Since my daughter, Lucy Shepherd, is an only child, my husband, Felix Shepherd, and I have decided to find her a live-in son-in-law.

I ask on an online forum, "If my future son-in-law has a master's degree from a top university and earns over 10,000 dollars a month, what kind of wedding gift would seem appropriate to welcome him into the family?"

Someone jokingly replies, "You'd probably have to be loaded to get a son-in-law like that. Why not give him ten million dollars as a wedding gift?"

Without any hesitation, I take the person's advice and give Paul Cranston, my future son-in-law, and his family ten million dollars, along with a riverfront apartment.

However, to guard against the possibility of Paul and his family seizing Lucy's inheritance for themselves once we're gone, I make Paul sign a prenuptial agreement.

It clearly states that all their children must take the Shepherd family name and that the family's assets will not go to anyone with a different last name.

Paul agrees to it and even thanks me profusely for everything.

Yet, when Lucy gives birth to her second child, he immediately grabs the baby and changes his tune.

"Even though I married into the Shepherd family, that doesn't mean I'm no longer my own person! My son must take my family name! This affects my dignity as a man!"

I scoff in anger, but before I can say anything, Lucy, who is completely blinded by love, tearfully takes Paul's side. "Just go along with it, Mom. We're all a family anyway. Why must you harp on whose last name is used?"

I hold my ground and refuse to back down.

But the very next day, Lucy flies abroad with Paul, bringing along her two children. They have no qualms about moving into the property that Felix and I had bought abroad, as if it were their own.

Despite being 58 years old, I am so enraged by her foolishness that I drag Felix to a fertility clinic. We start the IVF process.

After turning 59 years old, I give birth to a son.

Just as the nurse brings him to me, the door to the hospital room flies open. The family of four, who have just rushed back in a hurry, freeze in place.

We'd just arrived at the vital records office to pick up the birth certificate for my grandson, Nicholas Shepherd.

Without warning, my son-in-law, Paul Cranston, started scowling. He slammed the birth certificate down onto the counter and yelled, "Everyone, don't you think this is unfair? Yes, I married into my wife's family, but I'm still a man, and I have my dignity! Why must my child take his mother's last name?

"My family may be ordinary and not as rich as theirs, but does having money give them the right to ignore a person's basic rights? My parents worked hard their whole lives to raise me, but now, their grandson can't even take their last name! Just think about how hurt they'd be!"

Everyone else began whispering among themselves. Some people had already raised their phones and pointed them at me.

Dumbfounded, I tugged on Paul's arm. "Didn't we already discuss this clearly from the beginning, Paul?"

But he violently shook off my hand. "When did I ever discuss anything with you, huh? I don't care. Either way, my son is not taking your family's last name!"

All the clueless spectators began voicing their agreement.

"He has a point. Even if he's a live-in son-in-law, he's still his own person. It's customary for a child to take his father's last name."

"So what if they have money? That doesn't give them the right to bully others."

"She looks like a perfectly reasonable old lady. Who would've thought she'd be such an overbearing woman?"

I started shaking with rage.

I wanted to remind Paul about the ten million dollars and the apartment the Cranstons accepted from us. He'd also once said ingratiatingly to me, "It doesn't matter what last name the children take, so long as you're happy, Mom."

At that moment, it wasn't just anger I felt. I was deeply disappointed.

Meanwhile, Paul noticed my reaction, and his eyes flashed with smug delight.

Then, all of a sudden, he shoved aside the security guard who was trying to calm him down and charged toward the stairwell at the side of the building, the one that led upstairs.

"So be it! You Shepherds won't stop until I die, right? If you want my son to take your last name, you're going to have to do it over my dead body! I'm going to jump off this building and let my death prove that even a live-in son-in-law has his pride!

"I'd rather die than submit to you like a man with no dignity!" Paul hollered, his voice choked with despair.

Gripping the stair railing, he acted as if he were about to rush upward.

Several security guards immediately surrounded him, struggling to restrain him. The situation descended into complete chaos.

Even more people had gathered to watch. The buzz of their chatter filled the place, and almost everyone had their phones raised.

Wholly outraged, I shouted at Paul, "Does Lucy know what you're doing?"

With a gloating look in his eyes, he retorted, "Of course she knows! A woman like her doesn't get to decide anything. If you keep forcing my hand, I'll die right in front of you!"

A clerk rushed over to me and tried to reason with me.

"Ma'am, please listen to me!" He positioned himself between the crowd and me. "You can see what the situation is like right now. Your son-in-law is extremely emotional right now. If something bad does happen, it won't matter whether he's just faking it. Either way, there will be unthinkable consequences.

"Once that happens, it will no longer be a simple matter of whose last name the child takes. Not only you and your family, but everyone else here will get dragged into a huge mess!"

The clerk spoke in a rush, but every word seemed to strike me in the chest. "Who cares what last name the child takes? At the end of the day, he's still your grandson. You're related by blood, and that won't change.

"You seem like a very reasonable woman to me, ma'am. Why don't you just take a step back and agree to a compromise—at least until this crisis is resolved first, okay?"

My anger was still burning inside of me, and my heart had grown cold from severe disappointment.

I'd been backed into a corner. If I refused to change my stance, things would only get even more out of hand. Once this incident was posted online, the entire Shepherd family would be reduced to a laughingstock. Who knew what kind of other adverse consequences might follow?

A deep sense of helplessness washed over me.

All my life, I'd been a proud woman who refused to give in to anyone. Never did it ever occur to me that the son-in-law I'd welcomed into the family with great generosity would end up plotting against me.

I grabbed the pen, which felt like lead in my hand, and filled in the amendment form. My hand paused over the line to fill in the new name, but in the end, I wrote out the name Nicholas Cranston.

Paul grabbed the form and checked it himself. Then, he purposely turned to the clerk with an aggrieved expression, saying hoarsely, "Thank you… Thank you, everyone, for standing up for me… I-I had no choice…"

I turned around and left without sparing him another glance.

Once my husband, Felix Shepard, and I got back to our house, we could only stare at each other in silence.

Sighing, Felix advised me to just drop it. All that mattered was that Lucy and Nicholas were both happy and healthy.

But I couldn't just forget about this. I went straight to Lucy's place to confront her. I wanted to see if she knew anything about what her beloved husband had done.

If Paul had told me the truth about her stance, then I wasn't going to go easy on her either.

I arrived at Lucy Shepard's place in a rage, ready to vent my fury—only to find her hunched over a pile of laundry. Her hands were submerged in the water as she scrubbed a pair of men's underwear against the washboard by hand.

That only fanned the flames even more.

"What on earth are you doing? You just gave birth! Who told you to sit on the bathroom floor and do the laundry by hand? You should be resting in bed! Where's Anna? I hired you a housekeeper for a reason!"

Lucy jumped, as if alarmed by the barrage of questions from me.

"Mom? What are you doing here? It's fine. My mother-in-law said that doing some chores would help with my recovery. It's not good for me to be lying in bed the whole time. As for Anna… my mother-in-law sent her home."

"What? She sent Anna home? When is Anna coming back then? I'm still paying her a salary, so how can she just leave like that?"

I immediately sensed there was something fishy afoot.

Lucy's eyes flickered evasively. "My mother-in-law lost close to a million dollars while gambling, so she took Anna's salary to cover some of her debts first. But she's been on a winning streak lately. Once she wins back all the money, she'll pay it back…"

Although she trailed off without saying anything else, I'd heard enough.

Every month, I sent Lucy a sizable sum of money to pay for Anna's salary, along with a nanny to help with the baby.

But Molly Kramer, that mother-in-law of hers, had whisked all of the money away to fund her gambling addiction.

Meanwhile, my own daughter had to wash the entire family's clothes by hand in the dead of winter—all in the name of doing chores to help with her recovery!

Seething with rage, I snapped in a trembling voice, "Are you an idiot? How can you be so flippant about your own health? You just gave birth! If you don't get enough rest, your body will be weakened for good. You might even end up with a chronic condition!

"Why do you blindly follow everything your mother-in-law tells you? Can't you see that she's just trying to make you wait on the family like a maid?"

"Mom! Can you not always assume the worst of people?" Lucy whipped her head up, her gaze resentful. "My mother-in-law means well! She says a woman can't be too spoiled and pampered. I need to work hard to support my family.

"Paul works hard to earn a living. If I can help out around the house, it's only right that I should. What's so wrong about that? You're the one who insisted on hiring a housekeeper for me, making it seem like I can't even lift a finger at home.

"Do you know what my mother-in-law and the neighbors will think of me?"

Lucy's brainwashed spiel drenched me like a bucket of cold water, dampening out the last spark of hope I had. I was enraged by her foolishness, feeling both anxious and frustrated.

Taking a deep breath, I said, "Fine. I'll drop the issue with Anna for now. Do you know what Paul did at the vital records office today?

"He publicly threatened to jump off the building to force me into changing your son's name. He's not Nicholas Shepherd anymore. He's Nicholas Cranston. Did you know about this?"

I thought Lucy would be shocked, but I was wrong. Her brows merely creased a little, and her expression was a mix of impatience and resentment.

"I knew you were going to bring this up. Isn't it just a last name? Why are you so hung up on it? No matter whose last name he takes, he's still my child and your grandson," she declared.

"Paul is also under a lot of pressure, you know. Everyone keeps mocking him for living off his wife's family. He just wants to reclaim his dignity by letting our son take his last name. What's so wrong about that?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"You need to get your facts straight, Lucy! His family accepted ten million dollars and an apartment from us. He himself agreed that all your children will follow your last name! Yet here you are, thinking that the situation is unfair to him?

"What happened to you? Are you so blinded by love that your brain stopped working, too?"

I even raised my hand, only to slowly lower it again. At the end of the day, Lucy was still my daughter. I couldn't bear to hit her.

However, she started screaming in my face, her tears spilling from her eyes.

"You're just a stubborn, old-fashioned woman! All you care about is carrying on the Shepherd line. You don't care about my happiness at all!"

Stubborn and old-fashioned?

I spent a fortune securing Lucy's future, ensuring she wouldn't have to suffer later in life, only for her to call me that.

The disillusionment turned my heart cold, and my anger soon morphed into numbness.

"I never thought you saw me that way. If that's how it is, you can just rely on your in-laws from now on."

It was the first time I'd ever spoken so harshly to her.

Lucy wiped her tears away and retorted, "Fine! If anything, I can just sell off all the jewelry and handbags you gave me. That'll be enough for me to live on for a while! And you can forget about us going back to see you for the holidays. Just act like you never had a daughter like me!"

After a pause, she added, "If you continue to push me, I'll just jump off this house! You'll be satisfied once I'm dead, won't you? It's not like you care about losing an ungrateful daughter like me anyway!"

All of a sudden, I recalled the articles I'd read about women who suffered from postpartum depression.

Regardless of the situation, I'd carried Lucy in my belly for months before giving birth to her. No matter how stupid she was and how deeply she hurt me, I couldn't bear the possibility of losing her.

"So be it. I won't push you."

I marched right back out of the house.

She'd been so flippant about selling off the jewelry and handbags I'd given her in the past—the gift I'd given out of my love for her.

…

That night, I stayed awake until the sun rose. All I could think about was how to protect Lucy from being used for her money and how to keep the family's assets safe.

The next morning, I got a message from Lucy that snuffed out the last vestige of my attachment.

"Paul and I are taking the children abroad to take our minds off things. We won't be coming back for a few years. Since you and Dad clearly can't accept Paul and keep making his life difficult, there's no point in us returning just to suffer.

"If you keep this up, don't blame me for cutting off all ties with you. I don't care if I have to cut you out of all my life completely!"

Lucy, the daughter that Felix and I loved and doted on for over two decades now, was unflinchingly declaring her willingness to cut off all ties with us, all for the sake of a man who went back on his word.

She'd even gone abroad with him.

Before Felix and I could even wrap our heads around the heavy blow we just received, we got a call from Paul.

This time, his tone was far more taunting.

"Hey, Mom—Oh, wait. You're just Mrs. Shepherd to me now. Anyway, I'm just calling you to remind you of something—since Lucy is married to me, we are one unit. What's hers is mine, including everything that'll go to our children.

"When it comes to family assets, what matters most is seeing who has the power to hold onto them, right?"

The family assets, huh? Was he trying to hint to me that the Shepherd family's assets would eventually belong to the Cranstons, since Lucy's children would take his last name?

After the call ended, Felix and I just stared at each other for ages. We had to do something to inject some new hope into this situation.

We secretly started going for IVF treatments. The process was far more grueling than expected and an enormous strain for a woman in her late 50s.

The ovarian stimulation drugs came with harsh side effects, and the egg retrieval hurt as well. There was also the constant anxiety of waiting for the results, but Felix and I gritted our teeth and bore through it all.

Alas, nothing in this world stayed hidden forever. Somehow, Lucy and Paul caught wind of what we were doing.

Lucy sent me a long message to talk me out of it.

"Mom, I heard you and Dad are still trying to have a child. Have you two lost your minds? You're both so old now! I know you're upset because of the issue with the last names, but this is such an extreme reaction!

"You're almost 60 years old now. You've already gone through menopause! You're just embarrassing yourself."

Paul also called me.

"IVF is no simple procedure, Mrs. Shepherd. It's very damaging to your body. Don't worry. Lucy and I will take good care of you two. We won't let you starve in your old age."

How thoughtful that sounded, yet every word was a subtle hint reminding us that we should just obligingly hand over the family's assets and wait to be taken in like charity cases.

I blocked both of them immediately. In fact, Felix and I also moved out of our original villa at once.

At the same time, with the help of my lawyer, David Holt, I started legal proceedings. I wanted to reclaim the ten million dollars and the riverfront apartment from the Cranstons, citing their breach of the prenuptial agreement.

I also took back everything I'd previously given Lucy, such as her sports cars and jewelry collection. Since she'd already said she was going to sell them off, I might as well get them back first.

Lucy knew that my period had stopped for quite some time, so the couple was certain I'd already gone through menopause and couldn't get pregnant anymore. They firmly believed that Felix and I were just bluffing, and that our "scheme" was doomed to fail.

In fact, Paul was eager for me to damage my body with the treatments.

Unbeknownst to them, the IVF treatment worked.

Nine months later, at the age of 59, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Logan Shepherd.

Just as I raised my trembling fingers to stroke his cheek, the door to the hospital room flew open with a loud bang.

The family of four who had disappeared for nearly a year scrambled in, flustered and panicked.