Chapter 4

"Open your eyes and look at this! It's a paternity test! This is the child you had with some other man!"

"You took my daughter's bride price and dowry and spent it all currying favor with your illegitimate daughter. How selfish can you be!"

I stood there, stunned.

I only ever had one child, Giles, so where had this daughter come from?

But the paternity test clearly stated that this child and I had a biological mother-daughter relationship.

The crowd erupted at once.

"Oh my god, an illegitimate daughter!"

"Taking her daughter-in-law's money to raise a bastard child—this mother-in-law is nothing but a bloodsucker!"

"Somebody call the police, get them to haul this old witch away!"

I went cold all over. This had to be fake!

But the report had it all—the red seal, the testing agency, the case number, everything.

Just then, the door to the ward opened.

Marcia came out leaning against the wall, her face ghastly pale, so weak she could barely stand.

"Mom, is this true?"

"I've always treated you like my own mother. Why would you do this to me?"

Giles's eyes went wide, as if he'd been dealt a terrible blow, and he lurched back a step. "Mom! You had an illegitimate daughter behind all our backs?"

"How can you face Dad? How can you face Marcia?"

My husband, Sidney, was trembling from head to toe, pointing at me with a look of bitter heartbreak.

"I, Sidney James, have lived an honest, decent life. I never imagined you'd do something like this behind my back! How am I supposed to show my face now?"

Everyone was cursing me.

"Shameless! No wonder nobody wants her around!"

"A woman like this should be locked up and drowned in a pig cage, so she can't do any more harm to society!"

A chamber pot slammed hard into my head, and I nearly threw up.

I wanted to explain, but when I opened my mouth, I realized I had no idea where to even begin.

I closed my eyes, and the things that had happened in my past life overlapped with this moment in my mind.

Living all over again—was I still not going to escape the fate of my past life?

Just then, my phone buzzed.

It was the bank records my niece had sent.

I stared at the screen, opened them and swiped, and suddenly it hit me like a bolt from the blue.

I finally understood why my son had been so obsessed with building up his little secret stash.

And I finally understood why I'd suddenly ended up with an illegitimate daughter out of nowhere.

It turned out they had been in on it together all along—drain me dry, then kick me to the curb.

I jerked my head up, the grievance and fury in my chest hitting their peak, and I ripped open the mouth of the woven sack.

Two hundred and eighty thousand in cash spilled out with a great clatter, all over the hospital corridor floor.

The crowd fell silent in an instant, every eye drawn to that spread of red on the ground.

"I came to bring the money to book a postpartum care center for my daughter-in-law."

My voice was cold. "Who said I was carrying pumpkins?"

"And I don't have any illegitimate daughter either. As for proof..."

I held up my phone. "It's right here..."

But before I could finish, Sidney caught sight of what was on the screen and went deathly pale in an instant.

He strode over and planted himself squarely in front of me.

"Enough! Stop making a spectacle of yourself here!"

And he moved to drag me away.

But his hands were shaking.