Sterile Vows, Stolen Child

On the day of my prenatal checkup, I discovered that my husband had booked me a post-miscarriage care package instead of a postpartum recovery suite.

I was about to laugh it off as a mistake when he said flatly:

I didn't get it wrong. Actually, there's something I need to come clean about.

I've been keeping a college student on the side. She's pregnant, and I've already put her through enough. I can't let her child suffer too.

My voice trembled uncontrollably:

"Are you planning to divorce me and marry her?"

He smiled and said:

"No. You'll be my only wife for life. Besides, your parents are dead. Where would you even go if we divorced?"

"I just want you to adopt Nina's child. I'm having you abort yours because I'm worried you'd favor your own child later and mistreat mine and Nina's."

He calmly handed me the surgical consent form:

"Be good. I promise, you'll always be Mrs. Turner."

I looked at him deeply, then turned and staggered toward the operating room.

"No need. Ethan Turner, I hope you never regret the decision you're making today."

He didn't know that in this world, I was the only one who could bear children for hima man cursed with azoospermia and sterility.

I woke up three days later.

The first words I heard were:

"Mr. Turner, you really took a huge risk this time. Not only did you force the abortion of an eight-month fetus, but you also demanded her uterus be removed at the same time. Your wife almost bled outwe nearly lost her."

Ethan's indifferent voice responded:

"I promised Nina that I'd only ever have one child in this lifetimehers and mine. The safest way to ensure that is to have Sophia's uterus removed so she can't conceive again."

His gaze swept over and met mine directly.

Ethan showed no sign of panic. He reached over to tuck the blanket around me, saying with a touch of helplessness:

"You heard? I had no choice. Nina said that only if the wife is disabled and unable to bear children can we legally adopt. Since you needed the abortion anyway, I figured I'd have your uterus removed at the same time. Save you from going through another surgery."

Seeing tears in my eyes, he gently wiped them away, saying with slight mockery:

"I didn't expect removing the uterus during pregnancy would cause hemorrhaging. Lucky for you, the elite gynecologist I hired for Nina was already at the hospital. You benefited from Nina's good fortune and survived."

My whole body trembled as I mustered all my strength to slap his face.

My heart felt like it was tearing apart:

"Ethan, you're not human."

But my hand only grazed his cheek weakly, leaving not even a red mark.

A petite figure suddenly screamed and rushed over, slapping me hard across the face.

I fell back onto the bed, the oxygen tube slipping off as I gasped for air.

Looking up, I saw a young woman with tears in her eyes, standing in front of Ethan, shouting at me:

"How dare you hit him! Do you know he's been standing guard outside the ICU for three whole days because of you? If I hadn't brought him nutrition meals every day, he would've collapsed."

"The man I care so deeply aboutwhy should he be your tool for venting your emotions?"

I didn't miss the flash of emotion and tenderness in Ethan's eyes.

I had seen that look before.

It was the same look he gave me when I got alcohol poisoning from drinking on his behalf and miscarried our first child.

It was the same look when debt collectors threatened to chop off his hand, and I knelt crying and begging them, pawning my mother's only keepsake to buy his freedom.

I had done so much for him.

But in the end, it couldn't compare to a single tear from his new love.

My heart felt like it was being stabbed with a dull knife, over and over.

I propped myself up, looking at their affectionate display, and laughed bitterly:

"Should I be grateful to him then? Grateful that for you, he aborted my full-term baby, secretly removed my uterus, nearly killed me, yet still deigned to stay by my bedside until I woke up?"

Nina's tears fell like broken pearls.

She stared at me stubbornly:

"It's all my fault, okay?! I'm the one who hurt you! I'll atone for it, okay?!"

Like a madwoman, she shoved Ethan aside, grabbed the fruit knife from my bedside table, and thrust it toward her own belly:

"I'll cut out my baby and my uterus right now to make it up to you, okay?!"

Ethan grabbed her tightly, gripping the knife handle as blood dripped down continuously.

He looked up at me coldly, frozen in shock:

"Sophia, are you satisfied now?"

He carefully lifted the unconscious Nina in his arms and left without looking back, leaving only one sentence:

"Seems I've been too good to you, making you think you can do whatever you want. Since that's the case, you'd better learn what suffering really means."

I watched his retreating figure, laughing through my tears.

The man who once promised to cherish me forever and never let me suffer had finally died in the passage of time.

Ethan's bodyguard coldly dragged me up and threw me out the door.

"Starting today, everything Mr. Turner gave you will be taken back. If you want to keep staying in this hospital room..."

I smiled bitterly and turned to leave.

"No need. I don't want anything from Ethan anymore."

My phone and wallet were all confiscated.

Because they were all things Ethan had given me.

Penniless, I stood on the street, desperately trying to flag down a car to take me home.

But every time a kind person stopped, Ethan's bodyguard would dutifully say:

"If you're not afraid of offending Mr. Turner of Empire Group, go ahead and let her in your car."

They would shake their heads helplessly at me and quickly drive away.

The bodyguard looked at my barely-standing body and said coldly:

"Mr. Turner asked me to tell you, this is what happens when you defy him and refuse to obey. If you're willing to apologize to Miss White and agree to personally care for her during her pregnancy, he'll have me take you home."

I turned a deaf ear, simply started walking step by step toward home.

Blood dripped down my thighs onto the asphalt road, drawing sideways glances from passersby.

But I was completely numb, walking step by step until darkness fell and I finally reached my front door.

The brightly lit room drove away the cold of the deep night.

I raised my already frozen fingers and entered the passcode, but was met with an error beep.

I gritted my teeth and entered the code again and again, the system repeatedly telling me it was wrong.

Finally, the maid, annoyed beyond patience, strode over and opened the door, saying coldly:

"Ma'am, stop trying. Until you apologize to sir, you can't use anything sir bought."

"This house was bought by sir. If you don't apologize, you can't come in."

She looked me up and down and sneered:

"If you ask me, just apologize already. What kind of status does Mr. Turner have? There are plenty of women out there waiting to take your place. Look at yourselfno family background, no looks. Over thirty and now you can't even have children..."

"He has another woman pregnant outside, and he still hasn't divorced you. He's already being good to you. What are you making a fuss about..."

I interrupted her softly:

"I won't go in. I just need to get one thing."

The maid choked, then said sarcastically:

"Everything you own was bought by Mr. Turner. What could possibly belong to you? You're not planning to steal Mr. Turner's jewelry and bags to sell, are you?"

I said calmly:

"I just want to get my medical test results. Is that not allowed?"

The maid rolled her eyes, went upstairs, and threw down a manila envelope at me.

I picked up the envelope and looked at the azoospermia report with Ethan's name on it, smiling silently.

This was the pre-marital medical examination report from when Ethan and I got married ten years ago.

The moment I received the test results, my feelings were mixed. I didn't know how to tell Ethan about this.

Proud as he was, how could he accept being a defective man?

How would his peers use this to suppress him?

But fortunately, the doctor told me a secretmy physiology was special. I could activate Ethan's inactive sperm and conceive.

"Miss Cole, Mr. Turner is truly blessed to marry you. You're the only person with such a special constitution I've ever encountered..."

I had thought I would bury this secret in my heart forever and never let Ethan know.

But I never imagined that one day, I would have to reveal this secret myself.

I took out the little change in my pocket, made more than a dozen copies of this document, and handed them to a courier.

Each copy had the address of a company hostile to Ethan and the private contact information of those CEOs.

I said softly:

"Please deliver these as quickly as possible. Just tell them this is a gift from Mrs. Turner. They'll definitely give you a generous tip."

Ethan, this is my final gift to you before I leave.

I hope you like it.

Leaving the marital home Ethan and I shared, I returned to the small studio apartment where we lived when we started our business ten years ago.

Back then we were dirt poor, living only in the most run-down rental in the urban village.

The environment was terrible, but we were happy then.

Too poor to afford anything but instant noodles, Ethan would lie and say he'd eaten well at business dinners, dumping both portions into my bowl.

And late at night I'd see him standing at the sink, drinking glass after glass of tap water to fill his stomach.

Our wedding ceremony was held in that shabby rental too.

No banquet, just a plain silver ring that cost less than a thousand dollars.

This place meant everything to me.

So even after we moved to a luxury villa worth a hundred thousand per square meter, I secretly bought that rental property, fantasizing that when Ethan and I grew old, we'd move back there to live.

I never imagined that one day, when my marriage to Ethan ended, I would return to where we first began.

I turned the doorknob and pushed open the door to see two intertwined figures on the sofa.

And the matching couple's pajamas I had treasured in the closetthe ones Ethan and I once worewere now on Ethan and Nina.

My mind went blank. I couldn't control my questioning:

"Ethan! How could you bring her here! You know this is our"

Before I could finish, Nina had already efficiently slapped herself across the face.

With a swollen face, she stood in front of Ethan, glaring at me with tears:

"Mrs. Turner, I just wanted to understand Ethan's past life, so I begged him to bring me here."

"If you're unhappy, I can kneel and apologize to you. Just please stop hurting him."

Ethan was heartbroken. He cupped her face, blowing on it repeatedly.

He looked coldly at the bodyguard.

The bodyguard behind me immediately grabbed my arms. His hand like a fan slapped my face hard.

Over and over, my ears rang.

I don't know how long it lasted before they finally stopped and released me.

I fell to the floor. Ethan looked at me with an expressionless face:

"Sophia, why do you insist on making yourself miserable? If you're not feeling well, just go home and rest. Why did you have to follow us here to cause trouble?"

I smiled bitterly:

"Go home? Do I still have a home? Is it even my home anymore?"

I looked at him with red eyes, tears mixing with nosebleed dripping on the floor:

"Ethan, why did you bring her here..."

"You can fool around with her anywhere you want! Why did you have to defile this place!"

"The thirty-year-old Ethan is already rotten to the core. Why do you have to destroy the only memory the twenty-year-old Ethan left me?"

Ethan's eyes flickered for a moment, but then turned to anger:

"I'm rotten to the core? How am I rotten? Sophia, don't forgetif it weren't for me, you'd be stuck in this cramped rental for life!"

"Don't forget, the money you used to buy this place came from my account! This place belongs to me too! I can do whatever I want with it!"

He laughed bitterly in anger:

"You say I'm defiling this place by coming here?! Forget defiling iteven if I blow up this dump, it's none of your business."

He had his men drag me out and placed several pounds of explosives outside the shabby building.

With one command, the house that held our only happy memories together was reduced to rubble.

In the flames filling the sky, my tears wouldn't stop falling.

Ethan stared at the tears on my face.

His anger dissipated somewhat, his tone cold:

"Sophia, what do I have to say to make you understand?"

"I gave you the status of Mrs. Turner. I let you live in the best villa. I let you carry bags worth hundreds of thousands. Even the clothes you're wearing now are haute couture that ordinary people could never afford in their lifetime. Haven't I been good enough to you?!"

"You're already thirty years old. You're not young anymore. Do you really expect me to still love an aging you?"

"I give you the dignity of being my wife, I give you a comfortable life. All you need to do is turn a blind eye and accept Nina and the child. Is that so hard?"

I met his gaze and said word by word:

"I'm not willing."

"Ethan, you've erased everything we had with your own hands."

"Let's divorce."

Anger and irritation flashed in Ethan's eyes.

He looked at me and said flatly:

"Divorce? Impossible. Even if I don't love you anymore, you're still my most important person. I won't divorce you."

He looked at me, saying each word clearly:

"Sophia, I've never wronged you. If anyone's been wronged, it's NinaI couldn't give her a proper status, making her stay with me without name or title in her best years."

"I was going to give you some dignity, but I didn't expect you to be so unreasonable, making things this ugly."

He turned around, knelt on one knee, pulled out a huge pigeon-egg diamond ring from his pocket, and said affectionately to Nina:

"Nina, I regret meeting you so late."

"I can't give you a proper status in this lifetime, but I want to give you the grandest wedding and let everyone know you're the one I love most."

Nina covered her mouth, her eyes reddening, but she still turned her head away, looking dejected:

"I can't accept! I love you, so I'm willing to put aside my self-respect and degrade myself to be your mistress, but I don't want everyone to know I'm your mistress!"

"Unless..."

She turned to look at me:

"Unless Mrs. Turner witnesses our wedding and admits in front of everyone that the unloved one is the real mistress, that she's the third wheel!"

I looked expressionlessly at the malice in the young woman's eyes.

Seeing my silence, Ethan said coldly:

"Sophia, don't forgetyour parents' ashes are buried in the cemetery I bought."

"You wouldn't want them to end up like this house... would you?"

My heart felt like a huge chunk had been carved out with a knife. Even breathing tasted like blood.

I slowly nodded.

"Fine. I'll go."

Nina broke into a smile and threw herself into Ethan's arms.

He took Nina to order wedding dresses and book the venue.

Before leaving, he paused.

Rarely, he explained to me peacefully:

"Sophia, it's just a wedding. It won't shake your position as Mrs. Turner."

I said calmly:

"Okay."

He looked at me deeply, finally showing a smile:

"You don't need to take care of Nina during this time. Rest well in the hospital. After the baby is born, we'll take the child on a family trip. Consider it my compensation to you."

I still calmly said okay.

Only then did Ethan leave satisfied.

On the wedding day, Ethan was afraid I'd cause trouble, so he had bodyguards take me to the dressing room early to watch over me.

Nina acted coquettishly, saying her wedding dress was too heavy and she couldn't put on her shoes.

"Mrs. Turner, help me out."

Ethan frowned slightly, instinctively looking at me.

I lowered my eyes, knelt down, lifted the wedding dress, and helped her put on her shoes.

Ethan looked at me with a complicated expression, pursing his lips as if wanting to say something, but Nina pushed him.

"Honey, I'm thirsty. Go get me some orange juice."

Hearing this, Ethan smiled and ruffled her hair, then turned and walked out.

As soon as he left, Nina kicked me in the chest.

She looked at me mockingly and said:

"Sophia, you don't think I'm some gold digger clinging to a rich man, do you?"

"You probably don't knowEthan and I have been in love for nearly ten years too."

Seeing the shock in my eyes, she smiled viciously:

"Ethan said I was too young and shouldn't suffer with him, so he only dated me while marrying you."

"He was afraid of wronging me. The first money he earned, he told you was taken by debt collectors, but actually he bought me designer bags. Every time I felt wronged, he'd have those people come to your house and stage debt collection scenes, taking the money to buy me bags."

"One million eight hundred thousand in total. Oh, and there was a worthless bracelet that I threw away."

My whole body trembled uncontrollably.

One million eight hundred thousandthat was the money I earned over those years to pay off Ethan's debts.

At my most exhausted, I even collapsed on the assembly line and nearly got pulled into the machinery.

When Ethan found out, he held me trembling, saying it was his fault.

How ridiculous that I comforted him then, smiling and saying I didn't blame him...

It was all fake!

He'd been lying to me all along!

Nina kept chattering:

"Later when you got pregnant, I was so angry I wouldn't let him touch me. So he staged a scene with business partners, getting you so drunk you miscarried. You don't even knowwhen you were unconscious in the operating room, he was calling me, begging me not to be angry at him."

These words hit me like a bludgeon. Everything went dark before my eyes.

Nina's face suddenly turned vicious, full of resentment as she looked at me:

"But he loves me so much, yet still won't divorce you and marry me!"

"You're just relying on Ethan's soft heart and sentimentality, relying on the fact that you suffered through his startup days with him to suppress me."

She suddenly laughed:

"Tell meif Ethan knew you hurt the child in my belly, would he still care about that bit of history between you two?"

All my hair stood on end. I immediately turned to run out.

Behind me, Nina grabbed a champagne bottle and smashed it hard against her own belly, screaming.

"Ethan! Save me!"

The dressing room door was kicked open by Ethan. He grabbed my wrist and threw me to the floor.

His eyes were bloodshot as he looked at Nina collapsed on the ground, blood spreading from under her dress.

"It wasn't me..."

My explanation was choked off by Ethan's hand around my throat.

His eyes blood-red, he roared at me:

"Sophia! You won't even spare a child! You disgust me!!"

"You caused Nina to lose her child. Don't blame me for going after your dead parents."

Through my terrified, agonized tears, he directly ordered:

"Dig up Sophia's parents' graves. Grind their bones to dust and flush them down the sewers."

"No!"

I screamed:

"Ethan! You maniac! The dressing room has surveillance cameras! Go check them! It wasn't me!!"

Sophia trembled as she stood up, turned and ran toward the window:

"Without the child, what's the point of living? I might as well die!"

"Mrs. Turner, frame me however you want!"

Ethan's face changed drastically. He shoved me aside and rushed over to grab Sophia.

He looked at me with a cold expression, saying each word clearly:

"Sophia, you've exhausted the last bit of affection I had for you. For hurting my love and my child, I won't let you off."

He said coldly:

"Send her to prison. Tell the people inside to take good care of her."

"I don't want her to have a single good day in there."

...

Ethan ran red lights all the way to the hospital.

He carried Nina and rushed directly into the emergency room:

"Save my love and my child! If you can save my child, I'll donate ten million to your hospital!"

The on-duty doctor was startled and stared at Ethan in shock:

"Mr. Turner?"

He frowned, looking at Ethan, then at Nina lying pale and fragile on the bed.

He asked in confusion:

"Your child? Mr. Turner, you have azoospermia and are infertile. How could you have a child?"