Chapter 2Dead Wife, Lost Dog, and Her Return

"Sir?" I repeated, breaking into an incredulous smile.

I had so many questions for Casey, but the words eluded me somehow.

I looked at her quietly, trying to decipher whether she was human or a ghost.

Pudding, who was in my arms, turned to look at her and let out a soft whimper. It struggled to lick my fingers that were covered in mud and blood.

My entire body froze. When I looked down, its eyes were starting to glaze over.

At that moment, nothing mattered more than Pudding.

I shot Casey a piercing look, shoved past her, and ran to the nearest pet hospital with Pudding in my arms.

She didn't follow. No one did.

But it was already too late.

Pudding was old. And yet Jenna had tortured it so badly that its organs and flesh could no longer function.

On the operating table, Pudding used the last ounce of its strength to look at me, its eyes filled with longing and reluctance. Then, slowly, it closed them.

A harsh straight line appeared on the monitor.

"I'm sorry. We did our best," the doctor said with a sigh and handed me a white cloth.

I accepted it stiffly and wrapped it around Pudding's tidy body.

It was so small. It had been just like that when Casey and I found it eight years ago.

She had said that fate had brought us together and suggested that we become its parents. She promised she would work hard so that Pudding and I could live a good life.

After her death, I wanted to let her leave this world free of debt. I ended up taking on a huge debt of three million dollars from her failed business while holding on to the only memento she left me.

I walked down the bustling street, holding Pudding's urn.

The rain had stopped, and the city returned to its chaotic state with neon lights flickering all around me. Yet my world was as still as death.

I didn't know how I made it back to that 215-square-foot basement unit I rented.

As I pushed open the rickety wooden door, a familiar musty smell washed all over me. The unit had no windows or exposure to sunlight. The peeling walls looked like patches of hideous scars.

I gently placed Pudding's urn on the table, next to a photo of the three of us. In the picture, Casey and I were 24. I was smiling brightly, and she was totally focused on me.

I reached for the frame and slammed it down on the table.

Lying in the center was a thick brown envelope. There were 50,000 dollars inside.

That was the money I had scraped together by working three jobs—hauling goods at the supermarket during the day, washing dishes at a street food stall at night, and copywriting late into the night. I even had to stretch a single plate of pasta over several days.

It was the final installment of the three-million-dollar debt.

I picked up the envelope with trembling hands. It was heavy, but not heavier than the thin sheet of paper lying under it.

It was a medical report from the hospital.

"Name: Zachary Dawson

Age: 32

Diagnosis: Late-stage stomach cancer."

I stared at those words on the paper, finding them utterly absurd.

The doctor had stated that my stomach was damaged due to extended periods of overwork, malnutrition, irregular eating habits, and extreme emotional distress.

I had worked so hard from the age of 28 to 32, but they all felt meaningless.