The Fountain Wives

Seren's POV

My mother had no medical license, yet wealthy socialites lined up to hand her fat checks.

I often saw her lead those women into the treatment room, where agonizing screams would pierce through the locked door.

But strangely, those same women emerged radiant, as if they'd shed twenty or thirty years overnight, pressing stacks of cash into her hands with tearful gratitude.

What baffled me more was how she doted on the hired girls like her own daughters.

Yet toward me, her actual daughter, she was nothing but cold—always quick to criticize or strike.

Finally one day, curiosity won. I mustered the courage to peek through that door crack and saw what really happened inside...

Two sharp slaps struck my face, instantly numbing my cheek and leaving a ringing in my ears.

"Little bitch! Finally showing your true colors? You want to take over the clinic—are you worried about me, or are you after my money?!"

My mother, Rosalind Whitlock, grabbed me by the collar. Her bony fingers, resembling rotting twigs, dug into my shoulder blades.

I didn't struggle or hide. I just stared quietly at this woman whose withered, bark-like skin made her look twenty years older than she was. I’d learned long ago that opening my mouth only invited a worse beating.

After my father, Nathaniel Sinclair, died, my mother fled in the dead of night, dragging young me from bustling Southport to the remote town of Grimwood.

In my memory, she was just a clumsy nurse who couldn't even hit a vein. But now, this nameless street was constantly lined with bulletproof Maybachs bearing concealed out-of-state plates. The visitors were always dressed to the nines but muffled in scarves or sunglasses, reeking of decay and desperate anxiety.

Yet, when they slipped out the back door hours later, they were entirely different people. Their sagging skin was tight, their cloudy eyes blazed with renewed greed, and even their hunched backs were straight and proud.

That morning, the Governor's wife, Margot Ashford, knocked on our door.

Carrying extra weight and sporting desperately drooping eyelids, she clung to my mother's hand, crying so hard her makeup ran. "Rosalind, please... that eighteen-year-old tramp just moved into his private villa! The election is about to start. If I can't stand beside him looking young and radiant, my family will be eaten alive by the political establishment!"

My mother coldly pulled her hand away, not even lifting her eyelids. "Three hundred thousand dollars. Wire the money first, then you go in."

There was no bargaining. Trembling all over, Margot followed her into the treatment room.

Ten minutes after the door locked, screams erupted. It wasn't the sound of normal medical pain; it sounded like vocal cords being shredded, echoing like flesh being flayed from the bone. Hiding on the second-floor landing, I covered my ears, cold sweat soaking my shirt, my stomach tying itself in knots.

Three hours later, the vault door clicked open.

Margot walked out, looking as though time had reversed thirty years. Her waist was completely cinched, and her sallow face was flushed with a girlish, almost bewitching blush. She touched her face in disbelief, her voice trembling, "My God... Rosalind, you are a miracle worker!"

Frantically pulling out her checkbook, she signed her name with shaking hands. "Another two hundred thousand—as long as you can maintain this, I'll pay whatever you want!"

The check, heavy with zeros, left me stunned. But when Margot left with endless gratitude, I turned around and my blood ran cold.

My mother gripped the doorframe, sliding down like a ragdoll. Large patches of her dark hair had practically turned white under the dim light. She looked completely drained, pale as a corpse bled dry of life. She gasped for air, the blue veins on the back of her hands bulging.

Instinctively, I took a step forward.

That single step almost cost me my life.

Her hand clamped onto my ear like a vice, though her body remained rigid—like a rotted tree refusing to fall. Her voice was as calm as if discussing the weather: "How is the recruitment going?"

"No news yet—"

For two months, she had frantically made me post on underground forums and newspapers: [Urgently seeking private medical assistant. No medical experience needed. $100,000/month, room and board included.]

Batch after batch of young, beautiful girls desperate for cash dragged cheap suitcases into Grimwood.

My mother was sickeningly sweet to them—cooking for them, buying expensive dresses, showering them with a suffocating affection I'd never known. But none lasted.

Within two days, every girl bolted. They left behind six-figure salaries, luxury wardrobes—everything. Scrambling through windows, they fled town like hunted prey.

"Seren, you think I don't know what you're thinking? Every time you look at me, you have the exact same eyes as your damn father. Even if I rot inside that clinic today, I will never let your filthy hands touch a single piece of my life's work."

Her skeletal fingers suddenly let go.

"Post it again. Raise the base salary to a hundred and fifty grand. It must go live tonight."

My fingers were ice-cold.

Even without counting, I knew perfectly well—this was the 101st time she had forced me to post that exact job ad.