Chapter 5

“What?”

“I said okay. Divorce.”

Mia fell silent.

We’d had arguments before, and whenever she got upset, she’d use divorce to scare me. It always worked.

She thought this time would be the same, that as soon as she mentioned divorce, I would immediately soften up, apologize, and coax her like I always had.

But she was wrong.

Our old little fights were never anything serious. I loved her, and I was willing to indulge her and put up with her unreasonable behavior.

But this time was different. She’d made a scene at my mom’s funeral, and that had brought our marriage to an end.

“Divorce. The house is my premarital property. Savings get split fifty-fifty. Sweetie stays with me.”

Mia’s eyes rolled around. She knew I wasn’t joking. Even if she regretted it, it was too late now.

“Sweetie has to stay with me. She’s still little and can’t be without her mom. Besides, I don’t want my daughter living with a stepmother.”

She discussed it with me very seriously, and I didn’t bring up the funeral again. I let her finish everything she had to say.

What she said made sense too. I was usually busy with work, and overtime was common. Now that my mom was gone, there was no one to help take care of the child, so it really wasn’t appropriate for her to stay with me.

“Fine. Sweetie stays with you. I’ll visit her every week, and I’ll send child support at the beginning of each month.”

I hadn’t expected Mia to agree to the divorce so easily, or to not make much of a fuss over the property split.

When I got the divorce certificate, it still felt unreal.

Although I couldn’t forgive what she’d done to my mom, for my daughter’s sake, I still rented her a pretty decent place.

I paid the rent too. She only needed to take care of the child.

Once everything was settled, I wasn’t sad about Mia leaving. I just felt a little empty sometimes when I came home and saw how deserted the house was.

We’d been divorced for a while when one night I had nothing to do and lay in bed scrolling through videos.

After a few swipes, I saw that Mia was livestreaming.

I didn’t expect that after my mom’s funeral, her follower count would actually shoot up so much that it was already close to two hundred thousand.

She was livestreaming Sweetie playing the piano.

Sweetie was dressed up like a little princess, sitting in front of the piano and playing a piece she had just learned.

The scene felt warm, and it looked like she really was raising our daughter properly.

Then a viewer complained.

“Pretty lady, that funeral livestream you did last time was insane. Way more interesting than your family life.”

“Yeah, I followed you because of that stream. One time wasn’t enough.”

“Exactly. So many people livestream family life, and it’s so boring. If you keep doing this, I’m unfollowing.”

More and more viewers started chiming in, and Mia, who had originally been smiling happily, began to look nervous.

“No, don’t, darlings. That was a one-time thing. How could I possibly livestream funerals every day?”

“That was my mother-in-law, so I had the chance to show everyone. How could I be there if someone else’s family member died?”

For some reason, I suddenly felt a bellyful of anger.

Are all these people’s brains messed up or what?

When someone in the family dies, that’s already awful enough. And they’re treating it like entertainment.

If you were going to livestream funerals every day, that would mean someone had to die every day. Why would anyone keep hoping for somebody else’s family member to die?

I left the livestream room, only feeling that the world had really changed.

As I was leaving, I noticed Mia’s follower count visibly dropping.

But that wasn’t my problem anymore. The viewers’ request had been way too much to begin with.

I just hadn’t expected Mia to actually start thinking about it.

When she asked me several times in a row to take Sweetie to school, I realized something was wrong.