Chapter 1

Three years after my death, Julian found our daughter in a dumpster.

The little girl was digging through a rotten trash can, her tiny body turning purple from the freezing cold.

With bloodshot eyes, he yanked her up. "Is this how Stella plays mother?! Where the hell is she?!"

My daughter trembled in terror. "But... didn't Daddy throw Mommy out, and didn't she burn to death?"

I floated in mid-air, looking down at this man whom I had loved for ten years and hated for three.

Julian, you’re finally here.

But it’s too late.

Mia had already flushed my ashes down the drain.

And your karma has only just begun.

Julian’s hand froze in mid-air.

My daughter's words were like a blunt knife, stabbing ruthlessly into his heart.

He opened his mouth, trying to say something, but no sound came out.

"W-what did you say?" His voice shook violently.

Luna shrunk her neck, her tiny, frail body shivering in the biting wind.

"Nana said... Mommy was thrown out of the house by Daddy. She had nowhere to go, so she lived in the old, broken cabin. Then... then the cabin caught fire, and Mommy couldn't get out."

She looked up. Her eyes were red, but she didn’t cry.

"Nana also said that Daddy didn't want Mommy anymore, and that’s why Mommy died."

Julian took a sharp step back, almost stumbling to the ground.

"No," he rasped, his voice hoarse. "It wasn't me."

"Then why didn't Daddy want Mommy?"

Luna asked directly. Children’s questions are always the sharpest.

"Why did Daddy refuse to give Mommy money for her medical bills when she was sick? Why did Mommy have to take me to sleep under the bridge while Daddy lived in a giant mansion?"

Every single "why" was like a brutal slap to his face.

I hovered in the air, watching the color completely drain from Julian’s face.

Karma?

This was barely the beginning.

I floated a bit lower, wanting to get a clearer view of his expression.

Over the past three years, I had seen many of his faces—smiling gently at Mia, screaming in fury at his employees. But I had never seen him look like this. He looked like his soul had been violently ripped out of his body.

How amusing.

Julian reached out, trying to take Luna’s hand, but she flinched and hid both hands behind her back.

"What's wrong with your hands?" Julian knelt down.

Luna shook her head.

Julian gently pulled her hands forward.

Those tiny hands were swollen red from the frostbite, her fingernails caked with black dirt. On the back of her left hand, there was a jagged, scabbed wound, looking like it had been sliced by something sharp.

"How did you get this?"

"I cut it on some broken glass when I was collecting plastic bottles," Luna whispered. "Mommy used to get hurt like this too. She told me to be careful, but I'm just too clumsy."

Tears almost spilled from Julian’s eyes.

He remembered that Stella’s hands used to be incredibly beautiful—slender, soft, and fair.

When they got married, he slipped the ring onto her finger and promised her that these hands would only ever play the piano and arrange flowers, never to do hard labor.

But later, she had to take their daughter to scavenge through trash, and those hands were completely ruined.

Ruined by his own hands.

I stared at the wound on Luna’s hand.

I knew that cut all too well. In the final month before my death, I had an identical one on my hand.

I got it while scavenging for broken glass to sell. I didn't even have money for a band-aid, so I wrapped it in a dirty rag. It got infected later, and it throbbed with excruciating pain for half a month.

Now, that very same scar had grown onto my daughter's hand.