"Nora, don’t keep wavering. Look at your life now—what’s the point of staying alone in an empty house?"

Her stepmother, Yvonne Whitfield, nudged the divorce paper closer, smiling the whole time.

Nora Whitfield held the pen in her hand, her fingers trembling a little.

Her uncle, Franklin Whitfield, straightened up on the sofa, the lenses of his glasses catching the light with a cold flash.

"Nora, listen to your uncle. You can see how things are now. We’ve already bought the boat tickets. We leave in three days."

"Come with us first. Once things settle down, we’ll think it through properly and figure out your father’s situation bit by bit."

Nora bit her lip, her eyes shining with tears.

Marcus Ashford was the husband her father had chosen for her.

That night, her father had called her into the study, looking unusually serious.

"Nora, the Ashford family has a clean background. And Mingzhou is capable, too, doing well in the army. With him around, even if I’m not here one day, you’ll still live a steady life."

Back then, she hadn’t really thought too deeply about it.

The day they met, Marcus Ashford was in military uniform, his face stiff, his eyes cold enough to chill a room.

She had felt uneasy then. She couldn’t say she liked him, but she still listened to her father and registered the marriage with him.

On their wedding night, she already felt she’d been tricked.

He was rough, like a man who didn’t know the first thing about tenderness. She had cried and told him it was enough, really enough, but he only grew clumsier, with no sense of restraint.

Luckily, just a few days after the wedding, he got notice to return to the army. Only then did Nora finally get a chance to breathe.

Lately, the situation had changed. In Shanghai, several factory owners caught wind of trouble and quietly sold off their assets, then took their money and fled to Xiangjiang.

Franklin Whitfield had started thinking the same way. More than once, he had tried to persuade her father to leave with them, but each time her father only shook his head.

Then, not long after that, people from the Revolutionary Committee came and took her father away, saying they only wanted to ask him a few questions.

From that day on, there was no word from him again.

Nora Whitfield went around asking a few older family friends if they knew anything, but the moment they heard her father had been taken away by the Revolutionary Committee, their expressions changed on the spot. One after another, they waved their hands and told her not to dig into it anymore.

One uncle even pulled her aside and whispered, "Anyone taken by the Revolutionary Committee... I’ve never seen one come back."

The minute she heard that, Nora felt like the ground had gone out from under her.

Right at that worst possible moment, Franklin Whitfield stepped forward. He took over the factory where her father had run into trouble, moved into the Whitfield house as well, and kept soothing her while she was lost and panicked. He told her he had already found a connection. Once the factory was sold, her father could be released, and then the whole family could head to Xiangjiang together.

But Nora was a soldier’s wife. She couldn’t go to Xiangjiang.

Then her stepmother, Yvonne Whitfield, came up with an idea: have her divorce Marcus Ashford first.

After that, the three of them kept working on her day after day, talking into her ears till she could hardly think.

Nora had been pampered since childhood. She had never really seen the harsh side of the world. On top of that, Yvonne’s nephew, Wesley Caldwell, had a honeyed tongue. He hovered around her all day, saying he was pulling strings for her father’s case. Compared with her husband, that rough, stern army officer who wasn’t even by her side, Wesley seemed a hundred times better.

Like she had lost her senses, she followed the words Yvonne taught her and sent telegrams and made phone calls to Marcus, who was stationed on a distant island. She said she didn’t want to live a hard life with him anymore, said she was dead set on divorce, and even cried that if he refused, she would rather die.

She even made such a scene that it reached his unit leadership.

At first, Marcus refused no matter what.

Then one time, cornered by Yvonne until she had no way out, Nora said over the phone that she had met someone she truly loved and was going to marry Wesley Caldwell...

Marcus fell silent.

A few days later, the divorce report came in the mail with Marcus’s signature already on it.

"Nora, what are you still hesitating for? Hurry up and sign it."

Her stepmother smiled warmly as she nudged the divorce paper closer to her.

Her stepsister looked up with a grin. "Sis, Brother Wesley bought movie tickets for tonight. He wants to take you to the cinema. You’ve got to tell him this good news."

Franklin Whitfield added, "A chance to go to Xiangjiang won’t wait around for you."

Nora wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and nodded. She twisted off the pen cap, ready to sign her name.

She did not notice the three of them exchanging glances, each wearing the same knowing smile.

["Mom, don’t sign it!"]

The sudden baby-soft voice made Nora Whitfield jump so hard her pen nearly slipped from her fingers.

Who was that talking?

["Mom! It’s me, your baby in your belly!"]

What?

Nora froze on the spot, her whole mind going blank.

She was only twenty.

Was she really going to be a mother already?

["Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom!"]

That soft, sticky-sweet little voice kept calling for her.

After waiting a long while with no response, the voice turned pitiful.

["Mom, do you not want me anymore? Boohoo... Mom, please don’t leave me behind!"]

Nora’s hand slowly pressed against her stomach, while her head buzzed like it might split open.

There was really a baby inside her?

And she could actually hear the baby talking?

This was bad. She had to be running into something unclean.

Oh God, she was scared out of her wits.

["Mom, I’m not a monster. Don’t be scared. I’m very good, you know. I can help you deal with the bad people!"]

At last, the baby seemed to catch some sign from its mother, and that little milky voice instantly turned bright and lively again.

But Nora was so shaken she couldn’t get a word out.

"Nora, what are you standing there in a daze for? Why haven’t you signed yet?"

Her stepmother was starting to lose patience and urged her on.

Nora Whitfield lifted her eyes, her gaze unfocused. "Did... did any of you hear a child talking?"

Franklin Whitfield gave the newspaper in his hands a little shake. "What nonsense are you on about? Where would a child’s voice come from?"

Her stepsister hurried to chime in, "Sis, just sign it already. Wesley’s still waiting over there."

Seeing how they reacted, Nora’s head swam even harder. She figured something had to be wrong with her.

Even if she really was pregnant, how could a baby that hadn’t even been born yet possibly talk?

She bent down, picked up the fountain pen that had fallen onto the table, and got ready to sign...

Then all of a sudden, that soft little baby voice cried out:

["Mom, don’t sign! You can’t divorce Dad!"]

["If you do, you’ll be sent off to the far northwest. They’ll drag you into criticism sessions every single day, and in the end you’ll die horribly!"]

What?

Nora’s breathing stopped cold.

["They’re all liars! All three of them are filthy liars!"]

["Your uncle’s a dirty old creep. He’s been fooling around with your stepmother for ages! That stepsister of yours is their illegitimate daughter!"]

The childish voice kept spilling out, one line after another, each one like thunder exploding right beside her ear.

Nora was completely stunned.

Her uncle and her stepmother? And they even had her stepsister together?

So the three of them were the real family?

Then what were she and her father supposed to be?!

For some reason she couldn’t explain, Nora suddenly felt that this baby voice that had appeared out of nowhere was telling the truth.

["Mom, Grandpa was taken away for questioning because Franklin Whitfield was the one who secretly informed on him from behind the scenes!"]

Another blow seemed to land right on her head.

Nora Whitfield’s ears rang hard, her whole skull buzzing.

So that was it.

Her father had clearly been a patriotic businessman. Back when the state made the call, he had handed over the family flour mill and textile factory without a word of complaint, turning them into joint public-private enterprises. He’d even been commended for it.

Those years were a mess. In Shanghai, plenty of capitalists had run off, but her father was the one who stayed. He kept saying he wanted to keep working for the country, keep doing practical things for ordinary people.

So why had the investigation team suddenly taken him away?

Turns out the root of it was Franklin Whitfield...

A chill ran through Nora’s whole body, as if she’d been dropped into an ice cellar.

"Mom, that old bastard Franklin Whitfield had his eyes on Grandpa’s property. He cooked up fake evidence, reported Grandpa, then tricked you out of the factories. They already booked their tickets to Hong Kong ages ago. They never planned to take you with them!"

Nora felt like someone had dumped a basin of ice water straight over her head. She was so cold her teeth started chattering.

Franklin had promised her himself that he would take her to Hong Kong. He had also kept urging her to divorce...

"It’s all because of your status as a military wife, Mom. That scumbag Wesley Caldwell is after your secure job. Once you divorce, he can step right into your position. Mom, don’t be foolish enough to fall for it!"

"He lies, cheats people out of money, steals jobs, and he’s the sort who hits women too! Mom, if you marry him, he’ll beat you so badly you won’t even be able to keep the baby. Then your little one—me—I won’t survive!"

The babyish little voice was talking fast, then all at once it broke into loud sobs, crying so hard it could barely catch its breath.

"Mom, I don’t want to die! Please, Mom, save me!"