My Ex-Boyfriend Gave Birth to My Child? What Does That Mean? - Chapter 30

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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My Ex-Boyfriend’s Ex Gave Birth to My Child? Episode 30
Labor had been underway for quite some time, yet there was no sign the birth would end.
“You mustn’t cry out so loudly! You’ll exhaust all your strength before the child comes.”
The Midwife spoke in a stern voice, ordering a maid to feed Lea pieces of honey-preserved fruit. Lea Ocker accepted the fruit with eyes whose vessels had burst from pain, breathing in shallow gasps.
I fled the room, desperate to escape the sight of it all.
Rion, who arrived after hearing the news, was composed.
“I’ve come to collect you.”
“Collect me where?”
“The mansion’s in chaos. We should go to the Duke’s Residence and rest.”
His hand pressed against my forehead.
“You have a fever. Poor thing.”
The hand touching my forehead felt cool. My brow was indeed burning.
I shook my head within the embrace of the man holding me.
“I cannot leave the mansion now. No one knows what emergency might arise.”
“Your servants are trained to handle emergencies.”
“Even so.”
I fell silent for a moment, then spoke what I’d been thinking aloud.
“I hate that woman.”
“I know.”
“But I don’t want to see her die from this either.”
“From this?”
“Childbirth.”
Rion tightened the arm holding me. His soft lips descended gently onto my trembling eyes.
He murmured in a low voice, pouting slightly.
“Lea Ocker will manage to survive on her own.”
“Rion.”
“That’s not what matters right now.”
“Then what does?”
“That you’re in pain. And…….”
A sigh-like whisper brushed past my ear.
“That we let it be born at all.”
* * *
Half-leaning against Rion on the sitting room sofa, I drifted into shallow sleep, intoxicated by fever.
In my dream, I saw the child.
A beautiful boy with golden hair that flowed like honey, the very image of his mother.
‘…… Madam Ocker.’
I was leaning on a cane, my thin body wrapped in a dark dress, looking down at the child with weary eyes.
On the Adoption Document I had signed, the child’s name was written beneath my own.
Emil Ocker.
I spoke in a voice half-resigned toward the child, who gazed up at me with an expression tinged with childish stubbornness.
‘Call me mother.’
‘…… I don’t want to.’
‘Then you may call me as you please.’
‘Very well. Madam Ocker.’
‘Yes, Emil.’
I held back a sigh and nodded.
‘Let us get along well from now on.’
Lea’s residence was decided to be in the Ocker Mansion—a separate dwelling with a Glass Greenhouse attached. I gave her the most beautiful place in the house, and met the child weighted down by obligation.
My mother-in-law entrusted the child’s basic upbringing to me. Lea objected, but ultimately deferred to my mother-in-law’s words.
‘She must be raised to carry an aristocratic bearing from childhood. Though I suppose one cannot call that Irina girl particularly aristocratic.’
I made no retort to my mother-in-law’s words—I would only hear more unpleasantness. Through the contentious negotiation between my mother-in-law and Lea, the child came to spend six days a week with me.
The child’s basic education, when I began it, was an utter shambles. She had barely learned letters, much less Etiquette, and her writing was barely legible; she ate loudly and messily.
This family’s intentions were transparent.
They meant to cast me as the villain.
On the first day of lessons, the child arrived late to the dining table.
‘Emil.’
At my call, the child startled and lifted her head.
‘Why are you late?’
‘Mother called for me…… for a moment.’
The child’s gaze fixed on the floor. Her words trailed off with a subtle hesitation.
I caught sight of the child’s sleeve. Beneath the neatly fastened cuff, the fabric was frayed ever so slightly.
‘Hold out your hand for me.’
‘It’s fine.’
Without a word, I took the child’s hand and rolled back the sleeve. Red marks stood out against the pale skin. Handprints.
‘It’s my fault…….’
‘Enough.’
I cut short the child’s hasty attempt at an excuse. Without releasing his hand, I turned my head away, as if to catch my breath.
‘From now on, use me as your excuse to get away.’
The child nodded quietly, unable to look up.
* * *
‘It’s admirable that you can read and write. But that alone isn’t enough.’
The child’s terrible handwriting gradually began to resemble mine.
‘When eating, let there be almost no sound from your utensils.’
This correction took more time. When the education-weary child threatened to stop eating, I had to add snack hours to the schedule.
‘Hunching while you walk is the worst habit. Straighten your spine, and keep your neck upright.’
For behavioral correction, I hired a separate instructor. My cane limited what I could teach directly. Pascal Ocker found a teacher who had served in the royal court at my request, then conducted himself with such pride and stiffness, as if he were granting me a favor rather than helping his own son.
‘Soon we’ll need to teach you horsemanship as well.’
This proposal required me to overcome Lea’s fierce objections. She foamed at the mouth, insisting I meant to kill her son, and I had to laboriously explain how fundamental horsemanship was to Aristocratic Society etiquette.
I did not think Lea was ignorant of this fact. She simply wanted to plant fear of me in the child’s heart.
After that, I continued—managing the trading company while raising the boy. My already frail body grew ill frequently.
The child of the woman who killed my own children. I ground my body to dust working for the family I had allowed to decay.
There was nowhere to run.
If I stopped working, I felt I would collapse and crumble at any moment.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Emil was a remarkably gifted child. He learned everything quickly.
‘Mrs. Ocker.’
Emil was the embodiment of my defeat.
‘I heard you have a birthday this month. So…… I prepared a gift.’
Yet at the same time, he was also a deeply lovable child.
Fourteen years old. By now, the boy could stand with graceful poise and speak with refined eloquence, and he had become the closest person to me in the Ocker household.
‘I should go now. Mother is…….’
‘Yes. Your mother dislikes you spending time with me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You have nothing to apologize to me for.’
I shook my head, thinking of Lea clinging to Pascal like a limpet, as if compensating me for the long years I had lost my husband to her.
‘It’s only natural.’
I often wondered.
Why was my heart so heavy?
Emil Ocker, now twenty years old, came to find me carrying a snack his mother had prepared. He seemed to think it was a message of reconciliation toward me.
I never refused the food Emil brought me.
Until the day the symptoms could no longer be hidden.
‘The snacks you brought me every day—they were poisoned.’
I left my final revenge directed at Lea.
‘Mrs. Ocker. I…… I absolutely did not…….’
The voice of the young man who held me close with a desperate expression trembled.
‘I absolutely never meant to…….’
Collapsed as I was, I breathed my last in the arms of the enemy’s child I had raised.
Just after feeling the liberation of finally escaping the Ocker Family.
Darkness engulfed me.
* * *
When I opened my eyes, filling my entire vision were eyes of the deepest blue.
I felt a premonition.
Before the time regression, I remembered seeing very large, blue eyes.
Those luminous eyes that had gazed at my body—so small compared to his irises—in silence before blinking once, then regarding my entire past life.
And…….
“Did you sleep well?”
Rion asked softly, stroking my cheek.
Only after hearing his voice did I feel my feet touch the ground. I slowly registered that I was now in the Otreha Family Mansion, and that the master of this place was not Shlena—it was me.
I looked up at the man gazing down at me, his beautiful face almost otherworldly, and answered in a small voice.
“I remember everything now.”
The sweat on my brow had not yet cooled. Some hollow place inside me felt numb with cold.
I reached out and grabbed Rion’s sleeve without thinking. Only after I’d seized it did I realize I was trembling.
“Irina?”
Instead of answering, I drew closer.
His warmth spread along my ribs. It was comforting—proof that he was alive.
When the arm wrapped around me from behind tightened, my breathing eased at last. I pressed myself against him more firmly. If I let go for even a moment, I felt certain I would be swept away by rapids and never return.
“I’m sorry.”
I murmured the words softly, and his hand traced slow circles across my back.
“Just stay here.”
My body surrendered to relief at those words alone.
As I steadied my breathing, a soft knock sounded at the door.
It was Cyril.
She entered the room quietly and spoke in a measured voice.
“The child has been born.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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