The Vanishing Corpse
My husband was a firefighter. When he was on duty, what I feared most wasn't fire or explosions—it was the public.
There's a saying I despise: "There's no such thing as peaceful times; someone is simply bearing the weight for you."
It makes me sick. Everyone says the right things online, but in reality? For the slightest personal gain, they'll send these soldiers to their deaths.
People hiding explosive materials or dangerous structural conditions from firefighters—afraid they won't rescue them otherwise—happens all the time. My husband was deceived like this dozens of times. Did those people ever pay? At most, a few days in detention.
He never held it against them, because he understood duty.
Until that duty killed him.
Our baby was nearly a hundred days old. He'd finally gotten half a day off to come shopping with me for the baby. I went to the station to pick him up and saw him running toward me with that silly grin, leading Major, the rescue dog. The dog lived up to his name—he'd served in countless missions. Actually, my husband and I had first met during an accident. He'd rescued me with Major, and then came the cliché story of a girl falling for her savior, so Major and I were especially close.
Rescue dogs aren't supposed to be petted, but he'd sneak Major out for me to pet, or let him stay at our place temporarily, and I'd secretly get my fill of cuddles.
I was about to reach for Major when the alarm sounded.
He should have been running toward me, but he and Major instantly turned and headed back to the station.
I shouted, asking what I should do. He told me to wait at the station, and added that he'd spotted a pretty dress he wanted to buy for the baby.
My heart warmed, because I knew "the baby" meant me. We'd had a son.
Those were the last words we ever exchanged.
I sat waiting at the station, until his subordinate called, sobbing, telling me to come quickly.
A terrible premonition hit me instantly. My mind went blank.
Honestly, I have no memory of getting from the station to the scene. I only remember shaking uncontrollably, walking like an automaton.
When I arrived, the man I loved most lay in the rubble.
Major's entire left foreleg was soaked in blood. He limped alongside my husband, whimpering, nudging his hand repeatedly, receiving no response.
That was how he left me.
The station told me it was a massive fire that triggered a gas explosion, turning the building into a dangerous structure. The firefighters were evacuating the entire building when a resident came crying, begging them to save his daughter who was still inside.
My husband refused to send his team in. He went in himself with Major.
But when he reached the fourth floor, he found no one. He called out the window, asking where the child was.
The man said, "Oh, I just remembered—my daughter is at school. But there's a black plastic bag in my drawer with a hundred thousand yuan in it, could you fetch that for me?"
That was when everyone realized they'd been deceived—again.
My husband had been tricked dozens, maybe hundreds of times, and escaped each time.
Except this one. God wasn't watching. The building collapsed.
Yet when they dug him out, there was still a black plastic bag beside him.
That was my husband.
He didn't hate the public for deceiving him. In his final moments, even knowing he'd been lied to, he still thought about how a hundred thousand yuan might represent years of a family's blood and sweat.
A man who'd survived countless disasters, protecting Major as he fell. And Major, who'd completed countless rescues, was left permanently disabled.
I remember my heart pounding so hard I could barely breathe, my throat sealed shut, crying over him with everything I had.
An urn. A neatly folded uniform.
My baby's hundred-day celebration was replaced by his funeral.
I didn't cry at the funeral. When his commanders arrived, I asked if I could keep Major.
Retired police and rescue dogs can't be adopted by just anyone, but the station gave him to me. Major had been retired early due to injury. He was lame. He'd never be a fierce animal again.
The investigation concluded that the man never had a daughter. He was charged for concealing the truth. We sought a conviction for involuntary manslaughter, but his lawyer argued that while the building had become dangerous, there were many examples of dangerous structures standing for years without collapsing. No one could predict when or if it would fall. The court accepted this as an unforeseeable event.
He was acquitted.
I stood at the courthouse entrance, holding my baby, watching him walk free.
I wanted to kill him. I dreamed of it. I even planned it out—the baby could be raised by my in-laws, and as a martyr's family, his education would be taken care of.
My own family had been horrible. I'd never known love in my life, only suffering. My husband was the first person to give me warmth and love. He was my light in this world.
I thought that if the law couldn't help me, I'd deliver justice myself.
But I stopped myself. I wasn't afraid of dying. I was afraid of my baby growing up without a mother.
What I never expected was that he'd come to me first.
That night, I was home with the baby, too tired to cook, having just ordered delivery, when he knocked on my door. He asked if I remembered who he was.
I said I remembered. Derek Kane, born in '90, manager at Goldbridge Department Store. After his place burned down, he'd been temporarily relocated to the Lowfell Village housing unit. He left for work at eight every morning, taking the light rail via Prospect Road.
He stiffened, surprised I knew so much.
I said it was because I thought about killing him every single day.
An uncomfortable silence settled. He came inside.
I softened slightly, even pouring him a glass of water.
I hadn't forgiven him—not even close. But since he'd come to apologize, I figured my husband, gentle as he was, would have forgiven him. I loved him too much to tarnish his memory with hatred.
Derek Kane took the glass, then asked politely whether I'd found anything on my husband's person.
I said I didn't understand.
He dropped the pretense. During the fire, he'd had two bank investment gold bars and a hundred thousand yuan in cash in his drawer. The gold bars were hidden at the bottom—he'd only asked my husband to fetch the black plastic bag. After the fire, his family searched the entire scene but couldn't find the gold bars. There was one place they couldn't search: my husband's body.
I asked what he meant.
He extended his hand and said if I returned them now, they'd call it even.
My heart went cold. I'd thought he'd come to apologize.
My husband died because of his lies, and now he suspected my husband had stolen his gold bars.
He sat on the sofa and said the two gold bars together weighed a kilogram. Normally, most people wouldn't be interested in someone else's gold, but with the pandemic and the U.S. stock market crash, gold prices had surged these past months. He could understand the temptation, but he'd give me one chance—return them and they'd forget about it.
I listened, then picked up the baby, took him to the bedroom, and locked the door.
I told him my husband hadn't taken anything.
That's when he dropped the act. Impatient, he said, "Am I really the only one who finds this suspicious? No outsider knew where the gold bars were. Only your husband opened my drawer. And gold doesn't melt in fire—is it really possible for it to just vanish? I'm sorry about your husband, but being a victim doesn't automatically make you right."
I said nothing. My silence seemed to embolden him. He extended his hand again. "Hand it over."
He suddenly raised his voice, as ifAsserting dominance. "Hand it over! Don't make me hit a woman!"
He said he didn't want to hit a woman, yet he shoved me hard, pushing me onto the sofa.
Major heard his shout, stood up nervously, and limped over, growling low. But the leash held him back.
I said, "Sit." He immediately sat back down.
I looked at Derek Kane, and I couldn't help but laugh.
He asked what I was laughing about. I said I didn't want to kill him before, but I was liking the idea more and more. Setting aside whether I even have the gold bars—even if I did, my husband died because of you. What happens if I refuse to return them?
He roared that if I didn't return the gold, he'd kill me!
Then he grabbed my hair and slapped me hard across the face!
He called me shameless, accused me of stealing his gold bars and refusing to admit it! He said my husband was a thief and got what thieves deserve!
I didn't cry out. I just stared at him, unblinking.
He shoved me into the corner of the sofa again, his eyes bulging, panting, demanding whether I'd return the gold or not.
I looked at him, slowly unbuttoning my nightgown. He was confused, asking what I was doing.
I said, "Let me show you what it means to lay hands on someone."
Under my nightgown, I wore a sports tank. When I peeled off the gown, he stared at the scars crisscrossing my shoulders, waist, and belly, frozen in place.
He was stunned. In that split second, I grabbed the glass and smashed it against his mouth!
That filthy mouth of his!
If that mouth was only good for lying and slander, it had no reason to exist!
Glass shards flew everywhere. I grabbed the nearest fragment as Derek Kane shrieked in pain. He slammed his fist into my stomach. I absorbed the full force of a grown man's blow, gasping, then—while he was still screaming—I shoved the glass fragment deep into his mouth!
He forgot about hitting me, desperately trying to pry my hand away, trying to spit out the glass.
Wrong move.
When you fight, you don't stop to tend to yourself until the other person can't get up!
I grabbed my nightgown and wrapped it around his head, so he couldn't spit out the glass and couldn't see my next move. My mind was racing—women are naturally weaker than men, but experience had taught me how to compensate.
I knew his mouth was full of glass fragments. I drove my knee into his jaw!
His arms flailed, then his whole body went still—not dead, just overwhelmed by pain. He'd come around eventually.
Kill him!
That voice screamed in my head. Kill him!
But I didn't.
Even though I'd been garbage since the day I was born, even though the only person who ever cared about me was gone, I wanted—at the very least—to watch his child grow up.
If I didn't have a child, he'd already be dead. No hesitation, not even a sliver of doubt.
I yanked the nightgown off Derek Kane's head. His mouth was full of blood, and every time he spat out, glass fragments and blood came with it.
I told him coldly, "Everything started with that filthy mouth of yours. Today I destroyed it. Don't panic—I'm not like you. I know what it means to take responsibility. I'm taking you to the hospital, then I'm turning myself in to the police."
I knew full well—a prison sentence under three years was unavoidable, possibly three to seven, but most likely under three.
I was willing to pay that price.
I'd always been that kind of person. The accident that brought me and my husband together had warmed me into something resembling a normal human being. But he'd killed the man I loved most.
I couldn't understand it. All it would have taken was an apology... I'd already decided to let him go. Why did he have to provoke me?
Major was barking. I glared at him, and he immediately fell silent.
Derek Kane lay on the floor, trembling with pain.
I went to the bedroom and changed my clothes.
The baby was still lying in bed. I leaned down and kissed his cheek gently.
For some reason, seeing his smiling face made me choke up.
I whispered to him, "Mommy loves you so much. If you're good, Mommy might be out in two years. I don't want to go to prison either—I want to watch you learn to talk, to walk. I want so badly to hear you call me Mommy."
But Mommy doesn't regret this. Because some things... I have to do.
I grabbed the car keys.