My Affair Partner’s Wife and Daughter Killed Me—Reborn, I Went on a Killing Spree

“Mr. Carter, I know my request is incredibly presumptuous, but everything I’m saying is true!” “If I don’t become Claire’s husband in name for six months, I really will die!” My wife Claire’s male secretary, Ryan Blake, was kneeling on the floor, his forehead pressed firmly against the office floor. The desperation in his voice was so intense that even though I had been reborn, I could still feel it clearly. Before I could say anything, my wife Claire stepped forward. There was a trace of concern in her voice. “Ryan, get up. What are you doing?” She hurried over, helped Ryan to his feet, and brushed the dust from his clothes. As she straightened his clothes, she spoke to me coldly: “Ethan, did you hear him? He’s already kneeling and begging you. Why are you still standing there like an idiot?” “Can’t you show even a little compassion? This is a matter of life and death!” “Let me tell you, I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m cheating on you, but I’m telling you, Claire Morgan would never do something so disgusting!” Her tone was colder than the weather outside. I felt as if I had become the enemy of the wife I had been married to for ten years, while that male secretary was her real husband. I stared at the man in front of me, his face covered in tears but his eyes still filled with smugness and hope, and clenched my fists. Ryan had been Claire’s college classmate. Rumor had it that the two of them had dated for a while during graduate school. But whenever I brought it up, Claire would only shake her head and deny it. Still, there was no denying that she had always held special feelings for Ryan. After my company grew bigger and bigger, Claire said she wanted to join the company and help out too. I had never planned to make her busy herself with company affairs, but she insisted on coming, so I agreed without arguing. Less than a month after she joined, she said she was overwhelmed by the workload and wanted to hire a secretary. That was how Ryan came into the company. As Claire’s husband, I naturally had to investigate when she wanted to hire a male secretary. When I learned about their rumored relationship, I refused. But Claire seemed bewitched, desperately determined to keep Ryan. She begged, grew furious, acted spoiled, and finally even threatened to kill herself, all because she wanted to hire Ryan as her secretary. When I saw Claire holding a knife against her own throat, I softened. How could I bear to let the woman I loved actually die? In the end, I agreed, and Claire promised me that she would never have any kind of relationship with Ryan. But the moment she turned around, she forgot all about it. She stayed glued to Ryan every day. Whenever I complained, she threatened to kill herself, leaving me with no choice but to watch. On this day in my previous life, the scene had been exactly the same. Ryan had knelt before me and begged me to give him a way to survive. He claimed that he was a transmigrator and could only complete his mission by becoming Claire’s husband in name. Otherwise, the system would execute him. He wanted me to stay away from Claire and my daughter for six months. If I didn’t, he would suddenly drop dead. He lowered his eyes and kept begging me to agree. But his gaze continued to wander toward Claire. “Mr. Carter, please, I’m begging you. Say yes!” “Believe me, I’m not that kind of person. I swear to God, I have absolutely no improper intentions toward Claire!” “Please, Mr. Carter. Take pity on me!” I stared at the man before me as tears fell one by one onto the floor. Yet the corners of his mouth carried a smile. Just as I was about to say something, my daughter suddenly burst into the office. She ran to Ryan’s side, raised her head, and glared at me with her little face scrunched up. “I don’t want you to be my dad. I want Uncle Ryan to be my dad!” “Hurry up! Hurry and say yes!” A bitter smile appeared on Ryan’s face as he stroked my daughter’s cheek. “Lily, be a good girl. Mr. Carter is your real dad.” As he spoke, his eyes slowly dimmed, and despair entered his voice. “But how could I ever deserve to be your dad?” Seeing Ryan like that, Claire’s concern deepened. Right in front of me, she took Ryan’s hand. “Don’t worry. You deserve it, and you can be a good father to Lily.” The tenderness in her voice felt strangely unfamiliar to me. Then her tone suddenly turned impatient and cold. “Ethan, answer me. Are you saying yes or not?” “If you refuse, I’ll…” “I agree.” Claire froze when she heard my answer. A trace of surprise even appeared on her face. “Ethan, what did you say?” I looked at the three people in front of me who seemed like a real family and smiled. Then, with deliberate clarity, I spoke to Claire one word at a time: “I said, I. A. Gree.”After clearly hearing my answer, the shock disappeared from Claire’s face, and the corners of her mouth lifted as if she were extremely pleased. But when she noticed my gaze, she quickly restrained herself and returned to her usual stern expression. After all, in front of me, she still had to pretend that she was doing this to save Ryan’s life. My young daughter Lily, however, could not care less about any of that. Her smile seemed bright enough to melt all the ice and snow outside. She clutched Ryan’s hand and swung it back and forth, showing how happy she was. Ryan, who had been the one begging me, had only shock left on his face. There was hardly any joy at all. Claire noticed his expression and looked confused. I knew why Ryan was not happy even though I had agreed to his request. Because he had never wanted me to agree. After I had been tortured to death in my previous life, a system appeared before my soul. It told me that Ryan really was a transmigrator. But his goal was not to become Claire’s husband. It was to complete the mission assigned to him in this world. This was a melodramatic tragedy world, and he was the male lead of that tragedy. As for me, I was the villain who refused to let two lovers end up together. Ryan needed to make the romance as painful and tragic as possible. He used every method available to make Claire and Lily fall in love with him, then ensured that their relationship would end in misery. The more tragic the plot became, the higher his score would be, and the more rewards he would receive. And what could be more tragic than watching the person you loved but could never have die right in front of you? After all these years of companionship, Claire and Lily’s affection for him had already reached its maximum. Now he only needed to make me the obstacle standing between him and Claire. Then he could die for Claire. So, in my previous life, after I rejected his request, Ryan left in disappointment. No one could possibly believe such a ridiculous request. A system? Punishment? To me, they were all absurd excuses. After that, I officially became the villain in this story. Claire and Lily also began to hate me like mad. Of course, Ryan was not willing to leave so simply. He put on a green-tea act, pretending to be reluctant but understanding. He told the mother and daughter that he was not fated to become their real family in this life, but that he would definitely become family with them in his next life. He also told my daughter Lily that he would be leaving soon and that she had to listen to me. The mother and daughter were already overwhelmed with emotion, and at that moment, everything completely erupted. Lily wailed as she hugged Ryan’s leg, begging him not to leave and saying that Ryan was the only father she had. As for Claire, she shoved me aside, walked up to Ryan, and kissed him directly. “Our love doesn’t need anyone else’s judgment,” she said. “No one can stop me from loving you!” After saying that, she was about to elope with Ryan. Everything was part of Ryan’s plan. He wanted to completely destroy all of Claire’s hopes at the very moment she began looking forward to their future together. As soon as their car left the neighborhood, Claire began imagining the happy life they would have after eloping. Ryan had the system kill his physical body immediately. His heart slowly stopped beating. With the last of his strength, he pulled the car over safely by the side of the road before dying, and said to Claire: “Live well with Lily, carrying the part of life I can no longer live.” “In our next life, we’ll be a family again.” Then he died with a carefree smile. Only the mother and daughter remained on the roadside, crying in unbearable grief. After his death, they pushed all the blame onto me. They claimed that Ryan had suddenly died because I had poisoned him. Claire used my trust in her to take control of all my shares. Then she asked me for a divorce. Penniless, I was driven out of the house. Lily came looking for me. At first, I thought she had come to take care of me, her father. But she had someone tie me up and send me to a psychiatric hospital, where I was tortured every day without interruption. At the moment of my death, my soul left my body. The system thought my fate was too tragic, so after revealing the truth to me, it gave me another chance to live. Ryan finally seemed to process my answer. His expression immediately changed to wild joy. “Mr. Carter, thank you so much! You’re my lifesaver!” “I’ll take good care of Claire and Lily!” I smiled and waved my hand. “Don’t thank me just yet. I have one condition first.” The joy that had appeared on Claire’s face faded, and she frowned slightly as she asked me: “Why do you always have so many conditions? What is it? Hurry up and tell me!” Hearing my wife Claire say that, my smile grew wider. “My condition is that we get divorced.”“What exactly are you talking about?” Claire was furious. She pointed at me and said: “We’ve been married for ten years, and Lily is already this old. How can you bring up divorce so casually?” I dropped back onto the sofa and smiled at her. “Don’t you want Ryan to become your husband? I’m making that happen for you!” “If I don’t divorce you, how can you two get together openly and honestly?” Claire instantly flew into a rage. She strode over to me and said: “Ethan, what exactly do you mean? Are you calling us a pair of cheating dogs?” “I’m telling you again, we’re nothing but friends. There’s absolutely nothing filthy going on between us!” “And what do you mean by ‘openly and honestly’? I already told you that I’m only getting together with Ryan to save his life!” I watched her deliver this speech with righteous conviction and nearly laughed. “Do you want me to hire someone to investigate how many things you, Lily, and Ryan have done together over the past two or three years?” “You’re glued to each other every day and take our daughter out without even coming home!” “Just friends? Don’t you find yourself ridiculous saying that?” Claire exploded when she heard me. She even tried to throw herself at me and hit me. But before she could reach me, Ryan caught her in his arms. He stepped forward to smooth things over. “Claire, calm down. Mr. Carter is a man, so of course this is hard for him. It’s completely normal.” “But I don’t have any other intentions. I’m only begging you to save me. I promise I won’t do anything else!” “I don’t want to destroy your relationship because of me. I should just let nature take its course and die.” The moment Claire heard this, she hurriedly pulled Ryan into her arms. “Impossible. How could I let you die without doing anything?” Ryan looked at me with a smug, boastful expression. Claire also turned toward me and spat: “You’re a cold-blooded, heartless monster with no compassion!” “You want a divorce, right? Fine. We’ll get divorced right now!” With that, she took a ring from the drawer and threw it straight at me. It was a ring woven from a leaf. I had given it to Claire when I proposed to her. We had been poor back then. I worked myself to the bone every day and still could not afford to buy a ring. When I proposed, I had woven a ring from blades of grass beforehand and slipped it onto Claire’s finger. I promised her that one day I would give her a real ring and an even more perfect proposal. She had cried as she said yes and told me she would keep that ring forever. To preserve it, she had specially hired someone to turn it into a specimen. Later, I fulfilled my promise. I gave her a proposal ring worth millions of dollars and arranged the perfect proposal. Back then, she had told me, “As long as I have this ring with me, I’ll feel like you’ll never leave me.” I had told her, “As long as you keep it with you, I’ll never leave you.” That ring represented the love between us, and we both knew exactly what it meant. By throwing it at me, she was declaring that our relationship was truly over. I used to think there might still be a chance to change things, but now it was clear that nothing remained. She had stopped loving me long ago. The heart that had once loved her also died completely the moment she threw that ring away. As for the ring on her own finger, she still wore it. I knew she was only keeping it for the money. I picked up the leaf ring, smiled, and tossed it into the trash. If that was how things were, then let’s get divorced.