Chapter 4

Noelle had suddenly gone into labor a week before her due date.

Mark, Fiona, and I stood outside the delivery room, pacing anxiously back and forth.

Fiona kept her hands clasped together in prayer, constantly asking for everything to go smoothly. Meanwhile, Mark stared silently at the delivery room doors.

As the minutes ticked by, Noelle's muffled cries of pain occasionally drifted out from inside. Each one of them caused a pang in my heart.

Just then, a commotion suddenly broke out near the elevators.

"Move! Get out of my way! I'm the deceased's family! My son is dead! What right do you have to stop me from going in?"

I whipped around.

Mom and Emmett had arrived outside the delivery room with Jemima and her family. The five of them looked indignant and tense.

They had originally gone to the morgue to identify my body. Still, after asking around and learning that Noelle was at this hospital, they had come straight here to demand the insurance money.

The moment Mom stepped out of the elevator, she spotted Mark and Fiona standing outside the delivery room.

She showed no concern whatsoever for her daughter-in-law inside.

Instead, she stormed over and shouted at the top of her lungs. "So this is what's going on! I was wondering why my son's insurance payout hasn't come through yet. Turns out you outsiders are trying to steal it!

"I'm telling you, Henry Johnstone is my son. Even if he's dead, every penny of that money belongs to my younger son so he can get married! Don't even think about taking a cent!"

Listening to her brazen demands for the money, I let out a bitter laugh.

The year I took the SAT, I was accepted into one of the country's top universities in another state. I had run home excitedly, holding my admission letter.

But Mom didn't even glance at it. Right in front of me, she tore it into pieces.

She huffed, "What's the point of going to university? Where are we supposed to get the money to send you there?"

She threw the shredded paper in my face and sneered, "Emmett got into a vocational college. His tuition is 15,000 dollars a year. Tomorrow, you're going to work construction and earn money to pay his tuition! Anything good should go to Emmett. You owe him that!"

She had repeated those words to me time and again ever since I was a child.

The best food went to him. The chance to go to school went to him. The money to buy a house went to him.

And now, she believed it was only natural that even the lives of my wife, my child, and me should be sacrificed for him.

Mark was enraged. "Shut your mouth, you crazy woman! Noelle is still in there! If you dare to make one more noise outside this delivery room one more time, I'll throw you out the window myself!"

"You wouldn't dare!" Mom roared.

Seeing this, Emmett immediately stepped forward.

Pointing arrogantly at Mark, he barked, "Henry's dead, old man. I'm the head of this family now! Hand over the money, or I'll beat up every single one of you!"

Just as Emmett rolled up his sleeves and was about to start a fight, the delivery room doors opened. A nurse walked out carrying a swaddled baby in her arms.

She was beaming with joy as she announced, "Congratulations! Both the mother and baby are doing well! The mother is in great condition, and you have a beautiful baby girl!"

Mom and Emmett froze, still caught in the middle of their shouting, as they stared blankly at the nurse.

Then, I turned around and stood before them completely unharmed.

Looking at their wide-eyed expressions, I said coldly, "Who told you I was dead?"