My husband was the most saintly doctor in the hospital—valued by his superiors, beloved by his subordinates, and deeply respected by his patients. In everyone’s eyes, his only flaw was me: his unreasonable, unaccommodating wife. So, when the eight-year-old girl clutched her heart again and demanded that my husband marry her mother before she would agree to surgery, I smiled. I gladly agreed. 1 “I want Uncle Liam to be my daddy!” The little girl’s subtle crying echoed faintly in my ears. My vision was still blurry, and the sharp pain in my back from crashing against the wall was so clear that I instinctively grabbed the wall for support. Until another sorrowful woman’s voice rang out: “Chloe, be a good girl. Don’t cry.” “No, Mommy! Chloe is scared.” The little girl held her chest with one hand and tightly grabbed the doctor beside her with the other. She was very pretty, her eyes brimming with tears. “Uncle Liam, if I die, Mommy will be all alone. Will you marry Mommy? Help Chloe take care of Mommy.” My husband, Liam Carter, gently stroked the little girl’s hair. “Uncle Liam will be with you throughout the whole surgery. You’ll be fine, Chloe.” “Why did you come out here?” He looked at me with exasperation, then turned to the people around us to explain. “My wife didn’t mean it. She just overthinks things. I’ll talk to her and explain everything later.” Hearing this, Chloe broke free from her mother’s embrace and threw herself into Liam’s arms. “I don’t want to! If Uncle Liam won’t be my daddy, I won’t do the surgery!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, her shrill, childish voice practically piercing through the entire hospital floor. Her face instantly turned beet red. Liam quickly tried to soothe her. “Okay, okay, Uncle Liam promises. Don’t panic, Chloe, it’s bad for your health.” Mia, Chloe’s mother, seemed to finally notice me. With tears falling down her face, she went to pull Chloe back. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Carter. It’s just that Dr. Carter has been too good to Chloe. She grew up without a father and is too attached to him. I’ve always heard how wonderful you are. Just let her get through this surgery…” I looked at the familiar scene unfolding in front of me with absolute disbelief. I had actually been reborn. In my past life, when Chloe said those exact words, I had harshly scolded her. The little girl fainted from fright, and my husband immediately scooped her up and rushed to the emergency room. A crowd of people followed them, leaving me alone to be pointed at and whispered about, called petty and narrow-minded for arguing with a sick child. It was the same right now. The commotion caused by the three of them had blocked the hospital hallway. Several people were already moved to tears by Chloe’s desperate plea for her mother. They whispered among themselves. “That little girl is so sweet. She’s so sick, yet she’s still worrying about her mom.” “What kind of person is she? The kid is just terrified. Would it kill her to just play along to build some good karma?” “Dr. Carter is still as kind as ever.” Amidst the chorus of accusations, I snapped back to reality. Supporting myself against the wall, I slowly stood up straight, enunciating every word: “Okay.” The surrounding area instantly fell dead silent. “Liam, I agree too.” “Let’s get a divorce.” 2 Naturally, Liam took my words as an angry bluff. But I continued, “If you don’t divorce me, how are you going to be this child’s father?” “Or are you just lying to a sick kid?” Liam instinctively looked at Chloe, then looked up at me, a flash of surprise in his eyes. “What are you talking about?” Chloe, however, was thrilled. “Auntie, did you agree?!” The hatred burning in my chest hadn’t fully dissipated. I looked straight at Liam. “Of course. As long as your Uncle Liam agrees.” Liam rubbed Chloe’s head, looking exactly like a good doctor who had collapsed from exhaustion while running around for a critically ill patient. His voice was full of fatigue. “Honey, please don’t add fuel to the fire.” The woman also looked at me warily. She even stood protectively in front of the two of them, as if I were some kind of monster and she was the brave hero protecting them. I didn’t want to waste any more breath on these people. “Little girl, look at your Uncle Liam. He doesn’t look very willing. You’ll have to try harder.” I don’t know if Chloe was just overly excited, but she actually fainted again, just like in my previous life. Liam quickly picked her up and looked at me with deep disappointment. “Why are you holding a grudge against a child?!” In my past life, I disagreed, and they said I was petty. In this life, I agreed, and they still said I was petty. Whatever happened, in their mouths, it always became my fault. True, my reputation in this hospital was bad enough already. Why waste my breath on them? I pushed past the crowd still watching the spectacle and, sure enough, saw my thin, small daughter in the corner. Overwhelmed with emotion, I rushed over and hugged her tight. “Baby, how long have you been here?” Lily whispered, “…Mommy, I just got here.” But the wrinkles on the hem of her shirt, clenched tightly in her fists, gave away her lie. 3 In my previous life, at this exact moment, I still naively believed that Liam was just an overly compassionate doctor. I hadn’t wanted to say anything harsh to a sick child, which was why I was so quick to argue back. It was exactly because I saw my daughter in the corner. I was terrified that Lily would believe Liam was going to be someone else’s dad. That’s why I rushed to shut Chloe down, terrified that Lily would be heartbroken if she heard. In this life, during the time I spent arguing with them, Lily must have heard everything. It’s good that she heard, I thought, stroking my daughter’s soft, yellowish hair, my eyes full of sorrow. Lily was the child Liam and I had two years into our marriage. She had been sickly since she was a baby, ending up in the hospital every few days. Her father was a doctor at the hospital, often so busy he couldn’t come home. His daughter couldn’t see him at home, and when she ended up in the hospital, Liam was always the most righteous and outstanding doctor—his time had to be spent helping other patients. He didn’t even have time to look after his own daughter. But aren’t all doctors like that? At most, Liam was just exceptionally negligent of his family. Because of this, even though I often fought with Liam about it in my past life, I suppressed the thought of divorce. No matter how negligent he was of our family, he was a beloved doctor at the hospital. Even if our daughter was hospitalized, she was surrounded by “aunts” and “uncles” who knew her, so she would get better care. Holding onto that thought, I accepted a dispatch from my boss to work out of state. My daughter’s medical bills required a lot of money, so I couldn’t relax. I worked crazy overtime, and my daughter’s health gradually improved. Every time I came home for the holidays, she was a little healthier. My sweet daughter timidly asked me if I could stay with her. I made a promise to her: Next February, Mommy will come back to work near Lily. I still remembered Lily’s excited little face, hugging me and refusing to let go. Yet, three months before that promise, I received the phone call notifying me of my daughter’s death. Outside the operating room, Liam was still in disbelief, muttering, “How could this happen… it was just a bone marrow donation… it’s a minor procedure… how did she just…” I sprinted back to the hospital. My daughter’s body hadn’t even been sent to the morgue yet. I numbly listened to the nurse. She said Lily was unlucky; the bone marrow donation triggered complications, and she died right there on the operating table. “Unlucky?” “Bone marrow donation?” I actually laughed. How could these words be attached to Lily? She was already so fragile. I asked numbly, “Who told Lily to donate bone marrow?” The nurse’s eyes darted to Liam. The family receiving the bone marrow donation held their child lovingly, but looked at me with extreme defensiveness. Even they knew that donating bone marrow was harmful to my daughter. They were afraid that I, as a mother, would go crazy. Liam was still mumbling, “How could this happen? Lily looked so healthy.” “Theoretically, nothing should have gone wrong.” I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I lunged at him and slapped Liam hard across the face multiple times. “Lily was only fourteen!” A group of people rushed to hold me back. I couldn’t get close to Liam again. Under the force of those slaps, Liam slowly snapped back to reality. He looked at me with resentment. “All you care about is making money! Didn’t you know a daughter needs her mother’s care?” “If you had been by her side, her health wouldn’t have been so poor! No one else gets these complications!” The more he spoke, the more he felt he was in the right. His voice grew louder, ignoring the shocked stares of his colleagues around him, loudly passing judgment on me. “Love is the most important thing!” “Fuck your love!” I practically flipped over the people holding me back. They stumbled and yelled for Liam to leave first. I watched helplessly as Liam walked away, pretending to be utterly devastated. A large crowd surrounded me, trying to calm me down. My fists were clenched tight. After the crowd dispersed, the head nurse came over. She pulled out a bank card and couldn’t help but tell me that 80% of the money I had transferred into my daughter’s account over the years had been transferred out by Liam to help other patients. The remaining money was forcibly withheld by the head nurse, who took pity on my daughter. I could barely process her words before the head nurse continued. “Dr. Carter is kind-hearted. Those patients were in critical condition, and Lily could still hold on. It’s just that these illnesses are easier to treat when they’re young. Trying to make up for it later… the results aren’t as good. But Lily was obedient, took her medicine, and exercised, so she still looked quite healthy…” I remembered when my daughter suddenly fell critically ill at nine years old. It was an unprecedented emergency. Under wave after wave of eye-rolls and cold shoulders from Liam, I borrowed tens of thousands from relatives, only for Liam to forcefully make me return it. I asked him numbly back then, “What about our daughter?” Liam’s attitude was gentle, but the words he spat out were ice-cold. “Think of another way.” “Taking alternative medications will also work.” “Those medications have side effects!” “The side effects are just written there to scare people. The actual probability of them happening is less than ten percent.” I couldn’t believe those words came out of a father’s mouth. “If that ten percent falls on a person, it’s one hundred percent for them!” He said impatiently, “Then what do you want me to do!” “Liam, Lily is your biological daughter!” “Precisely because she is my daughter, she will definitely be as kind-hearted as I am and be willing to give up this chance.” He accepted the silk banners of gratitude from bystanders, saying carelessly, “I’ve seen Lily’s chart. Taking those meds is fine. You’re a doctor’s family member too, don’t be so unreasonable.” That time, Lily slowly recovered on her own, but her constitution became even weaker than before. To others, Liam said, “I’m her father. I can take care of her no matter what. Do those other patients have these conditions? I honestly couldn’t bear to watch them suffer.” Was this the care he promised? The head nurse genuinely liked Lily. She kept rambling about how sensible Lily was. The implication was that Lily secretly agreed to this bone marrow donation behind my back because she was considerate of her father and afraid I would worry. My throat tasted of thick, metallic blood. Liam always said he knew his limits. Whenever I asked more, he would say that professionals do professional work and tell me not to delay him from saving lives. I didn’t understand. I just got married, but it ended up costing my daughter’s life, dragged to death by his ‘kindness’. When the head nurse saw me calm down, she turned and brought Liam over, trying to mediate between us. I watched Liam look at the head nurse with profound sadness. He slowly approached me and the first thing he said was, “Do you know what you did wrong?” “Reflect on yourself carefully. Is accompanying your daughter more important, or is your filthy money more important?” I said in a low voice, “…Now, you’re still saying this…” Liam coughed and bent down to help me up, as if he suddenly felt bad for me. “Lily’s death isn’t entirely your fault. Maybe it was just her bad luck. She was born sickly. Getting her to fourteen means we’ve done our absolute best as parents.” His familiar rhetoric sent a sharp, agonizing pain through my heart. In the past, he would always say these “nice” things, and then turn around and ask me to give up everything I had. Liam tilted his head to look at the head nurse. His face was covered in tears. “There are always patients in the hospital waiting for transplant matches. Since Lily has already passed away, we might as well donate all her organs. It’ll build good karma for her next life, and her organs can continue to shine and generate heat in other people’s bodies.” “Organ donation requires both parents to sign the consent form. Come with me.” I slowly raised my head. Liam’s face, backlit by the light, began to look twisted. “…Donate organs?” I stood up and plunged a knife straight into Liam’s chest. Seeing his look of absolute disbelief, I felt an intense thrill of satisfaction. “Why did you trick Lily into donating bone marrow?!” Lily didn’t understand the dangers of donating bone marrow at all. She was just a simple child who wanted her father to be happy. She was waiting for me to come home! I screamed, “Go to hell and atone for our daughter!” The head nurse’s panicked screams rang out. I pulled the knife out and quickly stabbed him again. More than a dozen continuous stabs, each one sinking deep. Every stab left Liam dripping with blood. Blood poured relentlessly from his mouth, his body convulsing. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn back in the hospital. 4 “Mommy… are you going to divorce Daddy?” Before I could answer, Lily squeezed my hand and said firmly, “Mommy, I support you.” My daughter was only eight, the same age as Chloe, but she looked a whole size smaller. My tears fell instantly. Lily frantically wiped my face. “Daddy is bad to Mommy. I saw everything.” “I’ll be a good daughter to Daddy from now on.” She bit her lip. “I won’t let the aunts and uncles in the hospital say bad things about Mommy anymore.” I wiped my tears and kissed her little cheek. “Let them say what they want, Lily. Mommy is teaching you today: other people’s opinions are complete bullshit.” To outsiders, Liam was definitely a top-tier husband. He was tall, clean-cut, his parents both had pensions, and he was the youngest attending physician in the hospital with a limitless future. He was kind to others, always ready to help, and possessed noble moral character. What a glowing review. I met him on a blind date. He didn’t smoke or drink. His superiors valued him, and he was wholly dedicated to his patients, practically living in the hospital all year round without a day off, dedicating his life to his work. Except I didn’t know back then that this selfless dedication required draining his entire family’s blood and flesh, using his daughter’s life as stepping stones to build Liam’s legacy. 5 After returning home, I quickly found a divorce lawyer to draft an agreement. The house we currently lived in had surged in value over the years, but it was in Liam’s name. The monthly mortgage could be half-covered by his housing fund. To divorce Liam as quickly as possible, I didn’t plan on fighting for it. With that settled, the remaining assets could be written out in a few words. Even I found it ridiculous. A marriage of over ten years had long become a pile of rubble, yet I had been blind to it, desperately trying to maintain it, ultimately costing Lily her life. When Liam came home that night, I was sitting on the sofa. He looked at the empty dining table, no longer maintaining the righteous facade he wore at the hospital, looking very dissatisfied. “Did you not make dinner?” I sneered. “I’m about to divorce you. Are you still expecting me to cook for you?” Liam frowned. “Are you still hung up on that? Chloe is just a child. She was joking.” He looked at me with the scrutinizing gaze of someone examining a criminal. “Chloe had to be resuscitated several times today because you provoked her. Her surgery, which was scheduled for the day after tomorrow, now has to be postponed.” “You should be glad Mia is kind and isn’t holding you accountable.” He instructed, “Do this: go apologize to Mia tomorrow. It’ll help smooth things over.” I actually laughed out of anger. “Apologize to her? Does she think she’s the Queen of England? Do you think you’re the King?” “The divorce papers are right here. Sign them, and you can focus on taking care of your precious Chloe in peace.” Liam didn’t even look at them, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I have surgery tomorrow. I don’t want to fight with you.” “My emotional state will affect my performance in tomorrow’s surgery. You should know that.” I stood up, looking at him acting like the most important person in the world. The shadow of Lily’s death in my past life seemed to wash over me again. I picked up the agreement and threw it in his face. “Liam, believe me, an uncontested divorce is the last shred of dignity I’m giving you.” Those few thin sheets of paper carried no weight, but they made Liam unable to contain his anger any longer. “Chloe, marriage is not a game! You bring up divorce so casually. Do you have any sense of responsibility as a mother? Have you ever thought about our child?!” I sneered. “Child? Sorry, the way you were holding Chloe today was seen perfectly clearly by Lily.” “Does holding someone else’s child give you a great sense of accomplishment? May I ask, you highly responsible father, how many times have you held Lily?” Liam froze, looking toward Lily’s bedroom. The child stood there, motionless. He instantly switched back to his gentle expression. “Lily, come here.” He gently pulled Lily into a half-embrace. “Lily, you’re the most sensible one. Chloe has a bad heart. If she gets too agitated, she could be in life-threatening danger at any moment.” “But Daddy, my health is bad too. Mommy cries secretly all the time.” Lily held Liam’s hand. “Daddy, I’ll be strong. So can you love Mommy too, please?” Liam smiled. “Of course Daddy loves Mommy. But Mommy isn’t as sensible as you. She doesn’t understand Daddy’s position at all. Today, she even caused a little friend to faint. Tomorrow, let’s go with Mommy to apologize, okay?” He expected Lily to echo his logic. Instead, Lily pulled her hand back, slowly retreating to lean against my leg. “Mommy is the best! She’s not being insensible!” Lily looked at me, her voice trembling with tears. “Mommy shouldn’t go apologize. Mommy didn’t do anything wrong!” I pulled Lily into my arms, taking advantage of Liam being off guard to kick him over. Son of a bitch, trying to emotionally blackmail our daughter already. Liam fell hard on his ass, taking a long time to react. After a while, he cursed, “Look at how you’ve raised Lily!” 6 Speaking of which, Lily’s illness mainly required careful management, and her mood was the absolute priority. After yelling a few times in the living room last night, Liam went to sleep as if nothing had happened. That made sense. To him, anything I said was always the least important thing. At home, Lily clearly relaxed a lot. She woke up after a good sleep. “Lily, are you hungry? What do you want to eat? Tell Mommy.” Lily clearly hesitated for a moment, but still looked hopeful. “I want KFC.” I felt happy. At this time, my daughter hadn’t completely closed herself off like in my past life, walking on eggshells even to make a simple request. I readily agreed. While waiting for the delivery, I gave my daughter a good bath. Touching her frail, bony body, my heart ached. “Mommy promises, I will always protect Lily from now on.” My daughter nodded happily. While we were eating our takeout, the electronic lock on the front door beeped. My daughter’s back stiffened. I looked over. It was Liam’s mother, my mother-in-law, Martha. She was a retired elementary school teacher. She didn’t live with us, and in the past, she treated me decently. However, after I had Lily and didn’t plan on having any more children, her attitude turned cold after several unsuccessful attempts to change my mind. Seeing the fried chicken on the table, she immediately used that annoying, high-pitched voice. “Didn’t they say this is all junk food? Why are you letting Lily eat this?” She walked over and picked up a chicken wing, starting to gnaw on it. Lily obediently called out, “Grandma. Mommy says you have to wash your hands before eating.” Martha rolled her eyes at me. “You just spoil her.” “A little dirt never hurt anyone!” Saying that, Martha used her greasy hand to pick up a chicken wing to feed Lily. I picked my daughter up and moved her aside. “She’s had enough for today.” Martha wasn’t stupid. She knew what I meant. She immediately stood up and scolded me. “What do you mean by that? Do you think my hands are dirty, or do you think I have a disease?” My daughter nervously grabbed the hem of my shirt. I stroked her little head and looked calmly at Martha. “Both.” Martha pointed at me in shock. “You, you, you…” She stuttered for a long time, unable to form a single word. I finished her thought: “—You should probably go to the hospital for a check-up if you have nothing better to do!” Since I had already decided to divorce Liam, why should I keep tolerating his horrible mother? 7 Martha was a firm believer in the parenting methods of decades past. Lily was prone to allergies, especially to mangoes. Yet, she repeatedly tried to feed them to my daughter, arguing self-righteously that once her body got used to mangoes, her constitution would be ‘fixed.’ She would gloat, “Liam used to refuse to eat cucumbers too, but I corrected that.” Later, I couldn’t take it anymore. After she secretly fed my daughter mangoes again, I held Lily, who was covered in itchy hives, and laid down the law: “How you raised your son is your business! But my daughter will be spoiled! If she’s allergic to something, she won’t eat it!” My daughter’s high fever had scared her. At the time, she stayed silent. But in front of Liam, she continued to complain: “Chloe is just looking down on me. She thinks I can’t teach her right. Does she think I’d actually harm the child? Feed her a few more times, and her constitution will change.” “Now look, all that effort wasted.” I asked Liam. He was a doctor; it was impossible for him not to know how ignorant those old beliefs were. I thought I couldn’t persuade his mother, so I asked him to step in. I never expected Liam to actually say: “That actually makes some sense. It can boost her immune system.” He pointed to himself. “I’m a living example.” I cursed him out right then and there. “Are you blind? Did you not see our daughter get a high fever several times because of this?!” Every time, Martha would feed her random food and then slip away. I was the only one left to deal with the subsequent allergic reactions Lily suffered. Martha had her own pension. After that ugly argument, she rarely came looking for me. We didn’t live together. Her coming over now… I knew exactly what she was here for. With a monthly pension of $2,000, she was addicted to playing mahjong. She was definitely short on cash. In the past, whenever she needed money, she would come to me. This time, I pissed her off in just a few sentences, and she even forgot to ask for money. Perfect. I wasn’t going to spend another dime on Liam’s family. But thinking of her reminded me of my nanny.
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