Chapter 1
After the delivery, I was extremely weak due to severe blood loss. Lying on the hospital bed, I took the medical notification handed to me by the doctor. The words “No signs of life after the fetus was delivered” jumped out at me, and I was struck as if by lightning: After severe hemorrhaging, I had given birth to a stillborn child?! Struggling to sit up despite the tearing pain in my body, I asked the doctor in a hoarse voice: “Doctor, is my child really dead? Please, let me see the baby one last time…” The doctor, wearing a mask, looked at me coldly and said, “The child is already dead. There’s no need to see it.” Dark red placental tissue was scattered in the cracks of the floor tiles, making me feel nauseous. I held the life-or-death agreement Alexander had signed, and anger gradually filled my heart. During the surgery, when I was barely conscious, Alexander pressed my hand to sign the “prioritize saving the baby’s life” clause. The expression he gave me was unprecedentedly cold, with a hint of mockery in his tone: “Olivia Reed, someone like you isn’t worth saving. The child in your womb is far more important than you.” I left the delivery room alone, only to see my husband Alexander Foster in the hospital’s prenatal clinic. It turned out Alexander hadn’t left the hospital early, but was accompanying his beloved sweetheart, Zoe Summers. He intimately embraced the equally pregnant Zoe, his face full of doting smiles. I had been pregnant for eight months, and Alexander had never shown me any care, but now he was attentive to every need of his sweetheart Zoe. I had been rushed to the emergency room for premature delivery due to severe bleeding. Alexander disregarded my life, signed the life-or-death agreement, and abandoned me to accompany Zoe for her checkup. I tightly gripped the life-or-death agreement in my hand, pushed open the door to the prenatal clinic, and confronted Alexander: “Alexander Foster, you are my husband. What right do you have to be here accompanying Zoe for her checkup?” Seeing me, Alexander looked as if he had seen something dirty, and a look of disgust immediately appeared on his face. Before he could speak, Zoe mockingly taunted me: “Olivia Reed, you vile woman who killed Alexander’s mother, what right do you have to come here and question us?” Again, this baseless accusation. Ever since Alexander’s mother died in an accident, Zoe had used every trick to paint me as a “murderer.” Under Zoe’s instigation, Alexander’s attitude towards me grew increasingly cold, gradually developing into disgust. And at eight months pregnant, it was because Alexander punished me by making me kneel on the cold marble floor in the snowy night that I went into premature labor with severe bleeding. Endless anger and grievance welled up, and tears burst from my eyes: “Zoe, why are you slandering me? Alexander, I really didn’t kill your mother…” But Alexander stepped forward and berated me harshly: “Olivia Reed, you vicious woman, you’re not worthy of being my wife, and you have no right to call my mother ‘Mom’!” With a loud slap, he struck me hard across the face. I looked at Alexander in shock, the slapped side of my face stinging fiercely. “Alexander, you actually hit me…” Zoe’s face bore a smug smile: “Haha, Olivia Reed, you look like a filthy beggar with your disheveled appearance!” Then she looked at my lower body with contemptuous eyes and screamed in fright: “How disgusting, get out of here!” Zoe grabbed a disposable cup from the table and threw it at me, splashing hot water on my face. Her smile grew wider and deeper: “Olivia Reed, look at yourself in the mirror now. You’re like a drowned rat!” Through the mirror in the clinic, I saw my miserable state: My hair was disheveled and soaked with scalding water, and my hospital gown was stained with dark red blood. After the severe bleeding from pregnancy, my body had suffered serious damage, and the postpartum bleeding had soiled my gown. At that moment, grievance and embarrassment welled up, and I ran out of the room in tears. In the hospital bathroom, I was shaking all over in pain. Lochia flowed from my body, dripping onto the floor to form a pool of blood. However, the real pain came from within. Alexander’s cold attitude was like a sharp knife stabbing into my heart. My true love had also been thrown into this pool of blood. Alexander, you promised to love me for a lifetime. Why did you lie to me? I could only cry out loud in the empty bathroom, letting despair occupy my heart.