Chapter 1

In the empty funeral hall, I knelt on the floor with tears streaming down my face, clutching my mother’s portrait to my chest.

Following the funeral director’s repeated instructions, I slammed my forehead against the floor again and again, as if I could fold my entire heart in half.

Even now, I still couldn’t believe that the woman who used to make sweet-and-sour ribs for me every day and wait for me to come home had become nothing more than a small urn of ashes.

I seemed to be back at the hospital yesterday, seeing my mother for the last time. Tubes covered her body, and she gripped my hand tightly, her voice breaking apart between each word.

“Ethan, don’t be sad. Mom is leaving soon. You’ll be all alone after this. You need to take care of yourself. Don’t worry about me. Your dad will be waiting for me up there.”

I held her almost-cold hand, but my lips trembled so badly that I couldn’t speak.

In the end, I could only watch helplessly as my mother’s heart monitor gradually flatlined.

Ryan, the man who had killed my mother, had fled long ago. After peeking into the emergency room a few times, he had swaggered away.

My mother’s final smile kept replaying in my mind like a video stuck on a loop.

I remained kneeling on the floor for a long time, until the sudden ring of my phone shattered the silence around me.

When I answered, Emily’s voice came from the other end.

“Hello, is this Ethan? Ryan’s hungry. He really wants the beef noodles from that place downtown. It’s too far away to order delivery, so go buy two servings and bring them to our hotel!”

Before I could say anything, Emily hung up.

Emily was as domineering as ever, as if this kind of thing were only natural and she knew for certain that I wouldn’t refuse her.

I looked at the explicit photos Ryan had sent me that morning. Emily lay naked in his arms, her chest covered in countless hickeys, while Ryan stared at the camera with a provocative smile.

I gave a bitter laugh, but my throat was too raw for me to speak.

After wiping the tears from the corners of my eyes, I gripped my phone tightly.

I didn’t understand how Emily could be so cruel.

Even more, I never imagined she could treat my mother’s life as worthless just to protect the first love who had once abandoned her.

The moment my mother was hit by the car yesterday, Emily received Ryan’s call and rushed to the scene.

But all she did was comfort Ryan, who was in shock, and argue with the officers who arrived, desperately insisting that the accident wasn’t entirely Ryan’s fault.

By the time I received the police’s call and arrived, the blood beneath my mother had almost dried, and her vital signs had grown dangerously weak.

I broke down and demanded to know why Emily hadn’t called an ambulance immediately, but she only impatiently shook off my hand.

“Oh, will you stop bothering me? It was just a minor car accident! What’s the big deal? Ryan was terrified. Of course I had to comfort him first!”

During our five years of marriage, my mother had treated Emily like her own daughter. In her heart, Emily had even mattered more than her own son—me.

Yet Emily had ignored my mother’s life just to comfort the man she loved when he was frightened.

Later, at the traffic officers’ insistence, Ryan and Emily boarded the ambulance with my mother and went to the hospital.

During the rescue attempt, Ryan and Emily sat lazily in their chairs, sweetly playing a two-player game together.

Only a few minutes later, Ryan said he was hungry. Without even looking at me, Emily took his hand and started to leave.

I dropped to one knee and nearly begged her.

“Please, Emily. My mother has always treated you like her own daughter. Can’t you stay here with me?”

Emily couldn’t pull free, so she slapped me hard across the face.

“Do you think lying is funny? How can you still be jealous of Ryan at a time like this? Ryan said he was driving under thirty miles per hour. He couldn’t even kill a dog at that speed. How could anything happen to your mother?”

With that, she linked her arm through Ryan’s and walked away without looking back.

“Just wait! I’ll make sure Ryan goes to prison!”

I knelt there numbly, no longer possessing the strength to cry. I could only stare lifelessly as they disappeared from my sight, hand in hand.

Anyone with a normal level of intelligence could have guessed how terrible the crash had been from the crushed front of the car.

Emily said those things only because she had blinded herself in an attempt to protect Ryan.

The moment they walked out of the hospital, the emergency room doors opened, and the doctor announced that my mother had not survived. He told me to prepare for her funeral.