Ten years ago, I leaked corporate secrets that drove my parents to suicide by jumping off our company’s headquarters. Then, I framed my two older brothers—the men who had loved and protected me since childhood—and sent them to prison for ten years to take the fall for my crimes. Every year, I mailed a VHS tape to the penitentiary. The first year, I stood in a palatial mansion, mocking their miserable state in prison, and told them I leaked the secrets on purpose. The second year, I stood in front of our parents’ graves, laughing that they got what they deserved for being cowards. The third year, I held up two plane tickets, telling them I had exiled their wives to a slum in a third-world country, where they were living a fate worse than death. Until their ten-year sentence was up, and the tapes abruptly stopped. Three days before their release, a correctional officer suddenly said to Arthur. “When you go home, turn your life around. And try to be a little kinder to your sister. That little girl never stopped thinking about you guys every single year.” Arthur’s mouth twitched into a bitter smirk, his eyes dark. “She came every year?” “Yeah. Well, no, that’s not right. She’s…” The officer’s cell phone rang, and he hurried off. “Gotta take this. Remember, stay out of trouble.” 1 Ten years ago, I leaked corporate secrets that drove my parents to suicide by jumping off our company’s headquarters. Then, I framed my two older brothers—the men who had loved and protected me since childhood—and sent them to prison for ten years to take the fall for my crimes. Every year, I mailed a VHS tape to the penitentiary. The first year, I stood in a palatial mansion, mocking their miserable state in prison, and told them I leaked the secrets on purpose. The second year, I stood in front of our parents’ graves, laughing that they got what they deserved for being cowards. The third year, I held up two plane tickets, telling them I had exiled their wives to a slum in a third-world country, where they were living a fate worse than death. Until their ten-year sentence was up, and the tapes abruptly stopped. Three days before their release, a correctional officer suddenly said to Arthur. “When you go home, turn your life around. And try to be a little kinder to your sister. That little girl never stopped thinking about you guys every single year.” Arthur’s mouth twitched into a bitter smirk, his eyes dark. “She came every year?” “Yeah. Well, no, that’s not right. She’s…” The officer’s cell phone rang, and he hurried off. “Gotta take this. Remember, stay out of trouble.” …… Officer Miller pushed open the door, holding a stack of files. “Inmates 1103 and 1104. Release in three days. Come sign your discharge papers.” Arthur Vance and his younger brother, Ethan Vance, stepped forward. With their buzz cuts and prison uniforms, there was no trace left of the wealthy, arrogant Vance heirs they once were. All that remained was the numbness and coldness forged by ten years behind bars. Watching them sign the papers, Officer Miller let out a heavy sigh. “You guys kept your heads down in here. Build a good life on the outside. Your family is still waiting for you.” Arthur’s hand paused, the pen leaving a dark inkblot on the paper. His lips curled into a sarcastic, bitter smile. “Family…” “Heh.” Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, forcing down a wave of dark, complex emotions. If you looked closely, the corners of his eyes were rimmed with red. Officer Miller had worked at the penitentiary for a decade. He had watched them go from defiant rich kids to men beaten into submission by other inmates. It was tragic. “By the way, you guys have a sister, right? She…” “Don’t mention her.” Arthur’s voice was hoarse and cold. “She is not my sister. She is my enemy.” Officer Miller looked surprised, but didn’t push the subject. Meanwhile. I, the “enemy,” was floating right beside them. Watching their absolute disgust for me, my heart ached with profound loneliness. This year marks the tenth year since my death. It is also the tenth year I have spent accompanying my brothers in prison as a ghost. Even though my heart shatters every time. I do not regret the path I chose. As long as they are safe. During rec time, Ethan looked over at his older brother. “When we get out, do we go after the Caldwell Corporation first? Do we try to find the wives, or do we…” He hesitated, his voice dry. “Do we find our sister, and ask her exactly why she betrayed us?” Arthur remained silent. His knuckles were white as his fingers dug into his palms, the only sign of his boiling rage. “We do it all. As for Chloe… remember this, Ethan. She is not a Vance. And she is certainly not our sister!” My spectral body stiffened, a wave of sorrow washing over me. Even after all these years, facing their hatred still hurt more than I could bear. Arthur pulled a stack of VHS tapes from under his mattress. His eyes were filled with pure venom. But buried deep beneath the venom was the devastating pain of betrayal. “We’ve watched these a thousand times. Ethan, never forget what Chloe did to us!” Ethan’s eyes darkened. He remembered when they were first locked up. He spent every day screaming his innocence, begging for someone to listen. But in prison, no one cares. Until I sent the first tape. Back then, they thought it was a message of love or longing. But when they played it, they watched me confess, with my own mouth, to leaking the corporate secrets and driving our parents to their deaths! Ethan pulled up his sleeve, exposing his wrist. The skin was covered in dense, jagged scars—the physical proof of his agony from those early years. “I remember. I remember every single detail…” I crouched beside him, my ghostly fingers trembling. I wanted to trace those scars, but my fingers passed right through his arm, leaving no sensation behind. “I’m sorry…” I whispered, my ghostly eyes welling with tears. “But I don’t regret it.” Three days later, they were released. They rented a cheap apartment. Coincidentally, their neighbor was Officer Miller, the same guard who had delivered my tapes to them in prison. “You guys look good. Spirits seem high,” Officer Miller said, clapping them on the back. “If you need anything, just let me know.” Then, he remembered something. “Oh, right. Your sister left one last tape with me.” He handed a plastic case over to them. “She asked me to give this to you a month after your release. But since you’re already out, it doesn’t make sense for me to hold onto it.” Arthur stared at the tape. For two agonizing seconds, he didn’t reach for it. Ethan pressed his lips together, his expression conflicted. “Throw it in the trash, Miller. Thanks for everything over the years, but we don’t want any of Chloe’s garbage.” Officer Miller sighed. “Alright. Are you sure you don’t want to watch it? There’s a sticky note on the front.” He paused. “It just says, ‘The Truth’.” 2 Arthur’s footsteps faltered. A mocking laugh escaped his lips. “The truth? Every single tape she sent over the years had those exact words written on it.” “And what was the result?” He closed his eyes, violently suppressing the ache in his chest. “The result was always her bragging about how successfully she destroyed the Vance family!” Ethan took the tape from the officer and threw it directly into the hallway trash can. “We don’t need to watch it. We cut ties with her a long time ago.” I clenched my fists so tightly my spectral nails dug into my palms. But I couldn’t feel the physical pain. The true agony was the invisible bruise on my heart. I wanted to scream: Arthur, Ethan, everything on this final tape is the absolute truth. I desperately wanted them to watch it, yet simultaneously terrified of them finding out. That’s why I wrote those two words on every single tape. Rather than all of us suffering, it was better for me to bear the burden alone. Officer Miller looked taken aback. “Are you sure? When I met that young girl, she didn’t strike me as the kind of monster you describe.” Arthur scoffed coldly. “Before she drove our parents to suicide, bankrupted the company, and framed us for her crimes… I didn’t know she was a monster either!” Hearing that, fresh tears stung my eyes. Seeing Arthur getting worked up, Officer Miller didn’t press the issue. “Alright. But I should tell you… she gave me all ten tapes at the exact same time.” “So, the last time I saw her was actually ten years ago.” Arthur and Ethan exchanged a sharp look. A sudden, inexplicable jolt of panic seized their chests, but it passed too quickly for them to process it. They masked it with cold sarcasm. “She’s probably living like a queen somewhere. Why would she ever bother coming back to a dump like this?” “She’s sick in the head. Disappearing completely, but making sure to leave enough tapes to torture us every single year!” Arthur turned and walked into the apartment, slamming the door. Ethan followed, but when no one was looking, he quickly fished the tape out of the trash can and shoved it into his jacket. I watched him do it, a tiny spark of hope igniting in my chest. Maybe Ethan didn’t hate me as completely as he claimed? That evening. Officer Miller invited Arthur and Ethan over to his apartment for dinner. After a few beers. The three men started talking more freely. “You guys shouldn’t be so stubborn. I only met your sister once, but I trust my gut when it comes to reading people,” Officer Miller said, reminiscing about the day we met. Arthur and Ethan had just been processed into the facility. That was the day he met me—pale, stumbling, crying so hard my eyes were swollen shut. He took a sip of his beer. “You have no idea. That girl cried so loud the entire cell block could hear her. It broke my heart, and I’m a hardened guard.” Arthur and Ethan sat in silence, gripping their beer bottles so tightly their knuckles were white. “What right did she have to be sad? Everything that happened was her own doing!” Arthur violently smashed his beer bottle against the floor. It shattered right by my spectral feet. “I’m sorry.” I whispered, but my ghostly apologies could not cross the barrier into the world of the living. Officer Miller shook his head, slurring slightly from the alcohol. “No, listen to me. When that girl came in and handed me those ten tapes… I saw that she was missing a finger!” “And her wrists were completely covered in brutal, dark bruises.” I raised my right hand, looking down at my missing finger, and offered a bitter, tragic smile. In my mind, a memory flashed: my parents and my brothers gathered around me, watching me play the piano in our old living room. All of it had been ground to dust by the horrors that followed. Ethan froze completely. “What did you just say?” He shot up from his chair, the alcohol instantly burning off. Then, a harsh, cynical sneer twisted his face. “You must have confused her with someone else. Chloe is incredibly selfish. She would never let herself suffer like that!” “She’s probably sipping champagne in a mansion right now!” He spoke aggressively, but his arms were shaking. He was desperately trying to suppress the boiling hatred, and the tiny, undeniable trace of grief he refused to acknowledge. Arthur’s eyes were red. “Miller, you can’t judge a book by its cover. No one knows what kind of psycho she is better than I do!” Officer Miller was already half-asleep on the sofa, thoroughly drunk. But he kept mumbling to himself. “No… that’s not right. I heard that girl say something… She said she put you guys in prison to…” “To what… I can’t remember.” Surrounded by a suffocating darkness, Arthur and Ethan threw a blanket over the sleeping officer and left the apartment. As the front door clicked shut, the man on the sofa suddenly mumbled in his sleep. “That’s right… she said she did it to protect you…” 3 Early the next morning. Arthur and Ethan drove to the cemetery to visit our parents’ graves. “Mom, Dad. Ethan and I are finally here.” Arthur placed a bouquet of flowers on the grass and gently wiped the dirt off their faded photographs. His voice was hoarse and thick with tears. “I’m sorry it took ten years. You must have been waiting a long time. I know what you want to ask. You want to ask where Chloe is, right?” Ethan took over. “Chloe is doing great. Don’t worry about her. She got married and started her own family.” Arthur remained silent, offering no correction. I looked up, stunned, my nose burning with unshed tears. Even after everything, they still preserved my dignity in front of our parents. Ethan crouched down, buried his face in his arms like a little boy, and sobbed uncontrollably. After returning from the cemetery, they ran into Officer Miller in the hallway. “Hey, Miller,” Ethan said. “We’re flying out of the country the day after tomorrow. We’re going to pick some people up.” “Pick who up?” They hesitated for a second. “Our wives.” Officer Miller nodded, then remembered something. “Oh, by the way. I was just outside, and I noticed someone acting super shady, following you guys. Do you know him?” The brothers’ eyes went wide. They looked toward the end of the hall. Just in time to see the edge of a black jacket disappearing around the corner. “Stop right there!” Arthur roared. The grueling physical labor of ten years in prison kicked in. He sprinted down the hall, tackled the man in black, and pinned him to the floor in seconds. Ethan and Officer Miller ran over. When I saw the man pinned to the ground, my spectral pupils contracted violently. It was him! “Let me go!” the man thrashed, his face turning red. Officer Miller stared at him for two seconds. He looked incredibly familiar. Before he could place the face, a police cruiser pulled up to the curb outside. Two officers ran in. “Thank you so much! This guy is a fugitive. He’s got multiple homicides on his record. We’ve been hunting him for a while. We owe you one!” As the police cruiser drove away, a memory suddenly clicked in Officer Miller’s brain. “I remember now. I know where I’ve seen him.” Under the confused stares of the brothers, Miller’s expression turned grave. “Ten years ago, when Chloe came to drop off the tapes… she arrived in his car!” Arthur stopped dead in his tracks. A violent storm raged in his eyes. “I knew it! Chloe was involved with violent criminals even back then!” “I wonder what they promised her to make her betray us and drive our parents to suicide. What an absolute monster!” Ethan took a deep breath, forcing down the rage burning in his chest. “So why was he following us? Did Chloe find out we were released and send him? Is she still not satisfied?!” “Does she want to kill us the same way she killed Mom and Dad?!” Furious, he kicked a metal trash can against the wall. I didn’t know if he was angry about being stalked, or angry about being betrayed over and over again by the sister he loved. “Chloe! Are you ever going to stop?!” No! I stood next to them, completely panicked, waving my hands frantically. I don’t know why he’s here either! But my explanations were utterly useless. Then, Officer Miller, who had been quiet, muttered thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think so. Back then, Chloe didn’t look like she was ‘involved’ with him.” “It looked more like…” He paused, looking at the two brothers’ bloodshot eyes before finishing his sentence. “…like she was being held hostage.” I shivered violently, looking up at him in shock. How did he know? “Hostage?” Arthur and Ethan locked eyes. Both saw the shock and doubt reflecting back at them. A fleeting sense of dread brushed against their hearts, but it moved too fast for them to grasp. “You must have misread the situation!” Arthur instinctively denied it, for reasons he didn’t fully understand. “In those tapes, Chloe was living the high life! A hostage? Don’t make me laugh!” Officer Miller didn’t push it. He wasn’t entirely sure his gut feeling was right anyway. Ethan frowned. “Miller, do you have Chloe’s contact info?” Miller shook his head. “No. I only met her that one time ten years ago. After she handed me the tapes, I never saw her again.” He thought for a moment, then suggested hesitantly: “That tenth tape… maybe you guys should watch it. I have this feeling there’s something we don’t know hidden in there.” Arthur rejected the idea without a second thought. “Ethan, why are you even looking for that monster? Are you going to ask her why she betrayed the family?” “Don’t be an idiot. Someone with a heart that poisonous doesn’t even know what the word ‘guilt’ means!” “As for that tape, I threw it in the trash. It’s gone, and we don’t need to see it.” Ethan lowered his eyes and pressed his lips together. He didn’t mention that he had secretly fished the tape out of the trash. Just then, Miller’s wife came running down the stairs, panting heavily. She pointed frantically at Arthur and Ethan. “You guys need to get back to your apartment right now! The landlord’s little grandson snuck in and started messing with the metal lockbox you guys have! He put a tape in the VCR and hit play!” Ethan’s heart stopped. The lockbox! He had hidden the tape inside his personal lockbox! The two brothers sprinted back to their apartment. Just in time to see the mischievous kid pressing the ‘Play’ button. A familiar figure appeared on the old CRT television screen. “Arthur, Ethan… by the time you see this…” 4 Before the girl in the video could finish her sentence, Arthur charged forward with a thunderous expression and violently ripped the VHS tape out of the VCR. My voice was abruptly cut off. The only sound left in the room was the harsh, static hiss of the television. Everyone’s eyes dropped to the tape in Arthur’s hand. This was the tenth tape. The only tape out of the ten that they had never watched. If Arthur had been just a few seconds slower, they would have heard what I was about to say. I instinctively threw myself in front of Arthur. “Arthur, please, I’m begging you. Just listen to me this one time.” But my ghostly fingers passed right through his wrist. No matter how hard I begged, I couldn’t stop him from pulling the tape entirely out of the machine. “Get out!” Arthur roared at the kid. The little boy, terrified by his explosive anger, burst into tears and ran out of the apartment. The door slammed shut behind him. Ethan looked at the tape in Arthur’s hand, looking incredibly guilty. “Arthur, I…” Arthur spun around and hurled the tape directly at Ethan’s chest. “Ethan, why the hell did you dig her garbage out of the trash?!” “Are you a glutton for punishment?! She murdered Mom and Dad, she ruined our lives, and you still can’t let her go, can you?!” The tape bounced off Ethan’s chest and hit the floor. The side with the sticky note that read “The Truth” landed face-up, glaringly obvious to everyone in the room. Ethan kept his head down and didn’t answer. It wasn’t that he didn’t hate me. On the contrary, for the last ten years, he had hated me with every fiber of his being. But because he had hated me for so long, he desperately needed to know what my final message to them was. Was it just another victory lap? Was it a final, parting shot of salt in their wounds right as they were released? His lips moved, but in the end, he didn’t suggest playing the tape again. Arthur seemed to read his mind, his face growing even darker. “What, you still want to hear what she has to say?” Ethan pressed his lips into a tight line. “I don’t.” “Good.” Arthur picked up the tape from the floor and glared coldly at the sticky note. In the next second, he ripped the note off, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it in the trash. “What ‘truth’? It’s just more of her sick mind games.” “Hasn’t she lied to us enough over the years?” The crumpled ball of paper sat at the bottom of the trash can. But Arthur still gripped the tape tightly in his hand. Watching the tense standoff between the brothers, Officer Miller couldn’t help but intervene. “If you’re so sure there’s no truth in it, why not just watch it and get it over with?” Arthur’s eyes turned lethal. “And let her humiliate us one last time?” “I wouldn’t exactly call what she was saying ‘humiliating’,” Miller reasoned quietly. “Miller!” Arthur’s voice cracked like a whip. Ten years in prison had left his nerves frayed and hyper-sensitive. Especially when it came to me, his fragile self-control would shatter instantly. “Every single year, she sends a tape just to remind us that she destroyed the Vance empire! That she drove our parents to jump off that roof! And that she is the reason we lost everything!” By the end of his rant, Arthur’s voice was hoarse and broken. He glared at the tape in his hand, his eyes burning with undisguised loathing. Officer Miller stayed quiet for a moment, staring at the plastic casing. “But you watched the first nine.” “This is the only one you haven’t seen.” “How can you be so sure the content is the same as the others?” Arthur’s grip on the tape tightened convulsively. Ethan’s head instinctively snapped up. I stood between them, barely daring to breathe. See? If you just watch it, you’ll know. But the next second, Arthur let out a cold laugh, brutally crushing the tiny sliver of doubt that had just formed. “Because she filmed it.” “As long as it’s something left behind by Chloe Vance, nothing good will ever come of it.” He tossed the tape carelessly onto the kitchen counter. Officer Miller looked at the two brothers’ rigid expressions and let out a heavy sigh. It’s always impossible to judge another family’s trauma. He walked over and patted Arthur on the shoulder. “Arthur, I’m going to trust my gut on this one.” “If that girl, Chloe, is truly as monstrous as you say, and if her absolute devastation that day in the prison lobby was an act… then she deserves an Oscar.” “You don’t understand… that day, that little girl literally coughed up blood from crying so hard.” Both brothers completely froze. A flash of shock and sheer panic crossed their eyes. My spectral eyes fluttered. That day, I had traded my life for one last chance to look at them. I had no regrets. 5 Arthur’s jaw clenched tight as he violently forced down the panic welling up in his chest. For a moment, the room was consumed by a suffocating silence. After a long pause, Arthur looked up at Officer Miller. “You still think Chloe is a good person, don’t you?” He let out a dry, humorless chuckle, ignoring the dull ache in his heart. “I don’t blame you for being fooled by her. We were fooled by her for twenty years.” As he spoke, he walked into his bedroom and brought out the other nine VHS tapes. “Watch them. Once you’re done, you’ll see exactly what kind of sociopath Chloe really is.” “Arthur…” Ethan murmured softly. “It doesn’t matter. We’re flying out tomorrow. We’re never coming back here, so none of this means anything anymore.” Officer Miller sat up straight, his eyes locked unblinking on the television screen. Click. The first tape began playing. “Arthur, Ethan. Are you guys suffering in prison right now? Let me tell you a secret: I was the one who leaked the corporate data to the Caldwells. Don’t bother asking me why, because I despise you both! I hate you! Living in the Vance family made me feel like an idiot!” Officer Miller’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. Arthur smirked, a smile that looked agonizingly painful. “You know what state Ethan and I were in when we first got locked up. Mom and Dad were dead. We didn’t want to live.” “It was her pure, unadulterated malice that gave me the will to survive, just so I could get out and kill her.” The second tape played. “I shipped your wives off to a slum in South America. I wonder if they’ll even survive the year. When you guys finally get out, you’ll have absolutely no one left. Don’t even try to look for me, because I guarantee I’ll be living a much happier life than you ever will.” Arthur closed his eyes, his grip on the remote control tight enough to crack the plastic. “Do you see it now? The ‘kind-hearted’ Chloe you remember couldn’t even spare two innocent women.” “I can’t even stomach imagining what kind of hell they’ve been living in all these years!” Ethan kept his head bowed, his hands balled into tight fists. He was desperately trying to suppress the hatred, and the tiny, unwanted sliver of grief that still clung to him. “Miller, stop trying to defend her. She’s not worth it.” “But…” Miller hesitated. “I just… I still believe what I saw.” I crouched in the corner, sobbing uncontrollably. It’s not true… I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry… But I didn’t know what else to do. All I could do was let the bitter sorrow tear through my chest. Right then, the landlord’s mischievous grandson ran back into the apartment. Before anyone could react, he slammed his hand down on the VCR’s ‘Play’ button for the tenth tape, flashing a rebellious grin. “Stop it!” Arthur roared, lunging forward to turn the machine off. But then, a weak, trembling sigh echoed from the television speakers. “Arthur, Ethan… if you’re watching this, go to Arlington Cemetery. Plot 19.” All three men froze instantly, their eyes snapping to the screen. The girl in the video offered a small, bitterly sad smile. “That is where… you’ll find my headstone.” 6 The shouting in the apartment died instantly, replaced by a hollow, terrifying silence. The men stared at the screen, shocked and unsettled. The girl in the video was deathly pale. She was sitting in a hospital bed. Behind her wasn’t a sprawling luxury mansion. It was a wall of clinical life-support monitors. Arthur stumbled backward, nearly falling over. A wave of inexplicable, suffocating dread threatened to swallow him whole. Ethan’s eyes lost their focus, staring blankly at the TV. “What does she mean?” “What does she mean… her headstone?” His voice was shaking violently. He looked at Officer Miller with desperate, pleading eyes. “Miller, do you understand what she’s saying?” The officer remained silent for a moment. “Keep watching. You need to find the truth for yourselves.” Suddenly, Arthur stood up, his face dark with fury, and forcefully ejected the tape from the VCR. The television screen went black to static. “Arthur?” Ethan looked at him, eyes rimmed with red, completely confused. Arthur turned to face them. His eyes were filled with hatred, mockery, and a deep-seated panic he refused to acknowledge. “What are you looking at?!” His tone was aggressive, as if he were using anger to mask the tremor in his voice. “Don’t be so naive! You really think she’s dropping some massive truth bomb? Heh! I’ll tell you the truth: she betrayed us!” “And now she’s living it up somewhere on a beach!” “Chloe is the most selfish person on the planet. Do you honestly think she’s dead?!” Following his outburst, the room fell silent once again. It was so quiet that the faint creak of Arthur’s knuckles as he gripped the tape behind his back was clearly audible. Officer Miller and his wife exchanged a look, deciding not to push the issue further. The world isn’t just black and white. The bonds of family and love are the most complicated mazes of all. You can’t escape them, and you can’t fight them. Especially blood ties. I stood off to the side, quietly watching it all unfold. A cold draft blew past the window. Even as a ghost, I felt freezing. So cold I wanted to cry. After a long time, Ethan finally stood up. He reached out and took the tape from Arthur. “Forget it. It’s been ten years. What’s done is done.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Miller, thanks for taking care of us these last few days. Arthur and I are leaving tomorrow, and we’re not coming back.” Miller nodded, sighing helplessly. “Alright. Safe travels, guys.” After Miller left. The two brothers sat on the sofa in complete silence for hours. Unlit cigarettes dangled from their lips. They just let the cigarettes burn down, the ash falling onto their fingers. “Arthur, let’s pack our bags,” Ethan said, his voice raspy. “Don’t bring the tapes. They’re just going to make us miserable.” Arthur thought about it for a long time, then nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “570847”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

It was the final Thanksgiving before our college graduation, and my boyfriend’s custom-ordered pie box finally arrived for our friend group. The velvet-lined box had exactly four compartments. In each compartment sat a miniature pie, beautifully baked with a name etched into the crust. My older brother, Liam. My childhood best friend, Mason. My boyfriend, Ethan. And my younger adopted sister, Chloe. Four names. Perfectly arranged. Mine was the only one missing. Everyone’s eyes immediately darted to Ethan. He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged casually. “The custom box only had four slots. Maya doesn’t really like sweets anyway, so I just didn’t get one for her.” “Besides, it’s just pie. She’s never cared about this kind of stuff.” Liam, ever the older brother, chimed in to smooth things over: “Come on, you two have been dating for three years. What’s his is yours, right? Just share Ethan’s.” I swallowed the heavy, suffocating lump in my throat, just like I always did, and offered a quiet, “Okay.” I honestly thought the holiday lantern festival that night would be different. I thought there was no way they could leave me out again. But after sitting alone in the living room for half an hour, I finally checked social media and realized they had already left without me. I called an Uber and went downtown by myself. At the very end of the crowded festival street, I saw them. All four of them were huddled together under a canopy of lights, taking a group selfie. Not a single one of them had even thought to call me. I stood alone in the shadows, and suddenly, the last few years flashed before my eyes. When all five of us went to the movies, my ticket was always the one isolated in the back row. When we were all supposed to take the LSAT prep course together, I was the only one who was completely kept in the dark about the registration deadline. It wasn’t that there just “happened” to be a shortage of space or time. It was that whenever someone had to be excluded, I was always, unequivocally, their first choice to cut. If a heart is already perfectly divided into four pieces, there’s no point in trying to force a fifth piece into the puzzle. 1 I didn’t walk into the canopy of lights. Just as I turned around, I heard Chloe’s bright laugh echoing behind me. “Ethan, you blinked! Take another one!” Ethan laughed and obliged. No one noticed I had walked away. On the drive back to campus, Mason suddenly pulled us all into a small, boutique gift shop. When the owner saw him, he immediately reached under the counter and pulled out a velvet display case. “Your custom bookmarks are ready.” Lined up inside were four exquisite, silver maple-leaf bookmarks. Each one had a small, colored glass bead dangling from the bottom, with a name and a graduation quote engraved on the back. Liam’s read: A Bright Future. Mason’s read: Dreams Realized. Ethan’s read: A Smooth Journey. Chloe’s read: Joy Always. None for me. The owner counted them twice, looking incredibly awkward. “Wait, weren’t there five of you?” Mason froze for a second, then pushed his glasses up his nose. “When I placed the order, Chloe just happened to be sitting right next to me.” “I’ll order Maya’s next time.” Chloe gripped her silver leaf tightly, her voice small and delicate. “Maya… do you want mine?” She barely extended her hand before Liam immediately pressed it back down. “It has your name engraved on it. It’s useless to her.” Ethan laughed and affectionately ruffled Chloe’s hair. “She doesn’t like little trinkets like this anyway. Just keep it.” It’s true that I didn’t care for useless knick-knacks. But the ticket stubs from our very first dates, the paper cranes he used to fold for me in class—I had meticulously saved every single one of them in my memory box. It wasn’t that I didn’t like gifts. It was just that whenever I was forgotten, they justified it by telling themselves I didn’t care. When we stepped out of the shop, the night air had turned freezing. Liam popped the trunk of his car and pulled out four identical, lightweight windbreakers. They were branded merch from the corporate firm where he had just finished his internship, each with a different colored logo on the chest. He handed one to Mason, tossed one to Ethan, and personally draped one over Chloe’s shoulders. The final jacket, he put on himself. I stood by the car, shivering in the cold. Liam zipped his jacket all the way up before he finally seemed to remember I was there. “You never used to get cold, right?” “I remember when we were kids, you’d run outside in the dead of winter in your pajamas.” Ethan reached out and touched my hand. “You are a little cold.” He said the words, but he didn’t take off his jacket. He simply wrapped my hand in his. “Just hold out for a few more minutes. We’ll be back at the dorms soon.” His hand was warm. But for the very first time, that warmth didn’t make me feel loved. I finally realized how effortless ‘caring’ could be. As long as you ask the question, you’ve done your duty. No actual effort required. When we finally got back to the dorms, Chloe pulled out the polaroids she had taken that night. She excitedly handed them out. “These are the four best shots of the night! Exactly one for each of us!” Liam’s photo was of him adjusting Chloe’s hairpin. Mason’s was of him and Chloe playing a carnival game by the river. Ethan’s was of him standing directly behind Chloe, holding a paper lantern over her head. And Chloe’s photo was of her smiling at the camera, while the other three guys looked at her. They huddled together, laughing and debating whose expression was the funniest. I stood under the dull glow of the streetlamp, my hands completely empty. It wasn’t until the photos were all distributed that Chloe finally looked at me, hesitating. “Maya… the film cartridge ran out right before we got to you tonight.” “I’ll bring an extra pack next time, I promise I’ll get a picture of you.” I nodded. “Okay.” Ethan seemed to notice how incredibly quiet I was. He reached out and grabbed my arm. “Are you upset again?” “It’s literally just a piece of film. Is it really that serious?” I gently pulled my arm out of his grip. “I’m not upset. I’m just tired.” When I got upstairs, I stood by my dorm window for a very long time. The four of them were still hanging out downstairs. I watched them stack the four silver bookmarks together, snap a photo, and send it to our group chat. The caption read: [Graduating soon, but we’ll never be apart. Forever.] I didn’t ‘heart’ the message. Instead, I opened an email I had received earlier that afternoon. It was an offer from a tech firm in Seattle. They had asked me three separate times if I was willing to join their core development team early. The first two times, I politely declined, claiming I was too busy with graduation prep. The truth was, Ethan had told me he couldn’t handle a long-distance relationship. My brother had told me that family should always stay in the same city. And Mason had analytically broken down why staying close to our support system was better than any out-of-state opportunity. But tonight, I clicked ‘Reply’ and typed a single sentence. [I accept the offer for early onboarding.] Less than ten minutes later, HR replied. [Your corporate housing is secured. Please report to the Seattle office in exactly three days.] Three days. Exactly enough time to surgically remove myself from their lives forever. 2 The day of our graduation photoshoot, the campus turf felt like an oven. I had just zipped up my graduation gown when I saw Ethan walking toward me, holding four bouquets of flowers. Sunflowers for Liam. White roses for Mason. Pink tulips for Chloe. He held a massive bouquet of baby’s breath for himself. I looked down at my hands. Empty again. Ethan followed my gaze, and the smile on his face faltered for a microsecond. “The florist was running a bundle deal on four bouquets.” “I was originally going to buy yours separately, but things got so chaotic I completely forgot.” He looked around, spotted a bush of wild gardenias growing near the sidewalk, snapped a branch off, and handed it to me. The stem was jagged, the leaves already drooping from the heat. “Here. You love gardenias, right?” Several classmates were already turning their heads to stare. I didn’t want to cause a scene and humiliate myself right before the group photo, so I took the flower. Ethan immediately let out a massive sigh of relief. “See? Problem solved.” When it was time for the group photo, Chloe stood dead center. Liam adjusted the tassel on her cap. Mason carefully tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Ethan knelt down and meticulously smoothed out the wrinkles in her graduation gown. I stood off to the side, looking like a random stranger who had accidentally wandered into the frame. The photographer waved his hand, yelling: “Get closer!” I had barely taken half a step toward Ethan when someone accidentally bumped into Chloe from behind. Ethan’s reflexes kicked in instantly. He wrapped his arms around her to catch her. The camera flashed. In the final, permanent photo, the four of them were tightly clustered together, holding each other. I was standing exactly half a step away. An island. After the photos, Liam pulled four custom graduation teddy bears out of a shopping bag. Each bear was dressed in the graduation regalia of their specific major, with their names embroidered on the gowns. Chloe’s eyes lit up with pure joy. “Liam! When did you get these?!” “A month ago.” Liam smiled, handing her a bear. “You said you wanted what everyone else had, right?” I stared at the empty shopping bag in his hand. “Where’s mine?” Asking that question out loud made me feel utterly, desperately pathetic. Liam frowned. “When I was placing the order, you never dropped your exact major concentration in the group chat.” “Do I really need to announce my major in a group chat for my own brother to know what it is?” I asked, genuinely bewildered. He choked on his words, unable to answer. Mason immediately stepped in to run damage control. “The vendor stopped taking custom orders weeks ago.” “Maya, you hate stuffed animals anyway. It would just gather dust in your room.” It was always like this. If they forgot to buy me something, it was because I “didn’t like it.” If they forgot to ask me, it was because I “didn’t speak up.” They possessed an infinite arsenal of excuses to prove that my exclusion was always entirely my own fault. That afternoon, the university unveiled the senior memorial wall. Mason was the one in charge of curating the photos for our friend group. Right in the dead center of the display, under the bold heading: [Four Years of Us], was a massive photo of the four of them standing under the cherry blossoms on campus. A classmate who knew me walked by and asked, confused: “Maya, aren’t you best friends with them?” “Why aren’t you on the memorial wall?” Chloe nervously twisted the hem of her gown. Mason answered for her. “Maya hates taking pictures.” Liam casually added, “She rarely shows up to group hangouts anyway.” I stood there, staring at them in absolute disbelief. I hated taking pictures? For the past four years, every single dinner, every single birthday, every single road trip—I was the one behind the camera. Because they always told me I had the “best eye.” My camera roll was filled with thousands of photos documenting their growth from awkward freshmen to graduating seniors. But there wasn’t a single photo of me. It wasn’t that I didn’t show up. It was that the person standing behind the camera was never actually seen by the people standing in front of it. That night, alone in my dorm room, I unclasped the matching couple’s bracelet from my wrist. The inside of the silver band had Ethan’s initials engraved on it. I had worn it for three years. It had left a permanent, faint indent on my skin. I placed it in the very back of my desk drawer. Just as I slid the drawer shut, Ethan texted me. [Are you still throwing a tantrum over the flowers?] [I literally picked a gardenia for you. Don’t ruin today over a stupid flower.] I stared at the glowing screen for a very long time. Finally, I typed back two words. [I’m not.] Because a person who has genuinely decided to leave doesn’t need to throw a tantrum to prove they were wronged. 3 At the graduation dinner that night, Chloe suggested we do a “letter exchange.” She pulled a stack of beautiful, wax-sealed envelopes out of her bag. “Since we’re all going to be super busy after graduation, we won’t get to see each other every day.” “So I secretly asked you guys to write letters to each other, and we’re going to open them tonight!” Liam laughed, lightly knocking on her forehead. “You and your dramatic rituals.” Despite his complaint, he was the very first one to pull his letters out. Mason and Ethan both pulled out three envelopes each. Clearly, they had planned this weeks in advance. And I was the only one kept entirely in the dark. When the letters were distributed, everyone had exactly three envelopes sitting in front of them. Chloe opened hers, and her eyes immediately welled with tears. Liam wrote that she needed to stop staying up so late. Mason promised that no matter what time it was, he would always answer her calls. Ethan wrote that he hoped she would always be happy, and that she never needed to feel insecure or anxious again. I sat at the table. The space in front of me was completely empty. No one had written me a letter. And obviously, I hadn’t prepared any for them either. Chloe finally noticed me, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Maya… didn’t Mason tell you?” Mason froze. “I thought Ethan was going to tell her.” Ethan frowned deeply. “Wasn’t Liam the one who made the group chat for this?” Liam pulled out his phone, scrolling through his messages. He suddenly realized that when they organized the letter exchange, he had created a separate, four-person group chat. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I just made it really quick, I didn’t think about it.” “Besides, you and Ethan are basically a package deal. His letters count as yours too.” Ethan smoothly folded the letter he had written to Chloe and put it away. “We have plenty of time. I’ll write you one when we get home.” I offered a faint smile. “No need.” Something that has to be demanded before it is given holds exactly zero value. Halfway through the dinner, the waiter brought out a massive dessert platter. Chloe clapped her hands excitedly. “Once we all move into the Oakwood Apartments, we can do dinners like this all the time!” I looked up. “What Oakwood Apartments?” The entire table went dead silent. Chloe looked at Ethan, then at Mason, then at Liam. “Did… did no one tell you?” “We already signed a lease for four apartments in the same complex.” Liam was in Building 1. Mason was in Building 3. Ethan and Chloe had actually rented two units on the exact same floor. They had been discussing this for a month. They had toured the complex three times. They had even planned out whose apartment they would host game nights in. But not a single person had ever asked me where I was going to live after graduation. Seeing the look on my face, Liam sighed, his tone laced with exasperation. “Aren’t you just going to live with Ethan?” I turned and looked directly at Ethan. He immediately averted his eyes. Several agonizing seconds passed before he finally spoke. “Chloe just got her first real corporate job. She’s terrified of living alone.” “So I’m going to move into Oakwood first, just to make sure she’s okay and help her settle in.” I gripped my water glass so tightly my knuckles turned white. “What about the apartment we already put a deposit on?” “Just cancel it,” he said, waving it off like it was nothing. “If you still want to live there, you can just sign the lease yourself. Once Chloe is comfortable at her new job, I’ll move in with you.” “How long is that going to take?” “How the hell should I know?” Ethan’s tone turned incredibly defensive, as if I were the one being unreasonable and aggressive. “This is her very first time out in the real world. Can you not be a little understanding?” I looked at the four people sitting at the table. Liam was staring down at his plate, clearly endorsing Ethan’s decision. Mason pushed his glasses up his nose, gently suggesting I not ruin the celebratory mood. Chloe was biting her lip, looking like she was about to burst into tears. They all universally agreed that Chloe needed to be coddled as she entered the “real world.” But they completely forgot that I was also starting a new job, at a new company, and navigating life in a brand new city entirely alone. But since we were kids, they had collectively decided that I simply didn’t need anyone. I stood up. “I’m going to the restroom.” No one tried to stop me. By the time I reached the door, they were already back to excitedly discussing what kind of dishware they were going to buy for their new apartments. I walked to the end of the hallway and called my leasing agent. “Hi, that apartment we viewed last week? I need to cancel my application.” The agent warned me that I would lose my security deposit. I told him I didn’t care. After hanging up, I opened the digital employment contract from the tech firm in Seattle. I scrolled to the very last page, and typed my digital signature. Three years of love. Over two decades of family and friendship. When it finally comes time to let go, all it really takes is a signature. When I walked back to the table, they were raising their glasses, toasting to the fact that they were all going to live together. I picked up my water glass and gently clinked it against theirs. My phone vibrated under the table. [Contract fully executed. Please report to the Seattle office on Monday at 9:00 AM sharp.] At that exact moment, Ethan’s phone buzzed as well. He read the automated email notification from the leasing office, and his face instantly darkened. “Maya. You canceled the lease on our apartment?” I offered a simple, “Yeah.” “You weren’t going to live there anyway.” He glared at me, letting out a harsh, cold laugh. It was the laugh of a man who believed that if he indulged me any further, I would become completely unhinged. “Fine. If you think playing this little game of chicken is going to force me to apologize, go ahead.” “I want to see exactly who breaks first.” He didn’t know. Between him and me, the game was already over. 4 The night before I was scheduled to leave, our five-person group chat suddenly updated. Everyone changed their profile pictures. The four of them had cropped a massive, custom graduation illustration into four separate images. Liam was the top-left corner. Mason was the top-right. Ethan and Chloe were the bottom-left and bottom-right, fitting together perfectly to complete the image. I stared at the screen for a few seconds, then clicked on the chat members. There were exactly five icons. But no matter how you arranged them, my generic landscape photo was the only one that didn’t fit. It was completely, aggressively extraneous. Chloe sent a message to the group. [This matching PFP set is so cute!] Liam replied with a pat-on-the-head emoji. [Of course it is, you picked it.] Mason, who rarely participated in group banter, chimed in. [It’s very memorable.] Ethan tagged me directly. [Don’t overthink it, the artist only offered a four-person commission template.] Before I could even type a single word, he had already projected his own manufactured emotional response onto me. I closed the app without replying. The next day at noon, Liam sent a location pin to a restaurant. [7:00 PM tonight. Final family dinner before we all start working. Do not be late.] Attached was a screenshot of a prepaid reservation. A four-person set menu. Two entrees, two sides, one large soup, and exactly four drinks. I replied: [I thought this was a family dinner?] It took Liam a very long time to process what I meant. [Chloe has been wanting to try this place for months, and the four-person combo was a great deal.] [When you get here, we’ll just order an extra side for you. Stop obsessing over petty details.] I stared at the phrase “we’ll just order an extra side for you,” and felt a wave of profound, exhausting absurdity wash over me. They constantly told me I was the most important person in the family. Yet when they booked a table, no one ever remembered to reserve a seat for me. They would wait until I was physically standing awkwardly at the edge of the table, pull over a folding chair from another section, and ask the waiter for an extra set of silverware. As if tossing me a chair at the very end completely erased the fact that they had forgotten I existed in the first place. That afternoon, I packed the absolute last item of clothing into my suitcase. There were only a few things left in my desk drawer. The cheap plastic hair clip Liam bought me when we were kids. The notebook Mason had meticulously copied his history lectures into for me. The ticket stub from my very first movie date with Ethan. And the ugly, lopsided origami crane Chloe had folded for me the week my parents adopted her. I didn’t throw them away. I just left them in the drawer. Taking them with me would mean I still cared enough to hold on. Throwing them away would require emotional effort. When you truly, deeply do not care anymore, even throwing things in the trash feels like a waste of energy. As I zipped my suitcase shut, Ethan sent me a photo of four VIP wristbands to an upcoming music festival. [Chloe has been trying to get these for months, she finally scored them.] [It’s exactly four tickets. We’re going to take her this weekend.] [You hate crowds anyway, so just sit this one out.] I couldn’t even remember how many times they had weaponized the phrase “you hate it anyway” to justify excluding me. The truth was, that specific indie band was one I had been listening to with Ethan for three years. When we failed to get tickets last year, he held me in his arms and promised that he would absolutely take me to see them live the next time they toured. Turns out, the promise didn’t vanish. He just fulfilled it for someone else. I rolled my suitcase out of the dorm room and dropped my key in the RA’s dropbox. I didn’t leave a melodramatic goodbye letter. I didn’t post a massive, emotional manifesto calling them out. They wouldn’t read it anyway. And even if they did, they would just accuse me of being overly dramatic and sensitive. On the Uber ride to the airport, the group chat was blowing up with notifications. Liam was demanding I get to the restaurant early to secure a good table. Mason asked me to pick up a box of those specific egg tarts Chloe loved on my way there. Chloe asked if I was still mad at them, followed by a pleading, crying emoji. The final message was from Ethan. [Do not show up tonight with an attitude.] [When the music festival is over, we’ll buy you a t-shirt or something.] I didn’t reply. Right before I walked through the TSA security checkpoint, I opened the group chat settings and hit Leave Group. A confirmation prompt popped up on the screen. I clicked Confirm, and stepped out of their lives completely, leaving absolutely zero trace behind. Once I boarded the flight and settled into my window seat, my phone buzzed one last time. It was a voice memo from Ethan. His voice was laced with that same, familiar, exhausted exasperation. “Maya, what the hell are you throwing a tantrum about now?” “If you see a message, respond to it. Stop making everyone sit around waiting for you.” As the plane began taxiing down the runway, another text from Ethan came through. [Be there by 7:00. If you’re late, we’re not waiting for you.] I looked out the window. The familiar skyline of the city was already beginning to shrink, and the distance between me and that restaurant was rapidly expanding from a few miles to a few thousand miles. I powered off my phone. They would probably just ask the waiter to pull up a fifth chair tonight. But that chair was going to stay empty forever.

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1 After failing to conquer two domineering billionaire CEOs, I completely gave up. When the System assigned the third target, it gave up too. [Why do you always get the death ending? If you die one more time, we’re going to be downgraded to NPCs.] My eyes instantly lit up. [Wait, is that an option?!] So, when my new target’s childhood sweetheart slapped me hard across the face and demanded I dive into the ocean to retrieve her bracelet, I didn’t say a word. I just pitched forward and dove headfirst into the freezing water. The target was dumbfounded, frantically screaming at his bodyguards to fish me out. “Trying to get my attention like this? You’re just a kept woman. Do you really think your life is worth that much?” He used the tip of his expensive leather shoe to tilt my chin up, his tone dripping with mockery. I offered a weak, cynical smile. “You’re right. It’s not worth anything. So I’ll just go die now.” Before he could react, I snatched the wine bottle from his hand, smashed it on the deck, grabbed a jagged shard, and slashed it brutally across my wrist. The target was completely paralyzed with shock. As my consciousness began to fade, I heard him screaming into his phone: “Hey! What the hell did you guys do to her in the previous rounds?! This girl is literally going to kill herself!” Wait, did he just say the names of my first two targets? Perfect. If I can rack up a few more deaths with these guys, I can finally be free! … When I opened my eyes, the harsh, clinical smell of disinfectant stung my nose. The room was noisy. “I didn’t even do anything yet. Watching her grovel and simp for you guys in the previous rounds actually made me kind of jealous. It’s finally my turn, and she looks like half a corpse. I actually feel bad for her.” The tone was light, flippant, and teasing. I recognized the voice immediately. It was my newest target, Arthur Sterling. The System shrieked in my ear: [No wonder every single mission failed! They were manipulating the affection meters the whole time! Thank God you chose to give up, otherwise you’d be forced to endure a third round with these disgusting scumbags… Whatever, I’m done trying too. Just call me the Death System from now on. Once you die this time, we’re heading straight to the NPC track.] I let out a cold scoff. My brain was throbbing from swallowing too much seawater, and I had absolutely no desire to speak. A second later, the hospital room door was kicked open. Arthur swaggered in, his arm wrapped tightly around his childhood sweetheart. The woman buried her face in his chest, putting on a sickeningly fragile act, sobbing: “Arthur, I swear I didn’t say anything to her. I don’t know why she suddenly went crazy… Everyone was rushing to save her, and now I look like the bad guy. I just wanted her to give back the limited-edition bracelet she stole from me…” She snuck a glance at me, her eyes flashing with a familiar, triumphant smugness. During the previous missions, I had gotten entirely used to being framed and provoked like this. At first, I fought back desperately. I argued until I was blue in the face, practically willing to rip myself open just to prove my innocence. Later, I learned to just drop to my knees, beg for mercy, and accept whatever punishment they threw at me. I did it all just to appear docile, hoping the target would pat me on the head and grant me a few measly affection points. And now I find out… the affection meters were fake the entire time. A crushing sense of absurdity washed over me. Seeing my dead, emotionless eyes and my absolute refusal to engage, Arthur was clearly irritated. He aggressively yanked the hospital blanket off me. “That bracelet is worth 1.5 million dollars. How exactly are you going to pay for it?” I locked eyes with Arthur, my gaze completely blank. “Let me tell you something. Stop trying to use these cheap tricks to get my attention. Someone of your status should consider it an absolute blessing that I even keep you around for entertainment…” His arrogant lecture was abruptly cut off. Because right in front of him, fueled by some unknown surge of adrenaline, I bolted upright, vaulted toward the window, and was already halfway out. I smiled, feeling lighter than I had in years. In the next split second, a hand clamped down on my arm like a vice. The violent jerk pulled at my torn muscles, the sharp pain dragging me brutally back to reality. “What the fuck are you doing?!” His casual, arrogant facade shattered completely. “We are on the third floor! Jumping from here won’t kill you. Do you honestly think threatening me with your pathetic life is going to work?!” He said that, but his fingers were digging into my forearm so hard I thought the bone would snap. “You psychotic, manipulative bitch…” Arthur hissed the words through gritted teeth. “You wanted to seduce me, right? Then be a good girl and do exactly what you’re told. Throwing a hysterical suicide tantrum isn’t going to work on me.” He tightened his grip on his whimpering sweetheart, turning to bark orders at his bodyguards. “Get her changed. I’m taking her out.” I sat languidly on the edge of the bed, letting the stylists poke and prod me, completely indifferent. I was shoved into the back of Arthur’s Maybach. The city lights blurred past the tinted windows. My brain suddenly sparked to life. If I open the door and tuck-and-roll at this speed, I’d definitely die faster! But the second my fingers brushed the door handle, Arthur grabbed my wrist. “Chloe, what the hell are you trying to pull now?” His deep, intense eyes narrowed as he leaned in close. He looked annoyed and frustrated. “Why is it that whenever you’re with me, you pull these extreme stunts…? I’m telling you right now, I like women who are sweet and gentle. If you behave, maybe I’ll actually give you what you want.” Ah. He was hinting at the affection points. In the past, I had exhausted myself trying to figure out exactly what my targets wanted. If they liked wild and adventurous, I did extreme sports. When the parachute malfunctioned, I spent a day and a night stranded at the bottom of a ravine with him, starving so badly I had to catch snakes with my bare hands. If they liked elegant and understanding, I smiled through the pain while they cycled through mistresses, politely purchasing their condoms for them. I had my kidney harvested. I had my blood drained. I had endured every physical and emotional trauma imaginable. All just to earn a tiny fraction of their favor. Today, I finally had a revelation: What could possibly be more beautiful than death? No matter what they throw at me, I always have this one, glorious escape route. I just have to close my eyes, and I won’t have to deal with any of this ever again. 【2】 2 The car pulled up to the venue. That’s when I realized we were at an engagement party. When Arthur’s sweetheart saw me arrive, her face twisted in pure, unadulterated hatred for a split second. The next moment, she and her posse of mean girls surrounded me. “Where the hell did you come from? Who gave you permission to cling to Arthur like this?!” She gritted her teeth. Seeing Arthur approaching out of the corner of her eye, she intentionally brushed against my shoulder and dramatically threw herself backward into the swimming pool. The movement was fast and flawlessly executed. I paused for a second and told the System: [I really need to learn how to seize opportunities to die as effortlessly as she does.] “Oh my god! How could you push her?!” Her friends started shrieking instantly. Arthur immediately played the hero, diving in and pulling her out of the water. Dripping wet, he pointed a furious finger in my face and roared: “Did I give you too much leeway?! Did you forget your fucking place?! You actually have the balls to bully someone under my protection?!” I lifted my eyes, utterly bored, and couldn’t help but laugh. “If Mr. Sterling doesn’t need me anymore, you can just let me go.” “You—!” Perhaps he was triggered by the blatant, undisguised mockery in my smile. Enraged, Arthur grabbed the delicate chain of my necklace and twisted it tight. The thin chain bit into my neck, leaving angry red welts as the oxygen was slowly cut off. Yes. Pull harder. My eyes lit up with excitement. I intentionally leaned back, pulling against his grip, a look of absolute, euphoric satisfaction spreading across my face… But the sweet release I was hoping for never came. Arthur abruptly let go, and my own momentum sent me crashing to the pavement. “Are you a psycho?! Why is it that when it’s my turn, you turn into this absolute freak?!” Arthur cursed, grinding his teeth. “Arthur, you’re too impatient. Did you really think she’d actually go through with killing herself?” The voice that interrupted was sickeningly familiar. I opened my eyes. The man walking toward us was devastatingly handsome, a faint, cynical smirk playing on his lips. It was Julian Vance, my second target. I had been by his side during the absolute lowest, darkest period of his family’s history. I drank with him and his hostile investors until I got stomach ulcers. I spent six months acting as a full-time nurse for his critically ill mother. I clearly remember him holding my hand, tears in his eyes, telling me I was an angel sent to save his life. But now, he stood there, looking down at me with arrogant amusement, enjoying the show. “Is this your new strategy? Gotta admit, it’s fresh. Going for the extreme, suicidal route now? Makes sense, though. Go big or go home. Your acting is pretty solid.” [These guys are absolute trash! Forging the affection meters to trap us here and making us fail over and over again!] The System raged indignantly on my behalf. Before I could react, a pair of immaculately polished black oxfords stopped right in front of my face. “Chloe, drop the act. You’ll sink to any depth just to seduce a man. It’s pathetic.” I looked up and saw his face clearly. Liam Hayes. My very first target. I was still gasping for air, the feeling of strangulation lingering. I lay on the ground, coughing violently, a sickly, feverish red flush spreading across my face. Liam instinctively took a half-step toward me. In his eyes… was that grief and resentment? I couldn’t tell, because he quickly turned his head away. What hit me next were the same icy, degrading insults I was used to: “You’re an embarrassment. You really think throwing a suicide tantrum is going to earn you pity and affection points? Let me break it down for you: None of us are falling for your little tricks. You spent all this time trying to conquer us, and you didn’t even realize we had full control over the affection meters.” I didn’t look at him. I kept my head down, focusing on my breathing as I struggled to my feet. “And you? Was your 99% affection meter a lie too?” I stood up, my gaze locking onto Liam, trying to see right through him. He was completely different from the man he was ten years ago. When I first met Liam, he was an illegitimate son, kept hidden in the shadows like a dirty secret. He had been abandoned by his wealthy family in a dilapidated, rundown apartment, unable to even afford rent. When his landlord threw him out, he huddled under a narrow awning to hide from the pouring rain. Half his body was soaked and shivering. Until I stopped, and held my umbrella over him… As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I had truly given Liam my entire heart. 【3】 3 My final memory of Liam was watching his affection meter hit 99%, only to instantly plummet. I remembered his bloodshot eyes, his jaw clenched in pure hatred. “You lied to me? I will never forgive you as long as I live!” The image from my memory perfectly overlaid the man standing in front of me now. His breathing was slightly erratic. Because of my one sentence, he lost his arrogant composure. He took two aggressive steps toward me, lashing out defensively: “You actually have the nerve to bring up the past?” He swept his gaze over the other men I had tried to conquer. “How does it feel? You never expected this, did you? You thought you were playing all of us, but we were the ones treating you like a circus clown. Watching you act like a pathetic, desperate dog with zero self-respect was incredibly satisfying.” Liam was standing very close to me. His eyes were glued to my face. Like he was desperately trying to analyze every millimeter of my reaction. But, to his shock, my expression remained perfectly serene. No anger. No tears. I just offered him a small, polite smile. “That’s great. As long as it was satisfying for you. You’re the groom today. Don’t waste your precious time on me.” In the distance, the venue was blanketed in a sea of flowers. Every single detail of the decor matched exactly what Liam and I had discussed years ago. Honestly, the moment I arrived, I had already guessed whose engagement party this was. When I turned to walk away, the atmosphere in the courtyard froze. Then, a massive, shattering crash echoed behind me. Liam’s fiancée had stepped on the tablecloth draped over the champagne tower base, bringing the ten-tier crystal structure crashing to the pavement. I was entirely too familiar with scenarios like this. But when Liam grabbed my arm, he violently yanked me forward, intentionally using me as a human shield to protect his fiancée. In a flash, someone threw a suit jacket over my head. But the jagged shards of glass still rained down on me, cutting into my skin like sharp little raindrops. The stinging, burning pain instantly flooded my veins with adrenaline. I practically screamed at the System in my head: [System! Can you make a shard slice my jugular? Let’s just end it right now!] [Uh… hold on, let me check the settings.] Before the System could intervene, the owner of the jacket—Liam—suddenly started screaming in a blind panic: “Jade! Hurry! Call an ambulance!” He was kneeling on the pavement, cradling his fiancée, who had suffered a few minor scratches from the glass. In his panic, he glanced at me, and the jacket that had fallen beside me. A twisted smirk crossed his face. “I must be losing my mind. I forgot you have a System. You’re like a cockroach, you survive everything. Hey! Grab her and throw her in the car! She’s going to donate blood to Jade!” I felt like a torn ragdoll. My arms and thighs were covered in glass shards and bleeding cuts as I was violently shoved into the back of an SUV. A thousand sharp, stinging points of pain covered my body. But I just smiled, a look of profound relief on my face. I sat obediently in the blood donation chair. Through a pane of glass, I watched Liam’s cold, sociopathic expression. “Her blood type is a perfect match for Jade. Jade has a weak constitution, she needs it. As for her,” He sneered with visceral hatred when he referred to me, “You could drain every last drop of blood from her body and she’d be fine. No matter what you do to her, she can’t die.” I closed my eyes, suppressing the ecstatic joy bubbling up in my chest. [Did you hear him, System?! He’s going to drain me! Am I finally going to die?!] Watching the nurse hook the IV line to my arm, I cheerfully encouraged her: “Take as much as you need, I’ll be fine. Saving her is the priority.” The nurse froze, giving me a very disturbed, complex look. She didn’t slow down her prep, though. “Ms. Hayes, you’ve only sustained minor lacerations. You only need to donate 300ml of blood.” I blinked in absolute confusion. Seeing that the doctors in this world were suddenly acting like normal medical professionals, and the expected torture scenario wasn’t happening, I desperately called out to the System. [Don’t panic! I already hacked the medical equipment!] [You are amazing!] I relaxed and laid back. Sure enough, a few minutes later, as my face grew increasingly pale and drained of color, the nurse noticed something was wrong. “What’s happening? Did the infusion pump malfunction? It won’t stop!” Severe blood loss causes dizziness, palpitations, and confusion. “Liam, what the fuck are you doing?! Are you actually trying to kill her?!” “Hey, Liam, back off! I haven’t even had my turn with her yet, at least give me a chance! I actually kinda like her.” “Shut the fuck up!” Was everyone gathering around? I didn’t have the mental capacity to care. The voices around me grew distant and muffled. I closed my eyes, completely satisfied. 【4】 4 I opened my eyes. A stark, blindingly white hospital ceiling greeted me. Am I dead? Did I switch to a new world? I blinked a few times. When my gaze landed on the man sitting next to the bed, I almost choked on my own breath. “See? I told you. Someone like her isn’t going to die that easily. No matter what happens, she’s got a System acting as her safety net.” Liam was leaning against the doorframe, irritably pushing his hair back from his forehead. “My engagement party was completely ruined by this mess. Arthur, dock her affection points.” Arthur, who was sitting next to my bed, shot me a mocking, cynical look: “If I dock her any more, she’s going to hit the negatives. Tell you what—if you beg me, I’ll show you some mercy and bump you up a point.” I offered a weak, dismissive smile and ignored him. Julian waved his hand, and immediately, an orderly stepped forward to spoon-feed me. “Whatever, since she literally can’t die, she can stick around and keep us entertained. Chloe, eat your food. Once you’re done, you get to be a witness to Liam’s big life milestone.” I closed my eyes, absolutely devoid of the will to live. On the way to the engagement venue, I was stuck in the same car as Liam and his fiancée. His fiancée was draped over him like she had no bones. If she even slightly moved her arm and aggravated the tiny scratch she got, her eyes would well with tears and she’d demand to be comforted. I stared out the window, completely over it. Liam, if you guys want to be nauseatingly in love, fine. But can you stop glancing at me through the rearview mirror? One look was filled with intense resentment and rage. The other look was a pathetic, wide-eyed stare that occasionally flashed with smug, triumphant arrogance. I stared right back at them, and an idea popped into my head. “The diamond on your engagement ring is really small. Compared to the one he bought me years ago, that thing is practically invisible.” Liam’s face instantly turned black as thunder. Especially when his fiancée looked up at him with wide, tear-filled doe eyes. He ground his teeth in fury. “Chloe, open your damn eyes and look closely. This is a custom piece from Italy. Jade and I designed it together. It cost three million dollars. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. That ring I gave you back then was cheap cubic zirconia. Trash for trash.” “Liam, I understand why she’s saying this… considering your history together…” His fiancée wiped a tear, slipped the ring off her finger, and clutched it in her hand. “I’ll just put it back on later. I don’t want to make her sad.” “Chloe!” Liam’s voice was dark and threatening. He glared at me, his eyes locking onto mine like a predator. I stared back at him, bursting with anticipation. Alright, what kind of new torture have you cooked up for me? Can we skip to the part where you just kill me? Then, Liam rolled down the window and chucked the three-million-dollar diamond ring into the darkness. “The engagement party starts in an hour. Get out and find the ring. If you don’t find it, your chances of succeeding in this mission drop to zero.” He smirked at me as he ordered his driver to kick me out of the car. Arthur’s car pulled up right behind them. “Poor thing. I’ll give you two affection points out of pity.” Arthur rolled down his window, smiling brightly at me. “Liam really poured his heart into those rings. They aren’t like the cheap garbage he used to brush you off with.” I stood frozen on the side of a busy, multi-lane highway. Cars whipped past me inches away. An angry driver laid on the horn and screamed out his window: “Are you a fucking psycho?! Do you have a death wish?!” I waved excitedly: “Yes! Yes, I do! Someone please hit me!” “Chloe?! Are you mentally ill?!” Julian sprinted through the traffic and yanked me back onto the shoulder. “Liam threw the ring into the bushes! Are you blind?! Why were you running into the middle of the highway?!” He rubbed his temples aggressively, his voice laced with exhaustion. “Chloe, the game is over. Stop pulling these pathetic stunts, it’s just annoying. Drop the act. If you just beg me properly, I might actually pity you enough to let you stay by my side.” I wasn’t listening to a word he was saying. I just nodded absentmindedly, my heart hammering in my chest. Because the System was screaming in my head: [I’m done playing games! I’ve activated a cheat code! A runaway semi-truck is currently 200 meters away from your location! Brace yourself, host! You are 100% dying this time!] Using every last ounce of my patience, I waited for Julian to turn around to look for the ring. Then, I grabbed the hem of my hospital gown, spun around, and sprinted directly into oncoming traffic. The massive grill of the semi-truck filled my entire field of vision. And then, it slammed into me. It felt like every single bone in my body shattered simultaneously. The agony was blinding and absolute. But my heart was racing with uncontrollable euphoria. [Commencing separation from host body…] The countdown echoed in my ears. Finally! I’m finally free!

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After retiring from teaching high school, I took on a private tutoring gig for a senior in a neighboring suburb. When I arrived at the client’s house, the first thing I saw was a massive family portrait hanging on the living room wall. In the photo, a family of three smiled radiantly. And the woman in the picture… was my wife. The woman I had been married to for thirty years. I stood there, completely paralyzed, when the teenage boy walked out of the kitchen carrying a plate of fruit. “Mr. Davis, have some fruit first. I’ll go grab my practice exams.” My chest seized. A sharp, excruciating pain ripped through my heart. My hands were shaking as I took the plate. “Is that your mother?” “Yeah! She’s super busy with work, so she only gets to come home and spend the weekends with me and my dad.” “But she’s great. She promised that if I get into a good college, she’ll pay for me to study abroad in Europe. Oh, by the way, Mr. Davis, do you have any kids?” I swallowed the metallic taste of blood rising in my throat. “Yes. A son.” “He wanted to study abroad too, but his mother said… we didn’t have the money.” … The smile on the boy’s face faltered for a second. He awkwardly set a stack of papers down in front of me and took a seat. “Mr. Davis, we can start whenever you’re ready.” Resting on his desk was a silver fountain pen. It was the exact pen I had bought my wife for her 40th birthday. I nodded and picked up the exam paper, but the words blurred together into meaningless shapes. My brain was screaming on an endless loop: “She only gets to come home and spend the weekends with me and my dad.” My wife, Sarah, was a senior project manager for a civil engineering firm. She was constantly “on location” in other cities, only coming home once a week. Sometimes, when projects were demanding, she wouldn’t come home for two or three weeks. I never questioned it. Not once. After thirty years of marriage, I thought we had transcended romance; I thought we were family. It was all a lie. I didn’t even know when she got pregnant, or when she gave birth to another man’s son. “Mr. Davis? Mr. Davis?” The boy’s voice snapped me back to reality. I forced myself to focus. “The way you set up this equation is fundamentally flawed.” I picked up a pen and started walking him through the problem. My voice was eerily steady. I had been teaching for thirty years; compartmentalizing was a reflex. For two grueling hours, I tutored him until my throat was completely dry. The boy was smart. He picked up concepts instantly. Just like my son, Leo. Thinking of Leo made my chest tighten all over again. Leo had desperately wanted to do a study-abroad program in London. Sarah and I had fought about it multiple times. She said I was delusional, that we couldn’t afford to burn cash on luxury trips. She said she was under immense pressure, carrying the financial weight of the family, trying to build a nest egg for our retirement. I believed her. I even sat Leo down and told him our financial situation was tight, and that studying abroad would have to wait. Leo was a good kid. He just smiled and said, “It’s fine, Dad. A state school here is just as good.” Now I understand. It wasn’t that the money didn’t exist. It just wasn’t meant for us. When the tutoring session ended, the boy’s father walked out of the master bedroom. He was well-groomed, looking to be in his late forties, wearing expensive loungewear. He oozed the comfortable entitlement of a man who had been taken care of his entire life. He smiled warmly. “Mr. Davis, thank you for your time. We’re counting on you to help Kyle pull his scores up.” I looked at him, forcing the corners of my mouth up. “Just doing my job.” So the boy’s name was Kyle. The man pulled a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and handed them to me. “Here is your advance for the month. Please, count it.” I didn’t reach for it. “That’s too much. We can just settle up at the end of the month based on my hourly rate.” “Take it. We’ll be relying on you a lot. Sarah explicitly told me we need to treat Kyle’s tutor very well.” He brought up Sarah. I stared at him. The sheer, oblivious happiness and bragging pride on his face burned my eyes like acid. I took the cash. “Then I won’t be polite.” The second I stepped out of that house and the freezing autumn wind hit my face, I finally remembered how to breathe. My phone rang. It was Sarah. “Hey, honey.” Her voice was bright, laced with a familiar smile. “What are you up to?” “Just finished up. Getting ready to head home.” “You work too hard. Hey, my project hit a major snag today, so I won’t be able to make it back this weekend. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself at home, okay? Don’t overdo it.” My fingertips turned to ice. “Okay. You too.” I hung up, hailed a cab, and gave the driver my address. Only then did the tears finally fall. Chapter 2 Sarah didn’t come home until two days later. She stood in the doorway looking exhausted, holding a takeout bag from my favorite Thai place. “Honey, I’m home.” She walked toward me, instinctively reaching out to hug me. I stepped sideways, avoiding her arms, and took the food from her hands. “What’s wrong?” She froze for a second. “Are you still mad at me?” Before she came back, she had called to say the project was keeping her away. I intentionally threw a fit on the phone, accusing her of not caring about our family. At the time, I didn’t know she actually had another family. I set the takeout on the dining table, keeping my back to her. “No. Just tired.” She walked up behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Stop being mad. I rushed back the absolute second I finished, didn’t I? Look, I even brought you your favorite Pad Thai.” Her chin rested on my shoulder, her warm breath hitting my neck. My entire body went rigid. The visceral image of her holding that other man in the exact same way flashed behind my eyes. My stomach violently revolted. I pushed her hands away. “I’ll go start the bath for you.” The hot water roared from the faucet. I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My face was a terrifying, ghastly white, my eyes completely bloodshot. I thought about when we first got married. We lived in a cramped, drafty apartment complex for junior teachers. We were broke. For my 30th birthday, we walked past a jewelry store. I saw a watch in the window. It was a hundred bucks. Back then, that was almost an entire month’s rent. I just stared at it for a few seconds, then grabbed her hand and pulled her away. She didn’t say a word. The very next day, she picked up a second job washing dishes at a diner on the night shift. A week later, she bought that watch and gave it to me. Her hands were raw and peeling from the industrial dish soap. She had hugged me, crying. “Arthur, I promise you, one day we are going to have a beautiful life.” Thirty years passed. Our lives did get better. She became a highly respected Chief Engineer. We moved into a spacious, four-bedroom house in the suburbs. Our son was brilliant and kind. I thought this was the beautiful life she promised me. I just didn’t know her beautiful life included someone else. When I walked out of the bathroom, Sarah had fallen asleep on the sofa. I walked over, quietly reached into her trench coat pocket, and pulled out her wallet. Tucked behind her driver’s license was a small, folded photo. It was the family portrait. Sarah. That man. And the boy, Kyle. The three of them, laughing so brightly. On the back of the photo, written in elegant blue ink: For my beloved wife. —Mark. Mark. I burned that name into my brain. The next day, I drove to my tutoring session as usual. Mark was home. When he saw me, he smiled warmly. “Mr. Davis, you’re here. Please, sit.” He poured me a glass of water. Around his neck hung a jade pendant. It was a family heirloom my father had left me. Three years ago, Sarah told me she had accidentally lost it on a business trip. I had actually comforted her, telling her it was just a piece of stone and not to worry about it. Now I knew. The heirloom wasn’t lost; it was gifted to her lover. I picked up the water glass, my grip tightening until my knuckles cracked. “That’s a very unique pendant you have there.” Mark glanced down, unable to hide the smug, self-satisfied smirk on his face. “Isn’t it? My wife gave it to me. She said it’s an antique family heirloom.” I took a sip of the water. It was warm, but it did nothing to thaw the ice in my veins. I set the glass down. The heavy base hit the glass table with a sharp, definitive clink. “Mr. Mark, let’s begin the lesson. Time is valuable.” The smile on Mark’s face faltered slightly. He stood up, smoothing the front of his expensive cashmere sweater. “Of course, I’ll let you two work. Kyle, pay attention to Mr. Davis. Dad is going to go start a roast for dinner.” He turned and walked into the kitchen. Chapter 3 I forced my eyes back to the practice exam, but the numbers and formulas looked like a foreign language. For two hours, I taught on pure, disconnected autopilot. Kyle definitely noticed. He stopped writing several times to look at me. “Mr. Davis, are you feeling okay?” I shook my head. “I’m fine. Let’s look at the next problem.” When the session ended, I packed my briefcase to leave. Mark walked out of the kitchen holding a steaming bowl of stew, physically blocking my path to the door. “Mr. Davis, what’s the rush? Have a bowl of stew. Sarah specifically had these imported herbs flown in. It’s incredibly healthy.” He shoved the bowl toward me, his posture demanding I accept his hospitality. I stared at the bowl, my stomach churning violently. I took a quick step backward, trying to maneuver around him. “No thank you, I have things to handle at home.” Maybe I stepped back too fast. My shoulder bumped hard against the ornate, freestanding display shelf behind me. The shelf wobbled. Crash. An intricate, blue-and-white porcelain vase sitting on the top shelf plummeted to the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces. The living room plunged into a suffocating silence. The smile on Mark’s face instantly died. Kyle rushed out of his bedroom. “Dad, what happened?!” Mark pointed a shaking finger at the shattered porcelain, his voice pitching into a hysterical shriek. “My vase!” He crouched down, desperately wanting to pick up the pieces, but terrified of cutting his manicured hands. His fingers hovered in the air, trembling. “Do you have any idea how much this cost?! Sarah bought this for me at a charity auction last month for ten thousand dollars!” He shot up, glaring at me with absolute venom. “Tell me how you are going to fix this!” I looked at the shattered porcelain on the floor, my brain completely blank. “It was an accident.” “An accident?!” Mark let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “You think saying ‘it was an accident’ makes this go away?! I think you did it on purpose! From the second you walked in today, you’ve been acting like an arrogant prick. You’re just jealous because we have money and you don’t!” Kyle immediately jumped in to back his dad up: “Dad, I told you he was acting weird today! He couldn’t even focus on the math problems. He kept staring at your necklace! I bet he was trying to figure out what he could steal!” I stared at the two of them. This was Sarah’s house. I was Sarah’s husband of thirty years. And yet, in her second home, I was being screamed at and called a thief by her mistress and her bastard son. “So what exactly do you want me to do?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm. Mark crossed his arms, lifting his chin arrogantly. “You are going to pay me. Ten thousand dollars. Not a penny less!” “I don’t have ten thousand dollars.” Most of my teacher’s pension had been siphoned off by Sarah over the years. She said her projects needed capital. She said she was saving for Leo’s down payment. She said she was building our retirement fund. Looking at the shattered vase and the jade on his neck, I realized exactly where my retirement fund had gone. “You don’t have it?!” Mark’s voice cracked. “You don’t have it, but you have the nerve to smash my things?! You’re just trying to scam us!” He took an aggressive step toward me. “I’m telling you right now, if you don’t transfer the money today, you aren’t leaving this house!” Kyle pulled out his iPhone. “Dad, stop talking to him. Just call 911! Tell them he tried to rob us and destroyed our property!” Mark snatched the phone from his son’s hand. “Exactly! Let the cops handle this piece of trash!” He started furiously dialing. I watched him, the last ember of warmth in my heart completely dying out. I had been a public school teacher my entire life. My record was spotless. I had never committed a crime. I never imagined that in my twilight years, I would be branded a thief and dragged to a police station by the man my wife was sleeping with. But you know what? Good. Let it blow up. Let it become a massive, unavoidable disaster. I want to see exactly how Sarah is going to clean up this mess. “Call them,” I said, my voice eerily flat. Mark’s finger hovered over the ‘call’ button, hesitating. I looked him dead in the eye and repeated it. “Call 911. I’ll wait right here.” Chapter 4 Mark’s face cycled rapidly between shades of red and white. Kyle tugged on his dad’s designer sleeve. “Dad, don’t let him bluff you. He’s just trying to scare us.” That was all the push Mark needed. He stopped hesitating, hit the call button, and threw it on speaker. The automated dispatch voice rang out: “911, what is your emergency?” Mark spiked his volume, practically screaming into the mic: “Hello! Police! I need officers right now! A man broke into my house and intentionally destroyed a priceless antique! We’re talking grand larceny!” He emphasized the words grand larceny heavily. “The address is 1420 Oak Creek Lane, Building 12, Unit 602. Please hurry!” He hung up, tossed the phone onto the plush sofa, crossed his arms, and resumed his arrogant stance. “You just wait. Let’s see how tough you act when they put you in handcuffs.” I didn’t say a word. I simply pulled out a dining chair and sat down. I wanted to see exactly how massive of a web Sarah had woven over the last thirty years. Seeing me sit down, Kyle rushed forward, pointing a furious finger at me. “Who said you could sit?! Stand up!” I slowly lifted my head and looked at him. “Your mother told me I could.” Kyle froze, completely failing to comprehend the meaning of my words. Mark frowned deeply, cursing, “What the hell are you babbling about? Why would Sarah even associate with a loser like you?” I smiled faintly and didn’t bother explaining. The police arrived incredibly fast. Two uniformed officers—one veteran, one rookie—walked through the door and immediately took in the shattered porcelain and the hostile standoff. “Who called 911? What’s the situation?” the veteran officer asked. Mark practically sprinted over, pointing an accusing finger at me. “Officer, it’s him! This man! He used a fake tutoring gig to infiltrate my house, acting incredibly suspicious. When I confronted him about it, he lost his mind and intentionally smashed my ten-thousand-dollar antique vase!” His eyes instantly reddened, his voice dropping into a pathetic, victimized whine. “Look! There’s the proof right there!” He pointed at the shattered ceramics. The officer turned to me. “Is his statement accurate?” “My name is Arthur Davis. I am the hired math tutor for his son, Kyle.” I answered calmly. “I bumped into the shelf by accident. It was not intentional.” Mark exploded. “You’re a liar! You were just jealous of our lifestyle!” Kyle chimed in loudly, “Yeah! Officer, he was acting sketchy the entire time! He kept staring at my dad’s expensive jewelry. He was definitely planning to rob us!” The veteran officer frowned, raising a hand to silence Mark. “Sir, please calm down.” He turned back to me. “Since you acknowledge that you caused the damage, have you two discussed restitution?” “He wants ten thousand dollars. I don’t have it.” “You don’t have it?!” Mark shrieked. “You don’t have the money but you go around destroying luxury property?! You’re just trying to get away with it!” The officer looked at me, then at the mess on the floor, and sighed heavily. “Look, given the high value of the property and the conflicting testimonies, you’re both going to have to come down to the precinct to file official statements.” Mark nodded aggressively. “Good! Exactly! Arrest him!” I stood up and calmly smoothed the wrinkles out of my blazer. I had spent my entire life teaching kids how to be good citizens. I followed the rules to the letter. I never imagined my first trip in the back of a squad car would be orchestrated by my wife’s mistress. But fine. I followed the two officers toward the front door. Mark and Kyle walked closely behind me, failing to hide their smug, triumphant smiles. My hand had barely touched the doorknob when the door was suddenly pushed open from the outside. Sarah, carrying a box from an expensive bakery and wearing a bright smile, stood in the doorway. “Kyle, look what Mom brought you…” Her voice completely died the second she registered the police officers, the shattered vase, and me.

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My husband is an international airline pilot, and he’s out of the country for more than half the year. I never check up on him. I just happen to be very good friends with Miller, the man who handles logistics for their flight crew. During the holidays, he often brings his wife and daughter over to our house for dinner. On my birthday this year, my husband brought back a small bottle of perfume from Paris, saying he had picked it out especially for me. I was thrilled for hours. Later, when Miller brought his daughter over for dinner and saw the bottle of perfume on the table, he laughed casually, “Hey, Elena. He even bought you the ring, so why are you still holding out on opening the perfume?” I froze. “What ring?” The smile vanished from Miller’s face. “The iris diamond ring Carter ordered in Paris. During those three days he was grounded, I was the one who connected him with the boutique and tracked the air shipment.” I didn’t press him. I just picked up my phone and looked up the perfume. That was when I noticed—the perfume was indeed authentic, but it was never sold to the general public. It was a complimentary gift bundled with the purchase of their Iris collection fine jewelry. My husband had indeed given me a birthday present. I had just received the freebie he got while buying another woman a diamond ring. … I set the perfume back on the table, acting as if I had heard nothing, and scooped a piece of braised pork into Miller’s daughter’s bowl. “Try this, honey. Auntie simmered it until it’s super tender.” Miller’s face turned pale, and he opened his mouth a few times to speak. I didn’t give him the chance. After dinner, I politely saw them out to the door. As he stood in the entryway, his expression was deeply uneasy. “Elena, maybe there’s a misunderstanding here.” “Right. I’ll figure it out.” The moment the door closed, the smile dropped from my face. Instead of calling Carter, I took a picture of the batch code on the bottom of the perfume bottle and contacted customer service. “The perfume is leaking a bit. Could you help me verify the batch?” After checking the code, the customer service representative informed me that the perfume was not retailed; it was strictly gifted alongside the Iris high jewelry line. I casually asked: “That ring was ordered by my husband. I seem to have lost the order confirmation. Could you help me look it up?” After a brief hesitation, the representative asked for the purchaser’s name and contact info. Ten minutes later, she confirmed the order. The inside of the diamond ring was engraved with the initials “QZ.” The recipient was listed as Hazel Vance. I knew that name. She was the purser on Carter’s flight crew. Carter occasionally mentioned her at home, praising her professional skills and easygoing personality, calling her his most reliable partner. Turns out she was reliable enough to buy a ring for. At 10:00 PM, Carter dragged his suitcase through the front door. The moment he took off his uniform jacket, his eyes landed on the unsealed perfume. “You opened it?” he asked casually. “I did. I love it.” I walked over to straighten his collar, clearly feeling his tense shoulders relax. “As long as you like it.” He kissed my forehead. “I spent a long time picking it out.” I almost laughed out loud. While he was in the shower, his phone lit up on the nightstand. His lock screen password was still our wedding anniversary. Hazel’s text message popped up at the very top. “The ring fits perfectly. My coworkers said it looks like an engagement ring.” The next message followed immediately. “Next time we fly to Paris, let’s go wedding dress shopping together. You promised me, no backsies.” I stared at those two lines, my fingers freezing cold. Before the bathroom door opened, I snapped a photo of the messages and put the phone right back where I found it. Carter walked out, drying his hair. “Why aren’t you asleep yet?” “I want to visit your airline tomorrow afternoon.” His movements paused. “What for?” “We’ve been married for six years, and I’ve never seen where you work.” He offered a forced smile. “Airport security is tight. Don’t wander around. I’ll take you for a tour after my promotion review.” The next afternoon, I went anyway. Through the glass partition of the crew lounge, I spotted Carter instantly. He was standing in front of Hazel, leaning down to adjust a silk scarf around her neck, his fingers brushing against her chin. Hazel tilted her head up with a smile. “Is it crooked?” “When have you ever tied it straight yourself?” Their easy familiarity sounded like something they had done a thousand times. I pushed the door open and walked in. Chapter 2 They both froze instantly. Hazel took a half-step back, smoothing out her scarf as if nothing happened. “Elena?” Carter pulled his hand back. “What are you doing here?” I looked at him. “Didn’t you say you’d only take me on a tour after your review? I couldn’t wait.” Hazel smiled. “Don’t misunderstand, Mrs. Sterling. Captain Carter was just helping me fix my uniform. We always check each other’s appearance.” “Turns out fixing uniforms requires the captain to do it personally.” Hazel chuckled lightly. “Carter takes care of everyone.” Someone nearby chimed in to smooth things over. “You guys are universally known as the ultimate dream team, flying together for years. Of course the boss’s wife isn’t that petty, right?” Another junior flight attendant, completely oblivious to the tension, piped up. “Captain Carter really looks out for Hazel. Last month he even took three days off to help her celebrate her birthday, and we all had to scramble to cover her shifts.” Carter’s expression darkened instantly. “Stop talking nonsense. It was just a coincidence that our days off aligned.” “Is that right?” I looked at him. “You took three days off last month?” “I wasn’t feeling well.” I pulled out my phone and opened the flight leave application I had saved. “Strange. The reason you gave for your leave was ‘accompanying wife for medical treatment.’” The room went dead silent. That week, I had indeed undergone surgery. Two months prior, I handed him a positive pregnancy test, expecting him to be happy. Instead, he frowned, saying his promotion review was coming up, and the baby’s timing was terrible. “Elena, let’s wait until I’m chief captain. We can have a family then.” On the day of the surgery, he told me his flight schedule had changed and he couldn’t make it. I signed the consent forms alone, rolled into the operating room alone, and woke up to an empty recovery room with only a nurse by my side. Meanwhile, he used my medical leave to secure three days off and took another woman to Paris. I looked up at him. “Carter, exactly whose wife were you treating on your leave application?” “Let’s talk at home.” He gripped my wrist, his eyes flashing not with guilt, but with sheer annoyance. “This is my workplace. Do you have to humiliate me here?” “When you used my miscarriage to get time off and flew to Paris with another woman, did you care about humiliating me?” The smile finally vanished from Hazel’s face. “Mrs. Sterling, Carter and I are just colleagues. I wasn’t feeling well during that Paris trip, and he just looked after me as a friend.” “And bought you a ring while he was at it?” I looked at her hand. She flinched, instinctively hiding her right hand behind her back. Carter stepped in front of her. “Enough!” His defense of her was louder and clearer than any explanation he had ever given me. I pulled my hand out of his grip and turned to walk away. His strained voice chased after me: “Go home first. Don’t mess with my review.” Half an hour later, my mother-in-law called. She didn’t ask if I was okay. Her first instinct was to chew me out. “Why are you running off to the airline making a scene? Carter is up for chief captain! Do you have any idea how much this review means to him?” I held the phone tightly, my voice surprisingly calm. “Did you know he used my miscarriage to take time off and celebrate another woman’s birthday?” The line went quiet for two seconds. When my mother-in-law spoke again, her tone held zero trace of surprise. “A pilot flying international routes deals with a massive amount of stress. It’s entirely normal for him to have someone on the side to keep him warm and comfortable. As long as he still comes home to you, you should just be a mature, understanding wife.” My heart sank a little deeper into an abyss. So she knew all along. “So you knew about the ring, too?” “It’s just a little trinket to keep people happy. You’re Mrs. Sterling, why are you stooping so low as to fight with a flight attendant?” I looked at the saved leave application on my phone screen and suddenly laughed. “You’re right. I shouldn’t fight.” My mother-in-law’s tone softened, relieved. “That’s my girl. Hurry up and apologize to Carter. Don’t ruin his career over this.” “I’ll help him secure his career.” I hung up the phone and forwarded the call recording to my lawyer. Chapter 3 After listening to the recording, my lawyer only reminded me of three things. “Save the original evidence. Verify all of our shared marital assets as soon as possible. And do not let him know your real plans until we file the official paperwork.” I backed up the jewelry store orders, the chat logs, and my mother-in-law’s phone call recording separately, then downloaded three years of bank statements. The day Carter returned from his flight, I laid all the evidence out neatly on the dining table. He glanced at it briefly, frowning. “You’re investigating me?” “Did you buy that ring?” “No.” “Your name and phone number are on the order.” He hesitated for a second before changing his story. “The crew all pooled their money to buy it. I just paid for it on my card.” I pulled up the bank transfer history. “Nobody sent you a single dime.” A flicker of panic flashed across Carter’s eyes, but he quickly regained his composure. “Hazel has helped me out a lot over the years. It’s her birthday, so what’s wrong with buying her a nice gift?” “What about the initials engraved on it?” “The brand made a mistake.” “What about the wedding dress?” “She was just joking around.” “And the trip to Paris?” “A coincidence.” Every single question I asked was met with an immediate, defensive excuse. Finally, I closed the folder of evidence. “Carter, let’s get a divorce.” Carter stared at me, then suddenly let out a short, dismissive laugh. Not out of panic, not out of sadness. It was the condescending chuckle of a man listening to a toddler throw a tantrum. “Just because of a ring?” “Because you betrayed me, and then used the child I lost to fund a vacation for another woman.” “Stop talking like it’s the end of the world.” He leaned back in his chair, looking at me with absolute certainty. “Elena, you graduated college and married me immediately. You’ve never worked a day in your life. Even the electricity bills for this house are paid by my salary. If you leave me, where are you even going to go?” I clenched my fists in my lap, keeping quiet. Mistaking my silence for defeat, his tone grew even more arrogant. “Stop threatening me with divorce over petty nonsense. Being this petty and high-maintenance is genuinely exhausting.” Without a word, I packed up my evidence. That evening, the airline hosted a gala to celebrate their flight crews winning the annual Safety Flight Award. I didn’t want to go, but Carter insisted that spouses were required to attend. “Don’t pull a long face. The senior executives will be there.” I changed into a simple black dress and walked into the grand ballroom with him. Hazel arrived late. She wore a pristine white evening gown, a glass of champagne in her hand, and the iris diamond ring sparkling blindingly under the crystal chandeliers. Someone immediately noticed and started teasing her. “Hazel, that ring is gorgeous! Who bought it? Wearing it on your ring finger… does it mean what I think it means?” Hazel cast a deliberate, sideways glance at Carter. “It’s from someone very special.” The room erupted in playful cheers and applause. Carter didn’t deny it. I walked over, my eyes locking onto her hand. “It’s stunning. Must have cost a fortune.” The smile on Hazel’s face stiffened. Carter immediately stepped in to block her. “Elena, it’s a celebration tonight. Stop starting fights.” “I just gave her a compliment. Is that a fight?” “What tone are you using?” “Did I stutter?” Hazel’s eyes reddened instantly. “Mrs. Sterling if you don’t like it, I can take it off right now.” She made a motion to slide it off, but made sure it stayed securely on her finger. Carter frowned. “Don’t. The gift is yours, keep it.” The surrounding air instantly went dead silent. A few people quietly averted their eyes, while others watched the drama unfold with thinly veiled amusement. Tears welled up in Hazel’s eyes. “The vacation to Paris… is that still happening? If it makes you uncomfortable, Mrs. Sterling, we can cancel it.” Carter glanced at me, expecting me to back down and save face. “Of course it’s still happening,” he said, turning to Hazel and gently taking her wrist. “I keep my promises.” I turned around and walked straight out of the banquet hall. Carter didn’t chase after me. Ten minutes later, he only sent me a text: “You’ve been way too emotionally unstable lately. Go home and calm down. We’ll talk after my promotion review.” It was always my fault. I didn’t reply. I simply sent the final divorce papers, along with my medical records and the Paris consumption receipts, directly to my lawyer. Chapter 4 A few days later, the official results of the Chief Captain promotion review were announced. I wasn’t invited, but I went anyway. Carter stood on stage, looking radiant and invincible. When the host announced he had won the promotion, the applause nearly shook the auditorium roof. Hazel sat in the front row, her eyes swimming with tears, clapping harder and louder than anyone else. Carter took the microphone. “To earn this opportunity, I owe the most gratitude to Hazel. Over the years, she has flown countless routes with me and helped me organize my research and practice for my defense.” The camera instantly pivoted to Hazel. She stood up, smiling through her tears. People in the audience started whispering. “Captain Carter and Purser Hazel really are the ultimate power couple!” Carter didn’t avoid the association; he simply nodded gently in her direction. Then, pausing for a moment, he added as an afterthought: “Of course, I also want to thank my wife, Elena. She has taken care of the homefront all these years, giving me peace of mind.” It was a single sentence that erased everything: the operational case studies I helped him compile, the nights I stayed up late revising his review materials, and the day I walked into the operating room alone. The host spotted me in the crowd and smiled brightly. “Mrs. Sterling is here too! Why don’t you come up on stage and present the flowers to Captain Carter?” Every eye in the auditorium locked onto me. A staff member shoved a massive bouquet into my arms. Hazel’s smile flickered slightly, but she quickly gestured for me to take the center stage. “Sister Elena, I’m sure Carter really wants you to share this moment with him.” I walked up the steps holding the flowers. Carter looked at me, a smug flash of satisfaction in his eyes, as if he had already decided that my public appearance meant I had surrendered and accepted my place. He reached out with a warm smile, taking the bouquet and leaning in close. “I knew you’d come around.” He lowered his voice, speaking just for the two of us. “The judges and executives are all watching. Don’t make a scene. We can pretend none of this happened after we get home.” I looked right back into his eyes. “You think I’m here to play the happy wife?” His confident smile faltered for a fraction of a second. “Elena, don’t be ridiculous in front of everyone.” I stepped away from him, looked straight at the judges’ panel, and spoke into the handheld microphone. “I am formally filing a petition to review Carter’s promotion eligibility and the integrity of his personal disclosure documents.” The entire auditorium plunged into dead silence.

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My mom is the absolute definition of a pampered trophy wife. Besides spending money and acting like a spoiled princess, she has never done a day of actual work in her life. My dad spoils her rotten. Our entire family treats her like glass. She is unapologetically high-maintenance, and because we fiercely protect her, she has never suffered a single ounce of humiliation or hardship. The day I flew back to the States from living abroad, she got a sudden burst of inspiration and insisted on dragging me along to pick up my little brother from preschool. When we arrived at the gates of the elite preschool, the teacher called out: “Leo Sterling’s parents? Is Leo’s mom here?” My mom had just raised her hand and said, “That’s me—” When a woman dripping in gaudy designer jewelry suddenly shoved her way through the crowd and viciously slapped my mom directly across the face. “Where the hell does a cheap homewrecker like you get the nerve to pretend to be my son’s mother?!” “It’s precisely this pathetic, whining little act you use to seduce my husband, isn’t it?!” A bright red, five-finger handprint instantly bloomed across my mom’s flawless, pale skin. She was completely stunned. The woman wrapped her arms protectively around a little boy standing next to her, lifting her chin with arrogant, aggressive triumph. “Listen to me very carefully! I am Mrs. Ethan Sterling! I am Leo’s actual, biological mother!” I stared at her, a cold, venomous smile spreading across my face. Since when did my little brother become her son? My mom had never been humiliated like this in her entire life. For the slap she took today, I am going to make this woman pay it back ten times over. 01 When Vanessa’s hand struck my mom’s face, the entire crowd outside the preschool went dead silent. My mom, Chloe, covered her cheek. The corners of her eyes instantly flushed red. She was in absolute shock. After all, from the time she was a little girl until now, forget being slapped—if a maid in our house handed her a glass of water that was slightly too warm, my dad would immediately scold them. She looked at me, hesitating, her voice trembling. “Mia… why did she hit me?” I didn’t answer. I raised my hand and delivered a brutal, resounding slap directly back across Vanessa’s face. Smack. The sound cracked like a whip across the quiet schoolyard. Vanessa’s head whipped to the side from the force. A massive diamond earring ripped from her earlobe and clattered onto the pavement. She stood frozen in sheer disbelief for three full seconds before shrieking: “You hit me?!” I glared at her, my eyes like ice. “You hit my mother. Why the hell wouldn’t I hit you?” She was shaking with absolute rage. She pointed a trembling finger at my mom and screamed: “A shameless, homewrecking whore raises a feral, classless daughter! Like mother, like daughter!” “Do you have any idea who I am?!” I laughed. “You’d better figure out who I am before you open your mouth again.” The little boy standing next to Vanessa burst into tears, terrified by the screaming. She quickly pulled the child against her chest and yelled toward the teacher standing by the gates: “Ms. Davis! What the hell is going on with the security at Oakmont Elite Academy?! Are you just letting any random street trash stand outside the gates?” “They’re trying to kidnap my son, and they physically assaulted me!” A teacher in a sharp, tailored blazer rushed over immediately. When she saw the bright red, swollen mark on Vanessa’s face, her own face dropped in panic. “Mrs. Sterling, oh my god, are you okay?” Mrs. Sterling. Hearing those words, my mom’s eyelashes fluttered. She spoke up, her voice small but firm. “I am Leo Sterling’s mother.” Ms. Davis frowned at her, her eyes instantly filling with blatant, unconcealed irritation. “Ma’am, I am going to have to ask you to stop causing a disturbance on school property.” My mom was stunned. “I’m not causing a disturbance. I’m here to pick up my son.” Vanessa let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Your son? Are you absolutely delusional?” She aggressively pulled the crying little boy forward. “Leo, tell everyone right now. Who is your mommy?” The little boy sniffled and looked up at her. “You’re my mommy.” Vanessa shot a triumphant, vicious glare at my mom. “Did you hear that?” My mom stared intently at the little boy’s face. Suddenly, all the color drained from her cheeks. She shrank back slightly behind me, pulling on my sleeve, whispering: “Mia… I don’t think that’s actually Leo.” It was true that my mom wasn’t heavily involved in the logistics of raising him. She knew my brother attended Oakmont Elite Academy, and she knew it was the most exclusive, impossible-to-get-into preschool funded entirely by the Sterling Corporation. But she had never personally been here to pick him up. Not even once. If I hadn’t flown back into the country today, and if she hadn’t gotten a sudden, whimsical urge to “surprise” my little brother… she probably would have spent the entire afternoon at home trying on newly delivered haute couture dresses. The other parents waiting for pickup began crowding around us. People recognized Vanessa and started whispering loudly to each other: “Isn’t that Mrs. Sterling? The one who sat in the front row at the parent gala last month?” “Yeah, I’ve seen her get dropped off in the Sterling family’s Rolls-Royce.” “She’s incredibly generous with the teachers. She buys them insanely expensive gifts. She’s definitely legitimate.” “Then who the hell is the other woman? Is she actually a mistress?” The validation from the crowd visibly inflated Vanessa’s ego. She tilted her chin up arrogantly, sneering at my mom. “I always knew you trashy side pieces couldn’t be trusted to stay in your lane!” “You’ve been obsessively stalking Ethan for years, and I tolerated it. But now you’re trying to target my son? I will destroy you!” My mom was so furious her voice lost its usual softness. “Ethan Sterling is my husband.” The moment she said that, the disgust in the eyes of the surrounding parents intensified tenfold. Ms. Davis’s face turned completely cold. “Ma’am, if you continue this behavior, I will be forced to call campus security.” I stepped directly in front of my mom, shielding her entirely. “Call them.” I stared directly at the name tag pinned to her blazer. “And while you’re at it, call the Principal out here too.” Ms. Davis choked on her response, clearly intimidated by my tone. Vanessa, however, let out a loud, contemptuous scoff. “Who the hell do you think you are? Putting on an act?” “Oakmont Academy is owned by the Sterling Corporation. You’re demanding to see the Principal right in front of Mrs. Sterling? Are you actively trying to humiliate yourself?” I nodded slowly. “Yes.” “I really want to see who the administration of a Sterling-owned school actually takes orders from.” 02 The Principal, Mrs. Vance, arrived quickly. The second she saw Vanessa, her stern expression instantly melted into fawning concern. “Mrs. Sterling! What happened? Who upset you?” Vanessa pointed a shaking finger at my mom, the fake tears activating instantly. “Principal Vance, this psychotic woman has been obsessively stalking my husband for years, and today she actually had the audacity to show up at the school and try to kidnap my son!” “And she brought this feral brat with her, and they physically assaulted me!” Hearing the words “feral brat,” my mom immediately snapped her head up. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard. Her palms were freezing cold. My mom was exactly the kind of woman who was too soft for her own good. Because my dad spoiled her so relentlessly, if she even had to ask a sales associate for a different dress size, she would smile apologetically first. When confronted by a vicious, screaming sociopath like Vanessa, her default reaction wasn’t rage; it was terrified, confused distress. I looked dead at Principal Vance. “Are you the administrator in charge?” Mrs. Vance looked at me with thinly veiled disdain. “I am. And who exactly are you?” “Mia Sterling.” I dropped my name. The crowd had absolutely zero reaction. Which made sense. I left to study in Europe when I was seventeen, and after graduating, I stayed overseas managing our family’s international hedge funds. The public face of the Sterling family was always my father. And my mother? She rarely made public appearances outside of high-society charity galas where my dad escorted her. The rest of her time was spent in her greenhouse or her jewelry design studio. It wasn’t surprising that these suburban moms didn’t recognize us. But ignorance doesn’t excuse deliberate blindness. Principal Vance looked me up and down, her tone dripping with polite condescension. “Ms. Sterling, I assume?” “Whatever personal, unfortunate domestic drama is happening between you and this woman… it is not my place to judge.” “However, regarding the child’s identity, our administrative database is absolute.” She signaled an assistant, who rushed over and handed her an iPad. She tapped the screen, pulling up a student profile. She turned the screen to face us. It read:Student Name: Leo Sterling.Mother: Vanessa Thorne.Emergency Contact: Ethan Sterling.Authorized Pickup Personnel: Vanessa Thorne, Robert Vance. In the profile photo section, it was the exact same little boy Vanessa was currently holding. My mom stared at the photo, her breathing turning erratic and ragged. “That is not my Leo.” Principal Vance frowned, her tone hardening. “Ma’am, I need you to calm down. The child is physically standing right here in front of you. You cannot use your personal, marital delusions to deny a child’s legal identity.” My mom was frantic. “He’s my own son! How could I possibly not recognize my own son?!” Vanessa let out a shrill, piercing laugh. “Of course you wouldn’t recognize him! You didn’t give birth to him!” “Stop playing the victim. You’ve been clinging to my husband for years because you’re desperate to marry into the Sterling family, aren’t you?” “You couldn’t give him a son, you only gave him a worthless, money-draining daughter, and now you want to steal mine?!” My mom’s face flushed a violent, furious red. Tears welled in her eyes, and she looked like she was about to collapse. “Mia is not worthless!” She was panting heavily. “Don’t you ever say that about her!” I grabbed her arm, pulling her slightly behind me. “Mom. Don’t engage with rabid dogs.” Vanessa’s face went dark. “Who are you calling a dog?!” I raised my eyes, my gaze lethal. “Whoever barks the loudest.” She shrieked and lunged forward, trying to attack me. A security guard immediately stepped in to block her. But I noticed that when the guard blocked her, he barely used any force. Yet when he turned to block me, he planted his feet aggressively. The last spark of patience in my chest completely ignited into an inferno. “Principal Vance. Pull the original enrollment files. Right now.” Principal Vance scoffed coldly. “Student enrollment files are strictly confidential. We do not release them to unauthorized individuals.” “Unauthorized?” I let out a dark laugh. “I am Leo Sterling’s biological older sister.” Vanessa immediately interjected. “You say you are, so that makes it true? In that case, I’m the First Lady of the United States!” The surrounding parents eagerly jumped in to agree. “Exactly. If they were actual billionaires, they would just swipe their security credentials and drive right in. Who stands on the sidewalk and screams like this?” “People are absolutely psychotic these days. They’re actually pretending to be a billionaire family outside an elite school.” “Mrs. Sterling literally donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to the PTA. You really think she’s a fraud?” I looked at the crowd. Every single one of them was draped in designer clothes and carrying expensive bags, desperately clinging to their facade of high-society elegance. But when it came time to bully and trample someone, they were faster and more vicious than anyone else. I pulled out my phone and dialed my dad. No answer. I called again. Still no answer. I dialed Robert Vance, our family’s head driver. Also went straight to voicemail. My mom was panicking, tears streaming down her face. “Why isn’t Robert answering? He drops Leo off every single morning! He definitely knows what’s going on!” Seeing my phone calls fail, Vanessa let out a victorious, mocking laugh. “What’s wrong? Did you forget the lines to your little script?” She took a step forward, shoving her finger toward my mom’s face. “You pathetic bitch. If you drop to your knees right now, apologize to me in front of all these parents…” “And publicly admit that you are a cheap mistress, I might consider not having you arrested.” Tears rolled down my mom’s cheeks. She looked at me, looking exactly like a terrified child who had just made a terrible mistake. “Mia… is Mommy completely useless?” It felt like someone had physically stabbed me in the chest. “No.” I stared at the crowd, enunciating every single word with absolute, chilling precision. “They are just begging to be destroyed.” 03 Principal Vance clearly didn’t want the spectacle to escalate any further. She shot a sharp look at the security guards. Two massive guards immediately stepped toward me and my mom, preparing to physically drag us away. The crowd surged forward, pushing my mom backward. Her thin stiletto heel caught on the pavement, and she nearly fell hard onto the concrete. I caught her, supporting her weight. My expression turned to absolute, freezing ice. But Vanessa still wasn’t satisfied. Holding the little boy, she screamed at the top of her lungs: “Why are you just making them step back?! Drag these psychotic bitches off the property!” “Do you know what kind of institution Oakmont Academy is?! Are you seriously going to let absolute trash scream and throw tantrums at our gates?!” Principal Vance frowned deeply. “If you two have questions regarding the child’s identity, you are welcome to submit a formal inquiry through the proper legal channels at a later date.” “This is an active dismissal zone. You need to leave immediately and stop disrupting the other families.” I looked at her. “How long does the formal inquiry process take?” Principal Vance avoided making eye contact. “The standard processing time is fifteen business days.” I let out a harsh, incredulous laugh. “My brother’s identity has been stolen, he is completely missing, I have no idea where he is, and you are telling me to wait fifteen days?” Her expression faltered slightly, but she quickly masked it with cold professionalism. “Ms. Sterling, I suggest you watch your tone. Oakmont Academy has never, in its entire history, had an issue with identity theft or enrollment fraud.” “Then open the database and prove it.” “I already told you. You do not have the security clearance.” “Yes, I do.” I reached into my designer bag, pulled out a sleek, matte black RFID card embossed with the Sterling Family Foundation crest, and held it directly in front of her face. Oakmont Elite Academy is fully owned and operated by the Sterling Corporate Education Division. This specific black card grants immediate, unrestricted access to all Board of Directors-level administrative files. Principal Vance merely glanced at it, her tone remaining completely arrogant and dismissive. “Ms. Sterling, the technology for fabricating credentials is very advanced these days. I am not going to violate student privacy protocols and expose our database just because you produced a random, unverified plastic card.” Vanessa burst into loud, mocking laughter. “Did you hear that? She actually thinks she’s the heiress to the Sterling empire!” She turned to the crowd of wealthy parents, intentionally projecting her voice. “I want everyone to be honest. Have you ever, in your entire life, seen a legitimate billionaire heiress fighting in the street over a child? Her mother is a shameless whore, and the daughter is just playing along with the grift.” A few muffled, condescending chuckles echoed through the crowd. “I knew it. Real old money doesn’t act like this.” “Mrs. Sterling literally drives a custom Cullinan to pick up her son. The Principal personally escorts them to the car. How could she possibly be a fake?” “These two are psychotic. Trying to scam their way into high society by literally kidnapping a kid.” My mom’s eyes were bloodshot red with fury. She was a woman who rarely ever raised her voice, let alone used a harsh word. But in that moment, she suddenly raised her hand. Smack. She slapped Vanessa across the face. It wasn’t a hard slap. In fact, because her hands were shaking so violently, it didn’t even make a very loud sound. But the entire plaza instantly went dead silent. My mom looked shocked by her own action, tears spilling over her lashes. But she stubbornly, fiercely planted her feet and stood directly in front of me, shielding me. “You can insult me all you want.” “But you do not ever insult my daughter.” It felt like a physical blow against my ribs. This was exactly who my mom was. Spoiled, soft, fragile, demanding constant reassurance and affection. But the absolute second someone threatened us, she would stand up and fight for us, even if she was terrified and shaking like a leaf. Vanessa finally recovered from the shock, and absolutely lost her mind. “You cheap, psychotic bitch, you hit me again?!” She lunged forward, extending her manicured nails, aiming directly for my mom’s hair. I grabbed her wrist mid-air, twisted it brutally, and violently threw her backward. Vanessa stumbled backward in her heels, nearly crashing into the crowd of parents. Ms. Davis immediately began shrieking: “They’re becoming violent! Security! Call 911!” “Do it.” I said, my voice dropping to a lethal calm. Principal Vance, realizing the situation was spiraling entirely out of control, quickly blocked Ms. Davis and turned to Vanessa. “Mrs. Sterling, please, let’s just calm down. I will contact Mr. Sterling immediately and have him personally verify the situation.” Vanessa looked as if she had been waiting for that exact sentence. She immediately lifted her chin, radiating arrogant confidence. She pulled out her phone and clicked on a FaceTime contact saved under the name: Hubby. The phone rang for over ten seconds. The screen finally lit up. On the screen was a face I knew better than my own. Ethan Sterling. My father. He appeared to be sitting in the back of a luxury vehicle. The lighting behind him was dim. His suit collar was flawless and pristine. The surrounding crowd went completely silent. Vanessa’s eyes instantly filled with tears, her voice shifting into a sickly-sweet, whining pout. “Baby! You have to look at this! That insane woman who’s obsessed with you showed up at the school and attacked me!” “She brought her daughter, and they physically assaulted me! They’re trying to claim our Leo is her son!” The “Ethan Sterling” on the screen frowned deeply. He looked at my mom with an expression of intense, absolute disgust. “I have no idea who that woman is.” In a single instant, every drop of blood violently drained from my mom’s face. She whispered, her voice shattering: “Ethan…” The man on the screen spoke with freezing, robotic hostility. “Do not address me like that.” “Vanessa is my only wife.” Then, his eyes shifted to look directly at me. “As for this so-called ‘heiress,’ I have never seen her before in my life.” “Take your mother and leave immediately. Stop harassing my family.” The moment that final sentence dropped, the entire crowd outside the school completely erupted. Someone let out a dramatic, exaggerated gasp. “Oh my god! Mr. Sterling literally said he has no idea who they are!” “Is there even a debate anymore? The actual husband is right there!” “Being a mistress is disgusting enough, but dragging your daughter into your psychotic delusions to scam people? That is pure evil.” Ms. Davis immediately puffed her chest out, full of righteous authority. “I demand that you apologize to Mrs. Sterling right now, and then immediately vacate the premises!” Principal Vance’s face darkened with severe reprimand. “If you two refuse to cease this harassment, we will be forced to have the police physically remove you.” My mom’s hands were as cold as ice. She stared at the face on the screen, massive tears dropping from her chin, her entire body swaying as if she were about to collapse. I gripped her hand tightly, staring intently at the video feed for exactly three seconds. And then, I laughed. “Are you all completely, clinically blind?” I raised my eyes, staring directly at the cold, detached face of ‘Ethan Sterling’ on the screen. “That video is a deepfake.” 04 The moment those words left my mouth, Vanessa burst into laughter. She laughed so hard tears practically formed in the corners of her eyes. “A deepfake?” “Are you actually psychotic? Ethan Sterling just looked you in the eye and told you he doesn’t know you, and your excuse is that the video is fake?” The surrounding parents joined in the mocking laughter. “Getting caught red-handed and immediately blaming AI. That’s hilarious.” “If Mr. Sterling knew some crazy stalker was using his name like this, he’d probably be sick to his stomach.” My mom’s face was as white as a sheet of paper. I squeezed her hand harder. “Mom. Look at me.” She turned her head, her eyes brimming with terrified tears. I enunciated every single word with absolute certainty. “It is fake.” Vanessa scoffed aggressively. “You say it’s fake, so it’s fake?” I raised my hand and pointed directly at the phone screen. “First of all, my father has never, in my entire life, called me ‘Mia Sterling.’ He only calls me ‘Mimi.’” “Second, he has been married to my mother for twenty-six years. Even when they are in the middle of a screaming match, he has never, ever looked at her with that kind of disgust.” “Third.” I stared at the stiff, unnatural face on the screen and let out a dark, mocking laugh. “When he speaks, the audio sync is delayed by half a second.” “His eyes aren’t focusing on anything in the camera.” “And the reflections of the streetlights outside the car window haven’t moved a single inch in over thirty seconds.” “You used a cheap, amateur AI deepfake program, and you actually had the absolute audacity to stand outside a Sterling Corporation school and pretend to be Ethan Sterling?” Vanessa’s expression froze for a microsecond. But she immediately straightened her spine, refusing to back down. “What the hell do you know?! My husband is overseas closing a massive acquisition! The cellular signal is terrible, obviously there’s lag!” “You’re just throwing a tantrum because you lost!” She turned back to the phone, ramping up the whining. “Baby, did you hear that?! They’re actually trying to say you aren’t real!” The “Ethan Sterling” on the screen froze completely for two full seconds. Like a buffering video game NPC. And then, in a perfectly flat, robotic monotone, he repeated: “Please ask them to leave.” My smile widened into a terrifying grin. “Did you see that? Even the AI responses are pre-scripted macros.” Principal Vance’s expression shifted nervously. But she absolutely refused to admit she had been played. “Ms. Sterling, even if you harbor paranoid suspicions regarding the video feed, it does not legally prove that your claims regarding the child’s identity are valid.” “Then open the backend server right now and check the audit logs.” “I already told you. You do not have the security clearance.” “I absolutely do.” I ignored her completely. I grabbed my mom’s phone from her purse and opened a completely black, unmarked app icon she never used. The Sterling Family Enterprise Protocol. My mom usually only used it to check which luxury condo my dad had just bought her, or to track the shipping status of a custom Birkin bag. She had absolutely no idea that this specific app was hard-coded with supreme, overriding administrative authority over the Sterling family’s residential estates, corporate vehicle fleets, private academies, medical facilities, and trust funds. I handed the phone to her. “Mom. Face ID.” She stared at me, completely bewildered. “I… I don’t know how to use this.” “I’ll show you.” Her fingers were shaking violently, tears still clinging to her eyelashes. But she did exactly as I asked. The biometric scan was successful. A massive, red notification dominated the screen:Supreme Family Protocol Clearance: Chloe Sterling.Initiate Emergency Lockdown & Audit Protocol? My mom looked up at me. I nodded. She bit her lip, and pressed Confirm. The very next second, the electronic security gates of Oakmont Elite Academy let out a sharp, piercing alarm siren. The massive steel gates slammed shut and magnetically locked. The entire backend database was instantly frozen and encrypted. Every single pickup log, attendance record, administrative modification log, and CCTV video file was simultaneously uploaded directly to the Sterling Corporate Legal Division’s encrypted cloud servers. Principal Vance’s face instantly turned chalk-white. Ms. Davis panicked. “Principal Vance! What’s happening?!” I held the phone screen up directly in front of their faces. “Look very closely.” “This is what actual, unrestricted security clearance looks like.” Vanessa still tried to act tough. “Who knows what kind of fake, hacking app you just downloaded!” Before the words even finished leaving her mouth, the screech of aggressive braking echoed from the street. Three massive, black, armored SUVs slammed into park along the curb. The doors flew open. Teams of Sterling Corporate lawyers, private security contractors, and cybersecurity engineers rapidly swarmed out of the vehicles. From the very last SUV, a man stepped out. He was wearing a dark, tailored overcoat. His eyes were lethal and freezing cold. He practically sprinted toward us. When he saw the bright red handprint blazing across my mom’s cheek, his entire body went rigidly, terrifyingly still. “Chloe.” The second my mom heard his voice, the tears she had been fighting back broke completely. “Ethan…” My dad, Ethan Sterling, pulled her tightly into his chest. His voice was so cold it could freeze hell over. “Who hit you?”

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Right before Thanksgiving break, our quiet, ultra-wealthy, and notoriously aloof classmate, Seraphina, suddenly popped up in the class group chat: “My parents are out of the country, and the mansion is completely empty. Why don’t you all come over tonight and hang out?” She had arranged everything: a chartered party bus, cocktail dresses, and even a professional photographer. The group chat went absolutely feral. Everyone was thrilled, furiously RSVPing. I was the only one staring at the “rules of the game” she sent, a cold shiver slowly crawling up my spine. [24-Hour Offline Challenge]: All phones must be surrendered upon arrival. Everyone must sleep over. All cocktails will be mixed on-site. The more I thought about it, the worse it felt. I immediately submitted an early departure request for my study abroad program and booked an overnight flight out of the country. As soon as my plane touched down, I took my phone off airplane mode. Eighty-seven missed calls and hundreds of iMessages flooded my screen simultaneously. The very last message from my roommate was: “You didn’t come. You literally saved your own life.” When the police called to explain what had happened, I broke out in a cold sweat. I knew it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Chapter 1 Seraphina Sterling was practically a myth in our college. She was stunningly beautiful, and her family’s wealth seemed borderline absurd. While the rest of us were dragging ourselves to 8:00 AM classes with dark circles under our eyes, clutching cheap bagels… She would step out of a black Escalade, her driver holding an umbrella over her head. While we budgeted every penny for our art supplies… She would casually buy a box of imported, top-tier oil paints, use two tubes, and abandon the rest in the studio. Her Instagram feed showcased a life entirely alien to ours. Skiing in the Swiss Alps. Gallery openings in London. Oceanfront estates. Exclusive private galas. She rarely spoke to anyone in our major, and she almost never attended our class dinners or get-togethers. So, on the Tuesday night right before Thanksgiving break, when she suddenly messaged the class group chat: “Thanksgiving break is so boring, and my parents are in Europe.” “Oh, by the way, my house is empty. Why don’t you guys come over tonight and hang out?” The group chat was dead silent for about ten seconds. And then it absolutely exploded. My roommate, Harper, sent a string of exclamation points. “Are you serious?! Spend Thanksgiving break at your mansion? Can we take pictures?!” Seraphina replied instantly: “Of course I’m serious.” “Do you guys want to take pictures? I’ll just hire a professional photographer then.” “It’ll be perfect for a pre-graduation group photoshoot.” My other roommate, Chloe, screamed from across our dorm room. “Mia! Did you see the group chat? Seraphina actually invited us to her house!” “And she’s hiring a photographer!” I sat at my desk, looking at the photos Seraphina had just sent. A massive, detached estate. A sweeping white spiral staircase. An outdoor infinity pool. A two-story vaulted living room with a chandelier that looked straight out of a movie. It was undeniably gorgeous. But I didn’t feel an ounce of excitement. I only felt deeply unsettled. Someone who hadn’t made a genuine effort to connect with us for two and a half years… Suddenly inviting over a dozen classmates to her mansion for an all-nighter right before the holidays? Chartering a bus, providing dresses, and hiring a photographer? I kept reading. Seraphina sent another message: “Just hanging out is kind of boring, though.” “Why don’t we do a 24-Hour Offline Challenge? It’s super trendy in Europe right now.” “When you get here, we’ll all put our phones in a lockbox.” “Oh, and everyone has to sleep over. I’ll have my driver take everyone back to campus tomorrow afternoon.” “And listen, my dad’s wine cellar is fully stocked, so don’t bring anything. We’re drinking my dad’s stash tonight.” My fingertip hovered over the screen. Phones. Sleepover. Mixed drinks. Seeing those three things strung together triggered a massive, blaring alarm in my head. Chloe was already tearing through her closet. “Which dress should I wear?” “Wait, Seraphina said she’s providing dresses. So I just need to do my base makeup, right?” Harper was in the group chat asking for dress sizes. My other roommate, Avery, asked hesitantly in the chat: “Do we absolutely have to sleep over? My parents might ask where I am.” Seraphina replied incredibly fast: “I’ve already arranged everything. Besides, it’s a rare chance to relax. Leaving early ruins the vibe.” People in the chat started teasing Avery: “Don’t be a buzzkill, Avery! The Ice Queen is finally inviting us mortals over. If you miss this, you’ll regret it all year.” I stared at the sentence “Leaving early ruins the vibe,” and a heavy, sinking feeling hit my stomach. Chloe leaned over to look at my phone. “Mia, why haven’t you RSVP’d yet?” I closed the group chat app. “I’m not going.” She froze. “Wait, what? Why not?” “I have other plans. I can’t make it.” “But it’s Seraphina! This is the first time she’s ever invited us anywhere! Aren’t you dying to see her house?” I had no concrete proof, only an overwhelming, primal instinct that something was wrong. So, I went into the RSVP poll and selected “Not Attending.” Almost immediately, Seraphina sent me a direct message. “Mia, you aren’t coming?” “Yeah.” “Do you have a conflict? If you’re the only one who doesn’t show up, our graduation photo will be incomplete.” “The study abroad program I’m doing requires me to report early.” That part was true. I was originally scheduled to fly to London on the 4th for a semester exchange program. I had planned to go home and spend Thanksgiving with my mom for a couple of days first. It took Seraphina half a minute to reply: “Can’t you just change your flight to a later date? Everyone else is coming, it’ll look bad if you’re the only one missing.” I stared at that sentence, my suspicions growing heavier. In four years of college, I could count the number of times I had spoken to her on one hand. Why did she suddenly care so much whether I was there or not? Chapter 2 Early the next morning, I went straight to the department office. The hallways were mostly empty, as everyone was already packed and leaving for the holidays. When I knocked and walked in, my academic advisor, Professor Miller, was organizing holiday safety forms. She looked up, surprised to see me. “Mia? I thought you weren’t flying out until the 4th?” I placed an early departure request form on her desk. “The host university just notified me that I can move into the student flats early. I’m flying out tonight.” Professor Miller flipped through the paperwork. “This is very sudden.” “I want to get there early to help set things up.” She looked at me intently. “You aren’t going to Seraphina’s party?” My fingers twitched slightly. “You know about it?” “She texted me last night asking if she needed to register an off-campus group event. I told her no, since it’s just a hangout at her house. I did ask her to send me the guest list, though.” Professor Miller glanced at a spreadsheet on her computer. “Everyone else in your class RSVP’d ‘yes.’ You’re the only holdout.” I lowered my eyes. “I just want to get a head start on my program.” I didn’t vocalize my suspicions. Because I couldn’t articulate them clearly. Someone suddenly acting friendly isn’t a crime. Taking phones at a party could easily be explained away as a game. A sleepover, an open bar, a chartered bus—individually, any of these things could be seen as generous and accommodating. I had no evidence, and I didn’t want to be the paranoid buzzkill raining on everyone’s parade. Professor Miller signed the form. “Alright then, have a safe flight. Text me when you land.” “Will do, Professor.” The moment I stepped out of the office, my phone started buzzing continuously. Chloe had sent a voice memo. “Mia, Seraphina keeps asking us why you aren’t coming. She asked if she did something to offend you.” The second message was from Harper. “Mia, are you seriously not coming?” “Literally everyone is going. The driver is her family’s private chauffeur, it’s 100% safe.” I stood in the stairwell, listening to the audio messages, feeling a chilling cold wash over me. Chloe called me directly. “Mia, don’t be such a snob.” “I already changed my flight.” “But don’t you feel super awkward? The entire class is going, and you’re the only one opting out.” “If it’s awkward, it’s awkward. I can’t just abandon my study abroad program.” Chloe sighed heavily. “Sometimes you are just so cold.” I didn’t argue. After hanging up, I went back to the dorm to finish packing. Chloe sat on her bed, watching me. She pursed her lips. “Mia, do you look down on us? Do you think we’re stupid for jumping at the chance to go to a rich girl’s house?” I zipped up my suitcase. “No.” And I meant it. I didn’t think they were stupid. When someone beautiful, incredibly wealthy, and usually unapproachable suddenly extends a hand and says, ‘Let me show you my world,’ most people would be tempted. It’s not stupidity. It’s just human nature to want to be seen, accepted, and treated like a VIP. I just couldn’t afford to take the gamble. I didn’t have a wealthy family to bail me out if things went south. Chloe muttered quietly: “Seraphina said you’ll regret it if you don’t come.” I paused. That phrase again. I threw my backpack over my shoulder. “Then I’ll regret it.” Chapter 3 On the Uber ride to the airport, I called my mom. It was noisy on her end; she was probably at the grocery store getting ready for Thanksgiving. “Mia? What time does your train get in tomorrow? I’m getting everything ready for the turkey.” I stared out the window at the highway blurring past, my throat tightening. “Mom, I’m not coming home.” She froze. “What’s wrong?” “The study abroad program bumped up their timeline. I’m flying to London tonight. I can’t be there for Thanksgiving.” The phone was silent for a few seconds. “That’s so sudden.” “Yeah. They said we could move into the dorms early, and the school approved it.” My mom didn’t press further, but her voice dropped, clearly disappointed. “Well, be careful traveling alone internationally. Do you have everything you need?” “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ve done this before.” “Call me the second you land. And don’t cheap out on transportation. Take a cab from the airport, don’t go wandering around at night.” “I know.” She kept giving me advice, rambling on for a while. While I listened, I checked my phone. The class group chat was still popping off. Seraphina had sent several photos of designer cocktail dresses. The chat was losing its mind. “Oh my god, these are stunning! I’m going to take a hundred pictures.” “It’s honestly a shame Mia isn’t coming.” “She’s always been like that. A total loner.” Seraphina replied with a very neutral emoji. “It’s fine. We have to respect her choice.” Those words looked polite and graceful on the surface. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that the person behind the screen was absolutely furious. After takeoff, the city lights below slowly vanished beneath the cloud cover. I leaned against the window, unable to sleep. I wondered if I was just being overly paranoid. What if Seraphina really just wanted to create a memorable, bonding experience before we all graduated? Maybe the “offline challenge” really was just a trendy, harmless game rich kids played. But I didn’t regret my choice. There are some parties where, if you miss them, the worst that happens is people call you a buzzkill. But if you go, and something goes wrong, regret won’t save you. Around 4:00 AM local time, my plane touched down at Heathrow. As I dragged my suitcase off the jet bridge, I took my phone off airplane mode. My screen was instantly paralyzed by notifications. Missed calls: 87. iMessage alerts: hundreds. Every single person from my class had tried to contact me, even people I barely ever spoke to. My heart plummeted into my stomach. Something happened. I immediately opened Chloe’s chat. “We’re here! The mansion is gorgeous!” “We have to hand over our phones now, ttyl.” “I feel kind of dizzy. I don’t know if the alcohol is hitting me already.” There was a massive time gap after that. At 1:30 AM, she sent a voice memo. It was only five seconds long. In the background, I could hear crying and chaotic, heavy footsteps. Her voice was shaking uncontrollably. “Mia… call the cops… Lakeside Estates…” The next message was a voice memo sent at 3:17 AM. “Mia, how is it fair that you didn’t come?!” “Why were you the only one who didn’t show up? Did you know something?!” “You didn’t come. You literally saved your own life.” My hands went completely ice-cold. I tried calling her. No answer. I called again. Still no answer. I called Professor Miller. The line connected, but it was absolute chaos on her end. People were crying, someone was yelling for a doctor. Professor Miller’s voice was raw and hoarse: “You landed in London? If you know anything about this, you need to tell me right now.” “Professor, what happened?” She went silent for a second: “Something terrible happened. Try not to panic.” “I need you to screenshot and save every single private message between you and Seraphina right now.” My chest tightened: “What happened to Chloe and the others?” Professor Miller didn’t answer the question directly. “Check the class group chat first, but do not send any messages.” I hung up, my fingers shaking as I opened the group chat. “What are we going to do?! My life is ruined!” “I don’t want to live anymore after this!” “Where is she?! I want her to pay for this!” The messages were flying so fast I couldn’t read them. I scrolled back to the top, reading down from the newest messages. The further I scrolled, the faster my heart hammered against my ribs. Until I found a photo sent around 2:00 AM. I stared at that photo, feeling the blood freeze in my veins. Chapter 4 The class group chat had devolved into absolute anarchy. “Can anyone reach Seraphina?” “Where is she?! Why did she run?!” “Who the hell were those guys in the house?!” “My phone is gone! I can’t find my ID either!” “Stop texting, the cops said not to touch anything!” I scrolled up, piece by piece, reconstructing the nightmare of that evening. At 7:30 PM, the chartered bus picked them up from the campus gates. The driver wore a suit and claimed to be the Sterling family’s private chauffeur. There was another man on the bus who claimed to be a photography assistant, stating he needed to verify the guest list beforehand. Everyone provided their full names and the last four digits of their social security numbers. He told them the gated community had strict security protocols and required registration. When they arrived, Seraphina was standing at the grand entrance to greet them. She wore a pristine white dress, her hair elegantly pinned up, smiling much warmer than she ever did on campus. The living room was adorned with floral arrangements, a dessert bar, and racks of designer dresses. The lighting was immaculate. Soft, ambient music was playing. Everyone truly believed they had stepped into a scene from a high-budget movie. At 9:00 PM, Seraphina brought out a heavy, wooden lockbox. She announced, “The offline challenge officially starts now. No one is allowed to check their phones tonight.” A few people hesitated. She joked, “If you don’t put it in, it means you don’t trust me.” The rest of the group started cheering and pressuring the holdouts. Eventually, every single phone was dropped into the box. Chloe later told me that she did put a phone in the box. But she had two phones. She had her daily driver, and an older iPhone she used strictly for filming TikToks and storing B-roll footage. She couldn’t bear to miss out on filming such a gorgeous location, so she had hidden her old phone inside the lining of her dress. Around 10:00 PM, Seraphina started pouring drinks. For those who didn’t drink alcohol, she poured juice. Harper mentioned her drink tasted oddly bitter. Seraphina smiled and said, “It’s a custom blend from a vineyard in France, it’s supposed to have a complex flavor profile.” Avery only drank half a glass of orange juice, but quickly complained of feeling incredibly sleepy. Chloe didn’t drink much, but she also started feeling dizzy, her legs going weak, and her vision blurring. And then, the doorbell rang. It wasn’t a cleaning crew, and it wasn’t the promised photographer. It was a group of strange, heavily built men. Someone sent a long, frantic, typo-ridden message in the group chat, clearly typed through tears. “After those guys came in, Seraphina was talking to one of them.” “She told him everyone was here, except Mia.” “The guy cursed and said they were short one girl.” “Then Seraphina went upstairs to ‘change,’ and sneaked out the back door.” Reading that, my fingers began to tremble uncontrollably. Except Mia. Short one girl. I stared at the screen, my mind completely blank. I thought I had merely dodged a slightly uncomfortable, awkward social obligation. But the truth was, that trap had a specific spot reserved entirely for me. Chloe finally called me. When I answered, all I heard was her sobbing. It took a long time for her to choke out a single sentence: “Mia, I’m so scared.” I didn’t dare ask for details. I only asked: “Are you safe right now?” “I’m at the hospital. The police are here too.” “What about Harper and the others?” “They’re all here. A few of them haven’t woken up yet. Avery won’t stop crying, she’s terrified her parents are going to find out.” I closed my eyes, a crushing weight pressing down on my chest. “Where is Seraphina?” Chloe’s voice suddenly turned ice-cold. “She ran.” She told me that by the time the police arrived, the mansion was completely trashed. A few of the men didn’t manage to escape in time and were arrested on the scene. Several others fled out the back. Seraphina was gone. And her luggage was missing too. “Mia,” Chloe said suddenly. “I used to think you were just being a cynical buzzkill for not coming.” She sobbed, struggling to catch her breath. “Now I realize… you were right.” My throat tightened. I didn’t say, “I told you so.” Because I hadn’t told them so. I had only saved myself.

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I was born to be the ultimate rule-follower. I followed rules so strictly that everyone, even my own mother, called me a rigid freak. In elementary school, the policy was: “No entry without a school uniform.” One day, my mom lied and told me my uniform shirt got lost in the laundry. I stood outside the school gates for two days and two nights. I refused to walk inside until she bought me a new one. In middle school, my English teacher fainted in the middle of a lesson. I led the entire class in strictly adhering to the “0% head-raising rule during independent study.” It took two hours before the principal did a routine sweep, found her, and called an ambulance. In high school, some kids in my class were doing acrobatics off their desks. The teacher filling in next door later screamed at me, asking why I didn’t come get him. I calmly explained that school rules prohibited wandering the halls during class, and noise levels could not exceed 60 decibels. The principal was so furious he slapped his own leg. “You didn’t think to call 911?! Even commuter students have cell phones!” I raised my hand respectfully. “But school rules state that commuter students are not allowed to use cell phones on campus.” The principal’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. He ended up getting severely reprimanded by the school board. On graduation day, the entire faculty wept tears of joy as they personally escorted me out the front doors. Then came college. My grandfather was critically ill, and I needed to request an emergency leave of absence to go home. Our academic advisor—a recently hired contractor—had just approved an elaborate vacation request for the class president. But when it was my turn, she lazily tossed my form back. “Denied.” I asked sincerely, “Why?” Sarah, inspecting her freshly glued-on acrylic nails and sipping the boba tea the class president, Mark, had just bought her, shot me a sideways glare. “University policy explicitly states that leave requests must be submitted one week in advance with detailed justification. Otherwise, they are void.” “You are requesting to leave campus today. The timeline doesn’t align.” She let out a mocking little laugh. “I mean, it’s not entirely impossible to leave right now. A dead body could leave campus immediately.” I nodded thoughtfully. If that was the rule, then I absolutely had to follow it. … I walked over to the window and looked down. Third floor. Roughly thirty feet. Jumping from here would, at most, break my legs. It wouldn’t kill me. My grandfather couldn’t wait. I needed to find a spot with a 100% fatality rate. The other professors in the faculty office all covered their mouths, trying to hide their laughter. A female professor with glasses frowned in Sarah’s direction. “Sarah, aren’t you just intentionally making things difficult for the girl?” “What if she actually takes you seriously?” Sarah completely brushed it off. “It was obviously a joke. She managed to get into college, didn’t she? Do you really think she’s that stupid?” “Besides, administration is cracking down on absences lately. The last approved slot was taken. What am I supposed to do?” The AC unit outside the window buzzed loudly. I didn’t catch the rest of their conversation. Mark, the class president, walked back into the office. “Hey Sarah, I need a massive favor!” Sarah’s demeanor instantly flipped. She beamed, her eyes crinkling with warmth. “Ugh, you little brat. I knew you didn’t just buy me boba out of the goodness of your heart.” “Spit it out, what do you need?!” “Hehe, you know me too well, Sarah!” Mark pulled out another leave request form, casually leaning against her arm with a charming smile. “My buddy Josh wants to tag along on the trip. A beautiful, kind-hearted advisor like you wouldn’t say no, right?!” “Pfft, easy—” Sarah started to say, before abruptly stopping. “Ahem. Maya, do you still need something?” I turned back and looked earnestly at Sarah. “Advisor Sarah, were you telling the truth earlier?” Sarah assumed I was being sarcastic and her expression soured. “Of course it’s the truth. Why would I lie to you?” “Okay,” I nodded. “Since it is a university rule, I will comply.” Even though I didn’t understand the logic behind the rule. If the rule existed, it was valid. And I must obey it. As I walked out, I heard Sarah complaining to Mark: “Girls these days have absolutely zero self-respect. They’ll make up any lie just to go spend the night with their boyfriends.” “Guys are so much easier to deal with. At least they’re honest!” I walked back into my dorm room. Chloe, the girl in the bed on my left, looked up from her video game. Seeing my empty hands, she frowned. “The advisor didn’t approve it?” My expression remained perfectly flat. “No. She said I needed to submit it a week in advance.” Emily, the hot-tempered girl across from me, immediately cursed. “That’s fucking retarded.” “How are you supposed to predict a family death a week in advance? Is she brain-damaged?!” Jessica, the girl in the bed opposite Chloe, patted my shoulder and sighed helplessly. “That’s just how she is. Any guy in our class can get a pass to leave at 2 AM, but when it’s a girl? Suddenly there are ‘no slots left,’ or the ‘reason isn’t valid,’ or ‘denied.’” “It’s just our luck we got stuck with a ‘pick-me’ advisor.” I set my textbooks down on my desk and offered them a small smile. “You can’t blame the advisor. She has to follow university rules too. I understand.” “Plus, she already told me the authorized method to leave campus without violating protocol.” The three of them exchanged confused glances but didn’t press further. They assumed I had found someone to cover my classes. I walked out the door. I turned and headed straight for the eight-story science building. The railing on the rooftop was old and severely rusted. It wobbled precariously. My mom sent me a text: [When are you getting here? Your grandfather doesn’t have much time.] I replied: [Almost there.] After sending the message. I took a photo from the edge of the roof, looking straight down, and sent it to my advisor. [If I jump, I can leave campus.] It’s called documenting the process. Sarah replied almost instantly: [Yep, exactly.] I felt relieved. The railing was a bit high, so it took some effort to climb over. Then, I spread my arms wide. And jumped. Chapter 2: Attending Class with Injuries But I didn’t die. I just shattered a massive portion of my skeletal structure. When I fell, I happened to crash directly into a massive industrial dumpster outside the building, terrifying a group of students walking to class. In less than two minutes, half the university administration was on the scene. As I slowly regained consciousness, I heard the dorm mother crying and explaining to someone: “Everyone else was heading to class, but she just kept climbing toward the roof.” “I was screaming at her from the courtyard, but it was like she couldn’t even hear me.” “She just kept muttering something about ‘university rules’ and ‘compliance.’” “If the university hadn’t just planted those massive oak trees last month, which broke her fall… she’d be gone.” “Dean, did this poor girl suffer some kind of psychological break?” The Dean of Students stood with his hands behind his back, glaring at Sarah. His voice was heavy. “Maya’s roommates stated that right before she jumped, she came to you to request an emergency leave, and you denied it.” “What was the reason for her request?” Advisor Sarah sounded deeply irritated. “She claimed she needed to go home for a funeral.” “But our class president informed me that Maya had actually gotten into a fight with her boyfriend and was just making up an excuse to go move in with him.” “Furthermore, her request form was formatted incorrectly, so denying it was entirely within protocol.” “Students these days are just way too fragile. Overreacting and jumping off buildings over trivial inconveniences, causing endless headaches for the university.” Mark quickly backed her up. “I can testify to that. Maya barely ever talks to guys in our class, and her phone lock screen is literally a picture of her boyfriend.” “I was in the office at the time too. She was definitely acting unhinged.” I twitched my fingers. But that lock screen… was a picture of the only student from my rural county to ever score a perfect on the SATs. My dad instituted a rule that he was to be my absolute role model, and therefore, every single device background had to be a picture of him. The Dean violently slammed his hand against a nearby desk. “Did I or did I not explicitly tell you that we had a special-needs student enrolling this year, and that you needed to pay exceptionally close attention to her?!” “Did you even bother to read Maya’s file?! She suffers from a severe cognitive-linguistic processing disorder! She interprets rules absolutely literally!” “Regardless of the context, the fact is she jumped off a building! If something like this happens again, consider yourself fired!” “I’ve managed to keep a lid on this for now. Do not notify her parents yet. You fix this.” Sarah lowered her head, accepting the reprimand. But internally, she was entirely unconvinced. After the Dean left. Sarah complained to another professor who was also stationed in the hospital room. “Girls these days are so manipulative.” “If she actually had a cognitive processing disorder, how is she actively maintaining a romantic relationship like a normal person?” “I honestly prefer dealing with guys. No hidden agendas, no dramatic sensitivity. So much easier.” That professor happened to be the woman with glasses from the office that day. Hearing this, she looked hesitant. “Did she… did she jump because you told her that a dead body could leave campus immediately?” Sarah’s expression stiffened for a fraction of a second, before quickly returning to normal. “When did I ever say that? Professor Evans, you must be misremembering.” “And even if I did, a dead body can leave campus immediately. I wasn’t wrong.” The room fell silent. Sarah quickly tried to justify herself. “Who on earth would actually kill themselves just to get off campus?” She glanced down at me, still lying with my eyes closed, and rolled her eyes. “If she really follows rules that strictly…” “I should have told her that without an approved doctor’s note, she isn’t allowed to miss class. Look at her, she’s sleeping perfectly fine…” In the afternoon, Sarah got annoyed with waiting and left. But her words began playing on an endless, looping track inside my brain. My entire body felt like it was on fire. My legs, bound in heavy plaster casts, began to uncontrollably shift toward the edge of the bed. I had an intro to philosophy seminar this afternoon. Without an approved doctor’s note, I was not allowed to miss class. Chapter 3: The Lame Run Riiiiiiing— The exact second the final tone of the class bell echoed. I pushed the door open. Enduring the horrified, monster-like stares of every single student in the room, I dragged my shattered, mangled leg and limped my way to the seat next to my roommate. The philosophy professor, an elderly man with white hair, literally dropped his dry-erase marker. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes in utter disbelief. “Maya? You… you’re severely injured! Why are you in class?!” I tilted my head slightly. Sitting perfectly upright, acting as if I couldn’t feel a shred of agony. “Professor, I do not possess an approved medical exemption form. University policy dictates that unexcused absences result in a deduction of academic credits.” Fresh blood was seeping through the thick layers of bandages wrapped around my leg and foot, pooling darkly. My leg was bent at an unnatural, grotesque angle. And yet, my facial expression remained entirely, terrifyingly serious. Chloe swallowed hard, shrinking away from me in sheer terror. “M… Maya. You fell from the eighth floor. You just woke up. Do you not feel any pain?!” Students all around the room began pulling out their phones to record me. “Holy shit, is she Superman? She jumped off the eighth floor this morning and she’s in seminar this afternoon.” “Is attendance for this class seriously mandatory under penalty of death? Blink twice if you’re being held hostage!” “I heard her boyfriend is forcing her to get an abortion. Did the trauma literally break her brain?” Emily wasn’t just confused; she was actively panicking. “How did you even get here?!” “The campus clinic said you have a comminuted fracture in your right leg! They said you couldn’t be out of bed for at least three months!” Wave after wave of excruciating, blinding pain surged through my body. I answered honestly: “I walked.” A guy sitting in the back row burst into hysterical laughter. “Are you telling me you walked a mile and a half from the campus clinic to the humanities building, and then climbed five flights of stairs?!” “Who are you trying to kid? Is this a medical miracle?!” I turned my head. “I’m not kidding you. I really did walk.” The whispering behind me grew louder and more vicious. “She’s definitely faking the severity to force the advisor to give her an excused absence.” “Seriously, if she actually wanted to die, she wouldn’t have picked a spot directly over trees and a dumpster. Hitting the pavement would have been much faster.” More and more people began nodding in agreement with that logic. “Advisor Sarah has the worst luck. Getting stuck with a toxic psycho like her.” “Manipulative bitch. No wonder her boyfriend dumped her. Someone like this should just be expelled!” My head throbbed with blinding agony. It felt like thousands of needles were being driven directly into my skull. Jessica couldn’t handle it anymore. She violently slammed her hands on the desk. “Will you all shut the fuck up?!” “Maya did not jump off a building over a guy!” Another guy, who was notoriously friendly with Sarah, sneered. “The screenshots are already all over the group chats. It’s not exactly a secret.” “You roommates are all covering for her, and now you’re trying to deny it? Don’t you think it looks a little pathetic?” Jessica’s face flushed crimson with rage, desperate to expose the truth. But the advisor had privately threatened them. If they spoke out of turn, they faced academic suspension. The elderly professor slammed his hand against his podium. “Class has begun! Silence!” I don’t know if the adrenaline was wearing off, or if the painkillers had completely failed. The agonizing pressure in my skull intensified a million times over. The pain in my lower half became so unbearable that I bit completely through my tongue just to suppress a scream. And then, my vision went completely black. With a heavy crash, I collapsed face-first onto the desk. Sarah, conducting a routine hall sweep, pushed the classroom door open. She scanned the room. Not immediately spotting me, she let out a quiet sigh of relief. But just as she turned to leave, her eyes swept over the most populated row in the classroom. She barked sharply: “Do some students in this room lack basic respect for their professors? The lecture is ongoing, and you are sleeping at your desk?!” She pointed a rigid finger with absolute, pinpoint accuracy directly at me. “Yes, I am talking to the student in the third row from the back, sleeping on the desk.” The elderly professor immediately tried to interject and explain. But Sarah preemptively cut him off: “Stand up. Go to the track and run three laps.” Chapter 4: Plunge into the Lake My chaotic, drifting consciousness was violently dragged back to reality. My physical body was screaming in resistance, but my brain absolutely refused to comply. I shot out of the classroom with the speed of an Olympic sprinter. I even collided with Sarah on the way out. She looked incredibly annoyed. “Who the hell was that? Zero manners.” The elderly professor slapped his thigh in sheer panic. “That was Maya! I literally sent you a text message about her!” “Don’t just stand there! Chase after her!” Sarah completely froze, turning to stone. A few of the guys who were close with her quickly tried to reassure her. “Sarah, that Maya girl is 100% faking it.” “Exactly, she’s just doing it for attention. Let her act crazy, don’t let it stress you out!” But when their group finally arrived at the athletic fields. What they saw was me, dragging my mangled, grotesquely twisted leg, violently hopping and limping my way around the track. A crowd of dozens of students had formed a dense perimeter, holding their phones up to record. Sarah’s heart instantly dropped into her stomach. The medical reports were still sitting in her bag. The severity of Maya’s injuries was undeniable and entirely real. Did Maya… Did she really jump off a building just because of my joke? In the center of the crowd, the Dean of the College and the Head of Academics were wiping sweat from their foreheads, desperately trying to de-escalate the situation. “Maya, please, if you’re upset, just talk to us. We will absolutely solve whatever problem you have.” “Just tell us what you need. We’ll do whatever it takes to help.” I acted as if I couldn’t hear a single word. I kept moving. With every agonizing step, fresh blood dripped onto the rubber track. “The advisor stated that sleeping during a lecture requires running three laps on the track. I am complying with university rules.” The crowd erupted in absolute shock. “Is this advisor a psychopath? Forcing a student with a shattered leg to run laps?!” “It’s not just a shattered leg! That’s the girl from the women’s dorm who jumped from the eighth floor this morning! She has multiple comminuted fractures across her entire body!” “Tsk, honestly she probably deserves it. Jumping off a building because she got knocked up? She’s clearly insane.” The Dean’s face was blacker than coal. “Where is the advisor responsible for this student?! Get her over here immediately!” Sarah rushed forward, panicking. “Auntie, this has nothing to do with me!” The Dean glared at her, lowering her voice into a furious whisper: “Now that this has blown up into a massive spectacle, you better get out there and convince her to stop.” “Otherwise, if she actually dies out here, even with me as your aunt, your career as an advisor is completely over!” “Yes, yes, absolutely!” Sarah agreed instantly. “Mark, come here and help me talk some sense into Maya!” Mark eagerly complied. “On it!” On the surface, Sarah looked careful and concerned, but internally, her mind was racing through a dozen different calculations. “Maya, have you told anyone exactly why you jumped off the building?” My phone was still tucked securely inside my jacket pocket. I hadn’t sent a single text message to anyone since the incident. My throat was bubbling with blood. I couldn’t speak. I could only shake my head. Sarah let out a massive sigh of relief. The corners of her eyes curved into a venomous, malicious smirk. “I see.” “Do you still want to go home?” My dad told me that even if it killed me, I had to come home for the funeral. It was the family rule. I nodded. Sarah let out a heavy, exaggerated sigh. “Well, if you jump into the river right now, and die… you’ll be able to go home.” My neck instinctively snapped toward the large artificial lake situated just beyond the athletic fields. But my body continued to relentlessly limp along the curve of the track. Mark looked slightly concerned. “Sarah, isn’t this going to cause a massive problem?” Sarah rolled her eyes. “What kind of problem?” “I absolutely refuse to believe that someone would actually kill themselves just to follow a rule. If people like that actually existed, they would have died a hundred times over by now.” Sure enough, my footsteps didn’t falter. I continued my grotesque, agonizing hopping around the track. Mark laughed. “Wow, you’re right. She’s totally faking it.” Sarah scoffed dismissively. “Once she gets tired of running, she’ll stop on her own.” “Besides, the campus medics are already on standby right there.” A few moments later, with a heavy thud, I collapsed onto the synthetic rubber track. The medical team instantly rushed forward and loaded me onto a stretcher. Seeing the crisis resolved, the crowd slowly began to disperse. Sarah rolled her eyes. “Let’s go. It’s too hot out here.” Mark immediately sucked up to her. “You worked so hard today, Sarah. Let me buy you a boba. The usual order?” However. The reason I didn’t jump into the lake earlier. Was because I hadn’t finished my three laps. Now that the laps were completed, I was officially authorized to leave campus again. I abruptly sat up from the stretcher. And without a single second of hesitation, I threw myself over the retaining wall and plunged directly into the artificial lake.

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On the third day after our daughter was born, my husband, Ryan, said he was running downstairs to grab some groceries and get a breath of fresh air. I lay in bed, my C-section incision throbbing with a dull, relentless ache. I waited for three hours. Ryan never came back. I dialed his number. “Hey, where are you?” “Babe, listen, I need to tell you something. Don’t be mad.” His voice was muffled by a lot of background noise. “My parents are getting older, and they’ve never really been on a real vacation. I actually have some time off right now, so I’m taking them on a trip.” I couldn’t process what he was saying. “A trip? Where are you guys right now?” “Yeah, we’re already at the airport.” … I stared at the ceiling, a loud ringing starting in my ears. “Ryan, what kind of sick joke is this?” “I am three days postpartum. My stitches haven’t even healed. The baby is barely seventy-two hours old. You all just left? Who is supposed to take care of us?” His tone on the other end of the line was light, almost breezy. “I just Zelled you five hundred bucks. That should be more than enough for you and the baby for a while. Just order UberEats if you get hungry.” “Just rest up at home. I’ll bring you back a souvenir.” I looked at the $500 transfer notification on my screen. It was so absurd it was almost laughable. Before the birth, we had agreed that his parents would stay with us to help with my postpartum recovery, which was why I told my own mother she didn’t need to fly in. Now? They had all vanished, leaving me and a newborn entirely alone. A sharp pain shot through my incision. My voice trembled. “Can’t you just reschedule the trip?” “Wait until I’m healed, and then we can take the baby, and my parents can come, and we can all go together…” “No!” He cut me off sharply before I could even finish. “If we wait for you to heal, we’ll be waiting forever!” Realizing his tone was a bit too harsh, Ryan softened his voice, trying to coax me. “Babe, family comes first. My parents sacrificed so much for me; it’s only right that I give back to them.” “They raised me, and I finally have the time to take them to the beach. Don’t be a buzzkill.” Suddenly, a female voice chimed in over the phone. She sounded like she was standing right next to him, her lips practically brushing his phone. “Ryan, what’s the hold-up? They’re boarding our zone! Hurry up!” I recognized that voice instantly. It was Mia. Over the phone, Ryan let out a soft laugh. The indulgence in his tone was something I had never heard him direct at me. “Hold on, Mia, stop pushing me. Let me just wrap this up with the wife.” Mia. Ryan’s “girl best friend” who had been glued to his side since college. “Why is she there?” My throat tightened. Ryan answered without a shred of guilt: “Mia’s never been to this resort either, so she just tagged along. Since you can’t make it, it’s actually perfect. She can help keep my parents company.” I heard my mother-in-law’s cackling laughter in the background. It grated against my ears. “Does she really think I was going to stay back and be her nursemaid? In her dreams.” They were a picture-perfect, happy family. Without me. And without my newborn child. “Ryan, listen to me very carefully. I need you to turn around, leave that airport, and come home right now. Otherwise…” “Alright, alright, who are you trying to scare?” His voice turned freezing cold. “What are you gonna do to me? You just had a baby. Where exactly are you gonna go?” “They’re scanning our tickets. I’m hanging up. I’ll text you when we land.” The call dropped. The dead dial tone echoed in the quiet bedroom. I sat there, gripping my phone. I suddenly remembered the year we got married. We were so broke we couldn’t even afford a honeymoon. Ryan had held me in his arms, his face full of guilt. “I’m so sorry, babe. I’m useless right now. But I swear, when we have money, I will take you anywhere in the world you want to go.” I had comforted him. “It’s okay. As long as I’m with you, I’m happy.” I waited for so long. And when he finally took his first real vacation, he took his parents and his “girl best friend.” But not me. My daughter woke up and let out a piercing cry. Biting down against the pain in my abdomen, I rolled onto my side to soothe her. The iPad resting on my nightstand suddenly lit up. Notifications were flooding into Ryan’s frat-brother group chat. His iMessage was synced to the tablet. “Ryan, you absolute legend. Just packed up and left. You really just ditched the wife right after she popped the kid out.” “Man, you held out for nine months, I respect the grind. I still have three months to go before my wife drops her cargo.” I scrolled up through the chat history. Two days ago, Ryan had sent a message to the group. “She finally dropped the cargo. The kid is born. You can book the flights.” Mia had replied immediately: “I told you to wait until she gave birth. Her C-section scar hasn’t healed, and she’s stuck holding a newborn. Even if she wanted to chase us to the airport, she physically couldn’t.” Below her text was a screenshot of their flight confirmations. Ryan had replied with a crying-laughing emoji. “Mia always thinks of everything. Her parents are out of state, too. By the time she realizes what happened, we’ll already be landing on the beach.” So, it wasn’t a spontaneous trip. He had been waiting for the baby to be born. He waited until the exact moment my body was at its weakest, when I was most vulnerable and in need of care, to abandon us. I systematically screenshotted every single page of that chat history and uploaded it to my cloud drive. Then, I looked down at the tiny baby girl in my arms. “Don’t be scared, Lily,” I whispered, holding her impossibly small hand. My voice was steady. “He doesn’t want us. But that’s okay, because we don’t want him anymore either.” I dialed my mother’s number. “Mom… can you come pick me up?” My mom paused for a second. “Claire, honey, your dad and I are out of state for that business convention. What’s wrong?” I opened my mouth, and the tears I had been fighting finally fell. “Ryan took his parents and Mia on a beach vacation out of the country. He left me and the baby at home. Alone.” My mom’s voice instantly spiked in pitch. “What?! Has he lost his fucking mind?! You literally just had major surgery! He abandoned his wife and newborn to go on a vacation?!” “Claire, don’t you panic. Mom is booking the next flight back right now.” After hanging up, I leaned against the headboard, desperately needing to catch my breath. But Lily kept crying. Enduring the searing pain of my incision, I rolled over to nurse her. The second she finished eating, she dirtied her diaper. I forced myself out of bed. I changed her diaper, washed her, and prepared a backup bottle of formula. By the time I was done, an hour had passed. I realized I hadn’t had a single drop of water all morning. My lips were cracked and bleeding. My phone lit up. It was an Instagram notification. Ryan had just posted a new photo. He was wearing sunglasses, lounging on a beach chair, smiling so wide his teeth were showing. The caption: The taste of freedom. I stared at the post, then opened his text thread. “Ryan, if you do not come home tonight, we are getting a divorce.” I sent the message. It was like throwing a stone into the ocean; absolute silence followed. I remembered the night I told my parents I was marrying him. My mom slammed her hand on the dining table. “Do you know what kind of family he comes from? What are you guys going to live on? If you marry him, you are signing up for a life of suffering!” My dad sat in silence for a long time. Finally, he just said: “If you are dead set on marrying him, I can’t stop you. But the house we bought for you before the wedding will only have your name on the deed. And the emergency fund your mother set up for you? You are never to give him access to it.” At the time, I thought they were just prejudiced against Ryan because he grew up poor. I even felt defensive for him. “Dad, he’s not marrying me for our money.” My dad didn’t argue with me. “Whether he is or isn’t, time will tell.” Now I finally understood. My dad wasn’t just cynical about my marriage. He was terrified that one day, I would lose everything. Just then, my phone rang. It was Ryan. “What the hell are you crying about now?” “I just went out of town for a few days to relax. Why do you have to be so incredibly petty?” Before I could even speak, Mia’s voice drifted over the line. “Claire, don’t you worry! I’m keeping a close eye on him for you. If he even looks at a girl in a bikini on this beach, I’ll slap him for you.” Ryan chuckled. “See? With Mia here, you have nothing to worry about. It’s just a short trip. Once my parents get tired of the beach, we’ll head back.” I gripped my phone, my voice dropping to ice. “A short trip? Exactly how many days?” He answered with arrogant confidence, even a hint of pride: “I cashed in all my PTO and my paternity leave. So, probably a week and a half, maybe two weeks.” My brain felt like it short-circuited. When I was pregnant, I waddled into the clinic entirely alone for my checkups. I waited in endless lines, got my blood drawn, and did my ultrasounds while my legs cramped in agony. When I called him to ask him to come, he said his company was in a critical crunch and he couldn’t take time off. He told me to just handle it myself. I believed him. I even felt bad that he was working so hard. It turns out he wasn’t too busy. He just refused to spend his paid time off on me. “Ryan,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “You don’t ever have to come back. We’re getting a divorce.” The line went dead silent for two seconds. “Claire, are you a literal psychopath?” He suddenly started screaming at the top of his lungs. “I work my ass off to provide for this family! Is it a crime to want a vacation?! Do you have any idea how much pressure I’m under?! Why the fuck can’t you ever be understanding?!” “The only thing you know how to do is threaten divorce!” I let out a soft, bitter laugh. I didn’t say a word. “You’re fucking insane. I’m done talking to you.” The call disconnected with an aggressive beep. In the silence, my daughter stared up at me with her big, dark eyes. I looked down at her. I didn’t cry. This time, I didn’t shed a single tear. Chapter 2 That afternoon, right after I put Lily down for a nap, my phone buzzed. Mia had sent me a picture. In the photo, she had her arm linked intimately with my mother-in-law’s. She was sitting right next to Ryan, smiling radiantly. She looked infinitely more like the daughter-in-law of this family than I ever did. She followed it up with a text: “Claire, don’t worry about a thing! I’m taking amazing care of Ryan and his parents. You just focus on your postpartum recovery!” I stared at the text, a wave of pure nausea hitting my stomach. I didn’t curse at her. I didn’t reply. I simply saved the photo and the message to my camera roll. She thought she was flexing on me. But to me, this was all admissible evidence. I was going to make sure every single one of them paid the price. After saving the files, I pushed myself up from the edge of the bed. The movement violently pulled at my stitches. I gritted my teeth and began packing a suitcase. Since I was leaving, I needed to make sure I took everything that mattered. But when I opened my nightstand drawer, I froze. The debit card I had specifically opened to hold all the baby shower cash gifts for Lily… was missing. The custom-engraved gold baby bracelets and the pure gold locket my parents had bought her… were missing. Even the $2,000 in emergency cash my mom had hidden in the drawer for me in case I needed grocery deliveries… was gone. I stared into the empty drawer, shaking with absolute, unfiltered rage. I dialed Ryan’s number immediately. It rang forever before he finally picked up. “What now?” I forced my voice steady: “Where is my daughter’s debit card? Where is her gold jewelry? And where is the cash my mother left for me?” There was a noticeable pause on the other end. “Uhh… I was a little short on cash for the trip, so I just borrowed it for now.” “Borrowed it?” I let out a sharp, furious laugh. “Ryan, that is my daughter’s money.” He stammered defensively: “It’s not like I’m not going to pay it back. When I get my next bonus, I’ll transfer it back into her account.” Mia’s voice drifted through the receiver: “Ryan! We haven’t paid the remaining balance for the hotel suite yet! Didn’t you say there was still cash on the baby’s card? You know the PIN, just transfer it. You can always put it back later.” My lungs completely stopped working. So my daughter’s birth gifts weren’t taken for a sudden emergency. They were stolen to fund their international flights, luxury hotel suites, and seaside dinners. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “You went on a luxury vacation, and you financed it by stealing from a newborn baby?! Do you people have absolutely no shame?!” My mother-in-law’s shrill, grating voice immediately cut in. “You popped out a useless girl! What are you so arrogant about? Gold jewelry? Savings accounts? Does a girl even deserve that?!” My father-in-law chimed in to play the voice of reason. “Stealing? Claire, you and Ryan are married. Why are you drawing such harsh lines over money?” I stood frozen. My mother-in-law was still yelling. “And you actually expected me to stay there and wait on you hand and foot while you recovered? In your dreams! My son didn’t marry you so I could be your slave!” I closed my eyes, my chest aching with every heartbeat. I remembered when I first got pregnant. My in-laws used to bring me homemade soup every day, constantly saying, “Claire is working so hard for this family.” Then, in my third trimester, when my bump sat a little lower, one of their superstitious friends told them it was definitely going to be a girl. Her entire demeanor shifted overnight. No more soup. No more smiles. She wouldn’t even cook dinner when she visited. The most horrific moment was when I was standing outside the guest bedroom, and I overheard my in-laws talking to Ryan. “You need to find a doctor who will tell you the gender. If it’s really a girl, you’re better off terminating it now. Let her rest up, and try again for a boy.” I was shaking with rage. But Ryan just sighed and said: “Mom, Dad, they’re just looking out for our future.” Thinking about that moment, the fire in my chest burned so hot I felt like I was going to combust. “Ryan, I’m going to say this one last time. Put the money back into Lily’s account. That is not your money. You do not have the right to touch it.” “Claire, are you a literal gold digger?” His voice turned vicious. “I just borrowed some cash. Do you really have to be this psychotic about it?” “Yes, I do.” I said, pronouncing every syllable. “We agreed that money was a trust for Lily’s future. No one was allowed to touch it.” I thought back to our wedding. We had originally agreed on a $20,000 contribution from his family for the down payment on our house. Knowing his family wasn’t wealthy, I had convinced my parents to lower it to $10,000 just as a symbolic gesture. My parents didn’t make a fuss, and they even bought me a $40,000 car as a wedding gift. But the night before the wedding, his mother shoved $3,000 into my hand, claiming they had an emergency and would pay the rest later. I believed her. The rest of the money never materialized. Looking back, that was the exact moment they realized that if they pushed my boundaries, I would always yield. “Transfer the money back,” I demanded. “Right now.” Ryan scoffed. “Don’t push me, Claire.” “I spent the money. What exactly are you gonna do? Divorce me?” Suddenly, my anger completely evaporated. “Ryan.” “I really hope you remember exactly what you just said to me today.” Chapter 3 Ryan had obviously forgotten that his WhatsApp account was still logged into my iPad. The frat-brother group chat was blowing up. Ryan had uploaded several videos. In one, he and Mia were surfing. Mia, wearing a tiny bikini, was knocked off balance by a wave and shrieked, falling directly into his arms. He naturally wrapped his arm around her waist to steady her, both of them laughing like a couple on their honeymoon. In another video, they were at a high-end seafood restaurant. Mia peeled a shrimp and placed it directly into Ryan’s mouth. The intimacy was nauseating. Someone in the chat egged him on: “Ryan, you’re living the dream out there.” “Are you seriously not worried the wife is gonna hit you with divorce papers?” Ryan replied almost instantly: “Divorce? Like she’d ever actually leave. Who else is gonna want her?” “You guys have no idea. Ever since she got pregnant, just looking at her body makes me sick.” “Her parents only have one kid. All their money and property is going to end up in my pockets eventually anyway.” “You just can’t spoil women. I’ll ice her out for a week or two, and she’ll fall right back in line.” I stared at the glowing screen. The blood in my veins turned to ice. The guys in the chat were aggressively hyping him up. “Ryan’s got it all figured out. You gotta train them.” “Mia is awesome, bro. She knows how to have a good time and doesn’t cause drama. Way better than the wife.” “Ryan’s got the wife holding down the fort, the house, the corporate job, and the fun on the side. Absolute winner.” Ryan sent a smug sunglasses emoji. “That’s why you gotta marry a girl with rich parents and no siblings. Cuts decades off the grind.” I was just about to close the app when I saw Ryan upload a photo of a digital receipt. “Make sure to save all the hotel and dinner receipts. When I get back, I’ll slip them into my corporate expense reports as client entertainment. We can expense a good chunk of this trip.” Someone cautioned him: “Aren’t you officially on paternity leave? If HR audits an international resort receipt while you’re supposed to be on leave, you’re screwed.” Ryan brushed it off completely: “I know the guys in accounting. I’ll just change the project billing codes. It’s not the first time I’ve done it.” I picked up my phone and meticulously screenshotted every single message, photo, and receipt in that chat. I organized all the files into a single, encrypted folder, and emailed it directly to the HR Director and the Ethics Compliance Officer at Ryan’s tech firm. My dad was the one who had pulled strings to get Ryan that corporate job in the first place. Now, I was the one detonating the bridge. That night, Ryan sent me a text. “Babe, did you eat today?” “Let me order you some DoorDash, don’t starve yourself.” “I know you’re still mad. I’ll make it up to you when I get home.” I looked at the hollow, hypocritical words. It was just pathetic. I didn’t argue. I didn’t yell. I didn’t type a single letter in response. I picked up my sleeping daughter and slowly walked through every room of the house. Every single piece of furniture in this house was hand-picked and paid for by my parents. Every inch of these hardwood floors was part of what I thought was my sanctuary. But now, the air in here felt toxic. I dialed the number of my real estate broker. “Hi, I have a property in the suburbs. I need to list it immediately. Rush sale.” Just as I hung up, the doorbell rang. I carried Lily to the front door and opened it. My parents were standing on the porch. The moment my mom saw my pale, exhausted face, her eyes flooded with tears. She rushed in and wrapped her arms around me, her hands shaking. “Claire, don’t be scared. Mom is here.” My dad looked at the empty, quiet living room, and then at my C-section binder. His face turned a terrifying shade of purple. “This family… this is absolute, unforgivable abuse!” My mom held me while she cried, intentionally keeping her voice down so she wouldn’t wake the baby. “Don’t say another word. You’re coming home with us right now.” “If they think they can torture my daughter like this and get away with it, they have another thing coming.” That night, I packed my daughter’s things and left the house with my parents. The next morning, I hired a divorce attorney to begin compiling evidence. I had a locksmith change all the exterior locks on the house. Then, I hired a moving crew to meticulously pack up every single item belonging to Ryan and his parents, boxing them up and leaving them in a storage unit designated by the HOA. The house was officially staged and listed on the market. … Half a month later, Ryan and his family returned from their tropical getaway, dragging their luxury luggage, laughing and tanned. They stood on the front porch. Ryan jammed his key into the deadbolt, but it wouldn’t turn. He stood there, confused. Just as he was pulling out his phone to call me, it rang in his hand. He answered it, the relaxed vacation smile still plastered on his face. But the very next second, his entire body went rigid. On the other end of the line, his department director’s voice was completely devoid of emotion. “Ryan, your employment has been terminated.” Chapter 4 Ryan gripped his phone, his voice spiking in panic. “Why?! I just took my approved PTO for two weeks! All my projects were handed off perfectly! On what grounds are you firing me?!” The director’s tone was glacial. “You know exactly why. Your personal effects have been boxed up. You can pick them up from the lobby reception desk when you return. Do not attempt to enter the corporate offices.” “Wait, Director, please, let me explain—” The line went dead. His parents crowded around him. When they realized he had just lost his six-figure tech job, they were absolutely stunned. His mother was the first to find a scapegoat. “This has to be Claire’s doing! You just went on a harmless little vacation, and she sabotaged your career?! How can a woman be this venomous?!” Mia frowned, playing the voice of reason. “Claire really crossed the line this time. Fighting at home is one thing, but messing with your husband’s career?” Ryan’s face was dark with fury. He raised his fist and began violently pounding on the front door. “Claire! Get your ass out here right now!” His parents joined in, kicking the door and screaming obscenities, causing a massive scene that echoed down the suburban street. Suddenly, the heavy front door swung open. But it wasn’t me standing there. It was a massive, heavily tattooed guy built like a linebacker. He filled the doorway, glaring down at them. “Why the hell are you banging on my door? You got a problem?” Ryan froze, taking a step back. “Who are you? Why are you inside my house?” Mia’s eyes darted around, and she intentionally gasped, covering her mouth. “Oh my god… is Claire secretly hiding another man in the house while you were gone?” Hearing that, his mother’s eyes lit up like she had just caught me committing a felony. “AHA! I knew it! Claire, you shameless whore! My son leaves town for two weeks and you’re already bringing strange men into his bed!” The burly guy listened to them, and instead of getting angry, he let out a loud, mocking laugh. “Oh, I get it. You guys must be the bloodsucking in-laws, the deadbeat husband, and the little pick-me side piece the previous owner warned me about.” All four of their faces morphed into absolute shock. Ryan’s face flushed with humiliated rage. He reached out and tried to shove the guy. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?! Get the hell out of my way and tell Claire to get out here!” The guy effortlessly grabbed Ryan’s wrist and violently shoved him backward down the porch steps. “Back the fuck up. I just bought this house. I’m the legal owner now.” His mother’s eyes bugged out of her head. “Impossible! This is my son’s house! What right does Claire have to sell it?!” “She sold it because she was the sole legal owner on the deed, you crazy old bat.” The guy looked at them with undisguised contempt. “Your names aren’t anywhere on the title, and you didn’t pay a single cent for the mortgage. Why the hell would she need your permission to sell her own property?” “You people are absolute lunatics. Stay off my porch.” He grabbed the handle, preparing to slam the door. His father quickly shoved his foot into the doorframe. “Wait a minute! What about all our clothes? Our furniture? Our valuables?!” “The escrow agent sent you a formal notice to collect your belongings from the HOA storage locker. You ignored the deadline.” The guy stared at them, completely deadpan. “The removal crew cleared out the abandoned property yesterday. It’s probably sitting in the county landfill right now.” His mother let out a blood-curdling shriek and lunged forward, trying to claw at the guy’s face. He simply kicked the door shut, locking the heavy deadbolt, leaving them screaming on the porch. Furious and humiliated, the group stormed back to the sidewalk, intending to march to my parents’ house to demand answers. But when they reached the entrance of the gated community, the security guards physically blocked them. Ryan pointed at his own chest. “I am the husband of the previous owner! I am her father’s son-in-law! By what right are you denying me entry?!” The security guard looked him up and down. “I know exactly who you are.” “And because I know who you are, the original owner left explicit, documented instructions: You, your parents, and this woman are permanently banned from the premises.” The surrounding neighbors walking their dogs began to stop and stare. A few of them recognized Ryan and his parents as the family who had abandoned a woman three days postpartum to go on a luxury vacation using the newborn’s savings. His mother, feeling the heat of the neighbors’ glaring, judgmental stares, turned bright red. She opened her mouth to start screaming at the crowd, but the security guard unclipped his radio and warned them he was dialing 911 for trespassing. Ryan furiously dialed my number over and over again. But every single time, he got the automated “The number you have dialed is currently unavailable” message. His number, his parents’ numbers, and Mia’s number—I had permanently blocked all of them. Dragging their designer luggage on the sidewalk, with absolutely nowhere to go, they were forced to humiliatingly check into a cheap motel for the night. The next morning, holding onto a sliver of desperate hope, Ryan drove to his corporate office. But the moment he walked into the lobby, the receptionist slid a cardboard banker’s box across the desk. “Your personal items are in here.” “The regional VP said he has no desire to speak with you.” Ryan stood in the lobby holding the cardboard box, his face cycling between shades of red, green, and gray. Just a few weeks ago, he was a department manager. He walked through these glass doors in tailored suits, and the receptionists tripped over themselves to say good morning. Today, as his former colleagues walked past, not a single one stopped to look at him. Some actively averted their eyes. Others whispered loudly. “I heard he faked his paternity leave to take his mistress to the Bahamas.” “Worse than that. He was expensing the entire vacation as corporate client entertainment.” Ryan slammed the cardboard box down on the reception desk. “I demand to see the VP! The company terminated me without cause! I want an explanation!” The receptionist didn’t flinch. “The findings of the internal ethics investigation were emailed to your personal account.” Ryan refused to leave, causing a massive, embarrassing scene in the lobby. Finally, the VP emerged from the elevators, but he didn’t invite Ryan upstairs. “Ryan, I always knew you were aggressive and ambitious. But I didn’t realize you lacked even the most basic moral compass.” Ryan desperately tried to spin it. “Sir, those text screenshots were maliciously edited by my wife! We were having a domestic dispute, and she did it purely out of spite to ruin me!” The VP pulled a thick stack of printed documents from a folder and tossed them into Ryan’s cardboard box. It wasn’t just the hotel and seafood restaurant receipts from the Bahamas. It was a comprehensive audit of his expense reports over the last three years. “The compliance team ran a full audit. You have repeatedly expensed personal dinners, vacations, and luxury gifts for your friends by coding them as client acquisition costs.” “You literally admitted to committing expense fraud in that group chat. Or are you going to claim someone forced you to type that?” Ryan’s lips trembled violently. “Everyone in sales inflates their expenses a little bit… my amounts were just slightly higher…” “Do not project your criminal behavior onto the rest of this company.” The VP’s face was carved from stone. “Executive leadership has authorized your termination for cause, and you are permanently blacklisted from this firm. The corporate legal department will be pursuing civil litigation to recover every single dollar of the fraudulent expenses.” “Get off the property.” The security guards stepped forward. Ryan had no choice but to pick up his box and walk out, utterly humiliated under the gaze of everyone he used to manage.

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My family has practiced the occult arts for three hundred years, yet somehow, they produced me: a staunch, uncompromising materialist. My grandfather is a highly sought-after Feng Shui master. My father specializes in breaking curses. A single protective talisman drawn by my mother can auction for six figures. But ever since I was a kid, I’ve only believed in three things: Newton, Marx, and the grading rubric. That was, until a low-income scholarship student named Seraphina transferred to my elite prep school. Rumor had it that on the night she was born, there was a rare planetary alignment. Three renowned astrologers simultaneously declared her a “once-in-a-century Phoenix destiny”—anyone who got close to her would be blessed with unimaginable good fortune. From that day on, the heirs to the four most powerful families in the city fought tooth and nail just to be near her. When I scored 32 points higher than her on the midterms, they claimed my aura was “suppressing her luck.” My physics competition notebook was destroyed. My recommendation for the state tournament was suspended. Even the desk I had used for two years was dragged next to the trash cans, with two words slapped on it: “Energy block.” Everyone told me: “You already have everything. Why can’t you just let her win this once?” Until they decided they needed to “cleanse her aura,” and shoved me into the school’s abandoned underground crypt that had been sealed for twenty years. As the heavy iron door slammed shut and the lock clicked, I used the faint light of my phone to examine the statue in the center of the room. I stood in silence for a very long time. Then, I dialed my grandfather’s number. “Grandpa? It looks like someone is worshiping our family’s founding patriarch backward.” 1 The first time my family realized something was wrong with me was when I was five. That year, I ran a 104-degree fever. My grandfather spent hours doing complex numerology calculations on his fingers before declaring that I was suffering from a “Childhood Tribulation Curse.” My father sealed the courtyard doors. My mother lit seven ceremonial oil lamps. Over thirty uncles and disciples rushed over in the dead of night, plastering the entire house with yellow talismans. My vision was going black from the fever, but I still managed to point weakly at the thermometer on the table: “Can we please just go to the hospital first?” The next day, after a course of IV fluids, my fever broke. My grandfather insisted it was the seven ceremonial lamps. I insisted it was the antibiotics and ibuprofen. From that day on, a massive ideological rift opened in my family regarding my education. When I was seven, my mother tried to teach me how to draw a protective talisman. I measured it with a ruler and asked, “If it’s not perfectly symmetrical, will it affect the efficacy?” She said, “Sincerity brings manifestation.” I asked, “If sincerity is all that matters, why do we need to draw it at all?” She was silent for a full minute. When I was eight, my dad took me to inspect a haunted house. He stood in the living room, eyes closed, “sensing” the energy for a long time. Finally, he pointed to the northwest corner and said, “Dark energy is pooling here.” I walked over and touched the wall. There was a massive water leak. By the time I was eleven, my grandfather finally couldn’t take it anymore. He slammed the family genealogy book onto the table: “Richard, is she really our flesh and blood?!” My dad hurried to calm him down: “Dad, it’s been three hundred years. It’s totally normal for us to produce one skeptic.” My mom was more optimistic: “At least her grades are good.” When I won first place in the National Math Olympiad at twelve, skipped a grade at fourteen, and took gold in the National Physics Competition at fifteen, my family’s attitude shifted completely. My grandfather spent every day cursing me for disrespecting my ancestors, yet every holiday, he would laminate my award certificates and place them proudly next to the patriarch’s shrine. My dad bragged to anyone who would listen: “That’s my daughter. She’s a physicist. A literal genius.” People would ask, “Isn’t your family famous for the occult?” He’d wave them off: “That’s just nonsense for uneducated folks like us. She’s different.” To ensure I could study in peace, I had only one condition before enrolling at St. Jude’s Preparatory Academy. No one in the family was allowed to reveal my background. My grandfather was furious. When I told him it would affect my social life, he was so angry he refused to eat the pastries my mom bought him for three days. As it turns out, I was right. For the first two and a half years at St. Jude’s, no one asked for my astrological sign, and no one tried to slip talismans into my locker. Until Seraphina arrived. She was a new transfer student, admitted on a low-income scholarship. On her very first day, someone posted a screenshot of a fifteen-year-old newspaper clipping on the school’s anonymous forum. The headline read: [Infant Girl Born During Rare Planetary Alignment. Three Grandmasters Declare ‘Phoenix Destiny’ Has Arrived.] The baby in the photo was Seraphina. There was a prophetic comment pinned below the post: “The Phoenix lands in poverty. He who wins her, wins the world.” Within half a day, the entire school knew. The four most elite, untouchable boys at St. Jude’s started orbiting her that very same day. Carter Sterling, the sole heir to the Sterling empire. Liam Vance, heir apparent to Vance Global. Julian Thorne, the youngest and most spoiled son of the Thorne family. And Arthur Prescott, the eldest grandson of the school’s founding board member. On Seraphina’s third day, they spent an entire study hall arguing over where she should sit. Carter claimed the back row had bad lighting and would damage her aura. Liam argued that sitting by the window exposed her to negative energy currents. Julian walked around the classroom with a literal Feng Shui compass, declaring that my desk was situated exactly on the room’s “Academic Prosperity Nexus.” Finally, with one word from Arthur, the homeroom teacher actually prepared to make me switch seats. I looked up. “Why?” The teacher looked embarrassed. “Seraphina just transferred here, and she’s having a hard time adjusting. Your grades are rock solid; moving seats shouldn’t affect you much.” I asked, “If it doesn’t matter where I sit, then why does it absolutely have to be my specific desk?” The classroom went dead silent. Arthur leaned against the back door, his tone flat. “It’s just a desk.” I nodded. “If it’s just a desk, then she can sit at her original one.” Eventually, the physics teacher intervened and shut the whole thing down. I genuinely thought this was just a case of rich, hormonal teenage boys losing their minds. Until the results of the first midterms were posted. I was first. Seraphina was second. I beat her by 32 points. That afternoon, a new thread popped up on the school forum. [The Phoenix Transfer Student Suffers Her First Defeat. Normal Performance, or Did Someone Steal Her Luck?] The original poster listed my seat location, birthday, and enrollment date alongside Seraphina’s, and concluded with absolute, pseudo-scientific certainty: My astrological profile was too aggressive, and it was suppressing hers. What was even more absurd was that people actually believed it. Someone pulled a screenshot from the security cameras showing me walking into the classroom at 6:45 AM, claiming I was secretly setting up a dark magic array during the “twilight hour.” I replied with a single sentence: [Morning study hall starts at 6:50 AM.] That only made them curse me out worse. During lunch that day, I found seven or eight yellow paper talismans shoved into my desk cubby. Someone had used a red Sharpie to write on my physics exam: “Enjoying your stolen first place?” Someone else dumped a large iced coffee directly into my backpack. I took my ruined, soaking wet workbook to the homeroom teacher. She looked at it, stayed quiet for a moment, and said, “I’ll give the class a stern talking to.” I asked, “Who did it?” She avoided my eyes. “They’re probably just playing a prank.” “Destroying my property is a prank?” “Chloe, your grades are so good. There’s no need to stoop to their level and make a big deal out of it.” Standing in the doorway of her office, I suddenly realized how familiar that sentence sounded. Since I was a kid, people always loved telling the person who had “more” to compromise. You have good grades, so let it go this once. You come from a good family, so don’t be petty. You aren’t crying, which means it doesn’t hurt that badly. But no one ever stopped to ask if I had to bleed to earn those things in the first place. The next morning, I walked into the classroom and realized my desk was gone. The desk I had used for two years was shoved into the very back corner, right next to the trash cans. A piece of yellow parchment was slapped on the desktop. Written on it in thick black ink were two words: [Energy Block] In my original spot sat a massive, five-foot-tall Money Tree plant. The class president saw me walk in and rushed over to explain: “Carter had a specialist come look at the room. They said your desk was blocking Seraphina’s Academic Prosperity Nexus. We’re just swapping it for a week, until the state competition is over.” I looked at him. “Who approved this?” He didn’t answer. “The homeroom teacher?” He shook his head. “The administration?” He shook his head again. I asked, “Then what gives you the right to touch my property?” Carter happened to walk through the door at that exact moment. Hearing me, he scoffed. “Give it a rest. It’s just a desk. Do you really have to make a scene and embarrass everyone?” I looked at my desk sitting next to the trash. “So you think dragging my desk next to the garbage is supposed to make me look good?” The room went completely silent. Carter frowned. “No one is targeting you. We just don’t want you negatively affecting Seraphina anymore.” I stared at him for a few seconds. “She couldn’t beat my score because she only got a 97 on the math section.” “She’s not feeling well lately.” “Because she only sleeps five hours a night studying.” “Stop being so incredibly toxic!” I didn’t bother arguing with him anymore. I grabbed my desk, dragged it all the way back, and shoved the plant out of the way. Carter slammed his hand down on the corner of my desk. “Chloe, are you seriously going to fight Seraphina to the bitter end?” For the first time, I looked him dead in the eye. “I am sitting at my own desk, earning my own grades, and participating in a competition I registered for. Tell me, exactly which one of those things constitutes ‘fighting’ her?” He froze. The person who answered me wasn’t him. It was Seraphina. She was standing in the doorway, looking pale, her eyes red and puffy. She said softly, “Chloe, I’m so sorry. They’re just worried about me.” I looked at her. “And?” She looked confused. “Are you asking me to forgive them, or are you asking me to give you my seat?” Tears instantly spilled down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Carter violently let go of my desk. “Chloe, do you have to be such an aggressive bitch?” In that moment, I finally understood something. Seraphina didn’t have to do anything at all. All she had to do was shed a single tear, and there would always be someone willing to do the dirty work for her. 2 Three days later, Liam intercepted me outside the science building. He was much more direct than Carter. “Drop out of the physics competition. Fifty thousand dollars.” I thought I misheard him. “What?” He held out a bank card. “Seraphina’s mental state is really bad right now, and this competition is crucial for her. You’ve already won plenty of awards. Missing one won’t affect your resume.” I looked at the bank card, making no move to take it. “She can always compete next year.” Liam’s brow furrowed. “She’s not like you.” “How is she different?” “You couldn’t possibly understand how hard it was for her to get to where she is.” I let out a short laugh. “And you think it was easy for me?” He didn’t answer. When I competed at age twelve, I was sleeping six hours a night. When I made the national training camp at fourteen, I didn’t go home for two months straight. To prepare for this specific state physics competition, I had studied relentlessly for six months. I had filled four entire lab notebooks with experimental data. I had worked through two massive stacks of advanced problem sets until the pages fell out. But in his mouth, because I supposedly “had more,” my blood, sweat, and tears were automatically devalued to zero. I pushed the card back. “I’m not dropping out.” Liam’s face turned icy. “Why do you have to compete with her?” “Because the registration form doesn’t say ‘Reserved Exclusively for Seraphina’.” “Chloe.” “Are we done here?” He glared at me. “You are going to regret this.” That night, when I returned to my dorm, there was an empty iced coffee cup sitting on my desk. My four lab notebooks were completely soaked in coffee. Six months of meticulous data had bled into a massive, muddy brown stain. My roommate was on the verge of tears. “It was like this when I got back! I swear I didn’t touch anything!” I flipped to the very last notebook. Tucked inside was the official state team recommendation form my physics teacher had just given me. The ink was completely washed out. For the first time, I didn’t say a word. Not because I didn’t know what to say. But because I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would start screaming. I took photos of the damage first, then went straight to the dorm RA to pull the security footage. The RA told me the cameras happened to be down for “maintenance” that afternoon. I asked, “What time did the maintenance start?” She couldn’t give me an answer. I went to the administrative office next. When the staff saw my ruined notebooks, the first thing they said wasn’t to ask who did it. They said, “Chloe, you can just rewrite these notes. You’re so smart, it’ll only take you a few days to catch up.” I asked, “If these were Seraphina’s notes, would you say the same thing?” She froze. I continued, “If she spent six months preparing these notes and someone destroyed them today, would you tell her not to make a big deal out of it?” Her expression soured. “Don’t make everything about her.” “You were the one who told me to be ‘understanding’.” The office went quiet. Eventually, my physics teacher rushed in and pulled me out into the hall. He was livid, his face red with anger. “Who did this?” “No proof.” “What about the cameras?” “Broken.” He cursed under his breath, pulled out his laptop, and said, “We’ll recover as much as we can. I’ll stay here and help you rewrite it.” We stayed in the lab until 11:00 PM that night. Right before I left, he suddenly looked at me and said, “The school has suspended your state team recommendation.” I thought I misheard him. “Why?” “Someone filed an anonymous, formal complaint alleging that you have been systematically bullying Seraphina, causing her severe anxiety. The administration says they have to investigate before they can process your recommendation.” I stared at him. “Who filed the complaint?” He looked away. I already knew the answer. The next day, I went straight to the nurse’s office to find Seraphina. She was getting an IV drip. When she saw me, she instinctively sat up straighter. “Chloe.” I slammed the suspension notice down on the table in front of her. “Did you report me?” Her face instantly went white. “No! I never reported you!” “Then what exactly did you tell the administration?” Her eyes quickly filled with tears. “I just… I just told the school counselor that lately, every time I see you, I get panic attacks.” “Why?” “I don’t know.” She bit her lip, whispering, “Master Julian said our astrological charts are clashing. I didn’t want to believe it, but every time you get a higher score than me, I physically feel sick.” I stared at her. “So you think I’m doing something to hurt you?” “I never said that.” “But you told the school counselor.” Tears streamed down her face. “I was just so scared.” Behind me, the scraping sound of a chair being pushed back echoed in the small room. Carter stood up. “Chloe, she’s literally hooked up to an IV and you’re still harassing her?” Liam was there, too. Arthur stood by the window, his expression unreadable. I suddenly realized why all of them were here. This wasn’t a random encounter. They had been waiting for me. Arthur spoke up. “Your recommendation is only temporarily suspended. Once Seraphina’s condition stabilizes, the school will naturally reinstate it.” I looked at him. “Do you run this school?” His expression didn’t change. “I’m just familiar with the administrative procedures.” I laughed. “No wonder the security cameras broke at the exact perfect time.” Arthur’s face finally darkened. “What is that supposed to mean?” “Nothing.” I picked up the suspension notice. “I just didn’t realize that the academic policies at St. Jude’s were governed by astrology.” As I turned to leave the nurse’s office, I heard Seraphina crying behind me: “I really didn’t want to steal her spot.” No one answered her. Because everyone in that room knew the truth. She didn’t need to steal anything. Someone would always gladly take it and hand it to her. 3 Once my state recommendation was suspended, the situation rapidly spiraled out of control. What started as a dumb supernatural joke on the school forum morphed into an accepted reality: I was expected to step aside and clear the path for Seraphina. My homeroom teacher advised me to take a three-day break from competition training. “Don’t trigger her while the investigation is ongoing.” I asked, “The state competition is in seventeen days.” She sighed. “Your foundation is solid. Three days won’t make a difference.” I looked at her. “When she scored 32 points lower than me, you all acted like the sky was falling. When I lose three days of critical training, you say it doesn’t make a difference.” My homeroom teacher opened her mouth, but couldn’t find the words. Finally, she just said, “Chloe, I’m telling you this for your own good.” That afternoon, my competition locker was sealed with administrative tape. The Dean of Students claimed it was for “temporary safekeeping” and would be returned once the investigation concluded. My only set of specialized lab equipment was locked inside. During the afternoon lab block, I was forced to stand on the sidelines and watch. Someone in the back row whispered, “So what if she’s in first place? She just stole someone else’s luck.” Another student laughed. “If she just stays away from Seraphina, maybe Seraphina’s grades will go back to normal.” I didn’t turn around. I just mentally cataloged their names. That night, a petition was posted on the school forum. Over three hundred students signed, demanding I temporarily withdraw from the physics competition. The justification was so absurd it made me want to laugh. [For the sake of fairness.] I stared at those words for a very long time. I was the one who earned my spot through objective test scores. But when a mob decides they want you to step aside, they always cloak their theft in righteous terminology. Fairness. Empathy. Kindness. For the greater good. The next day, the physics teacher called me into his office. An email was pulled up on his monitor. The state competition required final confirmation of the school’s roster. And the administration still hadn’t submitted my confirmation letter. There were exactly 48 hours left before the deadline. For the first time in this entire ordeal, I was genuinely furious. “Why?” My physics teacher looked grim. “Vice Principal Prescott said we have to wait for the results of the investigation.” I asked, “Is 48 hours going to be enough time for that?” He didn’t answer. I already knew the answer. Leaving the office, I ran into Arthur at the top of the stairs. He looked like he had been waiting specifically for me. “It’s not too late for you to withdraw.” I stopped. “So it was you.” He didn’t deny it. “Seraphina has lost six pounds in the last few days.” “What does that have to do with my registration form?” “As long as you don’t compete, her anxiety will improve drastically.” I stared at him. “Did she tell you that?” Arthur paused for two seconds. “Does it matter?” “Of course it matters.” “Chloe, you’ve already won so many first-place trophies.” His voice remained maddeningly calm. “For you, this is just another competition. For her, it could be the opportunity that completely changes the trajectory of her life.” I suddenly laughed. He frowned. “What’s so funny?” “I’m laughing at how incredibly fascinating you guys are.” “She’s poor, so I’m obligated to step aside.” “She has anxiety, so I’m obligated to stop training.” “She has insomnia, so I’m obligated to hand over my first-place ranking.” “Arthur, if she bombs the SATs next year, am I going to be expected to hand over my Ivy League acceptance letter too?” His face turned completely to ice. “You’re always so petty and calculating.” I nodded. “Yes, I am. Because those things belong to me.” Just then, Seraphina ran up the stairs. She had clearly heard the last few sentences. “Chloe, please don’t misunderstand.” She was panting heavily, her eyes red. “I already told them to leave you alone.” I asked, “Then why hasn’t my recommendation been reinstated?” She froze. “I don’t know.” “Why is my competition locker sealed?” “I don’t know.” “Why did the security cameras break?” Her face grew paler by the second. I looked at her. “Seraphina, you never know anything, do you?” Tears instantly flooded her eyes. “Do you think I’m just acting pathetic on purpose?” “I just think it’s very strange.” “What?” “Why is it that every single time someone hurts another person for your benefit, the only thing you ever do is cry and say you didn’t know?” She swayed unsteadily on her feet. Arthur immediately caught her arm. “Enough.” I didn’t say another word. That afternoon, the school suddenly announced a mandatory “Traditional Culture Experience” assembly in the main auditorium. I looked at the sponsor listed on the flyer. The Thorne Institute for Traditional Heritage. I immediately had a very bad feeling about this. The auditorium lights were dimmed to half capacity. On the stage sat an incense burner, a brass bell, a Bagua mirror, and two potted plants. Julian stood at the podium. He announced that today, he was going to conduct a small experiment to prove how environmental energy fields affect human beings. I knew instantly that this was a targeted hit job. Sure enough, ten minutes later, he called my name. “Chloe has always been a skeptic of energy fields. Why don’t you come up here and take a look?” Hundreds of pairs of eyes turned to stare at me simultaneously. My homeroom teacher whispered, “Chloe, don’t make a scene.” I suddenly felt incredibly exhausted. They could destroy my research data. They could suspend my recommendation. They could lock up my equipment. They could parade me in front of hundreds of people as some kind of toxic, cursed monster. But if I defended myself with a single sentence, I was the one making a scene. I stood up and walked to the stage. Of the two potted plants, one was vibrant and healthy, the other was visibly wilting and dying. Julian said, “The plant on the left was placed inside an energy-gathering array for seven days. The one on the right was kept in a normal room.” The audience let out a collective gasp of awe. He asked me, “How do you explain this?” I crouched down and touched the soil. The plant on the left had just been watered. There was also a noticeable difference in the weight of the two pots. I borrowed a digital scale from a staff member, weighed them both, and then checked the direction of the stage lighting. Finally, I stood up and said, “The watering volumes are completely different. The light exposure is unequal. The environments weren’t isolated or transparent. Your sample size is exactly one, and you failed to control a single variable.” The auditorium slowly grew quiet. I looked up at him. “This isn’t an experiment. This is a staged photo op.” Someone in the back row suddenly snorted with laughter. The laughter quickly rippled through the crowd, growing louder. The smug smile completely vanished from Julian’s face. I thought that would be the end of it. But that night, I received an anonymous text message. [You think this is all fake, right? Tonight at midnight. The underground crypt.] I deleted it. Ten minutes later, a second message arrived. [All you have to do is stay in there for one night. Seraphina’s luck will be restored, and your competition recommendation will be reinstated.] I stared at that sentence for a few seconds. Then, I took a screenshot. Saved the evidence. And blocked the number. I didn’t expect them to actually come for me.

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