After giving birth, my mother-in-law posted a picture of the condoms my husband and I use on TikTok. She captioned it: “Young people these days have no self-control. They’re already at it right after having a baby.” I responded by posting a photo of her cheating on my father-in-law with his brother. My caption read: “Older folks sure know how to play the field.” I had just put the baby to sleep and opened TikTok to relax for a bit. I habitually checked my notifications, replying to friends and family who had shared videos with me. As I scrolled down, I was surprised to see a TikTok shared by a stranger asking, “Is this you?” I recognized the profile picture as a former male colleague from my old company. Curious, I opened the shared video and immediately felt my face burn with embarrassment when I saw the caption. The video was secretly recorded by Martha, my mother-in-law, when she came to wake me up to make breakfast for Derek. In the video, I was sound asleep, my head resting on Derek’s arm. The camera panned to the right, showing a blurry condom wrapper, then zoomed in to focus on it deliberately. The caption read: “Young people these days have no self-control. They’re already at it right after having a baby.” My blood boiled, and my heart raced. Last night, it was her son who had begged me, and I reluctantly agreed out of pity. Now his mother was spreading rumors online. I now realize that feeling sorry for a man only leads to trouble.
Trembling, I shared the video with Derek, telling him to ask his mom to delete it immediately. TikTok’s friend recommendation feature is powerful, and even my former colleagues had come across the video. I didn’t dare imagine what my parents, neighbors, and relatives would think if they saw it! After a while, Derek messaged back, “Isn’t my mom right? You were pretty enthusiastic last night!” followed by two suggestive emojis. “Just kidding, honey. You’re not mad, are you?” he added. “Besides, you can barely tell it’s us. I had to look closely to figure it out.” I sent him a screenshot of my former colleague sharing the video with me. “Look for yourself. This is from my ex-coworker.” To my surprise, he replied, “Your ex-coworker must be paying close attention to you if they recognized you after you’ve gained so much weight.” He added a jealous emoji. Reading Derek’s messages, my heart ached, and I felt my blood run cold. I took a deep breath, looked at our baby beside me, and forced myself to calm down.
I went straight to Martha’s room and got right to the point, “Mom, please delete the TikTok video you posted this morning.” Martha played dumb, “What TikTok video? You follow my account, and I didn’t post anything today!” Noticing her phone screen was still on, I snatched it from her hand and opened TikTok. I tapped on “My Posts” and saw the video pinned at the top. She had even pinned it! I was about to delete it when Martha headbutted me in the stomach, causing me to drop the phone. Ignoring the pain in my stomach, I got up to retrieve the phone, but the screen was already shattered and unusable. Martha stood by, gloating, “The phone’s broken. Perfect excuse for my son to buy me a new one.” “That was my most liked TikTok video ever. There’s no way I’m deleting it.” Shaking with anger, I smashed the phone on the ground, completely destroying it. “If this video isn’t deleted by the time Derek gets home tonight, I’ll report you for invasion of privacy.” “And remember, I control the bank card. Whether you get a new phone depends on me!”
Back in my room, I watched the video over and over. It now had 1,000 likes and over 2,000 comments. The comment section was filled with insults towards the daughter-in-law, some saying she looked attractive and making lewd suggestions. As I was about to screenshot these comments to send to Derek, the baby woke up, and I had to put down my phone to tend to her. When Derek came home from work that evening, he first complained about me breaking his mother’s phone and having to buy a new one. I snapped back, “She deserved it!” “And please read the comments under the video before you speak to me!” Derek said, “It’s just a bunch of nonsense. What’s there to see?” He was clearly avoiding the issue. He didn’t say a word about all the insulting comments. I opened TikTok and started reading the comments aloud to Derek: “The daughter-in-law is hot, let’s take her out to play!” “Your daughter-in-law has a great figure, your son is lucky.” “It’s better when the daughter-in-law is a bit naughty!” “Is this what you call criticizing the daughter-in-law?” As I was about to continue, the door suddenly burst open, and Martha stormed in: “Living off my son’s money and still daring to scold him.” “When people say you have big breasts, they’re complimenting your figure. It’s your dirty mind that’s the problem, not their comments.” Not wanting to argue with her, I played the voice message I had received from the lawyer I consulted earlier that afternoon. After hearing it, Derek quickly pulled Martha out of the room. Twenty minutes later, Derek returned with a bouquet of jasmine flowers, smiling apologetically, “Honey, don’t be angry. Mom has deleted the video and apologized. Look, she even asked me to buy you these jasmine flowers, your favorite.” I opened my phone and checked Martha’s profile. The video had indeed been deleted. “Don’t be mad, honey. I know I was wrong, and Mom knows she was wrong too. It won’t happen again.” I looked at Derek, feeling exhausted. Seeing my silence, Derek gave up trying to placate me. He tossed the flowers aside and said he was going to sleep in the study. 6 Lying awake for half the night, I still couldn’t fall asleep. My family is from a city in the neighboring state. I’m an only child, and although my parents are divorced and have new families, they still care for me deeply. When I told my family I was dating Derek, they disapproved. My mother would often call to tell me stories about girls who married far from home and suffered, or about parents who never saw their daughters again after they moved away. At the time, I found it annoying. When my father tried to introduce me to a young colleague at his company, I even said, “Didn’t you and Mom divorce because you didn’t know each other well enough before marriage?” Seeing that they couldn’t persuade me, my parents finally agreed to our engagement and marriage. Suddenly, I heard muffled voices coming from the study. I got up and pressed my ear against the wall, but I could only make out vague sounds. I remembered the stethoscope we had bought for the baby to check for illness and retrieved it. Placing it against the wall, I could hear every word clearly. “Your wife is so dramatic! It was just a bit of arm and chest showing, and she insisted on deleting it!” Martha complained to Derek. “Mom, you should have let me post it for you. I could have blocked her, and none of this would have happened!” Derek replied. “I just forgot! Don’t worry, I posted it on my secondary account too.” “You’re so clever, Mom. Have you gained more followers recently?” My heart raced, and I felt my blood boil. Derek clearly knew about this and was likely the mastermind! The thought of him making his mother post such risqué videos for money made me sick to my stomach. I want a divorce! Divorce! I suddenly remembered when I was four months pregnant, Derek would come home every day hinting that the economy was bad, his year-end bonus was cut in half, and his monthly salary wasn’t enough. He’d talk about how someone’s wife became an internet celebrity and earned $10,000 a month. Now I realize he was trying to get me to make suggestive videos too. Martha continued excitedly, “My secondary account is about to reach 10,000 followers. If your dad hadn’t stopped me from using TikTok two years ago, I’d be a top influencer by now.” “Your wife wouldn’t stand a chance!” Derek added, “Mom, I feel bad for making you film these videos.” “Son, I feel bad that you had to marry such a woman!” “If she wasn’t an only child with a house worth millions, I would have divorced her and found you a better daughter-in-law long ago!” “Son!” “Mom!” After hearing their conversation, I had only one thought: Find Martha’s secondary account and expose this mother-son duo! 7 On one hand, I contacted a friend in another state and asked her to pose as a brand representative interested in collaborating with Martha’s main account. She deliberately mentioned that the more followers, the more money could be earned. Martha immediately sent my friend her secondary account and asked how much she could make with it. On the other hand, I hired a private investigator to keep an eye on Derek. After all, if I wanted him to pay divorce compensation, I needed to find some dirt on him! After getting Martha’s secondary account, I thoroughly examined it. Martha was an uneducated woman from the countryside who married Robert, a high school teacher, because of her good looks and figure when she was young. In Martha’s eyes, being a teacher was a good, respectable job with a high salary. However, in this day and age, teachers’ salaries haven’t increased much, while the cost of living has skyrocketed. When Martha saw her old friends from the village become famous on TikTok by posting suggestive videos, earning enough to buy cars, houses, and travel the world, she always wanted to do the same. She had actually tried it once before, but I caught her and told Robert. He got angry and scolded her, forcing her to delete the video. Martha’s secondary account had posted over 90 videos, with a total of over 100,000 likes and exactly 10,000 followers. The video of me now had over 10,000 likes and more than 20,000 comments. More than 80 of her videos featured her wearing tight clothes, heavy makeup, and lip-syncing to cheesy songs. The comments were full of crude remarks like “You’re so beautiful” and “Your chest is so big.” I saved all these videos to a USB drive and sent it to my friend. I also carefully examined the comments and found one asking Martha if she had a partner. She had immediately replied “No.” In these 80-plus videos, there was one account that consistently appeared in the comments. I clicked on their profile and was surprised to see a hand wearing a pearl bracelet. That pearl bracelet was from a luxury brand. Martha had said it was a fake she wore for fun, but now it seemed there was more to the story. 8 During this time, Derek had been on his best behavior, and I couldn’t catch him doing anything wrong. Martha, on the other hand, was often going out. I installed cameras in various rooms of the house and, without consulting Derek, hired a nanny using his money. When they saw the nanny, they naturally wanted to let her go. I told them the contract had been signed and the salary paid. We could dismiss the nanny, but the money wouldn’t be refunded. During the day, I pretended to be job hunting, leaving the house early with my resume. In reality, I was sitting in a dessert shop near our apartment complex, waiting for Martha to leave. Martha loved sweets but was afraid of gaining weight, so she would usually walk quickly past dessert shops, pretending not to see them. With a bit of disguise, I managed to avoid being discovered for a whole week. However, Martha only went shopping for clothes and jewelry that week before returning home. Finally, on a Wednesday, I caught Martha heading to a dessert shop in a mall. Inside the shop, Martha went straight to a well-dressed man in his 50s, wearing a large gold necklace and a designer watch. I assumed this was the sponsor behind Martha’s TikTok videos. As soon as they met, they shared a deep kiss in public. I recorded the whole thing, but Martha was so well-covered that it was impossible to tell it was her. The shop was crowded and noisy, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I did, however, get a clear view of the man. The more I looked, the more uneasy I felt. Derek’s sister, Zoe, looked incredibly similar to this man! They say sons take after their mothers and daughters after their fathers. I had asked Derek before why his sister didn’t look like Robert or Martha at all, and he had dismissed it as a genetic quirk. Now, seeing this man, a ridiculous thought crossed my mind. When I got home, I took Robert, Martha, and Derek’s toothbrushes for a paternity test.
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