My roommate got drunk after a breakup. While I was giving her a ride home on my electric scooter, I accidentally scraped a Mercedes. My roommate glanced at the license plate and asked me faintly, “Are you short on cash lately?” I answered honestly, “Always.” My roommate nodded, then pitched headfirst off the scooter, adding as she fell, “I’ll make you rich today.” I… At the same time, the door of the Mercedes opened, and a handsome guy in a sharp suit stepped out. We stared at each other in stunned silence. 01 Right before graduation, my roommate quietly broke up with her boyfriend. My gorgeous roommate got completely wasted and called me to take her home. While I was driving her back on my little electric scooter, she was giving me directions and simultaneously ranting about her ex’s terrible behavior. I comforted her while trying to keep my eyes on the road. Not gonna lie, even though she was drunk out of her mind, the scenic route she directed us on was pretty beautiful. Taking in the scenery ahead, I couldn’t help but ask, “Hey, drama queen, why do I remember this area being a luxury gated community up ahead? Are you sure these directions are right?” My roommate leaned against my back and, after a long pause, said, “Do you know? I was the rose he watered. How am I supposed to live without him?” Me: “…” Alright, Rose Queen, you just stay sad for a bit. She was already unconscious and totally useless, and I felt something was really wrong. I had to pull over to the curb and open Maps to see where we were. Suddenly, a force hit my cute little scooter, and my phone flew out of my hand from the momentum. Ahhh!! My phone! A broken phone would just add to the financial misery of my already poor family. I turned around angrily and saw an all-black Mercedes that had given us a light bump. Just as I was about to check on my poor phone and give the driver a piece of my mind… My roommate sat up like she was waking from the dead, glanced at the license plate, pondered for a long time, and suddenly asked: “Are you short on cash lately?” What kind of question is that? We’ve been surviving on instant ramen together for so long, don’t you know I’m always broke? I answered honestly: “Always.” My roommate nodded, and then I watched as she slowly slid down and fell flat next to the Mercedes, adding: “I’ll make you rich today. Are you touched?” I’m touched, alright, but look at me—do I dare move right now, my dear roommate?! What is happening? If you’re going to pull a scam, at least rehearse it with me! My acting skills aren’t up to par for this! As I stood next to her, completely bewildered and not knowing what to do with my hands or feet, the door of the Mercedes opened. The moment the door opened, a pair of long legs stepped firmly onto the ground. Then, a man in a sharp suit slowly walked over. He carried a freezing aura, his face completely devoid of any warmth. His sharp features and tall stature gave off an intense, oppressive presence. I nervously swallowed hard and crouched down, desperately shaking my roommate who was playing dead on the ground. My good daughter, please get up! You picked the wrong person to scam! If you don’t get up, your daddy (me) might get murdered in the next second. A shadow fell over me. I looked up and met his gaze as he stared down at me, scrutinizing. “Get up. Don’t make me repeat myself.” 02 His voice was deep and carried an undeniable tone of authority. Driving a Mercedes, incredibly handsome, deep voice—yep, he’s a certified billionaire CEO. I was scared half to death. Even though this CEO bumped my scooter first and was technically at fault… My idiot roommate trying to run an insurance scam on him was definitely not okay! Seeing this girl still playing dead and refusing to get up, I had to bite the bullet and tell the truth: “Uh, sir, we’re not trying to scam you. She’s just really drunk…” Before I could finish, I saw him frown. Then he crouched down, sniffed slightly, and let out a light scoff, as if laughing out of sheer anger. “Look at you, Chloe Sterling, you actually know how to drink now?” “???” What’s going on? He knows my roommate? Seeing my shocked expression, this CEO turned to me and said very politely: “I apologize. My driver accidentally scraped your scooter. I’m Chloe’s older brother.” “Liam Sterling.” His tone was still as cold as ice. What??? This cold-faced CEO character is my deadbeat roommate’s brother! Which means, my deadbeat roommate… I looked at the “Rose Queen” lying on the ground next to my shattered phone, and tears of envy practically flowed from my mouth. Waaaaah, why didn’t you tell me you were a rich girl! I caught my breath and told her brother: “It’s fine, it’s fine. She got drunk, so she asked me to take her home.” Liam gave a slight nod. Just as he thanked me and was about to pick up my roommate, my deadbeat roommate—oh wait, no, my dear rich friend—suddenly came back to life. She grabbed my hand and refused to let me go. Muttering nonsense like: “You don’t want me anymore, waaaaah. Taking advantage of me being drunk to abandon me. I bought you that car!” I didn’t! I am not! Don’t talk nonsense! I bought my little electric scooter by living on instant ramen! Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Liam giving me an inquisitive look. Damn it. I wanted to explain that the person she was talking about wasn’t me, but her ex-boyfriend. But I didn’t know if she had told her brother about her relationship, so I was stuck taking the blame in silence. For a moment, the three of us were locked in a bizarre, awkward stalemate. Liam holding her, her holding me, and me… I just wanted to die. But Liam, clearly someone used to handling big situations, thought for a moment and then took both of us back to his place. He even had my scooter and phone packed up and brought along. As soon as we walked in, my eyes were practically blinded by the sheer luxury. It was insanely opulent. Is this the world of the rich? Oh my god. However, even though the house was luxurious, it felt inexplicably empty. I secretly looked around and realized there wasn’t a single housekeeper in sight. “Sorry for the trouble of bringing Chloe back.” Liam placed my roommate on the bed, smoothed out his clothes, and extended a hand to me: “How should I address you?” I froze for a second, then reached out and gave him a brief handshake: “Audrey. I’m her roommate.” Liam nodded. He was already tall, and I was standing very close to him. From this angle, I could only see his sharp, defined jawline. “It’s too late today. You can stay here for the night, Audrey. As for the scooter and the phone,” Liam looked at the shattered phone in my hand, his expression calm and unreadable, “I’ll have someone handle it.” He was talking about my little electric scooter and the broken phone. I nodded. Liam turned to leave, but just as he stepped out the door, my roommate suddenly whined with a sob: “Mom…” Then she mumbled some more drunken nonsense. Liam stopped dead in his tracks. He stood outside the door, his back to the light, remaining completely silent. The light from the living room stretched his shadow long across the floor. For some reason, his tall silhouette made me feel a sense of profound loneliness. After standing there for who knows how long, Liam took large strides away without looking back. The room was left with just me and the dead-to-the-world Chloe. 03 Why did he look… a bit sad? I felt a bit confused but didn’t dwell on it. After cleaning Chloe up, I was so exhausted I just collapsed onto the bed. Even as I lay there, it felt like I was dreaming. The roommate who ate cheap takeout with me every day was suddenly a rich heiress, and her attempt at a scam happened to target her own brother. What a bizarre turn of events. Thinking about it, I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up again, it was to Chloe screaming: “Holy shit, Audrey, why am I at home?!” I buried my head under the covers, my brain unable to process anything, and mumbled: “Your brother brought you back.” Chloe instantly started wailing: “Holy shit, my brother!! No wonder that license plate looked familiar.” Wow. So you only dared to pull a scam because you recognized your brother’s car? And here I thought you were just criminally insane. She scratched her head: “Did I say anything embarrassing?” When she said that, the image of Liam standing alone outside the door, looking so isolated, flashed clearly in my mind, and I instantly woke up. I sat up, looked at her wailing, kind of wanting to laugh, and asked: “What do you mean?” Chloe buried her face in the covers, saying despairingly: “About dying over that scumbag, of course. It’s so embarrassing.” So that’s what it was. She definitely said quite a bit about that, Rose Queen. Seeing me stay silent, she started shaking me. I threw my hands up in surrender: “No, no, no, I covered your mouth the whole time.” She put her hands together in a gesture of gratitude: “A grateful heart, thankful for you.” Speaking of this, I yanked her out from under the covers: “You liar, didn’t you say your brother started working right after high school?” Chloe looked completely sincere: “Yeah, he started his own business right after high school.” Then she muttered: “He’s doing pretty well for himself now.” Who would call that just ‘working’?! Who would call this just ‘pretty well’?! I gave her an admiring thumbs-up and said: “Since you’re awake, I’m heading back.” Chloe immediately grabbed me: “Wait, didn’t you say you couldn’t find a place to stay for the summer? Do you want to stay here with me?” I looked at her in shock. Truly my dear roommate, we were on the exact same wavelength. I had actually planned to ask if she wanted to rent a place together for the summer, since our internship locations were very close. But with the current situation, it was a bit unexpected. Her brother was still home; it would be so inconvenient for me to stay here. Probably sensing my hesitation, Chloe immediately said: “Don’t worry, my brother is basically never home. If you don’t come, I’ll have to live in this huge house all by myself. It’ll be so lonely.” Waaaaah, rich girl, you’re really flexing right now. Chloe started acting pitiful: “You know I get scared, right? Just me alone in the house.” I thought about it and asked: “Is there really no one else in your family? Like a housekeeper or something?” Such a big house, yet it felt so empty. Chloe looked confused: “No. When I’m staying at school, it’s just my brother here. He doesn’t like hiring housekeepers.” That solitary silhouette from last night flashed in my mind again, looking even more lonely. I shook my head to clear the image and said honestly: “I’m fine with it, but you have to discuss it with your brother…” Before I could finish, she pulled me out the door and sprinted down the stairs: “Then we have to hurry. My brother is about to leave for the office.” I stumbled as she pulled me along. When we got downstairs, I saw Liam already sitting at the dining table, who knows how long he’d been waiting. 04 Chloe pulled me over to sit down. Liam’s cool gaze swept over us, his voice carrying a slight nasal tone: “Care to explain? You drink now?” Chloe laughed awkwardly: “Well, you know, it’s graduation season, the sadness of parting ways…” Liam gave a scoff, clearly not buying it: “You’re graduating this year?” Chloe shot me a look, desperately signaling me for help. Holy crap, this girl never prepares a script. I coughed, kept a straight face, and lied: “Yes, the seniors in our lab are graduating. We’re close, so we had a few drinks.” Liam’s deep, dark eyes looked at me, as if trying to see right through me. I smiled at him calmly, but inside I was a bundle of nerves. This was scarier than the strictest principal from my high school. I thought Liam was going to press further, but he stopped and calmly said: “Let’s eat.” As if the intimidating patriarch from a second ago wasn’t him. I breathed a sigh of relief, and Chloe secretly gave me a thumbs-up. After a few bites, before I could fully relax, Chloe spoke up while eating: “Liam, Audrey isn’t going home for the summer. Can she stay here with me?” As soon as she finished, Liam’s gaze fell on me. After a brief moment of thought, he answered: “Yes.” Then he continued eating methodically: “I won’t be coming back for a while then. If you have any problems, call me anytime.” Chloe openly threw a peace sign at me, then excitedly praised me to her brother: “Did you know? Audrey is amazing. She’s the smartest person in our dorm. She’s loved astrophysics since she was a kid and studies it with such passion.” She paused, then emphasized: “Astrophysics!” That’s because different fields are like different worlds. Our dorm was mixed; my major was different from theirs, but everyone was actually pretty impressive in their own research areas. Liam seemed interested in this and asked: “Have you always liked it this much?” I thought for a moment and answered honestly: “Not exactly. There was a time when studying it was really painful.” Chloe said admiringly: “Audrey thinks it’s painful but keeps studying, and eventually she loves it. I’m different. I study it and just fail.” I laughed at her exaggerated expression. Chloe acted like a reporter: “Come on, tell us, how did you overcome the difficulties and fall in love with astrophysics?” It wasn’t a big deal. I organized my thoughts and kept it brief: “It’s actually pretty cliché. I met this expert online back then. He taught me a lot, and then I slowly started to enjoy studying it again.” Liam nodded slightly and asked: “And now?” I said firmly: “Lifelong passion.” Chloe nodded excitedly and showed off my keychain: “She really loves it. Even her keychain is a model of Pluto.” When she showed the keychain, Liam froze. He suddenly stopped moving, his eyes locked onto my keychain, his expression complex, his brows even furrowing slightly. I looked at Chloe in confusion. She calmly explained that her brother’s recent projects involved this kind of knowledge, so he gets excited hearing about it. Oh, I see. No wonder he had more to say when he heard I studied astrophysics. “This keychain… is it from the expert you mentioned?”

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I didn’t expect the jumbotron camera to pan to me. When my face was projected onto the massive screen, Liam’s voice noticeably faltered mid-song. After the concert ended, my phone buzzed with a text message: [What’s wrong? Regretting it now?] I stared at that familiar number, frozen for a long time. In the end, I didn’t reply, simply slipping the phone back into my coat pocket. The notification chimed twice more in rapid succession: [Didn’t you say you’d never settle for someone like me in a million years? Maya Vance?] [It’s too late for regrets anyway. Now I’m the one who looks down on vain gold-diggers like you.] … I didn’t reply. A long time later, my phone pinged again. It was from Liam: [Stop peeping into my life acting like a fan.] I hadn’t booked a hotel. From the stadium where Liam performed back to my apartment, it took nine hours and thirteen minutes, transferring through various trains and buses. So, nine hours and thirteen minutes later, Liam received a text from me: [Liam, I wish you a bright and beautiful future.] After the text sent successfully, I mixed a handful of brightly colored pills into a slice of cake and swallowed it all down. … My suicide attempt failed. The neighbor from the next apartment over came to borrow some salt, found me, and rushed me to the ER. I hadn’t set up an emergency contact, and my phone book didn’t even have a single entry for “Mom” or “Dad.” Desperate, the hospital staff called the last person I had contacted: Liam. When I woke up, Liam was sitting beside me. He was still wearing his concert outfit, the stage makeup only half-wiped off. His glamorous appearance starkly contrasted with the sterile, glaringly white hospital room. Seeing my eyes open, Liam spoke: “You’re awake?” I asked, “Why are you here?” Liam crossed his arms, wearing an expression that said he had already figured it all out: “Drop the act, Maya. Didn’t you tell the hospital to call me?” I lowered my eyes: “I didn’t.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned in closer, saying: “You clearly have so much family, so many relatives and friends. Tell me, Maya, why did the hospital just happen to call the ex-boyfriend you haven’t spoken to in three years? “Faking a suicide is just pathetic. Even if you saw my success and regretted your choices, you could have at least picked a classier way to try and win me back. Maybe then I’d have given you a second glance. But pulling a stunt like this only makes me despise you more.” Liam’s words hammered against my eardrums one by one. My chest tightened painfully, yet I couldn’t utter a single word in my defense. He stood up from the chair, looking down at me. My face was pale from the stomach pumping. His thin lips parted again: “Next time you want to kill yourself, pick a more efficient method. Taking sleeping pills is just a cry for attention. It won’t kill you.” With that, Liam turned and left, seemingly unwilling to spare me another glance. Half my face buried in the pillow, I finally managed to defend myself with one sentence: “It wasn’t sleeping pills.” What kind of pills were they? I didn’t even know myself. I just knew sleeping pills were hard to get a prescription for, and even if I did, the dosage wouldn’t be nearly enough to be lethal. So I just picked the cheapest over-the-counter meds I could find and bought a random assortment. On the way home from the concert, for the first time in over twenty years, I bought myself a beautiful, delicate little cake. The pills were too bitter; I needed something sweet to wash them down. But it was late when I got back, and the bakery only had one chocolate cake left… and it wasn’t sweet at all. My not-so-long life was coming to an end, and I didn’t even get to taste a little sweetness at the very finish line. 02 Liam was photographed at the hospital last night, and rumors started swirling that I was his secret girlfriend. Because it was a hospital, and someone leaked that I had my stomach pumped, plus others claiming they saw me at the concert, the speculation ran wild. Add in the haters spreading fake news, and the rumors quickly escalated into absurdity. Things like, “Liam sleeps with fans and abandons them, driving the girl to suicide out of despair.” Overnight, Liam plummeted from “America’s Boyfriend” to a universally despised scumbag. I looked at the trending topics that refused to drop, pulled out my phone, and called Liam. It rang for a long time before he finally answered: “What do you want?” Liam’s voice was hoarse. He had probably been up all night dealing with the fallout. I gripped the phone tightly: “This is my fault. However you need me to clarify things, I will cooperate.” Liam let out a short, cynical laugh on the other end, ignoring my statement and instead asking: “Maya, did you only call because you feel guilty for causing me trouble?” What else? What other reason could there be? Because I was worried about him? Because I was scared? Scared that after three years, his career and his future would be dragged down by me yet again? I couldn’t say it. After a long silence, Liam finally sighed: “Clarifying this isn’t as simple as you think. Wait for my PR team’s instructions. But Maya, you said it yourself—this whole mess started because of you. So no matter what happens, you have to cooperate, even if it means…” “Means what?” I asked. Liam mumbled for a bit before saying: “Never mind, it’s nothing. Keep your phone on. Send me a message every half hour. Otherwise, if you run off and refuse to take responsibility, who am I supposed to complain to?” I wouldn’t run away. And I certainly wouldn’t refuse to take responsibility. I set an alarm and sent Liam a message every thirty minutes. Sometimes it was a random photo I took, sometimes a punctuation mark, sometimes an emoji. But mostly, I asked him how the situation was going. Liam never replied to any of them. Only when I repeatedly asked him about the situation did he finally send a warning: “Ask that question one more time, and we switch to FaceTime every half hour.” I had no choice but to tirelessly try and find topics to text him about. Occasionally, if I hit on something that interested him, Liam would mercifully reply with a few words. I knew Liam wasn’t doing this because he was afraid I’d run away. He was afraid I’d try to kill myself again. Since he couldn’t physically be there to watch me, he resorted to this clumsy method to keep an eye on me. But… I closed my eyes. The auditory hallucinations were getting worse. The voices in my ears were a chaotic jumble, and my head felt like it was going to split open. But Liam, I tried so hard to eat something, but I kept throwing it all back up. I tried everything, but I just couldn’t get a good night’s sleep. I was constantly plagued by panic, terror, and an overwhelming sadness… Liam, it seemed that all my longing, my guilt, my hopes for you—they were no longer enough to keep me alive. It was too agonizing. Truly, every minute, every second, was unbearable agony. Even eating candy didn’t help. 03 Liam’s manager came to see me. Compared to three years ago, he had put on some weight, a slight beer belly now noticeable. I heard he got married and had a cute little daughter. “Maya,” David set his bulging briefcase down and casually took a seat across from me. “How do you always manage to cause such monumental disasters?” I slid a glass of water toward him and offered a self-deprecating smile: “I guess it’s a special talent of mine.” David ignored my joke and bluntly dumped stacks of cash from his bag onto the table: “This situation is complicated. Given that you attended Liam’s concert right before your suicide attempt, and the hospital called him directly when you were brought in, simply stating you two are just friends won’t cut it. The fans and the public won’t buy it. They’ll just turn on Liam even harder, accusing him of dodging responsibility, which will only make things worse.” I glanced at the piles of cash on the table and asked: “So, how do you plan to resolve this?” David leaned forward, interlacing his fingers: “People have already dug up the fact that you two used to date. So, to protect Liam’s reputation, our only option is to say that after an amicable breakup, you couldn’t let go and attempted suicide to threaten him. Liam only showed up at the hospital to save your life.” David paused, then continued: “But don’t worry, I’m a businessman. I understand the concept of a fair trade. So tell me how much you want, name your price. If this isn’t enough, I can go back and get more. It’s just… Maya…” He suddenly used my first name: “You need to understand, three years ago, you almost ruined Liam once. He endured a lot to get to where he is today. He absolutely cannot be ruined by you a second time.” David left, leaving behind a massive pile of money that would last me a very long time. I agreed to cooperate with the clarification. I told everyone that I was the one who couldn’t let go, that I was the one who used suicide as a threat. Even though I was immediately bombarded with hate from his fans the moment the statement went live, I didn’t feel wronged. After all, this incident was entirely my fault, and Liam was innocently dragged into it. Besides, I was also helping myself. If I attempted suicide again right after clarifying, and I survived, fine. But if I died, people would undoubtedly blame Liam again. So I couldn’t die just yet. Even if it was just for him, I had to hold on a little longer. I looked at the photo of Liam and me hidden in the back of my phone case and smiled. I finally found a reason to keep living. 04 Liam and I, we had an amicable breakup back then. At least, that’s what I thought. But Liam always insisted that I dumped him. I hated the word “dumped.” It made it sound like there was a winner and a loser in a breakup. At the time, I just felt we weren’t a good match, so I told him: “Liam, we need to stop seeing each other.” What did Liam say back then? He said over the phone: “Maya, if you don’t want to hear about a specific topic, you say ‘stop talking about this,’ not ‘stop seeing each other.’ You’re a journalism major, how is your English worse than mine?” I fell silent for a moment. “Liam, what I mean is, we need to break up!” “You want to get married? Sure, but I’m not of legal age yet…” “Liam, I know you understand what I’m saying. Let’s break up. Don’t contact me anymore.” Everyone thought I was being dramatic. Giving up a perfect boyfriend like Liam and insisting on a breakup. What, did I think I was in a soap opera? Playing the whole “forced separation, he chases, she runs” trope? When we were together, Liam was already making a name for himself in the entertainment industry. With his incredible singing and dancing skills, coupled with his striking looks, his popularity was skyrocketing. His future looked incredibly bright, but it was almost dragged down by me. After my dad had an accident and fell into a coma, my mom didn’t want to deal with it. She dumped the entire mess on me and ran off to fool around. I hadn’t seen her in ages until one day, a man showed up at our door claiming my mom stole his money and demanding we pay it back. I didn’t know if he was telling the truth. Besides, the amount he mentioned was massive. Between going to school and taking care of my dad, the money I made from part-time jobs barely covered our basic living expenses. Even if it was true, there was no way I could pay it back. One time, he showed up drunk to harass me again, and Liam saw him. To protect me, Liam got into a physical fight with him. Liam’s parents were wealthy business owners, well-known in the area. Plus, Liam himself was frequently on TV and social media. The man recognized Liam and decided to target him instead. So, by the next morning, the internet was flooded with news: Liam’s girlfriend leverages his status to avoid paying debts; Liam aids and abets her by getting into street brawls. During a crucial turning point in Liam’s career, I had brought him trouble—a massive problem. Liam’s team had to burn through a ton of money just to suppress the story’s traction. After the incident blew up, Liam’s manager, David, came to me. He told me that my mom didn’t owe that man any money at all. The man was maliciously extorting us. However, they had no concrete proof. To clear everything up, my mom would have to publicly state that she had no financial ties to him. “Furthermore,” David looked up at me: “There’s something I need you to understand. If you and Liam are not a couple, then in this scenario, he’s simply an innocent bystander who saw someone being bullied and stepped in to help.” How could I not understand what David was implying? Liam had a brilliant future ahead of him, and that future was almost destroyed by my hands. So that night, I told Liam: “Liam, we need to stop seeing each other.” After the breakup, I went to find my mom, begging her to step forward and clear the air. Instead, she cursed me out, yelling at me for finding a rich boyfriend and not telling her, while she had to suffer in poverty every day. That’s when I realized she knew everything that man was doing. She was even the one who suggested exposing the story to manipulate public opinion, all to extort a lump sum of cash from Liam. “You want me to clear his name? Fine. Aren’t you two together? Go tell that Hayes kid to cough up a million dollars. Five hundred thousand for the statement, and another five hundred thousand for your dowry. Not a penny less.” That night, after being kicked out by my mom, I walked home alone. The late autumn night was freezing, so cold my entire body shivered. A million dollars? After I almost destroyed Liam’s career, was I supposed to shamelessly ask him for a million dollars? 05 That very night, Liam booked a red-eye flight back. When he arrived, I was at the hospital, sitting by my dad’s bed. Liam found me, looking miserably at my dad, who had been in a vegetative state for three years. Then he asked the most melodramatic question ever: “Did my mom demand this? Is this the classic ‘here’s half a million, leave my son’ scenario?” I sweatdropped. I couldn’t blame him; he’d been acting in too many soap operas. … “Liam, you see it yourself. We’re not from the same world. Dating someone like you is just too exhausting for me. “I always have to walk on eggshells, terrified someone will find out about us, terrified it’ll ruin your image. I can’t even contact you most of the time because it might interfere with your work. “I have to work myself to the bone just to try and close the gap between us, just so people won’t think I’m a gold-digger who doesn’t deserve you. “It’s too exhausting, Liam. Every single day is exhausting. “I don’t want this life. I just want an ordinary, quiet life. Do you understand? You can’t give up your career, your dreams. And even if you did, you’re still a rich kid from a completely different background. The quiet life I want is something you can never give me.” In that hospital room, Liam kept his head down and remained silent for a long time. I gripped the corner of my dad’s blanket, biting my lip so hard I almost bled, just to stop the tears from falling. I don’t know how much time passed before Liam finally spoke: “But Maya, you’re not in this relationship alone. A breakup involves two people, and I don’t agree. “The things you mentioned… I might need some time to give you a proper answer, but we have to try and find a way to fix this together, don’t we? You can’t… you can’t just run into a problem and immediately decide to give up on me. That’s not fair to me.” I don’t clearly remember what happened next. My memory has been failing me lately, and everything in my head feels foggy and chaotic. I probably said a lot of awful things. I remember saying: “Liam, other than relying on the privileges your parents handed you, what else can you do? People like me at the bottom scrape by just to survive, but you were born with things we could work our whole lives and never achieve.” I told him: “Liam, for the rest of my life, the kind of people I despise the most are rich kids like you, hiding behind your parents like parasites.” In my memory, the only tangible, real thing left of Liam is the sight of his back as he slammed the door and walked away. For three years after that day, I never saw him again. … After Liam left, I issued a public statement clarifying that Liam and I were just friends. Regardless of whether I owed anyone money, it had nothing to do with him. He was merely an innocent bystander who stepped in to help. Once the statement was out, the scandal finally died down. But my mom and that man, failing to get the money they wanted, started harassing me constantly. I had no energy to deal with them, but I also had no way out—I couldn’t just abandon my bedridden father. Those three years were hell. Life was a grueling struggle. Just surviving, trying to find a moment of happiness, or even just eating a decent meal or getting a good night’s sleep became an impossible task for me. I knew I was sick. I felt it deep down, but I never had the courage to go to the hospital. I avoided doctors because my dad needed me. I couldn’t afford to collapse. Half a month ago, after clinging to life for four years, my dad slowly stopped breathing. After arranging his funeral, I grabbed my meager belongings and finally left that city. I went to see a doctor. They said my condition was already severe and required medication. If that didn’t work, I might need Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). I didn’t take the meds, nor did I undergo any therapy. I had completely lost the will to live. I just wanted to see Liam one last time before the end. I took out all the money I had saved from scrimping and scraping over the years and bought a ticket to Liam’s concert from a scalper. I also bought a really nice, expensive outfit and did my makeup. I just wanted to look at him from afar. I never expected the camera to find me. And so, after three years, I brought trouble to Liam once again. 06 After I posted the clarification, the internet erupted with hate directed at me, but I didn’t care. I had quit my job a long time ago. I locked myself in my apartment, surviving on delivery food and sleeping pills day after day. But honestly, I couldn’t keep much down. I had no appetite. Even if I forced myself to swallow some soup, I’d throw it right back up. Still, I stubbornly set three alarms every day to force myself to eat on schedule. I needed to stay alive a little longer, otherwise, the mob’s fury would pivot back to Liam. Let’s say a hundred days. I gave myself a deadline. Liam, whatever I owe you, I’ll pay it back with these hundred days of my life. … When Liam showed up at my door, fully disguised in a mask and cap, I was sitting alone on the sofa, staring into space. The apartment was terrifyingly quiet. The rhythmic knocking on the door felt like a lifeline, snapping me out of my crushing loneliness. “Maya, why did you say those things online?” I smiled at him, reached over, and pulled open all the drawers in the coffee table. Inside were neat stacks of cash. The scene looked like a shady underworld transaction, as if the command to “move in” was about to crackle through a hidden earpiece. Liam stared at me, bewildered. “What is the meaning of this?” I shrugged: “Exactly what it looks like. Taking someone’s money to solve their problems, that’s all.” Liam’s face darkened. He didn’t speak for a long time. Then, inappropriately, my phone alarm went off—it was time for dinner. I silenced the alarm and looked up at his face, now free of the mask. A face without a trace of makeup, yet still breathtakingly handsome. I suddenly spoke: “Liam, have you eaten? If not, let’s eat together.” Liam abruptly stood up, anger blazing across his face: “Maya, what… what do you take me for?” I didn’t look up, pursing my lips in thought for a moment: “For… a dinner buddy.” Liam ultimately didn’t leave. He stayed, his expression cold. All his anger hit me like punches landing on cotton. I didn’t fight back; he said his piece, and I said mine. Liam paced the living room in furious circles until he got tired, then started nitpicking: “Why did you put so many chili peppers in this?! Did you do it on purpose?! Don’t you know I need to protect my vocal cords?” Liam yelled from the living room, and I answered from the kitchen: “I only put one tiny tip in, just for flavor.” “You put way too much water in the rice, are you making porridge?” “Is it too much? Doesn’t look like it. Whatever, think of it like a blind box. It adds to the suspense.” “Why is this plate so ugly?” “It came free with some yogurt.” “Why are you peeling the apple so thick?” “Bought them on sale.” “Why is there a chip on the rim of this bowl?” “It fell on the floor and only a tiny piece chipped off. I named it ‘Survivor.’” “The cartoon on your apron is so childish. What kind of taste is that?” “That’s a chibi caricature of a certain artist named Liam.” “…” Liam stopped talking. The soup in the pot bubbled and gurgled, seemingly echoing the rhythm of someone’s heartbeat. A long time later, Liam’s voice drifted in softly: “Maya… why did you try to commit suicide?” I lifted my head from the cloud of steam and met Liam’s eyes, which could never quite hide his emotions: “Liam, if you buy me a cake, I’ll tell you. But it has to be sweet.” However, that night, we didn’t end up eating dinner together, and I didn’t get to eat the cake Liam bought.

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I woke up to the piercing cries of an infant. Opening my eyes, I realized I was lying on a hospital bed right next to my mother, who had just given birth to my baby brother. It hit me instantly. I had been reborn, brought back to the exact day the kidnapper swapped my brother. To confirm my suspicion, I peeked toward the sound of the crying. Sure enough, I saw a strange man roughly yanking the engraved gold baby bracelet off my brother’s wrist and slipping it onto the wrist of his own child. Because his movements were so violent, my real brother started wailing at the top of his lungs. The man, his face twisting with impatience, delivered a brutal slap that knocked the infant unconscious. Sensing something, the man suddenly glanced in my direction. I quickly squeezed my eyes shut, pretending to be fast asleep. In my previous life, to stop him from taking my brother, my three-year-old self had desperately clung to the man’s leg. In response, the criminal kicked me so hard I flew into the wall, shattering several of my ribs. Enduring the agonizing pain, I had screamed for help with everything I had, eventually drawing the attention of the nurses. Furious that I had ruined his plan, the criminal pulled out a knife and slashed it deeply across my face. “You ruined my kid’s chance at a good life, so you don’t get to live a good life either,” he had hissed. From that day on, my face was severely disfigured. I spent a long, agonizing time recovering in the hospital. I didn’t even start first grade until I was nine years old, placed in the same class as the brother I had saved. Throughout my school years, my scars made me the target of relentless bullying and mockery. Even my own parents and the very brother I saved looked at me with undisguised disgust. It was as if my mere existence was an unbearable humiliation to them. I had no choice but to study like my life depended on it. I wanted to get into a top-tier university, secure a good job, and escape my family to live my own life. But I never could have imagined what would happen during our senior year. After I successfully secured our high school’s sole early-admission recommendation to an Ivy League university, my brother ran me over with his car. All for the sake of Chloe Evans, a poor student our family had been financially sponsoring. All because he had fallen in love with her. As I lay dying, he stared down at me with pure venom. “Don’t blame me, Lily. Blame yourself for being so selfish. You should have given the Ivy League spot to Chloe.” He even mocked me. “You ugly freak, you deserved to be disfigured. Everything you’ve suffered is exactly what you deserve for how you act.” But I was disfigured because I saved him. What shocked me even more was that when my parents found out what he had done, they didn’t blame him for a single second. Instead, they helped him destroy the evidence and cover up my murder. In those final moments, I swore an oath. If I ever got a second chance, I would respect his fate. I would never play the hero again. Now, lying in the hospital bed, I listened as the heavy footsteps faded down the hall and the door clicked shut. When I opened my eyes again, the criminal was gone. And with him, my biological brother. My mother woke up right at that moment. She asked me, “Lily, was your baby brother just crying?” I tilted my head, flashing a sweet, innocent smile. “Was he? I didn’t hear anything, Mommy.” My mother looked slightly confused. “I must have been dreaming.” A week later, my mother and my new, fake brother—Tyler Harper—were discharged from the hospital. I was enrolled in a local preschool. This time, without the scars, my teachers and classmates were incredibly kind to me. There was no bullying. There was no mockery. No one looked at me like I was a monster. I finally had the peaceful, perfect life I always dreamed of. 02 Time flew by, and ten years passed in the blink of an eye. One weekend, our family went to a crowded street carnival. Suddenly, someone bumped hard into Tyler and snatched his new smartphone. I recognized the thief instantly. It was my biological brother. He looked drastically different from my previous life. He was dark, emaciated, and wearing filthy, oversized clothes. He limped heavily as he ran. It was glaringly obvious that he was living a miserable life. The sight of him brought back a sharp memory from my past life. When he and his friends were mocking my disfigured face, I had finally snapped, screaming that he had no right to treat me like that when I took the blade for him. He had just sneered at me. “I never asked you to save me. Someone as brilliant and capable as me would have thrived even if I was raised in a murderer’s house. Stop trying to guilt-trip me.” Seeing how “brilliantly” he was thriving now, a wave of deep relief washed over me. Seeing my parents about to chase after him, I quickly faked a dramatic trip and fell hard onto the pavement. My real brother looked exactly like my father. If my dad caught a good look at his face, he would undoubtedly get suspicious. Unlike my past life, because I was flawless and at the top of my class, my image-obsessed parents actually valued me. They immediately abandoned the chase and rushed to my side. “Lily! Are you okay?!” I watched my biological brother disappear into the dense crowd, letting out a quiet breath. I looked up at my parents. “I’m fine, my hands just got a little scraped. It hurts a bit.” Meanwhile, my fake brother, Tyler, was absolutely furious about his stolen phone. He cursed loudly, “That piece of trash! If I ever see him again, I swear to God I’ll kill him!” I lowered my eyes and said nothing. The world was a very small place. I needed to make sure I nudged things in the right direction. 03 Tyler spent the rest of the day scanning the crowds like a hawk. When my parents went to the public restrooms, Tyler suddenly grabbed my arm. “Lily, I see that little rat.” Before I could say anything, he shot off like a rocket into the crowd. Seeing my parents hadn’t come out yet, I sighed in relief and jogged after him. This time, because my real brother had his guard down, Tyler easily cornered him in a narrow alleyway. Trapped, my real brother started cursing aggressively. “You filthy rich snobs! You have so much money, why are you being so cheap?! It’s just one phone, why do you have to be so petty?!” His temper was exactly the same as in his previous life. He loved playing the victim and blaming everyone else for his own actions. Tyler let out a dark laugh. “So because we have money, we’re supposed to just let people rob us?” My real brother put on a shameless, defiant smirk. “Alright, shut up. I gave the phone back, so let me go. I’m a minor. The cops can’t do anything to me anyway.” Tyler wasn’t the type to swallow an insult. He inherited his biological father’s reckless, violent temperament. He hated studying and loved picking fights. He kicked my real brother hard in the stomach, slamming him into the brick wall. “What a coincidence. I’m a minor too. As long as I don’t beat you to death, the cops can’t do anything to me either.” Panic finally flashed across my real brother’s face. I watched coldly from the sidelines. Just like he had coldly watched his friends torment me in our past life. Just as Tyler raised his fist to keep hitting him, a young girl sprinted into the alley and threw herself in front of my real brother. “Stop hitting him! Mason’s dad is severely ill! He had no other choice, that’s why he took your phone!” What an absolute, bold-faced lie. Arthur Davies, Mason’s father, had never been severely ill a day in his life. When I got a clear look at the girl’s face, my brow furrowed. What a coincidence. I knew this girl too. It was Chloe Evans—the poor scholarship student from my past life, and the exact reason I was murdered. 04 I wasn’t actually surprised she was here. In my past life, Chloe and my fake brother, Tyler, were childhood sweethearts who grew up together. Now that Mason and Tyler’s identities were swapped, Mason had naturally become Chloe’s childhood sweetheart instead. Tears welled up in Chloe’s eyes as she looked at Tyler pitifully. “I made Mason give your phone back. Please, just let him go. Please?” Tyler was a notorious terror who never listened to anyone. But the moment he saw Chloe crying, he visibly softened. “Alright, fine. Stop crying. I’m not totally unreasonable.” For a second, I felt like I had been pulled back into my previous life. After I won the Ivy League recommendation, Chloe had cried exactly like this to Mason. Mason, acting like a thug, was furious that his precious childhood friend was crying. He rallied a group of his delinquent friends and ordered them to assault me. His excuse was that he needed to “teach me a lesson” so I wouldn’t covet things that didn’t belong to me. I fought back with everything I had, but their filthy hands grabbed at me relentlessly. It wasn’t until one of them ripped the medical mask off my face, exposing my horrific scars, that they backed away in disgust. “What an ugly freak.” “I wouldn’t touch this trash even if you paid me.” “Damn, looking at that face makes me wanna throw up.” My ruined face was the only thing that saved me from being assaulted that day. When I got home, I scrubbed myself in the shower for four straight hours. I scrubbed until my skin was bleeding raw, then collapsed in the tub, sobbing uncontrollably. I thought I had survived the worst of it. But after that, I suffered from severe night terrors. Every time I closed my eyes, I relived that alleyway. The ugly faces, the sickening smell, the slimy hands grabbing at my clothes. Whenever I saw a man on the street, I would tremble and feel violently nauseous. I realized then that the trauma would never, ever pass. It was suffocatingly disgusting. A cold breeze blew through the alley, snapping me back to the present. I couldn’t suppress a violent shudder. Noticing my pale face, Tyler asked casually, “Lily, what’s wrong?” I glanced at him, burying the deep revulsion in my heart. I was about to say I was fine when Chloe suddenly grabbed my sleeve, dropping to her knees. “Sister, are you refusing to let him go? Please, I’m begging you, just let Mason go. He’s already suffered so much.” I stared down at her for a long time. She really hadn’t changed at all. She still loved positioning herself as the helpless victim, using tears to morally blackmail everyone around her. Even Tyler tried to persuade me. “Lily, let’s just drop it.” My expression remained perfectly calm. “I have no interest in fighting with a kid. However, I need to speak to his mother. I need to warn her to discipline her son properly. Right now he’s just a petty thief, but if she keeps letting him run wild, who knows what kind of monster he’ll become.” Hearing that I was going to his mother, the fearless, arrogant Mason finally showed a flicker of genuine terror in his eyes. 05 It didn’t take long to find his current mother, Brenda Davies. She was a solidly built, tough-looking middle-aged woman. The moment she saw Tyler and me, sheer panic flashed across her face. It was incredibly obvious that she knew the truth about the hospital swap. She nervously checked the street behind us. Once she realized we were alone, she forced herself to calm down. “What… what are you doing here?” When I explained why we were there, she let out a massive, visible sigh of relief. “Don’t worry. I will discipline him properly.” The moment she said that, Mason flinched, shrinking into himself. I nodded, making my tone deliberately meaningful. “Your son got extremely lucky today running into me and my brother. If my parents had caught him, they wouldn’t have been so kind. They wouldn’t have let him off easily.” Brenda’s face darkened as the implication hit her. “I understand. I’ll keep a tight leash on him. I promise I won’t let him wander around making a fool of himself anymore.” She grabbed Mason by the collar and violently shoved him into the house, locking the front door behind him. “You sit in there and think about what you’ve done.” After locking him away, she turned to Tyler with a fawning, overly eager smile. “Young man, would you like to come in and sit for a bit? I just bought some fresh fruit, and I have candy inside.” Tyler looked at her with pure disgust. “I’m not going in there. Your house looks filthy.” With that, he turned and started walking away. Brenda looked like she wanted to chase after him to say more, but she ultimately stopped herself. She turned and walked into her house. Within seconds, the muffled sounds of Mason howling in agony echoed from inside. Brenda was taking out all her frustration over Tyler’s rejection directly on Mason. As Tyler and I walked out of the neighborhood, Chloe waved at us from a distance, smiling her sweetest, most innocent smile. “Bye, pretty sister! Bye, handsome boy!” Pretty sister? Hearing that come out of Chloe’s mouth was incredibly ironic. In my past life, when my brother ran me over with his car, she was sitting right there in the passenger seat. As I lay on the pavement, bleeding out and struggling to breathe, she stepped out of the car, leaned down close to my ear, and whispered her final words to me: “Ugly freak, you brought this entirely on yourself. You didn’t listen to Mason’s warnings, so you can just go ahead and die.” Right now, seeing Chloe’s sweet, lingering farewell, Tyler suddenly stopped and turned around, looking like he wanted to run back and talk to her. I grabbed his arm tightly. “Enough. Let’s go. Mom and Dad are going to start panicking if they can’t find us.” In just a few short minutes, Tyler had already developed a crush on Chloe. If I let them interact any further, who knows what kind of psychotic things he would do for her in the future. I had absolutely no intention of watching my past life repeat itself. Tyler reluctantly followed me away. Because of that, he didn’t see the innocent, sweet smile drop completely from Chloe’s face the second we turned our backs. The dark, calculating look in her eyes looked nothing like a harmless little bunny.

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To inherit a massive fortune, I married an old billionaire with one foot in the grave. I agonizingly counted down the days until he finally kicked the bucket. Only to find out he was leaving his entire estate to his eldest son. Hell no! I frantically posted an ad online, “Paying top dollar for a sperm donor,” hoping to secure a piece of the pie with a pregnancy. But right at the crucial moment… A row of floating text suddenly drifted across my vision. [Cannon fodder is always cannon fodder. So stupid. There’s a perfectly good man right next to her, yet she looks elsewhere.] [Sis, haven’t you noticed your stepson looking at you like a starving wolf?] [No! Don’t look for other men! The villain will completely snap and destroy the world!] [Author, please punish this shameless woman!] [Hehe, looking forward to the dark room play later~] I froze, looking in shock at the young man who had always been polite and gentle to me. 01 “Stepmother, is something wrong?” The young man asked with a polite smile. I snapped back to reality. “Ah? Oh, nothing.” I looked away. After a while, I peeked over again. The floating comments hadn’t disappeared; more had actually popped up. [Is this something a human brain could come up with?] [I’m speechless. Shouldn’t a normal person be sucking up to the heir right now? What the hell is ‘paying top dollar for a baby daddy’?] [Author, just kill her off already! My blood pressure is spiking.] [Hehe, I think it’s great. A beautiful idiot playing smart, only to be locked up and punished by her gentlemanly but secretly dark and twisted stepson. Damn, that’s hot!] [Living under the same roof for seven years and still hasn’t noticed Silas’s feelings for her. If she doesn’t need her eyes, she should donate them!] Me: “…” I really hadn’t noticed. 02 The old man was garbage, but his parenting was undeniably authoritative. Silas was so upright it was almost eerie. At twenty-two, when other kids needed their parents’ permission to open a can of soup, he had already fast-tracked his master’s degree and was taking over the family enterprise. Elegant, polite, flawless… those were the words outsiders used to describe him. Around me, he was strictly by the book. Like right now. After getting my “nothing” answer, even though he felt my gaze return to him, he didn’t ask again, calmly letting me stare. His eyes behind thin-rimmed glasses were fixed on his laptop. His profile was handsome, exuding a steady and almost ascetic aura that contrasted sharply with our materialistic world. Would someone so rigidly old-fashioned covet his young stepmother? Yeah, I must be hallucinating from binge-watching too much TV. I curled my lip and ignored the comments. 03 [He’s faking it! He can hold more than a Walmart shopping bag.] [He knows his stepmom is looking at him. To show off his perfect jawline, he’s pressing his tongue so hard against the roof of his mouth it might pierce through.] [I bet a bag of chips he’s Googling ‘Does inheritance law include the father’s wife’.] [Hereditary succession? Hahahaha…] Okay! I couldn’t ignore that. I decided to test it. I spotted a lipstick, knocked it off the table while reaching for my cup, and called out: “Silas.” The man looked up. “I tweaked my neck and can’t bend down. Could you pick that up for me?” Silas looked at where the lipstick had fallen, the permanent smile on his lips stiffening slightly. “Martha—” “Don’t call Martha,” I interrupted. “You’re closer. By the time she walks over, you’ll be done.” If he refused now, it would be weird. We locked eyes for two seconds. He nodded slightly. “Alright.” He walked over, squatted down, and reached into the gap between my leg and the sofa. I was wearing a tight pencil skirt that rested above my knees. As he got closer, I could feel his warm breath on my bare skin, sparking a tingling sensation. I forced myself to stay still. And watched the comments change: [Whoa, whoa, whoa? Why is she suddenly rewarding him?] [‘His eyes met an expanse of snowy white. The calf beneath the skirt was beautifully contoured, the ankle slender. Like fine jade, radiating a lustrous glow…’ Oh my god, looking through the villain’s POV, I’m falling in love with the stepmom too! So seductive!] [I’m afraid he’s going to lick it in the next second.] [Oh boy, someone’s going to have to cross his legs soon~] “Stepmother.” His voice snapped me back. I took the lipstick and stuck my tongue out playfully. “Thanks, Silas.” “You’re welcome.” He smiled back and returned to his laptop. From start to finish, not even the tips of his ears turned red. As if he really just picked something up and felt absolutely nothing. What the hell. The comments were definitely trolling me. Not expecting much anyway, I wasn’t too disappointed. Just found it funny. After all these years, I knew Silas better than anyone. I was crazy to believe those floating words. Feeling a bit bored, I got up to go back to my room for a nap. But right then. In my peripheral vision. Silas quietly adjusted his posture, crossing his legs. He even shifted his body slightly to the other side, as if hiding something. …Huh? 04 [The sister above called it! He crossed his legs hahahaha.] [Stepmom, hurry upstairs! Our tough guy desperately needs to go to his room for a cold shower.] [Please be precise, it’s ‘relieve himself’ and a cold shower! Two different things.] [Spitting facts.] … Who said these comments were nonsense? They were amazing! To make sure it wasn’t a coincidence, I tested him a few more times over the next few days. Every time, the comments proved their worth. I had to admit. —This kid was a master of disguise. And from the scattered info in the comments, I learned something even crazier. I was living inside a novel. Silas was the main villain. I was his cannon fodder stepmother, whose mindless antics would push him to the dark side before I was hastily killed off. Let me tell you something about that. Seven years. Do you know how I survived these seven years?! Facing an old fossil who could be my grandfather, waiting day and night to become a wealthy widow and collect my “emotional damage compensation.” Finally, the dream was about to come true. But the old bastard announced he was leaving his entire estate to Silas. I only got the rights to his ashes. Ha. Who the hell cares about a jar of calcium carbonate? Can I pawn it?! Furious and terrified of becoming penniless, I lost my mind. I saw a trending news story about a woman getting millions in child support from an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Maybe that could work for me? I decided to gamble. The old man was delirious anyway; who would know if the baby was his? Get the money first. But before I could execute my plan. The heavens warned me it wouldn’t work. And gave me a simpler, more efficient, and safer method. 05 The old man hadn’t kicked the bucket yet. So the inheritance distribution was just a draft. But Silas, as the heir apparent, was already busy. Dinners, galas… Perfect for me. “Silas, you’re back?” The man changing his shoes in the entryway looked up. His face was normal, his posture steady. Aside from a slightly unfocused gaze, he didn’t look drunk at all. He paused for a second and frowned: “Stepmother, it’s late. Why are you still up?” I hurried over. I naturally slipped my hands into the crook of his arm, supporting him. “How could I sleep when you aren’t home? I had to see you return safely.” The moment the teasing, affectionate words left my mouth. I felt his body stiffen, and his footsteps halted completely. [Something’s wrong. Extremely wrong.] [Is she… not wearing… a bra…] [‘The warm body temperature and soft touch pressed against Silas’s arm through the thin nightgown fabric. In that instant, he felt all the alcohol kick in. His brain buzzed, and he only wanted to push the woman in front of him to the floor and taste every inch of her skin…’ Bro, stop just thinking about it! Do it!] [The old man never legally married her anyway, what are you worried about!] [Stepmom isn’t doing this on purpose, right?] [Sister above… is she?] [Who cares if it’s on purpose! The mood is set! Silas, go for it ahhhhhhhh!!!] The air was dead silent. I looked at him with eyes full of concern. “Silas, what’s wrong? Your eyes are so red. Do you have a fever?” I reached up to touch his face. Cool fingers met a burning cheek. A hidden shudder ran through Silas, and his eyes grew even redder. “Stepmom, you…” He trailed off, unusually dropping his formal tone. Thrilled, I leaned closer, feigning confusion: “Silas, what did you say? I didn’t catch that.” I was wearing ylang-ylang perfume today. As the distance closed, the seductive scent seemed to intentionally drill into his nose. Silas looked down at me, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. A fierce battle between morality and lust. After what felt like an eternity. Five minutes? Ten? Or just a few seconds. He moved. He pulled his arm from my grasp and stepped back. Under my stunned gaze. He smirked. A polite, formal smile devoid of any emotion. “Apologies, stepmother. I smell like alcohol, I don’t want to bother you. “I’m home now, so you can sleep peacefully. “Goodnight.” He bowed slightly and turned to walk upstairs without hesitation. His suit jacket remained draped over his arm, still hiding something. In the blink of an eye, I was left alone in the massive first floor. I stood there dazed for a few seconds, then violently kicked the stool near my feet. Damn it!!! 06 [Silas, just give the word, and we’ll crown you the new king of self-control.] [This guy’s emotional walls are so high, even the stepmom can’t break in.] [Keep lying to yourself, let’s see how long you last!] [Before, when stepmom ignored you, you cried under your covers at night. Now that she’s close to you, you act like this. Good luck relying on your right hand.] [Don’t be like that, guys. I think the author made it clear early on: ‘Under his father’s twisted upbringing, Silas learned to suppress his true nature. He likes things, but he never hopes to obtain them—toys, food, and even his stepmother.’ He planned to bury this forbidden love forever and play the role of ‘son’. So it’s normal for him to hold back, right? Why call it faking?] [Agreed. It’s all that dead old man’s fault!] [Fine, let him keep holding back! When stepmom goes and pays for a sperm donor, he’ll lose it.] [Ha, so you’re saying stepmom degrading herself to buy a baby daddy is the right thing to do?] [The morals in this comment section are worrying.] [By the way, why did stepmom suddenly change her attitude? Did I miss a chapter?] Some things look simple but are ridiculously hard to execute. At first, I thought: Silas covets me, I covet his… inheritance. Isn’t this a perfect match? If I drop a few hints, wouldn’t he jump at the chance? So I started dropping massive hints. Before, I only pretended to care about him in front of the old man. Now, I was treating him like a fragile egg. Bringing him a coat when it was cold, an umbrella when it rained, pouring his water to exactly 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Silas definitely noticed. But he maintained a strict ‘non-compliance’ policy. You are my elder, how can I trouble you with such trivial matters? Let the maids do it. He always looked so righteous and serious. But above his head, the thirsty comments betrayed him. It was driving me schizophrenic. Fine, maybe I wasn’t being obvious enough. I needed to turn it up a notch. Today, the driver told me Silas was forced to drink a lot at a business dinner. I quickly sent the maids home early, took a scented bath, slipped into a sexy yet innocent slip dress, and waited for him. Late night, drunk, young guy, mature woman… One with wicked thoughts, the other actively seducing. I couldn’t think of a reason for him not to lose control. But… sigh, he really didn’t. Did he train as a monk?! Watching the arguing comments. I felt like I had fallen into a trap. Move forward? Silas was a fortress with no cracks. Retreat? I wasn’t willing. I had a chance to get the whole inheritance. Tsk. But what else could I do? I had used all my tricks. I couldn’t really do what the comments said and pull a “paying for a sperm donor” stunt to provoke— Wait. My gaze sharpened. …Why not?

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My husband kept a young girl on the side. She was fresh, delicate, and completely uninhibited in bed. She gave him experiences he never had before. He reminded her to take her birth control. She pouted, playfully saying she wanted to give him a child. My husband sternly warned her that if she got pregnant, she was getting an abortion and they were breaking up. He said he would only ever allow his legal wife to bear his children. It sounded almost romantic, in a twisted, deeply devoted way. So, I told him: I’m pregnant. But he just stared at me in dead silence. Because we hadn’t slept together in five years. 01 “I cheated on you.” I thought when I said those words, Carter would remain perfectly calm and ask me, “Was it good?” Instead, his brow furrowed, and he stared at me for a long time without saying a word. Did he not believe me? Oh, right. Five years ago, I had lied to him. Back then, I was consumed by sheer, visceral hatred. But right at the absolute final moment, I snapped back to reality. Destroying my own dignity just to get revenge on him wasn’t worth it. So, I pushed Carter’s best friend, Ethan, away and got out of his bed. But I still maliciously covered myself in hickeys and bite marks. I went home and told Carter I cheated, demanding a divorce. In an instant, Carter’s eyes turned red. But that was the extent of it. When I found out he had cheated, I—the usually poised, elegant wife—completely lost my mind. The hyperventilation triggered respiratory alkalosis. I couldn’t breathe, and my fingers cramped into agonizing, rigid claws. I thought I was going to die. Carter calmly found a paper bag to help me regulate my breathing. He calmly explained himself, and calmly made his promises. “Chloe, we’ve been married for five years. I’m a normal man. Eating the exact same dish every single day gets boring.” “The pressure at work is crushing. Sometimes I just need to release the negative energy, but you are my wife. I have to respect you.” “Aside from physical fidelity, I can give you absolutely everything else you want.” I looked at him through tear-blurred eyes, desperately wanting to ask one question. Do you still love me? But I didn’t say a single word. He had already cheated. Whether he loved me or not was entirely irrelevant now. 02 I washed my face, absolutely determined to get a divorce. Carter wasn’t surprised. He calmly advised me to cool down and think it through carefully. It was true. Even after I caught him cheating, he remained perfectly emotionally stable, handling the situation with flawless composure. Even after I slapped him with every ounce of strength I had, he just looked at me with those calm, steady eyes, as if he were watching a toddler throw a tantrum. When I raised my arm to slap him again, he caught my wrist effortlessly. The biological difference in strength meant I couldn’t break free. Instead, he pulled me tightly into his chest, trapping me in his arms. The embrace that used to bring me so much warmth now sent a freezing chill straight to my bones. He tried to talk me out of it. My parents tried to talk me out of it. Even my best friend told me not to do it. Yes, in the eyes of everyone else—including my own parents—I was no longer worthy of the man Carter had become. The only reason I had him was that I got in early. I stayed by his side during the most agonizing, brutal days of launching his startup. It was like a high-risk venture capital investment, and I hit the absolute jackpot. He achieved massive wealth and status, and I got to sit back and reap the rewards. To divorce him meant losing a massive sunk cost, and I would become the laughingstock of our social circle. A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth. And for a moment… I hesitated. To placate me, Carter truly put in a staggering amount of effort. Expensive gifts flowed into the house like water. Aside from diamonds and jewelry, he bought me a luxury yacht, and a private island in the Caribbean. The island came fully staffed with a villa, infinity pools, and a private estate manager. He even cleared his schedule for two entire weeks to take me on the yacht to vacation on the island. We watched the sunrise over the ocean, ate freshly caught bluefin tuna prepared by a private chef, walked barefoot on the white sand beaches, and watched the brilliant, bleeding sunsets. He treated me better, more attentively, than when we first started dating. And for a second, I felt like maybe I was starting to heal… Until the dead of night. Carter had just showered. His warm body, still radiating the damp heat of the shower, wrapped around me from behind. But my brain couldn’t stop flashing back to the chat logs I had seen on his phone. He never responded to the girl’s cutesy good-morning texts or daily selfies. But when she asked him to pick out which lingerie set she should wear… He replied. Even though it was just one word. My heart felt like it was being crushed by a steel claw, tightening inch by inch. “When you sleep with her… do you kiss her?” I asked the question with freezing cold precision. The hand resting on my waist instantly went rigid. I violently ripped his arm off me and sprinted to the bathroom. The exquisite, Michelin-star dinner we had earlier ended up as a disgusting pile of vomit in the toilet bowl. Our two-week romantic getaway ended in exactly two days. 03 After that, I turned into a paranoid detective, obsessively scouring his clothes for any microscopic clue. There were no lipstick stains on his collars. No lingering cheap perfume. They were perfectly, immaculately clean. I found absolutely nothing. But the next time he came home late, the wire that had been twisting tighter and tighter inside me finally snapped. After I threw a hysterical, screaming fit, he started giving me the cold shoulder. When I realized I had turned into a bitter, paranoid, miserable housewife, I panicked. But the ultimate, bitter irony was… I found out I was pregnant. This should have been the greatest, most miraculous surprise in the world. I had wanted a baby for years, but we just couldn’t conceive. We went to top fertility specialists. My body was fine. His body was fine. It just wasn’t happening. We put IVF on the schedule. I endured hundreds of agonizing hormone injections. I suffered tremendously. When I found out he cheated, the emotional devastation was so severe I actually experienced some spotting, but I was too consumed by grief to care. I never expected that when this little life I had prayed for so desperately finally arrived… I no longer wanted it. I didn’t tell Carter. I went to a private clinic and had an abortion. When I woke up from the anesthesia, my soul felt completely hollowed out. I just stared blankly at the ceiling. That was when Carter appeared. His face was ghostly pale, his eyes overflowing with crushing disappointment. “Chloe, is this your way of getting revenge on me? The baby was innocent…” “Exactly. That’s why I couldn’t let it be born. A child forced to live in a loveless home is a tragedy.” “Carter. I want a divorce.” I repeated the sentence, my face completely numb. “No. We are not getting divorced.” He was even more absolute about it than I was. 04 Five years passed. Today, we are nothing more than strangers living under the same roof. The women by Carter’s side had changed. I heard his current favorite was a girl from the local ballet conservatory. She was vibrant, full of life, and had an incredibly flexible dancer’s body. He seemed to really favor her; she had lasted over six months without being replaced. The last time I saw him was a few days ago. The scenario was incredibly clichéd. There was a pile-up on the highway, and his car rear-ended mine. He was probably taking the girl to his beach house for the weekend. She was wearing a floral sundress and a wide-brimmed straw hat. She didn’t know who I was. The second she stepped out of the car, she was panicking and apologizing profusely. “I am so, so sorry! It’s completely my fault! I was trying to feed my boyfriend a snack while he was driving and it distracted him. He has a really bad stomach, and we rushed out this morning before he could eat breakfast…” She bit down nervously on her lip, coated in cherry-pink gloss. A healthy, rosy flush colored her soft, flawless cheeks. She was radiant, youthful, and so captivatingly beautiful you couldn’t look away. “It’s fine.” I looked past her to Carter, giving him a faint smile. “Next Thursday is our ten-year anniversary. Let’s get dinner.” Carter’s gaze remained perfectly calm and unreadable. But the young girl’s face instantly went ghost white. She looked at me in horror, then looked desperately at Carter, instinctively pressing her body against his arm for comfort. Like a fragile little bird needing protection. But Carter subtly, seamlessly stepped away, breaking the contact. “I’ll have my driver take you home.” “No need. I have somewhere to be. I won’t ruin your weekend plans.” The impact hadn’t been severe, but the seatbelt had jerked hard against my stomach. I needed to make sure the baby was okay. I got back into my car. Just as I went to pull the door shut, a heavy hand clamped down on the window frame. A large shadow fell over me. “Chloe, do you really have absolutely nothing else to say to me?” Carter looked down at me, his eyes dark and heavy with suppressed emotion. “Like what?” My tone was dripping with sarcasm. “Did you want me to throw a hysterical fit and beat up your mistress on the side of the highway?” I let out a soft laugh. “Don’t insult my intelligence. The millions of dollars you transfer to my accounts every year are more than enough to buy my silence.” “We’ll talk on Thursday.” Carter kept his arm braced against the door, staring at me with intense, swirling aggression hidden just beneath the surface. I met his gaze with absolute, chilling calm. Finally, he withdrew his hand. I hit the gas, merged back onto the highway, and changed lanes. Once I cleared the bottleneck of the accident, the road ahead was wide open and blindingly bright. I was married to Carter for five years, enduring hundreds of agonizing IVF injections, and couldn’t get pregnant. But the second I swapped out the biological father, getting pregnant became the easiest thing in the world. It seemed Carter and I truly had no destiny together. We were fated to walk completely different paths. 05 Because I gave him a heads-up, Carter arrived at the restaurant early. He even brought a gift. A meticulously selected ruby necklace. Top-tier, flawless pigeon-blood red. During our five years of unofficial separation, even though we rarely saw each other, the luxury gifts never stopped, and they were always obscenely expensive. By any superficial, materialistic metric, I had absolutely won this marriage. “I want a divorce.” After dropping the bomb that I cheated and was pregnant with another man’s child, I pulled the divorce papers out of my designer bag. I didn’t want to drag this out in a messy, protracted legal battle, so I was incredibly generous with the asset division. However, even after hearing that I was voluntarily surrendering all my equity shares in his company, Carter’s face remained perfectly blank as he asked: “Is Ethan the father?” Before I could even answer, he let out a harsh, mocking sneer. “You’re divorcing me so you can marry Ethan and have his kid?” “And then what?” “Are you actually delusional enough to believe Ethan won’t cheat on you?” I stayed silent. Carter’s words grew increasingly vicious. “Do you honestly believe in those fairy tales about the ultimate playboy suddenly reforming for true love?” “He’s slept with more women than I could even count. Aren’t you terrified of catching something?” Unlike Carter, who built his empire from nothing, Ethan was born into old, untouchable wealth. He was a notorious, unapologetic playboy in our social circles. But despite his chaotic personal life, his business instincts were lethal. He was Carter’s very first angel investor. Since they were around the same age, their purely transactional relationship slowly evolved into a genuine, ironclad brotherhood. Back in the day, whenever we ran into each other, Ethan would enthusiastically call me “Sister-in-Law.” I had no shortage of wealthy suitors before I got married, so I knew exactly what a man’s eyes looked like when he wanted you. Ethan’s eyes when he looked at me were never innocent. That was exactly why, when I wanted revenge, I chose him. I don’t know if it was because I rejected him at the absolute last second, but Ethan actually became obsessed with me after that night. The baby wasn’t Ethan’s, but I felt absolutely zero obligation to explain that to Carter. “Carter, you aren’t getting any younger. Didn’t you always desperately want a child? Once we divorce…” I deflected his interrogation, gently advising him to look toward his own future. But Carter’s lips were pressed into a tight, hard line. His eyes dropped to my stomach. His gaze turned terrifyingly dangerous, making every nerve in my body snap to high alert. “Chloe. You are going to have my child.” He spoke slowly, enunciating every single syllable. His voice was as cold and sharp as a scalpel. Five years ago, Carter had absolutely, categorically refused to divorce me. He threatened and bribed my divorce attorneys. He used his corporate influence to blacklist me across the entire legal industry, ensuring no reputable lawyer would take my case. He was willing to use the most ruthless, sociopathic methods to force our shattered marriage to stay intact. “Carter, I don’t want this to turn into an ugly, public spectacle. If you refuse to sign, I’ll go straight to the media.” “Let’s just end this with some shred of dignity, okay?” But he refused to budge. A crushing, suffocating wave of exhaustion washed over me. I raised my hand to rub my temples. Suddenly, he violently grabbed my wrist. His voice was hoarse and broken. “Abort the baby. Tell me whatever you want—money, property, shares—I will give you everything. We are not getting divorced.” “From now on… we will live a good, perfect life together.”

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In the early evening, the billionaire heir tweeted that he’d “lost a woman.” By midnight, the internet had tracked her down—to my bed. Netizens: “Respect. We guessed Chloe Sterling was a lesbian, but we didn’t guess she’d dare touch the billionaire heir’s girl.” 01 4:00 AM. My manager’s incessant calls forced me to pause what I was doing. “Be good,” I whispered, stroking the smooth back of the woman in my arms. “Let me take this call.” The moment I answered, my manager, Nicole’s, voice pierced the heavens and assaulted my eardrum. “Chloe Sterling?! Where the hell are you right now?!” I pulled the delicate figure in my arms a fraction closer and answered: “At a hotel.” Nicole roared: “Are you sleeping with the billionaire heir’s woman at a hotel?!” I paused, surprised. “How did you know?” “Twitter is about to explode! Asher Vance tweeted earlier that he lost a woman, and netizens just exposed that she walked into a hotel with you tonight!” While silently marveling at the investigative skills of netizens, I replied: “She did walk into a hotel with me, so what? Is that illegal?” Nicole took a deep breath: “It’s not illegal, but that’s Asher Vance’s woman! Do you have any idea who Asher Vance is? If you cross him, you and I will be blacklisted and kicked out of Hollywood before the sun comes up!” Of course I know who Asher Vance is. I’m his older sister. We took different last names; one took our father’s, the other our mother’s. When I entered the entertainment industry, I hid my true identity to avoid sycophants. So, almost no one knows I’m the heiress of the Vance-Sterling empire, the billionaire heir’s sister. As for why I was sleeping with Asher’s woman, he only had himself to blame for dropping the ball. Three months ago, Asher sent me a picture. He said this newly debuted starlet was exactly his type and asked me to teach him how to woo her. I coached him for three solid months, and he successfully wooed the starlet—right into my arms. What can I say? Asher is hopelessly clueless when it comes to romance. When the starlet was on her period, I told him to buy her something sweet. He went all out, buying 500 cups of boba tea for her entire film crew. But for her specific cup, he added over ten different toppings. It was hilarious. It was thicker than oatmeal. Later, I went to explain Asher’s intentions to her. One thing led to another, and she ended up confessing that she liked me. What can I say? “Husband material” is a vibe, not a gender. “I know. I’ll handle it.” With that, I hung up and got back to business. 02 The next day, as soon as I arrived on set, the whispering and pointing began. “Is that the girl from the trending topic last night?” “Yeah, yeah, that’s her, Chloe Sterling.” “Hasn’t the heir blacklisted her yet? Why is she still on set?” I never paid attention to idle gossip. But there’s always that one bitch who insists on twisting the knife. “Oh! The lesbian is here? With your sexual orientation, how are you even going to act opposite our male lead?” The speaker was the female lead of our current show, Mia Roberts. Her main talents were sleeping with directors and constantly pitting women against each other. She thought her dirty little secrets were safe, even having her agency craft a “pure, innocent” image for her. In reality, her exploits were common gossip among directors at high-end industry parties. “Chloe, I heard the male lead say this morning that if you aren’t replaced, he walks~” She leaned in close, laughing obnoxiously: “Given your B-list status versus a rising star, who do you think the director will keep?” Just then, the director marched over, looking furious. “Chloe Sterling, you’ve really outdone yourself! A massive scandal on just your second day of shooting! “Get out of here before Asher Vance blacklists you and drags the whole production down with you!” I scoffed: “Director Davis, there’s no rule in Hollywood saying actors can’t date, is there?” “Dating is my personal life, acting is my job. I haven’t made a single mistake in my work. On what grounds are you replacing me?” “No one cares if you date. But why did you have to date Asher Vance’s girlfriend?” “She’s not Asher’s girlfriend,” I argued firmly. “Right, right, she’s not Asher’s girlfriend, she’s your girlfriend now. “I’m not wasting any more breath on you. I’ve already lined up a new supporting actress. Get out.” Since it had come to this, there was no point in staying. I told my assistant to pack my things, and we left. 03 Not an hour after I left, my manager, Nicole, called. “I already got you a new gig. It’s a live reality show on a deserted island. I’ll text you the location. Cameras roll at 3:00 PM sharp.” “What kind of show is this? Why the rush?” “The producers said to ensure authenticity, all the guests were invited at the last minute. Absolutely unscripted!” “Alright, who are the other guests? I should do some homework.” Nicole hesitated for a moment on the other end: “You’ll see when you get there.” Two hours later, looking at the guest who arrived before me, I turned to stone. I pulled out my phone, opened iMessage, and started typing. [Asher Vance, are you crazy? Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation? Why are you on this show?] Asher: [Sister, stealing my girl is unforgivable! I put this show together at the last minute. This time, I’m taking back what’s mine.] I was truly speechless: [Are you sick in the head?] Just as I hit send, a familiar figure entered my line of sight. It was Riley. The woman Asher claimed to have “lost” last night, who also happens to be my girlfriend. Riley looked at me, a trace of confusion on her face. Oh, great! So this was Asher’s master plan. I was just about to text him a severe scolding when two more SUVs pulled up. The people inside stepped out. One was the A-list, award-winning actor Leo Hayes, who is also Asher’s longtime friend. The other was Mia Roberts, the very same girl who had been mocking me that morning. I frowned slightly, looked down, and continued texting: [And what about these two? What’s the point of inviting them?] Asher: [I heard that girl insulted you this morning. As your brother, naturally, I had to give you a chance for revenge!] [And Leo Hayes? I thought he never did reality TV.] Asher: [Him! He’s the new boyfriend I found for you, obviously!] I smirked. It seemed Asher still hadn’t figured out Leo’s true feelings. [Asher Vance, I think you need a boyfriend more than I do.] [Stop scheming to win Riley back. Why don’t you try wooing Leo?] [I guarantee he’s an easier catch than Riley.] Asher replied with an angry sticker: [What are you talking about?! Are you crazy?!] [Let me reiterate! I put this show together so I could compete with you fairly! I’m going to win Riley back!] Tsk! Idiot. I scoffed, swiped left, and deleted the conversation with Asher. Then I searched my contacts for Leo Hayes. [The great Leo Hayes doing a reality show? Feeling threatened?] [If I help you secure my brother, will you grant me a favor?] Leo read the message and looked up, meeting my eyes. His expression seemed to say, “How do you know about this?” 04 How I found out Leo had a crush on my brother dates back to a late-night, quickly-deleted Instagram post from three years ago. One night three years ago, I uncharacteristically stayed up until 5:00 AM. That night, Leo, who never posts personal updates, posted an emo late-night caption. [I hope the world will allow me to openly call his name and speak of love once more.] I accurately zeroed in on the key detail in that caption. The pronoun “his.” Just as I was about to reread it, the post vanished. Leo had deleted it. Suspicious. Highly suspicious. Wide awake, I instantly started scouring every social media platform for clues. After over two hours of digging, I found that the evidence was hiding in plain sight. Leo’s private Snapchat handle had the letters [AV] hidden in it. Leo was gay, and he liked my brother. When did this start? I began to ponder this question carefully. Leo is the son of our parents’ close friends. Asher and I are fraternal twins, and Leo is two years older than us. Leo entered the entertainment industry before Asher and me. He was a child star, known for his incredible acting skills from a young age. Later, I went abroad to study and didn’t pay much attention to domestic gossip. When I returned, Asher had already become the powerful “billionaire heir” of the industry. Leo had also swept numerous domestic awards and become a top-tier actor. To be loved by an award-winning actor… what did Asher do to deserve this! And he has the nerve to fight me for my girlfriend… I lowered my eyes. Just as I was about to reply to Leo, a long, pale hand gently grabbed my wrist. “Chloe, I think they’re about to start filming.” Riley’s voice was soft, making my heart flutter. I looked up. Cameras were already set up around us, and the director was approaching from a distance. Before the live stream started, I leaned close to Riley’s ear and whispered: “Asher put this show together. It seems that kid hasn’t given up on you yet. “But since you’re mine now, you don’t need to fear him. I’ll protect you.” Riley whispered back: “Chloe, I don’t want you and your brother to fight because of me. Should I just quit the show? My savings over the past few years should cover the breach of contract fee.” My lips curved into a smile as I glanced at Leo standing next to Asher. “Don’t worry, I’m going to find my idiot brother a very good home.” 05 At 3:00 PM sharp, the director yelled “Action,” and the live stream officially began. Within 5 minutes of going live, over a million viewers had flooded the stream. The netizens instantly erupted into intense discussion. [A live survival show on a deserted island? And it’s a surprise drop? They’re going big!] [Asher Vance? Chloe Sterling? And Riley?! Am I seeing things? A love triangle?!] [Chloe Sterling, you dared to steal our boy’s girl, get ready to starve to death on that island!] [Leo Hayes is here too! Isn’t this his reality TV debut? Is he here to support his bro?] [Is that our Mia Roberts on the far end?! Our Mia actually knows Asher Vance!] … Seeing the viewership hit their target, the producers began explaining the rules of the game to us. “Welcome to the live broadcast of Island Survival. This show has absolutely no script. The crew is only here to film; everything else depends entirely on the guests. “Now, please turn around and look behind you.” The five of us turned simultaneously. “Do you see that island in the distance? We will soon board a boat and land there. Once on the island, you are free to move as you please. There is only one exit. We hope you are observant and escape the island as soon as possible. “From this moment until you find the exit, we will be broadcasting live 24/7. Aside from a few unbroadcastable moments, you five guests will be entirely exposed to the cameras.” Asher really knew how to pick a location. This island was a new project launched by the Vance-Sterling Corporation this year. It wasn’t a real deserted island; all the facilities were professionally designed to provide an authentic survival experience while ensuring tourists’ basic needs and safety. However, the project had just been completed and hadn’t been announced to the public yet. So, naturally, Asher didn’t know that the final blueprints for this island were approved by me. I could walk from the entrance to the exit with my eyes closed. 06 15 minutes later, we landed on the island. To preserve the immersive experience, the camera crew were all wearing ghillie suits. “Leo, which way should we go? “This is my first time on a show like this, I’m a little scared.” I turned my head toward the voice. Mia was already clinging to Leo’s side, whining and acting cute. Leo visibly stiffened, then put some distance between them. “It’s my first time on a show too. I don’t really know.” Mia seemingly oblivious to Leo’s reluctance to engage with her, leaned in again. “Leo, it’s your first time too! “That’s perfect, why don’t we team up? “The dynamic between those three is too complicated. It’s better if we don’t get involved.” Leo’s expression darkened even further. I was just about to laugh when I realized my own backyard was on fire. Asher had somehow circled around to Riley and was apologizing to her. “Riley, guys usually chase me. This is my first time chasing someone, I don’t really have any experience. So if there were any misunderstandings before, I apologize. I hope you can forgive me.” Riley looked uncomfortable and shot me a plea for help. I reached out, pulled Riley behind me, and faced Asher head-on. “Riley is my girlfriend. Does the great Mr. Vance want to be a homewrecker?” Asher’s face turned red, then white with anger at my words. “Chloe Sterling, don’t push it! I pursued Riley first! You stole her from me! You’re the homewrecker!” I shook my head helplessly. What a stubborn mule. “Asher, sometimes, you really need to look back.” “What do you mean?” Although confused, Asher turned his head. Seizing the moment, I grabbed Riley’s hand and bolted. The moment Asher turned around, his eyes locked with Leo’s mid-air. The netizens instantly exploded. [Is there a possibility… Leo likes Asher?] [The way he looks at him is definitely not platonic. Does Chloe know something? Was she dropping hints?] [Are you crazy? Chloe needs to stop projecting her gayness onto everyone else. Even if the whole world turned gay, Leo would never like men!] [Exactly. Leo and Asher clearly just have a bromance. Shipping them is pointless; ship Leo and Mia instead.] After the brief stare-down, Asher’s roar echoed across the sky. “Leo Hayes! “Why are you just standing there watching?! What did I invite you here for?!” 07 Relying on my memory of the blueprints, I easily found the first rest stop. It was just like the plans—three tents, a water source, and raw ingredients prepared by the show. But the water was untreated and needed to be boiled before drinking. The ingredients also had to be cooked by us. I don’t know how to cook, so I looked at Riley. “Chloe, I’ll handle the food. You get a fire going.” … As the sunset faded and dusk blurred the horizon, the other three finally caught up with us. “I’m exhausted! How did you two walk so fast? “Chloe, is this stuff you made even edible? It looks like pig slop! I’m definitely not eating that! “Is this water clean? I’m drinking it, but if I get sick, my dad is going to kick your ass.” The moment Asher arrived, his mouth started running, critiquing everything. Seriously, some people are naturally suited to be boyfriends, not girlfriends, and Asher is one of them. The netizens started getting anxious for him too. [Asher, use your brain! Riley made that pot of food!] [Why does Asher talk so much?! Doesn’t he know girls like mysterious, aloof guys?!] [Why is Asher bringing his dad into this? A daddy’s boy like this, I wouldn’t want him even if he’s gorgeous!] [Minus points! Minus points! He’s just unlocked ‘Hell Mode’ for winning her back!] Riley couldn’t listen anymore and said softly: “It’s not pig slop. It’s dough drop soup, and I made it.” Asher froze instantly. When he looked up, his eyes were full of complex emotions. I couldn’t help but sneer, then handed Riley a bowl full of the soup. [Chloe did that on purpose, right?! She could have explained, but she kept her mouth shut just to mock our Asher!] [What a manipulative woman. I suspect she doesn’t even like Riley; she’s just using Asher to create buzz and drama!] [My poor Riley, reduced to a stepping stone for Chloe’s ‘villain’ rise to fame.] … “Riley, I didn’t mean it like that! “I just didn’t recognize that it was your cooking for a second.” I chimed in at the perfect moment: “You better hope so.” Asher glared at me and continued his flattery: “If you made this dough drop soup, it’s definitely the most delicious thing in the world. “If I don’t eat three bowls today, it’d be an insult to your cooking skills! “Leo! Hurry up and serve me a bowl!” Although Leo’s eyes held a hint of resentment, he obediently served him a large bowl. We sat around the campfire, eating and discussing the sleeping arrangements for the night. “Why are there only three tents? How are we supposed to split this?” Mia’s voice came through, pretending to be worried but secretly thrilled. Asher was the first to answer: “How to split it? Simple! “Leo and Chloe, Riley and me, and you by yourself!” “No!!” Four voices objected simultaneously. “What are you guys thinking?! I’m a gentleman; I would never take advantage of Riley!” “I disagree,” Riley refused again. “I’m afraid of the dark, I can’t sleep alone!” Mia seized the opportunity to make demands. Asher spoke again: “Then… Leo and I, Chloe and Mia, and Riley alone.” Asher pointed at me: “Bottom line, she cannot share a tent with Riley!” This childish behavior made me want to laugh. “Riley and I are a couple, and we’re both girls. It makes perfect sense for us to share a tent.” Mia finally saw her chance and quickly chimed in: “Then you stay with Riley, I’ll stay with Leo, and Asher can have his own.” Leo and I exchanged a glance and said simultaneously: “No way.” “How about this.” I decided to make a small sacrifice for Leo’s sake. “Riley and Mia, Asher and Leo, and I’ll take one by myself.” Riley quickly grabbed my hand: “Chloe, you’ll be all alone…” I patted her hand, reassuring her.

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My roommate secretly despised women, yet she obsessively built a persona as a “Girls’ Girl.” To everyone’s face, she would say: “I just love being around pretty girls! Men can stay away!” “Your girlfriend is so cute! I wish she was my wife.” But behind their backs: “I think she’s just average. The main issue is she’s a bit… whatever, are all girls like this? Hard to say.” “She’s basically soft-porn bait, isn’t she? Girls like that are absolutely disgusting.” What she didn’t know was… I was the campus whistleblower. And I was going to livestream her judgment to the entire school. 01 I had just started the livestream and adjusted the hidden camera when Chloe, our university’s beloved “It Girl,” stormed into our dorm room and slapped me hard across the face. “Chloe, what are you doing?” “Lexi, that Hermès bag you lent me was fake, wasn’t it?! Do you have any idea how humiliated I was today?! I was hanging out with the star quarterback’s new girlfriend—that little slut—and she actually had the nerve to suggest my bag might be a fake! She told me I got scammed and told me to get it authenticated at a boutique!” I touched my stinging, red cheek and subtly adjusted the camera pinned to my collar. “Chloe, I never said my bag was real.” Hearing me confirm it was fake, Chloe’s fury exploded. First, she dumped everything inside her purse onto my desk. Then, she threw my fake Hermès bag onto the floor and viciously stomped on it repeatedly. While stomping, she screamed at me: “If it was fake, why didn’t you say so?! You did this on purpose to humiliate me, didn’t you?!” “Lexi, how does a manipulative, calculating bitch like you even get into grad school?!” “Being your roommate is the worst luck of my entire life. Girls like you make me sick!” I bent down and picked up the fake Hermès bag, now covered in dirty footprints. “Chloe, first of all, regardless of whether this bag is real or fake, I never agreed to lend it to you.” “You went through my closet without my permission and took it.” Chloe rolled her eyes aggressively. “If I knew it was fake, I wouldn’t have even looked at it!” “You are so pathetic and vain. If you can’t afford the real thing, don’t buy it. Buying a fake just to flex is disgusting.” “I’m going to take a shower. Let me use your shower card. I have a party to go to tonight, and I refuse to be outdressed by the girlfriends those guys are bringing.” I didn’t argue. I quietly handed my pre-paid shower card to Chloe. 02 Once Chloe entered the bathroom, I picked up my phone to check the livestream. The chat was going absolutely insane. [Wait, WHAT?! This is what Chloe is like behind closed doors? Someone tell me this is scripted!] [Isn’t Chloe famous for her ‘girls supporting girls’ gentle older sister aesthetic?] [I’m the girl she hung out with today. She complimented me a hundred times to my face, but she’s calling me a slut behind my back?!] [So her whole ‘girls’ girl’ persona is a total fraud? She actually hates women?!] I let out a cold smirk and pasted a pre-written message into the live chat. [Hello everyone, I am the Campus Whistleblower, Lexi, and also Chloe’s roommate. Starting today, I will be exposing the hidden, ugly truth behind Chloe’s fake ‘Girls’ Girl’ persona. Please keep an eye on this channel, as I will go live whenever necessary. WARNING: Until these broadcasts are fully concluded, everyone is strictly forbidden from discussing this outside of this livestream. Act like nothing is happening. If Chloe finds out about this broadcast, I will terminate the stream immediately, and YOU will be selected as the next target for a live exposé.] Driven by human nature’s insatiable thirst for drama—and the sheer terror of becoming my next target—the students in the chat frantically promised absolute secrecy. 03 Half an hour later, Chloe finished her shower. She carelessly tossed the shower card onto my lap. “Oops, guess I used it all up. The balance is zero. You’ll just have to skip your shower tonight. Not that it matters, you always smell like cheap soap anyway.” After her little jab, she let out a condescending giggle and started tearing through her closet looking for an outfit. “I’ve already worn all these designer dresses. The four most popular guys on campus are going to be at this party tonight. I can’t be seen wearing last season’s clothes!” “These off-brand ones aren’t good enough either…” As she complained, she suddenly turned to look at me. “Lexi, didn’t your mom buy you a Dior dress for your birthday last month?” “That one… should be real, right?” I nodded. She walked over, looping her arm over my shoulder with a fake, sugary smile. “Lexi, let me borrow it tonight! I promise I won’t ruin it. Just consider it compensation for humiliating me today.” I reached into the very back of my closet and pulled out a garment bag. Just as Chloe’s eyes lit up and she reached out to snatch it, I lifted it out of her reach. I smiled at her. “Chloe, you can borrow the dress, but you have to take me to the party tonight. Deal?” Chloe froze. Seeing her hesitation, I explained: “I’ve been really stressed lately. I just want to relax and have some fun.” She looked me up and down with an incredibly hostile, judgmental glare. “I guess you can come. But you better watch what you say, and don’t you dare ruin my image.” I knew exactly what she meant. Our university’s grad school dorms only housed two students per room. At first, Chloe kept up her act around me. But as we spent more time alone, she couldn’t maintain the facade 24/7, so she eventually stopped trying. Her psychotic, two-faced nature was something only I knew about. But now… I tapped the hidden camera on my collar. I wasn’t the only one who knew anymore. I nodded obediently, promising I wouldn’t say anything stupid. Satisfied, Chloe took my designer dress and sat down to do her makeup. I took the opportunity to glance at the livestream chat. [I’m going to that party tonight, and I seriously don’t know if I can hold myself back from slapping her.] [You better hold it back! I want to keep watching this!] [If you can’t hold back, don’t go! I’ll go instead! I have the patience of a saint!] [I’m actually kind of heartbroken. It feels like watching my favorite character turn into the evil villain.] … 04 Chloe did her makeup relatively quickly. Within half an hour, she was fully dolled up. Rocking her signature “gentle, supportive older sister” vibe. Right before we left, she looked at my completely bare face. “Lexi, why don’t I do your makeup for you?” “You look so plain, it’s going to make me look like I’m trying way too hard.” I agreed, and Chloe started painting my face. “Lexi, you’re so pale you look like a ghost. Let’s use a darker foundation to warm you up.” She pumped out a massive amount of the darkest, orangest shade she had and slathered it all over my face. When she finished the base, I looked at my muddy, orange face and laughed internally. “Let’s do the trendy ‘Asian Baby Girl’ makeup for your eyes!” She grabbed a hyper-pigmented, neon eyeshadow palette and aggressively packed color onto my eyelids. “Perfect! So gorgeous! Now let’s finish it with a bright red lip!” She laughed as she admired her work. “You look so good you could literally debut as a pop star right now.” “Really? Does it look that good?” I stood up and walked over to the full-length mirror, making sure the livestream audience got a crystal-clear look at the masterpiece she had created. [Knowing Chloe’s actual aesthetic, there is a zero percent chance she genuinely thinks that looks good.] [Considering Chloe’s own makeup skills, there’s no way she could only manage to do that. She intentionally made Lexi look like a clown.] [I knew she was a bitch, but I didn’t know she was this much of a bitch.] [Ugh, she called me ‘wifey’ once and now I want to throw up!] Chloe stood behind me, smiling so hard her face looked like it might crack. “Lexi, I’ve never seen you look so stunning.” “I bet tons of guys are going to ask for your number tonight!” 05 At 10:00 PM, inside the VIP room of Club X. The moment Chloe walked into the booth, she started screeching with exaggerated excitement: “Wifey!! It’s been so long! You look even prettier!!” “Omg, Brandon, you got a new girlfriend?! She’s so cute! She looks so soft and sweet!” “Can I hug her? You guys know I have zero resistance to pretty girls.” “I just love being around pretty girls! Men can stay away!” Chloe’s voice dominated the entire room. But the room didn’t give her the reaction she wanted. Because every single pair of eyes was glued to me. They didn’t say a word, but I could clearly read the profound pity in their eyes. “Oh right! I brought a friend today! Another super gorgeous girl~” “This is Lexi, my roommate.” “If any of you guys are single, you can ask for her Snapchat! Don’t bother asking for mine, I only want to hang out with the girls tonight~” Chloe dragged me right under the harsh, unflattering overhead light so everyone could get a clear view of my neon, muddy face. Meanwhile, she stood in the soft, flattering ambient light, casually tossing her hair, oozing calculated charm. I played exactly the role she wanted me to play, standing awkwardly, looking deeply uncomfortable and insecure. After ensuring she was the center of attention, Chloe stepped back into her “caring older sister” role to “rescue” me. “Wait? Really? Nobody wants her Snapchat?” “You guys are so rude!” “You aren’t considering a girl’s feelings at all!” “Lexi, just sit next to me. We don’t need to hang out with these smelly guys anyway.” 06 Once she sat down, Chloe didn’t look at me for a single second. She began hunting for her next target, meticulously maintaining her persona. Taking advantage of the distraction, I pulled out my phone and checked the stream. [I must have been legally blind. How did I not see through her fake, toxic ‘pick-me’ energy?] [Did she spray herself with green tea perfume before she left? Because she is the ultimate two-faced bitch.] (Note: ‘Green Tea’ is Chinese internet slang for a manipulative, two-faced woman who pretends to be innocent). [Someone posted on the campus forum before that Chloe was fake, and I argued with them for three days straight defending her. Looking back, I deserve to die!] [I want to die more. For my birthday two days ago, I literally wished to be more like Chloe. Is it too late to take that back?!] [Poor commenter above. Let’s hope that’s the one wish in your life that doesn’t come true.] Just as I was about to lock my phone, a private DM popped up. [Lexi, come to the restroom. I need to talk to you.] I looked around the room. I didn’t see anyone missing from the booth. And more importantly, I remembered explicitly turning off the DM feature for this broadcast. Who was this? How were they able to DM me? My heart skipped a beat. I clicked on their profile. It was completely blank. Obviously a burner account. “Lexi, we’re gonna play a drinking game! Want to join?” Chloe suddenly leaned in, startling me. I quickly locked my phone, looking flustered. “You guys go ahead, Chloe. I need to use the restroom.” The second I stood up, Chloe immediately slid into my seat. As I turned to close the booth door, I realized that the seat on the other side of my spot was occupied by two extremely attractive guys. Ah, Chloe. Even her fake concern was entirely transactional. Thank you for proving you are rotten to the core. It makes exposing you feel so much better. 07 The second I pushed the restroom door open, someone grabbed me and yanked me inside. When I got a clear look at her face, I was shocked. “Sydney?” “It’s me.” Sydney was a notoriously wealthy heiress at our university. In last year’s Campus Queen election, she lost to Chloe by exactly one vote. Not only did the heiress gracefully accept defeat, but when the organizers reviewed the ballots, they discovered Sydney had actually cast her own vote for Chloe. The campus went wild, and a massive group of students started “shipping” the elegant Campus Queen Chloe and the wealthy heiress Sydney. “This is the first time in my life I completely misjudged someone.” From her tone, it was obvious Sydney was deeply disturbed by the fact that she had voted for Chloe. I couldn’t stay in the restroom for long, and I didn’t have time to listen to Sydney’s emotional journey, so I cut straight to the chase. “Why did you bring me here?” Sydney pulled a makeup wipe out of her designer bag and tossed it to me. “Take off that garbage. I’m doing your makeup.” She started pulling luxury cosmetics out of her bag, lining them up on the sink counter. That was when I noticed the bag she was carrying. It was the exact same model as the one I had “lent” Chloe yesterday. Except Sydney’s was undeniably authentic, while the one Chloe borrowed was a fake. Why did Sydney bring this specific bag tonight? To slap Chloe in the face with reality and confront her? If she did that, she would blow my cover and ruin the livestream. I stopped her hand and pushed the makeup wipe back toward her bag. “I don’t need new makeup.” “And please remember the rules of my broadcast.” “Thank you.” I turned to walk out. “Lexi, aren’t you curious why I was able to DM you even though you disabled the feature?” Her words stopped me in my tracks. I turned back, my eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Are you also a Truth Seeker for this world?” As I spoke, I temporarily scrambled the livestream signal, cutting the feed. Sydney froze for two seconds, looking at me in total confusion. “What are you talking about? Truth…” I quickly cut her off. “Nothing. Just a nickname I gave myself.” “Tell me, how did you message me?” “Because…” Sydney leaned close to my ear and whispered: “Let me redo your makeup, and I’ll tell you.” My eyelid twitched violently. I had the distinct feeling I was being played. “We’ve wasted too much time already. You have five minutes.” The second I agreed, Sydney ripped open a wipe and aggressively started scrubbing the neon mud off my face. While she did, I restored the livestream feed. [Why did it go black just now?] [I stepped away for a second, why is Sydney doing Lexi’s makeup? Didn’t she just say no?] [Well, Sydney already looks way more professional than Chloe. Lexi’s skin tone actually looks normal now.] [It’s not about being more professional. Chloe intentionally made Lexi look hideous!] [Ahhhh! When are they going back to the booth?! I need to know what Chloe is doing right now!] [I’m in the booth! I’ll tell you—she’s playing a drinking game and holding some other girl’s boyfriend’s hand.] [Ugh! I wish I was there to see the drama in person! This 5-minute wait feels like a lifetime!] Five minutes later, Sydney snapped her fingers. “Perfect! Now you actually look like a star!” I turned around and looked in the mirror. Sydney definitely knew what she was doing. I was almost shocked; the girl in the mirror barely looked like me. [Omg, Lexi is actually gorgeous with proper makeup! I think she’s prettier than Chloe!] [And the heiress used actual high-end products. Chloe deliberately used cheap, dollar-store trash on Lexi.] [Can Sydney mail me her hands so I can use them to do my makeup?] [You aren’t committed enough! I’d gladly mail my whole head to the heiress so she could do my makeup!] I locked my phone and looked at Sydney. “Makeup’s done. Talk.” Sydney smirked. “It’s simple. The livestreaming app you’re using was developed by my family’s tech company. Having them grant me an override access was nothing.” Ah. Makes sense. And here I thought Sydney belonged to the TR Organization, a fellow Truth Seeker like me. “Alright, business is concluded. I’m heading back.” “Who said we’re done?” “I’m going back to the booth with you.” I frowned deeply. “Why are you going in there? If you’re planning to confront Chloe, now is not the time.” “Her true malice hasn’t fully surfaced yet. Confronting her now is a waste.” Sydney clicked her tongue, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me toward the door. “You’re overthinking it. Why would I bother confronting her?” “But if you want to trigger the deepest, darkest malice hiding inside her, I have an idea.” “What idea?” Sydney didn’t answer. She dragged me all the way down the hall, stopped in front of our booth, and violently kicked the door open.

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Opening my eyes, I found myself back on the exact day I was supposed to sign my life away. In my previous life, I listened to my wife, Serena, blindly. But the very second she got my signature on the asset transfer, she conspired with her lover to orchestrate a fatal car crash, sending me plunging into the freezing river. What I could never forgive, what truly damned her in my eyes, was what she did next. She cut off the funding for my critically ill mother’s life-saving medication, leaving her to die in agony. And she ruthlessly terminated our three-month-old unborn child without a single ounce of remorse. Right now, Serena walked into the bedroom holding a warm glass of milk. She forced a luxury fountain pen into my palm, her voice dripping with sickly sweet affection. “Babe, if you just sign this paperwork, I’ll finally believe you truly love me.” I stared at her hypocritical, beautiful face for a few seconds before a cold chuckle escaped my lips. Then, without a moment of hesitation, I signed my name on the dotted line. 1 She leaned down and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You’re the best husband in the world! I’m going to go make you a special breakfast!” Clutching the documents, she practically skipped out of the bedroom, her footsteps light and eager. I watched her back, the smile on my lips vanishing inch by inch. I picked up my phone. It rang twice before my assistant answered. “Transfer all core patents to my mother’s name immediately,” I ordered. “Empty the corporate liquid funds and route them into our offshore accounts. Work through the night, bypass the standard auditors, and leave absolutely zero trace.” The line was dead silent for two seconds. “Understood, Mr. Wright.” I hung up the phone and let out a long, heavy breath. In this life, I was going to make them pay in blood. During the day, I played the part of the doting, oblivious husband to perfection. Serena cooked, flirted, and chatted with me, wearing her mask of the perfect, loving wife without a single flaw. She even rubbed her flat stomach, her eyes turning convincingly red as she whispered softly. “Babe, we’re going to have a beautiful baby soon. I’m going to give you the healthiest, perfect little angel.” I smiled and agreed, but my eyes were completely devoid of warmth. Deep in the middle of the night, a faint rustling sound woke me. The space beside me in bed was empty. I didn’t move. I waited until she tiptoed completely out of the master suite. Then, I slid out of bed and followed her barefoot, silent as a ghost. The study door was left slightly ajar, a sliver of yellow light spilling onto the hardwood floor. I pressed my back against the wall and held my breath. From inside, I heard Serena’s voice, trembling with suppressed excitement. “He signed it! He actually signed it!” Next came the voice of her lover, Derek, oozing with greed and malice through the video call. “Let me see it!” Just as I thought. They couldn’t waste a single second once they had my assets in their sights. “Once he’s dead, this estate will be enough to keep us living like royalty for the rest of our lives!” Serena’s eyes practically glowed with avarice. Derek’s next words made my blood boil so hot I nearly kicked the door down to snap his neck. “The brakes are already rigged. We just wait for him to take the coastal highway out by Westridge Canyon. There are so many blind hairpin turns out there. Once he goes over the cliff, not even God could save him.” The phantom sensation of freezing river water flooding my lungs and choking the life out of me surged back into my mind. “His mother burned through twenty grand at the clinic just this month,” Derek continued. “The second Gideon is dead, the first thing we do is pull the plug. We can’t have her fighting us in probate court for the leftover assets.” Serena frowned slightly. “Isn’t that a bit too cruel? It is his mother, after all…” “Cruel?” Derek scoffed. “You didn’t think it was cruel when you scraped his parasite of a kid out of your stomach, did you?” Serena went dead silent. I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms. My heart felt like it was being crushed in a vice, the pain so intense I could barely breathe. I silently retreated to the bedroom, slipped under the covers, and closed my eyes. The next morning, Serena woke up earlier than usual. She stood in my walk-in closet, meticulously picking out a dark grey casual suit for me. With feigned innocence, she casually made a suggestion. “Babe, the weather is gorgeous today. Why don’t we take a drive?” “How about Westridge Canyon?” I sneered internally, but my face remained perfectly calm. I nodded. “Sure. I’ve been exhausted lately. A drive to clear my head sounds perfect.” 2 “Then it’s a date!” Serena’s eyes lit up. She quickly added, “You should take the Aston Martin. It’s been sitting in the garage forever. It needs a good run.” “Whatever you say.” She nodded in satisfaction and turned back into the closet to change her outfit. Serena, were you really that impatient? I pulled out my phone and shot a text to Marcus, my head of security. “Are we ready?” Marcus replied instantly. “Everything is in position.” I deleted the text thread and slid the phone back into my pocket. Before I left the house, Serena thoughtfully adjusted my tie and pressed the keys to the Aston Martin directly into my palm. “Drive safe, honey. I’ll be waiting for you right here.” I leaned down and placed a flawless, deceptive kiss on her forehead. “Okay. Wait for me.” Wait for the spectacular gift I had prepared for you. The sports car roared out of the gated community, speeding toward the western outskirts. I didn’t drive fast. I intentionally idled at several traffic lights, giving Serena more than enough time to confirm I was on the road. Checking the rearview mirror, I spotted a black sedan tailing me from a distance. It was Derek’s men. I let out a cold laugh and slammed my foot on the gas. Half an hour later, I pulled into an abandoned gas station near the canyon, the prearranged swap point. A black SUV was already idling in the shadows. Sitting in the driver’s seat was my most trusted operative, Jax, a former professional stunt driver. “Bail out at the second hairpin turn. Are you sure you can pull this off? They are tailing me tight. We can’t afford a single mistake.” Jax took the keys to the Aston Martin and flashed a confident grin. “Mr. Wright, I could do this blindfolded.” I patted his shoulder, got into the SUV, and drove off in the opposite direction. … At ten o’clock sharp, breaking news alerts flooded every screen in the city. BREAKING: Gideon Wright, Chairman of Pinnacle Group, missing after fatal car crash off Westridge Canyon cliff. Presumed dead. I was sitting in my heavily fortified safehouse. A massive wall of monitors illuminated the dark room, broadcasting live feeds from my corporate headquarters and my private estate. Everything was right under my nose. On one of the screens, I watched the living room of my own house. Serena was collapsed on the sofa, clutching her phone, crying hysterically. “Husband… how could you leave me all alone… I don’t want to live without you…” I watched her performance with ice in my veins. The doorbell rang. Serena instantly wiped away her fake tears and practically sprinted to the door. Derek stood on the porch, holding a bottle of vintage champagne. “Get in here!” She yanked him inside, slammed the door, and ripped the curtains shut. She began jumping up and down like a lunatic. “It worked. It really worked!” Derek wrapped his arms around her waist, a massive, arrogant grin on his face. Suddenly, Serena pushed him away. She marched to the center of the living room, ripped our massive wedding portrait off the wall, and smashed it onto the floor. She stomped on the glass twice. “Just looking at him makes me sick.” She bent down, ripped my face out of the canvas, tore it in half, and tossed it into the trash can. “I’m hiring a crew tomorrow to gut this place. We’re hanging our wedding photos up instead.” Derek frowned slightly. “Gideon is only listed as missing. He hasn’t been legally declared dead yet. We have to wait out the legal probation period.” Serena’s eyes darted around, calculating. “I’ll file a petition for an expedited death certificate. I’ll tell the courts he suffered from severe clinical depression and had suicidal tendencies.” “I’ve already bribed the medical examiner. We’ll have the court order in three days.” “Once I inherit his company, it won’t matter even if he magically survives.” Derek gave her a thumbs-up. “I always knew I picked a brilliant woman.” Serena smiled smugly, wrapping her arms around Derek’s neck. “So… does that mean we can finally celebrate?” Derek scooped her into his arms and carried her toward my bedroom. Sitting in the glow of the monitors, I casually picked up my teacup and took a slow sip. Serena. Derek. Enjoy the high while it lasts. Because the higher you climb, the harder you will shatter when you fall. Especially that brilliant idea to expedite the death certificate. You just saved me a lot of bureaucratic red tape. I picked up my phone and texted Marcus. “Execute the next phase. Cooperate with her legal filings. Let her officially take over the company. Hand the empty shell right into her greedy hands.” 3 Three days later. Serena successfully forged my psychiatric records and cashed in her bribes. The moment the court finalized the death declaration, she couldn’t stop smiling. She genuinely believed the entirety of Pinnacle Group was now her personal piggy bank. From my safehouse, I watched the corporate boardroom cameras in crystal clear high definition. The atmosphere in the massive conference room was suffocating. The founding executives and core management team were all seated, faces grim. Serena slammed the forged will and the court order onto the mahogany table, her tone dripping with arrogance. “Listen up. Gideon Wright is legally dead. As of this exact moment, I am taking absolute control of Pinnacle Group!” Vice President Bennett, a loyal veteran who had built the company alongside me and owed his life to my late father, immediately slammed his hands on the table. “Ms. Serena, the probate process isn’t even fully finalized. You have absolutely zero corporate management experience. If you take the helm now, you will run this company into the ground!” Derek stepped forward smoothly, tossing a thick stack of printed documents onto the table. He offered a slimy, threatening smile. “Vice President Bennett, I have the exact paper trail of the twenty million dollars you embezzled from the corporate accounts.” “The financial crimes unit is sitting in the lobby right now. Keep barking, and I’ll have them escort you out in handcuffs.” Bennett’s face turned ash grey. He clenched his fists and fell dead silent. Seeing him back down, Serena grew even more power-drunk. She lifted her chin and barked her first order. “From now on, the finance department reports directly to me. Not a single cent leaves this building without my signature!” The moment the words left her mouth, several core executives stood up in perfect unison, exactly as I had secretly instructed them days ago. “Ms. Serena, Pinnacle Group is Gideon Wright’s legacy. We only answer to him. We resign.” Without a shred of hesitation or regret, they turned on their heels and marched toward the exit. Panic flashed across Serena’s face. She shot up from her leather chair and shrieked. “Stop right there! Who gave you permission to leave?” “I am the legal owner of this company! If you walk out that door, it’s a breach of contract! I’ll sue all of you into bankruptcy!” Ignoring her completely, the rest of the room stood up, grabbed their briefcases, and filed out the door. Within seconds, the packed boardroom was entirely empty. A heavy, dead silence settled over the room. Serena stood frozen at the head of the table, her entire body trembling with rage. Derek panicked, grabbing her arm to ask what their next move was. Serena just screamed at him hysterically. “How the hell should I know?! A bunch of ungrateful traitors! Do they think they’ll die without Gideon?!” I watched the two idiots panic on the screen. Every single one of those executives was my person. We had an agreement: the moment Serena officially claimed power, they would trigger a mass exodus. Did she honestly think a piece of paper made her a CEO? Absolutely delusional. Without the core management team, Serena and Derek were nothing but figureheads staring at an empty fortress. They were running around like headless chickens. Desperate to project power, they began a suicidal spending spree. They drained the corporate petty cash to buy luxury sports cars and designer watches. They even forged procurement contracts to siphon cash out of the accounts, turning the ledgers into a chaotic mess. Every single illegal transaction they authorized became airtight evidence for corporate embezzlement. While Serena was frantically trying to clean up the operational nightmare, she finally set her sights on my mother. The security feed captured the audio of her cold, emotionless voice as she called the private clinic. “Hello, this is Serena. Stop all billing for Gideon Wright’s mother immediately.” “Starting tomorrow, cut off all imported medications. Cancel the private suite and dump her in the general ward.” The administrator on the other end must have questioned the decision. Serena snapped impatiently. “That old hag is just wasting perfectly good oxygen. She’s better off dead anyway. That way she won’t be around to fight me for my money.” Staring at the screen, I cracked my knuckles, a dark fury simmering in my chest. In my past life, this was the exact moment my mother’s medications were cut. Three days later, her complications flared up, and she died in agony. In this life, the day after I faked my death, my private security team quietly transferred her to a world-class facility in Switzerland with round-the-clock intensive care. But this recorded phone call? This was ironclad proof of attempted murder. Tomorrow was Serena and Derek’s highly publicized “Chairman Inauguration Ceremony.” They had invited every major media outlet in the city. They wanted to officially crown themselves royalty in the grand lobby of Pinnacle Group headquarters. And I was going to make sure they remembered tomorrow for the rest of their miserable lives. 4 The grand lobby of Pinnacle Group Headquarters. Serena and Derek were desperately trying to hold together an absolutely pathetic inauguration ceremony. Pinnacle Group was currently nothing but an empty shell. But driven by pure arrogance, they had invited over a hundred journalists, hoping to use a flashy ceremony to trick new investors into bailing them out. The crystal chandeliers were blindingly bright, but the guest seating was embarrassingly sparse. The few business partners who did show up had dark, unimpressed expressions. The reporters were whispering among themselves, clearly just waiting for the circus to start. Serena clung to Derek’s arm, forcing a confident smile as she walked down the red carpet, though her perfectly manicured fingers were trembling slightly. The moment she stepped up to the podium, the microphone let out a piercing, ear-splitting feedback screech. There wasn’t even a sound technician to fix the backup audio. The entire administrative department had been reduced to two clueless interns. They couldn’t run a bake sale, let alone a corporate press conference. She cleared her throat, forcing herself to speak through the agonizing awkwardness. “Distinguished guests, members of the press. Due to Gideon’s tragic and sudden passing, I will be taking the helm of Pinnacle Group…” Before she could finish her sentence, the massive glass doors of the lobby were violently pushed open. Every single executive and manager who had resigned three days ago marched back into the building, heads held high. The entire hall fell dead silent. Serena’s face turned sheet white. She pointed a shaking finger and shrieked. “What are you doing here?! Security! Get them out!” Vice President Bennett stepped to the front of the pack, his voice booming across the lobby. “We are here to reclaim the legal management rights of Pinnacle Group!” “Serena and Derek have illegally embezzled corporate assets and maliciously terminated key management. Today, all resigned employees are officially reinstated. Furthermore, we have partnered with the board of shareholders to launch a joint legal strike!” Right on cue, the massive LED screens behind the podium flashed to life. They displayed notices of suspended core projects, massive contract terminations from major suppliers, and the staggering resignation logs. Serena’s sheer incompetence and criminal negligence were broadcast live to every camera in the room.

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1 My mother was one of the nation’s most elite genetic researchers. Under her proprietary genetic rating system, she classified my younger sister, Stella, as a “Tier-S” prodigy. Stella had boundless potential and required constant “energy nourishment.” I, on the other hand, was classified as “Tier-C,” a lowly “energy sink.” I was forced to survive on a pitiful fifteen-dollar allowance every month, strictly to prevent my “energy imbalance” from draining my precious sister. I believed it all. Until Stella’s graduation gala. Hidden in the shadows, I overheard my mother pitching to her biggest investor. “Nora is a wildly successful Tier-C control group,” she bragged. “The chronic nutritional restriction perfectly highlights the superiority of the Tier-S gene. Just look at her. Skinny as a rail. She is the most visceral proof of our experiment’s success.” … In the grand banquet hall, the glare of the crystal chandeliers was blinding. I stood in the corner. The old dress I wore had been washed so many times the fabric was practically translucent, the hem fraying at the edges. Stella paraded through the crowd in a limited-edition haute couture gown, her arm linked with my mother, Evelyn. When Stella finally noticed me, a flash of undisguised contempt crossed her eyes. “Oh, you actually showed up?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was pitched perfectly for the surrounding guests to hear. “I figured you’d be too embarrassed to show your face.” Evelyn frowned, cutting her off. “Stella, ignore her.” There wasn’t a trace of reprimand in my mother’s voice, only the sharp annoyance of having her perfect evening interrupted. “Go say hello to Mr. Donovan. He’s the biggest backer our lab has.” A waiter ushered me to a table tucked away in the darkest corner of the room. It was completely empty. That was fine by me. I didn’t have the energy to deal with their pitying or disgusted stares anyway. I was starving. To save money for study guides before my finals and college entrance exams, I had survived on a single plain bagel a day. The second the exams were over, I threw myself into a grueling temp job, working fourteen-hour shifts for two straight weeks. I picked up my fork and wolfed down the catered food, desperately trying to fill the bottomless black hole in my stomach. Right then, from the half-open door of the adjacent VIP suite, I heard my mother’s voice. She spoke in a tone I had never heard from her before. It was cold, clinical, and completely stripped of emotion. “Mr. Donovan, look at the data. Nora is the perfect test subject for my ‘Directed Genetic Resource Allocation’ theory.” My fork froze halfway to my mouth. “Tier-S genes require massive environmental energy to sustain their development. But a Tier-C gene is naturally an energy black hole. It unconsciously drains the energy from its surroundings,” Evelyn explained. “My theory is simple. We artificially and precisely restrict all resource supply to the Tier-C subject. We force her to exist at the absolute bare minimum of survival.” “By doing this, she lacks the strength to steal energy. Instead, her suppressed vitality creates an energy ‘trough,’ allowing the Tier-S gene… like Stella… to absorb ambient energy with maximum efficiency.” A sickening hint of pride crept into her voice. “Look at Nora. The chronic malnutrition has led to stunted growth, a sallow complexion, and a weak immune system. This data eloquently proves that by strictly suppressing the C, we allow the S to thrive.” The food I had just shoved down my throat suddenly turned to molten lead, burning through my insides. I heard the man they called Mr. Donovan let out a booming, satisfied laugh. “Professor Evelyn, you are an absolute genius! This theory is a goldmine!” My mother chuckled, unable to hide her smugness. “To ensure the absolute purity of the experiment, I gave her exactly fifteen dollars a month for living expenses, even during the most critical weeks before her exams.” “She was so starved she passed out right in the middle of the testing hall. She barely made it into college.” “That clinical data is absolutely priceless.” So that was it. My collapse during the exams wasn’t an accident. The hunger, the poverty, the crippling insecurity, and the sheer agony I had endured for eighteen years were nothing but cold, hard data points in her research paper. I was just a successful Tier-C control group. Mr. Donovan sounded ecstatic. “Professor, this theory needs massive backing! I’m adding another five million to your funding! We’re going to market this to every family raising a Tier-S child!” My entire body trembled. The blood in my veins turned to ice, only to boil over into a violent, raging inferno the very next second. I squeezed the glass water goblet in my hand. Crack. The sharp sound of shattering glass cut through the air. Jagged shards bit deep into my palm. Blood seeped through my fingers, dripping onto the pristine white tablecloth one drop at a time, blossoming like desperate, crimson flowers. 2 I shoved the door of the VIP suite open and stormed inside. The sight of my blood-soaked hands brought the lively conversation to a dead, horrifying halt. The fat on Mr. Donovan’s face jiggled as he stared at me in terror. My mother, Evelyn, my father, Richard, and my precious Tier-S sister, Stella, were all sitting there. My eyes bypassed everyone else and pinned Evelyn in place. “What exactly am I to you?” My voice came out ragged, trembling with a primal fury. “A control group?” “A lab rat?” “Or just a bargaining chip to score a bigger check?” Stella was the first to react. She let out an ear-piercing shriek. “Are you out of your mind, Nora? What the hell kind of garbage are you spouting?” She jumped up. “Do you have any idea how important Mr. Donovan’s funding is to Mom? Are you trying to ruin her career?” Evelyn’s face drained of color. But it only took her one second to regain her composure. A flash of utter, ruthless calculation darted across her beautiful eyes, something I had never seen before. Instantly, that ruthlessness was swallowed by a mask of overwhelming, sickeningly fake grief. She rushed over and threw her arms around me, hugging me so tight it felt like she was trying to crush my bones. “Nora! Oh, my sweet girl! How could you ever think that of your own mother?” Her voice cracked with tears, playing the part of the deeply wronged parent to absolute perfection. She gripped my shoulders, turning to explain to the bewildered investor and the rest of the VIP guests. “I am so sorry, Mr. Donovan. Please excuse her.” She wiped a dramatic tear. “This poor child… Her genetic tier is so low, it’s made her incredibly insecure and emotionally fragile. She constantly hallucinates that we favor Stella.” “As parents, our hearts are just broken over it.” My father, Richard, quickly stood up, rubbing his hands together with an awkward, apologetic smile to smooth things over. “Yes, exactly. Her mental state has been highly unstable lately. We were actually just looking into getting her a psychiatrist.” He chuckled nervously. “Please don’t take the ramblings of a sick kid seriously.” Pressed suffocatingly close to my mother’s chest, breathing in the nauseating scent of her expensive perfume, I felt my stomach heave. I struggled, but her grip was like a vice, locking me in place with a terrifying, unyielding strength. Without missing a beat, she took a delicate velvet box from her assistant and snapped it open for the entire room to see. “Look, Nora. Look at this. How could a mother ever give up on her child?” Inside the box, resting on a bed of black velvet, was a syringe filled with a luminescent blue liquid. It looked mysterious and incredibly expensive. She held the vial up high, her face a portrait of tearful devotion, addressing the room but speaking directly to me. “I led my team through countless sleepless nights, pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into developing this ‘Genomic Enhancer’ just for you!” “I never gave up on you, Nora! Once you take this injection, you’ll finally escape your Tier-C destiny. You’ll be just as brilliant as Stella!” In the blink of an eye, the entire atmosphere in the room shifted. The wealthy socialite sitting next to Mr. Donovan frowned, pointing an accusatory finger at me. “This girl is incredibly ungrateful. Your mother sacrifices everything for you, and you throw a tantrum in public?” “Right? Some kids don’t know how good they have it.” “Apologize to your mother immediately. Stop breaking her heart.” The wave of condemnation crashed over me from all sides. I looked at Evelyn’s heartbroken face, then down at the syringe glowing with that eerie blue light. At that exact moment, my heart felt like it had been plunged into a bucket of freezing ice water. 3 I stared dead at the blue liquid. Then, I locked eyes with my mother and her deeply affectionate gaze. Beneath the shimmering tears, I could see it clearly now, the microscopic glint of triumph and venomous calculation. My chest went numb. But instead of fighting her, I slowly forced my muscles to relax. I looked up, pitching my voice to sound almost naive, completely devoid of my previous rage. “If I take this shot… will I really be just like Stella?” “Will I get a five-thousand-dollar monthly allowance too?” “Will I get to wear beautiful dresses, eat until I’m full, and buy the books I actually want to read?” My questions caused a brief, uncomfortable stutter in the room’s atmosphere. The guests who had just been tearing me apart suddenly wore very complicated expressions. Evelyn didn’t hesitate. She nodded, her tone dripping with ironclad conviction. “Of course!” “Nora, the second your genes are optimized, Mom will give you everything you’ve ever wanted to make up for lost time!” “My love for you and Stella has always been exactly the same!” Standing off to the side, Stella scoffed, rolling her eyes. She muttered, just loud enough for me to hear. “A Tier-C piece of trash? Keep dreaming.” Those words were the pin that popped Evelyn’s balloon of manufactured warmth. They also killed the very last, pathetic sliver of hope hiding in the deepest corner of my heart. I reached out and lifted the syringe from the velvet box. The glass was freezing against my fingertips. I looked around the room and said, “Okay.” “To prove I’m not crazy.” “And to finally get everything I’ve been owed for the last eighteen years.” “I’ll take it.” A flash of uncontrollable glee erupted in my mother’s eyes. She even stepped forward, playing the doting parent, to help roll up the sleeve of my threadbare dress, exposing an arm that was terrifyingly thin from years of starvation. “Good girl. It won’t hurt at all. It’ll be over in a second,” she murmured softly. The surrounding guests smiled in relief, acting as if they were witnessing the beautiful, heartwarming redemption of a troubled teen. The needle gleamed under the harsh chandelier light. I positioned it directly over the prominent blue vein in my arm. Inch by inch, it moved closer. The air in the room stood completely still. But right at the exact millisecond the needle was about to pierce my skin… I violently twisted my wrist and lunged at Stella, who was standing right beside me, completely off guard! Moving at lightning speed, I locked my arm around her throat, pinning her against my chest. At the same time, I aimed the tip of the deadly blue needle straight at her smooth, pristine neck. It happened so fast no one had a chance to blink. A bright, wildly terrifying smile stretched across my face as I watched my mother’s expression shatter into absolute panic. “Since this stuff is so amazing, why don’t we let my Tier-S sister try it first?” “Who knows? Maybe this shot will upgrade her straight to Tier-SS!” “Mom, didn’t you just say your love for us is exactly the same? I insist on giving this incredible gift to my little sister!” “No!” Evelyn let out a bloodcurdling, inhuman shriek. She and my father, Richard, lunged at me like a pair of rabid beasts, all pretense gone. Their faces were twisted in pure, unadulterated terror. “Nora! What the hell are you doing?!” “Drop that needle right now! Stella’s genetic makeup is highly delicate! You cannot pump her with unauthorized drugs!” Their frantic screaming. Their utter loss of control. It told the entire room everything they needed to know. This so-called “Genomic Enhancer” wasn’t a mother’s miracle cure. It was poison meant to destroy the rest of my life. 4 Total chaos erupted. The guests weren’t stupid. Even the most oblivious among them could read the desperate panic on my parents’ faces. Their expressions shifted from entertained superiority to utter shock and suspicion. Stella thrashed wildly against my chest, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Nora, you psycho! Let me go! Mom! Help!” It took every ounce of strength I had to keep her restrained. Evelyn didn’t dare step any closer. She was terrified my hand would slip and plunge the liquid into her golden child. Standing a few feet away, her face was ghost-white as she screamed at me. “Nora! Put that down immediately! You are trying to murder your own sister!” I let out a cold, sharp laugh. “Murder?” “Weren’t you just crying crocodile tears, calling this your ultimate act of motherly love?” “What’s wrong? Does your brand of love only apply to specific people?” “Or is your love just literally toxic?” I raised the syringe higher, forcing my father to back away as he tried to flank me. Then, while everyone watched in horrified suspense, I used my free hand to pull my phone from my pocket. Evelyn’s pupils dilated in panic. She clearly thought I was going to play the audio of her pitching to Mr. Donovan. I hit play. But the voices blasting from the speaker weren’t hers and the investor’s. It was a recorded argument between her and my dad. The background noise was muffled, like it was recorded secretly near the kitchen. First came my father’s voice, cowardly and riddled with anxiety. “Evelyn, isn’t the dosage on this Neuro-Suppressant way too high? The warning label says this is strictly for highly aggressive psychiatric patients in Tier-B and above. Nora is barely a Tier-C…” “What if… what if it causes permanent brain damage?” Then came my mother’s voice, cold enough to freeze hell over. “Brain damage is exactly what we want.” “A quiet, mindless control subject has the highest experimental value.” “Otherwise, look at what happens. She actually got accepted into Yale! That is a massive insult to my entire experimental model!” “A high-achieving Tier-C subject muddies my data! It makes the investors question the universal applicability of my theory!” “Get this through your head, Richard. Stella is our only future! Sacrificing one miserable Nora to secure Stella’s success is a completely acceptable loss.” The recording clicked off. The VIP suite fell into a suffocating, deathly silence. Every single guest stared at my mother as if she were a monster wearing human skin. Mr. Donovan’s face was purple with rage. My father collapsed into a nearby chair, his lips trembling, unable to form a single word. As for Evelyn, the elegant, well-maintained veneer had completely melted away, leaving her looking hollow and ghastly pale. She stared at me. She looked like she was seeing me for the first time, or perhaps looking at a demon clawing its way out of the abyss. I thought I had won. I thought this endless, suffocating nightmare was finally coming to an end. But right then, she suddenly started to laugh. It was a slow, eerie chuckle that sounded incredibly sinister in the dead quiet of the room. “You really think this is over, Nora?”

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1 The Winston Group’s grand anniversary gala was crawling with the city’s elite. The charismatic emcee enthusiastically invited Dominic, the CEO, and his quote-unquote “most vital partner” to pour the ceremonial champagne tower. I stood right beside him, watching his gaze soften as he turned to the woman in the pristine white gown. Under the blinding spotlight, he extended his hand to Jasmine. “Jasmine, you have worked relentlessly these past few months. This honor belongs to you.” In my past life, this was the exact moment I played my desperate trump card. I used the tiny, newly discovered life growing in my womb and the guarantee of securing the massive Henderson account to pathetically claw back my place at his side. I thought I had won. Right up until the eve of my delivery, when Dominic paraded a heavily pregnant Jasmine into the Winston family estate and threw a divorce settlement in my face. That was when the delusion shattered. I was never a wife to him. I was a stepping stone, a tool to solidify his corporate empire, meant to be discarded the second my usefulness expired. But I had been given a second chance. And this time, I refused to play their twisted game. … I watched with dead eyes as Jasmine linked her arm through Dominic’s. Together, they walked toward the shimmering champagne tower that symbolized the Winston Group’s crowning glory. Under the brilliant lights, they looked like the perfect power couple. I quietly took a step back into the shadows. Pulling out my phone, I deleted the ultrasound report I had queued up to send him. The ceremony concluded to thunderous applause. Jasmine approached me with a crystal flute of champagne in hand. Her tone dripped with fake apology, but her eyes were gleaming with triumph. “Mrs. Winston, I am so sorry. By all rights, it should have been you up there with the CEO.” Dominic strolled over, his expression utterly indifferent. “Valerie, tonight is a critical night for the corporation. Focus on the bigger picture and stop throwing a tantrum. Jasmine has sacrificed a lot for this company. Bringing her on stage shows the employees that leadership values their hard work.” I looked at him, a faint, icy smile touching my lips. “Am I throwing a tantrum? Miss Jasmine, did I demand an apology from you? You are awfully eager to paint me as the villain. It feels a bit like moral kidnapping, don’t you think?” The smug smile on Jasmine’s face instantly froze. Dominic’s brow furrowed into a sharp V. “Valerie, watch your tone. Jasmine was just trying to be polite.” “Then I thank Miss Jasmine for her overwhelming politeness.” I cut him off, my voice dropping to a freezing temperature. “Dominic, Mr. Henderson just arrived.” Jasmine chimed in with her sickeningly sweet voice, smoothly wrapping her hands around Dominic’s arm again. “Shall I accompany you to greet him?” Dominic nodded, not even looking at me. “Valerie, come with us. It is a good opportunity for you to socialize with Mrs. Henderson.” Looking at the two of them made my stomach churn with physical revulsion. “No thanks. I am not feeling well. I am going home.” Dominic’s voice turned incredibly harsh. “Valerie, do not make a scene at an event like this.” Jasmine’s face scrunched into a mask of exaggerated concern. “Mrs. Winston, tonight is so important. If you leave now and force Dominic to handle the investors all alone, it will look terrible to the board.” I looked at her and let out a genuine laugh. “With such a capable partner by his side, I am sure the CEO will succeed in whatever he attempts tonight.” Dominic’s face turned livid. He let out a cold scoff, refused to look at me a second longer, and turned on his heel, taking Jasmine with him. Watching their retreating figures, the very last agonizing thread of my lingering attachment from my past life dissolved into nothing. “Valerie, it has been years, but you certainly have changed.” A deep, teasing voice drifted from the shadows beside me. I turned around, momentarily stunned. The man leaning against the marble pillar wore an impeccably tailored dark suit. He had forgone a tie, and the top button of his dress shirt was casually undone. There was a lazy, predatory grace about him. I had no idea how long he had been watching. “What? Forgotten me already?” “Gabriel.” I breathed his name. Gabriel chuckled, his eyes glinting with amusement. “Becoming Mrs. Winston has certainly transformed you. You are so incredibly… tolerant.” I suppressed a wave of nausea from my early pregnancy and frowned slightly. “Since when do you enjoy eavesdropping, Gabriel?” A spark of interest flashed in his eyes. He raised an eyebrow and took a slow step forward, closing the distance between us. “Eavesdropping is never quite as thrilling as… stealing someone away. Wouldn’t you agree, Mrs. Winston?” 2 A small, genuine smile bloomed on my face. “You always did have a twisted sense of humor.” Gabriel laughed softly. “Maybe. But the fiery little girl who used to drop caterpillars down my shirt would never have swallowed an insult like that.” I froze. The memories came rushing back in a tidal wave. When we were kids, Gabriel and I were neighbors. He was the quintessential heir to a massive dynasty, always perfectly groomed and aloof. I was the neighborhood terror. None of the other kids wanted to play with me. Only Gabriel. He never got mad at my endless pranks. Even when I pushed him into the mud, he would just sit there, looking up at me with that same easy, indulgent smile. That all ended in high school when his family’s empire collapsed. They moved out of the estate in the dead of night, and I never saw Gabriel again. I couldn’t help but tease him back. “You have a surprisingly good memory.” Gabriel smiled, his gaze softening as he studied my pale face. “You look terrible. Do you want me to give you a ride home?” Before I could answer, Dominic’s voice sliced through the air like a whip. “Valerie, what the hell are you doing?” I turned to look at my husband, my expression completely blank. Dominic’s face was clouded with dark, stormy anger. “Aren’t you going to explain yourself?” “Explain what?” I asked, my tone flat. Gabriel took his time smoothing out his immaculate cuffs. “Valerie isn’t feeling well. I was just offering her a ride home. Don’t overthink it, Dominic. Valerie and I go way back. We were close long before she even knew your name.” Dominic’s jaw clenched. He fought to keep his rage in check as he issued an order. “Go wait for me in the VIP lounge. We will leave together when the gala ends.” The old me would have instantly submitted. But now… “There is no need. Focus on the bigger picture. Go entertain your guests, Dominic.” Minutes later, I was standing outside the hotel. A heavy suit jacket, still retaining a man’s body heat, settled over my shoulders. Gabriel stood behind me, wearing only his dress shirt in the cool night air. “My car is right here.” I pulled the lapels of the jacket tighter around myself. I didn’t refuse. “Thank you, Gabriel.” “You were never this polite when we were kids.” I made it back to the empty mansion. The second I stepped through the grand double doors, my best friend Sienna called. “Valerie, have you seen the trending topics? Are you okay?” I pulled up the social media app. [Winston Group CEO Dominic Caught on Midnight Rendezvous with Innocent Beauty. Intimate Hotel Lobby Photos Inside.] [Dominic’s New Flame Revealed. Billionaire Protects Mystery Woman from Paparazzi.] [High Society Fairy Tale Shattered? Divorce Rumors Swirl Around Valerie.] Beneath the glaring, sensationalized headlines were high-definition photos of Dominic and Jasmine. The angles were undeniably intimate. The relaxed, genuinely affectionate smile on his face was blindingly painful to look at. I used to think he was just naturally cold. I spent years agonizing, wondering if I just wasn’t good enough, warm enough, or perfect enough to melt his icy exterior. Now I knew the truth. His coldness was reserved exclusively for me. Sienna’s voice shifted from frantic worry to absolute fury. “Valerie, I am losing my mind! What kind of sick marriage is this? I don’t understand why you put up with it. What are you even getting out of this?” “Sienna.” I cut her off softly. My voice was eerily calm. “Don’t worry. I am done putting up with it.” There was dead silence on the other end of the line. She clearly hadn’t expected me to sound so detached. “Are you serious?” Once upon a time, I was naive enough to believe I had struck gold. I thought I had actually married for love within the ruthless world of corporate matchmaking. I abandoned my own career aspirations. I chipped away at my own personality to mold myself into the perfect accessory he required. He didn’t want me interfering with the company’s daily operations. Instead, he needed me to navigate the treacherous, venomous social circles of the city’s elite wives, spinning a massive, unbreakable web of connections for his benefit. For three years. I sat through agonizingly boring symphonies with Mrs. Kensington, just so she would whisper sweet things about the Winston Group into her husband’s ear. I swallowed my pride and catered to Mrs. Henderson’s volatile temper, securing her husband’s crucial vote during the board’s most vicious proxy war. I memorized the exact birth dates, allergies, and obscure hobbies of every single socialite and heiress in the city. I delivered flawless gifts and defused countless potential PR disasters before they even sparked. I conquered high society. Everyone praised Valerie as the most elegant, capable wife a billionaire could ask for. 3 Every time I saw Dominic on the financial news, celebrating a newly acquired monopoly and watching his net worth skyrocket, I convinced myself my sacrifices were worth it. I loved him. I was willing to be the invisible woman pulling the strings in the dark. But now… I was utterly repulsed by the thought. A heavy thud echoed from the foyer downstairs. I reassured Sienna and hung up the phone. Dominic was home. Reeking of expensive scotch, he stumbled into the living room, his brow furrowed. He didn’t even notice I wasn’t waiting at the door to take his coat. He violently yanked his silk tie loose, collapsed into the imported leather sofa, and let his head fall back, rubbing his temples with his eyes squeezed shut. I stood at the top of the sweeping staircase, staring down at him with arctic indifference. “Valerie, get me some water.” He gave the order out of sheer, arrogant habit. I didn’t move a muscle. When no glass of water magically appeared, he opened his bloodshot eyes and glared up at me. The crease between his eyebrows deepened. “Valerie, did you not hear me?” I remained perfectly still. Dominic sighed, as if my very existence was a monumental burden. The accusations started spilling out of his mouth. “What was that little stunt you pulled tonight? Leaving the gala without a word? Mrs. Henderson finally graced us with her presence, and instead of acting like a proper hostess, you vanish. Do you have any idea how hard I had to work to do damage control? If the Henderson project falls through because of your petty jealousy, do you know how many millions the company will lose?” Listening to his self-righteous, arrogant rambling, I suddenly wanted to laugh. He knew exactly what I was worth. He knew exactly how much power my social maneuvering gave him. But in his eyes, my blood, sweat, and humiliation were nothing but my basic marital duty. Looking at his flushed, intoxicated face, the horrific memories of my past life flashed before my eyes. The image of him kicking me out into the freezing rain while Jasmine leaned against his chest, rubbing her swollen belly with a victorious smirk. A dark, chilling laugh escaped my throat. Dominic’s ranting ground to a halt. He stared at me in genuine shock. “What the hell is so funny?” I stopped laughing. I slowly descended the stairs until I was standing directly in front of him. My eyes were stripped of the blind devotion and the suffocating tolerance of the past. There wasn’t even any disappointment left. Just an icy, hollow void. “Dominic, you are terrified the project will fail? Terrified the company will lose money?” I leaned down, forcing him to meet my gaze. “But did you ever stop to worry about how your wife… how I… would feel seeing my husband plastered all over the internet with another woman? Did you ever wonder if it would break my heart? If it would completely shatter my faith in you?” Dominic froze. A flicker of guilt flashed in his eyes, but it was instantly swallowed by defensive rage. “The media is just making things up to get clicks. Since when have you been so incredibly irrational? You are actually taking cheap tabloid gossip seriously?” “Making things up?” A bitter sneer twisted my lips. “A CEO and his secretary. Even if you are closely aligned, it is just a working relationship. Does work require you to hold her like she is the most precious thing in the world? You have played me for a fool for three years, Dominic. Don’t insult my intelligence.” “For three years, I have debased myself, playing court jester to those arrogant wives. Without me, there is no Henderson project. Without me, you never would have gotten the Kensington board votes. Without me, Commissioner Davis would have shut down your zoning permits.” “You sit on your throne, reaping all the rewards, and then you stand on stage and give all the glory and respect to your little secretary.” I took a deep, steadying breath, suppressing the violent urge to scream. “Dominic, the free ride is officially over.” He was stunned into silence. It took him a long moment to clumsily rise to his feet. His voice was laced with dark warning. “Valerie, tonight was messy. I admit that. The PR department will scrub the internet by morning. Once the Henderson contract is signed, I will buy you whatever you want. Just drop it.” ‘Whatever you want.’ That empty promise had kept me leashed to him for years. I didn’t need it anymore. From now on, whatever I wanted, I would take with my own two hands. “Keep your money, Dominic. I want a divorce.”

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