Evelyn Clark woke up shivering, like she was out in the middle of winter with nothing but thin clothes on, her whole body wrapped in biting cold. It felt like she was caught in a snowstorm, teeth chattering and body trembling.
Why the hell was it so freezing? Wasn't it summer just a while ago? She clearly remembered a peaceful weekend evening—she'd gone fishing by the river, enjoying some quiet time to herself. Two kids were playing in the water nearby when she suddenly heard cries for help. Without thinking, she had jumped in.
She managed to get the first child out without any issue. But on the way back with the second kid, her leg cramped up. She pushed the kid to safety with all her strength, but then the river dragged her under. The water pressed down hard on her chest, and she couldn’t breathe—felt like her lungs had been squeezed empty. Everything went black after that.
But this cold definitely didn’t feel like summer. Her whole body ached, her head was pounding, and she had no idea where she was or why no one was helping her. Her eyes felt glued shut no matter how hard she tried. She wanted to call out, but no sound came out. Soon, she slipped back into that nightmare again.
In the dream, she watched another girl—also named Evelyn Clark—live out a short, bitter life. This Evelyn had grown up in the ’70s. Her dad, Harold Clark, had left home early on to study, landed a job in the provincial capital after college, and barely came back.
Her mom, Harold’s first wife, stayed behind in the village to care for her widowed mother-in-law. But her health wasn’t great. Not long after giving birth, she died from sheer exhaustion and hunger, leaving baby Evelyn to her elderly grandmother.
Not long after, Harold married a nurse from his workplace, Judith Gingell. They later had two sons. With a pretty new wife and sons by his side, he seemed to forget all about his mother and first daughter. In the beginning, he still sent some money and food coupons home, and Evelyn’s grandma used the family’s traditional medical skills to treat folks in the village. They barely scraped by—never full, but they managed.
Over time though, even the little support Harold sent dried up. Evelyn’s grandma wrote him letters, begging for help, but none of them were ever answered. Eventually, she stopped mentioning her ‘promising’ son altogether. She just gritted her teeth and raised her granddaughter on her own.
Thankfully, Evelyn grew up strong and smart—she studied hard, learned the family’s martial arts and medicine, and did her best to pull her weight. After school, she’d lead the neighborhood kids into the hills to gather wild fruits and vegetables. As she got older, she picked herbs, laid traps, and caught small animals to bring home. Between her and her grandma, they barely kept things going.
But that life didn’t last. Just when Evelyn thought things might stay that way, her grandma suddenly passed away after falling ill. Harold had no choice but to come home for the funeral. After she was buried, he reluctantly took his daughter back with him to the factory town—and that’s when Evelyn’s real hardships began, living under her stepmother’s roof.
Harold, an engineer at the factory, stayed buried in work and ignored everything at home. While others could let it slide, Evelyn took the hit. Judith Gingell had never liked her to begin with. With her own dad playing blind and no other relatives to rely on, Judith didn’t hold back at all when it came to making Evelyn suffer.Not only was Evelyn Clark stuck with all the house chores, but she was also forced to bring back a full load of firewood every day—or else she wouldn’t get fed. Harold Clark’s factory might’ve been in the provincial capital, but it was actually up in some remote mountain valley, far off from the city center.
The employee housing there was all one-story homes. In Evelyn's dream, aside from a public activity area, the living quarters were just rows of identical small homes. Harold held a high-level technical job at the plant, so they got assigned a little courtyard and a fairly spacious kitchen.
Judith Gingell, being stingy as ever, refused to use coal. After Evelyn returned to the household, she had no choice but to build two firewood stoves. So cooking and heating water all relied on wood—and gathering that wood fell squarely on Evelyn's shoulders.
According to Judith, no one gets a free ride in her house. If Evelyn wanted to live there, she'd better put in the work.
Never mind the fact that Judith’s own kids hadn’t lifted a finger for the household. Evelyn didn’t mind that her two younger brothers, Thomas and Henry, were too small to help much. But Cassandra Gingell, Judith’s daughter, was two years older than her, didn’t go to school or have a job, and still couldn’t be bothered to help even if the oil bottle toppled over. Yet Judith and Harold doted on her like she was a queen. Why?
Of course, Evelyn just swallowed all that. She kept those thoughts to herself. And honestly, hauling firewood wasn’t so bad. Just meant waking up earlier. She’d been doing chores in the countryside for years. Sure, this household added more mouths to feed, so it felt more exhausting, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.
What really tore her up was what came two years later—when Harold and Judith, ignoring her wishes entirely, forced her to marry Cassandra’s former fiancé, a man severely injured and stuck in a wheelchair. Cassandra refused to take care of a 'cripple,' and the couple didn’t want to break off the engagement to avoid any fallout with their coworkers. So without a second thought, they threw Evelyn under the bus.
Evelyn finally caved under Judith’s emotional blackmail and Harold’s cold shoulder, agreeing with tears in her eyes to marry the disabled man.
She gritted her teeth and went everywhere looking for doctors to help him. After two years, he was finally cured. Not only did he return to work, he even started climbing the career ladder. Life was finally starting to look up. Evelyn thought, at last, she could finally breathe a little.
But then Judith and Cassandra came storming in, accusing her of shamelessly stealing Cassandra’s man. They demanded she “return” him.
At first, Evelyn believed her husband wouldn’t stand for this nonsense. After all, they’d weathered so many hardships together. She’d done so much for him—surely, he’d remember that and defend her.
She never expected the man to stab her straight in the heart.
Instead of speaking up for her, he joined Judith and Cassandra’s side. He accused Evelyn of having no morals, even saying she shamelessly stole her sister’s fiancé, and swore that he wanted nothing more to do with her.
He even kept apologizing to the mother and daughter, claiming she had seduced him and made him act against his conscience. He begged for their forgiveness, saying he never once saw Evelyn as a real wife—they only had the title, never the reality. As long as they’d forgive him, he promised to cut all ties with Evelyn and properly marry Cassandra with all the formal rites.
Evelyn wasn’t expecting him to turn on her that fast. Just moments before, he’d been thanking her and promising to make it up to her. The second he saw a shinier option, he didn’t just leave—he made sure to help the people who had hurt her stomp her into the ground.
