Chapter 4

Sarah Harding was my rock as we rushed to the hospital.

But I still missed the chance to see Mom one last time.

Sarah handled everything—contacting the funeral home, arranging the service, managing the grief I couldn't process. Watching her move through those impossible hours, it struck me how much she had grown. The child who had once curled up on my doorstep, shivering and helpless, was now a woman capable of holding up the sky on her own.

*March 18, 2016. Sunny.*

*The college entrance exams are approaching. Sarah's grades are solid. Her teachers say she has talent to match her diligence. If she pushes just a little harder, a top-tier university is within reach. I hesitated, but in the end, I scraped together the last of my savings to enroll her in tutoring. I don't know when it happened, but it feels like it's just the two of us against the world now, leaning on each other to survive.*

*March 19, 2016. Sunny.*

*Sarah refused the money. She said I've done enough, that she'll repay me when she's capable. But honestly, I haven't done much. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have survived these lonely years either.*

*June 23, 2016. Sunny.*

*The results are out. On the day she received acceptance letters from both Tsinghua and Peking University, she confessed to me. It turns out the gardenias in the vase, the small gifts... none of it was accidental. Perhaps because of what happened with Dad, I'm slow when it comes to emotions. I only just realized Sarah's love had shifted into something else. But how do I respond? Dad's betrayal made me fear marriage. But Sarah... could she be the exception?*

*July 17, 2016.*

*We're together. I'm happy.*

Long-term medical treatment had slowed my cognitive functions and eroded my memory. This diary was supposed to be my anchor, helping me rediscover the happiness I had lost. It reminded me of days that were hard but threaded with hope.

I was much older than Sarah, yet she was far steadier than I ever was. It took me only a year to raise her, yet she had spent over a decade protecting and cherishing me. I had always thanked the heavens for letting our paths cross.

Reading the joy overflowing between those lines, a smile finally touched my lips.

But when I flipped to the last page, the smile froze.

On the yellowed paper, jagged, furious characters had been scrawled over the original text.

*"Don't believe it. Even a beautified diary can lie."*

My head snapped up. We had arrived.

The long-uninhabited villa blazed with light. Sarah's car sat parked neatly in the driveway. Through the window, silhouettes danced against the curtains—unmistakably hers.

I pulled up the villa's surveillance feed on my phone.

The screen flickered to life.

Sarah and Xavier Pruitt. Locked in a tight embrace. A smile played on her lips—a radiant, unburdened smile I had never seen directed at me.

Brighter than the sun.

Betrayal. Already etched in stone.

Strangely, my heart didn't shatter. It was calmer than I expected—a dead sea of silence. I watched Sarah laughing with another man. I watched as new handwriting began to manifest on the diary page, stroke by bloody stroke.

Red ink appeared out of thin air, writing frantically, detailing the end that awaited me.

*"The Bali trip. Sarah gets pregnant again."*

*"You are overjoyed. But when you accompany her to the prenatal checkup, you run into her sworn enemy."*

*"The man Sarah drove into bankruptcy is there. He has a knife. He wants to die, and he wants to take Sarah with him."*

*"In the chaos, Sarah pushes you into the blade."*