###Chapter 3

A velvet box rolled to my feet. I opened it. Inside was a pair of expensive diamond rings I had never seen before. Their bright light hurt my eyes.

Then a stack of saved ticket stubs and photos fell out.

My hands trembled as I checked the dates. Tears ran down my face, but a strange, bitter smile pulled at my lips.

On top was a yellowed cruise ticket. The date was the day my daughter was born.

Richard said he had an urgent business trip. But in the photo, while I was bleeding heavily during a difficult childbirth, he was kneeling on a sunset deck in the Aegean Sea, putting a diamond ring on Margareth’s finger. His eyes looked as devoted as a believer.

The next one was a ticket to the Louvre. The date was my thirty-second birthday.

That night, I waited in a restaurant until it closed, only to receive a message from his assistant saying, “Mr. Hawthorne is accompanying an important client.” But he had booked the Eiffel Tower restaurant to make Margareth, that “client,” happy.

Ticket after ticket, photo after photo, it felt like knives stabbing into my heart.

The day my parents died in a car accident, he was in Bali, kissing Margareth passionately while she wore a bikini. They looked like a perfect couple.

On our twentieth wedding anniversary, he was feeding pigeons with her in Prague Square. Time had left fine lines on their faces, but the way he looked at her was still so intense that it shocked me.

All of these places were places I once dreamed of visiting.

Whenever I mentioned traveling together, he would only reply coldly, “It’s boring. I don’t want to go.”

So it was not the scenery that was boring. It was me.

My eyes stopped on the last card. It was a pregnancy checkup card from a high-end private hospital, dated three months ago.

On the back of the card were Richard’s familiar words:

“It’s okay that the baby is gone, my love. This time, we will never be apart again.”

Suddenly, everything felt so ridiculous.

Three months ago, he was “on a business trip” for a whole month.

At that time, his wrong decision almost caused the company to lose tens of millions. I stayed up for three days and nights to fix it. My stomach hurt so badly that I curled up on the floor.

I called him, my voice shaking. “Richard, I feel very unwell. Can you come back?”

He only sounded impatient. “If you’re sick, see a doctor. What can I do?”

So during that month, he had been accompanying Margareth to pregnancy checkups and arranging the best nutritionists in the world to take care of her after her miscarriage.

My stomach churned. I rushed into the bathroom and started retching violently.

I splashed cold water on my face and looked up at the woman in the mirror: pale yellow skin, empty eyes, looking old and worn out.

No wonder he would not even spare me a proper glance.

But he forgot that I was once bright and full of life, young and beautiful. Who drained away my youth?

After drying my face, I returned to the study and took out the share agreement.

Then I dialed a familiar number again. The man was Richard’s biggest rival and the person he hated the most, Margot Ward.

“Besides business cooperation, I’ll give you a big gift,” I said calmly, in a voice that even felt strange to me. “Twenty percent of Hawthorne Group’s shares. I believe you would be interested.”

Margot’s tone turned playful. “Oh? You’re really willing to give it up? That’s Richard’s lifeline.”

“Willing?” I let out a bitter laugh. “What he did to me was ten thousand times worse than this.”

Hearing the tremble in my voice, Margot became serious. “What exactly did he do? Hermione, tell me. I will help you.”

That simple care from someone outside the family made the wall around my heart collapse in an instant.

After listening to everything I said, there was silence on the other end of the phone. Then his steady voice came again.

“I understand. Hermione, I stand on your side unconditionally. We’ll meet in five days.”

“Thank you, Margot.”

Just as I hung up, a burst of rough footsteps rushed in.

“Can’t you even handle such a small thing? You’re useless!”

###Chapter 4

Before I could react, my son Daniel rushed in front of me. He immediately started scolding me.

“It’s raining so hard outside. Why didn’t you pick up the kids?”

Only then did I remember. So many things had happened today that I forgot to pick up my twin grandson and granddaughter from school. I was the one who always picked them up, so the school bus did not wait for them.

Seeing the two small figures behind him, soaked through and shivering, guilt filled my heart at once.

I was about to apologize, but Daniel did not stop.

“This is so annoying. And you even caused that ugly scandal. Do you know how much effort Dad put in to suppress it? Did you really do something shameful?”

I looked up at him in shock. Even my own son thought of me this way.

“I didn’t do anything!” Shame and anger made my voice shake.

My daughter-in-law wiped the children’s hair and glanced at me sideways. “No wonder Dad doesn’t like taking you out. You don’t dress well, you can’t even pick up the kids properly and now you’ve embarrassed the Hawthorne Family.”

My eight-year-old granddaughter, Dyna, shouted, “I want to change my grandma. I want Grandma Margareth to be my grandma!”

“Grandma Margareth is pretty and gentle. She buys us lots of gifts. Unlike you, you are stupid and ugly and today I got laughed at in school because of you!”

My son’s face turned completely dark. “Mom, can you just stop causing trouble for once?”

I stood there, frozen, as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over me.

These were the children I raised with my own hands. Their faces twisted and blurred before my eyes, so strange that it made me dizzy.

A small warm hand quietly held my cold, shaking fingers.

I looked down. It was my grandson, Leo.

He looked up at me with bright eyes. “Grandma, it’s okay. I know the way home. No matter what others say, you’re the best grandma.”

“Stop it.” Dyna threw her schoolbag at me. “I’m starving. Go cook! I want Hawaiian pizza. If not, I’ll go find Aunt Margareth!”

I gently rubbed Leo’s soft hair, then looked up at the others—their faces full of dislike, as if everything was only natural.

Suddenly, I did not want to tolerate anyone anymore.

I looked at my granddaughter calmly. “No need to change. She is already your grandmother.”

Then I turned and walked upstairs. I took out the marriage certificate.

The moment my son and daughter-in-law saw it, their faces changed. “You… where did you find that?”

Their faces showed panic, embarrassment, guilt—everything except surprise.

So they had known all along, yet had conspired to hide it from me. Even worse, they had sided with their father, working to keep me from my own life.

I took a deep breath. Strangely, I did not feel much disappointment. Only anger was burning in my chest. I walked quickly back to my room and started packing my luggage.

Daniel chased after me and blocked the doorway. “Mom, can you stop making trouble?”

I did not stop packing. “I’m not making trouble. I’m giving you what you want.”

Seeing that I was serious, he became nervous. His tone softened. “It’s just a piece of paper. Why take it so seriously?”

I looked at his face, so much like Richard when he was young and suddenly laughed.

“Take it seriously?” I felt it was unbelievable. “How can you even say that?”

I pushed his arm away from the doorframe and picked up my suitcase. “Don’t call me Mom. Legally, Margareth is your mother.”

My cold tone, colder than ever before, made the children start crying. My son grabbed his hair in frustration and shouted, “At your age, if you run away, who knows what ugly rumors will spread again? You’ll regret this sooner or later!”

“No rumor can be worse than being stabbed in the back by your own family. You should go and please Margareth instead.”

“I didn’t expect Hermione to still dislike me so much. Forget it, I’ll leave!”

Margareth’s tearful voice suddenly came from the doorway.

Richard followed behind her and pulled her into his arms. “No. Where do you think you’re going?”

Margareth pretended to push against his strong chest, her crying even more pitiful. “The world is big. There’s always a place for me. It’s better than staying here and being pointed at by Hermione, accused of ruining someone else’s family.”

“You did nothing wrong. The one at fault is this unreasonable woman!”

Richard’s eyes were like knives cutting into me. “You don’t need to attend the Hawthorne Group banquet in a few days. I’ll let Margareth go in your place.”

The hatred in his eyes was open and clear.

My whole body turned cold. I threw the marriage certificate at him with force, my voice hoarse.

“I’m unreasonable? Then what is this?”

###Chapter 5

A flash of panic crossed Richard’s eyes, but he quickly forced himself to look cold.

“Back then, Margareth had just broken up and got drunk. She grabbed a random man on the street and said she wanted to marry him. I was afraid she would regret it, so I went with her to register the marriage.”

He looked at me with blame in his eyes. “Is this small matter the reason you kept targeting her after she came back?”

A small matter?

He gave the promise I begged for all my life to her so easily, just because he was afraid she would regret a moment of impulse.

And now he still had the nerve to accuse me for her sake?

“It’s all my fault,” Margareth said with teary eyes. “Hermione never liked me since we were young. Richard, let’s get divorced. You can go register with her instead!”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” Richard tightened his arms around her. “At our age, what divorce? I will never let you suffer this kind of grievance!”

What a loving couple.

He was so afraid she would suffer even a little. Then what about the thirty years of grievance I endured?

I was about to leave when Margareth’s elbow suddenly hit my shoulder on purpose.

Caught off guard, I fell and rolled down the stairs.

“Hermione, y-you did that on purpose, didn’t you? You threw yourself down the stairs just to frame me again?”

Through the dizziness, I heard Margareth’s shrill voice above me.

Richard immediately followed, calm and decisive. “Don’t worry. We all saw it. She fell by herself.”

He took her hand and walked downstairs. When they passed me, he didn’t even slow down.

“Maybe you’re really not fit to remain the mistress of the Hawthorne Family. If you keep acting this immature, losing this position and the children’s respect is your own fault.”

I had landed on the shattered pieces of a broken vase. My elbows were slashed open, thin lines of blood seeping out.

Yet he only worried that Margareth might get cut. He scooped her up in his arms, not sparing me a single glance and strode away.

“Grandma is bleeding…”

Leo’s trembling cry was quickly muffled by his mother’s hand.

I lay on the cold floor, so numb that I couldn’t even feel the pain.

After a long time, I forced myself up. Silently, I cleaned the wounds with iodine, wrapped them in gauze and went back to packing.

The cuts became inflamed. That night, I developed a high fever. Shivering, I dialed my daughter Jassy’s number.

It rang for a long time before she answered, her voice lowered.

“Mom, I’m accompanying Auntie at the spa. You know she’s in a bad mood because of you. There’s medicine in the drawer. Just take it yourself.”

Before the call disconnected, I heard her laugh lightly.

“Auntie, let me help you apply the essential oil.”

I curled up on the cold bed, tears soaking through the pillow.

After an unknown stretch of time, my phone screen lit up. It was a new post from Jassy.

In one photo, she was attentively massaging Margareth’s shoulders.

In another—“a family portrait”—her father, brother, sister-in-law and Jassy herself were gathered around Margareth like stars orbiting the moon, having breakfast at a top luxury hotel.

The caption read: “May time treat my goddess gently.”

The last flicker of light inside me went out.

Even disappointment felt like a luxury.

In a daze, I remembered years ago—my soft, sweet little girl stubbornly raising her tiny fists to pound my back after I came home exhausted.

“Mommy worked so hard. I will love Mommy forever.”

A cold draft slipped through the crack in the window, scattering that illusion.

I would never find my Jassy again.

I slept in a feverish haze for a whole day and night. Not a cup of water. Not a single word of concern.

When I woke, I gathered all the gifts Richard had ever given me, along with everything my son and daughter had given and handed them to the only housemaid in the home.

Just then, Richard’s call came in—shrill and relentless.

“Make a honey yam cake and bring it to the company immediately! Hurry!”

His urgent tone made me think his asthma had flared up again.

All these years, whenever he felt unwell—no matter how late—it was always me who made it fresh by hand and delivered it personally.

Richard would eat it with his coffee, a smile blooming on his face.

“Hermione, I want to eat the honey yam cake you make for the rest of my life.”

In moments like that, I truly believed we were in love.

Silently, I walked into the kitchen.

Unfortunately, there was no “rest of my life.” This would be the last time.

Carrying the food container, I stepped into Richard’s office—only to see Margareth reclining sideways on the leather sofa.

She wore his shirt loosely draped over her body, the buttons undone, her bare legs exposed. There was a lingering charm in her eyes; even at her age, she was still alluring.

And the beige lace cover I had carefully sewn and spread over that sofa—was tossed onto the floor, stained with something suspicious.

Rage surged through me. I strode forward. “On what grounds did you throw away my things? I stitched that piece thread by thread!”

Margareth covered her mouth, looking innocent. “Oh… I thought it was some cheap roadside item. I accidentally stained it. I’m sorry, Hermione. I’ll buy you a new one.”

Richard walked out of the lounge, adjusting his cuffs, his tone indifferent.

“Why compensate? It was old junk that should’ve been thrown out long ago.”

Old junk that should’ve been thrown out long ago?

That cushion…

He had once complained the sofa was too hard. I chose the softest yarn I could find and, through countless nights of his late returns, endured the ache in my neck and shoulders, crocheting for months before I finished it.

He walked over, ignoring my ashen face and took the food container from my hands.

Suddenly, Margareth’s gaze fell on my neck. Her voice rose slightly.

“Isn’t that our family heirloom—the ‘Tears of the Galaxy’ diamond necklace? I’m the eldest daughter. It should belong to me.”

I covered the necklace and stepped back.

“This was left to me by our parents! You have no right—”

Before I could finish, Richard’s hand was already reaching toward the back of my neck.