He Forced Me to Kowtow 10,000 Times on the Snowy Mountain Chapter 08

He Forced Me to Kowtow 10,000 Times on the Snowy Mountain Chapter 08

I didn’t go watch when Liora was sent away.

Søren told me what happened afterward.

Hale had men escort her back to Newport from the camp, and banned her from ever playing the victim in anything related to me again.

Right before she left, she’d said one thing.

“What about all the pain I’ve endured these three years?”

Hale had answered her flatly. “She’s been hurting too.”

“But at least she can walk.”

Hale stayed quiet for a long stretch before he spoke again. “She doesn’t have anyone left to rely

on.”

Soren relayed every word to me, but none of it stirred anything inside me. It was better that she was

gone.

But none of this truly ended there.

Hale never left the mountain range.

He set up a tent beside the abandoned chapel and did full penance prostrations every single day. His

route stretched from the old camp to the avalanche gully, then all the way to the chapel.

No crowds gathered to stare, no betting pools, no flashy black cards or whistling from wealthy

young scions. He was always alone.

The scabs on his forehead split open over and over each time he knelt, and he cycled through

endless layers of gauze wrapped around his swollen knees.

Sometimes Soren would leave a thermos of hot water for him when he passed by.

It wasn’t out of sympathy. He just didn’t want Hale collapsing dead by the chapel doors and disrupting the rescue station’s daily work.

He tried to see me twice.

The first time was outside the station entrance. I’d stepped out to dump trash and nearly crashed straight into him. He’d wasted away drastically, cheekbones sharp and prominent, his lips cracked

raw all over.

“Rynne, I’ve arranged steady supplies for the youth shelter. Take a look at this inventory list-if

anything’s missing…”

“Thanks.” I grabbed the paper and turned to head back inside.

I heard him linger out front for twenty full minutes before his footsteps finally faded once the door

shut behind me.

The second time was the day we buried Rian’s ashes.

Soren had helped me find a sunny patch of hillside behind the rescue station. I buried the half-empty urn mixed with snow and dirt, then planted a flat stone slab carved with Rian’s name as

a marker.

Hale stood far down the gravel slope, never daring to draw near.

He clutched a bundle of wild mountain lupines in his hands, shaking violently in the valley wind.

I patted loose dirt flat over the grave after tossing the last shovelful of soil. Glancing sideways, I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye.

He stepped two paces backward at once and set the flowers down on a rock beside the trail.

I walked down the hillside and passed right by the bouquet without touching it.

He didn’t call out my name.

It was the first time in three years he’d held his tongue instead of shouting for me.

Two weeks later, a stack of official documents arrived from the Thorne family.

A formal lawyer’s letter.

It wasn’t filed against me–it was a lawsuit targeting Liora.

Soren skimmed through it and handed it over to me. “Hale hired a legal team to comb through every document tied to the settlement three years ago.”

I flipped to page three, and a bolded line sent a cold chill running through my bones.

The medical evaluation used for the compensation payout had been forged.

The permanent disability rating Liora submitted to the Thorne family bore no resemblance to her original hospital records.

She’d altered her diagnosis, mild leg muscle damage treatable through physical therapy was twisted into a claim that both legs would never function again. That lie had tripled her settlement

money.

Every single dollar of that cash had come from Rian’s black market plasma donations.

My hands started shaking.

Not from anger. Just icy, hollow cold.

Soren turned to the last page of the packet. “Read this part.”

It was an investigation report.

Hale’s private security team pulled surveillance footage from Liora’s apartment. Over the past two years, late every single night, she’d practiced leg exercises beside her bed frame.

Screen captures showed her gripping the mattress edge, taking slow steps across the floor.

Her legs worked. Not perfectly healed, but nowhere near bad enough that she could never stand

without a wheelchair.

She’d sat confined to a wheelchair for three whole years by choice. As long as she stayed seated and

helpless, Hale would coddle her, and everyone else would keep casting blame my way.

That wheelchair had been nothing but a weapon she wielded against me.

My little brother’s life had been the price she paid to keep up the lie. And every penance prostrations I’d knelt through for three years? All for a false accusation.

Tucked at the very back of the file was a handwritten note from Hale, only one single line.

It read: All settlement funds will be fully recovered. Liora faces fraud charges and has been handed

over to law enforcement. The Thorne family will cover all of Rian’s funeral costs, outstanding

medical bills, and years of shelter supply expenses in full. You owe no one anything.

I set the entire stack of papers down on the metal table.

Soren glanced over at me. “How do you feel?”

I paused for a beat before answering. “Rian will never get to see any of this.”

He didn’t push me to say more.

That night, I sat by Rian’s grave for hours. The bundle of wildflowers Hale left had blown over next

to the stone marker, half-wilted and wedged into a crack in the rock.

I picked them up and tucked them into a small hollow dug in front of the slab.

“You were right, Rian.”

The mountain wind howled loud around me.

“I don’t have to kneel for anyone anymore.”