Chapter 4

For the next two days, my stomach was all up in knots. I lay in bed, completely dazed and listless.

On the morning of the third day, I was jolted awake by a cool, intermittent sensation on my face. As I sat bolt upright, I saw Helena quickly pull her hand behind her back.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

Helena lowered her head and began to sob softly.

"Liliana, please don't blame me. The public outcry has gotten so intense. So many people are demanding justice for me, insisting that I make you pay before they'll let this go."

My heart lurched. I scrambled to the vanity.

There, written across my face in large, bold characters, were the words, "I AM A LIAR."

I scrubbed frantically at my skin, trying to wipe the words away.

Helena approached timidly and caught my hands. She said, "Liliana, don't hurt your face by rubbing it so hard. It's a special kind of pigment that won't come off for a few days.

"The netizens said that since you love attention so much, this would serve as a dual purpose by punishing you and letting you go viral online, giving you all of the attention you've always wanted.

"Please don't hold it against me, Liliana. I'm only trying to help you get back on the right path as your friend."

With that, she held up her phone and snapped several photos of my face.

I lunged for her hand, trying to snatch the phone away. However, Ronaldo stepped in, gripped my wrist, and shoved me hard. My lower back slammed into the corner of the vanity.

The pain forced me to my knees, and cold sweat broke out all over my body.

"Ronaldo! Are you just going to stand there and let her humiliate me like this?" I yelled at him.

He reached out to steady Helena, whose eyes were red with tears.

"There have been overzealous netizens gathering outside the door every single day. How else are we supposed to calm them down? Have you forgotten how you were cornered at your own doorstep just a few days ago?" he replied coldly.

"Besides, they have a point. If you've done something wrong, you deserve to be punished. That's the only way you'll truly realize your mistake and ensure you don't repeat it."

He knew full well that I valued my face more than my own life. Yet he went ahead and defaced it just to stand up for Helena, scrawling humiliating words across my skin.

I stared at Ronaldo, my gaze growing colder by the second.

"You were so worried that I might not appear 'proper' enough in front of your family—that I might make a mistake or fail to win them over—yet you weren't the least bit concerned about them seeing my face like this?" I demanded.

"You'd rather I show up to the wedding looking like this and become the laughingstock of your entire family just so you could vent Helena's grievances, right?"

Ronaldo's expression changed instantly, letting go of Helena at once. She swayed, her body trembling as she sobbed.

"Liliana, please don't blame Ronaldo. He's been under a lot of pressure. I'm sure the paint will wash off by the day of the wedding."

Hearing this, Ronaldo snapped his head toward Helena.

From the look on his face, I knew immediately that he hadn't even considered that. He pulled out his phone with shaking hands and hurried outside, looking completely flustered.

Helena stepped closer to me, wiped the tears from her face, and a faint, mocking smile played on her lips.

"You think he's just getting worried about you again, or that he'll help you get rid of these marks?" she sneered. "Let me tell you one thing. No one can ever wash this off. You either skip the wedding, or you show up with your face looking exactly like this."

I clenched my fists and demanded, "I've never done anything to wrong you. I even treated you like family, Helena. Why on earth are you doing this to me?"

She let out a cold, derisive laugh. "Family? Who wants your charity? You just enjoy the feeling of being needed. You love having me by your side, nodding in agreement to whatever you said, all to satisfy your sense of superiority.

"That's why I'm going to ruin you completely. I want to watch you fall from your pedestal."

Helena stared at the photo she had just sent out and began laughing wildly.

"Oh, by the way, I was the one who tipped off the person following you the other day. And when that mudslide hit, Ronaldo was watching an opera with me.

"As for that jewelry design sketch—I framed you for that, too. And Anda? That mutt kept barking at me every single time it saw me, acting all bold just because of who its owner was, so I poisoned it. I made sure it would stay quiet for good.

"But Ronaldo believed every word I said. He even took it upon himself to write these beautiful words right across your face."

Blood rushed to my head. I swung my hand and slapped her across the face, yelling, "You vicious bitch!"

Ronaldo, who had just walked in, lunged forward and blocked me with his arm.

"You're the vicious one!" he yelled at me. "You took advantage of my affection to do all sorts of terrible things to Helena, and now, you have the nerve to curse her and hit her? Don't you dare push me any further, Liliana Cirillo!"

Trembling with rage and unable to find the right words, I pointed at Helena, exclaiming, "Ronaldo! Anda! She was the one—"

"Shut up," he seethed. "If I hear you insult Helena even once over the next three days, the wedding is off."

With that, he wrapped his arm around Helena and walked away.

I collapsed to the floor, laughing and crying at the same time.

So, this was it. He stopped believing me the moment he stopped loving me.

…

Over the next two days, I donated every single gift Ronaldo had ever given me, keeping only a few basic items of clothing in my wardrobe.

Early on the morning of the wedding, Ronaldo brought in a top-tier makeup artist to completely remove the words from my face.

I put on my wedding dress and gazed at my reflection in the mirror. My face was clear, and my heart was perfectly still and calm.

A message arrived from Ronaldo just then.

"I know you're still angry with me, Liliana. I promise I'll make it all up to you once the wedding is over."

The wedding car passed through streets we had walked down countless times. The cake shop I loved was still bustling with a crowd, but the person who used to stand in line there to buy me treats was nowhere to be seen.

As the car crossed the bridge over the sea, it suddenly swerved into the guardrail and plunged into the water below. A helicopter, positioned nearby for this very moment, lowered a hoist to pull me to safety.

As I sat in the helicopter cabin, I gazed toward the spot where the car had vanished beneath the waves, feeling a profound sense of calm.

Meanwhile, at the wedding venue, Ronaldo was checking every detail over and over, ensuring that every arrangement was exactly to my liking.

But he didn't know that the bride he was waiting for would never arrive.