Chapter 1

My wife, Liana Chandler, was in the middle of signing an eight-figure contract when she received news of my death.

Her secretary, Tyson Weller, entered the room with a sombre expression.

"Ms. Chandler, Mr. Leonard… has passed away."

Liana's pen tip paused above the document for a moment, leaving a small ink blot.

She looked up slowly and asked, "He's dead?"

"Yes. According to the police's preliminary investigation, it was suicide."

The air in the room abruptly seemed to still.

Liana was silent for several seconds. Then, she slumped back against her chair as if exhausted and let out a long sigh.

When I drifted over to her side, I actually saw tears in her eyes.

The setting sun cast shadows over her face. She looked exactly like she did all those years ago when I first fell in love with her.

But why was she crying? Was she happy?

After all, she'd waited years to avenge her first love, Hector Jennings.

Back in high school, she and Hector had been a couple everyone envied.

I, on the other hand, had been nothing but an incompetent wimp who could only crush on her in secret.

I had assumed that my feelings would never come to light, but then Hector was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

He didn't want to burden her, so he sought me out instead.

He told me that he could see the unconditional love in my eyes.

So, he asked me to take care of Liana after he was gone and stay by her side through the most difficult period of her life.

As for Hector himself, he chose to let his life run its course in a faraway place.

In fact, he didn't even say goodbye to anyone before he breathed his last.

I promised him that I would protect this secret, but Liana thought that I was the reason she and Hector never got to see each other one last time.

She also felt that I'd somehow said something to drive him to his death.

So, she pretended to develop feelings for me over time, acting as if my sincerity had truly moved her.

She came up with a painstakingly elaborate scheme—she stripped me of my authority within the company and alienated me from my family, all while declaring her love for me.

Once she had squeezed out the last bit of usefulness from me, she finally revealed her true intentions and told me she never actually loved me.

That hurt me more than anything else.

My heart ached faintly at the mere memory of her icy gaze.

By the time I regained my senses, my soul, which was stuck by her side, had been dragged along into her car.

Judging by the direction she was heading in, she was probably on the way to the funeral parlor.

I never thought she would still want to see me one final time.

When we arrived, my body was already being cremated.

Behind the crematorium's steel gates, my body, once full of life, was burning fiercely.

I looked at Liana, who was standing before the viewing window.

She stared unblinkingly into the flames, her expression unreadable.

One of the employees stepped forward cautiously. "Would you like to see him one final time, Ms. Chandler?"

"No thanks," she replied coldly. "Make sure he burns thoroughly."

I smiled self-deprecatingly at that. I tried to reach out and touch her face, but my hand simply passed through her body.

It turned out that even touch was a luxury for the dead.

I didn't know how long the cremation lasted.

All I knew was that when the doors opened again, my body, which once stood at six feet and three inches, was nothing but fragments packed into a small square box.

An employee respectfully held the wooden box out to Liana. "My condolences, Ms. Chandler."

Instead of taking the box, Liana merely stared at the photo on it for a few seconds.

It was a photo of me, smiling happily.

In truth, I hadn't taken a single photo ever since I found out the real reason why Liana got together with me.

Even this close-up photo, in which I was smiling widely, had actually been cropped from a photo of the two of us together.

Liana slowly brushed her fingers over my face in the photo, which felt nothing like my actual skin.

Suddenly, she smiled. "Condolences? Why would you need to offer me condolences for the death of a murderer? I simply don't think filth like him deserves a proper burial."

Her eyes flashed with hatred, and she raised a hand to overturn the urn.

With a clatter, my ashes scattered all over the floor like gray snow.

"My apologies, Ms. Chandler! It's my mistake!" the employee yelped, scrambling to clean up the mess.

However, Liana lifted a hand to stop them. "There's no need to trouble yourself with that. Just sweep up the ashes and wash them down the drain."

With that, she turned and walked away, her back cold and resolute.

I watched her walk away, feeling as if there were daggers in my heart.

When we first got together, it was obvious that she couldn't even bear to see me hurt, yet now, she could say such heartless things without batting an eye.

It turned out that hatred could really bring out the worst in people.