CHAPTER 1

The story began at a hospital. Veronica Murphy, a young lady of slight build, rushed to the emergency registration counter while carrying a bloodied man on her back with all her strength. She said hurriedly, “This guy needs emergency treatment! He passed out in a car accident.” Veronica felt that today was really not her day. She was riding her motorcycle on her way to deliver takeouts when a Ferrari nearby got knocked off the road by a large truck running the red light. The Ferrari was severely wrecked, its windows shattered and its trunk on fire. It might explode at any minute, and its driver was covered in blood and unconscious in his seat. Veronica had no idea what gave her the courage at the time. Without a second thought, she raced to the car and desperately pulled the guy out of it. As soon as she dragged him several meters away, she heard a loud kaboom! The car exploded right away. Veronica was shaken with fright. If she had been a little bit slower, she would probably have been blown to pieces along with the guy! Just then, however, the severely injured man grasped her wrist with all his might as if clutching at straws. He mumbled in a daze, “Help me! Send me to the hospital… I’ll pay you 100 million…” Veronica was stunned. 100 million? Did I just save the world’s richest man by chance? At the payment counter, the cashier asked, “What’s your name?” Just as Veronica was about to answer, the cashier looked up and saw her face, and her attitude did a one-eighty immediately. “Oh, if it isn’t Tiffany Larson, our director’s daughter! Please wait a moment, Miss Larson. A doctor will be arranged for you at once…” Veronica smiled bitterly at the cashier’s words. Tiffany was Veronica’s biological sister. The two sisters looked exactly alike, but their lives were polar opposites of each other. Abducted as soon as she was born, Veronica changed hands several times before being sold to her current adoptive parents. A month ago, however, her adoptive parents had a car accident and were hospitalized with grave injuries and sky-high medical bills. Just then, Veronica’s biological parents appeared out of nowhere, saying they could provide medical treatment for her adoptive parents on condition that she donate her bone marrow to the Larson Family’s leukemic youngest son. Not only that, but she mustn’t show her face, which was the spitting image of Tiffany. Rachel Zimmerman, Veronica’s biological mother, said, “Our Tiffy isn’t only accomplished in everything she does; she’s also holds © this.

the most beautiful lady in Bloomstead. You, on the other hand, are just an ignoble country bumpkin. Tiffy’s good name mustn’t be ruined because of your existence.” Despite the humiliation, Veronica agreed for the sake of her adoptive parents’ medical treatment. Usually, she would deliberately disguise herself as an ugly woman in Bloomstead, but she didn’t bother to do so tonight since she was doing food delivery late at night. However, she didn’t expect to enter her biological father’s hospital by mistake and be recognized. Consequently, she could only acknowledge tacitly that she was “Tiffany” and pay 5,000 in the latter’s name for the guy’s surgery. After everything was done, she returned to her rented apartment wearily and took a shower. While she was doing laundry, however, she was surprised to find a black diamond ring in her pocket. This probably fell into my pocket when that guy grabbed my shirt, she thought. Without thinking much of it, she put the ring on the table, ready to get some shut- eye. At some point in time, there was a knock on the door outside. Veronica walked over to the door in slippers and opened it. “Are you trying to be a b*tch, Veronica? Did you forget what I had said to you?” Tiffany, who was tall and slim, slapped Veronica across the face before the latter could say anything. “I warned you to never go around sporting my face when you first came to Bloomstead! Do you want your adoptive parents to die?” Offended, Veronica slapped Tiffany’s face in return. In order to save her adoptive parents, she had no choice but to let her biological parents give her a hard time, but she was never someone who would yield to the strong and place herself at the mercy of others. Tiffany let out a cry of pain. “How dare you hit me, Veronica?” Her cheek was slightly swollen from the slap Veronica gave her, which was much harder than the slap she had given Veronica just now. Veronica flung her hand—which ached from slapping Tiffany’s face—with a slight frown between her beautifully arched eyebrows. “Just put up with it when I hit you! Do you think I’m gonna let you boss me around? I’m not your mom!” “How dare you talk as if you’re in the right, huh? You took a guy to my dad’s hospital late at night for medical treatment! How am I supposed to show my face in public if word gets out about it?” Tiffany pointed at Veronica, her cheeks flushing red with rage. “If somebody hadn’t told my dad about it this morning, I might’ve still been kept in the dark! Who knows how much more disgraceful filth you were gonna commit in my name?” “Your face? Ha!” Veronica laughed in self-mockery, her eyes full of sadness. Such is how unfair life is. I was born with the same looks as she was, yet I’m denied the right

to show my true appearance in public. Just then, Tiffany’s cell phone rang. With her phone in her hand, she stepped aside to answer the phone call. As her eyes darted around, she happened to catch sight of the black diamond ring on the table. This diamond ring looks familiar somehow… “What’s up, Mom?” she asked. Rachel was frantic with joy on the other end of the phone; there was even a slight quaver in her voice. “Oh, my God! Darling, when did you save Young Master Matthew? How could you keep such a big deal from me? Someone from the Kings Family just came and asked to meet you a week later!” “Young Master Matthew?” Tiffany looked at the ring on the table. Then, in a moment of realization, she recalled having seen the ring in a photo of Matthew Kings, which was shared by the socialites when she joined them in a gathering before. The diamond ring was a familiar heirloom inherited by the Kings Family’s heirs. Upon associating it with what Veronica had done at the hospital the night before, Tiffany instantly realized that Veronica had saved Matthew’s life yesterday. It was precisely because Veronica had used her name at the hospital yesterday that the man thought it was her who had saved him. To think that I’d become the one who saved the life of Young Master Matthew from Mythpoint by accident! This is simply even more surprising than winning the lottery! she thought. “Mom, I’ve got something to deal with at the moment. Let’s talk about it later.” Suppressing the ecstasy within her, she slipped the ring from the table while Veronica wasn’t noticing. Then, she came up to Veronica and threatened domineeringly, “If you do that again, just wait until you collect your adoptive parents’ dead bodies!” With that, she stormed off in a huff. Veronica had wanted to take a short nap when she came back in the early hours, but she didn’t expect to oversleep. At this moment, she wasn’t in the mood to argue with Tiffany. After covering her face with a face mask, she rushed to the hospital to look for the guy. A reward of 100 million! That’s what I’ll be getting in exchange for risking my life! Unexpectedly, when she reached the hospital and asked about the guy, the nurse told her that he had left right after regaining consciousness the night before. Not only that, but he didn’t even leave any contact information behind. “What a liar! Son of a b*tch!” Blowing up on the spot, Veronica stamped her foot in anger. “That 5,000 is my living expenses for the next two months!” As expected, men are nothing but liars! On top of losing 5,000 bucks of living expenses for nothing, Veronica had over 100 bucks deducted from her earnings by the food delivery platform because she had failed to deliver takeouts as scheduled. She was only

doing food delivery as a part-time job, and now she lost all the money she had earned by doing food delivery during her days off to the food delivery platform. Her heart was bleeding. Still too young for the dangerous society, duh! Over the next few days, she worked with even greater diligence every single day. Besides doing food delivery part-time after work, she also delivered meals to her adoptive parents at the hospital. Dressed in a security guard’s uniform, Veronica was sitting idly in the monitoring room at Twilight Bar with her colleague on the security team. She complained, “How could I have possibly been eating only two meals per day this week if I hadn’t saved that ungrateful b*stard? I’m starved out.” Her adoptive father had been comatose since the car accident, whereas her adoptive mother had been staying with him at the hospital every day. Even though Veronica’s biological parents were paying for their medical expenses, she still had to spend a lot on daily necessities every day. As a result, she was desperately hard up after spending her last 5,000 on the guy’s surgery. Cody Bowman, her colleague, asked, “I’ve only heard you talking about that guy, Big Ron. Don’t you know what his name was or what he looked like?” “I remember what he looked like, but he was unconscious at the time. How could I know what his name—” Veronica replied, only to break off mid-sentence and point at somebody on the surveillance video all of a sudden. “T-T-That guy! Did you see him? That’s him! That was the guy!” she exclaimed with a slap on the table before standing up to walk outside. “Found you at last, you *sshole!” “Wait a minute, Big Ron!” Cody grabbed Veronica’s wrist while pointing at the man on the surveillance video in disbelief. “Are you sure it was him?” “I can recognize this jerk even if he’s reduced to ashes!” Veronica turned around to leave. However, Cody stood up and blocked her path at once. “Calm down, Big Ron! That guy’s Matthew Kings, the heir of the Kings Family, one of the four most distinguished families in Bloomstead. He’s a cruel and ruthless man with blood on his hands. If he had wanted to repay your kindness, he could’ve done that with a single word. Since he never came to you, it’d mean he’s never going to pay you the money. Staying alive is important, Big Ron. It’s just 5,000, right? Just take it as you’ve fed it to a dog.” Veronica couldn’t help but gasp at Cody’s words. “Matthew Kings, you say?” The club where she was working was the top money-squandering establishment in Bloomstead. It was frequented by businessmen and prominent figures, so Veronica was familiar with Matthew’s name. Cody’s advice made a lot of sense, but Veronica couldn’t resign herself to it. She waited until

1.00AM. When she saw Matthew walk out of a private room and enter the elevator, she entered the elevator after him. The first eight floors of Twilight Club were dedicated to Twilight Bar, whereas the floors above were all hotel suites. In the elevator, Veronica peeked at Matthew—who was half a head taller than her—out of the corner of her eye. The man’s body was reeking of booze, and his peerlessly handsome face was flushing with an abnormal shade of red. He seemed to be feeling dry and hot after getting drunk, his slender fingers pulling at his necktie every now and then. Ding! The elevator door opened on the 38th floor. The man walked out, and Veronica followed closely behind. However, no sooner had she made a few steps than Matthew suddenly stopped in his tracks, causing the former to bump into his back right away by accident. “Ouch! You—” The man seized her by the throat right away. He asked in a cold voice, “Who are you? Shoot!” “It hurts…” Unable to breathe, Veronica kept slapping Matthew’s arm as her brain was being deprived of oxygen. “Let go of me! I… I can’t breathe…” Upon hearing her voice, Matthew knitted his brows slightly and knocked off the security cap she was wearing. “You’re a woman?” “Y-Yeah,” Veronica replied. Since she was working at a club, she disguised herself as a man and spoke in a man’s voice to avoid being groped. Few people except her manager and her colleagues in the security department knew that she was a woman. “Who sent you here? Spill it!” “I-I just wanted to—” Matthew interrupted Veronica before the latter could finish her sentence. “You wanna be my woman?” He had noticed long ago that the security guard before him was behaving furtively, and his drink had been doped today. I knew it. Another woman who’s trying to drug me to get me to sleep with her, he thought. Veronica almost died from being choked. What an *sshole who returns my kindness with ingratitude! She swore, “F-F…” Before she could finish uttering the four-letter word, though, the man let go of her neck. Crumpling to the floor at once, Veronica placed her hands on the floor for support, gasping for breath while coughing nonstop. Only then did she notice that the entire 38th floor was occupied by private residences with silvery gray cool-colored designs that exuded luxury and poshness. It seemed that Matthew had noticed long ago that something was wrong with her. “You know what I hate the most?” the man said while panting heavily, his eyes bloodshot. “Cough… Cough…” Veronica’s throat hurt from being choked, and she merely coughed without being able to say anything. “Since you have a death wish, I’ll grant it,” said Matthew. Then, he grabbed her arm, dragging

her into his bedroom before flinging her onto his bed effortlessly. Veronica was frightened; she was truly scared upon confronting Matthew. “Hey! W-What are you doing?” The man pulled off his necktie with one hand while pressing a button on the remote control with the other. In an instant, the bedroom curtain closed, cloaking the room in complete darkness. Then, in the darkness, he tore her clothes to shreds with a loud rip!

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