After five years of infertility, I walked away with nothing on the day we divorced, casting off the humiliation of our five-year marriage.
Everyone waited to laugh at me, the "cast-off wife," and watch me end up destitute.
But they never expected that the one man in my ex-husband's family no one dared cross, his uncle Mu Hejin, would come looking for me.
Like a hunter with a perfect aim, he blocked every escape route. His presence was dangerous and scorching. "Why are you hiding? The Mu family owes you. I'll make it right."
Once bitten by a snake, you fear a rope for ten years.
To stay out of the Mu family's mess, I fled in a panic and avoided him like the plague.
But he kept closing in, forcefully invading my world.
"Mu Hejin, I'm your nephew's ex-wife!" I tried to use that forbidden relationship to draw a clear line between us.
He sneered, his fingertip brushing my neck and making me shiver. "So what? He was blind. I'm not."
Just when I thought this was another rich-family game, a long-buried pregnancy test report was thrown in front of my ex-husband.
Mu Hejin put an arm around my waist, his gaze imperious. "Open your eyes and take a good look. She couldn't get pregnant by you?" He paused, then each word crashed like thunder: "Because the baby she's carrying is mine!"
My ex-husband was beside himself with rage, and the family was thrown into chaos.
The man who had backed me into a corner leaned close and whispered in my ear, his possessiveness leaving no room for doubt:
"Now nobody dares laugh at you. Get ready to be my Mrs. Mu, hmm?"
