“Money, money, money. Does being married to me make you feel like you’re settling for less? Is money all you ever talk about with me now?

“How did you turn out this way?

“The way you’re acting makes me feel like remarrying you has been a huge mistake.”

A mistake?

I certainly felt the same way.

If I had known she was still involved with her ex-boyfriend, I never would have married her.

I laughed out loud and made the gesture for money again.

“I’m just that shallow and in no way as refined as Mr. Speke. So, you’d better hand over the money.”

Lana looked stunned.

Emma hung up the video call and rushed over to spread her arms to shield Lana behind her.

“Bad Daddy, I won’t let you bully Mommy.

“It’s only two hundred thousand dollars. I’ll give it to you.”

The next second, a bank card was hurled at my face.

The child had no control over her strength, and the corner of the card sliced across my face.

That gesture was identical to the way Lana had thrown a check at me.

True to both mother and daughter’s wealthy background, regardless of age, they could casually produce a sum I could not even dream of if I borrowed from every relative I had approached during my divorce.

Blood trickled down my cheek onto the floor.

I paid it no mind and bent down to pick up the card.

With that two hundred thousand dollars, I could get my mother better medicine.

Emma was just a child, after all. Seeing me bleed, she panicked and instinctively cried out, “Daddy…”

She reached out to help me up but was stopped by a fair, delicate hand.

Lana held her daughter in one arm and looked at me with a smirk.

“Be a good girl, Emma. Watch and learn. When you grow up, there’ll be plenty of penniless scoundrels like this trying to extort money from you.

“You’d better be on your guard. Even if it’s your own father, you need to be careful.”

With that, she walked away with Emma.

She did not look back at me even once.

After tending to my wounds, I returned to my room and drifted off into sleep.

When I woke up again, it was to the sound of laughter coming from downstairs.

On the sofa, Eliot was playing enthusiastically with Emma.

Meeting my gaze, Lana showed no remorse and spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world, “Eliot has been down in the dumps because you didn’t handle the trending topic well. I was afraid he might do something reckless, so I called him over to hang out.

“Don’t take it personally.”

I did not say a word and just stared intently at Emma.

How long had it been since I had seen her smile so happily?

When I remained silent, a hint of unease flashed across Lana’s face, and she softened her tone.

“If you mind, you can—”

“I don’t mind.”

Lana’s words got stuck in her throat, but she quickly composed herself.

“Is playing hard to get fun?

“You know you can’t stop me, so you’re trying a different approach?

“You weren’t like this before.”

That was right. Back then, whenever I saw her with Eliot, I would go crazy. The moment I caught a whiff of another man’s cologne on her, I would smash everything in the house to smithereens.

The old me could not stand even the slightest provocation.

But I had wizened up.

What good was love? Money was far more important.

I held out my hand to her again. “You mentioned his name twice just now. Two hundred thousand dollars.”

Lana snorted derisively and nodded repeatedly.

“Fine, I’ll give it to you.

“I’ve got something even more valuable here. Are you in?”

I looked up and met her gaze.

Would she really be that generous?

As if reading my mind, Lana spoke casually, “Hold a press conference and say the video online was photoshopped by a reporter you bribed out of jealousy toward Eliot.

“Once it’s done, I’ll give you twenty million.”

“Are you crazy?” I could not help but retort. “Didn’t you suppress that trending topic the very first moment it appeared?”

I could not wrap my head around it. It was clearly her own failure to handle the situation properly. Why was she trying to smear my name?

Lana’s voice was icy.

“Yes, I did suppress it. But Eliot suffered because of this. Don’t you think you owe him an apology?”

Furious, I laughed bitterly. “What makes you think I’d agree?”

Lana calmly pulled out her phone and pulled up a photo of my mother in the ICU.

“Here’s why. I recommended your mother’s current attending physician. I invested in the hospital too.”

As I looked at my mother’s pale face on the screen, a long-forgotten fear coursed through my body.

I clenched my fists tighter and tighter, but eventually let go.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

The moment I nodded, all my strength drained away. Cold sweat broke out all over my body.

My daughter, standing nearby, cheered with delight.

Finding me in the way, she shoved me aside and ran to hug Eliot.

“Yay! Bad Daddy is finally going to apologize to Eliot.”

Eliot laughed out loud. His gaze toward me was filled with smug satisfaction.

“Sorry, Lyle, Emma might be closer to me.”

I curled the corners of my mouth into a bitter smile. “Yeah, we’re not that close.”

As I turned to leave, I did not notice the unreadable look in Lana’s eyes.

Backstage at the press conference, the makeup artist was working hard to make me look ugly.

Meanwhile, at the makeup table nearby, Eliot was surrounded by several famous makeup artists. They were making him look even more charismatic and handsome.

Emma was circling around him. “Wow, Eliot is even more handsome than a movie star.”

When she turned to look at me, her face twisted with disgust. “Daddy looks like an old monster.”

Lana stepped out to take a call. The smile on Eliot’s face immediately vanished.

“How does it feel? To be unloved by your wife and despised by your daughter?

“What’s the point of remarrying Lana? She still loves me.”

He tossed the speech manuscript in front of me.

“Take a look at this. Lana wrote these charges for you herself.

“Don’t you want to have a sneak peek?”

I looked down, and a dense web of corrections caught my eye.

To think that she used to believe that replying to text messages was a waste of time.

I lowered my head in self-mockery before looking up to meet Eliot’s gaze.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll go down fighting and expose how you go about destroying other people’s families right there on stage?”

Eliot’s smile froze on his face. Then, he burst into a bout of laughter so hard he could barely stand.

“Go ahead and try it if you don’t mind your mother dying.”

He waved the black card in his hand.

“Lana gave me this supplementary card linked to your mother’s hospital payments.

“Tell me, what if my hand slips and I accidentally cut off the funds? What would you do then?”

My words got caught in my throat. I could only feel my chest tighten.

Lana was not just using my mother’s life to threaten me. She had handed the deciding power right over to this man.

Cold sweat poured down my forehead. I no longer cared about dignity.

I rushed to the podium and mechanically read my prepared statement. All I wanted was to end it all as quickly as possible.

The reporters’ cameras and microphones were practically shoved in my face.

Eliot’s fanatic supporters even threw eggs at me.

By the time it was over, I was trending at the top of the search rankings.

My phone kept ringing. The whole backend was flooded with messages calling me “trash” and “disgusting.”

I turned off my phone immediately and rushed straight to Lana to demand the money.

“I’ve done what you asked. Now it’s your turn to keep your promise.”

Lana snorted coldly and motioned for the doctor behind her to come forward.

“Check him over. Why is his face so pale?”

She looked at me again, with her tone laced with disgust. “Don’t read too much into it. I just don’t want you dying here. It’s bad luck.”

I looked up and saw Eliot smugly waving the card in his hand.

Something snapped inside me.

“Don’t touch me.”

My eyes reddened as I clung desperately to Lana’s hand.

“Give me the money. Give it to me now.”

With that money, I would not have to be threatened or manipulated by them anymore.

I was going to take my mother away.

No sooner had the words left my mouth than I was roughly shoved aside.

Lana waved her hand to dismiss the doctor.

“No need to examine him. He’s just someone whose mind is filled with nothing but money. Clearly, he values his life more than anyone else.”

She looked down on me with disdain.

“Twenty million has already been transferred to your card.”

“Is there anything else? If not, get out of here. Don’t corrupt the child.”

On the street, no one was willing to give me a ride.

I ran all the way back to the hospital.

However, I found that my mother had already been wheeled into the operating room, yet the doctors and nurses were all outside.

Blood rushed to my head.

I grabbed a nurse’s hand and demanded an answer.

“What’s going on? Why aren’t you treating my mom?”

“Why?

“Didn’t you see? Her face is so pale.”

The nurse stammered. “Sir, the prepaid funds in the patient’s account have been completely depleted. Someone just froze the payment channel too. According to regulations, we can’t perform surgery without funds.”

No money left?

“If that’s the case, why didn’t you call me? Why?”

Before I could ask for details, I tremblingly pulled out my bank card and shoved it into the nurse’s hands.

“There’s thirty million in here. There’s money in here. Hurry up and operate on my mother. Hurry!”

But the nurse who went to process the payment quickly ran back and handed the card back to me.

“Sir, this card has been frozen. It shows that the balance is unavailable.”

How could that be?

My head felt like it was about to explode.

Since we remarried, all the “fines” Lana had given me were in there. How could there be no money?

A “ding” sounded as a message popped up on my phone.

It was from Lana.

[Lyle, I just bought a sports car for Eliot. One of my staff accidentally charged it to your supplementary card.]

[Sorry, I’ll reimburse you double later.]

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone.

As I watched my mother’s breathing grow weaker and weaker, I felt as if my insides had been torn to shreds.

My gaze drifted to the watch on my wrist, and a last glimmer of hope surfaced.

“My daughter bought this watch for me. It’s a limited edition. It’s worth at least several hundred thousand dollars. Go ahead with the surgery first; I’ll go sell it right away, okay?”

My daughter had bought me this watch with her Christmas gift money way back, before Eliot returned to the country.

Even during the difficult divorce, I could not bring myself to sell it.

But another nurse, who knew her stuff, looked at me with sympathy and pointed at my watch.

“Um… sir, this must be a fake, right? Look, the strap has faded.”

Following her gaze, I saw that the gold plating on the strap had worn off, revealing the metal underneath.

A voice message from Emma popped up on my phone.

“Sorry, Dad. Eliot said your watch was nice, so I gave him the real one.

“You can’t tell the difference anyway, so just make do with this high-quality knockoff. Please don’t take it personally.”

The gold watch slipped from my wrist and fell to the ground.

All the strength drained from my body in an instant.

I watched helplessly as my mother’s face was covered with a white sheet, yet not a single tear could fall.

I lost track of time before Lana called. Her voice sounded lighthearted.

“I’ve already paid you five times the amount. Don’t be angry. It’s Emma’s birthday tonight. You should come, too. Don’t keep everyone waiting.”

I answered numbly, “Okay.”

After hanging up, I looked at the two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar balance that appeared on my card once it was unfrozen.

I felt nothing.

I dialed the number of the entertainment reporter who had once threatened me.

“I’ve got a trending topic worth two hundred and fifty million dollars. Interested in a deal?”

At the dinner party, Eliot was dressed in a limited-edition suit. He was trying to say something to Emma.

However, she shook off his hand and looked around restlessly.

“Where’s Daddy? Why isn’t he here yet?”

Lana paced anxiously. She glanced at her watch impatiently.

“Why isn’t he here yet? Is he still throwing a tantrum?”

The next second, the giant screen in the banquet hall suddenly lit up.

The moment Lana saw what was on the screen, her expression changed completely.