Chapter 1

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.