He Forced Me to Kowtow 10,000 Times on the Snowy Mountain Chapter 06

He Forced Me to Kowtow 10,000 Times on the Snowy Mountain Chapter 06

Hale left eventually.

Before he went, he lingered outside the station for ages, watching Soren stitch the torn seam on my

shell jacket.

Each stitch neat, tight, and uniform.

Years ago,

I’d mended Hale’s mountaineering gloves just like this. He’d said it felt wasteful to toss

worn gear, and I’d told him old things were worth fixing.

Back then, he’d laughed and ruffled my hair.

Now he stood out in the cold, watching me pour that same gentle care into the jacket Rian left

behind.

I think he finally understood.

I’d always been willing to patch up old belongings.

But some things aren’t just worn clothes to sew back together.

Soren tied off the thread and bit it clean with his teeth once the last stitch was done.

“Don’t head out for a while. I told him you’re resting.”

I nodded.

Hale’s low voice drifted through the door. “Have you seen one missing bead from my rosary

beads?”

Soren returned and shook his head.

“He hunted all over the snow for it and couldn’t find a trace.”

I said nothing.

When the string snapped, several beads had rolled into the ash mixed with powdery snow. That lost

bead was long blended in with Rian’s ashes.

Later that afternoon, Hale drove away.

Before leaving, he told Soren to look after me.

Soren didn’t reply.

On the third day, I pulled open Rian’s ledger notebook.

It was a hardcover journal wrapped repeatedly in clear packing tape to keep out water.

Scrawled across the first page: My sister owes no one-I am the one in debt to her.

I flipped forward, page after page filled with line-item expenses.

Liora’s rehabilitation fees: four hundred and seventy thousand.

Translation fees for overseas physical therapy documents: thirty-two thousand.

Monthly stipend for the Thorne-owned care facility: eight thousand, paid for thirty-six months straight.

Winter propane supply for the youth shelter: twenty-four thousand.

Medication for our foster mother: sixteen thousand.

Travel expenses to the Mount Whitney Circumambulation Trail: four thousand three hundred.

A date sat beside every entry.

The dates he’d gone for unregulated plasma donations. Some gaps between trips were less than two

weeks apart.

March 7, 2023: 400cc plasma.

March 22, 2023: 450cc plasma.

April 3, 2023: 400cc plasma.

No legitimate medical clinic would ever allow plasma donations this frequent. Rian had only been

using black market plasma centers.

My hands shook harder with every page I turned.

For three years, I’d believed his tuition was covered by student loans, that he picked up small shifts in the campus cafeteria for pocket money, that his constant line of don’t worry about me was

genuine.

Every time he’d finished donating plasma, his voice sounded thin and drained over the phone. When I asked what was wrong, he’d lie and say it was just low blood sugar-sugar candy would fix it right up.

The handwriting on the final page was messy, barely legible, written after hospital admission.

It read: If I die one day, my sister won’t have to bow to Hale ever again. She used to carry so much

pride. She shouldn’t spend her life on her knees.

I closed the ledger shut.

I didn’t cry, not a single tear.

My eyes burned dry and raw.

Soren sat across the room sorting wilderness medical supplies. He didn’t glance my way didn’t. utter a single word. He knew no words could ease this kind of agony.

A week later, Hale came back.

No stack of brand-new shell jackets this time. In his grip was Rian’s worn ledger. I had no idea how he’d gotten hold of it.

He stood at the station entrance, face drained pale, lips cracked raw-he hadn’t slept properly for

days.

“I went to Rian’s rental apartment.”

I stayed silent.

“I also stopped by the funeral parlor. The attendant told me he asked for the cheapest urn they

had.”

He paused for a beat.

“He said he didn’t want to be a burden to you.”

Those words sank into me, my fingernails digging hard into my palms.

He held the ledger out toward me.

“I’ll pay back every cent listed in here.”

“There’s no need.”

“Why not?”

“When someone’s gone, all debts cancel out.”

His face blanched completely.

I pushed myself upright, shifting my numb legs to ease the stiffness.

“Rian already paid every last bit for me.”

He stumbled half a step backward, colliding hard with the doorframe.

I walked toward the exit.

I paused for one heartbeat as I passed beside him.

“Hale. Don’t throw money around to insult him anymore.”

The door clicked shut behind me.

He stayed outside. Mountain wind carried his ragged, uneven breathing through the thin wood.

After a long stretch of quiet, I heard his footsteps fade into the snow.

Soren stepped out from the back room, holding a folded medical document. It had slipped out from between the ledger’s pages, hidden where I’d never noticed it before.

A yellowed A4 sheet stamped with the official seal of Monticello Regional Medical Center.

The typed diagnosis read: Progressive tissue necrosis in both lower limbs linked to prolonged low-temperature exposure, not directly caused by rope laceration.

Dated three days following the avalanche three years ago. Liora’s original hospital diagnosis from the day she was admitted.

She’d hidden the truth for three whole years.