Chapter 1

The day after our wedding, my wife claimed she didn’t know me.

I’d spent years working myself to the bone and saving every penny before I could finally marry the woman I loved.

Between the house, the car, and everything I’d paid toward the wedding, I’d spent three million dollars.

But the very next day, my wife stared at me in terror and insisted she was single.

Worse, the county clerk’s office had no record of us ever getting married.

The house and car were both in her name.

Half a lifetime of savings had vanished overnight.

Furious, I tracked down her friends, certain they could prove the truth.

Instead, every one of them claimed they’d never seen me before.

I stormed into the county clerk’s office demanding answers.

The staff thought I was delusional and called the police.

“You’ve gone crazy from wanting a woman that badly, haven’t you? You probably got married in a dream. What bride refuses to recognize her husband the day after the wedding?”

After trying to mediate, even the police decided there was something wrong with me.

Desperate to recover my house and car, I fought to take back what was mine.

Instead, my wife accused me of running a marriage scam and trying to steal her property.

Whenever I showed up, the building’s security guards beat me and threw me out.

My wife posted videos of my breakdowns online, and the entire internet mocked me.

Everyone believed I was insane.

In the end, exhausted and tormented beyond endurance, I wandered into traffic and was struck dead.

But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day we were supposed to get our marriage certificate.

Chapter 1

“Great. Now move a little closer together!”

The lingering agony of being hit by that car made me shoot to my feet.

“I’m not marrying her!”

Jenna Spencer grabbed my arm in panic.

“Honey, what’s wrong? Did I do something to upset you again?”

But Ryan Leedon, the clerk handling our paperwork, tossed the stamped marriage certificate onto the counter.

“The process is already complete. If you want a divorce, you’ll have to file separately.”

A divorce?

Wouldn’t that mean Jenna could claim half of everything I owned?

I couldn’t accept that.

I had to find the flaw in their setup as quickly as possible.

I looked around carefully.

There was no doubt about it. This was the county’s main clerk’s office.

Even the security cameras overhead were blinking red.

Then why hadn’t I appeared in any of the footage in my previous life?

I snatched up the marriage certificate they’d later claimed was fake and stopped a random newlywed couple to compare it with theirs.

The county seal, registration number, signatures, and paper all looked authentic.

Jenna stared at me in confusion.

“Honey, you don’t actually think our marriage certificate is fake, do you?”

I looked at the familiar woman beside me again.

It had taken me three years of dating to finally marry her.

I’d spent at least half a million dollars on her alone.

Yet in less than twenty-four hours, she would stare at me innocently and ask three questions in a row.

“Who are you?”

“What are you doing in my house?”

“How could you possibly be my husband?”

A surge of rage rose inside me.

I slapped her across the face, then rushed back to the marriage counter.

I wanted to see exactly what the system showed this time.

Jenna followed behind me, clutching her cheek.

When she caught up, I was staring blankly at the word on the clerk’s computer screen.

'Married.'

This made no sense.

Every part of the process appeared completely legitimate.

The young woman who had directed us during the photoshoot came over.

“If everything’s settled, you can collect your newlywed gift bag over here. Please don’t hold up the next couple.”

She had taken such great photos of us that I’d added her as a contact and sent her a cash tip to thank her.

But when I returned to question the clerk’s office in my previous life, she’d claimed she had never seen me before.

Even our entire message history had been wiped clean.

I’d replayed her reaction in my mind countless times.

Nothing about it had seemed fake.

Ryan had even less reason to make things difficult for me.

After all, he had no obvious reason to help Jenna deceive me.

Yet in my previous life, he had also insisted he’d never processed any paperwork for me.

Was I really losing my mind?

Chapter 2

“Honey, now that we’ve got our marriage certificate, let’s head back. Your parents are waiting for us to have dinner.”

Jenna Spencer gently straightened my collar.

Looking into her eyes, I almost began to wonder whether my previous life had been nothing more than a nightmare.

She had strong values, impeccable manners, and had always treated me with tenderness.

She was also an orphan, so we’d never had to worry about her family objecting to our relationship.

I was an only child, and my parents had been pushing me to settle down for years.

Now that we were legally married, I couldn’t humiliate them on what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of our lives.

I pulled Jenna directly beneath one of the security cameras.

“Hold up the marriage certificate, say, ‘Honey, I love you,’ and then kiss me.”

If this really was some elaborate scheme she’d planned in advance, she would surely try to avoid being caught on camera.

Instead, she stood there grinning like an idiot.

“Honey, you really know how to make things exciting.”

Then I called Ryan Leedon over too.

“It’s a special day. Would you mind joining us for a photo to commemorate the day?”

He readily agreed and offered us his sincerest congratulations.

I had nothing left to say.

Claiming that I’d lost something, I made another trip to the security office.

I secretly recorded the surveillance footage showing Jenna and me completing the paperwork and kissing afterward.

Then I sent it to every friend in my contacts and posted it across all my social media accounts.

Jenna’s eyes lit up.

“Honey, you really do love me. I can’t believe you’re announcing it so publicly. I’m posting it too!”

I only wanted evidence in case something went wrong again.

I kept that thought to myself.

Then I logged into the online system and took screenshots of every record proving Jenna and I were legally married.

Surely I’d covered every possible angle this time.

By the time we arrived at the hotel, all our relatives were already waiting in the private dining room.

My parents were beaming as they praised me for finding such a wonderful wife.

Everything was exactly the same as in my previous life.

Jenna went around the room, raising a glass with each of our relatives and charming every last one of them.

Meanwhile, I kept my eyes locked on the marriage certificate as it passed from hand to hand.

I couldn’t risk anyone secretly switching it.

I spent the entire meal on edge.

Thankfully, nothing strange happened.

Before we went home, I deliberately invited a large group of friends over.

They had all seen Jenna and me together in our home as newlyweds.

Surely they couldn’t claim later that they knew nothing about it.

Once everyone had gone and the apartment finally fell quiet, I clutched the marriage certificate tightly, terrified it might somehow vanish.

It wasn’t just proof of my marriage.

More importantly, my entire fortune depended on it.

“Jenna, you’re not going to wake up one day and suddenly forget who I am, are you?”

She walked over and kissed me.

Her eyes sparkled as she looked at me.

“Even if I lost my memory, I’d fall in love with you all over again.”

I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

This time, our marriage had to work out.

I kept the marriage certificate beneath my pillow all night.

But when I woke the next morning, Jenna screamed as if she’d seen a ghost.

“Who the hell are you? Why are you in my bed?”

Chapter 3

I didn’t have time to be shocked.

I knew immediately that everything had gone wrong again.

I grabbed the marriage certificate and threw it down in front of her.

“Stop screaming! I don’t care whether you’ve really lost your memory or you’re pretending. We got married yesterday!”

Her eyes widened as she opened both copies of the certificate.

She looked at them for barely a second before bursting into laughter.

“Are you insane? You bought some fake certificates online, and now you think you can claim we’re married?”

Not this again.

How many times had I checked those certificates yesterday?

I’d studied them so carefully that I could’ve drawn every detail from memory.

I snatched them back, ready to argue.

Then I froze.

These certificates were obviously fake.

How had they appeared again?

I ripped the pillow away and searched the entire bed.

The genuine certificates were gone.

Jenna shoved me aside with a cold laugh.

“Nothing else to say? Stop putting on an act.”

“Leave now, and I might consider not calling the police.”

Furious and desperate, I logged into the county clerk’s website and tried to show her our marriage record.

But once again, the county records portal showed no marriage under my name.

No matter how many times I refreshed the page, there wasn’t a single trace of our marriage.

I stared at the screen in disbelief.

Jenna kicked me off the bed.

“Can’t keep your story straight anymore, can you? I’m calling the police!”

She grabbed her phone and started dialing 911.

My blood boiled.

Without thinking, I knocked the phone from her hand.

“Jenna Spencer, you don’t have money or connections. Why would I go through all this trouble to trick you into marrying me?”

“Everything I said is true! I bought this condo. If anyone should leave, it’s you!”

She laughed so hard she could barely stand.

Pointing straight at my face, she sneered, “You bought this place? Then show me the deed.”

Back then, I’d wanted Jenna to feel secure.

I’d put the condo entirely in her name.

Mine wasn’t on the deed at all.

Seeing that I had no response, she laughed even louder.

Before I could react, she dragged me into the hallway.

“Everyone, come look! This creep broke into my apartment and crawled into my bed while I was sleeping!”

Doors immediately opened around us.

The neighbors took one look at my pajamas and disheveled hair, and disgust spread across their faces.

“What kind of loser breaks into a woman’s apartment because he can’t get a date?”

“He must be so obsessed with getting a woman that he’s lost his mind.”

Their insults kept coming.

I was about to explode.

In my previous life, they’d denied my marriage and called me insane.

Now they were treating me like some pathetic stalker.

Why was it so hard for me to have one normal marriage?

The neighbors pointed and whispered as the building’s security guards charged over with batons.

Desperate to keep them from dragging me away, I called one of Jenna’s friends.

The moment the call connected, my heart leaped into my throat.

“It’s Ethan Winters. You know Jenna and I got married yesterday, right?”

I waited desperately for her to confirm it.

Instead, her confused voice came through the phone.

“What? Jenna got married? Are you sure you called the right person?”

My heart sank.

The laughter around me grew even louder.

Several people raised their phones to record.

“You even tracked down my friend’s number?” Jenna snapped. “You really did plan all this.”

The only things left in her eyes were disgust and coldness.

The security guards rushed forward and warned me to leave immediately.

I was nearly out of options when I suddenly remembered the safe.

“There’s a white safe in the back bedroom. The code is my birthday, 0823.”

“Open it, and you’ll know exactly who I am!”

Jenna looked at me as though I were an idiot.

Maybe she wanted to watch me humiliate myself.

Without hesitation, she brought the safe out and opened it in front of everyone.

Every pair of eyes locked onto its contents.

Inside were the property deed and several gold bars.

There was also a family photo of Jenna, me, and my parents.

Thank God I’d gotten nervous last night and secretly placed it inside.

I finally let out the breath I’d been holding.

“Now you have to believe me.”

Chapter 4

Jenna’s answer was a sharp slap across my face.

Before I could react, she tore the family photo to pieces.

“How long have you been stalking me?”

“You know the code to my front door, and you can even open my safe?”

The neighbors gasped.

Now I wasn’t just some pervert.

I was a deranged stalker too.

I was so furious I could barely get the words out.

One of the more self-righteous neighbors insisted they call the police and have me punished.

I gripped the doorframe and shouted, “Go ahead! Call them! Have them arrest me if you can!”

“Otherwise, I’d rather die than be thrown out of my own home!”

I’d spent more than six months overseeing the renovations alone.

There was no way I was giving this place up so easily.

The police arrived soon afterward.

Ignoring the neighbors all talking over one another, I held up my phone in front of the officers.

“Officer, I’ll cooperate with any investigation.”

“I have videos of our wedding registration, along with screenshots showing that the system listed us as married.”

One of the officers took my phone and reviewed the files.

Every video showed Jenna and me acting like a loving newlywed couple.

The neighbors began murmuring among themselves.

“So they really are married?”

The officer turned to Jenna with a stern expression.

“You’re kissing him in these videos. How can you claim you don’t know him?”

Jenna’s eyes widened in horror.

“Officer, I swear I’m innocent! Those videos are obviously AI-generated!”

“I was out drinking with my best friend last night.”

“I even called the police after some creep harassed us!”

A younger officer studied her for a moment.

“Oh, it’s you. I knew you looked familiar.”

He pulled up the report Jenna had filed the night before.

There were even photos taken at the scene.

No one had any reason to doubt official police records.

But I felt like I was losing my mind.

Did Jenna have an identical twin sister?

At that exact time, she’d been at home playing drinking games with me.

How could she have been somewhere else filing a police report?

Jenna looked at my bloodless face and scoffed.

“Officer, this man is clearly mentally unstable. Please take him away.”

“No!”

The word burst out of me before I could stop it.

“Take us to the county clerk’s office. That’ll prove everything!”

Jenna rolled her eyes.

“You’re still refusing to admit it when you’ve already been caught?”

“Fine. I’ll play along. Let’s see what kind of trick you’re trying to pull.”

We arrived at the county clerk’s office soon afterward.

Ryan happened to be on duty.

After showing their badges, the officers asked whether he remembered me.

He studied me with a blank expression before shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t remember him. I help dozens of people every day.”

“It was around eleven yesterday morning,” I said urgently. “I asked you to take a picture with my wife and me. You even congratulated us.”

I hurriedly pulled up the photo, hoping it would jog his memory.

But he still shook his head.

While I continued arguing with him, another officer finished reviewing the security footage.

“We have enough preliminary evidence.”

My heart pounded as I waited for her conclusion.

“Well? That proves my videos weren’t fake, doesn’t it?”

Her expression suddenly darkened.

Before I could react, she twisted my arm behind my back and forced me facedown onto the floor.

“You used AI to fabricate these videos and seriously disrupted public order!”

Chapter 5

I was on the verge of breaking down.

I didn’t even need to see the footage to know what had happened.

Just like in my previous life, I wouldn’t appear anywhere on the surveillance video.

Ryan shook his head as he watched the clips on my phone.

“If I’d taken a photo like this, I’m sure I would remember.”

The woman who had taken our pictures spoke up too.

“I keep copies of every photo I take for couples. I couldn’t find a single one of them.”

Jenna looked so smug that the corners of her mouth nearly reached her ears.

“What else do you have to say for yourself now?”

The officers looked at me with open disgust and prepared to take me back to the station for questioning.

My head buzzed.

I was completely out of options.

At this point, taking another gamble was better than being dismissed as insane.

“We had dinner at a hotel yesterday too! Please investigate that!”

We headed straight to the hotel, where the manager quickly pulled up the security footage.

“I remember this family. They reserved our most expensive private dining room yesterday.”

My heart pounded.

It felt like I’d finally found a lifeline.

But the footage shattered my hopes all over again.

From the moment we entered the hotel until the moment we left, Jenna never appeared on-screen.

I refused to give up.

I went to the real estate office, then the car dealership.

But every result was exactly the same as in my previous life.

“Mr. Winters, we may need to have you undergo a psychiatric evaluation.”

Those words instantly brought back the pain of being treated like a mental patient in my previous life.

I screamed and shoved past the officers in blind panic.

“There’s nothing wrong with me! I got married! That’s all!”

Everyone around me pointed and whispered.

Jenna stood to the side, watching with obvious satisfaction.

The officers shouted warnings behind me.

I stumbled to the ground and frantically called my mom.

“Mom, what am I supposed to do? My wife says she doesn’t know me, and I’ve disappeared from all the security footage. They’re going to call me insane again.”

Memories of my parents running themselves ragged trying to help me in my previous life flashed through my mind.

In the end, they’d even been doxxed because of me.

My chest hurt so badly I could barely breathe.

Tears streamed down my face.

I’d made so many preparations this time.

Why was everything happening exactly the same way again?

Then my mother’s confused response stopped me cold.

“What wife? You didn’t imagine yourself getting married again, did you?”

What?

My own mother didn’t know I was married?

Before I could process it, an officer snatched the phone from my hand.

“Ma’am, this is the police. Your son appears to be...”

“Yes, my son is mentally ill!” my mother interrupted. “I don’t know how he got out again. Please give me your location, and I’ll come get him.”

Chapter 6

It felt like all the blood in my body had turned to ice.

“When was I ever diagnosed with a mental illness? In my past life...”

But Mom had already hung up.

Once the officers confirmed that I had a psychiatric condition, their attitudes softened considerably. They told me to sit off to the side and calm down.

Jenna put on a magnanimous expression and declared that she wouldn’t hold a mentally ill man responsible.

What the hell was going on?

My parents had always been my strongest supporters.

Why had even they betrayed me this time?

I hadn’t even gotten the chance to enjoy the life I’d worked so hard for.

Was I really going to be locked in a psychiatric hospital and tortured all over again?

My car.

My condo.

I couldn’t just hand everything over to her for nothing.

I grabbed Jenna and refused to let go.

“Give me back my money, or we’ll die together!”

She kicked me hard and sent me flying.

I hit the ground, pain tearing through my body.

She shrieked in terror, “Officers, you can’t let this lunatic anywhere near me again!”

My lungs nearly burst with rage.

I was the victim!

Ignoring the officers trying to stop me, I lunged at her and began punching and kicking.

“Fine! Mentally ill people don’t get punished for assault, right? Then I’ll kill you!”

I’d had enough.

Why did Jenna get to take everything from me so easily?

Why did I have to sacrifice everything for her, only to be branded insane?

It wasn’t fair.

This time, I was dragging her down with me.

I completely lost control.

All I wanted was Jenna dead.

Even the officers struggled to pull me off her.

In the middle of the chaos, my parents finally arrived.

A doctor followed close behind them.

“Ethan! Why are you having another episode?” Mom cried. “I’m begging you. Stop throwing your future away like this!”

I was almost too exhausted to stay on my feet.

“What proof do you have that there’s anything wrong with me?”

To my shock, Mom actually pulled out a psychiatric evaluation.

My signature was right there at the bottom.

“Ethan, your father and I kept it from you because we wanted you to keep living a normal life.”

As she spoke, the doctor behind her approached with a syringe raised in one hand.

I was about to resist.

Then I saw her face.

In that instant, everything clicked.

I finally understood how this entire game had been played.