The Echo of a Life Lost

The Echo of a Life Lost

Xiao Hong Mao

5.0
Comment(s)
25
View
11
Chapters

On our seventh wedding anniversary, the Austin air thick with humidity, I stood before a newsstand. There, on the glossy cover of Austin Monthly, was Caleb Jones, a kid three years my junior, a junior aide from my wife' s campaign. "Caleb Jones: The Future is Now. A Star on the Rise." the headline screamed, words I knew Jennifer herself had written. Then, the gut punch: Caleb's Instagram post, "Making our private victories public. Thanks, Jen! This means the world!" I didn' t feel anger, not the hot, explosive kind. Instead, a deep, bone-chilling coldness settled in. The woman who was once my rock, who pulled me through crippling anxiety for years, the Jennifer I married, was gone. She was replaced by a stranger celebrating another man' s future on our anniversary, a stranger whose clothes carried the faint, hoppy scent of his beer. How could she so casually erase twelve years, seven years of marriage, with such calculated public celebration of another man, a boy she had known since he was an intern? Was this all a carefully orchestrated betrayal, a long-game strategy I was too blind to see? I looked at the generic cufflinks she'd given me, a last-minute thought, and remembered the dead cigarette flickering in my hand. The decision was made. I was done.

The Echo of a Life Lost Introduction

On our seventh wedding anniversary, the Austin air thick with humidity, I stood before a newsstand.

There, on the glossy cover of Austin Monthly, was Caleb Jones, a kid three years my junior, a junior aide from my wife' s campaign.

"Caleb Jones: The Future is Now. A Star on the Rise." the headline screamed, words I knew Jennifer herself had written.

Then, the gut punch: Caleb's Instagram post, "Making our private victories public. Thanks, Jen! This means the world!"

I didn' t feel anger, not the hot, explosive kind. Instead, a deep, bone-chilling coldness settled in.

The woman who was once my rock, who pulled me through crippling anxiety for years, the Jennifer I married, was gone.

She was replaced by a stranger celebrating another man' s future on our anniversary, a stranger whose clothes carried the faint, hoppy scent of his beer.

How could she so casually erase twelve years, seven years of marriage, with such calculated public celebration of another man, a boy she had known since he was an intern?

Was this all a carefully orchestrated betrayal, a long-game strategy I was too blind to see?

I looked at the generic cufflinks she'd given me, a last-minute thought, and remembered the dead cigarette flickering in my hand.

The decision was made. I was done.

Continue Reading

Other books by Xiao Hong Mao

More
Phoenix Rising: The Scarred Heiress's Revenge

Phoenix Rising: The Scarred Heiress's Revenge

Modern

4.3

I lived as the "scarred ghost" of the Stephens penthouse, a wife kept in the shadows because my facial burns offended my billionaire husband’s aesthetic. For years, I endured Kason’s coldness and my family's abuse, a submissive puppet who believed she had nowhere else to go. The end came with a blue folder tossed onto my silk sheets. Kason’s mistress was back, and he wanted me out by sunset, offering a five-million-dollar "silence fee" to go hide my face in the countryside. The betrayal cut deep when I discovered my father had already traded my divorce for a corporate bailout. My step-sister mocked my "trashy" appearance at a high-end boutique, while the sales staff treated me like a common thief. At home, my father threatened to cut off my mother's life-saving medicine unless I crawled back to Kason to beg for a better deal. I was the girl who took the blame for a fire she didn't start, the wife who worshipped a man who never looked her in the eye, and the daughter used as a human bargaining chip. I was supposed to be broken, penniless, and desperate. But the woman who stood up wasn't the weak Elease Finch anymore; she was Phoenix, a tactical predator with a $500 million secret. I signed the divorce papers without a single tear, walked past my stunned husband, and wiped the Finch family's bank accounts clean with a few taps on my phone. "Your money is dirty," I told Kason with a cold smile. "I prefer clean hands." The cage is open, the hunt has begun, and I’m starting with the people who thought a scar made me weak.

Mated To My Ex's Ruthless Brother

Mated To My Ex's Ruthless Brother

Modern

5.0

At 3:12 AM, a call from the NYPD shattered the silence of my dorm. My childhood sweetheart and the city’s golden heir, Liam Sterling, was in custody and needed me to bail him out. I rushed to the precinct, trembling as I swiped my father’s emergency credit card for five thousand dollars, only to watch Liam walk out and head straight for another woman. He had landed in a cell because he’d started a brawl to protect Jade—a girl with pink hair and a jagged attitude—while I was just the "best friend" he called to clean up his mess. In the backseat of the cab I paid for, I watched the man I loved pull her into his lap, treating me like an invisible chauffeur. When I finally demanded the truth, he didn't apologize; he reminded me that our families were tied by a multi-million dollar merger and that I was "like a sister" to him. My own mother echoed his coldness, telling me to stop being dramatic because our family was secretly bankrupt and we needed the Sterling money to survive. I spent years being his "good girl," even recording a fake video for the press claiming he was a hero who fought to defend my honor. But the illusion shattered when I saw the photos of him with Jade on my birthday—the same night he told me he was working late to secure our future. "I love you, Zoe. Like I love my dog. You’re loyal, but you’re boring." I realized then that I wasn't his partner; I was his shield. He used the trauma of the day he "saved" my life to keep me in his debt, never realizing that the chains of gratitude had finally snapped. As the Sterling empire began to crumble under a sudden leak of scandals, I didn't run back to Liam. Instead, I looked at the encrypted message from his dangerous, outcast brother, Julian, who had been waiting in the shadows. He didn't just offer me a way out; he offered to buy my family's debt and claim me as the collateral.

You'll also like

Jilted Bride's Revenge: The Valkyrie Awakens

Jilted Bride's Revenge: The Valkyrie Awakens

Gujian Qitan
5.0

I had been a wife for exactly six hours when I woke up to the sound of my husband’s heavy breathing. In the dim moonlight of our bridal suite, I watched Hardin, the man I had adored for years, intertwined with my sister Carissa on the chaise lounge. The betrayal didn't come with an apology. Hardin stood up, unashamed, and sneered at me. "You're awake? Get out, you frumpy mute." Carissa huddled under a throw, her fake tears already welling up as she played the victim. They didn't just want me gone; they wanted me erased to protect their reputations. When I refused to move, my world collapsed. My father didn't offer a shoulder to cry on; he threatened to have me committed to a mental asylum to save his business merger. "You're a disgrace," he bellowed, while the guards stood ready to drag me away. They had spent my life treating me like a stuttering, submissive pawn, and now they were done with me. I felt a blinding pain in my skull, a fracture that should have broken me. But instead of tears, something dormant and lethal flickered to life. The terrified girl who walked down the aisle earlier that day simply ceased to exist. In her place, a clinical system—the Valkyrie Protocol—booted up. My racing heart plummeted to a steady sixty beats per minute. I didn't scream. I stood up, my spine straightening for the first time in twenty years, and looked at Hardin with the detachment of a surgeon looking at a tumor. "Correction," I said, my voice stripped of its stutter. "You're in my light." By dawn, I had drained my father's accounts, vanished into a storm, and found a bleeding Crown Prince in a hidden safehouse. They thought they had broken a mute girl. They didn't realize they had just activated their own destruction.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
The Echo of a Life Lost The Echo of a Life Lost Xiao Hong Mao Modern
“On our seventh wedding anniversary, the Austin air thick with humidity, I stood before a newsstand. There, on the glossy cover of Austin Monthly, was Caleb Jones, a kid three years my junior, a junior aide from my wife' s campaign. "Caleb Jones: The Future is Now. A Star on the Rise." the headline screamed, words I knew Jennifer herself had written. Then, the gut punch: Caleb's Instagram post, "Making our private victories public. Thanks, Jen! This means the world!" I didn' t feel anger, not the hot, explosive kind. Instead, a deep, bone-chilling coldness settled in. The woman who was once my rock, who pulled me through crippling anxiety for years, the Jennifer I married, was gone. She was replaced by a stranger celebrating another man' s future on our anniversary, a stranger whose clothes carried the faint, hoppy scent of his beer. How could she so casually erase twelve years, seven years of marriage, with such calculated public celebration of another man, a boy she had known since he was an intern? Was this all a carefully orchestrated betrayal, a long-game strategy I was too blind to see? I looked at the generic cufflinks she'd given me, a last-minute thought, and remembered the dead cigarette flickering in my hand. The decision was made. I was done.”
1

Introduction

26/06/2025

2

Chapter 1

26/06/2025

3

Chapter 2

26/06/2025

4

Chapter 3

26/06/2025

5

Chapter 4

26/06/2025

6

Chapter 5

26/06/2025

7

Chapter 6

26/06/2025

8

Chapter 7

26/06/2025

9

Chapter 8

26/06/2025

10

Chapter 9

26/06/2025

11

Chapter 10

26/06/2025