Smiling Under Lanterns - Chapter 177 - 87 Mid-Autumn_1

A wedding forged in vengeance, where love is the only risk they never planned for.“Let's get married,” Mia says, her voice trembling despite the fire in her eyes as she meets Stefan's guarded gaze. She needs this—needs him—even if he looks at her like she's just another complication.Stefan arches a brow, unimpressed. “And why would I do that?”“We both know what it's like to be betrayed by the men who raised us,” she replies, refusing to back down. “They stole our birthrights and handed them to someone else. The only difference is… you're the illegitimate one. I'm not.”He studies her—this heiress in designer armor, hiding rage beneath polish. “So your grand plan is a wedding band as revenge?”“No,” she says, stepping closer, close enough for him to smell the jasmine and gunpowder. “It's the only weapon they won't see coming.”Their fathers built empires by manipulation and control. Now, their children are making a vow—to burn it all down.Two shattered heirs. One dangerous alliance. A marriage built on vengeance.Mia Meyers was born to inherit her father's empire—until he handed it to his bastard son instead. Stefan Sterling knows rejection too well, discarded by a father who only valued power. Now, these rivals-turned-co-conspirators hatch a plan: marry for revenge, crush their fathers' legacies, and take what should've always been theirs.No love. No feelings. No divorce.But as lines blur between strategy and obsession, the real question becomes: can two enemies survive a marriage built not on trust—but on spite?

Reincarnated into a land of cultivation, Yuan Zhou uses his Earth knowledge and assumptions to become a genius under the heavens for both business and cultivation. However, he walks the path of defiance, exceeding all rational cultivation bounds. His business ideas struggle against the stagnant culture that pervades the land, but the things he doesn't lack are his drive for immortality and power.

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.

“Can you be useful to me?”

“I… I can be…”

The first time they met, she knelt trembling before him, begging for shelter. The slave caught his interest, and he brought her back to his palace.

She could’ve never imagined that in one night she’d go from a spoiled little slave princess of a defeated kingdom, to becoming a powerful prince’s pet.

He kept her by his side… spoiled her, cared for her, loved her, and gave her meticulous care and high status. Whatever she wished… she could do so under his name.

But, she angered him and chose to run away. He captured her within a day.

“Don’t forget, my little dearest, everything I have given you can be taken back…”

In a spur of anger, she hit him, her feeble hands striking against the flesh of his cheek. Gnashing her teeth in anger, she said, “Do you have the ability to take my child back?!”

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