Angelo’s ideal woman, Maria Rossi, had finally returned to the world after being away from her seclusion in the Catholic church.

To show how sorry he was to her, he shaved off all my hair, burned away my scars and gave her the title of the new ‘pure’ woman.

But the ideal woman thought her body didn’t look special enough anymore. She believed that regular statues couldn’t match her perfect image. So, she ordered people to kidnap my five-year-old son and seal him inside a statue made from mud, hoping that her beauty would return to her.

I ran for ten kilometers through the mountains. I dug through a hundred statues with my bare hands before I finally found my son, who was barely alive.

I fell to my knees, hitting my head on the ground again and again, begging Angelo to save our son.

But instead of helping me, he pushed my grandmother into the mud pond and covered it with a heavy iron net.

“Mrs. Dolores Heron,” he called my poor grandmother coldly,

He then continued, “If you hadn’t killed Maria’s family, she never would’ve seen through the pain of the world, become a nun and suffered in a monastery like that!”

“Sophia, Maria chose your son to be a statue to rever her beauty. he should feel honored. And since you feel so sorry, I’ll use your grandmother to make another statue of Maria!”

He told the bodyguards to hold me down and not help anyone. Then he gently hugged the ideal woman and softly sang to her unborn baby.

With all my strength, I pulled the iron net apart with my hands and held my son and my grandmother, who had already died.

I knelt in front of Mrs. Lombardi and said, “The five-year agreement is over. It’s time for me to go.”

——

The bodyguards kept pushing me down again and again, but I got back up each time, trying to save my family. They didn’t let go of me until my grandmother stopped moving and the surface of the mud pond became still again.

The clay workers standing nearby watched it all with pity in their eyes.

“What a terrible sin,” one of them whispered.

“How can you use a living person to make a statue? Aren’t they afraid of being punished by God?”

“Quiet,” another warned.

“For the sake of his ideal woman, Mr. Lombardi takes blood from the child’s heart every day. He says it helps calm his baby with the woman and gives her peace.”

“How awful,” someone else said. “And the old woman isn’t doing well either. They locked her up and made her sew three thousand blessing charms. Her eyes are bleeding.”

I looked up, shocked and desperately pulled my grandmother and my son’s bodies from the mud. I wiped the dirt from their faces. There was a wound on my son’s chest and my grandmother’s eyes were swollen and red.

They had hidden everything from me. They suffered in silence while I knew nothing.

I was so angry I couldn’t hold it in anymore. My head spun, I coughed up blood and everything went black.

When I opened my eyes again, I heard the doctor speaking nearby.

“The two people who were brought in... they’re already dead. They were tortured before they died. There’s no chance of saving them.”

“And also,” he continued, “it’s a miracle that Mrs. Lombardi is pregnant at all. Her emotions must be kept calm. She’s had more than ten miscarriages in the past few years. Her uterus is so thin now, it’s like paper.”

Mrs. Lombardi looked shocked when she heard this. Then, as she understood, her face filled with anger.

But I didn’t care. With great difficulty, I said, “Abort the baby.”

I had already decided to leave. There was no reason to keep this child.

Mrs. Lombardi looked surprised. Then I saw something strange in her eyes—like she didn’t want to let go of the baby either.

“Sophia,” she said gently.

She then continued desperately, “You got pregnant with this baby on purpose. It would be a shame to lose it.”

“I know Angelo hurt you badly, but the child is innocent. Your son indeed just died and now this child is here. Maybe it’s a sign that Angelo still wants you,” she told me.

At the mention of my son, my heart shattered. I couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

Mrs. Lombardi saw that I was emotional and quickly called Angelo, asking him to apologize to me.

She called more than ten times, but he never picked up. Then, finally, he called me.

As soon as I answered, his angry voice came through the phone.

“Sophia, what’s wrong with you? Will you die if you don’t complain for just one day? Actually, I should’ve also pushed you into that statue! Besides, it seems that you enjoy playing mother and son so much anyway.”

“And stop making my grandmother side with someone like you! So what if you brought them back from the mud? Do you think a miracle doctor can really raise the dead?”

"Maria just had a really bad morning sickness again. Give me your son right now. No matter how painful it is, you have to deal with it. If you don’t, then forget about me going to the parent-teacher meeting."

After threatening me, he hung up the phone. He knew I would obey.

Angelo hated me. He didn’t like my son either. Even if I wanted him, my son’s biological father, to go to a school meeting, I had to give him blood from my heart.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again. Angelo sent a location. It was a nightclub.

[Bring your son here right now. Also, don’t forget to buy a box of condoms and some sexy lingeries on your way.]

My hands shook and my knuckles turned white from gripping the phone too hard.

Then Maria sent a message too.

[I’m allergic to cheap fabrics, so make sure to hand-wash the sexy underwear you bring.]

She even sent me their clothing sizes.

I blocked both of them.

I turned off the phone, placed my hand gently on my belly and spoke with a hoarse voice.

"Help me end this pregnancy."

"Mrs. Lombardi, I’ve taken care of him for five years. But I can’t stop the nightmares. Please think of helping my whole folk doctor community as something separate. I should leave now."

I was an orphan, raised by my grandmother. She came from a long line of folk doctors. Seven years ago, a company tried to force all the folk doctors to leave the mountain. They wanted to use our skills for something illegal.

However, my grandmother refused.

A few days later, a bulldozer came to the foot of the mountain. They said they would destroy our home if we didn’t obey. Some of our people were badly hurt. They almost died.

We were ready to run as we began moving deeper into the northern mountains.

But then Mrs. Lombardi came to us. She used her power and connections to solve the problem. She asked me to come down the mountain with her to help her grandson. He had terrible nightmares that made him lose control. If it got too bad, he could kill someone without meaning to.

The only way to calm his condition was with the blood of someone from the folk doctors’ bloodline. Unfortunately, that bloodline was nearly gone. I couldn’t let anyone else in my community suffer. So, I followed her down the mountain alone.

Whenever Angelo lost control, I held him. I gave him herbs, gave him my blood, cooked medicine and stayed by his side day and night.

Little by little, he went from hating me to treating me kindly. We even had one warm year together. But then, at Angelo’s birthday party, Maria showed up. She held two urns and cried while accusing me in front of everyone.

"You folk doctors told my parents to invest in medicine. But then you went against the Lombardi Family and tricked them. They lost all their money and owed hundreds of millions. They jumped off a building. They’re dead now. Are you happy?"

I realized then that it was Maria’s parents who had tried to force my people down the mountain a year before.

I wanted to explain, but Maria shaved her head right there and said she would become a nun. She looked at Angelo and said, "If I hadn’t carried you down the mountain when we were young, you would’ve been eaten by wolves."

"She’s my enemy, Angelo. If you still have a heart, kill her for me. If not, I’ll hate you forever."

Angelo didn’t know what to do. His illness flared up again that day and all the progress we made that year was lost. Mrs. Lombardi didn’t want Angelo to suffer more. She begged me not to tell him the truth.

So, we made a deal. A five-year promise. After five years, no matter how bad his condition was, I could leave.

When Angelo woke up, the girl he loved from long ago had become a nun. And I couldn’t say anything. For the next five years, I endured his anger and his cruel words. I gave him everything. My blood, my care and my heart.

But then something unexpected happened.

I got pregnant.

After that, Angelo tried to control his temper. He would be gentle with me, even if only for a short time. But a year ago, Maria got pregnant and returned to the normal world. Her return broke everything we had built in the last five years.

And things only got worse from there.

I was crying my heart out. The faces of my grandmother and my son kept flashing in my mind. The memories were so painful that they made my heart feel like it was being torn apart.

In that moment, I finally understood that Angelo was like a block of ice. No matter how much warmth I gave him, even if the ice melted, it would only become water that I could never hold onto. So many thoughts rushed through my head all at once.

Mrs. Lombardi tried to say a few words to comfort me, but when she saw that I was really going to leave, she suddenly knelt in front of me and even bowed her head to the floor.

“Sophia, this is all my fault,” she said, crying.

“I didn’t teach my grandson properly and I allowed him to do something so cruel. Please, I promise he will make it up to you. Only you can help control Angelo’s nightmare disorder. I beg you, please forgive him, if not for his sake, then for the help I gave to your people before … ”

It was just like that scene seven years ago when she came to our village.

But this time, I would not turn back. Angelo’s nightmare disorder no longer had anything to do with me. I didn’t care anymore whether he lived or died.

When Mrs. Lombardi realized that I was serious about leaving, she sighed again and again. She looked like she wanted to tear Maria apart with her bare hands. Meanwhile, the doctor said my body was still too weak and I needed a few days of rest before the abortion could be done.

I booked the appointment for the day after tomorrow and left the hospital with what little strength I had left.

After cremating the bodies of my grandmother and my son, I brought their ashes back to the mansion. But as soon as I opened the front door, something heavy hit me on the forehead. I stumbled backward and accidentally knocked over the incense and candles by the entrance.

The hot wax burned my hand, while my eyes were filled with tears from the pain.

When I looked up, I saw a small cloth doll. It was about the size of a walnut, covered in dried herbs and stuck into a piece of torn cloth that used to be a peace blessing.

I spoke without thinking, “This isn’t from my grandma-”

Before I could finish, Angelo grabbed my wrist hard and shouted with rage.

“If not her, then who else? It had to be your evil Romani Family! Your grandmother embroidered that peace blessing for Maria as a gift, but you dare to hide a cursed spell inside the doll!”

“I’m warning you … if anything happens to Maria or her baby, I’ll make sure you and your dead grandmother are buried with them!”

The blister on my hand burst from the pressure. In fact, the pain made my vision go black for a second. But Angelo wasn’t done. His anger hadn’t cooled at all.

He called for the bodyguard to hold me in place and handed a wooden ruler to Maria.

“She keeps trying to hurt you. You haven’t had the chance to fight back before, but now I’m giving you the chance. Go ahead, Maria! Take your revenge!”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

My grandmother was already dead because of them and now they were using the peace blessing she had lovingly embroidered to frame her!

I took a deep breath and said, “The fabric of that doll is clearly different from the one used in the peace blessing.”

“My grandma was locked up by you and forced to make endless peace blessings, so how would she have had the time or strength to make something new like that to harm Maria?”

“My grandmother lived with honesty and dignity. I won’t let you smear her name like this.”

Angelo’s eyebrows furrowed and he stayed quiet. Slowly, he reached out to take the ruler back. However, Maria grabbed the ruler before he could and without a second thought, she slapped me across the face.

I felt the sting of blood in my mouth right away. My lips burst open and I tasted metal as pain shot through my jaw. Cold sweat broke out on my forehead.

Before I could even stand straight, the second hit came.

Then, she raised the ruler again for a third time.

However, Angelo finally stepped in and grabbed her wrist.

“Maria, what are you doing?” he shouted.

Maria’s eyes were full of jealousy and anger as she spoke with hatred.

“Angelo, this bitch killed my entire family! She’s so good with words, so you really believe that her grandmother didn’t make this cursed doll?”

“Fine! I see it now. You still have feelings for her. If that’s the case, I’ll end this pregnancy and become a nun again. I’ll leave this world and go pray for the rest of my life!”

She turned around dramatically and acted like she was going to leave.

Angelo’s face turned pale. He ran after her, full of worry and picked her up like a princess. Then he turned around and kicked me hard in the chest.

“Drag her out! Make her kneel for three hours!”

He carried Maria into the bedroom.

A little while later, I heard the sounds of the two of them making love. The bodyguard finally let go of me. Unfortunately, I quickly lost all the strength in my legs. Immediately, I collapsed to the floor and fainted.