Chapter 2

I worked hard for many years, but only saved two million dollars in savings and a house.

Although these assets were not insignificant, they could not buy my life. Thus, I chose to give up on treatment and decided to keep this money for Jane.

However, she transferred the two million dollars to Anthony without a word half a month ago.

"Why would he come to me asking for help if it was not necessary? His business needs funding; what harm would it do for me to contribute some money as a partner?"

I was so angry that I almost passed out. I asked her to go and get the money back.

She glared at me and refused to go home.

During the last two months of my life, she was busy helping her first love with his business.

Even when the doctor gave me the critical illness notice, she still did not answer the phone or respond to my text messages.

However, I received a text message about our house being used as collateral for a loan.

She even mortgaged our only house to the bank.

On the brink of death, I stared at the mortgage notification on my phone and dialed her number.

Enduring the double pain of physical and mental suffering, I told her in the calmest voice possible. "I'll forget about the two million. I'm leaving the house for Maya. Don't touch it."

When I made that call, I almost could not stop myself from telling her the truth. "Honey, come to the hospital quickly, I... I might not make it."

However, her furious voice came from the other end of the line. "Gale, if you'd been able to come up with the money, would I have had to mortgage the house? You're a businessman too; why can't you understand Anthony's difficulties?"

The sudden pain in my abdomen was nothing compared to the agony Jane's remarks were causing me.

I endured the pain and continued to persuade her. "Don't trust Anthony so much. If we lose the house, where will you and Maya... our whole family live?"

She scoffed. "Don't look down on me. Let me tell you something. I can live just as well without you."

Before, she disliked tiring work and socializing, preferring to stay home to play games and watch videos for the seven or eight years after our marriage.

Now that Anthony was back, she suddenly had a burning desire to be a career woman.

Every word she uttered felt like a knife stabbing into my heart. "If you're a man, stop being so petty! What's wrong with me helping Anthony? He needs encouragement and support right now!"

I thought, 'Haha. He just needs cash flow for his business, while I'm about to be killed by this illness.'

Suddenly, I did not want to say anything anymore.

After hanging up, I told the doctor, "I'm not getting treatment."

Since living was unbearable, perhaps choosing death would be easier.

What I did not expect was that my soul would remain in this world even if I died. I watched helplessly as she devoted herself to the man who had once abandoned her, providing him with money and effort in an almost humiliating manner.

She did not even have time to pick up our five-year-old daughter, Maya, from school.

Seeing her and Anthony embracing and kissing in front of the cameras, I felt a deep sense of sorrow for myself lying in the morgue.

Jane had no idea that the torment of illness in the past few years had left my business in complete disarray. That two million dollars and my only property were all I could leave her.

She probably had already forgotten how Anthony had dumped her and how she had desperately attempted suicide by cutting her wrists.

Ten years ago, Anthony abandoned his first love, Jane, without saying goodbye.

Outsiders would think it was just a normal breakup, but I knew it was because Anthony knew Jane had breast cancer.

His so-called breakup and leaving to pursue a better future was nothing more than a despicable excuse to shirk responsibility.

Unable to bear the blow of the breakup, Jane attempted suicide by cutting her wrists in her rented apartment, leaving a pool of blood.

If I had not received her farewell text message and rushed over because I sensed something was wrong, she might have died.