Chapter 3: The End of the Lie

I opened my phone and cast the funeral home's surveillance footage onto the television.

On the screen, not long after the metal door of the cremator closed, Gu Yanzhou regained consciousness as the antidote took effect.

High heat surrounded him from every direction. A large amount of the drug that suppressed his breathing and heart rate still remained in his body, leaving his limbs too weak to support him.

First he rammed his shoulder into the door. When it didn't budge, he thrashed desperately. At last he managed to make a faint sound.

An employee in the control room had returned to retrieve something. Hearing an unusual noise from inside the cremator, he hesitated for a few seconds, then hit the emergency stop.

When the door opened, a person engulfed in flames crawled and rolled out.

The lobby erupted into chaos. Other families demanded that their loved ones' death certificates be checked.

The staff put out the flames on Gu Yanzhou and rushed him to a burn treatment center.

I pressed pause and pointed at the figure on the screen, whose features were no longer recognizable.

“Severe burns, but he's conscious.”

“Mom, Dad, haven't you always wanted him to wake up?”

The relief that had just appeared on Mrs. Gu's face froze. Then her eyes rolled back and she fainted again.

Mr. Gu collapsed beside the bed, too.

The successive shocks caused a brain hemorrhage. Both were rushed into emergency surgery.

But Zhao Wanting had no time to care about them. She turned and ran straight to Gu Yanzhou's hospital room.

8.

When Zhao Wanting reached the burn ward, she was still calling Gu Yanzhou's name.

The moment the door opened, her voice stopped.

The man on the bed was wrapped from head to toe in gauze. The exposed patches were dark red and charred, and his face was swollen beyond recognition.

The security footage had not prepared her for the sight in front of her.

Zhao Wanting gripped the doorframe and retched several times, yet she couldn't take a single step inside.

Gu Yanzhou recognized her.

He struggled to move his eyes. Broken breaths scraped from his throat as he tried to call her closer.

But she seemed terrified. She backed away several steps, turned, and fled the corridor.

I walked right past her without stopping her.

She didn't halt until she reached the elevator. Bracing herself against the wall, she texted me.

“Sister Zhiwei, I really can't stand the smell of hospitals. I'll come visit my brother-in-law later.”

Moments before, she had stood in the hospital room shouting that I had killed Gu Yanzhou. Now she was pretending again to be the considerate little sister I had helped.

I didn't expose her. I replied with one word: “Okay.”

Less than an hour later, she contacted a lawyer to ask how Gu Yanzhou's assets should be handled if he were left severely disabled.

The backup phone she had forgotten in the corridor recorded the entire call.

When Gu Yanzhou learned about it the next day from a medical worker's conversation, he didn't sleep all night.

Zhao Wanting returned the following day.

She stood outside the glass isolation room, unwilling to change into protective clothing or come in to hold his hand.

Gu Yanzhou used all his strength to track her with his eyes. She only said that the child had been frightened and she needed to look after An'an first.

Then she handed a bouquet to a nurse and left in less than five minutes.

The flowers didn't meet the burn ward's requirements and were thrown into the trash.

I entered the room and sat down beside Gu Yanzhou's bed.

He looked at me, his eyes filmed with tears. Perhaps it was only because of the terrible pain from his injuries.

“Yanzhou, I'm truly happy.”

I adjusted his IV with the same gentle voice I had used for ten years.

“The doctors say your skin barrier has been severely damaged. You'll keep getting infections and will need many skin graft surgeries.”

“Your vocal cords were damaged by the heat and smoke. You can't speak for now.”

His eyes darted wildly. He tried to struggle free, but couldn't lift even one finger.

“It's all right.”

“For ten years, you listened to me talk. You can keep listening.”

I told him the center would give him the best assistive devices available. Once he was stable, he could even try a brain-computer interface.

He wouldn't have to keep pretending he was unconscious, and I wouldn't let him die easily.

News of the man who crawled alive out of a cremator at the funeral home shot straight to the top of the trending lists.

Online, people jokingly called the machine the “Nirvana Furnace.” Countless media outlets wanted to interview those involved.

The story of how I had cared for my vegetative husband for ten years and brought him back after he had been mistakenly declared dead was unearthed at the same time.

When he was young, Gu Yanzhou had said he wanted the whole world to know how much he loved me, so everyone would envy our marriage.

I bent close to his ear.

“The chance you've wanted has finally arrived.”

“You can't speak now, so I'll speak for you.”

Reporters on the roof of the building across the street captured a photograph of me leaning over to comfort him.

The next day, the picture appeared on the front pages of the newspapers.

The headline said that after ten years, we still refused to abandon one another.

Gu Yanzhou stared at the article, hatred reddening his eyes.

I set the tablet back beside his bed and told him not to rush.

“You owe me a very long story. We can take our time letting everyone hear it.”

9.

After Gu Yanzhou left the hospital, I took him to several public interviews.

Every time we faced the cameras, I told the story of our love before the wedding, the years I had waited after his accident, and how happy I had been when the cremator door opened.

Gu Yanzhou sat in a wheelchair, unable to contradict me. The cameras recorded his ruined body and my reddened eyes.

The miracle at the funeral home, together with our ten-year marriage, quickly became a topic discussed across the internet.

I didn't take the opportunity to invent more tragic tales. I simply made sure the public firmly remembered two facts: he had been in a coma for ten years, and I had cared for him for ten years.

Once public attention reached its peak, I began taking inventory of the valuables in our home.

Several expensive custom-made necklaces were missing.

I brought the receipts to the police and reported the theft, explaining that the items might have been missing for several months.

The police retrieved footage from cameras around our residential compound, the nursing facility, and jewelry resale channels.

The first suspicious footage surfaced quickly.

Gu Yanzhou, who was supposed to be bedridden, walked steadily into a private club wearing a hat and mask.

After that came footage from shopping malls, hotels, airports, and the house registered in my name.

For ten years, whenever I left the city, he had stood up again and again.

When the videos appeared online, the love story that had just been built collapsed at once.

At first, netizens assumed we had staged the whole thing together. They were furious and demanded an investigation into whether his supposed return from the dead at the funeral home was another deception.

At the press conference, Gu Yanzhou sat there, a vein twitching at his temple.

I looked as if I were seeing the footage for the first time. My face slowly went pale.

More security videos were soon made public.

The same woman appeared in every clip: Zhao Wanting.

They embraced in a car, held hands at hotels, and came and went from my house as if they owned it.

The dates matched my business trips.

Police also found footage of Zhao Wanting eating with the child and Gu Yanzhou's parents in an old backup from the residential complex.

Public opinion turned a second time.

Everyone could now see that I wasn't a false accomplice. I was the person my husband and the woman I had helped had deceived for ten years.

The livestream of the press conference hadn't even ended when reporters brought the news to me.

I looked at the screen and said nothing for a long time.

Gu Yanzhou warned me with his eyes, just as he used to whenever he forced me to give in.

I faced the camera, my voice trembling.

“Why did you treat me this way?”

The comments appeared again.

[That's exactly what she asked before she died in the original story.]

[At first, she was in the hospital and saw the male lead holding the heroine's hand. That was all she had time to ask.]

[Now it's the male lead sitting in front of the cameras. He can't even answer.]

That was indeed the final line I had prepared for Gu Yanzhou.

The comments on the livestream went out of control.

Some people calculated what I had spent caring for him for ten years. Others dug up the records of my support for Zhao Wanting. Someone else discovered that Gu Yanzhou had used our marital assets for years to buy her a home and raise her child.

At last, Gu Yanzhou tried to operate his assistive device, but only a jumble of characters appeared on the screen.

Reporters pressed him: Had he been conscious the entire time? Had he planned to fake his death? Had he intended to make his relationship with Zhao Wanting public after something happened to me?

He could not answer a single question.

I didn't hit him in front of the cameras or add any cruel words. I simply took off my wedding ring and set it on the table before him.

The faint clink as it landed was picked up clearly by the livestream microphone.

10.

After the press conference, I formally filed for divorce.

Ten years of deception, a long-running affair, concealment and transfer of marital assets, and the evidence left behind by his plan to fake his death left Gu Yanzhou no way to keep portraying himself as the victim of our marriage.

Before the hearing, his lawyer once proposed a settlement.

The lawyer wheeled Gu Yanzhou into the conference room. His assistive device already had an apology typed into it. The message said that at the time he had only been afraid to face the end of our marriage; then the lie had grown and grown until he never found a chance to confess.

The lawyer hinted that if I stopped pursuing the nursing facility and the assets, Gu Yanzhou would cooperate with the divorce and publicly admit his mistakes.

I pushed a detailed list of ten years of expenses to the middle of the table.

It included his rehabilitation and care, his parents' living expenses, business payments to Zhao Wanting's company, and the house, cars, and child's tuition paid from our joint account.

“This wasn't one lie he told because he couldn't find the right time to confess.”

I pointed at the transfers that appeared year after year.

“He had more than three thousand mornings when he could have woken up. He had countless chances to tell me he didn't love me anymore. But every day he chose to keep spending my money and watch me sit at his bedside.”

The cursor on the assistive device blinked for a long time. Gu Yanzhou didn't enter another word.

I refused to settle and asked that the law determine where every transferred asset had gone.

At the hearing, the nursing facility's access records, medication reports, security footage from our residence, and a paternity test were laid out and corroborated one another.

Several employees who had helped Gu Yanzhou hide what he was doing gave statements to reduce their own liability. They explained how he arranged fake examinations, took medication before I visited, and how Zhao Wanting entered the ward.

The Gu parents claimed they had only acted out of love for their grandson and hadn't known their son intended to harm me.

But security footage captured their conversations about the funeral and inheritance, immediately exposing their claim that they knew nothing.

Gu Yanzhou was awarded almost none of the assets and was left to shoulder the expensive cost of burn treatment.

Several employees at the nursing facility were investigated for helping falsify his medical condition and conceal the entry records.

The Gu parents were held responsible for the hit-and-run. Their health also quickly deteriorated after the repeated medical emergencies.

Zhao Wanting's life fell completely apart as well.

Her company terminated her contract and pursued damages, saying her personal conduct had caused serious losses.

I submitted the earrings, the surveillance footage, and leads on the flow of the jewelry. I asked for the stolen pieces to be recovered and for her to return the marital assets Gu Yanzhou had given her over the years without my consent.

The properties, cars, and accounts registered in her name were frozen one after another.

She had believed those things proved Gu Yanzhou loved her. Now each one became a debt she had to repay.

At first, Zhao Wanting refused to admit she had stolen the jewelry. She insisted Gu Yanzhou had given her everything.

But the police found one of my missing necklaces in a safe she had rented. Inside the box was a handwritten note from her, describing how it looked when she tried it on.

I had worn that necklace at my mother's funeral, then never again.

Zhao Wanting, however, had paired it with an evening gown for a party. The date in the photograph was the same night I was at the hospital, keeping vigil beside Gu Yanzhou during his supposed crisis.

When confronted with the evidence, she changed her story and said she had mistaken the jewelry for Gu Yanzhou's personal property.

No one believed her anymore.

Late one night, while moving out, she was recognized by her neighbors.

She wore a mask to avoid the cameras, but they still surrounded her below the building and demanded to know why she had repaid kindness with betrayal.

With nowhere else to go, she took An'an to the Gu parents and demanded compensation for spending ten years without a proper status.

Mrs. Gu, lying in a hospital bed, called her ungrateful.

“When my son was doing well, was there anything you lacked—houses, cars, anything?”

“Now that something has happened to him, you can't even bring yourself to visit, yet you dare use the child to demand money!”

Zhao Wanting tore away the last of her decency, too.

“If you hadn't agreed to let him divorce her, would I have had to be with him in secret for ten years?”

“The child is about to start school. Did any of you ever give me a proper place in the family?”

Mr. Gu was so angry he kept striking his cane against the floor. He said that before, she had been nothing but a poor, neglected student from a mountain village; without my help, she could never have gotten where she was.

His words hit the place she least wanted to face.

The three of them kept exposing one another's flaws in the hospital room until even An'an was frightened and hid in the corridor.

When Zhao Wanting realized she couldn't get any money, she simply left the child with the Gu family, changed her phone number, and ran away.

With a court judgment and debts in her name, she couldn't live an ordinary life. Whenever she appeared in public, someone recognized her.

The Gu parents could only care for their son, who needed long-term dressing changes, while raising their young grandson.

They had relied on the living expenses I sent to enjoy their retirement. Now medical bills, care expenses, and the boy's needs all weighed on them at once. They could only sell their last home.

I hadn't sent anyone to investigate these updates.

A group of netizens had formed to keep track of what happened afterward. From time to time, the comments passed the latest developments along to me.

I checked a few times to confirm the court's judgment was being enforced, then closed the page.

They resented and demanded things from one another. That was the rest of the life they had chosen.

11.

On the day the divorce judgment took effect, I went to the hospital to sign the final document.

Gu Yanzhou was still in a temperature-controlled room. His assistive device could now help him select letters slowly.

Two words remained on the screen: Save me.

I stood at the foot of the bed and looked for a while.

Ten years ago, if he had been willing to wake up and admit he no longer loved me—even if he had only given me one honest sentence—I would never have locked myself inside that endless wait.

But he couldn't bear to give up my money or my care. Nor could he give up the thrill Zhao Wanting gave him. So he chose to make everyone play along.

Now he was finally conscious, but I was no longer his family.

“The hospital will care for you according to your treatment plan.”

I handed the documents to the nurse and didn't touch the hand he held out over the edge of the bed.

“The court will deduct the portion of the costs that are your responsibility from whatever assets you have left.”

The device beeped. The words on the screen slowly changed to: I'm sorry.

I didn't know what he was apologizing for, and I had no intention of choosing the gentlest answer for him.

I turned and left the room.

At the end of the corridor, I heard the wheels of a gurney rolling by. My heart no longer tightened the way it used to.

Sunlight came through the window and fell on my bare ring finger.

Ten years of exhaustion had left their marks, but they were all in my past now.

When I returned to the company, my assistant handed me a stack of files waiting for my signature and poured me a glass of fruit juice.

After the financial issues Gu Yanzhou had concealed for so long were resolved, the company had returned to normal operations.

The attention brought by the scandal gradually faded. There were no more reporters outside the office, and no crowds gathered below the building.

I signed the last page. A new message appeared in the group that was following the aftermath.

I didn't open it. I simply unfollowed the group.

The evening sky outside the window had turned fiery. My face was reflected in the glass.

Ten years of weariness had left a mark, but it had all become part of my past.

My assistant asked if I still wanted to work late that evening.

I checked the time and picked up my coat.

“No. I'm going home.”

The blanket my mother had left me had been washed and restored. It had just been delivered back today.

Before nightfall, I wanted to spread it over the sofa again.

Enjoyed this story? Discover more completed short romance stories at NovelPotato.asia.