“Mr. Morris’s antidote is almost done fusing successfully. Are you really going to leave?”
Vera Wilson stood in front of the experiment table and nodded. After her fifth miscarriage surgery, her face looked unnaturally pale.
Everyone in the capital knew that Vera was the student Caius Morris treasured the most.
However, after that night five years ago, nothing stayed the same.
Caius had been drugged with a rare aphrodisiac. From then on, every month, he needed to sleep with the woman who had shared his bed during the first month.
Back when Vera willingly became his antidote that night, she likely never imagined it would lead to this outcome.
Night after night, she suffered under Caius’s hatred.
“Vera, you know I hate women who do everything they can just to climb into my bed.”
And that was not all. To punish her, Caius married Ophelia Chavez in a lavish wedding the next day. Ophelia had bullied Vera for ten years.
The pain from her lower abdomen made Vera stumble backward against the experiment table.
Test tubes broke all over the floor. Caius merely narrowed his eyes and gave her a cold glance.
“Stop pretending. Acting pitifully is useless. I spent five years training you, not for you to fail at the most important moment.”
Vera gave a bitter smile and slowly pushed herself back to her feet. The phone Caius had left on the table suddenly vibrated.
“Caius, our daughter has a fever. When are you coming back?”
At that moment, Vera felt as though a knife had painfully carved flesh out of her heart.
But it no longer mattered.
The antidote was almost done fusing. Soon, she would finally be free.
——
1
Following the fifth miscarriage, Vera stood in front of the laboratory operating table, her face terribly white.
To cover the weakness left after the miscarriage, she could only force herself to come back and help Caius finish the last group of experiments.
Three years ago, Caius had been drugged with a rare aphrodisiac medicine, and Vera, who happened to walk past, accidentally became the antidote for him.
Unexpectedly, the medicine turned out to be long-lasting, and every month he needed to sleep with the woman who had first cured him.
On every night that nearly crushed Vera apart, the man’s harsh movements carried a hatred that couldn’t be described clearly.
Yet Vera silently endured it all without complaints.
Because she had already deeply fallen in love with this man in her heart, her older professor.
Right then, the laboratory door got pushed open, and Caius entered with coldness surrounding his whole body.
He remained the same elegant and clean Professor Morris, the eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses distant and sensible.
When he passed beside Vera, the man didn’t even spare her a second glance.
Vera’s hand holding the test tube trembled. The painful cramps in her lower stomach almost made her collapse.
She raised her head and stared at his handsome face, her voice sounding weak.
“Teacher, there’s nothing wrong with the data. But I don’t feel well physically, and I’d like to ask for leave to go home and rest.”
Caius stopped moving the mouse. He lifted his head and looked over Vera’s pale lips, but his voice carried no sympathy at all.
“Vera, I spent five years teaching you, not for you to fall apart at a critical moment.”
“This problem only needs a few hours to solve, but the moment we start, you already want to use your suffering to receive special treatment?”
The word “problem” painfully struck Vera’s ears.
She had once thought that even if they didn’t marry, after she miscarried five children for him, he would at least feel slightly affected.
“I’m not trying to get special treatment.”
Vera held back the salty taste rising in her throat.
“I just… really hurt.”
“If you feel pain, then take painkillers.”
Caius stood and walked over to her. His slim fingers strongly held her chin, forcing her to lift her head.
“Since the day you drugged me and got into my bed, I stopped having feelings for you. It’s a good thing the child is gone. Your dirty thoughts about me can finally be cut off.”
Vera remained still while listening to those heartless and distant words.
In the next moment, the phone on the table shook once.
Because the space between them was close, she clearly saw the text message.
“Caius, daughter has a fever. When are you coming back?”
It was sent by Ophelia.
That name became like a painful thorn buried in Vera’s heart, one that could never be taken out again.
Five years earlier, Vera and Caius spent one wild night together.
But the following day, Caius brought Ophelia to register their marriage, and less than a month later, he held a huge wedding that shook all of Garden City.
Caius was the top surgeon in the capital, and many people fought for the chance to study under him.
Five years earlier, Vera and Ophelia, known as the “Holland Surgery Twin Flowers,” became Caius’s interns after passing many rounds of selection.
“The kind of people I dislike most are shameless people who use dirty tricks.”
The first time Vera heard those words was during her first meeting with Caius. It was his warning to her.
The second time she heard those words was on the bed after Caius had been drugged. That time, it became her punishment.
Vera couldn’t understand why that single night changed so many things.
Before that night, she had been the young student Caius cared about the most.
Resources, contacts, money, anything she asked for, Caius handed to her.
He even willingly let her rise higher by using his own position to support her.
When Vera’s experiment ran into problems, Caius immediately pushed aside a lecture worth seven figures just to stay beside her.
When Vera was wrongly blamed for plagiarism, Caius sent that person to prison the same night.
People in the academic world all knew how much Caius treasured this young student.
Until that night came, and he announced that he was completely cutting ties with Vera.
After that, every bit of hate fell onto Vera.
Envy, revenge, and rejection pushed down on her until she almost stopped breathing, just like now when she saw the message on Caius’s phone.
After that crazy night, Vera asked him why he had to marry Ophelia and why that person had to be her.
More than twenty years of Vera’s life had passed under Ophelia’s bullying.
Although Vera scored 15 points above Ophelia in the college entrance exam, Ophelia sent her to a factory in the suburbs and locked her up for 15 days.
Only because Vera’s graduation project earned a higher score than Ophelia’s and received an award, Ophelia immediately hired people to kidnap her and break her hand.
Vera would never forget the scene after she entered Caius’s house, when he slapped Ophelia in public to protect her.
She also would never forget that night when she desperately asked him for the reason, and Caius answered, “I love her.”
Vera couldn’t understand why one night together erased the feelings between them for the past three years, and why he later turned to say he loved Ophelia.
Even after Caius announced his marriage, outsiders still believed that Vera was the woman he would marry.
Ophelia called once more to hurry him, and the child’s innocent voice came through the phone.
If the baby inside Vera hadn’t been aborted, the child should’ve been around this age, too.
Every time Vera thought about that child, her tears fell uncontrollably.
Before Caius left, he set a bank card in front of her.
“Why cry? Is it because I didn’t pay you last time?”
“At the normal price, a night with someone like you is worth two thousand.”
After speaking, Caius walked out without turning back.
Vera firmly squeezed the card, and the corner painfully dug into her hand.
Since that night, she had stayed beside Caius. Every full moon each month, he harshly wanted her once.
Using money to insult her wasn’t something new anymore. She should’ve already accepted it by now.
Still, hearing those words from Caius made her chest hurt.
Vera remained beside the experiment table, forcing herself to bear the pain in her lower stomach while placing the last result into the incubator.
The antidote for the aphrodisiac medicine inside Caius’s body was stored there.
Looking at the fused result inside the incubator, Vera slowly forced out a faint smile.
Once she finished preparing the remaining experiment materials, the woman returned home.
Although she called it “home,” it was really just a cage Caius used to lock her inside.
Other than the laboratory, this was the only place she could remain.
The moon tonight was full, and Caius came back.
“I just finished a miscarriage surgery. Can we stop earlier tonight?”
In the dark room, Vera’s shaky voice quietly sounded out.
Yet Caius’s actions still carried no softness at all.
The more she pleaded with him, the harsher Caius became.
Vera knew this was punishment against her because she loved him.
Still, it no longer mattered. This suffering would only happen one final time.
It was almost complete. Seven days later, once the medicine fully blended inside the incubator, the antidote would be successful.
And she, the “antidote,” would finally be released.
