Chapter 1

As applause filled the venue, Selina Wendell began recounting the accident that had happened during a snowstorm three years earlier.

She explained that she'd been injured and had lost consciousness when Zachary Smith braved the blizzard to find the rescue team and bring her and her mother, Janice Potter, to safety.

But when she got to the part about me, her ex-husband, the tenderness gradually faded from her face.

"He took all the food and survival gear and abandoned me to save himself."

Janice chimed in, her voice equally cold. "A selfish, evil man like that deserved to die out there."

I looked down at my translucent body, knowing that her wish had come true long ago. I'd died in that avalanche, though they still had no idea.

As the wedding reached the ring exchange, the lights suddenly went out. The giant screen flickered to life, displaying an endless expanse of snow.

In the upper-right corner, a line of tiny red text flashed repeatedly. "Time remaining before rescue personnel lose vital signs: 6 hours, 13 minutes."

Selina's smile froze when she realized the man on the screen was me.

I was kneeling in the snow, taking off the last down jacket I had and wrapping it around the unconscious Selina. Then I broke my last energy bar into small pieces and carefully fed them into her mouth.

The food and supplies she believed I'd taken with me had been right there beside her the entire time.

In the video, the rescue personnel instructed me to stay where I was and wait for them to arrive. Instead, I shouldered the emergency beacon and ventured alone into the blizzard.

"She's lost too much blood. She won't survive until you get here. I'll come find you instead."

Selina suddenly stumbled toward the screen.

"Impossible. He said he took the supplies."

No one answered her.

On the screen, I kept falling and forcing myself back to my feet, again and again. By the end, my hands were so badly frozen that I could no longer use them to support myself. I had no choice but to brace my weight on my elbows and crawl forward inch by inch.

Three hours later, I finally managed to flag down a rescue vehicle. I gave the rescue team Selina's location but refused to leave with them.

"My mother-in-law is still trapped in another valley. She has a heart condition. I have to go back for her."

Janice shuddered, and the teacup in her hand crashed to the floor.

At the end of the video, I found Janice lying unconscious in the snow. I carried her to safety and strapped the emergency beacon to her body, but moments later, I was swallowed by an avalanche.

Then the screen went completely black.

Not a single sound came from the wedding guests.

Selina's face had gone deathly pale, and her voice trembled as she spoke. "If he was already dead, then who sent me the divorce papers? And the 50 million… who actually took the money?"

Patrick Moore, the rescue team leader, stepped onto the stage and placed a watch in front of her. It had been recovered from beneath the snow.

"Jared Solton died on December 17, three years ago," he said firmly. "You received the divorce papers a month later. As for the money, although the receiving account was registered under Jared's name, the person who actually controlled it was…"

He raised his head and fixed his gaze on Zachary, who stood nearby in his wedding suit.

Selina slowly turned to follow his gaze.

The happiness that had lit up Zachary's face just moments earlier had vanished, leaving him deathly pale. However, he quickly regained his composure.

"It wasn't me."

His eyes reddened as he looked at Selina, his voice carrying just the right amount of wounded indignation.

"Just because the account was opened using my personal information doesn't mean I took the money. Jared never liked me. Maybe he arranged all of this in advance."

Janice immediately stepped in front of him protectively.

"Exactly! Jared must be behind this. Videos can be edited, and voices can be faked. He disappeared for three years, only to cause a scene on the very day Lina gets married. Isn't it obvious he can't stand to see her happy?"

Whispers rippled through the guests once more.

Selina said nothing. She just stared at the watch Patrick had brought her.

The watch face was shattered, and its hands were frozen at the time of my death on December 17, three years ago. A deep scratch ran along the edge of the band.

I recognized it immediately.

Five years earlier, we'd been in a car accident. The car had caught fire, leaving me trapped in the passenger seat. Everyone had shouted at Selina to stay back, but she'd rushed straight into the flames. She grabbed a rock, smashed the window, and dragged me out.

Shattered glass had cut her hand and left that scratch on the watchband.

That day, she held me in her arms and said, "It's just a watch. As long as you're alive, nothing else matters."

Back then, Selina had truly been willing to risk her life for me.

That's why, even until my dying breath, I'd never once doubted that she loved me.

But somewhere along the way, she had come to hate me, too.

In the three years since I disappeared, Selina had hardly known a moment of peace.

She suffered from insomnia and could only sleep with the help of medication. The lights on the top floor of her company's building stayed on all night. She buried herself in work, as if punishing someone else, or perhaps even herself.

Once, she collapsed in a conference room from a bleeding ulcer. When she woke up, the first thing she asked was, "Is there any news about Jared?"

When she was told there was none, she pulled out her IV and returned to the office, fresh blood still trickling from the back of her hand.

I'd once believed she was waiting for me to come home. Only later did I realize that she'd turned all the pain of being unable to find me into hatred.

Convinced I'd stolen 50 million dollars, she cut off funding to my father Louis Solton's company. She drove its business partners to withdraw their investments en masse, and she handed the police what she claimed was evidence of his crimes.

On the day the police took Dad away, he stood in the rain outside Wendell Corporation's headquarters for eight hours, hoping for just one chance to tell Selina to her face, "Jay isn't that kind of person."

But Selina refused to see him.

Standing before the floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor, she watched as security guards dragged Dad away, then coldly instructed her staff, "Tell the Solton family this is only the beginning."

Later, Dad suffered a stroke while in custody.

My mother knelt outside Wendell Corporation's headquarters, begging Selina to drop the charges. She explained that Dad was in poor health and wouldn't survive a prison sentence, but Selina merely looked down at her coldly.

"Jared should have thought about the price his family would pay when he took that 50 million dollars."

That day, Mom remained on her knees until she finally passed out and was taken away by ambulance.

She never returned after that.

Not long afterward, my family home was put up for sale, and Mom left the city.

Still, Selina refused to stop. She froze the remaining assets of Dad's company, drove away every last business partner, and even had my name struck from my family's genealogy.

She declared, "If he doesn't want this family anymore, then I'll make sure he has no home to return to."

I stayed by her side and watched her do it all, explaining, begging, and desperately trying to stop her.

But every time I reached for her, my hands passed straight through her body.

And now, faced with that very same scratch on the watchband, Selina would rather believe it was all a hoax than accept that I'd been willing to die for her, too.