Selena Story

After the company's entire plane crashed and everyone on board died, we all found ourselves transported into a novel, tasked with winning the favor of a queen. The system's icy voice issued its prompt: [The queen's male consort possesses a voice as melodious as a lark's.] Our handsome secretary smiled with quiet confidence. That very day, he stationed himself along the queen's usual route and began to sing a modern pop song. The queen was thoroughly pleased. She summoned him onto her carriage. Our colleagues looked on with unconcealed envy. "Looks like the bonus is his." "How lucky. The queen is wealthy and beautiful. Not only does he get to spend the night with her, he'll make a fortune too." But the next day, we saw the secretary hanging from a tree in the royal garden. His body was completely naked, riddled with arrows, his eyes still wide open in death. The voice he had once cherished was now a vessel crammed with thick, crude bamboo spikes. At the same time, the system's cold notification sounded once more. [All challengers' lives have entered the countdown. Please complete your conquest as soon as possible.]

During the holiday, my six-year-old son received his cleft-lip surgery. He wore a mask and sat quietly in our family bookstore, engrossed in a picture book. A young man came in, pinching his nose dramatically as he swaggered up to the manager. "Why did you let someone with an infectious disease in here?" he demanded loudly. "Get them out!" The manager winced. "Sir, I'm sorry, but I don't have the authority to remove other customers." Undeterred, the man marched up to me. "Be wise and get out of here. My girlfriend is Imogen Slater, CEO of the Slater Group. You don't want to mess with me." I froze in stunned silence. Imogen despised all men except me, and this guy claimed she was his girlfriend.

I worked at a sales job and felt pretty good about my work. Then, Vivian appeared. She was a new intern with an insatiable curiosity for others’ private affairs. On Valentine’s Day, my husband, Henry Ambrose, bought a million dollars’ worth of bags from me to help me meet my sales target. Just as I left work to meet him for a date, Vivian sent a snide message. [Your Fitbit just logged an extra thousand steps. That’s literally the exact distance to the hotel next door. Nice work, Lily! You close a million-dollar deal and immediately head to the hotel with the client?] I coldly fired back, [If you’re this desperate to stalk people, you should’ve just joined the K-9 unit.] That very night, parcels of adult toys appeared on my doorstep. Vivian had written a nasty post that had gone viral, and things turned out like this! [This Salesgirl Slept With My Client and Stole My Million-Dollar Commission on Valentine’s Day!] A pair of my ripped silk stockings, which I had tossed in the trash, became her “proof” that I had seduced a client during work hours. Vivian was painted as the victim, while I was viciously smeared as a “salesgirl who slept with clients for commissions.” What Vivian did not know was that Henry was actually a leading researcher worth billions. I only took the sales job because I was bored and wanted to experience something new.

When I was seven years old, my father began subjecting me to extremely strict parenting. Not only did he withhold any support for my food, clothing, housing, or daily necessities, but he even charged me for drinking water in our own home. As a child, I endured relentless suffering and bullying. When I was critically injured by a vehicle that broke the law, I was severely injured, and my father refused to save me. Only after my death did I learn the truth that he already had a son somewhere out there. Everything he did to me was meant to drive me to my death. After rebirth, I no longer adhered to rules nor endured silently. Exploiting the fact that I was still a minor, I stabbed his secretary, bullied my classmates at school, and even set a fire on campus to force my father to give up on his brutal methods. When I grew up, I took everything he owned and sent him to prison. Only then was my revenge completed.

Right after finishing a meeting, I opened a forum and saw a warning post. The location tag was our company. The title read: “Red flag! What a cheap company. Anyone who joins is a total sucker. They can’t even afford a decent coffee break.” The photo attached showed the expensive coffee and five-star desserts I had just asked my assistant to distribute to everyone. I frowned and tagged the entire group chat, asking if anyone had suggestions about the afternoon tea. A Gen-Z intern who had just joined, Julian Hayes, instantly replied with a voice message: “Boss, no offense, but these assembly-line desserts are full of trans fats. Nobody would eat them.” “A truly humane company hires a Michelin chef to cook and slice everything fresh on site. That’s what real respect for employees looks like.” I laughed in disbelief. Our company’s daily coffee break budget was thirty dollars per person—already considered top-tier in the industry. So I replied, “Since it’s impossible to satisfy everyone’s taste, we’ll cancel afternoon tea from now on and convert the budget into cash for everyone instead.” Less than five minutes later, that post was updated: “Guys, can you believe this? I made a perfectly reasonable suggestion and the lame boss immediately canceled the whole coffee break perk! This is the true face of corporate greed—can’t handle even a little bit of honesty!”

My dormmate falls in the dorm and sends the rest of us the hospital bill. She wants us to compensate her. "I only fell because you guys left a puddle of water at the door. It's only right that you compensate me, don't you think? It's not much—you each just have to give me a thousand dollars to cover the checkup, medication, transport, the classes I missed, and the mental distress I suffered." I exchange looks with my two other dormmates. All three of us politely decline. That's when she goes berserk. She screeches threateningly, "Do you know who my father is? I'll make sure you guys can't graduate if you don't compensate me!"

On the evening of her wedding anniversary, Diana walks into her own home carrying groceries and hope, only to realise she has already been replaced. Replaced by her daughter’s school teacher – Lauren Johnson. “You threw her a birthday party in my house?” Diana asked, her voice shaking. “On our wedding anniversary?” She’s rejected not only by her husband, but by her own daughter too. “Miss Lauren, can you please be my Mommy?” Selena cried. “I hate her!” She pointed at her mother, her little eight-years-old voice betraying her age. Every sacrifice finally reveals itself for what it was: slow erasure. When Diana places a file in Henry’s hand and says, “Sign this,” she is done begging. She walks away quietly. Only then does the house feel empty. “Where’s Mommy?” Selena asks as they returns not able to find Diana anywhere in the house. What happens when Henry discovers the document he signed was actually their divorce paper? Will he be able to cope with Diana gone? How about Selena – their daughter, what becomes of her?

Selena Collins leads an unremarkable life or so she believes. As an overworked and underpaid secretary at Vermillion Cyberspace, she’s long accepted the monotony of her days and the brooding presence of her enigmatic boss, Theo van Gogh. But everything changes the moment she collapses from exhaustion and hits her head on his desk. Upon waking up in the hospital, she begins seeing things that shouldn’t exist... ghosts, demons, angels, and creatures that seem far too aware of her presence. Then comes the impossible. Theo visits her with a revelation that completely made her brain reboot. Theo isn’t just her boss now. He’s her familiar. And Selena—confused, concussed, and utterly unprepared—is the next chosen successor of a forgotten land god. Theo bows 90 degrees, coldly defiant. "I do not acknowledge you as my master. So if you die in the process of completing your missions, it would bring me joy." Now thrust into a world where mythology bleeds into modernity and ancient contracts awaken from dormancy, Selena must uncover why she was chosen and survive long enough to earn her own name in a realm that remembers everything.

Being young and naïve, she was just that open-minded and what she desired was not something much but to be with that one person she strongly admired. Having a crush on someone she couldn’t easily attain; Selena could only watch as a spectator and pray for her beloved to smile at her even if he didn’t mean it. Dreaming to become strong, happy, and live with the people that she loves, meeting him changed everything. Her naiveness and her love for him made her muddleheaded that she unknowingly fell into a trap that he made for her. Selena found herself living in the dream she never thought she will be, having a contract marriage with the man of her dreams, falling for him deeply every single day, she knew that she was done for. However, despite the circumstances that brought the two of them together, Selena wasn’t going to just give and be comfortable with what she had. What she wanted was his heart, soul, and body and no one was going to stop her from being with the man she sets her heart on. Who cares if she is poor? As long as her heart is rich with love, she was satisfied with that.

I'm severely allergic to many things, so my husband buys a separate villa for me. It's supposed to be sort of a nursing home. When my future daughter-in-law learns about this, she thinks my son is cheating on her. She breaks my bones to vent her anger. When she finds out I'm her future mother-in-law, she caresses her belly and looks at me smugly. "I'm already pregnant with Shawn's child. Think about whether you want this child to make it into this world." What she doesn't know is that the Ziegler family's fortune belongs to me and that Shawn Ziegler is only my adoptive son.