My Forensic Husband

Yale Gabriel is a forensic doctor no one in the field dares to underestimate. The corpses he's autopsied could pile up like mountains, yet he's never made a single mistake. No one knows that beneath this cold, unyielding man lies a severe aversion to the sight of blood. Only the gentle warmth of a woman could pull him back from the suffocating grip of blood and decay. That day, when the third unidentified female corpse was delivered, he made me stand by the mortuary cabinet, forbidding me to move. I watched him press Ruby Wade onto the cold autopsy table, kissing away the sobs she pretended to cry, his fingertips trembling uncontrollably. That scene stabbed into my eyes like a needle; even my breath was laced with pain. The next moment, the icy blade sliced through the skin of my arm. "Third time now, Viola Shawn—how can you still not learn to stay quiet?" His thumb brushed over my bleeding wound, his voice dripping with contempt: "You can't even handle something so simple. You might as well be a specimen; at least then you wouldn't be such an eyesore." I lowered my gaze, swallowing back the pain that threatened to escape my lips. Everyone said I was spineless, that without Yale Gabriel, I couldn't live. But what they didn't know was that I had long been desperate to escape his world. Back then, I never imagined that when I truly 'vanished,' he would lose himself completely. Blood flowed down my arm into the sleeve, staining the white shirt a dark crimson. I bit my lip, trembling as I begged him not to cut anymore. But Yale Gabriel only pressed down harder, his eyes cold and unfeeling, like he was looking at something lifeless. Ruby Wade wiped the red mark from the corner of her mouth, stepped before me, and smiled down with contempt: "So this is how Dr. Gabriel's woman gets excited watching her man with someone else." Yale's pupils suddenly contracted as he shoved my head into the formalin bath where the corpse soaked. The acrid stench burned my lungs like they were about to burst, his voice crashing down from above: "Viola Shawn, did you do this on purpose?" "You know I can't stand the sight of blood, yet you have to make noise to rile me during my 'treatment.'" He dragged me out of the formalin, then grabbed the syringe and jabbed it into my arm: "Don't you like bleeding? Then bleed until you can't stand." He pushed the liquid in the syringe slowly into my veins—I could feel my strength draining away along my arm. In the end, I couldn't hold on any longer; my legs gave way, and I collapsed to the floor. When my consciousness blurred, I even thought it might be better to just die like this. But Yale ripped the syringe away, his voice dripping with disgust: "So filthy." He took the blood bag he'd just drawn from my vein and poured it straight down the drain. The red liquid ran through the pipes, like my hope draining away bit by bit. Ruby clung to his shoulder, her voice sickly sweet: "Yale, we didn't finish our conversation earlier." Yale didn't even glance at me on the floor. He bent down, picked up Ruby, and paused for a moment: "Get on your knees and scrub the floor dry. Don't act weak." I pressed myself up from the cold ground and fished out iodine and gauze from the first aid kit. The wound on my arm was still bleeding, my neck smarting from being soaked in formalin, but I didn't even have the strength to cry. I wasn't the least bit surprised that Ruby Wade would be so forward. The first two women who came after Yale Gabriel were just like that—after all, he's the heir to the Gabriel family, and in the Capital City, women lining up to attach themselves to him would fill the entire block. I still can't understand why he ever married me. I have no prestigious family, no beauty—just a orphan who barely survived a massacre. Fighting the churning in my stomach, I crouched down and painstakingly wiped the bloodstains from the floor with a tissue. I knew Yale Gabriel had endless ways to torment me—the rusty tools in the basement were his instruments of 'discipline.' My legs were still shaking when I stepped out of the dissection room. His assistant strode over and threw a white coat stained with some unknown liquid over my head. "Dr. Gabriel wants you to go to his office right now and wash this coat clean." The pungent smell mixed with formalin burned my nostrils until they ached. I stripped off the white coat, my fingertips trembling. Everyone around Yale Gabriel knows that the surest way to get on his good side is by bullying me.