I used to be a top-tier deep-sea explorer, but now I just sell fish in a filthy market. Eight years ago, I was sentenced to life imprisonment for cutting off my companion's oxygen tube. After enduring eight agonizing years in prison, I was released early due to good behavior. Today, my family barged into my stall like maniacs, my parents dropped to their knees and wailed. "Chloe, your sister went diving two hours ago and hasn't surfaced. Something's wrong!" "You're the best diver in the world, get in the water and save her!" My ex-husband Liam pushed forward next, forcibly shoving our old wedding ring onto my finger, his voice cracking. "I promise you, Chloe, bring Mia back alive, and I'll remarry you." I didn't say a word. My fingers drifted up to the hearing aid tucked behind my ear. Had they forgotten? Eight years ago, their precious adopted daughter Mia killed a teammate underwater over gold bars from a sunken wreck. Liam made me sign the confession to protect her. My own father slapped me so hard he ruptured my eardrum permanently. If I dove now, the water pressure would burst a blood vessel in my brain. I'd die on the spot. "Chloe, don't push your luck!" Mr. Davis, the market manager, stormed over when I stayed silent. He'd been bowing and scraping to Liam and my parents, but the look he threw me was pure contempt. "The Liam Group and Grant Famliy pay more taxes than this whole district earns in a year! You think this shitty fish stall makes you somebody? Why are you playing hard to get?" The onlookers started jeering. "What a cold-blooded bitch! That's her sister." "Probably holding out for more money. Scum." "Looks decent, heart black as coal." Each word stabbed me. I was the victim. I was the one whose life they destroyed. Why was I still the villain? I pulled the ring off and pushed it back into Liam's hand. Then I pointed to the hearing aid and shook my head. "It's not that I won't. My ear is destroyed. I'll die down there." My mother Susan let out a shriek and threw herself into the bloody muck, pounding the ground. "Chloe! Eight years and you're still this heartless? Faking a disability to dodge responsibility? That's your little sister!" My father Arthur's finger trembled an inch from my nose. "How did the Lu family spawn something like you? Letting her die and lying about it—you're not human!" Liam's eyes burned red. He yanked a bank card from his wallet and forced it into my palm. "Chloe, I'm begging you. Five million. Enough to live on forever. Save Mia and name your price—anything." His hot tears hit the back of my hand and burned like acid. Eight years in prison, and he never visited once. Now he crawled back—for her. For the woman who framed me. Using money to humiliate what was left of my dignity. I couldn't take another second of it. Hands shaking, I pulled a folded medical certificate from my pocket—proof of severe eardrum perforation. Liam didn't even glance at it. He slapped my hand away, the paper fluttering into the fish slime. "You want more money? Is that it? I GAVE it to you! Mia doesn't have time!" Then Mr. Davis flipped my entire stall over, fish and ice crashing across the concrete. "Chloe, you murdering bitch! Get out! Don't contaminate my market! Refuse to save her, and you're done here forever!" The crowd spat on me. Literally spat. "Get out, murderer!" "Scum like her doesn't deserve to breathe!" I stared at the crumpled medical certificate soaking in fish blood, and something inside me cracked. All I wanted was to live quietly in a corner of the world. Was even that too much to ask? Were they really going to hound me until I was dead?
I ran. I don't remember how I made it back to my rented room through the rain of curses. I'd barely caught my breath when my phone exploded with notifications. Every single one was a trending topic. #Murderer Sister Refuses to Save Drowning Sibling# #Grant Family Heiress Missing, Biological Daughter Watches Coldly# #CEO Liam Offers Reward for Cold-Blooded Ex-Wife# I tapped the top link. It was Liam's livestream. Susan sat in front of the camera, voice cracking on cue. "I'm sorry everyone, I'm sorry for wasting public resources. But as a mother, I have nowhere left to turn. We failed to raise her right! ” ”Eight years ago she killed a man over gold, and I thought prison would change her. It didn't. Her own sister is dying in the ocean right now, and she RAN!" Arthur bowed deeply into the lens. "Please, help us find our daughter Chloe! The Lu family will pay one million dollars in reward—anything to drag that bitch back!" The comments scrolled like poison. "Dox her! Burn her!" "I know where she lives—west side slums!" "Any brothers in Haicheng? Go teach her a lesson!" "Grab your tools, let's go!" Before I could move, my door exploded inward. My landlord stormed in with a mob, phones raised, flashes in my face. "You're a murderer? Hiding in my building?" They smashed my pots, my dishes, everything. Two men grabbed my head and forced it toward a camera. "Kneel down!! Apologize to the livestream! Say you're a bitch! Say you don't deserve to live!" The humiliation crashed over me in waves. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Then the crowd parted. My parents stood in the doorway. For half a second, I thought they'd come to stop it. Then Arthur pulled a thick length of rope from behind his back and handed it to the mob. "Please—tie her up. If she won't go willingly, we'll drag her." I snapped my head up, voice breaking. "Dad? DAD—do you know what you're doing? I'll die in that water!" "Mom, isn't your real daughter's life worth ANYTHING? Are you really going to kill me for that girl?" Susan's eyes flickered, then hardened. "Shut up! Mia may be adopted, but she's a thousand times cleaner than you! While you rotted in prison, she took care of us, not you! " "Now she's in trouble and you, her sister, refuse to lift a finger? How do you live with yourself?" My chest was shredded, but somehow it still hurt more. In their minds, blood meant nothing. I was a stain. A disposable piece of trash. "I didn't kill anyone! There were things about that case you never knew—why would you never believe me?" I thrashed against the rope. Nobody listens to a murderer. Then Liam walked in, a high-voltage stun baton in his hand. "Chloe, don't make me do this. For Mia, I'll do anything." He didn't hesitate. He jammed it into my back. My body convulsed, and the world went black.
When I woke up, I found myself being thrown onto the deck like a dead dog. Open ocean in every direction, waves slapping the hull like a warning. Liam stood over me, handsome face twisted with urgency. "Stop playing dead, Chloe. Get down there and bring Mia back." When I didn't move, his jaw tightened. "I promise you—save her and I'll consider remarrying you. You'll come home. You'll never have to gut fish in that filthy market again." Filthy? That word gutted me. Six months ago, fresh out of prison, I'd gone back to the Lu family mansion, still stupid enough to hope for a scrap of family left. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I watched my parents, my ex-husband, and their precious Mia share a warm Christmas Dinner. Laughing. Toasting. And I stood outside in the freezing wind—an ex-con, a half-deaf wreck who'd done eight years for someone else. That's when I finally understood. The hell I lived in was built by their hands. In that house, I was the stranger. My eyes snapped back to a photo clutched in Liam's fist. A beach volleyball shot—Mia in a bikini, laughing among the dive team. What stopped my heart was the scar on her right shoulder. Ten years ago, I was the dive team captain. Liam and Mia were both on my crew. That day the current turned vicious without warning. I signaled everyone to surface. Then the riptide hit. I shoved Liam and Mia toward safety and got dragged under. By some miracle, I washed up on an uninhabited island and survived three days unconscious before rescue. When I finally came home, Mia threw herself at me sobbing. "Chloe! You're alive! If only I'd stopped you from diving—if only I'd been stronger, I wouldn't have only saved Liam, I wouldn't have watched you get swept away!" And now I understood everything. That's why Liam would frame me to save her. He'd spent ten years believing Mia was the one who saved his life. For three days, while I was presumed dead, she'd rewritten history. She became his hero. But I became the reckless fool who almost got them all killed. What a goddamn joke. "I TOLD YOU," I screamed, voice cracking. "My ear can't take the pressure! I'll have a brain hemorrhage! Are you trying to kill me?" Liam's eyes flickered—a brief, real flash of doubt. Then Arthur lunged and kicked me in the ribs. "Keep acting! You're rotten to the core, Chloe! Even now, faking a disability to save your own skin!" Susan collapsed on the deck, sobbing. "God… Mia is such a good girl, so sweet, so obedient." "If she doesn't come back, how are we supposed to live?"
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