Late 2044.

In her fifties, Serena Whitfield had entered the final countdown of her life.

The breast cancer had spread. Her husband, Ethan Mercer, had pulled every string he could, found the best doctors money could buy, tried everything to keep her alive. But she didn’t want to live anymore.

She had been on a hunger strike for three days.

Not a bite. Not even a sip of water.

They had been married for thirty years, yet now, at the very end, she didn’t even want to see his face again.

Inside the hospice room.

Her eyes stayed tightly shut.

Footsteps came in. She knew right away it was her husband and her own daughter coming to see her.

The doctor spoke in a heavy voice. "She’s refusing to eat. There isn’t much time left."

A long, suffocating silence spread through the room.

What little awareness she still had was slowly slipping away too.

Then, at the very end, she heard her daughter lower her voice on purpose and ask, "Mom’s finally about to go... so when are you giving Aunt Chloe a wedding?"

After a pause, Ethan said, "We’ll see. At the very least, I need to take care of her funeral first."

Her daughter let out a sigh. "Mom struggled her whole life. I seriously don’t get what she was even holding on for. If she’d just divorced you earlier, wouldn’t that have been better? Instead she pissed herself sick."

Hearing that, bitterness flooded Serena’s chest.

Why had she refused to divorce him?

It was simple.

She just wanted her daughter to have a complete family, so that when she grew up and got married, her future in-laws wouldn’t nitpick her background and look down on her.

And now, all that persistence of hers felt like a complete joke.

But whatever.

She was leaving this world that had broken her heart over and over again.

She was finally going to be free.

"She looked quiet enough, but she was stubborn to the core. Hurt herself, hurt everyone else..." Ethan muttered, his voice full of cold mockery.

Hurt herself and hurt everyone else.

What a brutal summary. Straight-up savage.

"Aunt Chloe really had it rough too. Staying with you for half her life with no title, no status. Good thing she’s finally about to see the light at the end of the tunnel," her daughter said, sounding almost relieved.

"Yeah, I owe her a lot. For the rest of my life, I’ll make it up to her." My husband’s voice was heavy with guilt, like every word scraped his throat on the way out.

Tears kept spilling from the corners of my eyes, nonstop, like someone had turned on a faucet I couldn’t shut off. So that was it. All the love I poured out, all the years I gave without asking for anything back, none of it stuck in anyone’s memory. But the woman who stepped into my home, my marriage, and quietly stayed there for years? She was the one my husband and daughter remembered.

It was honestly kind of absurd. And cruel.

Then I seemed to hear a bell ringing somewhere, distant and hollow. The next second, a wave of exhaustion crashed over me. I was so tired. So done. I really just wanted to sleep.

A sharp, blinding light suddenly stabbed into my vision. I blinked hard and dazedly opened my eyes.

Then I heard my mother’s voice by my ear, annoyed and familiar: "Serena, you’re still sleeping? Sophia’s about to get out of class."

I shot upright so fast my head spun. When I turned around, I saw my mother—my mother, who had been dead for years—standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, looping back the curtains. Outside, sunlight flooded the garden, bright and clear, the trees and grass lush and green.

"Serena, what’s with you? Still not awake?" Mom walked over, amused, and patted my arm. "Go pick up the kid. Honestly. Were you up all night reading those romance novels again? How many times have I told you not to wreck your health like that? I’m still waiting for you and Ethan to have a second baby."

"Mom..." The glaring light faded completely, and her face became clearer and clearer. I grabbed her fingers at once. Warm. They were warm. Like I’d found some priceless treasure, I pulled her hard into my arms and hugged her tight. "Mom, it’s really you? Why are you here?"

My reaction clearly freaked her out. She hurriedly pushed me back a little and reached up to touch my forehead. "Serena, did you sleep yourself silly? You were the one who said you were bored and had the driver bring me here from home to stay with you for a few days."

Her words hit me like a key turning in an old lock.

That was 2014. Just after the May holiday. My mother had taken annual leave, and I’d sent a driver to bring her from our hometown to Hangzhou because I wanted her to stay with me for a while.

Could it be...

"Alright, stop acting weird. Go pick up Sophia. Ethan’s coming home for dinner tonight, and I need to deal with those fish first." Mom spoke as she headed downstairs.

I stood there breathing hard, looking around me.

This was the villa Ethan had bought after we got married.

In 2014, our daughter, Sophia Mercer, was already six and in the top kindergarten class.

Ethan Mercer was a Hangzhou local. The family business was in his hands now as the eldest son, and he was doing a seriously great job with it. Everyone said I had married well—that I’d landed a husband who was young, handsome, and ridiculously capable.