In my last life, my junior, Liana, came to me in tears, complaining that our Grandmaster was too strict, forcing her to practice five thousand sword strokes a day. I comforted her. “The Grandmaster means well. I trained just as hard, if not harder, to achieve the power I have today.” But Liana fled the Argent Spire in a fit of despair and fell victim to a terrible fate. When the First Brother, Kaelen, returned from his quest, he shattered my magical core with a single strike of his blade. “Liana is a gem, precious and rare,” he’d snarled. “You’re a mere Core Magus. What right do you have to flaunt your power in her presence?” I was crippled, cast out, and left to die a miserable death. When I next opened my eyes, I had been reborn, returned to the very moment Liana came to my door, weeping. 1 Knock. Knock. Knock. The frantic, tearful pounding on my chamber door was relentless. “Danielle! Sister, are you in there? Please, open the door!” The disruption nearly sent my own mana spiraling out of control. With a flick of my wrist, I wove a ward of silence around the room, sealing it from the outside world. The calming scent of sandalwood incense did little to soothe the tempest raging in my mind. I am Danielle, Second Sister of the Argent Spire. Above me is only the First Brother, Kaelen, a man who cares for nothing but his own path to power. Before our Grandmaster entered her seclusion for her final ascension, she charged me with managing the Spire’s disciples, and especially with looking after the youngest of us, Liana. That was why, in my past life, I had tolerated Liana’s rude, frantic knocking—an act that would have cost any other acolyte half their life force for its sheer disrespect. But I had excused her, thinking her new to the ways of magic. I had even tried to soothe her when she’d complained about the Grandmaster’s harsh training, sharing my own story as a form of encouragement. “When I first joined the Spire, the Grandmaster was even stricter with me,” I’d told her. “Eight thousand strokes a day, every single one perfect, or I would feel the sting of her training rod. Before I had even formed my magical foundation as an Adept, she pitted me against arcane beasts that had.” “So you see, little sister, she does it for your own good. Look at me. It was that same grueling practice that gave me the power I have today.” But after hearing my words, Liana had simply gotten up and run from the Spire. She was captured by a chaos mage, nearly drained of her soul to become his spiritual conduit. Though she was rescued, her magical affinity was damaged, and she burned with a deep-seated hatred for me. When Kaelen returned from his quest, he shattered my core. “Liana is a gem,” he’d said. “What right do you have to flaunt your power as a Core Magus?” Only then did I understand. My heartfelt advice, my attempt at camaraderie, had sounded like nothing but arrogant boasting to a girl who was not even a full-fledged Initiate. All the torture that followed began with those simple, well-intentioned words. I, who had sought nothing but the path to true power and ascension, was tormented and killed for a single sentence. Perhaps it was the unquenchable fire of my rage that granted me this second chance. The knocking outside continued for a long time before Liana finally gave up. Biting her lip, she turned and ran sobbing toward the training grounds, straight into the arms of Rhys. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and brimming with tears. “Third Brother…” Rhys’s heart immediately melted. “Little sister, what’s wrong?” Liana’s tears finally fell in a torrent of aggrieved sorrow. “Before she went into seclusion, the Grandmaster ordered me to practice five thousand sword strokes a day. I only managed five hundred today, and my wrist is already swollen like this. Look, Brother.” She pulled up her sleeve, revealing a bruised and purpled wrist. Rhys was instantly furious. “How could the Grandmaster be so cruel!” He lovingly applied a healing salve to her wrist. “She’s in seclusion anyway. It won’t matter if you rest for a couple of days. Besides, with your brother here to protect you, what do you have to fear?” Liana pouted. “But Second Sister Danielle is the same age as me, and she’s already a Core Magus. I haven’t even solidified my foundation as an Adept. I’m so useless.” Rhys scoffed. “You are a princess, cherished and adored. She was just an orphan the Grandmaster found in the wastes. How could she possibly compare to you?” A smile finally broke through Liana’s tears, though she feigned annoyance and gave Rhys a playful tap. “Don’t talk about my sister that way.” 2 I had no desire to watch any more of this cloying display. I withdrew my arcane senses, a coldness settling in my heart. So that was the correct answer. Coddle her, praise her, and never mind the consequences for her future. The injury on Liana’s wrist looked dramatic, but what blade-mage didn’t start their training with such pains? Those were not wounds to be healed; they were pains to be overcome. One had to train until the wrist adapted, until the pain ceased. To stop halfway was to reset all progress. But Rhys was a pure enchanter, a weaver of spells. He knew nothing of a warrior’s path. In my previous life, after my core was shattered, it was he who used his magic to rip out my arcane roots and graft them onto Liana, restoring her damaged potential. He had turned me into a cripple, forever barred from the path of magic. All because of one sentence. They had justified using me as a stepping stone for Liana’s glorious ascent. A bottomless hatred churned within me. Every person who had harmed me, who had tormented me in my past life… I would repay them all, one by one. I replayed the events of my past life in meticulous detail. My hand unconsciously drifted to the amulet I wore against my skin. It was a spatial artifact I had found in the Fae-touched Grotto of Taelus. Though I had bonded it with my blood, I could never enter its inner sanctum, the Hall of Legacy. Only an outer spring, filled with pure mana, was accessible to me. I focused my will and entered the amulet’s space, leaping into the mana spring. The raw, surging energy slammed into me, scouring my meridians, widening them. The pain was so intense I nearly blacked out, but I gritted my teeth and endured. My rate of mana absorption was now ten times faster than before. In my past life, I had listened to the words of a Nix, drinking only a single mouthful of the spring’s water each day. It improved my constitution, yes, but it was nowhere near enough to truly reforge my body and soul. My progress had been slow. After emerging from the amulet, I went into seclusion for another two weeks, solidifying my newfound power before finally stepping outside. I went to the deep pool in the back mountains and cast three enchanted stones into its depths. The water roiled, and a Nix with a magnificent blue tail surfaced. His beauty was breathtaking, but his eyes were filled with impatience. He swam to my side, his voice a low hiss. “Danielle, are you trying to get me killed? What took you so long to bring my elixir?” This was Corin, a Nix I had rescued from the Taelus Grotto. I had pulled him back from the brink of death with the finest potions, allowing him to recuperate here. Every month, I was to bring him a high-grade spirit elixir for his wounds. I smiled. “Corin, your temper grows shorter. The herbs for these potions are rare, and a spirit elixir of this grade is not easily brewed.” Seeing his entitled expression, I remembered the day I first met him. He had clutched at my robes, his face a mask of agony, begging me to save him. He had sworn to be my servant for life, to be eternally loyal. But at some point, he had entangled himself with Liana. He had even presented her with my amulet as a token of his love. I was cast out of the Spire, left with absolutely nothing. Just as I had before, I took out an elixir and offered it to him. Only this time, it was a poison that would rot his heart and lungs from the inside out. 3 The Nix thrashed in the water, his agony immense, before dragging himself onto the shore with his powerful tail. His handsome face was contorted in a grotesque mask of pain, blood streaming from his eyes, nose, and ears. His eyes were wide with disbelief. “Why? Why are you killing me?” he gasped. “Save me, Danielle… you just grabbed the wrong potion, right? Danielle, it hurts so much.” Corin reached a trembling hand toward me, his brilliant blue eyes shimmering with tears, a picture of vulnerable devotion. His beautiful tail was sliced open on the sharp rocks, blue blood seeping into the cracks. It was a tragically beautiful sight. “The ward on the Hall of Legacy inside the amulet,” I said, my voice calm. “It can only be broken with the heart’s blood of a Nix. Corin, you played me for a fool for so long.” His expression froze. He choked back his pain. “How… how did you know?” “I took pity on your weakness and never forced a magical bond of servitude,” I explained slowly. “And you, knowing full well how to unlock the amulet’s true power, only ever told me to bond it with my blood.” In my last life, when I was a cripple, he came to see me. I thought he was there to save me. Instead, he reached out, took the amulet from my neck, and smirked, glad he had been clever enough to hold back. He had scoffed at the life-debt he owed me, yet he gave himself completely to the delicate Liana, even offering his own heart’s blood to help her enter the Hall of Legacy. He’d feared she was too weak to be alone, so he voluntarily bonded himself to her as a servant, to protect her at all times. So thoughtful, so considerate in every way. Meanwhile, I was cast out, a dog without a home. So now, watching Corin’s dying struggles, the more he suffered, the more my heart soared with grim satisfaction. Seeing my resolve, he roared in fury. “I only kept it from you so I could survive! Besides, you had the mana spring, wasn’t that enough?” He was nearly spent, but he clung to a last shred of hope. “Save me, Danielle. When I’m healed, I’ll help you open the Hall. I promise.” “No,” I said. “When you’re healed, you’ll be running to Liana’s side. You swore a magical oath to be my servant, yet you lied to me from the very beginning. You were never loyal.” I picked up one of his fallen scales. Under his desperate, helpless gaze, I sliced open his chest. “The disloyal die.” 4 The Nix’s heart’s blood soaked the amulet, and I entered its space. The ward on the Hall of Legacy shattered. A vast, ancient power washed over me, a pressure so immense it sought to force me to my knees. My legs felt as if they were made of lead, but I gritted my teeth and took one step, then another. This was my destiny, my opportunity, stolen from me by Liana in my past life. I, with my brilliant talent and bright future, had suffered through twenty years of bitter training and dozens of life-or-death trials just to become a Core Magus. Liana had been at the Spire for a mere three years and had danced upon my corpse to become an Archon. I had given everything to the Spire, sacrificing my own training time to teach the disciples in the Grandmaster’s stead, brewing potions and elixirs for my brothers and sisters. And what did I get in return? The horrors of my past life flashed before my eyes. I clenched my fists. This life, I would live for myself! The great doors to the Hall of Legacy swung open, and the pressure vanished. Feeling light, I strode inside. There were eight sealed chambers within. In the center of the hall, a dull bronze sword floated in the air above a bronze statue of a god-like figure. This was the legacy of Aethelgard, the First Blade, a swordsman whose power had been unrivaled for millennia. In my past life, my First Brother, Kaelen, had ascended to near-godhood after finding just a fragment of Aethelgard’s teachings. The bronze sword drifted toward me, hovering before my eyes. I grasped its hilt. A divine light exploded in my mind, and the translucent, white-robed image of a man whose face I could not see appeared. His voice was a deep, divine hum. “After so many long years, one has finally arrived who is… moderately acceptable.” Before a true god, all mortals are but ants. I was drenched in sweat under his divine pressure, barely able to stand upright. “You have more backbone than the last one, at least.” Aethelgard continued, “I once favored you, but a parasite interfered. Now, you have been given a second chance. Do not disappoint me again.” With a flick of his finger, Aethelgard sent a sphere of memory into my consciousness. Only then did I understand the full truth of my past life. I thought my tragedy began with a single misunderstood sentence. But Liana had been filled with malice toward me from the very start. She was a transmigrator from another world, armed with a System. For every man she successfully seduced, she would be rewarded with a piece of my destiny, my power, my very life. I had felt guilty when she was captured by the chaos mage, but it turned out she had already “conquered” him, getting him to deliberately damage her magical affinity to gain more sympathy. This allowed her to manipulate the other men into tormenting me without mercy. The girl I thought was innocent and pure was a leech, fastened to my soul, draining me dry. I had treated her with such sincerity, and she had consumed me, flesh and bone. My rage nearly sent me into a berserker fury, but Aethelgard’s voice called me back. “Calm your heart.” “Everything in this Hall is yours to use. But only when you ascend to the higher realms will you be worthy of being called my disciple.” His image faded, but the divine power lingered in the air. I bowed to the empty space. “I will not fail you, my lord.” 5 I spent six months mastering Aethelgard’s sacred arts, only stepping out of my chambers once my power had stabilized. In front of the Hall of Trials, a crowd of disciples surrounded a beaming Liana, showering her with praise. “Little Sister, you’re amazing! You’re only a fifth-tier Initiate, and you’ve already tamed a Frost Serpent! Incredible!” A small, snow-white serpent was coiled around her wrist, biting its own tail to form a living bracelet. Liana blushed prettily. “It was all thanks to Third Brother. I just mentioned that the little snake was cute, and he took me to tame it.” Rhys, standing beside her, smiled faintly. “It is merely an Adept-level creature. One day, when I am an Ascendant who has passed the Trials, I will pluck a phoenix from the heavens for you to play with.” The crowd erupted in cheers. I let out a cold laugh. Both Rhys and Liana turned to look at me, and the other disciples quickly scrambled to look busy, feigning practice with their swords. “Our brother is certainly ambitious,” I said. “He hasn’t even reached the level of an Archon, yet he’s already planning for his time as an Ascendant.” Rhys’s brow furrowed in surprise. “It’s only been six months. You’re a mid-tier Core Magus?” Before I could answer, Liana rushed toward me with open arms. I blocked her with my sword. She stared at me with wide, innocent eyes that seemed on the verge of tears. “Sister, I just haven’t seen you in so long, I wanted to be close to you. I didn’t think you would despise me so.” I sheathed my sword and walked around her. “I do not enjoy physical contact.” As I passed, I heard the voice of the System in her mind. [Primary Target Corin: Deceased. Spatial Amulet must be retrieved by Host.] I scanned her with my arcane senses but couldn’t find a trace of the System. It must be hidden within her consciousness. Liana quickly moved to block my path, her face a mask of shock. “Sister, that amulet on your chest… it looks just like the one my mother left me before she died. But I was foolish and lost it somewhere.” I glanced down. The amulet, which I kept tucked against my skin, was somehow visible. She stared at it, her voice breaking. “I’m so useless. I couldn’t even keep my mother’s only memento safe.” I saw the shifting expressions on the faces of the disciples around us and smiled. Liana had all but branded the word “thief” on my forehead. “You are indeed foolish,” I said calmly. Liana’s eyes widened, as if she’d misheard. “What?” I repeated myself. “I said you are foolish, stupid, weak, and utterly useless.” My gaze swept over the assembled disciples. Not one of them dared to meet my eyes. “In this entire Spire, you are the only one still at the Initiate level. Disciples who joined after you have already become Adepts. Tell me, does that not make you a standard-issue fool?” Liana’s body trembled violently, and tears streamed down her face. Rhys stepped in front of her, his voice a low command. “Danielle, that’s enough! Liana is delicate. It’s normal for her to take longer to adapt. To speak so cruelly over a simple amulet—is this how a senior sister should act?” From behind him, Liana offered a “kind” explanation. “Sister, I know you didn’t take the amulet on purpose, but it’s the only thing I have to remember my mother by. Here, I’ll trade you. Take the Grandmaster’s gift to me, the Gossamer Butterfly Robes.” Rhys looked pained. “Sister, how can you debase yourself like this? It’s clearly…” “Third Brother, please, say no more. The Gossamer Butterfly Robes may be a superior-grade artifact, but in my heart, they are not worth a fraction of my mother’s memory.” “The amulet is a memento from her mother, Danielle,” Rhys said, turning to me and holding out his hand expectantly. “I suggest you return it to her, and we can let this matter drop.” The two of them, a perfectly rehearsed duet. I narrowed my eyes. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

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On my prenatal check-up day, Eric was too busy, so Althea—his so-called “childhood friend”—drove me. She suddenly jerked the wheel. Metal screamed as we crashed into a semi-truck. The world collapsed around us. I didn’t call Eric, an ER doctor. I called 911 and waited. Because last time, I called him first. He saved our baby, but Althea bled out and died. He pretended not to blame me, even arranging a private room for my recovery. Then, on the day I was discharged, he took me to Althea’s grave—and stabbed me. My baby died instantly. As I bled out, his eyes burned with hatred. “If you hadn’t grabbed the wheel, Althea would still be alive!” he hissed, twisting the knife. “A life for a life.” My blood splattered across her headstone. Then—I woke up back in the wrecked car. … A violent jolt, and the searing, twisting pain in my abdomen dragged me back to reality. I had been reborn. My hands trembled as I fumbled for my phone in my purse. This time, I didn’t call my husband, the brilliant ER doctor. I dialed 911. The ambulance arrived quickly. Eric, of course, was the first responder on site, sprinting past the passenger side, straight to the driver’s door. Only after he had carefully lifted Althea from the wreckage did I dare to whisper for help to the other paramedics. One of his colleagues, a woman I recognized, shot me a disgusted look. “Really, Leah? Now is not the time for your games,” she snapped, her face a mask of disapproval. My strength gave out. My hands slipped from my belly, and the weight of my pregnancy slammed me against the back of the front seat. A warm, sticky wetness spread beneath me, staining the fabric of my maternity dress a horrifying crimson. They didn’t even glance my way. Gritting my teeth, I used every last ounce of my will to crawl out of the shattered rear window. But every piece of emergency equipment—the oxygen masks, the IV drips, the heart monitors—was being used on Althea. Eric never once looked at me. I heard him mutter, “Serves her right.” A cold sweat drenched my body. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. It was everywhere—under me, in me. With every passing second, I could feel the baby’s heartbeat growing fainter, a tiny drum slowing to a stop. In my past life, I had called him screaming, and Althea had been on the phone with him too. He chose me then, because of the baby. He rushed me to the hospital. By the time he returned to the crash, the police had already towed the car away. Althea’s body was lying on the roadside, covered by a white sheet, dead from blood loss. He had been so calm when he told me. “It’s not your fault,” he’d said, his voice steady. He even upgraded me to a lavish private suite to “rest and recover.” And then, he’d murdered me on her grave. “Althea wasn’t just my friend, Leah,” he had hissed, the knife twisting in my gut. “She was my life. Do you have any idea what it feels like to bleed out? Don’t worry. You’re about to.” This time, I just wanted to escape. But even now, he refused to spare me. He wouldn’t even grant me the mercy of a single piece of medical equipment. My dress was soaked through, and I was lying in a rapidly expanding pool of my own blood. My voice was a faint rasp. “Please… my baby… save my baby…” The nearest nurse finally seemed to notice me. She glanced over, a cruel smirk playing on her lips. She bent down and patronizingly patted my swollen belly. “Leah, honey, the drama’s getting a little old, don’t you think? Everyone at the hospital knows you’re jealous of Eric’s friend. But to pull a stunt like this while you’re pregnant? Seriously?” “Even if you don’t care about yourself, think of your child. Is a man really worth having a death on your conscience? Right now, you should be praying that Miss Miller is okay. Because if she’s not, with how close she and Eric are, you can bet he’ll file for divorce.” I knew Eric didn’t love me. But I never imagined his colleagues saw me this way, as a manipulative, hysterical shrew. The cramps in my belly intensified, stealing my breath, silencing me completely. The blood flowed out of me, a relentless tide. Every single medic was gathered around Althea. Not one person checked on me. Just as my vision started to tunnel from blood loss, I heard a gasp nearby. “Whoa! That’s… that’s a lot of blood. Oh God, you don’t think she’s actually hurt, do you?” “Nah, it’s an act,” another voice scoffed. “She’s trying to guilt-trip Eric into leaving his friend and running to her. She caused this whole mess. Ask Eric if you don’t believe me.” Finally, Eric’s footsteps approached. But not to save me. He kicked my head, his voice laced with venomous impatience. “Leah, have you had enough? I’m here now. You can stop pretending.” “What is wrong with you? You grab the steering wheel, cause a crash, and end up like this, all so I’ll feel sorry for you? I’ve told you a thousand times, Althea is my friend. That’s it. Do you enjoy this?” “I’ve explained everything. Believe it or not, I don’t care anymore!” To him, I was still the villain who had caused the crash, a madwoman using my own child’s life as a pawn. Despair washed over me, a cold wave extinguishing the last embers of hope. I was too broken to even try to explain. I just grabbed his ankle, a desperate, silent plea for him to see that this wasn’t an act, that I was dying. He paused for only a second before a cold, cynical laugh escaped his lips. He lifted the hem of my bloody dress. “The blood pack looks pretty realistic,” he sneered. “If Althea hadn’t told me you were planning something, I might have actually fallen for it.” With that, he turned and walked away without a second glance. The whispers of the paramedics floated around me. “Wait… that doesn’t look like blood from a pack, does it?” “You think the baby’s really in trouble?” “Forget it. Althea said she got it from the hospital’s blood bank, of course it looks real. If she wants to play make-believe, let her. She’ll be the one who kills her own kid.” Someone, tired of the spectacle, kicked me in the side. The impact flipped me over, and my face slammed into the gritty asphalt. Darkness consumed me. In the blackness, a dream took me back to the day I first met Eric. He was giving a lecture at my university on emergency first aid, a star doctor from the city’s top hospital. Tall, handsome, brilliant—he captured the hearts of half the girls in the auditorium. Including me. It was love at first sight. I did everything I could to find a way to talk to him. I was still in college then, a naive kid in his sophisticated world. He turned down every other girl who approached him, but he accepted my friend request. He told me he saw his friend in me, a shared innocence. I didn’t understand then. The very thing that made me special in his eyes was also the cage he’d built for me. I didn’t know about his twisted history with Althea. I was just ecstatic, thinking I was the one. For that scrap of his attention, I pursued him relentlessly. He never said yes, but he never said no, either. I mistook his tolerance for encouragement and fell deeper and deeper. After the hundredth time I asked him out, he finally agreed. I’ll never forget the pure joy of that day. I had no idea it was the beginning of a nightmare. Once we were together, he grew colder, always finding excuses to avoid intimacy. It was for my own good, he said. We should wait until after the wedding. I loved him, so I believed him. Then, the night before our wedding, an email arrived from Althea. That’s when I learned the truth. He wouldn’t touch me because I looked like her. Her email was a brutal collage of their ten-year love affair. They couldn’t be together because their families disapproved, so they’d made a pact to remain “friends” forever, always in each other’s lives. And he had chosen me, the perfect stand-in. Looking at a decade of their shared memories, my heart shattered. On our wedding night, Eric got drunk. For the first time, he came to me willingly. And at the height of his passion, he whispered her name. Althea. I swallowed my tears and played my part. Even after Althea’s supposed death in the other timeline, when he seemed so calm, I thought he had finally moved on. I thought my time had finally come. But as I died by his hand, the truth became brutally clear. From start to finish, I was nothing but a replacement. A convenient cover for his undying love for Althea. When I woke up, I was in a hospital room. It wasn’t Eric by my bedside, but a stranger. “Are you okay?” he asked, his brow furrowed with concern. “I was driving by the accident. I saw you lying there all alone and brought you here. I was going to call an ambulance, but some guy said they’d already come and gone…” His voice hardened with anger. “I don’t know what’s wrong with those paramedics. Leaving a person bleeding on the ground! And all those people just standing around, watching… If I hadn’t brought you in, you might be dead right now!” I tried to move, my limbs stiff and sore. I placed a hand on my stomach and froze. The familiar, rounded firmness was gone. “I’m so sorry,” the man said, his voice soft with pity. “I got here too late. The doctors said… they said the baby was likely gone at the scene.” A bitter smile twisted my lips. I shook my head. “Thank you for bringing me here. It’s not your fault. I know.” After a long silence, he poured me a glass of water. “Why were you, a pregnant woman, out in a car by yourself? Doesn’t your family care?” He paused. “The baby’s father should be here. Give me his number, I’ll call him. These doctors have no professional ethics! I can’t leave you here alone. I’m going to post about this online, expose them. These… these cancers of the medical profession need to be cut out!” Remembering Eric’s cold, sneering face as he walked away, I said flatly, “The baby’s father is dead.” The man, thinking he’d stumbled onto a fresh wound, immediately started apologizing. I drank the water and told him it was fine. He wanted to stay and look after me, but I insisted he leave after I transferred him the money for the hospital fees. He had barely walked out the door when a nurse came in to change my IV drip. She glanced at the name on my chart. “Your name is Leah, too?” she asked, her voice cautious. “What a coincidence. One of our doctors, Eric Cole, his wife has the same name. Do you know him?” I shook my head. She let out a visible sigh of relief. “Oh, good. I hear his wife is… not a very nice person. Nothing like you, you seem so quiet and gentle…” I said nothing. After she left, I pulled out my phone and checked the news. The kind stranger had kept his word. His post about the ER team’s negligence had gone viral. A photo of me, lying helpless at the crash site, was trending. The comments were a firestorm of outrage against the hospital. A hospital employee tried to do damage control, explaining that I was a doctor’s wife. That only poured gasoline on the fire. A doctor’s wife doesn’t deserve to be saved? So it’s okay to just leave your own family to die at an accident scene? If a doctor can’t even be trusted to care for his own injured wife and child, how can any patient trust him with their life? Someone else posted a photo they’d taken from another angle. It clearly showed Eric kicking me. The internet exploded. People flooded the hospital’s official social media accounts, demanding answers. I liked every single one of their comments. I was about to text Eric about the divorce when I saw Althea’s post from two hours earlier. It was a photo of Eric, his gaze filled with a tenderness I had never seen, carefully cleaning a small cut on her hand. The caption read: “So lucky you’re my friend for life, my family without blood ties. Not even death can part us.” I casually liked her post. A second later, my phone rang. It was Eric. “Leah, what the hell is your problem?” he roared. “Why are you harassing Althea? If you have an issue, you take it up with me! She barely survived what you did today, and you’re still going after her? You push her again, and I swear, we are done!” “I put up with your nonsense before, but you don’t get to play with people’s lives! Do you even realize what you did? That’s attempted murder! Are you insane?” “Althea said she forgives you, but that doesn’t mean I do! I’m giving you one last chance. Apologize to her. Now.” Before I could speak, I heard Althea’s theatrical sobs in the background. “Eric, stop, don’t blame her. It was my fault. If I had just let her have the wheel when she grabbed for it, this wouldn’t have happened. Pregnant women get emotional, I understand.” Eric’s voice softened with pity. “You’re my friend, Althea. Why should you have to put up with this? She’s an outsider. What right does she have to treat you like this? Don’t enable her. This time, she needs to learn her lesson.” While the two of them continued their nauseating drama, I spoke, my voice calm and clear. “Fine. Let’s get a divorce. I agree. This outsider won’t get in your way anymore.” Eric was stunned into silence. He clearly hadn’t expected me to be the one to end it. After a two-second pause, his rage erupted. I hung up before he could start screaming. I hadn’t even had time to block his number before a flood of texts came through. “You’re the one who caused the crash by grabbing the wheel. I haven’t even blamed you yet, and you have the nerve to ask for a divorce?” “You’re a murderer, Leah. You should be on your knees thanking me for not calling the cops. Don’t push your luck.” “Get those posts offline. Now. Don’t make me expose you for the psycho you really are.” I didn’t read any more. I deleted the messages and blocked his number. Later, the nurses who came to check on me were chatting amongst themselves, unaware of my identity. “Did you see the news online? I heard it’s Dr. Cole’s wife acting up again. Talk about having the same name but different fates. If she were half as gentle as our Leah here, none of this would be happening.” “I know, right? They’ve been friends for over ten years. What is she so jealous about? She must be mentally ill. That would explain why she’d cause a car crash on purpose.” “Poor Dr. Cole and his friend, getting stuck with a lunatic like that…” I listened numbly, nodding along when it seemed appropriate. But the online furor was too intense. The truth was bound to come out. The hospital administration figured out who I was. A few of them came to “visit” me, gently probing to see if I would be willing to make a public statement to clear the air. They said Eric had taken an emergency leave of absence and they couldn’t reach him. I refused every time. Eventually, they stopped asking and just started blaming me, muttering that I had brought this all on myself. Then, the hospital released an official video, shifting the entire blame for the accident onto my shoulders. To minimize the PR damage, they concealed the fact that I had been seriously injured and had a miscarriage. They painted a picture of a jealous, hysterical wife who had staged a car crash to hurt her husband’s friend, wasting precious medical resources and subjecting their star doctor to a vicious online mob. The same people who had championed my cause turned on me instantly. Learning I was supposedly just a jealous wife, they questioned my sanity. The mob that had attacked the ER department now directed all their venom at me. I became a pariah. They even started an online group, a “Take Down the Venomous Wife Alliance,” or something equally charming. Every few days, a new group of them would show up outside my hospital room to scream obscenities and throw things at my door. Through it all, I never said a word in my own defense. I was waiting. Waiting for the day Eric and Althea’s “friendship” was exposed for what it truly was, and for the world to see their reaction. The day the doctor told me I could be discharged, I unblocked Eric’s number and sent him a single text. “City Hall. Tomorrow. For the divorce.” I was about to block him again when his call came through. “You have the nerve to message me?” he spat. “What, now that you’re the most hated woman on the internet, you finally realize you were wrong? It’s too late for regrets.” “A divorce? Fine by me! I’m sick of you, you psycho! You’re a goddamn lunatic! And don’t even think about seeing the child after it’s born. A monster like you doesn’t deserve to be a mother.” He hung up before I could say a word. I called a mechanic and asked him to retrieve and copy the dashcam footage from my car. The next morning, I arrived at City Hall on time. And there, at the entrance, was Althea. Her eyes dropped to my stomach, and her face broke into a mask of feigned surprise. “Oh, my. What happened to the little bastard? Such a shame. But with a mother who can’t even keep her man, it was probably doomed from the start. A short, pathetic life for a short, pathetic reason. Even if it had been born, it would have just been another fatherless orphan…” Before my brain could even process the words, my hand had already flown across her face. I hadn’t even hit her that hard, but she crumpled to the ground, fat tears instantly welling in her eyes. “Althea!” Eric rushed past me from behind, shoving me so hard I stumbled backward into the middle of the street. A car screeched to a halt, its bumper inches from my head. He cradled Althea in his arms, then, as if remembering something, he whipped his head around to look at me. His gaze fell on my now-flat stomach, and all the color drained from his face. “The baby,” he choked out. “Where’s the baby?!” I struggled to my feet, a grim satisfaction blooming in my chest as I watched the panic dawn on his face. “The baby? You remember you had a child?” I asked, my voice dripping with ice. “You said I don’t deserve to be a mother. Do you deserve to be a father? When I was bleeding out after the crash, where were you? When the entire world was calling me a monster, where were you? When I was on an operating table, unconscious, needing my husband’s signature for emergency surgery, where were you, Eric?” His face grew paler with every word. My voice dropped to a frigid whisper. “The baby is gone, Eric. Thanks to you.” “And now, our marriage is, too.” A flicker of panic crossed his eyes, but it was quickly swallowed by rage. “Don’t you dare try to play the victim here! You brought all of this on yourself!” “You caused that accident! Althea was the one who was nearly killed, and she’s the one who forgave you! And now you have the audacity to try and pin this on me?” “Leah, how did I never see how shameless you are?” He took a step closer, his voice a low growl. “What happened to the baby? I’m asking you one last time.” A small crowd had started to gather. Someone recognized me from the news. The pointing and muttering began. “That’s her! The psycho wife who tried to kill someone out of jealousy!” “Look at her, she looks so normal. How can she be so evil?” “Dr. Cole must have the worst luck in the world, getting stuck with a venomous snake like her. If I were him, I’d have had a heart attack by now!” “And she has the nerve to blame him? After what she did? She almost killed someone! I thought this only happened in soap operas. They should lock her up in a mental hospital before she hurts someone else!” …

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To force me to break our engagement, my fiancée drove my father’s company into bankruptcy, saddling us with millions in debt. The shock triggered a heart attack, and my father was rushed into intensive care. As I knelt and begged my fiancée for the money to cover his surgery, my childhood friend, Sara, suddenly returned from overseas. She arranged for the best doctors and stayed by my side, keeping a tireless vigil at my father’s bedside. But a week later, my father suffered another, more severe heart attack. To give him peace in his final moments, Sara knelt before his bed and swore an oath to marry me, to love and cherish me for the rest of her life. After the funeral, my heart a hollowed-out shell, I officially broke off the engagement. Instead, I married my childhood friend, Sara. Five years later, however, I overheard a conversation between her and my ex-fiancée. “I have to hand it to you, Sara, your move was brilliant. You got that leech, Leo, to give up on me, just like that. But I wonder… what do you think he’d do if he knew you were the one who killed his father? Would he want to kill you?” … My hand froze on the handle of the VIP lounge door. Inside, my ex-fiancée’s mocking voice dripped with venom. “You’re a real piece of work. Leo grew up with you, treated you like his own sister. I bet he’d never guess in a million years that the person who destroyed his father’s company was you.” “And honestly, if it wasn’t for Johnny’s sake, I never would have taken the fall for you all these years. I may have hated Leo, but I’d never stoop low enough to drive a man to his grave.” A glass slammed onto the table. Sara’s voice, thick with wine and fury, cut through the air. “What I owe Leo, I will spend the rest of my life repaying. I only helped you back then because I wanted Johnny to be happy. If you dare betray him, if you make him shed a single tear, I will end you.” My ex-fiancée let out a derisive little laugh. “Such devotion. It’s a shame he met me first. You’d better focus on protecting your precious Leo. After all, you have his father’s death on your conscience. Be careful he doesn’t come back to haunt you in your sleep.” CRASH! A glass shattered against the door, fragments exploding across the floor. Footsteps rushed toward the door. I took a sharp breath and fled, my heart pounding as I stumbled down to the bar. I grabbed a glass of whiskey and threw it back. The unfamiliar liquor burned a path down my throat, stinging my eyes with tears I refused to let fall. Her words echoed in my mind, a torturous loop. The person who had ruined my father wasn’t my fiancée. It was Sara—the same Sara who had paid for his surgery. The sudden heart attack that killed him a week later… it must have been because of something she said. No wonder. No wonder Dad had stared at her with such intensity just before he passed. I had been so naive, thinking it was a look of gratitude, of entrusting me to her care. The woman I had shared a bed with for five years, the wife I had cherished and placed on a pedestal, was the one who had indirectly murdered my father. And our entire marriage, all her feigned love and affection, was nothing more than a twisted form of penance. A pathetic attempt at “compensation.” What a fucking joke. Grief and rage churned within me, a toxic storm in my soul. My gaze fell on the glass in my hand when, suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind. Sara buried her face in my neck, her warm breath ghosting over my skin. Her voice was a soft, drunken murmur, filled with a tenderness that now felt like poison. “Leo, you were gone so long… I missed you… Let’s go home. Leo, I love you… I love you so, so much…” For years, whenever she was drunk, she would whisper these words to me. Her friends always said it was the truth coming out, that she was head-over-heels in love with me. Now, it was all just a grotesque parody. I gently pried her arms off me and guided her to the car, my touch devoid of its usual warmth. She collapsed onto my lap, her brow smoothing as her breathing evened out. She seemed to be asleep. “Johnny… Johnny… why didn’t you choose me? Why…” This time, I heard it clearly. The name that haunted her dreams, the name I had never been able to place. Johnny. Johnny Croft. The man who had stolen my fiancée. And, as I now realized, the great, unattainable love of Sara’s life. She had never forgotten him. She had even married me, putting on this elaborate show of affection, all for him. I had tragically underestimated the depth of her love for Johnny Croft. A phone clattered from her pocket onto the car floor. As I bent to pick it up, the screen lit up with a new message. Johnny: Sara, thanks for covering for me tonight. But I can’t accept the necklace. It’s too much. A second later, I saw a new post on Johnny’s social media feed: “Love is priceless.” The photo was of a stunning, diamond-encrusted necklace—the very one that had made headlines for being sold to a mysterious billionaire for a million dollars at a Geneva auction. A one-of-a-kind piece. I knew, with a sickening certainty, that he had posted it for me to see. Just last week, Sara had been working so hard she’d forgotten to eat, collapsing with a stomach ulcer that landed her in the emergency room. The moment she was discharged, she flew to Geneva. At the time, I was both furious and heartbroken that she would risk her health for her job. Now I knew the truth. She hadn’t gone for work. She had gone for an auction. Even doubled over in pain, she had to be there to buy the most precious necklace in the world and lay it at the feet of her one true love. My fingers moved as if possessed, typing in the screen lock password. The final digit went in. The phone unlocked. It was Johnny’s birthday. Sara had always been fiercely protective of her phone, insisting on “personal space.” Now I knew why. As the screen came to life, Johnny’s handsome, smiling face filled the wallpaper. No wonder her expression always softened whenever she unlocked her phone. I opened her photo gallery. It was a shrine. Album after album, meticulously labeled. Johnny, Age 10. Johnny, Age 11. … Johnny, Age 25. Thousands of photos, each capturing a different moment of Johnny’s life, his smile, his triumphs. There wasn’t a single picture of me. Not even one of herself. Only Johnny. Just like her heart. From the very beginning, it had only ever held Johnny. I opened her notes app and found her diary. June 12, 20XX. Sunny. Johnny scraped his leg on a branch today. It’s all my fault. I never should have planted those trees in the yard. October 3, 20XX. Sunny. Johnny got married today. As long as he’s happy, anything I do is worth it. My entire existence is for his happiness. May 21, 20XX. Rain. I got married. When I saw Johnny in the crowd, for a moment, I wished so desperately that he was the one standing beside me. The car pulled into our driveway. I looked up at the barren front yard, and an icy chill spread through my limbs. There used to be two magnificent peach trees in that yard. Sara had them transplanted from my family’s old estate, the ones my father had planted for me on my tenth birthday. Every time I looked at them, I felt like he was still with me, that he had never left. Then one day, the trees, once laden with fruit, suddenly withered. Their roots had inexplicably rotted away. Sara held me for three days and nights as I wept, whispering reassurances. Now I knew. It was her. She had destroyed the last living piece of my father that I had left. A new message popped up on her phone, this one from her assistant. [Assistant]: Ms. Vance, as per your instructions, the final draft of your will is complete. All assets are to be left to Mr. Johnny Croft. [Assistant]: It is ready for your signature to be executed. Through a blur of tears, a memory surfaced. The woman at the funeral, holding me, her voice thick with emotion as she made her promise. “Leo, I will give you a home. Everything I have is yours.” I carried Sara to our bed. But this time, I didn’t gently remove her shoes or tuck her in. I turned and walked straight to the guest room, closing the door behind me. I shut my eyes, but all I could see were flashes of her “love” for me over the past five years. A montage of lies. Sunlight streamed into the room, waking me. I opened my eyes to find Sara gazing at me, her expression a mask of tender concern. She leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. “Leo, were you angry last night? I’m sorry, I had a little too much to drink at the event. I promise it won’t happen again.” The same gentle performance as always. “Mm,” I grunted, pushing her away before heading to the bathroom to wash the lingering warmth of her kiss from my skin. The breakfast table was laden with food. A year ago, this would have filled me with joy. But after reading her diary, I felt nothing but a hollow ache. This entire spread… it was all Johnny’s favorite food. The front door clicked open, and Johnny himself walked in, dressed in a sharp, tailored suit. He strolled to the table as if he owned the place. He offered me a slight, knowing smile. “Leo, sorry to intrude. Sara and I have a photoshoot this morning, so she invited me over for breakfast.” I said nothing, my eyes fixed on the house key in his hand, identical to mine. Sara, ever perceptive, sensed the shift in my mood. She leaned close, her voice a low whisper. “Johnny is our best friend, Leo. It’s normal for him to have a key…” She didn’t finish. Her voice changed, a note of alarm cutting through her whisper as she shot up from her seat and snatched a glass of soy milk from Johnny’s hand. “Johnny, you can’t drink that! How many years has it been? You still can’t remember?” He pursed his lips, a smirk playing on his face. “I know. Good thing I’ve had you to look after me all these years.” They stared at each other, lost in a moment so intimate they might as well have been the only two people in the room. I had no interest in watching their maudlin display. As I turned to leave, Johnny called out to me. “Leo, I remember you studied photography. Could you shoot for me today? I don’t really trust the new guy.” I hadn’t touched a camera since my father died. He was the one who taught me everything I knew. The moment I held a camera, all I could see was his face in those final moments—frail, defeated, his eyes pleading. I hadn’t found the courage to press the shutter since. Sara knew this. She had locked all my camera equipment away, telling me not to force it, that she would be there for me until I was ready to pick it up again. But now, before I could even refuse, she was pushing me toward the car. “Leo, you know Johnny gets carsick. You’ll have to sit in the back, okay?” She had forgotten. My motion sickness was far worse than his. Having barely touched my breakfast, my stomach churned violently the entire ride. When we arrived, Sara was already fussing over Johnny, smoothing his suit jacket and taking his arm as she led him into the studio. I leaned against the car, gasping for fresh air. “Leo, the shoot is about to start,” Sara’s voice was sharp as she grabbed my arm, yanking me inside. “Be good, don’t be difficult. This shoot is very important for Johnny and his company.” I lost my balance, stumbling, nearly crashing to the floor. Holding the camera after five years felt alien and terrifying. My hands trembled. I fought back the wave of grief and despair, forcing myself to press the shutter, again and again. During a break, the studio emptied out, leaving just Johnny and me. He scrolled through the photos on the camera’s display, a contemptuous smile curling his lips. “You know, Leo, you’re just like your father. A complete failure. Can’t do anything right.” He clicked his tongue. “Like father, like son.” My nails dug into my palms, a tremor running through my body as rage threatened to boil over. SLAP! A searing, fiery pain exploded across my cheek. Johnny shook his hand, looking down at me with pure disdain. “You’re shameless, Leo. I can’t believe after getting dumped, you immediately latched onto Sara. What part of you is worthy of her? Let me make it clear: your ex, Sara… they’re both mine.” “You are not worthy.” My head was still ringing from the blow when he suddenly grabbed my hand, slapped it against his own face, and theatrically threw himself backward onto a nearby table. He clutched his cheek, his eyes welling with tears, his expression one of pure, wounded innocence. A complete transformation. “Leo, I didn’t mean you were a bad photographer… I just wanted you to try a different angle… If you didn’t want to, you could have just said so…” The door swung open. A water glass fell from Sara’s hand, shattering on the floor. She rushed past me, pushing me aside as she knelt to check on Johnny. “Sara, I’m fine,” he murmured, his voice trembling. “Please don’t blame Leo. It wasn’t his fault, I just lost my footing.” “Johnny, you’re too kind! You don’t have to cover for him. I saw it with my own eyes!” Sara gently helped Johnny to his feet, treating him as if he were made of delicate porcelain. She wrapped an arm around him, her gaze, when it finally turned to me, was blazing with a fury I had never seen before in our five years of marriage. “Leo, apologize to Johnny! Now! I have spoiled you for the last five years, and it has turned you into a monster!” she seethed. “You know how important his face is for his image!” She stared at me, her eyes filled with rage, completely blind to the red, swelling handprint on my own cheek. I lifted my head, my gaze meeting hers, my voice unnervingly calm. “The one who should be apologizing is Johnny Croft, not me. He brought up my father. And speaking of which, Sara, isn’t there something you should apologize for regarding what happened to my father?” A flicker of shock, of guilt, crossed her eyes. “If it weren’t for me back then, Dad would have died even sooner. Leo, I promised him I would take care of you for the rest of your life, but that was on the condition that you would never, ever hurt Johnny.” A bitter, self-mocking smile touched my lips. I should have known better than to expect anything from her. The world suddenly tilted, and a wave of blackness washed over me. I felt myself falling backward, and then there was nothing.

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When the Comanches came for Stone Creek, my wife, Emma, had taken the entire town posse to the chapel. Not to pray, but to celebrate the new preacher’s Saint’s Day. The mayor begged me to ride out and bring her back. I refused. In my last life, I’d spurred my horse down the treacherous back trail, dragged Emma from the preacher’s side, and returned just in time to save the town. But the preacher, her shining ideal, was captured by a few stray raiders. They tortured him, then left his body in the woods for the wolves. Emma hunted down those raiders herself. When she returned, she locked herself in our room for three days. She never spoke of it again. Not until the territory, hearing of my “heroism,” offered me the preacher’s position as captain of the posse. The day our son was born, Emma slipped laudanum into my drink. She broke my legs. She took a scalpel to my belly and threw my insides into the woods for the beasts to devour. “It was you,” she’d whispered, her voice a venomous hiss. “You conspired with them, all for your own glory. You murdered him.” “Since you love playing the hero so much, you can die like one, too.” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the raid began. This time, if she wanted to protect her preacher, I’d let her. … The moment the first arrow splintered the barn door, I smelled the familiar, acrid tang of gunpowder. God, the damned déjà vu. I scrambled for the door, pulling it open just as Mayor Thompson stumbled in. “Jedediah! The Comanches are upon us! Rally the posse!” Before I could answer, his wife, Martha, rushed in behind him, her face pale. “Frank, I’ve looked everywhere! The men are gone! The rifles from the posse’s office… they’re all missing!” A crowd of the town’s women followed her, their faces etched with terror. The mayor was stunned. “Gone? Where in God’s name did they go?” As the only one who knew, I had to be the one to tell them. “Emma took them. To the chapel, for Reverend Silas’s Saint’s Day.” “Folly!” the mayor roared. “The circuit judge just warned us of increased raiding parties! He ordered constant patrols, and she takes them off their posts for a celebration?” The women erupted in a chorus of curses, damning Emma’s name for luring their husbands away. Another volley of rifle fire cracked through the air. Screams echoed through the small town. The mayor, a veteran of the war, didn’t flinch. “The rest of you men, get to the drawbridge and raise it! Women and children, into the old silver mine! Don’t come out until you hear a friendly voice!” Our town was nestled in a valley. There were two ways in. The main road led to a heavy wooden drawbridge spanning Black Gulch, a relic from the town’s founding days, built to keep out rustlers and raiders. Once raised, it was nearly impossible to lower from the outside. The other way was a treacherous switchback trail behind the mountain. It was narrow and winding, a single misstep sending horse and rider plunging to their deaths. It was a faster route to the next town, a half-hour ride, but no one ever used it. After giving his orders, the mayor turned to me. “Jed, you know that back trail. You’re the best rider we have. Take the trail, find them, and bring the posse back. For God’s sake, hurry.” I clenched my jaw. “Mayor, I can go, but I fear it’ll be for nothing. Emma will stop them. She won’t let them come with me.” A heavy silence fell over the group. Ever since Reverend Silas had arrived to lead our congregation, it was as if my wife’s eyes were fixed on him and him alone. The whole town knew we fought about it constantly. As their gazes burned into me, my brother-in-law, Leo, stepped forward, saving me. “I’ll go. I know the trail, too. If Jed and my sister start arguing, we’ll lose precious time.” The mayor nodded, and Leo didn’t waste a second, running to fetch his horse. Martha led the women toward the mine shaft to wait for a rescue that might never come. I went with the mayor to defend the drawbridge. An hour and a half later, Leo returned. He appeared at the mouth of the mine, and a cheer went up from the women, thinking the posse was with him. But his face was as white as a sheet. “They won’t come back,” he choked out. The women stared, bewildered. “Why?” Tears streamed down Leo’s face. “They said I was lying. Emma… she said I was in on it with you, Jed, trying to trick everyone. I got on my knees and begged, but they just called me a disgrace.” He broke down, sobbing from the weight of the humiliation. His grief infected the crowd, and they began cursing Silas, calling him a plague on the town. A so-called man of God who did nothing but chase another man’s wife. Before the cursing could die down, a tremendous BOOM shook the earth. The raiders had dynamite. They were going to blow the bridge supports. “What do we do now?” someone wailed. “Are we all going to die in here?” Seeing the terror on their faces, I had an idea. “If our posse won’t come, we can get help from another town.” “I’ll go!” Leo cried, not even wiping the tears from his face. But as he tried to stand, he stumbled, his leg buckling beneath him. We forced him to sit and pulled up his trouser leg. His shin was swollen to the size of a melon. He shamefully admitted he’d taken a fall, pushing his horse too hard on the trail. “It’s nothing,” he insisted, trying to stand again. “I can still ride.” I pushed him back down firmly. “No. You stay here. I’ll go.” Ignoring their protests, I swung myself onto my horse. The mayor ran after me. “Jed! You have to get back with help in two hours! The bridge won’t hold much longer than that!” I nodded grimly and rode hard. Halfway down the trail, a figure darted out from the trees. I reined in my horse just in time. My eyes widened as I saw who it was: Marshal Thorne, the lawman from the neighboring town of Redemption. I dismounted, a wave of relief washing over me. “Thorne! Thank God. What are you doing out here?” I was about to explain our dire situation when he suddenly grabbed my arm, twisting it behind my back in a painful hold. Thorne sneered, his voice cold. “Waiting for you, Jed.” A sharp pain shot up my arm. “What are you talking about?” “Aren’t you on your way to meet the raiders?” His expression was one of pure disgust. “Your wife rode out at dawn. Told me to wait for you on this trail. Said you’d come this way to parley with them. Jedediah, your father was a legend who hunted men like these to the ends of the earth. And you, brought so low by jealousy you’d conspire with them? You shame his name!” My mind went numb. The words were English, but it took a long moment for them to register. In my last life, as Emma killed me, she had said the same thing. That I had summoned the raiders myself, all to seize the posse captaincy from Silas. That I had orchestrated his murder. In that instant, I knew. Emma had been reborn, too. That’s why she had ignored Leo’s desperate pleas. She had done more than just ignore them; she had cut off our only path to salvation. There was no time to defend my honor. I swallowed my pride. “Thorne, I’m not conspiring with anyone. The Comanches have hit Stone Creek. They have dynamite, and they’re blowing the bridge. Our posse is gone. Emma took them to celebrate with Silas.” “You have to get your men. Please, ride to Stone Creek and help us. If you don’t, the whole town will be lost.” My earnestness must have given him pause. He stared at me for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. “Jed, you’re a convincing actor. I almost believed you. But claiming Emma would abandon her post to celebrate a birthday with Silas? That’s too far-fetched.” “I know Emma. She’s the most responsible woman I’ve ever met. An educated woman. She would never lack that kind of judgment.” His mockery was a knife in my heart. “I’m telling the truth. If you don’t believe me, go and see for yourself.” “I think you’re trying to trick me into leaving so you can meet up with your raider friends,” Thorne said, shaking his head. “Jed, don’t be a fool. Do you know why I’m here alone? Because Emma asked me to talk you down, to convince you to turn back from this path. She said she still loves you. Otherwise, she would have reported this to the territorial marshal, and you’d be in chains by now.” Emma loves me. Before Silas came, I would have believed that. My father rescued her and Leo from a bandit raid that killed their parents. She was only ten when she came to live with us. We grew up together. On his deathbed, after a retaliatory bandit attack, my father asked her if she would be my wife. She said yes. She went to a finishing school back East, telling me to wait for her. I waited four years, raising Leo as my own. When she returned, we were married. But she was always distant. People told me that’s just how it is with couples who have known each other forever. The fire dies down. I believed them. Then Silas arrived, and I saw a light in Emma’s eyes I had never seen before. She would mend his worn clothes, watch him for hours as he worked, and secretly save her teaching money to buy him a silver-inlaid bible. These were affections I had never known. The memory was a fresh stab of pain. But this was no time for self-pity. If Thorne wouldn’t help, I’d have to ride further. There was an army outpost twenty miles out. I was a good rider. If I pushed my horse, I could make it in an hour. The town still had a chance. I moved to mount my horse, but Thorne grabbed me again. “Where do you think you’re going? To meet your allies?” “If you won’t help, I’ll find someone who will,” I grunted, struggling against his grip. “Let go of me!” “I can’t let you go!” Thorne twisted my arm, and a sickening pop echoed in the quiet woods. My shoulder was dislocated. He produced a rope and tied my hands, pulling me toward his own town. Tears of desperation stung my eyes. “Thorne, you have to let me go! I have to save them!” “Save your breath,” he said, hauling me onto his horse. “You’re not going anywhere today.” He led the horse back toward Redemption. As we reached the edge of his town, we saw several of his posse members running out, rifles in hand. Thorne stopped them. “What’s happening?” “A rider just came through! Said Stone Creek is under attack by a war party! We’re riding to help!” Thorne’s face went white as a ghost.

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I’d been grinding it out on a reality talent show for two and a half years. Singing, dancing, rapping, running errands—I did it all, and I still wasn’t getting noticed. The day before our debut showcase, Arthur Pierce, the chairman of Summit Entertainment, summoned me. It turned out that his precious daughter—the one I ran errands for, the one who suppressed me at every turn and stole my resources—was a fake. I was his real daughter. Only later did I realize he was just looking for me to clear his conscience. The one they truly adored was still the impostor. Whatever. I was just in it for a career. A rich, powerful family? Like I give a damn. 1 For two and a half years, I’d been a face in the back row of this brutal talent competition. I sang, I danced, I rapped, I did every odd job imaginable. My screen time was earned by photobombing, my social media buzz was fueled by me retweeting and commenting on my own posts. As a total nobody, I was still the one hustling to bring hot water to the divas in the center spots right before a performance. Sometimes, I even had to pay for my own stage makeup out of pocket because the artists couldn’t be bothered with me. I was used to it. With no one backing me, I knew I’d never make it to the center. I treated it like free training, and the cash I made from side gigs was a nice bonus. My plan was set: after this final showcase, I was packing my bags, taking the escape fund I’d saved up, and switching careers to become a video editor. But I never saw this coming. The day before the final performance, Arthur Pierce, the chairman of Summit Entertainment himself, suddenly asked to see me. My first thought was that I’d been caught sneaking fried chicken backstage and was about to be fired. Instead, his first words were, “You’re my daughter.” I froze, thinking it was a promo for some new, twisted reality show. Seeing my blank expression, he coolly slid a document across the table. “I’ve already had the DNA test done. It was a mix-up at the hospital eighteen years ago.” “Molly isn’t my daughter. You are.” My mind blanked. Molly? Molly Pierce? The girl poised to debut in the center position, the one whose name was always trending, the one the show had branded as its “angelic sweetheart”? The same Molly who, just a few days ago, had me hauling backdrop props for her rehearsal? The one who’d glare at me during filming, silently warning me not to steal her lines? She was the fake? And I was the real heiress? So what were all my years in foster care? Just a cosmic joke? Bad luck? A bitter laugh almost escaped me. “So… are you going to kick her out?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. Arthur Pierce’s brow furrowed. “Kick her out? Don’t be ridiculous.” “Molly grew up with us. She is a part of this family. That will never change.” He stared at me, his tone flat, business-like. “We’re acknowledging you now to right a wrong, to find closure. Not to start a media circus.” “As for your identity, we’ll keep it confidential for now. Don’t tell anyone, and don’t disrupt the atmosphere on the show.” He sounded so sincere, like a programmer dispassionately fixing a bug in his life’s code. “I’ll speak with the production team. They’ll treat you fairly. But resources can’t be reallocated recklessly.” “Especially anything that’s Molly’s. She has a massive fanbase and a solid reputation. You should watch her and learn.” “You need to learn how to adapt.” I got it. This so-called family reunion was just an exercise in managing emotions and moral obligations. Finding me, their biological daughter, was just to satisfy their sense of humanitarian duty. No big deal. I didn’t care about any of that anyway. The news barely registered a ripple in my heart. What I cared about was debuting and making money. “So, can I still compete?” I asked. He gave me a look. “Of course. But you should understand that she is the one the company is promoting.” “You, on the other hand, should lay low for a while. After the show ends, the company can find another path for you.” Another path? Her understudy? The B-list backup? Or maybe just pushed behind the scenes for good? I nodded. “I understand.” 2 Molly cried for a full afternoon backstage. The rumor was she’d heard the news about the real heiress returning during a company meeting and had a complete meltdown. I had just finished my own rehearsal and went to the break room for some water. There she was, slumped on a sofa, her eyes puffy and red, surrounded by a court of sympathizers. “Don’t be sad, Molly. You’ll always be Summit’s princess.” “You’re the one who grew up with them, who shared everything. She’s just… genetics.” “Exactly. How could someone who’s been gone for so long be closer to the family than you?” The “family” included my supposed older brother, David, Summit’s top director and the mastermind behind a dozen hit shows, and my second brother, Daniel, the VP in charge of talent and finance, a bona fide business mogul. I glanced over. David was sitting beside her, sighing. “Molly, don’t overthink it. Mom and Dad are torn up about this too. They just feel like they owe her something.” “You’re the only sister we’ve ever known.” “If you choose to give her some of your resources, that’s you being kind. She wouldn’t dare push it.” I was about to turn and leave when Molly’s gaze snagged on me. She called out, her voice a fragile whisper, “Stella…” My feet stopped. I turned to face her. She stood up, her voice choked with emotion but soft as silk. “I had no idea you were the real daughter. I… I just couldn’t process it. It’s not about you.” She took my hand, her grip surprisingly firm. “I’ll… I’ll start stepping back. I’ll talk to Mom and Dad, I’ll make them understand.” Her performance was perfectly timed. A cameraman, documenting her emotional turmoil, captured the moment she reached for me, her expression a mask of heartbroken nobility. David nodded at me. “Stella, don’t get the wrong idea. She’s just emotional. She doesn’t hold anything against you.” “For now, just cooperate and film a short video. Clarify that you two are on good terms so the fans don’t speculate.” “Your identity isn’t public yet. Don’t let this create drama for the show.” I looked at the whole pathetic scene. “So what’s my role in this little play?” Daniel spoke up. “The bigger person. Hurt, but reasonable and mature. You’ve had acting lessons.” “If you can’t pull it off, don’t embarrass yourself on stage,” he added coolly. “Dad is giving you a chance. You should be grateful.” Wow. For a guy who’d directed so many flops, he sure knew how to write a script. Molly dabbed her eyes with a tissue, a single, perfect tear clinging to her lashes. She looked so beautifully fragile. “It’s okay if you’re angry with me, Stella. I get it. I’ll… I’ll try to stay out of the spotlight from now on. You’re the real one, after all.” My head was buzzing. How had I never noticed how fake she was? A two-faced, manipulative snake. Was it because I was so insignificant before that I never got close enough to see the real her? Probably. The media machine, as expected, moved at lightning speed. In no time, the headlines were everywhere: #MollyPierceInTearsVowsToStepAsideForTrueHeiress #MollyPierce:SheIsTheRealDaughterIWillNotCompete #HeiressStellaLaneResponds:ThankYouForLettingMeHaveAFamily I… what? I never said that! They were putting words in my mouth! And didn’t they just say to keep my identity secret? Now they were blasting it all over the internet? Underneath the trending topics, Summit Entertainment’s official account had shared a post with a quote from my “mother”: 【We never intended to abandon either of our children. We hope everyone will give Stella time to grow.】 The comments section was a war zone. “Wow, what a spin job. Is Stella Lane really that cold?” “Molly is the one they raised. Stella has no class.” “I heard Stella is a real monster behind the scenes. Stop the act.” I was exhausted. The internet mob was eating it up. I closed the app. I hadn’t been back in the practice room for three minutes when a new message from Daniel popped up: 【Your performance in ‘Wall of Glass’ is canceled. You’ve been moved to the B-team as a backup dancer for ‘First Light.’】 Just brilliant. Molly was performing “First Light.” They wanted me to be her backup dancer. I typed back: “I thought you said all I had to do was cooperate. What is this?” He replied instantly: “Your cooperation wasn’t good enough. You’re not in a position to be demanding resources.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I opened my email and downloaded the demo for a song no one ever picked. “Shattered Bloom.” It was a scrapped project from a previous season. The emotions were too raw, the choreography brutally explosive, the lyrics a tangled mess. It was an eight-minute, non-stop marathon for a single performer. No one dared touch it. No one wanted to. I chose it. I didn’t need their hollow affection. Oh, right. There was no affection. I just needed a stage. After all, my goal was to debut and make some serious money. 3 Everyone knew “Shattered Bloom” was a cursed song. A difficult stage, dense choreography, complex lyrics, and a huge emotional arc. The last group that tried it fell apart, the lead singer’s voice cracked, and the company pulled the plug. It was considered one of the show’s biggest failures. It was left to rot in the digital archives, only mentioned as a cautionary tale. I dusted it off. The moment I submitted my choice, the music library manager tried to talk me out of it. “Stella, are you sure? No one can pull this song off. A whole boy band crashed and burned trying to perform this.” I just smiled. “No harm in trying. Think of it as a warm-up.” The production team approved my request, their faces a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity. I expected to be forgotten, but half an hour later, #StellaLanePicksCursedSong was trending. The comments exploded: 【Is she insane? ‘Shattered Bloom’? Is she trying to become a living meme?】 【Molly just announced she’s doing ‘First Light,’ and Stella picks this? Is she trying to lose on purpose to make a statement?】 【Tsk, tsk. So this is the real heiress. All drama, no substance.】 Then came the wave of coordinated comments, clearly paid for: 【Molly steps aside and this is how she repays her? Picking a flop song just to spite her?】 【She has no grace. All she knows is how to stir up trouble.】 I stared at the screen and let out a cold laugh. It hadn’t even been twelve hours. How did the entire internet already decide I was the villain? Unsurprisingly, a “leaked” voice memo from Molly’s fan group chat surfaced late that night: “Stella’s personality might be a bit… intense, but she’s a really hard worker. I support her choice to perform ‘Shattered Bloom.’ She probably wants this stage more than I do.” One part “she’s a hard worker,” one part “I support her,” and a final, devastating “she wants it more than I do.” Just like that, she was the gracious, magnanimous victim. And I was back on the trending list: #StellaLane:ISnatchYourStageForYourOwnGood #MollyPierceInTears:I’veNeverBlamedHerSheIsTheRealFamily Hilarious. They were so good at writing scripts, I felt I could be a showrunner myself. The next day, my “brother” David showed up. He didn’t call. He stormed right into my rehearsal studio, acting like a concerned older brother checking in. I was in the middle of deconstructing the choreography, tweaking the tempo, and syncing the beats on my laptop. He stood in the doorway, his face a thundercloud. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” “I’m rehearsing.” “You’re embarrassing Summit Entertainment.” He killed the music, his voice low and threatening. “‘Shattered Bloom’ is beyond you. Are you using it to attack Molly? To force her out of the industry?” “She already offered to step aside, and you’re still pushing her? Do you have any idea she cried so hard last night we almost took her to the hospital?” I wiped the sweat from my brow, ignoring him as I opened my audio software. “Her crying has nothing to do with me.” David’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have any idea who you are now?” he hissed. “We made your identity public to give you a place, not for you to start a war.” “You’re a public figure now. You represent the company. You represent us.” “Are you trying to make enemies of everyone? To make the entire world hate you?” I stopped what I was doing and looked straight at him, my voice calm. “Then, for now, I don’t represent you.” “If you want to spoil her, go ahead. I won’t fight you for it.” “But I won’t yield, either.” “I don’t need you to acknowledge me, and I refuse to play ‘happy families’ for the cameras.” “I just want to perform on my own stage. Even if I fail, at least it won’t be because I accepted her pity.” David was stunned into silence. He’d dealt with difficult artists before, but never someone like me. Someone who knew her resources were cut, her screen time was limited, and her reputation was being systematically destroyed. And still charged forward. “You keep this up, and you’ll be torn to shreds by the public.” “Fine by me.” I offered a faint smile. “At least I’ll go down with dignity.” He finally turned and left, tossing one last threat over his shoulder. “You’ll regret this.” I sank back to the floor and went back to work on the music. If I wasn’t welcome, I’d carve out my own space. And this time, I was going to make it big. 4 On the day of the “Shattered Bloom” performance, everyone backstage looked at me like they were watching the final seconds before a train wreck. “Are you really going through with this?” the makeup artist whispered for the seventh time. I sat in the wings, my in-ear monitors silent, mentally running through the choreography one last time. No one had come to touch up my makeup; I’d done it myself at 2:30 AM the night before, and my face felt stiff from the absurd amount of setting spray I’d used. All I said was, “How will I know if I don’t try?” The lights went down. The opening notes of “Shattered Bloom” filled the auditorium. The performance began with twenty seconds of absolute stillness, my rhythm dictated only by the rise and fall of my breath. I closed my eyes and sank into the music. The entire venue was silent. Not out of tension, but out of shock. For eight minutes, I transformed the song. I took the original’s jarring emotional shifts and rebuilt them into a layered crescendo of power. Every pause was a breath held, every explosion of movement landed like a punch to the gut. A hair whip, a vocal run, a backbend, a perfectly controlled mic grab, a final, haunting look back. I was rock solid. When I hit my final pose and the lights went dark, a wave of delayed applause erupted, mixed with shouts and screams. “WHO IS THAT?” “IS THAT STELLA LANE?” “THAT WAS INSANE!” As I walked off stage, the contestant next to me was still staring, dumbfounded. “Girl,” she said, “have you been secretly training for this your whole life?” I wiped away the sweat and gave her a small smile, saying nothing. I hadn’t been training secretly. I had been training all along. It’s just that no one was watching. The first thing I did backstage was open Twitter. As expected, #MollyPierceGivesUpAnotherSpot and #AngelicSweetheartStepsBackForSister were trending in the top five. I tapped the screen, looking for a VOD of my performance. “Shattered Bloom” Full Stage: Stella Lane. My entire performance was shown in silhouette, from a distance, or from behind. My face? Not a single shot. Close-ups? Deleted. Even my final, defiant gaze at the camera was gone, replaced with a shot of Molly backstage, silently dabbing a tear. And a new trending topic was pinned: Molly Pierce: I Don’t Blame Her, My Sister Is So Talented. I watched the clip, my expression unreadable. I picked up my phone and logged into my personal account. Ten minutes later, I posted a simple message with a photo of me from behind, scrubbing the floor of the practice room late at night: 【Scrapped song, remixed. Every front-facing shot, deleted. Thanks, production team. It’s fine. I’ll keep dancing until you run out of ways to erase me.】 Within five minutes, the post had ten thousand likes. The comments were flooding in. Twenty minutes later, #StellaLaneFaceDeleted shot to number nine on the trending list. Fifteen different dance critics shared my post. “If you didn’t see the real performance, just wait. I’ll edit it together for you.” #ShatteredBloomRemixIsGodTier #EightMinutesNoBreaks #MySoulLeftMyBodyYouHadToBeThere I turned off my phone, lay down on the cold backstage floor, and closed my eyes. They wanted me to be the counterpoint to their star? Fine. I’ll show them what a counterpoint can do.

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1 The Northwood High acceptance letter trembled in my hand—not from excitement, but the familiar weakness of years underfed. I rushed to the rotary phone in our rundown farmhouse, heart pounding as I called my “construction worker” parents in the city. Only a hollow dial tone answered. I just wanted to tell them I’d gotten into the county’s best school. To ask if they’d come home for Christmas. Then translucent text flickered before my eyes: 【God, the irony. Her parents are taking her brother to Disneyland】 【Her dad’s “Cross Construction” just landed the West End contract】 【Brother gets new iPhones while she uses this relic】 【The “grandma” who calls her worthless? A $2k/month actress】 Sixteen years abandoned with a woman who hated me— All of it, A lie. I hung up the phone and walked back into the yard like a puppet with its strings cut. The woman I called Grandma was perched on a rickety old stool, snapping beans. She saw me and her cloudy eyes narrowed into slits. “On that phone again? How many times do I have to tell you, long distance costs a fortune! Your parents are out there breaking their backs on some construction site, and you’re just throwing their money away!” I stared at her harsh, wrinkled face, my own lips trembling uncontrollably. The words from the pop-up echoed in my head, and I had to ask. “Grandma,” I began, my voice barely a whisper. “You’re… you’re not really my grandmother, are you?” Her hands froze mid-snap. A second later, she hurled a handful of wilted bean ends at me. “What nonsense are you spouting now, Lia? Are you crazy? Of course I’m your grandmother, you stupid girl!” She struggled to her feet, jabbing a bony finger at my face. “I swear, all that reading has turned your brain to mush! Always lost in your own stupid fantasies! Now get your ass over there and slop the pigs!” I didn’t move. I just held her gaze, watching the flicker of panic that flashed in her eyes before she could hide it. The comments appeared again. 【She’s rattled. Look, she can’t even meet your eyes.】 【Keep it up, lady. The Academy owes you an Oscar for that performance.】 Wordlessly, I turned and walked toward the pigpen. The acrid stench hit me in a wave, and I fought back the urge to gag. Could the pop-ups be telling the truth? But what were they? And why could I see them? That night, I lay on my lumpy mattress, the thin wood planks digging into my back as I tossed and turned. From the next room, I heard the faint, furtive sounds of my “grandmother.” Holding my breath, I slipped out of bed and pressed my ear against the cold, damp wall. “Hello? Sean? It’s me.” “It’s Lia… she was acting strange today.” “She asked me straight up if I was her real grandma. I shut her down, of course, but the girl’s sharp. I’m worried she’s onto us.” “Yeah, you and Reina should probably come down tomorrow.” “And remember… dress the part. You know. Don’t blow our cover.” BOOM. The last thread holding my world together snapped. It was all real. My parents were rich. All these years, leaving me here… it was all part of a script they had written for me. A twisted play, and I was the unwilling star. I crawled back into bed, pulling the musty, patched-up blanket over my head as silent, hot tears streamed down my face. I remembered the winters so cold my hands and feet were covered in frostbite that itched and burned, while she kept the only coal brazier in her own room. I remembered the other kids in their new clothes, while I wore stained hand-me-downs my mother mailed me, the sleeves inches too short, earning me a semester’s worth of mockery. I remembered the time I had a fever so high I couldn’t lift my head off the desk, and she’d just glanced at me and said, “Drink some hot water, you’ll be fine.” All this time, I thought we were poor. But my suffering wasn’t born of poverty. It was born of cruelty. They were living a life of luxury with my brother in the city, while I was abandoned in this desolate place, “raised” by a stranger paid to keep me miserable. What a sick, twisted joke. My eyes ached from crying, and my heart turned to a block of ice, bit by bit. Tomorrow. When they came back. I would tear down this disgusting, sixteen-year-long charade with my own two hands. 2 The next day, with the sun high in the sky, the squeal of tires on the gravel road announced their arrival. A shiny black sedan, polished to a mirror gleam, sat awkwardly at the end of our muddy dirt path. The driver’s door opened and my father, Sean, stepped out, followed by my mother, Reina. They were dressed in faded, worn-out work clothes, their faces artfully smeared with dirt and their hair a mess. They looked every bit the part of weathered, downtrodden laborers. Last, my brother, Theo, slid out of the backseat. He took one step, and his pristine white sneakers sank into a patch of mud. He wrinkled his nose in disgust, his voice just loud enough for me to hear. “Seriously, Mom, Dad? This is where she lives? It’s a total dump. A dog wouldn’t even live here!” His words were a dagger to my heart. A place a dog wouldn’t live in. I had lived there for sixteen years. I studied my parents, their performance flawless. But I could see the truth beneath the costume. The hands that signed contracts and held fountain pens, even smudged with dirt, were too soft. Their fingernails were clean, the skin on their necks smooth. These were not the hands and bodies of people who did hard labor for a living. “Lia!” my mother, Reina, cried out, quickly clamping a hand over Theo’s mouth. Her face was a mask of weary love and guilt. “Oh, honey, we’ve missed you so much! Let me look at you, you’re all skin and bones!” She opened her arms for a hug, but I instinctively took a step back. Her embrace hung, empty, in the air between us. My gaze drifted past them, fixating on the offensively clean, expensive car. “Mom, Dad,” I said, my voice hoarse. “You… you have money now? You bought a car?” I pressed on, my voice pleading. “Can you take me to the city for high school?” My father’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second before he replaced it with a folksy grin. “Don’t be silly! Dad just borrowed this from his boss at the construction site. He heard you got into Northwood and wanted to show you off a bit.” “Besides,” he continued, falling back into the old, tired script, “the city’s expensive, Lia. And your brother’s schooling costs a lot. You just stay here for now…” Always the same excuses. I lowered my eyes, hiding the bitter sarcasm I felt. Borrowed. Right. At lunch, my “grandmother” served a chicken stew, a rare treat. Theo stared at the chipped enamel bowls and the patches on my clothes, his lip curled in a permanent sneer. He refused to sit next to me. “Mom, I don’t wanna sit next to her,” he whined. “She stinks. I bet she has fleas.” A flash of embarrassment crossed my parents’ faces. Reina quickly pulled Theo between her and my dad. “Theo, that’s enough! That’s your sister!” After the meal, my mother pulled a thick wad of cash from her pocket and pressed it into the old woman’s hand. “Mom, here’s two thousand. Thanks for all your hard work this month.” She gestured toward me. “Lia’s starting high school, so she’ll need more things. Make sure you get her some good food, don’t let her go without.” I watched the exchange, a cold laugh bubbling in my chest. This was her salary. The payment for her acting services. And I knew that of that $2,000, I wouldn’t see a tenth of it. For years, I’d done whatever I could to scrape together money for tuition and books. I’d foraged for herbs in the mountains, washed dishes at the diner in town, and even hauled bricks at a real construction site one summer under the blistering sun. My hands were a permanent mess of blisters that burst and reformed, over and over. Every time I’d called to ask for money, they’d tell me their pay was late, or that Theo was sick again, or that life in the city was even harder than life in the country. Eventually, I just stopped asking. I thought they were truly struggling. But now I understood. They weren’t giving me a life of hardship; they were giving me a carefully calculated performance of it. My eyes fell to Theo’s feet. The white sneakers had a bold, red swoosh on the side. I recognized it instantly. The richest kid in my class had the exact same pair. He’d bragged to everyone that his parents had paid a fortune for them, a special order from the city. They were called Nikes. And they cost two thousand dollars. Two thousand dollars. That was more than my entire living allowance for two years. My two years of suffering were worth less than a single pair of his shoes. My hand clenched around my enamel bowl, the chip in the rim digging painfully into my palm. I couldn’t take it anymore. I snapped my head up, my eyes red-rimmed and blazing as I stared them down. “You’re rich, aren’t you?” My voice was choked with tears. “You left me here to suffer on purpose, didn’t you?” Sean’s face darkened, and he slammed his hand on the table. “Lia! What has gotten into you?” Reina shot up, pointing at me. “Have you lost your mind? We’re out there working like dogs to pay for your education, and this is the thanks we get? You stand there spouting ungrateful nonsense! When have we ever done you wrong?” “Done me wrong?” A broken, hysterical laugh escaped my lips. I pointed a trembling finger at Theo’s shoes. “His shoes cost two thousand dollars! I haven’t even had that much to live on for the past two years! And you call that treating me right?” My parents froze. For a moment, they were speechless. Then my father’s composure returned. His face was a cold mask. “They were a hand-me-down from my boss’s son. He was going to throw them out. You don’t know anything, so stop making things up.” My mother caught on instantly, secretly pinching Theo’s arm. He immediately put on a pitiful expression. “Yeah, sis! You have no idea what I had to go through just to get these old things!” I watched the three of them, a family of actors, and a cold certainty settled in my stomach. It didn’t matter what I said. They would never, ever admit the truth. 3 That afternoon, my parents announced they had to get back to the “busy construction site in the city.” As they were leaving, a wild, desperate idea took root in my mind. I was going to see this “construction site” and this “hard life” for myself. I remembered watching my father stuff a sack of farm-fresh produce into the trunk before he left. He had opened it. “My stomach hurts,” I mumbled, clutching my abdomen and dashing for the outhouse behind the main building. The moment I was out of sight, I moved, silent and swift as a shadow. The trunk wasn’t fully latched. With every ounce of my strength, I pried it open just enough to squeeze through the gap, pulling it shut behind me. Through a tiny crack, I saw the old woman waving goodbye from the doorway, a tender expression on her face, as if she were sending off her own beloved children. I curled into a ball in the darkness, my heart pounding against my ribs. The engine rumbled to life. In the car, my family finally dropped their masks. “That was too close,” my mother, Reina, said, her voice shaky with relief. “That damn girl’s eyes… it was like she wanted to eat us alive.” “I think she knows,” my father, Sean, grumbled, a note of irritation in his voice. “We almost blew our cover.” “Thank God I thought of that excuse about my boss’s son,” he continued. “Otherwise, we would’ve been screwed.” “This is all your fault!” Reina snapped. “I told you not to let him wear those Nikes! I told you, when we come here to play our parts, we have to go all in!” “Mom, how is this my fault?” Theo whined, his voice dripping with entitlement. “This whole place is disgusting! There isn’t even a decent road! I’m throwing these shoes out the second we get home. They’re contaminated with poor-people germs!” He paused, then added, “Dad, Mom, why don’t we just… bring her to the city? It’s not like we can’t afford it. We’ve got plenty of empty rooms in the villa.” My breath caught in my throat. A flicker of hope? “Absolutely not!” My father’s voice was sharp, cold, and utterly devoid of warmth. “Have you forgotten what the psychic in Sedona told us? That girl, Lia, she’s a jinx, born to drain our fortune. Her life force is too strong. We have to keep her poor, keep her miserable, to channel all the bad luck onto her and away from us. The moment she gets a taste of our wealth, our luck will turn, and we’ll lose everything!” My mother quickly chimed in. “He’s right, Theo, don’t you get soft on us now. Don’t you remember when you were little? Every time she got a fever, your father’s business would take a hit? The psychic was clear: Lia is our curse. She has to suffer in the countryside to absorb the bad karma for our family!” Curled in the suffocating darkness, a chill colder than any winter wind washed over me. So that’s what I was. Not a daughter, not a sister. I was a sacrifice. A human shield to be kept in squalor to ensure their prosperity. “Oh, I get it,” Theo said, a note of dawning understanding in his voice. “Well, I definitely don’t want to go back to being poor.” He sealed my fate with a casual, thoughtless finality. “So, for my sake… for our family’s sake… I guess it’s better if she just stays miserable out there.” His words were as light as a feather, but they crushed my heart into dust. I bit down hard on the back of my hand, stifling the sob that clawed its way up my throat. Superstition. I’d learned about it in school, a relic of a bygone era. I never imagined my own family, my own flesh and blood, would condemn me to a living hell for something so meaningless. An eternity later, the car stopped. I peered through a crack in the trunk, and the sight that greeted me stole the air from my lungs. This wasn’t some worksite dorm. It was a three-story mansion with a manicured lawn and a sprawling fountain. I watched the three of them get out, casually punch a code into a keypad, and wait as an ornate iron gate swung open. This was their home. I waited a few minutes, giving them time to get inside, before I pushed open the trunk, slipped out, and darted through the gate just before it closed. The inside was even more opulent than I could have imagined. Crystal chandeliers, marble floors, a sweeping spiral staircase. A housekeeper in a crisp uniform was polishing the floor. “Welcome home, Mr. and Mrs. Cross, Master Theo,” she said respectfully. I scrambled for cover, diving under a massive, formal dining table draped with a long tablecloth that concealed me completely. “Hey, Maria, get me a Coke!” Theo demanded, tossing his backpack onto a plush sofa and flopping down like he owned the world. The coffee table was littered with colorful bags of imported snacks, their foreign labels a language I couldn’t comprehend. I thought of the moldy bread I’d eaten to save money, of the bitter wild greens I’d dug up just to have something in my stomach. I watched as my mother, Reina, shed her shabby work clothes for an elegant silk dress, spritzing herself with expensive perfume. “I have an appointment with Mrs. Chen for facials. I won’t be back for dinner.” My father, Sean, disappeared into a walk-in closet and emerged moments later in a tailored suit, his hair slicked back. “I have to go back to the office. I’ve got a major contract to sign tonight.” So this was their “construction site.” This was their “hard life.” Just then, my father’s phone rang. He answered it, and his calm, confident expression vanished. “What?!” he yelled, his voice cracking. “Lia’s gone?! You’ve searched the whole village?!” “You don’t think she… she followed us to the city, do you?” My mother and Theo’s faces went white with panic. “Quick! Check the car! The trunk!” They spun around, ready to bolt for the door. And in that moment, I slowly, deliberately, crawled out from under the table. I brushed the dust from my patched clothes, my voice a dry rasp. “No need to look.”

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1 I unclipped the rescue harness from my dog’s back and announced I was done. We weren’t going back into the mountain. Steven, clutching his tiny chihuahua, went pale. “If you don’t take your search dogs back up there, I’ll kill them,” he threatened. I just unhooked the leash and let my dog, a highly trained German Shepherd, bolt for home. I knew how this story ended. In my first life, when the wildfire broke out, Steven claimed he could talk to dogs. He demanded I hand over my search and rescue team, the dogs I’d spent years training. I thought he was insane, of course, and went into the mountains alone with my dogs to find the trapped hikers. But no matter how hard I pushed, Steven, with that ridiculous chihuahua in tow, always beat me to the victims. Every single time, just as my dogs would get a scent, he’d already be there, a so-called hero. I ended up finding no one. He, on the other hand, was credited with saving over a dozen lives. The final report listed more than thirty fatalities. Steven blamed me. He told everyone that if I had just given him my dogs, everyone could have been saved. The victims’ families believed him. In their grief and rage, they cornered me. They beat me and my dogs to death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the fire started. “Damien, just give the dogs to Steven!” The familiar voice of my fiancée, Sara, snapped me back to the present. “He can understand them! He’ll find the hikers faster!” I looked around, the scene sickeningly familiar. This was the moment it all began. Steven, holding the chihuahua that Sara and I had raised together, was grandstanding, claiming his mystical ability to speak “dog.” “Damien, are you deaf?” Sara snapped, impatient with my silence. I tightened my grip on the leash, my voice tight. “You actually believe this nonsense?” I looked at the other volunteer rescuers gathered around us. “Are you going to trust an experienced K9 handler, or some random guy who suddenly claims he’s Dr. Doolittle?” The volunteers didn’t hesitate. They chose Steven. To prove his “gift,” Steven let out a string of bizarre, guttural noises. My three search dogs, usually calm and focused, became agitated, barking wildly at the sky. Steven shook his head, a pained, pitying look on his face. “They say you abuse them,” he announced gravely. “That you feed them the cheapest food. They say you worked one of their packmates to death during training. You’re no handler. You’re a monster.” The crowd’s mood turned ugly. Murmurs of “animal abuser” and “disgrace” rippled through the group. As they started to advance on me, my three dogs, my loyal partners, formed a protective barrier in front of me, snarling at the angry mob. “See?” someone yelled. “They’re vicious! They can’t even tell good from evil!” Steven stepped forward again, closing his eyes as if in deep concentration. “They say their friends and family are back at your training facility. They have to obey you, or you’ll hurt them.” Rage boiled in my gut. It was a classic protective stance, any dog owner would know it. But he was twisting it, painting me as a villain. I knew arguing was useless. I had to show them. “I’m not giving you my dogs,” I said, my voice ringing with authority. “If you want to save lives, follow me.” In my past life, I had charged into that burning mountain, driven by a desperate need to help. This time, I had a different mission. This time, I remembered where every single one of those thirty victims was trapped. This time, I’d see how he could possibly be faster than me. My plea fell on deaf ears. The volunteers all rallied behind Steven. The most painful part? Sara didn’t choose me either. She stood right beside him, just like before. “Sara?” I asked, a sliver of hope still flickering. “You don’t believe me either?” “Of course not,” she said, her voice cold. “You might be a great trainer, Damien, but you can’t talk to dogs. Steven is a miracle worker. Now I can finally know what my baby is thinking!” Her “baby” was the chihuahua in Steven’s arms. Sparky. A dog I had helped raise, a dog I had grown to love. Sara used to say she’d never let a stranger hold Sparky. But I’m a dog handler. I could see the tension in Sparky’s body, the subtle signs of distress. Sara, who had spent years with that dog, had to see it too. But she chose to ignore it. A bitter smile touched my lips. Years of partnership, thrown away for this charlatan. But there was no time to argue. People were dying. “Let’s go,” I commanded my dogs, and we plunged into the smoky woods. Behind me, I heard Steven’s smug voice. “Even without your dogs, Damien, I’ll still find them first! Everyone, teams of five! Let’s move out!” The volunteers surged into the mountain. I pulled out my satellite map, the one I had marked with the locations from my memory. I gave the commands, and my dogs, the best I had, shot off in the designated directions. They didn’t disappoint. Within half an hour, they were signaling a find. I raced after them, my heart pounding. In my first life, it had taken an hour for the first victim to be found. I was a full thirty minutes ahead. No one could be faster. As I broke through a thicket of charred brush, I froze. It was impossible. Steven was already there. His team had already stabilized the injured hiker. He looked up at me, not with surprise, but with a look of smug satisfaction. “Well, well, look who finally showed up,” he sneered. “With that kind of speed, are you sure those are even search dogs? I’m starting to doubt your so-called expertise.” “You just got lucky!” I snarled, my hands clenched on the leashes. But I knew it wasn’t luck. The fire had made the terrain treacherous, blocking paths and obscuring landmarks. A human’s sense of smell was useless here. Even a regular dog would struggle. My dogs were the best of the best. How could he have found them so quickly? It was the same question that had haunted my first life. Now, it was screaming in my mind again. I turned to leave, to find the next group. “Hey,” Steven called after me. “If you can’t handle it, just give me the dogs. I could work a lot faster with them.” “Damien, if anyone else dies because you were too slow, it will be your fault!” Sara added, her voice sharp with accusation. I ignored them and pushed on. But the same thing happened again. And again. No matter how early I was, no matter how precise my knowledge, Steven and his team were always there first. It was like he knew my every move. I stopped and knelt, running my hands over my dogs, searching for a tracking device. Nothing. So how was he doing it? If I didn’t figure it out, I was doomed to repeat my fate. Could he really understand dogs? But there were no other dogs on this mountain, except… Sparky. No, that was ridiculous. Sparky was a pet. A pampered lap dog. He couldn’t be a search dog. I looked at my map. I knew of eight locations. Steven had already “rescued” five groups. In my first life, he only found four. The timeline was all wrong. I had to know. I decided to follow him. For two hours, his team wandered aimlessly through the woods. They looked like lost tourists, not a professional rescue team. They found no one else. Finally, exhausted, everyone headed back to the base camp to rest. When I arrived, Steven was already there, a megaphone in his hand, riling up the crowd. “If I just had one proper search dog, I could have found everyone by now! We wouldn’t even need to go back out this afternoon! I wonder how many people our great K9 handler Damien brought back with his three dogs.” He saw me then, and I knew. He had been waiting for me. This was all a performance, a re-enactment of the trap he’d laid for me in our first life. My three dogs made me an easy target. All eyes were on me. “So, how many did you find, master trainer?” Steven asked, his voice dripping with false concern. I wanted to punch him. He could see I was alone. “None,” I gritted out. “What? You had three dogs and you found no one?” A wave of outrage swept through the crowd. Steven fanned the flames. “I heard the dogs say that Damien just took them for a walk in the woods! He wasn’t even trying to find anyone!” I wanted to scream. But they believed him. He was the one who could “talk to dogs,” after all. “I was searching!” I yelled, trying to defend myself. “But somehow, Steven always got there first! You have to believe me!” It was useless. They were already convinced I was the problem. They started demanding I hand over my dogs. Just as they were about to rush me, a group of people with cameras and microphones appeared. The local news. My heart, which had been pounding in my chest, finally settled. This was the one thing I had done differently. The first thing I did after I came back was call the press. The presence of the cameras stopped the mob in their tracks. They immediately shifted gears, praising Steven to the reporters. “It was all thanks to Steven! If he couldn’t talk to dogs, we wouldn’t have saved so many people!” A reporter turned to Steven. “Is it true you’ve rescued eight people so far, all by communicating with a dog?” “That’s right,” Steven said, puffing out his chest. “And if I had a real search dog, I could have saved even more. The most despicable part is that Damien, here, refused to help. I think he was just trying to hoard all the glory for himself.” The cameras swung to me. In front of everyone, I calmly began to unbuckle the harnesses from my dogs. “Since you all think I’m just trying to be a hero,” I announced, my voice clear and steady, “I won’t be taking my dogs on the afternoon search.” The crowd jeered. “Fine by us! Steven can find everyone by himself!” “Yeah, you’re useless anyway! Just stay here!” But to my surprise, Steven panicked. He grabbed my arm, his eyes wide with fear. “No! You and your dogs have to come!” I just smirked and unclipped their leashes. At my command, my three dogs turned and raced back towards our home. Steven screamed and ran after them, stumbling over a rock and falling flat on his face. “No! Come back! You can’t leave!”

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We were on the set of a celebrity talk show, my ex and I. The host posed a dramatic question to the panel. “If you knew you were about to die and could only leave one letter, what would you write?” I paused, then wrote down three wishes on the card provided. When it was my turn to share, I read them aloud. “First, I hope everyone forgets me—” A sharp, derisive laugh cut me off. Mario Atkinson’s face was a mask of icy contempt. “Aren’t you full of yourself, Cora?” he sneered. “Who do you think is going to remember you? Who gives a damn if you live or die?” I managed a patient smile and said nothing. He didn’t know. This letter wasn’t a prop for a game. It was my last will and testament. 1 The taping was halfway through, and by now, everyone was used to Mario’s constant digs at me. After his latest barb, the host just laughed it off, smoothing things over with practiced ease. “Mario, always the comedian, hahaha.” He then turned to me, his voice gentle. “Cora, would you mind sharing the rest of your letter?” I nodded, my expression carefully neutral. “My second wish is to find a new home for Mochi. And the last is to donate my entire estate to charity.” Sensing the unspoken question, I quickly added, “Mochi is my calico cat.” The other guests nodded in understanding. More accurately, Mochi was our cat. Mario’s and mine. I’d found him on a rainy day, a tiny, shivering thing following my every step. I couldn’t leave him. My work kept me on the road, so when I was away, Mario would look after him. He claimed to hate pets. He’d pinch his nose while cleaning the litter box, muttering under his breath the whole time. But no one took better care of that cat than he did. He’d spend hours researching the best food and a fortune on toys and treats. When we fell apart, he left Mochi with me. As I finished speaking, Mario, right on cue, went in for another kill. He let out a cold, merciless laugh. “Cora, with a list that detailed, you’d better actually be dying.” The other guests had given vague, sentimental answers. Mine, by contrast, was unnervingly specific. The atmosphere turned thick with tension. The host froze, unsure how to salvage the moment. It was Liam, the actor sitting next to me, who broke the silence. “Mario,” he said, his voice low but firm. “Maybe try to keep it classy. We’re on camera.” He then smoothly passed me a bottle of water. I took it, my movements slow. Liam and I had just starred in a hit drama together, and the entire internet was “shipping” us. The studio encouraged us to play it up for the publicity, so I didn’t refuse his gesture of support. Mario’s gaze, however, was fixed on the water bottle in my hand, his eyes burning holes into it. Just as I braced myself for another cutting remark, he lowered his gaze and said something strange. “I’m thirsty.” For a beat, I was confused. Then, I offered him the bottle. He took it, but he didn’t drink. He just toyed with it for a moment before casually tossing it into a nearby trash can. His eyes, full of malice, flicked to Liam. “Sorry,” he said, the word dripping with venom. “I don’t drink that brand.” It was the ultimate power play, a move only someone like Mario could get away with. Backed by the immense wealth of the Atkinson family, he was untouchable. The host, wiping sweat from his brow, cautiously tried to steer the show back on track. “Mario, would you mind showing us what you wrote?” For the first time all night, Mario smiled, looking surprisingly agreeable. “Of course.” But when the camera zoomed in on his card, the host’s breath caught. Mario’s bold, aggressive handwriting filled the screen. Everyone stared, stunned into silence. He had written: “Before I die, I have to take Cora with me.” He smirked, reading the words aloud with a swaggering arrogance that filled the studio. The others looked at me with pity. But my face remained a calm, placid mask. It was only natural that Mario Atkinson hated me. After all, the way I had broken up with him was unforgivable. 2 Mario was fiercely possessive. My career as an actress, however, made intimate scenes with co-stars unavoidable. The show with Liam had a kiss scene. When Mario found out, he went ballistic. He demanded we go public with our relationship, right then and there. But we were in the middle of a massive publicity campaign for the show, centered on my on-screen romance with Liam. From a professional standpoint, it was the worst possible time. I told Mario we had to wait, at least until the show’s run was over. His eyes were bloodshot. He gave me a long, deep look, then turned and walked away without another word. I got swamped with work. By the time I had a moment to breathe and tried to call him, I found he’d blocked me on everything. He refused to see me, vanishing for days. The next I heard of him was a single post on his social media. 【My girlfriend, @CoraScott.】 Those four words nearly crashed the internet. But I didn’t know about it at the time. The day he posted it, I collapsed on set. I woke up a day later in the hospital. “Ms. Scott,” the doctor said, his eyes full of a terrible pity. “I’m so sorry. It’s late-stage cancer.” The words didn’t register at first. There was no screaming, no hysterical crying. Just a profound, hollow silence in my head. Before I could fully process it, my phone rang. My agent. He’d been trying to reach me for two days, afraid to bother Mario, and was now unleashing his fury on me. Why did I go public? I had to deny it, immediately, do damage control. He ranted for half an hour. I didn’t hear most of it. I just kept murmuring, “I’m sorry,” and “I understand,” like an automaton. After I hung up, I sat on the edge of the hospital bed for a long time. This was the moment I should have been calling Mario. Explaining that the show with Liam was filmed two years ago, before he’d even moved back to the country. Explaining that I loved him, truly loved him, and had never crossed a line with anyone else. Explaining that yes, I wanted to tell the world I was his. But now… none of it mattered. How long does someone with late-stage cancer have? Six months? A year? It was all too short. And so, Mario, I can’t drag you down with me. As the last rays of sunset streamed through the window, I finally moved. My fingers found my phone, and I responded to his post. 【This joke isn’t funny, @MarioAtkinson.】 Within an hour, my reply had over a million shares. My fans flooded his comments. Do you have any idea how disgusting this is? Spreading rumors like that! Get out of the industry, you creep. As if our Cora would ever look at you. You got called out. How embarrassing for you. This is sick. Trying to force a woman to be with you? Pathetic. Overnight, he became a laughingstock. Rumors swirled that his family, ashamed of the scandal, was threatening to cut him off. Through it all, Mario said nothing. I expected him to release our old photos, our text messages, anything to prove his innocence. But he did nothing. He just took the abuse, the endless tide of hatred, all of it, alone. Then, he sent me a voice message. For the first time, the proud, arrogant Mario Atkinson sounded… broken. “Cora,” he pleaded, his voice trembling with panic. “Do you love me? Just tell me.” A sob caught in my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut, swallowing the bitter taste of unshed tears. It took a long moment before I could type a steady reply. 【Not anymore.】 He never messaged me again. A man as proud as Mario would never beg. And just like that, without another word, we were over. 3 By the time I came back to myself, the host had managed to wrap up the segment. After a thirty-minute break, we started the second game: Truth or Dare. No one in this industry has a perfectly clean slate, so the “truth” questions were always carefully softball. I was relieved. But during the game, Isabelle, another actress on the panel, kept taking subtle jabs at me. We had a history. We’d competed for the same leading role once, and she’d lost. She’d held a grudge ever since, “accidentally” liking negative posts about me and then offering flimsy, insincere apologies. I was too focused on my work to care. Her antics always felt more pathetic than threatening. Until now. I lost a round, and she looked at me with undisguised malice. “Cora, truth or dare?” “Truth,” I said calmly. Her smile widened. She had been waiting for this. “So, what’s the real story? You and Mario. Was it ever a thing?” The host went strategically silent. Every eye in the room darted between me and Mario. Everyone knew the story. It was Mario’s great public humiliation, the one topic that was absolutely off-limits. And she had just thrown it onto the table. Mario didn’t look angry. His fiery gaze was locked on me, waiting. I lowered my eyes, saying nothing. “Don’t want to answer?” Isabelle taunted after a moment. “Fine. The penalty is ten shots of tequila.” She was determined to corner me. Just then, I looked up, my nails digging into my palms, and forced a light, easy smile. “No,” I said, my voice clear. “We never dated.” A collective gasp went through the room. Mario’s face darkened. A chilling smile touched his lips as he immediately backed me up. “That’s right.” “As if I would ever be with someone like Cora.” But in the next second, his knuckles went white. The wine glass in his hand shattered, the sound echoing in the silent studio. Shards of glass bit into his flesh, staining his hand crimson. He didn’t even flinch, didn’t so much as frown. The room erupted in panicked shouts for a medic. The day’s filming was abruptly cut short. Most of the cast rushed over to check on Mario. But a deep, aching pain was spreading through my body, draining me of all strength. I went back to my room, took my medication, and fell into a heavy sleep. 4 At four in the afternoon, a staffer woke me. We were all gathered together and informed that we would be responsible for making our own dinner. “I hear Cora’s a fantastic cook,” Mario said, his eyes glinting with malice. Of course. It was always about me. I instinctively looked up, my gaze falling on his bandaged right hand. I felt a small flicker of relief. He could still move it. The cut wasn’t too deep. At his comment, the other guests turned to me. “Well then, we’re counting on you for dinner!” Isabelle chirped. “Thanks, Cora!” “I’m a disaster in the kitchen, so I’ll stay out of the way.” “I think I see a guitar over there, I’ll go check it out.” In less than a minute, I was alone. I sighed and started preparing a meal for a dozen people. It was a lot of food. At one point, I turned my back for a second and a pan burst into flames. Before I could panic, Liam appeared out of nowhere and swiftly covered it with a lid. “I can’t cook,” he said with a gentle smile, “but I can definitely wash and chop vegetables. Just tell me what you need.” My eyes stung. “Thank you,” I said, my voice thick with gratitude. With Liam’s help, the work went much faster. Two hours later, the last dish was done. As I carried it to the table, I noticed Mario standing in the shadows, his expression unreadable as he watched me. I had no idea how long he’d been there. The illness had left me so deeply tired. I didn’t have the energy for another confrontation. I just averted my eyes and walked past him. At the dinner table, he started in on me again. He took a bite of food, then immediately spit it out. “So, the ‘great cook’ thing was just another one of your personas, Cora?” he asked, a mocking smirk on his face. For some reason, I just felt weary. How could he not know my cooking? He was the one who used to beg me to cook for him every time he had a day off. He was the one who would always clean his plate, down to the last grain of rice. I looked him straight in the eye, and a genuine, brilliant smile spread across my face. “It’s okay,” I said, my tone as casual as if I were discussing the weather. “If all goes to plan, this will be the last time you ever have to eat my cooking.” The ugly smile froze on his lips. For once, Mario Atkinson was silent. I don’t know what he was thinking, but for the rest of the meal, he ate with a strange intensity. No one else saw it, but under the table, his left hand was trembling uncontrollably. I’d only had a few bites when a wave of nausea hit me. I rushed to the bathroom, retching over the sink. I saw the tell-tale red in the basin and frantically washed it away. When I came out, I ran right into Mario. He stared at my pale face, his expression complicated. “Are you sick?” he asked. A mischievous impulse took over. I leaned in and whispered, “I’m pregnant.” His pupils constricted. He stammered, “Is it… mine?” I laughed softly. “I’m kidding.” “Cora!” he roared. Ignoring his fury, I turned and walked away. Back in my room, I locked the door, and the last of my strength gave out. I collapsed onto the bed. It was a good ten minutes before I could push myself up to take my medicine. Just as I swallowed the last pill, my phone pinged. A message from my mom. 【Honey, why did you send me so much money? Is something wrong?】 My eyes burned. I buried my face in the pillow and typed back. 【Everything’s fine.】 【I’m just heading out of town for a long shoot. It’s going to be a while. Take care of yourself, Mom.】 She didn’t suspect a thing. 【Okay, sweetie. I’ll put this in a savings account for you. By the way, I mailed you some of my homemade nougat. It should be there soon. You know how your blood sugar gets low. Keep some with you.】 She went on and on, fussing over me. To every instruction, I replied with a simple, “Okay.” Years ago, she had left my abusive father with nothing but me. She’d since remarried and built a new, happy life. I couldn’t bear to be a burden to her again.

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At dinner, my mother-in-law Martha claimed she was a time traveler from twenty years ago. We dismissed it as medication side effects—until she confronted Arthur: “Why are we living worse than twenty years back? I gave you my brother’s factory spot!” Arthur went silent. Later, Martha begged me to tail him on my scooter. We watched as a Rolls-Royce pulled up. A suited man stepped out: “Mr. Thorne, the luxury care suite is ready. No more pretending to be poor.” Martha collapsed against me, sobbing. “Why do you look shocked too?” she gasped. Because in that Rolls sat my “humble delivery driver” husband. 1 Martha, in a daze, stumbled after the disappearing Rolls-Royce, her feet catching on an uneven paving stone. She went down hard. A young couple rushed to help her up, but she just stared at the empty street, refusing to move. “Lady, if you’re trying to pull an insurance scam, you picked the wrong car,” the girl said, half-joking. “That’s a Rolls-Royce. And not just any Rolls—look at the plate, CV-0002.” Martha looked at the girl’s envious face, completely bewildered. “CV-0001 belongs to the famous Vivian Vance, the wife of the Thorne Industries chairman,” the girl chattered on, full of celebrity gossip. “And CV-0002 belongs to the chairman himself, Arthur Thorne. Who knew the head of such a massive corporation was such a romantic? Totally whipped, I bet.” The more the girl talked, the darker Martha’s expression became. When she heard the name ‘Vivian Vance’, her eyes looked like they were about to burst from their sockets. “Arthur Thorne… After twenty years, you’re still with that bitch.” Sensing the shift in mood, the boyfriend gave his girlfriend a nudge, and they quickly made their escape. I was rooted to the spot, my limbs heavy as lead. My phone slipped from my numb fingers, its screen still glowing with a news headline:【INTERNATIONAL SUPERMODEL SHERYL STARR AND HEIR SANDY THORNE HIT THE CLUB FOR A WILD NIGHT OUT】. The man in the photo, his face splashed across the screen, was the same man I knew as my husband. My husband, whose supposed battle with leukemia had drained our life savings and plunged us into a mountain of debt. It wasn’t just my father-in-law who was living a lie. It was my husband, Sandy, too. If I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes, sitting in the back of that Rolls-Royce in a perfectly tailored suit, I would never have believed it. The husband I’d worked three jobs for, the man I’d pulled back from the brink of death’s door by feeding him rice porridge and pickles to save every penny… was the heir to the Thorne Industries empire. Martha had told me her story. Twenty years ago, she had used her family’s connections to get Arthur, who could barely read, into college and land him a respectable job in the city. They had a beautiful son. An accident had thrown her forward in time, and she had expected to wake up to a comfortable, upper-middle-class life. Instead, she woke up to this. The shrill ring of my phone snapped us both out of our stupor. “Kendra, were you moonlighting again? I’ve got customer complaints up to my ears. If I didn’t know you were supporting two cancer patients at home, I would have fired you on the spot. Hello? Are you there?” The voice on the other end was loud enough for Martha to hear every word. Her gaze sharpened, focusing on me. “Two cancer patients? Besides Sandy, who else…?” A horrifying thought seemed to dawn on her. She walked over to a nearby car and stared at her reflection in the side mirror. Sparse hair, a gaunt face, a frail frame paradoxically swollen by a bloated abdomen. “The doctors said you have late-stage stomach cancer,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “They said surgery might have helped, but you refused treatment. You wanted to save the money for Sandy’s bone marrow transplant, so you hid it from him and Arthur.” Martha stared at her reflection for a long, silent moment. Then, a chilling smile spread across her face. “Arthur Thorne,” she whispered to the broken woman in the mirror. “What will you do when you find out that the woman who gave you everything is dying because your little charade kept her from getting treatment?” 2 Following a business news alert, Martha found the hotel where Arthur was holding a meeting that afternoon. Though her mind was sharp and young, her sixty-year-old body was frail. She was panting heavily by the time she reached the lobby. Before she could even ask for the location of the conference room, the front desk clerk was already pinching her nose and rolling her eyes. “Ma’am, we don’t have any cans for you to collect here.” She gestured subtly for security to remove the “eyesore.” But Martha wasn’t leaving. She screamed, “I want to see Arthur Thorne!” Her voice echoed in the opulent lobby. “The land he just sold belonged to my family! How dare he use that money to buy that whore Vivian Vance a private island!” “Where did this crazy person come from?” the clerk muttered, looking at her with a mixture of pity and disgust. I arrived just in time to see her in a standoff with two burly security guards. As I moved to intervene, a pair of familiar figures emerged from the elevator: Arthur and Sandy. “After this meeting, Vivian and I are stepping back to enjoy our lives,” Arthur was saying. “You need to step up, son. Handle things.” “Don’t worry, Dad,” Sandy replied, a smug grin on his face. “I learned from the best. Kendra, just like Mom, is so hung up on a man being faithful. They don’t get it. For men like us, from families like ours, how could one woman ever be enough?” A blade of ice twisted in my gut. My nails had dug so deep into my palms that they’d drawn blood. “Sandy,” Arthur added, his tone more serious, “the empire comes first. Remember, I started with nothing. It was your mother who saved me. And Kendra… even though her family is ordinary, she stuck by you when you told her you had leukemia. She worked herself to the bone to pay off our ‘debts’. You won’t find that kind of loyalty in any of the blue-blooded women in our circle.” As the two impeccably dressed men walked past me, Sandy pinched his nose and quickened his pace. He whispered something to the front desk clerk, who immediately grabbed a can of air freshener and began spraying the path I had just walked, a look of profound apology on her face. At that moment, the guards manhandled a protesting Martha out of the hotel and shoved her onto the hot pavement. Just then, a black SUV pulled up. “Sandy!” Supermodel Sheryl Starr, teetering on stilettos, stepped out. She carefully stepped over Martha’s head to reach Sandy, linking her arm through his possessively. “How can a five-star hotel let in delivery drivers and homeless people?” Sheryl whined, her voice carrying across the lobby. “I almost twisted my ankle trying to avoid her.” Arthur frowned slightly, but the expression vanished as quickly as it appeared. Sandy, however, stroked Sheryl’s nose dotingly. “As long as my baby wasn’t hurt.” He shot a look at the security guards. They understood immediately, forming a human wall and using a velvet rope to cordon me and Martha off from the entrance. “Sandy, you ungrateful wolf! You’d kick out your own mother!” Martha shrieked, her voice raw with anguish. But her cries were lost, muffled by the thick, soundproof glass of the hotel lobby. The 100-degree sun beat down on us. Martha was drenched in sweat, her lips a deathly white. Suddenly, she coughed, spewing a mouthful of white foam mixed with blood. I scrambled to support her slumping body with one hand while frantically dialing Sandy’s number with the other. He rejected every call. Through the glass, I could see my husband. My husband, the son Martha had cherished for over twenty years. He was sitting on a plush leather sofa, his suit jacket off, the muscles of his abdomen visible through his silk shirt as he wrapped his arm around the scantily clad supermodel. Fueled by a surge of adrenaline, I broke through the confusion and charged into the conference room. When Sandy saw me, his eyes darted away. He quickly dropped his hand from Sheryl’s waist. “Kendra, what are you doing here? Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m just shooting a scene.” “Oh? A scene?” I shot back, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Since when are you famous enough for international supermodel Sheryl Starr to be your co-star in an intimate scene? Or is she just so in love she’s willing to be the other woman?” Sandy’s face went rigid. The others in the room, sensing the impending explosion, quickly and quietly filed out. “Sister,” Sheryl said, her earlier disdain replaced by a saccharine smile. “It must be so hot outside. Here, have some iced tea.” She held out a glass, and the massive diamond on her ring finger and the jade bangle on her wrist flashed, searing my eyes. “Oh, this old thing?” she said, noticing my stare. “I found it in Sandy’s room. I said I liked it, so he gave it to me. Later, I heard it was a family heirloom your mother gave you before she died. The one you sold to ‘help’ him. I suppose I should return it to its rightful owner.” Sandy stood there, silent, unable to meet my gaze. When he had told me he was giving up on his treatment because he was out of money, I had tearfully pawned the only thing my mother had left me. And now, it was on her wrist. As Sheryl handed it to me, she “accidentally” let it slip. It hit the marble floor with a sickening crack, shattering into a dozen pieces. Rage, white-hot and blinding, flooded my veins. I swung my hand and slapped her, hard. Sandy leaped in front of Sheryl, grabbing my arm and shoving me to the ground. Shards of the broken bangle dug deep into my palm, but I felt nothing. No pain. Just a vast, cold emptiness. “Kendra, what the hell is wrong with you? It’s just a stupid bracelet!” he snarled. “Don’t you know Sheryl’s a model? What if you hurt her face? How is she supposed to work?” With that, he shot me a look of pure disgust and led a whimpering Sheryl out of the room. My heart felt like a cavern, ripped open by a jagged knife. I couldn’t breathe. 3 By the time Arthur arrived at the hospital, Martha was awake. The moment she saw him, she ripped the IV from her arm, scrambled off the bed, and launched herself at him, her fists pounding against his chest. “Arthur Thorne! You really were with that bitch! I saw it all!” Arthur clutched his stinging cheek, a flicker of surprise in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by something that looked unnervingly like relief. “Martha, we’re not young anymore. Just focus on getting better. We can live out our days peacefully. That’s what’s important.” In the two years I’d been married to Sandy, Arthur had always been the picture of a refined gentleman, unfailingly polite to family and strangers alike. I’d never seen him lose his temper, not even now, with a red handprint blooming on his face. Even the patient in the next bed was looking at Martha like she was being unreasonable. Martha’s eyes were bloodshot. She glared at Arthur, then lunged again, but Sandy stepped between them. “Mom! You’ve seen who Dad is now! He’s the chairman of a major corporation! He spent years playing along with your little games. Look at yourself! You can’t even dance with him. Now look at Aunt Vivian! Her skin, her figure… she looks like she’s thirty. She goes on trips with us. You never even let me go to summer camp as a kid. In the end, it was Aunt Vivian who took me!” Martha’s face turned ashen. Her lips trembled, and she pointed a shaking finger at Sandy, speechless. “Sandy, you ungrateful brat! I got cancer scrimping and saving for your ‘illness’, and you’re taking their side?” “Cancer?” Sandy scoffed. “You’re still using that old trick? Haven’t you learned anything new in twenty years?” Both Arthur and Sandy’s faces were grim. Sandy shot a quick, accusatory glance in my direction. “Honestly, Mom, just calm down,” he continued, his tone patronizing. “Aunt Vivian helped find this place for you. It’s a luxury care facility. A million a year. We could never have earned that in a lifetime before. Just relax and enjoy your retirement. Dad and I will visit often.” “Get out! Both of you, get out!” Martha shrieked, grabbing a water glass and hurling it at Sandy. Arthur and Sandy exchanged a look, shook their heads, and left the room. Martha lay on the bed, silent and still. “Honey,” the woman in the next bed said to me as I walked in. She was peeling lychees for the man lying in her bed. “Your mother-in-law acts like a twenty-year-old, still expecting fairy-tale love.” Martha’s eyes filled with tears as she watched the couple, perhaps remembering a time when she had cared for Arthur with the same devotion. Suddenly, a machine by her bed let out a piercing shriek. A doctor rushed in, saw the reading on Martha’s blood oxygen monitor, and immediately shoved her into the emergency room. “Her abdomen is completely filled with fluid,” the doctor said gravely when he came out to find the next of kin. “The family needs to prepare for the worst.” 4 I must have called a hundred times. Finally, a sharp, feminine voice echoed down the hallway. “Wow, a total amateur with better acting skills than a professional. Is it money you want? Is a thousand dollars enough?” Sheryl Starr sauntered over, a wave of perfect curls bouncing on her shoulders. She held a wad of cash and shoved it into my hands. “My future father-in-law already told me about your little mother-daughter-in-law act. Consider this your salary for today’s performance.” “Sheryl! Sandy’s mother is in critical condition! She could die at any moment!” I yelled. Sheryl just smirked, tapped her phone, and raised an eyebrow. “Even better. Sandy’s real mother should have always been Aunt Vivian. You and that old hag can crawl back to whatever hole you came from.” A cheerful, middle-aged woman’s laugh crackled from the phone. 【Sheryl, dear, I knew I was right about you. When you and Sandy get married, I’ll give you all the limited-edition bags and jewelry Arthur gave me.】 “Thank you, Aunt Vivian,” Sheryl cooed, her face stretched into a smile so wide it looked painful. She rolled her eyes as she hung up, then immediately picked up another phone. “Aunt Vivian and I have Sandy’s and Arthur’s phones. Don’t even think about reaching them today.” With a flick of her hair, she strode away from the ER doors. I tried calling them again. This time, all I got was the cold, robotic voice of the voicemail service. “We did everything we could,” the doctor said, shaking his head. “The patient’s abdominal cavity was full of fluid. If she had come to the hospital sooner to have it drained, she might have had a few more days.” I looked at Martha, lying still on the bed. Her face was dark and weathered, her skin like parchment from years of collecting scrap under the brutal sun to make ends meet. A chilling thought crept into my mind. If Martha hadn’t time-traveled, in twenty years, would that be me lying on that bed? Before she passed, Martha gave me her last will and testament: her ashes were to be scattered to the wind, never to be given to Arthur Thorne or his son. After handling her affairs, I left a signed divorce agreement on the dining table and walked out of that house for good. A few days later, my phone exploded with calls. 【Kendra, what is the meaning of this? You insisted on marrying me when we had nothing, and now that you know my family is wealthy, you want a divorce? Is this another one of your games? You’d better show your face right now.】 I blocked Sandy’s number, only to receive a message from Arthur demanding to know where Martha was. 【268 Longsea Road.】 I replied. 【Why is she working at a funeral home? What a morbid place.】

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1 After the catastrophic defeat at the Battle of the Crimson River, my senior, Zera, searched through ten thousand corpses before she found me, clinging to life in a sea of blood. I thought she was moved by my years of devotion. Instead, as I lay helpless, she carved out my Core of power. Zera looked down at me, her gaze imperious. “You were born with a divine essence. Forming a new Core is only a matter of time for you. But it took Kael a thousand years to reach this point.” “When we return to the Order, I will help you reform your Core. Don’t be ungrateful.” It had all been her plan from the start. I watched as she fused my power into Kael’s body. Eight hundred years. And in that moment, I finally admitted to myself: her heart was a stone I could never warm. … “Senior, your medicine for the day.” My junior acolyte tossed the bowl onto the table with cold indifference. The hot broth sloshed over the side, scalding my arm, but she didn’t even glance my way. Ever since I returned from the Crimson River, the acolytes who once begged me to teach them swordsmanship now treated me with nothing but contempt and scorn. I weakly called out to her as she turned to leave. “Please, ask Zera to come see me. I have something to discuss with her.” The acolyte scoffed, her words a torrent of abuse. “Senior Zera is at the Celestial Pool, helping Brother Kael heal! She has no time for you! I don’t know how you have the gall to even ask for her! The battle was lost because of you. Saving you was more than you deserved!” She stormed out, but her words echoed in my mind. Zera had taken Kael to the Celestial Pool. Everyone in the Order knew what that meant. A man and a woman, healing together in the Pool, could only be done through dual cultivation—a deeply intimate act. The defeat at the Crimson River… it wasn’t my fault. It was Kael who had foolishly trusted the Demon Lord’s lies. But to protect Kael, she had pinned all the blame on me. My heart felt like it was being battered by her words, the pain so sharp I could barely breathe. Despite her venom, the acolyte must have delivered my message. Zera returned to my chambers, but she brought Kael with her, leading him directly into the main bedroom. My vision turned red. “Zera! That is our bed! How can you let him sleep there?!” She ignored me, her brow furrowed in annoyance. She gently helped Kael lie down, her voice softening as she spoke to him. “You can rest here tonight. The Azurefall Palace is close to the Celestial Pool. It will be easier for me to take you for your treatments tomorrow.” That warm, gentle smile of hers was a rare sight. A sight Kael seemed to enjoy constantly. He took her hand. “Will you stay with me tonight? After the battle… I’m scared at night…” “Of course. I’ll stay.” She pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, then turned to face me, her expression instantly hardening into a cold mask. “Be quiet. If you wake Kael, I will place a silence spell on you.” I stared at her, my eyes blank, the fury slowly curdling into self-mockery. This was my palace, yet since she’d “saved” me, I’d been relegated to a crude servant’s cot. She had taken Kael, who had only lost some of his cultivation, to the Celestial Pool for intensive healing, while I, who had lost my very Core, was left here to rot. “Zera, the defeat at the Crimson River was not my fault. Go and make it clear to the Order. I will not bear the blame for Kael’s mistake.” Her brows drew together, her voice like ice. “Kael was looked down upon his whole life because he was born without a spiritual root. He was bullied relentlessly in the Order. If this news gets out, what do you think they will do to him?” “You were by his side when he first joined. Have you no empathy?” My body trembled, a pain like a knife twisting in my heart. “So I’m supposed to endure the scorn and hatred of my juniors?” “Yes,” she said, her voice casual, dismissive. “You are.” The ache in my chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. I broke into a violent fit of coughing. Zera waved her sleeve in front of her nose, a look of disgust on her face. She cast a silence spell on me without a second thought. “I told you,” she snapped, “don’t make any noise and wake Kael.” As our eyes met, the pain in my chest suddenly erupted, and a mouthful of blood sprayed from my lips. There was no pity in her eyes, only a deep-seated revulsion. “Disgusting. Clean it up yourself.” A faint cough came from the inner chamber. Her face immediately softened with worry, and she hurried back to Kael’s side. “Are you still uncomfortable? I’m here. I won’t leave you.” Her voice, so gentle for him, was like a razor blade to my ears. I closed my eyes, exhausted. I tossed and turned, but sleep would not come. Zera, this time, I am truly giving up on you. I wrote a letter to my parents, informing them of my decision to return to the Aethel Clan. Then I went to the back mountain to see my Master. He poured me a cup of tea, offering no resistance to my plan. “You were never truly meant for Spirit Mountain. I support your decision. But wait three days. Leave after the Grand Cultivator’s Assembly.” “I will.” Returning to the Azurefall Palace, I was met with a barrage of glares and whispered insults. This was the scorn Kael should have endured, but Zera’s favoritism had redirected it all to me. So this was what it meant to love someone. To bear the weight of their pain. Eight hundred years was a long time. Long enough, finally, for my heart to die. The journey back to my palace, once a simple flight on my sword, was now a long, arduous walk. Without my Core, I could no longer summon it. The image of Zera, her face a mask of ruthless determination as she tore my Core from my body, was seared into my mind. I was just a child when it happened. My parents and I were on a night hunt when we were ambushed by wraiths. Zera appeared, a vision in azure robes, her sword a blur of silver as she saved me. She stroked my hair, asking if I was hurt. Before she left, I grabbed the corner of her robe. “Sister, which Order are you from?” “Spirit Mountain. Zera.” The image of her, robes billowing as she walked away, was forever etched in my memory. I dedicated myself to my training, my only goal to one day join Spirit Mountain. When I first arrived, my Master saw the way I looked at Zera and chuckled. “Your Senior Sister is a solitary soul. It will take more than a little effort to win her favor.” He wasn’t wrong. Zera was cold and proud, barely deigning to look at me. To earn even a sliver of her attention, I trained relentlessly, winning first place in every disciple competition. The day I formed my Golden Core, the entire Order celebrated. I was the youngest to ever achieve such a feat. Zera finally started to notice me. I redoubled my efforts, baking her favorite osmanthus cakes, repairing her palace, taking on any task related to her. During a great battle against the demon race, I rushed to her side, saving her when she was on the verge of defeat. She fell gravely ill afterward, and I was the one who scoured the lands for rare herbs, the one who kept vigil by her bed. From that day on, her gaze softened from indifference to something akin to pity. It took four hundred years, but she finally agreed to be with me. Not out of love, but out of pity for my one-sided devotion. Even when we shared a bed, she remained distant. “I feel nothing for you, Joric. I will never love anyone in my life.” Her words didn’t deter me. As she slept, I would secretly hold her hand, whispering so softly the words were lost in the air, “I’m not greedy. Just being by your side is enough.” Slowly, her attitude toward me softened. Just as I was beginning to believe my persistence was paying off, that she might finally be falling in love with me, Kael appeared and shattered my illusions. Zera fell for him. The cold, distant woman I knew became warm and attentive to someone else. I confronted her, my eyes burning. “You said you would never love anyone!” Her face was etched with guilt, but she didn’t deny it. She had once told me she could only be attracted to someone stronger than herself. That’s why it hurt so much when she favored Kael. I had groveled and fought for a single glance from her, yet Kael had it all without lifting a finger. Four hundred years to get close to her. Another four hundred to be utterly disillusioned, to force myself to let her go. Kael was sitting in my usual meditation spot. When he saw me enter, he smiled, his voice dripping with malice. “Brother Joric, thank you for your Golden Core. It has helped me reach a level I never could have achieved on my own.” His tone shifted, becoming boastful. “Of course, I have Senior Sister Zera’s favoritism to thank for all of this.” I scoffed. “Something that isn’t yours can never truly be yours. What do you think will happen when the Order finds out the battle was lost because of you? How will the acolytes who already despise you treat you then?” His eyes narrowed, and he snarled, “You wouldn’t dare! Zera would never let you!” “Watch me.” A flicker of panic crossed his face, and he scrambled out of the room. I knew where he was going. To Zera, to cry and complain, to have her fight his battles for him. Finally, some peace. I sat down and began to cultivate. Without my Core, my body healed at a glacial pace. The wounds from the battle were a constant, throbbing ache. Zera came in with a bowl of medicine. “Drink this, Joric. I went to the Apothecary Pavilion myself to find these celestial herbs. They will help you reform your Core.” Her voice was gentle, making my heart tremble. But this time, it was useless. I kept my eyes closed. “I don’t need it.” She scooped up a spoonful, blew on it, and brought it to my lips. “Be good,” she cooed. “Let me feed you.” I slowly opened my eyes and met her tender gaze. “I spent all morning searching for these herbs. Now, drink up.” Under her coaxing, I opened my mouth and swallowed the medicine. She then produced a piece of candy from her sleeve and popped it into my mouth. “Such a good boy, my Joric,” she purred, smiling. “Kael told me you were planning on telling the Order the real reason for our defeat.” “If you let me feed you like this every day, you won’t say anything, will you?” It was the same smile, but this time, I saw the ice in her eyes. It was always for Kael. For him, she would endure anything, even this reluctant show of affection. The sweet candy suddenly tasted bitter. I turned my head away. “Zera, I can’t.” Instantly, her smile vanished, replaced by a storm of fury. “If you won’t be persuaded by kindness, then don’t blame me for being cruel.” 2 The Grand Cultivator’s Assembly proceeded as planned. After today, I would leave Spirit Mountain forever. The disciples gathered in the main hall, awaiting our Master. Zera presided from her high seat. “Our losses in the Battle of the Crimson River were severe,” she announced. “But we can take solace in the fact that, in our darkest hour, Kael saved the lives of many of our junior disciples.” The acolytes erupted in cheers, chanting Kael’s name, calling for him to come forward. Zera familiarly made space for him at her side, in the spot that had once been mine. They looked like a perfectly matched couple. She took his hand and declared, “Since his return, Kael’s cultivation has improved dramatically. I propose that Joric step down from his position as Sword Master, and that Kael take his place, leading our disciples in their training from this day forward.” The position of Sword Master… Zera had begged our Master to give it to me. He had thought I was too young, but she had knelt in the back mountains for half a month, pleading for him to give me a chance. She had said she couldn’t bear to see my talent wasted. Now, she was ruthlessly tearing it away from me. Kael shot me a triumphant smirk. “Sorry, Brother Joric,” he whispered. “Zera was worried you’d spill the beans about the battle. She had to make sure everyone would despise you.” Zera walked toward me, her face a cold mask. “To convince everyone,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion, “you will duel Kael.” The disciples roared their approval. It was a perfect trap. Whether I fought or not, I was doomed. To be defeated by Kael without my Core would be the ultimate humiliation. I forced a tight smile. “I will give him the position voluntarily. There is no need for a duel.” “That won’t do,” Zera said, raising her hand. With a flick of her wrist, a spell sent me flying onto the dueling platform. Kael landed opposite me on his sword, bowing with false sincerity. “My apologies, Senior Brother.” My Core had supercharged his power. He came at me with killing intent. I had no way to defend myself. The duel was a one-sided slaughter. I was left broken and defeated on the platform. The disciples looked at me with contempt. “He’s the reason so many of us died! He’s finally getting what he deserves!” Kael raised his sword in victory. “I am the victor!” The hall erupted in cheers. Zera, her face beaming, announced, “Good! Then the position of Sword Master now belongs to—” Before she could finish, I forced myself to my feet. “There’s no need to humiliate me further. I am leaving the Spirit Mountain Order. I will never set foot here again.” As my words echoed in the silent hall, the main doors swung open. Our Master strode in, his voice a sharp rebuke. “Enough of this foolishness!”

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