1

"She endured hardships with you back then just for your current net worth of a billion dollars. You must use the absolute 50/50 treatment to cure the 'poverty disease' in her bones."

After my husband's childhood friend Chloe returned from abroad, she brainwashed my husband, Ethan.

From then on, he demanded we split everything 50/50. Whether it was eating, sleeping, or doing household chores, even though I was pregnant, I had to pay half the cost.

Until one day I was hit by a car. Blood from a threatened miscarriage dripped all over the emergency room. The nurse held the bill, urging urgently: "Twenty thousand deposit to save the baby! Any slower and you'll miscarry!"

Ethan took out a black card, his voice ice-cold: "According to our 50/50 rule, I'm only paying my ten thousand."

I didn't cry or make a fuss. I simply took the ten thousand he gave me and got an abortion.

1

"The deposit to save the pregnancy is twenty thousand. I am only paying my ten thousand. Elena, according to the fairness principle we agreed on yesterday, you need to make up the rest yourself."

Under the pale overhead lights of the emergency room, Ethan handed the black Centurion card to the nurse. His cold, hard jawline didn't twitch at all.

I thought losing too much blood was making me hallucinate.

Muddy water and blood were still dripping from my right leg. Half an hour ago, while on my way to pick up his 30th birthday cake from a bakery that required a month's advance booking, I was hit by a pickup truck at an intersection.

Now, that exquisite birthday cake was smashed into a pile of mud in the rain, just like the tearing, agonizing pain coming in waves from my lower abdomen.

"What are you talking about?" My pale lips trembled, looking in disbelief at the husband I had loved for five years. "The doctor said I have a threatened miscarriage. If we don't pay the full twenty thousand deposit and administer the medication immediately, we won't be able to save the baby... And you're telling me to pay the other half myself?"

Five years ago, there was heavy rain just like today.

We were squeezed into a leaky semi-basement in Queens. He had been scammed when starting his business and was so poor he couldn't even afford a slice of cake.

After work, I ran three blocks in the pouring rain, desperately protecting a two-dollar slice of cheesecake in my arms.

That day, with red eyes, he tightly held my freezing hands and swore, "Elena, once I get through this, I'll buy you the most expensive cakes in all of New York. I will never let you suffer over money again. My life is yours."

Now, he is a CEO worth a billion dollars. Yet, outside the resuscitation room of the maternity emergency department, he was calculating a 50/50 split with me for the fee to save our baby.

"Ethan, don't let tears hold your principles hostage."

A flawlessly gentle voice came from down the hallway. Chloe approached in high heels, draped in a spotless Boston cashmere shawl.

She was the "relationship coach" Ethan had just hired for a hefty salary, and also his childhood friend who had returned from studying overseas.

Just yesterday, a mere day ago, this woman introduced a "Marriage Scorecard" and the "50/50+ Fair Principle" at our dining table.

And the very first time this bullshit system was put into practice was to pitilessly cut off the life of the child in my womb.

Right in front of the nurse, Chloe opened that silver-stamped scorecard and pronounced like a judge, "Having a child is a mutual choice; medical risks should rightfully be shared 50/50. If you panic and pay the full amount for her, not only will it destroy the fair boundaries of marriage, but it will also make her accustomed to using her physical vulnerability to extort money. We cannot encourage moral kidnapping just because someone is 'bleeding'."

The nurse was so shocked she stood frozen with the POS machine for a long time. "Sir, the patient is still bleeding. Are you paying or not?"

Ethan avoided my gaze, which was on the verge of a breakdown. He turned his head and coldly ordered the nurse, "Swipe for ten thousand. Let her figure out the rest herself."

I doubled over in pain, my whole body turning cold. Even a single question was stuck in my throat.

Chloe smoothly reached out and patted Ethan's arm encouragingly. The white light of the hallway precisely hit her ring finger—where a massive, limited-edition pink diamond sparkled.

"This pink diamond suits me well, doesn't it?" Chloe noticed my gaze, her smile deepening. "Ethan won it at the auction house just last night. As a consultation fee for helping him establish 'financial boundaries'."

A diamond ring worth millions could be given to a coach as a reward without hesitation, yet his profusely bleeding wife was forced to take out a loan for a ten-thousand-dollar lifesaving fee.

The cramps in my lower abdomen returned with a vengeance, accompanied by a gush of warm, metallic blood.

In this absolute agony, I bizarrely stopped trembling.

All the shock, grievances, and urges to beg for mercy were suddenly frozen into a ridiculous clarity by complete despair.

Even if I went to loan sharks today to gather the ten thousand to save the baby, then what? After the child is born, would buying a bottle warmer also require filling out the scorecard? Would taking a high fever to the pediatrician be strictly 50/50? In this marriage that they had quantified into a laboratory experiment, giving birth to this child would only be dragging a piece of flesh to suffer endless humiliation with me.

"Give me the receipt," my voice was hoarse and flat.

I snatched the [Paid: $10,000] slip from the nurse's hand, never once sparing Ethan another glance.

While waiting for him earlier, I had checked the website of a private Manhattan maternity hospital: The Premium Painless Pregnancy Termination Package was exactly $10,000.

How coincidental.

The half of the deposit he handed out to me based on his "fairness principle," not a penny more, not a penny less, was just enough right now for me to personally abort his child.

Dragging my crippled right leg, I inched step by step toward the refund window in the corner of the hallway. I exchanged the "Pregnancy Preservation Follow-up" for a $10,000 refund check. Then, on my phone, I pressed the appointment confirmation button for the other hospital.

At two in the morning, I pushed open the door to our apartment. The living room was brightly lit.

On the rug by the sofa, two massive Rimowa suitcases lay wide open, Chloe's silk camisoles and personal belongings scattered all over the floor.

"The upcoming emotional block training requires round-the-clock observation, so it's obviously more efficient for me to move in," Chloe said, holding my bone china cup, smiling at the mud, blood, and wretchedness covering me. "Ethan has already agreed."

Ethan sat in the backlit shadows like a cold statue, silently consenting to all of this.

I didn't say a single unnecessary word, didn't argue, didn't scream. I bypassed those expensive suitcases, walked back to the master bedroom, and locked the door tightly behind me.

My phone vibrated violently in my pocket, the screen lighting up.

[Appointment Confirmed: Your pregnancy termination surgery has been scheduled for tomorrow at 9:00 AM. Please ensure you continue to fast.]

I gripped my phone tightly.

The vanity mirror reflected my mud-and-blood-stained face, along with the light leaking in from under the door gap—the living room lights that would stay on all night.