For the ninety-ninth time, the critical condition notice for her husband landed in Shirley’s hands. She couldn’t stop herself—her palm cracked across Heather’s cheek.

“Christopher and I are not divorced yet. Know your place.”

Heather froze, then screamed, hysterical. “How dare you hit me! Christopher said I could do whatever I wanted!”

“He said he’d love me enough to die for me, so let him die! Let’s see any of you try to save him!”

Snatching up a fruit knife, she stabbed wildly toward Shirley. Not a soul moved to intervene.

Because compared to the so-called “Mrs. Christopher,” Heather was the one Christopher truly cherished.

The man paranoid enough to sleep with a blade under his pillow had allowed Heather to use him as a test subject—for candle burns, drowning games, plastic bag suffocation.

The man who detested the color pink had let her cover his face in lipstick kisses and Hello Kitty stickers.

So even as she slashed Shirley until she bled, no one dared lay a finger on her.

“Heather!” Christopher’s voice cut through the chaos as a nurse wheeled him out. His face was pale. “Your face… what happened?”

Tears pooled in Heather’s eyes. “I just wanted to see you die for me, but Shirley wouldn’t let me. She tried to kill me…”

Christopher’s sharp gaze snapped to Shirley. “You laid a hand on her? Heather is like this because of you! You promised to take care of her for life!”

Shirley bit her lip until she tasted copper.

On her twentieth birthday, her foster father, Gabriel, had brought home Heather—his biological daughter, missing for fifteen years.

Shirley had taken her abroad. In the moment it took to glance at a text, Heather vanished.

They found her half a month later, but from then on, Heather grew stranger.

She threw kittens off balconies. She locked classmates in bathrooms.

Doctors diagnosed a severe empathy deficit, triggered by trauma. She couldn’t grasp the consequences of her actions.

Consumed by guilt, Shirley brought her to the Christopher family, hoping their resources could help.

And though Heather had rarely targeted others in recent years, she never spared Shirley.

With Christopher’s indulgence… Shirley was just so tired.

Her eyes reddened; the hand pressed to her wound trembled. “Since you’re fine, we’ll finalize the divorce tomorrow.”

She turned to go, but Christopher’s voice halted her.

“You hurt her and think you can walk away? What about your promise?”

He signaled a bodyguard to restrain Shirley, then spoke gently to Heather. “Don’t be scared. I’ve got you.”

Though Shirley’s injuries were far worse, Christopher acted as if he didn’t see them, drawing Heather close instead. “Anyone who bullies you will pay tenfold.”

Shirley broke, her scream raw. “Christopher, *I* am your wife! You promised me once—you’d always be my shield, that you’d never let anyone hurt me!”

He’d once crossed half the country to buy her a cup of bubble tea.

During an earthquake, he’d shielded her with his body, breaking three ribs.

Back then… she was everything to him…

At her words, Christopher’s eyes glazed over for a fleeting second before turning to ice.

“Those promises died the day you killed our child and my mother.”

Now, all he felt was hate.

Shirley’s sobs cut off, her face deathly pale.

Restrained and helpless, she could only endure as slap after brutal slap rained down.

*Smack! Smack! Smack!*

…

The assault only stopped when Heather’s arm grew tired.

Shirley’s face was swollen, bruised. The moment the bodyguard released her, she crumpled.

Heather blinked, feigning innocence. “Is it wrong for a little sister to hit her big sister?”

Christopher took her reddened palm, his touch both doting and pained. “Your world doesn’t have right and wrong. Do as you please. I’ll handle the consequences.”

“Even if I play with you until you die?”

“Of course. How would you like to play tonight?”

The sound of a messy, passionate kiss filled the corridor. Everyone else stared at their shoes.

Shirley’s tightly controlled, ragged sobs finally cut through their heated breaths.

Heather pulled up her fallen shoulder strap, whining sweetly, “Why is big sister crying so loudly?”

The man’s voice was a contemptuous sneer.

“She cries because she still has hope. She wants my comfort. True despair is silent. Like when I lost my mother and child—I couldn’t even shed a tear.”

Arm around Heather, Christopher walked away. As he passed Shirley, his low voice seemed to rise from hell itself.

“This is your deserved retribution. Divorce? Don’t even dream of it.”

The words were a final dagger, plunging into her already shattered heart.

Everyone in Rivermouth knew the truth. Those ninety-nine divorce threats were a pathetic joke, proof of how desperately Shirley loved him.

The fact it never happened in ninety-nine attempts was Christopher’s punishment for her betrayal.

She remained slumped on the cold floor for a long time. Finally, with trembling fingers, she dialed her biological father.

“Dad…”

Silence, then a shaky breath. “Moon… what did you call me? You’re finally willing to acknowledge me? To come back?”

Shirley rubbed her sore nose. “Arrange a fake death. In a month, I want to return with a new identity.”

Having decided to leave, Shirley visited the cemetery alone, paying her respects to her daughter Sharon and her mother-in-law, Natalie.

She returned deep into the night.

Not wanting to disturb anyone, she groped her way upstairs in the dark.

The bedroom door stood ajar. With a sharp *click*, the light snapped on.

“Heather, I had that dream again...”

Christopher held Heather, who wore only a tight camisole. His long, bony fingers rested on the slight swell of her stomach.

“Christopher... Heather is pregnant? With your child?” Shirley’s eyes widened, her composure crumbling.

She remembered when she had miscarried in her seventh month. Christopher had held the stillborn fetus the doctors induced and named it ‘Sharon’.

Eyes bloodshot, he’d whispered to the lifeless child in his arms, over and over:

“Sharon, my little princess. Daddy will only ever be your daddy, okay?”

He’d clung to that tiny, perfectly-formed body all night, refusing to let go no matter who tried to reason with him.

Once, a friend suggested Shirley could simply have another child for him. Christopher’s bodyguard broke the man’s arm on the spot.

And now... now he’d gotten Heather pregnant?

Shirley stared, disbelieving, as Christopher tenderly stroked Heather’s belly, a thin, mocking smile curling his lips.

“Wrong. She’s carrying *your* child,” he said.

“This baby is Sharon’s reincarnation. She came to me in a dream, insisted on being my daughter, so she chose Heather’s womb.”

“That’s insane!” A roaring filled Shirley’s ears.

Heather giggled, taking Christopher’s hand and sliding it up her pale thigh.

“Chris, I had the same dream. Sharon said she wants to see her daddy.”

Christopher leaned back, a predatory glint in his eyes as he bared his muscular chest. His voice dropped to a low, deliberate drawl. “Oh? And how does she want to see me?”

“From the inside, of course...” Heather’s voice dripped with syrup. She bit her lip in a show of shyness that was utterly transparent.

Christopher ground his teeth. Snatching a metal lighter from the nightstand, he hurled it at Shirley. “Get the hell out! Or are you going to help me with my pants?”

Clutching her bleeding forehead, Shirley fled to her own room. In her panic, she knocked over a framed pregnancy photo on her nightstand.

Memories crashed over her like a tidal wave.

While pregnant, she’d secretly gone to surprise Christopher at a project site for his birthday—only to wake up in the arms of a complete stranger.

A shocking, dark pool of blood had soaked the sheets beneath her.

And in that exact moment, her mother-in-law pushed the door open, took one look, and died of a heart attack on the spot.

After losing two of his closest family members in one night, Christopher became a different man.

It started with the cold shoulder. At society galas, he’d treat her like thin air.

He let people pour wine on her, call her a slut, push her into pools littered with broken glass. He’d stand on the edge, applauding, as the water tinted red around her.

Then he began allowing Heather, with blatant disregard, to wear Shirley’s nightgowns and climb into his bed.

After that night, he transferred all the affection he’d once shown Shirley to Heather, forcing Shirley to indulge Heather’s every outrageous whim.

Heather would cry over a frozen cat she’d found, demanding it be brought back to life. He’d throw the stiff corpse at Shirley, ordering her to tuck it inside her clothes to ‘warm it back’.

A mosquito bit Heather? He’d dunk Shirley in a tub of pungent, medicinal oil, using her as a human mosquito repellent.

For two years, Shirley had begged for a divorce, to get out of their way. But Christopher blocked her adoptive father’s urgently needed heart surgery, holding it over her head to force her compliance.

And now this—using Sharon’s reincarnation as some crude, cruel joke to humiliate her!

Blood still dripped from her forehead. Shirley fetched the iodine to disinfect the wound. The cotton swab emerged from the bottle with a huge centipede clinging to it, which dropped onto her leg!

Terrified of centipedes, she lost all reason. She screamed, flinging the bottle away.

In her panic, she stepped on the rolling bottle, lost her footing, and fell hard.

The commotion startled the housekeeper and triggered one of Heather’s performances.

Provoked by the scream, Heather began wailing. “Christopher! She fell on purpose! She doesn’t want Sharon to see you!”

“Fine! Then I won’t let you see Sharon either!”

Disheveled, she rushed to the balcony, flung the window open, and tried to climb over the ledge.

Christopher’s fingers clenched around Heather’s sleeve, his eyes wild and bloodshot.

“Heather, you’re all I have left. If you go, what am I supposed to do?”

His panic reached her, and Shirley’s heart twisted.

He actually said he couldn’t live without Heather…

Then what was she? All those promises to cherish her for a lifetime—they meant nothing.

“Let me jump first, Heather. Watch me. See if it hurts—then you can decide.”

He yanked her back and leaned out the window himself.

Shirley lunged, grabbing his leg. “She’s having an episode, and now you’re going to be just as insane? This is the fourth floor! Do you love her so much you’d throw your life away?”

Christopher pried her fingers loose, disdain written across his face. “Heather means more to me than life. If you’re so desperate to stop me, why don’t you jump instead?”

A coldness settled deep in Shirley’s chest. Her pale fingers slowly let go.

He wasn’t unaware. He knew she was terrified of heights.

And he knew perfectly well that her mother had jumped from a building right in front of her when she was six—after catching her husband in an affair.

“You… you’re serious?” Her voice shook.

“It’s only the fourth floor. It won’t kill you. Jump, and the man who raised you gets his surgery tomorrow.”

The man who raised her was her last remaining weakness.

Shirley closed her eyes and leaped.

When she woke, the sharp scent of disinfectant filled her nose; white-coated figures swam in her vision.

Nausea rolled through her. Her head spun.

“Mrs. Christopher, please don’t move. If the tree in the courtyard hadn’t broken your fall, it would be much worse than a concussion and internal bleeding.”

She nodded and lay back obediently, but her eyes kept searching the room.

The nurse understood. Lowering her voice, she said, “Mr. Christopher is with Miss Heather—she’s still unstable. He hasn’t been able to visit yet. He’s right next door. Should I tell him you’re awake?”

Shirley shook her head and waved a weak refusal.

She didn’t want him to visit. She only wanted to confirm the surgery date for the man who’d raised her.

When she’d tried to divorce him before, he’d threatened to cancel the surgery. Now that she’d nearly died, she just wanted this last wish settled.

As soon as the nurse left, she pulled out her IV and, leaning heavily on the wall, dragged herself painfully to the next room.

Inside, the two of them were laughing over photos scattered across the floor.

After falling from the fourth floor, she’d lost consciousness—and with it, any clear memory.

Those photos showed her how utterly pathetic she’d looked: skirt shoved up, underwear exposed, collapsed on the ground.

Christopher pointed at one. “Look at her, Heather. Pathetic. Thank God you didn’t jump. You’d never debase yourself like that. Promise me you won’t ever pull a stunt like this again.”

Heather nestled obediently against his chest. “Okay. If everyone who’s sick like me could see what happens when you jump, maybe they wouldn’t get hurt, right?”

Dread clenched Shirley’s heart—what was she planning?

“No!”

She tried to rush in and snatch Christopher’s phone, but he stopped her cold.

Five minutes later, the photos had flooded every major social media platform.

Uncensored pictures of her fall were everywhere, her private areas magnified and crystal clear.

**[Mrs. Christopher’s lace panties are so hot! Where’d she get them? Link?]**

**[What’s the point of dressing like that if you still can’t keep your husband’s attention?]**

**[Who jumps out a window dressed like that? She’s a disgrace to their entire social circle.]**

Her phone buzzed and chimed incessantly, a flood of insults vibrating until her palm went numb.

Her personal accounts were completely overrun.

Every comment she tried to post in her own defense was instantly deleted. One after another.

“Don’t waste your energy. I’ve already spoken to the backend. You won’t be able to explain yourself.”

“Accept who you are. A desperate woman in lace underwear, staging a scene because she’s lost her husband to her own sister.”

Christopher leaned against the doorframe, a cigarette between his fingers, half his face shadowed in the dim light.

His tall frame cast a long shadow over her, pressing down until she couldn’t lift her head.

“Why?” she managed, clutching her aching, suffocating chest. “Why would you do this?”

He gave a cold, mocking smile. “Why? The kind of woman who sleeps around even while pregnant with Sharon—doesn’t a stunt like this, in lace underwear, fit your character perfectly?”

His hand closed around her throat, squeezing the air from her lungs. Shirley’s face flushed crimson as she flailed helplessly.

A single warm tear fell onto the back of his hand.

He froze, something like regret flickering through his eyes.

Shirley wasn’t one to cry.

She used to smile all the time—like a patch of winter sunshine that warmed you through.

No matter how exhausted he was from work, seeing her smile had always healed him.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her smile.

Christopher slowly released his grip, his expression complicated. He took one last hard drag on his cigarette and turned to leave.

A doctor came stumbling toward them, face pale. “Mr. Christopher! It’s your father-in-law! Something’s happened!”