On New Year’s Eve during the Spring Festival, my girlfriend, Shannon Zach, excitedly announced that she had signed us up for an international tour. I didn’t think much of it at the time—just another adventure for us as a couple.
The moment the plane landed, however, she hurriedly ushered me onto a bus. For two straight days and nights, the vehicle roared down winding roads. I watched the increasingly familiar landscape with a growing sense of dread. My hands trembled as realization dawned on me.
We were heading straight back to the place I had escaped from four years ago—my old hometown, a place I had vowed never to return to.
Sensing my unease, Shannon’s pretense faded. Her face darkened, a cruel smile tugging at her lips.
“I’m selling you to a black-market factory full of women,” she declared coldly. “The boss running that place is none other than your sister.”
My stomach churned. The air around me seemed to collapse inward as her words echoed in my ears. My own sister—the very person I had spent twenty years of my life faking my death to escape from—was waiting for me.
I had been tricked. And by Shannon, the woman I’d loved and trusted for two years.
——
Seeing the terror on my face, Shannon softened her expression, offering a deceptively gentle smile.
“Alan, didn’t you say you loved me?” she cooed. “I’m in deep trouble—I owe a massive gambling debt. Will you help me?”
My throat constricted as panic overtook me. I knew what awaited me at my sister’s hands. My voice shook as I pleaded desperately.
“Please, just take me back home. I’ll get you the money—I’ll work hard and support you for the rest of your life!”
Her expression twisted into a sneer. “Do you think I can afford to wait?” she snapped. “If I don’t pay up in three days, they’ll kill me.”
She jabbed a finger at my chest. “You’ve been living off me for two years, you useless piece of trash. It’s time to pay me back—with interest.”
Her words cut deeper than any knife. “Trash.” That same label had haunted me during my childhood under my sister’s ruthless reign. I remembered vividly how one of her subordinates had dared to insult her. My sister had buried that person alive, dousing them in honey to attract swarms of ants. The man had been devoured.
If my sister heard Shannon speaking to me like this, what horrors would she unleash on her?
Terror gripped me as I stared at the woman I had once adored. Hot tears streamed down my face, my voice breaking.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to build a home with me? That I was your family?”
Shannon’s hand brushed my cheek tenderly, but her words were ice-cold. “Family helps each other, right? Alan, help me.”
I shook my head violently, my lips trembling.
Her gaze hardened with a flicker of pity. “You’re the most heartbreaking when you cry, Alan,” she murmured. “You’re the most handsome and innocent of all my boyfriends.” She sighed dramatically. “If it weren’t for this debt, I really wouldn’t want to sell you.”
Her voice suddenly grew fierce. “You’re mine—no one else gets to touch you!”
Before I could react, she tackled me back into the carriage, pulling out a length of rope to bind my hands behind me. The metallic glint of a dagger flashed in her hand as she held it against my face.
“Alan, you don’t want to be humiliated, do you?” she whispered. “Let me help you.”
The blade sliced into my skin, sending searing pain across my cheek.
“No!” I screamed, thrashing desperately. “Not my face!”
Memories flooded back—the time I had accidentally spilled boiling water on myself as a child. My sister had cut off the maid’s hands and fed them to the crocodiles for not drying the pot properly. She had threatened the doctor, demanding he heal my face or face unspeakable consequences.
“Your face looks just like Father’s,” she had said. “No one is allowed to ruin it.”
If Shannon scarred me now, I shuddered to think what my sister would do.
Ignoring the burning pain, I begged frantically. “Please, don’t ruin my face! Anything but that!”
Shannon laughed cruelly. “I already asked Hazel,” she said nonchalantly. “She said men in the factory don’t need good looks—just functional bodies.”
Despair engulfed me as her words sealed my fate.
