Chapter 1

An emotional crowd blocked the road ahead of me, hurling all kinds of garbage in my direction.

Camera flashes went off incessantly as various media outlets scrambled to capture my disheveled state.

"Kathleen Wilcox, your adoptive parents spent so much energy and money raising you, yet you killed their biological son? You're a demon!"

"What kind of ungrateful jerk does something like this? How can you live with yourself after doing something like this?"

I remained expressionless, kept my head down, and made no response.

Meanwhile, my adoptive parents, Roger Wilcox and Amber Cohen, squeezed through the crowd, leaning on each other. In just three short days, their hair had become streaked with gray.

"Kathleen, Douglas suffered from illness for over 20 years and finally had a chance to recover. Why did you have to kill him? You wanted to study medicine and go abroad, and we drained every penny we had to put you through school. What did we ever do to deserve this from you?"

Dad steadied Mom with one hand while pointing a trembling finger at me with the other.

"Kathleen, I truly regret adopting you! I should've let you rot in the orphanage, you ungrateful murderer!"

The grief-stricken and furious state of the elderly couple enraged the onlooking crowd.

"What more is there to investigate? Just take her and have her shot!"

"See, this is why you shouldn't casually adopt kids. Maybe Kathleen's birth parents were murderers too, and she was born evil."

"She must be punished for such a horrific case of medical malpractice. Otherwise, how can anyone ever trust a doctor again?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, we will definitely seek justice for you!"

Justice?

Did Mom and Dad even deserve it?

I suddenly raised my head and glared viciously at them.

"Douglas deserved to die! I only wished his life had been even shorter! I couldn't wait for him to drop dead sooner!"

Everyone present gasped sharply.

Mom was so furious that her eyes rolled back and she fainted in Dad's arms.

Someone picked up a stone and hurled it at my head.

"Go to hell, you evil murderer!"

Blood trickled down my forehead, and yet I laughed.

My reaction completely infuriated the crowd.

Just as the situation was about to spiral out of control, the police got the crowd under control and escorted me toward the police car.

The moment I was about to get into the police car, a journalist suddenly rushed toward me, holding out her microphone.

"According to investigations, you've saved over 100 heart disease patients and actively participated in medical charity events over the past five years. Kathleen, are there some circumstances behind this case of medical malpractice that you can't speak about perhaps?"

I recognized her as Maureen Ingram. She never published a story without investigating it personally. Her relentless pursuit of truth and justice had earned her a reputation as the most ethical journalist in the field.

She was also the only member of the media present who never hurled abuse at me.

I stared at the camera lens beside her and leaned closer to the microphone.

"Ms. Ingram, let me tell you a secret—the real murderer is someone else. The truth and evidence you want to find are all in the live stream."