Memorizing Baking Rules

My first day in the villa revealed Margaret’s true nature.

At dinner, a servant presented an exquisite Black Forest cake. With a gentle, virtuous smile, Margaret cut a slice and offered it to me. “Olivia, try this. I asked the chef to make it just for you.”

My stomach clenched. I couldn’t bring myself to take it.

“What?” Her smile held steady. “Afraid I poisoned it? Larry, look—I’m trying to be kind, and she won’t even accept it.”

Larry sat at the head of the table, his face unreadable. He said nothing.

That silence was permission enough.

I had no choice. Taking the plate, I scooped a small bite with my fork and placed it in my mouth.

Cloying sweet cream mixed with bitter chocolate. It tasted normal.

I relaxed, eating a few more bites.

Then—a sharp, stabbing pain pierced the tip of my tongue, followed by the metallic tang of blood flooding my mouth.

The fork clattered to the plate. My hands flew up, covering my lips.

Blood seeped through my fingers, dripping onto my white dress.

“Oh my god, Olivia! What’s wrong?” Margaret shrieked with feigned shock. “Why are you bleeding?”

She snatched the plate and, right in front of Larry, began poking the remaining cake with her fork. Several shards of glass winked from within the creamy layers.

“Heavens! How did glass get in there?” Her eyes widened with manufactured innocence. “Olivia, why would you do this? Even if you hate me, you can’t hurt yourself just to frame me!”

Her talent for twisting the truth hadn’t changed in seven years.

Larry’s face darkened instantly. Striding over, he pried my hands from my mouth and examined the wound.

My mouth was cut in several places, bleeding freely.

“It wasn’t me—” I tried, but my words dissolved into wet, garbled sounds.

“Don’t even try to deny it!” Margaret cut in first. “Larry, look. I cut the cake in front of everyone. The plate and fork came from the servant. How is it only *your* piece had glass? If you didn’t put it there yourself, who did?”

Larry’s gaze sharpened. He stared at me as though examining a criminal.

Desperate, I shook my head, tears welling.

I still believed in him. Even if he made me drink poison, even if he divorced me, I believed he understood, deep down.

But his next words plunged me into an abyss.

After calling a doctor to treat my wounds, he said to Margaret, “From now on, don’t let her near these things.”

His tone was flat—no accusation, no follow-up, as if handling a trivial matter.

He didn’t believe me.

Or perhaps, he simply didn’t care about the truth.

In that moment, my heart hurt far more than my lacerated tongue.

That night, I huddled alone in the unfamiliar room, cold and hungry.

The door creaked open. Larry walked in, carrying a glass of warm water and a tube of ointment.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he gestured for me to open my mouth.

I turned my head away, resisting silently.

He sighed, turned my face back firmly, and carefully applied the ointment with a cotton swab. It tasted bitter, but his movements were surprisingly gentle.

“Olivia,” he said suddenly, his voice low. “Why didn’t you dodge?”

I froze.

Was he asking why, knowing Margaret meant me harm, I’d still eaten the cake?

I looked at his face, so close. Those eyes that once held galaxies now held only shadows and exhaustion.

Shakily, I pointed to the notepad on the nightstand. He handed it to me, and I wrote two words: *You. Here.*

Because you were there. So I thought… you would protect me.

Larry’s body went rigid. For a long, long time, he stared at those words.

A thick silence settled over the room.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he spoke slowly, his voice terribly hoarse. “Olivia, I… I’m not the Larry from seven years ago anymore.”

*I can’t protect you anymore.*

That was the unspoken second half.

My heart sank, piece by piece.

Margaret’s torment was far from over.

She seemed to relish this cat-and-mouse game, constantly finding new ways to push my limits—and test Larry’s.

She knew I was allergic to mangoes, yet after dinner she deliberately placed the largest, ripest ones in my fruit bowl.

“Olivia, try these. They arrived fresh today—very sweet,” she said brightly, offering the plate.

I remembered Larry’s warning: I’d break out in hives. I’d struggle to breathe.

I looked at him, hoping he would say something, *anything*.

But he kept his head down, eating in silence as if he saw nothing.

My heart turned to ice.

I pushed the plate away.

“What, rejecting my hospitality again?” Margaret’s face fell. “Olivia, don’t be ungrateful. Larry, are you going to discipline her or not?”

Larry finally looked up. He glanced at me and said flatly, “If she doesn’t want it, forget it.”

“Forget it?” Margaret sneered. “Larry, have you forgotten who you’re living off now? I ask you to control one simple fool, and you can’t even do that?”

The hand holding his fork tightened, veins bulging.

In the end, he compromised.

Picking up a slice of mango, he held it to my lips, his tone commanding. “Eat.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

How could he… how could he force me to eat this, knowing it could kill me?

Tears blurred my vision. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth.

The cloying sweetness coated my tongue, then a searing, burning pain clawed at my throat.

I started coughing, my breathing growing labored. My face and neck flushed an alarming red, erupting in large patches of hives.

“Larry! She… what’s wrong with her?” Margaret cried with fake concern.

Only then did Larry panic. He threw down his fork, scooped me into his arms, and rushed for the door. “Call a doctor! Now!”

On the way to the hospital, I slipped into semi-consciousness.

I could feel his arms trembling as he held me, his voice a frantic, constant murmur in my ear. “Olivia, hold on, don’t fall asleep…”

In my haze, I remembered an afternoon years ago. Larry held my hand as we walked down a tree-lined campus path.

He’d hidden a secretly bought mango behind his back, presenting it like a magic trick. “Olivia, try it. It’s sweet.”

Back then, I didn’t know about my allergy. I happily ate the whole box.

I ended up in the emergency room that night.

After that, Larry never let me touch a mango again.

He always said, “My Olivia is precious. She can’t have even a little.”

But now, the one who had personally fed me the poison… was him.

I survived. After that, the tension between Larry and Margaret stretched taut, ready to snap.

He began spending whole nights in the study, no longer sharing a room with her.

It finally pushed her over the edge.

One afternoon, she locked me in a room. In front of me, she produced a box.

Inside were Larry’s treasures.

His old sketchbooks.

Before his mentor steered him into bomb disposal, Larry’s greatest dream was to be a painter.

The pages were filled with drawings. All of me.

Smiling, crying, angry, daydreaming—every version.

“Olivia,” Margaret asked, lighter in hand, her smile twisted and vicious, “what do you think Larry would do… if I burned all of these?”

I lunged for them, but she kicked me away.

“Don’t rush,” she sneered, squatting to pinch my chin. “I want you to watch. I want you to see exactly how you disappear from his heart, piece by piece.”

She flicked the lighter. A blue flame licked the edge of a page.

I saw red. Throwing myself at her, I shoved her aside and tried to beat out the flames with my bare hands.

The fire scorched my skin. It hurt, but I didn’t feel it.

All I knew: these were Larry’s treasures. I couldn’t let them be destroyed.

“Stop!”

The study door burst open as Larry kicked it in.

“Larry, look at her—she attacked me! Are you still going to indulge her?”

But when he saw the wreckage on the floor, the charred and ruined sketchbooks, his eyes instantly reddened.

“Larry… this is all that’s left.”

Clutching the remaining, partially burned sketchbook to my chest, I looked at him through tears.

He snatched the book from my hands and backhanded me across the face.

Dragging me out of the room, his voice was a roar of fury. “I thought you were just a fool! How could you be so vicious?”

He shoved me into a dark, windowless storage room.

“Get out of my sight! Stay here and think about what you’ve done!”