Pregnancy insomnia had me wide awake at 2 AM, mindlessly scrolling through my phone, when I stumbled upon a video titled “Three Toasts to Destiny.” In the video, a frail girl in a hospital bed was holding up a plastic medicine cup filled with ginger ale, toasting to her rebirth. The first toast is to my lover. Here’s to him suppressing his physical disgust to sleep with that woman. Just because she has O-negative blood, making her the perfect incubator to grow my “cure.” The second toast is to the fetus. Because only that woman’s newborn stem cells are pure enough. So my lover tracked her ovulation, swapped out her birth control, and made sure she got pregnant. The third toast is to the due date. In three months, when the baby drops, my new life begins. As for the hollowed-out mother who gets left behind… who cares if she lives or dies. The comment section was flooded with people calling it “edgy” and “romantic.” But reading it, my blood ran ice cold. Because five minutes ago, my husband, Ethan Carter—a top hematology specialist. Had just brought me a glass of warm milk and a Neonatal Stem Cell Directed Donation Consent Form. Ethan was dressed in his cozy cashmere loungewear, his gold-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his straight nose. He looked as gentle and refined as ever. He even thoughtfully tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Audrey, drink your milk and get some sleep. It’s good for the baby.” His voice was so tender it could melt snow. If I hadn’t just watched that video, I would have thought I was the luckiest pregnant woman in the world. I looked down at the consent form. Through the dense paragraphs of legal jargon, there was only one core takeaway: The umbilical cord blood and stem cells after the baby’s birth would be donated, free of charge, to a patient named Lily Rivers. Lily. The name sounded awfully familiar. The ID of the girl in the video was “One White Lily.” My hand trembled. Half the milk spilled onto the blankets. Ethan frowned slightly, but immediately grabbed some tissues to wipe my hands. His tone was a mix of reproach and pampering. “Why are you so clumsy? Did you burn yourself?” I pulled my hand back, avoiding his touch. “Ethan, who is this Lily? Why are we doing a directed donation specifically for her?” Ethan’s movements paused. Only for a second. He quickly recovered his natural composure and pushed the paper a little closer to me. “She’s a very pitiful young girl. Her leukemia relapsed, and her condition is critical. You have rare O-negative blood, and our baby likely will too. It’s a perfect match.” He looked into my eyes, his gaze deeply affectionate. “Audrey, you have the kindest heart. Just think of it as building good karma for our child, okay?” Good karma. That phrase from the video—who cares if she lives or dies—stabbed into my brain like an ice pick. I forced down the urge to vomit and pointed at my phone screen. “What about this video? Is this good karma too?” Ethan followed my gaze. On the screen, the woman in the hospital gown was smiling at the camera. On her wrist was a braided red thread bracelet. It was the exact one Ethan claimed he got from a mindfulness retreat in Sedona two years ago. He told me he lost it. Turns out, he lost it onto another woman’s wrist. Ethan’s pupils shrank drastically. But he was too calm. Calm like a surgeon dissecting a cadaver. He took my phone, closed the app, and even casually tucked the blankets around me. “Don’t read that garbage on the internet. People make up anything for views. And that bracelet? You can buy it at any tourist trap.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. His lips felt freezing cold. “Be a good girl. Sign it and go to sleep. That patient is running out of time.” That last sentence carried a barely detectable urgency. I stared at him. I had loved this face for seven years. From high school sweethearts to walking down the aisle, I thought he was my salvation. I never imagined he was a grim reaper coming for my life. I grabbed the pen and slashed a hard, jagged line across the consent form. “I’m not signing it.” Ethan’s face instantly darkened. That night, Ethan didn’t come back to our bedroom. He stayed in his study until dawn. The next morning, the dining table was covered with my favorite breakfast. Avocado toast, artisanal bone broth, fresh berries, and an unopened bottle of prenatal vitamins. Ethan served me breakfast with a smile, acting like nothing happened. “I had a bad attitude last night. Don’t be mad, Audrey. We can talk about the donation later. Eat first.” He pushed the bottle of pills toward me. “I had a colleague bring these back from Europe. Highest purity folic acid, great for the baby’s brain development. Make sure you take them on time.” If this were yesterday, I would have been incredibly touched. After all, he was a renowned medical authority and a notorious workaholic. Taking the time to care about these little details was proof of his love. But now, I just felt sick. I swallowed the pill right in front of him. Then, maintaining the warm, loving atmosphere, I kissed his cheek and sent him off to work. The second the front door clicked shut, I sprinted to the bathroom, shoved my fingers down my throat, and threw up my entire breakfast and the pill. Stomach acid burned my esophagus. Tears and snot smeared my face. I carefully scooped the dissolved remains of the pill into a Ziploc bag. That afternoon, I went to a private clinic. I sought out my best friend, Sarah, who worked as a pharmacist. The lab results came back fast. Sarah was holding the printout, her hands shaking. “Audrey, this isn’t folic acid. This is Filgrastim! And it’s an incredibly high dose!” “This drug is meant for bone marrow donors. It forces the bone marrow to overproduce stem cells and dump them into the bloodstream. The side effects are brutal. For a pregnant woman, long-term use can lead to liver and kidney failure, or even…” She didn’t dare finish. I finished it for her: “Even maternal death, right?” Sarah nodded, her eyes red. I smiled. A smile uglier than crying. So, the phrase who cares if she lives or dies wasn’t a hyperbole. It was a literal medical plan. He really wanted my life. Just to save his Lily. On my way home, my phone rang. It was Ethan. He was panting slightly, and the background noise was chaotic, like an ER. “Audrey, where are you? Your GPS says you’re out.” He had installed a tracker on my phone. He used to say it was to keep me safe. Now I knew it was just to monitor his “vessel.” I watched the city streets blur past the car window, keeping my voice perfectly flat. “Just out buying some baby clothes. Why?” “Go home immediately! There are too many germs out there, you’ll catch a bug.” He paused, his tone suddenly dropping into something sinister. “Don’t wander off. I’ll worry.” After hanging up, I clicked on “One White Lily’s” profile. She had updated. This time, the photo was taken outside an ICU. The caption read: [That woman hasn’t signed the form yet, but he told me to leave everything to him and rest easy. It’s okay. For our future, I can endure anything.] A comment asked: “What if she finds out?” She replied: [What if she does? The baby is in her belly, the baby’s life is in her hands. But her life, is in his hands.] My knuckles turned white as I gripped the phone. Ethan. If you want to play games. Let’s play for keeps. I started acting completely normal. Taking my “medicine” on time, reporting my whereabouts. Sure enough, Ethan lowered his guard. To ease whatever twisted guilt he felt, he started coming home earlier, cooking for me, and massaging my swollen legs. His hands were dry and warm, hitting all the right pressure points. Looking at his focused profile, I suddenly asked, “Ethan, we should pick a name for the baby.” His hands didn’t stop. “Let’s name him River.” “What?” “River. Like a mighty, flowing river. It’s a strong name.” I sneered in my heart. River. For Lily Rivers. How poetic. How painfully devoted. “I want to go to Mount Sinai for my next checkup. I heard there’s a specialist there who’s amazing,” I probed cautiously. Ethan’s hands suddenly tightened, digging painfully into my calf. “No need.” He looked up, the gaze behind his lenses chilling. “I am the best doctor. My colleagues are the best team. I don’t trust outside physicians.” “But…” “Listen to me.” He cut me off, leaving no room for argument. “Your condition is unique. Only I understand your body perfectly. Don’t go making a fuss out there. What if something goes wrong?” He made it sound so noble. In reality, he was terrified a real obstetrician would look at my bloodwork, see my hormone levels spiking dangerously, and realize I was being slowly murdered. Over the next two weeks, Ethan escalated his control. He hired a “nanny.” He said it was to take care of me, but she was a warden. My keycard was confiscated. My cell reception became mysteriously spotty. I was a pig in a pen. Just waiting for slaughter day. Until late one night, Ethan got a frantic call and rushed out. He forgot to lock the study. I slipped in and found a folder on his desktop named “L & E”. Encrypted. I tried my birthday. Error. Our wedding anniversary. Error. Finally, I typed in the date from Lily’s video—the day they celebrated their “rebirth.” October 18th. The folder clicked open. It was packed with photos and medical records. Pictures of Lily bald from chemo, pictures of her leaning into Ethan’s chest, laughing brilliantly. The timestamps spanned a decade. They were the high school sweethearts. I was just the tragic accident who got in the way, the unlucky fool who happened to have the golden O-negative blood. In a document titled Ovulation & Conception Protocol, I found something even more vile. Ethan had documented my menstrual cycles down to the hour. Which day he swapped the pills. Which day he poked holes in the condoms. Which days intercourse was strictly mandatory. Every single date corresponded to a night I had mistaken for passionate, spontaneous love. To him, those nights were just sickening, calculated breeding assignments. The last line of the document read: “Target Delivery: 32 weeks. Pre-term C-section to ensure maximum stem cell viability.” 32 weeks. That was next week. He never intended for me to carry to term. A baby born at seven months would be fighting for its life. But he didn’t care. He only needed the “cure.” The front door clicked open. Ethan was back. I instantly killed the monitor and held my breath in the dark. Footsteps stopped right outside the study. The doorknob turned. I pressed myself behind the heavy velvet curtains, shaking uncontrollably. Ethan walked in. He seemed exhausted. He collapsed into his desk chair and lit a cigarette. In the dim glow of the cherry, his face was shadowy and hollow. “Lily, just hold on a little longer. It’s almost over,” he whispered to the empty room. “Next Tuesday. I’ll schedule the surgery. You’re going to be okay.” My heart plummeted into an abyss. Next Tuesday. Three days from now. I waited until Ethan went to the master bedroom before I dared to creep back into my own room. I stared at the ceiling until dawn broke. The next morning, I intentionally threw myself down a flight of stairs. It made a horrific crash. The nanny screamed and frantically dialed Ethan’s number. I curled on the hardwood floor, clutching my stomach, cold sweat pouring down my face. “It hurts… take me to the hospital, the nearest one, now!” Ethan roared through the speakerphone: “Do not take her anywhere else! Wait for me! I’m bringing an ambulance now!” The nanny was paralyzed with fear. I grabbed her arm, my nails biting into her skin. “I’m bleeding! Are you going to watch me die? If we both die, can you afford the prison time?!” That broke her. She dialed 911. Just as the paramedics arrived, Ethan’s SUV tore into the driveway. His eyes were bloodshot as he physically shoved a paramedic out of the way. “I am a doctor! She is my patient! And my wife! I am taking her to my hospital!” The EMTs looked shocked, but recognizing his badge and authority, they backed off. I was shoved into the passenger seat of Ethan’s car. He slammed the gas pedal to the floor, his jaw tight enough to crack stone. “Audrey, did you do that on purpose?” He figured it out. I was pale from genuine pain, but I forced a weak, pathetic smile. “Ethan, I was just so scared for the baby… why are you so angry?” Ethan didn’t say a word. He drove me straight to his hospital and wheeled me right into a VIP suite. Not maternity. Hematology. In the bed next to mine lay Lily Rivers. It was the first time I saw her in person. She wasn’t as arrogant as she was online. She was skin and bones, looking like a shattered porcelain doll. But the way she looked at me was pure, unfiltered greed. Like a starving wolf looking at a slab of meat. Ethan injected something into my IV. A sedative. Before the darkness pulled me under, I heard Lily’s frail voice. “Ethan… is that her? My medicine?” Ethan stroked her hair, his voice dripping with a tenderness I had never received. “Don’t talk like that. She’s our benefactor.” “What benefactor? She’s a walking blood bag. Once the baby is out, she’s useless anyway, right?” “Lily, stop it. The OR is prepped. You get ready too.” “Ethan, do you really not feel bad? That is your child… and your wife.” Silence. A long, suffocating silence. Then, Ethan’s cold, dead voice. “Only the living have the right to claim a title. If she doesn’t cooperate, she’s nothing but medical waste.” A tear slipped from the corner of my eye and soaked into the sterile pillow. So this is what it feels like when your heart truly dies. I was violently awakened by the shrieking of medical alarms. In the bed next to me, Lily was convulsing. The lines on her heart monitor were spiking erratically. Ethan burst through the doors like a madman, a crash team hot on his heels. “Push EPI! Charge the paddles!” The look in his eyes—sheer panic, utter despair—it was the shattering grief of a man watching his soulmate slip away. Nobody paid me any attention. I lay there like an invisible prop, a few feet away, coldly watching this life-and-death melodrama. Half an hour later, Lily was stabilized. Dead silence returned to the room. Ethan slumped into a chair between our beds, his white coat drenched in sweat. He pulled off his glasses, buried his face in his hands, and let out a suppressed, agonizing sob. “Audrey.” A long time passed before he said my name. His voice was raspy, heavy with exhaustion. “She can’t hold on. The original plan was Tuesday, but we have to do it sooner.” He looked up. Those striking eyes I used to adore were bloodshot and filled with a terrifying, psychopathic resolve. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon, we operate.” A chill racked my body. I instinctively covered my belly. “It’s not even 32 weeks! Ethan, you’re a doctor! You know the risks for a micro-preemie! His lungs aren’t developed, he could suffer brain damage, he could die!” Ethan stood up and walked to my bedside. He didn’t bother with the gentle husband facade anymore. He looked down at me from above, his eyes reflecting a clinically insane logic. “I know. That’s why I’ve prepared the best NICU team, the most advanced incubators on the coast. As long as that baby comes out with a heartbeat, I will keep him alive.” “But the priority is the stem cells. They must be fresh. They must be extracted at peak viability.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “398273”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

When I realized that my childhood best friend was destined to fall for the poor transfer student and eventually kill me… To survive, I faked my own death. Before jumping into the ocean, I left him a single text message: [I saw her touch your hand today. It’s so dirty. I’m never seeing you again!] He was absolutely devastated. He threw himself into the sea multiple times just trying to find my remains. Meanwhile, I was already on a private jet flying out of the country. Five years later, I figured he and the transfer student had probably gotten their happily-ever-after, and it was time for me to return home and inherit my family’s billions. I never expected that on the very night I returned, he would lock me up in a cliffside mansion. The man who was always so proud, aloof, and untouchable slowly peeled off his gloves. He dropped to his knees in front of me, almost pathologically obsessed, intertwining his fingers with mine and kissing my hands relentlessly. “Chloe, I’m not dirty. From now on, no one but you will ever touch me.” 01. Asher Vance and I grew up together. Since I was a little girl, I firmly believed that we would get married when we grew up, and live happily ever after like a princess in a fairy tale. Unfortunately, fairy tales are just fairy tales, and I wasn’t the princess. During our junior year of high school, a transfer student joined our class. She had jet-black hair, snow-white skin, and a gentle, radiant smile. She even talked to stray animals. Without a doubt, she was the real princess. I leaned against the windowsill, looking down at Mia Harper chatting with a bird in the courtyard. Asher stopped behind me, his tone slightly icy. “It’s P.E. class. Why aren’t you downstairs yet?” He had loved bossing me around since we were kids. From what I ate and wore, to my grades and my friends. Because of this, my parents absolutely adored him. After all, what parent wouldn’t love a straight-A student who helped keep their own rebellious kid in line? I was used to his strictness, but sometimes I still pushed back. Like a rebellious teenager defying a parent. I pointed at Mia down below and asked, “Look at her. Don’t you think she’s interesting?” Asher followed my gaze and calmly delivered his verdict. “Lunatic.” “But I think she’s fascinating,” I turned around, testing the waters. “What if I became friends with her?” “Idiot.” He dropped those two words coldly and walked away. I knew that meant my proposal was rejected. 02. However, I never could have imagined that just one month later… He would be gripping my wrist, forcing me to apologize to Mia. His grip was so tight it left red marks. It hurt. No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t shake him off. Mia was half-kneeling on the ground, her clothes dirty and her knees scraped. “What happened to you?” I asked. “You pushed me down the stairs, and now you’re asking me what happened?” I glanced at the staircase behind me. “I did walk past here just now, but I didn’t push anyone.” “There are no security cameras here, so of course you can say whatever you want. You were the only one who walked by. If it wasn’t you, did I just throw myself down the stairs?” “Why would I even push you?” “Who knows? Maybe you hate seeing me getting close to Asher.” I frowned. I turned to look at Asher. Getting close to him? Didn’t he say we only needed each other as best friends? Why did he forbid me from befriending her, yet he was getting close to her himself? Why was he forcing me to apologize when I hadn’t done anything wrong? But those unasked questions were destined to remain unanswered. He just held me down, forcing me to say sorry. At that exact moment, a massive flood of information rushed into my brain. It was the “Plot.” It told me that Asher and Mia were the male and female leads of a romance novel. Mia had fallen for Asher because he unintentionally scared off some thugs who were bothering her. Asher would slowly fall for her kindness and purity. And I? I was just the vicious, jealous villainess standing in the way of their love. I would eventually be despised and hated by Asher for bullying Mia. And finally, once the two leads got their happy ending, Asher would kill me. My first reaction was, naturally, utter disbelief. But a second later, the hand forcing my head down served as a harsh reality check. It hurt. My wrist hurt, and my neck hurt. In the past, if I got a mosquito bite, he would be the first to fuss over it. Now, he was viciously forcing me to my knees to apologize to someone else. I hadn’t done it, yet he chose to believe a girl he had known for a month over me. And so, I recalled the ending of that “Plot” again. I… would be killed by Asher. Terrified by that thought, I ripped myself out of his grip and ran. I ran all the way home. 03. My mom was arranging flowers in the living room. Seeing me burst in, she quickly asked: “School isn’t out yet. Why are you home? Where’s Asher?” “Asher, Asher, Asher! That’s all you care about! He’s bullying me to death!” “Oh, sweetie, did you pick a fight with him again? You know he only does things for your own good.” I knew I couldn’t reason with her, so I ran upstairs to my room. I locked the door tight and hid under my blankets. I tossed and turned, thinking about the past and this supposed future. Night fell. Asher never came looking for me. Usually, whenever we fought, he was always the first to come coax me out of my mood. He didn’t come this time. And I finally made up my mind. I was going to run. Far, far away. On the day of the autumn break, I had previously made plans to go to the beach with Asher. But right before we left, he brought Mia along. The car ride was suffocatingly quiet. Asher cleared his throat, and Mia immediately handed him a water bottle. When their fingertips brushed, Asher only frowned slightly. Asher was a severe germaphobe. He never let anyone touch him. Even when I wanted to touch him, I had to ask for permission first. Yet now, he didn’t resist at all. This reminded me of the “special exceptions” mentioned in the Plot. It only cemented my resolve to leave. 04. The ocean breeze was gentle. On the picnic blanket that I had personally picked out, the two of them sat side by side. Asher still had his usual stoic expression, but occasionally, when Mia spoke to him, he would reply. I made one last phone call to confirm my arrangements. Then, I asked Asher to walk up the cliffside rocks with me. If he had looked closely, it wouldn’t have been hard to notice how bulky my jacket was. Underneath it was a high-grade life vest. I just wanted to escape; I didn’t want to actually die. Even with all the preparations, I was still terrified. If Asher had asked what was wrong, I would have told him. I didn’t want to leave the home I had known my whole life, but I wanted to live. If he asked, it would mean he still cared about me. And maybe, just maybe, I could avoid that tragic ending. But we walked all the way to the top of the cliff, and he didn’t say a single word. It was so obvious that something was wrong with me, yet he was completely blind to it. Forget it, then. If I couldn’t change the Plot, I would just have to change my own destiny. “My parents really love you. Will you… take good care of them in the future?” Perhaps noticing the strange tone in my voice, he frowned slightly. He just kept his hands in his pockets and gave a vague, dismissive hum. “That’s good.” I smiled at him, though I desperately wanted to cry. We had made a promise that when we turned eighteen, he would take me skiing. I had never seen real snow. Once we got into college and moved out, we were going to get a pet. I had even picked out the breed. I was going to get a massive Alaskan Malamute. When winter came, I would force him to walk the dog. I wanted him to be so cold and exhausted that he wouldn’t have the energy to boss me around anymore. But how could a person’s heart change so quickly? 05. “I thought you were going to throw a tantrum forever.” When he said that, his tone carried a sigh of relief, as if a burden had been lifted. I was moved by that tiny sliver of relief and turned to look at him. “I didn’t push her. Mia framed me. Do you believe me?” He frowned again. “Chloe, refusing to admit when you’re wrong—you’ll never have any real friends acting like this.” I gave a bitter laugh and didn’t ask again. A gust of wind blew past. I said, “You go down first. I want to look at the ocean a little longer.” “Come down with me. It’s not safe up here.” “Just for a minute. You go. I’ll be right behind you.” He stood stubbornly behind me. Until his phone rang. It was Mia. “Asher, can you come look? I think I got bitten by a bug.” Asher hesitated for a second, then dropped a quick: “Hurry up and come down.” Then he turned and left. I sat on the edge of the cliff, watching him walk briskly toward the beach. I let out a soft sigh. It felt like I had used up a lifetime’s worth of sighs over these past few weeks. I pulled out my phone and typed one last message. [I saw her touch your hand today. It’s so dirty. I’m never seeing you again!] Once I saw ‘Delivered,’ I smashed the phone against a rock until it was shattered. I turned and leaped into the ocean. The freezing saltwater swallowed me whole. The life vest quickly pulled me back up. Right before breaking the surface, I swam under the overhang of the cliff. That was exactly why I had chosen this specific spot. It didn’t take long for Asher’s voice to echo from the beach above. “Chloe Sterling!” He had finally seen the text. I heard him tearing off his jacket, ready to jump in, but Mia was frantically holding him back. From a distance, all I could hear were his desperate screams. … Thanks to Mia stalling him, I had enough time. An unremarkable fishing boat passed by and slowly sailed away. By the time the rescue teams arrived, I was already long gone. 06. Our little childhood trio actually had three members. The third was Stella Monroe. Last year, she moved to Italy with her older brother and settled there. They say the most dangerous place is the safest place. I contacted her and begged for her help. She agreed immediately. When I told her about the insane “Novel Plot,” she believed me without hesitation. The very next morning, she flew her family’s private jet back to the States. We met in the security booth of my gated community. There were no cameras inside the booth, so Asher wouldn’t be able to track me. Inside that tiny room, we hatched our master plan. Originally, I just wanted to sneak away while Asher wasn’t looking. But Stella was the one who suggested faking my death. I thought about it and realized she was right. If I just ran away, Asher would have me dragged back within a week. But Stella said: “This is how all those ‘groveling romance’ novels work! The male lead betrays the female lead, so she punishes him with her death.” I seriously suspect there’s something toxic in the water of our neighborhood. How else did it produce three absolute weirdos like us? Regardless, I no longer believed in fairy tale princesses. The princess’s story ends with the prince loving her. My prince didn’t love me. From today onward, I was going to be the wicked witch, cursing all the bad princes to turn into toads. 07. My first year in Italy. I saw snow at the foot of the Alps. The first snowfall happened to land exactly on my birthday. Stella enthusiastically invited all her friends and threw a massive party at her villa. Right before midnight, Stella dragged me onto the dance floor. We danced from age 17 into age 18. She got completely wasted and leaned against my shoulder. She slurred that the female lead would eventually find her true happiness. I looked out the window at the falling snow and said, “I’m already very happy.” I meant it from the bottom of my heart. Aside from the occasional moments when I thought of Asher, I was truly happy. My first birthday without him was loud, chaotic, and wonderful. Without him, I could live a great life too. 08. During the New Year, I finally called my parents. At first, they thought they were hallucinating. Once they realized it was really me, they screamed and scolded me mercilessly. I hadn’t told them my plan because I was terrified they would snitch to Asher. Looking back, I don’t know if that was the right choice. But listening to them yell at me, I didn’t argue back. I reminded them not to tell Asher, and they reluctantly agreed. Finally, I couldn’t help but ask how he was doing. They told me that for the first two days, he sat on the beach from dawn until dusk, staring at the police boats searching the water. It took over a month for him to somewhat calm down. On my birthday, he sat on that cliffside all day. He ignored everyone who tried to talk to him. Displayed on his phone screen was the last text I ever sent him. After that, Mia took my place, following him everywhere like a shadow. My parents felt sorry for me. They said if I hadn’t left, Mia would never have had the chance. I didn’t tell them that they were already practically glued together before I left. I updated them on my life. The Monroe family had a small chateau near the Alps. That was where Stella and I were staying. I had been taking language classes for a few months, and I planned to enroll at the University of Trento by the fall. Stella and her brother had arranged everything, and it had cost a fortune. I told my parents to make sure they paid the Monroes back. Without a second thought, my parents wired five million dollars to Stella’s account. After months of living off my best friend, I was a rich heiress again. 09. I showed them the snow outside my window on the video call, and they promised to visit when they had time. Before hanging up, they couldn’t help but drop subtle hints that Asher had become terrifyingly gloomy since I left, and that he truly cared about me. I explicitly warned them that if they breathed a word of this to Asher, I would disappear again, and this time, they would never find me. After ending the call, I thought for a long time. I had left while Asher still loved me. That was why he remembered me. A dead first love is the most unforgettable thing in the world. But if I had stayed, and waited until he completely fell for Mia… I would have gone from a cherished memory to an annoying stain on his life. If I left then, everyone would have just clapped and cheered. Since that was the case, it was better to stay a ghost in his heart. Once he fell in love with Mia, I would have made a graceful, dignified exit from his story. It was the best possible outcome. After completing a grueling series of courses and exams, I entered the Economics program at the University of Trento the following autumn. Four years later, having fast-tracked my credits, I earned my Master’s degree in Economics. Five years after I left my hometown, Stella was called back to the States. I remembered that I also had a corporate empire waiting for me to inherit. Figuring that Asher and Mia’s relationship was probably rock solid by now, I decided to hitch a ride on Stella’s jet and return home. I hadn’t even eaten dinner after landing before my mom shoved me into a gown and dragged me to a high-society business gala. At first, I hid in the corners, terrified of being recognized. Until I realized that absolutely no one in the room knew who I was. I had hated these glitzy events even back then, so I rarely attended. And after five years away, my face, my aura, and my style had completely changed. No one could recognize me. Relieved, I found a plush sofa and sat down comfortably. Half an hour into the gala, a massive commotion broke out near the entrance. Whispers spread that a “V.I.P.” had arrived. Curious about who could make all these billionaires stand at attention, I cautiously poked my head out from the crowd. And locked eyes with Asher Vance in a tailored suit. 10. Asher wore a bespoke black suit, his posture impeccably straight, his facial features even sharper and more striking than they were five years ago. The moment he appeared, the air in the ballroom seemed to freeze. The corporate titans who normally looked down their noses at everyone were now tripping over themselves to flash him obsequious smiles. I shrank deep into the corner of the sofa, holding up a massive slice of Black Forest cake to hide my face, chanting internally: You can’t see me, you can’t see me. After all, my current look was entirely different from the arrogant, flashy heiress I used to be. I was wearing a low-key champagne gown, my hair pinned up in an elegant twist, and I even had a pair of gold-rimmed blue-light glasses on. It was a very ‘intellectual scholar’ vibe. But Murphy’s Law is undefeated. Asher didn’t spare a single glance at the sycophants surrounding him. Instead, like he had a built-in radar, his gaze pierced straight through the crowd and locked onto my corner. He lengthened his stride, walking directly toward me. The crowd automatically parted like the Red Sea. I swallowed hard, my fork nearly slipping from my hand. Run! That was the only word in my brain. I shot up from the sofa, grabbed the skirt of my gown, and bolted toward the side exit. I made it exactly two steps before a hand clamped onto my wrist like a vice. The grip was brutal, the heat radiating from his skin searing—exactly like that day five years ago when he forced me to apologize to Mia. My entire body went rigid. A chill ran down my scalp. “Chloe Sterling. Where exactly do you think you’re running to?” His voice was low, raspy, vibrating with five years of suppressed madness and greed. It exploded right next to my ear. I took a deep breath, turned around, and forced the most polite, stranger-like smile I could muster. “Excuse me, sir, I think you have the wrong person. My name is Aria. I just flew in from Italy.” Asher lowered his eyes, staring at me dead center, a chilling smirk curling on his lips. “Aria? Italy? Master’s in Economics from Trento?” With every word he spoke, my heart sank an inch deeper. He knew everything! He didn’t just know I was alive; he had investigated every single detail of my life! “Let go! You’re hurting me!” I started to thrash, trying to pry his fingers off. The crowd around us collectively gasped. Clearly, no one ever dared to speak to Asher Vance like that. Instead of letting go, Asher tightened his grip and yanked me flush against his chest. The familiar, icy scent of cedarwood instantly enveloped me. “Does it hurt? When you threw yourself into the ocean, did you ever stop to think if I would hurt?” His eyes turned instantly red, his voice carrying a nearly imperceptible tremor. I froze. Before I could even process what was happening, he bent down, hoisted me over his shoulder, and stood up. “Asher! Are you insane?! Put me down! There are people everywhere!” I screamed in terror, pounding my fists against his back. “I went insane a long time ago. From the exact second you jumped into the sea, I lost my mind.” Ignoring the utterly shocked stares of the elite crowd, he carried me straight out of the banquet hall and shoved me into the back of a black Maybach waiting at the entrance.

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1 I was the wife that Arthur Sterling stole. He played dirty and snatched me right out of his best friend’s hands. Because he was the “other man” who clawed his way to the top, he was obsessively paranoid about every single guy who came near me. Even when I fed a stray dog in the park, he had to verify that both the dog and its owner were female before he could relax. That was, until recently. A new male intern started at my office and brought me coffee for a few days. Arthur said he didn’t mind, but that night, he stayed up until 3:00 AM scrolling through my phone. He was so angry he broke out in a full-body rash. On the way to the hospital, his face flushed and burning with a fever, he shoved a picture of the intern right in my face. “Those pecs are obviously Photoshopped!” “Look at his height—he’s definitely wearing shoe lifts! There is no way he is six feet tall!” Ignoring the ER doctors who were desperately trying to hold back their laughter, I awkwardly pinched his mouth shut and shoved him into a triage bed. While I was waiting at the pharmacy to pick up his meds, the doctor casually mentioned: “If you guys are trying to prevent pregnancy, we still recommend the woman takes birth control, or just use condoms. Since this male contraceptive pill just hit the market, the side effects are severe. Breaking out in a rash is actually on the milder end.” “Plus, he took three doses in a single week. I know he doesn’t want you to suffer the side effects, but he can’t just play with his life like that.” I froze. But I’m already three months pregnant. … Watching Arthur sleep soundly in the hospital bed, I picked up his phone. His passcode was my birthday. His Instagram feed was filled exclusively with photos of me. His search history was entirely about me: “How to get my wife’s attention?” “My wife thinks I’m too clingy, is she cheating on me?” “What to do when my wife misses her late mother?” Even his Notes app was packed with details about me: “March 20th: My sweet girl had a nightmare and missed her mom.” “March 21st: My sweet girl’s morning sickness is brutal. She throws up everything she eats.” “April 1st: Tracked down my wife’s old nanny to learn how to make my mother-in-law’s signature beef and tomato stew. My sweet girl ate a lot today.” Reading all this, my eyes began to sting. I tried to comfort myself, thinking maybe my pregnancy hormones were just making me overly sensitive. Until his GPS app suddenly pushed a notification to the lock screen: “Based on your usual routine, a route home has been generated. Estimated travel time: 30 minutes.” The destination was The Pinnacle Condos, Building 7. But I live in Building 3. My hand moved on its own, tapping the notification. The navigation history showed that for the past three months, every single day at noon, he reliably routed to this address and stayed there for about two hours. I suddenly remembered something. Because my morning sickness was so severe, I had lost eight pounds in just three months. I could only keep down food that Arthur cooked himself. But his corporate office was far away. Not only did he have to take care of me every day, but he also had to deal with the ruthless board of directors at his company. Working overtime until midnight was his norm. I felt bad for him. I wanted him to rest at the office during his lunch break. But he thought I was rejecting him, that I didn’t need him anymore. We had a massive fight. No matter what I said, he stubbornly kept a cold face and insisted on driving home to cook lunch for me. It wasn’t until I pretended my morning sickness had improved and swore I would eat properly that he finally agreed to stay at the office to rest. But the reality was, every single day, he was in another building less than a thousand feet from my house, keeping someone else company. I gripped the phone, my entire body shaking. Suddenly, a text message popped up on the screen: “Artie, you left your underwear at my place yesterday. She didn’t find out, did she? I specifically saved that pair for you. It’s unwashed.” “That’s my favorite pair of underwear. You have to bring it back to me on my birthday.” I stared dead at the profile picture. With trembling fingers, I tapped into the chat. It was Chloe! The illegitimate daughter who gave my mother a heart attack and stole my father. Since we were kids, she tried to steal everything from me. My clothes, my jewelry, my father’s love. And even my husbands. The only reason I divorced my ex-husband was because I caught him and Chloe in bed together. The day my divorce was finalized, I was completely shattered, drained of all hope. Arthur had held me tightly, promising me word for word: “My sweet girl, I will only ever love you in this lifetime. No matter what stunts she tries to pull, I will never give her a second glance. Trust me.” And he really did back it up. When Chloe tried to seduce him and sent him nudes, he immediately called the cops and had her locked up for seven days for harassment. He even forwarded the police report to her university, getting her expelled and ruining her future. I thought escaping that toxic swamp and meeting Arthur was the greatest blessing of my life. But why did it have to be her? Why is it always her?! With a masochistic urge, I scrolled through their chat history. I watched Arthur call her “his sweet girl.” I read how, when Chloe threatened to expose everything to me, Arthur ruthlessly blocked her, then “punished” her—punished her right into bed. I read about how, on the day I was hospitalized crying in fear because of a bad prenatal screening, they were sleeping in the guest room I had personally decorated, and she was wearing my pajamas… My body shook violently. A wave of pure nausea rushed up my throat. Behind me, the hospital bed shifted slightly. “Wifey?” 2 Seeing my red, tear-filled eyes, Arthur immediately reached out to hug me. But the moment he got close, I smelled the faint, unmistakable scent of sex on him. I violently shoved him away and sprinted into the bathroom, dry heaving over the sink. “My sweet girl!” Arthur instantly followed me in. The second his hand touched my back, I recoiled like I had been burned. I grabbed a heavy glass jar from the counter and hurled it at him. “Get the hell away from me!” The heavy glass ashtray clipped his temple. Blood immediately began pouring down his brow bone. But Arthur didn’t seem to care at all. He just looked at me with deep concern, the panic in his eyes practically spilling over. “Is the baby kicking up a fuss again?” “Or does something else hurt?” I sat on the bathroom floor, watching him frantically rush out of the room. He poured a glass of warm water, grabbed my prenatal vitamins, and rushed back in. Blood dripped onto the crisp collar of his white dress shirt, blooming into a small red stain. He was completely oblivious to it. He just held the pills out to me, his eyes cautious and incredibly gentle. “Open up, sweet girl.” “Why?” I looked into Arthur’s eyes, so full of love. The tears fell uncontrollably. Just a few days ago, we were lying in bed picking out baby names. We were imagining our future as a family of three. We talked about how, when she grew up a little, we’d take her to the beach, to the mountains, to every place we had ever visited since we fell in love. Just hours ago, he was throwing a jealous fit because I was standing too close to another man. “Why did you betray me?!” I stared at him, my vision completely blurred by tears. Arthur froze. The hand holding the pills clenched into a tight fist. “You know.” I waited for his explanation. I told myself that no matter what he said, I would believe him. As long as he just gave me an excuse, I could forgive him. “I’m sorry.” He took a step forward, his voice trembling. “I know firing that intern behind your back would upset you, but I just couldn’t handle another man being around you every day, seeing your smile.” He crouched down, looking up at me with a pathetic, lowly gaze. “You don’t know how much effort it took for me to steal you away from Liam. To finally earn the right to stand proudly by your side. Why should some random kid get to have all of that without doing a damn thing?” “I know I’m sick. I know I’m not normal. But I absolutely do not regret it.” “My sweet girl, you can hit me, curse me, punish me however you want. Just don’t hurt yourself, and please don’t leave me. I will literally die.” He looked up at me, his eyes bloodshot, looking exactly like an abandoned puppy. I looked at him, knowing that right now, I should turn around and walk away without a second thought. But I just couldn’t bear to do it. I couldn’t bear to let go of his gentleness. I couldn’t bear to let go of the incredibly happy life we had built. So, as long as I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I could pretend nothing ever happened. As long as I didn’t see it. I looked at Arthur and managed a small smile. “I’m craving beef and tomato stew.” Arthur’s eyes instantly lit up. He turned and practically jogged toward the kitchen. But a moment later, his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, and his face filled with apology. “I’m so sorry, sweet girl. There’s an emergency at the office. I’ll make it for you as soon as I get back.” Before I could even respond, he was out the door. I grabbed my car keys and followed him. The Pinnacle Condos, Building 7. I stood in the shadow of a large oak tree, watching Chloe loop her arm intimately through his as they walked through the lobby doors. The moment the door closed, I pulled out my phone and dialed his number. Through the massive floor-to-ceiling window of the ground-floor condo, I saw him immediately stand up, acting like he was going to walk outside to take the call. And then, Chloe stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his. Through the phone, I heard the sticky, wet sound of a kiss, followed by his heavy breathing. I gripped my phone, my knuckles turning white. “Arthur. My stomach hurts.” Hearing those words, Arthur violently shoved Chloe away, grabbed his jacket, and headed straight for the door. “Don’t be scared, sweet girl. I’ll be right there.” Suddenly, a muffled groan came through the phone. Chloe crouched down on the floor. Immediately after, the call was disconnected. Ten seconds later, a text popped up. “Sweet girl, there’s an emergency board meeting. I have to be there. I already called your doctor, he’s on his way to the house. Don’t be scared.” I looked up. Through that window, I watched him scoop Chloe up into his arms and carry her toward the bedroom. My heart finally died completely. I pulled up my phone and dialed the hospital. “Hello, I need to schedule an abortion.” 3 I was just about to pull out of the parking spot when I saw a man standing right in front of my car. It was my father. We stared at each other in silence for a long time. Then, I followed him back into the house I had lived in for eighteen years. The living room was the same living room, but everything else was completely different. The wall that used to hold photos of me and my mom was now entirely covered in pictures of Chloe and her mother. My mom’s favorite begonias had been replaced by sickeningly sweet roses. I stood in the center of the living room, feeling like a stranger in a strange land. My dad pointed to the sofa. The second I sat down, he cut straight to the chase. “Leave Arthur.” “I refuse. Arthur is the one who can’t leave me.” Once, when I found out he had added Chloe on WhatsApp, I felt so betrayed I packed my bags to leave. He blocked the front door. Without saying a single word, he grabbed a fruit knife from the coffee table and plunged it directly into his own stomach. Blood poured out, but he didn’t take a single step back. He just stared at me. “If you want to leave, you’ll have to step over my dead body.” My dad didn’t argue. He just gave me a look of profound pity. Then, he pointed to the wall next to the staircase. It was a massive photo gallery. It was entirely filled with pictures of Chloe and Arthur. Cuddling on a gondola in Venice. Holding hands under the cherry blossoms at Mount Fuji. Kissing passionately under the Eiffel Tower. “He didn’t go on a business trip last week. He took Chloe on a trip around the world.” My dad stood up, walked over to the gallery wall, and pointed at the massive framed photo dead center. “They got their marriage license overseas. They had a huge wedding and invited everyone.” “Including his parents.” “To get his parents to accept Chloe and attend the wedding, he kneeled outside their front door for seven days straight.” “I seem to recall that absolutely no one attended your wedding with Arthur.” I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Arthur’s parents despised me. They believed I seduced their son, slapped him with the label of a homewrecker, and ruined his reputation and his future. So they didn’t show up to our wedding, and they strictly forbade us from ever visiting their estate. But in these photos, they were smiling warmly, happily accepting the traditional tea Chloe was serving them. “I heard you got into a car accident a few days ago?” my dad asked. “I didn’t want Arthur to worry, so I handled it myself. I never told him.” My dad let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Do you know where he was when that happened?” “He was literally a block away from you, helping Chloe pick out a diamond ring.” A loud, deafening ringing exploded in my ears. “He watched the whole thing. He watched that driver harass you. He watched the guy shove you to the ground. He watched you hide in your car and cry. He watched them bang on your windows and curse at you. He watched you force yourself to hold it together and call the cops.” “And he didn’t move a single muscle. Because Chloe was thirsty, and he was in a rush to go buy her a boba tea.” “I DON’T BELIEVE IT!” I shot up from the sofa, my entire body shaking violently. I refused to believe that the man who would hyperventilate with worry if I got a paper cut would just stand by and watch me get assaulted without doing anything. “These are all lies! You just made this up to force me to leave Arthur!” My dad stared at me in silence. That look terrified me to my core. After a long time, he finally spoke. “Chloe is pregnant.” “They named the baby Julian.” Julian. Youthful and peaceful. Something snapped in my brain. That was the name Arthur and I had spent an entire month brainstorming, flipping through baby name books until the pages were worn out. That was our baby’s name. That name belonged exclusively to my child! “Men understand men better than anyone.” My dad’s voice echoed in the room again. “The only thing keeping him with you right now is a sense of obligation. If you keep doing this, you’re going to end up exactly like your mother.” My mom. When she found out my dad had a mistress, she absolutely refused to sign the divorce papers. So my dad brought the mistress right into our house, making out with her right in front of my mom. Eventually, my mom couldn’t handle the humiliation anymore and killed herself. Will I end up like my mom? Trapped in an endless cycle of breakdowns, insanity, and mutual torture? I didn’t know. I just suddenly felt incredibly, unbearably exhausted. I stopped listening to the man standing in front of me. I pushed the front door open and walked outside. The bright afternoon sun beat down on me, but I couldn’t feel a single ounce of warmth. 4 My phone vibrated violently. It was a barrage of texts from Arthur. “Sweet girl, where are you? Why aren’t you picking up?” “I’m begging you, sweet girl, just reply to me. Let me know where you are!” Only then did I realize that in the past hour alone, Arthur had called me hundreds of times. But my eyes were glued to the text from the clinic, confirming my abortion appointment for tomorrow morning. My hand unconsciously moved to my stomach, trying to feel a heartbeat. I had absolutely nothing left. This was the only thing that still belonged to me. Before I could even process what to do next, a set of blindingly bright headlights swerved aggressively toward me. Blood instantly clouded my vision. Chloe stepped out of the car and crouched down in front of me. “Sarah! Why won’t you just die?!” “Only when you’re dead will Artie truly belong to me! Right now, even when he’s inside me, he’s only thinking about you!” Her face twisted into a demonic, psychotic sneer. She grabbed me by the back of the head and slammed my face brutally into the asphalt. She didn’t stop until my face was completely covered in a thick mask of blood, making me entirely unrecognizable. Then, she pulled out her phone, her voice instantly shifting to panicked terror. “Artie! I hit someone with my car! I’m so scared!” A few minutes later, Arthur’s black SUV skidded to a halt. Chloe threw herself into his arms, trembling like a leaf. “Artie, what do I do? Am I going to prison? I swear I didn’t mean to do it.” Arthur held her tight, whispering softly to comfort her. “It’s okay. I’m here.” He turned and barked an order at his bodyguards. “Pour liquor down her throat. Make it look like a DUI.” The bodyguard glanced down at me. “Boss, she’s pregnant.” Arthur froze, a flash of hesitation crossing his face as he looked down at my bloodied form. “Artie, I’m so scared! If people find out I was the one driving, my life is over! I’d be better off dead!” Chloe melted into his chest, her eyes wide and overflowing with tears. “POUR IT!” Arthur looked down and kissed the top of Chloe’s head. “I will handle the consequences!” Harsh, burning liquor was forced down my throat. The alcohol spilled from my lips, mixing with the blood on my face, and dripped onto the pavement. I felt a rush of warm fluid pooling beneath me, flowing out onto the street. I desperately cried out for help. “Arthur, no. Please.” But my voice was too weak. No one could hear me. However, Arthur suddenly stopped. He stood frozen, looking down hesitantly at my blood-soaked body. “I thought I heard Sarah calling me.” Chloe suddenly clutched her stomach. “Artie, my stomach hurts. The baby is kicking me.” Arthur instantly snapped his attention back to her, sweeping her up into his arms and rushing her to the SUV. Before getting into the driver’s seat, he shot one last look at the bodyguards. “Watch her. Wait until the alcohol fully absorbs into her bloodstream before calling an ambulance.” The car doors slammed shut. I lay there in a pool of my own blood, staring dead at the direction the taillights vanished into. When I woke up again… Arthur was sitting by my hospital bed, gripping my hand tightly. His eyes were bloodshot. “Sarah, how are you feeling?” “Does it hurt anywhere?” Tears poured uncontrollably from his eyes, landing on the back of my hand. “What happened?! The hospital called me out of nowhere and told me you were in a car accident and the baby was gone.” “Who was it?!” Arthur squeezed my hand tighter and tighter, his eyes burning with absolute, murderous rage. “Who hit you?! I’m going to kill them!” “It was you, Arthur.” I looked at the terrified expression on his face, and a wave of dark, twisted satisfaction washed over me. “You told your bodyguards to pour liquor down my throat. You ordered them to delay the ambulance. Congratulations, Arthur! You personally murdered your own child!”

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Arthur and I were what you’d call a blended family. When we got married, we didn’t have a big reception. He brought his daughter, and I brought mine. We introduced the girls, and then we all just moved in together. The unspoken agreement was that each of us would primarily take care of our own child. But after the wedding, Arthur was always busy. Busy arguing with his ex-wife. Busy staying out all night cleaning up the messes she left behind. One afternoon, as I was getting ready to take my daughter to her dance class, I caught a glimpse of Arthur’s little girl. She was huddled in a corner, shrinking back, watching us with a face full of naked envy. I couldn’t help but let out a long, heavy sigh. 01 Arthur and I met later in life. When the matchmaker set us up, he had been divorced for two years. Arthur was thirty-two. He worked as a doctor. Both of his parents had passed away. He owned a condo downtown, though he was still paying off the mortgage. He drove a thirty-thousand-dollar sedan. He was about five-foot-ten, slender, and reasonably good-looking. On paper, he was an excellent catch. When I first glanced at his profile, I was actually a bit suspicious. I wondered if he had some unmentionable, hidden flaw. Why else would someone like him need to scour the dating market for a partner? Then my eyes dropped to his marital status: Divorced, one child. It suddenly made sense. “He really picked me?” “Out of hundreds of profiles, you’re the one he zeroed in on!” The matchmaker grinned so wide I could see all her teeth. “He specifically asked to meet you.” “Look at how sincere he is!” Matchmakers—they have a silver tongue and a heart full of lies. I’d thank God if even thirty percent of what came out of her mouth was true. I didn’t feel any flutter of excitement. Instead, I frowned and read through Arthur’s profile from top to bottom one more time. My eyes lingered slightly longer on his twenty-thousand-dollar monthly salary. After a moment, I set the papers down and asked, “He does know that I also have a daughter, right?” The matchmaker nodded enthusiastically, like a chicken pecking at grain. “He has a little girl too.” “That’s exactly why he decided he wanted to meet you.” Since she put it that way, I suppose I didn’t have any real reason to refuse. I thought about it and said, “I’m going to bring my daughter to this meeting.” “Everything depends on how she feels.” “If my daughter likes him, then we can talk about moving forward.” The matchmaker made a note of it and set up my first date with Arthur. What I didn’t expect was that Arthur would bring his daughter, too. 02 My daughter, Chloe, was eight. Arthur’s daughter, Mia, was six. When the two little girls met for the first time, the atmosphere between them was even stiffer than it was between Arthur and me. Chloe was warm and outgoing. As soon as they met, she gave Arthur a big, polite greeting, and then tried to hold Mia’s hand to show she wanted to be friends. Unfortunately, the second Chloe’s fingers brushed the back of Mia’s hand… Mia’s face completely changed. Like a terrified rabbit, she leaped back and hid behind Arthur. No matter how hard Arthur pulled or tugged, she absolutely refused to step out even an inch. When he pulled too hard and hurt her… She actually bit his hand. Arthur’s face instantly darkened to a thunderous scowl, and he immediately raised his hand, ready to smack her. I couldn’t watch it happen. I quickly stepped in and grabbed his arm. “Arthur, hitting a child doesn’t solve anything. It’s only going to make your relationship with her worse.” Arthur gave me a look of utter helplessness. “I don’t want to hit her, but you saw her just now.” “She is completely unmanageable! She makes me so angry I could die!” “I’ve spanked her, I’ve yelled at her, and absolutely nothing works.” Arthur let out a deep, exhausted sigh. He looked over at Chloe, who was sitting quietly beside me, seriously studying the menu. He gave a bitter laugh. “Your daughter has such a wonderful personality.” “If my daughter was even half as smart and outgoing—no, even a third as outgoing—I’d thank God.” I frowned. I really didn’t like what Arthur had just said. Every person is an independent individual. Every person is their own miniature universe. There is absolutely no need to compare anyone to anyone else. Everyone is unique; everyone is the most perfect version of themselves. I suddenly didn’t really want to keep seeing Arthur. But Arthur, it seemed, really liked me. After that first meeting, he added me on social media and tried to bypass the matchmaker to set up a second date. When I declined, he wasn’t discouraged. He asked for a third. After going back and forth a few times, I decided to meet him, just to make my boundaries clear. But the moment we sat down, Arthur got a call from his ex-wife. The two of them got into a massive screaming match right there on the phone. After he hung up, Arthur looked completely drained, stripped of all his energy. Seeing he wasn’t in a good headspace, I kept quiet. It wasn’t until much later that he suddenly asked me: “Why did you and your ex-husband divorce?” “He cheated,” I answered flatly. “He started a whole second family behind my back. When the woman got pregnant and told him it was a boy, he couldn’t wait to divorce me fast enough.” Arthur paused, stunned, then ordered us two glasses of red wine. First date. Our topic was children. Second date. Our topic was exes. Third date. I said to him, “If we get married, will you let me manage the finances?” Arthur was momentarily taken aback, but then he nodded. “My money is your money.” I shook my head. “I want your entire paycheck deposited directly into my bank account.” Arthur hesitated for three days, then agreed to my condition. Fourth date. Arthur and I went to the courthouse and got our marriage license. 03 Since it was a second marriage for both of us, we didn’t make a big fuss. I just packed some essentials and moved into Arthur’s condo with my daughter. That first night, we had hot pot. Keeping the two little girls in mind, I also made a few kid-friendly, sweet dishes: Sweet and sour spare ribs, popcorn chicken, cola chicken wings, and fresh shrimp patties. The four dishes were set right in front of Mia and Chloe. Chloe ate a piece of rib, her eyes crinkling with absolute delight. She looked at me sweetly and said, “Mommy, your sweet and sour ribs are the best in the entire universe! I love you, Mommy!” “Thank you, baby. That makes Mommy so happy.” Smiling, I put another rib on her plate. And, of course, I didn’t forget about little Mia sitting next to her. The little girl was holding her bowl, eating incredibly carefully, never looking up, never reaching for any of the shared dishes. Arthur didn’t even notice. He just focused on inhaling his own food. Once he was full, he immediately retreated to his home office to work, leaving me and the two kids to finish eating. From the beginning to the end of the meal, Mia didn’t reach for a single dish. But I saw that the sweet and sour rib I had put in her bowl was gnawed completely clean. Only the bare bone was left, and she hadn’t even brought herself to take it out of her bowl. I wanted to give her some more food. But the second the shrimp patty landed in her bowl… Mia reacted like she had been burned. She dropped her bowl and sprinted away as fast as she could. This kid… she was going to be a headache. As a stepmother, trying to discipline Arthur’s child always felt like walking on eggshells. Fortunately, Arthur and I had set clear boundaries before we got married. I told him I would spend one year trying my absolute best to help Mia become a more adjusted, normal child. But when I was parenting her, Arthur had to be actively involved. If, after a year, she was still like this, I wouldn’t try to parent her anymore. I had my own daughter to raise, after all. Arthur had agreed readily. But in reality, he was completely hands-off at home. The condo was basically just a hotel for him. He only came back to do two things: eat and sleep. Every morning, he left at exactly 7:00 AM. Every evening, he’d randomly spawn back in the house anywhere between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM. Occasionally, when he had a sliver of free time, I’d try to talk to him about Mia. But he was always dragged away by a million different things. One minute it was a work call. The next, his ex-wife would call him with some crisis, demanding he go handle it immediately. If it was just work, that would be one thing. But the second Arthur picked up the phone and heard his ex-wife’s voice, his entire demeanor shifted. They would almost always end up screaming at each other. Yet, after all the screaming, he would still leave to go help her. Before he left, he’d just shoot me an apologetic look. After it happened enough times, I took the hint and stopped bothering him. After all, Mia wasn’t my biological child. Both of her actual parents were still alive. Did they really expect a stepmother to exhaust herself trying to fix her? 04 Three months into my marriage with Arthur. Chloe’s school year started. Mia was old enough to start first grade, too. But given her current level of severe withdrawal… Forget going to school; just getting her to come out of her bedroom to speak to someone was a miracle. Every morning, I’d prepare two identical breakfasts. I’d set one on the dining table for Chloe. I’d place the other on the floor right outside Mia’s bedroom door. When I set it down, I’d ring a little bell hanging on her doorknob to let her know breakfast was ready. Mia usually didn’t respond, and she wouldn’t come out to get it right away. She would wait. She’d wait until I took Chloe out the door. She’d wait until she heard the heavy thud of the front door closing. Only then would she stealthily open her door just a crack to snatch the food. But this time, when she reached her hand out, she didn’t grab the breakfast. She grabbed my hand. The child didn’t understand what had happened. Panicking, she tried to yank her hand back, but I gripped it firmly. The next second, I dragged her forcefully out of the bedroom! Mia let out an uncontrollable, piercing scream. Like a cornered, terrified wild animal. She started thrashing wildly, using her arms and legs to fight me. Seeing that I wasn’t going to let go, Mia opened her mouth in a frenzy and bit down hard on my hand. I didn’t flinch. I let her bite until my hand bled. Blood dripped down the wound and seeped into Mia’s mouth. The slap she was waiting for never came. Instead, a thick, heavy blanket dropped over her, enveloping her back in darkness. Immediately after, she was pulled into a warm, tight embrace. “Don’t be scared. You’re a good girl. I’m not going to hurt you.” Mia stared at me blankly through a gap in the blanket, completely lost. Even though I had to go get a tetanus shot because of that bite… The good news was that Mia was finally willing to show her face around people. She went from completely isolating herself to slowly being willing to open her door and respond. She still didn’t want to come out fully, but it was a massive step forward. Whenever I was in the living room talking to Chloe, I could always feel a hidden gaze fixed on us. But whenever I looked over, all I saw was a tightly shut door. Until that day. I was getting ready to take Chloe to her dance class. The little girl was wearing a beautiful Elsa dress, twisting and posing in front of the mirror, admiring herself. No matter how much I tried to reason with her, she absolutely refused to change. Finally, I had to compromise. “Alright, fine. You can wear that dress to dance class.” “But when you can’t do the big movements later, don’t say Mommy didn’t warn you.” Chloe instantly lit up. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss me, not forgetting to butter me up sweetly: “Mommy, you’re the absolute best!” I laughed and gently pinched her nose. As I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, I caught a glimpse of Mia. She had cracked her door open and was timidly, enviously staring at Chloe’s dress. Chloe hugged her dress and said a bit awkwardly, “This is my dress.” “It’s too big for you. You can’t wear it.” “Right, Mommy?” Little Chloe was incredibly anxious. This was her absolute favorite dress. She was normally a kid who loved to share. But this dress… Mia truly couldn’t wear it. She was just too skinny. Compared to the healthy, chubby Chloe, they were completely different body types. Chloe frantically tugged at my shirt, trying to get me to back her up. I found the whole situation both funny and sad, and replied, “Right.” “This dress is definitely a bit too big.” Mia reacted like she had been burned. She quickly averted her eyes and dropped her head. I was going to pretend I hadn’t seen anything and just walk out the door. But as I pulled the front door open, I couldn’t hold back a heavy sigh. I turned back and asked, “Mia, do you want to come out with me and Auntie?” “I’ll buy you the exact same Elsa princess dress that Chloe is wearing.” “I’ll buy you one in a smaller size. How does that sound?”

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I didn’t speak a single word until I was eight years old. Everyone in the Sterling family called me a retard. Even my own mother would cry in secret, convinced she had given birth to a severely autistic daughter. My father looked at me with eyes full of utter disappointment. Yet, bound by the crushing weight of his pride and social standing, he never sent me to a special needs school. Then came the day the corporate raiders from Wall Street arrived to acquire our family’s empire, Sterling Enterprises. They were so arrogant they verbally decimated the entire boardroom. A room packed with top-tier executives sat in dead silence like frightened cicadas, not a single one daring to speak up. I stood in the corner, listening until I was practically falling asleep. I was annoyed. I took one step forward. And spoke my very first sentence in this lifetime. 1 My name is Seraphina Sterling. The eldest granddaughter of the main branch of the Sterling family, and the sole direct heir to the empire. This was a life that should have been defined by a silver spoon. But I was eight years old, and I still hadn’t spoken a single word. Everyone from the top to the bottom of the Sterling family knew the truth: the eldest young miss was an idiot. My mother came from a highly educated, aristocratic family in Boston. Gentle and refined, she poured absolutely all her love into me. She would hold me, teaching me over and over again. “Sera, say it with Mommy… Ma… ma…” I would just look at her, silent and motionless. The light in her eyes would slowly dim, inch by inch. Then she would turn around and covertly wipe the corners of her eyes with a tissue. She thought I couldn’t see. But I knew everything. It wasn’t that I couldn’t speak. I just didn’t want to. Because I came into this world carrying the memories of my past life. In my previous life, I was a fast-talking, relentlessly grinding financial analyst on Wall Street. I spent thirty years talking non-stop, and I was exhausted to my core. In this life, I just wanted to be a quiet, useless trust-fund baby and enjoy the ride. But I underestimated the immense weight of the title “Eldest Granddaughter of the Sterling Family.” It wasn’t just wealth; it was a shackle. My father, the Chairman and CEO of Sterling Enterprises, was a ruthless, decisive businessman. Every time he looked at me, there was a glimmer of desperate hope. “Sera, do you know what this is?” He would point to the numbers on a financial statement. I would nod. “Can you tell Daddy what our net profit is for this quarter?” I would reach out my little hand and accurately point to the exact figure. The hope in his eyes would flare brighter. And then, he would ask the question he wanted the answer to more than anything else in the world. “Sera, can you just call me Daddy? Just once?” I would look at him, maintaining my silence. The light in his eyes would instantly extinguish, like a raging fire doused in ice water. Leaving behind only disappointment. A disappointment so thick you could cut it with a knife. He would sit in silence for a long time, then stand up and storm out of the room. “Sigh.” That sigh was so heavy it felt like it could shatter the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the entire executive floor. I knew perfectly well that if I wasn’t the only direct granddaughter, and if my mother’s family wasn’t incredibly powerful in their own right, my position as the heir would have been revoked years ago. The looks my cousins gave me had also morphed from their initial wariness into undisguised mockery. “Big Sister, did you understand anything they taught in tutoring today?” The one speaking was my Uncle Robert’s daughter, Victoria Sterling. She was only a year younger than me, but she was articulate, sharp-tongued, and deeply favored by my father. I gave her a sideways glance, too lazy to acknowledge her. That only made her smile wider. “Oh, I forgot. Big Sister is a born genius! She knows everything right out of the womb. Unlike us mere mortals who actually have to study hard.” “Victoria, don’t say that.” My Uncle Thomas’s daughter, Chloe Sterling, chimed in with fake, sickening sweetness. “Big Sister just thinks it’s beneath her to speak to us. It’s called being a late bloomer, understand?” They sang their little duet perfectly in sync. The nannies and maids standing around kept their heads down, but their shoulders were shaking slightly. They were laughing. Laughing at me, the mute idiot. I walked past them, my face entirely devoid of emotion. It was like watching two grasshoppers jumping up and down in front of me. Boring. And childish. My mother saw all of this and it broke her heart. That night, she held me again, her tears soaking my shoulder. “My sweet Sera, why won’t you speak?” “Even if it’s just one word. Just one word, and Mommy could die happy.” I could feel her body trembling. It was the absolute despair of a mother. My heart wasn’t made of iron. In that moment, my resolve wavered slightly. Maybe… maybe I should finally speak. Just as I was preparing to open my mouth and attempt to force out a rusty, unfamiliar syllable… Frantic footsteps echoed outside the study. Our head butler, Mr. Henderson, practically tumbled into the room, gasping for air. “Ma’am, it’s a disaster!” “The people from New York are here!” “That Wall Street predator… Charles King… he’s already at the corporate headquarters!” All the color drained from my mother’s face. Charles King. That name was a dark, looming storm cloud over Sterling Enterprises. He was the most vicious vulture on Wall Street, specializing in shorting and dismantling legacy Asian-American family conglomerates. In recent years, he had already devoured three companies the same size as Sterling. “What is he doing here?” my mother asked. Mr. Henderson’s voice was shaking violently. “He… he says he’s here to negotiate a buyout. He was incredibly disrespectful! He said he’s here to help Sterling ‘exit the stage of history with some dignity’!” My mother stumbled, grabbing the edge of the desk for support. “Negotiating a buyout” was just a polite corporate euphemism for a hostile takeover. A massive, devastating hurricane was about to make landfall. I looked up at the gray, overcast sky outside the window. It seemed my days of quietly playing the useless idiot were officially over. Oh well. There are always some blind, annoying flies who insist on forcing a sleeping lion… no, a sleeping lioness, to open her eyes. 2 My father called an emergency meeting on the top floor of the corporate headquarters, summoning all family members and core executives. I was dragged along too, standing in the corner. It was family tradition: the eldest grandchild must be present for major family events. Usually, I would just find a corner, stand there all morning, and zone out completely. But today, the atmosphere was different. The entire boardroom was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Every single person’s face was a sickly, humiliating shade of iron-gray. My father sat at the head of the table, his face so dark it looked like a thunderstorm. Standing directly across from him was a tall, middle-aged man in a bespoke suit. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses were eyes as sharp and predatory as a falcon’s. This was Charles King. He had an Asian face, but he was a crocodile raised in the bloody waters of Wall Street. “Mr. Sterling, is this the famed Sterling hospitality?” Charles spoke up. He used fluent English, but his tone was dripping with condescension. “I flew fourteen hours from New York just to look at this?” He pointed a long, manicured finger at the trembling executives in the room. “A bunch of pathetic nerds who only know how to look at financial data!” “I talk to you about capital, and you talk to me about sentiment.” “I talk to you about market dynamics, and you talk to me about your ‘century-old legacy’.” “It’s laughable!” “Absolutely pathetic and laughable!” He burst into arrogant, booming laughter. The sound echoed through the solemn boardroom, incredibly grating to the ears. “Mr. King!” The CFO, trembling with rage, slammed his hands on the table and stood up. “This is the Board of Directors for Sterling Enterprises! We will not tolerate your disrespect!” Charles shot him a sideways glance, his face full of utter disdain. “Old Wu, I know who you are.” “You’re the one who was lecturing me yesterday about how ‘family businesses have a soul’.” “Let me tell you something. Our rule on Wall Street is simple: the only ‘soul’ a business without profit has is the soul of a graveyard!” “Only the weak need to use sentiment to cover up their sheer incompetence!” The CFO’s face flushed a violent, dark purple. He pointed a trembling finger at Charles, stuttering “You… you…” for several seconds before gasping for air and collapsing backward, stiff as a board. “Mr. Wu!” The people next to him frantically scrambled to catch him. Chaos erupted in the boardroom. My father slammed his hand on the table and roared, “Enough!” Charles finally dialed it back a fraction, but the contempt on his face didn’t fade in the slightest. He gave a mocking, half-hearted shrug toward my father. “Mr. Sterling, I won’t waste any more of your time.” “The investment committee at my hedge fund has already made the call. Sterling’s stock price won’t survive the next fiscal year.” “If you sell right now, you can still walk away with $300 million.” “If you wait for us to initiate our short-selling campaign… by the time we’re done, you’ll be lucky to walk away with $100 million.” “Furthermore, we have our eyes on that massive plot of land Sterling owns in the South District. We plan to develop it into ultra-luxury real estate.” “And I hear your R&D tech team is quite capable. We intend to poach the entire division…” Before he could even finish his sentence. The entire boardroom exploded. Slashing the buyout price, stealing their prime real estate, and poaching their core tech team! Was this a buyout negotiation? This was the blatant, brutal dismemberment of Sterling Enterprises! “This is extortion!” “Get the hell out of here, you Wall Street parasite!” “Robert, we’ll fight him to the death!” On my Uncle Robert’s side of the table, several hot-tempered shareholders couldn’t hold back anymore. Charles let out a cold, cynical sneer. “Fight me?” “Be my guest.” He locked eyes with Uncle Robert, the leader of the opposition. “I know you. You’re the second Sterling brother, right? Three years ago, you spearheaded that commercial real estate project. How much money did you lose? Twenty million? Or was it thirty million?” Uncle Robert’s face instantly flushed crimson, looking like he had just been slapped across the face. The veins on his clenched fists popped, but he couldn’t utter a single word. Charles turned his gaze to another executive. “And you, you’re the Chief Marketing Officer? Last Black Friday, how much did you burn on marketing? And what was your actual conversion rate? Did that pathetic bump in sales even cover the cost of the ad spots?” The CMO lowered his head, his face burning with shame. Charles swept his gaze across the room. Every single person who had been screaming for a fight instantly deflated. The boardroom fell into a deathly silence once again. A humiliating, powerless silence. I stood in the corner, watching it all unfold. These were the elites of Sterling Enterprises. The CFO was out-argued, the CMO had his deepest failures exposed. A room full of seasoned executives, completely subjugated and humiliated by a single Wall Street vulture, unable to even lift their heads. I felt a little sleepy. Honestly. This scene was even more pathetic than I had anticipated. It was like watching a group of grown men get cornered in an alley by a street thug, getting slapped in the face one by one, yet not a single one daring to fight back. My father’s chest was heaving violently. I knew he was on the absolute brink of exploding. But he couldn’t. Because everything Charles said was the brutal, undeniable truth. Sterling’s profits were indeed in a steep decline. This was the tragedy of the weak. Charles was immensely satisfied with the effect he had created. He cleared his throat, preparing to lay out even more outrageous demands. “Since no one has any objections, I’ll take that as a unanimous agreement.” “Our fund also requires…” His incessant, droning voice was like an annoying fly buzzing right next to my ear. I originally just wanted to be a quiet spectator. But this fly was just too damn loud. I was annoyed. I was genuinely annoyed. In this dead-silent boardroom, everyone was looking down. Nobody noticed me in the corner. I moved. I took a step forward. Just one step. From the shadows of the corner, directly into the light. Chapter 2 3 My single step was very light. But in the dead-silent boardroom, it echoed like a crack of thunder. Every single person’s gaze was instinctively drawn toward me. They saw me. An eight-year-old girl, dressed in a custom-tailored dress, looking like a porcelain doll. Their eyes were blank at first, then morphed into shock. Seraphina Sterling? The idiot? What is she doing? My mother, sitting next to my father, also saw me. Her eyes filled with panic and worry. She reached her hand out, as if wanting to call me back, but didn’t dare make a sound. My father furrowed his brow, his eyes filled with confusion and a trace of displeasure. My cousins, Victoria and Chloe, exchanged a look of pure schadenfreude. Their expressions practically screamed: Is this idiot really going to embarrass herself in front of everyone? Charles noticed me too. He looked down at me from his towering height, a cruel, mocking smile spreading across his face. “Oh? Whose kid is this?” “Is Sterling really out of options? You’re sending a child to the front lines?” He deliberately raised his voice. “Little girl, are you going to talk to me about ‘sentiment’ too?” “Or is your daddy planning to offer you to me as my goddaughter to sweeten the deal?” He laughed arrogantly. The shareholders let out suppressed gasps, their faces twisted in humiliation and rage. Insulting a child was insulting the entire family line. Yet, still, not a single one of them dared to speak up and defend me. I ignored everyone else. My eyes were locked solely on Charles, who was currently parading around like a clown. I looked at him, and then, I opened my mouth. And I spoke my very first sentence since arriving in this world. I spoke in English. Rapid-fire, impeccably pronounced, elite Wall Street-accented English. “Are you finished?” My voice was young and childish, but my articulation was razor-sharp, my tone freezing cold, completely devoid of any emotion. The entire boardroom instantly plunged into a silence far more bizarre and terrifying than before. Everyone froze. Because they understood me. Every single person in that room understood English. The idiot spoke. And she spoke fluent, flawless English. The smile on Charles’s face instantly solidified. His sharp, predatory eyes filled with an unimaginable, impossible shock. It was as if he had just seen a ghost in broad daylight. He stared at me, his mouth opening and closing, a strange gargling sound coming from his throat, as if an invisible hand was choking him. “You…” He forced a single English word out with extreme difficulty. I looked at him expressionlessly. And continued in his native tongue. “If you’re finished, get the fuck out.” Those words hit Charles’s chest like a sledgehammer. His body swayed violently. The blood instantly drained from his face, leaving him as white as a sheet. If my first sentence caused shock. My second sentence caused fear. A bone-deep, primal fear originating from the very depths of his soul. Because “If you’re finished, get the fuck out” wasn’t just a generic insult in Wall Street circles. Thirty years ago, when the legendary George Soros successfully shorted the British Pound and broke the Bank of England, those were the exact final words he said to his defeated opponent. It was a legend. A myth. It was a piece of Wall Street lore known only to the absolute top-tier financial titans! The way he looked at me—an eight-year-old girl—had completely changed. He was no longer looking at an idiot. He was looking at a… monster wearing human skin. “Who… who the hell are you?” He asked, his voice trembling violently, still speaking English. Everyone else in the boardroom was absolutely dumbfounded. They understood every single word that was spoken, but they couldn’t comprehend the scene unfolding before their eyes. The ruthless Wall Street wolf who, just seconds ago, was trampling a room full of elite executives under his feet… was now trembling like a terrified rabbit in front of an eight-year-old girl. What… what was happening? My father shot up from his chair, his eyes wide, staring at me with a mix of shock, ecstasy, and endless confusion. My mother covered her mouth tightly with her hands, tears streaming down her face, but she didn’t dare make a sound. I didn’t answer Charles’s question. I just continued speaking calmly in English. “This ‘hedge fund’ you’re parading around is nothing but a marginalized spin-off team from Goldman Sachs. The real heavy hitters pulled their capital ages ago. The money you’re managing now is just scraps from tier-two pension funds.” “Three years ago, when you shorted that Southeast Asian tech firm, you didn’t do it based on ‘precise market analysis.’ You preemptively bribed their CFO and acquired their internal financial reports illegally.” “Last year, when you acquired that biotech startup, your so-called ‘valuation model’ was just a copy-pasted McKinsey template from five years ago. You got scammed out of $30 million, and you were actually proud of yourselves. Right?” “Furthermore.” I smiled slightly. To Charles, that smile must have looked more terrifying than the devil himself. “Your mandate for acquiring Sterling Enterprises today has a hard floor of $200 million. If Sterling plays hardball, your committee authorized you to accept $250 million.” “Because your own fund’s cash flow is dangerously tight. If you don’t close a deal right now, you won’t even be able to pay out end-of-year bonuses.” “You don’t even have the actual capital required to swallow Sterling whole. You just desperately need to close one flashy deal before the annual review to appease your investors.” “Am I right, or am I right?” I finished speaking and looked at him quietly. Thud! Charles couldn’t hold himself up any longer. His legs gave out, and he dropped straight to his knees right in front of the entire boardroom. He leaned forward, his hands bracing against the floor, cold sweat pouring down his forehead, his voice choked with terror. “Oh my God… Oh my God…” The entire room was dead silent. Everyone was completely paralyzed by the surreal, magical scene unfolding before them. I stopped looking at him. Instead, I turned to look at my father, who was standing at the head of the table, equally dumbfounded. I switched from English back to standard, flawless English. My voice was still young, but crystal clear. “Dad.” “I have something to say.”

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On the very day I was discharged from the psychiatric facility, my husband, Victor Vance, dropped a bombshell without any warning: “The day Chloe ran over your mother, I was the one who hired the defense attorney for her.” My father, the most elite surgeon in Boston, was driving the car. He added with chilling indifference: “And I personally forged your psychiatric records.” During three years of torture in that asylum, not a single moment went by without me remembering the horrific sight of my mother being crushed beneath Chloe’s car. And yet, my husband chose to defend her killer. My father chose to lock me in a madhouse. I gripped the edge of the seat, my voice trembling as I demanded, “Why? Why would you do this?” My father averted his eyes. Victor was the one who answered, his tone terrifyingly casual: “The reason is simple. You already had everything, Clara. Chloe has had to live with the stigma of being an illegitimate child her whole life. She’s suffered enough.” “I’m giving you two choices now. Either you make peace with Chloe, or you spend the rest of your life in that asylum.” … The sudden, brutal truth hit me so hard the world spun. It felt like my chest was stuffed with cotton, suffocating me. Victor reached out, his hand sickeningly gentle as he wiped away my tears. He continued: “Actually, when they injected you with sedatives back then, we took the opportunity to press your thumbprint onto the settlement agreement.” “But the dosage was too high. You only found out you were pregnant after the miscarriage. We were out celebrating Chloe’s freedom that night… we forgot to check on you.” I remembered. After my mother was killed by Chloe, I ran toward the police station, heavily pregnant and desperate for justice. Instead, a needle pierced my skin. As the sedative took hold, I felt warm blood slowly trailing down my legs. I was forced to press my inked thumb onto a piece of paper. But no one told me that piece of paper traded my baby’s life for three years of freedom for a murderer. My face was ice-cold. My throat was hoarse from crying. “Why are you only telling me this now…?” My father glanced at me through the rearview mirror and sighed. “I was afraid you wouldn’t calm down and repent while you were in there. Now that you’ve learned to behave, even if you know the truth, you won’t hurt Chloe.” Repent? When I first learned the truth about my mother’s death, I merely slapped Chloe across the face. That single slap bought me three years of imprisonment. Endless handfuls of bitter pills that made me vomit violently. Electroconvulsive therapy that repeatedly stripped away my consciousness. It was all their revenge. All for a single slap. I let out a devastating, hysterical laugh and lunged at my father in the driver’s seat. The car swerved violently across the road. “Clara, are you crazy?!” Victor roared, pinning me down in his arms with brutal force. “I am crazy!” I screamed, my voice tearing. My mother’s body wasn’t even cold before my father promised his mistress a lifetime of devotion. Then he teamed up with my husband to let my mother’s murderer walk free. I should have gone crazy a long time ago! When we arrived at the house, they locked me in the basement. My father held up a photo of him and his mistress, demanding I call her “Mother.” I spat fiercely at his feet. “Never.” Seeing the stubborn defiance in my eyes, he sighed in frustration and answered a ringing phone. Before leaving, he warned me: “Linda is going to treat you like her own daughter. You need to learn some respect!” Roaring, I snatched the photo album and hurled it across the room. It shattered. A shard of glass sliced across Victor’s cheek, and dark blood began to well up. He didn’t flinch, but his brows knitted together in deep disgust. “If you keep up this attitude toward Chloe, I don’t mind sending you back in there!” Seeing the mixture of blood and tears streaking my face, the man finally crouched down to meet my eyes: “If you can just let the past go and accept Chloe and her mother, everything will go back to normal.” “Whether you want to return to this family is entirely up to you.” Dropping those words, he stood up and slammed the heavy basement door shut. But neither of them knew. When they signed my discharge papers, hidden between the pages were two documents I had drafted: a divorce agreement and a formal severance of family ties. This “family” that only loved a homewrecker and her illegitimate daughter—I didn’t want it anymore. Later, Chloe sent me a friend request on social media, intentionally granting me access to her feed. On the exact day I was locked in the asylum, Victor had taken her to an exclusive auction to pick out diamond jewelry. I still remembered my first day in that hellhole. Unable to endure the inhumane torture, I had desperately managed to sneak into a bathroom and call him. The first time, he declined the call. The second time, it went to voicemail. The third time, his phone was turned off. I was caught using a contraband phone. What followed was a high-voltage session of electroshock therapy. After that, I finally learned to “cooperate” with my treatment. I never tried to escape again. My fingers continued to scroll down the screen, my eyes burning. On the day of my mother’s funeral, my father had dressed in a tuxedo to attend his mistress’s birthday banquet, publicly announcing their relationship. And they had specifically scheduled their wedding for tomorrow. It was Chloe’s birthday. And my mother’s death anniversary. That evening, Victor brought a tray of food down to the basement. He tried to feed me with a spoon, just like he used to, but I turned my head away. He looked surprised, his expression darkening: “Are you still throwing a tantrum?” During my three years in the asylum, I had survived only by fantasizing about his gentleness. But now, my heart, which once desperately craved his warmth, was completely frozen. The slightly softened atmosphere instantly plummeted to sub-zero. Victor angrily smashed the bowl onto the floor. “We brought you out because we thought you had finally learned to behave! I didn’t expect you to still be this stubborn!” “What happened back then wasn’t Chloe’s fault! Your mother was the one acting hysterical, calling her a homewrecker! She brought that ending upon herself!” My heart seized with a agonizing pain. I clearly remembered Chloe backing her car up and running over my mother’s body again and again, a sinister, victorious smile twisting her face. Warm blood had splattered right by my feet. When I tried to charge at her, Victor had tackled me to the ground, restraining me while whispering empty comforts into my ear. “The ambulance is coming, don’t be scared…” It turned out that while he was holding me, he was probably thinking my mother deserved to die. I gave a self-deprecating laugh and threw the signed divorce papers at his chest. “Is she not a homewrecker? Let’s get a divorce!” Victor froze for a moment, then let out a cold, incomprehensible sneer. “A divorce? You know I hate being threatened.” “But I think you should know—right now, you are the mistress!” As soon as the words left his mouth, a legally stamped marriage certificate hit my chest. The woman listed as his legal wife wasn’t me. It was Chloe. Even though I had already decided to divorce him, tears still spilled from my eyes. It had been a massive lie from the very beginning. In this moment, my signed divorce papers felt like an absolute joke. Seeing my silent tears, Victor thought I was regretting my decision. In a rare display of patience, he offered an explanation: “This was your father’s idea. After all, you had everything, and Chloe and her mother suffered a lifetime of grievances. Besides, a piece of paper means nothing.” “Be a good girl. As long as you can accept Chloe, I can eventually give you back your rightful title as Mrs. Vance.” Before I could respond, his phone rang. It was Chloe. He left the basement and didn’t come back. He flew her overseas that very night to pick out her birthday present. They sat on a beach waiting for the sunrise, playing the piano piece that was once “our” song. The deep affection I used to know so well was now being showered on another woman. Something inside me was collapsing entirely. When Chloe posted photos online, the comment section referred to her as “Mrs. Vance” and ruthlessly trampled on me: [A man’s heart is wherever his money is. She’s lucky they didn’t just throw the crazy bitch out on the street.] [Clara and her mom probably slept their way to the top anyway. No wonder no one cares that one is dead and the other went insane.] Victor chose to stand by and watch. I knew what he was doing. He was proving to me that if I didn’t obey, I would be nothing but a rat in the gutter, forced to watch their happiness from the shadows. He wanted me to take back the word “divorce.” But I never would. The next morning, I was violently awakened by deafening celebratory music echoing outside my door. My mother’s memorial portrait and belongings had all been thrown out, replaced by festive wedding decorations. When I emerged from the basement, disheveled and gaunt, the guests cast bizarre, mocking glances my way. “Isn’t that the crazy daughter? How did she get out of the asylum?” “Her dad is getting married, and her sister is celebrating a birthday—a double blessing! Of course she had to come show her support, hahaha!” “Isn’t she embarrassed to be seen around Mr. Vance? Looks like there’s a new Mrs. Vance in town.” … Chloe, dressed in a magnificent haute couture gown, walked over arm-in-arm with Victor. “Sister, you’ve suffered so much. Even though you’ve always hated me and my mother, we’re a family now. Let’s try to get along.” On the woman’s wrist rested the Vance family heirloom bracelet—a piece reserved exclusively for the legitimate daughter-in-law of the Vance family. Victor had given it to her long ago. Chloe wore a sweet, harmonious smile, but her manicured nails dug viciously into my arm. Wincing in pain, I shoved her away. “Congratulations. I’m going to pay my respects to my mother now.” “Stop right there!” I had barely taken a step when my father’s furious roar stopped me. “You are forbidden from mentioning that woman in front of Linda and Chloe!” Victor grabbed my arm, his patience wearing thin: “Today is a joyous day. I won’t allow you to cause a scene.” But today was also the anniversary of my mother’s death. I stubbornly pulled away. In the blink of an eye, a swarm of reporters suddenly surrounded me. Chloe rushed over and dropped to her knees in front of me, crying beautiful, delicate tears. “Sister, I know you’re grieving your mother. But you can’t deny that she was mentally unstable before she died! She intentionally rammed her body into my car… she slandered me…” “My mother spent her whole life doing good deeds, only to be framed as a homewrecker by your dead mother…” As she spoke, she conveniently dropped a psychiatric evaluation certificate from her designer bag. It had my mother’s name printed on it. Instantly, the guests gasped in collective shock. “I didn’t realize both the mother and daughter were clinically insane! And they abused Chloe and Linda for years!” In just a few sentences, they had successfully painted my mother and me as deranged bullies. Seeing Chloe’s pitiful, victimized act, Victor’s face turned thunderous. “Clara, I can’t believe you and your mother teamed up to abuse them! How could you be so cruel?!” My father’s face was flushed red with anger as he pointed a finger in my face: “You ungrateful wretch!” Everything in front of me twisted into a grotesque nightmare. I swayed dizzily. “No, my mom was perfectly sane…” Before I could finish, my weak body was pulled into Victor’s embrace. A cruel whisper sounded in my ear: “I hold the deed to your mother’s childhood estate.” “Clara, look into the cameras and clarify that Chloe’s mother never destroyed your family. Be a good girl.” His voice was terrifyingly gentle, yet so cold it sent uncontrollable shivers down my spine. Before she died, my mother had fought tooth and nail to secure that historic estate, just to leave me with a safety net. It was the only piece of her I had left. I used the last ounce of my strength to hiss: “You bastard!” The moment the words left my mouth, a barrage of news alerts lit up everyone’s phones like a virus. [SHOCKING! The historic estate formerly owned by the late Mrs. Sterling is currently listed for auction at Sotheby’s for a dirt-cheap starting bid!] Meeting my horrified gaze, Victor stroked my hair with absolute confidence. “What’s more important? A dead woman’s reputation, or her final worldly possession? Make your choice.” Tears poured from my eyes like a broken dam. I almost burst out laughing. The threatening face of the man standing before me could no longer be reconciled with the Victor Vance I once loved. A flash of hesitation crossed Victor’s eyes. Perhaps he remembered how hard I had cried the day my mother died. “Just clear their names, and I’ll divorce Chloe and marry you.” But Victor, I don’t care about marrying you anymore. I squeezed my eyes shut in total despair. Stumbling as I pushed him away, I faced the flashing cameras. “Chloe’s mother was never a homewrecker. My mother suffered from severe mental illness and fabricated lies about them. I apologize…” Instantly, the internet erupted. My mother and I were nailed to the pillar of public shame. On the exact anniversary of her death, she was branded a “crazy bitch.” Victor stood emotionless, while my father—with his arm wrapped around his mistress—let out a sigh of relief. Just then, Chloe let out a piercing scream, waving her phone in the air. “Sister! How could you hire thugs to dump garbage and feces all over my mother’s bridal suite?!” The video showed the luxurious, opulent bridal suite completely smashed to pieces and defaced. The moment the video played, a brutal slap struck my face. Victor’s eyes were bloodshot with rage. “Clara! Do you have any idea I was about to remarry you?! And because you were forced to make a simple clarification, you threw a tantrum and did this?!” “If this is how you’re going to act…” He turned and exchanged a glance with my father. His resolve hardened. “Then we don’t need to keep that estate!” The disgust in the man’s eyes deepened. He dialed the auction house on speakerphone. “Sell the property for a hundred dollars! First come, first served!” “No!” He pinned my thrashing body down as I screamed until my vocal cords tore: “Victor Vance! I don’t want to remarry you! Give me back the estate!” Victor suddenly froze, his face registering pure shock: “Is our relationship really that worthless to you? Stop using angry threats to manipulate me!” “Think whatever you want!” My eyes were blood-red. I snatched a set of car keys from a valet table and ran out without looking back. The man stared deeply at my retreating figure, only snapping back to reality when Chloe gently called his name. When I arrived at the childhood estate, my mother’s memorial shrine and offerings had been kicked all over the floor. Her portrait was splashed with blood-red paint, carved with vulgar obscenities. “Stop it! Leave it alone!” But before I could finish, the urn holding my mother’s ashes was knocked off the table, shattering into pieces on the hardwood floor. “Miss Chloe gave us special instructions! She wanted you and your mother to become one!” With that, the hired thugs swarmed me, pinning me to the floor. They grabbed fistfuls of the ashes and forced them into my mouth. “Mmm… No!” I struggled violently, but it was useless. Tears of blood streamed from my eyes. After the thugs finally left, I coughed up a mouthful of blood. My heart was completely, utterly dead. Moving like a machine, I lit a match, tossed it onto a pile of dry wood, and watched the roaring flames consume the house. Victor Vance, may we never meet again in this life. Three hours later, when Victor and my father arrived at the estate holding sacrificial bouquets, a panicked neighbor screamed at them: “The old house suddenly caught fire! I think someone burned to death inside!”

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Tricked by my boyfriend into going to a remote, lawless compound deep in the backwoods, I was reduced to nothing more than a breeding machine. The day the local quack cut my stomach open to deliver a breached pregnancy, I lay in a pool of my own blood. Through the haze, I heard the two women guarding the door chewing sunflower seeds and gossiping: “These college girls from the city are so gullible. She actually thinks she was kidnapped by human traffickers.” “Right? Who told her to mess with Mr. Vance’s precious best friend?” “Mr. Vance paid our boss a hundred grand to have the whole compound play along with this ‘escape room’ game. He even personally mailed the labor-inducing drugs.” “I heard Mr. Vance say that as long as she rots in this hellhole for three years and experiences the pain his ‘bestie’ went through, he’ll mercifully take her back to the city to marry her.” Through the crack in the door, I saw the video call from my fiancé, Arthur Vance, playing on the woman’s phone. So, this pitch-black purgatory I had endured for three years was just a customized punishment he orchestrated to make his female best friend happy. The excruciating pain in my abdomen tore at my nerves. As my consciousness teetered on the edge of collapse, a mechanical voice echoed in my mind: [Host, the abuse meter for the target, Arthur Vance, is full. Do you wish to abandon the conquest and detach from the current world?] …… I opened my eyes, staring at the blackened wooden beams of the ceiling. The heavy wooden door was violently kicked open. The hinges snapped, and the door crashed into the mud, splashing filth everywhere. Arthur Vance, dressed in an immaculate black suit, stepped into the dim, foul-smelling barn. Behind him were five bodyguards in sunglasses. And two private doctors carrying medical kits. The local quack was squatting beside me, holding a rusted needle threaded with coarse black string, hovering over my abdomen. The flesh there had been brutally sliced open, and blood was relentlessly pouring out. Arthur stopped in his tracks, looking at the blood-soaked hay and pig manure covering the floor. He raised a hand and pointed at the quack. “Stop. Get the hell out.” The quack dropped the needle and thread. With his hands covered in dark red blood, he scrambled and crawled out of the barn. Arthur turned his head, issuing a command to his private doctors. “Give her a shot of adrenaline. Use a high dose of stimulants. We can’t have her sleeping through this.” The two doctors immediately stepped forward. One opened a medical kit, pulling out a long syringe to draw a clear liquid. He grabbed the shriveled flesh of my inner thigh and drove the thick needle into my vein. The liquid was rapidly pushed into my body. Ten seconds later, the drug’s effects spread through my bloodstream. My muscles began to spasm uncontrollably. My body thrashed and twitched against the filthy hay. With every convulsion, more blood gushed from the unstitched wound on my stomach. The blood ran down my thighs, pooling into a dark red puddle on the dirt floor. Arthur took a step back, avoiding the blood creeping toward his Italian leather shoes. “Stop acting. I know all your little tricks.” He stared down at me from his high horse. “I read the script the compound boss sent me. The fake wound and the pig’s blood pouch on your stomach? Nice prop work.” He let out a cold, mocking laugh. “Do you really think making yourself look like a tragic heroine is going to erase what you did to Chloe?” The stimulation from the drugs made my brain throb with agonizing pain. My upper body violently lurched forward, my hands instinctively reaching out. My skeletal, withered fingers brushed across the mud and grazed the hem of Arthur’s tailored trousers. The moment my fingertips touched him, I used my raspy, broken throat to force out a faint whisper. “Arthur… it hurts…” Arthur’s face darkened. He violently kicked my hand away. The back of my hand smashed against a stone trough, scraping off a layer of skin. He pulled a pristine white silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. Bending down, he aggressively wiped the spot on his shoe where I had touched him. “Put away that disgusting face.” He crumpled the used handkerchief into a ball and threw it directly at my face. It slid off, landing in the bloody puddle on the floor. “Chloe hasn’t forgiven you yet. You have no right to touch me.” I looked at the handkerchief and didn’t reach out again. I had to leave him. Arthur stood up straight and waved at his bodyguards. “Take her away. Don’t get my car dirty.” Two bodyguards stepped forward. They grabbed my arms and dragged me up from the hay. My legs had been broken months ago. The bones had healed misaligned; I couldn’t straighten them. As they dragged me, my paralyzed legs carved two long trenches through the mud and gravel. The skin on my knees was torn open by the sharp rocks, exposing the white bone underneath. Arthur walked out of the barn and stood on the dirt road at the edge of the compound. Old Man Cletus, the compound boss, stood by the road with a few locals, clutching several thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Arthur swept his gaze over them. “You all played your parts well these past three years. Her acting in this little setup of yours was very convincing.” Cletus nodded profusely, stuffing the cash into the pockets of his ragged coat. The bodyguards dragged me over to Arthur and dropped me. My body slammed heavily against the gravel road. Arthur looked down at my broken legs. “You didn’t want to do farm work, so you actually went far enough to break your own legs.” He scoffed through his nose. “Playing the beggar to get sympathy? Making yourself smell like an open sewer—did you really think that would soften my heart?” I closed my eyes. Three years ago today, I was slicing an apple in the kitchen of our mansion. The knife slipped, leaving a tiny, shallow cut on my index finger. A single drop of blood welled up. Arthur had sprinted in from the living room, snatching the knife away from me. He held my finger under running water for ten minutes, brought out the first-aid kit, and wrapped my finger in a thick cocoon of gauze. A month later, he rented out an entire private island. He covered it in red roses. He knelt on one knee in the flowers and slipped a flawless ten-carat diamond ring onto my finger. Two days later, Chloe Miller returned from abroad. She moved into the guest room of our mansion. A week later, Chloe walked down the stairs wearing a white dress that belonged to me. She picked up a pair of scissors from the coffee table and sliced a shallow bloody line into her own forearm. Arthur pushed the front doors open and walked in. Chloe clutched her arm, pointing at me. “Arthur, Stella cut me with the scissors!” Arthur snatched the glass of water out of my hand and shielded Chloe behind him. Another week passed. Chloe was holding a cup of boiling hot coffee. She poured the entire cup directly onto her own shoulder, screaming and shrinking into the corner of the sofa. Arthur rushed down from the second floor. Chloe pointed at me. “Stella tried to burn me to death with boiling water!” The next day, Chloe stood on the edge of the thirtieth-floor rooftop. Arthur rushed over and tackled her to safety. Following that, in front of a swarm of reporters, Arthur shredded our prenuptial agreement. He froze all my bank accounts and had his bodyguards shove me into a car. He personally drove me to this remote backwoods compound and handed a massive stack of cash to Cletus. He told me to rot here for three full years to experience the pain Chloe had gone through. And those three years were authentic, unfiltered torture. After taking the money, Cletus locked me in the barn. A heavy iron chain was padlocked around my neck. Every day, my only food was rancid pig slop. Every night, those backwoods creeps would walk into the barn. In the suffocating darkness, I suffered miscarriage after miscarriage. The bodyguards hauled me up by the arms and threw me into the trunk of the SUV. When the private jet took off, I lay crumpled in the corner of the cabin. I opened my mouth, wanting to make a sound. Only a broken, raspy wheeze squeezed past my throat. Sitting on the plush leather sofa, Arthur put on a pair of black noise-canceling headphones. “Enough, stop playing mute. Save your energy. When we get back to the city, you’re going to crawl on your knees and beg Chloe for forgiveness.” The jet landed at a private helipad in downtown Manhattan. The bodyguards wrapped me in a black industrial tarp and shoved me into the very back of a luxury van. The vehicle pulled into the underground garage of the Grand Continental Hotel. The elevator went straight to the penthouse ballroom. The grand doors were pushed open. The ballroom was lined with thick red carpets, the crystal chandeliers radiating blinding light. The bodyguards pulled off the tarp and threw me directly into the center of the room. Arthur, holding a microphone, stood under the spotlight. Surrounding us was a crowd of high-society elites holding flutes of champagne. Arthur pointed a finger at me. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the gift I prepared to help cleanse Chloe of her bad luck.” He scanned the crowd. “A vicious, toxic woman I dragged back from the backwoods.” A roar of laughter erupted from the crowd. Several women in expensive evening gowns stepped forward, swirling their wine glasses. They looked down at me. “I heard she stayed in the woods for three years?” “Covering herself in mud on purpose, smelling like a rotting fish… is she trying to disgust Chloe?” I lay flat against the red carpet. I reached out my right arm, planting my elbow against the floor, and dragged my body forward. My broken legs trailed behind me, leaving a dark, wet streak of blood and grime across the immaculate carpet. Chloe, wearing a pristine white tulle gown, walked down the grand spiral staircase. Seeing the blood on the floor, she let out a dramatic gasp. She collapsed into Arthur’s arms, gripping his suit jacket tightly. “Arthur… her blood is so red… I’m scared…” Arthur’s face instantly went ice-cold. He turned to the hotel security guards stationed by the door. “Bring buckets of water. Wash that filthy blood off the carpet right now!” Two guards ran over carrying heavy plastic janitorial buckets. The buckets were filled with freezing, dirty mop water. Arthur pointed at me. “Dump it over her head. Help her wash off this pathetic, vulgar disguise.” The guards lifted the buckets. The freezing water, mixed with dust and grime, crashed down directly over my head. The torrent washed over my matted hair and seeped deep into the unstitched, gaping wound on my abdomen. The bone-chilling cold triggered violent, agonizing muscle spasms. Arthur walked up to me, his polished leather shoe stopping just an inch from my fingertips. “Crawl over here. Bow your head to the floor three times for Chloe.” He looked down at me. “Admit that you faked your pregnancy and faked your death just to fight for my attention. As long as you do that, I’ll give you a chance to be a janitor at the company.” I lowered my head. The gala transitioned into its second half. The bodyguards dragged me out of the ballroom and tossed me into the corner of the hallway outside the women’s restroom. My clothes clung tightly to my body. The bloody water from my abdomen dripped steadily onto the marble tiles. Chloe walked out of the restroom holding a compact mirror. She stopped right in front of me. She lifted her right foot, bringing the razor-sharp heel of her stiletto down hard onto my broken right index finger. She ground her heel left and right. The pain shot straight to my heart. My body seized violently, instinctively trying to shrink back. Watching me, Chloe let out a light, airy laugh. “Did you really think Arthur set you up at a nice little farm retreat?” She bent down, staring right into my face. “The day Cletus got the money, he texted me, asking how I wanted you handled.” She stood up straight, smoothing out her dress. “I texted back: Play with her however you want. Just leave her with one breath.” Chloe stared at the blood pooling around my stomach. “These past few hundred days and nights… tasted pretty good, didn’t they?” The sharp click-clack of leather shoes echoed from the other end of the hall. Arthur appeared around the corner. Chloe immediately threw herself backward, crashing heavily onto the marble floor. She grabbed her ankle, massive tears rolling down her cheeks. “Stella, I know you hate me, but why did you push me…” Arthur’s face changed instantly. He sprinted toward us. Without even glancing at me, he swung his right foot directly into my body. The toe of his leather shoe slammed precisely into the gaping wound on my abdomen. The fragile skin instantly ruptured. Blood and shredded tissue splattered against the wallpaper. I lay flat on my back, my eyes wide open, my breathing coming to a dead stop. Leaning against the wall, Chloe panted, her face pale. “Arthur, I was so scared, my anemia is acting up… I feel so dizzy…” Arthur immediately turned his head, his gaze locking onto me like ice. “Since you have enough energy to push her, you can use your blood to compensate Chloe.” He pulled out a walkie-talkie and called his private doctors waiting outside. Seconds later, a doctor ran down the hallway with a medical kit. Arthur pointed at my arm. “Draw her blood.”

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The morning of the SATs, my parents suddenly stormed into the testing center. Ignoring the proctor’s furious shouts, they physically dragged me out of my seat. “Chloe, we would never hurt you!” “If you want to live, you have to come with us right now!” I had absolutely no idea what was happening, but I followed them. We ended up on an Amtrak train heading deep into the Rocky Mountains of Montana. That afternoon, a news notification popped up on my phone. My entire body turned to stone. Just as the morning reading section had ended… Every single person in my testing center—all 1,020 students and staff, except for me—had dropped dead. My face deathly pale, I turned to my parents to demand what the hell was going on. But they were pointing at the train window behind my head, their faces twisted in absolute, primal terror. “Don’t look back! We have to get off this train right now!” Just half an hour before they stormed the school, they had been smiling, cooking me breakfast, and wishing me luck on my exams. But then, they appeared in the testing center, their faces grim and aggressive. “Chloe, come with us. Now!” I looked at the dirt smeared on their clothes, and then at the campus security guard lying unconscious on the floor down the hall. My mind went completely blank. “What happened? Why did you knock out the security guard?!” They grabbed me, one by each arm, their grips like iron vices. “We would never hurt you! Even if we have to knock you out too, we are taking you out of here today!” The proctor saw what was happening and rushed over to physically block them. “What are you doing?! This is the SAT! This dictates your daughter’s entire future!” “Whatever emergency you have, it can wait until the exam is over!” My mom showed zero hesitation. She shoved the proctor hard against the doorframe and screamed: “Is a test more important than her life?!” Before I could even process the situation, I was dragged out of the building. We didn’t go home. Wearing their dirt-stained clothes, they hailed a cab and rushed us to the nearest train station. It wasn’t until the train started moving that the color slowly returned to their faces. But their eyes remained bloodshot, darting around, hyper-vigilant of our surroundings. They looked like fugitives running from the law. What were they hiding from? I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Mom, Dad, what is going on? What are you so afraid of?” “And where are we going?” My mom put a finger to her lips, her voice chillingly cold. “Don’t speak. And don’t ask why.” Their paranoid, fugitive-like behavior quickly caught the attention of the conductor, who stopped and questioned them aggressively for several minutes. I asked the passenger in front of us and found out this train was an express line heading deep into the Montana wilderness. My parents didn’t know anyone in Montana! Why were we going there? While they were busy distracting the conductor, I pulled out my phone. I was bored and wanted to see if anyone was posting about the SAT reading prompts online. But the moment I opened my browser, a breaking news headline dominated my screen. [BREAKING: 1,020 Students and Faculty Suffer Simultaneous Cardiac Arrest at Local High School Testing Center. All Confirmed Dead…] I clicked the article. The blood in my veins turned to ice. The testing center in the article… was the exact same one my parents had just dragged me out of! They were telling the truth! Every single person in that room was dead! If they hadn’t pulled me out of my seat, I would be lying under a white sheet right now! But… was this news real? How could 1,020 people die at the exact same second? I was just about to text my homeroom teacher when my phone vibrated. It was my best friend, Emily. “Chloe! Are you okay?! Mr. Davis is dead! The class president is dead!” Her voice was trembling violently. She was sobbing in sheer terror. “Everyone in your testing center is dead!” “Emily! I’m fine! Do you know what happened?!” Before I could even finish my sentence, my dad violently snatched the phone out of my hand. “Do not trust anyone!” he hissed. I was completely lost, desperate for answers. “Dad, you obviously know something, otherwise you wouldn’t have pulled me out! Tell me! What is going on?!” “Why is everyone in that room dead?!” My mom let out a heavy sigh, gently patting my leg to comfort me. “Chloe, knowing too much won’t do you any good.” “Just know that your father and I would never—” Her voice abruptly cut off. I looked at her, only to realize her face had turned ashen and completely drained of blood. “Mom! What’s wrong?!” Hearing my panicked voice, my dad turned to look at my mom. The moment he did, his expression froze in pure terror. Their eyes were wide with fear, staring fixedly at the space right behind my head. Through their trembling pupils, I could see the reflection of a blurry, shadowy figure standing right behind me. But behind me… was nothing but the train window. Was there something terrifying outside the glass? Instinctively, I started to turn my head to look. But my dad’s hand slammed onto the back of my head, holding me rigidly in place. His lips trembled, producing a voice I had never heard from him before. “Don’t look back. We have to run!” I could clearly feel my dad’s hand shaking. He was absolutely terrified. At that exact same moment, a blast of freezing, icy air blew directly against the back of my neck. The next second, my dad yanked me up by my arm. He grabbed my mom, and we sprinted frantically through three entire train cars, running as if hell itself were on our heels. It wasn’t until the train pulled into the next station that he finally slowed down. Without a single word of explanation, they dragged me off the train. “Mom, Dad, what did you see back there?” I was met with total silence. They refused to speak, but I couldn’t forget the sheer terror etched onto their faces. It was as if, had we been one second slower, we would have met the exact same gruesome fate as everyone in that testing center. What were we running from? Was it that blurry shadow? Seeing that the sun was starting to set, I suggested we book a hotel room in this town for the night. But my parents, their faces grim, flagged down a taxi instead. “There’s no time! Take us to the airport!” my dad yelled to the driver. I was shoved into the back seat of the cab. During the ride, Emily called my phone again. I was just about to answer it. My dad, sitting in the passenger seat, whipped around and glared at me. “Do not answer that!” My mom looked at me with intense paranoia. “Chloe, listen to your father! We cannot trust anyone right now!” The taxi driver shot us a bizarre look through the rearview mirror, but I ultimately let the call go to voicemail. However, I secretly texted Emily on iMessage, telling her I was safe and doing fine. She never replied. Half an hour later, urged by my dad’s frantic shouting, the driver finally pulled up to the airport. He was visibly annoyed by my dad’s yelling, but when he noticed the dried blood on my dad’s shirt, he looked terrified and sped off the second we got out. The earliest flights to Montana were completely sold out. I begged my parents to just wait until tomorrow, but my dad didn’t say a word. He just stood there, staring blankly at the massive TV screens broadcasting the evening news in the terminal. I took one look at the screen, and every drop of blood in my body turned to ice. Just ten minutes ago… The Amtrak train we had just fled had suddenly derailed, plunging directly into a deep river gorge. Over a thousand passengers were on board. There were zero survivors. The conductor who had been questioning my parents just an hour ago was now floating pale and lifeless in the river. Two consecutive brushes with mass-casualty death. I was officially terrified. My parents were right! There was something actively hunting us, trying to wipe us out. Despite the overwhelming shock, my dad was the first to snap back to reality. He pulled out a burner phone and made a call. He seemed to trust the person on the other end implicitly. He just nodded and kept repeating, “Okay, understood.” When he hung up, he looked like a man who had made a desperate decision. “Let’s go. We’re flying to Miami!” Wait, weren’t we trying to get to Montana? Why Florida all of a sudden? I was trembling. “Dad, shouldn’t we call the police?!” My dad’s face was dead serious. “The police can’t help us! They’ll just die with us!” I don’t know what kind of strings he pulled, but he somehow managed to secure three tickets for a flight boarding in ten minutes. I peeked at the boarding passes. The destination was Montana. But didn’t he just say we were going to Miami? Why did it change again? I was getting more and more confused about where we were going and what we were doing! Right before we boarded, my dad powered down his burner phone and threw it directly into a trash can. Without a second thought, my mom tossed hers in as well. They both turned to look at me. “Chloe. Phones transmit location data.” Faced with a life-or-death situation, I didn’t hesitate. I followed their lead and threw my iPhone into the trash. Once the plane successfully took off, my mom finally leaned in and whispered to me: “Sweetie, I know you have a million questions, but Mommy can only tell you this:” “Once we reach our destination, we will explain everything.” “Right now, the only thing that matters is staying alive!” I was about to speak, but my dad suddenly clamped his hand tightly over my mouth. “From this second on, if you don’t have to speak, do not make a sound!” “No matter who talks to you, do not reply, and absolutely do not say your name!” I didn’t know why, but I nodded vigorously. Half an hour into the flight, a cheerful ringtone suddenly pierced the quiet cabin. Everyone turned their heads to look at me. I suddenly remembered—I had a backup burner phone in my backpack! My parents’ faces turned a horrifying shade of gray. A flight attendant walked over. “Miss, please turn your phone off immediately.” Awkwardly, I pulled the burner phone out of my bag. The caller ID flashing on the screen read: Emily. “Wait, you guys get cell reception at 30,000 feet?” a passenger in the next seat asked curiously. I froze. A wave of pure, nauseating terror washed over me. I suddenly remembered a terrifying fact. This backup phone… didn’t even have a SIM card installed! Even if there was a signal up here, it was physically impossible for Emily to be calling me! While I sat paralyzed in shock, my dad violently snatched the phone from my hand and smashed it against the floor of the cabin. “Dad, I…” I tried to explain, but my dad glared at me with murderous intensity. “Shut your mouth!” “Hey man, take it easy! Your daughter didn’t do it on purpose! Stop yelling at her,” the passenger next to us tried to mediate. But I knew my dad was just reinforcing the rule: Do not speak. The phone was shattered and silent, but due to the impact, the cracked screen glitched and automatically opened the iMessage app. It stopped perfectly on my chat log with Emily. Our conversation had ended with the text I sent her after getting off the train, telling her I was safe. But three seconds later, a new message popped up on the cracked screen, sending me into absolute despair: [Chloe, I am so glad you’re still alive. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky. Mr. Davis and I died in the exam room this morning.] Emily was dead! How was that possible?! I specifically remembered she was assigned to a different testing center than me! If she died this morning… who was the person calling me all afternoon?! It couldn’t be a ghost, could it?! I looked at my parents in sheer terror. They looked just as horrified. My mom’s face crumbled into absolute despair. She muttered under her breath: “It didn’t fall for the Miami trick! It found us…” So my dad saying we were going to Miami was a trick meant to throw it off our trail. But my mom said it was here! Where was it? I looked frantically around the cabin but saw nothing suspicious. Who—or what—was it? No one could give me an answer. My dad swiftly shot my mom a meaningful look. After taking a moment to steady her breathing, my mom gave me one last, heartbreaking look. Then, she pulled a small pill from her pocket and shoved it into her mouth. “Mom…” What did you just take? Before I could finish the sentence, my dad clamped his hand over my mouth again. “If you don’t want to get everyone on this plane killed! Shut up!” Watching my mom begin to violently foam at the mouth, I had to physically bite my own tongue to keep from sobbing out loud. Once my dad let go of me, he caught my mom’s collapsing body. “Sarah! Sarah! What’s wrong?!” “Help!” he screamed, his face a mask of agonizing grief. “My wife is having a severe seizure! We need an emergency landing immediately!” Seeing this play out, I finally understood what my mom had swallowed. This was their contingency plan all along! If they needed to force the plane to land, this was the only way. To prevent a medical fatality on board, the pilot initiated an emergency descent and landed at the nearest regional airport. The moment we touched down, we followed the ambulance straight to the hospital. My dad looked at my pale, traumatized face, a single tear rolling down his cheek. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. If we hadn’t forced the plane to land, it would have crashed. We, and the hundred other passengers on board, would have all died.” Fighting the urge to cry, I pulled a pen and paper from the nurse’s station and wrote: [Dad, are we being hunted by the Grim Reaper?] That was the only logical explanation I could think of. But my dad just shook his head. “Wait until we get to Montana…” After an hour of emergency treatment, my mom was finally stabilized, but she remained in a deep coma. At the exact same time, we received another horrifying piece of news. The hundred or so passengers on our flight hadn’t died in a crash. But every single one of them had fallen into a bizarre, unexplained coma, exactly like my mom. My dad wanted to grab me and run. He said we had to make it to Montana before dawn. But I absolutely refused. If we left, what would happen to my mom? Maybe my dad couldn’t bear to leave her behind either, or maybe he knew I wouldn’t budge. He didn’t force the issue. Instead, he deadbolted the heavy door to the hospital room and issued me one final, severe warning: “Tonight, no matter who knocks on that door, do not open it! And do not speak a single word!” After giving me that warning, he fell back into a chair and fell into a deep sleep. Or rather, it looked more like a coma. Just like the passengers on the plane, he had fallen into a strange, unbreakable unconsciousness. At exactly midnight, a knock echoed at the door. “Room 301, nightly rounds. Please open the door.” It was the voice of a young, female nurse. I was about to stand up, but my dad’s warning echoed in my head. Whether it was a real nurse or not, I refused to open the door. The knocking continued for a few minutes before stopping, and the shadow beneath the door vanished. Ten minutes later, the voice of my best friend, Emily, suddenly echoed from the hallway. “Chloe? It’s Emily. I heard your mom was in the hospital, how is she doing? Can I come in and see her?”

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When Nathaniel and I reached the peak of our intimacy, his Adam’s apple bobbed, and he let out a low groan, calling out a nickname: “Emma…” That was when I knew he had fallen for his junior student. So, while his mind was still blank and reeling afterward, I gave him one last chance. “Let’s go get our marriage license tomorrow.” He flatly refused, saying he was going abroad with Emma Lawson for a closed, three-year research project. I calmly presented him with two choices. Either stay in the country, or our engagement is off. He, who was severely allergic to alcohol, drank all night. When he woke up, he compromised. “I’m not going.” From that day on, he drank behind my back and ended up in the ER getting his stomach pumped countless times. Until the day of our wedding—the exact moment the officiant announced, “You may kiss the bride.” Several of Nathaniel’s graduate students suddenly stood up in protest. “Professor Prescott, Emma’s heart is broken because of you! She’s getting married to someone else tomorrow!” Nathaniel’s pupils shrank. Like a madman, he threw down his wedding ring and bolted off the altar. I snatched the officiant’s microphone and furiously declared: “If you go after her, we are completely done!” His figure jolted violently, but he got in his car and sped away anyway. I smiled. Nathaniel, there is no such thing as having your cake and eating it too. Since you chose love, I will be taking your career. Chapter 1 A minute after Nate left, the audience erupted in whispers and pointing fingers. “Nate Prescott abandoning his bride to elope with his mistress today—isn’t that a public slap in the face to the Kensington family?” “I never thought a high-and-mighty heiress like Harper Kensington could be dumped!” “Looks like even a calm and steady guy like Nate couldn’t handle her rich-girl temper!” The gossip drifted into my ears. But Mr. and Mrs. Prescott’s faces were paler than mine. “Harper, what happened today is entirely Nate’s fault. Don’t worry, tonight we will absolutely tie him up and drag him back to your bridal suite!” “Mr. Prescott, have you no shame?” My mother coldly scoffed, stepping protectively in front of me. “What Nathaniel did today wasn’t just a slap in my daughter’s face; it was a public declaration of war against the entire Kensington family!” My father and brother wore ice-cold expressions, their oppressive aura suffocating the room. Mrs. Prescott begged me, her face white. “Harper, Nate was just seduced by that little fox!” “You know him, he’s always been so upright. He was never like this before!” Before? I chewed on that word with a cold sneer. Nathaniel Prescott was a professor at a prestigious university. His personality was dull and wooden. He wouldn’t even send a simple $50 Venmo for Valentine’s Day, let alone celebrate any annual holidays. Every time I brought it up, he would brush me off with irritation: “Harper, these holidays are a waste of time and energy. I don’t have the mood to waste on this kind of stuff.” So, I made excuses for him time and time again in front of my parents and friends. But when he forgot my birthday yet again, his “clumsy” female student, Emma Lawson, posted on Instagram. [So thankful for the 99th gift from my favorite mentor!] The attached photo showed a bed covered in various Hermès bags, designer makeup, and jewelry. The total value was easily in the millions. That night, to make it up to me, Nate initiated intimacy. But he didn’t know that the name he called out in the heat of passion exposed his true love. Afterward, he used the opportunity to suggest going abroad with Emma for three years of experiments. That day, I finally saw clearly. Nathaniel wasn’t incapable of loving someone; he just didn’t want to love me. I swatted away Mrs. Prescott’s tightly gripping hands. My voice was calm. “As of today, my engagement to Nathaniel is off.” If he won’t love anyone properly, then he gets to love no one. “Off?!” Mr. Prescott yelled, then, remembering something, forced a smile. “Harper, but you promised to help your uncle solve the supply chain funding issue…” Before I could make a sound, my brother let out a cold laugh. “Mr. Prescott, you sure think highly of yourself. The engagement is off; naturally, everything else is void!” The Prescotts’ faces turned a sickly shade of green and white. The Prescott Group was facing a severe break in their financial supply chain. Only our two families knew that this marriage was less about love and more about Nate saving his family’s company. Unfortunately, he failed to grasp the opportunity. As I was about to leave, Mr. Prescott rushed in front of me, his face twisted in desperation. “Harper, don’t worry! I will give you a proper explanation tonight!” I didn’t think much of it. I went home and threw every single academic paper and gift Nate had ever given me into a roaring fire. Back then, I thought he was just unromantic and treated his half-assed academic papers as treasures. After burning them, a notification popped up on my phone. Emma was flaunting again on Instagram. [Finally got a taste of my crush!] The attached picture showed red bite marks on a man’s chest. The implication was obvious. I smiled and screenshotted it for my records. The next second, Nate’s call came in. “Harper, running away from the wedding today was my fault, but Emma is my student. I can’t just ignore it when she’s about to do something stupid.” I laughed. “Stupid? What does her getting married have to do with you, Nathaniel?” “You humiliated me today. You should have expected the consequences.” My words choked him. An impatient voice came through the receiver. “Are you done throwing a fit? I told you we are completely innocent. It’s one thing for you to have a dirty mind, but now you’re deliberately spreading rumors and framing us? Harper, how did you turn into this?” “Enough. My dad already called and chewed me out. Hurry up and sort out the investment funds. I’ll come back as soon as I finish talking sense into Emma.” Listening to his pretentious words, I felt nothing but pure ridicule. He was the one who claimed to be a dull guy and begged for my understanding, yet turned around and chatted happily with his female student. He was the one who used work as an excuse to ignore my birthday, yet racked his brain to prepare exquisite gifts for his student. And he was the one who, for the sake of someone else’s happiness, humiliated me publicly at our wedding. I had given him countless chances to choose. But he chose the method of a public runaway groom to humiliate me. I loved him once, but that stops here. I was about to block and delete him, but the call hadn’t disconnected, and Emma’s provocative voice drifted through. “Professor, who has a better figure, me or your fiancée?” “…You.” I raised an eyebrow and took the opportunity to hit record. Then, I contacted the private investigator staking out Nate’s villa. “Tonight, record their every move and position. The whole thing.” Nate, you can come back, but you will have absolutely nothing left backing you. Sure enough, at 5 AM, Nate was forced back to my house by his father. As soon as he walked in, he threw several large boxes of makeup and gift sets at me. “Harper Kensington! How far are you going to push my dad?! Just over a few boxes of makeup, you’re going to sabotage the company?! Using your position for personal revenge—you used to never be like this.” “You’re not exactly young anymore. What’s the harm in using a little more of this stuff?” His words were like daggers, deliberately stabbing into me. I sneered, stepped forward, and ripped open his shirt, revealing the bite marks inside. Nate froze. “Emma’s cat bit me…” I scoffed. I remembered how, when Nate first pursued me, he deliberately hid his identity as the eldest son of the Prescott family. I was moved by his clumsy, earnest pursuit. Later, when he acted all high-and-mighty, burying himself in research and treating money like dirt, I was the one secretly funding him. I even pulled in my wealthy friends to finance his projects and be his backbone. With a few light words, he wrote me off as a jealous, bitter shrew. His phone rang. He answered it and then hurried to leave. Before leaving, he warned me: “Harper, if you still want me to marry you, be a good girl and stop causing trouble. Hurry up and resolve the company’s issues. I don’t have time to keep arguing with you.” Three minutes later, Emma posted on Instagram again. [Trained my crush like a dog. He comes whenever I call.] My eyes gleamed. I turned and sent a message to the group chat of elite heirs in the city. “Halt all funding to Nathaniel Prescott’s lab. Cut it all off.” Row after row of instant replies filled the chat: “Copy that, Harper.” If he wanted to help Emma climb to the top, I’d grant his wish. But without basic funding, how long could they last? But I didn’t expect that the very next afternoon, it would be extremely noisy downstairs at the company. My assistant ran in, sweating profusely, to tell me: “Ms. Kensington, it’s bad! Nate brought a few students and lab researchers to the company demanding an explanation!” I narrowed my eyes and looked down through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I clearly saw over a dozen people holding up banners that read: [Capitalist Harper Kensington, Stop Holding Research Hostage!] [Capitalists Get Out of the Investment Circle!] … I suppressed my beating heart and ordered the security guards downstairs to let them in. Ten seconds later, over a dozen people aggressively stormed into my office. As soon as Emma saw me, she threw herself to her knees, crying and slapping her own face in a dramatic display. “Ms. Kensington, I know you’ve always been unhappy with me. You can hire people to beat me, insult me, or even disfigure me! But you can’t incite others to pull their investments just because you’re jealous!” “If you’re not satisfied, slap me yourself!” The sound of slaps echoed through the room. Nate rushed forward from behind, heartbroken, and yanked the woman up. “Emma, stand up straight! This matter has nothing to do with you in the first place!” Then he glared at me, his tone menacing. “Harper, pulling the investment is a matter of national importance, not a plaything for you capitalists!” I remained silent, coldly watching this theatrical performance. After Nate spoke, the students and researchers behind him were riled up. Some pulled out their phones, shoved live streams in my face, and yelled indignantly. “Hey everyone! We’re live-streaming a capitalist hindering scientific development! Oppressing students!” Others held red paint, sneaking behind me to intentionally splash it. I was drenched from head to toe. The sticky, gross feeling of paint spread over my limbs. But Emma didn’t give up. She dropped to her knees in front of me again. Facing the cameras, she ripped the bandages off her face. For the brief moment the horrifying scars were exposed, everyone gasped. I simply stared down at her dismissively. “Ms. Kensington, please let us go! I know everything started because of me. Whatever you say, I’ll do it!” Then, she crawled closer on her knees and whispered to me. “Harper, so what if your parents are the richest in the city? Professor Prescott despises wealthy elites like you the most!” “He will only ever be mine. You can’t take him away.” The next second, she pulled a self-directed stunt, grabbing a hidden knife and stabbing it into her own abdomen. Warm blood splattered on my face. Emma opened her mouth in feigned horror, pointing a trembling finger at me. Everyone was terrified by the sudden twist, and they all pointed at me, roaring. “Murder! The capitalist killed someone!” Nate’s face was as black as pitch. He shoved me away violently, scooped up Emma, and roared. “Call 911 quickly!” I coldly stared at the woman’s triumphant smirk, my hands unconsciously curling into fists. After putting Emma in the ambulance, Nate approached me with a dark expression. “Are you satisfied now that you’ve killed her?” The crowd grew restless again, launching a new wave of verbal attacks at me and angrily smashing things. As the scene became uncontrollable, I playfully curled my lips. “You all say I committed premeditated murder. Why don’t we pull the security footage and confront each other publicly? If I really killed Emma Lawson, I am willing to go to prison.” As soon as I spoke, the angry voices of the crowd slowly weakened. The people who had been live-streaming on their phones started seeing doubts pop up in their chat rooms. [No way, you guys are being led by the narrative. I feel like this woman wouldn’t be dumb enough to kill someone in plain sight, right?] [Hard to say, what if?] [I also think this woman wouldn’t be that stupid. Actually, the woman from earlier seemed a bit mentally unstable.] Nate stared straight at me, his brows tightly furrowed. “Harper Kensington, you are the CEO of Kensington Corp. It’s entirely possible you had the footage tampered with.” “Emma is my student. If you want to hurt her, you have to get through me first.” After saying that, he didn’t give up. He picked up his phone, flipped the camera, and complained with red eyes. “Harper Kensington is my fiancée. Recently, she has indeed hurt many people due to her petty jealousy. As her fiancé, I apologize. But I will not show favoritism. I want to clarify that everything she did to my student Emma Lawson is true.” “As for her disrupting scientific funding and committing attempted murder, I will absolutely not defend her in court.” With that, Nate decisively ended the live stream. He led the group of people away. Someone tried to turn back to insult me out of a sense of justice, but Nate forcibly escorted them out. I stood in silence. My assistant swallowed nervously. “Ms. Kensington, less than a minute after the live stream ended, Kensington Corp’s stock plummeted by ten percent.” I forced down the churning emotions in my chest. “Contact the PR department. Prepare a clarification immediately.” However, my clarification couldn’t keep up with the speed of Nate and Emma’s smears. Gossip accounts maliciously edited videos of me “murdering” someone and withdrawing funds. My accounts were besieged by a massive number of bots and haters. Keyboard warriors doxed me and sent razor blades to my address. People on the street cursed me as a “bloodsucker of the academic world.” Various projects that Kensington Corp had previously cooperated on, contracts that had already been approved, were all withdrawn or faced immediate demands for exorbitant compensation. As public opinion fermented crazily. My brother called. “Harper, things have gotten out of hand. Nate and the Prescott family are paying off bots across all major platforms and hiring all the influential lawyers in the city so you can’t file a lawsuit.” “They claim you maliciously destroyed a major national project. Higher-ups have even sent people to ask questions. The family elders want you to apologize to the Prescotts, agree to the marriage, and fix their supply chain.” “You…” I took a deep breath, hung up the phone, and unblocked the previously blacklisted number. “Let’s meet.” Half an hour later, Nate brought me to Emma’s hospital room. “Apologize.” I lowered my eyes, “I’m sorry.” The man’s face softened considerably. He flicked the ash off his cigarette and raised an eyebrow. “Harper, so even you can be pushed to a dead end?” “But Emma used to be exactly where you are now, maybe even in more pain.” I lifted my eyelids. “What do I have to do for you to let me go?” Nate crossed his legs, leaning lazily against the leather sofa, and casually asked Emma. “Emma, tell me, what do you want?” Emma feigned innocence, biting her index finger. “I… I just hope to bury the hatchet with Ms. Kensington.” But Nate helplessly rubbed her head: “I know you’re timid; your professor will help you.” “Harper Kensington, replenish the Prescott family’s funding. Tell your little friends to cancel the withdrawal of their research investments. Furthermore, Emma was disfigured because of you; pay for her skin grafts.” “Apologize to Emma across all platforms. Once you’re done, I can consider the marriage.” I laughed out of pure anger, gave him a deep look, and turned to leave. That “I’m sorry” was an apology to my past self for being so blind. But he sure had a big mouth. Asking for the moon. If I gave it to him, would he even be worthy? As soon as I left the hospital room, I contacted the private investigator to retrieve the recorded videos and photos. I also organized the evidence of his lab illegally using materials, which I had investigated earlier using my black card connections. Since he liked it so much, this mountain of evidence would be enough to feed them for a lifetime. I packed up and left the hospital. Just as I took a step outside, a sharp pain hit the back of my head. My vision went black, and I fell backward. When I opened my eyes again, glaring surgical lights were shining directly on my face. I wiggled my body, but my hands and feet were securely locked with iron chains. Nate walked over with a cold expression. “Harper Kensington, do you think the hospital is a place you can come and go as you please? After all this time, have you thought it through?” My heart leapt into my throat, the veins on my forehead pulsing. “Nathaniel Prescott! If you dare touch a hair on my head, you will regret it for the rest of your life!” The man led Emma closer to me. “Emma’s face—if it weren’t for you unreasonably canceling the investment, how would we have used inferior materials? She never would have been injured in the explosion!” “Did you think an apology would be the end of it?” I ground my teeth, the blood in my veins boiling. “She injured her own face!” But Nate chose to ignore my explanation, coldly instructing the doctor beside him. “Begin. Take the softest layer of skin from her face. I don’t want Emma to reject it.” A sharp syringe pierced my skin. My pupils trembled, and my whole body shook non-stop from the pain and resentment. Until my screams grew lower and lower. Nate then came in, his guilty eyes landing on the bandages covering my entire face. “Harper, I will marry you.” I used all my strength to slap him. He turned his head and smirked. The next moment, I was forcefully yanked and shoved into a car. When I got out, a massive crowd of reporters aimed their long lenses directly at my face. Nate forcibly pressed me into a chair at the press conference. He coaxed me gently. “Harper, clarify everything, pave the way for Emma’s future, and it will all be over.” My fists clenched and trembled under the table. I listened to the reporters below eagerly throwing out sharp, lethal questions meant to destroy me. A faint curve formed at the corner of my mouth. Nate, did you think you had me trapped? I was prepared for this long ago…

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Chapter 1 Five years after my death, Carter Hayes demanded that I take the fall for his first love once again. Clutching a written confession, he stormed into the rundown apartment complex on the wrong side of town, only to be met with my black-and-white memorial portrait and an altar covered in dust. In his bewilderment, he grabbed a neighbor from downstairs and demanded to know where I was. The neighbor replied nonchalantly: “Sarah Evans? She died five years ago.” “It was an absolute tragedy. The family from that medical malpractice lawsuit cornered her in her apartment and stabbed her over a dozen times. Even her little boy took two of the hits!” Carter let out a cynical scoff. “She just took the blame for Chloe once. It was just a revoked medical license. Does she really need to put on this elaborate, melodramatic show?” “Tell me, how much did Sarah pay you to say this? She even got my son to play along with this pathetic pity act!” The neighbor shot Carter an impatient, disgusted look. “Are you blind? Do you not see the memorial shrine right there? For the last five years, that little boy upstairs has been living all by himself. Word around here is that he couldn’t get ahold of his father no matter how hard he tried.” “Bullshit! I’ve been sending Sarah child support every single month!” Carter roared, his anger flaring. “It was just a damn medical license! I’ve been the one paying for her mother’s medical bills too! I can’t believe Sarah has the nerve to use my money to hire actors to put on this play. She’s completely lost her mind!” “You tell her, if her signature isn’t on this confession within three days, I’m cutting off both her mother’s medical funds and the child support!” The neighbor couldn’t take it anymore and spat back, “Her and her old lady are nothing but two memorial portraits sitting right there! You’re the one who’s out of your damn mind!” With that, the neighbor slammed his door shut. Refusing to believe it, Carter kicked open the flimsy, battered front door of the apartment and barged right into my memorial room. I watched as he clutched the confession letter. Without even glancing at the portraits of me and my mother, he shouted: “Sarah Evans, get the hell out here right now! Chloe is about to be sentenced to prison, and you’re still throwing a tantrum?!” Five years ago, a patient died under Chloe Miller’s care. Carter used my mother’s life-saving medical funds to blackmail me into taking the fall for her. Then, to protect the reputation of the Hayes Corporation, he coldly and ruthlessly kicked both me and our son, Leo, out of our home and banished us to this slum. For five years, he never contacted me once. I never expected that his sudden reappearance would be to demand I take the fall for his precious first love yet again. Carter paced around the tiny room twice. Failing to find me, he curled his lip in deep dissatisfaction. “You’re an unemployed parasite who relies entirely on me to survive, and you dare throw a tantrum? You really must have a death wish!” “Chloe is about to be locked up, and you’re still hiding. I know exactly what you’re doing. You’re trying to use this as leverage to force your way back into my life. Keep dreaming!” His eyes, red with anger, swept viciously across the room as he barked an order to his men: “Smash this place to pieces! Cut off all funding for her mother’s medical bills and Leo’s child support! Let’s see how long she can hold out!” The moment the words left his mouth, several men rushed in and began destroying the apartment. The framed photos and the meager, cheap furniture were all hurled to the floor. The memorial portraits of me and my mother were smashed to pieces. I desperately tried to stop them, but my hands passed right through everything. “No! This is my and Leo’s home! This is all we have left!” “Carter, I’m already dead! Make them stop!” Carter just stood there, watching the destruction with cold, detached eyes. Noticing that his men had intentionally avoided the two cheap-looking urns sitting in front of the altar, he actually walked over to them. He picked up the two urns and sneered: “Sarah, your acting is pretty convincing. You even bought prop urns.” “You’re willing to curse yourself and your own mother just to see Chloe go to prison. You are truly a vicious, toxic bitch!” With that, he raised the two urns, preparing to smash them onto the floor! Just then, a small noise came from inside the apartment. Chapter 2 Carter froze, a cold smirk forming as he looked toward the inner room. “Sarah, I knew you weren’t dead. Finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and decided to show yourself?” “Let me tell you right now, you are signing this confession today, or else…” Before he could finish his threat, a tiny figure peeked out, looking at him with immense caution. “Daddy, Mommy is dead.” Looking at the frail, tiny Leo standing before him, a flash of shock crossed Carter’s eyes. At eight years old, Leo looked no different than he did when he was three. A sob tore from my spectral throat. I desperately tried to push Leo back into the room to hide him. Carter had gone completely insane trying to find a scapegoat for Chloe. Even though Leo was his own flesh and blood, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t hurt him. Sure enough, Carter’s gaze turned icy, though he tried to soften his tone: “Leo? Why did your mother let you get so skinny? Where is she? Once I make her sign this, I’ll take you home, okay?” “Do you remember Auntie Chloe? She misses you so much. You’ll live with us from now on.” Leo timidly pointed a trembling finger at the urns in Carter’s hands. “Daddy, Mommy and Grandma are right there.” Carter instantly lost his patience. He violently hurled both urns onto the floor. The gray-white ashes spilled everywhere. Leo froze for a split second, then lunged forward, trying to gather the ashes. Carter shoved him away impatiently, his expensive leather shoe grinding heavily into the spilled remains. “Sarah really has ruined you! You even know how to lie now! How could she possibly be dead?!” Leo burst into tears, wailing loudly. Through his sobs, he cried: “Mommy really is dead! The family of the lady Auntie Chloe killed came looking for her. They brought knives and hacked Mommy to death!” Crying uncontrollably, Leo pointed to the thick, jagged scars on his own small body. “Daddy, I’m not lying. I have scars too.” Looking at his son sobbing in agony, a flicker of doubt finally crossed Carter’s eyes. He gripped the confession letter tightly, a brief flash of pain twisting his features. The next second, his phone chimed. Chloe had texted him two photos, followed immediately by a phone call. “Carter, Sarah took her mom and ran away. She must still resent me for what happened years ago.” “I guess… I guess I’ll just have to go to prison. Just please, Carter, promise you won’t forget me.” As soon as she finished speaking, she hung up. Panic washed over Carter’s face. He quickly dialed her back. “Chloe, don’t do anything stupid! You’re about to be promoted to Chief of Surgery, your future is so bright! You can’t go to prison!” “Don’t worry, no matter where Sarah ran off to, I will drag her back. I promise you won’t go down for this!” Hanging up the phone, Carter violently yanked Leo toward him. “I funded your mother’s life for five years! What the hell could an ex-con do after getting out of prison anyway?! For all these years, I’m the one who paid for her deadbeat mother’s hospital bills! She owes me, and now is the time to pay up! Leo, if you still want to call me your father, tell me exactly where your mother is right now!” Carter’s rough, aggressive handling terrified Leo, making his small body tremble violently. A sharp, agonizing pain ripped through my chest. Carter had absolutely no idea. Five years ago, after I took the fall and had my medical license permanently revoked, I was immediately banished to this slum. As for the so-called “child support,” I never saw a single cent of it. The money had all gone to Chloe’s bank account. She used those funds to hire local street thugs to relentlessly harass me day and night. The moment I stepped out the door, I would be cornered in an alley and beaten. When I finally managed to contact my old medical school mentor for help, I was ambushed at the door of my apartment by the furious family of the patient Chloe had killed. Seventeen stab wounds. Every single one lethal. My very last memory before I died was Leo, crying hysterically, calling Carter for help—only to have the call mercilessly hung up, over and over again. The sound of Leo’s crying in the present merged with the echoes of that horrific day. Seeing that Leo was only crying and not answering, Carter, in a fit of frustration, slapped his own son hard across the face! Then, he roared in anger: “Tell me where your mother is right now! If she doesn’t show her face, I’m going straight to the hospital to cut off your grandmother’s life support!” Leo was crying so hard he was hyperventilating. Under Carter’s terrifying threats, he could only answer through his tears: “Mommy is really dead. Grandma is dead too. Daddy, you can go ask the police officers. I’m not a liar.” Looking at Leo’s red, swollen cheek, a fleeting trace of guilt flashed in Carter’s eyes. But almost immediately, Chloe called again. “Carter, the patient’s family is at my door! They’re saying I need to pay for her life with mine! You have to come back and save me!” The moment she said that, Carter shoved Leo aside without a second thought! In his frantic rush to leave, he didn’t even notice that Leo had been shoved so hard his head slammed violently against the sharp edge of the coffee table. Blood instantly gushed out, pooling on the floor. Leo weakly reached out a trembling, bloodstained hand, trying to ask his father for help. But Carter was entirely focused on reassuring Chloe on the phone. “Don’t be afraid. I’m on my way back right now!” Chapter 3 Carter pushed open the door to Chloe’s luxury townhouse. Before he could even look for the supposedly rioting family members, Chloe threw herself into his arms. “Carter, you found Sarah, right? She agreed to take the blame, didn’t she?” As she spoke, she hurriedly snatched the confession letter from Carter’s hand. When she saw that my signature wasn’t on the dotted line, her face instantly turned ghost-white. “Why isn’t it signed?! Why won’t she take the fall for me?! That pathetic bitch…” Chloe’s face twisted into a mask of pure malice. Just as she was about to spit out more venom, she noticed Carter’s deeply furrowed brow and quickly caught herself, changing her tone entirely. “Carter, forget it. It seems she’s still holding a grudge over what happened five years ago. I’ll just go to prison myself. As long as you’re okay, I’ll be fine.” Chloe’s eyes instantly welled up with red-rimmed tears. It was a move she had used countless times before. And sure enough, it worked. Carter hurriedly pulled her into a tight embrace. “Chloe, don’t worry. Just because I couldn’t find her doesn’t mean the police can’t! If she refuses to sign the confession, I’ll find someone who will make sure her name gets on that paper!” A ruthless, dark glint flashed in Carter’s eyes. Chloe hid the victorious gleam in her eyes, feigning deep emotion as she hugged him back. “But if we do that, Sarah will have to serve five years in federal prison this time. I remember your parents already had a problem with her, right? I’m afraid they might force you to divorce her…” Carter’s face darkened. “Sarah and I are never getting divorced!” “We made a promise to stay together for the rest of our lives, and I don’t break my promises. Even though she’s spent the last five years raising Leo into a pathological liar, and throwing a tantrum by refusing to help you out… once I find her this time, I will make sure she learns her lesson.” “When she gets out of prison in five years, we’ll go back to being a normal family.” I was so shocked by this delusion that my ghost literally floated in circles. What Carter meant was that he was planning to cut ties with Chloe entirely. Years ago, he had abandoned me and Leo countless times just to be at Chloe’s beck and call. Even when Leo was hospitalized with a dangerously high fever, Carter abandoned us at the ER without a second thought just because Chloe called him. And now, for the sake of some casual promise we made when we were young and stupidly in love, he was voluntarily planning to cut contact with Chloe? Chloe’s features contorted in absolute rage. But remembering the looming threat of prison, she swallowed her anger, forcing herself to look up at him with a pathetic, wronged expression. Carter’s heart softened for a moment. Just as he was about to comfort her, his phone rang sharply. “Is this Mr. Carter Hayes? Your son, Leo, was just brought into the ER by ambulance with massive cranial hemorrhaging. Please come immediately to authorize his emergency surgery and pay the deposit.” “Heh! Are you scammers really getting this sophisticated now? Let him die, then. I’m not paying a cent.” Carter sneered coldly. The hospital staff on the other end was utterly appalled. “Mr. Hayes, your son’s life is in critical danger right now. If you don’t pay the deposit, we cannot proceed with the surgery. We are calling from City General. You can come verify it yourself right now.” Carter frowned, a brief flash of hesitation crossing his face. “Carter, Sarah is actually using her own child just to avoid taking the blame. She must truly hate me!” Chloe looked up at him, her face a portrait of victimization. Carter’s eyes hardened. He suppressed the rising unease in his chest and said furiously: “Enough! I don’t care how much money Sarah paid you to put on this show. When I left earlier, Leo was perfectly fine. How dare she curse her own son just to play a trick! She’s not afraid of karma?!” With that, he violently hung up the phone. I floated around him in a frantic panic, wanting nothing more than to force him to wire the money immediately. But Carter was completely consumed with having his assistant forge my signature on the confession letter. Once done, he took Chloe straight to the police precinct. “Officer, the medical malpractice incident that occurred at Emerson Hospital was caused by my wife. Here is her signed confession!” The detective frowned as he took the document. A few minutes later, he looked at Carter like he was looking at an absolute lunatic. “Mr. Hayes, are you attempting to obstruct a police investigation? You actually had the nerve to forge a confession document!” Carter’s heart skipped a beat. “This was signed by my wife! She has fled to avoid prosecution.” The detective gave him a dead, icy stare. “The Sarah Evans you’re talking about was stabbed to death five years ago by the family of a victim from a completely different medical malpractice case!” “When we closed the case, we tried to contact you, but you never answered your phone. In the end, it was her child who had to claim her ashes.” “You tell me: how exactly did a woman who has been dead for five years sign this confession?” All the color instantly drained from Chloe’s face, leaving her as white as a sheet. Chapter 4 Carter’s body stiffened for a fraction of a second. But almost immediately, he let out a cynical laugh. “So all the money I’ve been sending Sarah for the past five years… she used it all to bribe the police department?!” “No wonder Leo hasn’t grown an inch in five years. She’s really pulled out all the stops, hasn’t she?!” Carter slammed his hand angrily on the interrogation desk. Right at that moment, the hospital called again. “Mr. Hayes, the child’s condition is extremely critical. If you do not authorize payment immediately, I’m afraid he won’t last another ten minutes!” Carter gritted his teeth, his voice dripping with absolute impatience: “Then let him die! When he’s dead, don’t bother calling me. Just send him straight to the crematorium from the hospital. Are we clear?!” He violently ended the call. Floating in the air, I wept tears of blood. I hated myself for not running as far away from Carter as possible all those years ago. Because of my mistake, my precious Leo was about to be murdered by his own biological father. Fuming with anger, his expensive leather shoes clicking sharply on the pavement, Carter marched directly to the nursing home where my mother used to stay. Only to find that my mother’s file had been purged years ago. She had also passed away five years prior. “I heard the poor woman couldn’t handle the shock of finding out her daughter had been murdered. She passed away that exact same night,” the receptionist mentioned. My heart constricted so tightly I couldn’t breathe. The brutal karma that Chloe should have suffered had entirely fallen upon me and my mother. Facing setback after setback, Carter’s brow furrowed tightly. He finally began to suspect that what he had been told might actually be the truth. He pulled out his phone and texted his executive assistant. [Run a full background check on Sarah Evans and her mother.] The very next second, Chloe called him. “Carter, I don’t know if I should tell you this, but I just saw Sarah at the airport. She was holding hands with a man, and they had Leo with them.” “At the end of the day, it was my fault for not being careful enough during that surgery. Just let Sarah go. I’ll take the prison sentence.” As soon as she finished speaking, she sent him two blurry, grainy photos. It showed the silhouettes of a woman and a child who looked like me and Leo. And standing next to “me” was a man, pulling me into a passionate kiss. The muscles in Carter’s forehead twitched violently with rage. Sarah had played him for an absolute fool. He had actually almost believed she was dead! The fury of being played, the humiliation of being betrayed—it completely shattered Carter’s remaining sanity. He violently smashed his phone onto the ground and sprinted toward the nearest family court division. “I want to file for emergency full custody of my son! I’m taking him away from his mother!” As long as he had custody of Leo, Sarah would never be able to run away! Carter’s eyes burned with a manic, obsessive frenzy. Right at that moment, a hospital administrator suddenly appeared at the precinct doors. He scrutinized Carter for a moment before suddenly speaking up: “You’re Mr. Carter Hayes, correct? Your son, Leo, stopped breathing half an hour ago. We were just about to file the paperwork to void his birth registry and issue a death certificate. Since you’re here, you can handle it yourself.” The words hung in the air. Carter hadn’t even processed them yet. The police officer standing behind him added: “Mr. Hayes, you cannot file for custody against Ms. Evans. Ms. Evans passed away five years ago. And your son was issued a death certificate exactly thirty minutes ago.”

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