“Hello, are you Ms. Jiang Furong? I’m an agent from the Zhenxi Security Bureau.”
“I am… What’s wrong?”
“We recovered a car from the river with a young man inside. Judging from his identification, he might be your ex-husband, Chu Tianshu. If you’re available, could you please bring the relevant documents to the funeral home to identify him?”
…
Chu Tianshu floated in mid-air, numbly looking at his own body covered by a white sheet.
He vaguely heard the agent calling Jiang Furong.
A scornful smile touched his lips.
It would be a miracle if she came.
She hated him to the bone, having once cried and said that the biggest mistake of her life was knowing and falling in love with him.
It had been three years since their divorce.
They were long since strangers, with no connection whatsoever.
Chu Tianshu hoped she wouldn’t come.
He had drowned, and it was an ugly sight.
In the height of summer, he had been soaking for two or three days.
The once-handsome man was now a ghastly sight, emitting a strange odor.
An unknown amount of time passed.
Outside the morgue.
The sound of hurried footsteps echoed, along with a woman’s voice.
Then, an agent said, “…The cause of the accident is still under investigation. Ms. Jiang, please don’t get too agitated…”
A tall woman pushed past them and ran straight in.
Her lost, helpless gaze swept across the numerous white sheets.
Her eyes were rimmed with red.
Chu Tianshu froze, quite surprised.
She actually came?
The agent led Jiang Furong toward Chu Tianshu’s body.
Jiang Furong stared at the white sheet before her, her entire body tense and trembling uncontrollably.
She took a deep breath.
The hand holding her bag flew to her mouth.
Her other hand slowly reached out and lifted the white sheet.
It revealed a pale, swollen, and decaying face.
It was truly a sight one could not bear to look at.
Having been submerged for so long, a mild case of bloating had set in.
Some parts of his body had even been nibbled on by fish and shrimp…
The agent didn’t dare to look for long. While comforting Jiang Furong, he told her to just do her best to identify the body.
They were supposed to use a DNA test for confirmation, but they couldn’t find any of Chu Tianshu’s immediate relatives.
Jiang Furong stared blankly at the “person” before her.
She was completely stunned.
Her trembling intensified.
Covering her mouth, she let out a suppressed sob.
Tears streamed down her face in silence.
The agents felt a pang of sympathy and comforted her, “We can’t be completely certain with the naked eye alone. We still have to wait for the autopsy results…”
Jiang Furong shook her head and said with difficulty, “It’s… him…”
She had been in love with him for eleven years.
They were married for three years and had two children.
How could she not know what his body looked like?
He had a tattoo, a mole, a slight deformity in his right pinky that couldn’t straighten, and the nails on his two big toes grew strangely…
Chu Tianshu floated in mid-air, numb and helpless.
He couldn’t leave his own corpse.
There was nothing he could do.
A female agent gently comforted Jiang Furong, trying to lead her out.
But Jiang Furong pulled her hand away.
She took a few deep breaths, calming herself slightly, and pleaded in a tearful voice, “Let me be alone with him for a while, please? Just five minutes…”
She even bent her knees.
She was about to kneel and beg them.
The agents quickly held her up.
Left with no choice, they had to agree.
They understood that she needed some private space right now.
The agents went out, leaving the door ajar.
Jiang Furong turned her head and looked at her ex-husband’s body for a while.
She closed her eyes in pain, weeping softly.
Crystalline tears fell one after another.
Chu Tianshu looked at her as well.
There were so many things he wanted to say.
She was much thinner than before, and her once-stunning face was now etched with weariness.
She looked haggard and older than her years.
She was barely thirty.
It seemed that after the divorce, life had been very hard for her and the two children.
Chu Tianshu wanted to ask how the children were.
They would be six or seven now, old enough for elementary school.
After the divorce, he had left Su City, busy making money, with no time to spare.
She had also blocked all his contact methods, leaving him with no way to reach them.
So he knew nothing about how she and the children were doing.
To think their first meeting after the divorce would be in a scene like this.
“Tian-ge… I really never thought…”
Jiang Furong’s slender fingers caressed his cold face.
Chu Tianshu thought she was going to say she never thought he would be gone just like that.
However.
She said, crying, “I never thought… that in our family, I would be the only one left alive…”
Buzz!
The words struck Chu Tianshu like a heavy hammer, and his mind went blank.
What was she saying?
What did that mean!
What about the children?!
Tell me clearly!
Jiang Furong was heartbroken, crying inconsolably.
But she seemed afraid the agents outside would come in, so she forcibly suppressed her sobs.
She spoke to herself in fits and starts, recounting what she had been through over the years.
As Chu Tianshu listened, it was as if he had been struck by lightning.
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing—
His son and daughter… had actually…
died one after another!
The two children were fraternal twins who had inherited their parents’ excellent genes and were as lovely as porcelain dolls.
It was because she was so adorable that his daughter was abducted and went missing.
He didn’t know what happened in between, but by the time she was found, she was already…
And his son had contracted acute leukemia.
From diagnosis to death, it was just over a month.
Hearing such devastating news, Chu Tianshu was overcome with grief.
The two babies were so young, only five or six years old…
Why did it have to be this way!
Why was heaven so cruel to his family?
His father had died in a car accident several years ago.
His mother had died of cancer two years ago.
His former mother-in-law was divorced and had also passed away many years ago.
The Chu family had only had one son for three generations.
Now.
There was no one left.
A rope always breaks at its thinnest point, and misfortune always seeks out the wretched.
“Tian-ge, I’m so sorry… I… I didn’t take good care of… the children…”
“Just like your mom said, I’m just a… jinx… Tang Xin is dead too, killed by her boyfriend…” Jiang Furong’s eyes were red from crying as she knelt on the floor, sobbing her heart out.
She was filled with regret.
Regret for not watching over her daughter properly.
Regret for buying a sofa with excessive formaldehyde…
“If we hadn’t divorced back then… No, if I hadn’t insisted on marrying you, things wouldn’t be like this…”
“If I had let you be with that woman, maybe… you wouldn’t be dead now…”
Jiang Furong murmured with a dazed expression, filled with grief and self-blame.
Hearing her innermost thoughts.
Chu Tianshu’s soul ached with unbearable pain.
He had always known that he had wronged Jiang Furong.
They had gotten married because she was pregnant.
But at that time, he didn’t love her.
Just as she had a secret crush on him since high school, he had his own white moonlight, Shen Miaoyan, in his heart.
Because she wasn’t in his heart, he was very cold to her.
A month after she married into the family, his father died in a car accident.
Because of that, his mother also despised her, thinking she was a harbinger of death.
Even after she gave birth to the twins, Chu Tianshu remained lukewarm, only providing money and never coming home.
Let alone raising or educating the children.
He had failed in his duties as a husband and a father.
She had known no happiness at all.
But now.
As Chu Tianshu lay here quietly.
When all was said and done.
He suddenly realized that he hadn’t given much thought to what would happen to his vast fortune.
The ones he cared about and worried about the most were actually his ex-wife and children!
Not some damn white moonlight.
He even suspected that someone had tampered with his car, causing it to crash into the river…
Before he could think any further.
Jiang Furong suddenly bent over.
Her lips.
On his nauseating face.
She kissed him!
“!” Chu Tianshu’s eyes widened.
Incredible.
How… how could she bring herself to do that?
After kissing him for a few seconds, Jiang Furong’s expression had calmed considerably.
A faint smile even appeared on her face.
“Tian-ge, I’m coming to find you… Don’t leave me behind…”
From her handbag, she took out a small black bottle.
She twisted it open.
And without hesitation, she drank its contents.
“What are you doing!”
Chu Tianshu was horrified and wanted to stop her.
But there was nothing he could do.
He could only watch helplessly as she drank the poison.
Her face quickly turned deathly pale, her expression contorted in pain.
Jiang Furong was crying and laughing at the same time as she coughed up black blood.
She soon collapsed.
The door was pushed open, and several agents rushed in.
They were shocked and immediately sent her for emergency treatment.
But it was too late.
Jiang Furong’s life had ended.
She had come to the funeral home fully prepared.
Besides the poison, her bag also contained some documents.
And a suicide note.
After losing her two children, her heart had long turned to ash.
She had attempted suicide before but couldn’t let go of Chu Tianshu.
So, she had quietly returned to Su City, wanting to see him one last time in secret.
Who would have known.
What she received was a notice to identify a body.
At that moment, she decided to follow him in death.
In her suicide note, she begged the security bureau staff to bury them together!
…
Within Chu Tianshu’s soul, only endless pain remained.
And regret!
His short, tumultuous life was filled with too many regrets.
How could he not be regretful?
“I’m such an idiot!”
Why did he chase after a green tea bitch?
Why did he ignore his wife’s affection?
Now it had led to the ruin of his family.
How foolish.
Chu Tianshu was filled with remorse, his heart aching with a pain that pierced his soul.
Oh, God!
If only life could start over.
He would definitely turn over a new leaf and be a good husband and father.
He would use his whole life, his very life, to make up for the harm he had caused.
“Sir, your divorce certificate has been processed. Is there anything else?”
The staff member at the Civil Affairs Bureau tapped on the desk.
Chu Tianshu snapped back to his senses and looked around.
The electronic screen on the wall.
The time displayed:
May 15, 2015, 10:24 AM.
This was the day he and Jiang Furong got divorced.
Chu Tianshu shot to his feet in shock, unable to believe it.
Wasn’t he dead?
Why was he now back on the day of his divorce?