: I Died in the Delivery Room

In our three years of marriage, Zane Vance was rarely ever home.

Now, I was about to give birth, and all I wanted was for him to be with me.

"Nina Sterling, can you stop being so unreasonable? Did I force you to have this baby? There are millions of pregnant women in the world, and none of them are as dramatic as you."

Before I could even say a word, he hung up.

Later, I died on the operating table during a difficult childbirth. Mother Vance was only concerned with selling the baby's umbilical cord blood.

With no one to care for the baby and its condition critical, the doctor had no choice but to call Zane Vance.

"She's a grown woman. How can she not even take care of a single baby?"

'But Zane, I was already dead...'

「...」

I stood by Zane Vance through his toughest times. I watched him climb the corporate ladder, step by step, until he became the company's second-in-command.

He became so successful that the chairman placed his own daughter by his side.

I don't know when it started, but he grew increasingly impatient with me.

"Nina Sterling, how many times have you called? I've only been away on business for a few days."

His question from the other end of the line left me speechless.

"I'm sorry... The doctor said I'm due any day now, and I'm scared. Could you please come home and be with me?"

"Who is it, Zane?"

I didn't get an answer from Zane Vance. Instead, a delicate, feminine voice piped up.

"No one important."

Then, the dial tone told me he'd already hung up.

I froze, my mind replaying the label he'd just given me—the one I'd traded my entire youth for.

"You're just having a baby. Stop being so dramatic. Anyone would think you were laying a golden egg or something."

Mother Vance rolled her eyes at me, her words dripping with scorn.

"Take a good look at yourself. You're just an orphan. Marrying my son was you cashing in on a dozen lifetimes of good karma."

"My son works so hard every day, and all you do is cause him trouble."

As if words weren't enough to vent her frustration, she reached out and shoved me to the floor.

A sharp pain shot through my abdomen. I curled up on the ground as large beads of sweat dripped from my forehead.

"Oh, so now you're putting on an act for me?"

Mother Vance stepped over me disdainfully, and the door SLAMMED shut.

I passed out from the pain, only to be woken by it again. This repeated over and over until my best friend rushed in.

"I'm gone for one business trip, and you end up like this? What did Zane Vance and his family do to you?!"

My best friend held me in her arms, heartbroken. The air was thick with the smell of blood.

She frantically dialed 911, her hands shaking so much she could barely hold her phone.

Meanwhile, my husband was off somewhere, whispering sweet nothings to another woman.

A baby's cry echoed in the hospital room. Before I even had a moment of joy, another contraction seized my abdomen.

"The mother is hemorrhaging! Prepare for emergency rescue!"

The frantic rush of medical staff, the sharp shriek of machines—it all rang in my ears like the Grim Reaper's lament.

"Doctor, am I not going to make it? Please, I'm begging you, call my husband. Tell him to come back and see the baby. I'm begging you."

The call went through, and the phone was placed by my ear.

"Nina Sterling, what are you trying to pull now?"

Before I could say a word, even the doctor couldn't take it anymore.

"Your wife has a severe postpartum hemorrhage. You need to get over here and see her."

"Do you get some kind of kick out of lying to me over and over?"

And with that, he hung up again.

I closed my eyes in despair. As the line on the heart monitor went flat, my soul drifted upward.

Miraculously, my soul didn't dissipate. It just floated there, in the air, able to see everything.

It turned out I had given birth to two babies. Twins. A boy and a girl.

: Separated by Life and Death

Perhaps because they were premature, both of them looked so small, as if they might stop breathing at any moment.

No matter how much my heart ached, there was nothing I could do.

I flew to Zane Vance's side. He and Celia Blanc were sitting on a bench by the sea, a picture so beautiful it was unreal.

"Zane, let's go collect seashells, okay?"

The girl blinked her starry eyes, asking him with childlike innocence.

He ruffled her hair and gently said yes.

It was impossible to imagine that just a moment ago, he had hung up on me with such a cold and decisive tone.

"AH!"

The girl's shriek shattered the harmony of the scene.

"What's wrong?"

He anxiously took her hand, turning it over and over, inspecting it closely, only to find a cut that was almost healed.

"How could you be so careless?"

Though they were words of blame, they were filled with doting affection.

He used to use that tone with me, too, but never again after we got married.

After carefully disinfecting it with iodine, he took out a bandage and meticulously wrapped it for her.

That cut was so small it would have healed on its own if left unbandaged.

The girl looked at him, happy and content, like a scene from a teen drama.

Watching this scene, tears scrambled to escape my eyes, and pain spread from my heart throughout my entire body.

'So a soul can cry, and feel pain, too.'

Mother Vance, having received the hospital's call for family, arrived fashionably late.

"The patient suffered a massive hemorrhage. Resuscitation was unsuccessful. I'm sorry for your loss."

The doctor shook his head and sighed, but Mother Vance looked thrilled.

"Good, she's dead. Finally dead, the unlucky thing."

My Best Friend couldn't take it anymore and slapped Mother Vance hard across the face.

"Nina marrying into a family like yours was a dozen lifetimes of bad luck."

"You dare hit me?"

Mother Vance clutched her cheek, her face a mask of disbelief, before grabbing a handful of my Best Friend's hair.

"You damn girl, you're just as shameless as that little wench! I'll teach you to hit me! I'll teach you!"

The scene descended into chaos. The doctor finally managed to pull the two of them apart.

Knowing what kind of person Mother Vance was, my Best Friend was naturally unwilling to hand the babies over to her.

"Doctor, I'm the family. These are my son's children. Who else would you give them to but me?"

'I thought that no matter what, they were her grandchildren. That even if she despised me, she wouldn't go so far as to mistreat the babies.'

'But I had still underestimated her.'

"Doctor, what about the babies' umbilical cord blood? That stuff is valuable, you know? It can sell for a lot of money."

I furiously tried to block her, standing in front of the babies, but I could only watch as her hand passed right through my body.

It turned out that before I had even given birth, Mother Vance had already told the doctor to save the umbilical cord blood.

After getting the "precious" umbilical cord blood, she happily abandoned the babies and disappeared, who knows where.

My Best Friend sat by my bedside, crying as she called Zane Vance again and again, but the call never went through.

'How could the call possibly go through? He's with Celia Blanc, happily collecting seashells right now.'

I followed Mother Vance, wanting to make her go back to the hospital to see the babies.

But no matter how hoarsely I screamed, she couldn't hear a thing.

She sold the babies' umbilical cord blood for a full $15,000. The moment she got the money, she found the nearest mahjong parlor and started playing.

An immense feeling of powerlessness washed over me.

Zane Vance finally remembered me and gave Mother Vance a call.

"Where is Nina Sterling? She's not picking up her phone or answering her texts."

"Oh, her? She just gave birth, so she's in a foul mood. She's mad you didn't come back to be with her for the delivery, so she's intentionally ignoring you. Son, you can't fall for this woman's tricks."

There was a clear note of anger in Zane Vance's voice.

: Wicked Mother Vance

"Mom, you need to set her straight at home. She's gotten more and more demanding since she got pregnant."

That got Mother Vance all fired up.

"You have no idea. After giving birth, she thinks she's hot stuff, ordering me around to do this and that. One minute it's laundry, the next it's fetching her tea and water. Your own mother… I've become her personal maid."

Getting swept up in her own performance, she even managed to squeeze out a few tears, her voice thick with a sob.

"She smashed every pot and pan in the house, and that's not even the worst of it! She's forcing me to make clothes for the baby. At my age, how can my old eyes even see well enough for that? Waaah…"

Zane Vance's anger completely flared up.

"Mom, you've suffered. Don't enable her. I'll give her a piece of my mind when I get back."

This Zane Vance was a world apart from the brilliant, noble-hearted young man I remembered.

Before, he could never bear to say a single harsh word to me.

When he took me home to meet his parents, his mother threw a fit the moment she found out I was an orphan, absolutely refusing to approve of our relationship.

He pulled me into his arms, his voice resolute.

"She's marrying me, not you. I'm going to marry her no matter how much you disapprove."

After a huge fight with his mother, he turned right around and came to comfort me.

"Nina, my mom is just… unrefined. She's used to being unreasonable. I will marry you, I promise. Don't pay her any mind."

'Now, it seems he's long forgotten all that. In his heart, I'm the unreasonable one.'

Our past vows, eternal as the mountains and seas, now seemed like a colossal joke.

'Zane Vance, my only wish is that we never meet again in the next life.'

Because they were premature, my babies were supposed to be in incubators. But the cost was too high, and Mother Vance would never dream of paying for their hospital stay.

She raised a stink and forced the doctors to discharge them, signing the papers against medical advice.

She brought the babies home.

But she didn't care for the babies at all. All she cared about was mahjong.

The tiny babies, though not yet fully developed, could still feel discomfort, and so they cried.

The babies wailed and wailed, and when their cries annoyed her, she just shut them in the farthest room and went back to organizing her mahjong game.

Even the other players couldn't stand it.

"The babies are crying so hard. Aren't you going to do anything?"

"Do what? I didn't give birth to them. Whoever did is responsible. If you want to blame someone, blame them for having such a heartless mother."

I had no idea when she had last fed them. The two babies, exhausted from crying, even started gnawing on their own hands.

Their diapers hadn't been changed in a long time and were overflowing with filth.

Their cheeks grew flushed, showing the faint signs of a fever.

My heart ached beyond measure.

These were the babies I had carried for eight months, the babies I had risked my life to birth. They were my treasures, so precious I was afraid they'd shatter if I held them too tightly or melt if I kept them too close.

And now Mother Vance was treating them like a burden, tormenting them like this!

Watching their faces grow redder and their breathing weaker, I was frantic, about to break down completely!

'My babies, don't sleep! Look at Mama!' I desperately reached out to hold them, but my transparent hand passed right through their bodies.

A wave of helplessness washed over me, like a great mountain pressing down, crushing the air from my lungs.

'Save my children! Won't someone please save my children!'

I was frantic. A soul cannot cry, but at that moment, I felt as if I had cried myself dry.

I fell to my knees, clasping my hands together. I kowtowed to the heavens, one bow after another, piously begging the gods to perform a miracle and save my children.

But no one heard my prayers. The babies' cries grew louder and louder, a sharp sword piercing my heart and leaving it in tatters.

Finally! The babies' desperate, life-or-death wails finally alerted a neighbor.