My Husband Married Me to Steal My Soul

1: 1

Ever since I got pregnant, it was like a starving ghost had moved into my belly.

I could pack away enough for seven or eight people in a single sitting, and still I needed to snack around the clock.

If I didn't, the hunger would drive me half-mad, and my stomach would cramp up in sharp, twisting waves.

And yet, eating like that, I kept dropping weight anyway and every checkup came back normal.

To keep my strength up, my mother-in-law was up before dawn and busy till late, cooking me a different nourishing meal every day.

Watching her bustle around for me, I was so touched I couldn't help snapping a photo and posting it to the old dorm group chat:

What's it like to have a spirit-medium grandmother for a mother-in-law?

Everyone in the comments was envying my luck, saying I was blessed.

Until one comment popped up out of nowhere:

Blessed, my foot. This isn't nourishing a pregnancy at all.

The demon fetus in your belly is almost fully formed. Keep stuffing your face and you can wait to die with it two lives, one corpse.

A shudder ran through me, and the bird's nest soup in my mouth suddenly lost all its flavor.

Another message came through.

Your whole body's been swollen lately, hasn't it? And the morning sickness keeps getting worse?

And no matter how much you eat, you feel this frantic, gnawing hunger, and you keep losing weight?

Tilda Fox's messages came one after another, and my face went cold.

Tilda, all that cultivation stuff finally fry your brain?

You just can't stand seeing anyone else happy, so you make up garbage like this. How can you have such a black heart?

Back in college, Tilda and I lived in the same dorm.

She was always muttering strange things.

One minute the dorm had bad feng shui, the next somebody had gotten latched onto by something unclean.

After all these years since graduation, I'd assumed she'd finally straightened out.

Turns out she was exactly the same.

I was about to lay into her again when the empty bowls on the dining table caught the corner of my eye, and a guilty little twinge crept in.

Lately my appetite really had gotten out of hand.

At lunch today, my mother-in-law had made five dishes and a soup.

Braised pork ribs, steamed sea bass, chicken soup, bird's nest, and a big platter of beef.

I'd polished off nearly all of it by myself.

And even then, my stomach still felt hollow and desperate, like there was a bottomless pit inside me.

The moment I finished, I'd throw it all back up until the world spun.

And once I was done retching, the hunger would come roaring back so hard my vision blacked out, and I'd want nothing more than to eat all over again.

I'd always chalked it up to severe morning sickness.

After all, the hospital had checked me several times.

The baby was developing normally, and every one of my own readings came back normal too.

The doctor even smiled as he reassured me:

Every pregnant woman's constitution is different. Some just have huge appetites. As long as the tests are clear, there's no need to worry too much.

My husband and mother-in-law kept telling me the same thing.

But because of this, I still lost my job.

Last week HR called me into the office, looking helpless.

Mia Henson, you've always been one of our top performers. The company was planning to invest in you. But ever since you got pregnant, don't you think you've let yourself go a little too much?

Pregnant or not, you can't sit there gnawing on food all day long.

Do you know what your coworkers are saying about you now? They say you eat like some starving ghost come back to life.

The other day during the project pitch, you actually ate right through your own presentation. You blew a deal worth over a million dollars. The company can't absorb losses like that. You should just go home and rest up for the baby.

I explained as hard as I could that I hadn't done it on purpose.

In that moment I'd been so hungry my stomach was literally spasming.

If I hadn't eaten something, I felt like I would have passed out right there.

But not one person believed me.

They all figured I was hiding behind the pregnancy, sure the company wouldn't dare fire a pregnant woman, so I'd just gotten more and more shameless.

After I quit, I settled in at home to rest up for the baby.

Every day it was nothing but eating and sleeping.

Everyone said I was lucky.

A husband who adored me, and a spirit-medium grandmother of a mother-in-law who treated me like her own daughter.

It was just how did Tilda know all this about me?

She'd dropped out freshman year and was never close with any of us. Who'd told her?

The group chat instantly blew up:

Tilda, back to your ghost-and-demon act again?

If you're jealous of how happy Mia is, just say so. Why go around cursing people with this creepy, snide nonsense?

Who even added you back in here? Raving like a lunatic. No wonder you dropped out freshman year. Turns out you're actually insane!

Tilda didn't explain. Instead, she sent a photo.

Look familiar?

Frowning, I tapped it open, and the next second, my breath stopped dead.

In the photo was unmistakably the corpse of a pregnant woman.

But what truly made my scalp crawl was the eerie, vine-like pattern spreading across her belly.

It was exactly like the marks on mine identical.

2: 2

I stared at that photo, and cold sweat broke out across my palms in an instant.

The others were already lighting into her:

"Tilda Fox, are you sick in the head?!"

"Mia's pregnant, and you send a photo like that. Are you trying to freak her out on purpose?!"

"If you've got a problem, go get help. Don't come in here with your creepy ghost nonsense. Delete it, now!"

But Tilda acted like she hadn't seen any of it, and asked again:

"Your mother-in-law she makes you eat a goose egg every single day, doesn't she?"

My chest tightened. How did she know that too?

"What would you know?" I shot back before I could stop myself.

"My mother-in-law says goose eggs clear fetal toxins. My morning sickness has been bad, and she was worried I wasn't getting enough nutrition, so she"

Then it hit me. My appetite had shot up right around the time she'd started giving me goose eggs.

At first the nausea had been constant. I couldn't stomach a thing, and I dropped almost fifteen pounds in no time.

My mother-in-law was beside herself and rushed me to a doctor.

He said morning sickness was perfectly normal in early pregnancy, but she wasn't reassured. She was terrified my body couldn't take it.

Later she heard somewhere that goose eggs could clear fetal toxins and build me back up.

So she rode a bus for hours out to the countryside, going from one village to the next collecting goose eggs.

By the time she got back, both her hands had raw red welts pressed into them from the load.

But she just smiled at me and said:

"Mia, I don't trust the eggs you buy in stores. These are from free-range country geese. Best nutrition you can get."

After that, she cooked me a goose-egg dish every day.

Boiled goose eggs, goose-egg custard, pan-fried goose eggs, goose eggs scrambled with tomato almost every meal.

When I finally couldn't face them anymore, her whole face fell.

"Mia, these weren't easy to get."

"You're carrying a child. If you don't eat, how is your body supposed to hold up? If you fall short on nutrition, it'll break my heart."

Looking at all that worry in her eyes, I gave in, the way I always did.

From then on I made myself eat one goose egg a day.

Right then, another message came through from Tilda.

"Think about it carefully. Those marks on your bellydidn't they start showing up after you began eating the goose eggs?"

My breath caught.

Without thinking, I looked down at my swollen belly.

That creeping, vine-like red mark had spread across a wide patch of skin, though I couldn't say when.

And it really had appeared after I started eating the goose eggs.

At first it was just a small, faint patch of red.

Then the lines grew denser, the color deeper.

And at the same time, my appetite kept growing.

I'd thought the pattern looked strange, but the doctor and my mother-in-law both said it was only stretch marks.

She'd even bought me a whole stack of imported stretch-mark cream and told me to rub it on every day.

"You're six months along now. If I'm not wrong, those marks have almost reached your chest by now, haven't they?"

I froze where I sat.

Even my husband didn't know about this. So how did she?

I forced down the unease and typed back through gritted teeth:

"Quit with the spooky act! They're just normal stretch marks!"

But Tilda wrote: "Talking tough won't help you, because you"

Before she could finish, she was kicked straight out of the group.

"Mia, ignore her. She's a lunatic!"

"Sending a corpse photo is bad enough, then she makes up this garbage to scare a pregnant woman. Absolutely sick."

Just as everyone was piling on Tilda, Zoey, who hadn't said a word this whole time, suddenly typed a line.

"But do you guys remember Selina Donaldson?"

"Back then Tilda said Selina had something bad clinging to her, said she wouldn't last a month. Selina didn't believe her. And not long after, she hanged herself in a classroom at school"

The words had barely landed before someone shot it down.

"That's nonsense! Selina got depressed after a breakup, that's all. What did it have to do with Tilda?"

"She just got lucky with a wild guess, plain and simple!"

I watched the messages scroll past, and the cold in my chest kept deepening.

After turning it over and over, I decided to call Tilda and get a straight answer.

The call had just connected when my mother-in-law walked in, all smiles, carrying a bowl of scrambled goose eggs.

"Mia, here, eat these scrambled eggs. A little something extra!"

I looked at that steaming bowl of goose eggs, remembered what Tilda had said, and my stomach heaved.

Then I glanced up and met the hope in my mother-in-law's eyes,

thought of how those goose eggs had worn her ragged, and a wave of guilt washed over me.

But the second I lifted the egg to my mouth, Tilda's voice came bursting through the phone:

"Don't eat it!"

"Mia Henson, don't you get it? What you're eating isn't a goose egg at all!"

3: 3

I froze.

I looked down at the egg in the bowl. If this wasn't a goose egg, what was it?

More of her spooky nonsense.

Anger flared up in me. I snapped a photo, sent it over, and demanded:

"Look closely. If this isn't a goose egg, what is it?"

Tilda's reply came almost instantly.

"Mia, I'm not lying to you. You really can't eat any more of it"

"Once the blood-line on your belly reaches your heart, not even God himself can save you!"

"If you don't believe me, then give the goose egg to your mother-in-law or your husband. See if they dare eat it!"

And with that she hung up.

My nerves were shot. After what she'd said, I couldn't swallow the bite of egg still in my mouth.

I fought with myself for a moment, then carried the bowl out to the living room.

My mother-in-law was clearing the dishes. The second she saw the leftovers in my bowl, the smile froze on her face.

"Mia, why haven't you finished it?"

"I don't have much of an appetite today. I don't want it"

Before I could finish, she suddenly raised her voice and shouted:

"No appetite!"

"How can you have no appetite! The thing in your belly is"

Her whole face went red, her expression almost monstrous.

Then, as if she'd caught herself, she cut off mid-word. In an instant she wrenched a smile back onto her face.

"Mia, Mom isn't scolding you. I just worry about you."

"Every day you eat and throw up, throw up and eat. It's so hard to get any nutrition into you. If you don't eat, how will your body hold up?"

"These goose eggs, Mom went to several villages just to gather them. If you don't eat them, isn't it all a waste?"

As she spoke, she nudged the bowl toward me again.

My husband chimed in from beside her. "That's right, Mia. Mom means well. Just eat it!"

The two of them beamed at me, but their eyes were locked on the egg in the bowl.

Tilda's words came back to me, and my heart lurched. My instinct was to shrink away.

They kept staring at me, with a pressure that left no room for refusal. "Come on, eat!"

Without thinking, I picked up the plate and lifted it to my husband's mouth.

"If it's so good for you, then here, you eat it!"

But the moment I held it out, my mother-in-law shrieked behind me:

"He can't eat it!"

Slap! She knocked the plate out of my hand, and it shattered across the floor.

My heart clenched, and I turned to look at her.

That face, gentle and kind only moments ago, was now so dark it was almost dripping.

She glared at me for several seconds, then abruptly split into a tender smile again.

"You're just not hungry yet, aren't you? It's fine. When you get hungry later, Mom will make you more."

Her smile was gentle, but a chill ran down my back.

I quickly made an excuse about being sleepy and hurried back to my room, bolted the door, and called Tilda.

"Tilda, what on earth has my mother-in-law been feeding me? What does it have to do with the red marks on my belly?"

I was asking, but part of me still didn't want to believe my mother-in-law would hurt me.

I was an orphan, with no power and no connections.

After I married Zion Gilbert, both he and his mother had treated me incredibly well.

Now that I was carrying the Gilbert family's child, what could they possibly gain by hurting me?

"Have you ever heard of the fetal-feeding curse?" Tilda said quietly.

"There's a forbidden folk art that plants something into a pregnant woman's body, something that can never be full. The reason you feel hungry is that the one who really wants to eat was never you."

"Once it has devoured every drop of blood and essence from you and the child in your womb, it will use your body to come back from the dead!"

My scalp crawled as I listened. I kept telling myself she was making up a story to scare me.

"If I'm not wrong, that thing's soul won't leave within thirty feet of your home. It has to have something to house it."

"Go look! Isn't there a memorial tablet enshrined in your house?"

Her words sent a cold sweat pouring down my back.

My father-in-law had died of esophageal cancer, and our home enshrined his memorial tablet

4: 4

I couldn't stop shaking.

Even so, I did what Tilda told me. That night, once the whole house was asleep, I crept to the memorial tablet and searched underneath it.

In less than a minute, I found my own birth-fate chart tucked beneath it.

The realization hit me like a strike of lightning.

I thought back to the matchmaking mixer six months ago, how Zion Gilbert had been cool and indifferent to everyone at first.

Only when he learned my birth date did his eyes suddenly come alive.

After that, he chased me relentlessly, doting on me, fussing over every little thing, giving in to my every whim.

Under his romantic, tender pursuit, I walked into marriage with him before I knew it.

I used to marvel at it all, wondering how I'd gotten so lucky to stumble on a family this good.

So it had all been planned from the start.

But there was no time to grieve. I fired off a message to Tilda right away.

"What do I do? If I run now, is there still time?"

Tilda answered almost instantly. "No."

"The fetal-feeding curse is already bound to the flesh and blood in your womb. Leave now, and you die. No question."

"If you want to live, you have to break the fetal-feeding trap. If you trust me, I can help you."

Like a drowning woman clutching the last straw, I nodded, dazed.

Right now, what else could I do but believe her?

Following Tilda's instructions, I immediately swapped my chart for Selina Donaldson's birth-fate chart.

Then I acted as though nothing had happened and went back to bed.

The next morning my mother-in-law brought in another bowl of goose broth. "Mia, eat it while it's hot."

When my fingers touched the bottom of the bowl, I ran my thumb over it without thinking, and sure enough, I felt a raised bump.

I forced myself to stay calm, and the moment she turned to ladle more soup, I quietly tilted the bowl up.

One look, and my heart clenched hard.

Carved into the bottom of the bowl was the exact same pattern as the one on my belly.

Was this the fetal-feeding sigil Tilda had told me about?

Cold sweat soaked my back in an instant, and I no longer doubted a single word she'd said.

But I didn't dare show any fear.

I forced it down and, under her watchful eyes, made myself scoop up a spoonful of the steamed egg.

Before it even reached my mouth, my mother-in-law's face changed all at once and she shot to her feet.

"Mia Henson, what have you done!"

I flinched. Had she found out?

"Mom, what... what's wrong? I didn't do anything!"

But she just stared at me, her face dark, her eyes fixed on me and refusing to let go.

She pulled out her phone and called my husband right away.

"Get back here now. She knows!"

My legs went weak. I stumbled back in a panic and fled into my room.

Just then Tilda called.

"Selina's soul couldn't beat the fetal-feeding curse. It's enraged now, and it's about to strike back!"

Panic took me. "Then what do I do?"

Tilda dropped her voice low. "At this point, let me borrow your body and face it myself!"

While I was still hesitating, bang, bang, bang. My mother-in-law was pounding on the door outside, hysterical.

"Mia Henson, open the door! Open it now!"

Panic swallowed me whole.

Without a second thought I did exactly as Tilda said, cutting my finger to draw the sigil and chant.

"By my blood as covenant, enter and take your seat!"

I chanted it over and over, and a violent, wrenching pain tore through my belly.

Something was thrashing wildly inside me, the pain so bad it drove cold sweat down my skin.

Just as my mind was slipping further and further away, Zion Gilbert's voice came from beyond the door, frantic, almost a scream.

"Mia! Stop! One more time and you really will die!"