Chapter 180

Evelyn's gaze softened with concern. "You don't have to pretend with me, Claire. Not here."

She didn’t want Claire spiraling into dark thoughts, so she quickly shifted the subject. "You seemed pale earlier. Are you certain you don’t need medical attention?"

"I’m fine," Claire insisted.

Seeing her stubbornness, Evelyn didn’t push further. After carefully removing Claire’s makeup, she gently pressed her fingers against Claire’s wrist.

Claire’s brows lifted in surprise. "Wait—you can read pulses?"

Evelyn nodded. "Before the Hayes family took me in, I apprenticed under a village healer. Pulse diagnosis isn’t my strongest skill, but my medical acupuncture? That, I mastered."

Her knowledge of acupuncture had saved Alexander once. She’d stabilized the bleeding from his artery just in time—a miracle that kept him alive.

Claire blinked. "If you’re skilled in acupuncture, why haven’t you used it all these years?"

At the question, Evelyn’s expression darkened. Her gaze dropped to her hands.

Claire noticed the shift in Evelyn's expression and leaned forward, her voice laced with concern. "Did something terrible happen?"

Evelyn swallowed hard before answering. "I took a life with my own hands."

Claire's breath hitched.

Ten years ago, on a quiet evening walk home, Evelyn had stumbled upon a young boy collapsed by the roadside, gasping for air in the throes of an asthma attack.

With no time to wait for an ambulance, she had acted on instinct—using her knowledge of medical acupuncture to stabilize him.

But when she called the hospital later that night, the news shattered her.

The boy hadn’t survived.

The guilt carved itself deep into her soul, an unhealed wound that never truly scabbed over.

She had replayed that moment endlessly, agonizing over what she could have done differently.

The Hayes family had known.

Rumors whispered that the boy’s mother had wanted justice, but Richard had intervened—silencing the outcry with a hefty payout.

Evelyn’s return to the Hawthorne Estate should have been a celebration.

Instead, it became a funeral for her reputation.

Richard and Margaret saw her as a curse—a bad omen who had bled the family dry on her very first day back.

Vanessa, ever the opportunist, had sneered, "Evelyn, I told you not to play doctor without a license. Now look what you’ve done."

Vanessa had never mentioned this before.

In truth, when Evelyn performed the acupuncture, Vanessa had been right beside her, clutching the needle case.

Evelyn didn’t hold a medical license. But in their village, healers were as common as wildflowers.

Every villager had their own remedies, and the physician who taught Evelyn was the most respected for leagues. She had mastered nearly all of his techniques.

So, when that little boy collapsed from an asthma attack, Evelyn hadn’t hesitated. She reached for her needles with steady hands.

After the tragedy, Margaret snatched the acupuncture kit and hurled it into the fire. Her voice was steel. "Never again."

From that moment, Evelyn abandoned the craft she had loved for over a decade.

Claire listened, her expression softening with pity. "Could it be... the boy died from something else entirely? Not your needles?"

"That’s what I believed—until his mother shoved the autopsy report in my face," Evelyn whispered.

Claire leaned forward. "What did it say?"

"It stated there’s a forbidden point for asthma patients. And the mark was there." Evelyn’s hands trembled. "But I didn’t touch it. It was chaos—maybe I—"

She broke off, a chilling realization dawning.

Claire’s eyes widened. "Wait. Vanessa was holding your kit that day."

Evelyn went very still. "You think... she planted that mark?"

The air between them turned icy.