A year ago, I was a rising star in the legal world. But everything changed when I uncovered evidence that my fiance's first love had caused an accident. She lured me to an abandoned factory and ruined my face, then pushed me into a toxic asphalt pit and left me to drown.

Little did they know, I was pregnant with my fiance's child when I died. After my death, he had the audacity to claim that I had accepted money from a murderer and had fled the country. His actions turned me into a pariah.

Meanwhile, he and his precious first love walked down the aisle together.

A year later, the abandoned factory I had died in was being demolished, and someone stumbled upon my body in that asphalt pit.

I never thought my body would see daylight again.

I stared blankly at the corpse on the autopsy table. It had been a perfectly intact body, and it was now coated in thick, black asphalt. It looked like it had been through the furnace at least once.

"You're here, Mr. Stewart."

Joshua Stewart's assistant, Edwin, stood up to greet him.

The air reeked of chemicals, and Joshua couldn't help but wrinkle his nose in disgust. The disdainful look on his face was exactly how he used to look at me when I was alive.

Cold, distant, revolted, and even disgusted.

"What happened?" Joshua asked as he pulled on a pair of gloves.

"The body was found in an old factory that was being demolished on the outskirts of town this morning. It was discovered in an asphalt pit.

"The face is completely destroyed. Looks like there was a brutal fight, and possibly it was an act of revenge. The body has been corroded by asphalt, and even the airways are full of it."

Joshua hummed in acknowledgment and picked up his tool as he prepared for the examination.

I floated above and watched him intently. The last time I saw him was a year ago. I still remembered the day clearly. He had been furious with me because I had slapped Christina Smith.

In a rage, he said, "Samantha Lester, you're a renowned lawyer! How could you bully a young woman like that? If you don't apologize to her, you can forget about marrying me!"

That was the day Christina shoved me into an asphalt pit.

After I died, my resentment kept me from moving on, trapping my spirit at the abandoned factory ever since.

It wasn't until today that someone finally found me.

However, I never imagined that Joshua would be doing the autopsy.

We finally met again after a year, but it was in such a situation.

Just as he was about to make the first incision, he suddenly paused as if something had crossed his mind. He turned to Edwin and asked, "Is the lab fully sterilized? Did you turn on the ventilation? The toxicity from the asphalt isn't something to take lightly."

Edwin chuckled. "Of course, Mr. Stewart! I made sure of it, especially since you and Ms. Smith are trying for a baby!"

At the mention of Christina, a small smile crept onto Joshua's face.

"Well, we can't afford any mistakes. I've been living a healthy, structured life for six months now just for that.

"If she found out you slipped up and ruined everything, she'd give you a thorough tongue-lashing!" Edwin teased.

As I listened to their casual conversation, it felt like someone had plunged a knife into my heart. It had been a year, and here I was, hearing my ex-fiance and the woman who killed me were trying for a child.

To make things worse, I discovered this news when my ex-fiance was dissecting my body.

The pain in my chest became unbearable. I couldn't tell if it was from the fact he was cutting into my body, or if it was from learning about their plans to have a baby together.

"There are 48 lacerations on the face, and the eyeballs are ruptured. It was all caused by sharp instruments," Joshua said clinically. "There's asphalt in the airways, which indicates poisoning. This person slowly suffocated to death from the toxic fumes in the asphalt pit. There are also severe burns across the body."

Edwin was unable to hold back and silently gagged. "This person was stabbed and poisoned. If that wasn't bad enough, they were trapped in the pit and unable to move… They were tortured to death!"

As I listened to them, I nodded weakly to myself.

They were right. I had suffocated, slowly and painfully, trapped in the asphalt pit with no hope of escape.

It was a despairing situation.

Then, Joshua's scalpel sliced through my abdomen.

"There's a slight swelling here," Joshua murmured. "There's a fetus in here. I'd say it's about two months old."

I drifted closer to stare at the tiny, underdeveloped embryo.

That was a baby—our baby that never had the chance to be born.

I couldn't help but drift closer.

Even though I knew it was only an embryo, I felt an unbearable urge to see the child.

It was my first baby.

Maybe it knew I wasn't fit to be a mother and didn't want to meet me. Even so, I still wanted to hold it and tell it that I loved it. More than anything, I had wished for this baby to come into the world safely and in good health.

The thought overwhelmed me, and tears spilled over. Sorrow washed through me like a slow tide.

"Send the deceased for an identity match in the database," Joshua said. "She's been dead for about a year, so make sure they focus on missing persons within that time frame."

After Joshua finished up, he packed away his tools with detached efficiency and got ready to leave.

"By the way, Mr. Steward," Edwin said, as if suddenly remembering something. "Samantha's mother is causing a scene at the entrance again, demanding to see you. You should take the back exit when you leave."

I was stunned.

My mother? What was she doing here? Why was she looking for Joshua?

Joshua let out a cold, indifferent laugh. "She shows up every day! I have no idea what she's trying to prove."

Edwin scowled, his tone equally disdainful. "Yeah. What's there to argue about? A lawyer with no ethics doesn't deserve any sympathy. That was an open-and-shut case, and Samantha had insisted on defending that murderer. Honestly, she deserved that backlash. Then, she even had the nerve to run off out of fear!"

A year ago, there was a terrible accident. A man was repeatedly run over on a remote road with no security cameras, and the driver fled the scene.

My client, William Prince, was the prime suspect. His wife had sold everything they owned to hire me.

"I know you're the best lawyer in town, Ms. Lester! I'm begging you, please save my husband! I swear he's innocent!"

William's wife was a disabled woman. She held her two children as she pleaded with me on her knees to save the man who was the pillar of their family.

I looked at their earnest faces and couldn't turn them away, so I took the case. I didn't want my clients to suffer from injustice or leave with regrets.

At that time, everyone believed William was guilty. I was known to be the best lawyer, yet I took his case anyway.

By doing so, the backlash against me only grew worse.

People called me heartless for defending a murderer. I faced insults daily, and I was pelted with eggs whenever I stepped outside. People even smeared red paint across my front door in anger.

However, I ignored it all. My only focus was finding evidence.

I worked around the clock for two straight weeks, combing through every detail until I finally found it.

It was a bloodstained button.

It was enough to suggest a third person had been at the scene where the accident had happened.

Just as I was about to submit the evidence for inspection, I got a message—my mother had been kidnapped. There wasn't even time to call the police. I rushed to an abandoned factory, desperate to save her. But when I arrived, there was no sign of my mother.

Instead, I found Christina waiting for me.

"Samantha, did you really think you could ruin me? You brought this on yourself by defending those people! You found the evidence that I hit someone!"

That was when it all became clear to me. Christina was the real culprit. She had been the one behind the hit-and-run!

Before I could react, Christina pushed me into the asphalt pit.

The thick substance pressed down on me, suffocating me little by little. The toxic fumes robbed me of the strength to save myself. Christina stood at the edge, watching as I struggled and slowly sank beneath the surface.

Right before I died, she said, "Too bad, Samantha. The truth about my drunk driving will only be safe once you're dead, and with you out of the picture, I can finally be with Joshua!"

My disappearance became the final nail in the coffin of the people's accusations against me.

"I didn't run away! William was innocent! I was too!" I screamed at Joshua, my voice filled with the fury of someone wronged.

I had found the evidence to prove it!

However, it was useless.

When Joshua recalled my existence, he laughed disdainfully. In his view, I was the woman who was a stain on his reputation.

He confirmed Edwin's remark and said, "She's a lawyer with no conscience, that's for sure. She tried to defend a murderer! After people started cursing her, she took the dirty money and hid like a coward! She's a disgrace to the profession!"

With that simple, cutting remark, Joshua shattered everything I had built, and every ounce of pride I had in being a lawyer.

To him, I was nothing more than a coward and a traitor to my profession.

But Joshua, of all people, knew how much I sacrificed. How could he turn around and accuse me of something so terrible?

Maybe it was because my obsession ran too deep, but my soul followed Joshua home.

"Josh, you're back!" Christina greeted him, wearing an apron and smiling sweetly. Her dimples made her look so innocent and gentle.

No one would ever suspect that this softspoken and gentle woman had killed two people.

The incident report from that time revealed that when Christina first hit the victim, it wasn't fatal. But she kept running over them again and again until they died, leaving the body on the side of the road.

As soon as Joshua saw her, his face lit up with a smile. "Tina, what delicious meal have you made today?"

They embraced naturally, like the most ordinary couple in the world.

I looked around the place carefully.

This was the house Joshua and I had worked so hard to buy after three years of scrimping and saving. Every piece—from the couch to the coffee table, the vases to the utensils—was something I had carefully chosen and arranged. I had poured all of my love and effort into this place.

But though the decor remained the same now, every trace of me had been cruelly erased. Even the framed couple's photo I once hung in the living room had been replaced by their wedding portrait.

The bitter irony was that Joshua and I had been about to register our marriage too. Yet he never even bothered to take the time to snap a wedding photo with me.

"Those things are just a consumerist trap," he had said. "Spending thousands on a stupid photo? I'd rather buy a new computer!"

Then, he added with a cutting look, "Besides, you're not that good-looking. What's the point?"

Back then, his words had felt like knives stabbing into my heart. When a person was in love, they tended to hang on every word and opinion their partner had of them.

Joshua and I had fallen in love back in college. After graduation, we struggled and built our lives from the ground up in this city. We went from nothing to something together.

The year Joshua and I were supposed to get married, Christina came back. On the day we went to City Hall to register our marriage, she appeared at the entrance.

"Josh, I'm back."

That was the moment I truly understood the power of being someone's "first love".

With those words, Joshua abandoned me right there at City Hall.

But after years of being together, I couldn't let go. I kept tolerating it and kept trying to make it work. All I got in return was his growing resentment and relentless criticism.

He also blamed everything on me.

"Look at yourself. You're a lawyer who keeps working overtime. How am I supposed to marry you? Look at Tina. She says if we get married, she will be my perfect support and run the household! And you? You're just constantly blaming me and Tina for your own failures. You should reflect on yourself more!"

He kept implying and repeating the same thing—I wasn't good enough compared to Christina.

Every time he criticized me, I would react and try harder. Over time, I started to doubt myself. His belittling got to me.

It wasn't until our seventh anniversary that I saw the text messages he exchanged with Christina.

[Josh, I'll wait for you forever. We can get married once you break up with Samantha.]

And he replied, [Okay.]

That one word shattered my last shred of dignity.

I left that night. I moved out of our tiny apartment and threw myself into work. Under everyone's gaze, I took on William's case. They were watching and judging me.

That same day, I found out I was pregnant.

I thought long and hard. In the end, I decided to keep the baby. I had the means, the money, and the ability to raise it on my own. Even if I had to do it as a single mother, I knew I could give the child a good life.

But I never imagined Christina would be so cruel—she had stolen everything from me.

My marriage. My child. Even my life.

As I watched Joshua and Christina wrapped up in their sickening affection for each other, I couldn't help but scream in my mind.

Why?! What right did they have?!

Their happiness was built on my suffering!