where does criminal minds take place

Corporate slave Lucienne Farrell transmigrates into a matriarchal world where men are subservient, becoming the vicious Second Princess notorious for abusing her four beast husbands. She wakes to find herself broke, despised by four top-tier males, and constantly sabotaged by her elder sister, First Princess Henrieta Farrell. But after awakening the “Godly System,” Lucienne uses her modern-world savvy to turn everything around. She rescues the gravely injured Commander Cecil Windsor of the Wolfdog Legion, wins his loyalty with ten million in cash, and uses an S-rank Spirit Calming Technique to tame the berserk General Xavier Hampton before a massive crowd, proving to the empire that she’s no longer an F-rank failure, but a future queen who controls everything. This is a game of money, power, and emotion. When the elite men who once despised her begin competing for her favor, how will she choose?

The beastfolk are a powerful race, and to strengthen our family's power, Father arranges marriages for both me and my stepsister, Arya Hearthguard. In our past lives, Arya entered a high-profile marriage into the wealthy, powerful dragon clan, while I was forced to wed into the crumbling lion clan. The clan leader of the dragons—Draken Vorgath—was cold and detached. He cared more for gold than his bride, leaving Arya in a glided cage of loneliness. Overwhelmed by the desolation, she seduced the future leader of the fox clan, who was flirtatious.. And when the scandal exploded, Draken resolutely divorced her. Arya's scandal brought shame upon our family. Despite Father's favoritism, he was compelled by family honor to exile her in disgrace. Clan leader of the lions and King of the Jungle—Kael Hawthorne—was a man of unwavering devotion. Our marriage blossomed, and within a year, I bore him a golden lion cub blessed with the Aetheric Divinity. With the Aetherborn, Kael rose to rule all beastfolk as the chieftain, and I became their most revered chieftess. Consumed by envy, Arya sneaked into my son's first birthday feast and strangled the golden lion cub in his cradle. Then, she set the place ablaze and burned me alive along with it. When I wake up, I am back on the very day of our marriage. This time, Arya volunteers to marry into the lions and leaves me the chance to marry into the dragons. I accept everything meekly with only a tenth of her dowry and marry Draken. Later, she bleeds her dowry dry, propping up the lion clan, only to fail in conceiving a cub. When the elders demand she mate with other males, regret drowns her. As for me, all I want in his new life is an heir and a quiet life among the dragons. But no one warns me about the dragons, least of all that my supposedly cold-hearted husband will relentlessly demand me once awakened. Or that his members came in pairs and ridges!

Five years ago, a car accident left Hansel blind in Emerald Town, where he assumed the identity of Hans. He met the kind-hearted Joyce (Lily), and they fell in love. After an accident, Joyce selflessly donated her cornea to restore Hans's sight. Upon recovery, Hans regained his true name, Hansel. Due to blindness and pregnancy, Joyce was married to him by her family with a three-million-dollar dowry. Unaware of each other's identities, they faced misunderstandings and barriers. Joyce gave birth to their daughter, Star, whom Hansel misunderstood due to infidelity suspicions. In a touching moment before Star's death from leukemia, she donated her cornea to restore her mother's sight. Full of sorrow, Hansel and Joyce finally discovered each other's true selves, unveiling Shirley's schemes. Driven by madness, Shirley kidnapped Joyce. To protect their daughter and love, Joyce made a difficult choice. How will this complicated tale end?

At eighteen, Nancy Green earns the highest college entrance score in the entire county, and her parents respond by spending ten times her tuition on a motorized tricycle for her brother. With her dream about to die in a mountain village, it is her uncle who quietly sells the family’s last three sheep and presses the money into her hands without ceremony. Nancy carries that sacrifice like a weight and a wing, into a cutthroat corporate world where she battles betrayal and manipulation until she has built a billion-dollar empire from nothing. She confronts the parents who bled her dry with cold, clear-eyed finality. Then her uncle falls gravely ill, and on his deathbed whispers: hate will drag you down. It cracks open something she has armored for twenty years. In the end, Nancy founds a scholarship fund bearing his memory and gives other mountain girls the door someone once opened for her.

"On the Olympus Continent, where dragon clans rule through ancient bloodlines, Lily was hidden away by her mother in a remote frontier since childhood. Years later, as an adult, Lily was arranged to marry Lucas Stormscale, the heir of the mighty Stormscale Dragon Clan. On the day they returned to the capital to select her crown, Lucas’s “adoptive sister” Vivian publicly snatched the crown and humiliated Lily in front of everyone. When Lucas finally arrived, instead of defending his fiancée, he coldly suggested making her his side consort. At the engagement ceremony, Vivian and the Stormscale family openly stole the wedding, annulled the betrothal, and exposed Lily’s “inferior bloodline” to the entire court. She would dismantle their power, force Lucas to writhe between ambition and lingering affection, and watch Vivian plummet from the clouds into the mud. In the end, Lucas knelt at her feet, full of regret. Lily looked down at him with calm, indifferent eyes and said softly, “Do you deserve it?”"

The beastfolk are a powerful race, and to strengthen our family's power, Father arranges marriages for both me and my stepsister, Arya Hearthguard. In our past lives, Arya entered a high-profile marriage into the wealthy, powerful dragon clan, while I was forced to wed into the crumbling lion clan. The clan leader of the dragons—Draken Vorgath—was cold and detached. He cared more for gold than his bride, leaving Arya in a glided cage of loneliness. Overwhelmed by the desolation, she seduced the future leader of the fox clan, who was flirtatious.. And when the scandal exploded, Draken resolutely divorced her. Arya's scandal brought shame upon our family. Despite Father's favoritism, he was compelled by family honor to exile her in disgrace. Clan leader of the lions and King of the Jungle—Kael Hawthorne—was a man of unwavering devotion. Our marriage blossomed, and within a year, I bore him a golden lion cub blessed with the Aetheric Divinity. With the Aetherborn, Kael rose to rule all beastfolk as the chieftain, and I became their most revered chieftess. Consumed by envy, Arya sneaked into my son's first birthday feast and strangled the golden lion cub in his cradle. Then, she set the place ablaze and burned me alive along with it. When I wake up, I am back on the very day of our marriage. This time, Arya volunteers to marry into the lions and leaves me the chance to marry into the dragons. I accept everything meekly with only a tenth of her dowry and marry Draken. Later, she bleeds her dowry dry, propping up the lion clan, only to fail in conceiving a cub. When the elders demand she mate with other males, regret drowns her. As for me, all I want in his new life is an heir and a quiet life among the dragons. But no one warns me about the dragons, least of all that my supposedly cold-hearted husband will relentlessly demand me once awakened. Or that his members came in pairs and ridges!

At eighteen, Nancy Green earns the highest college entrance score in the entire county, and her parents respond by spending ten times her tuition on a motorized tricycle for her brother. With her dream about to die in a mountain village, it is her uncle who quietly sells the family’s last three sheep and presses the money into her hands without ceremony. Nancy carries that sacrifice like a weight and a wing, into a cutthroat corporate world where she battles betrayal and manipulation until she has built a billion-dollar empire from nothing. She confronts the parents who bled her dry with cold, clear-eyed finality. Then her uncle falls gravely ill, and on his deathbed whispers: hate will drag you down. It cracks open something she has armored for twenty years. In the end, Nancy founds a scholarship fund bearing his memory and gives other mountain girls the door someone once opened for her.

Mike Bert, disciple of the Arcane Exorcist Order, was dispatched down the mountain by his master's order to search for the lost sect-suppressing artifact, the Exorcist's Seal. Penniless, he set up a street stall for fortune-telling, where he inadvertently saved Tess Baker, a female CEO possessing a pure dark physique, thus becoming entangled in urban conflicts. Facing Eden Pater, the wealthy young CEO coveting the Baker Group, and the Dark Warlock, an evil exorcist also seeking the Exorcist's Seal, Mike used Arcane Arts to break evil curses and Truth Spell to expose the truth. Joining forces with Renee Palmer of the Supernatural Investigations Agency and Lucy Pope, an exorcism-obsessed fangirl, he gradually pushed back against the evil forces. During his journey to protect the beauty and hunt for the treasure, he discovered that clues pointed toward the south, while the ultimate boss, Lester Watt, was secretly laying out his scheme. The true crisis had only just begun.

She was a noble lady from ancient times, driven to suicide by her own family. Her spirit, bound by vengeance, lingered long after her revenge was complete—until her only remaining desire led her to a modern-day girl, equally betrayed and discarded by her blood. They strike a fateful bargain: the girl offers her body, and the vengeful spirit is reborn in her place. Now, inhabiting this new life, she finds herself in a world where a false heiress has stolen her identity, and her own parents and brother view her with nothing but disdain.Wielding the supernatural powers of her past existence, she begins to unravel the web of lies and injustices that doomed the girl whose form she now wears. Her quest for justice is intertwined with another, deeper search: for the lover she lost centuries ago. As past and present collide, she will use every ounce of her wrath and the aid of her rediscovered love to make the cruel family that wronged them both—in two different lifetimes—face a devastating reckoning.

Framed, betrayed, and seconds away from a bullet to the head, Detective Jake didn't find death—he found the Karma System. Suddenly, the untouchable elites of the city aren't so untouchable anymore. Through the System's eyes, their fatal weaknesses, offshore bank accounts, and darkest secrets are downloaded directly into Jake's retinas. But tearing down a corrupt empire takes more than one man. Jake builds the ultimate "Fixer" syndicate from the ashes of society's outcasts: a ruthless psychological profiler, a cyber-ghost hacker who can breach any firewall, a lethal military veteran, and a Wall Street predator who weaponizes financial ruin. They don't just assassinate their targets; they dismantle them. From sadistic prison wardens to untouchable military-industrial CEOs, the Syndicate strikes where it hurts the most. They will expose your crimes on global streams, drain your bank accounts to zero in seconds, and leave you begging for a mercy they don't possess. The elite thought they owned the world. The Syndicate is here to collect the debt.

After losing her parents, Anna was taken in by Mrs. Kane—her mother’s closest friend—and grew up alongside the Kane brothers, Gordy and Jonathan. The two boys were stars of their school's hockey club, while Anna became their manager, always cleaning up their messes and keeping everything running smoothly. For years, the three were inseparable, perfectly in sync both on and off the ice. But everything changed when Katie, the school beauty, set her sights on Anna’s position. Through carefully plotted schemes and whispered lies, she framed Anna for mistakes, drove a wedge between her and the brothers, and slowly turned them against her. Humiliated and heartbroken, Anna grew distant from Gordy and Jonathan. Eventually, she gave up and transferred to another school, where she met hockey star Ethan and became his manager instead. Only after she was gone did the Kane brothers begin to see the truth about Katie—and by then, it was far too late.

My adopted sister won the Elixir Challenge by stealing my potion. To her shock, she was informed that the event was a selection event for the future wife of the Serpentkins' future head—the same heir who was infamously impotent, barbaric, and hideous. When the Serpentkins sent over a proposal letter, demanding her hand in marriage, my fiance panicked and promptly took my adopted sister away for a quick marriage and even consummated. Once the deed was done, she returned triumphantly, showing off the mark on her lower back. "Well, what are you going to do now, Winnie?" she gloated. "Your fiance is mine now, and you'll be twenty-five in three days. If no one comes to pick you up, you'll just be dumped into the hands of some wife-beating Rogue who is ageing and unwanted…" Actually, she was wrong—I had a choice. I went to the parlor where my parents—who were busy fixing the mess my adopted sister made—were, announcing, "If she refuses to marry the future head of the Serpentkins, I will!"

My adopted sister won the Elixir Challenge by stealing my potion. To her shock, she was informed that the event was a selection event for the future wife of the Serpentkins' future head—the same heir who was infamously impotent, barbaric, and hideous. When the Serpentkins sent over a proposal letter, demanding her hand in marriage, my fiance panicked and promptly took my adopted sister away for a quick marriage and even consummated. Once the deed was done, she returned triumphantly, showing off the mark on her lower back. "Well, what are you going to do now, Winnie?" she gloated. "Your fiance is mine now, and you'll be twenty-five in three days. If no one comes to pick you up, you'll just be dumped into the hands of some wife-beating Rogue who is ageing and unwanted…" Actually, she was wrong—I had a choice. I went to the parlor where my parents—who were busy fixing the mess my adopted sister made—were, announcing, "If she refuses to marry the future head of the Serpentkins, I will!"

"If she can't reclaim love within a week… what will become of her?” In a world obsessed with appearances, a fantasy romance thriller unfolds—one that shakes love to its core. After seven years together, she is abandoned by her boyfriend for one cruel reason: she isn’t pretty enough. Consumed by betrayal and rage, she reaches the depths of despair—only to find herself standing in a plastic surgery clinic. That’s when Lucifer appears before her, whispering a tempting offer. “Would you like to be reborn with a new face?” But there’s a catch. If she fails to win back love within seven days, she will be condemned to live forever with a grotesque face. Bound by a devil’s contract, Jung-yun is granted breathtaking beauty. Yet what begins as a simple desire for revenge soon forces her to confront the deepest parts of herself. Between what is seen and unseen, love begins to bloom. What is love? Who am I, really? A chain of endless questions leads into a complex and delicate psychological thriller—where love and revenge collide, both inside and out.

Kang Do-hyun chooses an ordinary life as a taxi driver to avoid inheriting his father’s family business. One day, he happens to rescue Cha Eun-seol, who is fleeing a chase and has accidentally taken the wrong medication. After a one-night encounter, they part ways and return to their separate lives. Four years later, a stylish CEO shows up with a child and proposes marriage to Do-hyun. After registering their marriage, Eun-seol faces pressure from her parents to abandon the child, but Do-hyun appears and protects both mother and daughter. As her company falls into crisis, Eun-seol attends a family banquet of Taegang Group—the most powerful conglomerate in Country A—to secure a 10-billion-won investment, unaware that the chairman is actually her husband’s father. At the banquet, despite pressure from her former fiancé Gu Jung-tae, Do-hyun’s father protects his granddaughter Kang Rumi and makes his presence known, yet he can only approach her as a “grandfather” without revealing his true identity. As time passes, Do-hyun and Eun-seol grow closer. However, after failing to secure investment, Eun-seol risks both her company and her board position by making a dangerous bet with her father, Cha Myung-hwan. At this critical moment, Do-hyun seeks out his father, accepts the responsibility of becoming the heir, and begins to take action himself. In the end, at a press conference, the capital and influence Do-hyun has prepared turn the situation around. Eun-seol not only saves her company but also secures full ownership, achieving both love and success.

Anne Cooke is about to get married when she discovers her fiance has been cheating. With her mother gravely ill and five years of love too heavy to just drop, she swallows it, until the sleeplessness becomes unbearable and she wanders into a traditional medicine clinic. There she meets James Young,and something shifts. On impulse she propositions him. Just one night. What she doesn't know is that James already knows exactly who she is, and has quietly decided to help her find her way back to herself. Through carefully prescribed remedies and steadier conversations, he walks beside her as she slowly remembers she has a spine. On her wedding day, she exposes her fiance in front of everyone and walks away with her head up. By then the feelings between Anne and James have long stopped being subtle, and the revelation that he comes from money and that his mother once knew hers feels less like a plot twist and more like something that was always going to happen. He proposes in the same clinic where they first met.

In my previous life, my girlfriend's childhood friend impersonated a rich heir and messed around with the fake power he had. I exposed him, and he crashed his car into me. In my final moments, my girlfriend's sister begged on her knees, pleading for my girlfriend's aid, hoping she could save me, but my girlfriend did nothing. "He wouldn't do that. Zacharias is beyond this. He would never dirty his hands for a nobody like this guy. He might be my boyfriend, but that doesn't mean he can do anything he wants. He'd better know his place." My girlfriend's sister remained on the ground for three days. In the end, Zacharias dragged her away, violated her, and killed her. Even at my dying breath, my girlfriend was still covering up for her childhood friend. She refused to believe Zacharias hit someone with a car and violated her sister. And then I was reborn. This time, I did not beg and plead for my girlfriend to give me a moment of her time. I called my brother instead. "Hey? Yeah, it's me. Some bastard impersonated me and is dragging my name through the mud. I need you to take that guy out. Also, I'm not marrying Annabelle Lawson. I'm taking her sister instead." I gave the Lawsons a lot of resources so they could grow, and what did I get in the end? An ungrateful woman who would leave me stranded and dying all for another man. With all their resources pulled, Annabelle and her childhood friend would be saying goodbye to their good old days and hello to their personal hell.

My twin sister and I marry twin brothers from a powerful mafia family. She marries the elder, Leo Smith, a federal judge. I marry the younger, Sam Smith, a surgeon. While I'm hospitalized for a high-risk pregnancy, I'm abducted by criminals demanding ransom. They use my phone to call Sam 32 times, but every one goes unanswered. Enraged, one of the abductors beats my stomach with a baseball bat to vent his anger. I try desperately to protect my unborn child, but I lose the baby anyway. Finally, the abductor calls Sam one last time. This time, he answers, only to snap, "Annie almost miscarried. I was just taking her for a checkup. Can you stop calling and trying to get my attention?" With no ransom coming, the furious abductors tie me up and throw me into a swimming pool. Then, they leave. Just as I'm about to take my last breath, my sister arrives and pulls me out. Seeing me almost dead from the miscarriage, she calls Leo in a panic. But all she gets is a cold answer. "Currently punishing the man who nearly caused Annie Morgan's miscarriage. Do not disturb." She tries to call the police, but her phone dies. With no other option, she drives me away herself. On the way back, a sudden blizzard hits, and a landslide blocks the road. The car breaks down. We're trapped and shivering in the cold. Thankfully, a forest patrol finds us just in time. We survive. When we wake up in the hospital, the first thing that comes to us is that we have to get divorced!