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…”