The Righteous "Green Tea" (Part 1)
I'm twenty-six, and I'm an orphan.
For a long time, I believed my only purpose in life was to pay off debts—for money, for gratitude, for loyalty.
What I wanted most in the world was to find my twin sister, so she could hold me completely, fiercely, without reservation.
But that would never happen—she was dead.
---
On June 21st, I received a call from the station. I was at the beach, half-drunk on cheap liquor, enjoying the ocean breeze. A woman's voice came through the receiver, asking if the call was a joke.
"You're not joking, right? You can't just call someone's personal number like this!"
The voice on the other end was haughty and aggressive. "I don't care who you are—you think you can just call people's phones?"
I held the phone away from my ear and watched the liquor bottles bob on the shore. "Explain yourself."
"A man claiming to be your husband called my home phone. This is my number—I want to know how you got it. You'd better not be some shady woman scheming against my family. I'm warning you, don't provoke me!"
"My husband?" I laughed coldly. "Who's my husband?"
"Don't play dumb with me. You think I'm stupid? You're nothing but a little tramp. What does being a woman even get you—you don't have any skills, so you go seducing other people's husbands? I can find you. I'll make you pay—"
I hung up, threw the bottles away, and walked to the parking lot, still dizzy.
I'd been prepared for this. A tirade born of unwarranted fury wasn't worth the energy.
That night, I got a second call—a new number.
"Is this Lily?" The voice was male this time, equally aggressive. "Stay away from my wife! You're nothing but a cheap whore. If you call my house again, I'll find you and kill you—"
I hung up before he could finish and drove home sober.
---
The next morning, I went to the police station.
The receptionist was a young woman in her twenties, casually dressed, with her hair in a messy ponytail. She looked like she'd rather be anywhere else, clearly counting the hours until her shift ended. When she saw me, she straightened up.
"Detective Du is on a case today. I can take your report—what happened?"
I described the threatening calls I'd been receiving and the phone harassment.
The receptionist nodded perfunctorily. "Okay. We'll follow up."
The dismissive tone of a police officer getting rid of a complainant. I'd expected as much.
Before leaving, I asked: "Can you tell me about Detective Du?"
"What about him?"
"Is he... good at his job?"
The receptionist glanced at me. "He's one of our best detectives."
"Thank you."
Detective Du called me the next morning. "So, you're the one who's been receiving threatening calls from the family of someone named Brandon?"
Brandon. The name I'd been using—my current identity.
The calls escalated. The woman became more aggressive, the man more threatening. They shouted, they cursed, they demanded I stop contacting their family—they called at all hours, their words a torrent of rage.
I never picked up, but I saved every voicemail.
After a week, Du called back. "I spoke with the callers. Their child went missing years ago, and they believe you might be connected to the disappearance. That's why they've been harassing you."
"I understand. Thank you."
"I have to ask: How well do you know their family?"
"I don't know them at all," I said. "We've never met."
A brief silence, and then: "Are you sure?"
"Completely sure."
After we hung up, I deleted his number. But the investigation had just begun.
Between the calls, I also observed the family in person—yes, the same family from the café, the same family I'd quietly followed for years, the same duo whose daily routines I knew better than anyone in the world. I'd memorized their patterns, I'd pinned my life on tracking this pair, and I had no intention of letting go.
But I never expected that just as I was closing in, they would find me first.
Almost at the same time, an anonymous account on a social app began exposing me—no, exposing the person I was pretending to be. Setting me up as a target. They posted photos and details from my life, though they were entirely fabricated—nothing but angry speculation from someone who clearly knew the real person I was impersonating. No one seemed to question the validity of any of it.
For a while, that tiny social platform became the center of my crumbling world—a storm of hostility aimed at me, a person they'd never met.
But none of that mattered anymore.
The case had been closed.
I'd turned myself in.
---
The Righteous "Green Tea" (Part 2)
Captain Sharp's investigation concluded at dawn. As I walked out of the interrogation room, I felt lighter, as if a boulder had been lifted from my chest. This was the final resting place—they had found the body and would also find the DNA match. The old detective who'd been framed would be exonerated.
I said, "I want to see my sister's body."
This was the only thing I'd asked for since turning myself in.
Captain Sharp considered it, then nodded at the female officer beside him. A moment later, a photo was placed in front of me.
She lay in the autopsy room, her face frozen in the moment of her death—a child, still a child, pale and still, as if merely sleeping.
I pressed my lips together and wiped my face with both hands.
"She's at peace now," the female officer said quietly.
I managed a bitter smile. "More at peace than I've ever been."
Detective Du, who'd been standing behind me, patted my shoulder. The officers left, and I walked out of the station into the sunrise.
---
My twin sister and I were six years old when a couple came to the orphanage and chose only her. They weren't cruel people—they simply wanted a daughter, and after careful evaluation, they picked Ruth.
Ruth was chosen. I was not.
That was the way of the world. We were identical twins, but only Ruth was desired. They took her, raised her, loved her—or at least, the version of events I constructed in my head said they did.
Reality was far more complex.
After they left with Ruth, the couple—whom I'd later come to know as the Wu family—seemed to rethink their decision. Or perhaps they'd always intended to take only one. They never came back for me.
I was left behind.
For years, I held onto the belief that they would return—after all, they'd taken my sister, and we were identical. If they loved one of us, surely they'd come for the other?
But they never did.
And then the couple who did adopt me had their own child. I became surplus—a burden they neither wanted nor could afford. The abuse began soon after—beatings, starvation, and a level of cruelty that taught me early that no one was coming to save me.
When I turned thirteen, I had enough. I knew the address of the Wu family. I took every last coin I'd hidden and scraped together enough for a bus ticket. I went to find my sister.
But Ruth wasn't living the life I'd imagined. I arrived at the Wu home only to discover that she had died—years earlier—at the age of thirteen.
Thirteen. The same age I was when I went looking for her.
The Wu family had four children—three biological, one adopted. Ruth had never been treated as anything more than a servant. She performed chores, went hungry, and was beaten by her adoptive parents and their biological children alike.
I was too late. Ruth had been dead for more than ten years by the time I found out.
And the brutal truth was that Ruth hadn't just been neglected. She had been murdered by the other children—her so-called "siblings," who were all thirteen at the time, just like us.
They had beaten her, tied her up, and left her to die in an abandon