"There's no time left"

I remember the time when I was just a child. My world shattered the day my mother died. There had always been tension between my parents_constant fight, cold silences, and tears hidden behind closed doors. My father, a respected businessman in the eyes of society, carried a dark secret. Beneath the mask of wealth and power, he was a notorious criminal_one whose true identity no one dared to question.

As I grew older, the void my mother left only deepened. After several years, my father remarried a woman who had a son slightly older than me. He was introduced as my stepbrother.From the beginning, my stepmother made it clear_I was an outsider in her new kingdom. She treated me with cruelty, always whispering to her son that one day, all my father's wealth would be mine, and not his.The jealousy in her eyes was unmistakable.

Time passed, but the pain remained.

20 years later........

Now I'm 24 years old.Life has changed, but the wounds never healed. I recently got engaged to a girl named Kim Sarang, my childhood friend.She's kind, beautiful, and has always stood by me. But deep down,I question her intentions.Does she love me, or the wealth that surrounds me? I can't bring myself to marry hear_not yet. I don't want to spoil her life, if my heart isn't in it.She says she wants to marry me for who I am, but all I hear is the echo of my stepmother's voice."Once he grow up,his father will give him everything "

...Now I work as a director in one of my father's restaurant chains. From the outside, I seem successful_well-dressed, respected, and powerful.But inside? I'm just a hollow shell. A spoiled man with a hardened heart.Since the day I lost my mother, I stopped feeling, I stopped caring. I don't believe in love, or family, or forever. I just live_ day by day, breath by breath_waiting for something to change....

But maybe......it's too late.

It was a rainy evening_the kind that drags old memories out of the shadows. I sat alone in my office at the restaurant, staring blankly at the storm outside.The thunder reminded me of all the times I'd screamed inside my head, with no one ever hearing me.

Just then, my assistant walked in, holding a sealed envelope.

"Sir,this was delivered by hand. No name, just....urgent"

I hesitated.Hand-delivered? That didn't happen anymore_not in this digital age. I took the envelope,its paper rough, yellowed, like it had been hidden away for years.

I opened it.

"My dearest son", it began.

" If you are reading this, then I'm no longer in your life.

I knew this day would come,and I wanted to leave you something more than silence. There are things I never told you_things that could destroy everything you believe about our family.The man you call your father. ... is not who he claims to be.You must find the old house in Busan.Look under the floorboards in the master bedroom. Trust no one. "

It was signed:Mom.

My heart froze.

I read it again.And again.

Was this real ? A message from my mother? She'd been gone for nearly two decades... Yet her handwriting_familiar, soft, delicate _was unmistakable.

I sat back,shaken to my core. My entire life, I had accepted the version of truth that was handed to me like a prison sentence. But what if... but what if my mother's death wasn't what it seemed? What if my father's empire, his lies, and the darkness I was born into_were all connected?

The night,I couldn't sleep. The rain kept falling,but something inside me had finally awakened.

For the first time in years..........

I felt alive.

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