Chapter 2

People on the bus stared at me with strange looks, as if I were some kind of freak.

At the hospital, the doctor frowned when he saw my injuries.

"If these wounds aren't treated soon, they'll leave permanent scars."

After surgery, I rested in the hospital room.

Suddenly, a deafening boom of fireworks erupted outside.

"What's going on out there?"

The nurse turned on the TV:

"Apparently some rich guy set off fireworks across the whole city to impress his girlfriend. He's planning a big surprise proposal too."

The screen cut to photos of Archer and Melody.

The two of them stood beneath the fireworks, looking like a perfect couple.

Meanwhile, here I was, lying in a hospital bed, covered in painful burns.

Each burst of fireworks felt like it was mocking my misery.

Just then, my phone started buzzing nonstop.

I opened the messages to see several texts from Melody.

"Archer hired those reporters on purpose. He says someone like you doesn't deserve to be a mother."

Next was a video clip.

"Her? Some circus performer thinks she can have a relationship with me? I feel cheap just sleeping with her."

"She keeps losing one baby after another. Can't even keep one. She's utterly useless.""Don't worry about me. Seeing her suffer brings me joy. She wants to have children, doesn't she? The more she wants to have them, the more I'll make sure she can't!"

I never imagined Archer could be so heartless.

"Oh, and Archer also said that the baby you miscarried couldn't possibly have been his. He said with a woman like you, who knows whose child it was?"

Not his?

Then whose were my four lost children?

I couldn't help but think back to when we first met.

It was the night of a charity gala, where I performed a fire dance as a stunt performer.

Archer stood in the audience, his gaze fixed intently on my every move.

"Your performance was breathtaking, as radiant as the flames themselves."

We fell in love quickly.

Archer took me to watch the sunrise from a mountaintop, kissing me in the early morning light.

He would secretly visit my rehearsal space to watch me practice.

Finally, one day, he proposed to me.

"Annie, marry me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Back then, I thought I had found the love of my life.

Until that day when I went shopping with my mother-in-law.

A car suddenly lost control and careened onto the sidewalk.I hadn't even processed what was happening when my mother-in-law forcefully shoved me aside.

Archer rushed in, but it was too late. His mother had already passed away.

I tried to comfort him, but he pushed me away.

"Why you? Why couldn't it have been you instead?"

From that day on, Archer's attitude towards me changed completely.

He was no longer gentle or considerate. He wouldn't even look at me.

Then Melody returned, igniting the emotions Archer had long suppressed.

She was Archer's first love, and the pure love that would forever hold a place in his heart.

He started meeting Melody frequently, even being intimate with her right in front of me.

Coincidentally, after my mother-in-law's death, I became pregnant several times.

Feeling guilty about her passing, I desperately wanted to carry the babies to term.

But he repeatedly allowed Melody to provoke me to my face.

He even permitted Melody to cause the death of my children.

The first time I got pregnant, I joyfully told him the news.

But he allowed Melody to send me intimate photos of them together.I shook all over, my stomach wracked with pain.

When I woke up, the doctor told me the baby was gone.

During my second pregnancy, I focused entirely on nurturing the child.

But Melody showed up at my door and deliberately pushed me down the stairs.

For my third pregnancy, I hardly dared to leave the house, terrified something would go wrong again.

Yet Melody had someone slip drugs into my food and drink.