"Julian, I regret ever meeting you."

"I, Elara... in this lifetime... will never, ever forgive you."

"Everything you have inflicted upon me, I will make sure to return every bit of it!"

Julian’s heart trembled; her look of despair stung him to the core.

Just as he was about to speak, a knock sounded at the door, and a doctor walked in holding a stack of reports.

"Mr. Julian, the results of Ms. Elara’s check-up are in. She is pregnant..."

Just then, Julian’s phone rang, drowning out the doctor's words.

Chapter 9

Julian picked up his phone mechanically and answered the call.

Elara faintly heard Chloe’s voice coming from the other end:

"Mr. Julian, where are you? I woke up and couldn't find you; I'm so scared..."

"I'll be there right away."

Julian seemed to avoid meeting Elara’s eyes, only murmuring:

"I definitely went too far this time. You should calm down for a bit. I’ll come to see you later."

With that, he strode straight out of the room.

The doctor watched his departing back with a bewildered expression before turning back to Elara:

"Ms. Elara, the check-up results are out. You are four weeks pregnant. Because you’ve suffered severe injuries and experienced significant emotional turbulence, the fetus is unstable. I’ll prescribe some medicine to help stabilize the pregnancy."

Only then did Elara realize the reason for the dull, dragging pain in her lower abdomen before she had lost consciousness.

So, that was her child crying out in misery.

The child she had longed for all these years—why did it have to arrive… at a time like this?

She was destined to fail this child.

Tears rolled down silently, and she felt nothing but a heart-piercing pain.

Watching the direction Julian had left in, Elara said slowly but firmly:

"No."

"I don't want this child. Please, help me arrange for an abortion. Today."

This hospital happened to be a joint development between the Fu and Jiang corporations.

Hearing Elara’s request, the doctor soon arranged the procedure for her.

Elara had already lost too much blood, and with the addition of the abortion, she looked as pale as paper by the time she left the operating room.

She stayed in the hospital for three days, during which Julian never appeared once.

Chloe, however, posted several updates to her social media every day.

Sometimes it was Julian personally feeding her soup; other times it was him peeling apples for her, or even him picking her up and carrying her to the examination rooms because she acted spoiled and didn't want to walk.

When Elara heard the nurses chatting about how the "Ms. Lin" staying upstairs was being pampered by her boyfriend, her emotions remained completely unmoved.

She waited quietly for the day the cooling-off period would end.

As soon as she received the text notification on her phone, she changed her clothes, completed the discharge procedures, and headed straight to the Civil Affairs Bureau without looking back.

After a short wait, she held two thin red booklets in her hands.

Elara returned home for a moment, carried her suitcase downstairs, and stood at the entrance of the villa. Looking back at the home she had lived in for three years since her marriage, the bits and pieces of her life with Julian seemed to play through her mind once more.

Those beautiful, painful memories had all turned into faded old photographs, dissolving into nothingness in her mind, no longer able to stir a single ripple of thought.

Before she drove away, she did two things.

First, she took her phone out of her bag and sent a file to Julian’s mother.

Inside was the evidence she had gathered during this time regarding the schemes Chloe had orchestrated behind the scenes, as well as records of Chloe being kept by several wealthy benefactors back in her university days.

She had said it before: she and Julian were divorced, and Chloe would absolutely never be the next woman he married.

Second, she placed the abortion consent form and her divorce certificate together on the shoe cabinet—in a spot Julian would be sure to see the moment he stepped through the door.

Third, she clicked to block and delete Julian, Chloe, and their associates from her phone without a second’s hesitation.

After doing all this, she got into the car and didn't look back.

Julian, goodbye.

From now on, our bond is severed, and we shall be as strangers!

Chapter 10

Julian was currently in Chloe’s hospital room.

He was flipping through files, but his mind was long gone from them.

For three straight days, he hadn't gone to see Elara.

It wasn't just because he wanted Elara to cool off; it was also because of a faint, lingering unease in his heart.

That look of despair and hatred in Elara’s eyes was something he couldn't bring himself to face.

They had grown up together; he could be said to be the person who knew Elara best.

He knew her interests, knew what every one of her expressions meant, and knew exactly how to make her heart soften.

So he knew very clearly that the hateful look in Elara’s eyes when she had looked at him was real…

She truly hated him.

And the sight of Elara, covered in blood and unconscious in his arms, had haunted him with nightmares for several days in a row.

Julian looked at his own hands, his mood inexplicably irritable.

He didn't know why he had been so impulsive back then, using a dagger to cut her.

Back when it was clear that even if Elara accidentally cut her finger, he would feel so heartbroken he’d wish he were the one suffering for her.

Was it because Chloe had attempted suicide?

Yes, but that wasn't the whole of it.

Part of the reason was that he found it hard to accept that Elara was always so stubborn, seemingly always going against him.

When she threw a tantrum, he had indeed been very worried at first.

But after coaxing her time and time again, he discovered she couldn't bear to leave him, and gradually, he stopped taking it to heart.

It even turned into perfunctory indifference, and then into impatience.

He didn't want to bow his head anymore; he even wanted her to be the one to bow to him instead.

Relying on the fact that she wouldn't leave him, he consumed their relationship recklessly.

A while ago, he had even listened to Chloe and wanted to intentionally dote on her to make Elara jealous, forcing her to take the initiative to beg him for reconciliation.

But the result hadn't gone in the direction he had hoped.

He had been thinking about these things for the past few days, and only in a daze did he suddenly wake up to reality.

Elara was the person he had sworn to cherish properly for the rest of his life.

They had loved each other so much; he had once vowed never to let her shed another tear. Since when had Elara started to spend her days washing her face with tears…

They had once been so happy; when had everything started to deteriorate…

Julian raised his eyes to look at Chloe, who was sitting on the hospital bed.

His gaze was bone-chillingly cold, making Chloe instinctively shiver all over.

She looked at him cautiously: "Mr. Julian, what’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Julian lowered his eyes to look at her, scanning her cheeks:

"Was it really Elara who sent people to beat you, forcing you to resign and leave the Fu Corporation?"

Back then, he was too angry and didn't think much of it.

But now, the more he thought about it, the more something felt wrong.

Elara wasn't the type of person who would throw her weight around. If she had that kind of personality, Chloe would have been driven away by Elara long ago.

How could it have taken her half a year to make a move?

Chloe’s expression stiffened, and a bit of guilt surfaced immediately.

But in the next second, she looked at Julian with teary eyes:

"Mr. Julian, of course it’s true. Are you suspecting I lied to you?"

"I was slapped over a dozen times by Mrs. Julian, and she threatened that if I dared to cling to you again, she wouldn't let me off."

"If all of this were a lie, then why would I attempt suicide? One only has one life; would I risk my own life for a gamble?"

As she spoke, she raised her hands, pale-faced, showing Julian the gauze-wrapped wrists.

Seeing the wounds on her wrists, Julian’s expression improved slightly.

What Chloe said made sense; who would risk their only life for a gamble?

He reluctantly believed her, but his eyes remained cold:

"Enough. You don't need to help me put on a show to make Elara jealous anymore."

"I’ve already had someone buy the apartment you were renting; consider it compensation."