Chapter 1 — My Sister-in-Law Is Not My Maid

For the third time, my husband’s younger sister demanded to move into our home to observe her postpartum confinement, and I immediately submitted my resignation letter. Seven days later, I received a WeChat message from my husband: If you still refuse to come back, let us meet at the civil affairs bureau. That afternoon, at half past two, I was at the office finalizing design blueprints with a client when my phone on the desk buzzed incessantly. I glanced down. It was my mother-in-law. Calling at this hour surely meant nothing good. I apologized to the client and stepped out into the corridor to answer. On the other end of the line, my mother-in-law was brimming with an excitement she could barely contain:

Niem So, I have wonderful news! Vu Dong is pregnant again, and this time it is twins!

I gripped the phone tightly, saying nothing.

So she will be coming to your place for her confinement once more. It is twins after all, so she will definitely need two rooms. Go ahead and clear them out, she will be here next week.

It was an announcement, not a negotiation.

Mother, I do not agree.

The other end fell silent for two seconds.

What did you say?

I said no. Vu Dong cannot come this time.

My mother-in-law’s voice instantly choked with indignation:

Lam Niem So, have you lost your conscience! Vu Dong is your sister-in-law! What harm is there in helping her with her confinement for a single month!

I said nothing more and hung up. My fingers were still trembling. I opened WeChat and sent Tran Trac Vien a message: Your mother said Vu Dong wants to come again, and I have refused. The message went through, yielding no reply. One hour, two hours, sinking like a stone in the vast sea. At seven o’clock that evening, I arrived home. Tran Trac Vien sat on the living room sofa, his face as dark as a gathering storm. Seeing me step through the doorway, he stood up:

Niem So, Vu Dong has already booked her ticket for next Thursday. Clear out the spare room.

I placed my handbag on the shoe cabinet by the entryway:

Did you not hear me say I do not agree?

She is my younger sister. What is wrong with her staying at her older brother’s house for her confinement?

Then I am your wife. Did you bother to consult me?

Tran Trac Vien waved his hand dismissively:

Is this something that requires discussion? It is only a little over forty days.

Only a little over forty days. Three years ago, he had uttered these exact words. A year ago, he had repeated them. And now, this was the third time. Every single time it was merely forty-some days, yet those forty-some days had nearly cost me my life. That night, I lay awake in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling until four in the morning. When the alarm clock rang the following dawn, I made a decision. I wanted to disappear. My name is Lam Niem So, thirty-one years old, serving as a lead interior designer at an architectural design institute within the city. With a monthly salary of twenty-two thousand yuan, my income was far from negligible in this second-tier city. Tran Trac Vien had been a senior from my university days, majoring in architecture a year above me. After graduation, he pursued me for over a year before I finally agreed to date him. Following two years of courtship, we registered our marriage. He worked as a project manager at a state-owned real estate enterprise, earning sixteen thousand yuan a month. By our third year of marriage, with two hundred thousand yuan from my parents-in-law, three hundred thousand from my own parents, and our combined personal savings, we purchased a spacious three-bedroom, two-living-room apartment spanning one hundred and thirty square meters in the southern part of the city. At that time, I felt our lives had finally settled into a steady rhythm, and from then on, we would simply take things as they came. That was until three years ago, when his younger sister, Tran Vu Dong, became pregnant. Four years younger than me, Vu Dong had married Phuong Cam Than at the age of twenty-four, a businessman dealing in building materials. Since her wedding, she had not worked a single day; her social media feed consisted entirely of afternoon teas, aesthetic procedures, and island resort getaways. When she was six months pregnant, my mother-in-law called.

Niem So, our old home is only a little over seventy square meters, and Vu Dong cannot manage her confinement there. Your apartment has three bedrooms and two living rooms, so spacious and comfortable—let her come over.

At that moment, I had just discovered I was over two months pregnant, suffering from severe morning sickness that left my throat raw and sour. Yet, believing it crucial to maintain harmony with my in-laws, and considering she was Tran Trac Vien’s only sister, I nodded.

Very well, Mother. Let Vu Dong come.

When I uttered those words, I was utterly oblivious to the trials that awaited me. Vu Dong’s due date was late July, but she moved in twenty days early. The afternoon she arrived, I returned home from work and pushed open the door to the master bedroom. All my clothes had been cleared out, the wardrobes now crammed with her silk nightgowns and nursing garments. The bed had likewise been made up with her own floral pink bedding brought from home. My mother-in-law followed closely behind:

Vu Dong needs a room with an en-suite bathroom during her confinement. You two should move into the spare room.

I turned my head to look at Tran Trac Vien. He kept his eyes lowered on his phone, uttering not a single word. He and I moved into the twelve-square-meter guest room. My clothes were hung on a makeshift clothing rack tucked into the corner of the living room. Tran Vu Dong gave birth to a baby boy. The day after she discharged from the hospital and returned to our home, her forty-two days of postpartum confinement officially commenced. Those forty-two days. Every single morning, my mother-in-law rose at five-thirty to simmer herbal broths. Pig trotters with soybeans, silky fowl stewed with Chinese yam, crucian carp soup with medicinal herbs—the heavy aroma of grease drifted through the entire hallway. Already plagued by severe morning sickness, I was woken every day by that rich smell, struggling out of bed only to retch violently. The soundproofing was even worse. A newborn wakes four or five times a night, and the piercing cries echoed straight through the walls. I tossed and turned through the endless nights, only to brave the rush-hour commute the following morning. One night past one in the morning, the infant had been crying for forty minutes straight. Truly unable to bear it any longer, I walked over and knocked on the master bedroom door.

Vu Dong, could you please soothe the baby for a moment? I have a major presentation tomorrow.

The door swung open to reveal my mother-in-law.

Children need to feed when they are hungry, is that something you can control? How can a sister-in-law be so meddlesome?

I stood in the corridor in silence, turning back toward our room. Tran Trac Vien lay with his back turned to me, breathing evenly, fast asleep. The prolonged sleep deprivation coupled with harsh morning sickness caused me to drop five and a half kilos in weight. One morning at the office, as I bent over my construction drawings, staring at the screen, the world suddenly went completely black. When I regained consciousness, I found myself in a hospital bed. The doctor held the medical report, looking down at me:

You are suffering from extreme exhaustion coupled with severe anemia, and there are signs of a threatened miscarriage. You must be hospitalized for observation.

I called Tran Trac Vien. He claimed he was in a meeting and would arrive shortly. I called my mother-in-law. She insisted Vu Dong was nursing the baby and could not leave. In the end, it was my dearest friend, Co Thanh Van, who took leave from her company and rushed to my side, helping me complete admission procedures, paying the fees, and accompanying me through every examination.

Niem So, just what kind of life are you living?

She looked at the IV needle taped to the back of my hand, her eyes reddening. Lying on the hospital bed, I could not muster a single word. Tran Trac Vien did not arrive until nine in the evening, carrying a plastic bag of oranges.

How is it? Is it serious?

A threatened miscarriage.

He sat by the bedside in silence for a long moment:

Then you must rest well. I will speak to the head of your department on your behalf.

Where are your mother and Vu Dong?

The baby is still too young, they cannot come out.

I stared at the ceiling and said no more. That child ultimately could not be saved. On the ninth night of my hospitalization, acute pain gripped my abdomen. As the nurses wheeled me into the operating room, my mind was an absolute blank. Once the procedure concluded, the doctor cautioned Tran Trac Vien:

If she becomes pregnant again, she must wait at least a year before trying.

I remained in the hospital room for four more days. Neither my mother-in-law nor Tran Vu Dong visited even once. On the day of my discharge, I asked Tran Trac Vien:

Why did they never come?

He replied:

The baby is not yet a month old, it was inconvenient.

I said nothing further. On the day Vu Dong’s confinement period ended, Phuong Cam Than drove his Mercedes to pick her up. She stood at the doorway holding the baby to bid my mother-in-law farewell, laughing as she dropped a parting remark:

Mother, when I have my second child, I will still come to my sister-in-law’s house.

I stood by the kitchen doorway, holding a glass of water, my knuckles turning stark white. After they left, it took me an entire week to thoroughly cleanse the apartment. Every piece of bedding was discarded, the floors sanitized three times, and a professional cleaning service hired for a deep overhaul. Seeing me busy from dawn till dusk, Tran Trac Vien frowned and remarked:

Is this really necessary? They were hardly enemies staying here.

I dropped the cleaning rag from my hand, straightened up, and looked him straight in the eye.

Tran Trac Vien, I lost our child. Do you even remember that?

His expression froze, and he stepped forward, attempting to take my hand.

I know, but that was an accident. In the future, we will…

Do not speak to me of the future.

I shook his hand away, walked back into the master bedroom, and locked the door behind me. From that day onward, we slept in separate rooms. He took the guest room, while I remained in the master. Each of us went about our daily routines, exchanging fewer than five words upon returning home. I poured my entire soul into my work. Over those six months, I secured three major projects—a hotel lobby, a private club, and a standardized national store layout for a restaurant chain. Working overtime until eleven or midnight became my norm. The company increased my salary and granted me a partial promotion. I also took on private freelance commissions on the side, quietly amassing a sum of money known to no one. It was for no other reason than to secure a retreat of my own. I rented a modest forty-square-meter apartment in the northern district of the city, furnished it simply with a bed, a desk, and a backup computer. I told no a single soul. During that period, the only thing that made me feel truly alive was my personal design account. Back in university, I had loved sketching spatial perspectives and uploading them online, though I had eventually let it lapse amid the relentless demands of my career. Following the miscarriage, in my most desolate moments, I began to draw once more. Operating under the alias A Single Room, I posted renovation schemes exclusively for small apartments. To my astonishment, the response was overwhelmingly favorable. Within half a year, my following surged by eighty thousand, and clients began reaching out through the platform for independent design commissions. A single project yielded thirty to fifty thousand, and during busy months I could secure as many as two. I deposited all of this income into a separate bank card. Tran Trac Vien knew nothing of it. My mother-in-law knew nothing. No one knew that Lam Niem So possessed another hidden life. That was my sole source of solace and security. This fragile peace lasted for ten months. Last March, my mother-in-law’s phone call came once again.

Niem So, Vu Dong is pregnant once more, and this time it is a girl.

I stood in the office pantry, the motion of stirring my coffee halting abruptly.

Mother, and what of it?

Well, she wishes to come to your place for her confinement. Things went quite well last time, so this time…

No.

The other end fell silent.

What did you say?

I said no. Have you forgotten that I suffered a miscarriage last time because I had to care for her during her confinement?

My mother-in-law’s voice instantly pitched upward:

Oh heavens, that was merely an accident! You are not pregnant now, what harm is there in helping your sister?

Mother, I do not agree.

Lam Niem So, you truly are—

I cut the call. That evening, Tran Trac Vien returned home, lingering by the kitchen doorway as I cooked dinner.

My mother has already spoken with you. You know how things are with Vu Dong; Phuong Cam Than is never home, and she must manage her older child while pregnant, unable to cope on her own.

I did not turn around.

Niem So, just help her out this once.

I turned off the stove and faced him.

Tran Trac Vien, did you genuinely forget what happened last time, or are you merely pretending to?

I did not forget. But there will be no issues this time, I give you my word—

Your word?

I stared straight into his eyes.

You gave me your word last time as well.

He furrowed his brows:

You are being unreasonable. It is only forty-two days—

Can you not come up with a new line?

He fell silent, pausing for several seconds before letting out a sharp retort: