I closed my eyes as memories of the past resurfaced in my mind.

Lucas had been a bully since he was young. He'd often push Noah on purpose and make him fall for no reason. Once, Lucas made Noah fall so hard that the latter's arm sprained. Lucas then went to Jasper while crying his eyes out, claiming that Noah had tripped on his own.

Whenever any cash went missing in the house, Lucas would sneak the empty wallet into Noah's bag. Lucas would then innocently ask Jasper to search Noah's bag.

Jasper never believed a word Noah said. His reprimands toward Noah only grew harsher each time.

To Jasper, any attempts by Noah to explain himself were nothing more than deceptive lies.

Once, I even caught Lucas spitting in the soup I was making. I'd only had a look of upset on my face. But he'd started flailing on the floor, claiming that his stepmother was going to hurt him.

Jasper had come to the kitchen and slapped me across the face without even understanding the situation.

I'd tolerated everything thus far, all because of the promise Jasper had made me back then.

"I'll continue providing Noah the best treatment for his condition as long as you're a good stepmother to Lucas," Jasper had said.

Noah had a hereditary heart disease, which was why he needed constant but very expensive medication.

I'd swallowed down all my grievances so that Noah could be continuously treated.

I'd never imagined that my tolerance would result in Jasper's complete disregard for Noah's life.

The school bell rang loudly, pulling me back to the present.

Yvonne gracefully walked to the podium onstage at this moment. She looked like a heavenly angel as all the spotlights focused on her.

She smiled at the reporters and cameras pointed at her from below the stage, then said, "We're going to have a public lecture unlike ever before today. We will be using a genuine, burnt cadaver to demonstrate the latest 3D anatomy imaging technology."

After a brief pause, Yvonne turned to look at Jasper. Her eyes brimmed with affection for him. "Thank you for providing us with such precious curriculum material, Captain Lincoln. And thank you, Ms. Rayne, for donating your son Noah's body to science."

Gasps of shock rang out through the audience, followed by applause.

Jasper came to my side and whispered a warning in my ear. "If you dare cause us any trouble today, I'll make sure you leave the place without your son's body."

I didn't answer. Instead, I continued watching Yvonne's demonstration in silence.

Yvonne held up a bottle of antiseptic and went to the operating table. She turned to face the cameras and said professionally, "This cadaver is highly carbonized and has also been exposed to certain contaminants. To ensure precision during dissection, we have to first clean the outermost layer of the cadaver."

Yvonne then opened up the bottle and poured all its contents on the charred corpse. White smoke wafted up from the cadaver the moment the antiseptic came into contact with it, followed by an eerie sizzling noise.

It sounded like one final round of torture for the deceased.

Yvonne looked up and met my gaze from where I sat amidst the crowd. A cruel smile surfaced on her lips.

She began, "Look, Summer. It seems to be in so much pain. But then again, this cadaver was donated to science. Even trash has to undergo sanitization before it's cremated, right? I suppose this can be considered a final cleansing?"

Jasper burst into laughter. He happily went onstage and shot Yvonne a look of admiration before saying into the microphone, "So true! Something as filthy as this cadaver needs to be properly cleansed with antiseptic! How else could it ever be part of Ms. Schmidt's demonstration?"

The audience chuckled in agreement. Some of them even shot me sympathetic looks.

But of course, I laughed in response as well.

Jasper's brow knitted together. "What the hell are you laughing about?"

"I just think it's not unusual for mindless beasts to do something befitting of their nature," I drawled out.

"Are you calling Yvonne a mindless beast?" Jasper hissed angrily.

I did not respond and instead gestured for him to pay attention to Yvonne's demonstration.

Yvonne soon changed into a new pair of latex gloves before holding up a sharp scalpel. Its metallic brilliance was projected onto the big screen behind Yvonne.

She went to the body and sliced its chest open without hesitation.

Yvonne then swiftly removed all the internal organs with a pair of surgical tongs. Crumpled bits of black were tossed onto a tray, dull noises of impact echoing out each time.

The reporters carefully recorded Yvonne's thorough demonstration with their high-definition cameras. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, these videos would later serve to torture Yvonne for the rest of her life.

Presently, Yvonne was still explaining the process while making delicate and precise movements.

"Take a look here. Though the ribs are charred, we can see that the seventh rib here is a little different from the rest."

She tapped that rib with her tongs.

"Here, we can see traces of an old bone fracture. Based on the way it's healed, the deceased must've been quite young when this injury occurred."

Jasper's brow seemed to twitch very subtly.

I recalled how Lucas had fallen from a manmade mountain at a park when he was seven years old. He'd fractured his seventh rib from the impact at the time.

Jasper had rushed to Lucas' side and sent him to the hospital right away.

I looked at Jasper now, awaiting his reaction.

But Jasper only sneered into the microphone. "Isn't it normal for someone like the deceased to have bone fractures like this? The deceased has been involved in fights and thuggery since he was young. Maybe my son, Lucas, was the one who broke the rib in retaliation."

A quiet round of laughter came from the audience.

Yvonne chuckled, clearly agreeing with Jasper. "Captain Lincoln is right. I must've been overthinking things."

She then continued tending to the cadaver's head. Her tongs came into contact with something hard when she was clearing out the cadaver's charred mouth.

"Huh?" Yvonne found herself saying, gently retrieving the item. It was a metallic dental crown.

"This is a custom dental crown made of medical-grade titanium alloy. It must've cost a lot," she remarked in a professional tone before placing the crown on the tray.

Yvonne then glanced at Jasper with a slightly questioning look in her eyes.

She had gotten this dental crown custom-made for Lucas a while back. One of Lucas' teeth had grown rotten when he was young due to his terrible sweet tooth.

Jasper's expression stiffened briefly before he quickly composed himself. "Didn't Noah like stealing things? If he had no place to store it, it'd make sense for him to hide it in his mouth or swallow it down. We can never truly understand the mind of someone as foul as him."

Jasper's statement gave the audience the impression that the deceased had been a terribly immoral person.

Yvonne nodded, all traces of doubt disappearing from her eyes. She focused her attention back on dissecting the body.

"Next, we'll study the vital organs in the cadaver's chest."

Yvonne was searching through the body's cut-open chest when she suddenly stopped. She glanced at Jasper before sending me a long, hard look.

"Captain Lincoln, there should be a pacemaker in the chest cavity here. But I don't seem to be able to locate it anywhere," she said.

The sneer on Jasper's face deepened after Yvonne's questioning. "You think too highly of them, Ms. Schmidt."

He pointed at me and said to the audience, "This woman would come up with all sorts of lies just to get her hands on my money. Who knows? Maybe there hadn't been any surgery done for her son. Or maybe the pacemaker they installed in his chest was so cheap that it melted in the fire.

"Regardless, how could we ever trust the child of a liar?"

Understanding dawned on Yvonne's face. She scoffed and said, "I see. It seems that I was being too meticulous."

Yvonne then continued her perfect demonstration.

I silently watched everything unfold. Even now, Yvonne and Jasper still believed that it was Noah who'd died.

Poor little Lucas. His mother and father hadn't recognized him at all, even as his mother dissected his dead body under his father's watch.

I turned to look at Jasper, who was thoroughly engrossed in the dissection.

If Jasper had cared just a little more for Noah and learned more about his heart surgery specifics, he would've known that Noah's pacemaker was the latest technology from Germania. It was able to withstand extreme temperatures at all times.

Jasper would've also realized that the body lying on the operating table was none other than his beloved son, Lucas.

Yvonne's public lecture was a resounding success. Her reputation soared with how perfectly her demonstration went.

Once the lecture was over, Jasper ran onstage and embraced Yvonne. They then shared a deep, passionate kiss in front of all the reporters.

They were so into the kiss that it seemed like nothing could pull them apart. It was as if they were the only two people left in the entire world.

Meanwhile, Lucas' body had no hope of being restored anymore. The child would never have imagined that his final rites would be his mother tearing his body apart as his father cheered her on.

Thunderous applause rang out from the audience as the cameras flashed wildly.

The reporters had already decided what headline they would use for this news.

"Search-and-Rescue Hero and Genius Forensic Doctor: The Professional Power Couple."

No one paid any mind to the cadaver that'd been taken apart, nor did they notice how calm and at ease I was.

Jasper and Yvonne soon departed the stage and walked toward me.

Jasper's face was still slightly flushed, sheer delight oozing from his gaze. He flung some documents at my face, one of its corners leaving a painful paper cut on my cheek.

"Good on you for not causing any trouble," he said. "Now, sign this! I'm going to propose to Yvonne tonight, so you and your piece of trash son need to get the hell out of my life right now!"

A sealed medical container was then shoved into my arms, It was cold and heavy, filled with black, chunky bits.

"Here's your son. Now, leave!"

I opened up the divorce agreement and signed my name at the very bottom, not bothering to read through the terms whatsoever.

There was not a single hint of hesitation in my actions, much to Jasper's surprise. He snatched the agreement from me as if afraid I'd change my mind.

Yvonne then walked over and leaned into my ear. She whispered in a low voice that only I could hear.

"See how Jasper was willing to use your son's corpse to secure my future? You should really be thanking me for letting your son die such an honorable death, dedicated to science. By the way, all that's left of him is this clump of charred bits. I'm afraid there's no way to piece his body back together at this point.

I gazed at the victorious expression on Yvonne's face and smiled.

"Jasper, all I told you was that 'your son' was caught in a fire at the warehouse. How can you be so sure that the 'son' I was talking about is Noah, and not Lucas?" I said.

Jasper was stunned to hear this. Yvonne's expression shifted immediately as well, as if recalling something.

But Jasper exploded into mocking laughter as if he'd just heard the greatest joke ever.

He jabbed my forehead and said, "Lucas? Lucas is currently studying at a private elite school. How on Earth could he have gone to someplace like that warehouse?

"Only a thieving son like yours would end up dead in a ditch! Are you so overwhelmed with grief that you're starting to spout nonsense, Summer?"

As if wanting to break me completely, Jasper snatched the sealed box from me. He then grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the animal testing lab next door, a twisted grin on his face.

Jasper opened up the box as everyone watched on in shock. He then flung all the charred bits into the feeder meant for the lab animals. Several white mice immediately started feeding on the bits of charred flesh.

"See? This is how your son will be laid to rest—as animal feed!" Jasper had a sickening expression on his face.

The lab door suddenly opened. Jasper's deputy, Gabe Wilson, ran inside looking incredibly panicked. There was a charred object in his hands.

Gabe's voice trembled out of fear. "Something's wrong, Captain Lincoln! I wasn't able to get Lucas from school. But I found this when I was cleaning up that warehouse fire… These are the diamond cufflinks you gifted Lucas on his birthday!"

Jasper's smile immediately stiffened.

He turned around in disbelief, looking at the charred scraps the mice were eating.