Chapter 4

Tomorrow was October fifteenth. An indescribable sadness welled up in my heart.

This date seemed very important to me too, but I couldn't remember why.

Seeing my delayed response, Vivian frowned slightly: "Ethan has suffered quite a bit lately. I want to make him happy. You'd better act gracious and don't embarrass me."

I nodded mechanically. After she left, I directly called a home service team to come over.

The old me would never have delegated this to others.

Back when Vivian was just starting out, she was so busy her feet barely touched the ground. She often skipped meals and suffered from stomach pain.

I felt so bad for her that I, a young master who'd never lifted a finger, forced myself to learn to cook.

But Vivian took it for granted, and would even complain when the food I brought her had gotten cold.

Feeding sincerity to a dog must feel just like this.

Early the next morning, the house was decorated with flowers.

Ethan looked at Vivian with a beaming smile: "Vivian, do you think this cake is pretty? It's my favorite strawberry flavor!"

Vivian wrapped her arm around his waist affectionately, smiling as she said, "As long as you like it."

Before long, guests began arriving one after another.

Ethan sat in the center, receiving everyone's well wishes.

"Wishing the handsome Ethan eternal youth!"

"Ms. Vivian is so thoughtful toward Mr. Ethan!"

Ethan's eyes and brows were full of satisfaction, his gaze drifting intermittently toward me in the corner: "Actually, I have Derek to thank for how happy I am today. Although there were some misunderstandings before, all these fruits and pastries today were personally prepared by him."

Everyone's eyes instantly focused on me, filled with scrutiny and mockery.

"So this is Ms. Vivian's husband? I heard after his daughter's accident, he developed a serious illness."

"He looks pretty normal though. How could he..."

Vivian frowned, apparently not wanting people to pay too much attention to me: "Alright, let's cut the cake."

The lights dimmed.

Ethan closed his eyes to make a wish, candlelight illuminating his smug face.

Just then, the doorbell suddenly rang.

"Who could that be at this hour?" Vivian opened the door with some displeasure.

Standing at the door was a delivery person, next to a white funeral wreath.

Vivian's expression changed. "Why are you delivering such an inauspicious thing? Take it away immediately!"

The delivery person looked bewildered, pulling out a form to check: "No mistake. This is memorial supplies that Mr. Derek ordered from us six months ago. He said it absolutely had to be delivered today."

As the delivery person spoke, he craned his neck to look inside.

My head started aching again, my temples throbbing.

I held my head and staggered backward, bumping into the wine on the table.

The wine bottle fell to the floor, glass shards flying everywhere.

All the fragments of memory reassembled in that moment.

A red sports car crashed into the guardrail, the front end severely deformed.

My daughter lay in a pool of blood, her eyes still open, staring fixedly ahead.

And Vivian, the woman I'd loved for five years, was frantically pulling the reeking-of-alcohol Ethan from the driver's seat, shoving him into the passenger seat, then getting behind the wheel herself.

She turned her head and looked at me as I rushed over, revealing a cruel expression.

"Derek, this was an accident. Mia is already dead. But Ethan is still alive. He can't go to prison."

Reality and memory slowly overlapped.

I looked at the white funeral wreath before me, at the room full of festive red balloons, my whole body beginning to tremble, my eyes turning blood red.

"Vivian, did you think that by giving me injections and hypnotizing me, you could make me forget all of this? Impossible! I will never forget that Ethan is the killer who murdered Mia, and you are his accomplice!"

The living room fell deathly silent.

Several lawyer colleagues exchanged glances, whispers spreading.

"Could the previous rumors actually be true? Did Ethan really kill someone while drunk driving?"

"If it's true, doesn't that mean Ms. Vivian committed perjury?"

"Didn't Ms. Vivian say those were just rumors? But looking at Derek's reaction... it doesn't seem fake."