Chapter 4

I struggled to undo my seat belt and squeeze through the door.

I had barely taken a few steps when I collapsed.

A shard of glass was embedded deep in my thigh.

Pain spread through my body. Darkness washed across my vision.

Then I lost consciousness.

When I woke in the hospital, three days had passed.

Luckily, a group of adventure travelers had found me.

I had lost a great deal of blood and was severely hypothermic. Without prompt emergency treatment, I would have died there.

“Hello, Miss Trang. I’m the real Hứa Vĩ.”

I forced my eyes open.

The man before me wore a police uniform and carried himself with authority.

“The man who impersonated me is a criminal who escaped from Myanmar. He planned to kidnap you to threaten Chu Tu Dã and take revenge on him. We’ve arrested him.”

Did that mean they had found Tu Dã?

Was he still alive?

There were so many questions in my head, but my body felt boneless. I could barely get a few words out.

“Tu Dã... You found him?”

Hứa Vĩ smiled.

“Of course. Hasn’t he been with you all along?”

I stared.

A moment later, an icy chill swept through me.

The door opened. Chu Tu Dã hurried inside.

The instant I saw him, I understood.

A scream tore from my throat.

“He’s a fake! He’s pretending!”

I was almost howling.

“He isn’t the real Chu Tu Dã! He’s an impostor!”

Hứa Vĩ and the nurses looked helpless.

“Miss Trang, you were unconscious for three days. Tu Dã barely ate or drank. He’s been frantic with worry. How can you say that?”

I stared at the man.

He put on a worried expression, his eyes full of wounded innocence.

“He has a wound in his abdomen. I stabbed him during our fight. If you don’t believe me, check the fingerprints. There must still be prints on the knife handle.”

“Miss Trang,” Hứa Vĩ explained, “he was stabbed while fighting the man who impersonated me. That man has confessed to everything. You must be confused after such a long period unconscious.”

Then “Chu Tu Dã,” silent until now, said something that startled everyone.

“She’s right.

“I’m not the Chu Tu Dã she fell in love with.”

Slowly, he knelt beside my bed.

His eyes were red, his face full of pain and hurt.

“I really am no longer the man you loved three years ago.

“Those years undercover changed my personality completely.

“I’ve become oversensitive. Suspicious.

“I’m no longer the Chu Tu Dã you remember.

“It’s all my fault.

“I swear I won’t forget that you don’t eat brown sugar again. I won’t forget a single thing you’ve said.

“I’ll become the man you love again.

“Please give me a little more time.

“Forgive me...

“And accept me. Please?”

Every word sounded utterly sincere.

Even the doctors and nurses were moved to tears.

Everyone except me.

This monster was putting on a show.

I stared at him with hatred.

“If you really are Tu Dã, will you take a DNA test?”

Everyone turned toward him.

I knew that complete DNA samples were kept for every undercover officer.

He did not answer immediately.

The light divided his face into brightness and shadow.

For some reason, I felt that he was smiling.

“If it will put your mind at ease, of course I will.”

His composure only deepened my unease.

Half an hour later, Từ Vĩ announced the result.

“The DNA from the two samples is a complete match. There’s no doubt. He is Chu Tu Dã...”

How could that be?

All the strength drained out of me.

I tried desperately to explain, to prove that I had not lost my mind.

But everyone looked at me with pity, irritation or disgust.

Then a sedative entered my veins, and my awareness began to dissolve.

Chu Tu Dã held my rigid body, murmuring gentle reassurance.

At the same time, he leaned close to my ear.

“See, darling? Nobody believes you. Why keep fighting?

“You’re wondering why there’s nothing wrong with my DNA, aren’t you?”

He was smiling, just as I had thought.

A smile of outrageous triumph.

“Because...

“I’ve always been Chu Tu Dã.”

What did he mean?

Always been Chu Tu Dã?

How was that possible?

Helplessness swallowed me.

Had something been wrong with him even before we fell in love?

No. If that were true, why would he have risked his life undercover?

The man before me maintained his disguise flawlessly.

He personally cared for me and gave me my medication.

When someone suggested he leave me, he played the devoted lover.

“Đóa Đóa is ill because of me. She’s carried too much on her own these past three years. I can’t abandon her now.”

But when we were alone, the mask came off.

He grabbed my hair and beat me to vent his anger.

“Trang Đóa, that safe you mentioned doesn’t exist, does it?

“I searched every corner of your home. Nothing. If there really were one, you would have told Hứa Vĩ long ago.

“You were lying to me.”

Soon afterward, he took me away, claiming the countryside would help my recovery.

I could not resist.

The drugs had complete control of my body.

He confiscated my phone, made me resign and cut off all contact with the outside world.

I knew what he wanted.

To silence me.

Quietly erase the only person who knew his true identity.

On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, he injected me with a large dose of sedative.

Then he set a hot iron on a pile of clothes.

Smoke rose with a hiss.

He patted my cheek and smiled.

“They’ll think you had an episode and forgot to turn off the iron.

“You’ll see Chu Tu Dã tonight.

“Husband and wife, reunited in the underworld.

“Isn’t that lovely?”

I lay motionless on the bed, watching flames flare and climb the curtains.

Only painful, broken sounds came from my throat.

Help me.

Someone, please help me.

Just before the fire engulfed me, a small figure climbed through the window.

He dragged at me with all his strength.

He was disabled. Blind in one eye, his limbs deformed.

He could not speak, either.

Suddenly, I remembered him.

On our wedding day, he had lingered outside the gate, crawling on the ground like a crazed dog.

The villagers had driven him away.

Even as the flames caught his clothes, he would not let go.

“Who... are you...”

When I next woke, I was in Chu Village’s Earth God temple.

With a hand burned raw and bloody, he traced characters on my palm.

An impossible thought came to me.

My voice shook.

“Are you...

“Tu Dã?”

He nodded through his tears.

His face was terribly disfigured.

Yet, strangely, the instant our eyes met, I recognized the familiar soul behind them.

During his time undercover, Chu Tu Dã had discovered a secret.

The fraud and drug operations in that industrial compound were only a front.

Their real money came from experiments on human beings.

The Immortality Project.

He wrote on my palm.

“It’s a method of extracting memories.

“It can transfer consciousness between two people.

“A dying person’s consciousness is implanted into a healthy body.

“The man occupying my body is the compound’s real owner.

“Khương Lâm Phong.

“He died in a car crash while being escorted home to stand trial.

“But when I examined the body, I found several connection ports at the back of his skull.

“They were left by the memory-extraction and implantation procedure.

“I suspected the crash was staged to fake his death.

“I have documents about the Immortality Project and part of its client list.

“But I suspected there was a mole in our organization.

“I couldn’t hand them over until I was completely certain.”

During his investigation, he discovered he was being followed.

So he deliberately left clues for me to find.

Looking at what had been done to him, leaving him scarcely recognizable as human, I felt my heart being crushed.

“Then... why were you put in this body?”

He continued writing.

“Khương Lâm Phong demanded to know where the files were.

“I told him only one thing: ‘The rabbit has three legs.’

“He didn’t understand.

“So he transferred my consciousness into a disabled beggar’s body and threw me into a river.

“Fortunately, I survived.

“I begged my way back here.”