Part 1Fleeting Blossoms, Bittersweet Endings

Waiting at the bus stop, I scrolled through a trending local post.

“What’s the cruelest thing you did at seventeen?”

I was about to swipe past, but then a highly-rated reply caught my eye.

“To get my crush, I photoshopped nudes of his girlfriend, spread awful rumors about her, and even hired thugs to harass her. Ended up driving her into severe depression.”

Her answer exploded with tens of thousands of comments almost instantly.

The replies were a torrent of abuse.

But the poster didn't care. “A bunch of jealous losers.”

“If you knew I’m now the wife of a CEO worth billions, with a lovely son, you’d all think I hit the jackpot.”

* * *

As if to prove her point, she attached over a dozen pictures to her comment. Luxury cars, sprawling mansions. Designer watches and bags worth hundreds of thousands. And a tall, well-built man in a suit, his back to the camera, standing by a floor-to-ceiling window.

I tapped on that photo.

My finger hovered, frozen for a good few seconds.

Even after all these years, I could recognize the man in the picture by just his back.

Owen Bridgerton.

In the few seconds I was lost in thought, the comment section had already escalated several floors.

“Is that your justification for hurting others?”

“So you’re a homewrecker and proud of it, huh? Do your parents know how shameless you are?”

“Homewreckers die, affair-starters die!”

Facing the barrage of insults, the poster replied with a single sentence.

“Every man for himself.”

At the same time, she re-edited her post.

“Though many people are cursing and attacking me, I still say I don’t regret it.”

“Everything I have now, I deserve it!”

In her self-narration, eight years ago, she was just a poor student living in the mountains, walking miles to school and back every day. As the daughter of the family, unloved by her parents, she was destined to be married off to an old bachelor in the village upon reaching adulthood, fetching a good price to build a new house for her younger brother.

“I thought that was my fate.”

“But then, on the first day of my senior year, I saw him.”

“He was the school’s heartthrob – handsome, brilliant academically, and most importantly, incredibly rich. A single pair of his sneakers cost more than my entire year’s living expenses.”

“I decided right then and there that I had to have him.”

“But he had a girlfriend.”

The post ended abruptly here.

The discussion below was intense.

“Your husband is so amazing, his girlfriend couldn’t have been bad either, right?”

The poster replied, “Of course. Good grades, very pretty, and from a well-off family. They were childhood sweethearts.”

“But so what?”

“The more perfect she was, the more I wanted to utterly destroy her.”

As soon as she posted this, countless comments attacked her morals. But amidst them, a few envious and fawning praises were interspersed.

“I don’t think the poster did anything wrong. If she didn’t fight for herself, she would have ended up marrying an old bachelor.”

“Isn’t this the ultimate underdog story? You’re amazing, girl! Teach me your ways!”

“To cross social classes by herself, I have to say, the poster is incredible.”

Soon, the two sides started arguing.

Amidst the debates, one comment quietly floated by.

“Am I the only one who wants to know what happened to the ex-girlfriend?”

What happened later?

I smiled wryly, then exited the app.