Chapter 1: She Suffers a Difficult Birth While He Comforts His White Moonlight Editor: Henyee Translations

The day she gave birth to her second child, Sophia Shaw had been in pain for three hours, and she had been waiting for those three hours.

What she got wasn’t the sympathy and comfort of Vincent Grant, her husband, but of him holding his goddess in his arms.

All because the child Joanna Sherman had adopted was also born today. She was scared watching someone else give birth!

"Don’t be afraid. I’m here."

Sophia Shaw lay all alone on the delivery bed, watching her husband shield that person protectively outside the door.

She cried with her mouth open, her whole body trembling, but not a single sound came out.

Waves of contractions, each more intense than the last, felt like a dull blade carving into her flesh. A cold sweat soaked her clothes and hair, and her face was as pale as paper. She looked like a drowned ghost!

Shouldn’t she be the one getting comforted right now?

Her lips were bitten raw, her nails dug four deep, bloody holes into her palms, from which blood gushed.

Sophia Shaw felt like she was about to split apart.

"Thank you so much. You came all the way from the base with just one call from me. The baby came early. I wasn’t prepared for it at all."

Joanna Sherman’s delicate, trembling voice drifted in from outside the door.

PANG!

Her heart was ruthlessly struck once again.

She had made a hundred calls and couldn’t reach Vincent Grant, yet he dropped everything for a single call from Joanna Sherman!

In fact, she had told him two days ago that the due date was today...

Tears streamed down her cheeks, pattering onto the delivery bed. Unable to bear the contractions, she could only curl herself into a tighter and tighter ball.

A doctor came in and assessed her delivery.

"Your condition is very poor. If this continues, the baby will be deprived of oxygen. Where’s your family?"

For a C-section, a family member needs to sign.

Sophia Shaw lifted her long lashes, heavy with sweat and tears, and looked out. Vincent Grant and Joanna Sherman were already gone.

Her family wasn’t in the city, so he was the only relative she could contact.

Sophia Shaw had her pride.

Since Vincent Grant would rather abandon her while she was giving birth to accompany Joanna Sherman, who was waiting for someone else to give birth, she didn’t want to call him again.

But she couldn’t neglect the child in her belly.

Knowing she could contact her son, Cedric Grant, she video-called him with a trembling hand.

"Cedric, Mommy is at..."

"Mom, I’m sorry," Cedric Grant interrupted before Sophia Shaw could finish. "Auntie Joanna’s baby was born today, so I snuck out while you were sleeping."

Cedric Grant’s eyes darted around guiltily, but his mouth kept running. "This is her first time being a mom. I want to be here for her, to cheer her on!"

He couldn’t stop himself from glancing in Joanna Sherman’s direction, his eagerness to make his presence known to her written all over his face.

He was so focused that he completely failed to notice Sophia Shaw’s face, pale as a ghost, or her trembling lips.

"Bye!"

Afraid that Sophia Shaw would drag him back, he hung up in a hurry before she could say another word.

Sophia Shaw clutched her phone tightly, her heart breaking into a million pieces.

Her labor had started in the early morning. Afraid of scaring Cedric Grant, she had forced herself not to call an ambulance, despite shaking all over from the pain, and drove to the hospital herself.

The son she cared so much about only cared about Joanna Sherman!

Joanna Sherman had a cold, aloof personality and usually kept people at a distance, but this father and son were utterly bewitched, scrambling to orbit around her.

Joanna Sherman had now become their shared goddess!

She had lost. She accepted that.

But why did it have to be Joanna Sherman?

...

In the end, Sophia Shaw signed the consent form herself. When she woke up, she was in a hospital room.

Because she had arrived in a rush and hadn’t completed all the paperwork, the doctors had put her in a general ward.

The space by her bed was empty. Only a small, swaddled bundle lay lonesomely at the head of the bed.

The anesthesia hadn’t worn off yet, so Sophia Shaw couldn’t get out of bed. She could only reach out to touch the baby’s tiny, wrinkled face.

"It’s a little princess," a nurse said as she walked over and performed some routine checks. "Hasn’t your family arrived yet?"

The nurse glanced around the room.

The other beds were all surrounded by people, but this one was conspicuously empty. From the time the new mother had been brought out of surgery until now, a full day and night, not a single person had shown up.

What kind of heartless family would abandon a mother and her newborn child, ignoring them completely?

The people nearby had long since noticed Sophia Shaw’s situation and occasionally cast sympathetic and curious glances her way.

The stares made Sophia Shaw feel as if she had thorns at her back.

The nurse sighed silently. "You can’t get out of bed right now, and the baby needs someone to take care of her. If you really can’t find a family member, you should at least find someone reliable to help."

"Thank you."

The nurse shook her head, but kindly washed a bottle and helped feed the baby before she left.

Sophia Shaw picked up her phone.

It was silent.

No reply from Vincent Grant, and not a single word from Cedric Grant.

Even a stranger was willing to lend a hand, so how could Vincent Grant and Cedric Grant be so heartless?

A lump formed in her throat. Sophia Shaw had to bow her head forcefully to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over again.

Sophia Shaw’s family was abroad on urgent business, and the Grant Family’s residence wasn’t close by. If Vincent Grant didn’t come, she couldn’t order them around either.

Sophia Shaw had no choice but to ask her most trusted senior to help her find a reliable maternity nurse.

The next day, the doctor recommended she get out of bed and walk around.

With the support of her maternity nurse, Ms. Archer, Sophia Shaw slowly walked out. After the anesthesia wore off, her incision stung as if pricked by needles.

Before long, Sophia Shaw ran out of strength.

"Don’t rush, take it slow. Rest for a bit if you’re tired. I’ll get you a glass of water," the maternity nurse said considerately, striding back to the room.

Sophia Shaw rested her fingers over her incision and turned her head, looking around idly to pass the time. Her gaze inadvertently fell on the people across the way.

Vincent Grant, the man who had completely ignored her, was now pressed against Joanna Sherman’s back, carefully teaching her how to feed the baby.

The man’s narrow, elegant eyes were lowered, teaching her word by word with extreme earnestness.

Their faces were nearly touching, so intimate they looked like a real married couple.

Joanna Sherman muttered in frustration, "Taking care of a baby is so hard."

Cedric Grant was there, too. He was at their side, declaring loudly, "Don’t be afraid, Auntie Joanna! Dad and I will help you raise our little sister. From now on, she’ll be my only little sister. We’ll protect her!" He thumped his chest loudly, not forgetting to look at Vincent Grant. "Right, Dad?"

"Mm."

Sophia Shaw felt as if she’d been violently shoved into an ice cellar. A chill pierced her marrow and spread through her limbs, a hundred times more painful than her abdominal incision!

Joanna Sherman’s daughter was their one and only, so what did that make her daughter, her little Bun?

Ever since Joanna Sherman had returned a year ago, Cedric Grant had been utterly captivated by her, his attention completely focused on her. He never cared about his mother’s pregnancy.

As for Vincent Grant, although they hadn’t seen each other in nine months, she had diligently emailed him her prenatal check-up results every month, and she had sent him the due date as well.

And yet, for Joanna Sherman’s sake, he had even missed the birth of his own daughter!

While he was doting on someone else’s child, did he ever, even for a single second, think of his own daughter?

Sophia Shaw was so distraught that her whole body trembled, and tears streamed down her face once more.

Unable to listen any longer, she leaned against the wall and started back.

Vincent Grant’s assistant came striding over and paused for a moment as he passed her. He only saw her back. Still, how could Sophia Shaw possibly be in the maternity ward, wearing a hospital gown?

Jack Holloway never paid much mind to people Vincent Grant didn’t care about, so he strode up to Vincent. "President Grant, while organizing your inbox, I found a batch of emails from your wife that were sent to spam. Would you like to see them?"

At the mention of Sophia Shaw, Vincent Grant’s eyes darkened slightly, but he still took the tablet. He walked to the side, sat down, and tapped open the email with a long finger.

Cedric Grant leaned over to look as well.

"Oh no, the baby spit up!"

The very instant Vincent Grant opened the email, Joanna Sherman’s panicked cry suddenly rang out. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Vincent Grant and Cedric Grant immediately dropped the tablet and rushed to Joanna Sherman’s side.

On the tablet, abandoned on the sofa, an email sent by Sophia Shaw nine months ago was displayed in plain sight: Vincent Grant, I’m pregnant with our second child.

After helping Joanna Sherman with the commotion, Vincent Grant took a few work-related calls.

Cedric Grant glanced at his watch, then hurriedly picked up the tablet and started scrolling through a certain video app.

After scrolling for a while, his mouth suddenly turned down in a pout.

When Vincent Grant walked back over, he said, "Dad, my favorite channel, Rocket Planet, suddenly stopped updating. What a shame."

Cedric Grant was a rocket enthusiast, and he hadn’t missed a single update from Rocket Planet since it started a year ago. He was indescribably disappointed that it had suddenly stopped.

"Dad, do you think Rocket Planet is Auntie Joanna?"

Joanna Sherman’s main field of study was rocket manufacturing, and the reason Rocket Planet gave for stopping was also to take care of a daughter, which matched her situation perfectly.

Vincent Grant didn’t answer, just patted his head.

Before the two of them could mention the email again, Jack Holloway called with exciting news, "Everything is ready. We can launch tonight."

...

Sophia Shaw hated the feeling of being gawked at with pity, so she moved to a private room.

At that moment, she was cradling little Bun in the crook of her left arm, holding her phone in her right hand.

Under her hiatus announcement on Rocket Planet, many comments followed. Some congratulated her on the birth of her daughter, while others asked when she would post again.

Sophia Shaw’s thoughts were a tangled mess.

Before she got married, she was a rocket researcher. She had been considered a rising star in her field.

One day, she accidentally stumbled upon Vincent Grant proposing to his goddess, and through a bizarre twist of fate, the two of them ended up sleeping together.

In a fit of anger, the goddess left the country.

The Grant family, with their extraordinary status, forced Vincent Grant to marry her.

Blinded by the crush she’d had on Vincent Grant since her youth, she had resolutely given up her career to marry him.

Sophia Shaw didn’t know at the time that the person Vincent Grant had been proposing to was Joanna Sherman, but her entanglement with Joanna became the original sin of her six-year-long cold marriage.

Although Vincent Grant hated her, he was exceptionally attentive to their son, Cedric Grant. She thought that time would prove her innocence, that she could surely win Vincent Grant’s approval.

Unexpectedly, she ended up losing her son’s heart in the process.

For the first time, Sophia Shaw seriously considered the question: was there any need for her marriage to Vincent Grant to continue?

BANG!

A ball of fire exploded on the distant horizon.