I'm a mermaid who comes from the deep sea. In order to help alleviate Justin Gunter's cutaneous desiccation disorder, I decide to move to the shore and marry him.

Justin is cold and aloof toward me in front of everyone. But during late nights, he greedily accepts the tears of pleasure that flow down my cheeks while making love to me.

I thought Justin is the type who doesn't know how to proclaim his reliance on me. So, I'm willing to scour all the seas just for the rare treasures that are needed just so he can live life normally like everyone else.

But when Justin's first love, Ruby Lister, is afflicted with the same disease, he actually pins me down and instructs the doctor to carve my tail apart.

"I won't let anything bad happen to Ruby! Rumors claim that a mermaid's flesh can cure this disease! It's your turn to atone for your sins, Celeste!

"If it wasn't for you using your voice to seduce me, Ruby wouldn't have gotten so mad that she fell sick! You owe her this much, so you must be the one paying the price!"

I struggle against Justin's grasp, only for him to break my spine instead. Then, he locks me up in an empty glass tank.

While I'm suffering from intense pain brought to me by dehydration, I'm forced to watch Justin and Ruby sleep with each other.

My scales begin falling off one by one. That's how I die from the excruciating pain.

When I get reborn, Justin's mother sobs loudly while begging me to save him with my tears. But this time, my expression remains stony.

"The merfolk only saves those who are fated to meet them. Your son and I aren't bound by the threads of fate at all. You should prepare for his funeral instead of begging me to save him."

Celeste's Point-of-View

Justin Gunter pinned Ruby Lister against the reef, making love as if they were entirely alone. Ruby's moans came in waves, each louder than the last.

They were still the scumbag and slut who had no shame whatsoever, just like in my past life.

It was then that Justin's mother, Diana Harrison, dropped to her knees before me and begged. "I'm begging you, Ms. Merrow! Justin is my one and only son! You have to save him! If this disease of his can't be cured, his whole life will be ruined, Ms. Merrow!"

It could be said that the Gunter family had consulted numerous leading specialists to treat Justin's cutaneous desiccation disorder, but no one had been able to cure him, which ultimately led them to seek me out.

Justin suddenly came rushing toward me before I could even say anything, radiating a chilling presence. Ruby followed him, her face still bearing a lingering flush.

"You don't have to beg her, Mom! She's nothing but a fraud!" Justin barked as he pulled Diana to her feet and glared at me. "There's nothing seriously wrong with me. She made it all up! She just wants to get her hands on the Gunter family's fortune and force me to marry her!"

Justin never showed up at this moment in my past life, so there was only one possible explanation—he had also been reborn.

I thought of the agonizing pain from my past life, where my fish tail was sliced off and my backbone was snapped, making my breathing tremble instantly.

I lifted my gaze toward Justin, whose skin was so severely dried and cracked that blood was seeping out, and said, "You're absolutely right—there's no such thing as cutaneous desiccation disorder. You're merely suffering from an ordinary skin condition."

I then glanced at Ruby, who was standing behind him, and added, "You two look like a perfect match to me, so there's no need for you to waste your time on a fraud like me."

Upon hearing that, Diana shot a fierce glare at Ruby.

Justin didn't realize that his first love was completely at odds with her pure, innocent outward appearance. Ruby contracted some sort of strange disease, clearly brought on by her promiscuity.

Justin, however, trusted Ruby implicitly. He laid the blame for her sickness on me and used my life to make up for what he owed Ruby.

I was quite fortunate to be given a second chance at life, so I no longer wished to be bound to him in even the slightest way.

Upon noticing my cold and detached expression, Justin suddenly grabbed my wrist and asked, "What are you up to now, Celeste? I'm warning you—even without your so-called tricks, I can live perfectly fine. I will only love Ruby in this life, so you'd better not think you can deceive me again with your lies!"

I had ventured into the deep sea in search of rare treasures in my past life, just so he could live a normal life. He never knew how I treated him, though. He believed Ruby's claims when she caught a bizarre disease and ordered a doctor to slice open my fish tail to cure her.

Ruby's condition never improved, so he concluded that the idea of mermaids being able to cure cutaneous desiccation disorder was completely fraudulent.

He was convinced that all I wanted was to marry him and get my hands on his family fortune, so he ordered his men to snap my spine and lock me in a dry glass tank, leaving me to die in agonizing pain.

Justin's skin was already dull and bore a grayish-white hue at that moment, a clear indication that he was completely spent and at the end of his rope.

"Your business with Ruby has nothing to do with me," I stated flatly. I no longer had any desire to meddle in his disease or his relationship with Ruby.

Upon seeing how indifferent I was, Justin furrowed his brow. "Didn't you claim you'd sacrifice your own tail for my sake? How can you willingly give up your place as my wife to Ruby?"

I sighed helplessly, no longer wanting to waste my breath on them. Justin had blamed me in my past life for using my singing to entice him and for making Ruby contract a strange illness from anger.

I had tried repeatedly to explain that there was something highly suspicious about Ruby's condition, but Justin refused to listen to me. He would inflict another wound on my tail whenever he saw Ruby weep.

I explained that my marriage to him was out of love, yet he remained certain that I was merely greedy for the Gunter family's wealth.

I withdrew my hand at that thought and instantly jumped into the sea. I could hear Diana crying out in despair as the water engulfed me.

In the end, Diana clung to the last shred of hope and relocated to the island.

I was resting upon a coral reef when I encountered Justin again. He regarded me coldly and asked mockingly, "Didn't you claim that my business had nothing to do with you? Why did you return to this part of the ocean, then?

"You ought to know that whatever scheme you're trying to pull won't work on me, Celeste. I'll never love you in this lifetime, so you'd better give up on that delusion immediately."

I fixed my gaze on his face, which bore the grayish hue of impending death. It had only been three days, yet his condition had grown much worse. He should have had roughly two years of life remaining if we were to base it on his symptoms when we previously met.

It was just that because he got involved with Ruby earlier in this lifetime, her venereal disease accelerated his illness. He likely had less than a year left now.

I was just about to warn him since Diana had taken good care of me in my past life, but Justin suddenly slashed his knife across my tail, sending an agonizing pain that caused me to collapse into the water.

He splashed a bucket of saltwater directly over my injury, completely disregarding the fact that I was bleeding heavily. "You still want to pretend that you have designs on me, huh? If you look at me with those disgusting eyes again, I'll gouge them right out of your head!"

I was trembling all over from the pain. I fixed my eyes on him and said in a trembling voice, "You're right. I shouldn't have been so presumptuous. You and Ruby are truly made for each other—no one could be a better fit."

Justin's expression eased slightly. "It's good that you get it. Ruby and I have already gotten our marriage certificate, so if you dare say anything out of line to my mother again, I'll make sure you pay for it, Celeste!"

I gently shook my head as I noticed the ruthlessness in his gaze, thinking that Justin remained completely unaware that his days were already numbered.

I was lying on the reef the following day, wrapping seaweed around the wound on my tail.

Justin suddenly arrived with Ruby in tow, and all of a sudden, Ruby overturned my clamshell onto the rocks. She then smirked maliciously and said, "I'm so sorry for accidentally kicking it over, Celeste. You won't hold it against me, right?"

Justin scoffed and threw a diamond necklace at me. "That should be enough to pay for that worthless clamshell of yours. You should just take it and get lost, Celeste. Stop being an eyesore to Ruby."

I shot him an indifferent glance, ignored the necklace on the ground, and turned to swim away.

Justin yelled at me with a voice filled with disdain. "How ungrateful of you!"

He then turned to Ruby and said, "You can rest assured that I won't let this kind of money-grubbing woman be an eyesore to you again, Ruby."

That clamshell actually contained the deep-sea elixir that I had spent ten years collecting. I had refined it from mermaid tears and rare ocean treasures, letting it sit on the shore to absorb the essence of the sun and moon.

It was meant to significantly ease Justin's cutaneous desiccation disorder, but now they had flipped it over without hesitation, completely destroying his final lifeline.

I intended to look for a different part of the ocean to live in since I didn't want to have anything more to do with them.

Yet that afternoon, Diana suddenly appeared and kneeled right before me. "You have to save Justin, Ms. Merrow! He's in big trouble! His skin suddenly split and tore open—he was rolling on the floor in agony before passing out completely!"

Diana sobbed uncontrollably and banged her head hard against the reef, causing blood to flow down along her forehead and quickly smearing her whole face.

"I'll personally guarantee the protection of these waters as long as you save him, and I'll never allow anyone to bring harm to the merfolk, Ms. Merrow!"

I was slightly moved as I caught sight of her graying hair and bloodied forehead, so I said, "I'll save him this time for your sake, but this is a one-time exception. After this, I will no longer care about his life or death."

Diana bowed her head repeatedly, her eyes filled with immense gratitude.

I saw Ruby bound tightly to a pillar as I entered the Gunter residence.

Upon spotting Ruby, Diana flew into a rage. She grabbed a nearby whip and, without saying anything, struck her with it. "You shameless tramp! Justin was doing perfectly fine! You're the one who shamelessly entangled yourself with him and wore his body out, causing him to fall into a coma!"

Ruby kept shaking her head, yelling, "It wasn't me! It was Celeste! She was jealous of my relationship with Justin, so she drugged him out of spite!"

"How dare you shift the blame onto someone else!" Diana, becoming even more furious, ordered her men to lock Ruby in the basement.

I paid no attention to their arguing and made my way into Justin's bedroom. He was lying quietly in bed, where the blood seeping from his split skin had turned the bedsheets red.

Upon realizing that the mermaid tears couldn't save him anymore, I had no choice but to take out a blade. I endured the sharp pain as I dug out one of the Sacred Heart Scales from my chest. I ground it into powder and mixed it with mermaid tears before feeding it into Justin's mouth.

It wasn't long before Justin's cracked, bleeding skin returned to normal; his shallow breathing finally evened out.

I stumbled out of the bedroom as the loss of blood left me greatly weakened. "He's out of danger for the moment."

Diana's eyes welled with tears at the sight. She tried to kneel before me to thank me, but I caught her before she could. "I hereby announce that whatever history I had with the Gunter family ends today, so please take care of yourself, Mrs. Gunter."

I turned and walked toward the door after saying that. I had completely severed any lingering connection between Justin and me from that moment forward.

That youth, who had once saved me on the shore years ago and won my heart, had long since died in my past life.

I intended to leave the island for good, but shortly after leaving the Gunter residence, I was intercepted by Justin's bodyguards, who suddenly tied me up. I found myself locked inside a glass tank after regaining consciousness. I couldn't help but widen my eyes in horror as I looked at the familiar setting before me.

Justin stood outside, his cracked skin appearing significantly healed, though his expression became even more sinister. "You filthy bitch! You're seriously courting death! How dare you drug me and incite my mother to move against Ruby!

"I truly underestimated how malicious you are! I'll make you repay this debt many times over, Celeste!"

I hadn't even had the chance to defend myself when the bodyguards brought over metal buckets and dumped the contents into the glass tank.

It was piranhas—the natural enemies of merfolks. They instantly swim toward me in a frenzy, their sharp teeth tearing into my flesh and turning the water crimson with blood.

That excruciating pain forced me to swim wildly around the tank to escape them.

Ruby burst into laughter outside the tank, her body shaking. "She looks so wretched right now, Justin!"

Justin nodded with a smile and led her by the hand into the adjacent room.

It wasn't long before the scandalous, indecent sounds of the two of them echoed from inside.

They happened to come out of the room when the bodyguards roughly hauled me from the bloody water.

Justin's skin along the neck began cracking and bleeding again. He took a cup from a bodyguard and swallowed a painkiller, then turned to look at me with contempt. "It's all your fault for screeching like a slaughtered pig and ruining the mood."

He then turned to Ruby, his tone instantly softening while saying, "I've had your favorite jewelry sets prepared for you as a way to make amends, Ruby."

Ruby snuggled bashfully into Justin's embrace, her eyes filled with spite as she glanced at me. "I've heard that nothing enchants the human heart quite like a mermaid's voice. You'd better watch out, Justin, lest her song completely captivate your soul."

Justin's face instantly hardened. He signaled the bodyguards to pin me down, completely ignoring my frantic struggles. He used his hands to roughly pry my mouth open and poured a bowl of scalding hot soup down my throat.

In that instant, a searing, unbearable pain burned through my throat.

I huddled on the ground in agony, unable to stop convulsing. I rasped as a sudden mouthful of blood leaked from the corner of my mouth, "Do you not fear the vengeance of the merfolk for treating me like this, Justin?"