In the air, the sickly sweet scent of medicine permeated. Steffi Cyril head was cloudy, unable to distinguish between dream and reality. In her blurred state, she felt a tall and feverish body pressing down on her.
Then, a sensation of being torn apart surged from beneath her. It hurts! She was almost out of breath.
In the dark room, a man whose face was indistinct was there, his searing explosive force was relentless and overwhelming, leaving her powerless to resist.
...
When she woke up, the large room was empty, leaving only an oddly patterned gold button on her pillow.
Lifting the blanket, she saw the crimson blooms on the white sheets, and Steffi's body trembled in shock.
Last night was her father's birthday celebration. She had just picked up a specially ordered cake from the cake shop. She never expected that on her way home, she would black out and collapsed.
Struggling to recall fragments from last night, she remembered ordering a drink while waiting for the cake, and she even left for the restroom midway.
It was then that Steffi realised, she had been drugged. Who would want to harm her like this? Her heart pounded with terror, and she dared not stay in this place any longer. She hastily redressed and ran out of this suburban villa.
...
When she returned to the Cyril family home in a state of total despair, the once-grand villa had transformed into a pile of charred ruins.
Another piece of shattering news assaulted Steffi.
Just the previous night, during the birthday feast, a massive fire broke out in the Cyril mansion. It had burned the whole night. Up on till now, there were no survivors.
With her trembling legs, Steffi tried to run into the ruins. Yet, in the end, her physical strength failed her, and she passed out once again.
...
A month later, at Serenity Hospital.
"Congratulations, Miss Cyril, you're pregnant."
Steffi was astounded.
The printed test results, still warm from the machine, were pushed into her cold hands by the doctor.
[Positive. Unusually high HCG levels, there is a possibility of multiple fetuses.]
After trembling for quite a while, she finally managed to pick up the paper. Her head was buzzing.
Steffi couldn't believe that she was carrying the child of an unknown man.
Upon learning of the fire at the Cyril family's home, she had passed out due to emotional distress, and was taken to this hospital to recover by a kindly neighbor.
She could hardly believe that before she had even recovered from the shocking news of the fire, she had been informed of her pregnancy.
What should she do?
The hospital corridor was desolate and empty.
In the television, a crawler was displaying the major headline of Imperial city’s today's news;
[The police announced that the arson case of the Cyril family from a month ago has been solved. It was caused by an electrical malfunction that started a fire. Except for Miss Ameha Cyril, the second lady of the Cyril family, no one else survived.]
Despite hearing this news countless times, it still stabbed Steffi’s heart hard.
Her lower abdomen also started to throb with pain. She bite her lip to endure the pain and dialed Ameha’s number again. Still unable to connect.
The news was full of hot comments about this incident;
[Fortunately, the survivor is Miss Cyril, the second in the family. She is one of the top beauties in Imperial city. It would have been a pity if she died.]
[As for that Steffi Cyril of the Cyril family, she's always had a face full of pimples and boils, looking like a toad, even looking at her once is enough to make people feel nauseous.]
[Exactly, her death would have spared us the sight of her.]
Her lower abdomen writhed in pain again. Hearing those vicious curses, Steffi leaned against the wall and rose to her feet, her face pale.
Gazing at the white marble tiles she thought she was more beautiful than Ameha but now, no one in Imperial city would imagine, the woman who is so beautiful that it’s hard to believe is none other than the former Ms. Steffi Cyril, whose face was covered with pimples, and so repulsive that both gods and men were infuriated.
She had admired the second son of the Jones family, Mark Jones, back in high school. However, her face had been mysteriously covered with pustules since childhood, and she never dared to express her feelings.
Later, when she found out that Mark had been poisoned in an accident and needed someone to draw out the poison, she chose to sacrifice herself.
Unexpectedly, not only she survived but even the pustules on her face inexplicably healed. But what difference does it make now? She had lost her innocence and there was no way to turn back.
The increasingly severe pain in her lower abdomen forced Steffi to double over, squatting down in weakness.
Eight months later.
The pain of being torn open from within nearly caused Steffi to black out, yet she didn't cry out at all. Only her knuckles, clenched around the bedsheet, turned white from the strenuous effort.
Her lips were bitten and her hair stuck to her cheeks, drenched in sweat.
Just before she lost the last shreds of her strength and passed out completely, she finally heard a loud cry.
The obstetrician immediately took the newborn baby boy, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and handed him to a masked man waiting outside the operating room
.
"The baby has been born, it's a boy!"
The masked man peeked under the swaddling clothes and, after confirming, his tense expression relaxed, "Make sure the news doesn't leak. Or else, I will make your life a living nightmare."
After the man left clutching the baby, the doctor returned to the operating room.
An anxious nurse looked at the doctor at the side of the operating table and said, "Doctor, there's another one in her abdomen."
…
