Three years after my death, I was an absent guest at my own wedding.
My fiancé, Damon Blackwood—the heir to a massive, influential empire—declared passionately before all the media: Three years ago, Anya saved me in my darkest hour.
If only she would appear, I promise to eternally fund all expenses for the Anya’s Home orphanage and sponsor the children’s education through Ivy League schools.
My Mom called me dozens of times, getting no answer, and angrily cursed me as an ingrate.
My siblings, Leo and Chloe, also messaged, scolding: “Mom only has one biological child, you! Are you really going to hold a grudge against her even now?”
Suddenly, I was the cold-blooded monster everyone scorned.
It wasn’t until after the wedding that the police found a chest freezer at the demolition site of the old Anya’s Home orphanage.
My Mom, the orphanage’s former director, finally discovered the truth.
The scattered remains of a woman inside were mine.
The body parts strewn across the ground made many guests throw up.
Seeing the streaks of gray at Mom’s temples,my eyes welled up.
Three years ago, Mom’s orphanage was in financial straits.
Coincidentally, Damon Blackwood, the heir to a massive empire, proposed to me, promising a billion dollars in funding.
Mom accepted on my behalf.
That year, I had just started as a reporter, investigating a major case.
Following the trail, we found the Blackwood Corporation.
Before I could even share the good news with Mom, I was kidnapped and taken to Damon’s secluded estate.
He tortured me for three months, cruelly dismembered my body, and stuffed me into a suitcase.
When Mom finally remembered to look for me, he claimed that I had left in a huff because of the arranged marriage and was traveling abroad.
Damon himself placed my body in the orphanage’s chest freezer.
It remained hidden for three long years.
During those three years, the orphanage was rapidly demolished and abandoned.
A new orphanage was built in a better location.
The day the old orphanage was torn down, Damon mentioned he wanted to see me.
Mom sent me dozens of SnapChat messages, but there was no reply.
From then on, she grew to hate me.
She forbade anyone from speaking my name, searching for me, and even burned all my clothes and books.
She wanted to force me to admit my mistake and come home.
But my soul is trapped at the place where I was buried, cold and lonely, unable to be reincarnated.
Until now, the chest freezer was opened by Mom herself, finally seeing the light of day.
I could, at last, look at her one more time.
Like I did as a child, trying to touch Mom’s hand, hoping she would recognize me.
But she frantically flipped through the names of all the orphans in the registry, comparing each one.
“Not Lily… not Rose… and not…”
“Phew… this person isn’t one of our orphanage children.”
“Director Hayes, think carefully, is there anyone you missed?”
Mom paused, her eyes serious. “What exactly happened?”
“This is the worst incident our city has seen in ten years! The victim was brutally tortured to death!”
Everyone present exchanged uneasy glances, fear and sympathy etched on their faces.
Mom sighed and shook her head.
Perhaps my spiritual call was too strong, because before leaving, she looked at my body several times.
But in the end, she didn’t recognize me.
A bitter ache filled my heart, and I started to leave.
Then I saw Damon approach.
Mom quickly put on a smiling face, gazing at him adoringly. “Damon, dear, Mom is so sorry. The day of great joy has been turned into such an inauspicious mess. Anya is so childish, but luckily you’re so magnanimous. Mom truly needs to thank you!”
My siblings, Leo and Chloe, also gathered around Damon, chattering and laughing. “Brother-in-law!”
“This case happened at the old orphanage, it won’t affect our new one, will it?”
“Don’t worry! My brother-in-law has vast magic powers. he can fix anything!”
Mom patted his hand affectionately. “Don’t listen to these little rascals!”
“Damon, you must be tired. Come home, Mom will make your favorite ribs!”
“Mom is favoring Brother-in-law! I want some too!”
“Brother-in-law is so much better! Unlike that heartless Anya, who didn’t even show up for her own wedding.”
At the mention of my name, Mom suddenly froze.
“That body just now… it looked about Anya’s age…”
She didn’t finish before Damon, frowning, interrupted. “Mom, you’re overthinking it!”
“Anya and I are still in contact. She’s living it up abroad; she’s just not ready to come home yet.”
“Yeah, Sister is living the high life! Who cares about us, right?”
My siblings sneered, their words dripping with disgust.
Each word was a sharp knife piercing my heart.
In the past, I would have been heartbroken for a long time.
But now, my mind was a blank.
My gaze locked onto the emerald jade pendant hanging from Damon’s neck.
Inside it, I knew, lay the truth of my death!
I floated to Mom, wanting to scream and tell her.
I hadn’t left in a fit of pique, nor had I abandoned my siblings or the orphanage.
To tell her, Damon killed me.
To tell her, the jade pendant around Damon’s neck was the evidence of my death!
It was the family heirloom Mom had given me!
But a veil lay between Mom and me, the living and the dead.
She couldn’t hear my injustice, nor could she see my tears.
She just clutched her anxious chest, taking Damon home to cook.
Three years had passed, and the photo wall at home had changed.
My section in the group photo had been removed.
The picture of Mom and me, once proudly displayed in the center, was replaced by a snapshot of Damon, laughing, with his arm around Mom.
Mom, usually so busy, now busied herself in the kitchen, chopping and dicing, preparing a pot of ribs for Damon.
Just like the day I died, Damon arrived with the suitcase containing my remains, tiredly claiming I had stormed off abroad in anger, and he just needed someone to talk to.
Mom offered to make him my favorite ribs, apologizing profusely, saying that “my Anya has a difficult temper.”
Damon, acting dutifully, helped Mom wash vegetables, a tolerant smile on his face.
Just as he had always done with me.
I turned my back, unable to watch.
Yet, the memory of meeting Damon for the first time flashed in my mind.
He was the illegitimate son of the city’s wealthiest magnate, bullied relentlessly at Northwood University.
I let him out of the locked bathroom, gave him a blanket.
And encouraged him, word by word:
“Your birth isn’t something you can control, but you can create everything you desire with your own hands.”
I never expected that he would resort to any means necessary, even to the point of getting involved in the underground Industry.
I repeatedly urged him to turn from his destructive path, promising I’d stick by him no matter what.
But I never expected to be imprisoned in that mansion by his deranged cruelty.
Even now, thinking about everything I endured during those three months, my soul still felt phantom pain.
At first, he merely inserted needles into my fingertips; seeing I wouldn’t yield, he personally pulled out all my teeth.
To conceal my identity, he burned off my skin, whipped me until there wasn’t an inch of unblemished skin.
Finally, in a fit of rage, he put me on an industrial cutting table.
Three months later, Mom received my letter of severing family ties.
But if she had looked closely, she would have seen the handwriting was blurry and shaky.
My fingertips were riddled with needles then; I couldn’t even hold a pen.
But Mom just tore the letter to shreds in resentment, cursing me as a heartless beast.
At this moment, I finally understood that the most painful thing wasn’t death.
It was the oblivion and abandonment of those closest to you.
I was truly unwilling.
Unwilling to sleep in darkness, forever denied justice.
Unwilling that my tormentor still walked free, and my loved ones were lost to me.
Knowing it was impossible, I still hoped Mom could see me, speak for my injustice, and see justice served.
But Mom’s next words, plunged me into an abyss of despair.
Damon lowered his eyes, apologizing softly:”Mom, it’s all my fault.”
“If I hadn’t let Anya go abroad then, you wouldn’t be so sad.”
Mom lovingly placed the largest rib onto his plate.
“This has nothing to do with you.”
“Even if Anya hadn’t left, I would have cut ties with her anyway!”
Her eyes blazed with a fire that scorched my very soul.
As they shared their cozy meal, I gradually understood.
This wedding was Mom’s idea, all to secure funding from the Blackwood Corporation, so the orphanage children could afford to study abroad.
Mom even admitted herself, she couldn’t bear to part with the children, but felt only annoyance towards me.
“I was already too far along when I was pregnant with her, and I couldn’t abandon her, but I absolutely wouldn’t let the children suffer.”
“I was an orphan myself, I know how hard it is. Everything she had, I’ll give to the children, doubled!”
When Damon proposed to me, Mom not only didn’t worry about my well-being, but urged me to accept.
In her eyes, marriage was a win-win: she could get rid of me and secure funding.
After hearing their words, my soul felt like it was being ripped in two.
My eyes burned with unshed tears, tears of blood.
I couldn’t help but remember a thousand nights of my childhood.
Remembering Mom, whom I sometimes didn’t see for a month.
The day I got into a prestigious high school, Mom bought me a cake to celebrate.
But Sam, one of the younger orphans, just stared at it, drooling, and Mom took the cake back to the orphanage.
I didn’t get a single bite, bursting into tears, demanding to know why.
But she always said:”Anya, what are you getting angry about?”
“They’re your younger siblings, can’t they even have a bite?”
Mom grabbed my arm and locked me in the chest freezer, telling me to calm down.
I stayed there until my homeroom teacher found me the next day and rushed me to the hospital.
Outside the emergency room, my guidance counselor called her dozens of times, but Mom never came.
It turned out, Mom truly didn’t love me.
I finally understood why she didn’t care about my life or death.
Why she didn’t even recognize my corpse.
It was because she didn’t care! She didn’t remember!
I clutched my chest, almost suffocating.
Just then, the police called again.
Mom’s face paled drastically after she answered.
↓ ↓ Download the Novel Master app, Search 【 294196 】reads the whole book. ↓ ↓
NovelShort
