Chapter 2

"No…" My voice was already hoarse and broken, and the word I forced out of my throat trembled with despair.

Fabian smirked cruelly and increased the pressure of his foot grinding down on my fingers. The pain was so excruciating that I nearly blacked out.

"You're not worthy of such a fine watch! It should've belonged to me all along!"

He reached down and stripped the watch from my wrist. Then, he put it on his own. After admiring it for a moment with satisfaction, he looked down at me again.

"If it weren't for you, I would have had all of this long ago!"

He punched me in the chest again. Years of manual labor had made him brutally strong, and that single punch made me feel like it had displaced every organ inside me.

A stifled groan escaped me, the agony making it impossible to breathe. I wanted to put up a fight, but I felt as if I had been struck by a sledgehammer. Every muscle screamed in revolt, yet I couldn't move a single inch.

Fabian gazed down at his handiwork with satisfaction, as if I were already a corpse he could toy with at will. His gaze had turned fanatical and twisted, as though he had found the satisfaction he'd always craved in my suffering.

"Look at you!" He pointed at me and burst into manic laughter. "This is what you get for stealing my identity and my woman! This is the retribution you deserve!"

I tried to gather the last of my strength. I wanted to tell him he was gravely and disastrously mistaken. But my throat felt as though it were blocked, and all I could manage was a weak whimper.

Still laughing wildly, Fabian held the watch up in front of my face. "Don't go thinking just because you've lived a few years as an heir, you're the real deal. You're wrong—this watch is mine. This is Yvonne's gift to me! Yvonne is mine! You're nothing but an imposter, a despicable lowlife, and a joke!"

I couldn't fight back or cry for help. Instead, all I could do was let the cruelty of fate rage unchecked upon me.

Grinning savagely, Fabian pulled a hammer out of the car.

The icy cold touch of the hammer spread across my body. He let out a laugh and swung it down with brutal force, smashing my knee to pieces. The searing pain tore a wail from my throat that I couldn't contain.

The sound surged uncontrollably from my throat, echoing bleakly across the desolate wilderness.

In disgust, he grabbed a handful of mud mixed with my blood from the ground and shoved it into my mouth. An overwhelming sense of suffocation silenced any further sound I could make.

I struggled to spit the mud out of my mouth, but it was all in vain. The suffocation was unbearable. My vision began to blur, and my consciousness slowly faded away.

Fabian laughed coldly and raised the hammer in his hand again, bringing it down on my body over and over. Each blow carried all his resentment and rage, and every strike sent bone-deep agony coursing through me.

I didn't know how long it went on, but all I could do was writhe in endless torment as my life seemed to drain away bit by bit.

He shattered my hands, then my feet. I had long lost count of how many times he had struck me.

Before the final blow, Fabian fixed his gaze on my face and said through gritted teeth, "You scum! What gives you the right to have such perfect skin, not do any farm work, or seduce Yvonne?"

He raised the hammer and slammed it down viciously onto my face.

My face caved in deeply, looking utterly horrifying.

In that moment, I wished I could just die and be done with it.

I could feel life slipping away from me, my consciousness beginning to blur. I wanted to fight back, but my body was so weak that I didn't even have the strength to move a single muscle.

What little awareness I had left told me that Fabian had dragged me to an abandoned factory building. I could sense that my entire body had long been reduced to a bloody pulp. Still, the numbness couldn't mask the excruciating pain.

Fabian threw me into a machine, and then a large amount of soil was poured in after me.

The machine roared to life with a deafening clamor. The moment the blades made contact with my body, I lost all consciousness.

My soul rose high into the air, and from above I looked down upon everything that happened next.

Fabian tossed my corpse into a rust-covered wood chipper. I watched as it was mercilessly shredded, the blood mixing with the soil into a crimson sludge.

My soul drifted in the air, watching as my mortal remains were torn apart and pulverized by the relentless machinery. Even in my disembodied state, the agony of it was unbearable.

My remains, mixed with a vast amount of soil, were loaded onto a truck.

The roads grew more and more familiar—it was the way to the rose garden.

I watched as my flesh was scattered across the rose garden. The sea of roses I had once so carefully cultivated for Yvonne had now become my burial ground.

The flowers, nourished by my flesh and blood, bloomed even more brilliantly, while my life dissolved away amidst the sea of blossoms.

Yvonne was dressed in an evening gown, her makeup exquisite and elegant. However, none of it could conceal the iciness on her face.

I knew she was furious.