As the holidays approached, a group of “wildlife enthusiasts” sued me. They claimed that keeping animals in captivity was a form of abuse and, in the middle of the night, they “liberated” every animal in my zoo. A scream tore from my throat. That pack of morons will die out there! Later, a video popped up on my feed: a full-grown snow leopard, wailing miserably at a little calf. “Do you know where Mama Keeper is?” The calf trembled, backing away, which only made the snow leopard cry harder. “Mama Keeper, where are you? I’m starving to death.” 1 After graduation, I took over a small zoo. I’d just finished shooting a few promotional videos, hoping to drum up some business for the holiday season, when a court summons arrived. A group of self-proclaimed wildlife enthusiasts was taking me to court, arguing that by keeping wild animals in enclosures, I was suppressing their natural instincts. I was baffled. I run a zoo. If I’m not keeping animals, am I supposed to start keeping people? Thankfully, the judge was a reasonable person. My zoo’s paperwork was all in order, and the plaintiffs quickly lost their case. When I got back, I threw a small celebration. Leo, my snow leopard, circled my legs excitedly. “Mama, Mama, you’re the best! You didn’t let them take me away!” I buried my face in his thick fur. “Don’t you worry, I’ll always protect you. But seriously, I’m not your mom. I’m a single human woman. I couldn’t possibly give birth to a snow leopard your size.” “I don’t care. You were the first person I saw when I opened my eyes. You have to be my mom.” It was impossible to reason with a leopard cub who’d never known his own mother. And since I’ve been able to understand animals since I was a child, Leo was thoroughly convinced. Fine. He was a pathetic, fluffy orphan, so I let it slide. That night, after my rounds—tucking in the black bear who hated the cold, cuddling the clingy snow leopard, and consoling a Pallas’s cat nursing a broken heart—I finally collapsed into my own cozy bed. I woke up to armageddon. Where was my giant black bear? Gone! Kevin, who was supposed to be on night watch, was crying so hard his nose was running. “Some monsters… I only dozed off for a minute… They climbed the wall and opened all the cages!” The zoo was now a chaotic free-for-all, with animals wandering everywhere. The moment I stepped outside my door, Grandpa Sheldon, the seventy-year-old, six-hundred-pound Aldabra tortoise, lumbered past with a red panda clinging to his shell. “Little Keeper, this one’s a real handful. My ears are ringing.” I quickly scooped the red panda off his back and handed him to a keeper. “I’m so sorry, Grandpa Sheldon. I’ll get you right back to your enclosure.” The tortoise took a slow, deliberate step. “No need. It’s been ages since I had a good stroll. I think I’ll go see if that alligator who bit me is dead yet.” My eye twitched. “That was almost twenty years ago. You’re still holding a grudge?” I stepped aside just in time to lunge, grabbing a pelican that was trying to swallow a capybara whole. “How many times have I told you? You can’t eat your coworkers!” He refused to let go. “You only live once. A little taste of a coworker can’t hurt.” After rescuing the placid capybara, two white-faced sakis swung past overhead. “Good morning, Keeper! Another day, another joy!” Two freshly-made turds dropped from above, landing squarely on the head of a charging lion. “Catch us if you can, silly kitty!” The enraged lion roared, charging blindly. “You stinking monkeys! I’m going to eat you!” Grandpa Sheldon couldn’t dodge in time and was knocked onto his back, his legs flailing. He let out a weary sigh. “Oh, my old back. These young’uns have no respect these days.” It took the entire day to wrangle the frolicking animals back into their homes. Just as we thought it was over, Kevin screamed again. “The black bear, the snow leopard, and the Pallas’s cat are gone!” We pulled up last night’s security footage and saw her: Diane, the lead “wildlife enthusiast” from the lawsuit. She and a few others were sneaking up to Leo’s enclosure. Leo’s eyes shot open. He covered his head with his paws in terror. “Someone’s here to eat the leopard! Mama, help me!” 2 Diane cooed softly, “Don’t be afraid. Soon, you’ll be free.” A tranquilizer dart hissed through the air, embedding itself in Leo’s fluffy backside. They loaded him onto a waiting truck. Leo let out a pained cry. “Mama, tonight, I sail on my final voyage.” A mournful wail escaped my lips. “Leo! My sweet baby Leo, whom I raised from a bottle!” Kevin sent me the other videos. The black bear was sleeping so soundly that the tranquilizer dart didn’t even wake her. She just rolled over and kept snoring. The group had also tried to nab a giant panda, but our pandas have a habit of digging their own sleeping burrows, so the thieves came up empty-handed. The Pallas’s cat, Pip, had boarded the truck willingly. He’d been suffering from insomnia ever since his latest breakup and probably tagged along out of concern for his friends. I called the police immediately. The security cameras had caught the license plate. The police found Diane quickly. She showed no remorse. “It’s a bear’s nature to hunt. By caging them, you’re suppressing their instincts. And officer, look at what she feeds that snow leopard every day. There’s no nutritional balance. If that’s not abuse, what is?” She held up a video of a keeper feeding Leo, her voice ringing with conviction. I glanced at the video, confused. It was all fresh, high-quality meat. What was the problem? Diane’s voice rose with indignation. “You feed yourself fruits and vegetables, so why don’t you give any to the snow leopard? It’s obvious you’re just fattening him up to make a profit!” If Leo had heard that, he would have clawed her face off. He was a carnivore. “Besides,” she added smugly, “releasing animals is a good deed. I’m helping you atone for your sins.” I resisted the urge to slap her and turned to the reporters who had arrived. “The animals she stole have all been evaluated for release in the past,” I explained. “We only kept them in the zoo after determining they couldn’t survive in the wild.” Diane sneered. “They’re predators. Of course they can survive. They need to be free. Keeping them in a zoo will give them depression.” I shoved my phone in her face, playing the video that was now trending number one. In it, a grown snow leopard was wailing miserably at a little calf. He tried to pounce, but the calf kicked him twice, sending him tumbling. “Do you know where my Mama is? I’m so hungry. I miss my Mama.” Hearing his voice, tears of heartache streamed down my face. My poor Leo had never suffered a day in his life. He was so spoiled, his keepers had to cut his meat into tiny, bite-sized pieces. Chloe, a young reporter, handed me a tissue. “Don’t worry, Zoo Director. We just got a tip. The video was shot on nearby Mount Sterling.” I dried my tears, notified the Animal Protection Bureau, and rushed to the mountain. Following a tip from a local herdsman, we spent three grueling hours climbing to a midway point on the slope. Chloe had started a live stream of the rescue operation. Thanks to the viral video, her stream was flooded with viewers. 【That snow leopard really isn’t cut out for the wild. It’s being bullied by a calf!】 【What on earth does the keeper feed it? It’s so chubby.】 【So cute! Where is this zoo? I want to visit.】 An idea sparked. I jumped into the frame. “Our Crestview Zoo has been open for over forty years! We have all sorts of predators and cute critters you can see up close. And if you follow my account, tickets are only $9.99!” 【Is the director running a charity?】 【That’s so cheap! I have to go!】 In an instant, we sold over two thousand advance tickets. Chloe gave an awkward laugh and whispered, “Director, we haven’t even run our own ads yet.” I flushed, rubbing my nose. “Sorry, you go ahead.” Ever since I’d taken over the zoo, it had been a money pit. This was my first real chance to turn things around, and I got a little carried up. We soon reached the location from the video. The grass was trampled, covered in the hoofprints of cattle and the paw prints of a snow leopard. I raised a megaphone. “Leo! Leo, where are you? Mama’s here!” I shouted until my voice was hoarse, but there was no response. Then, one of the officers from the bureau called out. They had found snow leopard fur near a steep, rocky cliff. Their initial assessment was that he had fallen. 3 My heart plummeted into an abyss. I collapsed at the edge of the cliff, sobbing. “My poor Leo! An orphan since birth, never even had a girlfriend! Please come back! Mama won’t stop you from visiting Penelope next door anymore! You can have all the ice cream you want!” As I was crying my eyes out, a small calf peeked out from behind a tree. “Are you really Leo’s mom? Can you give me the secret password?” Without thinking, I replied, “Open Sesame.” The next moment, an agile snow leopard leaped out and pounced on me. “Mama, Mama, Mama! I knew it was you! I knew you’d come save me!” He tried to shove his entire head into my arms, his big, rough tongue licking away my tears. “Mama, Mama, Mama! Can I really go play with Penelope? And I want ten ice creams!” I grabbed his tongue. “Why didn’t you answer when I called?” Leo puffed out his chest proudly. “You always taught me, Mama. Never answer when a stranger calls your name, and never go with a stranger. You have to get the password right.” I was so exasperated I could have throttled him. I pounded on his back a few times. The little calf trotted over and kicked Leo with its hoof. “You said your mom was super tall and strong, and could take out my mom with one punch.” I silently handed the calf two beef jerky sticks and shooed it down the mountain to find its mother. The calf’s eyes lit up. “What is this? It’s delicious!” Leo started meowing with envy. “Mama, I want some too! A big piece!” The live stream chat was going wild. 【What an adorable snow leopard! He’s so cuddly.】 【Feeding beef jerky to a calf? The director is one of a kind.】 【Finally found one! That was tough. Now just the black bear left, that’s the dangerous one.】 Chloe stared at Leo’s sleek, glossy coat, her eyes full of envy. With my permission, she started petting him with both hands. Leo looked utterly resigned. “Mama, can I suddenly turn and scare her?” Just then, a breathless officer from the Animal Protection Bureau ran up, asking about the size of the missing black bear. When he learned that the bear, Honey, was seven feet tall, weighed eight hundred pounds, and was currently in heat, his face grew grave. “We found scraps of clothing and bear tracks nearby.” “We suspect,” he said grimly, “that this bear has killed someone.” I quickly waved my hands. Honey had been raised by a young female keeper since she was a cub. She was so gentle, you could hit her three times and she wouldn’t even make a peep. Even in heat, she wouldn’t attack a person without provocation. The officer held up a plaster cast of a paw print. “Are you sure the bear from your zoo weighs eight hundred pounds?” “Of course,” I said. “Honey just had a check-up a few days ago.” “Well,” he said, “the tracks we’re measuring suggest a bear weighing at least twelve hundred pounds.” 4 Leo’s fur instantly stood on end. He pressed himself against my leg, trembling. “Mama, I told you Honey would eat people! It has to be her! She’s always so mean! She’s not going to eat me, is she? Mama, save me!” I couldn’t take it anymore. I gave Leo a firm slap on the snout. “She was ‘mean’ to you because you were constipated and your poop smelled so bad you nearly made her pass out. And for your information, Honey couldn’t eat four hundred pounds of anything in one sitting.” But Leo’s simple brain wasn’t processing. He tugged at my clothes, wailing. “Honey must have eaten several people! It’s over! We’re all going to die today! And I haven’t even had a date with Penelope!” I clamped my hand over his mouth and looked at the officer. “We can’t be sure if there are any casualties yet,” the officer said. “We haven’t received any reports of missing people from the nearby villages. But one thing is certain: Honey isn’t the only black bear on this mountain.” Facing one zoo-raised black bear was one thing. Adding a much larger wild one to the mix escalated the danger exponentially. Especially since Honey had grown up in captivity, the bureau’s team had only brought tranquilizer guns. The atmosphere grew tense. The number of viewers on the live stream skyrocketed. 【Black bears really eat people!】 【I’m an expert: if you see a black bear, don’t run. Lie on the ground and play dead. That way you can die with some dignity.】 【This is no time for jokes. I saw a post saying two kids from the village went missing. I think they came up this mountain.】 My heart sank when I saw that comment. An adult would know to stay away from a bear, but a child? A curious kid might not recognize the danger. Seeing a gentle bear like Honey, they might even try to play with her. And out of instinct, Honey might attack to defend herself. Just then, an officer’s phone rang. It was confirmed: two children had wandered into the mountains. On the other end of the line, their parents were crying hysterically. The bureau team, which had been hesitating, made a decision. They were going up. “We’ve requested firearms from headquarters, but lives are at stake. Two children on this mountain is too dangerous. We’re continuing the search.” He then turned to me. “Director, for safety, we’ll need you to come with us.” I nodded. At the very least, I could try to control Honey if we found her. With a plan in place, our group assembled and followed the bear tracks deeper into the mountain.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393181”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

After scoring what I thought was an easy job at a zoo, I was in for a rude awakening. Turns out, the entire park was home to just me and two scruffy, bald-headed monkeys. And apparently, they could talk. Or at least, the app on my phone let me hear their thoughts. Bella, the female, was already sizing me up: [Is this human the new keeper? Ugh, another female. You are NOT allowed to like her, Beau!] Beau, the male, shot back: [Give me a break. I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t harass me.] My jaw hit the floor. These two weren’t just narcissists—they had their own relationship drama? And just then, my phone buzzed with a notification from the app: [A large shipment of animals in need of rescue is en route to the zoo. Please prepare for their arrival!] 1. After shotgunning my resume to over a thousand companies, I landed a job at a zoo. The reason? I’d listed “animal lover” under my hobbies. And just like that, I was in. I stared at the offer in my inbox, counting the zeros in the salary again. Ten thousand a month. A single, triumphant tear rolled down my cheek. The director, who I only ever communicated with online, told me to report directly to the zoo and download a special app beforehand. “The gate will scan your face for entry. Just clock in and out,” he’d texted. “Food and housing are covered. Your salary will be deposited on time every month, with performance bonuses.” “Your duties will be posted on the app. Keep an eye on it.” “Good luck.” I stood before the desolate-looking zoo, a flicker of doubt in my mind, and opened the app. My first task popped up: [Clean up the monkey enclosure.] With a sigh that could wither flowers, I went to find the monkey area. It was easy enough to find, given the park’s sparse population. As I got closer, I saw the app’s chat interface light up with their thoughts again. I typed back: [You know I can hear you, right?] In an instant, both their faces flushed bright red. They scrambled further into their rusty cage, only their wide, round eyes visible as they watched me. The app pinged again. A large convoy of animals was on its way. My next task: clean up the rest of the rundown zoo. 2. I had just finished scrubbing down the last of the enclosures when the monkeys, still huddled together, finally broke their silence. I pulled out my phone to see what they were thinking. Bella: [I’m not falling for it. Humans always want to meddle in our lives. They’ll probably make our kids do tricks for pocket change. Why would she be any different?] I raised an eyebrow. What had these two been through? Before I could ask, a truck horn blared from the main gate. I hurried over to open it. The driver, a burly man with a weathered face, hopped out and slapped the side of his truck. “Hey, miss. This package is a big one. You sure you can handle it?” “So, it’s a…” “An African lion,” he finished, a grim look on his face. He and his partner helped me move the crate to the lion enclosure before beating a hasty retreat. The moment they were gone, a new chat bubble popped up in the app. The lion, Leo: [Heh. Stupid human.] [Your time’s up, chump.] A shiver ran down my spine. This lion had a New Yorker’s attitude. He was glaring at me with bloodshot eyes. Though he was painfully thin, his fur matted and filthy, the raw power in his gaze was unmistakable. I was frozen to the spot, too terrified to move. Suddenly, Leo lunged, his sharp claws scraping against the bars of the cage as he let out a deafening roar. [Scared ya, didn’t I? Ha!] [Look at you, all soft and pink. Bet you taste better than the last keeper!] Did I read that right? The last keeper… tasted good? I whipped out my phone and frantically typed a resignation letter to the director. A second later, it was rejected. The director: [Stick it out for three more days. I’ll give you a thirty-thousand-dollar bonus.] Gritting my teeth, I turned and marched toward the small staff kitchen. 3. The moment I stepped out holding a meat cleaver, Leo’s roars shook the very ground. His front paws slammed against the bars, his eyes a furious, bloody red. He thought I was going to hurt him. My hands trembled, but I took a deep breath, pulled two large chunks of meat from a bucket, and began hacking them into smaller pieces right in front of him. Then, I placed them in his food bowl. Leo fell silent, stunned. [Stupid human. Trying to trick me with the same old slop?] I typed quickly: [Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.] I had a feeling this lion had spent some time down south, too. Next, I added a nutrient supplement to his water trough. Leo was skeletal, his skin showing through his sparse fur, crisscrossed with dozens of scars. One of his hind legs was broken, forcing him into a limp, but he still carried himself with the fearsome grace of a predator. I didn’t know how he’d gotten hurt, and I was too afraid to ask. Leo exploded again. [You’re putting stimulants in my food! You think that’ll make me jump through your stupid fire hoops for an extra hour? You little weasel, don’t even think about it!] His roar was so loud my eardrums throbbed. He even knew insults from back east. I held up my hands in a calming gesture, then drank a few drops of the nutrient liquid myself to prove it was safe. I’d checked the ingredients; it was harmless. A couple of drops wouldn’t hurt me. Leo froze. He gripped the bars of his cage, staring at me with a bewildered expression. [Hey, pipsqueak. You’re not… you’re not trying to make me perform?] I typed: [I just want to make sure you’re getting enough to eat. (And please don’t eat me.)] He eyed the food suspiciously, nudging it with his paw and sniffing it a few times. Finally, he took a hesitant bite. His eyes widened slightly. He then devoured the rest of the meat in a ravenous frenzy. After drinking his water, he looked up at me. The fury in his eyes had softened into confusion. [You actually fed me. A full meal. What’s the catch?] [You waiting for me to be full so you can beat me up? You snake!] I was at a loss with this multilingual, trash-talking lion. Words were useless. I had to show him I meant no harm. So, I brought out a portable speaker, set it to a low volume, and played some soft music—a soundscape of the savanna. The gentle thrum of a deer herd’s hooves, the quiet rustle of a meerkat nibbling on roots, the low gurgle of a giraffe drinking from a waterhole, the distant call of birds flying against a setting sun… Leo seemed to drift away, lost in memories of his home. He lay down, his body relaxing, listening intently as the tension slowly drained from him. Bella, the monkey, chimed in: [Okay, maybe this human isn’t so bad.] Beau was skeptical: [She’s only being nice because Leo could rip her to shreds. What about us? She plays music for the lion, but not for us. Classic favoritism!] Bella: [You’re right! But I don’t want music. I want to watch Crown of Thorns*.]* I got the hint. I found an old tablet in the storage room. Miraculously, it still had a streaming subscription. The moment the familiar, dramatic opening music began, Bella and Beau leaped from their cage and sat transfixed, their eyes glued to the screen for that famous, tense paternity test scene. I shot a quick message to the director: [Thank God you’re a VIP subscriber.] He didn’t reply, but a moment later, thirty thousand dollars appeared in my bank account. Just then, the app buzzed with a new logistics update: [A large animal is scheduled for delivery…] I grabbed my small shovel, cleaning supplies, and disinfectant, and got to work preparing another enclosure. An hour later, a peacock, as white and pristine as fresh snow, was delivered to the aviary. I had never seen such a magnificent creature. Compared to the scruffy monkeys and the scarred, skeletal lion, I couldn’t imagine what kind of help this elegant, noble bird could possibly need. A new user, Blanche the Peacock, appeared in the chat. [Hmph! And just who do we have here? A wicked, short-lived human, I see.] [From the looks of you, you’re no genius. Figures they’d send me the keeper nobody else wanted.] Was I really getting roasted by a peacock on my first week? I almost had to laugh. This bird was the definition of pride. I tapped open her profile on the app. [Blanche: suffers from deep-seated insecurity and paranoia. Prone to testing her keepers to see if they truly care for her.] [Her previous keeper subjected her to long-term emotional neglect, leading to severe depression. Blanche has attempted to starve herself to death twice. After her failed attempts, her keeper abandoned her…] Suddenly, I understood. It seemed my job wasn’t just about physical care. I was going to need a crash course in animal psychology. As I rubbed my temples, another arrival was announced. This time, it was a small cat, one that had clearly been through hell. 4. She was an American Shorthair, her body ravaged by ringworm and crawling with parasites. The sight of her made me gasp. The app had no information on her because she wasn’t an official rescue; a neighbor had brought her. “I saw you had staff here now, so I wanted to ask,” the kind-faced woman said, clutching a small carrier. “Do you… do you take in strays?” I hesitated, wondering if I needed the director’s approval. Seeing my hesitation, the woman quickly added, “I know I should take her to a vet, but it’s so expensive, and I just don’t have the money right now.” I looked down at the pathetic little cat. Her breathing was shallow, and she couldn’t even cry out in pain because her jaw had been shattered. My heart clenched. Suddenly, the app vibrated with a flurry of messages. Bella: [Keeper, what are you waiting for?!] Beau: [She won’t take the cat. It’s obviously sick and contagious. A selfish, hypocritical human would never take on that kind of responsibility.] Leo: [You take her in, and I’ll consider not eating you. I might even call you ‘sweetheart’ once in a while.~] Blanche: [And what if she does? She’ll just ignore it, let it suffer in silence. Humans are masters of the cold shoulder.] I sighed, put my phone away, and pulled on a pair of gloves. I felt the eyes of every animal in the zoo fixed on me as I gently lifted the cat from her carrier. “Ma’am,” I said to the woman, “I’ll take her. I’ll make sure she gets the care she needs.” The woman’s face broke into a relieved smile. “Oh, thank you! That’s wonderful! The poor thing has been through so much. She used to be in another zoo, but it went bankrupt, and she escaped.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “They just threw her in the monkey cage, and those awful monkeys… they… well, I can’t even say it. No food, no water, and they would… oh, it’s just too horrible to talk about!” Leo shot a hard glance at Bella and Beau. Blanche gave them a cold, sideways glare. Bella and Beau frantically shook their heads. [It wasn’t us!] After the neighbor left, I held the little cat close, speaking to her softly. “Don’t be scared. I’m just going to check your injuries.” “You’re with me now. I’ve got your back. Forget your old owners, your old keepers. It’s time for a fresh start.” “I don’t care what you were called before. From now on… your name is Charm. May all your bad luck vanish and only good things come your way.” The app vibrated. A new user had joined the chat. Charm the Cat: [Hello, everyone. My name is Charm. I’m a year and a half old…] Leo: [OMG, a cutie pie! I’m smitten… So sweet!~] Blanche: [Welcome to the family, little one.] Bella: [I may be a monkey, but I’m a girl monkey. Don’t you be scared of me, sweetie!] Beau: [And I may be a boy monkey, but I’d never hurt you. I swear on my monkey head!] I checked the app’s logistics schedule. The next shipment of animals wasn’t due for a few days. That gave me the perfect window to get Charm to a vet. Grabbing my scooter keys, I waved to my new menagerie. “I’m taking Charm to the doctor! You all be good. I’ll make you meat patties when I get back!” A cacophony of animal calls followed me—the chattering of monkeys, the roar of a lion, and the silent, magnificent unfurling of a peacock’s tail. 5. The vet’s report was a litany of horrors. Charm had been systematically tortured. Her claws had been pulled out with pliers. The pads of her paws were deliberately burned and left to fester. Her lower body showed signs of tearing, and her tail had been broken, allowed to heal, and then broken a second time. I listened to the diagnosis with my fists clenched, my stomach churning. “She’ll need to stay here for at least a week,” the vet said with a heavy sigh. I nodded. “I’ll cover the costs.” Charm was placed in a warm, clean incubator to await treatment. I pressed my hand against the clear pane, saying goodbye. Her breathing was faint, but she managed to lift a bandaged paw and press it against the glass, a single tear rolling from her eye. Charm the Cat: [Mommy, don’t forget to come back for me…] My heart ached with a fierce, protective love. [I will always come back for you,] I messaged back. [We’ll all be waiting for you to come home, healthy and strong.] Leo: [Don’t you worry, little one. Big bro will be waiting for ya! I’ll save all the best treats for you!] Bella: [You can do it, sweetie!] Beau: [Be brave, little girl!] Blanche: [Rest and heal.] After leaving the clinic, I messaged the director, updating him on Charm’s situation. He seemed pleased, telling me he knew he’d hired the right person—a keeper with a real heart. I replied: [Sir, I’m no expert in animal care, I only know the basics. I’d like to request funding for professional training.] He agreed without a moment’s hesitation. [I’ll cover the tuition. I’ll also transfer you the money for Charm’s vet bills.] A second later, fifty thousand dollars landed in my account. The deposit filled me with a surge of confidence and security. I clutched my phone, my mind racing with plans for a better, safer future for all the animals. But then, the director’s tone shifted back to business. [But this is a zoo, after all. We need to be profitable. I need you to put together a presentation detailing your business plan.] The request hit me like a ton of bricks. I stood frozen on the sidewalk, my brain smoking. 6. That evening, after feeding all the animals, I sat staring at my laptop. On the screen, a single line of black text mocked me: [Zoo Business Plan…] I wracked my brain, scouring the internet for information, compiling data on successful zoo models, and eventually creating a detailed presentation. I saved the draft and went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. My mind was flooded with images of animal abuse I’d stumbled upon during my research. The sheer volume of human cruelty I’d absorbed left me feeling physically ill. Unable to rest, I opened the app and began reading through my animals’ profiles again. Bella and Beau had been trained by a “monkey master” for street performances. The sight of a gong, a rope, or a whip still sent them into a panic. They had performed for their owner for three years. During that time, the owner’s wife had subjected Beau to horrifying abuse, right in front of Bella. The trauma left Bella with severe psychological scars, and Beau had suffered a complete mental breakdown. Their owner, indifferent to their suffering, only saw their performance slipping. He beat them more viciously, even forcing their own baby to perform. Eventually, someone reported him. When street performances were banned, he simply abandoned Bella and Beau. Their baby, tragically, was beaten to death by the man in a fit of rage. In the dark, a sliver of moonlight cut through my window. I saw my own shadow on the wall, trembling. I was sobbing. I opened Leo’s file. He had been taken from his parents as a cub and brought to a zoo for training. He was a brave lion, and his keeper had high hopes for him, creating a fire-jumping act. Like all animals, Leo was terrified of fire. But if he refused to jump, he was starved. If he persisted, he was beaten. Once, they broke his ribs. Eventually, he learned to jump. His first major performance was on a sixty-foot-high platform. The ring of fire below looked like the gaping maw of hell, ready to swallow him whole. Behind him, his keeper stood with a whip, his face a cold mask. “You’ve done this a hundred times. You can do it again. Don’t disappoint me, Leo. You know what happens when you disappoint me.” With a defiant roar, Leo leaped. He was still reeling from the terror when the roar of the crowd hit him. He panicked, lost his footing, and plunged sixty feet into the orca tank below. He was critically injured and nearly died. He survived, but he could never perform again. As he lay on a cold, sterile table, his keeper looked down at him with the same chilling indifference. “So, you can’t perform anymore, huh? Useless piece of trash.” In that moment, Leo didn’t feel pain. He felt relief. He had lied about eating his keeper. He just wanted to seem fierce, to build a wall around himself so no one could hurt him again. Because when he was just a cub, torn from his mother and placed in that man’s arms, he had been trusting and obedient. He’d looked up at him with hope. [Master, we’re going to be best friends forever, right? I trust you!] That Leo had been soft, hopeful, and so very foolish. Tears streamed down my face, a flood I couldn’t stop. My heart felt like a hollow, aching cavern. I didn’t sleep a wink. Just as my scheduled email was about to be sent to the director, I recalled the presentation I had made. As the morning sun streamed into my room, I sat down, my eyes shadowed with exhaustion, and wrote a new email. [I’m sorry, Director. My business plan is this: the animals will never perform again.] After hitting send, a profound sense of relief washed over me. I stretched, a genuine smile spreading across my face as I welcomed the sunlight. And then I fell asleep. And missed morning feeding time. And then I slept through lunch. It wasn’t until three in the afternoon that I groggily opened my phone to 99+ unread messages, all from the animals, all “friendly” reminders that I existed. 7. When the animals learned the director wanted the zoo to turn a profit, their fur stood on end. When they learned my plan was to do it without making them perform, it all smoothed back down. Bella: [I have never hated anything more than performing! Thank you for protecting us!] Beau: [I don’t know if the director will go for it, but just knowing you’re on our side… my heart is grateful!] Leo: [You idiot. You’re going to get yourself fired for defying the boss. But… since you’re a cute idiot, I guess I could stomach jumping through a hoop or two. For you.] I typed back immediately: [No. You will never have to jump through a hoop of fire again, Leo.] Leo let out a haughty little snort, fluffed his magnificent mane, and strutted away. [Don’t sweat it, babe. Your boy’s a legend. Skrrt.~] Blanche was busy digging a small hole with her claws, silent. I asked her, [Blanche, what are your thoughts on all this?] [None.] […Then what are you doing?] She lifted her head, her gaze imperious. [Isn’t it obvious? I’m holding a funeral for the fallen petals.] She then proceeded to nudge a fallen hibiscus blossom into the hole. I… had no response to that. Just then, the director’s reply came through. His email read: [Very well. If you don’t want them to perform, then find another way to bring in revenue. If the zoo fails, the only ones who will suffer are the animals.] The only ones who will suffer? What about me, unemployed and broke? I was sitting on the ground, lost in a cloud of gloom, when I saw a little girl and her mother hesitating by the gate. “Come on, honey,” the mother said gently. “It looks like they’re not open yet. We can wait until—” “We’re open!” I shot up like a spring. “Please, come in! Kids under ten and seniors over sixty are free! And we’re having a special promotion today—just $9.99 a ticket!” My grin must have been so desperately eager that the woman felt too awkward to refuse. “Well,” she said, shuffling inside, “I guess we can take a look, since we’re already here.” 8. I ran over to Blanche’s enclosure. [Blanche, my beautiful Blanche, I need your help.] She didn’t even look at me. [And why should I help you? I have no interest in your schemes.] I pleaded with her. [Please, Blanche, I’m begging you! You’re so gorgeous. If you just greet the guests with me, they’ll absolutely adore you!] She shot me a disdainful look. [Hmph. So much for ‘no performing.’ Now you want me to be a show pony for your customers. Your conscience must be a barren wasteland.] [Not a show pony, a hostess!] She turned her back on me. I have one great virtue: I am completely shameless. I laid it on thick. [Blanche, my darling, it would be a crime to hide such beauty from the world! You’re so elegant, so graceful! You’re the Audrey Hepburn of the animal kingdom!] She turned back, her voice softer. [My last owner didn’t think I was beautiful.] Before I could reply, the little girl from the gate walked over, her mouth agape. “Mommy,” she breathed, “she’s so pretty!” Blanche turned her full attention to the little girl, who was looking at her with wide, sincere eyes. “Mommy, I’ve never seen such a beautiful peacock! Is she a peacock fairy?” the girl whispered. “I want to touch her, but she’s so perfect, I’m afraid I might break her.” I crouched down. “That’s right, sweetie. We don’t touch the animals in the zoo, because—” Blanche shot me a look that could curdle milk. Then, with light, deliberate steps, she walked gracefully toward the little girl. With a dignity that was both regal and generous, she slowly fanned her magnificent tail. “WHOA!!!” the little girl gasped, completely mesmerized. “Mommy, she’s so beautiful! I’m going to write about her in my school paper!” Having made her point, Blanche folded her tail, hopped onto a low-hanging branch, and let her stunning feathers drape down, a vision of pure elegance. The little girl’s mother was recording a video on her phone. “Excuse me,” she asked, “is it okay if I post this online?” “Of course!” I beamed. 9. Blanche might have claimed she wouldn’t help me, but her body told a different story. The little girl’s compliments had her puffing out her chest with pride. After I showered her with a few more rainbow-colored praises, she was practically putty in my hands. She emerged from her enclosure and walked beside me, accompanying our guests on their tour of the zoo. Of course, with so few animals, the tour was short. But I knew that seeing Blanche’s display and having her walk with them was more than worth the price of admission. Before they left, the mother asked casually, “So, do the animals do any shows?” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. The animals at our zoo don’t perform.” “They’re free to just be themselves.” I braced myself for a look of disdain, but to my surprise, the little girl looked up and said, “That’s good.” “The nature shows on TV never make the animals do tricks.” “If humans had to perform for animals, we wouldn’t like it either, right, Mommy?” Her mother smiled, stroking her hair. “You’re absolutely right, sweetie. We come to the zoo to see animals in their natural state, to learn about how they live. That’s what’s important.” The little girl cupped her face in her hands, looking completely content. “This is great. I’m definitely going to get a good grade on my paper!” After they left, Blanche quietly returned to her aviary. From that day on, she seemed less prone to her dramatic melancholy and became more active in the group chat. I had asked her to help me greet visitors hoping she would rediscover her own value, to help her forget the painful memories of neglect that had eroded her self-worth. Maybe everyone, human or animal, just needs to feel seen. Two days later, the director suddenly transferred fifty thousand dollars to my account as a bonus.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393174”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I am an ape, just another resident of the zoo. Then one day, a girl told me I used to be human. In front of the gorilla enclosure, a tour guide waved a small red flag. “Welcome, everyone, to the Zenith Zoo’s gorilla habitat.” “If you fail the mission, the consequences will be more than you can bear.” Their mission, it seemed, had something to do with me. 01 The iron bars of the enclosure gleamed under the sickly white moonlight. Three days ago, a group of twenty people had stepped into this place. Now, including the girl clutching her arm before me, her face a mask of pale agony, only five remained. She knelt on the sand not far from me, pain twisting her beautiful features into a grimace. The moonlight starkly illuminated the gash on her right arm, so deep I could see the bone. The edges of the raw, torn flesh were already taking on an ominous, grayish hue. Biting her lip so hard it could have drawn blood, she fumbled in the pocket of her filthy jacket and pulled out a small, plastic-wrapped pastry. With a rough tear, she ripped open the packaging. Then, she did something that sent a primal chill down my spine. She didn’t eat it. Instead, she took the soft, flimsy pastry and ground it into the bloody mess of her arm, smearing it with the thick, dark-red fluid until it was soaked through. Plop. The pastry, now stained beyond recognition, landed at my feet. A few of my fellow apes, drawn by the scent of blood, let out restless growls, their eyes glowing red as they closed in. The girl’s gaze was fixed on me, cold and piercing, filled with a profound disgust and a scrutinizing intensity. A familiar, nauseating temptation washed over my mind. As if moved by some unseen hand, I extended a coarse finger, dabbed the sticky liquid on the pastry, and licked it. Then I snatched the blood-soaked bread and shoved it into my mouth. The coppery tang of blood mingled with the cloying sweetness of cheap flour, an assault on my senses. The moment she saw me swallow, the last flicker of hope in the girl’s eyes died, leaving only a dead, hollow emptiness. A mocking smirk twisted her lips, and she spat on the ground with utter contempt. “Tch.” “A beast is a beast.” “I’d rather die for good than become… that.” Her voice was a hoarse, curse-laden whisper. Ding! A sharp, monotonous bell suddenly shattered the night. Feeding time. The girl’s body jolted, every expression on her face freezing into one of pure, bone-deep terror. She scrambled to her feet, half-crawling, half-stumbling, and threw herself toward the locked gate of the enclosure, dragging her ruined arm with her last ounce of strength. Outside the gate, several figures in bulky, hermetically sealed green hazmat suits appeared, right on schedule. Masks, gloves, goggles—they were covered from head to toe. One of the keepers mechanically set down a bucket of vegetables and unidentified meat scraps while another blasted the ground with a high-pressure hose. Their movements were precise, efficient, and lifeless, like pre-programmed routines, executed without a second’s delay. After they left, a brief, dead silence fell over the enclosure. I leaned against a dead log, chewing on the lingering taste of blood in my mouth. This zoo had pathetically few visitors, just the occasional group of intruders. They never seemed to be here for the animals. But I was just an ape. These were not things I was supposed to think about. As midnight descended, casting a frost-like glow over the sleeping apes, I silently opened my eyes. After confirming that no one was watching, I slipped into the shadows of the rockery, into a cave hidden deep within. 02 In the darkest corner of the cave, I used my fingernails to dig through the soft earth, unearthing a small, rectangular metal box. The moment my fingers touched it, the box lit up with a soft chime. Several messages glowed on the screen: “Blade, what’s the status?” “You taken care of the alpha ape?” “Blade? You there?” “Answer me, man!” The sender’s icon was a snarling wolf, the name listed as “Mo.” I had swiped this box from the pocket of the man they called “Blade” the night he’d snuck in. The screen’s faint light illuminated my own short, coarse-haired fingers. Without hesitation, I moved my thumb, clumsy yet precise, and tapped the cool glass. “Hit a snag.” “Lay low for now. Text me.” Yes, I knew this thing was called a “phone.” And I knew how to use it. After replying, I reburied the phone deep in the earth and crept back to my spot, curling up as if I’d never left. A moment later, moonlight seeped through the crack of the heavy iron gate, along with the furtive faces of the five survivors. They were back. They moved like startled birds, their eyes scanning every dark corner, clearly terrified of the keepers who had just left. “Hmph. Another one bites the dust,” a man in a sharp suit said, his arms crossed. His hair was slicked back, and the glint off his gold-rimmed glasses was as cold as his voice. He was the only one in the group who still looked remotely put-together. A scrawny, rat-faced man standing next to him gave a weak laugh. “Stark, Blade’s still kicking. Just had some urgent business to take care of.” A young woman with a ponytail, looking like a college student, broke the tense silence. “If we want to live, we have to solve the riddle.” A little further away, an old man in a tattered security guard uniform nodded vigorously, like a pecking chicken. “Faye’s right!” The girl who had just fled, her arm still bleeding, hung her head, pressing her wound. She gave a barely perceptible nod in agreement. Stark pushed his glasses up his nose and spoke first. “The sage dreams he’s a butterfly, the butterfly dreams it’s a sage.” “It has to mean something, but we still haven’t cracked it.” “Let’s keep looking.” 03 Shortly after they left, I slowly turned my stiff neck. Their words clung to my mind like a cold spiderweb. The Butterfly Dream? Suddenly, a sharp image stabbed through my thoughts. The gorilla enclosure! The only one! Here! My head snapped around, my gaze locking onto a cluster of hydrangeas at the foot of the rockery. They were artificially planted, but blooming with an unnatural, vibrant intensity. Resting on a large, purple-blue flowerhead was a huge, iridescent swallowtail butterfly, utterly out of place. Its wings shimmered with a demonic, phosphorescent light in the moonlight. Its presence was both impossible and critical. Was this why they kept coming back, why they saw this enclosure as some kind of focal point? I climbed to the highest branch and lay on my back, staring up at the thick, churning clouds that pressed down on the zoo like a physical weight. I don’t know how much time passed before the wind began to howl. The clouds, like a rotting curtain, slowly tore apart. It was a full moon tonight. The enclosure was instantly bathed in a light so bright it was like daytime. Suddenly, without warning, an excruciating pain ripped through my entire body. “Ugh—AAAAAH!” It felt like a million red-hot needles erupting from the marrow of my bones. Every inch of my skin, every muscle, convulsed and tore apart. My soul felt like it had been thrown into a blazing furnace. An agonized scream tore itself from my throat. In my distorted vision, my long, gray-black fur began to curl and peel away, like paper licked by an invisible flame. It fell off in dry flakes, revealing smooth, human skin underneath. My bones cracked and popped, a sound like a string of firecrackers, as an unseen force brutally straightened my crouched limbs. The powerful, hunched form of the ape vanished. In its place was the naked, lean, and powerful body of a young man. As I stared in horror at my own unfamiliar human hands and feet, my mind a complete blank, a keeper in a full white hazmat suit walked up to me. He stood there, perfectly still, betraying no emotion. The eyes behind his goggles were cold, inorganic, devoid of any sign of life. The keeper tossed a neatly folded green hazmat suit at my feet. His voice, filtered through the mask, was the grating sound of rusty gears—flat, monotonous, and utterly without inflection. “No. 2517, you’re on duty tonight.” Without another word, like a robot whose program was complete, he turned and melted back into the thick darkness. Me? 2517? On duty? The aftershocks of the pain still gnawed at my nerves, and the cognitive dissonance of my sudden transformation nearly tore me apart. But the coldness in his eyes and the unquestionable authority in his voice instilled a fear in me that crushed any thought of defiance. 04 After I put on the suit, I tried to ask, “Who are you? How did I become human?” The keeper didn’t respond, as if he hadn’t heard me. He simply walked away, disappearing from the enclosure. The only answer was the wind whistling through the park and a low, distant, unidentifiable gnawing sound. As if pulled by invisible strings, I began to walk on these strange, heavy legs, starting my patrol. The zoo was caught in a kind of silent, deathly carnival. The herbivore enclosures I passed were terrifyingly quiet, their gentle inhabitants nowhere to be seen. I rounded a few more empty pens and finally arrived at the iron gate of the staff dormitory. The sound was coming from here. A thick, almost solid stench of blood, mixed with the metallic reek of torn flesh, hit my mask like a physical blow. Even through the filter, the nauseating smell seeped into my nostrils, triggering my gag reflex. My stomach churned. I pushed open the half-closed iron gate. The hellscape that greeted me seized my heart and made it stop. Viscous, dark-red blood carpeted every inch of the floor and walls, like a cheap, tacky rug. A massive Siberian tiger, its amber eyes reflecting a crimson glow, was tearing at a twitching mass on the floor that was barely recognizable as human tissue. On the fire escape door nearby, long, dark-red streaks of blood mixed with bits of internal organs were smeared across the metal. A few thick, scaly, grayish-brown tails protruded from behind the door. Komodo dragons. They were working in concert, using their powerful claws and serrated teeth to rip apart a corpse. Beyond them, a giant golden eagle perched on a light fixture, its sharp beak pecking at an eyeball hanging from the lampshade. A muscular kangaroo was frantically stomping on a body lying face-up on the ground. A brown bear was wedged in the doorway of a small break room, trying to pull half a human torso through the frame. A pack of gray wolves fought over a severed arm by the conference room door. A tall elk stood silently in a corner, a length of intestine dangling from its massive antlers. Even a colorful macaw was perched on a severed head, its thick beak digging into an eye socket. The air was a horrific symphony of guttural growls, the tearing of muscle and sinew, and the crunching of bone. My legs went weak, and I could barely stand on the slick, bloody floor. A chilling cold shot up my spine and froze my entire body. My mind went blank, filled only with a primal scream for survival. The moment I pushed the door open, the moment the smell hit the air, every single act of tearing and chewing stopped. Every pair of cold, emotionless animal eyes locked onto me. In that suffocating silence, I felt something tug at the cuff of my hazmat suit. Terror turned my muscles to rusty iron. I lowered my head, slowly, stiffly. Less than two feet away, a man—or what was left of him—was lying in a pool of still-congealing blood. His entire lower body was gone. From the torn wound at his waist, the white nubs of his spinal column and purplish-red coils of his intestines soaked in the gore. His remaining upper body twitched. A mangled hand reached up, clutching my pant leg. His face, gray from blood loss, turned an infinitesimal degree toward me. His shattered lips moved, and a gurgling, bubbling sound, like a dying man’s last breath, escaped his throat. His last shred of consciousness focused through his dying pupils, staring at my goggles. “Run…” He choked on the word and went still. Run? My brain issued the command, but my legs were filled with cement. Run where? Behind me was the unknown darkness of the park; before me was a hall of carnivorous beasts. They had stopped feeding, but their pure, primal, investigative stare was more terrifying than a direct attack. Just then, a leopard that had been lying in a pool of blood stirred. It seemed to have lost interest in the frozen tableau. It rose gracefully, stepping over the chunks of gore, and padded down the hall to a row of employee lockers. It pressed its wet nose against the cold metal seam of one. The next second, its eyes flashed with predatory light. A massive paw slammed against the locker door. BOOM! The thin metal door, along with its wooden frame, twisted and exploded like paper. Shards of metal and wood shot out like shrapnel. Behind the shattered door, a figure was curled into a ball.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393166”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I’m a travel vlogger. On that sweltering All Souls’ Eve, the zoo’s “Hungry Ghost Gate” (a rusted Victorian arch) creaked open by itself. The fortune-teller—a defrocked Jesuit who studied Taoism—warned me: “That macaque’s yang lifespan is draining. It is kowtowing to you to borrow your life.” So I knelt like a confessing sinner and headbutted the ground until the cobblestones wept blood. Forty-seven strikes. A Catholic-Asian exorcism. 1 I’m a travel vlogger. On a sweltering All Souls’ Eve, while the rest of the city was shuttered in, I was still live-streaming from the Blackwood Zoo, grinding to leave my competition in the dust. The sun bled across the horizon, painting the empty pathways in shades of orange and blood. I was in the primate house, pointing my front-facing camera at a lone macaque, when I connected with the biggest paranormal streamer on the web. He went by “Master Shanyuan,” a name he’d adopted after his time studying Taoism. Rumor had it he was a defrocked Jesuit, which only added to his mystique. On screen, he was the spitting image of an ancient sage—a young man with long, dark hair tied back in a scholar’s knot, clad in flowing silken robes. He looked the part, and then some. “Master Shanyuan, hey! It’s Chloe,” I said, forcing a cheerful grin. “Tonight, we’re checking out the monkeys.” I panned the camera back to the macaque. Shanyuan’s serene expression tightened. His brow furrowed, his face turning grim. “That’s one of the Old Ones,” he said, his voice a low hum. “A relic from a forgotten time. Long ago, the Monkey King himself stormed the underworld and struck its name from the Ledger of Souls. It lives, but its yang lifespan has run dry.” My chat lit up. 【what is this, a halloween special??】 I glanced back at the monkey. Its fur was sleek, but its back was hunched, its movements ancient and weary. Its eyes, cold and dark, were locked onto me. And then it began to bow. Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound echoed unnervingly in the silent enclosure. It was prostrating itself, its forehead hitting the concrete floor with a sickening rhythm. “It’s kowtowing to you,” Shanyuan said, his voice flat, like a newscaster reporting a tragedy. “Begging to borrow your life.” “One year. Two years.” I spun around, dropped to my knees, and started kowtowing right back at it. “GIVE ME MY YEARS BACK, YOU FURRY LITTLE DEMON! GIVE THEM BACK!” I slammed my forehead into the ground—fast, hard, precise. The ghostly monkey froze mid-kowtow, its jaw slack with astonishment. Shanyuan deadpanned, “I… don’t think that’s how this is supposed to work.” He continued his emotionless countdown. “Negative one year. Negative two years.” The monkey snapped out of its stupor. We stared each other down, a bizarre duel of frantic prostration. But it was old, its movements stiff. It couldn’t keep up with the raw, desperate energy of a vlogger fighting for her life. Smoke seemed to curl from its wrinkled brow as it struggled to match my pace. 【lmao a vlogger and a monkey in a kowtow battle, is this real life??】 【i’m not even paying for this content, i feel like i’m stealing】 “If you haven’t followed yet, now’s the time, people!” I yelled between headbutts, my voice strained. “Hit that button and power up your girl!” I was young, I was fit, and I was terrified. I out-bowed that monkey by a full forty-seven strikes. With one final, wheezing gasp, it collapsed, its borrowed time exhausted. I had reverse-uno’d death itself. Shanyuan’s gaze drifted to the dying sun behind me. “The park is closing. You need to leave before the last light fades.” “The parrots here… only one of them tells the truth.” “And whatever you do,” he added, his voice dropping an octave, “do not make eye contact with the pythons.” He paused, cleared his throat, and his entire demeanor shifted into a slick, commercial drone. “And hey, if you run into any… ‘technical difficulties,’ head on over to the Azure Sky Priory’s online shop. We’ve got talismans, wards, the whole shebang. Group discounts as low as $9.99 a pop, folks.” 2 I scrambled to my feet and started back the way I came. The first enclosure on my route was the Reptile House. A colossal python, thick as a tree trunk, was coiled behind a wall of reinforced glass. I fumbled in my bag, pulled out a pair of oversized sunglasses, and slapped them on. Then I strode past with all the fake bravado I could muster. 【wait, that actually works? XD】 【CHLOE, BEHIND YOU!!】 【OMG OMG OMG WHAT IS THAT THING】 I whipped my head around. There, clinging to the branches of a gnarled oak tree, was the monkey. The one I’d just kowtowed into oblivion. It was back. It scrabbled on all fours, a dark, twitching horror, its body moving in a way that defied nature. A guttural screech tore from its throat. Did it just buy a respawn? Seriously? This thing was more persistent than a pop-up ad. “It just took a quick trip to the Underworld’s antechamber,” Shanyuan explained calmly from my phone. “But its name isn’t in the Ledger of Souls, so they kicked it right back out.” I didn’t need to be told twice. I broke into a dead sprint. “So what’s the play here?!” I gasped, my lungs burning. “My professional advice,” he said, “would be to run faster than it does.” “Are you kidding me?!” The monkey gave chase while I ran for my life, vaulting over benches and dodging possessed popcorn stands. Finally, I leaned against a wall, wheezing. This couldn’t go on. I quickly edited my stream description: 【Travel Vlogger Takes On The Underworld. Zero Experience.】 It was immediately flagged and removed for violating community guidelines. “Son of a…” My fingers flew across the screen, pulling up the Azure Sky Priory’s online shop. The talismans were all sold out. My chat was a flood of comments. 【Ooh, a talisman? Dibs.】 【Home alone and officially creeped out. Adding to cart.】 You guys couldn’t have left one for me?! Shanyuan spoke up. “If you’d like to see this item restocked, smash that ‘like’ button, friends. If we get enough interest, I’ll have my apprentice whip up another batch.” DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I’M DEALING WITH RIGHT NOW?! His apprentice’s head popped into the frame. “For our more… impatient patrons, a generous donation will get you a custom-drawn sigil, live and on the spot.” I didn’t hesitate. I tipped five hundred dollars. Shanyuan lifted his brush, dipped it in what looked like crimson ink, and began to paint. The lines were fluid, ancient. When he was done, he held the finished sigil up to the camera. It seemed to pulse with a faint light. “Show this to the monkey,” he said, a note of pride in his voice. “Ah, a truly perfect specimen.” I cranked my phone’s brightness to max and shoved it in the monkey’s face. It froze, its shrieking dying in its throat. A thin wisp of smoke began to curl from its fur. That was my cue. I ran. 3 The next area was the aviary. A row of parrots perched on a branch, their heads cocked. As I passed, they started talking. “Your favorite ship is queerbait.” “The day before my wedding, I found out my fiancé was sleeping with my maid of honor.” “I am the last heir of the Romanov dynasty. Venmo me $500 for a train ticket to my hidden vault, and I will make you a Duke when I reclaim my throne.” “The McDonald’s ice cream machine is broken. Again.” I ignored them all. Finally, one parrot, its feathers matted with something dark and wet, preened itself and spoke in a chillingly clear voice. “There’s no signal in this park. And the man you’re talking to? He’s not alive.” I wanted to reach out and clamp its beak shut. Way to be a buzzkill, you feathered menace. Shanyuan was my only lifeline in this godforsaken place. I stopped in my tracks and spun to face the bird, my voice ringing with indignation. “You take that back! Don’t you dare try to drive a wedge between us! Everyone in my chat, all my viewers… they’re my family! They’re the only reason I’m still going!” The parrot just stared at me. “…” Then it spat. “Ptooey. Simp.” 【LMAOOOO a parrot trying to stir up drama】 【omg that trust… i’m crying chloe we love you】 【I’ve been a sub for three years, I knew I picked the right streamer!】 【Fake fan alert, she’s only been streaming for two years.】 The warmth in the chat settled my frayed nerves. I turned my back on the squawking parrot and pushed onward. 4 The last vestiges of sunset vanished. The sky was now a deep, starless black. Ghostly lamps flickered to life along the path, their light as pale and weak as foxfire. “The park is officially closed,” Shanyuan announced. “The paths will grow longer from here on out.” His apprentice popped back on screen. “Care for a reading? A little divination to see what the road ahead holds?” I stared at the yawning, black entrance to the Tiger Territory. My heart hammered against my ribs. Gritting my teeth, I sent another five-hundred-dollar tip. Shanyuan produced a turtle shell and a handful of old coins. He shook them, the rattle echoing from my phone’s speaker, and cast them onto a silk cloth. He studied the pattern. “Do not buy anything from the groundskeeper. Your currencies are not compatible.” I switched on my phone’s flashlight, cutting a weak beam into the oppressive darkness. A figure stood silhouetted at the entrance to the tiger enclosure. 【That must be the groundskeeper he mentioned.】 【NOPE. NOPE NOPE NOPE. TURN BACK!】 My legs refused to move. “Demons and ghouls, get thee hence! By bell, book, and candle, I command thee!” I mumbled a panicked, half-remembered exorcism and took two shaky steps forward. The shadow glided toward me. A terrifying, mutual advance. My knees were knocking together so hard I was surprised I was still standing. The figure stopped right in front of me. “Just gonna, uh, pixelate this for you guys at home,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Don’t want to give anyone nightmares.” 【I’m crying, she’s still thinking of us.】 【What a sweetheart.】 I censored the feed and looked up. The groundskeeper’s face was bloodless, a stiff, waxen mask. He offered a smile so wide it looked like it had cracked the corners of his mouth. In one hand, he held a dripping, freshly killed chicken. “Buy a chicken for the tigers? Only twenty bucks,” he rasped. Shanyuan said not to buy anything. But he didn’t say anything about getting it for free. Time to swallow my pride. “I’m a student,” I said, my voice cracking convincingly. “Can you spot me?” The groundskeeper blinked. “?” I leaned into it. “My family’s dirt poor. I’ve got my eighty-year-old grandma and my three-year-old brother to support. Please, sir, just give it to me.” His words came out in a halting, confused stutter. “How… how big is the age gap between your mother and your brother?” Tears started welling in my eyes. “It’s a long story. My mom’s not my real mom, and my brother’s not my real brother…” The floodgates opened. I wept with the force of a Greek tragedy. “Okay, okay! Just take it!” the groundskeeper groaned, shoving the chicken into my hands. He turned and shuffled away, his shoulders slumped in defeat. 【Our girl has at least a decade of scamming experience.】 【LMAO who scams a GHOST?】 【Poor groundskeeper never stood a chance.】 I let out a shaky breath and walked on, clutching my ill-gotten chicken. 5 Three tigers paced in the enclosure, so starved they were little more than striped skeletons. But I only had one chicken. I stood at the entrance, stumped. “Okay, chat,” I said into my phone. “Three tigers, one chicken. Give me your best high-EQ solutions.” The chat exploded with suggestions. 【Whisper in their ear: ‘I’m a high-EQ individual, let me have this one.’】 【Tell them they have spinach in their teeth.】 【Just hang yourself at the gate to assert dominance.】 【Kneel and beg the tigers not to embarrass you.】 After a minute of scrolling, I decided to go with the kindergarten teacher approach. I held the chicken aloft. “Alright, let’s see which of my little tiger-wiger cubs is the goodest boy today!” All three skeletal tigers padded over, their eyes gleaming with a predatory light. “Okay, sit! Stand! Now, shake paws with the tiger next to you. Very good! You were the best listener, so you get the chicken!” I tossed the chicken over the fence. As I dusted off my hands, ready to make a clean getaway, a ferocious roar ripped through the air. 【SHIT, RUN! The other two are coming for you!】 【GO, CHLOE, GO!】 I glanced over my shoulder. The two starving tigers had burst out of the enclosure. They had torn the damn gate off its hinges and were carrying it on their backs, a clanging, terrifying battering ram chasing me down the path. This generation of tigers had zero chill. Absolutely no respect for the rules. Thankfully, they were weak from hunger and couldn’t run very fast. “Hey! You! The one with the chicken!” I yelled back at the enclosure. “A little help here!” The well-fed tiger trotted out and padded up beside me. “Down, boy,” I commanded. It obeyed. I swung myself onto its back. “Alright, buddy. Let’s lose these guys.” 【NO WAY, did that just happen?!】 【She’s a natural-born tiger whisperer.】 【Kindergarten Teacher strat for the win!】 6 I escaped the Tiger Territory, my heart still pounding. The next stop was the Peacock Garden. Shanyuan’s apprentice reappeared. “Another reading, vlogger? Second one’s half price.” “If I only get one, I save two-hundred-and-fifty bucks,” I shot back. “Sorry, no can do,” he said smugly. “This area has two rules.” My chat could see the despair on my face. 【Looks like she has no choice but to pay up.】 I was going to cry. This was the first time I’d ever paid a streamer during a collab. With a heavy heart, I sent another seven hundred and fifty. Shanyuan began the reading. “First rule: do not look at a peacock when its tail is fanned.” “What happens if I do?” I asked, dreading the answer. “…You become part of the display.” He cleared his throat. “Second rule: do not accept a peacock’s mating proposal.” “Huh?” Who in their right mind would do that? 【LMAO do not accept a peacock’s mating proposal】 【Is that a thing? Do people do that?】 I put my sunglasses back on and tried to stroll casually past the enclosure. A man stepped out, blocking my path. He was… stunning. Unnaturally so. Pale, luminous skin, piercing emerald eyes, a face that belonged on a magazine cover. 【Okay who is THIS? Say yes. Just say yes.】 【I take it back. I would accept.】 He flashed a smarmy, practiced smile. “The more I look at you, the more I hate you… for being so damn enchanting.” 【Ew. So greasy.】 【Never mind, the ones who wanted to say yes have gone quiet.】 I stared at him blankly. “…” Oh. So this was the peacock. He leaned a hand against a wall, striking a pose. “The pickup lines might be stolen, but my love for you is real.” I wished I had a bottle of dish soap to degrease him. Instead, I rummaged in my bag, found a packet of oil-blotting sheets, and tossed them at his face. He let out a high-pitched shriek and exploded into a flurry of feathers, transforming back into a giant peacock. “I don’t believe it! No one can resist my charms!” he squawked, and then fanned his tail. It wasn’t just feathers. The intricate patterns were eyes. Not patterns that looked like eyes. Actual, literal eyes. Hundreds of them, each one winking, throwing me a flirtatious, sickening glance. My stomach churned. I whipped out my phone and blasted him with the flashlight. “Hey! Have you no decency?!” he screeched, scrambling away. “You can’t just shine a bright light in a celebrity’s eyes!” 7 I made it out of the Peacock Garden, feeling thoroughly violated. The next area was the Elephant Enclosure. I was exhausted. This was not fun anymore. The apprentice’s voice piped up, sounding bored. “I’m tired of the script. Let’s cut to the chase. Buy two prophecies, get one free.” A pit formed in my stomach. Why were the rules multiplying? 【LMAO the look on her face is priceless】 【Tipping one dollar to help our girl get through this.】 【I’ll match that and raise you another dollar.】 So tired. When I get out of here, I’m becoming a paranormal streamer. The money’s insane. I sent another thousand dollars into the digital ether. Shanyuan began. “One: There is only one zookeeper. Two: Of the two paths out, take the one heading south. Three: I have miscalculated one of my prophecies.” “Excuse me?” My brain felt like it was short-circuiting. 【my head hurts, am i growing a brain?】 【crowdfunding brain cells, i don’t get the rules either.】 “Can I get a refund on the miscalculated prophecy?” I asked. The apprentice sniffed. “All sales are final, ma’am.” “Then I’ll call my credit card company and issue a chargeback.” “These are virtual goods, dear,” he said, his voice dripping with condescension. “Once rendered, they are non-refundable.” I played my last card. “My little brother used my phone. He’s a minor.” 【IS THAT HOW YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO USE THE MINOR REFUND EXCUSE LMAO】 【Fighting fire with fire, I respect it.】 Shanyuan was silent. The apprentice, through gritted teeth, said, “Fine. Refund issued.” A notification popped up on my screen. 【Refund Successful. Product: “I have miscalculated one of my prophecies.”】 Sneaky. So very sneaky. That was the wrong prophecy. The lie was the prophecy itself. I immediately sent the money back. 【I’m returning the freebie instead.】 【Class act. A truly honest streamer.】 With my path clear, I headed south. Halfway there, the zookeeper appeared. A ring of keys hung from his belt, and he carried a bunch of bananas. His skin had a sickly green-blue tint. “This path is under maintenance,” he droned, his voice hollow. “Please head east.” I ignored him and kept walking. Blood began to seep from the corners of his mouth. A low gurgle started in his throat. “WHY WON’T YOU LISTEN TO ME?! WHY!” I stopped, spun on my heel, and walked back, offering a polite bow. “You’re so right, my apologies. I’ll listen to you. Whatever you say.” He looked pleased. Humming a tuneless melody, he continued his patrol, swinging his keys. 【Team Coward gets a major win!】 【That’s not cowardice, that’s high EQ.】 The blood-leaking thing was way too terrifying. I wasn’t about to get murdered on the spot. In the Elephant Enclosure, I saw another zookeeper. This one was feeding an elephant, happily singing. “Oh, Mr. Elephant, Mr. Elephant, why is your trunk so very long?” The tune was oddly familiar. As I passed, he looked up at me, his eyes surprisingly clear. “Hey, miss,” he said. “Do you like green peppers?” I shook my head. “Hate ’em.” His face lit up. “Me too!” 【he looks so familiar… lmao】 【i know exactly who you’re thinking of】 8 We chatted for a while, completely ignoring the giant elephant beside us. “Well, I should get going,” I finally said. He dusted himself off. “I’ll see you out.” “I wanted to take the south path.” He looked troubled. “The south path is a no-go. There’s a guy watching it.” “Tell him to stop watching it.” “He’s really scary,” he mumbled. “I don’t dare.” We stood there in awkward silence. I pulled out my phone again. “Master Shanyuan, any ideas?” The apprentice rolled his eyes. “You got a refund. You’re on our block list.” Shanyuan sighed. “Check my shopping cart link.” I scrolled through the online store for what felt like an eternity before grimly selecting the cheapest Immobilization Talisman. I marched back toward the south path. The blood-leaking zookeeper snarled. “You dare return?” I held up my phone, the glowing talisman displayed on screen. “Red light, green light, one, two, three!” He froze solid. But the second I lowered my phone, his face contorted in rage and he lunged. I had no choice. I held the phone high above my head, screen facing him, and began walking backward, one painstaking step at a time, out of the enclosure. Once I was through the gate, I dropped my arm. He charged. CLANG! I slammed the gate shut. His momentum carried him forward, and he ended up comically embedded in the chain-link fence, struggling like a fish in a net. “Maybe you’ll think twice before scaring people,” I muttered, turning away.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393161”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My world dissolved into a game. A nightmare called the Terror Zoo. A voice, cold and metallic, crackled to life through unseen speakers, laying down the rules of this twisted park. 【Welcome to Harmony Zoo!】 【Defy a Keeper, and you die.】 【Die in the game, you die for real.】 The broadcast cut out, and in the sudden silence, they appeared. Monstrosities—humanoid in shape, but with the heads of beasts. They towered over us, seven feet tall, all crammed into the blue uniforms of park staff. They herded us, sorted us into four groups, a grim cataloging of our past sins against the animal kingdom. Then the torment began. They caged us. They made us fight each other. They put us on display for a new breed of visitor: mutated animals who stared at us with cold, intelligent eyes. Our only choice was to beat the game. To escape. 1. One moment, I was at my kitchen table, toast in hand. The next, darkness swallowed my world. When my eyes fluttered open, a synthetic voice echoed in my mind: 【Welcome to the Terror Zoo scenario. Players, please familiarize yourselves with your surroundings.】 I was standing in a sprawling, bewildered crowd, shuffling toward the entrance of a zoo. A ticket was clutched in my hand. “How did I get here? I should be in class!” “What’s a ‘game scenario’? I’ve never heard of anything like this! I want to go home!” The queue was a mix of faces—students, office workers, even elderly people who looked utterly lost, their confusion a mirror of my own. This place was alien, yet I recognized so many people from my city. It seemed we had all been pulled from the same pool. But something was off. The tickets. Everyone’s was a different color. Jessica, the pet influencer from my apartment building, held a green ticket. Old Man Abernathy, who bragged about poisoning the stray cats in the neighborhood, clutched a red one. Mine was yellow. I even saw a few people with blue. A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. It felt like we were being graded, sorted like livestock for some unseen purpose. The line moved with unnerving speed. Soon, we were all inside the park grounds. There were thousands of us, but the zoo was vast, and the space swallowed our numbers easily. Just as people began to drift off, that metallic voice returned, booming from the park’s speakers. 【Welcome to Harmony Zoo! Please remember the following rules.】 【Abuse an animal, and you die.】 【Defy a Keeper, and you die.】 【Do not raise your voice, or you die.】 【Die in the game, and you die for real.】 【If a cobra speaks to you, ignore it. The consequences are your own.】 【The countdown begins in one minute. When it ends, the rules will be in full effect.】 【Initial Player Count: 1,309. Current Players: 1,309.】 The voice ceased. The crowd erupted. “What kind of messed-up game is this? All these rules!” “This is just a game! How can it be linked to real life? That’s insane!” “Don’t do this, don’t do that? Who the hell do they think they are? I’m outta here!” “It’s gotta be a bluff, right? Just to scare us. Like I’m really gonna get in trouble for talking loud!” I said nothing. I was afraid to die, and in a place like this, it was better to be a coward than a corpse. While others shouted, my eyes found the massive digital screen looming over the main plaza. A countdown was already running. 60, 59, 58… The seconds bled away. As the timer hit zero, a chilling silence fell over the plaza. I followed the terrified gazes of the crowd and my blood ran cold. Eight colossal figures were stalking toward us, walking on two legs. Their expressions were pure predator, their bodies like something from a mad scientist’s lab. Their legs were thicker than my waist; a single stomp could crush me into paste. And impossibly, they were all wearing the blue uniforms of the park staff, complete with employee ID badges. They were the Keepers. Mutated animals as zookeepers, managing human guests? The thought was pure insanity. 2. “Is that… silicone? Some kind of hyper-realistic mascot costume?” someone near me whispered in awe. “But how are they so tall? Are they on stilts?” “Look, the crocodile one is drooling! That’s a neat trick.” Amid the murmurs, the Crocodile Keeper’s head snapped toward the crowd. Its cavernous maw, lined with daggers of teeth, opened wide. It lunged, its jaws snapping shut around a man who had been shouting just moments before. A wet, crunching sound followed, sickeningly loud in the quiet plaza. Blood, shockingly red, trickled from between its teeth and spattered onto the pristine pavement. The movement was fluid, primal, utterly devoid of humanity. These weren’t costumes. The teeth, the blood, the raw bestial power—it was all real. For some reason, in this game, they had evolved. They walked like us, wore clothes like us, and it was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. “Aaaah!” A woman screamed. In the next second, a massive serpent’s tail whipped out, coiling around her and hoisting her high into the air. Then, with brutal force, it slammed her into the concrete, shattering the ground on impact. The Black Snake Keeper hissed, its voice a dry rasp. “Such noisy little things. Did you not understand the rule about silence?” It was only then that the rule registered in our panic-addled minds. They were serious. The rules were real. The plaza became a tomb. You could have heard a pin drop. But it was too late. One by one, the Keepers descended upon those who had been yelling, devouring them, tearing them apart with a casual brutality that turned my stomach. We were trapped. We were terrified. Just then, the metallic voice returned. 【Player Alert: A significant number of animals have been infected with a mutational virus, granting them human-level intelligence and immense size. Harmony Zoo has specially appointed a selection of these animals as our new Keepers.】 【All players are advised to proceed with caution. Do not break the rules.】 【All players, present your tickets. You will now be divided into groups based on your ticket color for a tour of the zoo’s special exhibits.】 【Those holding red tickets will follow the Lion and the Tiger. You are Group A.】 【Those holding blue tickets will follow the Crocodile and the Snake. You are Group B.】 【Those holding yellow tickets will follow the Elephant and the Giraffe. You are Group C.】 【Those holding green tickets will follow the Dog and the Cat. You are Group D.】 【Exchanging tickets is forbidden. The penalty is immediate death.】 【You have five minutes to form your lines. Refusal to queue will be considered forfeiture. Forfeited players may be consumed at the Keepers’ discretion.】 【Initial Player Count: 1,309. Current Players: 1,300.】 The broadcast ended. A wave of silent, frantic motion swept the crowd. The game had just begun, and nine people were already dead. There were no laws here. Only rules. The boisterous attitudes had vanished, replaced by the meek obedience of lambs to the slaughter. Everyone pulled out their tickets and scurried to their designated Keepers, forming neat, silent lines. But there was always an exception. A blond teenager, maybe seventeen or eighteen, nervously approached the Crocodile Keeper. “Excuse me,” he stammered, his voice barely a whisper. “I… I think I lost my ticket. What do I do?” The Crocodile Keeper’s demeanor was surprisingly professional. It pulled out a smartphone with its massive, clumsy-looking claws. “Your name, please? I can look up your ticket status for you.” The kid, Kyle, quickly gave his name. The Keeper’s claws tapped away on the screen with unnerving dexterity. After a moment, it looked up, its reptilian eyes glinting. “According to the system, you did not ‘lose’ your ticket. You threw it in a trash can upon entering the park, accompanied by the phrase, ‘What a garbage zoo.’” “That’s not important! The timer is almost up, just tell me what to do!” Kyle was frantic now. He had tossed the ticket, thinking it was useless once he was inside. A fatal mistake. Suddenly, the dreaded voice of the broadcast cut in again. 【EMERGENCY BROADCAST. TWO NEW RULES ARE NOW IN EFFECT.】 【Insulting the zoo or its Keepers is forbidden. The penalty is immediate death.】 【Intentionally discarding your ticket is forbidden. The penalty is immediate death.】 The Crocodile Keeper said nothing more. It simply opened its mouth and lunged. A moment later, all that was left of Kyle was a few tufts of blond hair, a dark, spreading stain on the concrete, and a pair of cheap flip-flops. A wave of panic rippled through the lines as a few others who had also carelessly tossed their tickets turned pale, some collapsing in terror. Their fate was the same as Kyle’s. When the electronic voice returned, the lines were perfectly formed. 【Initial Player Count: 1,309. Current Players: 1,273.】 3. My luck held, for now. I was in Group C, led by the Elephant and Giraffe Keepers, who seemed marginally less homicidal than the others. I had no idea where the other groups were being taken, but our procession of a few hundred people was marched toward a large, sterile building: The Specimen Exhibition Hall. Unlike any zoo I’d ever seen, these weren’t animal specimens. They were human. The Elephant Keeper gestured with its trunk toward a wall lined with preserved human bodies, its voice thick with pride. “These are our trophies from the last month of hunting.” It all clicked into place. The string of missing persons cases that had rocked the city. The police thought it was a trafficking ring. The truth was so much worse. A few people in our group broke down, sobbing as they recognized a loved one mounted on the wall like a prize buck. “Don’t waste your tears,” the Keeper rumbled. “They were not innocents. They belonged to the worst of you—the Double-A tier.” “Fortunately for you, we have already… processed… all of the Double-A humans before your arrival.” “That one,” it gestured, “the one with only the head remaining. He was the owner of a famous local cosmetics company. He tested his products on lab rats. Before they died from the experiments, he’d sell their bodies to underground slaughterhouses that supplied restaurants. Thousands of rats died by his hand every year.” A woman near me gagged. “Oh god… I ate at that barbecue place last week. I thought my rabbit skewers tasted like… foundation. I thought I was going crazy.” “My spicy rabbit heads tasted like lipstick!” another man whispered in horror. “The owner swore I was imagining it!” So it wasn’t rabbit at all. It was poisoned lab rats. Several people doubled over, vomiting onto the polished floor. “And that one,” the Elephant continued, pointing to a desiccated figure hanging from the ceiling, “he was a poacher. Used poison darts to kill over a hundred dogs. Not for food, not for money. Just to satisfy some sick, twisted part of himself.” The tour continued, a macabre gallery of human monsters. Each specimen had one thing in common: they had inflicted immense, cruel, and senseless suffering upon animals. By the time we were finally allowed to leave the exhibition hall, most of us looked like shell-shocked survivors. The very thought of eating meat was enough to make my stomach churn. As we stumbled out into the blinding sun, a notification sound chimed. 【Initial Player Count: 1,309. Current Players: 1,024.】 What? We looked at each other in confusion. Then, the giant screen on the exterior of the hall flickered to life, showing live feeds of the other groups.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393158”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

After graduation, I inherited the zoo my grandfather left me. It was bleeding money. I sighed in frustration. “If this keeps up, the animals will be living on air.” That night, a line of red pandas knocked on my door. “Director,” they pleaded, “we don’t want to live on air! We want apples!” The next day, a new sign stood at the park entrance. “We are against animal shows. But we can’t stop the animals from showing off.” 1 The moment I dragged my suitcase into the zoo, I was pulled into the staff group chat. The group was named “Sunflower Zoo Staff Chat,” and it showed about twenty members. I looked up at the dilapidated zoo, where even the main gate was rusted shut, and couldn’t for the life of me figure out where those twenty people could possibly be hiding. The weirdest part, though, was that aside from one normal-looking profile picture, all the other “people” had animal avatars. The Red Panda Family: Welcome, new Director! Chubbs the Leopard: Welcome! What’s for dinner, Director? Flora the Peacock: Welcome! Director, can you help me find a boyfriend? Nana the Gorilla: Welcome, new Director! Do you like poop? … The chat feed flooded with messages, a waterfall of welcomes, though the comments that followed left me utterly baffled. After dropping my bags, I started to inspect the staff dorms. It was less of a dorm and more of a small wooden cabin with three rooms. The rooms were small but cozy and clean. Grandpa had told me there was one permanent staff member living here, a young man. Once I was settled, I knocked on the door across the hall. No answer. Looked like he was out. I picked up the zoo’s recent financial reports instead. The more I read, the more my stomach sank. Finally, I slammed my hand on the table. “It’s nothing but losses! If this keeps up, the animals will be living on air.” I ran a hand through my hair, stressed. I had to think of something. I was so preoccupied that I didn’t notice a flash of green by the window. Echo the Parrot: Scouted her out. New Director is young. She’s a girl. Echo the Parrot: She just said she’s gonna make us live on air. I opened my phone and saw the two new messages. Someone was just here? I didn’t notice a thing. And what was that about “she’s a girl”? So rude. I sighed and typed out a message. Me: Hello everyone, I’m the new director, Summer. Me: And don’t worry, I have no intention of actually making the animals live on air. After sending the messages, I grabbed my pajamas and headed to the bathroom for a shower. I was halfway through when I heard a thump-thump-thump at the door. “I’m in the shower! Just a minute!” I yelled. The noise outside stopped for a second, then was replaced by a flurry of chittering sounds. “She says she’s showering.” “Do people have to shower, too?” “Of course they do, silly. People are very clean.” Hearing the commotion, I quickly rinsed off, dried myself, threw on my clothes, and opened the door. No one was there. I scanned the area. Not a soul in sight. “Director, Director! Down here!” I followed the voice and looked down. One, two… five red pandas were standing in a perfect line. The two larger ones at the front bowed to me in unison. “Greetings, Director!” The three smaller ones copied them, bowing as well. So they were the ones talking. Wait. How can I understand them? “Director, we don’t want to live on air!” the smallest one peeped, poking its head out from behind the others. “We want apples!” My brain short-circuited for a moment, then I remembered the bizarre group chat. Could it be that all the members were… animals? It would explain everything—why a nearly bankrupt zoo had so many “employees,” and all their strange comments. “Director, we can perform! Grandpa Director said performing earns money!” It was true. Animal shows could attract a lot of visitors, but it was also a very controversial practice. I shook my head, about to refuse, but then I saw the hopeful, glittering eyes of the red panda family looking up at me. “Please let us try!” I thought about my bank balance. Oh, what the hell. I’m against animal shows, but I can’t stop the animals if they insist on showing off! I led the red pandas into my room and knelt down. “So, what kind of tricks can you do?” They immediately lined up from biggest to smallest and stacked themselves on top of each other on the floor. The one on the very top even struck a one-legged “golden rooster” pose. Their cuteness was overwhelming. I instinctively whipped out my phone and captured the moment. “How was that? How was that?” “Absolutely adorable!” I found five apples in the storage room, gave one to each of them, and then ruffled the fur on each of their little heads. Such precious creatures! 2 After the red pandas left, I posted the video I’d taken online. “For just $9.99, you can see this adorable red panda family in person!” Then I dug out a dusty old sign from the warehouse and, with a can of white paint, wrote: “We are against animal shows, but we can’t stop the animals from showing off!” I set it up at the park entrance that very night. By the time I was done, the group chat had over 99 new messages. King of Monkey Rock: We can perform, too! Can we get bananas? I replied to them one by one. “What can you all do?” King of Monkey Rock: We can dance! King of Monkey Rock: And Goldie can do this trick where he pretends to eat his own tail! It’s amazing! Goldie? I wondered. A golden python avatar popped up. Goldie: No. King of Monkey Rock: You have to perform if you want to eat! No show, and you’ll be living on air! King of Monkey Rock: (Ignoring Goldie) Nana’s a great shot with her poop. King of Monkey Rock: And Flora’s tail feathers are beautiful when she fans them out, but she only does it for females. King of Monkey Rock: And Chubbs! He can do this adorable belly roll! King of Monkey Rock: And… and the tigress! She can sing! I couldn’t help but smile. “Performing is completely voluntary! I promise none of you will have to live on air!” 3 After chatting with the animals, I checked the video I’d posted. As expected, the reactions were mixed. Some were curious, while others accused me of animal abuse. “So cute! Where is this? I have to go!” “Are people still supporting animal shows? That simple trick probably cost them a dozen beatings behind the scenes.” “Only $9.99 and it’s close by. I’ll take the kids this weekend.” … I watched the view count climb. It was controversial, but at least it was getting some attention. The next day, I woke up early and followed the feeding charts my grandpa had left behind, preparing nutritious meals for all the animals. But when I got to Chubbs the leopard, I hit a snag. He had his own, separate chart: “Chubbs’ Weight-Loss Plan.” Underneath the plan, a line of text was highlighted in red. “WEIGHT IS SEVERELY OVER LIMITS! ADHERE STRICTLY TO THE MEAL PLAN!” But after he finished his meager portion, he rolled onto his back, showed me his belly, and did several pathetic little wiggles. “Director… hungryyyy.” I had to look away. I couldn’t bear it. “I’m sorry, Chubbs, but you need to lose weight.” “What’s ‘lose weight’? I’m hungryyyy~” He was acting so cute and pathetic, I could barely stand it. Was this really the king of the savanna I remembered from documentaries? He was acting like a giant housecat. “Can I pet him?” a girl’s voice asked from behind me as I was about to leave with the empty food bucket. It was only eight in the morning. We already had a visitor? “I saw the gate was open, so I came in,” she said, holding up a ticket. “Don’t worry, I paid.” Pet him? Under normal circumstances, with a normal leopard, absolutely not. But with Chubbs? I knelt down and asked him. “Chubbs, will you let this nice lady pet you?” “Petting gets me food?” “Nope.” “Oh. Okay, head pats only. No belly rubs.” I chuckled and turned to the girl. “You can pet his head, but please, no feeding.” After she promised three times, she reached out and happily stroked Chubbs’s head. I made a mental note to put up a new sign by his enclosure. “DO NOT FEED.” 4 As time went on, more people started coming to the zoo. It was just a trickle, but it was better than the emptiness of before. Since we were short-staffed, I had to stand at the gate and check tickets myself. Suddenly, my phone started buzzing nonstop. I pulled it out. The group chat, of course. Echo the Parrot: Director, Director! Petal and Sprout are fighting! The Red Panda Family: Oh no, they’re at it again! Petal and Sprout? I quickly typed in the chat, “Who?” The Red Panda Family: Our kids! I broke into a run, arriving at the red panda enclosure out of breath. The two little ones were still going at it, surrounded by a crowd of amused onlookers. “That apple is mine! MINE!” “No, it’s MINE!” It turned out they were fighting over a single apple a tourist had thrown them. Their parents, completely used to the drama, were diligently performing their stacking routine with their sister off to the side. Seeing the scene, I felt a mix of anger and heartache. But the first priority was to break them up. I leaped into the enclosure in three long strides, grabbing Petal with my left hand and Sprout with my right, pulling them apart. “It’s your fault! The Director’s here!” “No, it’s your fault! I don’t wanna go to the timeout cage!” Even as I held them, they stretched out their short little paws, trying to swipe at each other. “One more move and there will be no apples tomorrow!” I shouted. That finally got them to settle down, though they still glared daggers at each other. I sighed and carried them off. Fighting was bad behavior. A timeout in the “little black house” was unavoidable. I had just dealt with that when I received a complaint from another tourist. “What kind of zoo is this? It’s small and run-down, fine, but how can you have such ill-mannered animals? Who taught it to throw poop at people?” I managed a bitter smile. Nobody taught her. I sprinted over to the gorilla enclosure. Sure enough, Nana was standing atop a fake rock mountain, hooting and hollering, a dark, lumpy object clutched in her hand. She was scanning the crowd for her next target. Several visitors were already victims, and a foul odor permeated the air. “Director’s here! Director’s here!” a green shadow screeched as it circled overhead. It was Echo, the talking parrot. “Director, Director! Do you like poop?” My vision went dark. I was at my wit’s end. “Nana, stop throwing poop right now! One more throw and it’s the timeout cage for you!” I yelled. “Timeout cage, timeout cage! Nana, you’re in trouble!” Echo gloated, clearly enjoying the chaos. “You’re not getting away with this either!” I shot back. “Oh no, oh no! Echo’s going to the timeout cage, too!” “What a terrible zoo! That gorilla has no manners! I want a refund!” someone in the crowd yelled. A chorus of agreement followed. “This shirt is ruined! You have to pay for it!” A middle-aged man grabbed my arm. “Of course, of course. My apologies. Could you please add me on WeChat?” I said with a strained smile. “Nana, get him!” Echo shrieked. “Ooh-ooh-aah-aah! Okay!” The next second, the man holding my arm was baptized by poop for a second time. It was over. I was on the verge of tears. But I had to admit, Nana’s aim was impeccable. I was standing right next to him and didn’t get a single drop on me.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393155”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

A patient with a paralysis no one in the country could cure. A surgery I flew two thousand miles to perform. I never imagined that on the day of his discharge, he would call in the media to publicly accuse me of accepting an illicit under-the-table fee. Though every procedure I followed was by the book, my superiors demoted me to quell the public outrage. As fate would have it, a year later, the same patient fell ill again. The exact same condition. And I was the only one in the country who could save him. 1 “Dr. Hayes, it’s time for your rounds.” At eight in the morning, Leo, the new intern, poked his head into my office, his voice trembling slightly with nerves. “Right,” I nodded, rising from my chair. In the hallway, a small group of seven or eight medical students fell in line behind me, a flock of ducklings ready for their morning lesson. We began our rounds. “How are we feeling today? Any headaches?” “Ma’am, please be mindful of his diet. Keep it light. No greasy or spicy foods.” “The post-op recovery is looking excellent. Just try to keep his spirits up.” I moved from room to room, my eyes scanning each patient, my voice a low, steady murmur of instructions to their families. “Dr. Hayes, my husband, he…” “Doctor, about my father…” “Dr. Hayes…” After leaving each room, a small crowd of anxious relatives would envelop me. Some wanted to know when the surgery would be scheduled, others when they could go home. Those were the normal questions. Then there were the more… imaginative ones. One family wanted to know if a major brain surgery might, by some chance, boost their loved one’s IQ. Through it all, I maintained a patient smile, answering every question with the gravity it deserved in their eyes. An hour and a half later, rounds were finished. I returned to my office to tackle the mountain of patient charts. At ten, a departmental meeting. Ten-thirty, back to the charts. Eleven-forty, a quick lunch in the hospital cafeteria. Noon, a brief rest. At two, I was on call, a ghost flitting between wards as needed. Five-thirty, clock out. This was my life now. A strange cocktail of tranquil routine and sudden bursts of chaos, each day a near-perfect echo of the last. “A legend like Dr. Hayes, reduced to this. Life’s a real kick in the teeth, isn’t it?” “You’re telling me. Makes me question why I even chose this profession.” “I heard what happened to him. It’s a raw deal. Isn’t a guest surgeon’s fee standard practice? How did it become a crime when it was him?” “You’re underestimating the poison in people’s hearts. When they need you, you’re a god. The second they’re healed, they want you to worship them.” “Honestly, the man’s a saint. If it were me, I would’ve told them all to go to hell and walked out long ago.” “Uh… sorry, I’m new here. What exactly happened with Dr. Hayes?” “Okay, so get this. A year ago, he…” My office door was ajar. The interns, with nothing better to do, were gossiping in the hallway. “Do you all have nothing better to do?” I stepped out, my voice low but sharp enough to cut through their chatter. “Are you here to learn, or to trade gossip?” Their conversation choked and died. “You two, go to the wards and log the patients’ meal and output times. You three, head down to the nurses’ station and help them verify the afternoon medication dosages. Double-check everything. It has to be perfect.” The interns stared at me for a frozen moment, then scattered like startled birds, vanishing down the corridor. “Kids these days,” I muttered, shaking my head with a reluctant smile. I remembered my own internship. If we’d been caught loitering in the halls, our attending would have flayed us with words until we couldn’t lift our heads. I was gathering my notes for the department meeting when the phone on my desk shrilled to life. “Dr. Hayes, we need you in the outpatient clinic. Now.” 2 I dropped my notebook and hurried towards the outpatient building. My name is Aidan Hayes. I’m a doctor at St. Jude’s University Hospital, one of the top-tier teaching hospitals in the country. A year ago, I was the Chief of Neurosurgery. But one surgery, one single procedure, got me demoted. Now, I was just an attending physician in the inpatient department. My days consisted of rounds, mentoring interns, and paperwork. I hadn’t been cleared for the operating room in a year. I was born into medicine. My mother worked for the Department of Health, my father was an internist. Growing up in that environment, becoming a doctor felt less like a choice and more like a calling. At eighteen, I was accepted into the nation’s most prestigious medical school, blazing through my M.D. and Ph.D. programs. My mentor was Dr. Arthur Vance, a titan in the world of neurosurgery. Under his guidance, I dedicated my life to the craft. By thirty-five, I was Chief of Neurosurgery, a recipient of a national distinguished physician grant, an expert in my field. My specialty was high-risk intracranial nerve surgery. They called me “The Razor.” No matter how complex the case, if a patient made it to my table, they were already halfway to recovery. I had personally operated on thousands, published dozens of papers in world-renowned journals like the NEJM, The Lancet, and JAMA. I thought my path was set, a smooth, upward trajectory. Then, one case sent my entire world crashing down. A year ago, a hospital clear across the country sent me a formal request. They needed me to lead a highly specialized surgery. The patient was twenty-six years old. Damage to an intracranial nerve had left one side of his body numb. He’d been to a dozen hospitals, but his condition had only worsened, deteriorating from numbness to full-blown hemiplegia—paralysis. If nothing was done, he’d be in a wheelchair within six months. Worst-case scenario, the condition could trigger other complications and threaten his life. The top hospitals all recommended the same thing: surgery. But this wasn’t a routine procedure. It was a targeted resection of a nerve deep within the brainstem, a surgery that few neurosurgeons on the planet were qualified to perform. One of his doctors suggested the family find a specialist to fly in. At the time, there were only three people in the world known to have mastered the technique. One was Dr. Jean-Pierre Philippe of the Mayo Clinic. Another was my mentor, Dr. Arthur Vance. The third was me. Dr. Philippe was a phantom, practically unreachable for a family with their limited resources. And my mentor, Dr. Vance, had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s three years prior. His hands trembled, making surgery impossible. That left one person in the country. Me. The patient’s family moved heaven and earth, coordinating with their hospital to send me the official invitation to perform the surgery as a guest surgeon. 3 Saving lives was the bedrock of my existence. I couldn’t refuse. After confirming the date, I cleared my schedule and flew two thousand miles to the patient’s city. Before the surgery, his mother pulled me aside. “Dr. Hayes, please, you have to save my son,” she wept, her voice cracking. “He’s only twenty-six. He’s not even married. His life has just begun…” Her knees buckled, and she started to sink to the floor. “Ma’am, please,” I said, catching her arm and holding it firmly. “I will do everything in my power to help your son. You have to have faith in him, and in us.” I walked into the operating room with her desperate pleas still ringing in my ears. The initial preparations were complete. The surgery began. The resident surgeon made the incision, drilled the burr holes, and carefully separated the dura mater from the skull. Everything proceeded like clockwork. My role was to step in once the surgical field was open, locate the lesion, and remove it. Peering through the surgical microscope, I quickly identified the problematic tissue in the motor cortex of his brain’s left hemisphere. With a single, precise movement, the neural blade excised the lesion. The entire process, my part in it, took less than a minute. “Hah,” I breathed out, a plume of fog in the cold air, and stepped back. The resident team took over for the cleanup and closure. The surgery lasted two and a half hours, but my contribution was a mere sixty seconds. A single minute that held the man’s entire future. “Doctor, my boy… how is he?” the mother asked, her face a mess of tear-streaked anxiety as I emerged. “The surgery was a complete success,” I said, taking her hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll do a full workup once the anesthesia wears off, but if everything looks clear, your son will be on the road to a full recovery.” “Thank you, thank you!” She burst into fresh tears, but this time, they were tears of relief. The post-op scans were exactly as I’d hoped—perfect. Within two to three weeks, he would slowly regain his mobility and begin to live a normal life again. I’d performed a thousand surgeries like this. Every time I saw that mask of terror on a family’s face melt away into joy, I felt a deep, quiet satisfaction. This was the job. To heal a patient, to save a life, to rescue a family. 4 I politely declined the hospital’s dinner invitation, gave the family a final list of post-op instructions, and headed for the airport to catch my flight home. Just before I powered off my phone, a notification popped up: a wire transfer of $10,000 had been deposited into my account. This was the guest surgeon’s fee. The host hospital knew about it. The patient’s family knew about it. The administrative board at my own hospital knew about it. It was all transparent, all by the book. I accepted it with a clear conscience. Back at St. Jude’s, work was a relentless tide. Three to four major surgeries a week were the norm. And though I was used to it, a part of me still ached every time I saw a new patient on the table. May the medicine on the shelf gather dust, and may the world know no disease. When would that dream become reality? Nearly a month passed. I had just finished a departmental meeting when Director Evans called me to his office. Director Evans, Chief Administrator Miller, and the Head of Medical Affairs, Mr. Coleman, were all sitting grimly around the conference table. “Director Evans? You wanted to see me?” I asked, nodding a polite greeting to the others. “Aidan. Have a seat,” he said, his tone heavy. A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. The air in the room was thick with unspoken trouble. “Aidan, I need you to watch this,” Miller said after a moment, turning his laptop toward me. It was a news clip, filmed in a hospital room. A young man in a patient’s gown sat on the edge of his bed. “My name is Caleb Thorne,” he began. “I’m twenty-six. Six months ago, nerve damage in my brain left the right side of my body paralyzed.” He spoke slowly, his voice earnest. “For half a year, my mom took me from doctor to doctor. They found the problem, but no one could fix it. My case was… unique. It required a specific kind of intracranial nerve surgery, and none of the hospitals we went to had a surgeon who could do it.” He paused, looking directly into the camera. “Then we heard about Dr. Aidan Hayes, the Chief of Neurosurgery at St. Jude’s. My mom and the hospital worked together to get him to fly here and operate on me.” “The surgery was a success,” he continued, his voice taking on a harder edge. “I’m recovering now. But I’m not happy.” “To pay for my treatment, my mother has wiped out her life savings. She’s deep in debt. We had to sell our family home just to cover the $150,000 hospital bill.” “You in the media, you claim to be a voice for the people, right? Well, today, right here, on camera, I want to file a report. A public accusation.” He was still frail from the surgery, but a raw, furious energy began to radiate from him. He mentioned my name, and a cold recognition washed over me. This was the patient from the cross-country surgery. The one I had saved.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393152”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was picking up my three-year-old son Noah from preschool when the unthinkable happened. A madman began slashing at people with a knife. To protect Noah, I became a human shield, taking multiple stab wounds before collapsing in my own blood. My husband Logan tackled the attacker and called ahead—the city’s best trauma team was waiting at the hospital. As they wheeled me into surgery, my vision blurring, I begged to know about Noah. Logan’s voice cracked. “He didn’t make it, Stella. He was gone before we arrived.” The world went black. I forgot to mention my high anesthesia tolerance. Drifting back to consciousness, I heard Logan speaking to the surgeon: “The boy could have been saved. Why did you tell us to stand down?” “His birth was a mistake,” Logan replied, voice cold. “My son with Vanessa turns eighteen soon—he gets the company. I won’t let anyone interfere.” My fairytale life was a carefully crafted hell. Now they’ll pay for what they’ve done. … The doctor glanced at my mangled abdomen and sighed. “I’ve examined her. The damage is severe, but miraculously, her uterus is intact. She might still have the chance to be a mother again someday.” “Who gave you permission to save it?” Logan’s voice sliced through the sterile air. “Remove it. Now. Make sure she can never, ever get pregnant again.” The doctor’s eyes widened in shock. “Mr. Hayes, you’re handing over the company to Vanessa’s son in three days. Even if your wife were to get pregnant again, it wouldn’t interfere with anything. She just lost her child. Do you really need to be this cruel?” I felt Logan’s hand gently stroking my cheek, a grotesque counterpoint to the venom in his words. “Letting her give birth to that bastard was the biggest mistake of my life. I couldn’t believe it when he dared to ask me for a birthday gift. He was already plotting to take over the company.” “I swore to Vanessa that no one would ever threaten our son’s inheritance. Even though she married another man, I have to protect them, to eliminate any loose ends.” A sharp knock echoed on the operating room door. A man’s sleazy, cocky voice cut through the silence. “Mr. Hayes, thanks for faking that psych evaluation for me. Got me off scot-free. I took care of the little brat like you asked. Now, about my payment…” “Five million will be wired to your account,” Logan said dismissively. “Take the money and get the hell out of the city. Don’t ever let Stella see your face again.” “Alright, get on with the surgery,” he instructed the doctor. “I have to go with Vanessa to pick up the custom gift for Ethan. Oh, and give her an extra dose of anesthetic. I don’t want Stella to feel any pain.” The sound of his footsteps faded. I clamped my eyes shut so tightly that a tooth cracked, biting back the scream that threatened to tear from my throat. So, it wasn’t a random madman. It was a hitman. An executioner hired by my own husband to secure peace of mind for the woman he truly loved. My little Noah. Only three years old. Murdered on his birthday by his own father, for a crime he never even imagined. My body fought against the anesthesia. I felt everything. The cold, sharp instruments churned inside me, a violation that felt like it was ripping my soul apart. The pain was an all-consuming fire, and I let it burn me into unconsciousness. When I opened my eyes again, Logan was there, his eyes red and filled with a carefully constructed anguish. “Stella, you’re finally awake,” he whispered, his voice thick with concern. “Does it still hurt?” “I’ve been waiting right outside this whole time. You have no idea how scared I was. Losing Noah is the greatest pain of my life… if I lost you too, I wouldn’t want to live.” He took a breath, his face a mask of sorrow. “Stella, the doctors… they said the damage to your abdomen was too severe. It… it destroyed your uterus. You won’t be able to have children again. But don’t worry,” he clutched my hand, “I’ll take care of you for the rest of our lives. We can be happy, just the two of us.” I looked down at my bandaged stomach. The stitches were neat, but beneath them, there was a cavernous emptiness, a constant, chilling reminder that I had been stripped of my right to ever be a mother again. “Noah?” I asked, my voice a hollow echo. Logan’s face crumpled with guilt. “He’s been cremated. The funeral is tomorrow. Stella, I’m so sorry. I failed as a father. I couldn’t protect our boy.” A spike of agony shot through me, but I didn’t call him on his lies. My gaze fell on the nightstand. In a beautiful, velvet-lined box sat a custom-engraved locket. “Logan,” I said, my voice flat. “Today is Noah’s birthday. We never got him a gift. Let’s let him take this locket with him. I hope in his next life, he lives a long and happy life. Okay?” A barely perceptible frown creased his brow before he smoothed it over with his practiced gentleness. “Stella, a friend asked me to pick that up for his kid. We can’t just take someone else’s gift.” “Besides,” he added quickly, “that’s for the living. It would only make Noah sad. And the material is nothing special, not good enough for our son. I’ve already had someone buy the finest funerary offerings. We’ll burn them all for him, so he’ll have everything he needs in the afterlife.” I said nothing, a desolate wasteland spreading through my heart. After so many years as a housewife, Logan had clearly forgotten that I was once one of the most discerning appraisers in the jewelry world. The “nothing special” material of that locket was the rarest type of emerald, intricately carved and worth a fortune. Engraved on it were the words ‘Peace and safety, always,’ a testament to a parent’s infinite love. For two months, I had seen him hunched over his desk in the study, sketching out the design for this very locket. I had foolishly believed it was for our son. I see now. In his heart, it was my son and I who were never good enough. At my insistence, Logan arranged for my discharge and took me home. He waved away the housekeeper, personally helping me bathe and wash my hair, his touch painstakingly careful around my abdominal wound. He even dried my hair himself, the very picture of a doting husband. I used to be moved by his tenderness. Now, looking at the monstrous scar on my stomach and thinking of Noah’s brutal death, all I felt was a cold, numb wasteland. Late that night, while Logan slept soundly beside me, I slipped into his study and logged into his cloud drive on his computer. The password was Vanessa’s birthday. Inside were tens of thousands of photos and videos, a meticulous chronicle of Vanessa’s pregnancy, the birth of their son, and every single milestone of his life up to the present day. Alongside them was a fully prepared share transfer agreement. For fifteen years of our marriage, Logan had spent more than half of his time on “business trips,” claiming he was expanding the market. In reality, he was with them. The bitter irony is that I never once suspected a thing. His messaging app was still open in the corner of the screen. I clicked on it. The pinned chat, named ‘The Happy Family of Three,’ burned my eyes. For the past eighteen years, Logan had showered Vanessa and their son with countless lavish gifts. “Logan, darling, Ethan was just born, he can’t drive a Maserati! You spoil him too much. P.S., I absolutely adore the sapphire necklace. Mwah!” “My love, Ethan turned three today! This island you bought him is breathtaking. You land this afternoon, right? Ethan can’t wait to see his daddy.” This was a level of adoration that Noah and I had never known. I had given up a brilliant career to marry Logan at twenty, content to be the woman behind the man. We weathered every storm together. The stress took a toll on my body, and for years, I couldn’t conceive. He always seemed so nonchalant about it. I thought he was just trying not to pressure me. I was grateful for his understanding. In the fifteenth year of our marriage, I finally got pregnant. Logan wasn’t nearly as overjoyed as I’d imagined; he just offered a perfunctory smile. Now, seeing the photo of him kissing Vanessa’s pregnant belly, his face radiant with pure ecstasy, I finally understood. He already had another family. My little Noah, in his eyes, was nothing more than an inconvenient case of appendicitis, something to be cut out and disposed of as quickly as possible. No wonder. No wonder on every single one of Noah’s birthdays, Logan always had an “urgent business trip” abroad. Noah’s birthday was only three days apart from their son’s. He had to go early to prepare, to ensure his real treasures weren’t slighted in any way. My heart a dead, cold thing in my chest, I closed the window and called my best friend overseas. “I’ll take the job,” I said, my voice steady. “I’ll be your head jewelry appraiser. See you in three days.” I also asked her for a few other favors. After the call, I went to Noah’s room. Everything was just as he’d left it. His pillow still held the faint, milky scent of a child. But my baby was never coming back. Under his pillow, I found a small wish jar. Inside was a note, written for him by his teacher, detailing his birthday wish. “Teacher says big boys have to be brave, so this year I finally got the courage to ask Daddy for a birthday present. But before I could even finish my sentence, Daddy got angry and walked away.” “All I wanted… was for Daddy to spend one hour with me on my birthday. Even thirty minutes would have made me really, really happy.” Tears streamed down my face. Logan… this was the grand ambition you were so terrified of? After printing out the divorce papers, I curled up with Noah’s blanket, inhaling his fading scent, and cried until the sun came up. The next morning, Logan, a man obsessed with cleanliness, personally cleaned the weeping fluid from my wound, changed the dressing, and carefully wrapped it in fresh gauze. The housekeeper watched with an envious expression. My heart remained a stone. Seeing my swollen, red-rimmed eyes, his face filled with pain. “Stella, I know you miss Noah. I miss him more than you can imagine. But you have to take care of yourself. I’ve already lost my beloved son; I can’t lose you too. Why don’t you stay home and rest today? I’ll handle the funeral.” Handle it? You, the monster who murdered your own child? I swallowed the bitter irony. “No,” I said quietly. “I have to be there. To say a final goodbye.” When we arrived at the funeral, I saw them from a distance. Vanessa and a teenage boy were flanking my mother-in-law, laughing and talking intimately, making her beam with delight. At such a solemn occasion, everyone else was dressed in black. But Vanessa was in a vibrant, high-fashion red dress. The boy was in a matching, flashy red suit. My mother-in-law, however, seemed completely blind to it. She clung to them both, her eyes shining with affection. She even had one of the staff hold an umbrella over them to shield them from the sun, as if they were her true daughter-in-law and grandson. When she saw me, Vanessa’s lips curved into a smirk. “Oh, don’t worry about me, Mother,” she said, her voice dripping with false concern. “Stella’s here now. The sun is so strong, you should give the umbrella to her. After all, she’s not like me. Her son is dead, and she’s been injured. She needs all the care she can get.” My mother-in-law’s gaze fell on me, her expression a mixture of disgust and annoyance. “It was just a little traitor. What’s the big deal? Who are you putting on this crying show for? Stop your pathetic act. You’re a disgrace to the Hayes family name.” “Even Vanessa and Ethan have more sense than you,” she continued, her voice sharp. “They came straight from the airport because they were worried about me, and they brought me this beautiful jade bracelet. Infinitely better than a cold-hearted thing like you.” She had never liked me, always believing I was beneath Logan. And for the dozen years I couldn’t conceive, she called me a barren hen. When Noah was finally born, she resented how he doted on me, thinking he was a “traitor” with his loyalties misplaced. Logan used to defend me, at least a little. But now, his eyes were glued to Vanessa, his expression one of utter fascination, as if she were a priceless treasure. Vanessa shot me a subtle, triumphant smile before turning back to his mother. “Mother, you’re getting older, you mustn’t get upset. If you’ll have him, Ethan will be your grandson from now on.” My mother-in-law was overjoyed, praising her for being so thoughtful. Vanessa then led the boy over to me, a bright, fake smile on her face. “It’s been a while, Stella. I’m so sorry, we just flew in from overseas and didn’t have time to change. You’re so forgiving, I’m sure you won’t be angry, will you?” “Oh, and this is my son, Ethan Hayes.” Ethan, who looked unsettlingly like a younger Logan, shot me a disdainful look. “Wow, lady,” he sneered, “you’re hideous.” Then, he casually held out his hand to Logan. “Dad, didn’t you say you had presents for Mom and me when we got back? My eighteenth birthday is the day after tomorrow. Last year you only got me 99 gifts. This year, I want 100.” Logan completely ignored the insult directed at me. He just ruffled the boy’s hair with a look of helpless indulgence. “I know, I know.” Then, he took out the emerald locket and fastened it around Ethan’s neck, his expression full of paternal love. As if that weren’t enough, Logan snapped his fingers. A fleet of more than a dozen brightly colored sports cars pulled up outside the funeral home. “There. I know you like bright colors, son. They’re all yours.” Vanessa pouted, wrapping her arm around Logan’s. “What about me, darling? You can’t just spoil our son.” Logan tweaked her nose playfully. “Of course I didn’t forget you.” At his signal, two people stepped out of each car, their arms laden with over thirty sets of jewelry. The styles and materials varied, but they all had one thing in common: they were astronomically expensive. One of them had once been worn by a royal consort from a bygone dynasty. Vanessa squealed with delight and kissed his cheek, looking as giddy as a teenager. “Wow! Isn’t this all from that royal auction in Europe the other day? The cheapest set was over a hundred million! You bought it all for me? Oh, Logan, you’re the best to us. But you spent so much… won’t Stella be upset?” They had turned my son’s funeral into a sickening exhibition of luxury cars and jewels. And me, in my plain, outdated black suit, with no makeup and eyes swollen like walnuts, I looked like a pathetic, washed-up joke next to the radiant, exquisitely dressed Vanessa. It was a bitter pill to swallow, knowing that everything Logan had ever given Noah in his entire life didn’t even add up to the cost of one of Ethan’s new cars. Hilarious. It was all so horribly, brutally hilarious. Logan finally seemed to remember I was there. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Stella, don’t overthink it. Vanessa and Ethan are just used to different customs from living abroad. This is just a formality for them.” “And you heard my mother, she’s accepted Ethan as her grandson. It’s only natural he calls me ‘Dad.’ It’s his birthday soon, I just wanted to show him I care. The locket was also…” He never finished. Vanessa suddenly stumbled, falling gracefully into his arms. “Logan, I’m so dizzy,” she murmured weakly. “I think I’m getting heatstroke.” Logan immediately let go of me and scooped her up. “What? How? I had the villa built for you specifically to avoid the heat. You should have just stayed there and rested. Why did you have to come to this miserable place? Come on, I’ll take you somewhere to lie down.” And with that, before Noah’s ashes were even interred, he carried Vanessa away. I stood there, enduring the mocking stares of the few remaining guests, and picked up my son’s urn myself. It’s okay, my love. Daddy doesn’t love you, but Mommy does. But before I could place the urn in the burial niche, Ethan shoved me hard from behind. I stumbled, and the urn crashed to the ground, shattering into pieces. Noah’s ashes scattered across the cold stone.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393148”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

On my eighteenth birthday, I confessed my love to Eleanor, my aunt by title but not by blood. She responded by shipping me off to a university abroad. Years later, when the brain cancer I developed became a torment of unbearable headaches, I had no choice but to call her for help. But her beloved Julian slandered me, claiming I’d fallen into a life of hard drugs overseas, that my pain was nothing more than withdrawal. Eleanor had me brought back immediately and locked away in the family’s desolate, cliffside estate to “detox,” with guards ordered to watch my every move. Without treatment, the pain in my head escalated into an agony beyond endurance. In the dead of one night, unable to bear it any longer, I slipped out of a window and threw myself from the cliff’s edge. A year after my death, Eleanor Brown finally remembered me. 1 Eleanor came to the estate to bring me home herself, only to find the vast, sprawling villa utterly empty. With a furious kick, she sent a decorative screen in the grand hall crashing to the floor. “Leo, I don’t have time to play your childish games of hide-and-seek! Get out here now!” The screen fell, stirring up clouds of thick dust. The only answer was the hollow echo of her own voice. Eleanor covered her nose, backing away toward the door. After a moment, she began to shout again, her voice laced with venom. “You’re a grown man, how can you have so little self-respect! Just think of the state you were in when you came back last year. Even I, your aunt, found you filthy. It was utterly disgusting!” “If Julian hadn’t begged me, I would have washed my hands of you for good. I would have let you rot!” My soul stood just a few feet in front of her. I couldn’t help but let out a bitter, silent laugh. “Let me be perfectly clear, Leo,” she continued, her voice sharp as glass. “If you don’t clean up your act after I let you out this time, I won’t hesitate to lock you up for another ten years. I’ll make sure you learn your lesson for good!” She vented her fury, but I still didn’t appear. Annoyed, she waved a hand, ordering her staff to search the rooms and drag me out. A few of them went upstairs, but moments later they came screaming back down, their faces pale with terror as if they’d seen a ghost. Her assistant leaned in close, whispering in a trembling voice, “Ms. Brown… that phone call from a few days ago… I think it was real. I think… Leo is dead.” Eleanor’s brow furrowed. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’d never have the guts to kill himself. He just loves hurting himself to get my attention. He’s been pulling that trick since he was a child!” She strode past them and went up the stairs herself. Only then did she notice the long, dark streaks staining the hallway walls. They were dried blood. Her elegant eyebrows pinched together as she threw open the doors to the guest rooms, one by one. “Leo, what kind of sick game are you playing now! Have I been too soft on you all these years? Do you really think I won’t do something you’ll regret?!” My soul drifted up the stairs behind her. I watched her stop in front of a locked room. A large, dark pool of dried blood had seeped out from under the door. When she first had me locked away here to “detox,” she was afraid I’d escape, so they only gave me a few sets of pajamas. In the beginning, I could wander the empty villa. When the headaches came, I would pace the long hallways. When the pain became unbearable, I would slam my head against the walls, desperately trying to find a moment’s relief. But my guards grew tired of my agonized cries. They saw that Eleanor never once visited, never even called to check on me. It was as if she had forgotten I existed. So they locked me in that one room on the second floor. To make sure I couldn’t escape, they fitted the door with a heavy, solid lock from the outside. From then on, my entire world was confined to that small space. Every time a wave of pain hit, I would writhe on the small bed. When it became too much, I would kneel by the door and bash my head against the wood until blood streamed down my face. But I never dared to scream out loud. That would only earn me a beating. When the agony was at its peak, I would grip the bedsheets, tearing them into strips and stuffing them in my mouth to bite down on, to stifle the sounds. I begged one of the guards, pleaded with him to call Eleanor. He just sneered and kicked me to the floor, telling me Ms. Brown was busy with her engagement plans for Mr. Julian. She had no time for a degenerate lowlife like me. I refused to believe she could be so heartless. I kept begging him to call. Finally, annoyed beyond measure, he dialed the number—a number I knew by heart—right in front of me. The moment the call connected, I spoke in a trembling voice, telling Eleanor I had brain cancer, that the pain was killing me, and I begged her to save me. I told her the doctor’s official diagnosis was in my suitcase. All she had to do was open it. But she cut me off. “Leo, Julian was right about you. You’re a pathological liar. You’ll never change.” “Even now, you’re not thinking about getting better. You’re still trying to trick me with stories about being sick just so I’ll let you out! Honestly, if you actually died, I might even respect you for having some backbone.” She hung up. I was beaten again and locked back in the room. Now, Eleanor’s gaze fell upon that very lock. She had someone open it and stood in the doorway, her face a cold mask. “Leo, how long are you going to keep this up? You’ve been targeting Julian ever since we started dating. You’ve said so many horrible things about him to me, but he never once held it against you.” “If Julian hadn’t found out you were on drugs, you would have overdosed and died in some foreign gutter by now!” “Leo, you know my patience has its limits. Get your ass out here and come home with me!” She waited only a few seconds before her anger boiled over. She shoved the door open with a furious cry. 2 “Leo, you really are incorrigible! I never should have listened to Julian and come to get you!” The door swung open, and Eleanor froze. I stood behind her, following her gaze into the room. It was just as I had left it. The small window I’d escaped from was still open, creaking back and forth with the gentle breeze. Weather-beaten and dry, it groaned with every movement. Eleanor always hated noise, but now, her face showed no irritation. Only shock. From her perspective, it was a shocking sight. A black, dried puddle of blood stained the floor at her feet. The walls and the door were smeared with it. The bedsheets had been torn to shreds, and even the pillow hadn’t been spared. The curtains had been taken down long ago; the guards were afraid I’d use them to hang myself and implicate them. I died in the early morning of the day after I finally spoke to Eleanor. After a full night of torment, the morning breeze had felt almost sweet. It reminded me of when I was seven years old, when my parents died and Eleanor brought me to the Brown estate. From that day on, she was the only person I depended on in the entire world. I had been willing to risk breaking every bone in my body to climb out of that one small, unbarred window. The guards heard the noise. As they watched with panicked eyes, I didn’t hesitate. I leaped from the cliff’s edge. They were terrified. They called Eleanor, their voices shaking, to report what had happened. But that day was her engagement ceremony to Julian. They had barely gotten the words out before she hung up. She was busy greeting guests, and had no patience for their hysterics. Perhaps she heard them. But even if she did, she probably thought it was just another one of my desperate stunts to get her attention. Her only reply was, “From now on, don’t report anything about him to me ever again.” Eleanor walked to the window and looked down into the yawning abyss. She let out a cold snort. “Leo is such a coward. He’d never jump from this high up. Julian was right, he’s far too manipulative. He needs to have that side of him beaten out.” “Who were the guards here? Bring them to me. I have questions.” A moment later, her assistant returned. “Ms. Brown, those men quit right after… after Leo’s suicide. Should we… send a team down the cliff to search for his body?” She laughed, a chilling, humorless sound. “Search for what? If he’d really jumped, the body would have been found by now. The police would have contacted us.” “He’s such a compulsive liar. He thinks he can fool everyone, but I know him too well. He can’t fool me.” Eleanor ordered her assistant to leave a team behind to continue the search. “Search everywhere, top to bottom, inside and out. I want him brought to me today, no matter what.” “He and Julian both have a rare blood type. He’s given blood to Julian before. Julian is injured now, and I need Leo here, just in case.” I stood right behind her, my entire soul trembling with a cold rage. She had left me here to rot for a year without a single thought, and now she was here only because her precious Julian might need me. For my blood. I thought I meant something to her. She wasn’t always like this. From the age of seven to seventeen, she had cherished me, held me in the palm of her hand. And I, in turn, had fallen hopelessly in love with this woman, three years my senior, my aunt in name only. Then Julian appeared, and everything changed. Julian was the liar, but Eleanor only ever believed him. On my eighteenth birthday, I took my chance and confessed my feelings. Eleanor scolded me, told me she was my aunt, that my feelings were wrong, unnatural. The next day, she sent me abroad. I knew, without a doubt, that Julian had been whispering in her ear again. He even fabricated the story about me being on drugs, a convenient excuse for Eleanor to have me brought back and locked away, just to get me out of the picture. And now that he was hurt, he needed his backup blood bank. But if I really were a drug addict, how could he possibly use my blood? It was such a simple, obvious contradiction. But Eleanor, blinded by her affection for him, couldn’t see it. The assistant looked at Eleanor, his expression troubled. “Ms. Brown, the guards said they saw him jump with their own eyes. It’s unlikely he could have survived.” “I know you don’t want to believe it, but they sounded sincere. It didn’t seem like they were lying. If we just call the police and have them organize a search, we’ll know the truth.” Eleanor scoffed. “He has you all wrapped around his little finger. He’s just hiding somewhere, trying to get out of giving blood to Julian. He’s probably laughing at us right now.” “Cancel all his credit cards. Once he runs out of money, he’ll come crawling back.” With that, she stormed out, rushing back to be with the injured Julian. My soul, unable to resist, followed her. 3 When Eleanor walked into the hospital room, her expression softened the moment she saw Julian in the bed. “How are you feeling today? Any better?” “I’m fine,” Julian said with a weak smile. “See? I’m perfectly fine. There’s no need for me to be cooped up in here.” Eleanor picked an apple from the fruit basket and began to peel it. “You were hit by that car because you pushed me out of the way. Of course I’m going to stay until you’re fully recovered.” “Julian, you’re the most important person in the world to me. You can’t be so reckless with your life ever again.” I remembered when she used to say those same gentle words to me. But since Julian’s arrival, I had long ceased to be her priority. He was the one who told her that since she wasn’t my blood relative, it was inappropriate for her to be so involved in my life now that I was an adult. From then on, Julian became the intermediary for everything concerning me. He concealed the fact that I had a brain tumor, insisting instead that I was a degenerate addict. He had me locked away on the cliffside estate under the guise of helping me, yet never once came to see me. And now that he was hurt and needed my rare blood type, now that he needed his walking blood bank, he finally remembered I existed. But they didn’t know. They didn’t know that I was already a pile of bones, lying alone and forgotten on a desolate ledge halfway down the mountain. “Eleanor, Leo wouldn’t come back? He still resents me, doesn’t he?” Julian said, pushing back the covers as if to get out of bed. “I’ll go to him. I’ll apologize to him myself.” Eleanor rushed to stop him. “Julian, you were only trying to help him. He’s the one who’s ungrateful. It’s not your fault.” “I’ve already canceled his cards and sent people to find him. Don’t worry, I will find him and make him give you blood.” She carefully fed Julian the apple she had just peeled. “Julian,” she asked thoughtfully, “did Leo ever mention anything to you about having bad headaches while he was overseas?” A flicker of panic crossed Julian’s face. He stammered, “N-no. Leo grew up rough, he’s always been strong as an ox! Eleanor, why are you suddenly asking this?” Eleanor seemed lost in thought. “It’s nothing. It’s just… when I went to the villa today, the room was covered in blood. But you’re right. He’s always been so healthy. He rarely even catches a cold. It’s impossible he could be sick enough to die.” Julian visibly relaxed. My soul raged beside them. I wanted to scream, to tell her that this man was lying to her again. But I could do nothing. Even if she could hear me, she wouldn’t believe me. She would always choose to believe Julian. In her eyes, I was just a twisted, jealous boy. Julian tested the waters. “Eleanor, if Leo doesn’t want to come home, maybe we should just let him go. As long as he’s happy, right?” Eleanor’s face instantly darkened. “Absolutely not! I have to ensure you’re safe. His blood type is the same as yours. You lost so much blood, and the doctor said you might need a second transfusion if complications arise. The hospital’s blood bank is already depleted.” “I raised him for so many years. It’s time he paid me back! Giving a little blood won’t kill him. Hell, even if it cost him his life, he should give it willingly!” For a moment, my entire being trembled. How could she say something so monstrous? She once promised she would always be my family, that I would never have to experience abandonment a second time. Had she forgotten all of it? Julian lowered his head, a triumphant smile hidden from her view. He had gotten the answer he wanted. He always pretended to be the bigger person, masterfully manipulating Eleanor, poisoning her against me. And even now, he continued to hide the truth, ensuring she would despise me completely. “Eleanor, don’t say that about Leo,” he said, his voice full of false sympathy. “He would be so hurt if he heard you.” Even now, he had to play the saint. Eleanor just scoffed. She was about to say more when her phone rang. I saw the caller ID: Detective Marcus. Our cousin, a police detective. She answered, and her face went rigid. She stood up, her expression turning grim. From the other end of the line, I heard his voice: “Eleanor… Leo is dead.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393145”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My fiancé adopted a little girl, claiming she was the orphaned daughter of his older brother, and begged me to treat her as my own after we were married. I was about to nod in agreement when a line of text materialized in the air before me. [Genius baby online! A big thank you to the supporting female lead for her wholehearted devotion to raising Yoyo. Even though Yoyo is the daughter of the male lead and his one true love (his sister-in-law), we’re still grateful to the SFL for being such a great adoptive mom.] [The SFL is actually a great person. She saves the male lead from bankruptcy and leaves her entire family fortune to Yoyo before she dies.] [Yep, that’s why after the SFL dies, Yoyo brings her real mom home for a happy family reunion!] [As soon as the male lead’s brother kicks the bucket in three days, and the SFL marries the male lead, the plot can officially begin!] Me: “…” Hold on, big brother, don’t you die on me. I’m coming to save you! 1 Before I could even process what I’d just read, George walked over, a little girl in his arms. “Anna, I want to adopt Yoyo.” “She’s my brother’s only daughter. You know the doctors have already told him he doesn’t have long. Yoyo can’t be without a father. Can we raise her as our own after we’re married?” I had thought the floating words were a fluke, but George’s actions mirrored them exactly. George was the male lead, which meant I was the so-called supporting female lead? Yoyo was the daughter of George and his sister-in-law. And I was destined to die? My mind went blank. Seeing my silence, George pushed the child into my arms. “Get to know her. I don’t want people saying her stepmother is abusing her.” [Haha, don’t worry, the SFL is super good to the female lead’s daughter. She pours all of the Kim family resources into raising her. That’s why I don’t hate the SFL! She does a really great job.] [Seriously, the SFL is the living embodiment of ‘love me, love my dog.’] A shiver went down my spine. This was all feeling chillingly real. George looked down at me, his patience wearing thin. “What’s with the silence? Either you accept Yoyo, or we call off the wedding. There’s no room for negotiation.” I forced down the fear rising in my throat and asked tentatively, “What about your sister-in-law? Can she bear to be separated from Yoyo?” It was an innocent enough question, but George’s reaction was explosive. “You want a woman to raise a child all by herself? How can you even say something like that? From now on, you’ll be raising Yoyo.” “And another thing,” he added, his voice cold, “I don’t plan on having any more children after we’re married. Yoyo is enough.” I stared at him, dumbfounded, at a loss for words. [Wow, the male lead is so deeply in love with his one true love, the female lead. He only wants one child his entire life.] [I kind of feel bad for the SFL. She’s such a simp. Because of their childhood engagement, she’s dedicated her entire life to the male lead.] [Yeah, and with the male lead’s brother about to die, the Parker family is facing a crisis. If the SFL hadn’t proposed marriage, their company would have gone under.] [The brother’s cause of death is actually pretty lame. The doctor misdiagnosed him. They missed that a blood vessel in his heart was blocked. All they had to do was clear it, no heart transplant needed.] [And the transplant surgery had complications, leading to his early death. The whole Parker family empire was just handed over to the male lead.] I frowned, a thousand questions racing through my mind. So, the tragic, early death of Liam Parker, a man known for his brilliance, was just as much a contrived plot point as my own? A strange urge to laugh bubbled up inside me. Well, if that’s the case… Hold on, big brother. Don’t you die yet. I’m on my way. 2 I pushed Yoyo back into George’s arms. “This is a huge decision. I need to think about it. I have to go.” Liam Parker was on his deathbed. Time was of the essence. I turned to leave, but as I opened the door, I collided with Maya. She had already regained her balance, but when she saw George in the living room, she let out a dramatic “Oh!” and stumbled backward into the wall. George heard the commotion and immediately put the child down, rushing over. “Maya!” I had just steadied myself when George grabbed my arm, his grip like iron. “If you have a problem with me, take it out on me! Don’t you dare touch Maya! She injured her back during childbirth, she can’t take any kind of impact!” George’s eyes were cold, his jaw clenched so tight I thought he might shatter his teeth. He looked like he wanted to tear me apart. I winced, trying to pull away. “George, let go!” He scoffed, letting go of me only to stride over to Maya. As he did, he gave my arm a sharp, warning tug backward. I was in high heels. I lost my balance and stumbled, landing hard on the floor. My wrist took the brunt of the fall, and a sharp pain shot up my arm. When I looked up, George was carefully helping Maya to her feet. “Are you okay? Is your back alright?” Maya frowned, putting on a brave face. “Anna probably didn’t mean it, George, don’t…” For once, George cut her off. “You’re too kind, always defending her. This isn’t the first time Anna has used her family’s status to do whatever she wants.” He wrapped an arm around Maya’s waist. With Liam on death’s door, it seemed they had thrown all caution to the wind. “Anna, apologize!” he commanded. I pushed myself up, using the wall for support, my teeth gritted. “I didn’t push her. Neither of you has the right to demand an apology from me.” “If you had a brain in your head, you’d check the security cameras. I’ll be waiting for your apology.” With that, I turned and walked away. I didn’t have time for their drama. To save Liam Parker, every second counted. 3 “Take me to the hospital where Liam Parker is staying.” My driver, Mr. Davies, glanced at my swollen wrist and sighed, looking like he wanted to say something but was holding back. “Miss, were you bothering young Mr. Parker again? You’re injured. We should get that looked at.” He then handed me a contract. “This is the partnership agreement between the Parker Group and our subsidiary. It needs your signature.” I let out a bitter laugh and held up my red, swollen wrist for him to see. “Mr. Davies, George injured me, and you want me to sign a contract with him? Have you ever seen such a spineless business partner?” Mr. Davies said nothing, just gave me a look in the rearview mirror. [LMAO, the driver is totally rolling his eyes. His internal monologue must be: ‘My dear young miss, you have the nerve to say that?!’] [Anna has been George’s biggest simp since they were kids. The driver is used to it.] I was furious. I threw the contract back onto the passenger seat. [Oh? Is the SFL upset?] [She’ll get over it. Remember that time the male lead ditched her in the middle of nowhere to go pick up the female lead? The SFL cried for two hours, then wiped her tears and went to bring him dinner.] Reading that, I froze. A flood of humiliating memories washed over me. Because of our childhood engagement, I had shamelessly chased after George my whole life. In elementary school, I was his loyal servant. In middle school, his most reliable wingman. By high school and college, I had become a laughingstock, the girl who would do anything for him. And now, with the Parker family in crisis, I had stepped up, offering a huge portion of my own shares to bail them out. Our wedding had been fast-tracked, but George and Maya’s affair had only become more blatant. Every time I confronted him, he would look at me with disgust, as if I had committed some terrible crime. “She’s my sister-in-law. Don’t be so filthy-minded.” I could only tell myself, over and over, that she was his sister-in-law, that it was his duty to take care of her. My entire life felt like a cycle of heartbreak and self-delusion. But this time… I looked at the floating text, then at my injured wrist. Suddenly, everything became clear. I loved George, but I loved my own life more. “Cancel all of our company’s partnerships with the Parker Group. Phase them out, starting now.” Mr. Davies slammed on the brakes, pulling over to the side of the road. He turned around, his eyes wide with shock. “Miss, if you do that, young Mr. Parker will be furious. What if you regret it later?” “I won’t regret it. Cancel them now. Any contracts that aren’t signed, scrap them. Any that are, we will not renew them upon completion.” When Mr. Davies turned back around, he actually wiped a tear from his eye. According to the text, Liam Parker and I were two of a kind. I used my money and influence to summon the top cardiac specialists from all over the country. The reason the Parker Group was on the verge of collapse was that everyone knew Liam, the brilliant elder son, was dying, and George, the younger son, was a worthless playboy. If Liam didn’t die, George would never have his chance. 4 Soon, doctors from all over were arriving by private jet. In the hospital room, Liam Parker was a shadow of his former self, gaunt and frail, kept alive only by the rhythmic hiss of a ventilator. [Aah, the big brother is so handsome. Can’t he not die?] [No can do. He’s too brilliant. If he doesn’t die, the male lead can’t have his character development.] [Sob, it’s just one tiny blocked blood vessel. It’s just really hard to find. But what is the SFL doing here? And with all these doctors?] [See? I told you she’d get over it! She must regret how she acted earlier and is trying to win points with the male lead by saving his brother.] [Nooo, don’t do it! Doesn’t the SFL see that the male lead is terrified of his brother? Big brother dying is a good thing for him! Don’t be stupid, SFL!] [It’s fine. They won’t be able to find the real cause of his illness anyway.] A faint smile touched my lips. I called over Liam’s attending physician. “These are some of the most renowned cardiac specialists in the country. They’re here to examine Mr. Parker.” The attending physician hesitated. “But… Mr. Parker’s wife said… she wants him to pass with dignity, without any more medical intervention.” I shot him a sharp look. If it weren’t for the floating text, I would have suspected that Liam was the victim of a plot by that despicable pair. “Dr. Chen, I believe my family, the Kim family, recently acquired this hospital, did we not? That makes me the majority shareholder.” That was all it took. The hospital administration immediately scrambled to assist the specialists with another round of examinations. They were thorough, but the diagnosis remained the same: he needed a heart transplant. [SFL, don’t waste your energy. This is how the book is written.] [Even if the Grim Reaper himself showed up, he wouldn’t be able to find the real cause of Liam Parker’s illness.] “Ms. Kim, it would be best to start preparing for the inevitable,” one of the specialists said, rising to leave. I stopped him. “Is it possible that he doesn’t need a transplant? That it’s just a single blocked blood vessel in his heart, one that’s been overlooked?” The specialists stared at me, stunned. Finally, an elderly professor with a shock of white hair put on his glasses and ordered a new series of advanced CT scans and ultrasounds. When he emerged from the imaging room, his face was flushed with excitement. “Ms. Kim, you were right! Mr. Parker can be saved! Prep the OR, now!” I let out a long breath, my entire body relaxing. At the same time, the floating text went wild. [Wait, why has the plot deviated? This isn’t how it’s written in the book!] [If big brother doesn’t die, then even if the SFL dies from overwork and a stress-induced heart attack, the female lead can’t come back to the family! What is going on? How did the SFL save him?] I gritted my teeth, a vein throbbing in my temple. So they really were just going to use me as cannon fodder. Die from overwork and a stress-induced heart attack? In their dreams! 5 Liam Parker’s surgery took four hours, but it was a success. I had just checked my social media and learned that George had taken Maya and their daughter on a little getaway. His caption was particularly nauseating: An older brother is like a father. With my brother gone, I will shoulder the responsibility of taking care of this family. He had also sent me two messages. I’m taking the kid out for a while. You should do some self-reflection. If you don’t want to accept Yoyo, there are plenty of women who would love to be her stepmother. I felt a strange sense of calm, almost nostalgia. To think that a love I had harbored for so many years could be extinguished in just a few moments. I replied with a single word. Okay. It took him four hours to send me a voice message. Even through the phone, I could imagine his sneering face. “Here we go again. Anna, you’d better have some backbone this time.” Oh, I will. To make sure there were no complications, I stayed at the hospital with Liam for two days and a night. When I saw his eyes flutter open, my exhaustion vanished. I grabbed his hand excitedly. “You’re awake!” [Oh no, the plot has really gone off the rails.] [What’s so bad about that? It’s more fun to read when you don’t know what’s going to happen.] The confusion in Liam’s eyes slowly faded. After the doctors had examined him, they were overjoyed. “Mr. Parker, your recovery is nothing short of a miracle! It’s all thanks to Ms. Kim!” Liam’s gaze shifted to me, his eyes filled with a flicker of uncertainty. For as long as they had been on their little trip, I had been by Liam’s side. A week later, some color finally returned to his face. I had always been a little afraid of Liam. He was three years older than me, and even when we were kids, he never smiled. But now, as I scrolled through George and Maya’s cutesy posts, and thought about the metaphorical horns he and I now shared, I felt a sense of camaraderie. I helped him sit up and brought the medicine to his lips. “Here, time for your pills.” He didn’t take them, just looked at me. “Not chasing after George anymore? A rare sight to see you here with me.” “George’s busy,” I said casually. “Doesn’t need me around. Open up.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “393142”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel