Chapter 1
“Miss Ruan! We’ve finally contacted you! We’ve locked onto your location. I’ll be there to bring you home within three hours.”
On the phone, Ethan’s voice was as steady and reassuring as ever.
“Alright.”
After hanging up, I rinsed the bleeding wound on my forehead with cold water.
My reflection in the mirror was pale, but my eyes were no longer filled with the docility and confusion of the past five years. Instead, they were ice-cold.
My name is Aria Ruan, or rather, I finally remembered that my name is Aria Ruan.
The only daughter of the Ruan family.
After treating my wound, I came out of the bathroom.
Lucas was standing in the upstairs hallway, looking down at me condescendingly, still cradling the sniffling Yvette in his arms.
“Hey, Aria, if you’re not dead, stop pretending!” His voice was full of disgust.
“You could have dodged just now. Why did you deliberately hit the bookshelf? Don’t you know you scared Yvette? Come here and apologize to her right now!”
These outrageously shameless words pierced my heart like a steel needle.
I can’t believe I played the role of the submissive “Aria” for five years for a man like this.
Countless images flooded my mind like a tidal wave. The life that belonged to “Aria Ruan” was as clear as if it had happened yesterday.
Along with it came a surge of hatred.
Five years ago, I woke up from a car accident with no memory.
It was Lucas who held my hand and gently told me that he was my fiancé of many years, the only person I could rely on in my life.
I believed him, clinging to him like a lifeline as I returned home with him.
He not only erased my past but gave me a false identity, complete with a fake marriage certificate that now seems laughably absurd.
For five years, I cooked and cleaned for him, managed everything at home so he could focus on his career without worry.
I even ate nothing but plain noodles for a month straight to save money to buy him a nice watch.
I thought my devotion would earn his cherishment.
But everything that just happened made me realize that my five years of deep affection were nothing but an exciting game in their eyes.
Seeing that I kept staring at him without responding, Lucas’s face flashed with inexplicable panic, but it was quickly replaced by impatience.
He tossed out a sentence: “Hurry up and make dinner, Yvette’s hungry.”
Then he took Yvette back to the bedroom, no longer paying attention to me.
I looked down at my rough hands, hands that should have been playing the piano and painting oil paintings, now covered with calluses and small wounds.
With a cold laugh, I returned to my room and locked the door.
The time displayed on my phone screen showed two hours and fifteen minutes left until the three-hour deadline.
Alright, I’ll play along with you a little longer!
Lucas and Yvette came out of the bedroom to find an empty dining room and a cold stove. Their faces instantly darkened.
“Aria! Where the hell are you? Where’s dinner?” He angrily kicked open my door.
“I’m tired. I don’t feel like cooking,” I said.
Lucas looked as if he had heard the biggest joke in the world. “You’re tired? What could a woman who stays at home all day be tired from? Get your ass to the kitchen and make dinner!”
“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you let your ‘legal wife’ cook?”
“After all, I’m just a crazy woman who stole her nest, aren’t I?”
I threw Yvette’s words back at them. Lucas’s face alternated between shades of green and white.
He probably never expected that I, who had always obeyed his every word, would suddenly become so sharp-tongued.
Yvette crossed her arms and emerged from behind him, her voice dripping with sarcasm: “Lucas, darling, look at her attitude! What’s the big deal about asking her to cook? It’s like we owe her something.”
“I think you’ve spoiled her rotten these past five years!”
She turned to me, chin held high: “Aria, I suggest you remember your place. You eat our food, live in our house - isn’t doing some housework only right? Don’t be so ungrateful.”
I laughed, laughed so hard tears nearly came to my eyes.
“Your house?” I stood up and walked towards them step by step, my gaze fixed on Lucas.
“Lucas Lin, tell me, who does this mansion really belong to?”