The first time Henry and I were truly bare before each other was five years into our marriage. It sent him into a volcanic rage. “Annabel, will you die if you don’t try to seduce me for a single day? Have you no concept of what Platonic love is?” I opened my eyes, realizing I had fallen asleep in the tub, exhausted. Before I could explain, he had thrown his clothes back on and was dragging my naked, dripping body into the courtyard. “If you love being naked so much, then enjoy it out here!” He ignored my desperate pleas, blind to the biting winter cold. He even called for the entire household staff to come and watch. He didn’t relent until I collapsed from a raging fever. Later, burning up and delirious, I stumbled out of my room to find medicine. That’s when I heard it—the desperate, rhythmic sounds of passion coming from his bedroom. Through the crack in the door, illuminated by the sliver of light, I saw the woman tangled with him in the sheets. It was his widowed sister-in-law, Helen. So, this was his so-called Platonic love. I staggered back to my room and dialed my mother-in-law’s number. “Eleanor,” I said, my voice hollow. “That proposition of yours… about Henry helping Helen have a child to carry on his brother’s legacy… I agree to it. But I have one condition.” There was a stunned silence on the other end, followed by a rush of excitement. “Anna, my dear, are you serious? You’re willing to share Henry? You’re not just pulling an old woman’s leg in the middle of the night, are you? Name your condition, anything! I’ll agree to it!” I stared at the ceiling, a silent tear tracing a path down my temple. The first time Eleanor had made that absurd suggestion, I had been so furious I’d shattered my teacup. She wanted me to give up my husband just to keep Helen, her precious widowed daughter-in-law, tied to the family. How could I ever agree? But now… they were already betraying me behind my back. What good was my refusal? The man who swore he loved me, who wanted to pursue a higher, spiritual love with me, was already tainted. Filthy. The bitter irony was that when he’d paraded my naked body in the courtyard, he had blamed me for soiling his perfect, idealized love. Everyone in our circle knew us as the model couple. Even I had believed that our love, even without physical intimacy, would be eternally fresh. But that beautiful fantasy had just been shattered by the rising and falling moans from the room next door. I let out a humorless laugh. “I’m not pulling your leg. It’s real. I just need Henry to sign a document.” Eleanor’s voice became shrill with glee. “Wonderful, wonderful! I knew you were a sensible girl, Anna! I’ll talk to Henry first thing in the morning. And I promise you, dear, this is just to help Helen get pregnant. You and Henry will still be the model couple everyone envies!” After hanging up, I curled into a tight ball. The heating was on, and I was wrapped in a thick duvet, but my body wouldn’t stop shaking. The sounds from the next room continued until dawn, each gasp a knife twisting in my heart. Five years of marriage. Five years of Platonic love. It was all just a joke. I first met Henry in the university library. He was sitting by the window, the afternoon sun framing him in gold. He was reading Plato’s Republic, and the focused intensity of his profile made my heart stop. “You like Plato, too?” I had asked. When he looked up at me, his eyes were startlingly bright. I didn’t know then that this simple question would become the shackle of my five-year marriage. Before we were married, Henry treated me with the utmost respect. I thought it was because he loved me so deeply. After the wedding, he refused to share a bed with me. Seeing my confusion, he cupped my face, his gaze tender. “Anna, true love transcends the physical. We must pursue a higher, more noble spiritual connection.” I loved him, so I believed him. I even felt a sense of pride. Our love was so pure, untouched by base desire. Every time my own feelings overwhelmed me and I tried to get closer, he would gently push me away, murmuring, “Don’t defile our love.” Looking back now, the clues I ignored were so obvious. The flash of heat in his eyes when he looked at Helen. The way he would meticulously dress up whenever she visited. The times I stumbled upon them alone, and the guilty, hasty distance they would put between themselves… My pillow was soaked with tears. My heart was completely hollow. I stayed up all night drafting a divorce agreement before finally falling into a restless sleep. The next morning, I was woken by a soft voice. Henry stood by my bed, wearing an apron and holding a plate of my favorite strawberry pancakes. “Morning, darling. I’ve made you a special breakfast. Time to wake up and enjoy.” He leaned in to kiss my forehead, but I flinched away. He froze for a second, then his smile became even more gentle, as if he wasn’t the same man who had humiliated me in the snow the night before. “What’s wrong? Didn’t sleep well?” He reached out to touch my face, and again, I avoided his hand. On his neck, a series of angry red marks burned my eyes. Noticing my stare, he scratched his neck awkwardly. “I don’t know where these mosquitoes came from last night. How did you sleep?” I didn’t answer. Outside the door, a few of the staff exchanged glances, their eyes filled with a mixture of pity and amusement. I walked straight to the bathroom, but I collided with Helen right at the doorway. “Morning, Anna,” she chirped. “Don’t mind me, just popping over for breakfast.” She fiddled with the collar of her silk robe, deliberately exposing more of her skin, which was peppered with the same damning marks. “Strange, isn’t it? There shouldn’t be any mosquitoes this time of year.” “Henry and I both got bit. How come you didn’t?” She glanced pointedly at my unblemished neck, a triumphant smirk playing on her lips. I clenched my fists, my nails digging so deep into my palms that I couldn’t feel the pain. “Move.” Helen chuckled and stepped aside. As I passed, she whispered, “You must have heard how passionate he was with me last night. A pity a woman like you will never get to taste something so good…” It all made sense now. Henry always locked his bedroom door like he was guarding a fortress. Last night, Helen must have deliberately left it ajar so I would discover the truth. The mockery and triumph in her eyes were the last straw. My self-control snapped. I raised my hand and slapped her across the face, hard. Helen stumbled back, clutching her cheek, her eyes instantly filling with tears. “Anna, if you didn’t want me here, you could have just said so. I would have left. Why did you have to hit me…?” She turned and made a show of running away, right into the arms of a furious Henry. He immediately cupped her face, examining the red mark with undisguised concern. When he turned back to me, his eyes were blazing with fury. “Annabel! What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you hit my sister-in-law? How dare you?” She provoked me to my face, and I’m not supposed to hit her? Before I could speak, she leaned weakly against him. “Henry, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have intruded on your private time. Anna has every right to be angry. Please, don’t blame her…” Her words were like fuel on the fire. Henry’s glare was a physical force, flaying my heart. “Apologize to her. Now.” I looked him straight in the eye. “She deserved it.” That sentence sent him over the edge. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and started dragging me towards the stairs. I fought back, clawing at the banister, but he pried my fingers off one by one. The staff watched from a distance, whispering amongst themselves, but not one dared to intervene. My silk pajamas ripped in the struggle, exposing swaths of my skin. The humiliation of the previous night washed over me again, but Henry was blind to it. “It seems you’re still bitter about last night,” he snarled. “But if you have a problem, you take it up with me. You don’t take it out on the innocent!” “You will kneel here and reflect on what you’ve done! When you’ve figured it out, you will apologize! Otherwise, people will think the great Sinclair family can’t even tolerate a poor widow!” With that, he shoved me out the door and into the snow-covered yard. My knees slammed onto the hard, frozen ground. A biting cold shot through my thin pajamas. “Henry, I did nothing wrong.” I gritted my teeth, my body trembling uncontrollably, but I refused to lower my head. Henry let out a cold laugh and ordered the housekeeper, “Gather everyone. I want them all to see how the lady of the house throws a tantrum!” In less than five minutes, more than a dozen staff members were assembled on the veranda. I knelt in the center of the snowy lawn, like a criminal at her own trial. “I’ll say it again: direct your anger at me! If you’re so damn desperate for a man, I can hire you a hundred escorts to service you! But you do not lay a hand on my sister-in-law!” His words were more shameful than being stripped bare for all to see. This was the man I had loved for three years, been married to for five. He could tolerate the thought of other men seeing me naked, even sleeping with other men, but he could not tolerate his precious Helen being wronged in the slightest. Helen stood beside him, feigning concern. “Henry, let it go. Maybe Anna’s just in a bad mood…” “A bad mood gives her the right to hit people?” Henry raised his voice for everyone to hear. “If she doesn’t apologize today, she can collapse out here for all I care!” Snowflakes began to fall, quickly coating my hair and eyelashes in a layer of white frost. My fingers were numb, my lips trembling beyond my control. Helen took the opportunity to crouch down, pretending to help me up. She whispered in my ear, “You know, Henry told me you’re not worth a single strand of my hair. He said the thought of touching you makes him sick. A woman like you might as well be dead.” I snapped my head up and saw the venomous glee in her eyes. All my pent-up fury exploded. I scooped up a handful of snow and threw it in her face. Helen shrieked dramatically and fell to the ground. Henry went berserk. He ripped open my pajamas and shoved my face into the snow. “It seems you still don’t know how to admit when you’re wrong!” He grabbed handfuls of snow and stuffed them down my collar. The icy shock made me scream. He ignored me, rubbing snow harshly against my face and neck until my skin burned with a raw, fiery pain. “Apologize!” I choked on a mouthful of snow, coughing so hard that tears streamed down my face, unable to form a single word. Enraged, Henry stood up and commanded the housekeeper, “Set a timer for two hours. She is not to get up before then.” With that, he took off his own overcoat and wrapped it gently around Helen. “Let’s go inside, my dear. We don’t want you to catch a cold.” The sight of their retreating backs was a physical pain. The staff whispered among themselves. Some snickered. Most just looked at me with pity. The minutes ticked by. My consciousness began to fade. My knees were long past feeling, and my body pitched forward, collapsing into the snow. “Ma’am!” someone cried out. “She’s fainted!” Henry opened the door, his face a cold mask. He called out from a distance, “Have you learned your lesson?” I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. The world went black. I finally gave in.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393455”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Three in the morning, and I was shivering in a police station. The officer across from me tapped his pen on the desk. “You’re a college student. So tell me again why you believe a food truck’s secret sauce is being made with… fluid from a corpse?” I stared at the cold steel of the handcuffs, catching the lingering scent of decay trapped under my fingernails. It was, without a doubt, the smell of death. The smell a human body weeps after it’s gone. 1 My family ran the oldest funeral home in the state since 1892. Grandfather used to say corpses develop two extra mouths—one for decay to enter, one for stench to escape. I grew up in the quiet halls of a funeral home, a childhood scented with formaldehyde and decomposing tissue. I’ve seen more of the dead than I have of the living. I grew up Even my last medical report noted it: Olfactory sensitivity, preternaturally acute. So, when my roommate, Lucy, shoved a carton of loaded fries under my nose, drenched in their famous, pungent sauce, I threw up on the spot. “Seriously, Mia?” she said, stabbing a sauce-laden fry and popping it into her mouth with a look of pure bliss. “This is from that viral spot in the food truck alley by campus. I waited two hours for this.” I wiped my mouth, silent. The smell was indescribable. It was like rotting fish gills scraped with a rusty scalpel. Identical to the drowning victim I’d prepared just last month. 2 To figure this out, I went with Lucy to the fries truck. A long line snaked from the front of the truck. I muttered, “Is it really that good?” Lucy was unfazed. “Told you. It’s an internet sensation.” Well, I was already here. I trudged to the back of the line, resigning myself to the wait. The owner worked fast, though, and we were at the front in just over an hour. As we got closer, the putrid smell of the sauce hit me like a wave. My stomach clenched, and a sour taste rose in my throat. Lucy, oblivious, grabbed my arm excitedly. “You have to try it this time.” I didn’t refuse, just gave a weak nod. 3 Fighting back my nausea, I studied the stall. It was a small, grimy food truck, its metal siding dented and dull. The owner was a middle-aged man with a perpetually simple, honest-looking smile. He worked with an expert rhythm, scooping golden fries into cartons and ladling on the thick, dark sauce, his movements almost unnaturally efficient. I decided to probe. “Hey, what’s in this sauce? It’s so… pungent.” The owner didn’t even look up, his hands a blur of mechanical motion. “Family secret. Passed down through generations.” I watched his face, trying to read something, anything, in his expression. But he kept his head down, busily adding toppings over the sauce. 4 “Business is booming,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Ever think about hiring some help?” A place this popular could easily afford another pair of hands. This time, he glanced up at me. “I manage just fine on my own. Can’t afford to hire anyone.” Lucy chimed in. “What about your wife? Or kids? Can’t they lend a hand?” The owner’s smile tightened slightly as he handed Lucy her order. “Here you go. Next!” The conversation was over. The person behind us was getting restless. “Hey, if you’re done, move it.” Lucy mumbled an apology over her shoulder and pulled me away by my sleeve. 5 We found an empty bench nearby. Lucy eagerly held a fry, dripping with sauce, to my lips. “Go on, try it. It’s best when it’s hot.” I grimaced but leaned in, taking a careful sniff. That familiar, unidentifiable stench instantly flooded my senses. This was absolutely not a normal food smell. Fermented or aged sauces could be pungent, yes, but they smelled of yeast, chili, or soy—of things that were meant to be eaten. But this… this was tainted with a faint but undeniable metallic foulness. It was closer to what I smelled at work every day. The smell of a corpse. 6 I instinctively covered my nose. “Don’t eat that,” I said, my voice sharp. Lucy just laughed, completely missing my tone. “Smells strong, tastes amazing. That’s the whole point.” “You and your super-sniffer nose,” she teased. “You just can’t handle intense flavors.” “No,” I said, pulling her closer. “It doesn’t smell strong. It smells like a corpse.” “Like crap?!” Lucy exclaimed, a little too loudly. Her voice, while not a shout, turned the heads of the people at the next table. The owner, who happened to be clearing a nearby trash can, shot us a cold, irritated look. “Watch your mouth, young lady.” Lucy, realizing what she’d said, clapped a hand over her mouth, her wide eyes pleading with me for help. I gave her a subtle shake of my head and whispered, “Let’s go. Back to the dorm. Now.” 7 I dragged Lucy away, grabbing the two half-eaten cartons as we left. She clung to my arm, her voice a nervous whisper. “You were serious, weren’t you? About the… you know.” Lucy knew my sense of smell was no joke. The possibility that she’d been eating something so vile was starting to sink in, and she was terrified. “We’ll talk in the dorm,” I said, my voice low. It wasn’t the place for this conversation. Even after we passed through the campus gates, I could feel a pair of hot, angry eyes burning into my back. Back in our room, Lucy opened one of the cartons and started eating again. “What are you doing?” I demanded, exasperated. “How can you still eat that?” Most people, upon hearing the word “corpse,” would have thrown the food into the nearest biohazard bin. 8 Lucy shrugged, her nonchalance forced. “I thought about it. A little dirt never hurt anyone, right? So what if it smells like crap?” “Besides,” she added, stabbing another fry, “look how many people eat it. It’s not just me.” She popped it into her mouth, the dark sauce smearing the corner of her lips. I recoiled, putting more distance between us. “Did you mishear me?” I asked. She chewed thoughtfully. “Didn’t you say it smelled like crap?” I pressed my lips together, fighting for patience. “I said it smells like a corpse.” Lucy’s chewing stopped. The food was stuck in her mouth, unable to be swallowed, unwilling to be spit out. She thought for a moment, her words muffled. “Which word did you say?” I answered calmly. “The kind with a ‘p’.” 9 This time, she lost it. She scrambled for the trash can and retched violently. “Mia, are you serious? Or are you just messing with me?” I looked at her with pity and shook my head. “I wish I were, Lucy. But it’s true.” Her face went ashen. She stuck two fingers down her throat, trying to force out every last trace. When she was finally done, her stomach empty, she looked up at me, her eyes red and tear-filled. “How… how can you be so sure?” she asked weakly. I had never told anyone that my family worked with the dead. It’s a taboo subject for most people. After a moment of silence, I decided to tell her a modified truth. “I have relatives who work at a morgue. The smell is exactly the same as the one in the holding rooms.” Her face twisted in a mask of agony. Whether she fully believed me or not, the seed of doubt was enough. “Oh god,” she wailed. “What about all the times I ate it before?” I patted her shoulder, offering what little comfort I could. “Don’t worry. All that is long gone, flushed down the sewer.” 10 Even though I was certain something was deeply wrong with that truck, I had no actual proof to report. The business continued to be a massive hit. Then, one day, as I was walking past the food truck alley, I saw a familiar figure in the line. At first, I didn’t believe it. But when she turned, I saw her face clearly. “Lucy?” She jumped, spinning around to face me, her mouth smeared with the dark, distinctive sauce. She looked down at the carton in her hand, then back at me, a deer caught in the headlights. “Mia,” she stammered. “What are you doing here?” A hot surge of anger went through me. I strode over, snatched the carton from her hands, tossed it into a nearby trash can, and dragged her back to the dorm. “You promised you’d never eat that stuff again!” 11 Lucy’s eyes welled up with tears. “I’m sorry, Mia, but I can’t help it. Nothing else tastes right anymore.” Tears streamed down her face, and her expression was one of genuine despair, not just guilt. I’d heard stories of certain substances being addictive. Could this sauce have a similar effect? This was bad. I looked at her, my voice firm but concerned. “Okay. From now on, I’m watching you. You are absolutely forbidden from going near that place again.” Lucy knew I was trying to help, so she reluctantly agreed. But after that, her appetite plummeted. She started losing weight at an alarming rate, and it was the unhealthy kind of thin. Her skin was sallow, with dark, bruised-looking circles under her eyes, and her lips were perpetually pale. She walked like she was wading through water, utterly drained of energy. 12 Finally, after two weeks of this, Lucy broke. “Please, Mia,” she sobbed, clutching my arm. “Just let me have some. Just one bite.” I turned away, unable to look at her. “No.” Her state was a clear sign of addiction, and this was the withdrawal period. If she could just push through it, she could beat it. Giving in now would mean starting all over again. I gently patted her back. “Just hold on a little longer, Lucy,” I said softly. “It’ll get better soon.” Lucy knew I wouldn’t budge. She gave a weak, defeated nod, too exhausted to argue anymore. 13 A month later, it all fell apart. It was 8:50 AM, and Lucy hadn’t gotten out of bed. We had a major lecture in ten minutes. I knocked on the frame of her bunk bed. “Lucy? You still not up?” She was on the top bunk, so I couldn’t see her clearly. I stood on my toes, but all I could make out was the back of her head. She was curled into a tight ball, completely unresponsive. This was strange. Today was a core class for her major; she never missed it. Was she sick? A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. I scrambled up the ladder. 14 I gently shook her shoulder. Her brow was furrowed, her cheeks flushed an unnatural, feverish red, and her breath came out in hot puffs. Oh no, I thought. She’s burning up. I decided to get her to the campus clinic and pulled back her duvet. The moment the blanket came off, I gasped. Lucy’s neck and arms were covered in angry, pus-filled sores. They looked like they were about to burst. I didn’t dare touch her. My only option was to call for an ambulance. As her roommate, I rode with her to the hospital. In the ambulance, I overheard one of the paramedics mutter, “Not this university again.” Just as I was about to ask what she meant, the other paramedic shot her a sharp look, silencing her. 15 The hospital was in chaos. Apparently, a large number of students from our university had been admitted with the exact same symptoms. The situation was so severe it had even drawn the attention of the police. An officer glanced at Lucy, who was now lying in a hospital bed, and gestured for me to follow him into the hallway. The corridor was a whirlwind of activity, doctors and nurses rushing back and forth. “Has your roommate been acting strangely lately?” the officer asked. I shook my head. “Nothing out of the ordinary.” “Think carefully. Has she eaten anything unusual? Injected anything?” I froze, looking at him in disbelief. They suspected Lucy was… a drug user? 16 “Impossible,” I said, my tone firm. “But she might have eaten something bad.” The officer, who had looked bored and tired, suddenly straightened up. “Oh? Eaten something bad?” “Yes.” I told him everything I knew about the fries truck and its secret sauce. The officer’s hand, holding the pen, paused. “Do you have any proof?” I fell silent. I didn’t. A smell, a subjective experience, wasn’t evidence. “No.” “Without proof, it’s just speculation. We can’t get a warrant based on that.” Seeing that he wasn’t going to get any more useful information from me, the officer looked disappointed. “Alright, you can go for now. We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.” 17 I glanced back at Lucy, an IV drip attached to her arm. I had no choice but to nod and leave. Back at the dorm, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, a sense of unease gnawing at me. So many students from our school were in the hospital, yet it hadn’t affected the fries truck’s business one bit. Over the next few days, I spent all my free time at the coffee shop across the street from the food truck, watching. I started to learn the owner’s routine. Every morning at 7 AM, he would arrive in a silver cargo van and park in the small alley behind the truck. He’d unload several large, heavy sacks of ingredients and carry them inside. For the next two hours, he’d prep in the back. At 10 AM sharp, he’d open for business. He wouldn’t close up until around 11 PM, when he would start cleaning. 18 I watched for days but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then, on the fifth night, I finally saw something. The coffee shop was about to close, and I was leaving, feeling dejected, when I saw the owner acting strangely. He peeked his head out from the back of the truck, scanning the alley nervously. When he was sure no one was around, he carried two large, dark bags to his van. The bags looked wet, glistening slickly in the moonlight. A cold dread washed over me. The image was sickeningly familiar, reminding me of the body fluid that sometimes seeped from the bags at the funeral home. He loaded the bags into his van and drove off. This was my chance. I couldn’t let it slip away. I waited until the coast was clear and slipped into the unlocked food truck. 19 I cautiously pushed aside the curtain to the back kitchen area, and after confirming it was empty, I stepped inside. Compared to the front counter, the kitchen was a sanitary nightmare. The floor was wet and sticky, and the damp walls were breeding grounds for black mold. A faucet dripped incessantly into a sink stained with the dark sauce. I wrinkled my nose in disgust. I looked around the small kitchen. Besides the filth, there was nothing obviously amiss. But wait. I tilted my head back and took a deep breath. There it was again—a faint but definite smell of rot. I followed the scent, moving slowly through the cramped space. My eyes landed on the side of a large metal cabinet. There, almost perfectly flush with the wall, was a hidden door. I gave it a gentle push, and it swung inward on a silent hinge. A thick, suffocating stench rolled out. I froze, gagging. 20 The room had an old-fashioned pull-string light. I tugged the cord, and a dim, yellow bulb flickered to life. The small chamber was filled with twelve large industrial-grade plastic drums, each sealed with a sheet of oiled canvas. I lifted the cover off the nearest vat. The smell of decay exploded outwards. A murky, foul-smelling liquid filled the vat. Floating within were chunks of what looked like marinating meat and vegetables—the base for the sauce, I guessed. But the stench… it was unbearable. My eyes stung, and I had to stand up and gasp for fresh air. Thankfully, my years of exposure to death had given me a high tolerance for such smells. Once I had calmed myself, I took out my phone and turned on the camera. This was why I had risked coming in here—to get evidence. 21 I took a deep breath, steeling myself, and plunged my hand into the murky liquid. Beneath the floating chunks of meat, my fingertips brushed against something else. Something soft. I froze. The texture was disturbingly similar to human skin. Just as I was about to pull the object out, I heard the sound of hurried footsteps from outside. Panicked, I slammed the cover back on the vat and dove behind a stack of them in the far corner. The light was dim; if I stayed still, he might not see me. The footsteps grew closer. My palms slicked with nervous sweat. A man’s heavy, ragged breathing filled the small room. He walked around the vats, seemingly checking that everything was in order, before stepping back out. He seemed to be looking for something. 22 Time crawled by. My legs started to go numb. The man still hadn’t left. Just as I was about to cramp up, a shrill ringtone cut through the silence. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but after a short, sharp conversation, the man left in a hurry. I let out a silent breath of relief. I fumbled in the darkness, searching for the pull-string for the light. Suddenly, a puff of warm breath hit my arm. My body went rigid. For a split second, my brain refused to process it. It had to be my imagination. I yanked the cord. The room was flooded with light. “What are you looking for?” a hoarse voice rasped from right behind me. 23 The owner stood in the doorway, a heavy iron ladle in his hand, his face a grim mask. My eyes widened, and my scalp prickled as if struck by lightning. “I… I was…” The words died in my throat. I couldn’t exactly say I was looking for a dead body, could I? He started walking towards me. I threw caution to the wind and charged, trying to shove past him. It was a foolish miscalculation. Years of manual labor had made him strong. He tackled me with surprising speed, sending me crashing to the floor. I was no match for him. After a brief, desperate struggle, my energy was gone. I lay pinned beneath him, his weight crushing the air from my lungs. He clamped my hands above my head, his voice a low growl. “What were you looking for?” 24 His grip was like iron; I couldn’t move an inch. Then, the piercing wail of sirens cut through the night. The police burst through the door, and his grip on me finally loosened. Several officers swarmed into the small space. The first one helped me to my feet. Before I could even explain, the owner’s demeanor flipped. He became the victim. “Officer, thank god you’re here! This girl, she broke in and was tampering with my marinade!” He pointed at my phone. “She was filming it, too! These kids today… they’ll do anything for clicks…” The sudden switch was so jarring it left me speechless. “I didn’t,” I managed, my voice weak. “Then what were you doing here?” the lead officer asked, his question hitting the nail on the head. I stammered, unable to come up with a coherent answer. 25 Just as they were about to lead me away, I took a desperate gamble. I grabbed the officer’s sleeve and pointed at the vats. “There’s a body in there.” The officer’s eyes widened. He waved a hand at his team. “Search them!” The team moved quickly, ripping the covers off the vats. The stench that filled the room became so thick it was hard to breathe. After a few minutes, one of them reported, “Sir, besides the marinade base, we’ve found some chunks of meat.” My heart hammered in my chest. I looked at the owner, who stood with his head bowed, silent. “It has to be human remains!” I cried. 26 The meat was laid out on a plastic sheet. Twelve pieces in total, one from each vat. The lead officer, a detective, crouched down to examine them. After a moment, he shook his head in disappointment. “These aren’t human.” He was right. I could see it now, too. The texture and fiber were wrong. The owner feigned outrage. “Officers, if I were really hiding a body, would I have called the police myself?” he whined, conveniently forgetting that I had been the one to trigger his security alarm. “That’s just pork! It’s part of my family’s secret recipe! How am I supposed to do business after this?” “And you,” he snarled, pointing at me, “why do you keep saying there’s a body? You’ve ruined this entire batch of marinade! You’re going to pay for this!” The detective sighed, clearly overwhelmed by the situation. He pointed at me. “Cuff her. Take her in.” All the fight went out of me. I let them lead me away without another word. 27 Once we were in the patrol car, the detective slowly pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He took a long drag, his eyes fixed on the glowing sign of the food truck. “How did you know there was a body in there?” I told him the truth. “I smelled it. My family is in the death care business. I’ve been around that smell my whole life.” The detective glanced at me, a flicker of surprise and then approval in his eyes. “You’ve got a good nose, kid.” I looked at him, confused. “You… you’re not mad at me?” He shook his head. “There was definitely the stench of a corpse in there.” “You smelled it too?” I gasped. He looked at the cigarette between his fingers, now burned down to a short stub. He took one last drag and flicked it onto the asphalt. “I’ve worked enough cases and seen enough bodies to know the smell of death. It was thick in there.” “Then why didn’t you keep searching?” I asked. “No probable cause. We can’t just tear a place apart unless we know where the body is hidden.” His words sent my mind racing. The vats reeked of decay, but there was no body. And that pork… was it really a secret ingredient, or was it meant to hide something else? 28 At the station, the detective handed me over to a young officer for processing. The young officer, looking tired and overworked, slid a form across the desk. “Fill this out. Personal information.” Then he went back to his own chaotic paperwork. The station was buzzing with activity, even in the middle of the night. Drunks, domestic disputes, fights—it was a cross-section of the city’s misery. About fifteen minutes later, the young officer slammed a missing person flyer down on his desk in frustration. “God, I’m so sick of this,” he muttered to a colleague. “It never ends.” The sudden noise made me look up. The photo on the flyer was blurry, showing a thin woman in a bright magenta sweater, a little girl of about seven or eight standing beside her. 29 The officer tapped the desk. “What are you looking at? You done?” I averted my gaze and handed him the completed form. He glanced at it, confirmed the details, and began the official questioning. “You’re a college student. So tell me again why you believe a food truck’s secret sauce is being made with… fluid from a corpse?” I stared at the cold steel of the handcuffs, catching the lingering scent of decay trapped under my fingernails. It was, without a doubt, the smell of death. The smell a human body weeps after it’s gone. The officer saw my silence and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. He stood up and dialed the number I had written down for my emergency contact. After a brief, clipped explanation of the situation, he hung up. “Your family is on their way to pick you up.” 30 Seeing my dazed expression, he sat down across from me, his tone softening into a lecture. “Look, you’re a student, so we’re not going to press charges this time. But you will have to compensate the business owner for the damages.” A jolt went through me. I came back to myself. “I understand,” I whispered. My parents lived in a distant suburb, about an hour and a half away. But with no traffic at this hour, they made it to the station in just under sixty minutes. They burst in, not even bothering to close the car door behind them. They fussed over me, checking me from head to toe, and only relaxed when they were sure I was unharmed. My mother pulled me over to the officer. “Officer, what on earth has my daughter done?” The young officer, seeing I was just a kid, tried to downplay the severity of it. “Your daughter was found trespassing in a private business… luckily, no serious harm was done, but you’ll need to cover the owner’s losses.” “Here,” he said, handing my dad a slip of paper with a phone number on it. “This is the owner’s contact information. You can arrange the compensation with him directly.” My parents shot me a look of disbelief before turning back to the officer with apologetic smiles. “We’re so sorry, officer. We’ll be sure to have a serious talk with her when we get home.” 31 The moment we were back in the car, my mother’s face hardened. “What really happened?” she demanded. From her tone, I knew I had to tell them everything, or she’d never let it go. I sighed and recounted the whole story, from the first smell to being caught in the back room. “Mom, you know my nose,” I finished lamely. “How could I be wrong about something like that?” My father, who had been listening intently, finally understood the gravity of the situation. “But to go in there alone? Mia, that was incredibly dangerous!” My mother’s expression was grim. “Your father’s right. You need to stay out of this. This is not something a young girl should be involved in.” I knew they were right. I had been reckless. I hung my head in shame. “I’m sorry. I was impulsive.” The tension in the car was thick. My father tried to smooth things over. “Well, as long as you’ve learned your lesson. Listen to your mother, honey. From now on, you stay away from that place.” Seeing me nod obediently, my mother’s expression finally softened a little. 32 By now, it was long past the dorm’s curfew. There was no way I could get back in. Fortunately, before the semester started, my parents had rented a small two-bedroom apartment for me near the campus. I used it occasionally when my work at the funeral home ran late and it was inconvenient to go back to the dorm. After my mom made me promise I’d be okay on my own, she and my dad finally left. I took a hot shower and collapsed into bed. I must have been more exhausted than I realized, because I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. I didn’t wake up until noon the next day. Luckily, I had no morning classes. After getting ready, I headed out to go back to campus. As I was walking down the stairs of my apartment building, I nearly collided with a familiar figure. The fries truck owner. He was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. We both froze. For a moment, we just stared at each other, the air thick with awkward silence. What a small world. Who would have thought that the man I suspected of murder lived in the same building as me? 33 I lowered my head and tried to walk past him without a word. After the lecture from my parents, I had decided to drop the whole thing. “Thump!” A loud crash and a cry of pain came from behind me. I spun around. The owner was sprawled on the landing of the stairs, clutching his ankle and groaning in pain. Did he fall? I looked around. The stairwell was empty. With a sigh, I went back and helped him up. “Thanks,” he muttered, leaning his full weight on me. I had to brace myself to keep from toppling over. 34 The moment his left foot touched the ground, his face contorted in pain. Looks like a sprained ankle. “Do you need me to help you get back to your apartment?” I couldn’t just leave him here. It felt wrong. He gritted his teeth and nodded. “If you don’t mind.” I helped him hobble up one flight of stairs to the fourth floor. He stopped in front of his door. I glanced at the apartment number: 402. Huh? 402? My apartment was 302. The owner lived directly above me? What a strange coincidence. I didn’t mention it, though. The less he knew, the better. And really, there was no reason to.

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After breaking up with Jack Croft, I found out I was three months pregnant. I raised our little Rosie on my own for five years. But working three jobs took its toll, and I died suddenly from a stroke. I floated in the air. And then I saw him. Jack, now a famous actor, was knocking on my front door. 01 It took a long time for the door to open. “Who are you?” It was my daughter, Rosie, who answered. She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach the lock. Her eyes were wary as she looked up at my ex-boyfriend, her own father. Seeing it wasn’t me, Rosie immediately tried to shut the door. Jack held it open, his brow furrowed. “Where’s Sienna?” Rosie thought for a moment, then looked up at him, her face breaking into a bright smile. “You’re looking for my mommy? She’s not home. She’s at work.” Jack’s expression soured. “Where’s your dad?” he asked. It’s you! Rosie’s father is you! I cried out from my place in the air, but he couldn’t hear me. Rosie thought for a moment. “My daddy is far away making lots of money. Mommy says he’ll come get us when he’s made enough.” Jack’s frown deepened. Then he let out a self-deprecating laugh. He muttered to himself, “Heh, I must be crazy. To actually think you would wait for me.” With that, he turned to leave. But he paused. “What’s your name?” “Rosie.” “Mommy says I’m her little treasure, so my name is Rosie,” she said proudly. Jack’s gaze searched her face, as if looking for some kind of proof. But in the end, he said nothing more. He got into his long, black limousine. I watched the car drive away, screaming, Don’t go, Jack! If you leave, what will happen to our Rosie? She’s only five years old! How will she survive on her own? I whispered to my daughter, who was blinking at the dust kicked up by the departing car. Rosie, darling, chase after your daddy. Mommy’s gone now. He’s the only one who can take care of you. But Rosie couldn’t hear me either. “What a strange man,” she said, and closed the door. In that moment, I wanted to slap myself. Why didn’t I tell her who her father was sooner? Why didn’t I ever show her a picture of him? This was all my fault. It didn’t matter that I was dead. But my daughter… what would become of my daughter? 02 Rosie sat with her little legs dangling, waiting for me to come home. The last rays of sunset faded. The sky grew dark. I should have been home by now. Rosie was afraid of the dark. But I was already dead. My coworker had just received the notice from the hospital. I hadn’t made it. She needed to inform my family. But when she opened my phone, she found the “family” section of my contacts completely empty. She did know, however, that I had a child. So that evening, the phone at home rang. Rosie toddled over to it on her short little legs. “Hello?” Her sweet, childish voice made my coworker’s eyes well up. She didn’t know how to tell a little girl that her mother was dead. That she was never coming back. “Mommy?” Rosie’s voice was filled with excitement. “Are you working late again? It’s okay, I’m fine. I’m not hungry at all. I just ate the bread you bought.” She patted her round little tummy. “Rosie… your mommy… she just passed away.” Rosie asked, confused, “Where is ‘passed away’? It’s okay, I’m sure Mommy will take me with her.” Once, because of a work assignment, I had to go to the next state for a business trip. I didn’t feel safe leaving Rosie at home alone, so I took her with me. It was her first time on a long journey. She was thrilled on the train, pointing excitedly at the scenery outside the window. So now, Rosie just thought I had gone on another trip. My coworker sighed, not knowing what else to say. She hung up the phone. In the end, she represented my company and had my body sent for cremation. All that was left of me was an urn of ashes. 03 That night was excruciatingly long. It was the first night I never came home. Every so often, Rosie would run to the door to see if I was there. But the darkness would quickly frighten her back inside. She ran back and forth like this many times. Finally, overcome with sleepiness, she fell asleep, clutching the teddy bear I had bought her. Dawn broke. The rooster crowed. She startled awake and rushed to the door again. Seeing I still wasn’t back, a flicker of disappointment crossed her face. But she quickly comforted herself. “It’s okay. Mommy is just busy. She’ll be back soon.” Having eaten nothing all night, her stomach rumbled. She had to make do with the bread I’d bought. She opened a carton of milk I had left. Imitating me, she tried to heat it up with some hot water. “Mommy says I can’t drink cold milk, or I’ll get a tummy ache,” she said to herself, holding a pot full of water. But her hands were so small. How could she possibly lift it? I was frantic, trying to tell her not to do it, but it was useless. As Rosie stood on a stool, trying to place the pot on the stove, her strength gave out. Water spilled everywhere. The pot crashed onto her little foot, which immediately began to swell. My heart ached as if it were being carved by a knife. But I was also grateful it wasn’t boiling water. Rosie let out a soft sob. Then she held her foot and blew on it. “Mommy’s not here, so Rosie will blow on it herself. Then it won’t hurt.” She wiped her tears and moved a stool to the front door, her eyes fixed on the entrance. “Rosie won’t cry. When Mommy comes back, she’ll praise me for being brave.” Rosie was so good, so sensible. So sensible it broke my heart. I wished, in that moment, that she would resent me, blame me for being such an irresponsible mother. But she just sat there, waiting so patiently for me to come home. 04 Two hours later, a car pulled up in front of our house. My coworker knocked on the door. Rosie, thinking it was me, was ecstatic. She ran so fast that she tripped and fell. She scraped her leg on a sharp stone. But she only frowned for a moment before scrambling back up. When she opened the door and saw it wasn’t me, she finally lost control. She burst into tears. “Mommy! Mommy, why aren’t you back yet?” she wailed. “Rosie’s foot is swollen, and my leg hurts from falling, but I was so brave! But Mommy still isn’t back! Mommy doesn’t love Rosie anymore! Does Mommy not love me anymore?” Rosie’s sobs were heart-wrenching. My own heart shattered into a million pieces. … My coworker rushed to comfort her. She found the first-aid kit, disinfected Rosie’s leg with alcohol, and put a bandage on it. Once everything was settled, my coworker brought in my urn and the belongings from my office. Rosie didn’t understand. But then she saw a photo of us at the amusement park, taken not long ago. In the picture, I was holding her, and we were both smiling happily. She recognized me. “Miss,” she asked, “are these all my mommy’s things? Then where did my mommy go?” My coworker held back her tears and pointed to the urn. “Your mommy… she’s in here. If you miss her, you can hug it and talk to it.” Rosie shook her head. “How could my mommy turn into an urn? She’s not a magical monkey. Only magical monkeys can transform like that. You’re lying.” She hugged the photo to her chest. “This is my mommy.” Then she gave it a loud smooch and smiled sweetly. My coworker sighed and placed the urn on a high shelf. She looked around. “Where’s your father? Are you all alone in this house?” Rosie’s head drooped. “Mommy said Daddy went far away to make money. I’ve never seen my daddy.” My coworker was in disbelief. “Don’t you have any other family? Grandparents?” Rosie shook her head. My coworker could no longer hold back her tears. She swept Rosie into her arms. “You poor child. You’re so little. How could your mother bear to leave you all alone?” “Mommy would never leave me!” Rosie retorted. “Mommy loves me the most!” My coworker placed a card in Rosie’s hand. “This is the compensation money from your mother’s company. There’s twenty thousand dollars on this card. The pin is six eights. Keep it safe. Don’t lose it.” Rosie nodded seriously, clutching the card tightly. Because we were poor, I had taught her from a young age that money was a good thing and must be taken care of. Now, she remembered. After some thought, my coworker called the local child services agency. It was a place for children without homes. I was filled with gratitude. I bowed to my coworker from my place in the air. Thank you. If she could get into an orphanage, at least my Rosie would survive. 05 When the people from child services came to pick Rosie up, she refused to go. She clung to the doorframe, wailing. “You’re kidnappers! Don’t take me, I’m not worth any money!” The social workers didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The woman in charge crouched down and spoke to her gently. “I’m not a kidnapper. We’re taking you home, Rosie.” Rosie frowned and told them very seriously, “This is my home. If you take me away, Mommy won’t see me when she comes back. If she can’t see me, she’ll be worried.” I covered my mouth, tears streaming down my face. The social workers exchanged a glance, their own eyes moist. They tried to coax her. “Rosie, sweetie, your mommy asked us to take you to this new place. She has to be away on business for a while and won’t be back, so she asked us to take care of you.” “And there are lots of other children there, just like you. You won’t be lonely.” Rosie listened. She blinked her big eyes at them. “Really?” “Of course.” Only then did she slowly let go. But just before getting into the car, Rosie ran back into the house. She came out with the teddy bear I had bought her and the photograph, hugging them tightly. The car started moving. It was Rosie’s first time going on a long trip with strangers. Her earlier bravado crumbled. Fear and anxiety washed over her. She finally broke down and cried. “Mommy, I’ll be a good girl. I’ll listen. Please come get me soon, okay?” I followed the car, floating along. Wherever Rosie went, I would go. But she couldn’t see me. And I couldn’t touch her. 06 On her first day at the children’s home, Rosie was unusually quiet. She just stared out the window. Every time someone passed by, she would widen her eyes, looking to see if it was me. When she realized it wasn’t, her expression would fall. A few curious children came to talk to her. “Why are you in the orphanage?” Rosie answered seriously, “My mommy has something to do, so she sent me here. But she’ll be back to get me soon.” A little boy seemed to scoff at her naivety. He snatched the teddy bear from her hands. “Your mommy abandoned you. She’s not coming back for you. What’s this? I’m playing with it.” Rosie, furious, charged at him and pushed him to the ground. “You’re lying! My mommy would never abandon me! That’s the teddy bear my mommy gave me, give it back!” The boy, not one to back down, scrambled up and pushed Rosie to the ground. He was a year or two older and much stronger. He sat on top of her, pulling her hair and clothes. He tore the teddy bear, and cotton stuffing spilled out from its broken body. “I’m not wrong! Your mommy abandoned you! All the kids here were abandoned by their parents!” he taunted. “It’s just a stupid toy, I don’t want it anyway.” Rosie clutched the broken teddy bear, fighting back with all her might. “You’re a liar! I don’t believe you! Don’t touch my bear, my mommy gave it to me!” The commotion brought a teacher running. She pulled them apart. After finding out what happened, she scolded the little boy harshly. But he didn’t think he was wrong. “I wasn’t wrong! Her mommy isn’t coming back for her! She didn’t believe me and she pushed me!” He made a face at her. Rosie stood there, her hair a mess, her clothes stained with dirt. She looked like a defeated little hen. But she still insisted, “My mommy would never abandon me. You’re trying to trick me.” After that, Rosie became even more withdrawn. The other children stopped talking to her. They would whisper among themselves that she had been abandoned by her mother but refused to admit it. Whenever Rosie heard them, she would quickly walk away. But I saw her. I saw her go to a secluded spot, hug her broken teddy bear, and cry silently. “Mommy, is it true what they said? Did you really abandon me?” I gently wrapped my arms around her, just as I used to when I held her to sleep. Rosie, Mommy is always here. Mommy would never abandon you. Mommy will always be by your side. 07 A month passed. Rosie ate very little. She slept very little. Her once-round cheeks were now gaunt and thin. The sparkle in her eyes was gone. She no longer looked out the window or at the door. She no longer pestered the teachers, asking, “Is my mommy coming to get me today?” But today, the children’s home was unusually bustling. The director mentioned that Jack Croft was coming to visit the children. I learned that after he became a big star, he had donated a lot of money to the home and came to visit every year. I knew why. We had both come from this very home. I was overjoyed. If he saw Rosie, he would surely realize I had passed away. And then, he wouldn’t be so heartless as to leave my Rosie in an orphanage, would he? After all, we were once so in love. A large crowd gathered at the entrance of the home, waiting for the arrival of the philanthropist, Jack. Even the children swarmed to the gate. Only Rosie remained, watching the commotion with indifference. Rosie, go to the gate! Your daddy is coming! If he sees you, maybe you won’t have to stay here anymore. You can have a good life, and Mommy can finally rest in peace. She couldn’t hear me. But she picked up a pen and, in her childish, crooked handwriting, wrote: Rosie is going to find Mommy. Don’t look for me. She placed the note next to her pillow. Then she set off, walking toward the gate. But she didn’t join the crowd. She ran in the opposite direction. I was shocked and panicked. Rosie, what are you doing? Where are you going? She ran faster and faster. I thought she had accepted the orphanage, accepted the reality that I would never come back for her. It wasn’t until I saw the note that I understood. She was leaving the children’s home. If I wasn’t coming for her, she would find me herself. … A Maybach pulled up at the gate. Jack’s agent, Alex, escorted him out of the car. The crowd surged forward. No one noticed Rosie slipping away. So close. They were so close. If only Jack had seen her. Now she was out there, all alone. How would she survive?

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I got into a heated argument with an enemy player in an online game. That very day, a popular starlet took to social media and sicced her fanbase on me. 【Who the hell do you think you are, flaming our precious Amanda?】 【Apologize right now if you don’t want to be doxxed.】 I glanced at the 99+ abusive messages flooding my inbox and sneered. I had my assistant ban her gaming and social media accounts on the spot. Who doesn’t have a secret identity these days? 1 I was in a ranked promotion match when an enemy support player, username “Amanda,” typed in the all-chat: 【Anyone want to flatter me a little?】 No one on my team responded. She typed again: 【OK, fine. Kai, wipe them out.】 And for the rest of the game, our team was slaughtered by the enemy assassin, Kai, ending with a score of 0-20. After the match, I instinctively checked Kai’s profile. His avatar was adorned with a national top-player badge. Outskilled. I sighed. At least I had a loss-protection card. I queued up for another game. Wouldn’t you know it, I was matched with Kai and Amanda again. Amanda seemed to recognize me. As soon as the match started, she specifically targeted me: 【You were the Seraphina from last game, weren’t you? How about it? Flatter me a little this time, and I’ll have Kai kill you a few less times.】 I responded with a string of ellipses. I just assumed she was some young girl. But my silence, she took as a challenge. For the entire match, with Amanda perched on his shoulder, Kai hunted me down relentlessly. No matter where I went, the moment I appeared on the map, my screen went black. She even went out of her way to taunt me over my dead body. 【Seraphina, just say something nice. We’ll let you go.】 【Still not begging for mercy?】 【Don’t push the towers yet. Let’s dive her a few more times.】 I held it in for as long as I could, but staring at my 0-16 score, I finally typed: 【Can you just end it? I have another game to get to.】 Amanda immediately shot back: 【Ooh, someone’s triggered.】 【Nope. I’m going to keep killing you. What are you going to do about it?】 【…】 2 Finally, my own teammates couldn’t stand it anymore and voted to surrender. I was incredibly frustrated and was about to quit the game when a party invitation popped up. Before I could even see who it was from, I instinctively accepted. The moment I entered the lobby, the game started. It was a 5v5 custom match. I randomly picked a mage, and as the loading screen appeared, I saw their names: “Amanda” and her nationally-ranked Kai. Me: 【…】 You have got to be kidding me. Sure enough, the moment the game began, they ganged up on me, slaughtering me in every corner of the map. Every time I died, Amanda would type out a taunt. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I went AFK and started typing. 【What’s there to brag about when you’re just getting carried? You don’t actually think you have any skill, do you?】 【You even have to bring your little boyfriend into a custom lobby. Why don’t you 1v1 me if you have the guts?】 【We’re both girls, what’s with the cattiness? Flatter you? Are you even eighteen yet, little girl?】 After my rant, I voted to surrender and closed the game without a second thought. I thought that would be the end of it. But the next day, my roommate sent me a video. 【Ivy, is this your game account? I remember your name is something like this?】 A sense of dread washed over me. I frowned and opened the video. It was a screen recording of a livestream. A pretty, innocent-looking girl was sitting in front of her computer, holding her phone, a pitiful expression on her face. “I was just joking with her, why did she get so angry? Even if I went a little too far, she didn’t have to curse me out so horribly, did she?” As she spoke, she aimed the camera at her phone screen, which clearly showed my in-game ID. “She’s probably blocked me already. Could you all help me apologize to her? I didn’t mean it, it was all for the stream.” The video went viral almost instantly, racking up tens of millions of views. The comments section exploded: 【Is this lady a sore loser or what? It’s a meme, why is she so bent out of shape?】 【A woman who spews profanity like that can’t be a good person. Why should we apologize to her?】 【How dare she curse at our Amanda! She picked the wrong person to mess with!】 【Guys, her friends list is full now, I can’t add her in the game to flame her.】 【Don’t worry babes, I already found her social media accounts. Let’s go get her!】 3 I closed the video, my face impassive. My roommate messaged again: 【Ivy, you really cursed out Amanda Rose?】 I frowned. 【Who’s Amanda Rose? The streamer?】 Roommate: 【Oh my god, you don’t even know who Amanda Rose is? She’s the second female lead in that super popular historical drama right now! The show hit a new ratings high yesterday, so she promised her fans she’d stream, and she brought the second male lead along to play with her. They were just trying to create some content, and then this happened. I just never thought the girl who cussed her out would be you. You’ve got some serious nerve.】 I was silent for a moment. 【So everyone thinks it’s my fault? Didn’t they even try to find out what really happened?】 【What does it matter? Amanda has over ten million fans across all her platforms. Besides, her whole brand is being this pure, innocent flower. Who would believe she was deliberately provoking you?】 My roommate’s tone was one of resignation. 【Ugh, you just have to take the L on this one.】 The implication was clear: if I just ignored it, it would eventually blow over. But when I got back to my dorm after my morning classes and opened my laptop to do some homework, my notifications were exploding. 【Go die, you bully!】 【Who the hell do you think you are, flaming our Amanda?】 【You think everyone has to put up with your crap, bully?】 【Apologize to our Amanda publicly, or we’ll doxx you!】 A flood of abusive messages, like an overflowing dumpster, assaulted my eyes. I read a few, my frown deepening. Her fans weren’t just flaming me on social media; they were threatening to find my personal information. This was seriously affecting my life. So I opened my social media and posted: 【I will not be apologizing. Since Amanda Rose is a public figure, she should be even more mindful of her words and actions. She was the one who provoked me in the game first. After I quit, she pulled me into a custom lobby to humiliate me. My cursing her out was justified. If we’re talking about who’s at fault, her actions were far worse than mine. Furthermore, she guided her fans to cyberbully and personally attack me, which has caused me extreme distress. I hope she will clarify the situation and act with some integrity.】 4 I thought that by posting this, I could at least correct some of their misconceptions. I wasn’t hoping for an apology, just for the vicious attacks to stop. But the comments below were a unified front of condemnation: 【Everyone knows Amanda was just creating content for her stream. You’re the one who can’t take a joke, and you have a filthy mouth. You nearly made our Amanda cry.】 【Exactly. Amanda is gentle, but we, her fans, are not to be messed with.】 【Why should we show integrity to a bully like you? We’re fighting fire with fire!】 【Less talk, more apologizing!】 And Amanda Rose, the person I tagged in my post, eventually responded with a reluctant-sounding post of her own: 【I’m so sorry this has caused you trouble. I had no idea my fans would go and bully you. But I don’t want to dwell on this anymore, let’s just pretend it never happened.】 My eyelid twitched violently. Never happened? So I was just supposed to take all that abuse for nothing? I immediately replied: 【You don’t get to just say it never happened. I’m the one being cyberbullied and threatened with doxxing. They have seriously disrupted my life. Aren’t you going to do anything to stop them?】 Amanda replied back: 【But I didn’t say anything to them. They’re just worried I’ll be upset. Please don’t blame them.】 Seeing Amanda defend them so ardently, her fans went into a frenzy. In a single afternoon, they spammed my social media until it crashed. Someone even managed to find out which university I attended. They flooded our school’s online forum, publicly insulting and cursing me, demanding that I apologize to Amanda immediately. 5 An apology was out of the question. And Amanda had already blocked me on social media. Since they wouldn’t listen to reason, I had no choice but to go offline and ignore the slander. But I never expected this. During my evening study session, as I was getting settled in the classroom, two girls sat down in front of me and demanded aggressively, “Ivy Lee, are you really going to be so stubborn and not apologize to Amanda Rose?” “It’s bad enough you’re spewing filth online, but now you’re dragging our school’s reputation through the mud.” “No one at school knows it was you yet. You should apologize on social media right now, before we expose you.” I calmly arranged my books, then looked up. “Have you not seen my explanation on social media?” “So what? Amanda was live the whole time, we all saw it. Who’s going to believe you?” “If you don’t believe me, then don’t bother me.” I sneered. “Be careful, or I’ll curse you out too.” The two girls were speechless. They hadn’t expected me to be so tough. With dark expressions, they left, pulling out their phones. I guessed they were going to complain on the forum about how unreasonable I was. The other students in the class who had been itching to talk to me saw how fierce I was and gave up. Just when I thought I could finally have some peace, a basketball slammed onto my desk. My glass water bottle shattered instantly, spilling hot water all over my books and my arm. I yelped in pain. I looked up angrily to see Mark Momoa striding towards me, his face a cold mask. “Ivy Lee. Get on social media and apologize to Amanda right now.” 6 Mark was the captain of the school basketball team. Last semester, I had delivered water to him twice as a favor for my roommate. Because I was known as the school’s “ice queen,” and it was the first time I’d ever been seen giving a guy anything, a rumor started that I had a crush on him. But when he heard the rumor, he had frowned and said, “Ivy Lee? No impression. Not interested.” After I heard that, I never delivered water for my roommate again. But the rumor that I was a desperate fangirl, unrequited in my love, spread throughout the school. I gritted my teeth against the stinging pain in my hand and asked coldly, “Are you insane?” Mark sneered, his eyes filled with disgust. “Anyone who has my number on campus knows I’m a fan of Amanda Rose. You were probably just jealous that I like her, so you stalked her stream and then cursed her out.” I was utterly stunned by his bizarre logic. “Mark, is there something wrong with your brain? I was unlucky enough to get matched with her twice, and you think I was deliberately stalking her? Besides, I don’t have your number. How would I know which celebrity you follow? And who you like is none of my damn business.” Mark looked at me as if I were making excuses, and said impatiently, “You said it yourself, you got matched with her twice. If you weren’t deliberately queuing at the same time, how could that be a coincidence? And you don’t have my number because I didn’t want to give it to you, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t find other ways to stalk me.” He took two steps closer, his voice aggressive. “If Amanda hadn’t been wronged, you would never have had the chance to even speak to me in your life. I’m not wasting my breath on you. Apologize to her. Now.” I scoffed. “You’re so concerned with right and wrong. So what about you smashing my bottle and burning my hand?” Mark frowned, dismissive. “I can replace the bottle. I can pay for your medical expenses. As long as you apologize, we can settle this.” “Is that so? Then you can start by replacing my bottle. It’s four hundred and fifty dollars.” Mark glanced at the shards of glass on the floor and laughed. “You? Let’s not even talk about whether this cheap bottle is worth four-fifty. Even if it was, could you even afford a four-hundred-fifty-dollar bottle? I think you’re just broke and trying to extort me.” 7 I rolled my eyes and picked up a piece of the shattered glass that had the brand logo and a QR code on it. “You can scan it to see if it’s authentic. After you’ve confirmed, find a personal shopper to buy me a new one. If you don’t know where to look, I can recommend someone.” Seeing my certainty, Mark’s confident expression faltered for a second. A moment later, he changed the subject. “Ivy, you’re just trying to get my attention, aren’t you? This is such a pathetic move. If you insist on not apologizing to Amanda, don’t blame me for exposing your identity on the forum.” I said, deadpan, “Go ahead. I’m not the one in the wrong. When your goddess personally comes out to clear my name, I’ll be holding you accountable.” Mark glared at me and started to walk away in a huff. “Wait.” “What?” He thought I had given in, and shot me a disdainful look. I stuffed the glass shard with the QR code into his jacket pocket. “You think you can just act tough and walk away? Not so fast. Don’t forget to replace my bottle. I’m going to the infirmary later, and I’ll give you the bill for my medical expenses tomorrow.” Mark stared at me in disbelief, as if I were a madwoman. He seemed genuinely shocked that I was actually going to make him pay. But I didn’t expect him to be so brainless. He actually went to the school forum and posted, outing me as the person who had cursed out Amanda Rose in the game. Instantly, the forum was flooded with Amanda’s fans. They found my student ID photo and started photoshopping it into ugly memes and funeral portraits, plastering them all over the forum. The entire site was spammed with posts demanding “Ivy Lee apologize to Amanda Rose.” The rumors became so rampant that the school administration had to call me in for a talk, urging me to resolve the matter quickly. 8 In the principal’s office, he spoke to me in a fatherly tone. “It’s just an apology. When you do something wrong, you have to take responsibility. Besides, cursing at people is a bad habit.” My voice was cold. “I did curse at her, but there was a reason. I was not the one who was wrong first. And after suffering such a massive cyberbullying campaign, shouldn’t Amanda Rose and Mark Momoa be the ones apologizing to me first?” The principal sighed, frustrated. “Even if you did nothing wrong, she’s a celebrity with tens of millions of fans. As the saying goes, a commoner can’t fight an official. You could have ten mouths and still not be able to argue your case. It’s better to just bow your head, put this to rest, and get some peace.” I sneered. “So you’re saying that because she’s using public opinion and power to crush me, I have to submit?” The principal shrugged. “There’s nothing to be done. You’re just one person. No one will listen to your side of the story.” I rolled my eyes. “I will make Amanda Rose beg to clear my name.” The principal clearly didn’t believe me. He rubbed his temples, looking stressed. “The negative attention on the forum is affecting the school. I’m going to have the administrators shut it down for a week. You have one week to resolve this. Otherwise, the school will have to take disciplinary action.” I looked up. “Such as?” “Such as ordering you to write a self-criticism essay, and posting a public notice about it on the school-wide forum.” I pressed my lips together. A self-criticism essay and a public notice would mean that even if it wasn’t my fault, I would be forced to take the blame. I couldn’t swallow that. So I said coldly, “If this matter is cleared up, I expect the school to require Mark Momoa to apologize to me.” The principal nodded. “If it can be proven that you were the victim, then Mark’s actions will certainly warrant a public reprimand.” With the principal’s affirmation, I said no more and left his office. I pulled out my phone and called my assistant, Alex. “Alex, I need you to get me the contact information for an actress named Amanda Rose. I need to speak with her.” Alex was puzzled. “She’s just a minor actress, Ms. Lee. There’s no need for you to contact her personally. We can just notify her agent if there’s an issue.” I gritted my teeth and sneered. “Oh, it’s absolutely necessary.” 9 Alex wasn’t exaggerating. My father, a permanent fixture on the top ten richest list, owned the largest entertainment company in the country, along with a vast network of connections and resources. A minor actress like Amanda Rose wouldn’t even qualify for an invitation to our family’s business galas. The reason I chose to contact her myself, rather than have Alex handle it, was because if Alex intervened, she would most likely be blacklisted or never get work again. I didn’t want to see that happen unless it was absolutely necessary. Everyone has their struggles. I ended the call and sighed, giving myself a thumbs-up. I really was a kind person. But that afternoon, I ate my words. Alex quickly got me Amanda’s number. I dialed, and a delicate female voice answered. “Hello? Who is this?” I spoke calmly. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Ivy Lee. I was the Seraphina you were matched with during your livestream.” “…” A long silence on the other end. Then, a barrage of questions. “This is my private number. How did you get it? Did you use some illegal means? Do you want me to call the police? What do you want? Isn’t this whole thing over? Why are you still harassing me?” I was speechless for a few seconds, too tired to answer her idiotic questions. I just stated my demands. “Who said it was over? You deliberately led your fans to cyberbully me. It was bad enough they were flaming me in the game and on social media, but now they’ve taken over my school’s forum and are seriously disrupting my life. You were the one who started it in the game. I demand that you clarify this matter, and you and your fans must apologize to me.” After hearing me out, Amanda sneered. “Are you okay, lady? Apologize? I’m a public figure. Why should I apologize to some poor student? If you’re trying to ride my coattails, you can start your own livestream now. Maybe you’ll even get famous for being infamous.” With that, she hung up on me.

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For the Christmas holidays, my girlfriend, Jessica, booked us on a trip abroad. The moment our plane landed, she coaxed me onto a charter bus. We drove for two days and two nights. As the landscape grew more and more familiar, a tremor ran through my entire body. This was it. The hometown I had escaped from four years ago. Sensing my unease, Jessica finally dropped the act. Her face twisted into a snarl as she told me she was selling me to a remote, illegal compound, one staffed entirely by women. And the “Boss” she kept mentioning? The head of that entire operation. My own sister. I had spent twenty years planning my escape, faking my own death to get away from her. And now, four years later, Jessica had tricked me and brought me right back. … Seeing me tremble, Jessica’s smile was sickeningly sweet. “Leo, you said you loved me, didn’t you? I’m in a lot of gambling debt. You’ll help me, won’t you?” The thought of what my sister would do to her made my voice shake. “Please, just send me back. If you need money, I’ll get it for you. I’ll work my entire life to support you, I swear!” Jessica’s expression soured. “You think I can wait that long?” she spat. “I owe a fortune! If I don’t pay it back in three days, they’ll kill me! I’ve kept you for two years, you useless piece of shit. It’s time you paid me back with interest!” The word “useless” made me shudder violently. Once, one of my sister’s underlings had muttered that I was useless, too afraid to even crush an ant. My sister had him buried in the dirt up to his neck, poured honey over his head, and let the ants do the rest. He was eaten alive. If my sister heard Jessica call me that, what would she do to her? Fear clawed at my heart. I looked at the woman I had loved for two years, and the tears finally broke free. “You said… you said you wanted to build a home with me. You said I was the only family you ever wanted…” Jessica’s hand, once so warm, caressed my face. Her words were ice. “That’s right. And family should help each other out, shouldn’t they? So help me, Leo.” I bit my lip, shaking my head frantically. A flicker of pity crossed her eyes. “You know, you’re most heart-wrenching when you cry, Leo,” she said softly. “You were the handsomest of all my boyfriends. The most innocent, too. If it wasn’t for the money, I really wouldn’t want to sell you.” Suddenly, her gaze turned vicious. “You’re mine. I can’t stand the thought of another woman doing those things to you!” She threw me down onto the floor of the bus and tied my hands behind my back with a rope. Then, she pulled a dagger from her coat and traced its edge along my cheek. “Leo, you don’t want to be defiled by them, do you? Let me help you with that.” A glint of cold steel, then a searing line of pain across my face. “NO!” I cried out in despair. My sister’s favorite thing, her most prized possession, was my face. When I was little, I knocked over a pot of boiling water and scalded my cheek. When she learned it might leave a scar, my sister had the maid’s hands broken and left her for the dogs. She threatened the doctor that if he couldn’t fix my face, she would peel the skin from his own. My sister always said my face was the living image of our dead father. She would never, ever allow it to be harmed. Jessica had just scarred my face. If my sister found out… I couldn’t bear to think about it. Forgetting the pain, I begged her. “Please, you can’t ruin my face!” Jessica laughed. “I already asked Roxy. She said the men at the compound don’t need a face. As long as their bodies work, it’s fine.” Roxy? The new foreman from four years ago? Before I could process it, Jessica slashed the dagger across my face again. The pain was so intense I couldn’t speak. Blood streamed into my eyes, turning the world crimson. “I know Roxy! Just take me to her, please!” If Roxy saw me, she would force Jessica to take me back. She had to. Jessica froze, then the knife cut even deeper. “So you were never really mine. Already trying to climb your way up to Roxy?” “I’ll destroy this face, and we’ll see how you seduce anyone else!” I screamed until I passed out. When I woke up, I’d been thrown out onto the dirt at the compound’s main gate. Standing nearby, talking to Jessica, was Roxy herself. “Roxy!” I rasped, my voice raw. She looked over, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. “How does he know my name?” Jessica’s face paled. She lunged forward, grinding her heel onto my mouth. “He must have overheard my call on the bus. Don’t worry, it’s useless for him to know now.” Roxy considered this for a moment, then stuck a cigarette between her lips. “Is that so? You wouldn’t dare pull any tricks. How many is this now?” Jessica ground her heel into my mouth one last time before scrambling over to light Roxy’s cigarette. “This is the seventh. Don’t worry, I know the rules. He’s an orphan, no family, no one to come looking for him. He was even a virgin when I got him.” Roxy crouched down and blew a smoke ring in my face, studying me. A sliver of hope rekindled within me. She knew me. If she recognized me, she would make Jessica take me away. Immediately. After all, if the Boss found out one of her own people had kidnapped me, they would all be dead. “Tsk. What did you do to his face? He’s hideous.” Roxy looked away in disgust. My heart sank. She didn’t recognize me. Had Jessica truly disfigured me so completely? The thought brought a wave of despair so profound I wanted to weep, but my throat was clogged with dust and blood. “He was putting up a fight,” Jessica said quickly. “What if he used his face to seduce someone and escape? I ruined it to be safe. It’s not like the face matters anyway.” She leaned down, her voice a low, triumphant whisper in my ear. “See? Give up on seducing Roxy. She thinks you’re ugly.” With all my strength, I squeezed out two words. “You’ll… die…” Roxy’s eyebrows shot up. She kicked Jessica aside and crouched in front of me, a grim smile on her face. “This kid… did he just tell us to go to hell?” Seeing that sinister grin, I shook my head in terror. No! That’s not what I meant! I meant you have to get me out of here, or you will die! “Aaargh!” Roxy pried my mouth open and pressed the glowing ember of her cigarette onto my tongue. The searing pain, the acrid smell of burning flesh, filled the air along with my screams. “Ugly piece of shit, threatening us when you’re about to die!” Roxy spat a thick wad of phlegm onto my face. Jessica grabbed a nearby stick and jabbed it violently into my mouth. “How dare you offend Roxy, you little bastard! I’ll teach you to scream!” Blood and splinters filled my throat. I was suffocating, tears streaming down my face. Was I going to die here? “Alright, that’s enough. He’s no good to us dead,” Roxy said, stopping her. Jessica immediately dropped the bloody stick. “Right. So, do we go sign the contract and get the money now?” Two large men hoisted me up and began dragging me toward the compound. Just then, a black sedan pulled up—my sister’s car. I thrashed wildly, throwing myself with all my might toward the wheels. The car stopped. The back door opened, and my sister stepped out. She looked down at me on the ground, her brow furrowed. Sister, it’s me! It’s your brother! I strained to look up at her, my eyes pleading for help. Roxy grabbed me and slapped me hard across the face. “You damn mutt, trying to run into the Boss’s car!” My vision went black for a second, and I spat out a mouthful of blood. It splattered across my sister’s immaculate high-heeled shoes. Roxy went pale. She dropped to her knees, frantically wiping the shoes. “I’m so sorry, Boss! This new one is a real handful. I’ll get it clean right now!” Jessica, seeing this, also knelt to help. My sister narrowed her eyes, her gaze falling on me. “Oh? A fresh delivery?” “Yes, Boss. This one’s trouble. To avoid any problems, we ruined his face. He even had the nerve to curse us to death just now!” Roxy answered cautiously. My sister seemed intrigued. “Heh. The first one to come here with the guts to talk back. Is he a university student?” “Yes! Just graduated this year. An honors student, too!” Jessica chimed in eagerly. My sister looked thoughtful. She glanced at me again and sighed. “If my Leo were still alive, he’d be about that age… graduating from university…” Hearing her say my name, I began to twist and moan frantically. Sister, it’s me! I am Leo! “Shit, hold still, you bastard!” Roxy kicked me hard in the face. The wounds split open again, blood welling up. My mouth and tongue were so mangled I couldn’t form a single word, only broken, agonized whimpers. “Hm?” My sister paused, then crouched down, studying me closely. My heart pounded with excitement. I tried to open my mouth to call her name, but a tickle in my throat made me cough up another gout of blood. It splashed onto her face. Roxy and Jessica froze in sheer terror. One fumbled for a tissue to wipe away the blood while the other started dragging me away. Spotting a large iron drum filled with filthy water, Roxy hoisted me up. The next second, she plunged my head into it. The foul water flooded my nose and mouth. The feeling of suffocation was immediate, my lungs screaming in agony. Just as I thought I would die, Roxy yanked me out by my hair. “You little shit, how many lives do you think you have to disrespect my Boss!” she roared. “Today, I’ll kill you as an apology to her!” I had only a few seconds to gasp for air before she shoved me back under. After several repetitions, I was too choked to make a sound. Roxy threw me onto the ground and scurried back to my sister, bowing. “Boss, since he offended you, he’s useless alive. What are your orders?” “First, pull out all his fingernails. Then, how about we treat him to a special cocktail?” My blood ran cold. The cocktail. I had seen them use that particular torture on other men. I never thought it would be my turn. So be it. Sister, all the sins you’ve committed… let them be paid for through me. It’s not unjust. The thought calmed me. I closed my eyes, waiting for death. I was going to see Mom and Dad soon. A strange sense of joy washed over me. “Is he… smiling?” my sister’s hesitant voice cut through the haze. “What the fuck, this bastard still has the nerve to smile?!” Roxy, incredulous, grabbed my hair and yanked my head up. The filthy water had washed the blood from my face. My sister stared, a look of shock on her features. “Why are there so many wounds on his face?” In the reflection of her eyes, I saw my own ruined face for the first time. A dense network of crisscrossing scars, like ugly earthworms, covered every inch of my skin. It was terrifying. Disgusting. And I had thought she would recognize me. In this state, even I wouldn’t recognize myself.

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My husband of thirty years, a man I had honored and respected our entire marriage, gripped my wrist tightly as he lay dying. “My lady,” he rasped, “if there is a next life, I beg you… let your stepsister have the chance to save me from the mire. Let me have one lifetime of love with her.” Tears streaming down my face, I nodded. “I will.” A biting spring wind swept across the cobblestones. I found myself staring, frozen, at the destitute young man collapsed on our doorstep. This time, Josh, I will grant you the life you always yearned for. 1 Patches of unmelted snow clung to the crevices between the stones, and icicles hung from the eaves, their last drop of winter hesitating to fall. The familiar scene jolted me back to reality. I had been reborn, thirty years in the past. The jeering shouts of a servant rang in my ears. “Get out of here, you filthy beggar! Be off with you!” I instinctively hurried toward the gate. A thin back was hunched over in a threadbare tunic of dark indigo. The young man was kneeling on the steps, and the hands that had once penned such magnificent prose were now blue with cold, so pale they were almost translucent. It was Josh Atreides, age nineteen. The man who would become my husband for three decades of cool, respectful distance. In my memory, his withered, dying hand tightened on my wrist. From within the heavy, medicine-scented bed curtains, his clouded eyes glistened. “My lady, if there is a next life, I beg you, give the chance to save me to your stepsister, Isabelle. Let me be bound to her for one lifetime.” A twig snapped under the eaves, and I jolted back to the present. I could still feel the phantom chill of tears soaking my collar, the ghostly touch of his burial shroud on my palm. The soft patter of footsteps approached from behind. My stepsister, Isabelle, was heading this way with her maids, a crimson blossom trembling in her hair with every step. “Eleonora?” She stopped, puzzled. “Aren’t we going to the High Chapel to pray for blessings? Why have you stopped?” I dug my nails into my palm, the sharp points pressing into an old, faint scar I had brought back with me from my past life. Josh’s final sigh echoed in my ears: “Thirty years of mutual respect… but in the end, it was a love I could never have.” I pushed the thought away and looked at the bright, charming girl before me. “Isabelle,” I heard myself say, my voice hoarse. “We won’t go today. I think I heard an injured sparrow crying by the gate. Why don’t you go see?” The girl’s almond-shaped eyes lit up, and she lifted her skirts and ran toward the entrance. I stepped back, hiding myself behind a stone pillar, in a perfect position to see everything unfold. “You tricked me, sister! There’s no cute little sparrow, just a beggar! Ugh, don’t come so close to me.” 2 The young man’s voice, just as I remembered it, rose in desperation. “My lady, please don’t misunderstand. I am a scholar, here in the capital for the Royal Examinations. I have fallen on hard times because my travel purse was stolen. This is my writ of identity; it bears the royal seal.” Josh produced the scholar’s writ he kept close to his chest and offered it to Isabelle as if it were a precious treasure. Isabelle wrinkled her nose and leaned in to glance at it. When she saw his ranking on the writ, her eyes brightened. “Very well. Seeing as you’re a poor, unfortunate scholar, I will help you. Someone, fetch this young man some food.” “Yes, my lady.” Her maid hurried to obey. Josh’s body went rigid. His lips moved, but no sound came out. I knew his dilemma. In his desperate state, he needed coin to survive until the examinations. But he possessed a scholar’s pride and could not bring himself to ask for it. In my past life, I had admired his talent. I not only gave him twenty silver pieces but also secretly helped him fend off the schemes of a few wealthy, well-connected rivals in the capital. My sister, however, in all her charming innocence, could not comprehend the suffering Josh had endured. In her mind, giving him a bite to eat when he was destitute was an act of immense generosity. I watched the helpless, humiliated young man at the gate, a faint ache in my heart. I hoped, for his sake, that this lifetime’s love would be everything he dreamed it would be. 3 Two months later, on the day the examination results were posted, a runner from the city sprinted back to the Duke’s estate, breathless with excitement. “Congratulations, Lady Isabelle! That scholar you helped—he passed!” My stepsister grabbed my arm, shaking it with glee. “Eleonora, Josh’s scholarship is truly remarkable! Do you think he has a chance to be named among the top three Royal Scholars?” I met her bright, shining eyes and nodded. “He should.” In my past life, Josh’s powerful, elegant calligraphy and his uniquely insightful essays on statecraft had caught the King’s eye, and he had been named the Third Royal Scholar. To repay my kindness, he had come to our home on the day of the scholars’ parade to formally propose. I was the Duke’s high-born daughter, and a scholar of his rank was a rare prize. My parents were not keen on his humble origins, but I had already given him my heart and begged them to approve the match. After our marriage, I used my family’s influence and wealth to pave his way at court, helping him rise through the ranks. I managed our household flawlessly, ensuring he had no worldly concerns. But no matter how much I did for him, it could never compare to the stepsister he loved but could not have. I was known as the most talented lady in the capital. Seeing that even I held Josh in high regard, Isabelle became even more delighted with herself. “Sister, on the day I met Josh, it was supposed to be you who went out first. But it was me who helped him in the end. Don’t you think our connection is destined by the heavens?” She blushed at her own speculation. “What if he comes to propose to me to repay my kindness? Should I accept?” The crimson blossom in her hair made her look all the more vibrant and alive. 4 “Isabelle, this is a matter of your own heart. I cannot make that choice for you.” Although my stepsister was a lady of the ducal house, her mother was of low birth, a mistress her father had taken. To be a first wife, Isabelle would have to marry down. In our past life, she had married a minor official from a poor family. Though his rank was low, he treated her exceptionally well and took no other woman. But she despised her husband’s lack of ambition and turned their home into a chaotic mess. This time, with the far more promising Josh, she ought to be satisfied. Isabelle’s pink lips pouted as she tested the waters, half-joking. “Eleonora, you haven’t fallen for Josh as well, have you?” Seeing the suspicion and vigilance in her eyes, my expression grew cold. “Rest assured, sister. I will never marry Josh Atreides in this lifetime.” Seeing my anger, Isabelle quickly changed her tune, shaking my arm and playing the coquette. “I’m sorry, sister, it was my fault. You have a generous heart, please don’t hold it against me, won’t you?” I pulled my arm away and waved her off. “I’m tired. You should go.” 5 Soon, it was the day of the parade for the top three Royal Scholars. Just as Isabelle had hoped, Josh arrived at our door with a matchmaker to propose. He bowed deeply to my father, the Duke, and stated his purpose with reverence. “Your Grace, Lady Isabelle once showed this humble scholar a great kindness with a simple meal. I wish to ask for her hand as my wife. I pray you will grant my request.” My father nodded with satisfaction. “Very well. I approve this union.” Isabelle had been hiding behind a screen in the grand hall, listening in. The moment the match was settled, she ran to find me, bursting with pride. “Sister, Josh is truly a man of honor and loyalty! I’m soon to be the wife of the First Royal Scholar! You’ll have to try harder now, sister.” I put down my book and looked at her, confused. “Isabelle, Josh was not named First Royal Scholar this time. I’m afraid that title will not be yours.” Her pretty face paled. She had assumed my father’s quick approval was due to Josh achieving the highest rank. “Well then,” she stammered, “I must have been mistaken. It must be the wife of the Second or Third Royal Scholar.” “Neither, I’m afraid. He was ranked tenth in the final examinations. Still a fine achievement.” In our past life, with my help, Josh had to do nothing but focus on his studies. This time, without my money, and with the bullying from his wealthy rivals, the frostbite on his hands had never properly healed. Without the bonus points from his flawless, powerful calligraphy, the rank of Third Royal Scholar was beyond his reach. 6 “Impossible!” Isabelle snapped, before gathering her skirts and storming out. My personal maid, Rose, huffed in disapproval. “My lady, you are always too good to Lady Isabelle. She forgets her station. To marry a man like Master Atreides as his first wife is already a great fortune for her.” It was true. It was a good match, or my father would never have agreed. But Isabelle’s ambitions were too high. I suspected she would cause a scene, just as she had in our last life. I shook my head, trying not to think about it. I had honored my promise to the dying Josh and fulfilled his wish for a life with Isabelle. The rest was up to them. I thought Isabelle would resort to a hunger strike as she had before, but this time she chose a more drastic path. She snuck out of the estate for a private rendezvous with the rakish son of a powerful courtier. She dreamed of marrying into a great house as a first wife, but she soon discovered the man was only toying with her. Not only was her dream shattered, but she nearly lost her virtue in the process. In the family chapel, Isabelle knelt before the ancestral tablets, her eyes swollen from crying. “Father, Mother, I may have erred, but you drove me to it! If I could marry into a great house as a first wife, like Eleonora, I wouldn’t have had to disgrace myself seeking my own fortune!” The Duke’s riding crop struck Isabelle’s back with a sharp crack. “You shameless wretch! You disgrace yourself and dare to blame us? Lady Sylvia,” he said, turning to Isabelle’s mother, “I never should have been so soft as to let you raise the child. Look at what you’ve taught her!” A loving parent plans for their child’s future. Years ago, my father had wanted to raise Isabelle under my mother’s name. As the Duke’s second official daughter, she would have been guaranteed a fine match. But Lady Sylvia, afraid of losing her favor without a child to bind her to the Duke, had wept and begged to keep Isabelle by her side. Now, she regretted it. But it was too late. 7 Lady Sylvia threw herself at my father’s feet, pleading. “My lord, it is all my fault! I beg you, for the sake of your own flesh and blood, spare her this once!” My mother’s eyes, fixed on Lady Sylvia, seemed to burn with fire. Isabelle had not only ruined her own reputation but had stained the honor of every young woman in our house. “Lady Sylvia, Isabelle has only two paths now,” my mother said, her voice cold. “She can take her own life to preserve her honor, or she can be sent to a nunnery.” “No! Father, Mother, I don’t want to die! I am still a maiden! Josh owes me a debt of gratitude; he will surely marry me!” In that moment, Josh Atreides became Isabelle’s only lifeline. Lady Sylvia knocked her head on the stone floor, over and over. “Your Grace, she is young and foolish. Please, give her one more chance.” My mother’s eyes instantly reddened with tears of her own. “Lady Sylvia, you ache for your daughter, but what of my Eleonora’s prospects? What of her future?” With my station as the Duke’s eldest daughter, I should have married into a high-ranking noble house as its matriarch. Now, tainted by Isabelle’s scandal, if I wanted to be a first wife, I would have to marry down. Even then, I had lost the right to choose; I would be at the mercy of whoever would have me. My father’s expression slowly hardened. Though both were his daughters, there was no comparing a child of a mistress to his trueborn heir. Just as he was about to give the order to have Isabelle taken away, a servant rushed in to announce that General Kaelen had arrived at the gate to ask for a hand in marriage. 8 Hearing the servant’s words, a spark of light ignited in Isabelle’s eyes. “Father, Mother, did you hear? I met General Kaelen once! He must have been captivated by me and has come to ask for my hand!” Lady Sylvia brightened as well. Her methods had been right after all; men truly preferred a girl as innocent, charming, and lively as her Isabelle. My father frowned. As a Duke and a minister of the crown, he was not a fool like them. General Kaelen was a war hero of immense renown. Even if Isabelle were pristine, he might not have considered her, let alone now, with her reputation in tatters. The Duke ordered Isabelle and her mother to continue kneeling in the chapel. He then asked my mother and me to join him in the grand hall. Isabelle feigned agreement, but fearing her supposed match would be stolen, she had her mother create a diversion while she climbed out a window. In the grand hall, my parents were speaking with the General. I hid behind a screen, listening. In this life or the last, I knew very little of this General Kaelen. I only knew he was born of common stock, a fierce warrior, and a confidant of the King. In my previous life, he never married. Some said he had no interest in women; others whispered he harbored a secret, unrequited love. My thoughts were interrupted by the General’s firm, resolute voice. “Your Grace, my Lady Duchess, I have long admired your daughter, the Lady Eleonora. I have come today to formally ask for her hand. I pray you will grant me this honor.” Before I could even process his words, a wild-eyed figure burst through the doorway. “General Kaelen, surely you’ve made a mistake! The woman you wish to marry is me, Isabelle, is it not?”

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In my past life, my bondmate Lyra tried to keep the Gate of Ascension open for her weak old flame, Javier. The Gate opens only once every ten thousand years—the only chance for adepts to ascend. By delaying its closure, she would doom an entire generation. So I forced her through. We spent centuries together in the Celestial Realm, and I foolishly thought she’d moved on. But on the eve of my Archon breakthrough, she poisoned me. As divine retribution tore me apart, she screamed: “You made Javier miss his ascension! Go rot with him!” When I opened my eyes, I was back—at the moment she tried to stop the Gate. This time, I’ll let her have her way. 1 “This is the Gate of Ascension! If it doesn’t close, our entire generation is doomed!” A handful of mages pleaded with Lyra, who stood defiantly in the Gate’s shimmering portal, blocking its path. “Javier hasn’t arrived yet,” Lyra’s voice was as cold as glacial ice. She didn’t budge an inch. “What’s the harm in waiting a little longer?” “It opens once every ten thousand years! This is our life’s work, our only hope!” In response, Lyra flung a bolt of pure energy, blasting one of the pleading mages from the sky. “Insects like you dare dream of ascension?” she sneered. “Javier is not here. Therefore, this Gate will not close.” She stood there, a lone figure against the tide, a portrait of magnificent, misplaced heroism. I clapped my hands, my applause echoing in the stunned silence. “Bravo! Spoken with the spirit of a true paragon, Lady Lyra!” Then, under the bewildered gazes of the crowd, I turned and drifted away. For me, the Gate was a mere formality. My power had long since reached the threshold of ascension. If not for my desire to ascend alongside the far weaker Lyra, I would have been in the Celestial Realm ages ago. I never imagined that our shared dream of an eternity together would end in such a bitter betrayal. This life, I was done with her. As the thought crossed my mind, I released the restraints on my power. Instantly, the heavens took notice. A summons to the Celestial Ordeal. In three days, the trial would begin. If I survived, I would ascend. After my departure, Lyra’s momentary confusion gave way to a faltering of her bravado. Her power, in the grand scheme of things, was unremarkable. Without me to protect her, she would have perished a thousand times over. Since we were bound, I had braved the Nine Hells and the deepest Abyss to fetch her elixirs and arcane relics, all to finally give her the strength to qualify for ascension. But now, in this moment, she seemed to believe she was truly invincible. The true archmages of the realm were all busy battling in the high heavens, vying for the first wisp of celestial essence to break through from the other side. The only ones arriving at the Gate now were the lesser adepts. I wondered what those old titans would do when they learned that a hundred centuries of cosmic alignment had been squandered for the selfish whim of a minor mage. The crowd of low-level adepts was no match for Lyra, who was armed to the teeth with the artifacts I had given her. She struck them down one by one, their spirit-veins fractured. “You pathetic worms dare stand in my way?” she declared, standing sentinel at the Gate, her gaze sweeping over the fallen. “Until Javier arrives, no one is closing this Gate.” With no one left to challenge her, her arrogance swelled. Hours passed. More and more adepts arrived, only to be blocked by the unyielding figure of Lyra. Finally, Javier appeared, stumbling and breathless. “Lyra, I knew you wouldn’t leave me behind,” he gasped, his own energy almost completely depleted. For someone of his level, just reaching these heights was a monumental feat. “Javier,” Lyra’s voice softened, her relief palpable. “As long as I’m here, you will always have a place on the Celestial Stairway.” But just as she spoke, the Gate of Ascension, strained beyond its limits, began to tremble. Before anyone could enter, cracks of light spiderwebbed across its surface, and it began to shatter. “The Gate… it’s broken! Ten thousand years of waiting, our only chance at godhood… gone!” “It’s all that witch’s fault!” “And that low-born mongrel! What right does he have to even be here?” The heavens filled with a chorus of curses. Javier’s face went white as a sheet. “Lady Lyra… did I do something wrong?” he whispered, shrinking behind her as a thousand murderous glares fixed upon him. “Let them dare touch you, Javier, and I will hunt them to the ends of the earth,” Lyra declared, her voice ringing with protective fury. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here.” “Oh, Lady Lyra, you’re the best.” As the two of them exchanged their tender reassurances, a horrifying realization dawned on someone in the crowd. “The Gate of Ascension is shattered… but the gate to the Celestial Realm never opened! Don’t tell me the Archmages are trapped on the Stairway!” 2 A single mage’s panicked cry plunged the world into a chilling silence. The Gate of Ascension was the entrance. You passed through it to climb the Celestial Stairway. Only when the Gate of Ascension closed did the true gate to the heavens open. But now, the entrance had crumbled first. The gate to the heavens remained sealed. And all the great powers of the realm were trapped inside. Which meant that, apart from me, Lyra was now the most powerful being in this world. To make matters worse, blinded by love, I had once sworn an Unbreakable Vow. If I ever brought harm to Lyra, my own body would erupt into nothingness. “Does this mean… our masters are trapped for another ten thousand years?” The faces of the assembled mages turned ashen. Lyra, too, finally understood. A wild, triumphant laugh escaped her lips. “Javier, didn’t you say you wanted to see the treasures of the Three Great Orders? Today, I will take you on a tour of the world! Take whatever you desire. I’d like to see anyone try and stop us.” And so, with the tigers away, the monkey became king. Lyra began her grand tour, leading Javier to pillage the vaults and secret libraries of every major faction in the land. She had made an enemy of the entire world. But none of that mattered to me anymore. In three days, the Ordeal would come, and I would be gone. I didn’t expect, however, that with only an hour left until my trial, Lyra would seek me out. “Kaelan. Give Javier your protective artifact, the Prismatic Celestial Jade.” I frowned, looking at the two of them. A shimmering aura of potent energy clung to them both. Clearly, they had been enjoying the spoils of the great orders. “Give him the Jade?” For a moment, I thought I’d misheard. The Jade was my soul-bound artifact. Without the Jade, I was without life. “Are you deaf? I told you what I want,” Lyra said, her brow furrowing with impatience. “Don’t you know this is my soul-bound artifact?” I almost laughed. I never dreamed that a few days of unearned power would inflate her ego to such monstrous proportions. “So what if it is?” she retorted, an eyebrow arched in disdain. “You know that if a soul-bound artifact is separated from its master, the master dies.” “I’m the strongest in the world now. I can spare you a wisp of my power to keep you alive. Stop wasting my time and hand it over.” She waved her hand dismissively. I stared at her, my gaze cold. The person I had loved for so long was now a stranger. A current of power began to stir around me, a pressure that was almost physical. “The Jade is my life. It is bound to my very soul. And you want to take it, to take my life, just to please him?” Lyra’s expression hardened, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. She clearly hadn’t expected me to refuse. “Kaelan, you have so many artifacts and elixirs. What’s the big deal about giving up one?” she snapped. “In this world, who can stand against me now? Give me the Jade, and I will naturally protect you.” I looked at her hideous, grasping expression, and a wave of profound sorrow washed over me. To ascend with her, I had suppressed my own power, hidden my true identity. I had braved hells and abyss for her, facing death countless times. And in her eyes, it was simply, “You have so much, why can’t I have some?” Javier, who had been hiding behind Lyra, suddenly bit his lip and stepped forward. “Lady Lyra, Kaelan… you are bondmates. It was presumptuous of me to ask. You shouldn’t fight because of me. I… I’ll leave.” He turned, his voice choked with emotion. “Lady Lyra, I’m an orphan. You’re the only person in this world who has ever been kind to me. If I have the chance, I will repay your kindness in the future.” 3 As Javier’s words faded, he made a show of turning to leave. Lyra’s eyes immediately reddened. “Javier, no. With me here, no one can bully you. You have a family now.” Tears streamed down Javier’s face. “Lady Lyra, you’re too good to me! For all my lives to come, I would be your beast of burden, your loyal servant, just to stay by your side!” Lyra, her heart aching for him, pulled him into a gentle embrace, whispering words of comfort. I had no interest in this melodrama. The Ordeal was imminent. I began to focus, to center my spirit, and the power around me began to hum and swirl. Seeing this, Lyra’s tone turned to ice. “Kaelan, are you actually thinking of fighting me? No one in this world is my match. I am showing you dignity because we were once bondmates. Do you take my kindness for weakness?” she raged. “When will you learn to be as selfless as Javier!” Her furious shouts echoed across the sky. I watched her shield Javier protectively, her defiant posture utterly laughable. For millennia, I had sheltered her so completely that she had no concept of what the celestial energy coiling around me truly meant. She had no idea why the most powerful mages in the land had always shown her such deference. Now, convinced of her own invincibility, her first act was to brandish her power at me. It was pathetic. It was tragic. I shot her a cold glance and said nothing. Just then, Javier stepped forward again. “Lady Lyra, please don’t be angry. Why don’t you step aside for a moment? Let me talk to him, brother to brother.” “Brother Kaelan,” he began, walking toward me with a look of manufactured sincerity. “I’m not here to ruin your relationship. I… I just want to join this family.” Lyra was hesitant, but at Javier’s insistence, she reluctantly agreed. “Kaelan, when will you learn to be as gracious as Javier?” she huffed, before finally departing. I gave them both a cold, sweeping glare, then turned my attention back to the heavens. The storm clouds of my Ordeal were gathering. The moment Lyra was out of earshot, Javier’s face transformed. “Kaelan, you’re really pushing your luck, aren’t you?” he sneered. “Lyra is now the undisputed master of this world. She’s far too good for a no-name adept like you. Only an Aether-touched genius like me is worthy of being her partner.” He puffed out his chest. “If I were you, I’d disappear. Don’t force my hand.” I couldn’t be bothered to respond to this dog borrowing its master’s ferocity. But then, a flicker of movement at his waist caught my eye. A jade pendant. It was a gift from my master, who had ascended long ago. It was the token of my love I had given to Lyra. The day we were bound, under a canopy of a billion stars, I had placed it in her hand and sworn an oath to never harm her. And now, she had given it away so casually. I thought my heart was a frozen stone, that nothing of her could move me. But seeing that pendant swaying at Javier’s hip, I lost control. With a flick of my will, I summoned it, and the pendant flew from his belt into my hand. Javier’s eyes suddenly lit up with a triumphant, malicious glee. The next second, he sprayed a great mouthful of blood, his face turning as pale as parchment. “KAELAN! HOW FAR ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE THIS!” Lyra’s shriek ripped through the sky. She flew to Javier’s side, cradling him in her arms. “Javier was trying to make peace with you, and you attack him out of spite!” she screamed, her eyes blazing with fury. “Kneel and apologize to him right now, or…” “Or what?” I cut her off. Lyra froze for a second, then her face turned into a mask of cold fury. “Or our bond as soulmates is severed today!” The absurdity of it all was almost amusing. “Then let it be severed.” Her face twisted in rage. An instant later, a devastating blast of energy shot toward me—it was the ultimate, life-or-death technique I myself had taught her. My heart, in that moment, became perfectly still. For a common stray, she would use such a strike against me. The attack hit the shimmering shield of my own power and vanished without a trace. “Ant,” I said softly. The next moment, the clouds of the Ordeal fully converged. The world-shaking trial of ascension was about to begin. And at the same time, a shimmering stairway of light reappeared in the sky. The great powers of the realm were finally free.

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After I angered my stepbrother, my own sister locked me in the sterilization cabinet. My stepbrother, Denis, was torturing a kitten, holding a lighter to its tail. When I screamed at him to stop, my sister, Joelle, decided I was the one who needed to be punished. She shoved me into the industrial-sized sterilization cabinet in our utility room and chained it shut. “Go in there and wash out that filthy mouth of yours!” she’d snarled. “Is this what they teach you at that fancy school? To be so cruel to your own brother?” The heat inside the cabinet was unbearable. I was being boiled alive. My skin blistered and broke as I screamed and begged for mercy, but all I got was her cold, dismissive voice through the thick metal door. “If you can’t even handle a little discomfort, what makes you think you’re worthy of being my brother?” Then she left. She turned her back on me and went to coddle Denis. I could feel my own flesh cooking, the chemical, fishy smell of the sterilizing agent choking me, filling my lungs. A week later, they returned from their vacation. And they finally remembered me. “Now that he’s had time to cool off, I suppose I can let Finn out.” She didn’t know that my body had already rotted away, fused to the metal walls. I was never getting out. 1 “That little brat hasn’t bothered me for days. Looks like he’s finally learned his lesson,” Joelle mused, her fingers tracing the delicate bracelet Denis had given her. A faint smile played on her lips. “He tried that hunger strike nonsense on me before, threatening to disown me. I just locked him in his room for three days, and he came out crying and begging on his knees.” “For him to be quiet for a whole week…” The bodyguard standing beside her shifted, his voice trembling slightly as he spoke. “Miss Vance… sir… he’s… I think he’s still locked inside.” Joelle’s hand froze. A flicker of unease crossed her features, but it was quickly replaced by her usual mask of indifference. “It’s good for a boy to face a little hardship.” The bodyguard’s face went rigid. After a moment of hesitation, he tried again. “There’s… there’s been no sound from in there for a long time. Maybe you should… open it and check?” Joelle shot him a look as cold as ice. “I said it’s fine!” “He’s just playing games. Trying to manipulate me. The moment I go to check on him, he’ll start his act all over again.” The bodyguard’s words died in his throat. Just then, Denis walked in from the garden. Hearing Joelle, he wrapped his arms around her and leaned his head on her shoulder. “You’re the best sister in the world,” he said, his voice sweet and innocent. Joelle’s expression softened instantly. She smiled and ruffled his curly hair. “You little fool. You’re the only brother I’ll ever need.” Denis looked up at her, his eyes wide and guileless. “I won’t let you protect me forever. I’m going to grow up fast and be the one to protect you.” “Good boy,” she cooed. “I knew you were worth it.” He let out a dramatic sigh. “It’s all my fault. Finn must think I stole your love away from him. That’s why he hates me so much.” Joelle patted his shoulder comfortingly. “He’s just petty and small-minded. It has nothing to do with you.” “It’s been a week, though,” Denis said, his voice laced with false concern. “You should let him out. I’m sure he’s learned his lesson by now.” If I had been alive to hear those words, I would have lunged at Denis, ready to tear his mask away. And then Joelle would have punished me for it. But now, I felt nothing. Because I was already dead. In the final, agonizing moment, as the heat melted the last of my flesh, my soul finally broke free from that steel coffin. I watched as my own body, charred and unrecognizable, remained fused to the interior. The heavy iron chain was still wrapped around the door, secured with a massive padlock. There had been no escape. At first, I had thrown myself against the door, screaming, begging. When that failed, I had curled into a corner, trying to shield myself from the searing UV lamps. But it was a 360-degree sterilizer. There was nowhere to hide. My skin peeled away in sheets. The pain… it was unimaginable. I made one last, desperate attempt, hurling my body against the door with all my remaining strength. That’s when I heard Joelle’s voice, muffled but clear. “Can’t take it anymore?” “Denis was so traumatized by your vicious words that he threw himself into the freezing fountain pool. He has a raging fever, it almost turned into pneumonia.” “Today, I’m going to teach you the lesson our dead parents never could.” I cried. I apologized for things I had never done. I would have said anything to make her let me out. But the heat was relentless. It cooked my flesh until it slid from my bones and sizzled on the hot floor below, turning to a bloody slurry. My arm was already stripped bare, a skeleton’s limb. Just before I lost consciousness, I heard her command to the bodyguard. “Get the chains. Lock it tight.” “No one opens this without my permission. This time, he needs to learn his lesson. For good.” Despair, absolute and final, consumed me. I heard the rattle of the chains as they were wound around my tomb. And I felt the cold grip of death tighten around my throat. 2 “Go unlock the cabinet for Finn,” Joelle ordered coolly. “Tell him if he doesn’t want this to happen again, he’ll come and apologize to Denis properly.” The bodyguard opened his mouth, then closed it again. He simply bowed and left the room. Denis tugged at Joelle’s arm. “Sister, once Finn apologizes, let’s just forget about it. You should be nice to him, so he doesn’t feel left out.” He added, his voice a soft whisper, “If he leaves, you won’t have any family left.” A look of contempt flashed in Joelle’s eyes, but she smoothed it over with a fond pat on Denis’s head. “It would be better if he left. A person with such a vile mouth doesn’t deserve to be my brother.” “If it weren’t for the horrible things he said to you, you wouldn’t have gotten so sick. Denis, you’re just too kind, too soft-hearted. That’s why he’s always bullying you.” A fire of rage burned in her eyes, but it vanished the moment Denis looked at her, as if she were afraid the very heat of her anger might harm him. I thought being dead meant I couldn’t feel pain anymore. But watching this, an old, familiar ache returned, and ghostly tears fell from my eyes. A week ago, for Joelle’s birthday, I had bought her a little orange kitten, a surprise. But I found Denis in the garden, holding a lighter to its tail. He’d looked up at me with a smirk. “Don’t think that just because you found a cat that looks like her old one, you can win her back from me.” I had flown into a rage, shielding the terrified animal and screaming at him. Joelle had walked in at that exact moment. Denis immediately burst into tears and threw himself into the icy fountain in the courtyard. It was the middle of winter. He was wearing a thick, absorbent cotton jacket, and he sank like a stone. When they pulled him out, he was pale and barely breathing. “Sister,” he’d gasped, his voice a faint whisper. “If Finn can’t accept me… if he wants me to die… then I will.” “My only regret is that I won’t get to protect you. You have to take care of yourself, sister. In the next life, I want to be your brother again.” That day, Joelle canceled everything. She carried Denis to the hospital in her arms, not even bothering with an umbrella as the cold rain soaked her to the bone. In the end, Denis was diagnosed with an acute case of the flu. I stood outside the hospital room, watching her clutch his hand, her voice a desperate plea. “Denis, please. Please get better. Don’t leave me all alone…” It was laughable. My own sister, my flesh and blood. A powerful, commanding woman who ran a corporate empire, now acting out a deathbed drama over a common cold with a complete stranger. It was only when she was dragging me by the hair, shoving me into that sterilization cabinet, that I finally understood. In her heart, Denis was her only brother. And I… I was nothing. “How could I have a brother with such a filthy, disgusting mouth?” she’d screamed at me. “Denis almost died! Even when he recovers, he’ll be weak for a long time!” “I’m telling you, Finn, don’t think for a second that just because we share the same blood, you can do whatever you want!” “You’ll stay in there until Denis is better. You’ll stay in there until you learn to be sorry!” And to make sure I learned my “lesson,” she had the bodyguard chain the door shut. And now, only because Denis was in a good mood, she was deigning to let me out. She didn’t know. I was never getting out.

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It was the company’s monthly holiday, and my boyfriend Aaron’s personal secretary posted a picture on her social media feed. The caption read: “Sure, you’re on top during the day at the office, but at night, I’m the one in charge!” The photo showed her, a woman named Chelsea, lounging on a waterbed strewn with rose petals. And kneeling at her feet, massaging them with an almost reverent expression, was Aaron. The ever-serious, no-nonsense director of our department. Tucked into his pocket was a brand-new, gleaming gold necklace. That very morning, I had given him the gold to make that necklace, begging him to finally go public with our five-year relationship. He’d taken it without a word, but when I tried to snap a picture of us together, he’d snatched my phone and smashed it on the ground. His eyes had been filled with pure contempt. “Don’t you own a mirror? Don’t you have a puddle to look in? You’re just a low-class, trashy piece of work, aren’t you? You’d do anything to ruin me.” Suddenly, the last five years—my quiet obedience to his strict “no office romance” rule—felt like a pathetic joke. The next day, I sent a text to my father. “I give up. I’m coming home to take over the family business.” … After confirming that the gold necklace was indeed the one I had paid for, I sent a message to the company-wide group chat. “Wishing Director Evans and Chelsea a long and happy life together.” A few minutes later, Chelsea replied, claiming it was just a game of ‘Truth or Dare,’ a command from her “master.” Then Aaron, who had been MIA all day, finally appeared. Are you insane? What the hell are you posting in the group chat? You’re both women, why do you have to be so damn jealous? Are you that desperate for a man? Before I could even type a response, he sent another message, a string of laughing emojis. What are you good for besides causing me trouble? Why don’t you just crawl back into your mother’s womb and stay there? His vulgar words still hit me like a punch to the gut, even though I should have been used to it by now. Disgusting. Utterly disgusting. The memory of me, just that morning, begging him to marry me, made my whole body tremble. “Forget it, Aaron,” Chelsea chimed in. “It’s my fault. I’ll go explain to Sophia right now!” “Don’t you dare!” Aaron’s voice boomed from my phone; he must have called her. Underneath the rage, I could hear a raw, unmistakable panic. “There are no cabs out there this late! Sophia, there’s a limit to your games! Do you really think I can’t crush you?” I hadn’t said a single word, but I could hear choked sobs from the other end of the line, followed by the rustling of clothes. “I’ll swim back if I have to, Aaron! Don’t stop me! I won’t let anyone spread rumors about you!” “Who gives a damn about that bitch? I’m firing her right now!” he roared. “Chelsea, you just stay here and relax. As long as I’m the director, no one is going to mess with you.” With that, he hung up. Even though I sent the word “Goodbye” less than five seconds later, he didn’t reply. Of course he didn’t. He had my notifications on silent unless it was something important. Two hours later, I had packed all my things. Every item in this apartment, from the kettle on the stove to the custom-designed feature wall in the living room, I had chosen myself. I had even bought the damn place, planning to surprise him by signing it over to him. Thank God I never told him. My phone buzzed. It was a message from Chelsea. Sophia, don’t worry, there’s nothing going on between me and Aaron. I’ve always seen him as a brother, a father figure. I would never have any improper thoughts about him. As if to prove her point, she sent two videos. One showed Aaron scrubbing her back in the bathtub. The other showed him tucking her into bed, singing a lullaby. In the past, I would have never dared to respond to such a blatant provocation. No matter what happened, I was always the one who ended up apologizing, begging for his forgiveness. Five years had worn away the passionate, hysterical girl who would fight for love. But now, I realized that my quiet endurance had been just another form of weakness. Are you itchy? I typed back. Are you sending me these because you want me to curse you out, so you can put your phone on vibrate and stick it up your ass? The “typing” bubble appeared and disappeared for a long time. See? You’re so emotional, she finally sent. I blocked her number. I didn’t sleep a wink. I just sat there, in the dark, until the first light of dawn. Then I texted my father. “I give up. I’m coming home to take over the family business.” My dad, the old man, responded with a string of flower emojis. Are you sure? You’re not messing with me? “I’m not messing with you.” A bitter smile touched my lips. Ha! I just won a five-million-dollar bet with your Uncle David! I knew it! My throat tightened. “You should have come home ages ago! You can have any man you want. Why waste your time on that one loser?” he continued. “I’ll buy that little company you work for first thing in the morning. A little toy for you to play with. How dare they bully my daughter? They must be blind!” “It’s fine, Dad.” “I want to do this myself. One day, I’ll be the one to acquire them.” The old man paused, then sighed. “You’re just like your mother.” “No matter what happens, Dad will always be here for you.” I hung up, took a deep breath, and prepared to leave. But as I opened the door, I ran right into Chelsea and Aaron. “There. Are you happy now?” Aaron strode into the apartment, his leather shoe coming down hard on my foot, grinding his heel into my instep. The pain was excruciating. I bit my lip to keep from screaming, my head ringing. I first met him during a hurricane. He’d lost his footing and was nearly blown away. The rain was so heavy that day, the water was up to our ankles. I’d grabbed him, and in the process, a piece of glass had pierced my foot, leaving a permanent scar. Aaron’s eyes widened for a second, a flash of guilt in their depths. But then he glanced over his shoulder at Chelsea, and the guilt vanished, replaced by a cold hardness. “Apologize to Chelsea.” “If it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to get back here, and she wouldn’t have gotten into that car accident.” I looked past him at Chelsea, who was standing there perfectly straight, without a single scratch on her. “Don’t you know that car almost ran over her big toe? We’re lucky she’s okay, or our lives would have been over!” Aaron’s voice was sharp, accusatory. He looked at me as if I were a murderer. “Sophia, you’d better say what I want to hear. Or else… a little country girl like you… it would be nothing for me to blacklist you from this entire industry.” “An ant needs to know its place. You can’t fight a giant. You’ve heard that before, right?” Chelsea wrapped her arms around Aaron’s waist from behind and shook her head. “Aaron, sweetie, it’s not her fault. She’s never had a proper education. A well-educated person like me shouldn’t stoop to her level. Let’s just drop it.” “What am I?” I clenched my fists, fighting the urge to slap them both. For five years, Chelsea had been like a fly buzzing around a pile of shit, constantly circling me, never letting up. “Chelsea,” I said, my voice dangerously low. “I’ve been wanting to do this for a very long time.” SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! Aaron’s face turned a deathly pale, his hands trembling with rage. “I told you to apologize!” My face was on fire, the taste of blood in my mouth. Chelsea let out a sharp, mocking laugh. Shame, rage, and a crushing helplessness flooded my veins. “Sophia, is it that hard to apologize? You’re the one who’s in the wrong!” Aaron grabbed a shoehorn from the entryway table and brought it down hard on my knee. “Chelsea is being generous by not making you kneel! And you’re still pushing it? Who the hell do you think you are?” I remembered just a few days ago, crying, begging him for forgiveness. But now, I was just tired. I just wanted to leave. Arguing with him felt beneath me. “Sophia, if you walk out that door, we’re done!” Seeing that I wasn’t backing down, a flicker of panic, almost imperceptible, crossed Aaron’s face. “Fine.” I nodded, feeling nothing, and limped out the door. Five years. Five goddamn years, all fed to a dog. Suddenly, a powerful force slammed into me from behind. I flew forward, instinctively throwing out my right hand to break my fall. A searing pain shot through my arm. I yanked it back, and a large flap of skin tore away, exposing the white muscle beneath. When I opened my eyes, I was at the bottom of the stairs, my head throbbing from where it had hit the stone steps. And Aaron, my boyfriend, was standing at the top, protectively shielding Chelsea. No concern. No worry. Just a look of cold satisfaction on his face as he pulled Chelsea back into the apartment. “Serves you right!” “You can kneel there and think about what you did. And don’t you dare get up until you understand what you did wrong!” The pain was overwhelming. I couldn’t move. I could only lie there, crumpled on the ground like a stray dog. By the time a kind neighbor found me and got me to the hospital, it was too late to avoid major surgery. My right hand. The most important tool for a designer. And I had to watch, helpless, as they drilled one steel pin after another into the shattered bones. My heart felt like it had turned to ash. Three days later, Aaron posted on his social media. It was a picture of him and Chelsea, locked in a passionate embrace. He was wearing the suit I had designed for him. The matching woman’s suit, tailored to my exact measurements, hung loosely on Chelsea’s frame, making her look like a sad, clumsy clown. Less than two minutes after he posted it, my phone rang. “Have you calmed down?” “It’s Chelsea’s birthday today. She wants to bury the hatchet. Don’t forget to get her a nice gift.” Aaron’s voice was casual, as if nothing had happened. Only the constant, throbbing pain in my hand was there to remind me. “Okay.” A nice gift… For five years, I hadn’t taken a single penny from my family. The hundred thousand dollars I had saved up, I had spent on gold to make Aaron happy. Now, after one surgery, my bank account had a balance of twenty-five cents. Chelsea wanted a nice gift? Ha. I wondered if bankrupting her would count. I made my arrangements. Right on time, I arrived at the party. Aaron stood at the door, his arm around Chelsea’s waist, looking for all the world like a newlywed couple. When they saw me, they intertwined their fingers. “Sophia, you came empty-handed?!” Aaron’s face darkened. “I should have known you had no class. Look at what you’re wearing. Rags. And all those bandages… you’re disgusting.” “You’re just here to ruin my night, aren’t you?” Chelsea couldn’t hide the glee in her eyes. She shook her head, forcing a placid expression. “It’s fine, Aaron. It’s enough that she came.” “Besides,” she added, a sly smile playing on her lips. “As long as you’re here, that’s the only gift I need.” “Although… I do have a surprise for you…” As she said the word “surprise,” she touched her stomach. Just that one gesture, and my breath caught in my throat. I clutched my phone tighter. In all our years together, Aaron had never crossed that line. Even in our most passionate moments, when I was wrapped around him, he would always pull away and take a cold shower. He said his first time was important, that he would never give it to a “gold-digger” like me. The other people at the party, all our colleagues, started to hoot and cheer. That’s when I noticed them. Aaron’s parents. And his younger brother. “Aaron,” Chelsea said, her voice soft and full of emotion. “Even though it’s my birthday, none of it would mean anything if you weren’t here.” “I know you don’t believe in marriage, but I worry about you being alone when you’re old. So… I selfishly decided to keep a part of you for myself.” She looked up at him, her eyes shining with sincerity. “The baby is two months along. It’s a girl. She’s beautiful, and she looks just like you.” Two months… My world tilted on its axis. My head felt like it was about to explode. My mother died when I was young. I was raised by my aunt. Two months ago, my aunt passed away. And Aaron had been by my side, seemingly inseparable. He was with me during the day, and with Chelsea at night. And I, like a fool, thought I had finally won his heart. It was just guilt. A pathetic attempt to atone for his sins. Aaron’s parents started clapping, leading the cheers. I could hear people whispering. Aaron was known for his ruthless, zero-tolerance policy on office romances. The last person who tried to hide a relationship was sued into bankruptcy and ended up in jail. But he just patted Chelsea’s back reassuringly and said, his voice calm and steady, “In that case, I’ll have to fire Sophia.” “After all, she’s the one who seduced me in the first place, shamelessly clinging to me and calling herself my girlfriend.” “A woman like that is a disgrace to this company.” Instantly, all eyes were on me. I could feel the weight of their judgmental stares, the invisible green hat of the cuckold settling firmly on my head. “Are you finished?” To everyone’s surprise, I just smiled. “Then it’s my turn to present my gift.” I clapped my hands twice, and suddenly, the room was filled with police officers. The one in charge stepped forward and addressed me with a respectful bow. “Ms. Sonny.” Aaron doubled over with laughter. “Sophia, are you on something? Where did you find all these actors? On your salary, you must have bankrupted yourself to hire this many.” “‘Ms. Sonny’?” he spat. “Give me a break!” His saliva hit my face. The older police officer, a man in his fifties, turned pale and rushed to get me a tissue. “Sophia, why do you always have to pretend to be something you’re not?” Chelsea sneered, stepping to the side. “Can’t we women be a little more gracious? I would give up my entire life for Aaron. And you? You’re just a bitch in heat.” Aaron’s younger brother, seeing the chaos, started running around, kicking over decorations and making a mess of the party. His parents, who had him late in life, doted on him, spoiling him rotten. Out of love for Aaron, I had always tolerated the little monster. I let him ride on my back like a horse, circling the living room ten times, all in the hopes of earning a sliver of Aaron’s affection. “Nathan! Get down from there!” Aaron’s lips thinned, a storm brewing in his eyes. He strode forward and raised his hand to slap his brother. So he could get angry! He did know his brother was a little demon. He did know how to protect others. He just never, ever stood on my side. But before the slap could land, his father grabbed his arm, and his mother kicked him hard in the shin. “That’s enough! What are you doing?” “You… what’s-her-name,” his father barked at me. “Come over here and apologize! Such a disrespectful thing.” “You’re just a gold-digger from the countryside, trying to climb the social ladder on our family’s coattails. You should be grateful we even let you in the door!” Five years. For five whole years, they couldn’t even be bothered to remember my name. “Wait, I don’t think this is an act,” someone whispered from the crowd. “That old guy in the front, he’s on the news all the time. I recognize him.” “It can’t be… I thought Sophia was from the country.” “Who knows? Maybe she’s some secret billionaire. Let’s just watch the show.” The room fell silent.

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At the Film Guild Awards, my girlfriend, the newly crowned Actress of the Year, announced her engagement. My heart hammering against my ribs, I started towards the stage, but she held up a hand, stopping me cold. “Could you please step aside? You’re blocking the shot of my fiancé.” I froze. In that moment of stunned silence, another actor, Aidan, slid past me, effortlessly taking my place at her side. Seven years. Seven years of devotion, of being the man in the shadows. I was done being invisible. As I watched them kiss for the cameras, a storm of applause erupting around them, I turned and walked out of the auditorium without a word. I went home, packed a bag, and sent her one last text. “Wishing you both a lifetime of happiness.” 1 It was two in the morning when Isla finally drifted through the door. She saw me packing and, without a word, picked up the glass of honey water I’d left on the table, downing it in one go. “Richard, what was that text supposed to mean? My engagement to Aidan is just a publicity stunt, the studio set it all up. He’s been drowning in scandals lately, and if we don’t clean up his image, it’s going to kill the box office for our new movie.” She sighed, a picture of weary frustration. “It’s all an act for the fans. You can’t seriously believe it, can you? God, can you just make my life a little easier for once?” As her former manager, I knew all about the dirty games of the entertainment industry. Of course I knew. Tonight was supposed to be the biggest night of her life. She’d won Best Actress for a blockbuster drama that had taken the world by storm. It was also our seventh anniversary. She had promised me. She promised that tonight, she would finally tell the world about us. That after seven long years of being the secret boyfriend, the “personal assistant,” I would finally get to stand by her side. Toward the end of the ceremony, she did it. Standing before a sea of reporters, Isla finally revealed the secret she’d kept for so long—that she was in a long-term relationship. The room exploded. I was the only one silent, my palms sweating with a nervous excitement. “All these years,” she began, her voice thick with emotion, tears welling in her eyes, “my boyfriend has been my silent rock. Without his support, his sacrifice… I wouldn’t be the woman I am today.” Clutching the bouquet of flowers I had prepared, I walked towards the stage, my whole body trembling. But when Isla took the flowers from me, she pushed me aside with a flash of impatience. “Richard, what are you still doing here?” Her voice was a sharp whisper. “Could you please step aside? You’re blocking the shot of my fiancé.” In a daze, I stumbled back. I watched as Aidan moved in, wrapping his arm around her waist, their fingers lacing together. He shot me a triumphant smirk as he deliberately shouldered me off the stage. Then, for the world to see, they shared a deep, passionate kiss. Seeing that, a switch flipped inside me. I turned and left. Seven years of waiting, all for a beautiful, hollow dream. And now, I was done waiting. As I zipped my suitcase shut, the displeasure on Isla’s face finally softened. She wrapped her arms around me from behind, her voice a husky, tired whisper. “Richard, I know you’re upset. But my hands are tied, you know that.” “I’ve already cleared my schedule for next week. You said you wanted to go to the Maldives, right? I bought the tickets. It’ll be just the two of us…” This was her way. A grand gesture to smooth over a deep wound. She’d done it a hundred times before. I gently broke free from her embrace, reached into my pocket, and pulled out a small, velvet box. I opened it and pressed the simple, elegant engagement ring into her palm. “If you’re getting engaged,” I said, my voice flat, “you’re going to need this, aren’t you?” 2 Isla just stood there, staring at the ring in her hand, speechless. She watched me pick up my suitcase and walk out the door. She didn’t say a word to stop me. I hailed a cab and gave the driver the address to my small house tucked away in the hills. Isla had bought it on a whim after her first massive paycheck, saying it would be our future home. The deed was in my name. When we first graduated, Isla had no connections, no resources. She was just another struggling actress, taking bit parts and barely making rent. There were times when the two of us lived in a tiny, cramped apartment, and the best meal we could afford was instant ramen and stale bread. I did everything I could to get her a break. I hustled, I networked, I drank myself into a stomach ulcer schmoozing with producers and directors, all just to land her a supporting role with more than five lines. And she shone. Slowly, she started to gain a following. A low-budget web series she starred in went viral, and she won Best Newcomer. From a nameless face in the background, she skyrocketed into an A-list star with an eight-figure salary. I saw every struggle, every tear. A few years ago, a massively popular fantasy novel was being adapted into a series. The director wanted Isla for the lead. But she made a demand: the male lead had to be played by Aidan. A role that seasoned actors would have killed for was handed to a complete unknown. At the time, I thought she was just being kind, seeing a kindred spirit in another kid who came from nothing. Until the wrap party. I was outside the dressing room when I overheard them talking. “So, Isla,” Aidan’s voice was teasing. “You got a secret boyfriend tucked away somewhere? I’ve never seen you do one of those fake ‘showmance’ PR things with a co-star. Is someone at home getting jealous?” “Where did you hear that I was seeing someone?” Isla’s laugh was light, dismissive. “I just don’t need that kind of publicity.” She denied my existence. A familiar pang of hurt shot through me, but I told myself it was for the best. She had always said she didn’t want to go public too early, that it would disrupt my life. “Oh?” Aidan pressed, his tone feigning confusion. “So that guy who’s always on set, bringing you tea and water… he’s not your boyfriend?” “You mean Richard? He’s just my assistant. He’s been with me for a while,” she said. “Me, date a civilian? Please. If I were going to date someone, it would have to be someone like you…” That’s when I felt the rage. White-hot and blinding. I was about to storm in and demand an explanation. 3 But I didn’t. My hand was on the knob, but I pulled it back. I was a coward. I was afraid that if I confronted her, if I blew everything up, she would just let it all burn. And I would be left with nothing. She was an idol, worshipped by millions. And me? I was just her nameless assistant, her ghost of a manager. What right did I have to question her? Ding! The buzz of a text message jolted me from a half-sleep. I glanced down. It was just a notification from my phone carrier about an overdue bill. Sprawled on the dusty couch of the empty house, my eyes were dry and sore. There were no tears left to cry. I remembered I’d left some important documents and personal items back at her place. The next morning, I went back. The moment I walked in, I was hit by the smell of freshly cooked food. “You’re back,” Isla said with a soft smile, as if nothing had happened. “Go wash your hands. We were just waiting for you.” I looked at the spread of hot dishes on the table, and for a moment, my resolve wavered. I was about to sit down, to try and have a calm, rational conversation about us ending things. But then my eyes caught a figure slouched on the corner of the sofa. Aidan. His shirt was unbuttoned, and a faint, red mark was visible on his neck. A hickey. He saw me and didn’t even flinch. He just stood up slowly, a look of utter disdain on his face, and deliberately bumped my shoulder as he passed. He tossed a set of car keys at me. “The building management called. Your car’s blocking someone. You’re here now, so go move it.” He clearly had no idea who I was to her. He really thought I was just some servant he could order around. “Well? What are you waiting for?” I looked at Isla, my face a blank mask. She said nothing. She just gave me a look, a silent command in her eyes, telling me to do as Aidan said. After a long moment, I let the keys drop to the floor. “Get your own gopher to run your errands,” I said to Aidan, my voice cold. “I have no obligation to serve you.” The atmosphere in the room instantly turned to ice. Aidan’s face darkened. He clearly didn’t want to cause a scene in front of Isla, so he just let out a long, put-upon sigh. “Oh, right. I forgot you’re Isla’s assistant. My bad, I was out of line. Sorry about that.” Before I could respond, Isla’s voice cut through the air like a whip. “Aidan is my fiancé. His business is my business. What’s your problem?” 4 In that instant, my patience, stretched thin over seven long years, finally snapped. I bent down, picked up the keys, and walked to the door. Isla rushed after me, whispering urgently in my ear. “He’s just a kid, he doesn’t know how to watch his mouth. Don’t stoop to his level.” “The press is coming by later for a photoshoot,” she added quickly. “We’re just getting into character. Don’t get the wrong idea.” I turned and looked at her, studying the subtle twitches of her perfectly composed face. But it was no use. Isla was a professional actress. Even when she was lying through her teeth, I couldn’t tell. As if on cue, Aidan, emboldened by his small victory, decided to twist the knife. He let out a low, mocking laugh. “Wow. I guess assistants these days pick and choose who they work for. Are we paying for help, or are we supposed to be worshipping them?” He sighed dramatically. “Since you’re so unwilling, I guess I’ll just go myself.” That single sentence ripped open a fresh wound. Six months ago, after their fantasy drama became a massive hit, the cast and crew had a celebration at a five-star restaurant. I was at home, burning up with a 102-degree fever. Then I got a text from Isla: Get here in twenty minutes. It’s important. I thought, it’s her victory party. She wants me there to share her happiness. So I dragged myself out of bed and rushed over. But when I got there, it wasn’t to celebrate. It was because Aidan and a few of the directors had gotten drunk and thrown up all over the private dining room. Isla, the glamorous star, couldn’t handle the mess, so she called me to clean it up. Sick and dizzy, I spent the next hour on my hands and knees, scrubbing vomit off the expensive carpet. Then I had to call cabs, book hotel rooms, and make sure everyone got back safely. I didn’t finish until three in the morning. Isla never said a word of thanks. She just complained that I was “off my game” and that I was working too slowly. For seven years, 365 days a year, I had no time for myself. My phone was on 24/7, always on standby. All for a few thousand dollars a month in spending money. What A-list celebrity’s assistant lived like that? Seeing her still siding with him, I finally understood. Everything became crystal clear. I took a deep breath. “Ms. Vance,” I said, my voice steady. “I’m afraid I can no longer continue as your assistant. I suggest you find someone else.” A flicker of shock crossed her face. Her fists clenched at her sides, and I could see the red veins in her eyes. “Richard, don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t a game. You can’t just quit whenever you feel like it.” Her words made me laugh out loud. A hollow, bitter sound. For all these years, I was just her “assistant.” We never even signed a contract. I didn’t need her permission to leave. “Then sue me,” I said. “If you think it’ll do you any good.” With that, I grabbed my documents, my few remaining belongings, and walked out the door. “Quitting” was just a euphemism. She knew exactly what I really meant.

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