Chapter 38: The Breast Cancer Has Recurrd

But in the very next second, Vivian Hale pressed her lips together and pulled out her phone, tapping the play button.

A sharp, venomous voice rang out: "Of course he looks upon me with favor! To tell you the truth, Adrian and I have been together privately long ago. He has long since grown weary and disgusted of your disabled state. He told me himself that looking at your deformed body makes him nauseous, and marrying you was purely out of pity."

"In a relationship, the one who isn't loved is the real mistress. Vivian Hale, do you truly think you still possess any capital to be proud of? Your man, your everything—very soon, all of it will belong to me."

Vivian’s eyes grew even redder, and tears fell cascading down.

"This is what Tiffany Rose confessed with her own mouth just now. Tell me, is this also a misunderstanding? Since you despise me so much and find me so repulsive, why did you marry me in the first place? Why didn't you just divorce me directly when you had another woman!"

Adrian Cross's eyes were intertwined with a myriad of emotions—shock, fury, panic, and dissatisfaction.

Never in his wildest dreams did he expect that Tiffany would dare to bypass him and say such things to Vivian.

It felt as though the most hypocritical layer of skin on his face had been violently ripped away and exposed before everyone, filling him with a mixture of grief and rage, wishing he could choke Tiffany to death on the spot.

Tiffany was frightened to a point where her face turned ghostly pale, never anticipating that Vivian had been prepared all along.

Her entire being was exceptionally frantic. Without even thinking, she reached out to grab Adrian's arm.

"Adrian, listen to my explanation..."

But in the next heartbeat, she was violently flung aside by Adrian. Caught completely off guard, she crashed directly against the wall, a piercing, drilling pain shooting through her arm.

Meanwhile, Adrian stepped forward to grasp Vivian’s hands, desperately eager to explain.

"It's not like that, Vivian..."

"Enough!" Vivian recoiled repeatedly, her emotions intensely volatile. "Since you despise me this much, then let's get a divorce."

With that, she turned and ran away.

Adrian’s face turned completely dark upon hearing her final sentence, and he hurriedly strode forward to give chase.

Vivian returned to the villa and pulled out a suitcase, preparing to put on a show.

Sure enough, before her packing was even halfway finished, Adrian arrived.

"Vivian, listen to my explanation! I admit I was wrong! But it's not what you think. I was set up and framed by Tiffany before I slept with her. And right now, she holds the patent in her hands to threaten me, intentionally wanting to watch the two of us divorce—that's why she's driving a wedge between us!"

"Vivian, I know you hate me for hiding the truth from you and won't forgive me easily. As long as it relieves your anger, you can hit me however you want."

He coaxed her using his past methods, believing that Vivian would remain reluctant to actually hurt him just like before.

Yet the exact millisecond his words fell, Vivian lifted her hands without a single fraction of hesitation, delivering two heavy slaps across his face from both left and right.

The blows left his ears ringing, his expression intertwined with sudden shock and fury.

Vivian, however, paid absolute zero attention to his emotions, following up with another two slaps right after.

They rang out with a sharp, crisp crack.

Adrian only felt stars exploding in his eyes as his vision swam into darkness.

His twin eyes were practically spewing fire, and just as he was preparing to open his mouth to reprimand her furiously, Vivian buried her face in her hands and broke into a painful wail once more.

The crying sounded sorrowful and broken, as though she wanted to unleash all the agony in her heart in one fell swoop.

Yet beneath her palms, the corners of Vivian’s lips were actually hooked into a smile.

The only reason she covered her face was because she was terrified she wouldn't be able to restrain herself from laughing out loud.

But the critical task at hand hadn't been accomplished yet; she had to continue acting.

"Adrian, you claim Tiffany deceived you, but you still climbed into bed with her. You betrayed our relationship... Are you truly that incapable of waiting? I don't even have much longer to live, couldn't you have just waited until I died before committing infidelity?!"

Her expression was tragic, her voice choked with sobs, and tears were on the verge of bursting from her eyes.

Adrian didn't react for a moment, "What do you mean?"

Vivian pressed her lips together.

She directly pulled up a photograph on her phone and thrust it over to him.

"I just received this today. I kept wanting to find an opportunity to tell you, but I couldn't find the chance. To my horror, this matter erupted out of nowhere instead..."

Adrian scanned the text rapidly, his pupils contracting millimeter by millimeter.

"You... your breast cancer has recurred?"

His gaze landed onto Vivian’s palm-sized face with a highly complex expression, only now discovering that her complexion today appeared considerably more haggard than usual, with dark circles bruising beneath her eyes and her entire form looking exceptionally emaciated.

In an instant, a sharp pang of pain gripped his heart, causing him to completely forget the throbbing pain on his face as he stepped forward to wrap her into a tight embrace, "No, Honey, this must be a misdiagnosis..."

Vivian violently shoved him away, wiping the reddened corners of her eyes, her expression completely numb.

"You don't need to console me. The doctor said this illness inherently carries a probability of recurrence; I can only blame my own terrible luck.

I originally didn't want to tell you, fearing you would feel sorrowful and broken, and fearing what you would do if I departed. Looking at it now, all of it was merely my own unrequited sentimentality—I am the absolute greatest joke of all."

"No, Vivian, I truly never intended to betray you. We were childhood sweethearts, twelve years of affection—how could an outsider ever hold a candle to that."

These words from Adrian were actually born out of sincerity.

Vivian had followed him for such a long time after all.

Even though her body was disabled, her appearance was striking, her temperament was wonderful, and she managed the household and his family members in a perfectly orderly fashion.

Though she provided no assistance in his career, she was still of fair use to his family.

He inexplicably suffered a wave of intense terror at the thought of losing her.

Clutching the person tightly in his embrace, Adrian’s tone reclaims a rare hint of frantic anxiety.

"I'll take you abroad for medical treatments. Rest assured, you will definitely be fine. I refuse to permit you to leave me."

Hearing this, however, Vivian only found it thoroughly ironic.

As expected, his deep affection was completely manufactured.

This man truly was revolting to the core.

Adrian spent a long while meticulously coaxing her.

Vivian’s emotions gradually smoothed down, and she opened her mouth with a trace of hesitation.

"Adrian, there's no need for treatments. I understand my own illness. But what exactly is the matter with the patent in Tiffany Rose's hands?"

Hearing this, Adrian pressed his lips together before opening his mouth to speak.

"Vivian, you ought to possess a fair understanding of the company's current situation by now. If it weren't for Tiffany using the patent in her possession to threaten me, how could I ever have stayed together with her?"

Adrian directed a completely earnest gaze toward her, "That woman calculated against me from the very beginning solely to satisfy her own ambition. Right now, she is even proposing a demand for marriage before she is willing to yield the patent to me! That's why I'm forced to engage in perfunctory pleasantries with her."

"What?"

Vivian’s face was filled with absolute shock, "So, a divorce? It turns out that was her actual objective. No wonder she sought me out to say those words today—it was entirely to drive a wedge through our relationship."

She let out a cold sneer in her heart; this man truly knew how to wipe his own slate completely clean.

Yet on the surface, she still spoke with absolute bitterness.

"Adrian, you've had it far too difficult. My current illness cannot be allowed to drag you down any longer. How about the two of us get a divorce, and you marry Miss Rose... This can be considered the absolute last thing I can accomplish for you."

Adrian froze upon hearing these words, and a sudden wave of sour, stinging emotion flooded his heart.

But before this sensation could even be maintained for long, it transformed into a wave of immense relief right after.

Under the current circumstances, for Vivian to think things through and proactively propose a divorce couldn't be more perfect.

After all, the company truly had to lean on the patent in Tiffany's hands.

Yet on his tongue, he still spoke with a face full of simulated difficulty.

"But I don't want to marry her at all, Vivian. I still love you. How about the two of us perform a fake divorce first, forcing you to suffer temporary grievances? Once the patent is secured, I will return to your side once more."

A flash of absolute mockery passed through Vivian’s eyes, vanishing in a fleeting instant, before she let out another long, hollow sigh.

"I'm already on the verge of death anyway, what difference does a real or fake divorce even make. I am merely worried about you—Tiffany calculated against you so thoroughly, her duplicity is far deeper and more profound than you or I imagined. Even handling a patent had to be done in a stingy, secretive manner for so long before she brought it out, and now you still have to be manipulated by her..."