My husband used my ashes to develop the latest blue fireworks.
In the seventh year of our marriage, Calix Reitman used fireworks to write the name of his childhood sweetheart Serena Johanson in the sky.
As the two of them kissed happily under the fireworks, the last trace of me, Daphne Vaughan, in this world disappeared into the sea along with the remaining gunpowder.
On the seventh day after my death.
The fireworks factory exploded, causing countless casualties and heavy losses, and then reminded Calix of me.
He finally returned to our former home, but asked me to use my savings to clean up his mess.
"Daphne, as a couple, if you can help me get through this crisis, I will reconsider our marriage relationship."
I wanted to tell him that it was not necessary. But unfortunately, I had died a long time ago.
Calix could not find me anywhere, and in a fit of rage, he smashed open my safe.
However, what he did not expect was, inside the cold iron cabinet there was only a thin risk notification letter ....
——
When Calix received the call about identifying the body, he was serving as a sketch model for Serena.
As soon as he heard my name, anger immediately welled up in his eyes, but he still suppressed his voice for fear of disturbing the person who was sketching.
"Dead? If she's dead, come find me after she's cremated."
The staff did as they were told, and after my body turned into ashes, they made several phone calls before they finally met Calix.
He was wearing a bright burgundy shirt with his tie loosened and the collar opened.
His casual appearance was out of place here.
Calix carelessly took my urn and held it under his arm. The urn might fall off at any time.
"Is this really Daphne's ashes?"
"How much money did she give you to cooperate with her like this?"
"Her acting was good, better than quite a few actors."
He raised his hand to wipe away the tears that did not exist in his eyes, and sneered as he spoke.
"I almost believed it, after all, it's been less than a month since she cut her wrists last time."
The two staff members looked at each other, thinking that Calix was a family member who had lost his mind due to excessive grief.
"Please accept my condolences."
Calix nodded with mocking eyes, then walked away with my urn in his hands.
As soon as I got on the car, he could not wait to send me a few voice messages.
"Daphne, there must be a limit to your temper. This time, your trick was very professional but it was still a failure."
"I'm already tired from working every day, do I have to play suicide games with you once a month? When did you become so immature?"
"Believe it or not, even if you do die it won't stop me from mass-producing blue fireworks. It doesn't matter if you don't support me, there will always be people who do."
After he finished speaking, the phone pierced through my empty body and hit the urn on the passenger seat.
I looked at his all-too-familiar profile and could not help but shed tears.
Believe it, how could he not believe it?
I was truly dead.
The urn was casually thrown by him into his laboratory, and the spilled ashes were mixed with a pile of gunpowder powder.
He immersed himself in the work of fireworks design that he had no time to take care of me.
I looked at the countdown to the fireworks show on the wall, which showed that it would be tomorrow.
Calix rushed to finish the work, and in the end, he even used the gunpowder mixed with ashes without a care.
Now I was a ghost. I desperately shouted to stop it, but it was all in vain.
After putting in a lot of hard work, the man carefully wrote the name of this fireworks box: Serena.
At this moment, the phone displayed an incoming call with a name of Serena.
A familiar female voice came from the other end of the phone. "Calix, when will you be back for dinner? The food is getting cold."
Calix looked at the fireworks on the table with satisfaction and answered, "I'll go home now."
This heartwarming home conversation made me forget myself that I was Calix's wife who had been married for seven years, but in name only!
They lived like husband and wife, but my ashes were turned into fireworks to witness their happiness!
For a moment, dark aura was emanating from my broken body.
Chapter 2The next day, as soon as it turned dark, Calix's car stopped at the seaside.
In the distance, blue sparks streamed down like broken stars.
Another cluster of blue fireworks rose into the sky, forming the word "Serena" in the dark night sky.
It turned out that the fireworks that he made overnight were a special gift for his childhood sweetheart, Serena.
The salty and humid sea breeze penetrated my empty body, carrying away my tears and turning them into sea water.
I finally became a bystander in this world, peeping at other people's happiness.
Calix stood by the shore with Serena in his arms.
The petite girl was both surprised and delighted.
"Calix, I told you that you can do it."
Encouraged, the man looked even more confident.
His eyes were shining brightly.
"Luckily I have you, Serena. You are the only one who is willing to believe in me and support me, unlike others who would just pour cold water on me," he said as he pointed to the sky, his face full of pride.
"So, this is my gift to you, do you like it?"
Not only fireworks, the trunk of Calix's car was filled with beautiful red roses, and the light strips dotted around were dazzlingly bright.
Pedestrians exclaimed one after another.
Fireworks and roses, what a romantic proposal!
The blessings made the rich roses gradually turn black in my eyes.
I still remembered when I asked Calix for a red rose themed wedding with full expectation, he mocked by saying that the red roses were too flashy and gaudy.
He refused it.
But now he was happy to fill his beloved car with these flashy and gaudy things.
Perhaps I should have realized earlier that the vow of our love had already gone bad and no one suddenly rotten.
Unconsciously, I tightly clutched my painful heart.
Serena's eyes full of emotion and she responded without hesitation with a long kiss.
Calix raised his hand and froze in place, not pushing away the girl in front of him.
Seeing this scene, my heart felt even more painful. The fireworks falling from the sky seemed to burn in my heart.
The ten years of hard-earned relationship between Calix and I were also burned to the ground.
Breaking away from the girl's gentle embrace, he raised his mobile phone to record a series of the fireworks videos, then clicked on my chat box and send them one by one.
He was too lazy to type any more words besides the videos because his hand was tightly holding the girl beside him.
He remembered me at this point, not because he was trying to share the beautiful night sky with me, but to hit me in the face.
That was right, I, his wife who had known him and been with him for ten years, was the ‘someone else who could only pour cold water on him’ in his opinion.
As a fireworks designer.
I was well aware that the reason why blue fireworks were rare and precious was their high production cost, as well as their flammability and explosiveness.
For this reason, I had always disagreed with Calix's large-scale production of blue fireworks.
However, he said that brave people enjoy the world first.
He criticized me for being timid, suspicious and short-sighted, and for not being worthy of participating in his ambition to go global.
So, we started arguing frequently.
Until Calix's supporter, his childhood sweetheart Serena appeared.
We were completely separated.
At that time, I naively thought that the matter would be resolved if the two of us calmed down.
But I did not expect that after my death, in the seventh year of our marriage, my husband wrote his childhood sweetheart's name in the sky with fireworks.
When the two kissed happily under the fireworks, the last trace of me in this world also disappeared into the sea along with the remaining gunpowder.
I turned my gaze to Serena. It was not only filled with resentment for interfering in my marriage with Calix, but also hatred for running her car over me.
She was the petite girl who tricked me into a deserted mountainous area, ran over me repeatedly, and then escaped as if nothing had happened!
Chapter 3Perhaps because he had not received my response expressing surprise for a long time, Calix finally called me after a month.
After five or six unanswered phone calls, he began to grow impatient.
I stared at his furrowed brows, feeling lonely in my heart.
A few years ago, Calix Reitman, who called me ninety-nine times on New Year's Eve just to say Happy New Year, was finally gone.
A date reminder suddenly popped up in the information bar, indicating today as the day of my menstrual period.
Calix set up a reminder because every time I had menstrual cramps, I would almost faint from the pain.
In the past, every few days of the month, he would always take care of me no matter how busy he was.
I did not have any special physique, it was just that I sufferred from unbearable menstrual cramps because of Calix.
After starting the business, our first fireworks show failed due to lack of experience. The response was terrible and we also used up all our savings.
Calix could not bear the blow and walked into the sea in the snowy winter.
In order to stop him, I was knocked down by the waves again and again in the freezing sea water.
Even so, I still tried to open my trembling lips and encourage him not to give up.
At that time, the two of us were like rootless duckweed, enduring the harsh blow of society while trying hard to stay in this city.
After suffering from menstrual cramps, Calix would always have tears in his eyes every time I broke out in a cold sweat.
He racked his brains and did everything he could to make me feel better.
But after Serena came back, everything changed.
I had very few opportunities to sit at the same table with him to just eat together, let alone care about my menstrual cramps.
Now his concern for me was probably only this forgotten reminder of my menstrual period.
I laughed at myself, realizing that even a marriage that had gone through so much hardship could not escape the seven-year itch, but I found that Calix had clicked on the chat box with me again.
At this moment, I could not help approaching him.
I was lost in my thoughts. On this day ... would he still care about me?
"Why didn't you reply to my messages or answer my calls?"
"You were quite busy when I wasn't around."
"Buy some painting tools and send them to the studio tomorrow. You know more about that."
I tried hard to see some hint of concern between the lines.
The loud sound of fireworks exploding filled my ears.
Every word Serena spoke was clear and dealt me a heavy blow.
"Calix, is it too late for me to start learning painting now?"
"Daphne's good at painting and designing, and she's also a good drinker. Meanwhile I'm not in good health, so I'm really not as good as her at anything."
"A woman like her who is good at everything is worthy of you."
The words came out of Serena's mouth showed praise for me, but the look in her eyes showed cruelty.
In just a moment, she pretended to look pitiful and immediately aroused Calix's desire to protect her.
The man looked at her affectionately, as devoutly as when he said "I do" at a wedding ceremony.
"I will unconditionally support anything you want to do."
"Also, it's not good for a woman to drink alcohol. You'd better drink milk or something healthy."
I woke up instantly from my self-deceiving reverie.
Looking at the man's face so close at hand, I wanted to see if he still looked the same as the old days.
He never said that before.
In the early days of the business, the studio was short of staff.
I did the accounting, design, purchasing, reception and even secretarial and logistical work all by myself.
In order to attract sponsorships and negotiate business, I practiced my alcohol tolerance at endless drinking tables, just because Calix had an allergy to alcohol and a stomachache after drinking.
I never knew that he actually hated women drinking when I was throwing up in the bathroom.
Looking at the vast and boundless sea, I regretted saving him for the first time.
That day, I should have let him die in the sea.
Chapter 4Calix and Serena were clinking glasses in a restaurant when a warehouse worker suddenly called.
He reported that the fireworks factory exploded.
The roof was on fire, but luckily it was overnight and no workers were injured.
Calix suddenly stood up from his chair, knocking over the bottle of red wine and attracting everyone's attention.
Seeing his reaction, I burst out laughing.
The reason why blue fireworks were expensive was not only because of the high production costs but also because of the harsh storage conditions.
It required special materials with poor stability, so compared to other fireworks, blue fireworks were more difficult to store, were extremely easy to burn, and had certain dangers.
I had advised Calix hundred times that our warehouse was not yet capable of storing blue fireworks.
Large-scale production and storage were bound to cause problems.
Unexpectedly, what I said came true.
As soon as he arrived at the warehouse, he was squinted by the black smoke filling the sky.
Crackling bursts and shouts were endless.
He dealt with the fire on site for three days and three nights before it was finally completely extinguished.
One by one, the firefighters were too tired to stand up straight.
What awaits Calix was a thick stack of loss settlement and compensation issues for surrounding businesses.
The anxious Calix ignored the dozens of calls from Serena and clicked on the chat box to which I still had no reply.
"Daphne, we are husband and wife. If you can help me through this crisis, I will reconsider our marriage."
Still not getting a reply from me, Calix repeatedly typed and deleted his message, then he decided going to our house to find me.
After all, he could not afford that much money alone.
As soon as he got to our house, he could not find me and then, went to my apartment.
Knocking on the door over and over again, but the door in front of him never opened.
Instead, the door of apartment next door was opened a crack and an auntie stopped him from knocking on the door again.
"Stop knocking, there's no one in the house."
"She is dead ... a week ago."
Calix frowned, as if he had heard some joke.
"What nonsense are you talking about! My wife lives in this house! How could I not know if she is dead?"
The auntie also raised her voice. "I recognize the woman next to me. I saw her with my own eyes in the hospital. So, how could I be wrong?"
"And you keep calling her your wife? You don't even know the partner in your life is dead. What a joke!"
"I'm afraid she has already turned into ashes! You can't recognize her even if you want to!"
Hearing the word "ash" come out of the auntie's mouth, Calix seemed to have thought of something, and his face suddenly turns white.
He was breathing heavily, knocking on doors and trying passwords randomly.
A few second later, he successfully opened the door with his birth date.
The darkness in the room made the man's voice even more flustered.
"Daphne, suicide won't stop me, you're starting to play disappear with me again, aren't you?"
He casually turned on the light and stumbled open the door of each room while calling my name.
Calix stopped in my bedroom and opened my bedside table with ease.
There was a safe hidden inside.
The password was known only to me.
After multiple failed attempts, Calix, in a fit of anger, found the toolbox and exerted great force to open the safe.
There was no doubt about the security in my community. I bought a safe for psychological comfort, so the quality was average.
However, what Calix did not expect was, there was only a thin risk notification letter in the cold iron cabinet.
It clearly listed the precautions for producing blue fireworks. I showed it to him repeatedly but he always rejected it.
Seeing how persistent he was, I decided to just turn a blind eye to it and locked it in the cabinet.
Calix held the paper in his hand, veins bulging on his forehead and he sat on the ground dejectedly.
"Daphne, as you wish, the warehouse exploded. So, come out and see my joke."
Only after a long time did he stagger to his feet and open the last room.
There were unforgettable scenes inside that he would never forget.