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Chapter 4

Author: I.Winter
The wedding convoy was crossing a bridge over the river.

Lily and I sat in the back seat, while Adrian and Vincent rode in the stretch limousine ahead with Belle.

Their laughter and cheerful conversation crackled over the radio.

Suddenly, several runaway tractor-trailers came barreling down the wrong side of the road and crashed straight into the convoy.

Our car crumpled on impact and became lodged against the bridge railing, dangerously close to tipping over.

The river raged far below us.

Pain tore through me. I felt several ribs crack, and blood blurred my vision.

The limousine ahead had also been damaged, but not severely.

Adrian and Vincent leaped out of the car and rushed toward us like madmen.

They saw us hanging over the edge, while Belle screamed over a minor scratch.

“Adrian! Vincent! I’m so scared!”

Belle had only suffered a tiny scratch, yet she sobbed as if she were gravely injured.

In that moment, I saw it clearly.

The two men who had been rushing toward us came to a sudden stop.

They hesitated.

The system’s countdown sounded in my mind:

[The death-escape protocol has been activated. The vehicle will plunge into the river in thirty seconds.]

Lily’s face was covered in blood. She looked at Vincent and summoned the last of her strength to cry out:

“Vincent! Save me… The car is going to fall…”

Vincent shifted his foot.

But the next second, Belle screamed, “My heart hurts… My medication… It’s in the car…”

Vincent’s expression twisted instantly.

He gritted his teeth, turned his back on us, and ran toward Belle.

“Lily, hold on a little longer! Belle’s heart condition is acting up. I have to save her first!”

Adrian looked at me as well.

There was guilt in his eyes, but even more was the decision he made after weighing the consequences.

“Clara, you’re the older one. You need to be reasonable. I can’t allow Belle to get hurt. I’ll come back for you right away.”

Without hesitation, the two men ran toward the woman who had only been frightened.

Be reasonable?

Hahahaha.

I laughed aloud, tears mixing with blood as they trickled into my mouth.

We had been far too reasonable that we had even let death wait in line.

“Lily.”

I clasped my best friend’s icy hand.

“Look. These are the men we loved for ten years.”

Lily closed her eyes, a relieved smile touching her lips.

“I don’t love him anymore.”

[Countdown: 3, 2, 1.]

Just as Adrian and Vincent carried Belle out of the car, Lily and I exchanged a look through the shattered window.

Neither of us cried.

Ten years’ worth of tears had dried up long ago.

At the same time, we released our tight grip on the seat belts and leaned back into our seats.

We didn’t struggle.

We didn’t call for help.

We simply watched the two men running away with their backs to us, watched as they carefully shielded Belle in their arms.

It was exactly what they did every time over the past ten years.

“Lily,” I said softly.

“Hmm?”

“In our next lives, we won’t be doormats for men anymore.”

She smiled, blood glistening at the corner of her lips in the setting sun.

“We won’t wait for the next life. We’ll stop being doormats now.”

The car lost its final balance and smashed through the railing with a deafening crash.

As we plunged downward, I saw Adrian whip around.

The raw terror on his face was beautiful.

Too bad it came too late.

The freezing river swallowed everything in an instant.

Behind us, two anguished screams tore through the surface of the water:

“No!”

“Clara! Lily!”

Their voices were filled with terror and despair unlike anything they had ever felt before.

But none of it had anything to do with us anymore.

The river was ice-cold, yet it felt warmer than the hearts of those men.

In my mind, the system chimed cheerfully:

[Congratulations, Clara Lowe and Lily Shaw. Your mission to win them over has officially failed, but the death-escape protocol was executed flawlessly!]

[Initiating departure from this world…]

[Your ten-billion-dollar fortunes will be waiting for you in the real world. Congratulations, ladies. May you thrive on your own from now on!]

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  • We Quit the Mission and Inherited Billions   Chapter 10

    I scoffed. “System, hasn’t this idiot come to his senses yet?”The system cooperated immediately: [Playing the raw audio recordings.]The screen broadcast the real conversation Lily and I shared on that snowy night.“Clara, my knees hurt from kneeling.” It was Lily’s voice.“Hang in there. The system said playing the victim was the most effective strategy. After this round, our favorability should increase by ten points.” That was my voice.“Damn it. When we get back, I’m hiring ten male escorts to massage my legs.”“Make it twenty. Ten on each side.”A deathly silence descended over the Sinclair villa.Adrian remained frozen with one hand outstretched. It was as if someone had torn out his spine, leaving him crumpled in the snow.So, all that supposed devotion was nothing but an act.Every time we swallowed our pride and gave in, we did it as part of a calculation.The sincerity they treated as worthless had never existed in the first place.Even while they trampled all over our digni

  • We Quit the Mission and Inherited Billions   Chapter 9

    “Open another bottle.”Lily casually tossed the empty bottle onto the carpet. I stood up and turned the livestream volume all the way up.On the screen, Belle had stopped struggling.“She’s dead?” Lily scoffed, swirling her glass. “She really wasn’t much fun. We spent an entire night in that pool.”On the screen, Adrian finally moved.He did not try to recover Belle’s body. Instead, he turned around and walked mechanically back into the house like a puppet on strings.Vincent was still completely out of control.He knelt on the ground, trying again and again to piece together the shredded accident report.“It won’t go back together… It won’t go back together…”Vincent muttered to himself, all hope gone from his eyes.“Adrian! Don’t you dare walk away!”Vincent suddenly sprang to his feet, rushed over, grabbed Adrian by the collar, and punched him in the face.“This was your fault! You were the one who insisted on making them apologize!“If you hadn’t ordered the car to stop that day on

  • We Quit the Mission and Inherited Billions   Chapter 8

    In front of the screen, Lily and I raised our glasses and clinked them together.“That felt so good!”Lily laughed until tears nearly filled her eyes.“So they knew all along that something was wrong with what happened on the mountain. They just pretended to be fools.“Men only realize what’s real after they’ve lost something precious.”I watched Belle being forced beneath the icy water on the screen.Her piercing screams gradually weakened, and her face turned from deathly pale to blue.Wasn’t this exactly what we had endured on that winter night?Back then, the men on shore had fussed over Belle while we were left in the water, our hearts already broken beyond repair.On the screen, Adrian stood beside the pool, clutching the bloodstained diary I left behind.He found it inside a hidden compartment in my room.It recorded how I felt every time he abandoned me over the past ten years.[Year Three: This was the twentieth time Adrian had broken his promise because of Belle. The system s

  • We Quit the Mission and Inherited Billions   Chapter 7

    The front doors slammed shut.Two bodyguards dragged Belle back by the arms and threw her onto the shattered glass covering the floor.“Ah! It hurts!”Belle screamed as shards pierced her knees, blood spilling down her legs.But she ignored the pain and crawled on her knees toward Adrian.“Adrian, what happened? It’s me, Belle! Did these people tell you something? Don’t believe them! They’re trying to frame me!”Adrian looked down at her.His eyes no longer held affection. They burned with the hatred of a man who wanted to tear her apart.He bent down, gripped Belle’s chin, and gradually tightened his hold.“You claim your heart is sick? Then let me cut it open and see what kind of heart you truly have.”Belle trembled violently, tears and snot streaking her face.“Adrian… don’t scare me… I did it because I loved you! I only lied because I was afraid of losing you!“I never thought Clara and Lily would die! It was an accident!”“An accident?”Vincent walked over with a cold laugh, carr

  • We Quit the Mission and Inherited Billions   Chapter 6

    On our first day back in the real-world mansion, Lily and I lounged in silk robes, swirling glasses of 1982 Château Lafite Rothschild.A hundred-inch screen in front of us broadcast the aftermath of that world in real time.The system kindly turned up the volume.On the screen was the night Adrian and Vincent uncovered the truth.By then, seven full days had passed since Lily and I had “vanished without a trace.”“System, the picture quality is amazing.”Lily tossed a grape into her mouth, a mocking smile tugging at her lips.“Exactly. Billions in compensation still wouldn’t make up for ten years of misery if I didn’t get to watch those two tear each other apart.”I sipped my wine as the two men who had shattered our hearts turned on each other.The Sinclair villa was brightly lit.Adrian sat at the head of the table, clutching a thick stack of investigation reports.Vincent radiated murderous fury as he pinned a trembling middle-aged man beneath his foot.It was Belle’s attending phys

  • We Quit the Mission and Inherited Billions   Chapter 5

    Lily and I disappeared without a trace.Our car had plunged into the deep, swollen river, and with the flooding season in full swing, there was no chance of recovering anything.Adrian and Vincent went mad.The moment we disappeared beneath the river, it was as if someone had ripped their souls from their bodies.Adrian shoved Belle away, even forgetting that she was still clutching her chest and crying out in pain.He ran to the broken railing, his eyes bloodshot, and tried desperately to jump into the river.“Clara! Clara! I’m not saving Belle anymore! I’m coming to save you. Don’t scare me…”If the bodyguards hadn’t held him back, the golden boy of high society would probably have ended his life for love right then and there.Vincent dropped to his knees, digging his hands into the ground until his nails split and blood ran down his fingers.He stared at the churning river and muttered over and over:“It was a lie… It was all a lie… Lily was terrified of pain. How could she have jum

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