How Does 'The Magnolia Palace' End?

Post - Apocalyptic Horror | Action | Yuri Harem | 18+ | Rated R | Mature Content | Slow Pace It started with a kiss I don’t remember giving. A rooftop. A moan. Someone’s fingers buried in my hair like they belonged there. A mouth on my throat that said I tasted like something they lost in another life. I wasn’t dreaming. The city was already cracking beneath me. Power grids flickering like dying stars. Tech failing. Screens static. The sky bruising in strange new colors. Everyone said it was coincidence. Collapse. Noise. But I knew better. The moment I felt her breath on my skin — even if I couldn’t see her — I knew the end had already arrived. And I had something to do with it. Ten butterflies followed me after that. Not literal ones. Not always. They shimmered in my periphery. Each the wrong color. Each too vivid. Each drawn to me like heat to blood. They touched me in dreams. They watched me when I undressed. They whispered without words. I could taste their want. Some called me cursed. Broken. Unstable. But the truth is simpler. I’m blooming again — and they all feel it. They don’t love me. They remember me. They remember what I used to be — what I still am, underneath the silence. One of them burned me with just a kiss. One broke my spine with kindness. One slid her hand under my shirt like it was always hers. One cries when she touches me. One never speaks, but her eyes dig. One wants to keep me. One wants to ruin me. And one just wants to finish what we started. They think I’m choosing. I’m not. My body already did. And now the bloom inside me is turning darker.

On my first day back with the Cannon family as the true heiress, I heard the voice of the family’s guardian spirit. “You must stop your father from investing in the West City project. There’s an ancient tomb beneath the site. He’ll lose everything.” I convinced my father, Aaron Cannon, to abandon the project and invest in North City instead. But a factory next to the North City site had a toxic gas leak. Dozens of workers died overnight. Aaron lost his entire fortune to the compensation. While the family was drowning in despair, the guardian spirit spoke again. “Money can be earned again, but it’s a pity your mother will die in a car crash tomorrow when she goes out to borrow money from an old friend.” I immediately stopped my mother, Sally Cannon, from leaving the house. She avoided the car accident but tragically died from a sudden heart attack. With tears streaming down his face, Aaron told me she had been having chest pains for days but had endured the pain. She had only decided to go to the hospital today because she could not bear it any longer. My blood ran cold. By stopping her from going out, I had ultimately caused her death. Overwhelmed with grief, Aaron drank pesticide and died on the spot. Overnight, there was no one left in the family but me and the fake heiress, Pearl Cannon. To repay the debts and support my education, Pearl took on three jobs a day. Then, the guardian spirit spoke to me once more. “Your sister has been dragged into an alley. Go save her now!” I rushed to the location. I arrived breathless and frantic, but I was already too late. My sister lay in a pool of blood. She was not breathing anymore. I thought, ‘Mia Talbert, it’s all your fault! You’re a curse. You should’ve died instead!’ Consumed by despair, I jumped from a tall building and ended my miserable life. When I opened my eyes, I had traveled to the past.

It's been three years since I went against my family to be with my boyfriend, Marvin Stuart. At last, my parents have finally agreed to let me marry him. I rush back to our place at once, eager to share the news with him—only to end up overhearing his conversation with his childhood friend, Camellia Hough. "They're redeveloping the area where my family home is, and we're going to get a huge buyout payment! You can finally abandon that loser and officially be with me now," she declares. "You wouldn't have had to settle for being with her if my family hadn't gone bankrupt back then." Marvin agrees to it right away. "I'll lie to her, saying that my family is in debt, so that she'll break up with me. Let's get married right after that." I swallow down the words I'd been prepared to say and calmly enter the house. Marvin turns to me with a sorrowful expression. "My family owes a debt of five million dollars. I don't want you to have to suffer with me. Let's break up." I nod. "Sure." Soon after, I sent my parents a text. "You don't need to transfer the three buildings to Marvin anymore. Also, call off the redevelopment project on the south side of the city." Since Marvin wants to break up with me, I'll grant him his wish. As it stands, we've always been from two different worlds.

The day my brother, Chester Rodney, came to the orphanage to take me home, my boyfriend Dominic Huxley looked at me coldly and said, "If you choose to acknowledge your birth family, we're over." I knew he had his pride—he could never accept the difference in our social standing. So, for him, I turned my back on the family I had yearned for my whole life. In the decades that followed, I toiled without complaint, saving every cent to help him rise to success. By the time I was not yet fifty, overwork had worn me down. Lying on my deathbed, my breathing shallow and weak, I watched Dominic on television. He was now an acclaimed scientist, just awarded the nation's highest research honor. Tears welled in his eyes as he thanked another woman. "All these years," he said, "I never felt worthy of Alicia. But now, maybe I can use this award as the prologue to a love I've owed her for decades." The "Alicia" he spoke of was the woman mistakenly switched with me at birth—the false heiress the Rodney family raised as their own. The camera zoomed out. Alicia Rodney stood radiant, graceful, and perfectly preserved by years of luxury, blushing as she accepted the trophy. "I waited for you for decades," she said sweetly, "but marriage is still something I'll need to ask my brother about." Chester, who had long taken over the family, looked at her with an indulgent tenderness tinged with something unspoken. "I was adopted by our uncle back then for one reason—to protect Alicia. Making the only princess of the Rodney family happy has always been my life's mission." Only then did I realize—everything I thought I had chosen freely, every sacrifice I made without regret, was nothing but a trap, carefully woven by two men, all for Alicia. The betrayal pierced my heart. I died without peace. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Chester came to take me home from the orphanage. I glanced past the two men eyeing me with subtle disdain. Without hesitation, I stepped into the car. "Take me home," I said. This time, I'd send whoever stole my life back to the gutter they slithered from.

After five years of marrying into the Loween City in place of my sister, the Gambling King finally passed away. My son and my ex-husband—at long last—gave me permission to fake my death and return to them. But they laid down three conditions. First: kneel before Vivian Gray, apologize for framing her all those years ago, and surrender my place as Mrs. Hartwell. Second: work as a live-in maid for my own son for five years, and never show up at his school in my former identity as the reigning queen of the nightlife scene—lest I embarrass him. Third: drink an abortifacient to destroy my fertility forever, as recompense for the infertility I once caused Vivian. "My lady, you've endured five whole years just to earn your freedom—how dare they humiliate you like this?" My maid's eyes were red, burning with indignation on my behalf. But I just tipped my head back and swallowed the death-faking pill, letting the servants toss my "corpse" into the overgrown brambles beyond the city limits. Then, from the mud and weeds, I crawled back to the Hartwell mansion—one knee at a time. Day one, I knelt as ordered and signed over custody of my son without a fight. Day three, I locked myself in the storage closet and stopped showing up at school to pick my son up like I used to. I also stopped pestering him to call me "Mom." Even when Vivian—knowing full well I'm terrified of the dark—deliberately trapped me in the basement, I bore it in silence. By the time my ex-husband Nathan Hartwell saw me again, I was barely hanging on. For the first time, a flicker of panic crossed his face as he carried me out of that basement. But my son just sneered. "It's just another stunt to win our sympathy." When he caught the tears welling in Vivian's eyes, Nathan coldly dropped me to the ground. "Always scheming against Vivian with your dirty tricks—aren't you tired of it?" Right then, the system chimed in my ear: [Please proceed to the "disposable ex-wife death node" to complete the story line and return to your original world.] I let out a quiet laugh. "Not tired at all." And with that, I turned and dove straight into the swimming pool beside me.

The day I won the eight-million-dollar East Harbor renovation bid, I handed the lead role to Grace Whitman, Ethan Hale’s childhood sweetheart. Ethan thought I had finally learned to be sensible. He happily told me he was taking me to the Maldives for our wedding anniversary. Grace found out that night. She pretended the pressure from work was too much and cried uncontrollably. Ethan panicked so badly that he canceled a board meeting, stayed with her for three days, then called our anniversary trip an emergency client visit and gave Grace the second ticket. When he called me, his tone was still calm, almost entitled. “Sofia, we can talk about emotional stuff later. The company comes first right now. Grace has never handled a project this big on her own. I need to be there with her.” “You’re my wife. You should understand.” I sat alone in our empty apartment and looked at the photo Grace had just posted. In the private airport lounge, Ethan had draped his jacket over her shoulders. Their knees almost touched. Her caption read, [Some people never have to say love. They just show up first, every time.] I didn’t question him. I didn’t cry. I only replied, [Okay.] Ethan probably thought I had finally learned my place. Satisfied, he promised that when he came back, he would give me an even better anniversary. What he didn’t know was that I had already submitted my resignation to Hale Creative. And he didn’t know that the document he had signed three days ago wasn’t a project authorization form. It was our divorce agreement. By the time he realized what he had lost, I was no longer Mrs. Hale. I was Sofia Bellandi again. And Bellandi women do not beg for seats at tables they built.