When the nurses wheeled my son into the emergency room, they asked me for a one-hundred-thousand-yuan deposit. I held the critical condition notice and called my husband, Gu Mingli. On the ninety-ninth call, he finally answered. "What kind of cough costs a hundred thousand?" "It is acute laryngeal edema. The doctor says he is suffocating." On his end, Lin Shuya laughed softly. "I won the bet. She is using the child as an excuse to get money again." Gu Mingli's voice cooled. "All household expenses must be submitted to Shuya for review. This is an unplanned expense. There is no price comparison and no prior report. She needs time to approve it." I knelt at the payment window and called everyone I knew. No one could produce a hundred thousand in ten minutes. My bank card had long been frozen and controlled by Gu Mingli. I could not even take a temporary loan. I sent him the documents again. An hour later he replied: "If you want money, follow the process." At that moment the doctor came out of the emergency room. "The child was severely deprived of oxygen when he arrived. We could not save him. I am sorry." I held Guoguo in the morgue all night. At dawn I took out my phone, numb, and made a list: cremation, funeral, cemetery plot. I compared prices for every item and kept every receipt. I was waiting for Gu Mingli to come home and approve it one last time.0

Seventeen hours after Guoguo died, Gu Mingli video-called me. He was stretched out on a beach chair, the sea behind him. When he saw the hospital room, he paused. "A normal cough, and you check him into a hospital. Using the child to make a scene. You will bear this excessive expense yourself." I looked at him coldly. Our son was dead, and his first words were about accounting. "What kind of expense is the three-million bag you bought Tangtang?" His face stiffened. "They are different." He rubbed his brow. "My brother died saving me. I have to take care of them." "And the group-buy approval system was your idea too. You agreed to it. Why are you competing with them?" There it was again, the same reason. I had heard it for three years. I said, "Gu Mingli, Guoguo is dead." The words landed. He blinked. "What?" "He died at nine last night. I called you ninety-nine times. Your sister-in-law was betting with you that I was lying." The beach behind him blurred as he sat up. "Do not joke about that." "I am not joking." His mouth opened. Then his mother's voice came from somewhere off-screen, sharp and impatient. "What is she saying now? Do not let her ruin the holiday." I hung up.0

Gu Mingli's mother arrived before he did. She walked into the hospital, looked at me sitting on the floor with Guoguo's blanket in my arms, and said, "You could not even keep a child alive. What use are you?" Then she had the nanny throw my suitcase into the courtyard. I picked myself up and gathered my scattered phone and documents. The screen was cracked. My bank cards, ID, and household register were all there. Years ago, the Gu family had frozen my accounts so I could not open credit cards or take loans. Everything was in Gu Mingli's name. When I protested, he held me and coaxed me: "I finally married you. I am afraid you will run away." If I argued, he accused me of not loving him, of marrying him for his money. Only now did I understand what he had taken from me. It was not a bank card. It was control over my own life. At the bottom of the bag lay a divorce agreement. Gu Mingli's signature was already on it. Before the wedding, his mother had hidden it among the prenuptial documents and tricked him into signing. It said that if I initiated the divorce, I would leave with nothing, and the children would belong to the Gu family. But Guoguo was dead. He could not belong to anyone now. I signed my name and left the house.0