Chapter 4

18

Sometimes fate has a cruel sense of humor.

Khương Lai came from a poor background, and damage to her health had supposedly made it difficult for her to conceive. Those were the reasons the Chu family refused to accept her.

Yet now she was suddenly pregnant.

With her baby as leverage, she threatened both their lives to force Chu Cảnh Hoài to divorce me and marry her.

They had been involved for years. Now that she had a child to rely on, he had something with which to defy his parents.

Of course he wouldn’t refuse.

Looking back, if she had become pregnant a little earlier, none of this would have happened.

I thought Chu Cảnh Hoài would certainly have been willing to give her and her child a proper place in the family and divorce me peacefully.

I wouldn’t have faced a fifty-million-yuan debt.

And I would never have dragged an innocent Trần Tông Nguyệt into this.

I agreed to sign the divorce papers and leave with nothing. In return, I wouldn’t have to repay that astronomical betrothal payment.

Chu Cảnh Hoài also wanted me to abort the child after our divorce.

Even if he hadn’t asked, I wouldn’t have had this baby.

I knew exactly how miserable it was to be a child unloved by its parents.

There was no need for mine to suffer it too.

Besides, once I signed the papers and left the Chu family, the baby would lose the protection of their name. I was afraid it might one day bring trouble to Trần Tông Nguyệt.

I had been the one to approach him.

I had pressured him.

He didn’t deserve to suffer for something he had never asked for.

19

The next day, Grandmother Chu died quietly in her sleep.

While the family busied themselves with the funeral, Chu Cảnh Hoài and I signed our divorce agreement.

He gripped his fountain pen, his expression unreadable.

“Hứa Trăn, who is that man?”

I looked at him coolly.

“I won’t tell you.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

After a brief silence, I smiled and shook my head.

“It’s none of your business.”

I had used an honorable man in such a sordid, despicable way. What right did I have to speak of liking him?

“Until the shares and Grandmother’s estate are settled, I’ll cooperate and keep our divorce private.”

I stood to get my suitcase.

“I’ll need to stay in the Chu family’s other residence for a while. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Hứa Trăn, you never cared about me as your husband either, did you?”

With my hand on the suitcase handle, I gave him a calm smile.

“When I first married you, I did want us to have a good life together.”

He let out a self-mocking laugh.

“You never cared that Khương Lai existed either, did you?”

I looked at the floor without answering.

What woman entered marriage without imagining a harmonious future with her husband?

I had been foolish enough to hope too.

I had simply come to my senses quickly.

“I’m leaving. Take care.”

I turned and walked out.

I could feel him watching me.

I never looked back.

20

After moving into the other residence, I began contacting hospitals to arrange the procedure.

Strangely, although I had secured an appointment, the hospital called the next day to cancel and told me to book elsewhere.

When I asked why, they hedged and quickly ended the call.

At first, I thought little of it.

Only when it happened a second and third time did I realize someone must be interfering.

But Trần Tông Nguyệt never crossed my mind.

Not until the day I went to the hospital in person to arrange admission and have the pregnancy terminated.

I was refused again.

Even the hospital director hurried over when he heard.

“Miss Hứa, it isn’t that we’re unwilling to arrange the procedure. We simply don’t dare…”

“Don’t dare? Why not?”

I looked at the director sweating in front of me.

“The baby is mine. I have the right to decide whether to keep it. No one else gets to make that decision.”

“I’m having this procedure today. Otherwise, I’ll sit here and refuse to leave.”

I slowly lowered myself onto a bench, my feelings tangled.

The baby was growing every day.

And with every day, that instinctive bond of blood softened my heart a little more.

I dared not imagine the time when it would have tiny features and little fingers.

When I felt it move inside me, would I still be able to go through with it?

Seeing how determined I was, the director stopped trying to persuade me and hurried away.

A little later, a nurse led me to a VIP room.

“Please rest here, Miss Hứa. The hospital is still discussing your procedure.”

“May I ask who you’re discussing it with?”

She only shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I really don’t know anything.”

Then she left.

I sat there until the sky began to darken.

Through the partly open window came faint engine noise and a stir of voices.

I moved my stiff shoulders, stood, and went to the window.

By chance, I looked down just as a car worth a fortune pulled slowly to a stop.

Five or six SUVs followed it.

At first, I paid no attention. I assumed some important person had come for treatment.

But when a bodyguard opened the door, the man who stepped out was Trần Tông Nguyệt.

The Chu family’s distant relative, whom I had thought dependent on their charity.

The poor, sick man I had offered a million yuan to give me a child.

21

He headed straight for my building.

Once the shock and bewilderment passed, I put the pieces together.

He must have known for some time that Chu Cảnh Hoài and I had signed the divorce papers.

And that I wanted to end the pregnancy.

That was why, these past few days, hospital after hospital had refused—or dared not agree—to perform the procedure.

He was behind all of it.

I picked up my handbag and went out.

As he stepped out of one elevator, I was about to enter the next.

Our eyes met.

I quickly looked away and hurried inside.

But he reached out and gently caught my wrist.

“Hứa Trăn.”

The same slender, jade-like wrist.

The same bloodred coral beads.

The same face, the same man.

And yet he seemed… a complete stranger.

I pulled my hand free and continued into the elevator.

He took it again.

“Let’s talk.”

His fingers tightened around my wrist.

I struggled several times but couldn’t get loose.

At some point, the corridor had emptied.

I lifted my pale face to his.

“What would you like to discuss, Mr. Trần?”

He looked at me for several seconds.

When he spoke again, the first thing he said was an apology—the last thing I had expected.

22

“I didn’t think things through.”

“Hứa Trăn, when I left the Chu house for Hong Kong, I should have taken you with me.”

“Taken me with you? Why? As what?”

“As the distant relative lodging with the Chu family, or as this exalted Mr. Trần I know nothing about?”

I wrenched my hand free and stepped back.

“The night I gave you that million yuan, our transaction was over.”

“What I do now, how I live, has nothing to do with you.”

“But you were the one who cried and told me you wanted a child. You asked me to save you.”

“I don’t need that anymore.”

I lowered my eyes, fighting back tears.

“I’ve got the divorce I wanted. This baby…”

My heart felt as though it were being cut apart, but I forced out the words.

“There’s no reason for it to exist anymore. And to you, it would only be a burden.”

“A burden?”

He gave a quiet laugh.

“Hứa Trăn, it’s a life. My own flesh and blood.”