Scumbag System

She placed her faith in a scumbag in her past life, leading to the destruction of her family. After being tormented in an asylum for three years, she was burned to death by the wicked mistress. She's reborn with a heart of hatred and taken back to when it all started. From that day on, the woman that everyone thinks is naive and dumb becomes ruthless and harsh. She's the calculating heiress to a company, a mysterious hacker, and a top star. She stomps all over her scumbag ex and his mistress. Rumor has it that a certain ruthless CEO gets into a flash marriage with a mysterious woman and dotes on her to no end. The online community tries to dig up her identity—all they find is that it's still her!

My husband, Trent Bradford, is a paranoid supermale who has only had eyes for me just because I saved his life during an accident. Using his status and money, he had my former fiancé sent abroad before forcing me into marrying him. After that, he forbade me from having any sort of contact with other men, even going so far as to make me wear a bracelet with a tracker embedded inside. Even so, he would shower me with nothing but love and would not tolerate anyone hurling insults at me. For example, he cut off ties with his elder sister, Lucy Bradford, and sent her away to a slum because she said I reeked of poverty. On one occasion, he even attacked Tess O'Neil, his childhood friend, and poured wine all over the latter for her purposely spilling some on me prior. Still, I couldn't bring myself to love him despite all he's done. In the end, he decided to undergo a reverse vasectomy so that he could make me stay. However, Lucy barged into our villa with a bunch of people on my first trimester. She wanted to make me lose my baby and said I was a disgrace to the family. Fortunately, Trent showed up when I was most vulnerable. Holding the evidence that Tess gave her, Lucy said, "Step aside, Trent! That baby inside of her isn't yours, but another guy she's been having an affair with! I have taken care of her for you!"

My fiancé's childhood sweetheart could eat chili peppers like they were nothing, and she even claimed that they tasted sweet. The truth was, whenever she ate something spicy, the heat multiplied a hundred times in my stomach and shrank to almost nothing in hers. That was how she blew up online doing spicy food challenges, pulling in millions of followers in no time. As for me, I ended up with a wrecked stomach and a face covered in breakouts. I had no choice but to ask my fiancé for help. Not only did he refuse, but he also tried to have me committed. "Who still believes in this kind of nonsense? Either see a therapist or go check yourself into a psych ward!" Later, she entered a national spicy eating competition. After downing ten pounds of ghost peppers, she walked away just fine. Meanwhile, I died on the spot from a ruptured stomach. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment Sally Wallaker had just started streaming. I reached out and snatched the utensil from her hand. "I'll take this whole bowl of extra-spicy Cajun wings."

When the kidnapper fired the gun, I shielded Scott with my body. The bullet pierced my heart, and I was sent overseas to have my heart exchanged with an artificial one—one that ran on a battery. Because of this heart, Scott married me, and my friends congratulated me for finally having my wish granted, for finally marrying my childhood sweetheart. Later, when I laid there on the operating table with my chest cut open, he was kissing another woman under the moonlight. I didn't react to this in the slightest, recovering my heart in silence. Scott resented my numbness, grabbing my shoulders as he demanded, "Wendy, aren't you angry about this?" He didn't know the reason, and to be honest, it was quite simple. Why be angry when my heart was on the verge of giving out? Every passionate day he spent chasing after love… Was another tick in the countdown to the end of my life.

The afternoon my critical condition notice was issued, Silas Stenson popped a bottle of champagne in the lab. On social media, a photo showed him and Wynter Keller standing side by side in the golden sunset, their white coats bathed in light. The caption read only one line—'Ten years—it finally worked.' Everyone said he was devoted, that he'd spent ten sleepless years trying to save me. When the nurse, her eyes red, showed it to me on her phone, I was staring at the wavering lines on the monitor. No one knew that the drug had already been perfected a year ago. And I was the only candidate who wasn't allowed to receive it.

When my mother-in-law was poisoned and clinging to life, my toxicology knowledge was her only hope. I ended the call and grabbed my coat, ready to rush to the hospital. My husband blocked my path. "Hold on! It's the opening of Ella's haunted castle today. You're bailing to play ghost?" I stared at him, telling him about the dire situation. The poison needed to be neutralized within thirty minutes, or it would be fatal. He rolled his eyes. "Your janitor mom can drop dead for all I care. I'll toss some Monopoly money on her grave if it shuts you up. Don't try to cross me here." His best female friend draped herself over him. "In a hurry to chase some side guy? Girl, your face is longer than Herbert's when he is all revved up. Right, buddy?" Their shamelessness was almost laughable. The kicker? Herbert thought it was my mom dying.

When she married Harry Slate, she was 22 years old while he was 32. During their three years of marriage, he showered her with endless tenderness and would give her anything she wanted. He said he could pick the stars for her if she wanted, even the moon if she so wished. He spoiled her like she was a precious treasure. The only thing was that he had insatiable demands every night. He would chuckle and refuse to let her go, even when she cried and begged for mercy. She knew Harry had a lot of money and a lot of love—and all of it belonged to her. The day her father passed away, she called him 99 times, yet he declined every single one. The next second, she received a photo taken by her best friend. [Celine, is this your man? I saw him hugging a woman on the streets of Palto.] After tapping the photo and seeing the man and the woman, Celine Quest felt as though she had fallen into an icy abyss. The man was Harry, and the woman was her aunt.

For five years, I quietly supported my boyfriend, helping him rise from a lawyer's assistant to a partner at a top-tier law firm. At the annual awards ceremony, I was thrilled, ready to celebrate publicly and surprise him. But then, he walked on stage with a female coworker, their behavior cozy and intimate. "Cade owes his success to my brilliant strategies behind the scenes," Caitlyn boasted. Cade smiled, echoing her words, "Absolutely, without Caitlyn, I wouldn't be where I am today." The audience erupted in applause, congratulating them. I stood at the back of the crowd, frozen. Leaving the venue, I called my assistant. "Cut off all networking support for Cade Gilliam. End all cooperation. That shady case he took on? Stop smoothing things over. Let him face the consequences."

Christmas Eve was meant to be the culmination of seven years of long-distance longing—the day Lorenzo finally slid an engagement ring onto my finger. Instead, a sudden emergency surgery chained me to the operating table. The patient wasn't just suffering from a premature delivery and catastrophic hemorrhaging; she was riddled with infections, the biological fallout of a reckless, hedonistic lifestyle. The girl on the table spat out orders with a venomous entitlement that made my blood run cold. "My husband is the head of the Corleone family. He’s second to none, and this entire city bows to him. If you can’t save my baby, you’re all dead." My mind went blank. There was only one head of the Corleone family: Lorenzo. "You’ve got the wrong man," I said, my voice wavering despite my frown. "The news said he’s already engaged to a woman from a rival family for a strategic alliance." The girl looked at me as if I’d just told a pathetic joke. She surveyed me with a mocking sneer. "Oh, he’s mentioned that woman. He said she’s like a cold corpse—that even touching her makes him sick to his stomach. She doesn't provide him a fraction of the pleasure I do." She smirked. "He heard something happened to the baby. He’s en route from Sicily right now with his personal detail." She flicked her phone screen open. There it was: a photo of her and Lorenzo, locked in a suffocatingly intimate embrace. I froze. A second later, a notification from Lorenzo vibrated against my palm. “Darlin’, something urgent came up tonight. I’m skipping the engagement dinner. I’ll make it up to you later.” Since they were so utterly in love, I decided to give them exactly what they wanted. I dialed a number that had been silent for three years—the number of the true mastermind of the underworld, Don Sebastian. "Does your proposal from three years ago still stand?"

I accidentally saw a notification pop up on my husband’s phone saying that an automatic transfer had been completed when I was using it for navigation. Immediately after that, his ex-girlfriend, Wanda Blake, sent him a message on WhatsApp: [I’ve received this month’s 10,000 dollars for child support. Thank you, Koah. I don't know what I would have done without you.] I froze. “Child support? “Koah, you told me that the money you send every month was for medical expenses for your mother’s treatment!” Koah Quinn’s expression stiffened as he explained, “Honey, don’t misunderstand. I just felt that life has become really hard for her because she’s a woman raising a child on her own. Her ex-husband refuses to pay child support, so I wanted to help her out…” I touched the old watch on my wrist. The one I had not replaced in years to save money, and felt extremely disappointed. “Your monthly salary is only 6,000 dollars. Where did you get so much money to send her?” He was silent for some time before finally admitting. “I used the money we had set aside for the new house’s downpayment.” I was stunned. He had taken the money my parents had scrimped and saved for decades for me as downpayment for a home and then transferred it to his ex-girlfriend as child support.