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“Where’d you get the money to study abroad? Did you sell yourself?"
“A woman should stay home,raising kids.Why chase impossible dreams?”
His words echoed the crowd’s biases.
"Women belong in the kitchen."
"Who’d do domestic work otherwise?"
And a lone woman abroad—could she even survive?
Eleanor broke the silence.
“Edward ,crawl back into your cesspit! Grace’s free to live as she chooses!"
Finally when the ship’s horn sounded, Edward tried to block me, but I kicked him hard, sending him sprawling.
crumpled, gaping like a beached fish.
“Filth,stay away.”
“Keep yapping,and I’ll rip your mouth off.”
My rare vulgarity stunned him silent.
Served him right—that kick had all my weight behind it.
The farewell horn blared.
I waved to Eleanor, watching her figure shrinking until the shore faded.
My new life began.
The next five years, I studied diligently, never slacking.
I aimed to return accomplished and shatter every expectation placed on my gender.
My past life taught me the textile industry was ripe with opportunity.
I mastered Western techniques, positioning myself to seize emerging markets.
In a world that favored men,I had to succeed.
I’d show everyone women could do it.
On that bright dawn of the day of my return, a crowd gathered at the harbor.
I recalled my past life—Edward returning to fanfare, with his first words to me as “We’re divorcing. Sophia has waited for me five years.”
“You, uneducated and crude, are no match for me.”
I later learned he’d secretly taken Sophia abroad,using my gold bar to gild their lives.
When I demanded it back,he sneered,“You think you’re worthy to make demands?”
I refused divorce,and he strangled me.
Even when I begged him, giving up the gold bar and agreed on an unconditional divorce, he smirked me cruelly, “If you don’t die, Sophia will always be the second wife. How could I let her suffer?”
“Blame yourself for choosing me—blind and foolish.”
His words choked me like a fish out of water.
At this thought, my hatred peaked.
Back in the present, as the ship docked, Eleanor and I embraced together in tears.
My parents’ gnarled hands trembled as they touched my face.
"Such fortune!" bystanders murmured. "Who needs sons with daughters like this?"
I smiled.This was the first step in shattering gender biases.
Someone recognized me.
“Isn’t that Edward Langley’s ex-wife?My,she’s transformed.”
I scanned the crowd and spotted Edward at the edge.
His once-elegant moon-white robe was frayed, patched at the elbows.
He looked haggard,a shadow of his former self.
Now, in my tailored dress and imported leather bag—worth more than his entire wardrobe—the contrast was laughable.
Catching my gaze, he ducked his head and scurried away like a roach in daylight.
