Lee Wooshin reacted instantly to her sudden movement—but the speed at which she fell into the water was far faster.

Without any concern for her soaked clothes, Seoryeong plunged the corpse into the river like a madwoman, only to haul it back up again.

“Ugh...!”

Lifting the weight of a grown man with just her arms made her clench her teeth involuntarily.

The river only reached her shoulders, but while wrestling with the bag that kept sinking heavily, water surged into her mouth and nose.

Her footing slipped, and in a flash, she slid under.

“Mmph... pfft...!”

Even then, she never let go. Whether they sank together or got out together—either way, it had to be one of the two.

Stubbornly holding her breath, Seoryeong clung to the bag that had sunk to the bottom, struggling. Hadn’t she done this kind of training until she was sick of it? And yet, maybe because she’d been crying before diving in, her lungs gave out quickly.

“Mmph...!”

Her chest tightened painfully. Her lungs felt like they were about to burst—but she never once let go of the bag.

Just as she was pulled completely underwater, a strong force yanked her up like a rag.

“Puhha...!”

The moment her head broke the surface, she gasped. She inhaled in desperation—and was met by a pale face shouting fiercely.

“Are you fucking insane?! Trying to die?!”

His eyes, frozen in shock, trembled violently. The veins in his neck pulsed with rage, paler even than his skin.

Lee Wooshin clenched his jaw as he stared at her, eyes as cold and sharp as if ready to bite her neck. She flinched, briefly overwhelmed.

“What the hell are you thinking, doing this shit?!”

His fists slammed down onto the dark water—thwack!—sending spray in all directions, though he didn’t even blink.

In that moment, Seoryeong couldn’t help but think—his face looked just as dead as the corpse. The bruises blooming purple from the beating, the deep shadow of despair... he looked like a body too.

“...Do I really have to see Han Seoryeong throwing herself into a river right in front of me?”

He ground the words out between his teeth.

“If you're going to throw yourself away like that, cry instead. Cry until you puke. Empty it all out.”

“......!”

“It’s just one fucking man—just throw him away! Why do you...!”

He ran a hand down his face, stopping the brutal shout just in time. The atmosphere was so fierce she didn’t dare approach. His breathing grew louder.

“Who gave you permission to throw yourself away.”

Seoryeong looked at him with shaking eyes—then turned her head away. Her chest echoed with a dull thunk, but her mind was still full of one thing: the corpse she’d submerged.

“Out.”

He shoved her roughly forward, dragging her out of the river. Even then, when she refused to release the bag, he took the weight onto himself and pulled her out.

Dragged up onto land again, the first thing Seoryeong did was grab the corpse’s neck. She scratched, clawed, even dug her nails in—but Kim Hyeon’s skin just collapsed like real flesh.

She brought her face close, inspecting the horrifying bluish skin texture with intense focus. Wooshin shouted again at her grotesque behavior.

“Han Seoryeong!”

But his voice didn’t even seem to register. ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) All of Seoryeong’s attention was on the ragged clothes the corpse wore.

When she tried to take those off too, he grabbed her jaw forcefully and locked eyes with her.

“What the hell are you doing...!”

As if trying to confirm whether she’d completely lost her mind. His irises trembled, devastated.

“Instructor. Don’t get in my way. Move.”

Seoryeong shoved him aside and pulled a knife from her pocket, plunging it deep into Kim Hyeon’s collarbone.

“――!”

Wooshin’s face went rigid. Her hand moved without mercy, stabbing again and again around the collarbone, then the face.

“Han Seoryeong, what are you—”

She didn’t have time to let the body soak longer. No strength left for patience.

Even if this suspicion turned out to be absurd—even if she ended up desecrating her husband’s corpse—it didn’t matter. Her eyes said she would verify it to the end.

She began tearing at the skin she’d split with the blade. For a moment, she wondered if this made her some depraved criminal desecrating a body—but...

Looking down at Kim Hyeon’s shredded face, her lips trembled.

Even facing the sunken, decayed eye sockets, she could only laugh dryly. Water dripped from her wet hair.

“Ah... ah...”

She didn’t know whether it was laughter or sobbing leaking from her throat. The more force she applied, the more Kim Hyeon peeled apart like dough.

And beneath the flawless outer skin, something older appeared. A real corpse under the fake one. A second skin beneath the first. A second face beneath the face.

Seoryeong’s eyes filled with grim euphoria.

“It’s fake. The face is fake, Instructor...”

Her flat voice echoed dully.

“Looks like... he’s not dead.”

Her expression changed by the second—grief, joy, then collapse.

Her eyes shifted too fast to follow. The blood vessels burst in her whites twisted like a flower.

“Kim Hyeon might still be alive, Instructor.”

“......!”

Wooshin’s throat bobbed hard. He hadn’t moved an inch, his body stiff like stone.

But if someone could create a face like that—if, as Jin Hoje had implied, it was a disguise from the start—then...

Seoryeong stared at the “skin” in her hand with a strange look.

If Kim Hyeon, the man her fingers remembered, had worn a fake face all along—

The moment she questioned something she’d never once doubted, Seoryeong fell straight into hell.

No way. No... it can’t be...

It can’t...

The ragged strip of false hope in her hands shoved her into a raging current. Her bloodless face turned slowly toward Wooshin.

“...Could Kim Hyeon’s face have been fake from the beginning?”

“......!”

Then the man she spoke to on the phone might not have been Kim Hyeon either.

Helplessness rose like a swamp.

“If that face was fake... if he was standing in front of me all this time wearing a fake face...”

“.......”

“Then what... what do I use now...”

Her eyes wavered, as if tested.

“What do I use to find my husband?”

Her head emptied completely. The vivid, cherished outline she’d drawn of Kim Hyeon was being erased, line by line—until eventually, nothing would remain.

“Even if Kim Hyeon stood right in front of me now, I wouldn’t recognize him...”

Was wishing for just one thing truly so greedy? What did I do wrong? 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

If even the one thing I begged for in this life won’t be allowed to me... then why am I still alive? That despair devoured the last light inside her.

So you were only ever on a mission... From the very start. You weren’t my family—you belonged to the NIS, through and through...

She’d never felt the temperature difference so vividly before.

Did you think Kim Hyeon loved you? Now she finally understood the Deputy Director’s mocking words.

In her entire marriage, she had never once been close to Kim Hyeon. And he, too, had never once shown his real face.

Then what was it she had loved?

Just this useless, flapping scrap?

The dizziness came like a punch, as if he were being ripped out of her life by the roots. The woman Seoryeong had become, completed by Kim Hyeon, crumbled away, piece by white-hot piece.

Her burning, stinging eyes—it was unbearable. She wanted to gouge them out.

If only everything would return to the way it was. No... if only this fucking world would just end.

She gritted her teeth and raised her arm, ready to throw away the proof of this deception.

You're probably out there, alive somewhere.

Easily shedding the face I remember like this worthless mask, living in some place where I don’t exist, having already forgotten me. Hiding the real face you never showed, still undercover as the NIS’s perfect operative.

Her arm trembled. She wanted to crush it underfoot and spit on it.

But instead of flinging the revolting skin away, she dug her nails into it and clutched it to her chest.

“You bastard... you won’t even let me throw you away!”

Her cells felt like they were dying one by one. The sensation made her want to scream.

You, you're probably still the same—so why do I feel like I’m the only one dying? Should I drown myself in alcohol until I lose consciousness? Or...

“Please save me, Instructor...”

“......!”

The shattered woman clung to Wooshin’s collar.

“...Please. Just save me. I... I can’t breathe.”

Every word oozed with festering pain. Her face, even she couldn’t recognize it anymore, clung to him with desperate intensity.

She didn’t want to feel this rotting hide—but something alive. If she could, she’d destroy the body Kim Hyeon once cherished and scatter it like blades in front of his eyes.

If she couldn’t throw him away, then someone should trample her chest, where that poison still festered.

That craving for destruction turned inward.

And as far as she knew, the most capable, coldest, and strongest person alive... was Instructor Lee Wooshin.

“Please let me live... here.”

Her hollow eyes reflected nothing.

Wooshin stiffened like someone being strangled. Veins flared in his neck as he yanked the skin from Kim Hyeon’s face and crushed it in his fist.

Seeing her collapse completely like that, his mind plunged back to where it all began.

He fell down, and down again—until he finally met his own arrogant face at the bottom.