Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I thought this farce would finally end with my death.

Sigh. If only I had agreed to divorce Ryan Bennett earlier, taken that huge sum of money, and left to live a life of luxury. I wouldn't have ended up in a state where no one would even claim my body.

But there was no use regretting it now. When I didn't reply, Ryan Bennett sent two more messages:

Ella Carter, do you really think this standoff is meaningful?

No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, I will never fall in love with you. Let go.

I tried to pick up the phone, but my fingers passed right through it.

Soon after, Ryan Bennett called. He made call after call—three or four in total—before finally stopping.

I spent the whole night in a daze. As soon as dawn broke, my mom sent me a message:

You good-for-nothing girl! Ryan Bennett said that as long as you agree to divorce him, he'll give you ten million as compensation.

In the few years you've been married to Ryan Bennett, the money you've sent home isn't even a fraction of ten million. What use are you?

Hurry up and get a divorce, take that ten million, and give it to your brother! Otherwise, don't ever come back home!

Home? Did I even have a home?

When I was little, my name was Ella Carter. My parents had always wanted a son to carry on the family line, and after I was born, they never cared much about me.

The phrases I heard most often in my childhood were:

What's the use of a girl? When she grows up, she'll just marry someone else and take care of their parents. She's nothing but a money-waster.

When I was three years old, my parents finally got the son they'd been longing for.

I envied how my brother could be held in my mom's arms, how he could act coquettishly in front of my dad, and how they showered him with endless love—the kind of love I had never known.

Our family wasn't well-off, but no matter what my brother wanted, my parents would do whatever it took to get it for him.

From childhood to adulthood, I mostly wore clothes that my cousins had outgrown. My parents thought that since daughters would eventually belong to someone else's family, it wasn't worth spending money on me. They always told me: You're the older sister, so you have to let your brother have his way. You have to take care of him.

Even when my brother made a mistake, they would only scold me for not keeping an eye on him.

I remember one winter, I was doing my homework while my brother played in the yard. He tripped and fell, crying loudly.

My mom came out of the house, picked him up to comfort him, then turned around and yelled at me for not watching him properly. She made me kneel in the yard to reflect on my mistake.

The cold wind blew fiercely, and I had no idea how long I knelt there that day.

Spoiled by my parents, my brother gradually began to treat me like a servant—as if I really was just an extra slave in the family.

Later, I poured all my hopes into studying. My teacher said that the best way to change my life was through education.

I wanted to get into a good university and leave that place. After a lot of hard work, I was finally admitted to a top-tier 985 university.

But my parents said that going to college was useless for a girl. They told me I should go out to work instead, earn money early, and save up for my brother's college education later.

Ignoring my pleas, they tore up my admission letter, hid my ID card and household registration book, and locked me up at home. They kept me there until October, when the deadline for new students to register at the university had long passed.

That time, I was really angry. I had a big fight with them and ran away from home. Later, they called the police, who found me and took me back. Once we got home, they locked the door and beat me.

They called me ungrateful and heartless. After that, they asked a relative to take me to work in an electronics factory and told that relative to keep an eye on me. Every month, I could only keep enough money for food; the rest was taken away by my parents.

I worked in that electronics factory for two years. As soon as I turned twenty, my parents started arranging blind dates for me.

All they cared about was how much betrothal money the man would give them.

Sometimes, I felt like I was just a piece of livestock to them. Life was so dark and hopeless that I thought about running away again.

So one night, I took my ID card and the only one thousand yuan I had on me and fled.

I ran to a big city where no one knew me. Without a college degree, I got a job as a waitress in a restaurant. The salary was three thousand yuan a month, plus room and board. It was in this city that I met Ryan Bennett.