Freak From Freak The Mighty

Feeling overwhelmed by loneliness, I installed a one-way mirror in the bedroom of the apartment next door, which I specifically rent out to muscular men. One day, through the mirror on the wall, I watched my tenant with his girlfriend, caught up in their fiery passion. I couldn't help but be drawn to his strong physique and impressive size. One day, I pulled him into a small, dimly lit cubicle with me...

My younger sister was crazy about novels and always envied the way ordinary heroines pick up penniless heroes and climb the social ladder. So, she started picking up men wherever she could. Until one day, a man with a face covered in sores collapsed at our doorstep. I instantly recognized the signs of syphilis and warned my sister repeatedly, and only then did she give up the idea. However, fate had other plans: my sister's best friend "picked him up" instead and married into a wealthy family. My sister held a grudge. On my birthday, she locked me in my room and set it on fire. No matter how desperately I begged, she refused to open the door. Outside, she sneered: "I know you're just scared I'll live better than you, so you want to drag me down into misery with you. People like you don't even deserve to be a sister!" I burned alive, my body reduced to nothing but ashes. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day my sister insisted on "picking up that man." This time, I quietly stepped back, letting her have her way—of course, I chose to let her succeed.

On my husband's birthday, I poured my heart into preparing a feast and selecting the perfect gift. Yet, he didn't come home. Instead, I received a picture message—a snapshot of him at the hospital, standing outside the OB-GYN ward, his hand resting tenderly on his childhood crush's belly. Beneath the photo, a message read: [The best birthday gift and a symbol of our decade-long bond.] Furious, I called her. "Don't you know he's married?" Before I could say more, my husband snatched the phone and lashed out at me. "Yvonne just wanted to share the joy of becoming a mother. Why are you overreacting? "Yvonne and I have been best friends for over a decade. Your petty jealousy is disgusting!" I once believed his busyness was for our future, but now I knew—he had been busy supporting the girl of his dreams through her pregnancy. Clutching my own stomach, I bit my lip to stop the tears from falling. Ten years of love had drained away. It was time to let go.

On Halloween night, an accident struck the haunted house attraction. The children and I were trapped in a pitch-black room, while the staff outside spoke without the slightest urgency. “At this hour, the repair workers have already gone home. If you want them to come back, you’ll have to pay an extra thirty thousand in overtime. “If you’re unwilling, then stay inside for the night.” I begged them to call the repair worker first. We had been in the sealed space for too long, and one boy with heart issues was struggling to breathe. But the staff member only scoffed. “That’s got nothing to do with me. He’s not my kid. Either pay, or sit quietly.” Yet later, outside the emergency room, that same woman knelt on the floor in tears, begging the doctors to save her own child…

Harry Pate fails in his plan to secure a fortune from my family. He tries to drug me, hand me over to his friends, and even film it to control me. Luckily, a kind netizen overhears him plotting with his mistress at a restaurant. The netizen posts a missing person alert online. "Please share widely. Looking for Freya White. Her boyfriend is trying to drug and assault her." I see the post and quietly pour the drug into the pot they are about to drink from.

The day my mom was beaten up for being a mistress, I slammed the family crest into my dad’s face. I had been studying abroad, and on my return flight, I came across a video. The title read, [Richest Family’s Heirs Defend Their Mom and Beat Up Mistress.] In the video, my mother was wearing coarse linen clothes while my brothers surrounded her. They were punching and kicking her. They even tore her clothes and cussed her out as a shameless mistress. Her eyes were teary as she desperately tried to explain. However, she was only met with mocking laughter. A stranger in haute couture stood shielded behind them, and she sweetly said, “Alright, I know you’re doing this for me, but we don’t need to waste our time on ungrateful people.” The surrounding guests showered her with birthday wishes and praised her for her graciousness. “This is the grace befitting Mrs. Roth! Do some people really not own a mirror at home?” “A mistress dares to call herself Mrs. Roth? Doesn’t she know the entire Roth family was built on her assets? Which part of her looks like a lady?” Hearing them call her “Mrs. Roth,” I clenched my phone, and the screen reflected my icy expression. I had only been away from home for three years. How did I not know that I had acquired such a despicable “mother”?

My younger fraternal twin brother finally gets a girlfriend. Our parents, who are overseas, entrust me with the task of welcoming her. I instruct the maids to prepare a feast to welcome her. As we sit around the dining table, my brother scoops a bowl of soup for me himself. After that meal, my brother's girlfriend pulls a long face at me. "Who gave you the right to eat the soup my darling scooped? How could you be so lazy? You can't even cook, yet you're not even embarrassed to stuff yourself with all that food!" I'm stunned by her outrageous words. I reply in annoyance, "What does that have to do with you anyway? I'll do as I please!" She glares at me with hatred written all over her face and yells, "Why aren't you married yet? The family's assets belong to me and my darling. Who do you think you are that you can spend our money? "Just look at you. You will never be able to get married like this. Perhaps it'll be better for you if you beg me to introduce my elder cousin to you. He doesn't mind that you're lazy. All he wants is for you to give him a son. He earns over ten thousand dollars a month!" I'm dumbstruck by her shamelessness. I storm straight to the bathroom where my brother is and bang on the door repeatedly. "Come out here right now! What is with your girlfriend? And since when have our family's assets become yours and yours alone?"

My brother-in-law, Benjamin Fallow, got trapped in a deep pit, so I grabbed some ropes and risked my life to climb down and pull him out. Just after I tied the rope around his waist, the line went slack and we both came crashing down. When I looked up, I couldn't believe my eyes. My wife, Celeste Fallow, had cut the rope. Meanwhile, her childhood friend, Vincent Jameson, grinned and egged her on. "Do it." Black-clad bodyguards started shoveling sand into the hole, trying to bury us alive. I grabbed the walkie-talkie and screamed up at her, "Celeste, your brother and I are still down here!" She sneered back. "Three years ago, during the quake, you left Vincent's brother trapped under the rubble for five days while you saved others. Now it's time to pay what you owe." Vincent shed crocodile tears and crowed, "Celeste, thanks to you, my brother's revenge is finally complete." With the sand already up to our ankles, I shouted at the top of my lungs, "Celeste Fallow, your brother is really down here with me!"

I had been dating Andy Lawson for five years. He had gone bankrupt, and during the worst of it, we had to sleep in parks and scavenge leftovers for food. After a hundred days of that life, I was just going to the blackmarket to sell some blood for money when someone sent me a video. [Surprise.] It was a livestream site, set up for rich kids to prank the common folk—and a video of me was pinned to the top. My finger trembling, I tapped on it and saw myself hidden in a corner of a park, munching on leftovers to nourish my frail body. On the split video, Andy was reclining against the armchair of a five-star hotel and savoring his gourmet menu. "Oh, this is amazing! All Andy has to do is say that he's sick, and she's selling her blood for him!" "On the sixteenth prank, she fell into the ocean… And on the fifteenth, she was sent flying in a car crash! Why is she so hard to kill?" "Well, Andy already made it clear that if she survives until the end, he will marry her and swear off women!" "One month to go! Will she die from the pranks, or marry into the Lawson family with pomp and circumstance?" "I'm betting fifty mil that she dies tragically! Hahaha!"

I’d just wrapped up a short trip with my daughter, Elara. On the way back, I figured I’d swing by the Hale, our family’s casino, to check in on my son, Cassian. Maybe grab dinner together. I didn’t expect to be mistaken for his latest fling. Correction: not mistaken—accused. Violently. “You think you can just waltz in here like some queen?” she hissed. “I’m the woman Cassian loves! What kind of whore are you? And is this your bastard daughter with him?” She locked us in the basement. No phone. No light. Just concrete walls and the stench of mildew and madness. Then came the fists. She slapped me across the face—again and again—until my skin stung and my ears rang. When that didn’t satisfy her, she pulled a gun and aimed low. The bullet tore through my knee. I bit back a scream, shielding Elara with my body. “You need to die, whore,” she spat. One of her men hesitated, “We should at least tell Mr. Hale first. If we are going to kill these two in his casino.” Lila of course said no. But that man brought Cassian anyway. My son stepped into this dark little room like it was any other Tuesday—until he saw me. His whole body went still. The blood drained from his face. And then, in the smallest, most broken voice I’d ever heard from him, he whispered, “Mom? What are you doing in my basement?”