Chapter 4

Cornelius stared at the urn, frozen where he stood.

The bodyguard was more terrified still, his legs nearly giving out.

"This can't actually be somebody's ashes, can it!"

Cornelius started to say something, but Yvonne grabbed his hand at once and pried the urn open herself.

"Cornelius, Yvette's committed to the whole act, so she even brought props. Anyone can see this is baby formula, not ashes. I'm a mother myself, I can tell at a glance!"

At those words, his eyes darkened in an instant.

"Yvette, all to get my attention, you lied that our child was dead, and now you're using formula powder to pass off as ashes for your little performance."

"Dennis is cursed eight generations over to have a mother like you!"

With that, Cornelius lifted the urn high in his hand.

"I'll smash it right now, and let's see what you've got left to perform with!"

"No!"

I watched his raised hand, forcing down the pain in my feet, stumbling as I tried to crawl over.

But the next second, with a sharp crack, the urn shattered before my eyes.

Ash the color of ash and bone scattered across the ground.

The sky rumbled, and raindrops the size of beans came pounding down into the mud.

My child's ashes seeped into the earth, bit by bit, along the running water.

I forgot every wound on my body and dug at the ground with my bare hands, over and over, like a woman gone mad.

Trying to hold on to the last thought I had left in this world!

"Dennis, my Dennis, don't leave Mommy, please!"

Yvonne looked down at me, then placed a costly box of golden nanmu wood into Cornelius's hands.

"Cornelius, the hour's right, it's time to bury the dog!"

Cornelius took the ash box she handed him, ground his foot down on the back of my hand, and strode forward.

Step by step he walked to the grave, his foot on the toppled headstone.

Slowly, he set the dog's ash box down into his son's grave.

Standing on his son's headstone, burying a dog's ashes in his own son's grave.

I watched it all, and felt nothing but how obscene it was.

Once the dog's ashes were buried, Cornelius turned to me, slumped in despair on the ground, his face full of disgust.

"Tomorrow's the day the hospital's new chairman takes over, and tomorrow I'll be formally promoted to chief. You'd better behave yourself and stop coming out to make a fool of yourself!"

With that, Cornelius put his arm around Yvonne and swept off.

Leaving only me and the mud and yellow earth all around.

I watched his retreating back, my fists clenched tight.

"You'll never see the day you get promoted!"

·······

The next day.

The hospital held its award ceremony, with every senior leader present.

Cornelius sat below the stage, riding high.

The colleagues around him were falling over themselves to flatter him.

"Dr. Henson, you'll be made chief today, the youngest chief the whole medical field has ever seen. The future's limitless!"

"I hear Nurse Fox is even related to the deputy director. Dr. Henson's promotion to chief is as good as locked in!"

As the words fell, the director's voice rang out from the stage.

"Let us congratulate Dr. Cornelius Henson on his formal promotion to Chief of Surgery……"

Cornelius smugly straightened his collar and was just about to step up onto the stage.

The next second, the doors of the hall were shoved open.

"I'm the chairwoman here, and I haven't nodded yet. Who approved his promotion?"

Everyone turned toward the voice.

And when they saw my face, they drew a collective sharp breath.

"How can the new chairwoman be her!"

At the same moment, Cornelius's phone began to ring.

It was the cemetery.

"Dr. Henson, you dug up the wrong grave. The plot you bought is right beside your son's grave. The one you dug up yesterday was your son's."

Cornelius went rigid.

"Whose grave did you say that was?"