When I was tied to a spinning wheel and tortured to death, Carl Harrison was busy holding a press conference to accuse me. “A few months ago, I was diagnosed with advanced cancer, but the latest results from today's follow-up examination show it's benign!”

He threw an arm around his secretary, with tears glistening in his eyes.

“My wife of eight years vanished overnight, but Lindsay Moore, who isn't my relatives or friends at all, cared for me for six months! If I let down such a good woman, I wouldn’t be worthy of being called a man!”

“And now, I want to announce to the world that I, Carl Harrison, will marry Lindsay immediately!"

The criminal violently shut off the TV and plunged the knife tip into my ribs. “I'll give you one last chance. Are you going to call Carl or not?”

I was on the brink of death, but I still clenched my teeth. “He… doesn’t want me anymore. What’s the point?”

The criminal swung the knife, ending my life.

"There's still no news from her yet? Is she really that heartless?”  

The assistant lowered his head. "No."

“She might as well be dead!”

On the tenth day after my death, police found a heavily decomposed female body in the bushes by the riverbank. They called Carl, the relative of the missing person, that they had uncovered a horrific murder.

The man who had cursed me to die now staggered slightly ....

——

When Carl rushed over, the detectives were struggling to lift the maggot-infested corpse onto the examination table.

After being exposed to the blazing sun for ten days, it had already turned into a foul-smelling, swollen mass, causing the forensic pathologists to shake their heads in disbelief.  

The detectives pinched their noses and handed Carl a sealed, blurry circular object.  

Carl glanced at it once and scoffed, “This definitely isn’t hers. Don’t waste my time with this.”

After saying that, he turned to leave.

The detective was enraged by his indifferent attitude and couldn't help but confront him, “Is identifying whether this belongs to your wife a waste of your time? Are you even a man?”

Carl's footsteps suddenly halted and he clenched his fists tightly. "That's not my wife. That's a heartless woman who abandoned me for her own interests! What right do you have to morally blackmail me?"

“When I was diagnosed with cancer and facing death, how did she treat me?”

“When I was undergoing chemotherapy day and night and my hair fell out, where was she?”

“When I cried every night in agony, unable to understand why she left me, did she feel even a shred of guilt?”

Seeing the hysterical man in front of him, the detective was stunned.

Carl twitched his nostrils, as if trying to suppress his own shameful side.

“Sorry… I didn’t know…” Looking apologetic, the detective patted his shoulder, urging him to let it go.

What neither of them knew was that I was standing beside them, as light as air. I kept waving my hands, trying to get them to notice me. “It's not like that! It's nothing like that!”  

I screamed at the top of my lungs, trying to make them hear me.  

"Carl, when you were undergoing cancer treatment, I was locked in a small dark room and tortured.”  

“When your hair fell out, mine was also pulled out by the roots, making me wish I were dead.”

“When you couldn’t understand why I disappeared, I desperately hoped you would come to save me.”  

And yet …

None of this reached his ears. After all, I had turned into a phantom that could only exist for a week and I had used all my strength to fly to his side.

But I still could not tell him the truth.

I collapsed helplessly to the ground, tears that didn’t exist falling in large drops.

Almost simultaneously, his eyes also turned red. He shrugged his shoulders as he whispered to himself, "When she left, she didn't take any jewelry with her. It’s like she’d made up her mind never to come back.”

“So, officer, there's no need to call me again. She couldn't possibly be dead and this female corpse definitely couldn't be her.”

After saying that, he turned and left the forensic lab without a second glance.

Just as he stepped out the door, the forensic pathologist, who was conducting the examination standing beside him, suddenly changed his expression. "Mr. Harrison, wait a moment!"

But almost at the same time, Carl’s phone rang and he answered it with a smile and gentle voice. So, he didn't hear the forensic doctor's call at all.

“Lindsay, did you have another nightmare? Don't worry, I'll be right back.”

“Do you still want that cranberry cake from the shop in Laiden City? I'll pick it up on my way back.”

He drove away with a smile on his lips, leaving the forensic doctor looking at the police officer in confusion. “The test results just came in. The victim’s blood type is Rh negative, panda blood. If I remember correctly, when his ex-wife was injured and taken to the hospital, her blood type was also Rh-negative, the panda blood, right?”  

“And as far as I know, there’s only one recorded case in our whole city. Maybe you should try contacting him again?”

***

Since Carl drove very fast, I had to push myself to keep up.

As I watched him wrap the cranberry cake carefully and place it securely under the car's air conditioning, I recalled how he had always clumsily messed up the mouse cake that I craved to eat, until it was ruined. Under my careful instructions, he finally learned how to preserve the cake intact.

As soon as we pulled into the garage, he rushed back home without stopping and back to the marital room that we shared.

The moment he opened the door, I felt a bit dazed since the room that I had personally decorated had changed beyond recognition in just half a year.

The originally fresh and comfortable natural wood color had turned into the pink that little girls love most. The fabric sofa had been replaced with an extravagant French-style sofa.  

Even the marital bed where Carl and I had spent the most intimate moments together had been replaced with a cute Hello Kitty bed.

My heart ached as I recalled how I had wanted to buy a cute mural to brighten my mood, but Carl was so busy with his work and voted against it. “You're so old but still so childish. People will laugh at us if they see this.”

I reluctantly agreed and ultimately didn't make the payment. Yet, in just six months, the entire home was filled with the cute elements he despised. It seemed he had truly changed.

My chest tightened so much I could barely breathe.

When he returned, Lindsay ran barefoot into his arms and the two of them laughed as they lay on the sofa.

“You’re finally back. What did the officer say?”  

Lindsay blinked her dark eyes, her smile deep and mysterious.  

“Nothing much, just asked about some past matters.”  

“Was it about Alison Hunt?”  

The moment the words left her lips, Carl’s smile darkened. “Let’s not talk about unpleasant things. The cake is melting. Hurry up and eat it.”  

Carl picked her up with his large hands and carried her to the dining table.  

Lindsay took small bites of the cake, her face full of sorrow. "Carl, even though I'm by your side, I notice that your heart seems not to be here with me."

Carl was stunned. Seemed the word had struck his weak point.

“No...”

But the dead silence in my heart ignited a spark.

Did she say he still cared about me?

Does he still care about me?

The next second, Lindsay looked like she was on the verge of tears. “But there's something I still need to tell you.”

“When you went for your first medical examination, Alison waited impatiently outside the door, saying that you were wasting her time and that it would be better if you died of a serious illness ...”

"At that time, I felt you were so pitiful. So, after she left you, I insisted on staying by your side …"

She then cried pitifully, "I know I’m not even worth a single finger of hers, but I beg you … please don't hate me …."

I jumped up in a flash and shouted, “It’s not like that! It’s not like that!”

That day, I was simply too nervous and ended up vomiting in the bathroom. And when I heard the doctors discussing Carl’s condition, I fainted completely. And when I woke up again, I was in an empty place, with only that villain tormenting me day and night.  

The moment I thought about those unbearable days, I felt dizzy.

Carl widened his eyes, then laughed self-deprecatingly. “So that’s how it was … Lindsay, you’re just too kindhearted. How could I ever let down your love?”

His eyes reddened as he cursed me wholeheartedly, “Too bad I didn’t die like she wished. But now… I really do want her dead. Even if she's at the ends of the earth, I'll drag her out and feed her to the sharks!”

I laughed, then cried. At that moment, I wished I could transform into human form and tell him that if I could meet you again, I would be willing to die once more. But I no longer had that opportunity.

Cause Carl … you've seen my corpse.

The atmosphere between the two gradually eased and they slept on the marital bed after the heat of passion. But I could not sleep at all. I had a feeling I was about to vanish.

The next morning, the police officer called Carl again. This time, he was ready to give an answer.

"Mr. Harrison, based on our further investigation of the corpse, the characteristics match your ex-wife...”

"The similarity is extremely high, right? Then I’d better come take a good look!”

This time, Carl no longer resisted and his tone brimmed with unhidden excitement. He hated me so much that only a gruesome death could ease the pain he’d carried these past six months.

I followed him as he sped all the way to the forensics department

“Did you find something?” he asked the officer eagerly.

With a serious expression, the officer nodded solemnly and led him to the examination table.

“How tall was your ex-wife?”

"One hundred and sixty-nine centimeters."

“And approximately how much did she weigh?”

"Around fifty-five kilograms."

“What was her blood type?”

“Rh-negative.”

“Did she have an English letter tattooed on her left arm to cover a scar?”

Carl, who had been casually listening, froze, his pupils suddenly contracting.  

The forensic doctor carefully lifted my left arm, which had been reduced to a mass of flesh and showed the letter to Carl.

The letter L.

No one knew better than Carl where it came from. The scar was left when I shielded him for him. He also tattooed the letter onto my arm with tears in his eyes, one stitch at a time.

At that time, his career was just taking off and he had suffered a lot of jealousy from his peers. Some even put seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars bounty on his head. When the thugs charged toward him, I instinctively stepped in front of him.

I could take the hurt, but the career he was so proud of couldn’t be destroyed.

Carl took a sharp breath and his hand trembled as he took the victim’s physical records and read them over and over again.

“We also discovered,” the officer continued, “that the deceased endured nearly six months of inhuman abuse before death. Her limbs were covered in ligature marks, as if she had been bound to some object all the time. Her upper body was covered in whip marks, with scars that had healed and reopened and her chest was already festering with rotting flesh…”