Chapter 4The $5 Sharing Era

The content of the post was chillingly similar to the one I’d seen before.

【I contracted HIV from a prostitute before my wife and I got married. I thought if I used protection we’d be fine, but our baby was still infected.】

【My wife seems to think it’s her fault, and now she wants to find a scapegoat to pin it on. After all, with the three of us, the medical bills are going to be insane. It would be great if we could find a sucker to cover the costs!】

【We’ve picked a target. A woman in our building who’s always feeding the stray dogs downstairs. And she just had a girl. From the looks of it, the girl won’t be too ugly when she grows up, which could solve my son’s future relationship problems too.】

【But she’s resisting. How can we make her give up her milk?!】

The poster’s profile picture was a blurry photo of a man’s back.

I clicked on his profile. Nothing. It was completely empty.

But the location tag was the same as mine, and the events he described mirrored my day exactly. My alarm bells were screaming.

I was about to close the page when I noticed the faint, semi-transparent background photo behind his profile pic.

The view from that window… it was identical to the view from mine.

A roar filled my ears.

This wasn’t a coincidence. It was a confirmation.

The sucker they were talking about was me.

A wife who contracted the disease during her pregnancy?

A husband who hid his illness before they were married?

A baby born with the virus?

It was them. The family in 1003.

So the husband had it first, and he gave it to his unsuspecting wife.

And they had an innocent, sick child.

No wonder.

I’d been wondering why the husband wasn’t stopping his wife from begging for another woman’s breast milk.

It turns out they each had their own twisted agenda.

One partied too hard during her pregnancy, the other hid his past before the wedding.

A match made in viral hell.

And they wanted to infect me, make me pay for their entire family’s medical bills, and support them for the rest of their lives.

Breast milk isn’t a guaranteed way to transmit HIV.

But if they "accidentally" broke the skin on my nipple while the baby was feeding, contact with blood would make the chances skyrocket.

If I got infected, I’d have no way to prove my story.

But their plan was even more monstrous than that. They weren’t just targeting me; they had my daughter in their sights as well.

If I had given in, if I had shown them a moment of pity, my daughter’s entire life would have been ruined.

What a venomous, evil family.

A tidal wave of pure terror and rage surged in my chest.

I scrolled down. The top comment was even more depraved:

【Just cause a scene. Make so much noise that nobody in the building can get any peace. They’ll pressure her into feeding your son just to shut you up.】

【If that doesn’t work, go kneel at the entrance to your building. Make everyone see how cold and heartless she is.】

【Don’t be afraid of losing face. That one act of begging could secure your family’s future.】

【Worst case, get physical. As long as he drinks her milk, the blame is stuck to her for good.】

【Then you strike first. Accuse her. It won’t matter if she’s actually infected or not. In everyone else’s eyes, she will be.】

My fury shot through the roof. I stood up, ready to storm downstairs and confront them.

But before I could even take a step, the building manager called.

「Mia? The family from 1003 is kneeling downstairs. The baby is screaming its lungs out. Please, can you just help them out?」

「You’re a mother too. Surely you can understand how she feels.」

「And if this continues, the whole complex will be up all night. Can’t you just… make a little sacrifice?」

My phone was buzzing nonstop before I even hung up.

I glanced at the screen. The group chat was exploding with notifications.

I didn’t need to look to know what they were saying.

I didn’t say another word. I just ended the call.

Then, I pulled out a small address book, flipping through the pages as I dialed one number after another.

By the time I hung up the last call, the sounds from downstairs were growing louder, more chaotic.

Then I took out a baby bottle and carefully, deliberately, pumped it full of milk.

Swirling the bottle gently, I stepped into the elevator and headed down.

Once he drinks this milk, I thought, he won’t be wanting mine anymore.