Daddy, where is our mummy?

The rain showed no mercy that night. It hammered the windows of the Lu mansion like a thousand angry fists. Inside, everything was warm and golden. Crystal chandeliers. Marble floors. The scent of expensive flowers. Outside, I was about to lose everything. I walked through those grand doors with one hand on my swollen belly. Seven months pregnant with twins. So in love with my husband that it hurt to breathe when he wasn't near. I never saw the ambush coming. Lu Meifeng waited in the center of the living room. My mother-in-law. The woman who smiled at me in public and despised me in private. She stood like a judge ready to deliver a death sentence. Servants lined the walls. Witnesses to my execution. "You shameless whore." The words hit before her hand did. The slap cracked across my face and sent me stumbling. Pain exploded through my cheek. I tasted blood. "Mother, what—" "Don't you dare call me that." She grabbed my hair and yanked. Photos scattered at my feet. Glossy images of a hotel room. A strange man. My body in his arms. My dress undone. My stomach lurched. "That's not real. I would never—" "Lies. Everything out of your mouth is lies." Another slap. My lip split open. "You trapped my son with a pregnancy and then you cheat on him? In my city? Where everyone can see?" "Someone drugged me." I was sobbing now. Begging. "At the company party. I felt dizzy and then I woke up at home. I don't remember anything. Please, you have to believe me." "I believe what my eyes tell me." She shoved me hard. I fell. My knees cracked against the cold marble. Pain shot through my belly. I wrapped my arms around my stomach, terrified for the lives inside me. "Please." All pride was gone. I was an animal fighting to survive. "Please, I love Jingchen. These babies are his. I would never betray him. Someone is framing me." Meifeng looked down at me like I was dirt on her expensive floors. "Get out of my house." "No. Not until Jingchen—" "Jingchen agrees with me." I looked up. He stood in the doorway. My husband. My heart. The father of my children. The man who had promised me forever under a sky full of stars. His face was empty. His eyes were cold. He looked at me like I was a stranger. "Jingchen." I crawled toward him. Literally crawled across the marble, pregnant and bleeding and broken. "You know me. You know my heart. Look in my eyes and tell me you believe those photos. Tell me you think I would ever betray you." He didn't move. "I love you," I whispered. "I have loved you since the moment we met. Please. Please don't do this." Something flickered in his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or doubt. Then it was gone. He turned his back on me. He walked away. "Jingchen!" I screamed his name. "JINGCHEN, PLEASE!" The door closed behind him. Guards grabbed my arms. I fought. I kicked. I screamed until my throat tore. They dragged me to the entrance and threw me out into the rain. The gates slammed shut. And I was alone. I don't know how I survived that night. The rain was ice. The ground was mud. Blood ran down my legs and mixed with the water pooling beneath me. A stranger found me on the roadside and called an ambulance. I woke up in a hospital room that smelled like bleach and death. A doctor stood beside my bed. He wouldn't look at me. "Miss Su, I'm so sorry." My hands flew to my belly. Still round. Still there. "My babies—" "They didn't survive. The trauma was too severe." Three words. Three words that murdered me. "No." "I'm very sorry for your loss." "No. No, no, no—" A nurse brought me two tiny blankets. One blue. One pink. Empty. "We thought you might want something to hold." I pressed those blankets to my chest and screamed. Not cried. Screamed. The sound of a mother whose children have been ripped from her body. I screamed until they sedated me. I woke up and screamed again. For three days, I held those blankets and refused to eat. Refused to speak. Refused to let go. On the fourth day, a lawyer came with divorce papers. I signed them. What did anything matter anymore? Su Wanwan died in that hospital room. The girl who believed in love. The girl who trusted her husband. The girl who dreamed of holding her babies and singing them to sleep. Gone. What crawled out of those ashes was someone else entirely. Harder. Colder. A woman built from grief and rage. I left that city with nothing but two empty blankets and a shattered soul. I changed my name. Built an empire. Became someone powerful enough that no one could ever hurt me again. For five years, I mourned my children. For five years, I hated the man who abandoned me. For five years, I believed my babies were dead. I was wrong. They were alive. They had been alive all along. And somewhere in that city, every single night, they asked the same question. "Daddy, where is our mummy?"