The moment Han Seoryeong moved, Lee Wooshin reacted on instinct—but the speed of her body falling into the water was far faster than his reach.
**Splash.**
Seoryeong plunged into the river without hesitation, dragging the bag down with her. She didn't care that her clothes were already soaked through, that the cold was biting into her bones. Like a woman possessed, she shoved the corpse beneath the surface, then wrenched it back up again.
"Uugh...!"
Lifting an adult male body with just her two hands made her teeth clench automatically. The river was only shoulder-deep here, but wrestling with the heavy, sinking bag sent water flooding into her nose and mouth. One wrong step—one slip on the algae-covered stones—and she would be dragged under completely.
"Ugh... puuh...!"
But even so, she didn't release her grip. Not once.
Whether she sank with it or managed to pull it out—in the end, she only had two choices.
_Wasn't I already sick of this kind of training?_
Stubbornly, Seoryeong held her breath and kept clutching the bag as it tried to sink to the riverbed. But maybe because she had cried so hard earlier, her breath ran short almost immediately.
"Ugh—!"
Her lungs ached. Her chest felt like it would **explode**. But Seoryeong still refused to let go.
Just as she was dragged completely below the surface, a tremendous force seized her body—lifting her as easily as luggage being hoisted from a conveyor belt.
"**Puha—!**"
The moment she broke the surface, she opened her mouth and gasped. Air flooded her starving lungs.
And then she saw his face.
Lee Wooshin's expression was deathly pale, his eyes wide with something that looked like terror. His voice came out sharp as a blade.
"**Do you really want to die?!**"
His eyelids, stiff with shock, seemed to tremble violently. The veins in his neck—even paler than his own skin—throbbed with intensity. He gritted his teeth, staring at Seoryeong with a coldness that could freeze blood.
The gaze that seemed capable of biting through her throat made Seoryeong fall silent.
"What kind of thoughts led you to do this—!"
He slammed both hands into the dark river water. Spray exploded in all directions, but Wooshin didn't even blink.
For some reason, Seoryeong found herself thinking that his own wounded, desperate face also looked like a corpse.
"...I had to watch Han Seoryeong jump into the river right in front of my eyes...?"
He ground out the words as if chewing each syllable to pieces.
"If you really wanted to sacrifice yourself like that, you should have just **cried**. Cry until you vomited. Cry until everything was gone."
"...!"
"Just because of one **bastard** of a man—why do you have to—!"
He wiped his face, barely holding himself together. The atmosphere was so suffocating it felt dangerous to approach. His breathing grew heavier with each passing second.
"Who gave you permission to give up."
Seoryeong looked at him with trembling eyes, then turned her face away. Although a rumbling sound echoed in her chest, her mind remained fixated on the image of the corpse she had shoved into the water.
"**Get out.**"
Wooshin grabbed her roughly and dragged her toward the shore. And even then—when she still refused to release the bag—he picked it up as well and hauled both of them out of the river.
---
## — The Revelation —
The moment Seoryeong's feet touched solid ground, she grabbed the corpse's neck.
She scratched. Clawed. Dug her fingernails into the flesh.
But Kim Hyeon's skin was just soft—like ordinary human skin.
She leaned closer, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the bluish-black texture. Examining it with an intensity that bordered on madness.
Seeing her like someone possessed, Wooshin shouted again.
"**Han Seoryeong!**"
But it was as if she couldn't hear him. All of her attention was focused on the shabby clothes the corpse was wearing.
When she began trying to tear them away, Wooshin immediately grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him.
"What are you **doing**—!"
His eyes searched hers frantically, as if trying to confirm whether she had truly lost her mind. His pupils trembled with something raw and pitiful.
"Don't interfere, Instructor."
Seoryeong pushed him away firmly.
"Get out of the way."
She pulled a knife from her pocket and plunged it into Kim Hyeon's collarbone.
"—!"
Wooshin's face went rigid with shock.
The stabs around the collarbone and face were **merciless**. Each thrust deliberate, surgical.
"Han Seoryeong, you... what are you..."
_I don't have time to submerge this corpse any longer._
_I don't have the energy to be patient._
_Even if this suspicion is unfounded—even if it means damaging my own husband's body—I have to know._
Her gaze remained fixed, insistent on confirmation.
Seoryeong began to tear at the skin she had cut with the knife.
For a brief moment, she wondered if what she was doing was cruelty toward an innocent corpse.
But then—
Staring at Kim Hyeon's face as it began to **tear away**, the corner of her lips trembled.
Even while looking at the deep, rotting eye sockets beneath, she could only let out a dry, hollow laugh.
Her wet hair dripped water constantly, falling in cold streams down her face.
"Ah... ah..."
The sound that came from her throat—she couldn't tell if it was a cry or a laugh.
From the collarbone to the face, the more she pulled, the more Kim Hyeon's skin peeled off like a long strip of dough being separated from itself.
And beneath that almost perfect exterior—
A corpse that looked **much older** was revealed.
**Skin beneath skin.**
**Face beneath face.**
Joy—bleak and desolate—filled Seoryeong's eyes.
"His face... it's **fake**."
Her voice sounded hollow. Without intonation. As if coming from somewhere far away.
"It's a fake face, Instructor..."
She stared at the prosthetic material in her hands.
"It seems... he wasn't dead."
Her expression flickered. Sad, then happy, then falling again like shattered hope being swept away by a current. The changes were so rapid they couldn't be followed.
The sclera of her bloodshot eyes curved with something pathetically close to relief.
"Kim Hyeon—it seems he's still **alive**, Instructor."
"...!"
Lee Wooshin's Adam's apple moved roughly up and down. Since earlier, he had stood frozen, showing no reaction—as if his body had forgotten how to move.
_But if Kim Hyeon's face could be made like that..._
_If, as Jin Hoje said, all of this from the beginning was a disguise..._
Seoryeong stared at the skin in her grasp with a strange, haunted expression.
_Kim Hyeon—my husband, whom I remember through the touch of my fingertips—was that really his real face?_
The moment doubt arose about something she had never questioned in her entire life, Seoryeong fell into a **living hell**.
_Could it be..._
_No way._
_No way..._
_It can't be._
The tattered, crumpled hope in her hand pushed her into a current so strong she felt herself drowning.
Her bloodless face slowly turned toward Lee Wooshin.
"...Is it possible that Kim Hyeon's face was just a **fake face** from the beginning?"
"...!"
_If so, then the man who called me might not have been Kim Hyeon either._
A sense of helplessness settled over her, enveloping her like a swamp dragging her down.
"If that face... if it turns out to be fake... and all this time he was by my side with that fake face..."
"..."
"Then... **what do I have to use now**... to find my husband?"
Her eyes trembled as if being tested by some cruel god.
"**How can I recognize my husband again?**"
Her head felt empty.
The image of love she had painted as Kim Hyeon began to fade slowly. One stroke erased, then another, until finally—
Nothing remained.
"Even if Kim Hyeon were standing right in front of my eyes... I might not be able to recognize him now..."
---
_Was that one wish of mine too much to hope for?_
_What did I do wrong that I wasn't given even **one thing** that I had in this world?_
_If so... why do I have to live this torturous life?_
That despair slowly devoured the darkness in her heart, making it grow deeper and deeper.
_So, from the beginning, you were just doing your job, huh...?_
_That's all._
_Not my family._
_From the inside out, to the bone—you belong to the NIS._
Never before had this sharp difference in temperature felt so **clear**.
> _"You think Kim Hyeon loves you?"_
Now, the mockery from Chairman Joo finally made sense.
_Throughout our marriage... I never really got close to him._
_And he—not even once—never showed me his real face._
_If so... what was it that I loved all this time?_
_Just... this piece of fake skin?_
Her head spun with shock, as if Kim Hyeon had been completely uprooted from her life. The self she had formed through his existence crumbled piece by piece—like white fragments scattering in the wind.
Her hot, aching eyelids made her want to gouge out her own eyes.
_I wish all of this would go back to the way it was._
_No—it would be better if this damn world just **ended**._
With teeth clenched tight, she raised her hand, wanting to throw away the evidence of deception in her grasp.
_You must be living well somewhere now._
_Leaving behind the face I remember as easily as peeling off skin._
_And elsewhere—living without remembering me even a little bit._
_Hiding your real face that you never showed me._
_Still disguised as that great NIS agent._
Her hands trembled violently.
If she could, she wanted to stomp on that disgusting skin until it was crushed. Spit on it. Burn it to ash.
But instead of throwing it away—
She clutched the skin even **tighter**, dragging it to her aching chest.
"**Bastard**... I can't even throw you away...!"
The cells in her body felt like they were burning and dying one by one. That feeling made her sick. It felt terribly, **terribly** unfair.
_You must still be the same._
_While I'm the only one who seems to be dying slowly._
_Should I drink alcohol until I lose consciousness?_
_Or..._
"Please help me, Instructor..."
"...!"
The one who had completely fallen apart clutched Lee Wooshin's collar and groaned.
"...Help me. **Save me.** I can't... breathe."
Every word that came out contained a pus-like pain, flowing from a festering wound that would never heal.
With a face she herself didn't recognize, Seoryeong clung to him as if her life depended on it.
_Not this rotten body—I want to feel that I'm still **alive**._
She felt like destroying the body that Kim Hyeon once cherished and scattering it in front of his eyes like shards of a dagger.
_If I can't throw away Kim Hyeon... then destroy this chest that holds the poison about him._
_Along with him._
The desire to destroy was now directed at **herself**.
And as far as Seoryeong knew, the only person who was most useful, most cruel, and most powerful—was Instructor Lee Wooshin.
"Please... save me from this place..."
Her empty eyes reflected nothing.
Lee Wooshin froze, as if choked.
With his neck veins twitching, he snatched Kim Hyeon's skin from Seoryeong's hand and crushed it in his grip with all his strength.
Seeing the woman completely collapse before him—
It felt like his entire being had fallen back to the starting point of everything.
He fell.
And kept falling.
Until finally, he had to face his own arrogant reflection staring back at him from the dark water.