Numbness.
It felt like anesthesia. Lin Weiyue's vision blurred as white-coated figures in surgical masks loomed under harsh lights. A needle pierced her skin. Crimson blood snaked through an IV tube into a collection bag.
Cold seeped into her bones. Life drained from her body, her soul fraying at the edges. She tried to scream, but no sound came. Only a voice—harsh, urgent—cut through the haze:
"Shut up and keep drawing! This isn't enough for Xiaoran! Hurry—my daughter's running out of time!"
Her *father*.
"Dad… isn't there another way?"
Her husband, Mo Yixiao.
Her father and husband had conspired to trap her in this back-alley clinic.
"Yixiao," her father snapped. "Xiaoran slit her wrists for you. Think of your daughter—she's eight. She needs her mother. You have to choose."
A beat of silence. Then, hoarsely: "I… choose Xiaoran. I've already wronged her enough."
Mo Yixiao cast one final glance at Lin Weiyue splayed on the operating table—a discarded thing—and walked out.
*Xiaoran.*
Her sister.
*Eight years.*
Mo Yixiao and Lin Xiaoran had shared a child for nearly a decade. All while playing house with *her*.
"Mr. Lin, she's crashing. Don't worry—we'll dispose of her like your first wife nine years ago. No traces."
Her father snorted. "That woman survived the car crash I arranged. Thank God you finished her on the operating table. Payment's coming."
Lin Weiyue's blood froze.
Her mother's death wasn't an accident.
*Ye Boyan… I wronged him.*
---
**Pain.**
Skull-splitting, bone-deep. Lin Weiyue gasped, hatred burning through her veins.
*Am I dying?*
The shower hissed. Sunlight stabbed her eyes. She blinked at the disheveled bed—memories of last night's frenzy rushing back.
*Rebirth.*
Five years rewound. The day before her wedding to Mo Yixiao. The night Ye Boyan claimed her.
In her past life, she'd driven him away with suicide threats. He'd died overseas, their last meeting a phantom.
"Awake?"
A low voice.
Ye Boyan stood silhouetted by sunlight, his storm-dark eyes unreadable. A white pill glinted in his palm.
"Take it."
"Wha—"
He forced it into her mouth, chasing it with a brutal kiss. Water trickled down her throat.
"Planning to shame Mo Yixiao with my marks?" His grip bit into her bruised shoulder.
"Yes."
His gaze sharpened. "Still insisting on that wedding?"
She met his glare. "Ye Boyan."
A pause. Then, ice-cold:
"Marry me."
*Marry.*
*Him.*
His laugh was razor-edged. "Lin Weiyue—that's the eleventh time."
Eleven proposals. Eleven lies.
Since the car crash four years ago—the one *she* blamed him for—she'd made tormenting him an art.