Chapter 16 — A Retreat Called Love

The sunlight was so bright that it hurt my eyes. I held my hand against the wall next to me. Then slowly squat down. Vomiting until the world is spinning. What I vomited. It's not just a sick feeling in the stomach. But also all the humiliation. All lies. And the love that I foolishly believed was true for the past three years. The person I once married. Never been a human being. It's a monster wearing human skin. After returning from prison. I got very sick. Constant nightmares night after night. In the dream. The scene of that accident kept repeating endlessly. Chu Kien Quoc lay in a pool of blood. Desperately, he reached out for help. And Chu Nghi stood not far away. Cold eyes. The mouth calmly said:

“Let's go.”

“Make it clear.”

Lam Man is always by my side. Don't leave even half a step. Look at me getting thinner and thinner. She was so heartbroken that she burst into tears.

“Love Love.”

“Can you forget it?”

She hugged me. Voice choked.

“Those people.”

“Those things.”

“It's all over.”

“They don't deserve you to torture yourself like that.”

I shook my head.

“I can't forget.”

I'm not torturing myself. I'm just trying to accept a cruel truth. My soul needs time. It takes time to get up from that rubble. The illness lasted more than half a month. Until I could finally get out of bed and walk on my own. Lawyer Truong brought the final verdict. As a mastermind. Committed the crime of intentional murder. Insurance fraud. Many crimes combined. Sentenced to death, execution postponed for two years. As an accomplice. Committed the crime of intentional murder as a secondary accomplice. At the same time, he committed insurance fraud. Sentenced to life imprisonment. And Chu Nghi. Do was determined to have a relatively smaller role in the entire case. There is another episode of sincere declaration. Finally sentenced to twenty years in prison. Twenty years. A human life. In exchange for twenty years in prison. I looked at the number on the verdict. Not indignant. Not dissatisfied either. Just feel it sometimes. The law still cannot fully measure the extent of human guilt. But that is no longer important. They were imprisoned for life or twenty years. Live or die. It's all just results. My life will no longer have any intersection with them. I started to tidy up my life. Use the money reimbursed by the court. I rented a two-bedroom apartment located in a quiet residential area in the city center. Not too big. But full of sunlight. I decorate it according to my taste. Buy new furniture. Buy new bedding. He even raised a small cat that was extremely attached to him. I quit my job at my old company. Where I sat doing boring office work for years. Then sign up for a pastry course. It was a dream I had hidden for a long time. I love the feeling of kneading dough. Love watching the separate ingredients gradually turn into soft dough under the palm of your hand. Love the sweet scent spreading from the oven. Those little things. Makes me feel that life is still very warm. There's still a lot of hope. Days passed like that. The wound on the leg gradually healed. The wound in my heart also slowly closed. I started contacting old friends again. Went shopping with Lam Man on the weekend shopping. Drink afternoon tea. I even started sharing my life on social media. A cake just came out of the oven. A cat is lying in the sun on the balcony. A half-read book. Little by little. I am no longer a spinning top that only revolves around my husband and his family. I have returned to To Tinh. A To Tinh lives for herself. I used to think. Life will always be peaceful like that. Until one day. I received a parcel. An extremely strange parcel. No sender name. No shipping address available. Inside there was only a diary. That notebook lies silently in a paper box. Heavy like a stone from another world. I picked it up. The palm of my hand suddenly became cold. Outside is an old-fashioned brass lock. Has rusted over the years. Keyless. Besides that diary. There was nothing else in the parcel. Not a single letter. No message. There's not even sender information. I hold the notebook in my hand. A series of questions continuously appeared in my head. Who sent it? Why send it to me? What is actually hidden inside? Don't understand why. I'm almost certain. This diary is related to the death of her father-in-law.