Extra Basket - Chapter 38 - 25: Smoke and Mirrors

In a supernatural infested world, we have the awakened- an elite group of people gifted with superpowers. And the transcenders- humans who consume divinity potions even at the risk of losing their sanity.And then, we have me who awakened with little to no prior memory of my past. Now trapped in a cursed, and wretched land infested with nightmarish creatures of all kinds.I; with the help of my latent time-rewind ability, the mysterious blue chaotic flame; alongside fragmented memories and unlikely allies made in the world of nightmares must find a way to escape to the real world.All while trying to keep in check a small yet dangerously fatal side effect.But the deeper I delve into this world’s horrors, the more I realized—I wasn't just running from the monsters around me. I was running from the one inside.Additional tags: Dark fantasy + Dark souls element, supernatural + psychological horror and finally:Mystery, tension and suspense + ground breaking lore and world building.

In all my life, I’ve only made two mistakes that I regret. The first was filling out my entrance exam application wrong, and the second was offending Zhong Yuan. If I had to use an idiom to describe the impact of my mistake, it would be simply, ‘Life is no better than death’. And if I had to use an idiom to describe Zhong Yuan’s offenses to me, it would be simply, ‘Too many crimes to record’. And yet, for as evil and wicked as he was, he attracted girls the way that flowers attracted bees and butterflies.

It happened that one day, for some reason, I taunted Zhong Yuan, “The King of Hell sent you to torture some more people, didn’t he?” Without a change in expression, he replied, “In order to torture fewer people, I decided to just choose one person to torture for the rest of my life.” I asked him, “What do you mean?” He smiled at me and answered, “If you don’t go to hell, who will?”

- Description from Novelupdates

Pinning her tall body against the hard wall, he looked into her beautiful emerald green eyes as he spoke in a deep voice, “I have two options for you,” his body came closer to hers as he continued, “Be my girlfriend. Or,” his lips turned into a sly smile as he whispered close to her ear,“Be my boyfriend.” He even dared to wink right before her as his dark orbs glinted amusingly.

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There are plenty of things that break not just a heart but a person as a whole.

Some people get broken by love and some by family. But she was broken by life itself.

She left her clan to discover the world but she forgot something her grandfather once told her, ’The world outside is a scary place. It’s filled with people who would want to befriend you only to devour you alive. People like us are an anomaly. And the world calls us monsters but they forget; they are also the monsters wearing a mask of an angel.’

To grow stronger, she seized as much power as she could by Ruling Europe under the disguise of a man- Lord Alev Knight. But now, she’s forced to come back to China where she buried her memories along with herself over a decade ago.

What will happen when those buried painful memories will come to haunt her again. Will she choose the path to destroy the people who betrayed her or someone will alter her idea of revenge? And what exactly pushed her to live with multiple identities? What made her disguise herself as a man? Will she be able to find the hidden truths of her own existence? Or she’ll be buried herself with those truths?

Xiao Zhiren left China when he was a teenager. Now, he’s back in China to find the answers that were left unknown as he watched his mother being murdered before him.

Will he be able to find the enemies wearing the masks of friends? Or he’ll have to wear a mask himself?

’I can conceive death but betrayal is not allowed.’ She had left those words behind for him. Will he be able to find the person who left him with a promise to come back? Or like every promise, he’ll be forced to believe that promises are only made to break you?

Madeline “Maddie” Brownwood is a nineteen-year-old college student and lives an ordinary life with her aunt. Her mother was dead, and her father was unknown to her until one day, she found herself in confusion when she arrived at her aunt’s house surrounded by gentlemen with black suits. One man approached her and told her to come with him to the Divenson Mansion to prepare for her wedding.

Hunter Divenson is the handsome and hot engineer and CEO of the largest mining company in the country, the Divenson Mining Corporation. He got entangled with his driver’s last dying wish to marry his estranged daughter when his car was hit by a drunk driver. He agreed to his request to stop his parents from forcing him to get married.

“I’m sorry, Maddie, Mr. Divenson already paid all of our debts, and you know my debts filed up when I accepted you and your mother in this house, and I am not going to lose this house anymore. You should come with them so that we will be all happy, and you will have a better life.” Her aunt said.

Maddie was left no choice, and go to the Divenson mansion where she meets her future in-laws, Mr. Divenson’s parents were super strict and showed to her face she doesn’t belong to their family, while her future brother-in-law always looks at her with lust that made her scared every time they cross paths, and her other sister loathes her. And only a twelve-year-old girl, his younger sister, loves and adores her, and carried out her stay at the mansion bearable.

The moment she meets Hunter, she falls in love with him. He is so sweet with her every time a member of his family is around, but he is so different when they are alone, and his actions sometimes contradict his words, but his remarks haunted her in her dreams most of the nights.

“We are only married on the paper since I don’t have time for love, business success is the only thing that makes me happy, and I can’t love someone like you. Don’t expect if something happens to us in bed; I will love you. I only need an heir of my empire.” He said coldly that made her entire body shivers, and she hated herself for falling in love with her husband every day, until one day she realized she couldn’t take it anymore.

Maddie asked Hunter for a divorce in a stern tone, and it made Hunter’s entire body turned cold. This is the first time his wife appeal to talk with him, and he couldn’t believe she was asking for a divorce. Her words drove him understood what a fool he had been, and now, all he can see in her beautiful eyes are hatred. He realized he couldn’t let her go because he loves his wife with all his heart.

Can Hunter win back his wife’s affection?

Is Maddie’s love for Hunter totally gone? Or it was still there and she is just trying to forget and move on? Can she give her husband another chance?