The footage played on. It hadn’t been long since my wife's parents had died.

I was kneeling before their grave, my trembling fingers brushing over the cold stone of the headstone.

A trace of clarity returned to my eyes.

As I watched the scene, my heart felt as though it were being carved apart. Tears slid silently down my cheeks.

In that dazed moment, I forgot the pain wracking my body.

It was as if I could hear my mother-in-law bringing over a bowl of hot soup, and see my father-in-law’s figure leaning on his cane.

The onlookers began murmuring among themselves.

“Looking at him now, could there be some hidden hardship we don’t know about?”

“Killers always return to the scene of the crime. Going back now is just him admiring his own handiwork.”

“Classic performative personality. They’re already dead, and he’s still putting on an act. If he truly cared about his wife's parents, why wouldn’t he tell the truth?”

Linda stared at the memory projection, her body shaking violently.

“Finn, why? Why won’t you tell the truth?!”

Gregory pinched my chin mockingly and sneered. “Nice act. Kneeling there, playing the devoted son-in-law—who are you trying to fool? You’re just afraid someone’s watching you from the shadows. Your acting won’t fool everyone.”

I struggled desperately to shake off his grip. The memory scene shifted abruptly.

A group of people appeared near the cemetery.

A burlap sack was yanked over my head. Fists and boots rained down like a storm.

The crack of breaking ribs mixed with curses. Before long, blood soaked through the sack.

They roared, “A life for a life!”

I curled into a bloodied heap, writhing in agony.

“The family of a murderer deserves to be left in the wild for the dogs!”

“No—!” I struggled and screamed, but they smashed my legs with clubs until the sound cut off.

They dug open my parents-in-law’s grave and kicked their urns onto the ground.

With bleeding fingers, I clawed through the ashes, my hands shaking as I gathered them back into the urn.

When Linda arrived and saw the desecrated grave, her eyes turned red. She grabbed my throat and slammed me against the headstone.

“Bastard! You won’t even spare the dead? They treated you so well—how could you do something like this?!”

I tried to explain, but her fury cut me off.

Everything went dark as I finally lost consciousness.

My body convulsed violently, my eyes bloodshot, a piercing howl tearing from my throat.

Blood mixed with tears streamed down as the image of Linda's parents' graves being dug up again played out before me. The pain was like countless ants gnawing into my bones.

Linda’s pupils shrank. Her face went paper-white, her voice hoarse.

“How could this be… did I wrong him?”

She trembled as she tried to stop the memory decoder, but Gregory stopped her with a firm grip.

“Linda, calm down. If he really had some hidden hardship, why wouldn’t he tell us the truth? Besides… once the decoder starts, it can’t be stopped.

“This is all an act. Who’s to say those grave robbers weren’t sent by him? After all, you and criminals like him are enemies by nature.”

Linda stood frozen, trembling where she was.

The images flickered. The machine screeched.

Several vagrants pinned me beside a reeking gutter, tearing at my clothes. Their foul breath blasted against my neck, filthy black nails digging into my struggling flesh.

“Boss, what if this cripple tells people what we did? Then just cut out his tongue.”

I convulsed in agony. Blood sprayed everywhere.

Yet the victims’ families clapped and laughed.

“He deserves it! Let him taste what it’s like to be tortured!”

Linda stared at my tongue, already cut out. She staggered, nearly collapsing.

“Finn is badly injured. He couldn’t possibly be the killer!”

Gregory grabbed Linda’s arm, his gaze sharp.

“Even if he isn’t the killer, he definitely knows the truth! These memories are irrelevant. We need to increase the pressure and force out the key information! Otherwise, the slaughter won’t end!”

Clenching her teeth, Linda trembled as she drove the silver needles deeper into my temples.

Blood dripped onto Linda’s clothes, and in her eyes, struggle and pain intertwined.

“Finn… you want everyone to know the truth, don’t you? You just can’t speak it out loud. Right?”

The silver needles churned through my brain, the agony turning my vision black. I had barely begun to shake my head when a surge of electricity slammed into me.

Blood mixed with saliva slowly spilled from the corner of my mouth.

The scene shifted again.

I was kneeling in a pool of blood, my body shaking. The blade in my hand was slick with blood as I desperately pressed down on my parents-in-law’s gushing wounds.

Warm blood soaked through my fingers.

Their pupils were unfocused. They tried to speak, but no sound came.

Sobbing, I tore strips from my clothes to bandage them, only to clutch sticky, shattered organs.

The onlookers whispered among themselves. Someone sighed.

“The way he’s trying so hard to save them—how could he be the killer?”

Another scoffed coldly.

“What a convincing performance. Maybe he’s the one who stabbed them.”

Someone murmured quietly.

“He used to be a doctor. Maybe the knife was for first aid.”

But the rebuttal came quickly.

“What kind of doctor can’t save anyone? This is clearly an act!”

Linda’s eyes split wide. She dropped to her knees, trembling as she reached out to touch her parents’ cold bodies in the memory.

Her fingertips passed straight through the image. In her eyes surged overwhelming grief and despair.

In the scene, Linda's parents were holding a sheet of paper.

After reading it, my bloodstained fingers quickly shoved the paper into my mouth and swallowed it.

“Why—why won’t you tell me the truth?! I regret it so much. I regret being with you. If I hadn’t… Mom and Dad wouldn’t have died!”

Gregory gripped Linda’s arm tightly and whispered in her ear, “Linda, the truth is right in front of you. Your parents’ blood can’t be spilled in vain. Finn went back to the crime scene—who knows, maybe he was trying to destroy evidence and tamper with the scene.

“There must be something wrong with that piece of paper! If they knew their deaths could save more people, they’d feel comforted in the afterlife!”

Linda wiped away her tears with a trembling hand. Once again, the silver needles pressed deeper into my bleeding temples.

My convulsing body suddenly went rigid, my pupils dilating.

The hum of the memory decoder cut off abruptly.

Gregory watched my twitching body with cold detachment and calmly tugged at Linda’s sleeve.

“He’s reached his pain threshold. We need to intensify the stimulation to break through the memory block.”

As he spoke, Gregory clasped Linda’s trembling hand and shoved the current setting violently to its maximum.

“It’s not enough! Linda, think—what else can raise Finn’s pain threshold? We're doing this for the other victims!”

Linda’s gaze turned dark and unreadable. She stared at me, already motionless, her hand gripping a lighter so tightly that veins bulged.

Shaking, she moved closer to my festering wounds, her voice hoarse.

“Finn, I’m sorry… For… for everyone else not to be hurt, I have no choice but to wrong you. You only have yourself to blame for refusing to tell the truth back then!”

She kept murmuring apologies under her breath.

Flames scorched my rotting wounds, accompanied by searing pain.

My body convulsed violently, but only a soundless scream forced its way out.

The memory decoder lit up again.

In the image, flames twisted as they devoured the old house. Beams collapsed with a thunderous crash.

I was curled in a corner, watching my parents being swallowed by fire.

It was as if I had returned to that day.

Once again, I watched my parents die before my eyes, powerless to stop it.

In the scorching air, I reached out in vain and caught nothing but ashes swirling through the sky.

My body convulsed violently, blood and tears mingling as I watched my parents struggle in the inferno.

Pain and despair crashed over me like tidal waves, drowning the last remnants of reason.

I trembled uncontrollably, broken sobs spilling from my throat.

The onlookers pointed at me, sneering.

“He suffered, so he wants others to suffer even more!”

“He’s already twisted into a monster!”

The electric current hissed, and the images on the screen shattered abruptly.

Gregory moved to Linda’s side, his gaze icy.

“Not enough! He has to relive the pain of that day to break the memory block! Otherwise, the truth will never be revealed!”

Linda’s eyes reddened. Her trembling hand hovered in midair. She looked at me—shriveled, slumped in the chair, a husk of my former self—her eyes a tangle of pain and conflict.

Her quivering fingers couldn’t even grasp the silver needles.

A subordinate grabbed her clothing, shouting urgently, “Chief, if you push any further, the needles will pierce his brain! He’ll be a vegetable!”

Linda stared at my rotting temples, unable to push the needles forward.

Gregory gripped her wrist tightly.

“Linda, we’ve come this far. Hesitation now will ruin everything! Do you want your parents to have died in vain?”

Her knuckles went white; bloodshot veins crawled beneath her eyes.

“Finn… can I… trust you?”

The victims’ families clutched blood-stained portraits, kneeling and crying out, “Chief, reveal the truth! Publish all his memories! Our family cannot have died in vain!”

I stared at Linda, my pupils unfocused—just as they had been when my parents dragged me from the burning house all those years ago.

Gregory slammed her wrist down; the needle pierced my brain. The last flicker of light in my eyes vanished.

The memory screen flared to life.

I was a child, cradled by my mother as she fed me medicine.

In school, I buried my head in books.

A great fire had stolen my parents’ lives, leaving me alone.

Linda's father carried me through torrential rain on the way home from school.

On my wedding day, Linda placed a diamond ring on my finger.

After the ceremony, her parents secretly slipped money into my bag.

Linda’s body trembled violently as she stared at the memories, her fingers white from gripping so hard.

Gregory’s phone buzzed with a new murder alert. He strode to Linda and pressed a knife into her hand.

“Another one is dead! We can’t delay any longer! Every minute we wait, there’s another corpse!”

He pushed Linda, knife in hand, toward me.

“Recreate the scene! Make him relive the crime that killed your parents!”

A subordinate blocked her, yelling, “If you push him any further, his body will collapse! The memory may be lost forever!”

Gregory’s voice cut sharply, “Stopping now will bury the truth forever!”

Linda’s hand trembled violently as the blade cut into my rotting flesh.

Hot tears fell from her blood-red eyes.

“Finn… why… why are you forcing me? Who… who is it? Who is making you hide the truth?”

I slumped in the metal chair, my vision unfocused, yet the pain continued to convulse me relentlessly.

Linda's parents had endured this very same agony in life.

The memory froze the moment I carried the basket of groceries through the door.

The blood-soaked room blinded me. My father’s scream pierced the air.

The basket fell from my hands. The scream lodged in my throat.

In the scene, a figure holding a knife trembled before me.

The crowd stared in horror, eyes wide with fear.

“How is this possible? The killer… the killer is…”