MTL - Swallowed Star - v24 Chapter 21 Second bottleneck

Mara and Maria-Isabel have always been best friends. But while Mara is happily married to Ethan, Maria-Isabel is trapped in an abusive relationship. When Mara and Ethan help her escape, they never expect what happens next.One night, Mara walks in on a moment she never should have seen her husband and her best friend, locked in an intense, lingering gaze.“Tell me it’s not what I think,” Mara whispers, her voice shaking.Maria-Isabel looks away. Ethan stays silent.Their friendship was meant to save Maria-Isabel. Instead, it may have destroyed them all.A story of love, betrayal, and a choice that will change everything.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”“Tell you what, Richard? What would you have done?”“I don’t know. Apologized sooner? Bought you a burger to make up for it?”Her eyes lit up with fire, “You think what you did to me… you think a burger can make up for it?” her eyes twinkled like she was fighting tears. Did I hurt her that badly? I was just a foolish teenager.“Nita, I am sorry. I was young, I was stupid. I wish I could take it all back and tell you how I feel instead of being a constant jerk to gain your attention.”“How did you feel that would justify what you did to me?”I paused for a minute, finding the words. “I had a huge crush on you at the time. And I didn’t know how to express myself. I was full of myself, I was the school’s ladies' man and the one girl I had eyes for didn’t even care if I existed,” “And that justified what you did to me? Richard, you broke me. I can forgive you for ‘accidentally’ spilling your ice cream on me, or throwing my due assignment in the toilet, or the gum in my hair, or the glue in my chair but tell me how can I forgive you for what you did that night? Tell me!”“What night? Nita, what are you talking about?”“Remember when you asked me if I knew who sexually assaulted me?”I nodded, but what does that have to do with anything? The more we spoke, the more confused I became.“You did and I cannot believe that you would stand there and pretend like it didn’t happen!”Nita has spent years trying to forget the torment she endured at the hands of Richard. When her family’s financial ruin forces her into an arranged marriage, she is horrified to find out the groom himself was her bully.Richard, a charming and successful businessman meets the first woman to be repulsed by him. Intrigued, he proposes a deal of a one year marriage of convenience.Navigating life as a couple, old wounds reopen, buried memories surface. As Richard learns more about his wife, he finds that he has enemies that followed him from his past to continuously cloud his wife’s judgement.Will Nita believe the truth and bury old wounds or will the pain of the past prove too strong to heal?

Two-way crush, tough guy attack, chicken suffer [You read that right! doge
The company is particularly down-to-earth this year, giving each person a live chicken that year.
Du Xiao looked at the hen whose neck was too fat in other people’s hands, and then looked at the skinny pheasant in his own hand: “…”
Chairman: “Don’t carry your wings, it will make him uncomfortable, so he should hold it in his arms.”
Du Xiao: “…”
Chairman: “Remember to bring it when you visit relatives and friends, don’t bore him at home, and treat him well.”
Du Xiao: “…”
Chairman: “Go home, happy Spring Festival!”
Du Xiao: “…Why didn’t I see the young master today? I haven’t said goodbye to him yet.”
Chairman: “Cough cough… I don’t know, I probably ran away from home.”
Du Xiao: “…”
Du Xiao: Hormone burst decathlon, taciturn, loyal dog bodyguard attack
Zhou Zhan: I am addicted to life and can’t take care of myself
Sweet sweet!

Content tags: sweet text, special liking, near water towers, ghosts and monsters
Search keywords: Protagonist: Du Xiao, Zhou Zhan ┃ Supporting role: ┃ Others: Zodiac

- Description from novelbuddy

[ THE EARTH YOU KNOW WILL END IN SIX DAYS ]After the text appeared the world was no longer the same. The apocalyptic scenarios that humanity could imagine began to occur one after another.Monsters, meteors, natural disasters. All of them came after the six-day countdown ended.Fortunately, humans are given something to fight back. Or actually to make things much more interesting. They became Players.No one knows who is behind all this.Humans have no other choice but to survive amid this chaos by playing.But Clyde didn't live it like the others. Because he was the only human who had the lowest difficulty in the End Time Game.He plays in Easy Mode, and he already read this kind of thing in web novels. Except, there are no such thing as 'Regressor' in those webnovels. Until he met them.“Wait, I only hit that monster once and it died right away?!”“Whoa, I got an A-grade weapon right away!?”“There are... 4 Regressors?”How is Clyde's journey in this apocalyptic world with the lowest difficulty?