Minamoto Talent Tree Novels & Stories

My studio's website receives an appraisal order worth 450 thousand dollars all of a sudden. The original poster of the order claims that this is a pre-wedding gift her fiance has gotten her. The comment section goes wild instantly. "If the appraisal fee alone is already 450 thousand dollars, does this mean the painting is worth 100 million dollars? Your husband really is generous to you!" "I'm so envious of you! You really are lucky to be able to marry such a rich man!" The poster quickly replies, "Luck has nothing to do with this. I fought for this fate with everything I had. I'll be frank with you; back then, my fiance still had a girlfriend. But everything I want in life will eventually be mine. "So, I slandered his girlfriend and pretended to be aggrieved just so my fiance's heart would go out to me. As time went on, his love for his girlfriend faded away. "In the end, all I have to do is lift a finger, and the girlfriend got her limbs crushed. After that, she got discarded like garbage." The Internet users post their replies of disbelief. There's no way someone will hurt their ex-girlfriend to this degree, after all. They all think that the original poster is being excessively dramatic. Someone even berates her for throwing a wrench into a relationship. Not only does she not feel ashamed, but she also finds it an extremely proud thing to have done. Even my assistant, Chiara Belmonte, tells me that this client seems like a nutjob and suggests that I decline this order. I don't say anything. Instead, I just tap "confirm". After all, what the poster said is the truth. The ex-girlfriend that she has described in her post is me.

After my younger sister went abroad, I married the mafia Don in her place. Five years after we married, we became each other’s greatest enemies. He hated me for driving my sister away and scheming my way into becoming his wife. I hated him for always treating me as a stand-in, never once acknowledging me in front of the world. My lack of status brought humiliation to my vain parents, and from that moment on, their love for me turned into hatred. In the end, he and my parents left me behind on a snowy mountain while celebrating Christmas with my sister. In the bitter cold, I died together with the child I never got to meet. Meanwhile, my sister basked in everyone’s love and had the happiest Christmas of her life. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day my sister returned from abroad. This time, I would not beg Gideon or my parents to love me ever again.

Everyone thinks I've lost my mind when I marry Bryan Sable. That's because I'm the daughter of the richest family in town, while he's just the owner of a small company. Everyone says he's only marrying me for my money. They don't know that he's willing to risk his life just to be with me. He also spent years pursuing me. On the day of the wedding, apart from the wedding ring, I also give him 99 free passes, saying, "If you ever upset me, you can use one of the free passes to cancel it out. But once you've used up all 99 of them, this marriage ends." Bryan swears he will never even use a single one of the free passes. But not long after we get married, he gets involved with his secretary, Roxy Upton. From that moment onward, the free passes get used up in rapid succession. He uses one when he misses my birthday party because of her. He uses another when I find a hickey left on his neck by someone other than me. It gets to a point where even our butler can't help but remind Bryan, "Mr. Sable, I think Mrs. Sable is upset right now. Are you sure you want to leave now to go to Ms. Upton?" But Bryan doesn't think much of it. "If she's upset, let her be upset. What's the worst that can happen? I'll just use one of the free passes. I've only used about 50 of them. I've got plenty of chances left." He has no clue that he only has three free passes left. And by now, I no longer kick up a fuss. I'm simply waiting for the day he uses up the final chance. I'm going to watch him dig his own grave, losing me as well as everything I've given him.

On my eighteenth birthday, the boy I'd secretly loved for years kissed me first. After a night of passion, I traced the marks on my skin and thought it was all a dream. I was ready to make it official. But the next day, my nude photos were plastered across the entire school. When I confronted him, Damien Ashford laughed with bloodshot eyes: "Blame your mother. If she hadn't turned a blind eye while those girls destroyed Rosalie, Rosalie would never have killed herself." "Now let's see — when her own daughter becomes the school whore, will she still just sit back and watch?" That was the moment I understood. Every tender word from the night before had been a weapon. In the end, my mother slapped me hard across the face and dragged me away. Years later, we met again. He had become the Don — the most powerful man in the underworld. And I was a dealer in his brand-new casino. He offered me up like a chip for other men's amusement, then claimed me himself after the game — the winner taking his prize. I didn't resist. Didn't struggle. Obedient as a puppet. But he froze. His eyes locked onto the stretch mark across my stomach.

Three years ago, my father marries me off to Evan Blackwell, the CEO of Blackwell Group, for the family's interests. Everyone thinks I'm done for because Evan is known for being ruthless and cruel. Yet, he's nothing but gentle to me, and he never raises his voice at me. He even has my initials, SH, tattooed on his chest. Every year on our anniversary, fireworks bloom across the city right on the dot. They spell out my name and the loving words he dedicates to me. On our third anniversary, the fireworks suddenly replace my name, Selena Holloway, with Serena Harroway. Before I can ask about it, Evan immediately calls his subordinates and tears into them. "What's going on? How could you mess up my wife's name? Do you want to lose your jobs?" I hastily tell him it's fine and that the thought is what truly matters. In the end, he lets them off the hook. However, he pushes me until my legs are shaking and my voice is gone that night. When I wake from the night that leaves my whole body humming, he's already seated at his desk and buried in work. He asks me to grab a folder for him, yet I open the wrong drawer and stumble upon an old photo album. It contains intimate photos of him and a young woman who looks strikingly like me. There's a confession on the back of every single picture. "I miss you so much, Serena."

My husband's true love goes missing. He traps me in a cave to make me repent for my sins. "Olivia would never have gone missing if not for you! You'd better stay in there and repent for your sins!" No matter how I scream and try to escape, I'm ignored. Ultimately, I die due to cobra venom. Unexpectedly, my husband loses his mind when he sees my body and the twisted look on my face.

In our five years of marriage, I had given in to my husband, John, for a grand total of three times. The first time was during my pregnancy. He had taken his ex-girlfriend Stacy, who had once taken three bullets for him, back home and cared for her. When I became angry, he immediately sent her away once she recovered. The second time was after childbirth, when I was ready to return to work. To repay a favor, he gave the position I had worked years for to Stacy. He said it was so I could rest well. I looked at my son, who needed me, and I conceded. The third time was during our son’s birthday. In front of the entire company, he had announced that Stacy was his wife, all so she could establish herself in the company. I gave him two choices: divorce or send her away. Without hesitation, he chose the latter and immediately sent her abroad. The fourth time was when my father suddenly had a heart attack and urgently needed surgery. He disappeared again. I searched everywhere for him to cover the hospital expenses, and I finally discovered that he had gone to the airport to pick up a pregnant Stacy, who was returning to the country. Because of that, my father missed the best chance for treatment and died. I was done giving in. I disguised the divorce agreement as our son’s medical bill and tricked him into signing it. No compensation or apology would matter. I did not wish to have him near my son or myself again.

Out of recognition for my achievements in the medical field, I've been made a member of the prestigious International Medical Institute. I return to the country after that. Yet, on my very first day at work, my niece, Angie Judd, ends up dying tragically in my ward. When she's found, the lower half of her body is covered in a sticky substance, and part of her uterus has dropped down. Her mother, Melanie Larson, has an emotional breakdown and jumps to her death. Her father, my adopted younger brother, Cody Judd, furiously stabs me in the abdomen. My wife, Serena Thompson, calls me a monster and immediately files for divorce. She ends up marrying Cody the moment the divorce is finalized. To make it up to Cody, my father, the police commissioner, uses his connections to forgo a proper investigation and have me imprisoned for sexual assault. My mother, the CEO of a company, takes it upon herself to transfer all of my assets to Cody. She also helps him become a renowned billionaire philanthropist in Crestbay. With no way of defending myself, I end up spending eight years in prison. The day I finally get released from prison, the entire family shows up at the prison entrance to wait for me. Serena, who's now my ex-wife, approaches with reddened eyes to hug me, but the look of concern on her face seems so fake to me. "All that matters is you've come back to us now, Hector. From now on, I'll always be by your side." The moment she finishes speaking, the nearby civilians swarm all around me. "Hector Judd! You got lucky with just an eight-year sentence! You should've been castrated and shot to death!" "That's right! To think you even hurt your own niece! You're a monster!" The endless torture and abuse I'd suffered in prison have left me feeling rather dazed. Eventually, a man who had once received financial aid from Cody rushes up and throws a bucket of sewage water at my face. "You monster! Mr. Judd even had to cancel his celebration party today just to welcome you home after your release from prison! You killed his wife and daughter, ruining his family, and now, you're even stealing the rest of the only family he still has? Go to hell!" Inhaling the putrid stench, I let out a sneer. They were the ones who falsified the evidence to throw me in prison back then. They broke my legs and injected me with a neurotoxic drug that addled my brain, making it impossible for me to protest. They did all of those things just to cover up the fact that Cody is the real murderer!

On New Year’s Eve, a poolside party was held at the hospital. There, my fiancee Valerie Charlton’s medical prodigy junior colleague, Cyrus Zeigler, drew the wildcard in a party game. His task was to select a woman from the attendees and enact an explicit scene in front of everyone. He scanned the crowd, and his gaze landed on Valerie. “Valerie, you’re about to get married. I know I can’t have you. So let me have this one time. Okay?” Valerie’s eyes welled up, and she was about to nod. I scoffed and tossed the unsigned medical equipment purchase contract onto the table. “You’d better think carefully. Either he gets lost, or your family’s hospital shuts down for good. Your choice.” Cyrus glared at me angrily when he saw that Valerie was torn with indecision. “Is it that Mr. Everest can’t take a joke? He’s already controlling everything you do before the wedding. After you get married, he’ll probably keep you in a cage.” Valerie calmed down. Then, she turned to me and said scornfully, “You are a grown man. Have some grace. What era are we living in? Do you have to flaunt your masculinity all the time?” I watched calmly as they walked toward the pool. Then, I turned and made a phone call. “Since she doesn’t care about this marriage, she can watch the Charlton family crumble.”

After wrapping up a book signing out of town, I received a message from a friend on the way home. "This personal trainer is something else. He can do all kinds of things with an exercise ball." He also sent me a Live Photo. In the Live Photo, a woman was lying on an exercise ball, pinned down by a man. Her hair was covering her face. In the Live Photo that was a second long, I heard a familiar moan. I called my fiancée. "Where are you?" Her voice was a bit hoarse, "I'm training with an exercise ball at the neighborhood gym, babe. I have a big surprise waiting for you when you get home." I snorted and said, real slow, "How about I give you a big surprise right now? Open the door!"