1: 1

After the engagement party, I got a video call from a future point in time.

"Don't buy that luxury flat. It belongs to your fiancée's male best friend's family, and it's priced at double the market rate. Buying it means paying off his loan-shark debt for him."

"Go out to the suburbs and buy the run-down old unit at 28 Franklin Street. In half a month it'll get a demolition buyout worth thirty times as much."

"Cough, cough... the triplets in Chloe Lambert's belly aren't yours. They're her male best friend's."

"For the next three or four decades, you'll pour everything into this family, and Chloe will keep sneaking off to meet her male best friend."

"The day you collapse from illness, Chloe divorces you and marries him!"

"And the three kids you raised with everything you had all turn out to be ingrates. They throw you out of the house, and you end up begging on the street, cough, cough..."

In the video, he was destitute, clutching a fertilizer sack stuffed with scrap, coughing up blood now and then, but his face was startlingly like mine.

"You, who are you?"

"I'm you, decades from now. I've got no one left, and my life is almost over."

He rambled on for a while, then slumped down beside a trash bin.

...

"No, no!"

My mind raced. "Tell me the lottery numbers, or the score of any game in the future, quick!"

"Those, I don't remember."

Curled up like a dog in the frozen snow, he closed his eyes for the last time, full of scorn and bitterness for this era.

The call ended.

My mind went blank.

That old man dragging a huge sack of scrap, was he really me, years from now?

Was someone messing with me using AI?

I sat in the room a long time, until my fiancée Chloe walked in and shyly threw herself into my arms.

"Baby, I'll give you a little treat tonight."

The softness of her body made me start to doubt whether that video had been fake.

"Oh, and about that luxury flat I mentioned. Let's head over early tomorrow and buy it."

Suddenly this gentle with me, all so I'd buy the flat?

My guard went up.

"That flat isn't cheap. Eight million. I'm not sure we can afford it."

"Your parents have savings! And we can take out a loan! The place isn't downtown, but it's still a busy, upscale area."

"Plus it's on the thirtieth floor. At night you can look out over the whole city."

The thirtieth floor?

Living high up in a tower was a hassle, and hard to resell too.

"How about this. Let me ask a friend first."

I'd trusted her a lot before, so when she said she wanted to buy the luxury flat, I'd agreed without much thought.

"Ugh..."

Chloe started to say something, then a wave of morning sickness hit her, and she bent over the trash bin, throwing up.

I stepped over, patting her back, and handed her some tissues.

After a moment she settled down, wrapped her arms around my neck, and said excitedly, "Baby, I've got good news for you. I'm carrying triplets."

I froze where I stood.

Chloe hadn't gotten her period in over two months, and I'd been urging her to get a prenatal checkup. She only went to the hospital after the engagement party, and it turned out to be triplets, exactly like the old man in the video said. That nailed it: she'd been cheating on me with her male best friend.

2: 2

"I counted back the days. That whole week I was working late, coming home really late. Don't tell me…" I was still smiling, but inside there was nothing but a sour ache.

She'd get playful with me sometimes, tell me she loved me, but there was always this invisible film between us.

"Get out of here!" Chloe's face changed.

Then she saw me smiling, thumped me once on the chest, and pouted. "Hmph. If you won't own up to it, then I'm not marrying you. Hmph."

I didn't call her out.

Chloe and I met in college. That year the student council organized a hiking trip, and halfway up I twisted my ankle and couldn't walk another step.

I'd been sitting on the side of the trail a long time when Chloe showed up, her hair in two thick braids.

When she heard I couldn't walk, she didn't hesitate to prop me up and help me back down the mountain.

Back then she was so fresh, so innocent, with the sweetest smile. I was smitten, and I threw myself into chasing her.

Half a year later, we were finally together.

From then until now, I doted on her. I sent her little cash gifts and presents all the time. When she got sick, I took time off work to look after her.

She had bad circulation, and every winter her feet turned to ice. I'd tuck her frozen feet between my thighs to warm them while I shivered myself, tossing and turning half the night.

She wanted a bride price of five hundred and eighty-eight thousand, and I agreed to that too. I never imagined what I'd get back was betrayal, that she'd even go and have another man's children.

She didn't notice the change in my mood. She wandered off to chat with a few of her girlfriends.

"Get some rest, okay? First thing tomorrow we're going to buy that luxury flat."

That night, she lay in bed and gave me nothing but the cold curve of her back.

I lay down too.

Not long after, a message came in from a friend of mine: "That development with the luxury flat you mentioned—there are units several floors, even a dozen floors higher than yours, listed at four or five million, and the price is negotiable. Above the thirtieth floor, occupancy is under thirty percent."

That afternoon I'd called him to look into a few things. I hadn't expected an answer this fast.

I thanked him. Now it was clear.

That luxury flat was priced at eight million, double the market rate, and Chloe was crying to have it. So that was it—she wanted to use my money to pay off her male best friend's debts.

The next day, after breakfast, I drove us to the run-down old unit at 28 Franklin Street.

"What are you bringing me here for?" Chloe said the second she got out of the car, thoroughly displeased.

"Just to look at another place." I gave her a smile.

Right then the real estate agent arrived, shook my hand, and led me in to tour the property.

This so-called run-down old unit was a front courtyard plus the main building, a four-story little villa of four or five hundred square meters. Old, its outer walls weathered and patchy, thick with climbing ivy.

It looked like something out of the nineties, but it was solid. The interior had been renovated at some point, though the appliances and furniture were all older models.

The rooms were all big, bright, well positioned.

The yard had a garage, and there was room to plant some flowers.

"Mr. Hughes, the owner's an old man. His wife went abroad three years ago to help their daughter with a new baby and look after their granddaughter. He's lonely on his own, so he wants to sell the place and join them. He won't be coming back."

"That's why he's only asking one point eight million—that's fifty thousand under market."

Hearing that, I was thrilled.

For a place this size, the construction cost alone was no less than a million, and with the land on top of that, the price was honest.

Chloe was stunned. She jabbed a finger at me. "What do you think you're doing? We agreed we'd go buy that luxury flat this morning, and you drag me out to look at some run-down dump?"

I smiled. "The luxury flat's too expensive. We're not buying it. Last night I looked at listings online and thought this place seemed good."

"Good how?" Chloe snapped. "How does this run-down heap compare to the luxury flat? If I lived in a dump like this, my friends would laugh at me for the rest of my life."

Herbert Walker, the agent, put on a smile. "Miss, it's on the edge of town, sure, but everything's here—supermarket, restaurants, mall, the shopping street, all close by, and it's well connected. The new highway that just opened gets you into the city center in only half an hour…"

Chloe just shouted at me, "I only want the luxury flat. If you won't buy it, I won't marry you!"

3: 3

At her words, something in me ached. Before yesterday, if she'd asked for a star out of the sky, I'd have found a way to pull it down and put it in her hands.

"Chloe, is there something you're hiding from me?"

I decided to give her one chance. Or maybe I just wanted to let myself stop hoping.

She froze for a second, her eyes darting away. "I'm not hiding anything from you!"

"Chloe, if you really want to build a life with me, you should walk away from Ulysses Lawrence."

"What are you talking about?" Chloe's pretty face flushed. "Ulysses and I are just close friends. There's nothing dirty going on. It's not what you think!"

That was it. Whatever I still felt for her went cold for good.

Herbert gave an awkward little laugh and leaned in, lowering his voice. "Mr. Hughes, I'll be honest with you. There was a middle-aged fellow who took a liking to the place yesterday. He wants his wife to come have a look, and he'll most likely buy. He's coming by around noon. And there's someone else scheduled to view it this afternoon too."

As he spoke, he pulled up the text messages between him and the client to show me.

My nerves went tight.

Word of the demolition hadn't gotten out yet. Otherwise the old man wouldn't be in such a hurry to sell.

All I had to do was buy it, and half a month from now I'd be collecting a demolition buyout of more than fifty million.

"Herbert, call the owner and see if he'll come down a little more on the price."

Herbert nodded and stepped outside to make the call.

"Austin, fine, you can buy this place. But you're buying the luxury flat too."

"Not happening." I shook my head. "This place needs renovating, and that costs money. Which means I can't afford the luxury flat."

The truth was, I had no intention of renovating anything. In half a month it would all be torn down.

When I'd spoken with the "me" from the future, he'd told me exactly what my life became after I bought the luxury flat and married Chloe.

That "me" worked himself to the bone from dawn to night, while she stayed home with the kids and kept inviting her so-called close male friend over to fool around.

Chloe had even gotten pregnant twice more. Both times the child was his, and both times she'd quietly gotten rid of it.

That "me" came home, ate dinner, then did the housework, minded the children, and tutored them on top of it.

Three kids raised through all that hardship, and every one of them ungrateful. When that "me" collapsed and couldn't work anymore, they didn't take him to a doctor. They threw him out of the house instead.

Remembering it, I clenched my fists.

Herbert came back in, and I asked, "What did the owner say?"

He said, excited, "He says if you pay in full right now, he'll knock off another eighty thousand!"

That got me.

I had a million to my name, and my parents had scraped together more than two million over most of their working lives. We'd planned to take out a five-million loan for that luxury flat, so one point seven two million was more than enough.

Then three figures walked in.

Leading the way, of all people, was Chloe's close male friend, Ulysses.

My parents came in behind him.

I looked at Chloe. She met my eyes, smug. "I'm the one who called them here!"

"Austin. Chloe."

"Weren't you two supposed to be buying that luxury flat this morning?"

"How'd you end up here instead?"

Ulysses said it straight at me.

As he talked, he stepped over beside Chloe, and the two of them clasped hands like it was the most natural thing in the world.

They looked like the couple. I was the outsider.

And my parents didn't so much as blink at it.

"Dad, Mom, what are you doing here?" I greeted them first, then turned to Ulysses. "The luxury flat. I'm not buying it."