When my wife, Cynthia Larson, dies of bone cancer, I am in Penwood on a honeymoon with my "first love".

After this is exposed, I—a well-known philanthropist—am subjected to the internet's rage for an entire month. Beyond threats and harassment messages, even my food deliveries are poisoned.

As public outrage intensifies, the companies under my name are on the verge of bankruptcy.

In overwhelming grief, I start a livestream.

Tens of thousands of viewers flood in, demanding that I apologize to my deceased wife. They want to see me suffer as I chase after lost love when it is too late.

Unexpectedly, I stand in front of Cynthia's grave holding a shovel. "She is already dead. Shouldn't her kidney be donated to Irene?"

The moment I drove the shovel into the grave for the first time, the viewership spiked from 10,000 to 30,000, but the screen was a chaotic blur of vitriol.

"Do you even have a conscience? You tormented Cynthia Larson when she was alive, and now that she's dead, you're digging up her grave?"

"Cynthia graduated from an elite university, and she spent all these years quietly pouring her life into your company. Even if you don't love her anymore, couldn't you at least let her rest in peace?"

"She must've been blind to ever fall for you!"

"We ought to look into every charitable foundation Henry Collins has under his name. Someone this ruthless can't possibly be treating those orphans kindly. Who knows? Maybe he's even involved in organ trafficking."

"Exactly! He won't even spare a dead woman's organs. I can't imagine how awful life must be for the kids in his orphanage."

"Who could be more pitiful than Cynthia? She gave him the best years of her life, and now that she's dead, he wants her kidney for his mistress!"

"Did something happen to Irene Shaw's kidney?"

"Well, she had it coming!"

I watched as the screen filled with indignant comments and laughed, completely unfazed. "Whatever Cynthia sacrificed, she did it because she wanted to. It's not like I forced her."

With that, I drove the shovel back into the grave.

The more unfazed I seemed, the angrier the viewers became.

As the vitriol poured in, I picked up the pace, even pausing to address the camera directly. "Cynthia may be dead, but her kidney can save Irene. Honestly, she should consider it an honor."

"Fuck! I'm shaking with rage! What kind of scumbag is this?"

"He cheated on his wife while she was alive, and now that she's dead, he wants her kidney for his mistress?"

"Does anyone know where this is? I'll head over and kill that bastard myself!"

I looked at the agitated viewers and panned my phone to show the bodyguards surrounding me. "Don't bother coming out in the middle of the night, everyone. I've got plenty of bodyguards with me. It's hard to say who would end up getting hurt."

As soon as the words left my lips, several viewers who had only been raging in the chat actually headed out.

Some even announced in the livestream, swearing I wouldn't live to see tomorrow's sunrise and promising to make me pay on camera.

As I watched the viewer count surge toward a million, a flicker of satisfaction rose in my chest.

Before I could engage with the crowd any further, a blinding beam of light landed on me.

The people arriving to confront me were faster than expected. It was almost as if it had been planned.

A group of men armed with metal clubs came swarming toward me, but the person leading them was a woman. She was tall and thin, her face marked by a jagged scar.

Before she even reached me, she screamed, "Stop what you're doing right now!"

Her voice was raspy. As the words left her mouth, she hurled a shovel at me.

My bodyguards moved to intercept the group, but they had no intention of backing down. "You son of a bitch, I'm going to cut your heart out!"

"She's already dead. Can't you just let her rest in peace?"

"A dead kidney is useless! If you're so worried about that mistress of yours, why don't you give her one of your own?"

I looked at the furious faces before me and shook my head calmly. "How would we know if her kidneys are usable or not unless we dig her up and see?"

"She's already dead. Please, just let her go!"

A woman suddenly collapsed at my feet, her voice breaking into a wail. "I'm begging you. Let my daughter rest in peace."

Her voice trembled as she looked up at me with red, swollen eyes.

I gave her a look of disgust and shook off her grimy hands.

"And who are you supposed to be?" I asked, my voice dripping with impatience.

"That's obviously Cynthia's mother. Wait, how does Henry not recognize his own mother-in-law?"

The woman quickly spoke up. "It's only natural he doesn't know me. In all the years he was married to my daughter, he never came to see me once."

After saying that, she turned her tearful gaze back to me.

"Henry, every time Cynthia came to see me, she would tell me how loving you were and that you were only too busy to visit. But I knew she was afraid my feelings would be hurt.

"You look down on me. I disgust you. Cynthia loved you, so I was willing to turn a blind eye to everything. But now, she gave her life for you! You can't humiliate her like this now that she's gone!"

Her cries were gut-wrenching.

Realization dawned on me. I looked down at her with cold indifference and asked, "Are you sure you're her mother?"

"You heartless bastard! You're a monster! You couldn't even recognize your own mother-in-law after all these years, and now you have the nerve to question her?"

"Exactly. How can he let an elderly woman kneel on the ground like that? I feel so bad for her!"

The woman's eyes were red as she shouted at me, "Of course I'm her mother! I carried her for nine months and raised her with everything I had. Even if she were nothing but ashes, she's still my daughter!"

She threw herself over Cynthia's grave and sobbed, asking why Cynthia had left her behind.

The crowd's fury continued to mount.

I simply stood there with an eyebrow arched. She had no idea she was the person I had been waiting for.

"You bastard! How could you still stand there and smile?"

All of a sudden, a shovel slammed into my head.

My head buzzed. When I reached up to touch the wound, my hand came away covered in blood.

The attacker was the woman with the scarred face, who had been leading the charge in the name of justice.

Even after the bodyguards stopped her, she continued to struggle with everything she had. "You coward! You had the nerve to cheat on your wife and keep a mistress on the side, but you don't have the guts to face me?

"That poor woman is crying her heart out, and you're grinning? Clearly, your parents raised you wrong! I bet you're a bastard your mother had with some other man!"

I clenched my fists, wanting nothing more than to tear her apart right then and there.

"You've got quite a mouth on you for someone claiming to be so well-bred," I said, walking toward her. "Shouldn't you be at home looking after your own family instead of sticking your nose into my family's business? Are you really that bored, or are you just as useless as Cynthia?"

She slammed her weight into my chest before spitting at me.

"You asshole! I just can't stand people like you! Cynthia was so good to you. Despite being a top graduate, she turned down an invitation from the National Academy of Sciences just to stay home and help you with your company!

"Every time something went wrong with the company, she stayed up all night trying to solve it so you wouldn't have to worry as much. And what were you doing? While she was working overtime for your company, you were sleeping with Irene!

"She was coughing up blood while you were away on a trip. You accused her of faking it for attention, and you'd rather take Irene's dog to the vet than take your own wife to the hospital while she was doubled over in pain from the cancer!

"How did such a kind soul end up with a scumbag like you?"

As she finished, the people around us raised their metal clubs, looking ready to strike.

On the livestream, the insults in the comments were flying by too fast to read.

Finally, someone asked, "But why would he treat Cynthia like that?"

That person was instantly attacked by countless others. "Because he's a piece of trash! Why are you even asking that? Are you just as bad as he is?"

Instead of getting angry at the comments, I laughed.

Then, I looked at the woman with the scarred face and asked, "You seem to know an awful lot about my family's business. What, did she tell you all this in a dream?"

The woman didn't hesitate to answer, "Everything you've done is all over the internet!"

"Exactly," someone else chimed in. "Do you think your philanthropist image is still holding up?"

"Your company is circling the drain. Haven't you figured out that it's because all your heartless deeds got exposed?"

"Cynthia must've had the worst luck in the world to fall for someone like you. You said you wanted to focus on your career, so she stayed child-free with you for ten years, only for you and your mistress to drive her to her death!"

As they worked themselves into a frenzy, they started hurling their metal clubs over the bodyguards' heads. One caught me hard, knocking over the tripod.

When I steadied the camera, I saw that viewership had already reached 1.5 million.

The newer viewers had also gotten a rough idea of what was happening.

"I thought this kind of drama only existed in novels. I didn't expect to see it in real life, and somehow, he's even more despicable than a fictional villain. Cynthia's dead. Even if you have no conscience, you shouldn't be desecrating her like this."

"He's already trending on Twitter. Can this man just die already? Is there any way the law can sentence him to death?"

"If the courts won't punish him, can't we make sure he doesn't walk out of here alive?"

"Agreed. The public outcry won't stop until he's dead!"

"Doesn't anyone else think this is weird? Everyone knows an organ isn't viable a month after death. Why is he so obsessed with digging her up?"

"What's there to get? He's stupid and disgusting. Can someone there punch him on my behalf? I'm so angry my blood pressure is through the roof."

"I've smashed the front doors of his company. A lot of people have surrounded the building, too. We'll make sure he goes bankrupt sooner or later!"

"More and more people are heading to the cemetery. He won't live to see tomorrow's sunrise!"

"It's men like him that ruin women's faith in love. I'm a man, and even I can't stand the sight of him!"

"Exactly. Where else would you find a woman as good as Cynthia?"

Exhausted from her weeping, my mother-in-law emerged from behind the crowd and roared, "You killed my daughter, and now you won't even let her rest in peace! I won't endure this anymore! I'll sue you for every cent you have to clear my daughter's name!"

The people around her echoed their support.

Seeing how worked up they were, I asked in confusion, "And how exactly did I kill your daughter?"

She took a deep breath and turned to the onlookers. "I'm Angela Lawson. I raised my only child with everything I had, terrified that even a breeze might hurt her.

"But you made her work for three days and nights without sleep just to fix your company's proposal. The moment she finished and was about to rest, Irene came over to your place and kicked her off the bed in the master bedroom.

"Cynthia hadn't eaten or slept in three days. There was no way she could've fought that bitch! And while she was covered in blood, you had the nerve to call her immature for upsetting Irene.

"By then, she was already in the middle stages of cancer. She was on the floor, begging you to take her to the hospital, but you just turned around and went out for a candlelight dinner with Irene.

"When you came back, you brushed her off with a sandwich and even stopped her from going to the hospital for help. She could've lived! You were the one who dragged it out until she died!"

The moment Angela finished speaking, a metal club struck me across the face. I was knocked to the ground, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth as I spat out two broken teeth.

I endured the pain and struggled back to my feet, but the crowd's fury intensified.

"You bastard! If you dig up Cynthia's grave today, I'll dig up your parents' graves tomorrow. Let's see how you like having your own family desecrated!"

"After we dig them up, we'll bury you with them!"

Angela burst into grateful tears and said, "Even though he killed my daughter, I want nothing more to do with him. I only ask for compensation for the suffering I've endured, and then I want him gone from my life forever!"

Looking at her crocodile tears, I scoffed. "Aren't you tired of putting on this show?"

The people around us froze at my words.

"Shouldn't you be the ones disappearing from my life?" I retorted.

"What do you mean?" an onlooker asked.

I didn't answer. Instead, I glanced at my phone and noticed that viewership had already reached two million.

The tides were shifting as people began to question, "Something isn't right here. What kind of grudge would make him hate his dead wife this much?"

"Even if he didn't love her, would he really dig up her remains just to donate her kidney to his mistress?"

I didn't answer those questions. Instead, I looked at Angela, who was claiming to be my mother-in-law.

"You insisted that I killed your daughter, and for an entire month now, people online have been attacking me because of you. Since we have quite an audience today, let's reveal the truth about Cynthia's death."

Her face instantly paled.