Lost Origins: SS Ranked Awakening - Chapter 148: Phantom

This Dark story contains raw and unfiltered mature contents. Strictly R18+. Read with caution.Ella had lost everything. After her mother’s accident, her father married someone else and pushed her aside, choosing his new family over her. Her friends slowly left, and she was left to deal with everything alone. She spent all her money to keep her mother on life support. Now, she was broke, exhausted, and barely holding on.Then Nicholas showed up.He was a stranger—handsome, confident, and calm. But what shocked her most was the marriage certificate he brought. According to him, they got married in Vegas. The problem? Ella doesn’t remember it at all.She already has too much to deal with—her sick mom, the hospital bills, and her fiancé, who has been her only support. She can’t afford to lose him now.But Nicholas won’t go away. He says he’s her husband, and he wants her to come with him. Ella feels drawn to him in a way she can’t explain. He sees through her like no one else does.She knows she should walk away. She knows she should stay with the safe life she’s trying to hold on to. But something about Nicholas pulls her in—and she’s scared he might break her in the end.TW: DOMESTIC ABUSE, MENTAL HEALTH SCENES, ROUGH SEXUAL ACTS.

The jeers followed her like a persistent shadow. “Murderer!” the crowd screamed, their faces contorted in a grotesque parody of the adoration she once commanded.Just months ago, they had screamed her name, their voices a deafening roar as she shimmied across the stage, a beacon of light and pop perfection. Now, their cheers had morphed into venomous hisses, their eyes burning with a hatred that chilled her to the bone.Noelle clutched her lawyer's arm, his face a mask of grim determination. The cameras flashed, capturing her every move, every tremor of fear. The headlines screamed: “Pop Princess Plummets: Noelle Accused of Murder.” The irony wasn't lost on her. Her life, once a carefully constructed fairytale of fame and fortune, had become a grotesque tragedy.The trial was a circus. The whispers, the sneers, the relentless scrutiny – it was a constant assault on her senses. Her once loyal fans, the ones who'd plastered her face on their bedroom walls, now reveled in her downfall. They devoured every salacious detail, every whispered accusation, every tear she dared to shed.The verdict was a foregone conclusion. Guilty.Noelle watched the judge pronounce the sentence, her mind a whirlwind of disbelief and despair. Death by lethal injection.‘At least they did not give me the electric chair’ she thought to herself in a poor attempt at humor.Months later, a solitary figure knelt at her grave, the wind whipping at his hair. Rain lashed down, mirroring the tears that streamed down his face.“I'm sorry, Areum,” he sobbed, his voice hoarse with grief. “I'm so sorry I was too late.” He clutched a single, wilted rose, its petals stained crimson, a poignant reminder of the life that had been brutally extinguished.Noelle is a bright star who has the world at her feet, she feels no guilt about being the other woman coming between a husband and his wife. After all, Evan had been in love with her since they were teenagers. The only reason he married Ma-Ri was because his family demanded it, if he had a choice he would surely have picked her…When she gets wrongfully accused of murdering Ma-Ri, she loses everything and is sentenced to death, everyone including Evan turn against her and she is left to die a miserable death.She is reborn and this time she faces the humiliation of being the woman who is being cheated on. She is determined to end the cycle and not let the future she had seen come to pass, she decides to step out of the picture and focus on her career.In doing so, everything changes, Evan clings to her and refuses to let her go, a mysterious stranger who has been studying her also steps in and decides to fight for a chance to be with her.

In the beginning, I just wanted to solve life problems.

Then, I didn’t want to admit defeat, I didn’t want to just leave in such a daze.

Next, now that you’ve stood your ground, why not do it better.

Finally, as I have always insisted, when you decide to invest in something, you must do it to the best of your ability!

– One of the greatest actors of the 21st century, Sean Tang

- Description from novelbuddy

In the pursuit of wealth and land, cultivation was actually a very expensive luxury activity. Having unintentionally received the legacy of the legendary cultivator, alchemist, and medical scholar Ge Hong, the simple mountain man Ge Dongxu began to earnestly make money. While most people were still in high school, he had already started to earn money for his alchemy and cultivation as he studied. While most college students were worried about the expenses of having a girlfriend, he had already become a boss. When most college graduates were busy sending out resumes in search of a job, and rich second-generation kids were showing off sports cars in front of beauties, he had already become a super-rich heir, and of course, a supreme medical saint hidden in plain sight.