Chapter 1
Inside the villa, I knelt on the floor, wiping Aaliyah’s shoes as she entered.
She lifted her toe and tapped my chin.
“Long time no see, sister-in-law. You’re becoming more capable.”
Chadwick’s eyes were filled with mockery.
“As the eldest sister-in-law, it’s what she should do.”
From the day I married Chadwick, I was forced to take care of his numerous mistresses.
Washing clothes, polishing shoes, cooking, cleaning - all the household chores were mine, even pushing myself around in a wheelchair.
I had refused once, but Chadwick said with indifference,
“These women are either celebrities, models, or noble daughters, accustomed to being pampered. I don’t trust anyone else to take care of them.”
What could I do? A person paralyzed from the waist down, what could I possibly resist?
And whenever I angered Chadwick, those 108 mistresses would take turns tormenting me.
I lowered my head and said nothing, carefully cleaning Aaliyah’s feet as I had done countless times before.
Chadwick, unusually, didn’t continue mocking me, nodding in satisfaction.
“Behave, and you can keep your position as the eldest mistress of the Shen household.”
I was about to pull myself up onto the wheelchair when Aaliyah’s foot suddenly slammed forward, hitting the footrest of the wheelchair hard.
“Ah—!” she cried out, Chadwick forcefully pushing me aside and sweeping her up into his arms.
Because my hands instinctively protected my six-month pregnant belly, my entire body fell backward.
“Evelyn! What are you plotting!”
I remembered last year when I was wiping the shoes of one of Chadwick’s celebrity mistresses and accidentally left some watermarks.
He had me tied up in the living room, pouring dirty, icy water over me again and again for three days in the dead of winter.
“You can’t clean them properly? Then you won’t be clean for three days.”
I was sick for a whole month because of that.
Thinking of that, I instinctively curled up, unable to feel my lower limbs, and could only lie on the ground in a strange position.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll be more careful next time.”
“Don’t try to play tricks on me. I’m not some old woman; you can’t gain my sympathy with pitiful acts.”
I continued to desperately protect my stomach, preventing him from kicking it like two months ago, when he suspected I was simply gaining weight from eating too many tonics and faking my pregnancy.
Chadwick didn’t care how I crawled back into the wheelchair but immediately carried Aaliyah into the bedroom and summoned the top medical team.
After a while, my daughter came home from school, thoughtfully helping me tidy up the messy entrance hall.
Chadwick also pushed open the bedroom door.
Walking up to me, he covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief.
Seeing him, my daughter hid behind the wheelchair, her little hand holding mine turning instantly cold.
I squeezed her fingers to comfort her.
Chadwick frowned as he looked at my daughter and me.
“Pregnant women have a strong body odor. From now on, you’re not allowed within three meters of Aaliyah.”
“Lily’s five years old; she should learn to do chores. From now on, she’ll take care of Aaliyah’s daily needs.”
Hearing this, my face turned deathly pale. Lily was his own daughter!
But I couldn’t anger him. I asked tremulously:
“My daughter still has to go to school; maybe we could hire a nanny instead?”
Chadwick’s eyes glinted coldly.
“Aaliyah prefers quiet. A mute makes the perfect servant.”
Because Chadwick had terrible habits, and my health wasn’t good after giving my kidney to his older brother, Chad, Lily was diagnosed with being a congenital mute when she was born and could only barely make a few sounds.
My daughter could understand, and her little face was covered in tears.
There was no use arguing with Chadwick, I could only think of another way.
My daughter and I were thrown into the storage room.
The entire villa was re-disinfected.
The servants laughed and said Chadwick had ordered it to remove the filthy smell of the pregnant woman.
Hearing this, I felt extremely ironic.
At the dinner table, my daughter was called to serve Aaliyah soup.
I couldn’t bear it. “Let me do it; children are clumsy.”
Chadwick slammed the table with a “smack.”
“Aaliyah is feeling sorry for you being heavily pregnant, so she is enduring the discomfort and letting you eat at the table. Are you trying to make her feel disgusted by going to serve her soup?”