Shi Huatu

The grand hall reeked of old money and lilies, a scent that now made my stomach clench. This was it: Dad' s insane "heir selection ceremony." He called it securing the family legacy, but it was just another bizarre power play. My twin sister, Emily, and I stood before him while he gestured to two men. One, Alex, was a struggling startup founder, awkward but kind. The other, Liam, was a tech prodigy, brilliant but comatose, hooked up to humming machines. The rules were simple, and savagely unfair: One of us would marry Alex, and the other, Liam. Emily, as always, got to choose first. I watched her, my perfect, ambitious twin. She didn' t hesitate, and a painful echo resonated deep within me. I' d lived this before. In my first life, Emily snatched Alex, leaving me with the silent man in the bed, scoffing, "Sarah' s quiet enough for him." Her life with Alex was a gilded cage of public performance. Mine, a shadow empire under Liam' s thumb. He wasn't comatose; he was awake, a spider spinning a web of illegal projects, and I was his hostage. I became rich beyond imagination, but I was living a nightmare. Emily, blinded by envy, saw only my wealth. She couldn' t bear my "success" while her own life crumbled under the weight of society's expectations. Her jealousy consumed her, driving her to orchestrate my ruin, ultimately leading to her own dramatic, fatal car crash. I woke up, back in this hall, the scent of lilies suffocating me. It was the heir selection ceremony, the day it all began again. Emily, glowing with confidence, looked between Alex and Liam, then at me. A predatory smile, so unlike her first-life triumph, spread across her face. "Sister," she purred, her voice sweet as poison, "It' s my turn to enjoy the good life now." She turned to our father, chin high. "I choose Liam." A stunned silence fell. She thought she was taking my power, my secret. She thought she had found the path to immense wealth. She had no idea. She had just chosen the monster. And in doing so, she had set me free.

I spent ten years taking care of my fiancé Jorden and our three childhood best friends, giving up a top-tier Arctic research fellowship twice just to stay by their side. But the day after Jorden proposed, I caught them celebrating my exile. They had forged my signature to withdraw my Ivy League application, giving my hard-earned seat to Calla, a manipulative girl they all babied. Worse, they legally bound me to a five-year, top-secret federal contract in the freezing Arctic. "Aria is tough, she can handle the snow. Calla needs the local medical center," Jorden said coldly. When I confronted them, they defended her, ransacked my apartment, and accused me of stealing her necklace. I gave them a decade of my life, only to be discarded like trash the moment a weaker girl shed a fake tear. So, I took off the diamond ring, severed our childhood blood pact, and boarded the federal transport to the Arctic. Five years later, I returned as a decorated Chief Scientist, and it was their turn to drop to their knees and beg.

For eighteen years, the Sinclair family kept me locked in their attic, treating me worse than a stray dog while their precious daughter lived like a princess. Then, they suddenly barged into my room with a desperate demand: I had to take her place and marry Alpha Brandon Ewing. He was known across the Dominion as a disfigured, crippled monster who would undoubtedly torture and kill a wolfless Omega like me within a week. The Sinclairs didn't care. They planned to let me die, then extort his pack for compensation in the name of grief. When I arrived at the Alpha's magnificent estate, his staff immediately tried to humiliate me. "Latecomers must enter through the servants' passage," the head housekeeper sneered, pointing to a rusted dog door. The elite guests laughed, waiting for me to break down in tears and crawl on my knees. They all thought I was just a pathetic sacrifice, a weak pawn meant to be broken and discarded by everyone. But they had no idea who they were dealing with. I didn't cry. Instead, I calmly extorted twenty million dollars from the Sinclairs, walked up to the Alpha's impenetrable iron gates, and ripped a one-ton granite statue from the ground. With a single swing, I smashed their grand entrance to pieces. I stepped over the ruins, ready to show my terrifying new husband exactly what kind of beast he had just married.

My fiancé always told me he loved me. But not long after our engagement, I woke up suffocating in the dark. He was pressing a pillow over my face, his eyes cold and dead, while my half-sister stood by watching with fake pity. They had orchestrated everything just to steal my trust fund. It all started with a massive hotel scandal. They had drugged me, thrown a cheap escort into my bed, and brought a mob of paparazzi to ruin my reputation. When my fiancé broke through the crowd, playing the heartbroken victim, he knelt down with a massive diamond ring. "I know things have been hard, but I love you. If you come home with me, I will forgive all of this." In my past life, I cried tears of gratitude and let him slide that ring onto my finger. That ring sealed my death warrant. I lost my company, my dignity, and eventually, my life. Until my lungs burned and my heart stopped, I didn't understand. How could the people I trusted most plot my murder so ruthlessly? Why did they have to tear my entire life apart? Opening my eyes again, I was back on the morning of the hotel scandal, exactly one year ago. But the man lying bare-backed in my bed wasn't a random escort. It was Johnathan Chase, my family's biggest corporate rival and the most ruthless predator on Wall Street. Listening to the paparazzi pounding on the door, I smiled coldly.

For three years, I scrubbed tables as a "wolfless runt," hiding my identity as the Lycan King's daughter. It was a test for my fiancé, Alpha Connor. I wanted to see if he loved the girl, or just the crown. He failed spectacularly tonight. His mistress, Jaden, deliberately knocked a tray of drinks onto me during the dinner rush. The liquid wasn't alcohol. It was concentrated silver. My flesh hissed and bubbled as the poison ate through my skin, blocking any ability to heal. I fell to the floor, clutching my melting hand, while Jaden faked tears and claimed I attacked her. When Connor finally answered the video call, he saw my mangled hand. He smelled the burning flesh. He knew it was silver. But he didn't help me. He looked at his watch, annoyed that I was interrupting his business meeting with investors. "Apologize to Jaden," he ordered, using his Alpha Command to crush me into submission. "On your knees. Now." The pain was blinding, but the betrayal cut deeper. He was forcing his Fated Mate to bow to the woman who tried to maim her. My knees bent under the pressure, but my Royal blood refused to break. I looked straight into the camera lens. "No," I whispered. I reached into my apron, bypassing the notepad, and pulled out a black satellite phone I hadn't touched in years. "Code Black," I said to the King on the other end. "Send the Guard." Connor thought he was disciplining a waitress. He didn't know he just declared war on the Royal Family.

I was a broke freelance copywriter, tortured for three sleepless nights by an impossible corporate client. Needing to vent, I typed out a wild, highly inappropriate rant mocking the brand's stiff heritage. But in my exhausted, sleep-deprived blur, I accidentally sent the massive block of text to the wrong chat. The recipient wasn't my friend. It was Emerson Beard, the elite, ruthless brand consultant I was supposed to desperately network with. I waited for the professional execution, terrified of the massive five-figure penalty fee hanging over my head. Instead, he didn't block me. He critiqued my unhinged draft. He saved my career through late-night, encrypted phone calls, his deep, commanding voice becoming my only lifeline. But when I heard a woman with a sultry French accent knocking on his hotel door during our call, my ugly jealousy flared. I yelled at him and hung up, completely humiliating myself. I thought I was just a pathetic, annoying workaholic interrupting his romantic getaway. But he texted back to clarify he was entirely single, and in the process, realized I was actually twenty-five, not a fresh-out-of-school teenager like he had assumed. The cold, distant mentor instantly vanished. In his place was a man radiating a raw, aggressive, and predatory energy that bled right through the screen. "Texting is too inefficient. The full integration requires face-to-face communication." He dropped a location pin for an ultra-exclusive Manhattan club, demanding I meet him to save my contract. Wearing a desperately bought emerald silk dress, I pushed open the heavy oak door, stepping right into the trap of a man who had just taken off his leash.

For seven years, I suppressed my Alpha aura and took sickening drugs to pass as a human secretary. All to win a bet with my father, the Alpha King, that Dante loved me for my soul, not my bloodline. But tonight, Dante proved me wrong in the most public way possible. While I sat in a taxi, a Times Square billboard lit up with his face. He wasn't working late as he claimed. He was holding a waitress named Lola, announcing her as his future Luna because she could "breed strong pups" and I was just a "useful tool." When I arrived at the office to confront them, Lola didn't just mock me. She slapped my face and smashed my mother's silver locket under her heel. She laughed, thinking she had destroyed a cheap trinket belonging to a weak human. "You are prey, Seraphina," she sneered. "And you are trespassing in the wolf's den." She didn't realize that the locket wasn't protecting me from them. It was protecting them from *me*. With the seal broken, the air in the room instantly dropped twenty degrees. My eyes shifted from brown to glowing liquid silver. They thought they were discarding a broken secretary. They had no idea they had just declared war on the Royal Family. I picked up the phone and dialed the most feared number in the werewolf world. "Papa," I said, stepping over the shattered silver. "The masquerade is over. Bring the helicopters."

The first time my husband, Gregory, chose a billion-dollar deal over my father' s funeral, I knew our marriage was a transaction. But when he started canceling meetings for an actress named Kennedy, I realized he was capable of love-just not for me. Then came the whispers of his devotion: buying her a theater, brawling with a director who criticized her. My investigation led to a "warning"-a hit-and-run that left me hospitalized. His assistant's message was chilling: "Accidents do happen." At the police station, after he'd been in another fight for her, Kennedy pointed at me and wailed, "Make her kneel! Make her apologize for breathing the same air as us!" Gregory' s cold eyes met mine. "Christie," he commanded, his voice deadly quiet. "Kneel."

I was the Queen of New York, the untouchable wife of the city's most feared Mafia Don, Liam Goldstein. But my throne was built on quicksand. It started with a photo of a hotel receipt and a tangle of lingerie sent to my phone. It ended with a listening device I planted, hearing my husband tell his mistress that I was just a "decoration" while she would bear his heir. The humiliation reached its peak at the charity gala. His mistress, Ava, marched in wearing my jewelry, claiming my husband in front of the city's elite. When I tried to leave, Liam grabbed me. I fell. I hit the floor hard, and the pain in my stomach was blinding. I lay there on the ballroom parquet, bleeding out in my white gown, losing the unborn son Liam claimed he wanted more than anything. But he didn't kneel to help me. Terrified of a scandal, he shielded his mistress from the paparazzi and walked away, leaving me to die amidst the champagne and diamonds. I woke up in a hospital bed with an empty womb and a "sorry" check from his lawyer. He thought money could fix a dead child. He thought I would just go back to being his ornament. He was wrong. That night, I initiated the Phoenix Plan. I planted my DNA in a car wreck, drove it to the docks, and watched it explode into a fireball. To the world, and to Liam, Maya Goldstein is dead. But I’m very much alive. And I’m going to burn his empire to the ground.

My bodyguard, Grant, took the full force of a speeding car meant for me. In that moment, I realized I loved him. He was my protector, and I thought his fierce devotion was mine alone. But in the hospital, I overheard the truth. He hadn't saved me; he'd saved my kidney. I wasn't the woman he loved. I was just the "best option" for his sick sister's transplant. Every tender gesture, every watchful glance, was a lie designed to keep his organ donor safe and compliant. The man I adored saw me as nothing more than a collection of spare parts. The love I thought we shared was a carefully constructed trap, and I had been the fool who walked right in. The girl who believed in fairy tales died in that sterile hospital hallway. I picked up my phone, my hand steady. "Dad," I said, my voice cold as ice. "I'm ready to consider the alliance with the Powell family."

Today was my ninth wedding anniversary, and I lay in a hospital bed, recovering from a hysterectomy. My husband, Mark, sent a diamond necklace, but instead of him, a young woman' s voice answered his phone. "This is Emily. Please, don' t do this to Mark." Her tearful plea implied she had picked out my anniversary gift with him. He then agreed to a divorce-eagerly, relieved-hanging up before I could speak. He never showed up at the courthouse. He promised to meet me. He broke that promise. Two months later, he stumbled home, drunk, offering me a luxury watch as if it could erase his betrayal. "A divorce? We' re not getting a divorce," he slurred. I saw him days later, laughing intimately with Emily at a café, while I was dealing with more than just a broken marriage. "I have uterine cancer." The words were out, shattering the fragile peace. "You have cancer and you' re telling me now? How could you keep that from me?" he shouted, not out of concern, but anger at how it looked. He raged about losing control, about how this affected him, not once asking about my pain. I had been alone in a hospital bed, recovering from surgery, while he was at a gala with Emily, the "close companion," the night of my surgery. He thought I was making a scene, when he was the one who had brought Emily to his parents' home, to Lily' s birthday party. His mother praised Emily, who' d planned my daughter' s party. They all stood there, a united front: Mark, his parents, and his mistress, making me the villain. His cruelty was breathtaking. "She' s just bitter," he announced to the silent room. "She' s bitter because she' s not a complete woman anymore. She had to have a hysterectomy. She has cancer. She can' t have any more children. She' s broken." He had taken my deepest vulnerability, my illness, and used it as a weapon to humiliate me publicly. Something inside me snapped. I slapped him, hard, the sound echoing through the stunned silence. Emily shrieked and lunged, but I sidestepped, and she crashed into a table. "It' s all yours," I said, my voice ringing with finality. "You can have him. You can have this whole rotten family. We' re done." I walked out, hand in hand with my daughter, leaving the wreckage behind.

The antiseptic smell wasn't new; my head always throbbed. I, Chloe Reed, once a promising artist, was now the "evil stepsister," a role forced upon me by a parasitic System. A year ago, my adoptive brother Alex, the boy I secretly loved, lay dying. The System offered a cure: become the villain, push Alex into Sarah Jenkins' s arms, and then get a new life. I said yes. How could I not? It was for Alex. The System' s predictions were chillingly accurate. Alex healed, and Sarah, a ray of manufactured sunshine, entered our lives. My existence became a calculated hell, designed to make Alex despise me. Every humiliation, every cruel word from him, was orchestrated. He looked at me with cold loathing, seeing only the monster I was forced to be. Then came the art gala. Painting, my soul' s refuge, was to be sacrificed. Alex, the boy who once said my art was magic, demanded I create something to make Sarah' s work shine by comparison. He wanted me to lose, publicly, to prove I could do something for someone else. The System buzzed with approval, promising freedom. I agreed, the word tasting like ash. The night of the gala, I unveiled "Hopeless," a canvas of chaos. Sarah presented "Hope," a field of vibrant flowers. Her victory was thunderous. Then Alex' s icy words: "You took something beautiful and made it ugly, just for attention. You are truly pathetic." His words shattered me, more than any blow. I fled into the cold night, gasping, calling the only person I could think of for a panic attack. I was utterly alone. The next morning, Alex burst into my hospital room, not worried, but furious. The System took over, lashing out with cold, mocking defiance. "Why do you care? I did what you wanted. Sarah won. Isn' t that all that matters?" His rage became chilling. He showed me a wooden bird, a gift I' d carved for him, claiming Sarah had made it. Then the real blow: Sarah needed a kidney-my kidney. "It' s you," he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. You will do this. You will give Sarah your kidney, and maybe, just maybe, you will have redeemed yourself for a fraction of the pain you' ve caused." I signed the forms in a numb haze. The surgery was a violation, draining me literally and figuratively. Days later, Sarah came to my apartment, radiant, vibrant, full of life. My life. She gloated, then faked an injury, shrieking I' d pushed her. Alex appeared, a mask of primal fury. He didn' t ask. He slapped me, sending me crashing against the wall. "You monster," he snarled. "I am done with you. Stay away from us. Stay away from my family." I was empty, nothing left to take. My phone buzzed. A text from Alex. "My office. Now." It was another task, another demand. But as I sat in his office, I saw it-my mother' s journal, thought lost forever. Sarah walked in, and with a cruel smirk, she took it. Alex, with a mere hesitation, gave it to her. She "accidentally" dropped it into a coffee, ruining the last piece of my mother. As the world went black, a single, horrifying thought screamed in my mind: I cannot escape.

I woke up in a hospital, my past a blank beyond my 18th year. The doctor said I was 27, even a talented architect, and married. But the woman they introduced as my wife, Sophia, was a cold, stunning stranger. She looked at me with thinly veiled contempt. She spoke of my nine lost years as a descent into breakdowns and "pathetic" dependence. My supposed best friend, Ethan Vance, was her true confidante, a smirking rival. Disgust curdled in my gut. This wasn't me. My 18-year-old self, full of ambition and drive, recoiled from this emasculated shadow of a man they described. How could I have become a "kept man," constantly ridiculed, chasing the approval of an ice queen? The humiliation was palpable, preserved in flashed cameras and casual insults. But this amnesia, this blank slate, felt like a gift. It stripped away the years of self-erasure, leaving behind only the core of who I was. And that core wanted nothing to do with this suffocating, demeaning life. "I want a divorce," I told her, my voice surprisingly firm. "The me I know wouldn't be married to someone who calls him pathetic." This was no act, no episode. This was me, fighting to reclaim a life I didn't remember. A life free from the woman who claimed to be my wife and the rival who wanted me utterly destroyed. Little did I know, the fight for my true identity would lead to a bloody confrontation and a shocking revelation that would change everything.

Giving in to family pressure, Olivia moved back to her hometown and was in search for a new job. On her way to an interview, she happened to overhear Dick's conversation with his secret wife. Afraid that she would expose his undisclosed marriage, he offered her a better paying job as his assistant on the condition that she would keep his secret. With a forced smile, Olivia accepted the job and started working as the CEO's new personal assistant. While Olivia and Dick were attached to other people they thought they loved, they were yet to find out that the right pair for them was actually one another.

Anja woke up in an interstellar empire where females were precious assets-and promptly got dumped by her arrogant fiancé. He waited for her to cry. She laughed in his face. With a single thumbprint, she dissolved the marriage, kicked him out with security drones, and walked straight to the government assessment center. The test revealed something impossible: an S-Class psionic rating, the highest in a century. Now five elite, beast-eared warriors are being dispatched to her estate. They're dangerous. Possessive. And genetically engineered to worship her. But Anja doesn't just want protection. She wants power. Every corrupted warrior she purifies makes her stronger. Every Hive Core she absorbs pushes her abilities further. And every Consort she claims adds a new weapon to her arsenal. Her ex wanted her to be nothing. Too bad for him-she's about to become everything.

When the global countdown hit zero, humanity was instantly teleported into a brutal, frozen wasteland. The system's rule was absolute: keep your campfire burning, or be permanently erased from existence. While others arrived in thin pajamas to freeze in the sub-zero wind, I had spent my final hours on Earth preparing, bringing a full survival pack and a cordless chainsaw. By unlocking a hidden inventory system, I endured back-breaking labor to chop down ancient pines, hoarding over a hundred units of life-saving wood. But when I offered to trade my surplus for coal and blueprints, the public chat completely turned on me. "You selfish monster! You're hoarding resources while people are dying!" They cursed me as a ruthless pariah, demanding I hand over my hard-earned fuel for free to save strangers who hadn't prepared at all. I watched the survivor count plummet from a thousand to barely three hundred in just four days, listening to the agonizing screams echoing across the ice. I couldn't understand why they felt entitled to the results of my blood and exhaustion, expecting my compassion to warm them while I froze. With the inhuman howls from the dark forest growing louder, any lingering sympathy in me completely died. I calmly blocked the public channel, tossed another piece of coal into my roaring fire, and opened my private messages to build my own fortress.

The grand hall reeked of old money and lilies, a scent that now made my stomach clench. This was it: Dad' s insane "heir selection ceremony." He called it securing the family legacy, but it was just another bizarre power play. My twin sister, Emily, and I stood before him while he gestured to two men. One, Alex, was a struggling startup founder, awkward but kind. The other, Liam, was a tech prodigy, brilliant but comatose, hooked up to humming machines. The rules were simple, and savagely unfair: One of us would marry Alex, and the other, Liam. Emily, as always, got to choose first. I watched her, my perfect, ambitious twin. She didn' t hesitate, and a painful echo resonated deep within me. I' d lived this before. In my first life, Emily snatched Alex, leaving me with the silent man in the bed, scoffing, "Sarah' s quiet enough for him." Her life with Alex was a gilded cage of public performance. Mine, a shadow empire under Liam' s thumb. He wasn't comatose; he was awake, a spider spinning a web of illegal projects, and I was his hostage. I became rich beyond imagination, but I was living a nightmare. Emily, blinded by envy, saw only my wealth. She couldn' t bear my "success" while her own life crumbled under the weight of society's expectations. Her jealousy consumed her, driving her to orchestrate my ruin, ultimately leading to her own dramatic, fatal car crash. I woke up, back in this hall, the scent of lilies suffocating me. It was the heir selection ceremony, the day it all began again. Emily, glowing with confidence, looked between Alex and Liam, then at me. A predatory smile, so unlike her first-life triumph, spread across her face. "Sister," she purred, her voice sweet as poison, "It' s my turn to enjoy the good life now." She turned to our father, chin high. "I choose Liam." A stunned silence fell. She thought she was taking my power, my secret. She thought she had found the path to immense wealth. She had no idea. She had just chosen the monster. And in doing so, she had set me free.

Just think about it. As frontiers go, this is probably the most final of them all, not because it may be the last frontier, but because as long as we try to cross it and explore it, we take it with us. No matter how far we go, the frontier will always be just that much ahead of us, tantalizing our curiosities. Thus, we can never really cross it in so far as just push it back a little. The universe is so vast, so immense, we can never expect to explore it all. It is in effect, not so much a final frontier as an ultimate frontier; the ultimate frontier – as wide as it is deep. Stars shine coldly in the unimaginable blackness. Out of the darkness, a tiny speck caught the distant light of stars – a tiny gray speck that, as it moved, seemed to grow larger, catching the light just so until it revealed itself to be a ship. Mykl d’Angelo groaned where he sat slumped in his chair. The irritating noise was unsettling his pet dog lying on his lap. The wickerwork garden chair creaked pleasantly under him and some native Earth birds made pleasant sounds above while the cool wind wafted over him as he lazily … Wait-a-minute!

The fluorescent hum of the deserted office was my constant companion, a symphony to my late-night grind as an architect, building dreams one blueprint at a time. Then, out of nowhere, text shimmered in the air, a chilling heads-up display only I could see: "[Target acquired: The Architect. She' s working late again. Perfect.]" My blood ran cold as more lines appeared, taunting me with plans for a "Chivalry Challenge" at a $5,700 prize. It finally clicked-Mark Johnson, that slimy social media influencer who' d turn women' s fear into profit, had found me. He came, smooth as ever, with a drugged coffee, mocking me while I fought through a fogged mind, my desperate calls for help swallowed by his practiced lies to the security guard. My brothers came back for me, their faces illuminated by flashing lights, my last-ditch effort to crash his car paying off just as I succumbed to the drug. But the nightmare wasn' t over; Mark walked free, his lawyer spinning tales of my "manic episodes," leaving my brother Chris to face assault charges for defending me. The injustice burned, fueling a rage that cleared the haze: he wouldn't win, not if I could help it. "This isn't over," I declared, my voice steady, eyes fixed on my brothers, ready to dismantle his empire. Then Michael sent me the link-Mark' s new video, painting me as the aggressor, a "crazy" woman. Scrolling through the venomous comments, one caught my eye: "DesignDiva88," my colleague Lisa Chen, claiming she' d told him to "back off." She was complicit, a willing accessory, and with that, I knew exactly how to begin.

A teenager became an experimental subject in a secret laboratory established by a country that was forbidden to cultivate. After he left the experimental base, he broke the restrictions and obtained an independent personality. Since then, in this great era of interstellar development, he has fought in all directions, stepped on the galaxy, and finally opened a new era for mankind.

Ava stepped off the jet, eager to finally hug her daughter, Lily, after eighteen months away on a critical mission. A familiar face, her handler, handed her a tablet, saying, "Welcome home, Ava. Everything is ready for your debriefing tomorrow. Tonight is yours." Her eyes immediately landed on a headline: "Tech Prodigy Lily Thorne Exposed as Fraud, Groundbreaking AI Code Auctioned Off by Estranged Husband Mark Vance." And then the photo. Lily, bound to a chair on a brightly lit stage, her face pale, a mixture of shock and utter devastation. Her estranged son-in-law, Mark Vance, stood beside a woman Ava didn' t recognize-his new fiancée, Chloe. He was sneering into the camera, declaring Lily would be finished, blacklisted, her future one of "menial jobs and constant public humiliation." The tablet shattered in Ava' s hand, cracks spiderwebbing across the screen. Her blood ran cold. The rage was a physical force, shimmering in the air around her. How could he do this? How could a man she once trusted betray her daughter so completely, so publicly? This wasn't just a betrayal; it was an execution. "The mission isn' t over," Ava declared, her voice unnaturally calm, her gaze fixed on something far beyond the horrified handler. "It just began."

The acrid smell of disinfectant and old wax assaulted my seventy-year-old nose. One moment, I was Butcher Betty, cleaver in hand, surrounded by the familiar scent of my shop. The next, I was a stranger in a sterile, enormous kitchen, wearing a stiff uniform, feather duster in my hand. Then, a cold, mechanical voice boomed directly inside my head: "Transmigration successful. Welcome, Host 734." My new identity: Betty, the cruel and sycophantic housekeeper of the Anderson family, tasked with following a novel' s plot. My first directive: lock eight-year-old Liam, the biological son, in the dark, damp basement without dinner to solidify my loyalty to the adopted son, Kevin. I looked at the small, terrified boy cowering in the corner, his eyes wide with a wariness that shouldn' t be in a child. This wasn' t a character. This was a scared, hungry kid. The system blared warnings, demanding I adhere to the script, that I become the villain. But I was a butcher. I fed people. I didn't starve them. "The plot can go to hell," I muttered, grabbing a saucepan. "This boy is getting a hot meal."

In the sprawling megalopolis of Erythra Prime, a city where advanced technology merges with ancient mysticism, a detective named Kael Ardent is thrust into a labyrinthine conspiracy that blurs the boundaries of reality. The sudden murder of a high-ranking diplomat sparks a chain of events that leads Kael to uncover a secret society, a mythical artifact known as the Crimson Nexus, and a shadowy figure who holds the power to rewrite existence itself. As Kael teams up with Nyssa Vahn, a rogue technomancer with her own hidden agenda, they navigate the neon-lit streets, delve into forbidden ruins, and fight against cybernetic assassins and interdimensional entities. With time running out, Kael and Nyssa must unravel the secrets of the Nexus before it falls into the wrong hands and annihilates everything they know.

Celine is an assistant scientist to the genius but coldhearted Dr. Drake Cole. The doctor happened to specialize in quantum physics and time travel. He invented time travel gadgets that will allow humans to travel back and forth through time. It's a portable device compared to a bulky time machine. She's the only assistant who's willing to test these time travel gadgets. Her reason is that she would like to go back to the past where she wants to save the love of her life. He was murdered but the suspect was not convicted. She wants to bring him back to life so that she can be with her college sweetheart once again. Little did she know that Dr. Cole is keeping a secret that is related to her past. That's why he is against the idea of her going back to the past to test the gadget. She's very persistent and willing to do anything just to change the past of her lover. But it's against the rule of time travel and they will both have to face the consequences of their actions. Will Celine be successful in changing her lover's past? Or will she end up falling for the genius scientist in the present? She will be confused but don't care even if time can affect what will happen to her future. All she knows is that she has to go back to the past so that she can move on and live in her present.