Chapter 1
Index · 7

Chapter 2
Hanjo · 123

Chapter 3
Harry · 227

Chapter 4
Suin · 323

Truth and lies, love and hate, will and fate… …
Collapsed before the incomprehensible power of life called chance
Her revenge begins!

That morning, at the height of his success, his wife disappeared!

That day was his birthday and the day he recorded the highest auction price.
On the first morning of Hanjo's forty-fourth birthday, a famous and successful painter, his wife, who should always be there, is nowhere to be found.
The house was filled with an unusual silence. There was no sound from the TV, no sound from my wife's footsteps in the kitchen, no clinking of teacups.
The living room and kitchen are clean, as if the house was meticulously maintained by someone who will be away for a long time.
My wife's compact car was nowhere to be seen.
She hadn't even left the house for a moment, and her phone was off, as if she wouldn't be back soon. Even when she stopped by her regular stores, the owners were all unaware of her whereabouts.
On a perfect day, at the pinnacle of success, my wife disappeared.
Hanjo couldn't tell whether she had left him, abandoned him, or run away.
Then, suddenly, I noticed a thick envelope of documents sitting on the desk in my wife's studio.
It was a novel written by my wife.

“The 40-page A4 text seemed to be an excerpt from some novel.
It depicts the private relationship between an eighteen-year-old high school girl and a famous painter in his forties. It describes the precocious girl's love and the self-centered painter's betrayal from the perspective of the painter's wife. (...) His wife knew the entirety of his life, which he had kept hidden from others for so long.
“Not only his present but also his hidden past, not only his greatest glory but also his worst, not only his respectable exterior but also his disgusting interior.” —Pages 21-25

His wife's novel took Hanjo back to the summer 25 years ago.
That summer when I saw a dead person by the river.
A house with transparent red brick decoration, antique wooden window frames and a spacious garden in front of a grand porch.
The Howard House, which has stood on the hill for a century, and the smaller Melcom House below it were the homes of the Hanjo family.
His father was a manager, his mother worked at Howard House, and his older brother, Su-in.
The summer of 25 years ago was all about meeting Jisoo's family who had moved into the Howard House, and I remembered 'that incident' I had with Jisoo's younger sister Harry and Jisoo's wealthy parents.
Hanjo recalled his own summer in his wife's novel.
The Howard House, which covered Hanjo's childhood.
Hanjo realized that he had not had the courage to face the 'thing' that had happened 25 years ago, and that he could no longer put it off, even though he had been putting it off until now.

“The splendid Howard House and the shabby Malcolm House were neighbors who coexisted in perfect peace, but there was a secret boundary that separated the two families.
If we peel back the layers of the relationship between the most intimate neighbors, we find a harsh structure of employers and employees.
A cruel class system that reduces people to rich and poor, the affluent and the shabby, the opportunistic and the marginalized, the servants and the served.
Even though they hung out together every day like a family, they weren't family.
“The Howard House was something the Malcolm House people could dream of but not possess, something they could look at but not approach.” —Page 35

The members of the two families were similar.
There were parents and two children.
At the Howard house there were sisters, and at the Melcom house there were Hanjo and his older brother Suin.
Hanjo and Jisoo were the same age, and Suin was good at studying, so they would help each other study.
There was an invisible boundary between family members, but from a distance they often appeared to be good neighbors.
One day.
After the financial crisis, there was a lot of gloomy news about corporate restructuring.
Jisoo, who usually never got home past 8 o'clock, still hadn't returned home by the time the 9 o'clock news ended.
The parents at Howard House called Jisoo's friends, tutors, and homeroom teacher after 10 p.m.
No one knew where Jisoo was.
The men from Malcolm House ran out in the middle of the night and scattered into the darkness like hunting dogs.
When they returned near dawn, they were all empty-handed, and no one had found Jisoo.

“The mysterious death of a powerful man’s daughter was enough to pique public curiosity.
There was a flurry of impure speculation about how the tragic incident would affect Heejae, who dreams of a career in politics, and curious sympathy for the misfortune that had befallen his seemingly perfect family.
“Due to the excessive competition among reporters who flocked to cover the story, Jisoo’s report card was made public, and Hanjo’s picture was published in an article introducing Howard House.”
―Pages 78-79 of the text

People's eyes were drawn to Hanjo, who had drawn the silhouette of Jisoo in the foreground of the house, hanging inside the Howard House.
There were rumors that it might have something to do with Jisoo's death.
Jisoo was Hanjo's usual model, and the rumor that Hanjo liked Jisoo spread, leading to the possibility of a crime.
Hanjo tried to act as if nothing had happened, but he didn't know how to act.
Hyung Su-in suggested to Hanjo that they should come up with an alibi for the time of Ji-soo's disappearance.
It was a lie, but it was a promise and a last resort to keep the two of them from being noticed by others.
However, a clue to the case emerged from an unexpected object.
A photo of Jisoo taken by Hanjo's father.
Jisoo's face smiling while leaning against the water gate bridge railing.
The calm waters of the water sparkled beyond her shoulders as she leaned against the crossbar of the iron railing.
The detectives took note of the photo.
The suspect quickly moved from Hanjo to Hanjo's father, Lee Jin-man, and eventually obtained a warrant to search Lee Jin-man's studio.

“It was an irresistible declaration that no matter how much you wanted to know about your father’s sins, you could not know.
At that very moment, Hanjo clearly felt it.
That the world we had lived in until now had stopped and been replaced by a completely new world.
That world would be different from the kind and warm world we have known so far.
(…) My father was in jail, my mother was passed out drunk, and my brother had no tolerance for that.
At that moment, the realization came to me that the only person who could comfort me was myself.
He squeezed his eyes shut, squeezed out tears, and hugged himself.” - Page 119

The peaceful lives of two families were shattered by Jisoo's death.
A father became a high school girl rapist and murderer, his wife became an alcoholic, and his two sons lived their entire lives as the sons of murderers.
The parents of Howard House, who lost their daughter, suddenly died in a car accident, and their youngest daughter, Harry, was adopted by a relative for the purpose of making money for the parents.
Time passes.
I left there to get away from 'that thing'.
I thought that 'that incident' had no effect on the lives of those left behind.
Around that time, a strange woman appeared to Hanjo.

A truth sealed beneath deep sleep, a secret precariously perched atop the ruins.

Two families who happened to be neighbors become a murderer and his victims.
The truth of that day has not been clearly revealed.
Some people prioritize their family lives over the truth.
Another person chose their love over their family life.
People who are caught in a tragic fate at the precarious border of truth shown from their respective positions.
The novel tells us that our lives are made up of misunderstandings and illusions that are close to the truth.
The misunderstandings and delusions of three men and women that become entangled like an unbreakable chain due to an unexpected murder.
Punishment and revenge that result from misunderstanding the truth and accepting the revealed facts as lies.
The novel asks what meaning the truth that self-destructed time cannot easily be restored and that causes pain to everyone has in the life of an individual.