Chapter 4

Chapter 4

In truth, reality will always hit harder than anything you can imagine.

And this blow completely overturned everything I thought I had known about Ji Huaike for the past fourteen years. It also overturned everything I thought I knew about my in-laws.

I felt as if I had been living in The Truman Show all these years.

Let’s start with Ji Huaike’s dashcam.

This model of dashcam could store up to fourteen days of footage, though some emergency recordings would be saved permanently.

When I inserted the memory card into the adapter and connected it to my computer, my palms were slick with sweat.

I hoped it was all just me being paranoid. I hoped my suspicions were getting the better of me.

But the moment I saw the footage, every drop of blood in my body seemed to freeze.

Every day after Ji Huaike left the house, he would first go to Cuiting Royal Villa to pick up a mother and daughter.

I knew the woman. She was Qin Mengrou, the administrative manager at Ji Huaike’s good friend’s company. He had even been the one to introduce her to that job.

He had told me Qin Mengrou was a former high school classmate of his, that she was divorced and raising a child on her own, and that life wasn’t easy for her, so he had helped put in a recommendation.

The little girl looked about seven or eight. She was a student at Experimental Primary School, and Ji Huaike had been taking her to school every day these past few days.

The dashcam only had a single lens, so while the car was moving, it couldn’t capture the people inside. But it did record sound.

The little girl called Ji Huaike “Daddy.”

The woman called Ji Huaike “darling.”

She even reminded him, “Remember to delete the dashcam footage in time. If she finds out, things will get messy.”

He replied, “I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry. She won’t check this stuff. I’ve been sick these past few years, and she’s been running around taking care of me. I text you right in front of her, and she doesn’t even glance at my chat window.

“All her attention is on my health. The medicine that old Chinese doctor she found prescribed for me really does work. If it weren’t for her, I might not have lived until today.”

The little girl giggled. “Daddy, does that mean she’s an idiot? Mommy always says she’s a stupid woman, a workhorse slaving away for our whole family.”

After a few seconds of silence, Ji Huaike laughed and gave a soft “Mm.”

As if encouraged, the little girl went on, “Last time Mommy and I went to see Grandma, Grandma said that woman was stupid too. She said if it weren’t for the fact that she was still useful, she would definitely make you bring Mommy and me home.

“Grandma also said that once Mommy gives birth to a little brother, she’ll have you bring us home.”

How could I describe how I felt then?

I thought I would be furious. That I would break down. That I would go insane. Or maybe that I would grab a knife and go kill them all.

But in the end, I only let out a bitter laugh through my tears, then raised my hand and slapped myself hard across the face twice.

My husband had slept beside me for eight years, yet I had never once noticed that he had been lying to me all along.

That was my fault.

I had actually been naive enough to believe there was such a thing as love that endured through thick and thin in this world.

That was even more my fault!

And then there were my in-laws, whom I had always treated with the filial devotion of a daughter to her own parents…

I was the one who gave them the chance to deceive me. I was the one who never guarded against them. That was why they had been able to play me like a puppet in the palms of their hands.

So the person who deserved to be slapped was me.

After I took that first, heart-wrenching step through blood and tears, my state of mind became much calmer.

So when I saw the hidden camera in the study capture Ji Huaike opening the safe in the secret compartment, revealing gleaming gold bars, jewelry, and stacks upon stacks of cash inside, I didn’t find it quite so impossible to accept.

I had never seen any of these valuables before. I hadn’t even known they existed.

So I did not believe for one second that Ji Huaike intended to leave any of it to me.

What, was I supposed to believe that after hiding all this from me so carefully before, he would suddenly take it out on his deathbed and blind me with the brilliance of it all? Honey, look, a surprise I prepared for you before I died!

Heh…

I couldn’t laugh.

He seemed to be agonizing over how to divide up the assets. He kept writing and sketching on a sheet of paper, then irritably tearing it apart and throwing it into the trash.

I supposed anyone would be agitated at a time like that.

With so much money in his hands, yet death waiting right around the corner, how could his heart possibly be at peace?

I stared coldly at the footage in front of me as hatred slowly flooded my heart.