That photo was taken last autumn by Erhai Lake. We specifically chose a sunny day, and she was wearing a beige dress that I bought for her, with tiny daisies embroidered on the hem.

The sea breeze made her skirt flutter like a white butterfly.

She ran towards the beach with a smile, reaching out to catch the seagulls in flight. Sunlight fell on her hair, like a layer of scattered gold, and even her eyelashes were glistening with light.

I caught up with her from behind, put my arm around her waist, and rested my chin on her shoulder. She turned to look at me, revealing two small tiger teeth, her eyes curving into crescents, and deep dimples at the corners of her mouth.

The backdrop is surging waves and distant, dark green mountains, with the sky as blue as a transparent sapphire.

In the bottom right corner of the photo, she wrote a line in small print with a marker: "Ayun and Luoluo's trip to Erhai Lake, may they always be together."

But now, I can't even tell whether the corners of that photo are round or square.

I can't even remember whether the daisies on her dress were white or pale yellow, or whether the necklace she was wearing was silver or gold.

I don't even dare to take out the photos to look at them, afraid of seeing her clearly, afraid of seeing the way we smiled at each other in the photos.

The contrast between the blurry memories and the present makes me hate myself even more—how could I forget her so quickly?

How could you so completely erase our memories?

My work started going wrong. When taking the liver temperature of the deceased, I even miscalculated the margin of error for the time of death.

The error, which should have been two hours, was written as one hour, until the assistant repeatedly checked it with a thermometer.

He whispered to me, "Sister Mo, this value seems wrong. Based on the liver temperature, the time of death should be pushed back another hour."

I broke out in a cold sweat and quickly recalculated. My palms were so sweaty that I almost dropped the thermometer.

When writing the autopsy report, I mistakenly wrote "blunt force injury" instead of "sharp force injury." The wound was clearly a typical sharp force cut mark, with neat edges and uniform depth.

The tear marks on Qianluo's windbreaker were completely different from the ones on her jacket, but as I wrote, the image of her lying on the ground in the drug dealer's den suddenly flashed through my mind.

Bloodstains spread across the navy blue fabric, and somehow, the writing went wrong.

It wasn't until the next day, when the leader pointed out the mistake during the report review, that I saw those two typos, my face burning with shame, and a wave of guilt washed over me.

How could I make a mistake at work? It's disrespectful to the deceased and a betrayal of Qianluo. She took every task so seriously; how could I be so perfunctory?

There was even a time when he was holding a suture needle, staring blankly at the wound on the abdomen of a corpse, and the image of Qianlu lying on the dissection table kept flashing through his mind.

I remember that day I cleaned her wound with saline solution; her skin was as pale as paper.

My hands trembled violently as the suture needle pierced my skin; each stitch felt like a stab to my heart.

But now, I stared at the wound in front of me, lost in thought, until my assistant gently touched my arm.

He whispered, "Sister Mo, it's time to stitch it up. If we don't start now, the body's temperature will drop."

I suddenly came to my senses and realized that the needle tip had almost pricked my finger, and the sutures were tangled together like a mess, just like my current thoughts.

My colleagues were all very careful to accommodate me.

When I go to the cafeteria for lunch, Xiao Li will proactively get me a plate of braised pork, saying, "Sister Mo, this is your favorite, eat more."

He didn't know that it was actually Qianlu who loved to eat it; I just ate it a few times with her, and eventually I got used to the taste.

Once, as I looked at the braised pork in my bowl, I suddenly remembered that Qianluo always picked out the fatty parts for me, saying, "Ayun, you're too thin. You need to eat more meat to make up for it."

But now, I can't even remember the look in her eyes when she was picking out meat—whether she was smiling or serious.

When we went to the site, Lao Zhang would walk silently beside me, carrying my heavy survey kit, and say, "You're not as strong as us, I can do it."

The tools in the investigation kit were organized by Qianluo. She always said, "Put the scalpel on the left and the hemostat on the right, so they are easy to pick up."

But now, sometimes I can't find the tools and it takes me ages to find them.

My supervisor called me in for a talk, pushed a time-off application in front of me, tapped the paper lightly with his fingertips, and looked at me with deep concern.

"Mo Yun, don't force yourself. We all understand how sad you are that Qianluo is gone. You should rest, go out for a walk, and give yourself a break."

He also said that the team had left me Qianluo's certificate of honor and that I should pick it up when I had time, saying, "This is what she deserves, so you can keep it for her."

Do they understand? They don't.

They thought I was still grieving the loss, and that I was making mistakes because of exhaustion from the past few days.

I thought time would heal my wounds, and that all I needed was rest and relaxation.

But they don't know that my real torment is not the pain of loss, but the sin of forgetting—I am betraying her in the cruelest and most silent way.

Like a thief, I secretly put our memories into my heart and carefully guard them.

But without realizing it, they lost them, leaving them in some unknown corner, never to be found again.

I even started to feel afraid, afraid that one day I would even become unfamiliar with the name "Qin Qianluo".

I'm afraid that one day I'll forget that we once loved each other, and forget the deep mark she left on my life.

That sense of guilt was like a vine, tightening its grip on my heart, making it hard for me to breathe.

The thorns of the vines pierced the soft flesh of my heart, and every breath was filled with a fine, dense pain. Even when I was sleeping, I would dream that she was questioning me, "Ah Yun, have you forgotten me?"

This chapter is not finished, please click the next page to continue reading!