A Ten-Year Dream, All in Vain

Those few degenerate friends praised Mike for being swift, accurate and ruthless.

"Mike, that thirty thousand dollars was really worth it! Look at how badly you’ve beaten her, yet there’s still a sparkle in her eyes when she looks at you! Honestly, her voice does sound a bit like your fiancée’s. Even that red mole on the back of her hand is in the same spot. Maybe she came here for you?"

Mike stared intently at my red mole, momentarily stunned.

I was filled with hope, thinking he had finally recognized me.

But the next second, his face twisted with disgust and without a moment's hesitation, he shattered all the joints in my fingers.

"A heartless gambling addict like you dares to resemble my Karen? I’ll break your hands and see if you can still gamble then!"

The pain nearly made me pass out and not a single word could escape my throat.

It was my fault. I never should have gambled on human nature.

I had stood by Mike from his days as a down-and-out boxer to now, a rising star in the business world.

I thought tomorrow's wedding would be the start of our happiness. But I didn’t realize that it had all been my delusion.

To better capture my suffering, Jane ran up with her phone to record me.

"Mike, the way she's clawing at the floor is just like that ragdoll cat your fiancée used to have."

"Too bad I accidentally killed it today. You think she’ll blame me?"

"It's dead, so what. Karen and I are already trying for a baby. Cat fur isn’t good for pregnant women."

A violent tremor ran through me.

Snowball was the cat Mike and I raised together. Just this morning before I went to work, he said he and Snowball would be waiting for me to come home.

But Snowball was dead now and I couldn’t go home either.

Mike didn’t want to meet my gaze and directly pressed the electric shock button. The current suddenly intensified, making me convulse and curl up.

The stabbing pain in my abdomen reminded me of the two lines on the pregnancy test I saw yesterday.

I had planned to surprise Mike with the news at our wedding tomorrow. It was a double blessing.

But I never got the chance. What was meant to be joyful had now become a thorn in my heart.

For a fleeting moment, amidst the chaos in my mind, I wondered. If I had told him yesterday that I was pregnant, would I have been spared this torment today?

He once said that even if I turned to ashes, he would still recognize me. But now, I stood right before him and he didn’t know me at all.

Worse yet, at the host’s suggestion, he chose another torture method. "Add another seventy thousand dollars. I want to see the water punishment."

Mike's voice was laced with ice, sending a chill through my entire body.

The host, thrilled that I had fetched such a high price, kept praising Mike and Jane as a golden couple.

My vision blurred with blood, but it didn’t stop me from clearly seeing Jane leaning smugly in his arms.

Her fingers, adorned with a diamond identical to mine, drew slow circles on his chest.

“Mike, you’re always so thoughtful… You know I faint at the sight of blood...”

Suddenly, two tubes were shoved into my nostrils and ice-cold water mixed with chili powder was poured in.

I convulsed violently like a fish out of water, the pain in my abdomen growing more unbearable by the second.

Warm liquid streamed down the inside of my thigh, pooling into a small puddle of blood on the iron chair.

"She seems to be bleeding heavily!" Someone suddenly shouted.

Jane turned sharply at the sound and when she saw the bloodstains, an immense hatred flashed in her eyes.

But in the next moment, she staggered twice before collapsing with precision onto the floor beside me.

Amidst the frantic footsteps of the crowd, her cold fingers suddenly gripped my ankle.

"Karen, good luck! Hope you can live to see tomorrow's sun."

Anger surged within me and I lifted my foot, kicking her hand away with all my strength.