WHEN THE SEA CALLS - Chapter 31: A Visit to the House of Seashells

I smile. I know I smile. I just don't know when.“Entropy?” After all, the blood in my veins dried up decades ago, only dust remains.“Ephemera?” My begging longingness—all of my dreams, devoured by void. Left is but an empty shell—hollow inside.“Life?” Paradox.“Death?” Cold, but equal for all. Just like the blood in my heart's arteries and veins— frozen—time immemorial.“Universe?” Its fabric—time and space, wrapped around like some illusion, a grand simulation—just like that dream...faint, but there.“Dream?” I couldn't tell...very...disorderly like chaos, like silhouette in the mist, hard to capture, it's memory very faint.“Home?”“Home?”“Are you there?”...***Reality fiction.

[MATURE CONTENT WARNING: 18+ ONLY. Contains explicit smut, omegaverse, knotting, and mpreg.]“Fuck, still so tight.”That's the first thing I hear after dying.Not a heavenly choir, not a wise guide explaining the mechanics of reincarnation, just a voice like dark honey and broken glass, breath scorching hot against my neck, and a body that absolutely isn't mine rolling its hips back like it has no objections whatsoever to what's happening to it.I have objections, so many objections.My body has apparently decided to hold a separate meeting without me.I was twenty-eight, overworked to the point of literal death, and had never so much as kissed anyone seriously. None of that seems to matter to the omega body I've just woken up in.. currently making desperate, broken sounds into expensive silk sheets, trembling around a knot that shouldn't feel this good, this full, this.. right, while my actual mind is still standing in the corner going what the fuck, WHAT THE FUCK???By the time I finally see his face, it's far too late for dignity. Gray eyes cold as a winter storm, features sharp enough to cut, the kind of beautiful that doesn't ask permission before it ruins you.It gets so much worse when I learn his name.Wuchen Bael, my sister's fiance, the man who looked me dead in the eye afterward and said, without blinking..“Round two?”And I haven't even gotten to the part where I find out I'm pregnant.

Since two years ago, Chu Linfeng has been unable to cultivate. When the power of stars entered into his body, it disappeared immediately.One day, a voice suddenly occurs in his mind.

“Block him.”“He's technically still my boss.”“Then block him with dignity.”The call ended again.And then started again.I let out a sound somewhere between a growl and a sob, then finally answered with the enthusiasm of a snail crawling through salt.“Yes, Mr. Walton?”“Have you changed your mind yet?”I collapsed onto the towel and gazed at the sky as though it might consume me entirely if I pleaded sweetly enough.“Do you ever take a break?” I asked, shielding my eyes with one hand.“You're avoiding the question.”“Because it's a dumb question.”He exhaled, the sound sharp and irritated even over phone. “It's not a dumb question. It's a business offer.”“It's a weird offer-one that I already said no to.”There was a brief pause, and I could practically hear him clenching his jaw through the speaker.“You are acting unreasonably.”“ Unreasonable?” I sat up. “I'm not the one drafting fake girlfriend contracts like it's a normal Tuesday.”“Isabella-”“Certainly not, Mr. Walton.” I mimicked his tone perfectly. “I told you I'm not doing it. You need to find someone else to play pretend with.”SYNOPSISIsabella Miller thought saying no to her boss’s fake dating offer was the end of the story.But Adrien Walton doesn’t take no—especially not when he’s convinced she’s a gold digger.Suddenly, her student loans are piling up, her father’s vet clinic is on the brink of eviction and her brother is about to be kicked out of college. Coincidence? She thinks not.Adrien Walton is calm, calculating—and he's just pulled every string to corner Isabella into the perfect position.Now she’s stuck choosing between pride and survival.So she agrees to his offer: be his fake girlfriend.No feelings attached. No drama. Just business.Or so she thought.“Conference Room B. Fifteen minutes,” he said, passing by without a glance.The folder he pushed across the table landed with a thud.I opened it. The contract. All of it.---Enemies to lovers? Check.Slow burn? Hmmnyea.Banter so sharp it might file your nails? Yes.Delicious workplace tension? Of course.Tension that could melt steel?Absolutely.Smut?? Wanna find out?Welcome to corporate romance warfare. There’s no escaping this contract.