Catching sight of Sera and me standing under the streetlamp, Chloe narrowed her eyes into a venomous glare.

"If you dare utter a single syllable of this to my mother, you are dead meat."

She directed the threat explicitly toward Sera.

We stood frozen until her silhouette had completely dissolved into the distance.

Only then did I speak up:

"Was that guy just now her boyfriend?"

Sera shook her head helplessly.

"I honestly have no idea."

During the critical high school entrance examinations, Chloe had failed spectacularly to secure admission into our elite academy.

Her father had ultimately weaponized his immense wealth to bribe her way into a notorious private institution.

Consequently, she didn't share the same campus environment as Sera and me.

My mind involuntarily drifted back to the tragic trajectory of Chloe's life in my previous existence.

Dropping out of school at fourteen, being manipulated and ruined by a thug at fifteen, giving birth to a child at sixteen, and having a kidney harvested while working odd jobs at seventeen.

She was fifteen years old in this current timeline. Though she hadn't dropped out of school, she had nonetheless entangled herself in a reckless romance with a street delinquent.

If things continued to spiral along this exact path...

I shook my head violently, telling myself that I was overthinking matters that were no longer my concern.

19

With Julian away from the house for the past couple of days.

The grand dining table was occupied solely by Mrs. Judith, Mr. Joseph, and myself.

Uncle Joseph's corporate responsibilities typically demanded his constant presence elsewhere, rendering his appearance at the dinner table tonight an absolute rarity.

In accordance with his usual routine, he inquired gently about my recent academic pursuits and my stellar midterm performance.

Auntie Judith, as always, maintained an absolute lack of interest in my academic grades. Her sole focus centered entirely on whether my allowance was sufficient for my desires, a concern she immediately resolved by wiring an astronomical sum of money to my account.

Following the conclusion of dinner, my phone chimed with a call from Sera, who enthusiastically announced that she would be heading over shortly so we could tackle our homework assignments together.

Yet barely five minutes passed before her voice crackled through the receiver again, announcing that she could no longer make it because Chloe had demanded she deliver a jacket.

"Deliver what kind of jacket?"

"A heavy down coat. She went out partying with her friends and completely forgot to bring any warm outerwear. Now she's throwing a tantrum, demanding that I deliver it to her this instant."

"Alright then, I won't wait up for you."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Talk to you later!"

I smoothly wrapped up my homework assignments, scrolled through a handful of trending short videos, and was just preparing to head upstairs for a hot shower.

When Nanny Rose marched up the stairs, knocking softly on my door to inform me that a guest had arrived downstairs seeking my presence.

I glided down the grand staircase.

Only to find Christian standing in the foyer.

Beholding my solitary descent, his eyes instinctively darted to the space behind me before he pitched a quiet question:

"Is Sera not here with you?"

I frowned slightly, finding the query rather peculiar.

"She hasn't been over at all tonight."

The boy pondered the statement for a brief moment, giving a slow nod:

"I understand. My apologies for disrupting your evening."

I lifted my wrist to glance at the time, discovering that the clock was rapidly ticking toward half past ten.

"Have you not attempted to call her phone directly?"

Christian shook his head tightly.

"Her phone is completely powered off; the calls won't go through. Did Sera happen to mention where she was heading before she left?"

The details of our brief phone conversation flashed through my mind.

"She mentioned she was heading out to deliver a heavy coat to Chloe. Perhaps you should try placing a call to Chloe's number instead."

"Both of their devices are completely powered off."

The situation was shifting into an undeniably anomalous territory.

I racked my brain frantically, finally retrieving the exact address Sera had offhandedly muttered during our call.

"The Empress Lounge. I'll accompany you to check it out."

20

Having traversed two entire lifetimes, this marked the absolute first time my footsteps had ever entered such a deafening, chaotic, and wildly decadent establishment.

I hadn't anticipated that The Empress Lounge would be so staggeringly massive.

Beyond the roaring main dance floor and the crowded open booths, the first, second, and third floors were entirely packed with private VIP rooms.

Left with no other alternative, Christian and I were forced to conduct a frantic, door-by-door search of every single private lounge.

By the time we finally located Chloe, she was right in the middle of a rowdy drinking game with a horde of rowdy teenage boys, clenching a small green beer bottle tightly in her palm.

She was swathed in an incredibly skimpy, provocative dress that looked utterly inappropriate for a girl her age.

I harbored absolutely zero concern regarding her well-being.

My sole focus centered entirely on locating Sera.

Very quickly, my eyes locked onto her form.

She was slumped limply over the far edge of a plush leather sofa, locked in a deep, unnatural slumber that looked terrifyingly unresponsive.

Most alarmingly, her school uniform blouse had been completely unbuttoned, exposing her delicate camisole beneath.

A teenage boy with bleached yellow hair was lounging directly beside her, his hand slipping inside her undergarments, groping around.

A loud, violent buzz erupted within my brain.

Every drop of blood in my body instantly surged straight to my head in a blinding flash of fury.

In the very next instant, stripped of the capacity for rational thought, my hand instinctively clamped around a heavy bottle of imported liquor resting on the coffee table as I charged forward like a hurricane.

Crash!

I smashed the heavy glass bottle squarely over the blond thug's skull with ferocious force.

He stared back at me with an expression of absolute, stunned bewilderment.

And then.

A steady stream of dark crimson blood began to trickle down the center of his forehead.

The entire raucous VIP lounge instantly dissolved into a dead, suffocating silence.

Following a brief, paralyzed freeze, the blond delinquent wiped a hand across the blood smeared over his features, his face contorted with a monstrous rage.

"Fuck! You actually dare to strike me? You must be fucking suicidal, you little bitch!"

In a hysterical fury, he lunged violently in my direction.

Only for a heavy, devastating fist to connect squarely with his jaw.

Christian had delivered the blow.

The private lounge instantly erupted into a chaotic, violent melee.

Christian had undergone rigorous martial arts training from a young age, rendering his physical combat capabilities exceptionally formidable.

However, the opposition possessed an overwhelming advantage in sheer numbers, swarming over him in a frenzied huddle that prevented him from securing any real upper hand.

I rushed to Sera's side, frantically pulling her clothing back together, only to discover to my absolute horror that the clasps of her undergarments had already been forcibly undone.

An unquenchable, murderous wrath completely consumed my chest once more.

I spun around, gripping yet another heavy bottle of imported liquor, my eyes scanning the chaotic room to locate the blond thug's silhouette.

Locking onto my target, I marched over with cold precision and brought the heavy glass crashing down onto his skull a second time.

Crash!

Following the dull, echoing impact.

The blond delinquent's body swayed violently from side to side.

He clutched his bleeding head, his eyes ready to burst with a venomous, psychotic hatred as he glared at me.

"Fuck your entire lineage! I am going to fucking slaughter you today!"

Just as he prepared to lung forward to violently settle the score with me, his physical form suddenly lost all equilibrium, hurtling forward in an uncontrollable dive.

He crashed heavily onto the hard floor, face-first.

It looked exactly as though someone had delivered a ferocious, bone-shattering kick straight into his spine.

I lifted my gaze to survey the newcomer.

He had indeed taken a devastating kick.

And the individual standing over him.

Was Julian.

When on earth had he arrived back in the city?

Having been brutally stomped into the dirt, the blond thug's fury reached an absolute, unhinged crescendo as he screamed hysterically:

"Fuck your entire world! You goddamn brat, I swear to fucking God I am going to ruin you tonight!"

Julian strode forward with a terrifying composure, planting the heavy sole of his shoe directly onto the thug's bloodied face, grinding him into the floorboards as he looked down upon him like a grim reaper incarnate.

His gaze was a freezing void of absolute malice, the words slicing out from his lips like jagged shards of ice:

"If you ever let another filthy syllable escape that goddamn mouth of yours, I will personally rip it right off your face."