Watching all the life-saving medicine flushed down the toilet, Merlin's eyes widened in fury.
"Even tigers don't eat their cubs! Dave, how could you bear to treat your own son like this?”
“How could you bear to watch him die? How could you be so heartless?!" Her desperate roar was no match for Lily's rushing figure.
"Dave, my lower body is itchy. The doctor said I should hand-wash my underwear, but these servants' hands are too rough." Her eyes pointedly fixed on Merlin, she sighed softly.
"My sister's hands have been pampered for years, so they're delicate. Unfortunately, in my sister's eyes, I'm just someone unworthy of being presented to the public..."
A pampered, free nanny?
Watching him clutch the last half of the special medicine, she sneered coldly.
"You should know what to do." Merlin slumped to the ground, never having hated anyone so much.
The child's heart-wrenching cries and the child's vomiting of blood were nothing to him; Lily washing her underwear was his top priority.
Did not being loved mean even living became a luxury?
The underwear had a large patch of yellowish, sticky discharge at the crotch, with a single hair still attached.
If Dave had never been serious about her, it would be one thing, but he had once been passionate and devoted; how could he now be even more depraved than others?
She washed it in humiliation, enduring the nausea, painstakingly scraping away the filth with her fingernails, losing even the last shred of dignity, thinking this would buy Luther's life-saving medicine, but he treated Luther's life like a game.
"Kneel down, apologize, repent for what you've done." He glanced at them coldly, then quickly looked away, as if not worth a second longer.
Everyone expected Merlin to throw a tantrum, to become hysterical. But this time, she was quiet, silent and didn't utter a single unnecessary word.
She knelt down, kneeling in repentance. "It was my fault."
"My fault was handing out flyers on the freezing streets, my hands covered in chilblains, just to buy you your favorite birthday cake."
"My fault was risking my life to give birth to Luther just because you said the child was cute."
"My biggest fault was willingly sacrificing for you all these years, never causing you any trouble, thinking you could see all my goodness, only to become the funniest joke in the world!" Her smile remained, but her eyes had long lost their liveliness, filled only with endless hatred.
"Dave, either save Luther, or kill me now, otherwise, I will make you pay a hundredfold, a thousandfold price!!"
On the last day, Luther finally recovered. The ward was piled with small cakes and paper airplanes that Dave had sent, as if in apology.
"That day, thankfully, Mr. Carlson contacted Mr. Vincent, otherwise the child would have been in danger." Merlin's hand trembled as she fed Luther porridge, her head turning away blankly.
"Who did you say?"
The nurse, after taking her temperature.
"Mr. Carlson, the top-ranked of Frostvale City's Ten Outstanding Youths."
Her heart suddenly ached and she instinctively gripped her spoon tightly, only to hear the nurse teasingly say, "You two are truly blessed. You're complete strangers to Mr. Carlson, yet he's so kind as to rescue you simply because you live next door to his beloved wife."
"This kind of fortune is something most people couldn't accumulate in several lifetimes."
"What?" Her breath caught in her throat, her heart nearly stopping.
She ran next door, overwhelmed with bitterness, only to find Dave and Lily, mother and son, enjoying a harmonious family meal of an eighteen-layer cake.
The room was filled with paper airplanes he had folded himself, beautiful and neat, a stark contrast to the ones he made for Luther.
She stood there dumbfounded outside the door, like an alien.
"Mr. Carlson really dotes on his wife. I heard that his wife and child only sneezed and he immediately called in the top asthma doctor overnight, afraid that anything might happen to them."
The nurse said enviously, but Merlin smiled numbly and said through the glass window, "That's nice." Then she turned and left.
Yes, they were the real family; she and Luther were just a tool for practice.
The child was still young and didn't know what a bonus was; he only knew that this little cake was exceptionally exquisite.
"Mommy, did Daddy make up for his loss, so he gave me a little cake as a reward?"
Merlin couldn't bear to dampen the child's joy, so she forced a smile and asked softly, "Luther, how about we get a different daddy?"
