Chapter 1

“There’s no need to send a rescue boat to the first floor of Building Three. Concentrate our resources on Building Five.”

Gavin Cooper’s calm voice came through the rescue team’s radio.

I floated above the floodwaters, holding my son’s hand as I listened in silence.

“But Mr. Cooper, your wife called earlier and said the water had already risen to her neck.”

The young rescue worker sounded anxious.

“You just joined the team, Jack. You don’t know Luna well. She tends to exaggerate.”

Gavin sighed helplessly.

“She knows I’m on the front lines, so she deliberately made things sound worse. She wants me to make an exception and rescue her first.

“I’m in charge of emergency response. If I give my own family special treatment, how can I expect anyone else to respect the rules?”

Jack fell silent for a moment.

“But your wife said Teddy has a high fever…”

“I know Teddy’s health. He’ll be fine after taking some medicine and getting some sleep,” Gavin interrupted.

“Wendy Harper is raising her daughter alone in Building Five, and her daughter has asthma. She can’t afford any unnecessary distress.

“Take the rescue boat to Building Five immediately. That’s an order.”

The radio went dead.

Jack sighed and had no choice but to turn the boat toward Building Five.

The boat’s propeller churned up the water as it passed over the bodies of my son and me.

Our bodies were trapped between the living room sofa and the ceiling.

Teddy’s favorite superhero toy floated on the water beside the half-eaten bowl of spaghetti I hadn’t had time to finish.

“Mom, why wouldn’t Dad let the police come save us?”

Teddy looked up at me, confusion written across his pale little face.

I crouched down and stroked his insubstantial hair.

“Because Dad had someone more important to save.”

“But I’m freezing, and it’s so dark in the water.” His lips trembled as he pouted.

I couldn’t bear to see him like that, so I immediately summoned the system.

“System, open the passage to another world.”

The system’s mechanical voice rang out.

“Host, the passage is ready. You may leave at any time.”

But Teddy suddenly grabbed the hem of my clothes.

“Mom, I want to see Dad one more time. I want to ask him if he stopped loving me because I was a bad boy.”

The faint hope in my son’s eyes made my chest ache.

Even in death, he was still thinking about the father who was always preaching about the greater good.

“System, delay our departure by two days.”

“Understood, host. Permission to remain has been granted. The countdown is forty-eight hours.”

I held Teddy’s hand as we drifted with the current toward the temporary shelter.

The shelter had been set up inside the city sports arena, which was brightly lit.

Gavin stood in front of the command station in his raincoat, checking the evacuation list.

Wendy sat beside him, wrapped in a blanket as she held her daughter in her arms.

“Gavin, am I causing you trouble? If you hadn’t come to save my daughter and me, wouldn’t you be with Luna right now?”

Gavin set down his pen and turned to look at her.

“Don’t let your imagination run wild. You and your daughter are a priority case. Saving you was part of my job.

“Luna is an adult, and Teddy is six years old. Even if they were trapped on the first floor, they could have climbed onto a cabinet and saved themselves.”

He picked up a cup of hot water from the table and handed it to Wendy.

“Drink this. I don’t want you catching a chill.”

I watched the scene in silence.

That was the blanket I had washed and put away in the closet two days earlier.

Before Gavin left, I had packed it in a waterproof bag and asked him to take it with him, worried that he would get cold while working overnight on the front lines.

Now it was wrapped around Wendy.

“But wasn’t Teddy running a fever?”

Wendy accepted the cup with both hands and asked cautiously.

“It was only a fever. It wasn’t going to kill him.”

Gavin’s voice remained indifferent.

“Luna is just too pampered. She thinks the whole world has to revolve around her.”

“I’ll have a word with her once the floodwaters go down.”

Teddy suddenly tightened his grip on my hand.

“Mom, did Dad stop caring about me because he doesn’t love me?”