Rising Phoenix - Chapter 24

A young man with no spiritual roots. A person who is thought of as trash by others. He constantly acquires various items thought of as waste by the cultivation world. No matter if it is garbage pills or useless materials, he will take them all!

- Description from Novelupdates

[Mature Content] Divorced and in debt, Elena decides to become the contract wife of three rich and famous men. A fair exchange begins between a woman disillusioned about love and men with their own demands and desires. But when they demand for more than her body, she discovers many dark truths as the past slowly catches up to her.

When she was ten, she said, “When I grow up, I want to be the President!”“It's impossible, but you can be the President's wife,” he replied.He gazed at her tenderly. His youthful eyes filled with deep affection, as if he wanted to give her the whole world.When she was thirty-three, due to a leak of military secrets, she was imprisoned for treason, and she saw his signature on the death sentence document.She finally understood that the so-called undying love was fake, and that power and status were the true goals.Love is just like a ghost—more talked about than seen....Reborn and back to the age of twenty, she opened her eyes and shouted, “I must be the President!”“But, Madam... Your husband is already the President,” someone said.She was stunned for only a second, then viciously replied, “Then I'll take him down first, and I'll become the President!”A man gently pushed open the half-closed door, chuckling softly, “Did I hear wrong? Sweetie, you want to... take me down?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”“Tell you what, Richard? What would you have done?”“I don’t know. Apologized sooner? Bought you a burger to make up for it?”Her eyes lit up with fire, “You think what you did to me… you think a burger can make up for it?” her eyes twinkled like she was fighting tears. Did I hurt her that badly? I was just a foolish teenager.“Nita, I am sorry. I was young, I was stupid. I wish I could take it all back and tell you how I feel instead of being a constant jerk to gain your attention.”“How did you feel that would justify what you did to me?”I paused for a minute, finding the words. “I had a huge crush on you at the time. And I didn’t know how to express myself. I was full of myself, I was the school’s ladies' man and the one girl I had eyes for didn’t even care if I existed,” “And that justified what you did to me? Richard, you broke me. I can forgive you for ‘accidentally’ spilling your ice cream on me, or throwing my due assignment in the toilet, or the gum in my hair, or the glue in my chair but tell me how can I forgive you for what you did that night? Tell me!”“What night? Nita, what are you talking about?”“Remember when you asked me if I knew who sexually assaulted me?”I nodded, but what does that have to do with anything? The more we spoke, the more confused I became.“You did and I cannot believe that you would stand there and pretend like it didn’t happen!”Nita has spent years trying to forget the torment she endured at the hands of Richard. When her family’s financial ruin forces her into an arranged marriage, she is horrified to find out the groom himself was her bully.Richard, a charming and successful businessman meets the first woman to be repulsed by him. Intrigued, he proposes a deal of a one year marriage of convenience.Navigating life as a couple, old wounds reopen, buried memories surface. As Richard learns more about his wife, he finds that he has enemies that followed him from his past to continuously cloud his wife’s judgement.Will Nita believe the truth and bury old wounds or will the pain of the past prove too strong to heal?