Chapter 1

Kidnapped for five years, I finally returned home covered in scars.

But there was no warm hug from my mother. Only a cold, harsh question through the iron gates:

"Why are you back?"

It wasn't until I pried open her locked jewelry box years later that I realized my kidnapping was no accident.

A "relocation agreement" signed by my mother, alongside a transaction record of thirty thousand dollars.

It turned out to be her final payment to buy me out of her life.

I stood outside the towering, gilded iron gates of the luxury gated community. In my trembling hands, I clutched a cheap cupcake, completely ruined by the pouring rain.

Five years ago, I disappeared on a rainy night just like this.

Five years later, just as I was about to be sold like livestock on the black market, a kind-hearted police officer rescued me.

After endless hurdles, he finally brought me back to the "home" that had only existed in my broken dreams.

The mansion was brilliantly lit.

My eyes locked onto the familiar yet distant figure inside the window—my mother, Helen.

She was smiling, leaning over a little girl dressed in an exquisite pink princess gown. Holding a cake knife, Helen carefully cut a large slice of chocolate-strawberry birthday cake for her.

Her lips moved. Reading her lips, I knew she was saying a gentle, "Happy birthday, sweetie."

My heart seized violently, as if squeezed by an invisible fist.

For five years, in the dark, in my worst nightmares, I had screamed "Mom" countless times.

But now, she was standing in the warm light just a few steps away, while my feet felt like lead and my throat felt rusted shut.

Summoning every ounce of my strength, I opened my mouth. A raspy, unfamiliar sound forced its way out. "M-Mom..."

Ever since the traffickers beat me so badly that I lost my hearing, I had barely spoken a word.

My world had become completely silent, and I had let myself become part of that silence.

That single call exhausted all the courage I had gathered over the past five years.

Helen turned her head.

There was no ecstatic joy, not even a trace of confusion.

Her eyes flared with shock, which instantly hardened into pure, raw disgust.

She walked over quickly. She didn't open the iron gate. She just stared at me through the cold metal bars, her voice hushed, sharp, and freezing:

"Why are you back? Didn't I tell you never to show your face here again?"

I froze, my mind going completely blank.

Rain blurred my vision. I could only stare blankly at her moving lips.

She didn't ask how I had survived. She didn't ask how much I had suffered. She didn't even look at me closely.

Her eyes swept over my body and finally landed on the soggy cupcake in my hand. She sneered in disgust.

"Why did you bring such garbage here? You're embarrassing me."

In that moment, even though my world was silent, I felt like I heard something shatter completely.

Was it the blurry memory of my own birthdays?

Was it the memory of the cake she had baked for me years ago—the one with the burnt edges that still made me so happy?

Or... was it my very last illusion of "home"?

I looked down at the mess of frosting and rainwater in my hand.

I had bought this with the last few dollars Officer Carter had slipped into my pocket.

On my way here, I had snuck into a cheap bakery right before it closed.

I wanted to tell her I was back. Today... maybe it wasn't my actual birthday, but I just wanted a piece of cake.

It turned out this soggy, ruined cupcake—the thing she despised so much—was the last thing she would ever give me.

Indeed, this was her way of buying me out.