1596 Book(s) Related to royal shop of young lady 64

After my eighth trip to the psychiatric ward, I finally became the perfect, obedient wife my husband always wanted—even when I caught his childhood friend giving him a handjob in our living room.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Eric snapped, his eyes dark with irritation. "If those hands are useless, might as well chop them off." Without a word, I grabbed a kitchen knife and raised it toward my wrist. He kicked it away, screaming at me to stop being dramatic. So, I turned and charged headfirst toward the floor-to-ceiling window.

When I woke up, I heard him laughing with her. "She's fine. Just another attention stunt." He didn't know that the "treatment" he authorized had broken my mind into a million jagged pieces. He didn't know about the shock collars, the waterboarding, the dark cells. He thought I was finally "cured" of my jealousy.

It wasn't until a rafting trip, when his friend pushed me into the rapids and my prosthetic eye popped out and rolled across the deck, that his world shattered. As he stared at the empty black socket where my left eye used to be, he finally realized what those facilities had done to me. He dropped to his knees, screaming my name, but the woman who loved him was already dead.

Will his tears be enough to bring back the wife he destroyed, or is this just the beginning of his hell?

"Riccardo, please! I beg you!"
My water broke ten minutes ago. Warm liquid streamed down my legs and slowly froze into ice on the ground beneath me.
He stood on the other side of the bulletproof glass. In his eyes, there was not a trace left of the man I had once loved with all my heart.
In the Bellanona Mafia family, bloodline surpasses everything, and the hierarchy of age is an unyielding iron rule: the firstborn son shall inherit the entire underworld empire.
My sister-in-law Sofia and I were both pregnant, our due dates merely one day apart.
To make sure his elder brother’s child seized the succession right first, my husband coldly chose to sacrifice our own flesh and blood.
"My brother’s child must be born first." Riccardo’s voice came over the intercom, colder and more piercing than bitter winter wind. "This is what you owe them."
He had not only locked me inside this icy cellar. Just moments ago, his men pinned me down ruthlessly and injected a dose of medicine into my vein, solely to forcefully halt my labor.
Writhing in agony, I hugged my heavily pregnant belly tightly with both arms.
I could distinctly feel the little life inside me, once kicking and struggling relentlessly, growing fainter and fainter.
I’m sorry, my baby… Mommy is so sorry for you.

As the last stroke of the New Year bell rang,
I suddenly received a message from eight years ago:

“This is my first New Year with Zhou Guming!”
“I want to be with Zhou Guming forever!”
“I will play the piano for my whole life!”

At the same time, the news on TV was reporting:
On New Year’s Day,
my husband Zhou Guming was attending my best friend’s piano recital.

I looked down at my deformed fingers, bound by chains.
After cutting my wrist with a piece of iron I’d hidden for a long time,
I struggled to type one line:

“Lili, keep going forward. Don’t look back.”

Jonathan’s way of loving was always paying in silence. After we broke up, he cleared my shopping cart, stocked up enough makeup remover to last me three years, trying his best to make up for it. But during those three years when I willingly waited for him to propose, he never said a word. Until one day, he found a small note I’d written in pencil three years ago in that wedding planning book: “It’s okay, I can wait.” He cried all night staring at that line, and the next day, he bought 17 copies of the same book. On the title page of each one, he wrote neatly: “Wait for me.” It turns out, the stupidest person takes three years just to learn to say “I love you.”

At the auction, when Anna’s painting was sold for the highest price of the night, I died in a dim underground studio.

No one knew that the painting had stolen my inspiration.

I was the most talented painter in the Hale family, yet I lived forever in my sister’s shadow — only because our paintings always ended up strangely similar.

At first, people said it was the bond between sisters.
Later, after my sister stole my paintings and exhibited them first, I became the so-called thief who plagiarized her works, while Anna turned into a celebrated, sought-after painter.

“Hard work really is more reliable than talent.” That was what people loved to say.

Before the auction, my family locked me away in the studio.
“Don’t ruin Anna’s big night.”

My sister Anna handed me a piece of bread.
“Little sister, have something to eat. When the auction’s over, we’ll go celebrate with a nice meal.”

“Look how kind your sister is — she still worries you’re hungry.”
Mother kicked me hard.

But she never knew Anna had poisoned the bread.
After just one bite, my skin broke out in rashes, I could barely breathe, and pain tore through every part of me.

Before I suffocated, I called my boyfriend Edd.
All I got was his cold scold:
“Lily, stop playing these cheap tricks!”

To the busy beep of the phone, I took my last breath.

When they came home triumphantly, thinking I was just being moody and refusing to join the celebration, they never knew I had stayed forever in that dark, quiet studio.

On my daughter’s 100-day celebration, I found explicit messages between my husband and his secretary.
During our fight, he “accidentally” pushed me off the second floor, trapping me in a wheelchair forever.
He fired the secretary and cared for me personally, winning everyone’s praise and pity.
Only I knew he took secret late-night calls, his eyes full of disgust when he looked at me.
Until his mistress moved in, and my daughter screamed at me: “Just die.”
I smiled and pulled out a hidden voice recorder from my wheelchair.
Three years of silence, all for this moment.
James, your karma has come.

For the sake of the so-called family heir, my husband Killian is prepared to kill my child!
That day, Killian locked me in an underground cold storage at ten degrees below zero, all because there is an ironclad rule in the Vittorio family.
The first-born son shall inherit the family’s Mafia empire.
My eldest brother’s wife Ira and I got pregnant at the same time.
To ensure his elder brother’s child is born first, Killian made this insane decision.
"My brother and Ira’s child has to be born first. This is what you owe them!"
He ignored my pleas and forcibly injected me with labor-delaying medicine.
"Allowing this child to be born at all is already the greatest mercy I can grant you."
Killian said to me with undisguised disgust.
I curled up in agony on the icy concrete floor, feeling the little life in my womb fading away bit by bit, shedding tears of utter despair.
"My baby… Mommy is so sorry for you…"

When the screen lit up, my heart stopped beating.
The woman twisting on the bed, breathless and flushed, was Rachel. The innocent girl we grew up with. The adopted sister I had fiercely loved and protected for over a decade.

And the hands claiming her body?
They belonged to my childhood sweetheart, Sebastian. On his finger glinted the very wedding band I had lovingly slipped onto his hand.

"I missed you so much..."
"You drive me crazy, baby..."

His hoarse moans coming through the speaker were agonizingly familiar. Those exact sweet whispers, the ones that used to make my heart flutter, now completely destroyed me.

To the outside world, we were the ultimate power couple. I ran his empire, exhausted myself to build his perfect life, while he bathed in everyone's envy. But who knew my flawless marriage was nothing but a sick, twisted lie?

Tears blurred my vision, but as the video ended, my sorrow morphed into something cold and lethal.

Sebastian thinks he is a master manipulator. He thinks he can have my loyalty while drowning in my sister’s bed.

Well, since he loves acting so much... I think it’s time I gave him a taste of my own performance.

Playtime is over. I am going to tear down his 'perfect husband' facade piece by piece, and I won't stop until I witness his total ruin.

I was carrying Don Elijah’s child. But on the exact day I went into labor, the man I loved dragged me to an underground freezer—standing at a deadly minus ten degrees Celsius—and locked the heavy metal door.

The reason? The Varro Mafia family’s ironclad rule: the firstborn son inherits the entire empire. His brother’s wife, Elena, was also pregnant, our due dates separated by a single day.

To guarantee his brother’s child secured the throne, Elijah callously snuffed out my hope.

"Elena’s child must be born first," he demanded coldly. "This is what you owe them!"

He ignored the warm rush of my broken water. He ignored my agonizing, tearing contractions. He shoved me into the icy darkness, violently injecting me with a drug specifically designed to halt my labor.

Curled up on the frost-covered concrete, freezing and completely alone, I clutched my stomach in sheer agony. In the suffocating cold, I felt the terrifying stillness. I felt the tiny, fighting heartbeat inside me slowly, torturously fading away.

Hot tears streamed down my face, freezing before they hit the ground.

"My baby..." I whispered into the pitch-black void, my heart shattering into a million pieces. "Mommy is so sorry..."

Elijah sacrificed our child out of blind loyalty to his brother. But when he finally opens that frostbitten door, he won’t merely find a broken woman—he will face the terrifying, irreversible ruin of his own legacy.

During the senior executive meeting, an intern slapped a 15-yuan McDonald's receipt right in my face.
"Vice President Xu has been embezzling company funds for personal meals! A parasite like her, who’s been fleecing the company, must be fired!"
My boyfriend of eight years looked at me with a feigned, agonized expression. "This incident has caused an abysmally bad impact. You will be suspended pending an internal investigation."
I stared at his hand wrapped around the intern's waist, then calmly removed my employee ID badge.
I turned to my assistant and ordered, "Freeze the five million yuan in the company's account. That's just the pocket money I casually deposited there last week."

After three years of marriage, my wife finally gave birth to a son.
I was beside myself with elation, convinced I’d finally secured an heir to carry on my family line.
Yet she’d let her so-called "male best friend" name our son: Gu Nianzhe.
Nianzhe. The name literally translates to "yearning for Zhe". Yearning for Lu Zhe?
I stared at the tiny face that bore an unmistakable seventy percent resemblance to Lu Zhe, and my heart was torn to shreds.
At our son’s one-month full moon banquet, my wife looked at Lu Zhe with eyes brimming with lovestruck adoration, and said: "You’re the most important person in my son’s life and mine."
The entire hall erupted into applause for this "heartwarming" pair.
I stepped up onto the stage, a cold smile playing on my lips, and pulled out a paternity test report.
"Don’t get swept up in the tears just yet. Today, I, the world’s biggest sucker who’s been played for a fool this whole time, have a little entertainment lined up to liven up this party for you all."

After five years in a long-distance relationship, I boarded a more than 10-hour flight without telling him, touched down in the city where he lived, all to give him a surprise.
Hardly had my phone connected to the local network when I scrolled across a post pushed to my feed from the same city.
The title read: What’s the thing you’ve done that you’ve never regretted for a single second?
The top comment stared back at me, sharp and unmistakeable:
I got him drunk and slept with him on the day we graduated college. Back then, he promised his girlfriend he’d never see me again, but his heart softens the moment I cry. Now our kid is 4 years old, and I’m pregnant with our second baby!
The comments below were flooded with questions, and someone asked outright: OP, are you the other woman?
She replied with unapologetic audacity: The one who isn’t loved is the real homewrecker. Besides, that woman was abducted and molested before. She’s long been tainted, and she never deserved him in the first place.
My fingers began to shake uncontrollably. Every single detail lined up perfectly with my own life.
Desperate to calm my heart, which felt like it was about to hammer out of my chest, I stepped into a roadside convenience store to buy a bottle of water.
The second I looked up at the checkout counter, the blood in my veins turned to ice in an instant.
The woman standing beside the cash register was none other than Su Miaomiao—the same woman who’d lain in the same hotel bed with Lu Sinian on that night of our college graduation.
My feet felt nailed to the floor as I watched her walk out of the store with a smile on her face.
The very next second, she threw herself into the arms of a man across the street, tilting her head up to kiss him in a sweet, lingering embrace.
That man was Lu Sinian. My husband. The man I’d legally married, the man I’d spent five years in a long-distance relationship with, the man who’d vowed over and over again to love me and protect me.

My marriage to Matthew was a transaction, a substitute—everything except love. When his white moonlight came back, I was abandoned, diagnosed with gastric cancer, and carrying his child. His late regret could never bring back my life, nor could it keep our unborn baby.

Seventy-two hours before my wedding, I stood in front of the fitting mirror at a bridal shop.

My best friend sent me a social media post, and the red exclamation mark in the message box stung my eyes sharply.

The post’s title read: Guys, my boyfriend is getting married to his current partner. What should I do?

The comment section had already erupted into chaos.
“Dude, are you out of your mind? You’re the other woman here!”
“You’re the homewrecker and you dare post this to get roasted? Where’s your shame?”

The poster was firing back furiously, every word oozing unapologetic madness:
“We’ve been inseparable since we were kids! His first love, first kiss, first time—all mine!”
“He doesn’t even like that old hag; he’s only marrying her out of obligation!”
“Who’s the real mistress, anyway?”

I should have swiped past it like a silly joke, but my gaze was locked onto the poster’s profile picture.

It showed two hands laced together. Peeking out from the man’s wrist was a dark green watch dial—a Richard Mille Valentine’s Day limited edition. It was the seven-figure engagement gift I’d bought him by selling my mother’s last precious heirloom, the only one of its kind in the world.

My heart was squeezed tight by an icy hand, plummeting to the bottom in an instant.

I tapped into the account’s homepage. The second my finger swiped open the photo album, a dizzying, world-spinning sensation crashed over me.

In the photos, the man holding the girl closely was none other than Lu Yanchen—my fiancé, who was supposed to marry me in three days.

I stared at the screen. All the wedding hopes and love I’d saved up over three years shattered into nothing but dust at this moment.

I couldn’t believe it, yet I had to. The man who’d loved me for three years and sworn to protect me forever had been lying to me from start to finish.

Every July, my husband left for a business trip to France—so for seven full years of marriage, we never once got to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
This time, I flew all the way to France to surprise him, and mid-flight, I stumbled across a social media post.
My dream girl finally agreed to be with me. How do I make the frumpy, worn-out wife back home file for divorce on her own?
The OP poured out his grievances in the comment section:
When my dream girl suddenly moved abroad, I married her former best friend to keep me company through the hard times, just so I wouldn’t lose touch with her completely.
Now she’s finally said yes to being with me, and I’ve made enough to give her the lavish, privileged life she deserves.
I want my wife to find out about my affair herself so I can get a clean divorce without a fight, but she’s so painfully oblivious. I’ve come home reeking of my dream girl’s perfume on purpose, and every single July I fly here to France for our private time together, watching the lavender bloom in Provence with her. She never noticed a thing.
Perfume. July. France.
Those matching details made my fingers go numb. A deafening buzz exploded in my skull. A bone-deep chill washed over me, and I prayed with everything I had that it was all just a terrible coincidence.
Until I read the final line.
Just got a spending alert from her supplementary credit card—she bought a flight to France. I’m heading to pick up my dream girl now, might as well keep an eye out for her, just in case.
The plane touched down. When I stepped into the arrivals hall, I lifted my head almost instinctively.
There stood Shen Sinian, the man I hadn’t seen in two weeks, in a crisp, tailored suit, a bouquet of roses in his hand, locked in a passionate kiss with a woman with a stunning, willowy figure, her back to me.
He opened his eyes by chance, and through the crowd of travelers, his gaze locked directly with mine.

The moment I saw my name on that wedding invitation, I was already dead.

On Highway 23, a steel rebar had pierced straight through my chest. I was two months pregnant.

I called my fiancé Michael seventeen times. The first sixteen, he hung up without a word. On the seventeenth, his voice dripped with impatience: "Marrying Sophia is just for show. Stop making a scene."

The man who once knelt outside my family's estate for three days and nights, swearing to love me for a lifetime—he wouldn't spare me a single second more.

With my last breath, I dialed the funeral home. "I'm calling... for myself."

Flames consumed my body. My soul drifted toward the engagement banquet that should have been mine. When the killer's phone lit up, the name on the screen was Sophia...

When he destroyed my entire family, he never once thought of me.

So now, let me watch with my own eyes as this wedding becomes their funeral.

I was in the middle of an affair in the master bedroom when Gu Jingran and his secretary burst in and caught me red-handed.
A thunderous roar ripped through the room.
"Ruan Qinghe!"
I shoved the trembling young man off my body, lowered my eyes, and let out a low, mocking laugh.
"Well, well. My husband rolls up with his side piece to catch his lawfully wedded wife cheating? This has got to be the most unhinged thing I've ever seen in my life."
The secretary, Bai Weiwei, paled instantly, scrambling to defend herself. "Sister Qinghe, you've got this all wrong! Today is your seventh wedding anniversary with Mr. Gu, he only asked me to come help!"
"Whatever was between us ended ages ago! We're just friends now! Don't you dare project your own filthy behavior onto everyone else just because you're acting out!"
I gave her a cool, cursory glance, smiled and said nothing, before finally fixing my gaze on Gu Jingran.
He snapped like a rabid wild beast, slamming and smashing every last thing he'd painstakingly prepared to pieces.
"You did this on purpose, didn't you?" His voice was raw and hoarse, trembling with rage. "You're trying to get back at me?"
"I was just curious."
I lifted an eyebrow slightly.
"Curious about what cheating feels like. What kind of thrill, what kind of rush, could make you addicted to it over and over again."

Five years together in that basement, and she thought she was his only light.

When she was eight months pregnant, he ran a red light to rush to his first love's side—and nearly killed her in the crash.

"Your sister hurt her leg. I'm marrying her next week so she can have some peace of mind."

A childhood betrothal. Five years of standing by each other through the worst. And none of it could outweigh a single tear from his first love.

He wanted her to be the bridesmaid—to hand him over to another woman with her own two hands.

"Don't worry, it's just a ceremony," he said.

But when she lay in a hospital bed barely clinging to life, all he could see was the scrape on his first love's leg.

The moment she booked the plane ticket, she rested a hand on her belly and whispered, "Let's go, little one."

On the day of the wedding, when he finds the bridesmaid's seat empty—what expression will cross his face?

Some people, once lost, are lost for a lifetime.

He once saw her as nothing but a cheap plaything. Four years of closeness was nothing more than “practice before marriage.”
Cast out on a snowy night, publicly humiliated, her career destroyed… She licked her wounds in silence and dialed her family’s satellite phone.
When they met again, she was the largest shareholder of the Corporation. He was forced to bend his pride and call her “Auntie” in a trembling voice.
You took away all my dignity once. Now I make you too low to reach me.

Xie Yijin hated me more than anyone in this world.

He called me vicious as a scorpion, said I schemed about everything, stole all that belonged to Lin Wanwan, and destroyed the one he held dearest.

Xie Yijin shielded Lin Wanwan tightly behind him.
The eyes that once looked at me with such tenderness were now frozen over with unmelting ice.
He pointed straight at me, every word cutting like a blade:

"Shen Zhiyi, why don’t you just die?!"

I froze in place, my fingertips ice-cold.
Unconsciously, I still clutched that crumpled, yellowed candy wrapper.

He had given it to me when he was seven years old,
saying that when I grew up, he would marry me
and buy me candies for the rest of my life.

But now…
he only wanted me dead.

Here is the translation, adapted into the explosive, high-stakes style of a bestselling American domestic thriller. The pacing is sharp, and the emotional transition from shock to cold vengeance is deeply amplified:

For five years, I honestly believed I was the happiest woman alive.

Until today. The day I came home early and stood frozen just outside the balcony, listening to his phone call.

"What? Shuying, you're pregnant?" Tingshen's voice was laced with a raw, unbridled euphoria I had never once heard before. "I knew getting rid of Jiang Wan's baby back then was the right move."

My knuckles turned stark white as I death-gripped the ultrasound report in my hand.

Qin Shuying. My absolute worst rival. They had been sleeping together.

"Tingshen, are you sure she won't find out?" Shuying's sickeningly sweet voice drifted through the phone's speaker, piercing my eardrums. "If Jiang Wan ever realizes you were the one who killed her baby, she's going to raise hell."

"Relax." Tingshen laughed, his tone dripping with the kind of casual contempt reserved for swatting a fly. "She's so clueless. She honestly believes it was her own failing body. The stupid bitch even cried and apologized to me. She'd never in a million years suspect I drugged her."

My nails drove so brutally into my palms that they broke the skin.

"Besides, I finally got my hands on her core design drafts. Consider them a welcome gift for our baby. As for her shares in the company..." He paused, savoring his own smugness. "She's about to sign them all over to me anyway. So what if her old man built an empire? It's all dropping right into my lap."

The world tilted violently on its axis.

I was carrying his child again.

Just five minutes ago, before I overheard this monstrous phone call, I had been acting like a giddy fool, planning the perfect way to surprise him with the news.

My trembling hand drifted down to my lower stomach. My chest cracked open, a visceral, violent tearing of my own heart. The baby I had desperately longed for and mourned... chemically aborted by their own father, all to keep his mistress happy.

My sweet babies, I thought, the devastating sorrow rapidly freezing into sheer, icy rage. Mommy is going to make them pay for every drop of blood.

"Jump, Stella. No one wants an ugly monster like you," my mother said coldly, blocking my escape route.

Behind me was the freezing, raging river; in front of me were the people I loved most, now forcing me to die. Jennifer smirked, clutching the trophy that belonged to me. "I'll take good care of Ethan for you," she whispered. I looked at their faces—twisted, cruel, triumphant. I didn't jump to die; I jumped to be reborn. As the icy water filled my lungs, I made a pact with the devil. I will crawl back from hell, and I will drag you all down with me.

He knelt in the dirt, begging to see the daughter he abandoned, but I pointed to the man beside me: "She calls him Daddy now."

Ryan looked like a ghost. Stomach cancer had eaten away his arrogance, leaving only skin and bones. He stared at Grace—the baby he thought was dead, the baby he tried to replace with an orphan. "Zoey... I'm her biological father. Please."

I held Chris's hand, feeling his warmth, so different from Ryan's cold betrayal. "Biological?" I scoffed. "You're just a sperm donor who chose his sister over his wife."

Grace hid behind Chris's leg, looking at Ryan with fear. That look broke him more than the cancer ever could.

"You have Lucy," I said, turning away. "And her child. Go enjoy the family you destroyed us for." I watched him vomit blood into the grass, realizing too late that he had traded a diamond for a stone. He would die alone, while we lived happily ever after.

Seven years of deep affection, expectations with a pregnant belly, and all I got was his betrayal in marriage and false promises. I gambled my youth and sincerity, only to end up with an absurd scam. After waking up, we owe each other nothing and will have no more ties.

Everyone said I was the happiest woman of the Northern Plains Clan, blessed with the purest love from Eric, the Wolf King.
Then my wolf let out a tormented howl.
Through the soul bond of fated mates, I felt it clearly—
my husband held my maid in his arms, drowning in desperate lust.
That nourishing tonic I’d drunk for three years, which I’d believed was filled with his affection, had only been brewed to keep me barren all along.
"Eric, I want you..."
"All of me is yours, my love. Bear our cub soon."
Those sweet whispers I once held dear shattered me to pieces in an instant.
The whole clan praised us as the perfect pair.
Yet who could have imagined this marriage had been built entirely on lies from the very start?
Since he is such a master of pretense, I suppose it’s time I put on a show of my own.
I will expose the true face of this flawless husband for everyone to see.

My fiancé's "innocent" sister posted a photo wearing the sheer lingerie I bought for him, standing in the master bedroom of my new house. The caption read: "Finally have a place to take shelter. Thanks Lucas for the security." In the corner of her photo, my carefully chosen wedding portrait was thrown face-down on the hardwood floor.

I didn't scream or cry. I just quietly took a screenshot and dialed the number of my billionaire boss. "Mr. Allen, I'll take that overseas transfer." Since Lucas wanted to give another woman a home, I didn't want this wedding anymore.

The next day, I went to our new house. The passcode had been changed to her birthday. When I finally got in, she was sprawling on my leather sofa, demanding I leave because Lucas "owned half." I laughed, throwing the property deed right in her pale face. "Look closely at the name. You have ten minutes to pack your trash and get out, or I'm calling the cops for trespassing."

She ran away crying. I called a cleaning crew and threw out the bed, the sofa, and every single thing they had touched. Because you don't keep dead things, and in my heart, this eight-year relationship was already rotting in the grave. Will Lucas realize what he lost before it's too late?

Here is an adaptation crafted in the style of a bestselling contemporary Western psychological thriller or domestic drama hook, using fast-paced, high-tension American English:

For three years, I was the envy of Manhattan’s elite—the untouchable heiress with the flawless life.

My husband? The media constantly fawned over him, dubbing him "God’s gift to women" and the absolute epitome of a perfect gentleman.

Then came the video. The damn video that shattered it all.

Kneeling on the floor, wearing a thick leather collar like a pathetic stray, was the man I had loved deeply for years.

At the other end of the leash stood another woman, the stiletto of her red-soled Louboutin pressing ruthlessly into his cheek.

"Tell me, what are you?" she demanded.

"I'm Mistress Elena's dog," he whimpered. "I just want to get away from Sienna... I'm so sick of that suffocating bitch."

Every vow, every promise we ever made, instantly dissolved into a sick, twisted joke.

But instead of breaking down, I just smiled. And I hit save.

If he wanted to act like a dog so badly, I’d be more than happy to oblige. I was going to make sure he choked on that damn leash.

Since I was ten, he told me to call him brother. But brothers don't look at you like that.
My life had only Daniel Wilson in it. He was my guardian, my savior, my world.
"Call me brother," he said, but he forbade me from dating anyone else. He kept me in his manor like a bird in a gilded cage. He promised that when I turned twenty-one, the title of "sister" would change to "wife."
I waited. I obeyed. I loved him with a devotion that bordered on obsession.
But on my twenty-first birthday, he brought her home.
"Julie, meet Lena. She's... special to me."
He introduced his childhood crush to me, his "sister," while holding her hand. The way he looked at her was soft, gentle—the way he used to look at me before she arrived.
"You're just a foster sister," he reminded me coldly when I cried. "Don't cross the line."
The line? He blurred the lines for twelve years! He made me dependent on him, made me believe we were destined, only to discard me when the "real" owner of his heart returned.
Fine. If I'm just a sister, then I'll leave.
But why is he chasing me now, begging me to come back, saying he can't sleep without me in the house?
"I'm not your sister anymore, Daniel. And I'm certainly not your wife."

The first birthday after we finally made up.

Shen Linze sent me a menu and told me to cook everything myself.

He invited all his close friends, plus the girl he was chasing, saying it was a birthday party for me.

On the long dining table were the stir-fried dishes I’d spent three hours rushing to make.

Shen Linze picked up a piece of sweet and sour spareribs and carefully held it to the girl’s mouth.

“Yaoyao, have a taste. I asked Su Qingyan to make them specially—they’re all your favorite dishes.”

The girl sitting in the main seat didn’t react at all.

Shen Linze put down his chopsticks and told the servants to wheel out a custom-made multi-layer cake.

“Do you like it? I designed this just for you. It has the place where we first met, your prettiest smile,
your favorite flowers, your favorite color purple, the wedding you’ve always wanted, and the initials of your name: ZY…”

Three months ago, I’d seen that exact cake design in Shen Linze’s office.

After he finished the design, he brought in several top pastry chefs from abroad and spent three months making it.

My birthday was coming soon, and I’d thought the “ZY” on the cake stood for the last characters of both our names.

I never knew it was just my own foolish wishful thinking.

A childhood engagement, two decades in the making. I crossed an ocean for the sole purpose of marrying the heir to the Russell family.

But they led me to an abandoned construction site—where a blood-soaked man was swinging a steel pipe, fighting off ten attackers at once. This, they told me, was "my fiancé."

Bankrupt. Drowning in debt. Scraping by in underground fighting pits. They said he was living like a dog.

Meanwhile, the real heir had his arm around another woman, sneering at me from across the room. "Some gold-digging country girl thinks she deserves me? Find a nobody with the same last name—that's the best she'll ever get."

They made us into a joke—the washed-up loser paired with the clueless village hick.

What they didn't know was that I held several championship belts.

What they also didn't know was that this little "con" of theirs had already begun to unravel the moment I set foot in this city.

He said, "I don't know you. Mind your own business."

Too bad. I'd already made it mine.

This marriage? I was locking it down.

Every time Mason tried to force me to back down, he would slam the divorce agreement onto the table.
Every time my parents wanted me to yield, they threatened to sever all ties with me.
What they wanted was simple: for me to give everything to my twin sister.
I once resisted, cried, and questioned them over and over—why was I always the one left hurt?
Until the doctor slid my medical test results in front of me, and said to me in a tone full of pity:
"The pancreatic cancer cells have metastasized. You only have one month left to live, maybe even less."
I had nothing left to care about. I was doomed no matter what, so they could do whatever they wanted with me.

The day our company successfully went public.

Gu Yun and I slipped away from the staff to celebrate privately in the office.

Just as he unfastened my camisole, a voice sounded from the phone.

“Do you think Sister Su will still be the Sales Director?”

I froze for a second, then smiled and wrapped my arms around his shoulders.

“The company’s announcement was already released—how could there be such a ridiculous guess?”

Gu Yun’s breathing grew heavier as he kissed my lips.

“I forgot to tell you—the announcement’s been retracted.”

“Xu Na said the Sales Director position is quite challenging, and she wants to give it a try.”

On our fifth wedding anniversary, I received a bouquet of red roses from my husband, Gabriel.

The problem was, I was severely allergic to roses — something I'd told him countless times.

"Same order number, two deliveries," the delivery man said casually, glancing at his clipboard.

My blood ran cold.

The man who'd claimed he had to work late — who couldn't even spare me a simple "Happy anniversary" — was at that very moment holding another woman in his arms. Nine hundred and ninety-nine roses. A designer handbag. Diamond jewelry. And on his face, a tender smile I hadn't seen once in five years of marriage.

For him, I had given up everything. I'd gone from being the pampered darling of the Rivers family to a wife crammed into a tiny apartment, comparing prices across three different grocery stores just to stretch every dollar. I'd filed down every sharp edge I had. Swallowed every last ounce of my pride.

And yet here he was — while I was still carrying his child — lavishing the very best of everything on someone else.

Gabriel, you dare betray me?

Then that CEO seat? Consider it gone.

A once-formidable heiress, dulled and diminished by love, was about to reclaim everything she'd lost. The masks were coming off.

And the reckoning was just beginning.

"Starting price for my wife—one dollar!" James announced, pointing at the dog cage where I lay curled up like a dying animal.

The crowd at the wedding erupted in laughter. "Five dollars!" "Ten!" They threw bids like trash, mocking the woman who used to be Mrs. Windsor. Lillian, wearing my stolen necklace, poked me through the bars with a metal rod. "Look at you, Aurora. You're nothing but filth." I closed my eyes, accepting my fate. My husband had sold me. My dignity was gone.

Suddenly, a cold, authoritative voice cut through the noise.

"Two hundred million."

Silence fell over the hall. Every head turned. Walking through the doors was a man radiating power—Louis Smith, the newly found heir to the Smith empire. The man I had pushed away ten years ago. James turned pale. "Mr. Smith... this is a joke..."

Louis didn't even look at him. He walked straight to the cage, his eyes burning with a terrifying mix of rage and tenderness. He ripped the lock off with his bare hands and pulled me into his arms. James tried to block him. "She's my wife! You can't just take her!"

Louis smirked, his voice dripping with ice. "Your wife? I just bought her. She's mine now."

"Turn on the livestream, let everyone see how wet and slutty my wife's pussy gets when she's ruined." My husband sneered, ruthlessly spreading my trembling legs on the tattoo bed.

I sobbed and thrashed, but his strong hands pinned my wrists. The buzzing needle pierced the sensitive flesh of my private area, vibrating against my clitoris as he forced a succubus mark onto me. I let out a sharp, pathetic moan, my body involuntarily slicking with a mix of blood and arousal under the agonizing pain.

By the time the needle carved the eighteenth humiliating word into my bare, heaving breasts, my mind was completely broken. He just wiped the blood from my nipples and left to fuck his pregnant mistress.

He thought I was just a toy. At his wedding banquet, he threw me to a pack of hungry men. "Do whatever you want with her holes. Even if it's a gangbang, I take no responsibility." Disgusting hands immediately groped my bare thighs, brutally ripping my dress apart to expose my tattooed chest. Rough fingers pinched my nipples and shoved into my dripping core, making me scream in despair.

But I didn't die there. I tanked his company and fell into the arms of his biggest rival.

When my ex-husband finally realized the mistress's baby wasn't his, he called me, sobbing and begging. I just pressed the phone to my ear, gasping loudly as Tristan's thick, hard cock thrust deep into my tight, wet pussy.

"Ah... fuck, Tristan, deeper..." I moaned shamelessly into the receiver, hearing my ex-husband's breathless silence on the other end. "Henry," I panted, riding my new lover hard, "Your empire is dead, and so are we."

As the eldest daughter of North America’s most feared Mafia family, the Romanos, I married Matteo purely for love. For five years, everyone constantly envied me, thinking I was the luckiest woman alive.

Until I opened that video file.

The screen flickered to life, and my world violently collapsed.

The woman he had completely pinned against the wall, thrusting into her with feral desperation, was Valentina. His sweet, innocent adopted sister. The girl we had both carefully grown up with.

And the hands gripping her waist so tightly they bruised? They bore the exact wedding band I had lovingly slipped onto Matteo’s finger.

"Oh God, brother… you're so hard. If your perfect wife knew you were deep inside me right now, she’d lose her mind."

"Good girl, then stop talking about that boring piece of wood."

My refined, elegant husband was groaning, his voice filthy and depraved between loud, wet slaps of skin. "Squeeze tighter, fuck... You drive me insane, baby. The moment I successfully drain all her family’s stock, you’ll be the true mistress of this whole estate."

Every sweet nothing he had ever whispered to me was a calculated lie, designed to completely destroy me.

Those two despicable cheaters believe they have successfully won. They think my marriage was built on submission.

Well, since this rising Mafia star completely forgot that I am a Romano first and a wife second, it’s severely past time I gave him a taste of my own wicked performance.

Playtime is over. Matteo thinks he can steal my empire while burying his face in his sister’s bed?

I am going to carefully tear down his "perfect husband" facade piece by bleeding piece, and aggressively send them both straight to hell.

I drank myself into a stomach perforation, all to secure investment for Mu Jingshen's company.

As I was wheeled into the emergency room, blood trickled from the corner of my mouth. I heard a doctor shouting: "Where's the next of kin? We need a signature for surgery, now!"

My hands shaking violently, I dialed Mu Jingshen's number.
His contact was saved under "A Hubby", pinned to the very top of my contact list, just so I'd never miss a single call from him.

The call connected, and I forced out every last bit of my strength to speak, my voice weak and trembling:
"Jingshen, I need emergency surgery. Can you come sign the consent forms for me, please..."

But it wasn't his voice that came through the line. It was Shen Wanrong's, sweet and cloying: "Jiejie, Jingshen's busy giving Huanhuan a bath right now."

The sound of running water stopped.
I heard him ask who was on the phone.

Shen Wanrong spoke in a hurt, plaintive whine: "It's Jiejie... Jingshen, do you want to take the call? What if it's an emergency?"

But he just said, his voice flat and dismissive: "Ignore her. Nothing could ever be more important than being here for Huanhuan's birthday."

Huanhuan was Shen Wanrong's pet dog.

"Call me brother," he whispered, pressing me against the wall, his erection hard against my stomach.
For twelve years, we played this dangerous game. By day, I was his obedient foster sister. By night, I was his obsession.
He never went all the way—saving me for marriage, he claimed—but he did everything else. His fingers knew every wet corner of my body. His mouth had tasted my pleasure a thousand times. He groomed me to be the perfect toy for his bed.
"You're mine, Julie. Only mine."
But then Lena came back.
Suddenly, the bedroom door was locked. Suddenly, I heard her screams of pleasure instead of mine.
He didn't touch me anymore. He looked at me with cold, dead eyes and said, "You're just a sister. Stop acting like a jealous lover."
He threw away twelve years of intimacy for a fresh body.
I packed my bags, leaving behind the lingerie he bought me, the toys we used.
When he finally realized Lena was a fake, he came running back, eyes wild, wanting to claim what he thought was still his property.
"Spread your legs for me, Julie," he begged, reaching for me.
I slapped his hand away. "Go fuck your sister, Daniel. I'm done."

For three years, I genuinely believed I was the luckiest woman in the world.

Until I hit play on that video.

The moment the screen lit up, my perfect reality shattered into a million jagged pieces.

The woman writhing on the bed was Amanda—the sweet, innocent girl we had both grown up with.

And the hand tracing the curve of her bare skin? It wore the platinum wedding band I had personally slipped onto Louis’s finger.

"I missed you so much..."

"You drive me fucking crazy, baby..."

Hearing my own husband's signature sweet nothings whispered to my childhood best friend gutted me completely.

Our entire social circle constantly praised us as the golden couple. But beneath the glossy surface, who could have guessed this flawless marriage was built on a mountain of sick lies?

Well, if Louis was such a brilliant actor, I figured it was time to give him a show of my own.

I was going to rip off his mask and show the entire world exactly what kind of monster my "perfect husband" truly was.

On my wedding day, instead of the romantic photo montage, I played a live video feed from the bridal suite.

The guests gasped. The screen didn't show our childhood photos. It showed my fiancé, Benjamin, pressing a woman in a white dress against the vanity.
It was my bridesmaid. My cousin. Mia.

"Benjamin, tell me," Mia giggled, wrapping her legs around his waist. "Do I look better in this white dress, or does your boring, frigid fiancée look better in her gown?"

The audio boomed through the silent ballroom.
Benjamin's voice was thick with lust. "She's a mannequin. You're my addiction. Why don't we do it right here? While she waits for me at the altar?"

My mother-in-law screamed. My father threw a glass.
But I stood there, calm. Cold.
I watched as Benjamin on the screen frantically unzipped Mia's dress, his hands roaming over her body, completely forgetting the woman waiting for him outside.

Benjamin rushed into the ballroom, realizing the silence was too heavy. He looked up at the giant screen, his face draining of color.
"Amelia! No! Turn it off! It's not what it looks like!"

I picked up the microphone.
"You're right, Benjamin. It's not what it looks like. It's exactly what it is."
I threw a folder of evidence—bank transfers, hotel receipts, printed texts—into his face.
"Mia graduated this year. You've been funding her for four. We've been together for five."

I tore off my veil and dropped it on the floor.
"The wedding is off. You two deserve each other."

Five years in hell, my beloved and best friend joined hands to push me into the abyss. The savior I trusted was actually a deadly fraud. Reborn from despair, Vito came through the light. I tore apart the scumbag and the evil woman, settled all debts, broke free from the shadow, stepped into the light, and lived the rest of my life only for myself.

He broke down the morgue door, his guttural scream echoing off the cold tiles as he yanked open drawer after drawer.

"Emily!"

Ethan's hands shook violently as he pulled it open. She lay inside, a white sheet draped over her face. With trembling fingers, he peeled back the fabric. Her face was paper-white, lips bloodless, her eyelashes casting faint shadows. So still.

This wasn't the Emily he knew. The Emily he knew could smile, could cry, could clumsily try to warm his frozen heart. But now, she was just a corpse. A corpse because of him.

"Cancer... stage four..." he whispered, drowning in a tidal wave of panic.

He remembered all those times she had clutched her stomach in agony, and he had mocked her. He remembered demanding she give her heart to his lover. He remembered her final silent words through the surgical glass: "I hate you."

"AHHH—!!" A raw scream tore from his throat. He slammed his fist into the metal drawer, blood blooming across his knuckles.

He collapsed beside her, pulling her stiff, freezing body into his arms. She was so light. Like holding air.

"Emily, I was wrong. I was so wrong," he choked out, crying for the first time in years. "Wake up. Hit me. Hate me. I'm begging you..."

But death is the most absolute silence of all. How far will a man go when he realizes he murdered his only salvation?

"You shouldn't even exist. Your bloodline should've been erased completely."
Lyanna thought she had it all: a thriving bar, a quiet life, and a past she'd made peace with. Adopted as an infant, she never knew her birth parents—and she was fine with that.
But when a simple ancestry test unlocks a terrifying secret, her world shatters in an instant.
One night, after closing her bar, a pack of savage shifters attacks her, driven by a bloodlust for her hidden lineage.
Left for dead, she's rescued by Leo Ashfang, the fierce alpha of the Ashfang wolf pack. From the first whiff of her blood, Leo's wolf knows the truth: She is my fated mate.
As a human with a dormant, forbidden shifter bloodline, Lyanna is the last descendant of a royal werewolf line thought extinct for three hundred years.
Now, a ruthless rival pack hunts her to finish what they started centuries ago—wipe her bloodline from the earth forever.
Leo vows to protect her at all costs, but guarding Lyanna means igniting a war between packs, unearthing buried legends, and facing a truth that could destroy them both.
With enemies closing in and her dormant powers threatening to awaken, can Leo shield Lyanna long enough to uncover the secrets of her past?
Or will her cursed bloodline spark a war that consumes every shifter in the land—and Lyanna first?

"There was no way to deny it, no way to hide it. The kid was mine."
Staring at the fourteen year old boy standing before him, Alpha Orion Blackthorne's heart stopped.
The striking resemblance was undeniable—it was like looking into a mirror of his own self from twenty years ago.
Fifteen years ago, Elara Quinn fled Pinecrest Valley with a shattered heart and a secret that would change their lives forever. She swore she would never return to the place that caused her so much pain, nor to Orion, the man who broke her.
But when their teenage son, Kael, begins to manifest terrifying and uncontrollable wolf powers, fear drives her to make a desperate choice.
To protect her child, she must face her past and return to the Alpha she once ran away from.
As the embers of their old passion reignite and they try to navigate the painful betrayal of their past, a devastating nightmare strikes. Kael is suddenly snatched away, leaving a trail of dark red blood behind.
Who has taken the Alpha's hidden heir? Is it a warning from their ruthless enemies, or does the boy's awakening power hold a far more sinister secret? Caught in a brutal race against time, Elara and Orion must learn to trust each other again. Will they find their son before it is too late, or will the dark shadows of Pinecrest Valley consume their second chance at love forever?

Y

The day manager Gregg shoved me into the freight elevator shaft, the nuclear winter outside had only just begun. As he slammed the gate shut, he said, "No one will find you dead down there; the insurance payout is enough to cover the shortfall." I died in the darkness at thirty degrees below zero. Then, I woke up. I was back on the afternoon he threw the contract in my face. This time, I didn't sign. I shoved the contract into the paper shredder, snatched the brass key ring from Supervisor Miller, locked every exit of the warehouse, and re-routed the entire building's heating system into my own command bunker. As Gregg licked ice off the frozen floor on the security monitor, I was sitting in the guard room, heating up a can of pork. Outside, the first snowflake fell. And this time, the ones who would be freezing to death were them.

The five of us wanted to go to a concert.

I used four devices, with every ticketing app I could find open, and managed to get five tickets.

But on the day of the show, when I met everyone outside the arena, my best friend had brought another girl.

“This is Lily, my coworker. She's been a Luke Morgan fan for twenty years!” Jenna said. “When she heard we had five tickets, she asked if we could spare one.”

Caleb, one of my childhood friends, shrugged. “Nora thinks concerts are too loud anyway. She can give up hers.”

Owen, my other childhood friend, handed me a bottle of water.

“You've been wanting to try that candy shop on the north side, right? The one with the caramel apples? Now you have time.”

Jenna looked at me. “But Nora worked really hard to get these tickets. Maybe we should figure something else out?”

Caleb and Owen immediately objected.

“The show's about to start. What else can we do?”

“Your coworker's already here. We can't make her come all this way for nothing.”

My boyfriend had already ordered me a ride.

“Getting tickets is just tapping your phone a few times,” Ethan said. “What's so hard about that? Your car's booked. I put in the candy shop as the destination.”

Jenna's coworker couldn't be allowed to waste a trip. Apparently, I could.

I'd gotten five concert tickets, and somehow there was no seat left for me.

I watched the five of them laugh and head off to buy light-up headbands and glow sticks.

I wasn't being treated like a girlfriend, a best friend, or even a friend. I was the person they could do without.

I wasn't going to the concert.

It was time to leave the rest of their lives, too.

The world thought I was a broken man after rotting in the Abyss for five years. Even Moretti, the wealthiest mogul in Cold Harbor, dared to point a finger at my nose and demand I kneel.
He razed my estate, seized my daughter, and humiliated my past on a city-wide livestream.
What he didn’t know was that the moment his infrared scanners locked onto me, I had already initiated the sequence for a dormant orbital satellite that had been sleeping above us for five years.
When the skyscraper turns to ash, the man kneeling before me won’t be that arrogant tycoon—only a trembling corpse.
After all, in this city, I don’t believe in reason. I only believe in retribution.

A red dragon heir locked me in an iron shed and scorched me with his breath for ten minutes straight.Didn't kill me.He woke a Black Dragon buried under a three-hundred-year curse.The Tri-Dragon Council tore down my home, beat my father, threw me in jail, and live-streamed it all so the whole city could laugh.What they didn't know: every ancestor's soul in the Black Dragon cemetery had fused into me.I smashed through the Council's dome and slammed the dissolution order onto the table.

With her husband feeling more like a distant roommate, Nikki, an ex-college soccer player, knows there's more out there for her but scared to leave the comfort of her normal, usual, secure life. One night, during a massive storm, lightening strikes as a new player, Shane, joins her team. The second their eyes meet, time stops. She knows this person has always lived in her heart and soul. What is this feeling? It's illogical, it's fantasy, it's supported by all of the physical evidence you could throw in front of her. What the hell even is a soul mate, anyways? There's only one way to find out without actually having to interact with the dark haired stranger in real life...inviting him to dream with her. Will he join her?