Chapter 129: Dead Man’s Silence

“Your dad just wants to join him. If we don’t do something, he’s going to drag me down with him. Do you want to lose me too and end up a helpless orphan?”

The moment she said that, Elvie broke down. She threw herself into Lily’s arms, shaking her head and sobbing. “Mom, no! Dad’s already gone. Are you really going to let some vague superstitions matter more than Mom?”

With that kind of accusation, Owen had no choice but to deny it. “Of course not.”

Elsie clung to Lily, crying harder. “Then what are you hesitating for?”

Owen didn’t believe in any of this. The dead couldn’t come back. Even if they performed some kind of ritual, it wouldn’t change his life in any real way. So suppressing Will’s spirit wasn’t out of the question.

“Yunice probably won’t agree.”

“Yunice’s opinion doesn’t matter, and we don’t need to tell her,” Lily said. “You’re the head of this family—what you say goes.”

Faced with both Lily’s and Elsie’s pleading eyes, Owen froze for a few seconds before finally caving. “Fine.”

They’d find someone to perform the ritual. It’d calm Lily down; maybe then she’d stop spinning out.

When Lily saw that Owen agreed, she insisted on choosing the master herself. She didn’t trust Owen to take it seriously. What if he hired someone who couldn’t actually handle Will’s spirit?

Owen agreed to that too.

Late at night, the cemetery was quiet. After the recent grave-robbing incident, it had been busy for a few days, and they’d even hired people to keep watch. But once public attention died down, the graveyard slipped back into its usual desolate state. And at this hour, not a soul was in sight. The living had more value than the dead—who would waste their energy on corpses?

Like Will’s grave. No one ever thought of him, until now—when he became nothing more than a bargaining chip to keep Yunice in line.

Yunice walked toward Will’s grave, the clinking of her shovel and crowbar echoing through the empty cemetery. Owen had stopped by earlier in the day, but Lily had called him back before he could do anything. So Yunice had to act first—move her father’s resting place to somewhere only she knew. The cemetery guard was nowhere to be seen, off wandering God-knows-where. No one was around to stop her.

Using a crowbar and a rock as a lever, Yunice pried open the arched blue slate tiles one by one from her father’s grave.

As she worked, she muttered, “Dad, your clueless son’s no help. I need you to come with me and give up this spot. I just opened a clinic in Northvale—you know the place, right? It used to be a mass grave, left untouched for over ten years. But now Wyatt’s taken it over. Heard he’s planning to build a hospital there. I figured I’d find you a good spot, and we’ll be close. I can drop by and bring you some meatballs you liked.”

She paused, straightened up, and added, “You probably don’t know who Wyatt is yet, huh? He’s your soon-to-be son-in-law. In about two weeks, he and I will officially be fake husband and wife.”

11:12 PM

Chapter 129: Dead Man’s Silence

The moment the words left her mouth, a soft cough sounded behind her. Yunice flinched, a jolt running down her spine. She spun around in a panic. What scared her wasn’t the fact that someone had made a sound—it was whose voice it was.

Sure enough. Wyatt stood there, palm resting lightly on his cane, his face half in shadow, lit by moonlight, watching her with amused eyes.

Yunice gripped the shovel in both hands, looking guilty and startled. Did he hear everything I just said? Wait, isn’t he supposed to… Timp? This can usually clacks loudly against the ground. So why don’t I hear him coming this time!

Wyatt said, “You’ve been missing for days. So this is where you’ve been—badmouthing people in a cemetery.”

Okay, so he definitely heard everything. Still, Yunice didn’t think she’d said anything all that bad. It was all true, and besides, she didn’t think Wyatt would care. She didn’t dwell on it.

Wyatt limped over slowly, uneven steps crunching the gravel. He turned around and sat on a marble slab next to Will’s tombstone, one hand braced on his knee. Once he was settled, he looked up at Yunice. She stood with a frown, visibly annoyed by his presence.

Seeing Wyatt sitting shoulder to shoulder with her father’s grave marker, Yunice shot him a look. “That’s my dad’s tombstone.”

Wyatt glanced at the headstone beside him. In the dark, it was hard to make out the name. Who would even notice? Then he looked back at Yunice’s furrowed brow, her whole face bristling with irritation. He smirked, then dramatically lifted himself and slid over to the next grave. Once there, he leaned against the stranger’s headstone like it was a backrest.