Independence Library Apartments

The world was divided into the mortal realm and the divine realm. The Rain Clan belonged to the divine realm. They could hear the prayers from the mortal realm. The Rain Maidens would bring rainfall to the mortal realm through prayers. They could ascend to heavens through cultivation. In the Rain Clan, every rain maiden was born with a dragon who would ascend with her and become her mount. When my sister and I were born, we shared only one spirit beast—a white dragon. The white dragon was the lowest of all dragons, yet I ignored the clan’s objections and insisted on forming a bond with him so that we could ascend. However, on the day I succeeded in calling the rain and married him, he shot an arrow straight through me while I was pregnant and at my weakest from summoning rain. As I lay dying, I saw him rush toward my sister. “Leigh, now I can finally be with you forever.” Only then did I realize the white dragon had chosen me under pretenses to help Leigh ascend. When I opened my eyes again, he and I had both returned to the day of our bond. There, he learned that Leigh was the true heir to the Rain Goddess mantle. He dropped to his knees and loudly confessed that he had always loved Leigh, and that he wished only to be her mount. Everyone knew I had spent half my cultivation to save him when he first hatched. I smiled and pointed at a mottled green snake at the edge of the barrier. The white dragon thought that as long as he bonded with my sister, he would ascend. However, what he never knew was that without me, Leigh could never ascend.

In the eighth year of helping Keith Hunter pay off his debts, I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. I tested the waters and asked him, half joking, "If I got cancer, would you save me?" He laughed, saying I was overthinking it. Then he added firmly, "If it ever came to that, I would sell my blood to pay for your treatment." I lay awake all night, tossing and turning, still feeling like I couldn't drag him down with me. Before taking a sleeping pill, a notification popped up on my phone about a social media post. [How do I dump an older woman who paid off my debts for eight years without too much drama?] The profile picture looked eerily like Keith's silhouette from behind. He wrote, [Eight years ago, my family went bankrupt. She stuck with me, living off dry toast and squeezing into a rented apartment. She helped me pay back over 600 thousand dollars in debt. [Back then, I thought she was innocent and cute. Now, I feel like she's just a materialistic woman putting on an act. [Last month, she even asked whether I would save her if she got cancer. How does someone even ask that? [Obviously, she was trying to get money out of me. Good thing I didn't tell her that my family recovered three years ago. [Now, my family has arranged a fiancée for me. She's the daughter of a publicly listed company. [I want to cut things off with my girlfriend, but I'm afraid she'll cling to me. After all, she wasted a lot of her youth on me.] By the time I finished reading, I had crushed the stomach cancer diagnosis in my hand into a wrinkled mess.

Upon hearing about my husband's surgery, I braved a typhoon and torrential rain, driving four hours back to the city. When I arrived at the hospital, my husband, Xander Gray, was lying on the hospital bed, calling out loudly, "I want my wife! Get my wife here!" His buddies around him joked about how his wife had him completely whipped. Everyone said he loved me to death. Blushing, I walked over with a happy smile and held his hand, saying, "I'm here." To my surprise, he shook off my hand in disgust and snarled, "Get lost! You're not my wife! My wife is Beverly Long!"

My boyfriend’s cousin went to live at his place after her divorce. Not only did she have a five-year-old, but she was even pregnant. She regarded my boyfriend as her support as if it were her right and blamed me for everything. She thought I had taken away her cousin. At a family gathering one day, her son splashed a drink at me and yelled, "You’re not allowed to steal my dad!"

After five years with Nathaniel Sinclair, Sylvia Garner thought their love would lead to a lifelong commitment. But when Nathaniel postponed their wedding, her world began to crumble. At a private club, Sylvia stumbled upon a scene that shattered her heart—Nathaniel down on one knee, proposing to another woman. “You’ve been with Sylvia for five years, but now you’re suddenly marrying Vivian Hayes. Aren’t you afraid she’ll be upset?” someone asked. Nathaniel shrugged it off. “Vivian is ill; this is her dying wish. Sylvia loves me too much to leave.” The whole world knew Sylvia loved Nathaniel to the point of obsession, believing she couldn’t live without him. But this time, he was wrong. On the day of his wedding, he told his friend, “Keep an eye on Sylvia. Don’t let her know I’m marrying someone else!” His friend froze. “Sylvia is getting married today too. Didn’t you know?” At that moment, Nathaniel broke down.

Someone had sprinkled some corrosive acid powder all over my wedding dress, the one worth over a hundred million. The moment I put it on, my flesh began to burn and dissolve. Blood and yellowish fluid pooled around me as a result. When I tried to call for an ambulance, someone’s mother held me down. She smiled cruelly and said, “You dare steal my daughter’s wedding dress? Go to hell!” However, my husband had ordered the dress from a top designer. It was one of a kind! I struggled with all my strength and shouted at her, “Do you know who I am? How dare you touch me?!” Her daughter, Yelena Stone, then grabbed a knife and stabbed me hard in my pregnant belly. She sneered and said, “You stole my man, but you have the audacity to yell at me? Fine. I’ll just spend a little more to end your worthless life.” My worthless life? I laughed. My hands were stained with blood as I called my brother, Hunter Sinclair, an elite in Jinvell’s social circles. “Hunter! Someone’s trying to kill me! And tell Jacob to get here now!”

My mother-in-law brings a woman from the countryside. She looks like she's up to no good when she asks my husband and I to care for the woman. My husband is a mama's boy through and through. His gaze darts around, and he doesn't object to his mother's words. Is it a trend nowadays for people to serve mistresses on a silver platter? It looks like I'll have to do my best in "caring" for them, then…

My fiancé, Luca, dragged me along to a party with his crew. We had barely walked through the door before his boys were hounding him to play "Seven Minutes in Heaven." "Angelina, babe, come join us!" Fiona, Luca’s "best friend" from back home, called out to me with a smirk. I shook my head and slipped onto a barstool, my fingers nervously tracing the rim of my glass. I watched them huddle in a circle, drawing cigar bands with names scribbled on them. Luca drew Fiona. They shared a laugh before disappearing into the storage room behind the bar. "Seven minutes! Starting... now!" someone hollered, followed by a chorus of whistles. But seven minutes came and went. The door stayed shut. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty... I finally stood up, my heart hammering against my ribs, ready to see what was going on. Just then, I heard Luca’s friends whispering in a thick Sicilian dialect. "This American guy... her head is greener than a lemon tree in Palermo and she doesn’t even know it." "I bet Luca and Fiona are having the time of their lives in there right now." "Poor Boston girl. Look at her, sitting there like a loyal little dog. Hilarious." I froze. My blood turned to ice, and the air felt too thin to breathe. Suddenly, the storage room door creaked open. Luca walked out, wiping sweat from his brow, followed closely by Fiona, who was busy smoothing out her rumpled shirt. "Whoa, how was it? Seven minutes in heaven live up to the hype?" someone teased. Luca smirked, his eyes glazed with satisfaction. "Better. I didn't want to leave."

Benjamin Spencer took up the responsibility of raising Yvonne Johnson when her parents died during a holiday on the cruise. He took care of her, nurtured her, and gave her the care she needed. As time passed, Yvonne developed romantic feelings for Benjamin which he later found out. Astonished and dismayed, he decided to send her away. Five years later, she came back with a kid. What would be waiting for them in the future?

At the family dinner over the holidays, Elias Barrett has given all of our relatives and their children thick wads of cash. When it's my turn, he just frowns at me. "We've been together for so long. What's the point in going through the motions? You're the one managing the finances, so you can just withdraw what you need from the account." I merely nod without saying anything. But soon, I notice a text message from his bank popping out on the notifications' list. "You have transferred 1,430 dollars to Jamie Sutton. Remark: Babe, happy holidays. XOXO Elias." It turns out that Elias' anti-formalism rule is meant for me, not others. I don't bother starting a fight or throwing a tantrum. Instead, I just cancel the booking on my wedding venue that will be used next month. After that, I shred the kidney donation consent form meant for Elias into pieces. Once the holidays are over, I'm not going to extend Elias' life for him anymore.