Not long after Jiang Yin received her pregnancy test results, she saw the news that Fu Yunchuan was wooing his new love.
The celebration onscreen was in full swing. Fireworks filled the sky, heightening the excitement, as the crowd pressed the two of them together.
The man held out an arm to protect the girl, while she gently cradled her lower abdomen.
“It’s my birthday today. Is there anything you want to say to me?” the girl asked in a coy, teasing voice.
“Now that I’ve met you, being with anyone else would feel like settling.”
“Then I have a secret to tell you, too…”
The crowd cheered and egged them on.
The girl smiled with satisfaction, while Jiang Yin’s husband gazed at her with adoration.
She was playful; he simply smiled.
In five years of marriage, Jiang Yin had never seen him this gentle. The scene she had dreamed of was now unfolding right before her eyes.
Suddenly, the room felt so cold that her teeth began to chatter.
The tableful of dishes she had spent half the day preparing now seemed like a joke.
Guessing that he wouldn’t come home, she packed up the cold food and decided to take it to feed the dogs the next day.
At around three in the morning, the man who should have been spending a sweet night with his young girlfriend came home.
Jiang Yin recognized his footsteps. In the dark room, with no lights on, she felt the bed dip slightly.
The man who had just returned wrapped his arms around her from behind, carrying the cool, sharp scent of alcohol. “I miss you…”
The rain outside was loud. His voice was low, hoarse, and indistinct; she couldn’t make out the two syllables he murmured afterward.
The man kissed her earlobe and neck from behind. His hot breath sent tingles through her, and his kisses were tender and affectionate.
For five years, their only harmony had been in bed, so she knew exactly what he wanted now.
But remembering that those arms had just held another woman, she gritted her teeth and tried to push Fu Yunchuan away.
He tightened his hold around her waist, desire written all over him. He buried his face against her shoulder and neck, his voice rough with drink. “Honey, you care about me, don’t you?”
Boom—a bolt of lightning flashed outside, illuminating Jiang Yin’s deathly pale face through the window for an instant.
He had never called her that before.
He had mistaken her for someone else—for Sang He, the young girlfriend he had just made public.
Jiang Yin reached out and turned on the bedroom light. The room flooded with brightness.
“Look carefully. I’m not Sang He. If you’re going to act crazy, go find her.”
The man opened his bleary eyes and looked at her. The woman before him was pale and aloof, without a trace of Sang He’s youthful energy or innocent sweetness.
For an instant, Jiang Yin saw the embarrassment in his eyes when he realized his mistake.
Half drunk and half sober, Fu Yunchuan sat up and rubbed his temples. “That’s right. You’re not her.”
“She’s innocent and pure. What makes you think you can compare yourself to her?”
Jiang Yin’s heart ached with countless tiny stabs of pain. She drew a deep breath.
“If that’s the case, what did you come to me for?”
Ordinary men kept their mistresses hidden, but today he had made a spectacle of announcing their affair to the world. He was doing nothing but grinding her face into the dirt.
They were secretly married. It wasn’t as if she were dead.
Fu Yunchuan looked at her stricken face and smiled. “She’s pregnant. I have to give her a legitimate place by my side.”
His cool, detached words, delivered after he had come to his senses, drained the color from Jiang Yin’s face.
In one sentence, he had explained it all.
Sang He was pregnant, so he couldn’t sleep with her. That was why he had come to Jiang Yin to satisfy himself.
Sang He was pregnant, so he had to give her a legitimate place by his side. That was why he wanted Jiang Yin to step aside of her own accord.
Jiang Yin stared at his face. Her anger was so extreme that she felt nothing at all. “What if I’m pregnant too?”
At that, Fu Yunchuan’s eyes darkened at once, as if she had said something he found utterly loathsome. “Then have an abortion. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
His words chilled Jiang Yin to the bone; it was as if the blood in her veins had frozen.
Jiang Yin clenched the bedsheet so tightly her knuckles turned white. Every shuddering breath made her heart ache.
They had been married for five years, and she had loved Fu Yunchuan for eight. But to him, everything about their marriage had been motivated by personal gain from the very beginning.
The Jiang family had fallen. Her father had been falsely accused, her mother had fallen ill from the shock and remained bedridden, and her brother had vanished after a car accident.
In Fu Yunchuan’s eyes, she was nothing but a woman who had climbed into his bed to save her father’s hospital and get her hands on his money.
When she said nothing, a storm gathered in Fu Yunchuan’s eyes.
“You know you can’t hold on to the title of Mrs. Fu forever. Sooner or later, you’ll have to give it up.”
“Anyone can bear Fu Yunchuan’s child—except you.”
Even after the man slammed the door and left, Jiang Yin remained seated on the bed, turning his words over as if she hadn’t understood them.
But no matter how she thought about it, all she could hear was the girl’s panicked sobbing over the phone.
Her phone suddenly rang. Jiang Yin flexed her fingers and answered.
“Director Jiang, a young pregnant woman has fallen. The situation is complicated. Could you come to the hospital?”