My body kept shaking badly when I heard what the doctor just said. Without further ado, my mother-in-law hurried over to support me so that I could barely stand. It felt like my whole world just fell apart.

I had thought that Charles only wanted to replace my son's blood to get rid of the evil spirit inside him. However, I never expected that he would actually use pig's blood, which was completely wrong for the bloodline of a royal embalmer. How could he do that?

Tears filled my eyes as the sound of Alex’s painful crying before his death kept echoing inside my ears, refusing to leave.

I watched helplessly as my son’s small body, which was now covered with a white cloth, was pushed out of the operating room. His body, drained of all blood, had turned a terrifying purple-blue color that made my heart break into pieces. My poor son had to endure this for his evil father’s acts.

When I realized it, I could not hold it in anymore. I screamed loudly, rushing forward to where my son's body lay. Nevertheless, there was one thing that became clear.

The evil spirit that had always surrounded him had already completely disappeared. Without the protection from the royal embalmer’s blood, the ancient curse of the Orville Family had started to show its terrible effects once again. That family was doomed.

My mother-in-law looked very scared. Her face turned as pale as paper.

She grabbed my hand tightly while speaking with guilt in her tone, "Joanne, I beg you, Alex was just a little child. Please don't blame everything on Charles. You can still have other children in the future. I will teach Charles a lesson this time and make him deal properly with that homewrecker outside."

"Please, don't leave. I beg you on my knees. If you leave, the Orville Family will be completely destroyed. Everyone here will die … "

Yet, her words seemed distant and meaningless to me. It was as if they were coming from very far away. Meanwhile, I slowly reached out and touched my son's shriveled little cheek as I felt how cold and lifeless it had become.

A hundred years ago, the Orville Family had been cursed. For decades, hey had spent a huge amount of money trying to find a way to stop it. The only method that worked was using the evil energy inside the blood of royal embalmers to fight against the curse, like using poison to cure poison.

That bloodline had been passed down to me and now, I was the only one left in the world with it. In order to save lives and gather the negative energy needed, I agreed to marry into the Orville Family. The deal was for five years.

Unfortunately, even draining my own blood was not enough. Eventually, I had to use my son’s blood too, just to barely keep the Orville Family safe. I had thought that because of my sacrifice, both my son and I could live a peaceful life after the five years were over.

But I never imagined that everything would change so badly.

I gently pulled the white cloth back over my son's body and spoke calmly, as if I no longer had any emotions left.

"Mrs. Orville, the five-year agreement has ended. Without Alex, I can no longer hold down the evil spirit of the Orville Family by myself."

"It is time. This is fate. I have done all the good I could. From now on, there is nothing left between me and the Orville Family."

My mother-in-law realized that she could not change my mind as her face turned even whiter.

After a long silence, she tried to find another reason to make me stay a little longer.

"Joanne, as Alex’s mother, you must attend your child's funeral, right?"

"I know you are very sad, so I will take care of everything. You only need to come on time, please, I beg you … "

I understood very clearly that she only wanted me to stay a few more days, using the funeral as an excuse. The more days I stayed in the Orville Family home, the slower the curse would spread and hurt them. However, I shook my head stiffly and looked at my son's cold body.

"There is no need. I will take Alex’s body back to the old mansion. According to the ancestral rules of royal embalming and bury him there."

"This place is not good for Alex. Besides, it is also not a good place for me either."

Seeing how firm I was, my mother-in-law finally gave up trying to convince me.

She lowered her head and said in a trembling voice, "I am really sorry, Joanne. I did not teach my son well. The Orville Family has wronged you. If you want to leave, I will not stop you."

I told her that it would take three days to prepare all the necessary things for the funeral. Thanks to that, I would stay at the Orville Family mansion for three more days to collect the scattered parts of my son’s spirit. That way, Alex could be reborn peacefully.

My mother-in-law’s eyes turned red with pain, but she still arranged for the driver to take me back to the Orville Family’s mansion.

However, when I entered the house, I was immediately greeted by the sight of clothes scattered messily all over the floor.

In my son’s bedroom, two figures were tangled together on the bed.

Annette’s eyes looked dreamy and seductive, while her cheeks were red with excitement.

She said in a soft, sweet voice, "The priest said that the boy’s bed is the best place to get rid of evil spirits. As long as we sleep on this bed for three days and three nights, no bad luck will happen to us anymore."

Even though it was such an obvious lie, Charles still accepted it happily without thinking at all.

He grabbed Annette’s waist even tightly, while his movements on top of her became even rougher and more eager.

"Gosh, you are like a little succubus! How come you have so many tricks? Every time I cannot stop myself, only you can only think of this kind of method. Fine, I will listen to you. Do you want to sleep in Joanne's bed for once?"

My son's half-scattered spirit was still guarding the bed. At such a young age, he could not understand what his father was doing and without a real body, his spirit could not see or feel clearly. My heart broke completely and tears quickly filled my eyes.

Just when I was about to lead my son's spirit away, Charles found me.

As if he wanted to take revenge on me, he hugged Anette even tighter.

"You still know how to come back?" he coldly asked.

"I thought you were too busy preparing the funeral and refused to leave the hospital morgue."

"You only think about dead people all day long. Just looking at you is unlucky! If you like preparing funerals so much, why did you not just marry a corpse? Wouldn’t it be great for you to embalm corpses like crazy every day?"

"Since you are the young Mrs. Orville, you should behave like one. Stop acting crazy like this! If you had not been embalming corpses all year round, your son would not have needed a blood transfusion and Annette would not have been cursed either!"

"Letting you stay in the Orville Family is already the biggest kindness I've ever given to you, so don’t you ever push your luck!"

When Charles said that, Annette's eyes were full of pride as if she wanted to provoke me, which almost made me lose my mind from hatred.

I knew very well that the so-called blood transfusion was just a trap she had planned against me. From the bottom of my heart, I wanted so much to tear her face apart. In fact, I even wanted to kill the baby growing inside her and let it be buried with my Alex.

But the words Alex said before his death kept ringing in my ears, over and over again.

"Mum, do not blame Aunt Annette. Dad will get mad at us … "

"Mum, is my blood really dirty? Why does Dad never hug me?"

"Mum, I am so tired ... and I feel so cold ... Mum, Grandma said you are a royal embalmer. Can I follow you after I die? I am really useless… Mum, do not fight with Dad. I will always be Mum's child in the next life."

The endless hatred in my heart was forced back by the memories of Alex's voice. I turned away from the two people lying on the bed and waved at my son's spirit as I was preparing to take him away. But just as I got closer to the bed, Charles suddenly reached out and pulled me over.

Without further ado, I was thrown under him roughly. He grabbed my chin with one hand while the other hand reached up under my clothes. I could only lie there without moving. My face turned emotionless like a lifeless body, refusing to respond no matter what he did.

Charles' pride was hurt by my coldness as his face darkened immediately. He then leaned down and bit the corner of my mouth cruelly. Clearly, he was mocking me.

"Why are you pretending to be like a pure virgin now? Are you not jealous that Annette and I are together?" he shouted.

"You purposely left the child for my mother to take care of, just so you could sneak into my bed, right?"

"I will satisfy your wish then! Besides, this is just perfect. I have not tried playing with three people together yet. Let Annette watch and see the body of a royal embalmer. Hurry up! Take off your clothes!"

"Right here, on your son's bed! Let him feel with his own spirit how shameless his own mother is! A woman who only cares about climbing into a man's bed, even after her child died!"

Facing Charles' crazy shouting, I closed my eyes in despair. Tears rolled silently down from the corners of my eyes and soaked the pillow under me. This was unforgivable!

"Charles," I whispered, my voice trembling.

After that, I continued to speak, "My son is dead. I did not throw him to anyone."

He stopped pulling at my clothes, then laughed coldly, full of disbelief.

"Joanne, do you think I am a fool? If your son really died, would you still be so calm right now?"

"I was just spending Alex's anniversary with Annette. You really have the heart to joke about Alex with me? I really underestimated you. A cruel woman like you does not deserve to be Alex's mother!"

Charles stared hard at my face, trying to find any sign of lying. Yet, there was nothing left on my face except complete dead silence. Nevertheless, it didn’t cause him to stop.

"You really are a royal embalmer," he said through gritted teeth.

"Living with corpses all year round has made you colder than any normal person! My mother might be tricked by you, but I will never believe a single word you say. Joanne, you'd better give up your stupid idea soon!"

"Alex was the heir of the Orville Family when he was alive, so he would remain the ghost of the Orville Family after death. No matter how deep you hid him, I would dig six feet under into the ground to find him!"

After venting his anger, Charles continued his deed with Annette and left without looking back.

I stood there, looking at my son's broken spirit floating beside me. My tears quickly blurred my vision without me even noticing. Before this, I had never thought that my ability to embalm corpses would one day be used on my own child. But now, it had truly happened.

The five-year agreement was the last chance I had given myself, a final bet on Charles' heart and on a future between us.

At the beginning, when he first came to me asking for help with the Orville Family curse, his eyes were full of hope and admiration.

"A royal embalmer must be very powerful, right?" he had said.

I had never seen eyes so bright, so my heart could not help but be shaken by them. However, I knew that my family’s inheritance could not be interrupted. I had to save people to build a good afterlife. So, I could only make a five-year agreement with him.

On the day I married into the Orville Family, their fortunes, which had been declining for a long time, suddenly began to rise again. The company grew quickly when I got married to him. Not to mention, my mother-in-law became much healthier.

At that time, Charles gave me all the credit. In order to make me happy, even during his busiest times, Charles was willing to put down all his work and take me abroad for a honeymoon. Back then, he never said that royal embalmers were unlucky.

Instead, Charles only said that I was different from ordinary people. That I was someone special, someone worthy of being his beloved wife. It made me happy.

When I became pregnant, Charles hired three nannies to take care of me at home. For nine whole months, he did not work overtime even once. Every free moment he had, he spent it with me.

He told me that the child of a royal embalmer had to be powerful from the moment he was born. He said he would raise Alex to be his successor and give him the best of everything in the world. But later, when Annette appeared, everything began to change.

Charles became colder and colder. Every time we were together, there was always a look of disgust and disdain in his eyes that he could not hide. My son was influenced by him and grew quieter and shyer.

I could not bear it anymore, so I finally found the courage to ask him about it once. But he just looked at me coldly and spoke with a tone full of contempt.

"Joanne, the Orville Family is one of the most elite families in London. Marrying you, a royal embalmer, already made me lose face. You have no right to cause trouble."

"Don't think I don't know. That so-called suppression curse was just an excuse for you to marry into the Orville Family. Your lies are so poor that they make me sick!"

When a man loved a woman, the woman would be treated like a treasure. When he stopped loving her, she would be treated like an old shoe. It was an old saying that turned out to be true. After all, I finally realized what it meant to be treated like an old shoe.

I thought that if I could just make it through the five-year agreement, I could take my son and return to my old home and wake up from this dream. But now, I could not even protect my child. This dream, after all, had to end. Because I wanted to take Alex's body away.

Since the funeral we had planned had no burial, we intended to just hold a memorial service for Alex that was being held in the garden. The relatives of the Orville Family filled the mourning hall. One by one, they came forward to kneel, make a prayer and pick a rose to be put next to Alex’s photo.

But there was no sign of Charles.

My mother-in-law became so angry that her face turned red. She kept calling Charles again and again, cursing him loudly.

"That stupid, ungrateful son! Today, I will make him kneel in front of Alex’s portrait and confess his guilt!"

I knew Mrs. Orville truly loved Alex. She did not say a single word to blame me. Rather, she just kept calling and calling, but Charles never answered.

There was only a cold, busy tone on the line.

After running out of patience, my mother-in-law started contacting Charles’ assistant. She turned on the speakerphone as the assistant’s helpless voice echoed throughout the mourning hall.

"Mrs. Orville, today is Miss Grey’s prenatal check-up appointment. So, Mr. Orville-"

Before he could finish speaking, Charles’ angry voice came through.

"Does the young Mrs. Orville have to wait in line when she is pregnant? Don’t blame me for withdrawing my investment and shutting down the hospital if you dare to make Annette wait! Throw out all the other patients! I don't want to see anyone else!"

"Today, there can only be one pregnant woman in the obstetrics and gynecology department. It has to be Annette."