The Obedience Trial

"Before I married Gavin Whitaker, his mother put me through a so-called premarital obedience test. She made me kneel and serve tea to the entire family, so I knelt.She made me walk barefoot across a reflexology path to prove my "resilience". I went through it.She made me sign a prenuptial agreement stating that if we ever divorced, I would leave with nothing. I signed.Throughout it all, Gavin watched coldly from the sidelines. All he said was, "Sienna, don’t make a big deal out of this. Just bear with it. These are our family’s rules."I smiled and nodded, even as tears slid down my face.The final test came without warning. His mother slapped me hard across the face."If you marry into this family, you need to understand what humility means."I didn’t move.However, upstairs in the study, where Gavin was in the middle of a video conference, he suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed. He clutched his face and stared at me in terror.[System Notification: You and Gavin Whitaker have successfully bound to the Empathy Sync System. From this moment on, all harm inflicted upon the host will be experienced in full by the other party.]"