Inside the room, beside the big rosewood bed carved all over with flowers, clothes were scattered every which way.

Under the dim yellow light, the woman’s long hair was spread in a messy tangle across the pillow, her two pale legs draped loosely together...

Just looking at the air in that room was enough to make a person blush.

After all that tossing around, the two of them finally settled down.

The man leaned halfway against the headboard, pulled out a cigarette, stuck it between his lips, and after a few drags suddenly said,

"I’m thinking I should just divorce Evelyn Hartwell."

Rosalind Hartwell propped her head up with one hand. Her voice came out lazy, tired, a little hoarse too.

"Divorce for what?"

"She hasn’t given you a child, sure, but doesn’t your own son already exist? He’s being raised right at home.

Let her keep helping you look after the kid, handle the housework, wait on your parents, while you stay out there earning money in peace. Isn’t that just fine~"

Arthur Langdon frowned. "But in my heart I’ve only ever treated her like a sister. The one I’ve truly loved all along is you.

Back then I didn’t have the means, so I had no choice. It’s different now. I can give you a good life!"

Rosalind Hartwell sneered to herself. There was no way she’d give up a whole pond for one fish.

And Arthur Langdon, in that pond of hers, was nothing more than a tiny, forgettable fry.

To her, he was just a tool she used to toy with Evelyn Hartwell.

Rosalind Hartwell got out of bed neatly, bent to pick up her clothes one by one, and slipped them back on as she said, "No. That won’t do."

Arthur Langdon grew anxious. "Before, Sterling Blackwood was still hanging on with half a life left in him, so if you wouldn’t leave me then, fine, I had nothing to say.

But now the man’s dead. Are you really planning to keep staying in the Blackwood family like some widow guard?"

Rosalind Hartwell’s sweet, syrupy voice was as soft as ever. "If we really got together, it would be far too unfair to my sister."

"For your sake, you made her lose three babies. You ruined her body so she’ll never have children in this life. We’ve already wronged her more than enough."

"Besides, I already took her whole family away from her. She doesn't even have a child. You're the only one left by her side.

"If I take you too... how pitiful would that make her?"

Arthur Langdon's voice carried that fake mix of blame and tenderness. "That's your problem. Your heart's too soft. You're always thinking about other people..."

Outside the door, Evelyn Hartwell stood there like she'd been sealed in ice, not moving an inch as the voices from inside drifted into her ears.

Her eyes were red and swollen. Both hands were clenched so tight her nails dug into her palms. Hatred and a pain too deep for words wound around her heart like a rope, pulling tighter and tighter until her whole body started shaking.

No wonder, after all these years, no matter how careful she was, the babies in her womb still slipped away one after another.

All this time, she had thought it was her own weak health, thought she simply wasn't blessed enough to carry a child to term.

She never, not even in her worst nightmare, imagined that the children's own father never wanted them to come into this world at all.

No wonder the Langdon family had raised those two children brought back from the orphanage as if they were their own flesh and blood.

She had always believed the Langdons were kindhearted people.

Who could have guessed those two adopted sons were Arthur Langdon's real children from the start?

No wonder, after so many years without giving birth to a son or daughter, the Langdon family might dislike her, but never truly forced her to divorce and step aside.

She had always thought it was because she and Arthur were husband and wife in name and feeling, because her years of dutiful care had finally softened the Langdon family.

She had never dreamed that Arthur had long wanted to cast her off. It was Rosalind Hartwell, the other woman, who had the nerve to "pity" her and refused to marry him, and that was the only reason he never brought up divorce.

Bang!

Evelyn shoved the door open with one violent push.

The sudden crash startled the two people inside so badly they both jumped.

Arthur Langdon's face changed at once. He yanked the quilt over himself in a panic, wrapping it around his body, his voice sharp with shock and guilt. "Evelyn Hartwell! Why are you back?"

The moment Rosalind Hartwell saw Evelyn's ashen, twisted face, she understood. Evelyn had heard everything. She knew everything. A vicious glint flashed straight through Rosalind's eyes.

Evelyn charged forward. Arthur, still clutching the quilt, had just rolled off the bed and was fumbling wildly for his clothes when she rushed up to him and, like a woman driven out of her mind, slapped him hard across the face over and over again—more than a dozen times.

"One is my husband!

One is the woman I treated like my own sister!

What gives you the right to do this to me?!"

She wanted nothing more than to kill the pair of them on the spot.

Filthy trash.

Whether Arthur Langdon was guilty and too ashamed to move, or whether he figured Evelyn Hartwell had already hit him and vented enough that she would not lay a hand on Rosalind Hartwell again, he just stood there frozen. His face went red, then pale, and he let Evelyn curse him and beat him without fighting back.

Evelyn did not stop until her palms were burning red and swollen, so painful they had gone numb.

"Divorce."

She forced the word out through clenched teeth, then turned to leave this revolting place at once.

But Rosalind had already shut the door. She stood there blocking it, her face blank and cold.

"Arthur, she knows about us now. We can't let her leave."

"If she gets out, the Blackwoods will crush us both. Everything you've scraped together these past few years will be ruined by her too!"

Evelyn's face changed at once. She threw up her hand and slapped Rosalind hard across the face, then grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her away from the door with all her strength.

Rosalind sucked in a sharp breath from the pain. Ignoring her stinging scalp, she clawed at Evelyn's hair too and refused to let her get out.

If Evelyn walked out now, Rosalind would not only lose any chance of using the Blackwoods' guilt toward her to get benefits later, she would also be hounded to death by them.

The two women crashed into each other and started grappling wildly.

Arthur panicked and tried to break it up from the side. "Stop it! Both of you, stop!"

Neither of them paid him any mind.

In the middle of the struggle, Evelyn got both hands around Rosalind's throat and squeezed until Rosalind's eyes rolled back.

Flailing in panic, Rosalind's hand hit the vase on the cabinet beside her. Without even thinking, she snatched it up and smashed it straight at Evelyn's head with all her strength!

Evelyn Hartwell’s head split open from the blow, and she crashed hard onto the floor. In no time, a thick, sticky pool of blood spread out beneath her skull.

Arthur Langdon froze all over. Staring at Evelyn lying there in the blood, he shouted in panic, "Quick! Get her to the hospital!"

Rosalind Hartwell clutched her injured neck, breathing hard, her whole chest heaving. "No!"

Her voice came out rough and hoarse. "Brother-in-law, if she lives, then the ones who die will be us!"

Arthur’s face turned ashen. Of course he knew what would happen if the Blackwood family found out he and Rosalind had been carrying on behind Evelyn’s back all this time.

He had known Evelyn since they were young. Even if there was no real love left between them, all those years had to count for something.

Even if they truly split up, he would still have left her something.

He had never meant to take her life.

The wound on Evelyn’s head was too bad. She wanted to speak, but she could not force out even a single word.

She could only stare at those two beasts, eyes wide open, packed full of hatred.

Seeing Arthur still hesitate, Rosalind grew more and more irritated. In the end, she simply threw caution aside.

She bent down, yanked Arthur’s old brick phone from the very bottom drawer of the cabinet, her face twisted out of shape, and smashed it straight down at Evelyn’s head.

"Big sister, don’t hate me. What I owe you in this life, I’ll repay in the next. I’ll serve you like an ox and horse..."

"Wuwu... Sis... I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry..."

Rosalind cried so hard she was shaking, but her hands did not soften in the slightest.

Again and again.

Blood splashed all over Rosalind’s face, making her look like a ghost crawled out of hell.

No one saw the stone bead at Evelyn’s neck quietly drink in every drop of blood on the floor...

When Evelyn felt anything again, she jerked upright in bed.

Her head spun at once, darkness rushed over her eyes, and her whole body dropped back down again.

After a long while, she finally came to and slowly opened her eyes.

She knew this room. But at the same time, it felt strange, so strange that for a moment her mind just would not catch up.

She had not been beaten to death by Rosalind Hartwell?

No. That was not right.

That vicious woman, Rosalind Hartwell, had swung to kill. She had never meant to leave her alive.

The pain and terror of being smashed to death like that had hurt even worse than the betrayal, worse than all the lies and schemes piled on top of her.

Knock, knock.

Someone was at the door.

"Evelyn, no matter what, come out and eat a little, all right? If you keep refusing food like this, your body won't hold up."

From outside came Rosalind Hartwell's familiar put-on voice, soft and syrupy in that fake, affected way that made Evelyn's skin crawl.

Evelyn Hartwell snapped back from the scene before her death. Cold sweat covered her whole body. She forced herself to shift her attention and looked toward the calendar hanging on the wall—

October 8, 1989.

She stood there stiff for a long time, and all at once, memories buried deep for years came rushing back into her mind.