Lan Diao
8 Published Stories
Lan Diao's Books and Stories
Reborn To Claim My Billionaire Enemy
Romance When I woke up on the muddy bank of the freezing river, I unlocked a brutal, unfiltered preview of my actual future.
For the past six months, I had been the town's ultimate joke, chasing after a city boy who looked at me like a diseased insect. Everyone thought I jumped into the river because he rejected me.
But the nightmare didn't stop there. In the future I foresaw, my entire family was destroyed. My eldest brother was handcuffed and dragged into a squad car. My second brother died in a pool of blood on the asphalt. My parents passed away from sheer grief and humiliation, and our farm was foreclosed.
Meanwhile, Bart Hawkins—my family's sworn enemy, the boy everyone accused of pushing me, but who actually jumped in to save my life—became a billionaire tech mogul. I ended up starving to death in a damp, moldy basement, completely alone.
I finally understood that I was just a pathetic, tragic side character meant to drag my family into hell. My own sister-in-law, Felicie, had been stealing our food and money, laughing at my misery behind my back.
But right now, my mother was still alive, my brothers were safe, and the farm was ours.
When Felicie walked into my bedroom, playing the devoted sister-in-law with a bowl of clear, meatless broth while a stolen roasted chicken thigh leaked grease through her apron pocket, I didn't play along.
"What's in your pocket, Felicie?"
This time, I was going to tear that horrific future apart with my bare hands. My Mad King's Love, Forever Mine
Werewolf For a thousand years, the Vora beastmen have been cursed by a madness-a burning sickness in their blood that only one thing can soothe: the legendary 'Blood-Blessed,' a human female whose very scent is a living cure.
When a virus wiped out nearly all females, their desperate hunt for this mythical girl turned into a brutal conquest. They crushed our fallen human kingdoms, reducing us to breathing meat under their cruel "Livestock Codex."
To save my little sister from being branded for their elite breeding auction, I took her place in the male-only death draft.
Disguised as a boy, I was thrown into a pitch-black labyrinth, a living sacrifice meant to feed their ultimate nightmare: the feral, half-dragon Mad King.
He tore our steel cage apart like wet paper. I pressed my back against the freezing wall, watching in horror as he slaughtered the screaming men around me.
He ripped the filthy coat from my body, exposing my true gender. As his crimson eyes locked onto my throat and he opened his jaws for the kill, my rage burned away my fear.
I was a pureblood heiress of a dead empire, but I would not die cowering like an animal. I gripped a shard of glass, ready to aim for his eye.
But as he lunged, the glass sliced my palm. The moment my blood hit the air, the legend became my reality. The sweet, intoxicating scent that flooded the dark wasn't just my pheromones-it was the living cure.
The terrifying, apocalyptic tyrant froze mid-strike. He dropped his massive body to his knees, his fangs retracting as he gently, desperately licked my bleeding hand.
His chaotic red eyes darkened with an absolute, world-ending obsession as he pulled my fragile body against his burning chest.
"Mine."
I was meant to be his final meal. They called me the Blood-Blessed. He called me his Queen. From Broken Fiancée To Corporate Queen
Modern I walked into the hospital wing to find my fiancé, Derrick, holding his pregnant high-school sweetheart.
His plan was sickening: he would publicly claim her baby to save her from scandal, while our child, the one I was secretly carrying, would be hidden away-a shameful 'accident'.
He locked me in a damp guesthouse as his mother called me a whore and my unborn child a bastard.
But the true cost of his weakness came when she dragged me to a clinic and forced an abortion, killing my seven-month-old baby while Derrick was away caring for his other family.
Six months later, I returned.
Backed by a powerful new family, I walked into the Bradford Corporation's boardroom to face them all.
Derrick looked at me like he'd seen a ghost, not realizing I was there to take his entire empire.
I signed the papers that made me his boss and smiled for the cameras.
"The old Ava is dead," I whispered. "Long live the queen." My Stolen Life, Their Bitter Downfall
Modern I was Aurora Sterling, a talented physician who, to protect my fragile stepsister Clara, took the fall for financial fraud and went to prison.
I served one year. My family, my fiancé Julian Thorne, they all promised me it was temporary, that they would wait for me, that they would take care of everything. They said Clara needed me to do this.
A year later, I walked out of the prison gates not to the embrace of my family, but to cold, empty air. They hadn't come. They were all at a party, celebrating Clara's birthday—celebrating her new place as the sole Sterling heiress, the new woman at Julian's side.
The lie shattered in that instant. The "sister" I had sacrificed everything to protect had, in my absence, stolen my life. Julian, the man who had sworn he loved me, had fallen into her carefully woven trap of "fragility," his favoritism becoming the sharpest knife twisted in my back.
They thought I was weak. They thought I would once again yield for the sake of so-called "family."
They were about to find out just how fatally wrong they were. A Pawn, A Son, A Forced Marriage
Modern Two years ago, my fiancé, Connor, tossed the only life jacket to his mistress, Ilene, and watched me drown. I was pregnant with his child.
He found me living a quiet life as a fisherman's wife on a remote island, dragged me back to his world, and revealed a shocking truth: our son, the one I thought I'd lost, was alive. He had been raised by them all along.
Connor divorced Ilene and tried to force me into marriage, using our son as a pawn. But the boy he'd raised was a stranger, twisted by his father's cruelty, calling me a "bad woman."
That's when I knew I had to destroy them.
I returned to the island, not as a victim, but as Ayla Garcia, the island chief's long-lost daughter.
"Connor Foster," my father roared, his voice echoing through the hall, "you dared to touch my daughter? Get out of my sight, now!"
He thought he could ruin my life, but he never realized he was trespassing in my kingdom. When Love Became A Transaction
Modern The phone rang, a sharp, unwelcome sound cutting through the quiet of my office. It was Olivia, my wife.
A smile touched my lips. Six months pregnant, a miracle after years of heartbreak.
"Hey, honey. Everything okay? Did you pick out a color for the nursery yet? I' m still team blue."
Then, silence. A heavy, dead-air kind of quiet.
Her voice, when it came, was a ghost: "Ethan… can you come to the hospital?"
My heart stopped. My mind raced through a thousand terrible possibilities, but none prepared me for the sight of her in the surgical waiting room, her face pale, her belly-our baby-gone.
"I had an abortion, Ethan." Her words shattered my world.
"He was bad luck," she said simply, as if explaining the weather. Then she pointed towards the ICU. "Liam is in here. He was in a car accident."
Liam. Her college sweetheart. The ghost in our marriage.
"The baby… he was too perfect. All our good luck went to him. I had to get rid of the bad luck. I had to save him." Her twisted logic was terrifying.
I stumbled home to find my mother humming happily in the nursery, folding a tiny blue onesie. The room was a testament to a dream now destroyed.
"She lost him," I managed to tell her, a desperate lie to shield her from the grotesque truth. But she sensed it.
The pain of our son' s death, coupled with Olivia's betrayal, hit my mother hard. Her doctor called it "broken heart syndrome."
Then came the call from Olivia's doctor. "It's highly unlikely Olivia will be able to conceive again. The damage is permanent."
That night, I discovered our joint savings account, tens of thousands of dollars, completely drained. Funneled to Liam's experimental medical clinic.
I found Olivia at his bedside, peeling an apple for him. "It wasn't a problem," she said, "It was a sacrifice. For you. For us."
"Good girl," he replied. "Once I'm out of here… Miller will be out of the picture."
My son's death wasn't a tragic act of madness. It was a transaction. And I had been played for a fool from the very beginning.
Liam called me, arrogant and triumphant. "You were just a placeholder."
"You're too selfish!" Olivia shrieked, when I confronted her.
Her words, so twisted and absurd, snapped the last thread of any feeling I had for her. "I want a divorce, Olivia."
I hung up, then blocked both their numbers. The decision was made. The war had just begun. Engagement Party Nightmare
Romance My engagement party at the Plaza Hotel was supposed to be my fairy tale. I was Emily White, soon to be Mrs. Jack Anderson, Wall Street’s golden boy, feeling like a princess in my dream gown.
Then, the giant screen, meant for our loving slideshow, flickered. A grainy video played: me, years ago, utterly wasted at a frat party, completely out of control. A collective gasp ripped through the ballroom.
Jack’s face turned from white to furious red. He snatched the mic, bellowing, "This engagement is OFF!" He ripped the diamond ring from my finger, brutally shoving it onto my maid of honor, Sophia’s, hand. "Sophia, at least you have some class." Laughter rippled through the guests as my parents sobbed. My world shattered along with the champagne flute in my numb fingers.
Just as I stood frozen in humiliation, the main doors burst open. Marcus "King" Corleone, the city's whispered-about power, Sophia's "guardian," emerged from the shadows. Silence fell. He stopped the video, took a mic, and his voice, soft yet chilling, commanded everyone to leave.
Only my parents, Jack, Sophia, and I remained. Then, he approached me. “I’ll offer you a contract, Emily. A marriage. To me.” Marry a rumored monster? He gestured to Sophia, who was preening with my ring. My career, my future, my reputation—all gone. Despair washed over me. What choice did I have? I whispered, "Yes." You might like
While I Was Bleeding Out, He Lit Lanterns For Her
Katie Oettgen As I lay on the floor of our manor, bleeding out from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, I used my last ounce of strength to call my husband, Cole.
I begged him for help, my vision blurring.
But the only thing I heard was the clinking of champagne glasses and his mistress's giggle in the background.
"Stop the drama, June," Cole snapped, his voice cold. "We're about to go on stage. Don't call again."
He hung up, leaving me to die alone on the Persian rug while he accepted an award with another woman on his arm.
I woke up in the hospital days later. My baby was gone. They had removed my fallopian tube.
Cole finally arrived, smelling of expensive scotch and his mistress's perfume. He didn't hug me. He didn't cry.
Instead, he leaned over my hospital bed, pressing his knee into the mattress until my fresh stitches tore open and bled.
"You embarrassed me by calling an ambulance," he hissed. "My mistress, Alycia, says you're faking it. Clean yourself up."
He left me bleeding again to go announce a $10 million donation to Alycia's "groundbreaking" medical research.
I stared at the TV screen, numb. The research Alycia was taking credit for? It was mine. I wrote that patent years ago under a pseudonym.
They thought I was just a poor, orphan housewife who needed Cole's money to survive.
They had no idea I was actually a billionaire scientist hiding my identity.
I pulled the IV needle out of my arm. A drop of blood fell onto the divorce papers I had been hiding.
I didn't wipe it off. I signed my name right over it.
Then I walked into the bank, reactivated my dormant account with $128 million, and bought the penthouse directly overlooking Cole's house.
The mourning widow is dead. The avenger is born. Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father
Madel Cerda I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector.
That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world.
The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor.
The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist.
Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch-a titan of industry and my best friend's father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared.
"Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb.
Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen.
"Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back."
I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe. Too Late, Mr. CEO: Watch Me Shine
Nieves Gómez Kayla stood outside the CEO suite, holding a custom suit for her fiancé, Brennon. They had spent seven years building a tech company from a freezing garage into a billion-dollar empire.
But through the cracked door, she heard the breathy laugh of Evelin, the newly hired director. Then came Brennon's low, careless voice.
"The wedding's a PR milestone for the IPO, nothing more."
Kayla's blood turned to ice.
"She's comfortable. Makes sense on paper," Brennon continued. "But you, Evelin. You understand ambition."
The betrayal hit her like a physical blow. She had written the core code that made him a billionaire. She had stayed up until 4 AM debugging while he slept on a futon. Now, he was mocking their relationship to his mistress and handing over her life's work to a woman who couldn't even read a data log.
Seven years of loyalty, reduced to a PR stunt. She didn't cry. Instead, a cold, violent clarity washed over her. Why should she let him keep the crown she forged?
Without a word, she pulled the three-carat diamond off her finger and dropped it into her bag. She walked out of the building, drafted her resignation, and accepted a VP position at his biggest Wall Street rival. It was time to show Brennon what happened when the real genius behind his empire decided to tear it down. One Night With My Billionaire Boss
Nathaniel Stone I woke up on silk sheets that smelled of expensive cedar and cold sandalwood, a world away from my cramped apartment in Brooklyn.
Beside me lay Ezra Gardner-my boss, the billionaire CEO of Gardner Holdings, and the man who could end my career with a snap of his fingers.
He didn't offer an apology for the night before; instead, he looked at me with terrifying clarity and proposed a cold, calculated business arrangement.
"Marriage. It stabilizes the board and solves the PR crisis before it begins."
He dressed me in archival Chanel and sent me home in his Maybach, but my life was already falling apart. My boyfriend, Irving, claimed he had passed out early, yet his location data placed him at my best friend's apartment until three in the morning. When I tried to run, I realized Ezra was already ten steps ahead, tracking my movements and uncovering the secret I'd spent twenty years hiding: my connection to the powerful Senator Grimes.
I was trapped between a CEO who treated me like a line item on a quarterly report and a boyfriend who had been using me while sleeping with my closest friend. I felt like a pawn in a game I didn't understand, wondering why a man like Ezra would walk up forty flights of stairs on a broken leg just to make sure I was safe.
"Showtime, Mrs. Gardner."
Standing on the red carpet in a gown that cost more than my life, I watched my cheating ex-boyfriend's face turn pale as Ezra claimed me in front of the world. I wasn't just an assistant anymore; I was a weapon, and it was time to burn their world down. Broken Ring, Billionaire Secrets: Watch Me Shine
Cornelia I sat on the edge of the examination table, the crinkle of the sanitary paper sounding like thunder in the sterile room. The doctor didn't even look at me as he confirmed the news: the pregnancy was over. My husband, Keyon, didn't answer my call. He just sent an automated text: "In a meeting."
When I returned to our cold mansion, I found his iPad glowing with a message from his "muse," Katina. He was throwing her a secret gala tonight-on our third wedding anniversary. He told her he couldn't wait to escape the "boring" and "draining" atmosphere I created at home.
Keyon didn't stumble in until 3 AM, smelling of Katina's perfume with a smear of red on his collar. When I handed him the divorce papers, he laughed in my face. He called me a "glorified housekeeper" with no skills and no future, promising I'd be back in three days begging for a subway ticket. He even bet his friends ten thousand dollars that I wouldn't survive a week without his name.
He had his assistant cancel my credit cards and block my gate access before I even reached the end of the driveway. He wanted me to starve. He wanted me to crawl. He sat in his office, mocking the "desperate" woman who pawned her three-million-dollar wedding ring for scrap metal just to pay for a meal.
I stood on the rainy curb, watching the man I had protected for three years treat my life like trash. He didn't know about the ultrasound I just threw in the bin. He didn't know that while he was calling me "dull," I was the one secretly writing the code that kept his billion-dollar empire from collapsing.
As I slid into a cheap Uber, I opened a hidden, encrypted app on my phone. The screen refreshed to a dashboard for an account Keyon didn't know existed. The balance was ten figures long-the accumulated wealth of "Solaris," the world's most elusive tech genius. Keyon thinks he just evicted a parasite, but he's about to find out he just declared war on the only person who can hit "delete" on his entire life. Neglected Wife: Hidden Heiress's Cold Revenge
Da Lanlan I stood in the pouring rain at my father-in-law's funeral, the heels of my black pumps sinking into the mud. I was Mrs. Vargas, the wife of New York's most powerful billionaire, yet I was standing at the edge of the crowd like a forgotten statue.
Ten feet away, under the dry shelter of the family tent, my husband Hayes held another woman against his chest. It wasn't me he was whispering comfort to; it was Felicity, his late brother's widow and childhood sweetheart.
The humiliation didn't end at the cemetery. Hayes moved Felicity and her son into our home, relegating me to the guest wing while she took over the primary suites. He watched silently as her son smashed the only photograph of my deceased parents, then demanded I apologize for "scaring" the boy with my reaction. When Felicity's negligence ruined a twelve-million-dollar family heirloom, Hayes had the audacity to ask me to use my own savings to buy her a "consolation" engagement ring. He treated me like a parasite, never realizing I was a brilliant scientist with a hidden fortune and three patents to my name.
I realized then that our three-year marriage was a hollow farce. Hayes had never even touched me, claiming he wanted to "remain pure" for his memory of Felicity. I was nothing more than a business merger, a smudge on the lens of the perfect family portrait he was building with another man's widow.
The breaking point came during a lethal blizzard. Hayes promised to accompany me to my family's mandatory gala-a tradition where my absence meant a death sentence. But at the last second, he stood me up to stay home and tend to Felicity's stubbed toe. Left alone to face the wrath of the Santos Matriarch, I was forced to kneel in the freezing snow as punishment until my lungs began to fail and my vision blurred.
Just as the darkness started to take me, a black Maybach smashed through the iron gates. My exiled brother, the man the world calls "The Wolf," stepped out of the storm to reclaim what Hayes had discarded. Hayes thought I was a helpless doll who couldn't survive a day without his trust fund, but he's about to find out what happens when you let a Santos daughter freeze. He Thought I Was A Doormat, Until I Ruined Him
SHANA GRAY The sterile white of the operating room blurred, then sharpened, as Skye Sterling felt the cold clawing its way up her body. The heart monitor flatlined, a steady, high-pitched whine announcing her end. Her uterus had been removed, a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, but the blood wouldn't clot. It just kept flowing, warm and sticky, pooling beneath her.
Through heavy eyes, she saw a trembling nurse holding a phone on speaker. "Mr. Kensington," the nurse's voice cracked, "your wife... she's critical." A pause, then a sweet, poisonous giggle. Seraphina Miller. "Liam is in the shower," Seraphina's voice purred. "Stop calling, Skye. It's pathetic. Faking a medical emergency on our anniversary? Even for you, that's low." Then, Liam's bored voice: "If she dies, call the funeral home. I have a meeting in the morning." Click. The line went dead.
A second later, so did Skye. The darkness that followed was absolute, suffocating, a black ocean crushing her lungs. She screamed into the void, a silent, agonizing wail of regret for loving a man who saw her as a nuisance, for dying without ever truly living.
Until she died, she didn't understand. Why was her life so tragically wasted? Why did her husband, the man she loved, abandon her so cruelly? The injustice of it all burned hotter than the fever in her body.
Then, the air rushed back in. Skye gasped, her body convulsing violently on the mattress. Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified, staring blindly into the darkness. Her trembling hand reached for her phone. May 12th. Five years ago. She was back. His Twisted Game, My Dangerous Love
Elroy Notman Vesper's marriage to Julian Sterling was a gilded cage. One morning, she woke naked beside Damon Sterling, Julian's terrifying brother, then found a text: Julian's mistress was pregnant. Her world shattered, but the real nightmare had just begun.
Julian's abuse escalated, gaslighting Vesper, funding his secret life. Damon, a germaphobic billionaire, became her unsettling anchor amidst his chaos.
As "Iris," Vesper exposed Julian's mistress, Serena Sharp, sparking brutal war: poisoned drinks, a broken leg, and the horrifying truth-Julian murdered her parents, trapping Vesper in marriage.
The man she married was a killer. Broken and betrayed, Vesper was caught between monstrous brothers, burning with injustice.
Refusing victimhood, Vesper reclaimed her identity. Fueled by vengeance, she allied with Damon, who vowed to burn his empire for her. Julian faced justice, but matriarch Eleanor's counterattack forced Vesper's choice as a hitman aimed for her. 
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