Chapter 5

For example, the style of clothes to wear, how to arrange furniture in the room, and even what brand and fruit flavor of contraceptives to use.

Turns out he was always looking for the essence of someone else in me.

Perhaps all these years, I've just been a joke.

Looking at the handsome man before me who seemed like a stranger, I asked him, "What do you want to say?"

Damien looked into my eyes: "Melody, do you not love me?"

I suddenly had a bad feeling: "Do you even need to ask? I love you very much."

Damien didn't speak, driving calmly, but it was terrifying.

After a while, he suddenly changed lanes, driving the car away from downtown.

I asked warily, "Damien, what are you doing?"

He didn't say anything, just drove faster and faster.

I had never seen Damien so crazy before.

"Damien, don't scare me, I want to go to work."

"I just landed a role, I can't be absent."

No matter how much I begged, he didn't respond.

Later, Damien drove the car to an amusement park.

I didn't understand his intentions.

He pulled me along, exhausted as I was, striding like the wind.

Soon, we appeared at the edge of the bungee jumping cliff.

My legs were still weak."Melody, you said you loved me, right? If you dare to jump from here, I'll believe you."

I looked at the valley in front of me, my face pale with terror.

The staff nearby, not understanding the situation, tried to persuade us to talk things out.

Damien told them to get lost, and started strapping the bungee jumping equipment onto me himself.

"Be a good girl, listen to me. Just one jump, and I'll believe you."

When the staff came over to intervene, Damien shoved them aside.

I was so frightened I couldn't even stand up.

Collapsing on the ground, I cried out, "Damien, I agree. I'll get the rib removal surgery. I agree to the operation, can I not jump please?"

A smile suddenly blossomed on Damien's face, so handsome.

But to me, that smile seemed particularly twisted.

Damien had won again.

He cupped my face, "Melody, I knew you'd agree."

He held me, terrified as I was, in his arms and whispered gently, "I was just scaring you, I wouldn't have really made you jump."

Tears and snot streaming down my face, I pleaded, "Damien, please don't scare me like that again, I'm begging you."Damien gently wiped my face, "There, there. As long as you're obedient from now on, I won't force you."

On the way back, Damien carried me down the mountain on his back.

Each step down the mountain strengthened my resolve to leave Damien.

Damien's crazed way of making me prove my love for him wasn't without precedent.

In Damien's notebook, it was clearly recorded that Luna had once expressed her eternal love for Damien by bungee jumping.

It's laughable that even the way to "love him" had to bear Luna's mark.

Over the next few days, apart from going to work, Damien made all sorts of pre-operative preparations for me.

Watching Damien bustle about excitedly, I couldn't help but ask him.

"Damien, will I die on the operating table?"

Damien's gaze was inscrutable, but his tone was firm: "Nothing will happen. You're overthinking."

"You know, people who overthink cause others a lot of pain. It really hurts those who love you."

I tried to struggle once more: "If I have the bone removal surgery, will I not have to do any other surgeries in the future?"

Damien didn't say anything, but I already knew what he meant.Some things, once started, don't easily come to a halt.

For instance, Damien's twisted desire to control me.

Damien had arranged everything; all I had to do was wait for the surgery time.

I cooperated with every pre-operative check-up the doctors required.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly; the doctors had even prepared skin grafts for me.

On the night before the surgery was scheduled, I ran away.

It was premeditated on my part, but for Damien, it came without warning.

I didn't even have time to go back to that house to pack my things.

After all, nothing there belonged to me; it was all bought by Damien.

I hailed a cab and had the driver take me to the outskirts of town.

I found a small, nondescript family-run motel and checked in.

The place didn't require ID for check-in.