On the fifth day of my disappearance, Frank began to feel that something was off.

“Jonathan, Elena has not come to the police station for days, and things haven’t been particularly safe here. Elena is alone too…”

Jonathan pursed his lips. “Just ignore her. Let her act out all she wants this time.”

Since I was bored, I just stared at Jonathan while he busied himself. I sighed helplessly.

In reality, enough time had passed for Jonathan to report me missing, but I knew he would not look for me.

He had completely wasted the golden window.

As time passed, useful information on the body would start to deteriorate.

So, Jonathan had spent the past few days at the police station.

He was short on time and had to fight for every second with my dismembered parts to get as much information from them as possible. He had no time to care about my feelings.

This was not the first time I had argued with Jonathan, and it was also not the first time I had left without a word.

But whenever such arguments happened, I was usually the one admitting defeat.

I knew that Jonathan resented me. In the past, I had made a mistake at an autopsy on one particular corpse and missed the golden window to save Jonathan’s mother.

The criminals had staged a diversion. Their real goal had been Jonathan’s mother.

When I finished extracting the information from the corpse and deduced the killer’s location and identity, the police had found a new body.

The criminals had been lurking in the city all along.

When we saw the white sheet over his mother’s dead body, Jonathan went mad. He started to hate me ever since.

“It’s all your fault! Didn’t you say that they would find their next target in Artillia?! They had been setting us up all along!

“Elena, did you find any corpse in Artillia? You didn’t! Because they wanted to hurt you by hurting my mother! Didn’t you say that your knife can figure out the truth? How could you make such a mistake?!

“If you hadn’t made the wrong guess about their next target, my mother would still be alive!”

Jonathan grabbed me by the throat, and I could not breathe.

“You said that Artillia was the only city with that sort of soil, and what happened?!”

“Jonathan, calm down!”

“How can I calm down?! Elena, they’re taunting you! They hate you! You were the one who made a mistake and sent the police to Artillia!

“You’re the one who challenged them on TV and claimed that you’d bring them to justice! Did you catch them?!

“Why did my mother end up in their hands?! Your pride killed my mother! You’re not worthy of being a forensic scientist!”

My face was pale. When we arrived at the place where I had deduced they would leave behind the corpse of their next victim, we found no body at all. Instead, we were told that someone was killed in our city.

This time, the victim was Jonathan’s mother.

I changed into protective gear. No matter what, I had to figure out the truth.

There must be some sort of information on Jonathan’s mother, Nina.

Jonathan shoved me away. “Stay away from her!”

He stood in the morgue like a lost child, so I could only ask for someone to take him out of there.

My teacher once told me that forensic scientists must always remain logical and rational. Getting emotional in this field of work was a huge mistake.

Time was precious, and I had to make use of every second. I could not let the murderer escape justice.

I insisted on performing an autopsy on Nina.

Perhaps God was merciful, and I managed to find a lot of crucial information from her body.

This was a criminal group that tortured and killed women just for the thrill of it.

Based on the information I got from Nina, we captured several criminals.

While we were pursuing those who slipped through the net, I got into an accident.

“Elena, I never gave you the permission to perform an autopsy on my mother! Can’t you just let her rest in peace?!

“You’re a murderer too! They were right! You really are the daughter of a murderer!” Jonathan ran into my ward and yelled at me.

When I was discharged, I found that I could no longer hold a scalpel, so I resigned.

Jonathan took over my job.

“Serves you right! You’re not worthy of being a forensic scientist.”

I knew that I had let him down, along with Nina.

So, I quit and became a housewife.

Besides, Nina’s wish was for Jonathan to have a family of his own.

I was in high school with Jonathan, and I had a crush on him for years.

We also ended up choosing the same major.

Later, Yvonne left the country, and he gave up on her.

After all, being a forensic scientist was a sure turn-off for anyone searching for a partner.

“Elena, my light has slipped from my grasp.” On the day Yvonne left the country, he drank himself into a stupor.

I looked at him and felt an unexpected sense of relief.

Jonathan was my light.

I lost my father when I was still very young. Since I was a loner, many people did not really like me.

There were plenty of rumors about my family background.

Some people claimed that my father was in prison, and others alleged that he was a murderer.

Whenever I asked my mother about where my father was, she would end up screaming at me hysterically.

“You have no father!” she once screamed shrilly at me, as if she wanted to tear me apart.

“You’re lying…” I mumbled. I could see the picture she kept so dearly, but I could not see the face of the man in the picture.

They did not even have a marriage certificate.

So, I gained yet another label: a child abandoned by her father.

Later, when my mother died, I tried to take a look at the picture again, only to discover that the man’s face had been torn clean off.

I moved and became Jonathan’s neighbor.

If not for Nina, I would have starved to death.

When someone lost the lunch money in class, everyone banded in together and blamed me for stealing it.

My supposed dark past also made me a suspect.

“It wasn’t her!” Jonathan stood up for me and told them where I had been when that had happened.

In the end, they found the culprit—a stray cat.

“Finding the truth and catching criminals is my dream.”

I did my best to chase after him and even surpassed him to run ahead and wait for him to fulfill his dream.

My teacher told me that I was his most talented student and would turn into a great forensic scientist in the future.

We became the best duo and uncovered the truth behind multiple cases.

Unfortunately, he was not my light alone.

Yvonne often came over to cook for him.

Compared to the silence between us, Yvonne seemed more like his family.

“Jonathan, I made soup for you. Try some.”

Yvonne’s hand was bandaged.

She gently skimmed the layer of oil on the soup out and put the bowl in front of Jonathan.

“Yvonne, what happened to your hand?”

“I twisted it by accident. It’s nothing.”

Jonathan looked touched and took the bowl, but he did not drink it.

I think he must have felt quite sick when he saw the meat inside the soup. It must have reminded him of my dismembered parts in the plastic bags.

A dark look flashed in Yvonne’s eyes.

“Thanks for cooking for me, Yvonne.” He set the bowl aside.

He realized something was different after a while.

“Did you change your perfume, Yvonne?”

Yvonne looked down a bit awkwardly. She looked up after a long pause. “Yes. I’ve recently come to like stronger scents.”

She wore a white tiered skirt and twirled in front of Jonathan. “Does it smell nice?”

With a faint smile, he patted her head affectionately.

“Yes.” It looked as though he was forcing himself to smile. Jonathan was not quite used to such heavily scented perfumes.

That night, Yvonne slept in my room.

She looked at my simple dressing table and closet disdainfully. “It’s no wonder you can’t make Jonathan love you.”

She grabbed a bottle of moisturizer and scoffed at it.

My friend packaged all of my skincare products. Since it was a simple moisturizer, she had packaged it in a simple bottle.

My friend was an aesthetician. Even though the bottle looked simple, the product inside was effective and only available to beauty salons. Using it gave me peace of mind.

“This doesn’t have any fragrance whatsoever. It’s no wonder it couldn’t mask the smell of death on you,” Yvonne spat.

Mockery flashed in my eyes. Scents affected a forensic scientist’s judgment.

More importantly, Jonathan did not like strong fragrances. He was also allergic to them.

I heard the sound of a door closing.

Just as I expected, Jonathan’s skin had broken out in hives.

I followed him to the pharmacy.

Even though he knew that he was allergic to stronger fragrances, he still had touched Yvonne.

I suppose, in that regard, Jonathan and I were similar to a certain degree.