The Burning Village

“You’re actually keeping a woman this despicable around? If I were you, I’d have dumped her long ago!

“Mr. David, you’ve been so good to me. I’ll do this as a favor to you. I’ll kill her right now!”

My new boyfriend, Colin Grant, lunged at me, grabbed me by the throat, and pinned me to the floor.

I struggled desperately, but I was no match for him.

“Colin, murder is a crime!”

“Killing a woman like you is ridding the world of a menace!”

He paid my words no heed and even slammed his knee hard into my stomach.

A sharp pain shot through my lower abdomen, and I lost all ability to fight back.

My breathing grew weaker and weaker. I could even feel death closing in on me.

Colin finally let go. However, before walking away, he kicked me twice with all his might.

“You piece of trash, I’ll kill you sooner or later!”

After he left, I had barely crawled to my feet when my father, David Miller, kicked me across the room.

I did not fight back while he was beating me. It was pointless.

He was the village chief. No one dared to stop him when he laid a hand on someone.

He pinned me to the floor and beat me for half an hour.

I ended up breaking three ribs and two fingers.

I remembered clearly that this was the tenth time since I turned twenty.

Back when I had chosen a fiance and brought him home to pay respects to the shrine, every ex-boyfriend who had ever gone near the shrine had broken up with me afterward.

Some had even tried to kill me, like Colin earlier.

My dad always told people that I brought bad luck and that this was happening because I angered the deities.

To appease their wrath, he had to teach me another lesson.

Although I did not want to believe the altar really had that kind of power, the same thing has happened to so many of my boyfriends over the past ten years.

I had no choice but to believe it.

All of this made me even more curious about the shrine.

I could not help but message a few of my close friends to ask if they had heard of similar strange occurrences in their hometowns.

[No way. Everyone has to go inside our shrine to pay their respects.]

[We often hold events there, and I’ve never heard of anyone coming out of the shrine with a completely changed personality.]

[Poppy, did your dad do something with the shrine? He’s never liked you since you were little, has he? Why don’t you go inside and see what’s going on?]

I thought that was the best solution, too.

However, no matter how much I begged, my dad kept saying that the shrine was exclusively for men to pay their respects. I was not allowed inside.

If I asked too many questions, I would just get a severe beating.

However, he never did that before his two adopted daughters.

At one point, I even suspected I was not his biological child.

I secretly had a test done, though. The DNA results confirmed I was his biological child.

I even suspected that he hated me because he hated my mom.

However, my mom passed away many years ago. He had been alone ever since.

No matter who tried to set him up, he turned all potential partners down.

“The one I love most in this life is Margaret. I’ll never marry anyone else.”

Everyone knew my dad was deeply devoted to his wife and that he doted on his children.

No one believed what I said.

No one would believe he would ever want to beat me to death.

I had no choice but to call my grandmother.

She saw the bruises on my body in the videos I sent her.