Following the catastrophic incident of mistaking H. Darmawan—the biological father of her beloved ex—for a friendly family relative, Mira was fully convinced that her life had officially reached its bitter end. She had already pictured herself being dragged out of the building by four burly security guards and tossed straight into an outdoor dumpster bearing a permanent label reading 'Psychiatric Patient Escort Area.'

Instead of an unceremonious ejection, however, a bizarre miracle materialized, born entirely out of the high-level panic seizing the wedding committee.

Mr. Darmawan, clearly unwilling to cause a massive public spectacle on a wedding day being live-streamed to family members stranded out of town, opted for a high-ranking bureaucratic diplomatic solution.

"Just let her inside. Poor thing, she looks like she's going through severe psychological trauma or accidentally took the wrong psychiatric medication from the hospital," Mr. Darmawan muttered to one of the ushers in a deep, gravelly tone loud enough to reach Mira's trembling ears.

Consequently, instead of ending up in the dumpster, Mira was escorted by the event crew under heavy guard straight into the main ballroom. And the seating assignment chosen for her wasn't some plastic lawn chair crammed near the restroom doors in the back row; it was a plush velvet-cushioned chair wrapped in gold satin sitting squarely at the Main VIP Table—front and center, right alongside the immediate family of the groom.

"Please take a seat right here, miss... and try not to cause any more riots or scream random names at people," the usher whispered with a mix of veiled threat and profound pity before abandoning Mira to her fate.

Mira sat paralyzed on her outrageously expensive chair. She felt precisely like a high-profile white-collar corruption defendant standing trial before a high-court tribunal.

Flanking her on the left and right were uncles, aunts, and distant relatives belonging to Satya's upper-crust lineage. They formed an elite cluster of formally dressed, exceedingly respectable middle-aged figures. The atmosphere surrounding the VIP table felt easily sixteen degrees colder than the venue's climate control, thick with the heavy aura of high-society chatter completely alien to a struggling freelance worker's budget.

Mira sat with her spine locked rigidly like a Chinese porcelain statue. She didn't dare twitch a muscle for fear that her concrete Super Saiyan updo might slip, or that the Borneo-shaped peanut sauce stain on her chest might expand under the friction of the seat.

To her right, a plump gentleman clad in a sleek designer suit layered over a silk batik shirt was deep in conversation with the aunt beside him, hashing out heavy financial matters.

"Yeah, last month my property investment portfolio in BSD surged a solid thirty percent. Not to mention the dividend payout from the palm oil plantation we just opened in Kalimantan," the plump uncle declared with a voice dripping in unshakeable self-assurance. "Kids these days, though? All they know is relying on minimum wage while renting cramped rooms in sketchy back alleys. What could they possibly understand about long-term asset management?"

Hearing the phrase 'kids renting cramped rooms in sketchy back alleys,' Mira felt an electric shock of pure terror race down her spine. She dipped her head low, pretending to be utterly captivated by the condensation on her water glass while silently praying to the universe to transform her into a decorative placemat immediately.

"Say, Uncle, speaking of young folks..." piped up the aunt beside him, casting a venomous sideways glare straight at Mira. "We've got a young lady sitting right next to us dressed in... well, extremely artistic fashion. Her hair stands straight up like a digital TV antenna, and her dress is colored like a cream puff but sports a brown geographical landmass right across the chest. Whose kid is she? Which business partner brought her along?"

Mira swallowed hard. Her throat felt as arid as the Sahara Desert. She wanted to bolt, but her crippled heel and jellified legs refused to cooperate.

Right at the exact microsecond Mira was wishing for a stray meteor to obliterate the VIP table and mercifully end her misery, the table chatter fell dead silent. The bragging about stock portfolios and palm oil estates abruptly cut off.

Someone at the far left end of the table—an elderly woman draped in a luxurious kebaya studded with flashing diamond rings on every finger—slowly pivoted her high-backed velvet chair to face Mira directly.

That woman was none other than Mrs. Darmawan, a.k.a. Mira’s former almost-mother-in-law. The very woman who, two years prior, had sliced Mira up with a single look of utter disdain upon discovering her son was dating an ordinary girl lacking any shiny future prospects.

Mrs. Darmawan locked eyes with Mira, flashing a razor-thin, highly calculated smile loaded with the concentrated psychological venom of a senior high-society matriarch.

"Well, if it isn't Mira Anastasya," Mrs. Darmawan greeted in a voice soft enough to slice glass, deliberately raising her volume so every single guest seated at the VIP table turned to listen. "My, it has been quite a while, dear. I hardly recognized you tonight. Your gown's concept is... simply fascinating, so wonderfully creative. It looks rather like you survived a snack-factory explosion."

A chorus of polite, stifled chuckles rippled through the uncles and aunts seated around the VIP table at the subtle yet utterly devastating burn.

Mira felt her face—already caked in heavy foundation and melted makeup—blaze an incandescent crimson, rivaling the active crater of a volcano. She lifted her chin slowly, forcing the stiffest Pepsodent grin onto her lips beneath her crimson lipstick, bracing herself for the most brutal round of psychological torture in human history.