Chapter 82: Chapter 82: The Ace of Scumbags
It turned out that women in love weren’t always the sharpest thinkers. That was true for Lillian Donovan, and even more so for Joyce Lowe.
When Caleb Croft told her to take birth control pills, she took them. When he told her not to tell her parents, she said nothing.
She had been so thoroughly manipulated that she obeyed his every word.
And because of that, tragedy was inevitable.
Caleb Croft was greedier and more ruthless than his father. From the very beginning, he never intended for Joyce Lowe to bear his child. He wasn’t playing the same long game as his father, who had some scheme about reclaiming the family line in the third generation. Caleb’s plan was to make her permanently unable to have children, so she would willingly raise his child for him, all without ever knowing the truth.
Lillian Donovan: "!!!"
According to Caleb Croft’s plan, after he started dating and sleeping with Joyce Lowe, he consciously used contraception and had Joyce repeatedly take birth control pills.
As the saying goes, all medicine has its side effects. Long-term use of birth control pills affects the body in many ways, and it can especially lead to premature ovarian failure.
In this way, contraception would become infertility.
But considering the state of modern medicine and the Lowe family’s financial resources, Caleb Croft, just to be safe, secretly swapped her birth control pills with a much more potent sterilization drug.
After taking the drug for a long time, Joyce Lowe’s menstrual cycle became irregular, and her body grew visibly weaker.
Lucy Ingram had wanted to take her for a check-up, but by then, Joyce had been so manipulated that she treated Caleb’s words as gospel. She didn’t dare let her parents find out she was secretly dating someone, sleeping with him, and taking birth control pills long-term. So she kept putting it off, and then... she truly became infertile.
At this point, the plot naturally reached its biggest turning point: Caleb Croft met his one true love, a woman as gentle, virtuous, and considerate as his own mother.
Lillian Donovan: "..."
She was speechless, afraid that if she opened her mouth, she might just die of anger.
To put it bluntly, Caleb Croft had a bit of an Oedipus complex. Combined with years of self-brainwashing, he was full of resentment for wealthy girls like Lillian Donovan. In contrast, he felt pity for dependent, clinging-vine types who endured humiliation just like his mother. This was why he fell so completely for his so-called "true love" the moment he met her.
He even claimed that Joyce Lowe was just lucky enough to have met him before Miss Ford. In his heart, Miss Ford was his real wife, while Joyce was merely the other woman occupying the spot legally reserved for his spouse.
Seeing this, Arabella Donovan looked utterly dumbfounded.
[’I have to say, that logic is absolutely insane!’]
The situation between Lillian Donovan and Willow Croft was one thing. After all, one had a de facto marriage and the other a legal one, and Willow Croft had married Julian Croft before Lillian, just without a certificate.
If you really had to argue about who the other woman was, both sides had a case to make.
But Caleb Croft’s situation was clearly just cheating on his wife. How could he twist it like that? These scumbags and their ’my true love is my real wife’ argument are really something else!
Lillian Donovan nodded in vehement agreement. The thought that the perfect marriage she had always believed in was, in someone else’s eyes, just a case of a homewrecker stealing someone’s family made her start grinding her teeth again.
But what Arabella Donovan said next made her realize that these scumbags were called scumbags for a reason: they had no bottom line and didn’t even deserve to be called human.
Soon after meeting and falling passionately in love with that Miss Ford, Caleb Croft had the so-called fruit of their love.
Around this same time, Joyce Lowe was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure and told she would likely never be able to have children of her own.
Joyce Lowe was devastated and became bedridden from the shock.
During this period, Caleb Croft stayed by her side, comforting her patiently and showering her with endless sweet nothings. His performance was so convincing that even those who had disapproved of their relationship began to waver.
The irony was, in another wing of the very same hospital, Caleb Croft’s so-called true love was happily carrying their child to term.
Three or four years later, Caleb Croft decided the time was right. He had someone close to Joyce Lowe casually mention that they could adopt a child, prompting her to bring up the idea of adoption with him herself.
And the child who had long been pre-selected for them to adopt was, of course, the one his true love had borne him.
And just like that, Joyce Lowe unwittingly took home her husband’s illegitimate son with his mistress. She raised him as her own flesh and blood into adulthood, and on her deathbed, she left him the entire inheritance her parents had passed down to her, dying without ever knowing the truth!
Lillian Donovan: "!!!"
Mrs. Donovan: "!!!"
Arabella Donovan: "!!!"
[’AAAAAH! She’s so pitiful! He’s such a ruthless scumbag! And this book is so vicious! Why call it *Legend of Croft*? Wouldn’t *White-eyed Wolf Legend* be much clearer? My aunt and Miss Lowe must have had the worst luck in the world to run into a father-son duo who are the absolute worst of all scumbags! They were exploited down to their very marrow, not even a scrap of bone left. It’s an absolute human tragedy!’]
Hearing this, Lillian Donovan could no longer contain the primal rage building inside her. She slammed her spoon on the table and roared, "Lucy Ingram!"
The poor Ms. Ingram jumped in fright. When she realized what was happening, she wanted to smack her.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to scare me to death, screaming like that all of a sudden?"
"Let me ask you, what would you do if your husband secretly drugged you to make you sterile, then snuck his illegitimate child with another woman into an orphanage and tricked you into adopting him?"
Lucy Ingram froze for a moment, but she quickly recovered and said sinisterly, "I’d castrate him first, of course. He dares to sterilize me? I’ll make sure his family line ends with him!"
Lillian Donovan was stunned by her decisiveness, but Arabella Donovan’s eyes lit up.
[’Excellent idea! If we could actually manage to sterilize Caleb Croft, it would absolutely shatter his entire family.’]
You have to understand, after Lillian Donovan was tricked by Julian Croft and sent to a mental hospital, he couldn’t wait to change their two children’s surnames, claiming it was so they could "return to their ancestral clan."
Unfortunately, the twins were already old enough to understand what was happening. They had been raised personally by Lillian and Master Donovan, and their bond with them was far deeper than any they had with Julian Croft. Why would they ever agree to change their own surnames for his selfish desires?
This infuriated Julian Croft. He had always seen the brother and sister as proof of the years of humiliation he had endured. Because of their defiance, he became even more convinced that Lillian had corrupted them. After all, they only had half Croft family blood in them; they weren’t pure enough.
So, he sent the two of them abroad shortly after they came of age, leaving them to fend for themselves. He treated Caleb Croft as his one and only heir.
When Caleb Croft found out about this, he was, on one hand, happy that Julian Croft was finally a father to him and him alone. On the other hand, he felt he should learn a lesson from it. He resolved not to let Joyce Lowe get pregnant, choosing instead to have a woman on the outside bear him a son.
This way, Joyce Lowe wouldn’t be the child’s birth mother, and if the child knew the truth from a young age, he wouldn’t develop any particularly deep feelings for her.
’Once she was dead, wouldn’t I be able to change the boy’s surname however I pleased?’
