What a shame that the first time I went mad and tried to expose his affair with Rose, he threatened to have me fired—citing privacy violations and defamation.

Finding anyone willing to help me now wasn't going to be easy.

I shot him a glance, long past the point of feeling wronged by his accusations.

I continued wrapping the memorial gift for Mingchu's anniversary.

"You know as well as I do that what I've got on you two isn't limited to what's already out there. If I wanted to leak more, you'd be hemorrhaging a lot more than reputation."

He stood frozen in the doorway for a long moment.

When he finally spoke, his voice was almost helpless.

"After this is over, I'll end things with her. But promise me—we'll make this work. We'll build a real life together. Once the baby comes, we'll be a happy family."

These words. I'd heard them almost daily when I was pregnant.

And yet they never stopped him from tangling himself up with Rose again and again.

One day it was pity for her status as an illegitimate child. The next, sympathy for how alone she was without family to lean on.

There was always a reason—a thousand reasons—why he couldn't help himself around her. Why he had to protect her at all costs.

He didn't move from the doorway, as if he'd stand there until I gave him an answer.

I watched him block out the sunlight and offered a hollow response just to make him leave.

It wasn't until the next morning—when a sex tape of me "cheating" went viral across every platform—that I finally understood what he meant by after this is over.

Percival had released a statement video.

In it, he faced the cameras with perfectly calibrated grief, explaining that I had been caught having an affair during my pregnancy by my own sister. That my exposé of him was nothing but retaliation for being discovered.

Rose sobbed beside him, tears streaming prettily down her face, recounting how she had only tried to counsel me not to hurt Percival's feelings—and how I had turned on her, convinced she would expose my infidelity.

The internet exploded. Everyone demanded Percival divorce "that slut" immediately.

But he played the devoted husband.

"No matter what Aria has done in this lifetime, I cannot stop loving her."

Watching his performance, bile rose in my throat. I couldn't hold it back.

Percival heard me retching from outside and rushed in.

"What's wrong?"

I looked up, still nauseous, and saw Rose trailing in behind him. I shoved his hand away.

"Nothing's wrong. You just make me sick." I met his eyes. "To protect your mistress's crimes, you'll drag your wife's name through the mud without a second thought. Percival, your love really is something special."

His face went white. He opened his mouth to explain.

But Rose dropped to her knees first, weeping like a willow in the rain.

"I'm so sorry, sister! This is all my fault! Percival only made you take the fall because of me!"

Percival's expression melted into instant heartache. He turned to me, his gaze sharp with reproach.

"That's exactly what I came to tell you. The video is AI-generated—I made it myself. At the end of the day, she's your sister. Sacrificing yourself to help her is only right. When I protect her, I'm protecting your family bond. Why do you have to be so aggressive toward her?"

He wasn't finished.

"Besides, you're a housewife. Reputation means nothing to you. Let people talk—it won't change how I feel about you. I know the video is fake, and that's enough. But she's different. She has no one. Her career depends on her public image. If her reputation is destroyed, she loses everything."

Listening to his self-righteous justifications, I felt nothing but revulsion.

Housewife. As if that wasn't his doing.

He was the one who had pressured the company into firing me. He was the one who had blacklisted me across the entire industry—let it be known that anyone who hired me was making an enemy of him.

I'd been rejected from interview after interview. When I finally found a small private studio willing to take me on, he had reported us to the authorities out of pure spite.

In the end, every one of my media credentials was revoked. I became an industry pariah, someone everyone agreed deserved to be cast out.

I didn't bother arguing with him. The midwife had said emotional stability was crucial during postpartum recovery.

Just another two weeks, I reminded myself.

Two more weeks, and I would finally be free.

Grandma had promised to clear my name at the right moment. What they thought of me no longer mattered.

I stared at him, my face blank, then exhaled slowly and rolled over, burrowing into the covers.

"Do whatever you want."

He'd expected me to lash out at Rose like I used to—physically. He was so tense he'd planted himself in front of her like a human shield.

But when I simply turned my back and lay down, every trace of his alarm evaporated.

After a long pause, his voice came out thick with disbelief.

"You're... not angry?"

My tone stayed flat. "Isn't this what you've always wanted? Me getting along with her?"

Relief flooded his face, and he actually laughed. "Finally, you're learning. I knew you weren't really that heartless. I'll make it up to you—I promise."

I didn't respond. Not a word, not a glance, until they were both gone.

For a long time afterward, I pressed my palm to my chest.

So this was what letting go felt like.

Over the next few days, guilt seemed to drive him back to my room again and again. I gave him nothing—cold shoulders, closed doors—but he never lost patience. He just kept painting pictures of the beautiful life we'd have together.

Until he brought up the one-month celebration for the baby. Then his confidence faltered.

"Rose will never be able to publicly acknowledge her own child. So I thought... while the baby's still too young to understand... I'd let her attend the celebration openly. As the mother."

He hesitated. "It would give her some closure. Don't you think?"

My knitting needles never paused. I didn't even look up.

"I told you—do what you want. It's not my child. None of this has anything to do with me."

His jaw tightened. A flush crept up his neck, and something dark flickered in his eyes. He snatched the memorial offerings I'd prepared for Mingchu out of my hands.

"Why have you been like this lately? Do you even understand what it means for her to attend? It's as good as announcing she's the lady of the Stephens household. You never would have allowed that before."

I paused, finally sparing him a bored glance.

"And that's a bad thing? Two months ago, when you two were in bed together, didn't you say it was a shame you could never give her a proper title?"

He went white. Marble-still. A statue drained of blood.

I plucked the items from his frozen hands, my composure unruffled, as if nothing had happened.

He hovered at my ear after that, stumbling through excuses—he didn't love her, he'd been drugged, he only slept with her because he felt responsible—until my silence finally crushed his pathetic explanations into dust.

After that day, he stopped visiting.

But Rose's social media told me everything I needed to know. Post after post: the three of them at photo studios, posing as a picture-perfect family in every style imaginable.

The day I finished my postpartum confinement was the day the Stephens family threw a grand celebration for that illegitimate child.

Grandma messaged me: The divorce papers will be ready tomorrow.

I went back to the house to collect my things.

The home that had once been ours—warm, familiar—had been gutted and rebuilt in Rose's taste. Every corner, every detail, remade for her.

Even the portrait that used to sit by the living room TV—him cradling my pregnant belly, both of us smiling—had been replaced. Now it was a family photo: Percival, Rose, and the baby.

In the picture, Percival was beaming.

Happier than he'd looked the day I said yes to him.

I went to the bedroom to pack the clothes I'd brought into the marriage.

But no matter how many times I searched the closet, I couldn't find it—the qipao my mother had sewn for me by hand before she passed, every stitch an heirloom of embroidered silk.

I was about to call and ask when I saw it.

Rose's latest post. Her at the celebration. Wearing my mother's qipao.

Rage erupted—white-hot, volcanic.

I grabbed a taxi and stormed into the banquet hall.

There she was, arm linked through Percival's, accepting congratulations with a gracious smile, basking in the admiration of the crowd.

The moment he saw me, guilt flickered across Percival's face—but underneath it, a smug satisfaction, like he'd been expecting this all along.

He released Rose and walked toward me.

"I knew you couldn't stay away. But today is an important occasion for the child, so please don't—"

I didn't let him finish. I stormed up to Rose and slapped her hard across the face.

"Remember your place as the other woman. Don't be like your mother—that old homewrecker—always stealing what belongs to someone else."

I pulled out a pair of scissors and slashed through the qipao she was wearing.

Riiiiip.

Her shrill scream filled the air as I tore the fabric apart.

"If you don't have clothes, then go naked. My mother made this dress for me. You're nothing but a mistress—I'd rather destroy it than let you wear it."

The venue erupted into chaos. Grandma Evelyn, who normally guarded the family's reputation like a hawk, stood motionless. She didn't intervene.

Percival draped his jacket over Rose's shoulders, glaring at me with undisguised fury.

"How can you be so vicious? In front of all these people—where is she supposed to put her face? She only borrowed the dress for a moment. Do you really have to be this petty?"

I watched him—this man who couldn't tell right from wrong—and laughed coldly.

Then I raised the scissors and cut off every single button from the matching formal shirt my mother had made for him.

"You've forgotten the vow you made to my mother—that you'd treat me well for the rest of your life." I let the buttons scatter across the floor. "That's fine. I haven't forgotten. What we had is like this shirt now—severed. Finished."

"I wish you and your new family a hundred years of happiness."

I walked out, leaving a room full of stunned faces behind me.

The full-moon banquet didn't end well. Rose fainted from "emotional distress," and Percival rushed her to the hospital.

Grandma Evelyn finished hosting the event alone, with the baby in her arms.

The next morning, I held my divorce certificate in my hands.

My phone was still full of messages from Percival demanding an apology.

I blocked him. Deleted every trace of him.

Then I took the certificate and went to the cemetery to see my Corey.

Two weeks ago, I'd had the staff erect a headstone for him.

Corey Henson.

The name carved into stone split my heart wide open.

I opened my mouth, wanting to say something—

"I knew you'd come here."

Percival's voice came from behind me.

"You always ran to the baby whenever you felt wronged. But yesterday, you went too far. In front of everyone, you—"

He didn't get to finish.

Rose let out a gasp. "Percival! She named that child the same as ours!"

She clutched his arm, her voice trembling with theatrical horror. "Sister, even if you didn't like that baby, he would have grown up calling you mother someday. How could you curse him to die young by giving him the same name?"

Percival frowned and stepped closer to the headstone.

His eyes dropped to the line below.

Erected by his mother, Aria Henson.

No father listed. The child bore his mother's surname—not Stephens.

Something cold and uneasy flickered across his face.

But Rose's weeping quickly drowned it out.

He turned on me, his gaze sharp with accusation.

"That child's death is a wound I carry too. But why did you do this without consulting me? Are you trying to curse your own nephew to death?"

"I haven't even settled the score for what you did to Rose yesterday. Do you think just because I love you, I'll tolerate anything?"

His voice turned to ice.

"You have ten minutes. Tell the cemetery to smash this headstone. I'll choose a proper name and have a new one made."

I looked at him—this man who had sobbed uncontrollably when our son died.

"And if I refuse?"

He stared at me, stunned.

For a long moment, neither of us moved.

Then disappointment—thick and bitter—settled into his eyes.

He raised his hand.

Three bodyguards stepped out of the car.

"Aria." His voice was quiet now. Dangerous. "He was my child. But Rose's baby is also my child. If you insist on doing this—"

He paused, letting the threat hang in the air.

"—then I'll have no choice but to dig up his grave."

A faint, terrible smile crossed his lips.

"I'm sure his spirit will understand. He'd want me to protect his little brother."

Even knowing what kind of man he truly was, hearing him threaten to desecrate our child's grave—all for his mistress, all over a name—

The ache in my chest returned, sharp and unforgiving.

I watched his expression, so confident, so certain that I would cave. That my love for our son would make me bend.

I smiled.

Calmly, I reached into my coat and pulled out the divorce certificate. I tossed it at his feet.

"I'm afraid, Mr. Stephens, you no longer have any say in what I name my child."

"Because as of one hour ago, we are no longer married."