This time around, I wasn’t going to be foolish enough to let Liu Guifen fool me again. I’d never willingly dig into my own pocket to find a woman for my husband—let alone cross the unforgivable line of surrogacy!

In this life, I would change my fate. I would never again allow myself to end up in the hellish situation of being assaulted and killed like an animal.

I gritted my teeth, my voice icy with resolve. “Mom, what are you talking about? This is a society ruled by law! You want to arrange a surrogate? That’s illegal! Get that ridiculous idea out of your head!”

“And what do you mean by that? Are you trying to find another woman for Qi Zhaoxing?”

“You yourself said only rich people do this kind of thing. Mom, if you can come up with such a scheme just to hold a grandson, you must have plenty of retirement savings stashed away, huh?”

My tone shifted sharply, turning cold and accusatory. “Mom, even if I haven’t gotten pregnant all these years, there’s no need for you to humiliate me like this.”

“I could never raise a child born to another woman and call myself his mother.”

With that, I covered my face and ran back to my room.

Liu Guifen, caught off guard by my sudden outburst, froze in place. It was probably the first time I’d ever dared to defy her wishes. After all, in my past life, by this point, I’d already been half brainwashed by her—on the verge of nodding my agreement to the whole thing.

And why had she been so insistent on getting my approval? Simple—she wanted to squeeze that 100,000 yuan surrogate fee out of me. Even more so, she wanted to hold something over my head, to make me pour in more money and effort later, trapping me into being the family’s unpaid maid.

Liu Guifen slammed her thigh in frustration, furious that her plan had backfired.

The door to the storage room creaked open quietly. Out stepped my husband—who was supposed to be at work.

Realizing his mother’s plan had gone south, Qi Zhaoxing, who’d been hiding in the shadows eavesdropping the whole time, quickly stepped forward to comfort her.

Meanwhile, in my room, the woman who’d just run in sobbing had not a single tear on her face.

Yes, I’d cried—acted my heart out.

Peeking through the crack in the door, my eyes widened when I saw Qi Zhaoxing appear. So that’s how it was! The smooth, well-rehearsed lines from my past life had been a scheme cooked up by mother and son together.

It was laughable. After I’d agreed to the surrogacy in my previous life, Qi Zhaoxing had put on such a good show—pretending to be torn, like he hated the idea of betraying me. All the while, he’d been using my money to live a double life, acting like he’d made some huge sacrifice that I should be grateful for.