier than my mommy.” I didn’t think much of it, assuming it was just innocent kid talk. I affectionately pinched her little cheek. “Sweetheart, you are too cute. I almost don’t want to give you back.” The little girl’s eyes widened in horror. Her mouth dropped open, and she hurriedly grabbed my hand. “No, Miss, you can’t! Mommy can’t live without me.” Mia looked like she was about to burst into tears, which only made me smile softer. I quickly comforted her, promising over and over that I was taking her straight back to her mother. As I pulled back up to the preschool, I was on the phone with Lily’s homeroom teacher. I hung up and helped Mia out of the car. As soon as her feet hit the pavement, a woman standing a few yards away spotted us. She was wearing faded, ragged clothes, smelled faintly of grease, and had messy, unkempt hair. She looked absolutely frantic. The moment her eyes landed on the child in my arms, she lost whatever control she had left and sprinted toward us, snatching Mia from me in a heartbeat! I was violently shoved against the side of my SUV. Her rough, desperate movements left a few red scratches on my wrist that stung sharply. “Hey! Why did you shove me?!” She used so much force she actually hurt me! I hissed in pain, my temper flaring up. Naturally, my tone wasn’t the friendliest. The woman holding Mia didn’t even look at me. She was frantically checking the child from head to toe. Only after confirming she was completely unharmed did she finally break down, sobbing uncontrollably while clutching the little girl. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, baby. Mommy got off work late, I almost lost you.” Her voice was incredibly raspy and coarse, grating on the ears. I frowned. Realizing she was just a mother terrified out of her mind, and remembering that I was the one who had mistakenly taken her child and caused this panic, my anger deflated. I felt a wave of guilt. “Look, I am so, so sorry.” I stepped closer carefully, reaching out to pat her shoulder and apologize. “Your daughter just looks exactly like mine, I accidentally…” My words died in my throat the second the woman turned her face toward me. My breath hitched. Even my heartbeat involuntarily skipped a few beats. Because she looked exactly like an older, weathered version of me! 02 I grabbed Lily from the teachers and invited Mia and her mother into my car. Sarah held Mia tightly in the backseat, radiating nervous, awkward energy. That was, until my daughter Lily hopped into the car, her pretty pigtails bouncing, and sat right next to Mia. Two little girls with practically identical faces stared at each other, wide-eyed. Even Sarah, who was so tense her whole body was rigid, couldn’t help but press her lips together and smile. “I wasn’t lying, was I?” I smiled, looking back at her from the driver’s seat. “My daughter and your daughter look exactly alike. That’s why I made the mistake.” Sarah let out a tiny, mosquito-like “Mhm.” The two kids, however, hit it off instantly. They took turns poking each other’s cheeks, touching each other’s hair, and playing with each other’s hands, occasionally letting out gasps of amazement. “You’re really pretty.” “You are too.” “We’re both super pretty, right?” “We sure are.” The two little girls spoke in soft, sweet voices, totally pleased with themselves. It melted my heart just listening to them. I kept glancing at Sarah through the rearview mirror. Seeing her turn her head, looking at Lily and Mia with a face full of absolute maternal warmth, I felt a strange shift in my chest. Originally, I just wanted to treat her to a nice dinner at a high-end restaurant to formally apologize. But a moment ago, when I saw Sarah’s profile, I completely changed my mind. At the intersection, I flipped my turn signal and headed straight for my family’s estate. Bringing Sarah and her daughter home sent shockwaves through the entire Montgomery household. That night, even my grandparents, who lived in the suburbs, rushed over. The whole family circled around Sarah, who was so terrified she couldn’t even speak. They looked at her from every angle. “It’s her, it has to be!” My grandmother leaned heavily on her cane, peering through her reading glasses. She got so close her face was almost touching Sarah’s. “They look like they were carved from the exact same mold!” Sarah smiled awkwardly, trying to shrink backward. But she was already pressed flat against the sofa cushions. There was nowhere left to hide! My mother grabbed Sarah’s incredibly rough, calloused hands, her lips trembling as she inspected them over and over. Sarah turned pale from panic. She tried to pull her hands back, but my mom held on tight. Left with no choice, Sarah struggled to open her mouth. “Um, I really shouldn’t intrude any longer.” “Mia and I… we should get going.” “Absolutely not!” My grandfather sat at the head of the room, his booming, authoritative voice making Sarah jump in her seat. “There are no coincidences like this in the world! We are going to investigate this, step by step, until we have the truth!” “You and your daughter are staying right here with us tonight!” Sarah was so intimidated she just blinked, completely stripped of the courage to say no. Late that night, my father pulled some strings and had a private physician come to the estate to draw Sarah’s blood. The next morning, the expedited DNA results arrived. Sarah was a Montgomery! In simpler terms: She was my twin sister! 03 Years ago, my mother gave birth to twins in a rundown rural clinic during a horrible storm. The first baby came out and the staff declared her stillborn. They took her away to be “disposed of.” I was the second baby. Medical care back then in that town was terrible, and my mother’s health was already frail. Plus, we were two months premature. Before the delivery, the doctors warned my parents that the babies likely wouldn’t survive. So, at the time, no one questioned the first baby’s “death.” They thought it was a miracle that I had survived at all. No one ever suspected that the other baby had lived too. Except, she was passed around by human traffickers and sold deep into an impoverished backwoods town. She survived like a resilient weed in the middle of nowhere. She hardly received any education and never went to high school. Eventually, she was unceremoniously married off to the biological son of the family that bought her, and she gave birth to a daughter. Her so-called husband was a lazy, abusive deadbeat who refused to work, and any money he did scrounge up was spent on drinking and gambling. Left with no choice, Sarah worked herself to the bone doing odd jobs just to pay for her daughter’s schooling. If Lily hadn’t been put on a waitlist for an elite private pre-K, forcing me to temporarily enroll her in a normal preschool nearby… and if I hadn’t picked up the wrong kid… Sarah and I probably would have never crossed paths in this lifetime. My heart ached. Overwhelmed with complex emotions, I hugged Sarah tightly. Sarah wasn’t used to this kind of affection. Her body went stiff, freezing in place like a statue. Finally, I pulled back and said gently, “Sister, why don’t you move in with me? I’ll take the fourth floor, and you can have the third floor.” “The third floor is completely renovated. It has a walk-in closet, a study, and a children’s bedroom. Please, don’t be a stranger, this is your home.” Sarah’s face flushed bright red, and she frantically shook her head. “No, I can’t do that!” “You already live on the third floor. I can’t let you be inconvenienced just because I showed up.” Hearing her words, my heart twisted painfully. A sour ache built in my throat. This wasn’t like the typical “swapped at birth” drama novels I read online. The true daughter had returned, and she was already thirty years old. She was a flower that had bloomed in the mud. Even though she had suffered unimaginable hardships her entire life. Her first instinct upon returning home was to make sure I wasn’t inconvenienced. How could someone be so endlessly kind? She was so good it made me want to hug her and sob. I was just about to tell her not to worry about me when a harsh, blaring ringtone from her pocket cut me off. She shot me an apologetic look and pressed answer on her cracked screen. The next second, a piercing, aggressive man’s voice exploded from the cheap phone speaker. “You stupid bitch, what random guy did you run off with last night?!” “Was his bed that comfortable? Did he fuck you so hard you can’t even stand up?!” “You get your ass back here right fucking now! If I don’t see you before lunch, I’m going to hack you and that little bastard child to pieces!” He fired off a barrage of vile curses, not even waiting for Sarah to reply before hanging up with a violent click. I stared in disbelief, turning to see Sarah’s face drain of all color. “I… I have to go!” Sarah shot up from the couch, rushing toward the door in a panic. Because she was moving so frantically, she tripped over her own feet and nearly face-planted. I rushed forward to catch her, only to see her lips completely bloodless. She didn’t even notice my hands on her arms, just muttering to herself, “I have to get back fast!” My stomach dropped. A million terrifying thoughts raced through my head. I flipped my hands, gripping her rough, calloused fingers tightly, and said softly, “I’m going with you.” Sarah looked like she was struck by lightning. She snapped back to reality, her eyes slowly focusing on my face, absolute terror written across her features. “No! Absolutely not!” “You can’t come!” 04 Sarah fiercely rejected my proposal to go with her. I compromised, offering to just drive her there and wait in the car. She refused that too, shaking her head like a rattle drum. No matter what I said, she clenched her jaw and refused to budge. Left with no choice, I slowly let go of her hand. “Alright, fine. I won’t go. Be careful and come back soon.” Getting my confirmation, Sarah smiled in sheer relief and nodded. “I will.” I watched Sarah’s silhouette disappear out the front door. Half an hour after she left. I calmly pulled out my phone and dialed a number. “Hello, is this the preschool?” “Regarding the mix-up with Ms. Sarah’s child the other day, I feel incredibly guilty and would like to visit her home to apologize in person.” “Could you provide me with her home address?” Three minutes later, I had Sarah’s address in my hand. Before starting the car, I thought about the absolute lack of human decency in that man’s voice on the phone. I paused. Without hesitation, I called for three of the family’s private security guards to follow me. As it turned out, that was the smartest decision I ever made. Because the second I parked my car outside Sarah’s rundown apartment complex, I could hear the sound of things shattering and crashing from the floor above. Mixed in with the noise was a man’s shrill, unhinged screaming. And the heavy scrape of wooden chairs being thrown to the floor. Even though I didn’t hear a woman screaming or crying. My right eyelid twitched violently with dread. As I sprinted up the stairs, I prayed over and over in my head. Please don’t let it be Sarah. Please don’t let it be her. When I reached the fourth floor with my guards, the door to apartment 402 was wide open. The entryway was covered in shattered beer bottles and trash. There was barely room to step. When I saw the scene inside, my blood ran cold. I crunched over the glass and rushed in, just in time to see Sarah lying on the floor, blood pouring from her head. Her so-called husband, Richard Vance, had a grotesque sneer on his face as he raised a heavy wooden chair, aiming right for her skull. “You cheap whore, you think you can cheat on me? You stayed out all night and you still dare to make excuses?!” “What bullshit rich relatives?! You’re a piece of trash that was thrown away the day you were born! You think you can dream of being a princess?!” “I’ll beat you to death! Let’s see you lie to me again! Bitch!” Richard swung the chair down with all his might. Sarah was beaten so badly she was curled into a tight ball, completely incapable of fighting back. She covered her head with her hands, trembling violently as she tried to dodge. But her back was against the wall. She had nowhere to go. Tears and blood mixed together, streaming down her face. Seeing her like that, a sharp, agonizing pain pierced my heart, and my eyes instantly went red. Unable to hold back for another second, I gritted my teeth, charged forward, and forcefully shoved Richard away. “Don’t you fucking touch her!” Richard clearly hadn’t expected a stranger to barge in and interfere while he was beating his wife. The irrational rage he had almost exhausted flared right back up. “I’m beating my own wife, what the fuck does it have to do with you?!” “You dare touch me? I’ll beat you too!” Richard regained his footing, his face flushed purple with rage. He let out a roar, raising the chair to smash it over my head. I shielded Sarah behind me, staring him down without a single ounce of fear. When Richard finally got a clear look at my face, he froze. 05 Richard wasn’t the brightest tool in the shed. But his hands were already in motion, and he couldn’t stop. A split second before the chair hit me. The three bodyguards, who had been waiting for my signal, surged into the room. Without a shred of mercy, one of them lifted his leg and delivered a brutal front kick squarely into Richard’s stomach! The force of that kick was dozens of times stronger than my shove. Richard was literally launched backward, crashing into the floor. His face contorted in absolute agony as he curled into a shrimp, hissing and groaning in pain. Another bodyguard rushed forward and drove a ruthless punch straight into his jaw. Before Richard could even scream, the third bodyguard pinned him, shoved a dirty sock into his mouth, and swiftly pinned his arms behind his back, completely immobilizing him. Once he was secured, I instantly turned around to check on Sarah. “Sister, are you okay?!” Seeing the blood seeping from her forehead, my heart felt like it was being sliced open. I frantically grabbed some tissues to stop the bleeding, but my hands were shaking so badly I accidentally poked near her eye. I apologized frantically, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Sarah didn’t react at all. She maintained the exact same position, arms wrapped tightly over her head. Her eyes were entirely glazed over. She let the blood run into her eyes, just mumbling the same sentence over and over. Her voice was so quiet I couldn’t hear it. I had to lean my ear right next to her mouth to catch it: “Don’t hit me, I’m sorry, please don’t hit me!” My nose stung. I gripped her hand tightly, the tears finally overflowing and streaming down my face. This reflexive, deeply ingrained begging… God only knew how many vicious beatings she had suffered to develop this kind of trauma response. The more I thought about it, the more devastated I felt—and the more furious I became. I marched over to where Richard was pinned to the floor, gritted my teeth, and slapped him across the face twice with all my strength. Richard glared at me, his eyes practically shooting fire. He thrashed wildly, only stopping when one of the guards pressed a knee harder into his spine. Looking at his disgusting, bloated face made my blood boil! “Tie him up, break one of his legs, and call the police!” “You guys don’t need to worry about the fallout, I’ll have my lawyers handle everything.” I didn’t care what charges they used, I was going to send this bastard to prison! “If I don’t get you locked up for eight to ten years, my name isn’t Harper Montgomery!” I spat in his face, delivering the ultimate threat. But just as the words left my mouth, someone grabbed my ankle. I jumped, looking down to see Sarah’s pleading eyes. “No!” she choked out, her eyes brimming with tears. “Harper, I am begging you, please don’t call the cops!” My body froze. I thought I had misheard her. I dropped to my knees, trying to lift her off the floor. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t ever let him hurt you again.” What kind of pathetic loser was this guy? A coward in the outside world, but a tyrant at home who only felt powerful by beating his wife. Men like him didn’t even deserve to be called human! “An animal like him deserves to catch a bullet!” I spoke through gritted teeth. Just the thought of Sarah being bullied by this monster her entire life made me want to strangle him with my bare hands. Hearing my words, Sarah suddenly became frantic. She wildly pulled her hands out of my grasp. And then, I finally heard her clearly. “Don’t call the police!” I stared at her, stunned, looking into her bloodshot eyes. “Actually, when he’s not hitting me, he’s very good to me.” “He’s not a bad person, he’s just… he was just having a bad day today.” She spoke faster and faster, her tears streaming down her bruised, swollen face. “And he’s Mia’s father. I can’t… I can’t let him go to jail.” “Please don’t call the cops, Harper, I’m begging you. I’ll get on my knees!” As she spoke, she forced her battered body up onto her knees and, without hesitation, slammed her forehead against the floor, bowing to me over and over. Even though the floor was covered in trash and shards of broken glass, she didn’t stop. Looking at Sarah in that state, my heart plummeted. A profound, suffocating sense of helplessness washed over me. The exact scenario I hated and feared the most was happening right in front of me. 06 Sarah’s injuries were severe. I took her to a private hospital for a full-body workup. I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t forced the tests, but the results showed she wasn’t just injured—her body was completely broken down. She was covered in old, overlapping scars and poorly healed fractures. Looking at the medical report, I suppressed my rage and let out a cynical laugh. “This is what you call ‘very good to you’?” So good that new bruises were layered over old ones? So good that he was fat and well-fed while she was severely malnourished? “He really used to be good to me.” Sarah bit her lip, whispering: “Before, he used to save his biscuits to give to me.” “How long ago was ‘before’?” Sarah paused, furrowing her brows in deep thought for a long time, before carefully answering, “When we were five.” A biscuit from when she was five years old, and she held onto it until now?! A surge of white-hot anger shot straight to my brain. I was absolutely furious! Looking at Sarah sitting in the hospital bed, staring at me with a blank, confused expression… I wanted to take the medical file and smash it into her face. I wanted to violently shake her shoulders and empty the water sloshing around in her brain! I truly could not comprehend what was going through her head. Unable to vent my explosive anger, I just took several deep breaths, desperately trying to push the fury down. But Sarah, completely oblivious to my mood, actually asked with genuine concern, “Is he… is he okay?” “Your men didn’t actually hurt him, did they?” I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I slammed the medical report onto the table with a deafening smack, the rage I had accumulated all day finally erupting. “He beat you into this state, and you’re worried about him?!” “Are you out of your goddamn mind?!” I screamed at her, startling her so badly she jumped. She turned pale, gripping the bedsheets, stuttering, unable to form a single sentence in her defense. Thankfully, our parents arrived just in time and quickly pulled us apart. Otherwise, I was genuinely terrified I would lose my mind and slap some sense into her. How could anyone be this foolish? She was abused, and she just swallowed it silently. How could she be beaten half to death and still worry if her abuser was in pain?! What kind of person does that?! I was still seething. After my dad ushered me out into the hallway, I kicked the metal bench by the door. The bench didn’t budge, but my foot throbbed in agony, which only made me angrier! Right then, my mom walked out and patted my shoulder. “Alright, stop being so angry.” I pressed my lips together, refusing to speak. My mom sighed, not pushing me too hard, but softly saying, “Your sister is not like you.” “We sent you to the best private schools since you were little, and then to a university overseas.” “But your sister? She grew up working in the fields. She only learned what a TV or a computer was when she was sent away to do manual labor to earn money for her adoptive family.” My breath hitched. I listened as my mom sighed again. “The things you take for granted, the concepts that are second nature to you… to her, they are incomprehensible puzzles.” My body froze in place. The blazing anger in my chest instantly receded like the tide. “So, don’t rush her. Take it slow.” “And please, don’t be mad at her. She has lived far too bitter a life.” My mom patted the back of my hand. I lowered my eyes and let out a quiet “Okay.” My parents brought Sarah back to the estate, gave her and Mia their own suite, and told her to focus on resting and not to overthink things. Sarah tried to refuse, but when my mom hugged her and started crying, Sarah stiffened and couldn’t bring herself to say no. So, she naturally settled in. However, she was incredibly tense, confining herself to the fourth floor and refusing to come down freely. Occasionally, when we crossed paths downstairs, she would tense up like a mouse seeing a cat. She didn’t dare speak to me, didn’t even dare look at me, and would scurry away the second she could. I hadn’t figured out how to act around her yet, either. So I just turned a blind eye to her behavior, pretending I didn’t notice. My mom got anxious seeing us avoid each other. She didn’t dare push Sarah, so she constantly nagged me to go upstairs and apologize to her. I refused. “I don’t think I did anything wrong. Why shouldn’t she be the one apologizing to me?” I felt entirely justified, making my mom so mad she kept pinching my arm. But I never expected… That Sarah would actually come to me to apologize.

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