Gone Was Her Spring

My phone crashed onto the floor, along with my tears and then my fist.

“Susan, let me go! I need to save Grandma!”

It wasn’t until I finally admitted my wrongs that Susan finally saw me.

“Grandma is in critical condition. I beg you, please unfreeze my bank cards.”

Susan’s expression was slightly solemn. However, standing right beside her, Owen suddenly let out a mocking sneer.

“A perfectly healthy person wouldn’t fall critically ill so suddenly.”

Susan snapped out of her brief hesitation and looked at me with disapproval. “Grandma has always been so good to you, Myles, yet you’re faking an emergency about her life just to escape your punishment? How did you become so twisted and deceitful? If you want the money, apologize to Owen. When he is satisfied, I’ll unfreeze your bank cards.”

There was absolutely no time to explain. Grandma was at death’s door, waiting for me to save her life.

Casting my pride aside, I lowered my head and begged Owen frantically, entirely at his mercy.

“I am incredibly sorry, Mr. Owen. Please, I beg you to forgive me.”

Susan was stunned. She reached for a tissue, wanting to wipe the blood running down my forehead. However, Owen quickly stopped her, and her eyes welled with tears.

“Can a simple apology ever make up for the hurt you’ve caused me? I have my pride, too.”

Susan stopped in her tracks.

“Myles, start a livestream right now. Clarify everything to the public and admit that everything you said before was nothing but malicious lies born from your own jealousy.”

I didn’t make a scene. Under Susan’s utterly bewildered gaze, I started a livestream. I read every single word from the script Owen had prepared for me without skipping a beat.

A barrage of cyberbullying came my way, but I didn’t even bat an eye at it.

“Is this enough now?” I asked.

Yet, Owen was far from appeased.

“Mr. Myles, a real apology requires genuine sincerity. Why don’t you do what the netizens are suggesting? Broadcast yourself acting as my personal servant. Just because you belong to a powerful, high-society family, does that mean ordinary people like us deserve to be trampled on?” he said, with pure malice in his eyes.

Losing the last of my patience, I turned to the woman who had remained silent throughout his performance.

“Susan, Grandma is running out of time!”

The woman merely spat out, “Continue.”

The very last shred of hope I held for her disintegrated into despair.

Owen ordered me to get down on my hands and knees to clean the entire mansion. Because of the physical strain, the closed wounds from my recent surgery tore open and started to bleed again.

Meanwhile, Susan lounged comfortably in Owen’s embrace, actively interacting with the viewers on the livestream.

“Mr. Myles smells fishy. Who knows if he’s just desperate for attention?”

Mopping floors, doing mountains of laundry, preparing baby formula… They even forced me to hand them their condom.

It wasn’t until Owen finally let out a wide yawn that Susan flicked the credit card straight at my face and said, “Get out.”

The drive to the hospital usually took thirty minutes, but I made it in ten. The moment I handed out the bank card, the doctor looked deeply apologetic.

“The patient has passed away. I am so sorry for your loss.” She hesitated before she said, “In fact, your grandmother’s condition had stabilized. But someone showed her the livestream of you being humiliated as a servant, and she literally suffocated to death by sheer rage.”

I burst out laughing. I laughed so hard that tears streamed down my face.

After the adrenaline faded, exhaustion took over. I desperately wanted to walk to the morgue to see Grandma one last time, but the moment I took my first step forward, I collapsed onto the floor.

Every single screen in the hospital lobby was broadcasting that livestream. As every passerby whispered and jeered at me, my vision blurred, and ringing filled my ears. In an instant, I lost all consciousness.

Ever since I left, Susan had been plagued by an inexplicable, gnawing sense of unease. She was distracted all day. When preparing the baby’s bottle, she absentmindedly added only half a scoop of formula and failed to notice the child crying loudly right next to her.

As if possessed by a sudden whim, her feet carried her over to the heavy door of the basement. I was absolutely terrified of the dark, yet she had locked me down there anyway, believing I needed to be taught a lesson for being so arrogant.

She flipped the light switch, hoping the brightness would somehow dispel the growing guilt in her chest. However, the moment the lights came on, a massive pool of bright red liquid came into view.

Susan’s eyes widened in sheer horror. She stumbled and staggered out of the basement, screaming frantically at the servants to turn on every single light fixture across the entire house.

It was a bleak, rainy day outside, and the sky was exceptionally gloomy. By the time Susan’s eyes fully adjusted to the indoor lights, her heart sank. The grand staircase, the polished handrails, and every single inch of the floor where I had walked was tracked with streaks of blood.

Susan couldn’t believe it. How could it be blood when I had recovered and been discharged from the hospital? Furthermore, I had been right under her nose the entire time. How could I be severely injured?

Susan’s immediate reaction was that I must have spilled a bottle of ketchup as some sick joke. However, reality crashed in quickly. The household ketchup bottles had been emptied and thrown out yesterday.

With trembling hands, she dialed my number. The second the call finally connected, Susan let out a sigh of relief.

“Myles! What on earth is all this red liquid all over the house? Is it an animal’s blood? This prank isn’t funny at all! I won’t hold it against you this time. It’s pouring rain outside right now. Where are you? I’ll pick you up…”

She rattled on and on, saying everything she could think of to suppress the panic. However, the voice that answered from the other end of the line was a stranger’s.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but this phone has been ringing on the pavement, so I just picked it up. A gentleman passed out cold right here and was just taken away for emergency care. The ground is covered in blood. I heard the nurse saying that he might not pull through.”