Chapter 3Nine Years of Hate, A Lifetime of Regret

Asher's hand opening the car door paused slightly, his eyes holding some ambiguous emotion.

"Want to send him off on his last journey?"

I slowly lowered my head under his gaze.

"Yes."

"Asher, I just want to see him..."

"Please, can I?"

"If you're still not satisfied, take my life too..."

For a moment, a trace of mockery appeared on Asher's face.

He seemed to think I was begging him only because I didn't want to die.

He pinched the wrist holding the knife, pushing it closer to my throat, and sneered.

"Iris, do you think I really care about your life?"

"If you want to die, find a quiet place. Don't dirty mine and Chloe's eyes."

"Besides, do you really dare to die?"

After finishing, he drove away with Chloe, leaving me behind.

Before getting into the car, Chloe looked me up and down.

The disdain in her eyes made me clench my fists hidden under my clothes.

Asher thought the laboratory was far in the suburbs and hard to get a taxi to.

As long as he left with Chloe, no matter how unwilling I was, I would behave.

But he didn't expect that I, who had always been cowardly, after a moment of silence, lifted my feet and chased after them.

I don't know where the strength and courage came from.

Through the rearview mirror, he could clearly see my figure running behind the car.

Stubbornly, with all my might, chasing his receding car.

Falling, getting up, falling again, getting up again...

Falling over and over, climbing up over and over.

As if I had lost my pain receptors.

Asher slammed on the brakes, cursing under his breath.

"Madwoman."

Seeing the car finally stop in the distance, hope suddenly rose in my heart.

In a journey both distant and shallow, I stumbled and ran onto the car.

It was clearly a scorching summer, but the temperature inside the car was cold enough to make one shiver.

In the back seat, I hugged myself tightly, trying to find a tiny bit of energy from my own embrace.

But the result always disappointed me. I couldn't find the strength to support living anymore.

Even when the car drove onto the cross-river bridge, I seriously considered it for a moment.

If I jumped out of the car here and threw myself into the river to die.

It seemed not bad.

The laboratory was somewhat far from the crematorium. When we arrived there, it was almost evening.

When getting out of the car, Asher reflexively reached out his hand to me.

And for the first time in my life, I ignored him and rushed straight towards the morgue.

Walking past corpse after corpse, I never found my baby.

I don't know how to describe my mood at that time.

Was it despair, or relief...

I repeatedly paralyzed myself in my heart.

Maybe, this is just a dream of mine.

In the dream, flowers withered, lifeless.

But actually, my baby is still safely receiving treatment.

Maybe in a few months, when I wake up from this dream, our family will be reunited.

I didn't know, I was just mechanically, numbly looking for my baby.

When I came out of the morgue distraught,

I happened to meet a staff member pushing a corpse towards the fire pit.

I stopped as if feeling something.

When I saw the corpse, I recognized him almost at a glance.

That was my baby...

In the two months since he was born, I had only seen him three times and held him once.

They said the baby was weak and needed treatment in a sterile room.

So every time I saw him, it was through a thick glass wall.

I was outside, he was inside.

I hadn't even given him a name yet.

In the two months after his birth, I looked through numerous classics but couldn't find two suitable characters.

I thought, when he gets better, I must...

Must give him the name with the best meaning in the world.

But I never imagined that our fourth meeting would be like this.

He lay there quietly, being pushed towards the fire ahead by the staff.