I lowered my eyes, ignored the rotting wooden sign and bowed deeply and said, "Vanessa, Declan, I'm sorry. I didn't understand the rules, but please don't destroy my flowers. I'll clean everything up ..."

Vanessa looked uneasy because of my bow.

Declan suddenly began to trembled and said, "Vanessa, I feel so dizzy..." His trembling voice snapped Vanessa out of it.

She waved her hand and commanded the gardener, "What are you all standing around for? Do it!"

The lush lavender got sucked into the shredder, turning into a swirl of purple juice.

"No!" I lunged forward like my life depended on it, I grabbed anything I could.

Startled, Vanessa let go of Declan, who slammed into a tree trunk.

"Do you wanna die?" Her eyes were red as she yanked me back, only to suddenly notice a lavender flower in my palm and that rotten wooden sign. She puzzled, "You ..."

My tears burst out, "You said you couldn't sleep well ... That's why I planted the lavender my dad gave me, to help you rest."

The wooden sign crumbled as it unfolded. I said sadly, "Vanessa, I don't have a home anymore."

She froze, she reached out as if she wanted to fall into my arms. But just then, Declan let out a scream.

From the birdhouse I had made with my own hands, a bunch of caterpillars fell onto him. Vanessa's eyes turned sharp. She quickly rushed over and pulled Declan away.

Those insects were mildly poisonous. Even so, she used her bare hands to pick them off his collar.

Then she turned back to me, her face full of disgust when she said, "Almost had me fooled with your little act. You like bugs, huh? Fine. You three, shove those bugs into his clothes!"

The maids obeyed and started picking up the caterpillars. Meanwhile, the gardener pinned me down tightly.

I tried to break free and shouted, "I didn't do it! Why would I?"

Vanessa sneered and said nothing. Of course. She no longer believed me.

Otherwise, in the last life, she wouldn't have accused me of rigged the blind draw without even ask.

I used to hold on to the Shelby Family's kindness for taking me in and I even wanted to warn her that Declan was hiding a secret.

But now I regretted it. I wanted to see her go insane when she found out the truth.

So I gave up resist, I let the caterpillars crawled all over me. Wherever they touched, my skin swelled, itched unbearably.

Declan calmed down and tugged Vanessa's sleeve and said, "Isn't this too much, Vanessa? I'm fine now."

"Declan, you're too kind. That's why people bully you. Come, I'll take you to see a doctor." She walked past me while held Declan's hand.

Freed from the gardener's grip, I collapsed onto the ground.

I forced myself to endure it, my fingers had dug deep into the soil, covered in black mud and blood. Because of Vanessa, no one would help me.

So I had to swallow the nausea and pain and pick off the caterpillars myself, then staggered off to find the family doctor.

Just as I stepped inside, I saw Vanessa behind the curtain applied ointment to Declan. It was clearly just medicine, yet I could hear her gasp and moan.

When she pulled back the curtain, Declan was panting heavily behind her and her face was flushed. Her fingers were stained with ointment.

Vanessa glanced at the red, inflamed skin on my neck, then tossed the medicine at me.

I was a second too slow. The glass bottle shattered on the floor and the ointment spilled everywhere.

She sneered, "You're not allowed to see the doctor. Trash like you only deserves dirty things."

In the Shelby Family and all of Los Angeles's elite, she was like a goddess. If she said I couldn't see a doctor, no doctor would look my way.

Half-knelt on the floor, I used a hand smeared with black mud to apply the remained ointment. When I looked up, I saw Vanessa tenderly disinfected Declan's hands.

I said, "Vanessa, I'm leaving the Shelby Family."

When she was nine, Vanessa said she would give me a home. But now, that home was gone and it was time to say goodbye.

She dried Declan's hands and kissed his fingertips, her expression barely changing. She said, "Say that again."

I took a deep breath and repeated, "I said, you and Declan are getting married and I'm just an outsider. I should leave, like the other ninety-eight candidates. Vanessa, this isn't a request, it's a notice."

"Notice?" Vanessa didn't even realize how her tone shifted.

"Allen, is that vegetative father of yours planning to stop treatment?" She spoke with a near-threatening tone.

My body stiffened, memories from my previous life made me tremble. She had once fallen into my arms, only to later pushed me into a coffin with cold hands.

Too bad for her, no matter how domineering she was, she didn't expect that I'd be getting married soon.

In the past, when we were on good terms, I used to threaten her with leaving the Shelby Family whenever we argued, to make her back down.

But now, I didn't need her to back down. This time, I truly was leaving.

Vanessa stayed silent for a long time, then sneered, "If you're scared, then stay here obediently. Declan needs a personal servant. Especially on our wedding night, you can warm the bed for us."

Declan blushed and quickly hugged Vanessa while said, "Vanessa, that's too much ..."

She grabbed his hand and stood up, "Don't be shy. Come, I will take you somewhere fun."

His leather shoe kicked me aside and I landed in shattered glass. I use medical tweezers, I picked the fragments out of my leg and applied ointment casually.

I returned to the room where I had lived for twenty years. Tried to pack like those novel protagonists I'd read about. But I realized, there was nothing that truly belonged to me.

Vanessa used to take photos with me. At some point, the people in our photos froze in time, ten years ago.

Declan had been abroad for ten years and she missed him for ten years.

The darkroom in her bridal suite was filled wall-to-wall with candid photos of Declan, taken by private investigators.

I stuffed my ID into my pocket and sat blankly on the bed.

My phone buzzed. A message from the nurse at the hospital: [Mr. Patterson, your father just regained a little consciousness. He's calling your name!]

I limped my way to the hospital. There, I heard my father, lay on the bed, weakly whispered my name. This never happened in the previous life.

Last time, around this point, the power went out in the ward and my dad died within a minute without the ventilator.

For someone in a vegetative state, any improvement was a miracle. Maybe, in this life, I could live to see my father open his eyes again. The nurse thoughtfully left us alone.

I sat by the bed and held his hand, I said, "I'm leaving the Shelby Family. Those people have nothing to do with me anymore."

"I'm sorry. I didn't manage to protect the lavender you gave me. Dad ... can you wake up and tell me ... where you found those seeds ..." I bowed my head and let my tears fall.

"Tsk tsk tsk, I've been looking all over, turns out you're in here mourning." Declan strolled in, his arms crossed and his steps swaggered. He glanced at me and smirked.

I wiped away my tears and asked, "What do you want?"

He lifted his leg and kicked the hospital bed. The machines hooked up to the wires started beeping.

He tilted his chin arrogantly and said, "I heard from my mom that you're marrying that psycho woman?"

I stayed silent, watched him warily.

He asked again, "Technically, I shouldn't care if you marry a beggar. But I heard ... you know my secret?"

"I won't say anything." I promised.

Declan reacted like he'd heard the funniest joke and laughed, "How can I be sure you won't talk? If you do, Vanessa will abandon me immediately!" His eyes turned red.

"Only if you die can I feel at ease!" As he spoke, a razor blade slipped from his sleeve and slashed toward me.

I instinctively leaned back, I fell onto my father.

Declan didn't look frail at all, his fingers gripped the blade, ready to slit my throat.

Suddenly, a withered, pale hand clamped down on his wrist. I heard the monitors next to me explode with sound.

The doctor had said: when a patient is about to regain consciousness, the machines will make noise.

I whipped around in shock, "Dad?"

Though his eyes remained closed, his hand instinctively stopped Declan from harming me and he whispered, "Don't ... touch ... my ... son."

The sound of high heels approached. In a flash, Declan cut his fingertip with the blade and shoved it into my dad's hand.

Tears streamed from his eyes as he cried out, "Don't kill me!" The next second, he threw himself into Vanessa's arms.

He clutched her like a drowned man and whined, "Vanessa, his dad tried to kill me … I just heard he might wake up and I wanted to see him. Did I do something wrong?"

Declan's eyes were full of tears and a drop of blood at his fingertip ignited Vanessa's fury.

She grabbed my wrist and nearly crushed my jaw with one hand and said, "You were trying to kill Declan again, weren't you? I paid for your dad's treatment all these years and this is how you repay me?"

I shook my head desperately, "I didn't! It wasn't me …"

Vanessa's smile was like that of a demon from hell. She said, "Right, it wasn't you this time, it was your dad."

Panic surged inside me. I knelt at once and begged, "It wasn't my dad! He's in a vegetative state, he doesn't know anything! It was Declan who tried to kill me! It was him!"

Declan immediately refuted, "I didn't. Vanessa knows I faint at the sight of blood." He clutched his forehead.

Seeing that, Vanessa became even more convinced.

She spotted the blade in my dad's hand and gritted her teeth, "Fine. Very well …" She yanked out the ventilator from my dad.

"Beep …" The sound rang in my ears.

I lunged forward, I tried to reconnect the machine, but she kicked me to the ground. I begged her, "No! Vanessa, please, I'm begging you! Without the ventilator, my dad will die in one minute!"

"Hit me! Kill me if you want! Just please, don't hurt my dad!" I cried out.

Vanessa looked down at me with disdain and said, "Dying is too easy. Don't think I don't know, vegetative patients can last ten minutes without a ventilator. I'm just punishing you."

As she spoke, she ordered the hospital to cut power to the room for ten minutes.

Vanessa linked arms with Declan and glanced back at me while saying, "Tomorrow is my wedding night. Come back and warm the bed. If you don't, you'll see what happens."

I crawled to my dad's bed and tried to give him mouth-to-mouth. But it was useless.

Ten minutes later, the power returned. The moment I reconnected the ventilator, the heart monitor flatlined.

My dad was dead. The man who had endured everything like a dog under another's roof, he was gone.

I sat numbly by the bed, until I heard footsteps again. My tear-swollen eyes looked up.

Someone said to me, "Help me with something, will you?"

***

Maybe to prove something, Vanessa made the wedding even grander than in my previous life.

Even the tie clip on Declan's suit cost tens of millions, dazzled with brilliance.

As she entered the venue, Vanessa instinctively scanned the crowd but didn't see me at the designated spot.

It wasn't until the vows had ended and those ninety-eight "blind box" men she'd collected came up to toast one by one, that she finally asked, "Where's Allen?"

Number Twenty-Five thought for a moment and said, "You mean the Number One man? Haven't seen him."

Vanessa frowned in objection, "He has a name. He's not just 'Number One.'"

Number Twenty-Five nodded blankly, watched her walk away.

Suddenly she remembered, Jane was also technically my mother. So she circled half the venue to find Jane.

Jane was smiling while holding a phone, she said something to Mr. Shelby.

"Hi Jane, why haven't I seen Allen today?" Vanessa asked.

As soon as she said it, Jane and Bob exchanged a cryptic glance. A strange sense of dread tightened in Vanessa's chest.

The next second, she saw Jane raise her phone. In the faintly glowing screen, she saw something she would never forget.