His Forsaken Mate's Ultimate Cold Awakening

“I married Julian Sterling to take my dead sister's place, acting as a free nanny to his ten-year-old son, Leo. But when Leo maliciously pushed me into the freezing lotus pond and then fake-cried, Julian didn't even look at my drenched, shivering body. He scooped up his son and harshly scolded me for lacking the patience and dignity of a mother. As punishment, my mother-in-law forced me to kneel all night in the freezing family shrine. Meanwhile, Julian sat warmly in the parlor, chatting intimately with his childhood sweetheart. The icy water and freezing night gave me a deadly fever. Instead of calling a doctor, they locked me in my room with only a cup of water and a piece of rock-hard black bread. They wanted to slowly, legally starve me to death. When Julian finally came to check on me, it was only to throw a heavy book at me in a drunken rage, smashing my wrist. "Who told you to move? Always making a scene!" Looking at my bruised wrist and his disgusted eyes, my heart went completely numb. I finally realized his promise to "take care of me" was a pathetic joke. I was just a disposable tool meant to rot in this gilded cage. I stopped crying. I secretly used my own herbal remedies to cure my fever, walked out of that room, and looked at the man who thought I would submit forever. "Julian, let's separate."”