The Ex and Her Riches novel (Gwendolyn and Maverick)

Evelyn had been beaten with tree branches fifty times, slapped by Nico, locked up in a basement for a whole night,

and forced to walk through the mountain for an hour on an empty stomach.

She genuinely thought she would have died long ago, but humans had huge potential for surviving extreme

conditions if they had a strong will to live.

With Margaret keeping an eye on her, Evelyn spent the entire morning at the fields digging holes in the ground.

Despite her body being pushed to its limits, she somehow managed to pull through without fainting.

When it came time for lunch, Evelyn was so hungry that she wolved down the food and kept stuffing her face like a

hungry beast.

Because she had been starved for so long, the plain buns tasted better than any fancy dish she had ever had in the

past.

However, Margaret did not allow her to eat too much. She took the dishes away from Evelyn after the third bun and

forced her to go feed the pigs.

Although Evelyn was an illegitimate daughter, Marcus and Asher had always treated her very well, so she had been

living a comfortable life since she was a child. She had never even seen a pig, let alone enter a pigsty.

She had only just opened the door to the pigsty when the awful stench overwhelmed her.

Not only did she end up puking all the food she ate, but she also suffered from acid reflux as a result.

“What are you doing standing there? We haven’t got all day! You have ten minutes to get this done, or you won’t be

having dinner tonight!” Margaret scolded Evelyn when she saw her still standing outside the pigsty.

This is only my first day here. If I don’t have dinner, I won’t have the energy to finish reciting the Heagurn Sutra,

and I won’t be allowed to sleep until I finish it. As if that’s not bad enough, I have to wake up at half past five the

next morning! I need to get at least get two to three hours of sleep!

With that in mind, Evelyn held her breath and forcefully suppressed her feelings of disgust as she rushed into the

pigsty with the bucket of feedstuff.

She then spent the rest of the afternoon working in the fields. While she was a little slow due to hunger, Evelyn was

able to get the job done in time with Margaret yelling at her from the side.

Evelyn breathed a huge sigh of relief and felt glad that she had survived such a grueling day. Little did she know,

the real torment was about to start at nightfall.

It had been less than five minutes since she finished her dinner when William dragged her to the courtyard and

forced her to kneel. Ezra then stood behind her with a whip and a cold look in his eyes.

Each hit tore at her flesh and caused her to tremble all over.

Evelyn kept her teeth tightly clenched and even collapsed quite a few times, but William would yank her upright

each time.

Margaret sat on a bench by the door and watch while snacking on some chips.

The sound of the whipping was so terrifying that Margaret, too, began trembling after watching for a while.

After recalling what Ezra told her that morning, however, Margaret was able to suppress her feelings of sympathy

toward Evelyn.

She then spat at Evelyn and exclaimed with intense disgust, “You know what? You deserve to be punished like this!

Old Mr. Harris is an old man in his seventies! He even has issues with his legs! How could you push him down the

stairs like that? I can’t believe a young woman like you would do something so heartless and cruel!”

Evelyn cried out in pain when the final stroke of the whip landed. She then collapsed to the ground and trembled all

over from the searing pain on her back.

She was fading in and out of consciousness and didn’t even have the strength to argue with Margaret.

However, her torment was far from over.

Ezra then yanked Evelyn back on her knees while William placed a box of Heagurn Sutras in front of her. The two

then took turns watching her recite them all.

Having lost the support of Marcus and Asher, Evelyn was nothing but a weak nineteen year-old woman.

All she could do was try to recover her strength as much as possible while harboring a grudge against them.

Evelyn picked up the scripture, glanced at the first page, and began reciting it slowly.

The Heagurn Sutra was meant to help cultivate a person’s mind to stay calm, but all Evelyn felt was pain and

suffering when she recited it.

The sky soon grew dark, and she had been reciting it on her knees for two hours by then.

Never before had she imagined her punishment to be this torturous.

Her knees felt as though they were being pierced by thousands of needles, her throat felt sore and dry. As if that

wasn’t bad enough, they had yet to treat the wounds on her back, so the stinging pain intensified over time.

After hanging in there for what seemed like forever, she succumbed to the pain and passed out.

Unfortunately for Evelyn, however, fainting did nothing to help ease her suffering.

Ezra and William were not the kind of men who would go easy on women. They simply woke Evelyn up by splashing

cold water on her face and forced her to continue reciting the Heagurn Sutra.

Just like that, she continued reciting it weakly for another half an hour before it began to rain all of a sudden.

Evelyn turned around and flashed Ezra a gleeful grin in response.

These books are made of paper! If they get wet in the rain, the text will get all smudgy once the pages dry up. I

won’t be able to recite the Heagurn Sutra anymore if I can’t read the text!

To her surprise, however, Ezra simply moved the paperback copies away and revealed the ones that were made

out of wooden strips underneath them.

As it turned out, Gwendolyn had predicted that it would rain and prepared those beforehand.

The words were carved onto the wooden strips before the inking process was carried out, so the rain would not

affect the words at all.

“Gwendolyn, you sly b*tch! I can’t believe you thought this far!” Evelyn mumbled with a wry smile as she stared at

the wooden strips laid out before her while kneeling in the cold rain.

Displeased that Evelyn was still insulting Gwendolyn in her current situation, Ezra reminded her with a sarcastic

chuckle, “You should just hurry up and get on with it. You won’t get any sleep tonight if you waste any more time.”

As life in the countryside began very early each day, the people there would often go to bed early as well.

Margaret, too, went to sleep as soon as she was done taking care of her husband.

The occasional sound of dogs barking, the splatter of rain on the roof tiles, and Evelyn reciting the Heagurn Sutra in

a hoarse voice blended surprisingly well together.

Ezra simply stood there with an umbrella and watched over Evelyn in silence.

As the rain grew heavier, the icy-cold winds sent shivers down Evelyn’s spine.

It was also raining in Salinsburgh.

Gwendolyn had just finished taking a shower and was sitting on the bed while applying a lotion that was specifically

designed for pregnant women.

Cedrick sat down behind her and helped massage her neck and shoulders as he said, “Hey, Gwenny, I heard your

eldest brother—”

Gwendolyn froze the moment she heard him say that.

Realizing that he had said something he shouldn’t have, Cedrick quickly rephrased his sentence. “I heard that Asher

didn’t sign the inheritance documents. Jared went to see him at the Harris residence today, but he left the house

really quickly.”

“So what? He has always wanted the inheritance, so it’s only a matter of time before he signs the documents. He’s

probably just putting up an act to show xo.com fast updateme that he feels guilty or something,” Gwendolyn

replied with an emotionless look on her face.

Cedrick said nothing further after hearing that and continued massaging her shoulders with the ideal amount of

force.

The atmosphere in the room went back to normal shortly after, forming a huge contrast with the freezing rain

outside.

The two of them were about to go to sleep when Elven knocked on the door.

“Ms. Harris, Mr. Asher is here! He’s standing outside the front door without an umbrella and refuses to leave no

matter what! Would you like to go have a look?”