Asher started visiting my grave frequently.

He no longer wore black coats, but instead a faded blue shirt.

I had ironed that shirt for him myself. The collar button was loose, and I'd sewn it back three times with red thread, but he always said, "It's crooked. It's embarrassing."

One day, he brought an old tin box containing my long-lost paintbrushes.

"When I found it, it was covered in dust," he said, carefully wiping the brush handles with his sleeve. "You kept it all along. I thought you'd thrown it away..."

I remembered that year when he threw my art supplies into the trash, Olivia clapping and laughing beside him, saying, "Asher, you did the right thing. This junk should be thrown away."

Back then, I hid behind the tree, watching him leave without looking back, clutching this broken-tipped brush tightly in my hand.

"Clara, do you remember?" he suddenly spoke, his voice soft a

Asher Blake began systematically investigating Olivia's past.

He hired the most elite private investigators, uncovering every detail of Olivia's movements from age fifteen until her death.

The investigation reports stacked waist-high, each page steeped in my blood and tears.

One recording featured a phone call between seventeen-year-old Olivia and her best friend:

"That fool Clara actually thinks Asher would like her? Last time I deliberately spilled red wine on her gown, and she stupidly apologized to me."

"I swapped her insulin with saline. Let's see if Asher still thinks she's faking it next time she passes out from low blood sugar."

"Once she's dead, everything Asher owns will be mine, including that bracelet his grandmother left him."

Asher played that recording on loop the entire night.

And I could only find it laughable.

I was already dead. What was the point of his inves

When Asher was dragged away from the commercial district by security, the hem of his black coat swept through puddles, splashing mud onto the cuffs of his white shirt.

He seemed soul-less, letting himself be manhandled.

Only after being shoved into the Bentley did he suddenly go mad, pounding the steering wheel, the horn wailing mournfully through the empty streets.

"Impossible..." he repeated, his knuckles turning white from the force. "How could..."

I floated in the passenger seat, watching him pull out his wallet from his inner suit pocket and take out a photo tucked inside.

It was a group photo from six years ago, Olivia standing on tiptoe leaning against his shoulder.

And I stood two steps away, holding a freshly bought milk tea, smiling like an idiot.

That was the first time I'd gathered the courage to offer him a drink, but Olivia suddenly appeared from behind him, snatched the milk tea, and threw it on the ground, saying, "Clara, how could you give Asher such cheap stuff?"

Back then, Asher frowned at me, the disdain in his eyes piercing my heart like needles.

Now that I think about it, Olivia's fingers gripping his arm were white at the knuckles from the force.

The car wandered aimlessly through the streets, eventually stopping at the back gate of my family's villa.

There was an old locust tree there—my secret base for drawing when I was a child.

Asher stumbled toward it, clutching the rough bark as he retched, stomach acid burning his throat like swallowing knives.

"Remember something?" I crouched beside him, watching his fingers trace the faint carvings on the tree trunk.

I'd carved them on my fifteenth birthday—a crooked "Asher" next to a sun with jagged rays.

He suddenly hugged the tree trunk and wept, his cries startling the sparrows from the branches.

"You spent the whole afternoon drawing here that day..." His voice was choked with sobs. "I thought you were cursing me, so I threw away all your art supplies..."

Of course I remembered.

That day, Olivia had told him I'd carved insults about him on the tree.

When he stormed into the yard, sunlight filtering through the leaves fell on his face, and I could even see the dust on his eyelashes.

Without a word, he overturned my easel, paint splattering across my new sketchbook, staining it a dirty purple.

So he knew all along—he just pretended not to.

Asher began obsessively searching for everything about Olivia.

He broke into the apartment she'd lived in, rummaging through a camphorwood chest in the bottom of the wardrobe until he found a locked wooden box.

When he pried it open, a musty smell mixed with perfume wafted out. Inside weren't love letters, but a stack of thick diaries and a bundle of photos.

The Olivia in the photos and the handwriting in the diaries were like two different people.

"Saw that idiot Clara drawing again today. Does she really think being good at art will make Asher choose her?"

"Switched her heart medication with vitamins on purpose. So satisfying to see her face turn pale. Asher thought she was faking illness for sympathy."

"The necklace Asher gave me is so pretty, much better than Clara's cheap trinket. But I have to make sure she sees it—it'll piss her off."

The diary slipped from his hands, falling onto the scattered photos.

In one photo, Olivia was holding my sketchbook and smiling. The book had a drawing of Asher and me from behind.

I'd drawn it secretly, but she found it and tore it to shreds, crying in front of him, saying, "Clara doesn't like me. She made our picture look so ugly."

Asher suddenly grabbed the wooden box and smashed it against the wall. Amid the sound of things shattering, I heard his teeth grinding. "All these years... I've been fooled by you..."

He crouched among the fragments, not even noticing his fingers being cut by the broken glass from a photo frame.

Drops of blood fell on Olivia's photo, covering her smug smile, just like that time she deliberately knocked over a bowl of hot soup, scalding blisters onto my wrist, while he stood by saying, "It's just a minor burn. Is it worth crying over?"

That night, Asher locked himself in that apartment.

At 5 a.m., he suddenly rushed out, running barefoot toward the cemetery.

As dawn broke, he punched the cold stone tablet again and again, until his knuckles bled and the photo on the tablet cracked like a spiderweb.

"You liar..." He pressed his forehead against the stone, his voice hoarse as if sandpapered. "You killed her, and then made me hate her all these years..."



Asher started visiting my grave frequently.

He no longer wore black coats, but instead a faded blue shirt.

I had ironed that shirt for him myself. The collar button was loose, and I'd sewn it back three times with red thread, but he always said, "It's crooked. It's embarrassing."

One day, he brought an old tin box containing my long-lost paintbrushes.

"When I found it, it was covered in dust," he said, carefully wiping the brush handles with his sleeve. "You kept it all along. I thought you'd thrown it away..."

I remembered that year when he threw my art supplies into the trash, Olivia clapping and laughing beside him, saying, "Asher, you did the right thing. This junk should be thrown away."

Back then, I hid behind the tree, watching him leave without looking back, clutching this broken-tipped brush tightly in my hand.

"Clara, do you remember?" he suddenly spoke, his voice soft as a sigh. "The first drawing you gave me was of this old locust tree. I said it looked like a ghost'

Chapter 4