Chapter 4

"She had a fight with me and ran away from home. I'm worried about how to coax her back."

My parents laughed and teased on the other end:

"That's what you get for spoiling her. How could she really be angry at you?"

"What couple doesn't fight at the head of the bed and make up at the foot? Just coax her a bit more."

"Bella has been sensible since childhood. Five days from now is her birthday—we'll come over and talk to her."

My heart skipped a beat.

Would they discover my body?

Aria was eavesdropping at the door, slowly curling her lips into a smile.

Suddenly the circuit breaker went 'snap.'

"Mom, Dad, I think the power just went out here. Let me check. I'll talk to you later."

After hanging up, he turned off his phone.

The 'humble and gentle' mask on his face instantly disappeared.

Replaced by cold indifference.

Too bad no one knew that the wife he described as throwing tantrums was already dead in that cold storage.

Her body had already started to rot and stink.

"Bella, did you trip the breaker?"

But he couldn't hear my response.

Only deadly silence.

A faint stench drifted out from the basement.

Tristan wrinkled his nose, his face full of disgust.

He held a flashlight and knocked on the cold storage door.

"Bella? Bella Dream?"

"Are you in there?"

The breaker had tripped, the cold storage was no longer refrigerating.

A swarm of rats smelled the stench and rushed in through the ventilation ducts.

They frantically pounced on me in the corner.

But he couldn't see any of it.

Tristan knocked twice, then waited a few seconds outside the door.

A rat suddenly scurried past his feet.

Aria ran out from the bedroom sleepily.

"Bella is deliberately hiding from you!"

"She's hiding in some corner watching, watching you worry and panic over her."

"When she stops being angry, she'll definitely come find you."

Tristan nodded, seeming to believe I was deliberately avoiding him.

The fifth day after my death.

The iron door of the cold storage could no longer contain the stench.

Tristan, who was taking a shower in the bathroom, smelled it and couldn't help but frown.

He inadvertently glanced at the pregnancy test in the trash can.

Two lines.

Tristan's furrowed brow gradually relaxed.

Joy flickered in his eyes.

"Pregnant!"

"Really! Running around while pregnant! So irresponsible!"

Just as he was getting happy, Aria suddenly rushed in.

She snatched the pregnancy test from his hand, deliberately pouting.

"Tristan, that's mine."

"Don't worry, I'll go to the hospital to get rid of this baby and won't tell Bella..."

Tristan tiredly stroked her head.

"I'm sorry, Aria! I was drunk that night and mistook you for Bella... that's why I felt so guilty toward you. That's why I treated her that way..."

The two snuggled together.

The tender scene of mutual affection deeply pierced me.

But floating in mid-air, I still saw the triumphant smile at the corner of Aria's mouth.

After he coaxed Aria to sleep, he pulled out my designer perfume.

"It stinks!"

He irritably raised the perfume and sprayed it everywhere.

Trying to cover up the stench.

"Which corner has a dead rat?"

But he was too lazy to go look in the basement again.

And I died in the basement cold storage, one body, two lives.