“Ms. Tong, the medical bills for the patient in Bed 58 are now five days overdue. If they aren’t paid soon, we’ll have no choice but to discharge him,” the young nurse in uniform said apologetically.
Tong Yuexin’s face was deathly pale as she gave a numb, mechanical nod.
She looked at her son, lying frail and motionless on the hospital bed. Tears welled up and spilled over her cheeks. He was only twenty years old—an age when a young man should be full of life and ambition. Instead, a devastating car accident had reduced him to a persistent vegetative state.
He was her only child. Even though the chances of recovery were slim to none, how could she give up hope? What if a miracle happened?
As an only child whose parents had passed away sixteen years ago, she had inherited their estate. Back then, her husband had seemed so caring and attentive. He told her he wanted to start a business and asked to borrow her inheritance as capital. She agreed, only for him to lose every single cent, plunging their lives into ruin.
From that day on, her husband seemed like a completely different person. He subjected her to a constant barrage of cold words and icy silence—and while it hadn’t escalated to physical abuse, the emotional freezing out was relentless.
When their son had his accident, her husband hadn’t even bothered to show up once. The medical bills so far had been paid entirely out of her own meager private savings. She was just an ordinary woman, forty years old, making barely a thousand yuan a month working as a freelance private chef because of her decent cooking skills.
Once her son fell into a coma, her savings vanished rapidly, and her small income could no longer cover the mounting hospital fees.
To make matters worse, her husband had completely vanished for a full week. He hadn’t come home, and his phone went straight to voicemail. She had no idea where he had gone.
Just as despair threatened to crush her, her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen—it was the private investigator she had hired to look into her husband.
With trembling fingers, she swiped to answer. On the other end, the investigator’s voice sounded grim. “Ms. Tong, I’ve got results on the matter you asked me to look into. You were right—there’s more to your husband’s so-called ‘failed business’ than meets the eye. His company was just a smoke screen; most of the money actually went toward another woman.”
Yuexin’s breath caught in her throat. Her grip on the phone grew so tight her fingers shook.
“I dug deep into this woman’s background. Her name is Gu Xiaojuan. She was your husband’s high school classmate. They dated for a few years after graduation before breaking up shortly before he met and married you. Their current address is… Judging by the property value, that place is worth about a million yuan. The deed is in Gu Xiaojuan’s name, and based on the timeline, it was bought using the inheritance your parents left you.”
Yuexin hung up the phone, grabbed her bag, and rushed out of the hospital to hail a cab straight to the address the investigator had given her.
In 1998, a million-yuan property—even in Beijing—could buy a remarkably nice home.
When Yuexin arrived, she marched straight to the apartment and rang the doorbell. It was right around dinnertime, so she disguised her voice and called out, “Hello, your food delivery is here.”
“Coming!” a man’s voice called from inside. A few seconds later, the door swung open.
He reached out expecting a delivery bag, only to freeze the moment he saw Yuexin standing in the doorway.
“W-What… why are you here?!” he stammered, shock written all over his face.
Yuexin let out a cold, bitter laugh. “What’s the matter? Surprised to see me, Lu Zhiying? You piece of garbage! You took my parents’ money to buy a house for another woman! Do you have any idea that your son is lying in a hospital right now, fighting for his life? You heartless monster, and here you were playing hide-and-seek!”
“Yuexin, listen to me, please. It’s not what you think,” Zhiying panicked, trying to smooth things over.
“Oh, really? Then why don’t you tell me what it is! Are you going to tell me you didn’t cheat on me with your old flame? Or that you didn’t buy her a house? Or that you didn’t steal my parents’ inheritance? Or that you didn’t sit back and watch our son lose his medical funding, practically leaving him to die?!” Yuexin’s voice rose sharply, vibrating with raw, unfiltered anguish.
The sound insulation in the building was poor; she figured half the neighbors would hear every word.
“Zhiying, what’s going on?” a soft, delicate voice chimed in.
A fair-skinned woman with a gentle, pampered look stepped into view, peering cautiously toward the doorway. She was heavily pregnant, and standing beside her was a boy of about ten years old.
At that exact moment, Yuexin felt like her brain was going to explode.
Not only had they been sneaking around behind her back, but Gu Xiaojuan was already expecting another child!
“Lu Zhiying, you absolute scum! No wonder you didn’t give a damn whether our son lived or died—you were too busy having another woman bear your children outside! Do you have any conscience left at all? You took my parents’ hard-earned money to pamper another woman and your illegitimate kids! Don’t you ever have nightmares when you go to sleep at night?!”
Yuexin could no longer contain herself. Her emotions boiled over completely.
Ever since their son’s accident, the pressure on her had been crushing. Her wages weren’t enough to keep up with the medical bills, forcing her to burn through her savings day by day.
And her husband—useless and unreliable—had left her to shoulder everything alone.
Though she was only forty, the hardship made her look closer to fifty. Meanwhile, the woman inside—who, according to the investigator, was Zhiying’s high school classmate and roughly her age—looked soft, smooth-skinned, and remarkably youthful, barely in her thirties and impeccably maintained. The young boy beside her looked well-fed and pampered, clear proof that their little family lived a life of absolute comfort.
And every single bit of it had been funded by the money her parents had left behind!
She had trusted Lu Zhiying blindly. In the beginning, it had never crossed her mind that he would deceive her. Even when he claimed his business failed, she hadn’t suspected a thing—not until he vanished completely did she realize something was terribly wrong.
Curious neighbors began cracking open their doors to see what the commotion was about, eager for some neighborhood gossip.
Zhiying felt a burning wave of humiliation. He and Gu Xiaojuan planned to live here long-term; if Yuexin made a huge scene and aired all their dirty laundry to the neighbors, how could they possibly show their faces around here?
Frantic, he grabbed Yuexin’s arm and hissed, “Calm down! Let’s talk this out like adults. There’s got to be a misunderstanding.”
“What misunderstanding?! The private investigator I hired has already uncovered everything! You lied to me about your business failing just so you could hand that money over to this woman. My parents treated you like a son, giving you a job and welcoming you into the family with open arms! And how do you repay them? By using their inheritance to keep a mistress and spawn illegitimate children!”
“Now my son is lying in a hospital bed as a vegetable with no money for treatment, while you, your mistress, and your kids live high on the hog in a house bought with my parents’ blood and sweat! Lu Zhiying, you’re an absolute animal! I’m going to sue you! I’ll make sure you pay back every single cent you stole!”
With that, Yuexin reached into her bag to pull out her phone and call the police.
Gu Xiaojuan and Lu Zhiying hadn’t expected things to escalate this far. Initially, dropping the hint that the boy wasn’t Zhiying’s son was meant to trick the neighbors into thinking Yuexin was the unfaithful one, shifting the blame so they wouldn’t look bad in front of the community. But threatening to call the police—and potentially involving old witnesses who knew about their marriage—could legally turn this into fraud. If things went that far, Zhiying could genuinely end up behind bars!
“Yuexin, don’t make that call!” Zhiying lunged forward to snatch the phone from her hand.
Yuexin stepped back to avoid him. But as she retreated, her foot missed the edge of the landing. She instinctively reached out to grab the stair railing, but Gu Xiaojuan suddenly stepped forward. Under the guise of steadying her, Gu grabbed her wrist—only to yank her backward, ensuring she missed the railing entirely.
The world spun violently. Before Yuexin’s body could even register the pain, she plunged down the stairs, swallowed completely by the darkness.