My Fiancé's Scandals Never End, So I Married His Uncle Instead-Chapter 139: Born in Hell

The Oakhaven dialect has a strong regional flavor, vastly different from standard Mandarin. Anyone unfamiliar with it would be completely bewildered.

Since waking up on the cargo ship, Summer Sutton hadn’t heard this dialect in years, yet now she understood it effortlessly.

She froze. Just hearing the shrewish old woman’s voice sent a wave of instinctual fear through her. Shuffling to the side, she stood hidden beneath the melon vines by the courtyard wall, adjusted her sunglasses and mask, and continued to listen in silence.

No sooner had the old woman finished speaking than the timid, tearful voice of another, middle-aged woman rose. "Whether he’s really going to buy a car or pay off his gambling debts, you know the truth, Mom. We’ve been covering for him for years and we’re drowning in debt. All I have left is my wedding gold, and with Junjun about to get married, I have to save it for him..."

"Junjun’s only eighteen, what’s the rush?" A gruff male voice cut in—Sean York. "Our Junjun is a good-looking boy. He’ll find a rich girlfriend someday and be set for life. You give me the gold. I’m going to make one big play. When I win, I’ll buy you ten times the gold..."

"You’re still going to gamble!" Laura Morgan’s voice was hysterical. "If it weren’t for your gambling debts back then, for selling Daisy behind my back, our Daisy wouldn’t have..."

"Still bringing up that good-for-nothing!" Sean York’s voice grew twice as vicious. "She ran away back then! I almost got beaten to death because I couldn’t pay my debts, and you have the nerve to mention her! She’d better have died in some godforsaken corner. If I find out she’s still alive, I’ll skin her alive."

"Enough. You’ve got some nerve mentioning Daisy." This time, the old woman’s resentment was aimed at her own son. "Around here, the bride price for a daughter starts at two hundred thousand now! The last few girls who got married, the worst deal was still two hundred eighty thousand plus eighty grams of gold. If Daisy were still here, would our family be having such a hard time?"

Sean York fell silent, abashed.

Only Laura Morgan was still crying softly.

"Cry, cry, cry, you’ll bring us bad luck!" The old woman spat, cursing. "Hurry up and get the gold so we can go to the jewelry shop and exchange it. If you won’t go, fine! I’ll just head over to Morgan Village and have a little chat with your mother about how she raised such a selfish thing like you!"

"Mom, I’m begging you, please don’t go cause a scene at my parents’ house..."

The old woman was already storming out the door.

By the courtyard wall near the gate, Summer Sutton stood rigid between her two bodyguards. She wanted to leave, but her feet felt nailed to the ground. She could only stare blankly as the two women, one after the other, came into view.

The old woman in front had graying hair and a small, thin frame, but she radiated a fierce energy, her stride brisk and vigorous. Behind her, a haggard, middle-aged woman trailed meekly, her face a mask of pitiful helplessness.

The moment they stepped outside, they spotted Summer Sutton and her companions standing by their courtyard wall.

"Who are you?" The old woman’s wary gaze fell on Summer Sutton.

Summer Sutton steadied herself and asked in a fluent Port Sovereign accent, "We were taking some photos nearby and got a little lost. Could you please tell us how to get to the main road from here? This village is a maze; we’ve been walking for over half an hour and we’re still stuck in it."

"Oh, tourists." The old woman switched to broken Mandarin. "Follow this road straight. You’ll be out in about ten minutes. Don’t make any turns."

Summer Sutton nodded politely. "Thank you."

"Where are you from, dearie?" The old woman looked her up and down. "You talk funny."

"A Port Sovereign native," Summer Sutton replied softly. "You should visit Port Sovereign sometime if you have the chance, ma’am."

"A big city like that... like I’d ever get the chance," the old woman muttered.

Summer Sutton pretended not to hear and signaled to her two bodyguards. "Let’s go."

Her legs felt weak, but she forced herself to remain composed, slowly walking past the old woman and the middle-aged woman, continuing down the road.

A few yards later, Sean York’s voice came from behind her. "Mom, who was that?"

"Just someone asking for directions," the old woman answered dismissively.

Summer Sutton glanced back as if by chance. The man with a cigarette dangling from his lips was now also standing by the courtyard wall. He was gaunt, with sunken cheekbones, but his eyes burned with a menacing hostility. She abruptly tore her gaze away, her feet feeling as if they were filled with lead as she dragged herself out of the family’s line of sight. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

In the SUV on the way back, Summer Sutton sat in the back seat, drenched in a cold sweat the entire time.

"Miss Lowell, do you need us to take you to a hospital?" one of the bodyguards asked with concern, noticing her condition. He touched the back of his hand to her forehead. "You’re a bit warm. Feels like you have a fever."

"No, just take me back to the hotel," Summer Sutton said, her voice slightly hoarse. Her body alternated between hot and cold, and her head was dizzy and heavy, filled with an indescribable sense of terror.

A few hours later, Summer Sutton was back at her hotel in Oakhaven City Center, curled up under the covers. Oakhaven was one of the nation’s infamous "furnace cities," with long, hot summers. Blinding sunlight poured in through the window, yet Summer felt as if she had been plunged into an icy abyss, shivering uncontrollably.

She closed her eyes, her mind hazy.

It was as if a seal had been broken. Kaleidoscopic images filled her mind as long-dormant memories surged forth like floodwaters from a broken dam...

Her name was Daisy York.

Her earliest memories were of her eternally scolding grandmother, her meek and easily bullied mother, and a father who was always either at a gambling table or a drinking party. Occasionally, there would even be a little scandal involving her mother and the widow next door.

The family was a bottomless pit that could never be filled. While others’ lives improved, theirs only grew poorer. To make matters worse, the Lambert family’s deep-seated preference for boys over girls meant that she and her mother became the targets of their frustrations. There was endless farm work, endless beatings, and she always went to school in tattered clothes. Whenever she got into a fight with classmates, she never had a parent to back her up.

Then, her younger brother was born.

Her mother’s life became a little easier, but hers grew even harder. In those days of being barely clothed and half-starved, she ate nothing but boiled sweet potatoes and potatoes for years to save food for her brother, with only the occasional bowl of plain noodles. Even so, her father, Sean York, pointed and cursed at her every day, calling her a good-for-nothing. Her weak mother, completely focused on her brother, didn’t have even a shred of protectiveness left for her.

Later, her father’s gambling addiction spiraled, his debts mounted, and his drinking worsened. The beatings went from every few days to every single day. Before the old scars on her body could even scab over, new ones would appear. She would cry her heart out and look to her mother, but her mother would just clutch her wailing baby brother and hide in her room, not even sparing her a glance, afraid her crying would disturb the boy.

When she turned eighteen, the look in her father’s eyes softened. Not only did he stop hitting her, but he even bought medicine to treat her old injuries.

Her father said he was taking her into the city for fun.

She rode the village bus with him, arriving in the bustling city center for the first time. Gazing at the new world with its endless streams of traffic, she thought her life was finally about to change.

In a thirty-yuan-a-night motel room, drifting in a half-dreaming state, she heard her father and another man haggling in low voices outside the door. For the price of twenty thousand, her father was selling her to...

"You can go in and inspect the goods now." Her father’s voice pushed her life into hell. "Don’t worry, I’ll stand guard at the door for you."