Forced to Raise His Love Child, Danmaku Shamed Him

My husband and his cousin's wife dumped their ten-year-old daughter on me, and wouldn't spend a cent doing it.

I was about to tell my husband to take the girl back when a string of danmaku suddenly lit up in front of my eyes.

Wait! This child is your husband's illegitimate kid! His whole family knows!

In your past life you insisted on sending the child back, and your mother-in-law came after you, screaming that no one wanted you because you'd been passed around and couldn't get pregnant, and your husband only took you in as a leftover.

The truth is your husband was putting drugs in your water on purpose, causing you to miscarry over and over, so the child would end up staying with you naturally.

After you refused, you were forced out with nothing, wandering around in a daze, until a truck hit you on the side of the road and threw you into the air.

I glanced at the two of them, their faces so alike, and quietly clenched my fists.

Then my eyes settled on my husband's tense face, and I suddenly smiled.

"Fine. Then she can stay here."

I wanted to see how he'd keep this lie going.

"She's only doing you a kindness. Whose fault is it that five years of marriage and you still can't produce a single child?"

"You'll clear out the master bedroom on the sunny side in a bit and give it to Georgie."

"Learn to be a good mother. The whole estate goes to her someday, and it's her we'll be counting on to look after us in our old age."

The words had barely left my husband Jared Cross's mouth.

The danmaku lit up.

The estate he's talking about is the house you and he are paying off together.

The truth is his bride price and the money for the house were all borrowed from his parents, with an IOU signed in advance, so that when he divorces you, you'll be thrown out penniless and still owing the loan.

Something roared in my head, and a nameless fury rose up in me.

Jared had been lying to me the whole time.

He'd said the money was his own savings, said we hadn't taken on any outside debt to get married.

So it had all been planned out from the start.

Seeing that I still hadn't said anything, his cousin's wife walked over.

"Look at you, you can't even take care of a child. It's the middle of the day and you don't even know to make lunch?"

"No wonder, a woman who's never carried a child. Not a shred of motherly love in you."

She rolled her eyes and dug a list out of her bag.

"Every day you're to prepare a full course meal, fresh meat, eggs, and milk. You hear me?"

"This girl is the root of the whole Cross family!"

I knit my brows, stared at her, and suddenly smiled.

"Isn't this your child?"

"What does she have to do with the Cross family?"

Her breath caught, and the color drained from her face.

Jared, who hadn't said a word until now, stood up in sudden displeasure and stared at me coldly.

"His wife saw that you couldn't have children, so out of kindness she gave you her own daughter to raise."

"Don't be so ungrateful."

Georgie stood there sucking on a lollipop, her big watery eyes lifting to look at me.

"I want buttered garlic shrimp, and a little cake too."

She didn't even call me anything.

She treated me like the hired help.

She said it and turned to leave, without so much as another glance my way.

His cousin's wife took Jared's arm and, muttering, headed back toward the room.

I lowered my eyes. Two strands of Georgie's hair lay by my feet where they'd fallen.

I bent down, picked them up, and slipped them into a clear plastic bag.

I crossed the hallway and crept over on tiptoe.

Through the gap in the door I heard his cousin's wife's voice.

Her face was full of worry, her fingers twisting tightly together.

"Jared, aren't you afraid Penelope will find out about the child? If she ever learns this kid is one you had on the side, won't she blow the whole roof off?"

Jared rolled his eyes, unconcerned.

"Afraid of what? Georgie's smart, she won't slip up."

"Besides, even if she finds out it makes no difference. She can't have kids, so who else is she going to lean on in the future but Georgie?"

"Once Georgie's grown and earning money, I'll kick Penelope Henson to the curb, and she'll be on her knees begging me not to divorce her."

It was like I'd been dropped into an ice cellar, my whole body shaking.

The man who just yesterday had held me and talked about building a life together had already made up his mind to throw me out.

To think I'd felt so guilty, believing I really couldn't conceive, that I'd wanted to try IVF.

"But what if one day she decides something's off about the child and wants to send her back"

Before she could finish, Jared cut her off.

"I've had the paperwork ready for a long time."

"If that day ever comes, I'll send her out with nothing, and the farther she crawls the better!"

My stomach dropped.

Everything inside me went cold.

The danmaku popped up again.

Stay calm. Don't let him get to you.

Your marriage certificate is fake. His debts can't touch you.

Look into his marriage history and you'll know who the child's real mother is.

I looked at Jared, still smug, and something cold flickered in my eyes.

Then I turned and went to the testing lab.

I handed over his sample and Georgie's.

I paid four times the price.

"Money isn't the issue. The faster, the better."

Then I went straight to the county records office.

I handed the marriage certificate to the clerk.

The woman gave me a pitying look and turned the screen toward me.

"Ms. Henson, your marriage certificate is indeed fake. Mr. Cross did have a prior marriage to another woman."

I clenched my fists tight and breathed in slowly.

The name in the system belonged to a woman I'd never heard of.

Jared had been lying to me from the very start.

The whole thing had been his careful setup all along.

I took a photo, and a message from Jared came through.

He said the family had already gone to the hotel.

For his mother's birthday.

He told me to buy a cake.

I didn't reply. I watched the messages in the family group chat scroll by fast.

Every one of them tagging me.

Buttered garlic shrimp, surf-and-turf platter, lobster and scallops, all the most expensive dishes.

Who's paying for all this?

Jared's five-thousand-a-month salary couldn't even cover it.

The only place it could come from was the shared-payment account linked to me.

The second I said it, the chat went dead silent.

What's that supposed to mean? Delete it now. Are you trying to embarrass me?

And Georgie's crying from hunger. What kind of mother are you?

But I was never her mother to begin with.

I didn't answer him, and I didn't buy any cake.

Once the results came in, I drove straight to the hotel.

The lobby was full of Cross family members.

My mother-in-law pushed through the crowd toward me, her eyes dropping to my empty hands, and her face changed at once.

Those small, hard eyes fixed on me.

"Today is my birthday. Where's the cake? Little one's still waiting!"

"You sit there taking up space without laying an egg, and now you can't even bother for my birthday?"

Jared came over too, his brows knotted tight.

"Penelope, what exactly did I tell you? You just have to make trouble for me, don't you?"

He grabbed my sleeve and started dragging me toward the door.

He lowered his voice on purpose.

"There are a lot of people here today, so I'll let it go. Just hurry up and go buy it. Don't embarrass us."

"Word gets out, and it won't sound good."

I gave a cold laugh and shook his hand off.

I looked at my mother-in-law.

Not a single person in the family stepped up to speak for me.

"You keep saying I can't have a child. So why do I keep miscarrying? Your family should know that better than anyone, shouldn't they?"

Jared's eyes darted away. For a second he looked cornered.

"Youyou're talking nonsense. You can't have kids, what does that have to do with my family?"

Doris chimed in from beside him.

"That's your own bad luck."

"I knew you had a problem with the kid. You've been resentful this whole time."

"I happen to like little Georgie. Don't you dare think about sending her away!"

Jared's cousin's wife stepped out of the crowd with a cold smile, her eyes raking over me.

"Who knows what you got up to out there, that you couldn't hold on to a baby."

"Why don't I get a specialist to take a look at you tomorrow."

I opened my mouth to answer.

The danmaku popped up.

Don't go!

In your past life you believed them, and they took out your uterus.

They told you it was an appendix operation. You died never knowing.

Cold sweat soaked through the back of my shirt, my heart slamming.

Jared took a step forward, planting himself in front of me, blocking my line of sight.

"Didn't we already agree you'd adopt Georgie? Do you really have to bring this up at my mother's birthday party?"

"You're the one making a fool of yourself here!"

I threw his hand off.

My eyes went straight to him.

"How am I making a fool of myself? This was never my problem to begin with."

"Jared, you can do it but you can't own up to it?"

His cousin's wife clamped down on my wrist, the corner of her mouth twisting into a smile that never reached her eyes.

"Penelope, I'm only saying this for your own good."

"Word getting out that you can't have kids does you no favors."

"Just hurry up and apologize to your mother-in-law, then go buy Georgie a cake, and we'll call it done."

She said she'd let it drop, but she pitched her voice loud on purpose, and a good number of people drifted over to watch.

Her friends started pointing and whispering too.

Those looks. They'd followed me for five whole years.

Every time the subject of a baby came up, every fault landed on me.

"I'm not buying it."

"And I did nothing wrong."

Doris slapped her thigh, tears streaming down her face.

"I don't know what sin I committed to deserve this. Not only do you cut off my family line, you show up this late to a birthday party, empty-handed."

"Everyone says the child isn't close to you. Who's that long face supposed to be for all day?"

My fist clenched, and then, suddenly, I laughed.

My hand went into my briefcase.

Inside was the paternity report on Jared and Georgie.

Before I could pull it out, a clatter of footsteps came from behind me.

Georgie, in a princess dress, went running toward Jared.

"Daddy!"

"That horrible old witch finally left. Georgie missed you so much!"

My right eyelid twitched twice.

Jared froze for a beat, then cleared his throat.

He lifted his eyes to me.

"I've watched this child grow up. Of course we're close."

"Close is one thing. It doesn't explain her calling you Daddy."

I said it slowly, word by word, my eyes cold.

"Unless that's what she calls you in private."

"Or you really are her father."

The moment I said it, the crowd erupted.

Besides family, this birthday banquet had plenty of friends here too.

None of them knew the truth.

They whispered among themselves, eyes darting back and forth between Jared and his cousin's wife.

Her face flushed red in an instant.

"What are you trying to say!"

I spread my hands, all innocence.

"I only said Georgie might be Jared's daughter."

"I never said she was yours. Why are you so worked up?"

"Or is it that you already knew, and you were in such a hurry to dump her on me just to save yourself the trouble?"

She couldn't get a word out, swallowing nervously.

She jabbed Jared with her elbow.

I followed the motion and looked at him and Georgie.

"They really do look alike. Anyone who didn't know would think they were father and daughter."

His color went from red to white, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Then his voice shot up several notches.

"Penelope Henson!"

"We've been married five years, and I have never once done anything to wrong you!"

He looked at me like his heart was breaking.

"There are things I didn't want to bring up, but you keep making a scene, so don't blame me for this!"

The words were barely out before he pulled up a photo on his phone.

The same people who'd been talking about him a second ago all changed their tune, mockery and amusement in their eyes.

His cousin's wife leaned in, shrieked, her face going scarlet.

"Oh my God. Penelope, how could you do something like this?"

Even Doris slapped her own thigh.

"We never should have let you into this family! What kind of woman throws herself around like this!"

In the photo, I was walking into a hotel on another man's arm.

The line of my face in profile looked stiff.

The danmaku flashed past.

They photoshopped this a long time ago. They were just waiting for you to cause trouble so they could pull it out and force you to keep the baby.

There's even an AI watermark in the bottom left corner they didn't crop out.

I stood where I was and didn't move.

"Really?"

"If that's actually me, then why is there an AI watermark still sitting in the bottom left corner?"

Jared's face changed. He snatched the phone back while it was still being passed around the relatives.

"That's from when I did a high-res restoration on the photo!"

"Penelope Henson, I put everything I had into you, and you went behind my back to find a man and deliberately lost the baby. You're the one with the real scheme here!"

I looked at him, and suddenly I smiled.

"Really?"

"Jared, just this morning, I sent your DNA and Georgie's off for a paternity test."

The screen behind me jolted.

His face drained white in an instant.

"Based on the available records and DNA analysis, Jared Cross and Georgette Finch..."