“Yvonne, what are you doing?!”

As expected, Jason’s furious voice rang out behind her. He strode over as his eyes blazed in anger. “Why are you picking on Cindy?!”

Yvonne’s first instinct was to laugh. She wanted to tell him, “Cindy has always been the one bullying me. When have I ever bullied her?”

But when she looked up and met Jason’s eyes, she saw that beneath the anger, something else flickered.

Was he hoping for her to be jealous?

Yvonne lowered her gaze and hid her twitching hand behind her back. Her voice was calm. “She chased off the man who tried to talk to me. Why shouldn’t I give her a hard time?”

The flicker in Jason’s gaze extinguished immediately. It was replaced by a cold and cutting indifference.

“You should be punished.”

At his request, a waiter brought over drink after drink. Yvonne immediately knew what he meant. Her hands clenched tightly as she took a slow step forward. She picked up a glass and poured it over her head.

“Keep going.” His voice was cold.

She poured another. And another. The wine soaked her hair and trickled down her face. People began to gather and watch the spectacle.

“Isn’t that Yvonne? Serves that vicious woman right!”

“Jason used to dote on her so much. She brought this on herself.”

Yvonne stood there drenched as she shivered uncontrollably.

Jason looked away from her and walked away with Cindy in his arms. He ordered just before he left, “Watch her. She’s to stand here for ten hours.”

Sticky alcohol clung to every inch of her. She stood like a caged animal on display.

It was past midnight when they finally let her go.

She stumbled across the deck and saw Jason returning, clearly drunk.

Yvonne wanted to avoid him, but she suddenly heard the sound of him falling, followed by silence. She was worried, so she turned back to check on him.

Jason collapsed outside of his room, and his face was flushed with an abnormal red.

He had a fever.

Yvonne’s heart clenched. She dragged him inside with great effort. She poured him some water and wiped his face down. After settling him in, she got up to find a doctor. But Jason suddenly clutched the hem of her shirt tightly.

“Don’t… go…”

Her heart sank. In the end, she stayed.

She replaced the cold towel on his forehead over and over again. Not once did she close her eyes throughout the night. He drifted in and out of consciousness until the first light of dawn. Only then did the fever finally break.

Yvonne felt like she was about to collapse as well. Just then, someone knocked on the door. It was Cindy.

Her expression tensed the moment she saw Yvonne. But Yvonne simply pressed the towel into her hand and said hoarsely, “When he wakes up… tell him it was you who looked after him.”

With that, she turned and left, limping as she went. She had only made it a few steps when everything went black, and she collapsed to the floor.

They stayed on the cruise for seven days. That day, Yvonne fainted on the deck and woke up again. She had a high fever and barely made it back to her room.

The fever burned on and off for three days. Luckily, during those three days, Jason was also looking for her.

The doctor on the cruise brought her medicine as part of his job, emotionless and perfunctory. She had just murmured her thank you when the door burst open and Jason stormed in.

He walked straight up to her and frowned when he saw her sickly appearance.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Yvonne’s fingers curled faintly. “It’s just a fever.”

Without warning, Jason grabbed her wrist. His voice was low, and if one listened closely, there was the faintest tremble.

“That night… was it you who looked after me?”

Yvonne nearly broke down in that instant.

But she forced down the lump in her throat, yanked her wrist from his grasp, and flung herself onto the nearby doctor with all her strength.

Her voice came out eerily calm. “What do you mean, look after you? Haven’t I had enough flings on this cruise already?”

The doctor was startled. He was about to say something when Jason roared at him, “Get out!”

The doctor bolted for the door. As he left, he saw Jason grabbing Yvonne and throwing her violently onto the bed.

“You’re that desperate, Yvonne?!”

“Yeah. You never managed to satisfy me. When I was overseas, I had a different man every day. You? You’re boring.”

Whatever shred of emotion was left in Jason’s eyes vanished without a trace. He pinned her down brutally as he growled savagely. “Then you’d better enjoy this.”

What followed was violent and merciless; it was like a storm without relief. Her body was tossed like a ragdoll beneath his weight. The agony dragged her mind back to those days in the psychiatric hospital. Electric shocks, hands around her throat, lashes across her body. The past and present blurred into one endless nightmare.

His sole purpose was to hurt her. When it ended, he slammed the door behind him without looking back.

In the dim room, Yvonne curled into herself. Her whole body spasmed as nausea clawed its way up her throat. She doubled over and dry-heaved uncontrollably as tears poured down her cheeks.

Was this what she wanted? To degrade herself so completely in front of Jason, to make him hate her beyond redemption?

But it hurt so much…

It was like being torn apart from the inside out. She wanted to die right then and disappear completely.

After showering, she received a message from Jason, asking her to go to the main hall of the cruise.

When she arrived, he spared her just a glance before pointing with his chin toward a table covered in leftovers.

“Eat.”

Yvonne did not move right away. She had not eaten in days. Her condition had worsened, and her throat often spasmed uncontrollably. Every time she tried to eat, it came right back up.

She had lost even more weight because of that.

​​Jason tossed a stack of cash at her face without a trace of sympathy. Yvonne picked up the chopsticks while she trembled.

Cindy leaned gently against Jason’s shoulder and said softly, “Jason, just let her go.”

Jason chuckled coldly. “If you hate to see food go to waste, then find someone to finish it off.”

Yvonne ate slowly and emotionlessly. None of the food was to her taste, and Jason knew that better than anyone. She used to hate these dishes so much that she could not even force them down. But in the psychiatric hospital, having food at all had been a luxury. She had long since learned not to be picky.

She ate one bite at a time, but her throat spasmed violently in protest. She tried to fight through it, but in the end, she could not hold it down. She turned aside and threw up in pain.

Jason’s expression darkened. “You’re disgusting, Yvonne!”

“Eat. All of it. You’re not leaving until you finish it!”

He left with Cindy. His face was full of disgust.

Yvonne vomited up everything she ate. Her throat was pushed to its limit. She began to taste blood, and a wave of dizziness hit her again. She had to drag her messy self out to the deck to get some air and clear her head.

Cindy was already standing there, almost as if she had been waiting for her.

She looked Yvonne up and down and smirked, “You really are a mess… Yvonne, compared to Jason, I went easy on you back then.”

Yvonne’s body went rigid, and the agonizing pain tore through her again.

“You should disappear forever.”

As she finished her sentence, Cindy stepped forward suddenly, grabbed Yvonne’s hand, and shoved it against her own shoulder. Then she threw herself over the railing.

Yvonne’s blood ran cold instantly.

“Cindy!” Jason’s roar came from behind as he charged toward them just in time to see Cindy fall into the sea.

The scene mirrored a memory burned deep into his mind. Years ago, her sister had been pushed into a burning fire by Yvonne.

His eyes reddened, and the veins on his forehead bulged. Something inside him snapped. His voice tore through the air like a trapped beast.

“You’re a monster, Yvonne!”

“You should’ve died instead!”

The words hit Yvonne like a sledgehammer. But before she could react, Jason shoved her off straight into the ocean.

Icy seawater rushed over her nose and mouth while Yvonne flailed helplessly. She could swim, but her body had no strength left.

She began to sink. Air was replaced by water, and the light from above grew faint and farther away.

Suffocation dulled her consciousness, and she stopped struggling.

Maybe this was better, to die here and disappear into the depths. In the next life, she would be a small fish which was free from memory and the weight of it all.

But why was Jason’s voice echoing in her mind?

He was saying, “Yvonne, I love you. Let’s never be apart. Not in this life, not in the next.”

***

Yvonne never expected to open her eyes again. But when she did, she found herself strapped to a hospital bed.

If it were not for the absence of electroshock equipment, she would have thought she had been dragged back to the psychiatric hospital.

She was tied down for three days. During those three days, no one came to see her except the nurses who dropped off meals and medications. They ignored her entirely and never answered any of her questions.

She was on the edge of a breakdown when the door finally creaked open. It was Hannah’s husband, Zach Scott.

His eyes were filled with loathing and hatred when they landed on Yvonne. He walked straight up to her and slapped her across the face.

“Yvonne, how dare you come back?”

She bit down on her lip and said nothing.

“Jason loved you so much. Hannah treated you like family… Why did you kill her? Why didn’t you die?! Why did Jason save you from the sea?!”

Zach was like an unhinged beast, and Yvonne’s face swelled from the slap while she stared blankly into the air.

After a long while. Zach eventually calmed down and looked at Yvonne coldly.

“Cindy has been diagnosed with aplastic anemia. She needs a bone marrow transplant, and you’re a match.”

Yvonne seemed to have realized something and lifted her head in disbelief.

Zach sneered. “Jason’s already agreed to it. They’re extracting your marrow this afternoon. Yvonne, you owe him this.

“You probably don’t even know this, but Cindy saved Jason from the fire. She’s the one he owes his life to. They will never be apart.”

Yvonne’s voice cracked, and she sounded like a wind-up doll. “The fire... You mean five years ago…”

“Yes. Five years ago. Unlike you, she has a heart.”

But something inside Yvonne shattered. No… That could not be true. She was the one who had run into the flames and saved Jason!

“I want to see Jason. Let me see him!”

Zach scoffed. “He doesn’t want to see you ever again. You’re on your own now.”

“Wait! Zach, please! I can’t…”

He did not even spare her another glance. He strode toward the door and commanded coldly, “Prep her for the transplant.”

The nurse stepped forward and tried to restrain Yvonne. Tears streamed down her face while she begged, “No, please! I can’t. I have ALS. I have a neurological disorder!”

No one cared, only a detached voice responded, “Miss Xander, please cooperate. Mr. Fender said this is what you owe him.”

She froze. She stopped resisting and let the anesthetic needle slip into her body.

Tears ran silently down her face, and her expression was blank.

‘No, Jason. I don’t owe you anything,’ she thought.

The marrow extraction procedure was excruciating, it felt like her soul was being ripped from her body. She heard her own screams echoing throughout the operating room.

The damage to her nerves was irreversible. She was left paralyzed from the waist down and would never be able to walk again.

Jason still did not show. Only Zach came. He spared her a glance and spat out coldly, “Tough luck. You deserved it.”