Chapter 1 — After Marrying, I Was Pampered

I am the weakest second aunt of the Khuong family. How faint is it? On the wedding day, the groom didn't even show up. It wasn't that he didn't want to come, but that absolutely no one informed him that the bride had been changed to someone else. I lived in Bui Tu's villa for three days and three nights. It wasn't until he discovered that half the box of cherries in the refrigerator was gone that he realized there was someone in the house. Then he reported to the police. The police asked me to prove my identity, so I immediately took out my marriage certificate. Bui Tu looked at the photo up there three times. The expression on his face changed from cold to incomprehensible, and finally to such shock that his pupils shrank. 【Chapter 1】 Regarding how faint I am, I can give some examples as follows. During the three years of high school, the homeroom teacher called my mother to school seventeen times. Seventeen times, my mother came every time. But in all the seventeen times she signed, she signed my sister's name - Khuong Dao. It wasn't her intention. She actually forgot she had two daughters. On the day of taking college graduation photos, the photographer counted the people three times but still couldn't count me. When the day I received the finished photo, I discovered that I had been cut out of the photo. Are not. To be precise, I stand right in the center. But the photo editor thought I was a mistake left over from the photo collage, so he deleted me and painted that spot into the back wall. My name is Khuong Duong. She is the second lady of the Khuong family. The household registration book is clearly written on white paper and black ink. But if you ask anyone in the Khuong family:

“Who is your second lady?”

Their reaction will definitely be:

“Huh? Does my family have a second lady?”

Then meditate for three seconds. Suddenly awakened.

“Ah, you mean that girl Duong? Is she still alive?”

Alive. Live very well. Live so well that no one needs to remember. Therefore, when the Khuong family declared bankruptcy, I was the last person to know. It's not that the news was slow to reach me. But at family meetings, basically no one remembered to tell me. That day I went to the kitchen to pour water, happened to pass by the living room and heard my mother crying.

"What should I do? The Bui family is urgent, saying they must marry their daughter next month..."

"Where is Dao? Where is Dao Dao?"

"He ran away! He ran after that poor guy! He only left a letter, saying he wouldn't take it even if he died!"

I held a glass of water and stood at the living room door, silently listening to everything. A simple summary is as follows: The Khuong family owes the Bui family a huge amount of money. The way to repay the debt is to marry his daughter there. The original chosen one was my older sister, Khuong Dao. But Khuong Dao ran away. My father smoked one cigarette after another. My mother cried until her makeup smudged. The atmosphere was as heavy as a memorial service. Then my father suddenly slammed on the table:

“If only we had another daughter!”

Me: “…” I am standing behind him, exactly two meters away. Two meters. I cleared my throat.

“Dad.”

He did not react.

“Dad!”

He turned his head and looked at me for three seconds. His eyes turned from confusion to thinking, from thinking to reminiscing, then from reminiscing to... His eyes lit up.

“Wife! We still have a daughter!”

My mother raised her head and looked at me with tears in her eyes. She paused for five seconds.

“You are… Duong Duong?”

I smiled laugh.

"Yes. My biological child. It's been twenty-three years."

Ten minutes later. I was forced to sit in front of the table and sign an agreement to marry into the Bui family. My father handed over the pen with tears in his eyes:

“Duong Duong, dad is sorry for you.”

My mother handed me the paper with red eyes:

“Think of it as sacrificing for this family.”

I looked at the content on the agreement. Married into the Bui family. Unlimited living expenses each month. The villa is optional. The maid gets as much as she wants. Fully equipped luxury car. Most importantly… Internet connection speed of one thousand megabits. My signing hand is as steady as Mount Tai.

“Stop crying.”

I said:

“This is the best thing you two have ever done for me in this life.”

【Chapter 2】 The wedding day was so simple that it made people angry. No church, no flowers, no guests. There was only a small room in the Civil Affairs Department, me, the Bui family's lawyer and a notary. The groom? Doesn't exist. Bui Tu sent his assistant Luc Hanh to sign instead. Luc Hanh is a tall and thin man, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, looking very elegant. Throughout the process, he controlled his expressions very well, but I still saw his hand holding the pen tremble. After signing, he politely smiled at me.

“Madam Bui, welcome.”

I nodded.

“What is the Wi-Fi password?”

He stopped.

“…What?”

“Wi-Fi password in the house. Please send it to me via WeChat.”

He looked at me for five seconds. Then he took out a card from his vest pocket and gave it to me. On it was written the villa address and door password. No Wi-Fi password. Me: “…”

“I can find it myself wherever I go.”

Luc Hanh drove me to the Bui family's villa. On the way, he gave a few short instructions. General Director Bui is very busy. Often not at home. Maybe only once or twice a week. Tell me to take it easy. I nodded.

“Understood. Meaning, this house is basically the only one I live in.”

“It can be understood like that.”

I looked through the car window and saw the campus getting wider and wider, the iron gate getting higher and higher, and the driveway getting bigger and bigger. The estimated area exceeds eight hundred square meters. There is also a swimming pool. There is a movie theater. There's also... What is that? A mini golf course? I took a deep breath. Previously in the Khuong family's house, I lived in a small room converted from a storage room. Eight square meters. Next to it is the washing machine, which makes a buzzing sound every night. What about now? Now I live alone in an eight hundred square meter villa. The type with a year-round heated swimming pool. Okay. Even though this marriage is essentially just a transaction, who cares? I, Khuong Duong, have a room that truly belongs to me for the first time in twenty-three years. Are not. It's an entire floor that belongs to me. Are not. It's a whole villa that belongs to me. The first day I moved in, I did three things. First, find the Wi-Fi password. It's stuck on the back of the network transmitter, simple and brutal. Second, occupy the bathtub in the master bedroom. I soaked for two hours, using half a bottle of Bui Tu's shower gel. The smell of fir, quite fragrant. Third, open the refrigerator. It was a giant two-door refrigerator, stuffed with food inside. Steak, salmon, truffle, cherries — also J-sized, each one nearly as big ping pong. I stood in front of the cold air, under the white light, looking like an illegal immigrant. Eat? This is Bui Tu's item. I've only been married for thirty minutes and haven't even met the owner yet. Isn't it bad to arbitrarily take things from your refrigerator? I hesitated for exactly 0.3 seconds. Then bring out the box of cherries. Sprinkle. Sweet. Explosive sweetness. Each fruit seems to be telling me: Khuong Duong, you deserve it. I sat in the living room with cherry, turning on the eighty-inch TV. Connect the screen. Watch entertainment programs. Rest your feet on the sofa armrest. In this life, even if a fairy comes to change me, it won't change. Just like that, I started a happy single life in the Bui family villa. First day, watch a movie. Day two, swim. Day three, watch the entire movie list in the basement screening room. No one bothers me. There was also no maid who came to ask me what I wanted to eat, because there was basically no maid. Luc Hanh said Bui Tu doesn't like having strangers in the house, so he usually doesn't hire maids. So great. That means I can dance in my pajamas in the middle of the living room without anyone seeing. I can even swim naked in the pool. Of course I'm not naked. But the feeling of freedom like "I can be completely naked if I want" is truly intoxicating. The only problem is… Cherry is running out. On the evening of the third day, I opened the refrigerator and discovered that the box of JJ cherries weighing one and a half kilograms had been eaten until only a few scattered cherries remained at the bottom. I closed the refrigerator door. A bit hesitant. But just a little. Anyway, legally, I am now the female owner of this house. It's natural to eat a few of my husband's cherries. After that I didn't think about it anymore. Take a shower, apply a mask and go to bed. A quarter past seven the next morning. I was awakened by a series of extremely light footsteps. Not normal footsteps. It's the type of sound made by a person who detects something unusual in his house when he deliberately steps lightly and enters a state of alertness. Brushed leather shoe soles on marble background. Step by step, step by step. Slowly and steadily. I was lying on the large bed in the master bedroom, instantly wide awake. Someone comes. Someone entered the villa. It's not a thief, because a thief can't get in. The portal uses multiple layers of verification, including fingerprint and iris. So there's only one possibility left. Bui Tu has returned.