Those few degenerate friends praised Mike for being swift, accurate and ruthless.

"Mike, that thirty thousand dollars was really worth it! Look at how badly you’ve beaten her, yet there’s still a sparkle in her eyes when she looks at you! Honestly, her voice does sound a bit like your fiancée’s. Even that red mole on the back of her hand is in the same spot. Maybe she came here for you?"

Mike stared intently at my red mole, momentarily stunned.

I was filled with hope, thinking he had finally recognized me.

But the next second, his face twisted with disgust and without a moment's hesitation, he shattered all the joints in my fingers.

"A heartless gambling addict like you dares to resemble my Karen? I’ll break your hands and see if you can still gamble then!"

The pain nearly made me pass out and not a single word could escape my throat.

It was my fault. I never should have gambled on human nature.

I had stood by Mike from his days as a down-and-out boxer to now, a rising star in the business world.

I thought tomorrow's wedding would be the start of our happiness. But I didn’t realize that it had all been my delusion.

To better capture my suffering, Jane ran up with her phone to record me.

"Mike, the way she's clawing at the floor is just like that ragdoll cat your fiancée used to have."

"Too bad I accidentally killed it today. You think she’ll blame me?"

"It's dead, so what. Karen and I are already trying for a baby. Cat fur isn’t good for pregnant women."

A violent tremor ran through me.

Snowball was the cat Mike and I raised together. Just this morning before I went to work, he said he and Snowball would be waiting for me to come home.

But Snowball was dead now and I couldn’t go home either.

Mike didn’t want to meet my gaze and directly pressed the electric shock button. The current suddenly intensified, making me convulse and curl up.

The stabbing pain in my abdomen reminded me of the two lines on the pregnancy test I saw yesterday.

I had planned to surprise Mike with the news at our wedding tomorrow. It was a double blessing.

But I never got the chance. What was meant to be joyful had now become a thorn in my heart.

For a fleeting moment, amidst the chaos in my mind, I wondered. If I had told him yesterday that I was pregnant, would I have been spared this torment today?

He once said that even if I turned to ashes, he would still recognize me. But now, I stood right before him and he didn’t know me at all.

Worse yet, at the host’s suggestion, he chose another torture method. "Add another seventy thousand dollars. I want to see the water punishment."

Mike's voice was laced with ice, sending a chill through my entire body.

The host, thrilled that I had fetched such a high price, kept praising Mike and Jane as a golden couple.

My vision blurred with blood, but it didn’t stop me from clearly seeing Jane leaning smugly in his arms.

Her fingers, adorned with a diamond identical to mine, drew slow circles on his chest.

“Mike, you’re always so thoughtful… You know I faint at the sight of blood...”

Suddenly, two tubes were shoved into my nostrils and ice-cold water mixed with chili powder was poured in.

I convulsed violently like a fish out of water, the pain in my abdomen growing more unbearable by the second.

Warm liquid streamed down the inside of my thigh, pooling into a small puddle of blood on the iron chair.

"She seems to be bleeding heavily!" Someone suddenly shouted.

Jane turned sharply at the sound and when she saw the bloodstains, an immense hatred flashed in her eyes.

But in the next moment, she staggered twice before collapsing with precision onto the floor beside me.

Amidst the frantic footsteps of the crowd, her cold fingers suddenly gripped my ankle.

"Karen, good luck! Hope you can live to see tomorrow's sun."

Anger surged within me and I lifted my foot, kicking her hand away with all my strength.

She let out a painful cry, closed her eyes and fainted.

Mike rushed over and picked her up, turning to shout at me in anger.

"You bitch dare to kick my Jane? Are you looking for death!"

"I'll offer another 700 thousand dollars! Anyone here can come up and have a go, just don't kill her!"

My vision began to darken and the host hurriedly gave the order, "Quick, untie her! If she really dies, how are we going to deal with Mr. Genevan afterward?"

At the moment the ropes were loosened, I used my last bit of strength to lunge at Mike.

My deformed fingers, twisted in the blood, shakily wrote the first stroke of the character “Karen" in the pool of blood. The pain from having all ten fingers broken made me tremble all over.

Someone asked in confusion.

"What is this crazy woman doing?"

Mike stopped in his tracks and looked down at the ground.

When the incomplete character “Karen" entered his sight, his pupils suddenly contracted.

"Karen?"

I desperately nodded, tears of blood mixing as they dripped onto the name.

Looking at my miserable state, Mike felt a sharp pain in his chest and even his throat felt like it was clogged with damp cotton, unbearably uncomfortable.

But as Jane in her arms cried out in discomfort, his shiny leather shoe viciously crushed my fingers.

"How dare you write my fiancee's name? You knew Jane fainted from blood, how dare you bleed this much?"

Even though my consciousness was already fading, Mike’s anger was still unquenched.

He lifted his foot and kicked my abdomen with all his strength.

"They really guessed it right, you thought you could seduce me to save you? Dream on! You’re not even worth a single strand of my fiance’s hair!"

If he hadn’t been holding Jane in his arms when he said this, it might have been more convincing.

A large amount of warm liquid spilled out from below and Mike’s shoe sole was stained with blood.

But what he didn’t know was that this blood-soaked ground was from the child he cherished so much.

"Mike, this blood loss is abnormal!"

"You're getting married tomorrow, it’s unlucky to get blood on you, should we just stop?"

"Shut your mouth, you damn crow!"

Mike snapped sharply, then ordered the arena staff to hurry and call a doctor to stabilize my life.

"If she really dies, it’s only because her life is too weak!"

The pain crashed over me in waves like the tide and even fainting seemed like a luxury.

Mike’s friends took turns standing guard, ensuring that if I died, they could handle it in time.

They treated me like a living corpse, casually discussing my fate, their voices intermittently drifting into my ears.

"Mike is amazing. He even made Jane willingly be his mistress for life!"

"Yeah, and Jane became his lover even before she graduated, right? I remember that he had just proposed to Karen not long before that."

So, Mike had been cheating two years ago.

I didn’t know how his heart could be torn in two, yet he could still act so deeply affectionate in front of me.

I lay in the pool of blood, feeling my life slowly draining from me.

After emergency treatment, the bleeding finally stopped.

The child in my womb was gone.

In a daze, I heard Mike’s footsteps as he returned.

"Mike, she lost the child, it’s so pitiful. How about we just let her go? The money can be considered as charity..."

Jane pleaded for me with a sob, but Mike sneered coldly. "Jane, you're too kind! The law can’t educate people like her, the scum of society. Someone has to discipline her parents."

A new round of torment was about to begin.

After all, the rules of the underground fighting arena were clear—if you owed a debt you couldn’t pay, your body was the collateral.

As long as I didn't die, I could continue to be their tool for stress relief.

My consciousness fluctuated between excruciating pain and unconsciousness.

The sounds around me were a blur, as if they were muffled through a thick fog of blood.

Someone roughly grabbed my hair, dragging me into a damp and dark basement, throwing me onto the cold cement floor.

"Mr. Genevan said not to let her die, we need her for tomorrow."

The iron door slammed shut with a bang and the darkness swallowed everything.

I curled up in the corner, trembling from the pain all over my body. My tears had long since dried up, leaving only numbness.

I didn’t know how much time passed, but Mike’s impatient voice echoed in the brightened surveillance screen.

"Why can’t I get through to Karen’s phone?"

"Mike, don’t worry, she is probably just busy with work."

"Bullshit! No matter how busy she is, she will never ignore my calls!"

Mike's voice carried a distinct hint of panic.

My heart skipped a beat, as if an invisible hand had clenched it tight and I dared not even breathe too deeply.

He’s looking for me.

The next moment, Mike received another call.

The voice of my close friend, Kyle, came through clearly.

"Mike, is Karen with you? Her phone has been unreachable!"

Mike suppressed his unease, pausing for a moment before speaking in a casual tone, "She’s probably working late again. You know how she is, always a workaholic."

Kyle firmly disagreed. "Impossible! Tomorrow’s the wedding, she wouldn’t still be working at this hour!"

Mike fell silent for a few seconds, then quickly pulled out his phone and began checking the surveillance footage to track my whereabouts.

My heartbeat quickened and a faint spark of hope flickered within me.

Could he realize something was wrong?

Would he recognize that the person who was nearly tortured to death today was me?

"There's no one at home, just as I guessed. Kyle, don’t worry, Karen is either still working late or dragging her feet on the way home."

He hung up the phone and turned to the people around him, giving instructions.

"Prepare the car, I'll take Jane home."

My hope was instantly extinguished.

He would rather believe I was just lingering on the road than face the truth that the person he had tortured to the point of death was his fiancée.

"Mike, aren’t we going to play a little longer? You’re heading home so early?"

His friends, disappointed by my sudden miscarriage, hadn’t had their fill of fun.

Mike’s face instantly turned cold. "Tomorrow is my wedding with Karen. If I’m not going back to be with her, do you expect me to stay with you guys?"

The crowd fell silent, too afraid to speak.

But Jane boldly wrapped her arms around his neck and acted coquettishly. "Mike, can you stay with me tonight? Starting tomorrow, you won’t belong to me anymore. I’m so sad..."

"Jane! You need to know your place. I promised you I would throw a fortune at you tonight to help you unwind and you should be content. I don’t like greedy women!"

But his cold, harsh words were easily shattered by Jane.

"Mike, I bought your favorite maid outfit. Tonight, you can tear it up to your heart’s content…"

The air froze for a moment.

I heard Mike’s breathing suddenly become heavier, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

He pulled out his phone and sent me a voice message, his tone unbelievably gentle.

[Karen, I drank too much at the bachelor party tonight, so I’m staying at a friend’s place. You sleep well and tomorrow I’ll marry you.]

After he sent the message, he lifted Jane by the waist.

I watched as he hurriedly left, unable to suppress the tears that silently slid down my face again. But the pain from the wounds on my face made it so I couldn’t even cry properly.

It turned out, his tenderness was so fake.

It turned out, his love was so cheap.

I closed my eyes and memories surged in like a tidal wave.

Two years ago, Mike knelt down on one knee, placing a ring on my finger, his eyes filled with starlight.