Herman stretched out his index finger to seal Chloe’s mouth. “Chloe, you don’t have to explain to me. You must have your reasons for your choice. I will do it unconditionally.”

When I woke up again, I was awakened by the heart-wrenching pain.

What caught my eye was the snow-white ceiling of the operating room and when I looked down, it was a shocking red.

I was tied to the operating table and a huge slit was cut open on my stomach, just like that and I could faintly see the placenta struggling in the pool of blood, trying to break away from my body.

Just the movement of the baby involved my wound and I curled up violently and my vision was briefly dark because of the severe pain.

Only then did I realize that Chloe had cut open my stomach, but did not give me anesthesia!

“Chloe, what are you up to! Why didn’t you give me anesthesia? It hurts! Anesthesia…”

The instinct of survival made me soften my tone to Chloe and I kept begging her to give me anesthesia.

At this time, Chloe was sitting on the operating table with her legs crossed, casually picking her nails with a scalpel!

I shouted several times before she slowly stood up, frowned and scolded me, “Don’t make noise, the chorus is coming soon!”

I just realized that she actually brought Bluetooth headphones into the operating room and was listening to music intoxicatedly at this moment!

I tried to move with difficulty, but I didn’t dare to move rashly because of the wound. I could only shout with all my strength, “Help! Doctor Blanton! Help!”

Chloe impatiently took off the headphones and slapped me in the face. “What are you shouting? Shut up! Do you want to call everyone in? Aren’t you deliberately looking for trouble and don’t want me to become a regular employee? I tell you, now both of your lives are in my hands. If you don’t listen, I will strangle your child now!”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to relieve the pain. I just felt that everything in front of me was ridiculous. “Chloe, didn’t you say that your dream since childhood was to save the dying and help women? Didn’t you always want to prove yourself? If you kill my child, your dream will be destroyed by your own hands!”

Chloe laughed with her mouth covered as if she had heard a joke. “Vera, you believe everything I say! If I don’t say this, how can Herman be assured to hand you over to me? And I said this just to find an opportunity to torture you openly. Who told you to marry Herman, to destroy the relationship between me and him and even to have a child for him!”

She continued, “The person Herman cares about the most is always me. You are just feeling fresh and you actually want to hang him with a child? Dream on!”

I felt a cold sweat rising on my back.

“You wanted to kill my child from the beginning?”

“Of course not. If the child dies, Herman will blame me, right? I have already thought of a way, you wait and see. After today, Herman will abandon you like a worn-out shoe, hate you like chaff and will never look at you straight again, so if you are smart and take the initiative to divorce Herman, I will let you suffer less and let your child be born safely.”

But now it was no longer the situation where she, Chloe, had the final say.

Mother and child were connected by heart. I could feel the baby’s heartbeat getting weaker and weaker and the amplitude of the struggle was getting smaller and smaller.

“Chloe, I agree with whatever you say. Save the child first. Doctor Blanton said that the child’s umbilical cord is around the neck and there is a risk of suffocation. It will be too late to wait any longer! Save the child!”

“Shut up!” Chloe scolded, “Doctor Blanton again. I hate old antiques like them the most. They think they are so great after performing a few operations! Is what he said right? Did he see the child? He said nonsense! Isn’t it just to belittle me openly or secretly? I won’t listen to him! There is no such thing as an umbilical cord around the neck. I see that the child is very healthy and has fallen asleep comfortably!”

“Besides, do you think I don’t know what you are planning? When the baby is born, Herman will surely rush in when he hears the baby crying and you can be saved! You finally fell into my hands, how could I let you go easily? I haven’t tortured you enough!”

She smiled grimly, raised the scalpel and cut a hole in my stomach.

I screamed in pain, feeling that my internal organs were cut open by her.

“Who told you to marry Herman without seeing things? Who told you to always say bad things about me to Herman? This is a lesson for you!”

She glared at me fiercely and cut a second layer in my stomach.

I screamed even more heartbreakingly than the last time.

The closer to the internal organs, the more endoneurium was connected, the more intense the pain and I couldn’t stop shaking and screaming.

“Vera, do you know what you deserve? I could have passed my internship! It’s all because of you! It was Herman who believed your bullshit, causing me to lose my performance appraisal and face the risk of being fired! Otherwise, I would have been a regular employee long ago! So you are lying here being punished today, it’s all your fault!”

I remembered that the girl that day was her.

Before I got pregnant, I came to the hospital once because of hypoglycemia and accidentally encountered a workplace bullying scene.

In the stairwell, a girl wearing a mask was wantonly beating another girl with messy hair. I tried to stop her, but she knocked me to the ground with one punch and told me not to meddle in other people’s business.

Later, Herman arrived in time and the girl wearing a mask hurriedly stopped.

It was me who asked Herman to order finding this intern, deduct all her performance and eliminate her naturally.

Now it seemed that the masked girl was Chloe.

“If you hadn’t meddled in my business, how could I have been deducted from my performance! How could Herman look at me with such a cold look? He has never looked at me like that!”

Chloe had always been a righteous person in front of Herman, so she naturally didn’t dare to bring this matter to Herman again and could only endure and accept the penalty of deducting performance.

And now, she was venting all her anger on me.

My body had begun to react to the stress, my consciousness was scattered and I felt that my life was slipping away.

The external pager at the door suddenly lit up.

Chloe cursed, put down the knife and answered the phone.

Herman’s voice rang out. “Chloe, is there a problem? Why do I seem to hear Vera screaming in pain? Is something wrong?”

Chloe glared at me, covered the microphone and cursed at me, “You’re lucky!”

Then she explained calmly, “It’s okay, Herman. It’s because Vera is too resistant to drugs and she woke up in the middle of the operation, but the operation will be over soon. I will sew her belly up and you will be able to see the baby soon!”

“By the way, how is my child? Is he healthy? Does he look like me?”

Chloe’s face regained the expression of planning, with a little playfulness. “You will know later.”

Herman pondered for a moment and said to Chloe, “Since she is awake, you give the phone to Vera. I have a few words to tell her. I’m afraid she will delay your regularization.”

Chloe raised her eyebrows, with a happy smile on her face and mercifully put the pager in my hand.

Herman kept nagging in my ear

“Vera, when you leave the operating room later, the dean will come to see you. Act a little more relaxed and praise Chloe a few more times, thanking her for saving your life. Do you understand? I’ve given you such an important task, don’t mess it up!”

I couldn’t hear what Herman was saying.

The greatest sorrow was the death of the heart. My heart died at this moment. The heart that had loved Herman for seven years finally died at the moment when I gave birth to the crystallization of his life.

I laughed bitterly. “Herman, our baby is a boy. You go to the nursery and wait. I want you to make the bed for the baby in advance.”

Herman coughed unnaturally. “That’s natural. Of course, I will treat my child with my heart.”

Herman didn’t see Chloe’s suddenly pale face.

After hanging up the phone, I smiled.

“Chloe, I guessed what you meant. You want to use a fake child to replace my child, so that Herman can mistakenly think that I cheated in the paternity test and quietly kill my and Herman’s biological child. So you keep delaying because it doesn’t matter to you whether the child in my belly is dead or alive! You just need to pretend to wait here and then wait for your people to send the replaced child to the operating room and you can kill two birds with one stone.”

I continued, “And there is only one room in this hospital suitable for newborn babies and that is the nursery. Herman has a photographic memory. As long as he is in the nursery, your people dare not act rashly. Your method has failed, Chloe. If you want to save your face and your profession as a doctor, you can only save my child.”

Chloe was completely panicked. She finally took the placenta out of my belly and began to frantically untie the baby’s umbilical cord.

I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The pain beyond my endurance had been surrounding me. I tried hard not to faint, just because I still had to fight with Chloe and saved my own child in my belly. I couldn’t relax.

Now that I had won, my body suddenly felt as if it was pierced by thousands of steel nails and my brain was rapidly emptying.

Before fainting, I saw Chloe’s sweaty face and frightened expression.

“Why is there no movement? Why is it purple? How do I untie this umbilical cord? I don’t remember! What should I do? Hey! Don’t die, little one! If you die, it will really kill me! Your father will hate me to death!”

The door was violently opened and Herman looked at Chloe with a gloomy face. “What did you say?”

I suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood and fainted completely.