Escaping My Toxic In-Laws' Trap

My seventy-year-old father-in-law moved his thirty-year-old girlfriend into my house, claiming they were prepping to have a baby boy. When I voiced my objection, my wife tore into me with vicious insults. In the end, not only did his girlfriend fail to get pregnant, but she also ran off with every cent he owned. He immediately turned around, went live on TikTok, and played the victim, framing me for hitting on his girlfriend and driving her away. Clueless netizens bombarded me with cyber violence, while my parents back home were publicly humiliated by whispering neighbors. Consumed by twisted devotion for that woman, my father-in-law even brought a gang of thugs into my bedroom while I was asleep and beat me to death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the exact day he brought her through our front door. "Is that useless bum still sleeping in there?! Get him up right now to buy Tiffany some fresh lobster! If she doesn't eat good food, how is she supposed to give me a baby boy?!" The phantom agony of being beaten to death in my past life hadn't even faded, yet that enraged bellow from outside shattered my throbbing skull. SLAP! A stinging slap landed hard across my face. "Lucas, didn't you hear my dad? Get your lazy ass out of bed and go buy him that lobster!" I opened my eyes in a daze, staring in disbelief at the scene before me. The familiar voice, the familiar face, the familiar bedroom—all of it crashed into my senses. Seeing me zone out, my wife, Chloe, kicked me with pure annoyance. "What the hell are you staring at, Lucas? Are you brain-dead? Didn't you hear a word I just said?!" I stared at Chloe. She looked radiant, brimming with energy—the very parasite who had drained my blood drop by drop. Pure, bottomless hatred welled up inside my chest. More than half the credit for my tragic end in my previous life belonged to the woman standing right in front of me. From the day she married me, Chloe had despised me. She always mocked me for being a small-town nobody who wasn't worthy of a spoiled city princess like her. Even after I climbed the ladder and became a senior executive at a major firm, she still looked down on me, saying I reeked of rural dirt. After our wedding, she refused to sleep in the same bedroom. Only after I begged her repeatedly and promised to hand over my entire paycheck did she agree to sleep in my bed once a month. Even then, whenever we were intimate, Chloe would pinch her nose with utter disgust. One time, she snapped and screamed right in my face. "Lucas, sleeping next to you makes me want to vomit. Could you just stay the hell away from me?!" After that day, my self-esteem was thoroughly crushed, and I stopped trying to initiate anything. That was also the reason why, after years of marriage, we still didn't have a child. Arthur, my father-in-law, loved telling outsiders that I was "shooting blanks," constantly sneering that I couldn't give him a grandchild. Looking back, the only reason Chloe had married me in the first place was because back when I was hit rock bottom, Arthur had given me a measly thousand dollars in seed money on one condition: I had to marry his plain-looking daughter, who had a prominent birthmark on her face and whom everyone called bad luck. I never believed in shallow superstitions. I figured as long as a person had a good heart, looks didn't matter. I genuinely wanted to build a quiet, decent life with Chloe as equals. But she had always put herself on a pedestal, firmly believing she was inherently superior to a small-town guy like me. Even after I paid her family back over thirty thousand dollars with massive interest, they still acted as if I owed my entire existence to them—as if without them, I would still be a pathetic stray for everyone to kick around. Out of gratitude, I had swallowed their cold shoulder and condescending insults for years. Yet in my past life, simply because I objected to Arthur moving his thirty-year-old girlfriend into my house to try for a baby, Chloe and her father cursed me out and kicked me out of my own home, forcing me to live in a cheap motel for an entire week. In the end, they only let me come back because they had run out of cash. From the very moment Arthur brought Tiffany into our house, my guard had been up. I’ve always been good at reading people. The way someone carries themselves says everything about their character. Tiffany wore the slick, conniving look of a shameless opportunist. To me, it was obvious she was nothing but bad news. Sure enough, it didn't take long before she cleared out every penny of Arthur's life savings and vanished into thin air. I wanted to call the police, but Arthur went straight to TikTok live, sobbing that I had hit on his girlfriend and scared her away. They slandered me without a shred of evidence, spat on my name, and dragged my elderly parents back in my hometown into the mud, leaving them to face cruel whispers from the entire neighborhood. Unable to take their lies anymore, I prepared to take legal action to protect myself, get a divorce from Chloe, and sever every single tie with her family. I never imagined that on the eve of filing, Arthur would lead a mob of thugs into my room while I slept, beating me to death. Perhaps my resentment was so profound that God decided to grant me a second chance, sending me right back to the day it all began."Chloe, I hand over my whole paycheck to you. Where am I supposed to get the money?" She rolled her eyes, pulled a hundred-dollar bill from her purse, and slapped it against my chest. "You really are a useless piece of trash. I have a million things to spend money on. Just buy three lobsters. A grown man like you doesn't need to eat that kind of luxury." I let out a silent sneer. A useless piece of trash? If memory served me right, ever since we tied the knot, Chloe had never worked a single day. She lived off my hard-earned money, and now her deadbeat father had barged in to leech off me too. Who was the real trash here? No matter. Let them push a little more. Everything that belonged to me, I was going to take back from this family, penny by penny. "Oh, you must be Lucas! You can just call me Aunt Tiffany. Arthur always talks about you. He says you work hard and you're quite the ambitious young man!" Tiffany, who was forty years younger than Arthur, swayed toward me and patted my shoulder with familiar ease. Even with a second chance at life, having a woman practically my own age act like my elder still made my skin crawl. At thirty, Tiffany had an hourglass figure and carried herself with mature, practiced allure. While she wasn't stunningly gorgeous, she was precisely the kind of trophy woman naive old men lost their minds over. Arthur threw me a disdainful glare. "Hmph. If I hadn't lent him that cash back then, would he have made anything of himself? Lucas, my family did you a life-changing favor. You’d better never forget that." With that, he wrapped his arm around Tiffany's waist and tapped her nose playfully. "Your Aunt Tiffany has refined taste; she needs quality nutrition. Our family still doesn't have a son to carry on the family name.” “My health is still great, so I plan on having another boy. We're going to stay here for a few months while we try to conceive. You don't have a problem with that, do you, Lucas?" His words sounded like he was asking for permission, but his tone brooked no argument. "Dad, this is your home too. Of course you can stay." After the brutal price I paid in my past life, I knew these people were a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. Saying no right now would only trigger an immediate blowout, and I wasn't going to play into their hands. Chloe clung to Arthur’s arm, putting on a sickeningly sweet smile. "Of course, Dad! You can stay as long as you want! By the way, that government buyout check for your old land... did it clear yet? There’s this luxury car I’ve been eyeing recently... Could you maybe..." I hid a smirk and chimed in, "Dad, isn't that money reserved for raising your future son?" Arthur's face instantly darkened, and he yanked his arm out of Chloe's grasp. "Don't even dream about it! Every cent of that is going to my boy!" Chloe blew a fuse. "Dad, have you lost your damn mind?! Am I not your flesh and blood?! Why are you being so selfish?!" Seeing the tension flare, Tiffany hurried over to play peacemaker, clutching Arthur's hand. "Arthur, calm down. Your blood pressure is high. Don't work yourself up; your health comes first. Chloe, the payout hasn't arrived yet. Once it hits, I'll talk to him for you, don't worry." Chloe scoffed loudly, completely unimpressed. "Save your fake act! The only reason my dad won't give me the money is because you've been poisoning his ear against me!" Tiffany lowered her head, looking utterly wounded as she gazed up at Arthur. "Arthur, I swear I didn't... She's making things up..." "How dare you raise your voice at Tiffany?! She's going to be your stepmother!" Furious, Arthur raised his hand, ready to slap Chloe across the face. "Screw that! My mom isn't even cold in her grave, and you're already parading this new woman around! She's gonna roll in her grave and haunt your ass tonight!" I stood off to the side, watching this dog-eat-dog spectacle with immense satisfaction. Chloe was shallow and greedy. Whenever her friends bought a designer bag or a new car, she just had to copy them. The only reason she welcomed Arthur into our home was because she was drooling over his hundred-thousand-dollar government buyout check. As for Arthur, he had been a cheapskate his whole life. He believed only a son counted as real family blood, stubbornly determined to leave every dime to an unborn boy while giving his daughter nothing. Now that his dried-up tree was supposedly blooming again, he worshiped Tiffany—the woman who promised him an heir—hanging onto her every word. And Tiffany, who was only here to drain his bank account, obviously had zero intention of talking him into sharing the wealth with his daughter.Seeing the stalemate drag on, I finally stepped forward to play the "reasonable" son-in-law. "Chloe, stop yelling at your dad. Dad isn't the type of man to abandon his own blood for a woman! Besides, he's our elder." Arthur broke into a wide grin and looked at me approvingly. "Lucas, finally, some common sense out of your mouth!" I returned a faint, polite smile. Go ahead, old man. Smile all you want. Very soon... you won't be smiling ever again. Over the next few days, Arthur treated Chloe and me like personal servants, ordering us around to massage their shoulders, rub their feet, and fetch tea. Unable to handle the annoyance, Chloe dumped the entire burden on me, spending all her time hanging out with friends and barely setting foot in the house. Since Arthur was getting on in years, he spent most of his days resting in the guest room. That left Tiffany and me crossing paths in the house constantly. I knew this woman was rotten to the core, and her fingers were sticky. Over the past couple of days, she had been sneaking around, eyeing my master bedroom. Thinking back to my previous life, around this exact time, Chloe had lost an expensive necklace. There was no doubt in my mind who took it. I secretly installed a pinhole camera in the bedroom and deliberately came home late from work. Sure enough, looking at the live feed on my phone, Tiffany was tearing through our drawers. She grumbled aloud as she rummaged. "Damn it. Chloe acts all high-and-mighty, so why isn't there anything valuable in this dump?" "No way. She wears gold and diamonds all day. There's gotta be something." "Aha... found it!" Half an hour later, Tiffany emerged from the room with a wide smirk, clutching a shimmering gold necklace, looking thoroughly satisfied. Seeing her pocket it, I let out a slow breath of relief. Tiffany didn't know, but as Chloe's husband, I knew her habits inside and out. That necklace was Chloe's absolute favorite, her most prized possession. She rarely wore it outside, keeping it locked away in the bedroom, checking on it almost daily. I took a slow drag from my cigarette outside. The show was about to start. The moment Chloe got home, she started tearing the room apart. Before long, she marched out with a thunderous expression, demanding answers. "Lucas, where's my necklace?! The one with the pink diamond?!" I held up my hands innocently. "I have no idea. I've been working overtime at the office for the past three days. I haven't even been home." She narrowed her eyes with suspicion, then slowly turned her glare toward Tiffany and Arthur. "Did you two go into my room?" Seeing Chloe's accusing face, Arthur's temper flared instantly. "Who the hell do you think you're interrogating, Chloe?! I'm your father, and this is your Aunt Tiffany! We are your elders! How dare you speak to us like that?!" Tiffany lowered her head, looking guilty. "Exactly, Chloe... you can't just throw accusations around." Chloe locked her eyes straight onto Tiffany, pointing a finger right at her nose. "I knew there was something shady about you! You're a thirty-year-old woman in your prime.” “Instead of marrying a normal guy, you hook up with my seventy-year-old dad claiming you want to take care of him forever and give him a son?” “Nobody with half a brain would buy that garbage! Tell me the truth—did you steal my necklace?!" Tiffany pulled a tearful, heartbroken face and waved her hands frantically. "Chloe, I swear I didn't! I would never touch your things! I'm with your dad because I genuinely love him, not for anything else!" "Hmph! Not for anything else? You love that he's half in the grave? You love that he doesn't bathe? Or do you love the cash in his pockets?! You know damn well what you're after!" SLAP! A vicious slap cracked across Chloe's cheek. Arthur's face was flushed purple with rage as he pulled the sobbing Tiffany tightly into his arms. "Don't you dare slander my Tiffany! Lucas sleeps in the same bed with you every single night! He's the closest to your jewelry!” “You control every cent of his paycheck, so it's entirely possible he got desperate for cash and stole it!" Instantly, everyone's eyes snapped to me. "Lucas, if you took it, you better hand it over right this second, or I'm calling the cops and having you arrested!"