His Sister's Scattered Ashes

"This is my house. Where else would I be?"

I looked at them calmly.

"Don't mind me. Please, continue."

"Chloe, your sister is dead. Instead of grieving, you're just sitting at home? What kind of sister are you?"

Julian set Ava down, a shadow crossing his face.

I rolled my eyes at his shameless, hypocritical act. The nerve of him—bringing his intern to *my* home to fool around, then turning around and questioning *me*.

"Chloe, it's a good thing you're home," Julian said, his expression blank. "You wouldn't sign the document, and the hospital couldn't reach your family, so I signed the death certificate for you."

With that, Julian handed me a flimsy cardboard box.

"Here are your sister's ashes. Saves me a trip."

I had expected him to be careless with his own sister's remains.

But seeing the shoddy box, and the way some of the ashes spilled as he passed it to me, the anger in my heart finally erupted. I asked coldly:

"Julian, you're really devoted to your lover, aren't you? So eager to destroy the evidence?"

"Don't you dare slander me! What evidence did I destroy?" Julian's expression turned ugly. Humiliated and enraged, he slammed the box of ashes onto the coffee table. "It was your sister's bad luck to get in a car wreck. I'm a doctor, not God!"

I took a deep breath and bent down to pick up the box.

I saw the scant ashes inside.

"Have you no respect for the dead?" I demanded, my face pale with fury, my fists clenched at my sides.

Julian scoffed at my accusation. "The crematorium's a factory. You think they carefully sift through every body? Just take what you got as a memento."

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. How could a supposedly educated man say something so vile?

"Julian, Chloe, please stop fighting. This is all my fault."

Seeing us at an impasse, Ava suddenly started sobbing.

"I was the one who collected the ashes. If I'd known, I would have collected more, so even if some spilled, there would be more left."

"How could this be your fault?" Julian patted her head tenderly, then glanced at me with disdain. "As a sister, she abandons the body at the hospital, hoping to use it for blackmail. You were kind enough to bring the ashes to her, and not only is she ungrateful, she's trying to blame you. She's completely unreasonable."