Enough that no one would ever again dare point fingers at the two of us.
For years I worked like a woman possessed.
After my shift I took side jobs.
My feet felt hollow from exhaustion; my heart raced like it could give out any second.
But I couldn’t stop.
Every night, back in that tiny second bedroom, when I saw my daughter sleeping, I’d tell myself the same thing: you can’t stop.
Maybe luck was turning. During that stretch I met the biggest benefactor of my life.
My best friend, Laura Reed.
She was a temp at my office, a contract worker.
And she dressed like she could buy three years of my salary.
People guessed either her family was rich or her husband was loaded.
The first time we met was by the water cooler.
She walked up and asked, “You’re the divorced woman, right?”
I was taken aback. My ex had worked at the same company and quit after we split—rumors spread fast.
But we weren’t close. Coming up to me like that felt like an invasion.
She didn’t stop. She rubbed her chin, remembering, “He’s the one who filed for divorce, right? Everyone says he probably has a mistress. But you couldn’t even find out who she is… he’s good at keeping secrets.”
“Best part—you didn’t take a penny, just wanted custody. What were you thinking?”
“You’re not doing great financially, huh? You load up at lunch in the cafeteria—saving money on dinner, right?”
She kept picking at my wounds until I snapped, furious, “Enough!”
“Want to make money?” she asked suddenly as I stormed off.
“Enough to make you and your daughter live like ladies,” she added.
Money is the most unreasonable thing in the world.
It makes you listen to anyone.
Even someone who was just rubbing salt in your wounds.
A few days later I took her to a nicer hotel to thank her. My hands trembled at the menu—there was a minimum spend.
She told me how to make that money.
“You know,” she said, “there’s an easy kind of money.”
“Dead people’s money,” she told me.
My job, in short, was handling dead people’s payments.
In this city, if a company employee dies, their family can come to my window and receive two payouts: a death benefit and a funeral allowance.
That was my responsibility.
That night I learned from her there was a loophole in our system.
Put plainly: by exploiting it, I could make someone who’d died “die” again—on the data side.
I could trigger another round of death benefits and funeral pay.
Once I manipulated things, the money would be routed to my accounts, to my parents’ accounts, to multiple bank cards I’d bought online.
Three hiding places, nothing tracing back.
“The system’s ancient—nineties tech still in use. It won’t flag anything,” she said. “Human approvals are sloppy. With the right moves no one will notice.”
“And they’re dead,” she smiled darkly. “Dead people can’t come forward to complain.”
I knew it was a crime.
But that night, back in that cramped second bedroom, I found my daughter pretending to sleep.
Tears clung to her face.
I asked her over and over if she was sick. Finally she sat up and found a piece of paper.
She was born mute—couldn’t speak words, only made “ah, ah” sounds.
She normally wrote to me.
“This afternoon my hand touched the girl next to me’s clothes. She said my hand was dirty and demanded I pay,” she’d written in careful letters. Tears dotted the page. “My hand was clean. Not dirty.”
I comforted her and wiped her tears. Clothes were just an excuse. The kids were ostracizing her because she was easy to bully—because she had a single, powerless mother.
I buried my face in my pillow until I almost couldn’t breathe to keep myself from screaming.
I would take dead people’s money.
From then on—for about three years—I kept at it.
I made over ten million.
I still surprise myself with that number.
Each payout was only a few thousand, but over time the totals added up because I kept at it.
I bought a home in my parents’ names; I moved my daughter into the best school in the city. I bought her everything she wanted, even if some things ended up tossed away.
I knew this money always carried the risk of being found out. So on Laura’s advice I converted most of it into cryptocurrency for my daughter.
Even if I was arrested or spent my life in prison, as long as I kept the passwords to myself, no one could touch that money. My daughter would be provided for forever—whatever the cost.
There was one thing I never understood.
“Laura, I couldn’t have made this without you. I owe you a cut,” I told her one day.
By then she was practically family—cooking for us, playing with my daughter.
“No,” she said. “Don’t give me a cent. If you do, we can’t be friends.”
“Why?” I asked, trying to understand why she was so good to me.
“If you want to help, you just help. No questions.”
She plated some food for me. I kept my head down and ate, watching her, wondering if maybe she was gay—she was just so mysterious to me. I knew she had money, but not where it came from. Her listed address was a rental that sat empty most of the time.
She was too good to me—so good I didn’t think to ask.
Half a year later I learned the truth.
We took a vacation abroad—she buried me alive. She’d been setting the whole thing from the start.
She made the same kind of dead-money she’d offered me—except this time the one who had to die was me.
It was 2015.
We took paid leave and agreed on a trip to Myanmar—Mengla County, she said there was a temple there that answered prayers. She arranged tickets, visas, a driver. She handled everything.
We flew into Xishuangbanna, rode a private car to the Daluo Border Crossing, crossed into Myanmar. I even photographed some green peacocks near the border—told my daughter they symbolized boundless prospects.
A jeep met us outside the gate and the driver was Burmese. Laura spoke Burmese with him; I didn’t understand a word. Everything seemed luxuriously planned.
The jeep took a dirt road and in less than half an hour we reached small Mengla County. But it didn’t stop in town. My daughter and I had nodded off; when I woke the jeep had left civilization and climbed a bumpy mountain road.
“Where are we going?” I asked, uneasy.
“Hotel,” Laura said.
“Not in town?”
“You’ll see.”
I thought maybe she’d booked a rustic mountain inn near the temple. Then a village came into view.
Except it wasn’t a village. On tall wooden platforms were soldiers with rifles.
We’d arrived at a Northern Myanmar armed group’s territory.
Far down the road was a freshly dug, deep pit. My stomach dropped.
Laura spoke to the driver in Burmese and the car stopped. Two short soldiers with scarlet armbands and black rifles came up.
She rolled down the window and spoke to them. The driver got out and greeted the soldiers, smoking casually as if nothing was happening.
The car door opened. A rifle barrel pushed in. I was forced out at gunpoint, still clutching my daughter, who trembled.
I tried to soothe her—“Mom’s here, it’ll be okay.” But someone kicked me in the back of the knee. I fell to my knees.
Laura’s smile was gone. Her eyes were cold, like she was looking at livestock.
“Laura…why?” I asked, terrified and bewildered.
“Passwords,” she said, as if that explained everything.
She meant the crypto passwords. I’d converted the dead payouts into digital currency and kept the keys. That’s what she wanted.
I clenched my teeth. “I won’t say unless it’s safe,” I lied—my only gamble.
“You’ll tell,” she replied, stood and patted her knee. She said something to the soldiers. Hands came and ripped my daughter from my arms.
My daughter flailed, making “ah, ah” noises—calling for help. I lunged, but a soldier slammed me down. I felt a ringing blow at the back of my head and everything went black…
Stifling heat.
My chest felt tight, oxygen-starved.
I jerked my eyes open, gasping.
Absolute darkness surrounded me. I could see nothing—only blackness.
Where am I…? I fumbled around; my palm grazed splinters.
Beneath me was a rough wooden plank.
I tried to sit up and slammed my head instantly.
I touched it—above my head was another hard plank.
Then a light suddenly flicked on, the silence pierced by a sharp ringing.
A phone lay beside me.
By the phone’s glow I could finally make out my surroundings.
I was inside an extremely narrow wooden box—just me.
I picked up the phone.
An old Nokia, with a keypad.
I knew it wasn’t mine; the screen was full of Burmese characters.
I answered. On the other end was my best friend.
I heard her laugh.
"How’s the dirt feeling?" she said.
A bad premonition hit me.
"What do you mean…?"
"When they buried you I was right there watching.
I calculated it—between the oxygen can I left in the box for you and everything else, at most thirty-five minutes and you’d suffocate in this coffin."
Oh my God.
I couldn’t hold it in. A wild, desperate scream burst out of me.
She just stayed calm and waited for my shrieks to die down.
Eventually I ran out of breath. Tears streaming, I pounded the boards of the box in hopelessness.
"My daughter…" I sobbed. "My daughter—where is she?"
"Password," she said simply.
"Let me hear her voice, or I won’t tell you anything!" I yelled.
She was silent for a moment. Then, faint through the line, I heard muffled sobbing.
"Emma."
I called my daughter’s name.
The crying intensified but stayed indistinct. I guessed something was clamping her mouth shut.
"Say it," my best friend said.
I shook my head in helpless disbelief. We’d always been so close. She’d never been short of money. How could she turn into this?
"Why, Laura? Why…" I trembled.
"Here’s the thing—your husband fell in love with a woman…" she said. "That woman is me."
"All that wealth was an act. Those outfits were rented, swapped out now and then—didn’t cost much," she said. "Getting close to you was just to make you go make the dead people’s money."
"Why—" I couldn’t process it. I was shaking with helplessness.
She laughed. "Because your husband and I—we were waiting for you to earn, from the very start."
I froze.
At that moment, everything clicked into a terrifying clarity.
So that’s it… She had planned a perfect crime. Three years ago my husband had an affair and pushed for a divorce. But that was only the first, trivial act of a much larger tableau. My husband and I worked together. While he was still at the company he noticed a loophole.
A way to make money off the dead.
He’d been tempted. He knew that with that method, making tens of millions wouldn’t be hard. But he gave it up—because if you got caught you’d spend the rest of your life behind bars.
Then one night while meeting her at a hotel he mentioned it.
That was all it took to light the fuse in her.
"Why do it yourselves?" she said. "Isn’t there already labor ready-made?"
And so a perfect plan was born—my husband initiated the divorce, the lawsuit dragged on. In the end I gave everything to keep my daughter: I left with nothing.
Poor, cramped into a tiny rental, exhausted. The hunger to earn money grew like a pestilence inside me.
She appeared at the right moment.
She joined the company, got close to me, teased at the yearning in me, and taught me how to make money off the dead.
Then they’d never have to worry about being exposed. She only had to teach me verbally—if the case ever surfaced, where’s the evidence? Who would know? Who could prove anything?
And that money would only be "temporarily stored" in my hands. When I’d earned enough, it would be harvest time for them. Trick me out here, let me die in this place, make me a missing person. They’d get the password and take everything with ease.
Even if later the company discovered I’d been making money off the dead and called the police—who would investigate them? Only me would be the wanted corpse. They could live as wealthy people at home on my money, pose to the media as grieving patriots calling for me to return and face justice.
"In the end, you’re just a crop we’ve cultivated," she said. "Now it’s harvest time."
She had thought of every detail. All that was left was for my daughter and me to die.
She smiled with smug satisfaction.
"I’ve told you enough. Your time is limited," she reminded me.
I bit my lip. "Let me out. Let me and my daughter go somewhere safe. Otherwise I won’t tell you anything!"
She chuckled with contempt. "Your time is limited. So is your daughter’s."
I stiffened.
"When I was in school I always wondered about a surgery—the frontal lobotomy."
"Do you know," she said, "when they buried you, your daughter screamed so loud it gave me a headache."
"I’ll find a sharp iron rod, shove it into her skull, fuck up part of her brain. Then she’ll be a obedient dog," she said with a smile. "Quiet as can be—sell her and she won’t resist."
"Of course, there won’t be anesthesia."
"Wait…" I began, pleading, but she cut me off.
"Five minutes."
My head buzzed. My whole body shook.
"Your choice—talk or not."
Ignoring my frantic curses, she hung up.
I went mad, pounding the coffin.
Not a sound.
Goddamn—goddamn it!
She had my daughter. That was why she could bury me without restraint. Because she had leverage.
The air in the coffin grew staler.
I bit my palm and forced myself to calm down and think.
One thing was crystal clear: I could not reveal the password. Once she got what she wanted, there would be no way she would spare my daughter and me.
I fumbled through the phone to the dialer.
I had no idea what Myanmar’s emergency number was. I tried 110, then 86110—but all I got was a mechanical Burmese woman’s voice saying the number couldn’t be connected.
Stay calm. I must stay calm.
The embassy—yes!
If I could get the phone number for the Chinese embassy in Myanmar and call for help, even if I had to turn myself in, maybe there was still a chance for me and my daughter.
But this old Nokia—no matter what I did, I couldn’t bring up any web pages.
Of course—why would this woman leave me with an internet-capable phone?
Damn, damn… I pounded the wood until my hands hurt.
Then the phone rang again.
I assumed it was my best friend and grabbed it in panic.
On the other end a man spoke in Burmese, stumbling through words.
I couldn’t understand a thing, and the number wasn’t my best friend’s.
"Help!" I blurted, hoping he might get English. "Help! We were kidnapped! Call the police!"
The man answered in Burmese gibberish. He didn’t seem to understand English at all. He kept speaking in Burmese; I hung up and flipped through the call log.
I had to try every number—if even one could understand English, we’d have a chance.
But the same number rang back.
I hung up again; I couldn’t find a way to block it, and it rang again.
I snatched the phone to answer; the man was still speaking incomprehensible Burmese. On edge, I snapped, "What the hell! Why do you keep calling?!"
He went silent for a beat. Then, in perfect Mandarin, he said, "Chinese?"
I froze.
He cleared his throat. "Never mind the language," he said. "Your child is with us. We’ll give you one hour. Transfer $100,000 to this card or we’ll kill her." He began rattling off a long string of account numbers.
My mind went blank. My child? In his hands?
I cut him off. "Wait! Are you sure? She—"
He tutted. "You don’t believe me?"
A small girl’s crying came through almost immediately. It wasn’t clear, but at first blush it sounded like my daughter’s voice.
"Mommy, help me… they’re beating me…" the little girl’s plea said, indistinct.
Her cry was unclear. I froze, then realization dawned—I had to be careful. My daughter has aphasia. She can’t form sentences that clearly. I’d heard stories of this scam: people overseas pay to record children’s cries. The voices are generic; if the target doesn’t listen carefully, they mistake them for their own child.
It could be a scam.
"One hour. If you call the police we kill her," the man intoned, continuing his performance.
No matter what, this scammer was my only hope right now.
"Wait—wait! Money’s negotiable! We’ll give you anything!"
"Good. No more words. Once the money’s in, we release her—"
"Listen to me!" I interrupted. "I know my daughter’s not with you! I know this is a scam!"
"My best friend kidnapped my daughter. I don’t have much time—she can hurt my daughter any minute!" I stammered. "The problem is I’m buried alive in a coffin near a military outpost. I can’t get out."
"So only you can help my daughter now. Do you understand?!"
"Are you in the country or in Myanmar? …No, never mind. Call the Chinese embassy in Myanmar, call the Myanmar police—call everyone. Make them come get us! If my daughter is saved I’ll give you every penny I’ve made—there’s tens of millions!"
I was gasping for breath. Silence on the line stretched.
"Please…" I begged.
"Hold on…" he said.
He was clearly stunned. "You were buried alive, and then your daughter was kidnapped…"
"Yes!"
"And your kidnapper was your best friend…"
"Yes, it’s true—I made it through, it’s all real!"
He let out a long, incredulous sigh. "You sure can spin some yarns…you’re in the same line of work?"
I shook my head through tears. "You can check. My name is Rachel Cheng. You do this for a living—you can find my records. Please…even if you just give me a Burmese emergency number…"
But the next second, he hung up.
Inside the coffin, silence fell again.
I thrashed my head in breakdown.
My chest felt heavy—like the air was thinning.
There wasn’t time to dwell on that.
A frantic phone call cut through my thoughts like a death knell.
It was my best friend.
I answered, hands trembling.
"Time’s up," she said.
"No. Laura, don’t—" I begged. "She thinks of you as a godmother—like another mother!"
"And?" she said.
I froze.
"I gave you time," she said.
I heard metal clanging on the other end.
My daughter’s wails of pain erupted through the line.
I knew she was drilling into my daughter’s skull with a sharp metal instrument.
I pounded on the coffin in a mad panic. "Stop! Stop—"
"Last three seconds! It’s reaching her brain!" she shouted.
"Three."
"Two."
"One—"
"I’ll tell you! I’ll give you the password!" I screamed through my tears.
I had no choice left.
I gave her a string of numbers.
She fumbled with things on her end for a moment.
"Opened," she said with a laugh. "You got what you wanted, now let him go…he’s his child too, don’t forget that!"
She ignored me.
"Two conditions," she said. "First, skulls are hard. I was only using an iron rod to clamp her finger—I was bluffing you. Second, your ex said he’d take the daughter back home and keep raising her."
"As for you…sorry, you can’t live."
I hesitated. I had no choice.
"Okay, okay!…Just keep her alive, Laura. She’s so good, you know she’ll forget all this as she grows up—she won’t remember me."
Tears streamed down my face. "She has selective mutism. She can’t tell anyone about us…she’ll be a good daughter!"
I sobbed. "If you’re worried, let me talk to her—I’ll tell her you didn’t hurt me, that I didn’t want her. She’ll give herself to you completely!"
How cruelly ironic—who would have thought these would be my daughter’s and my last words.
But my best friend interrupted me. "And the child I’ll have with him—what about that future?"
I was stunned.
On the other end she spoke a line in Burmese to someone I couldn’t see.
The music stopped. The vehicle rocked on a mountain road. They were in a moving car.
"Before we get there, I changed my mind. I’ll tell him his daughter was accidentally killed by the armed camp because she fought violently…how about that?" she said. "No one will be able to find evidence. A dead person can’t spill secrets."
Divorced, Broke, and Building an Empire
"One last word to your daughter." The car stopped.
She loosened my daughter's gag.
"Ah…ah…" My girl could only make that terrified sound.
I prayed through my tears for my best friend to spare her. I banged my head hard against the wood.
"Mom…" Suddenly, I heard my daughter struggle to form a syllable.
"Mom…Mom…" She forced the words, as if she knew the end was near and wanted me to hear her say it.
"Mom…Mom…" It was the first time I'd ever heard her call me that.
A gunshot cracked.
A small body was kicked from the car and tumbled, helpless, along the road.
I never heard my daughter's voice again.
She hung up.
I clutched the phone tight to my chest.
How long had it been? I didn't know. In the dark I felt like a corpse in a coffin.
Until the phone in my hand rang again.
It was the scammer who'd called before.
I stared at it for a long moment.
The only thing I had left in this world was gone.
But one thing remained: that woman had to die.
My life was running out. I knew I couldn't do much trapped inside this coffin. Still, I would exhaust every option to make her accompany us in death.
I looked down and saw the oxygen cylinder she had mentioned. A 1L climbing tank at best gave about thirty minutes.
I stretched, managed to reach the bottle, opened it, and took a deep breath in the nearly airless coffin.
My eyes burned, pupils shrinking. Blood rushed to my brain.
I answered the call.
I didn't speak; I waited for him to start talking. I needed to know more about him. Right now, he was the only person I could use.
After a little hesitation, the man spoke. "Uh, back home…there's news. Someone filed a report—three women missing abroad. Your name is on the missing list…there's also a child."
"Supposedly your ex filed the report."
They put on the whole performance—exactly like them. The question was, why did this man call back?
"What do you want to ask?" I said.
"That…is there really over ten million?" he asked.
I laughed. Money is the most unreasonable thing in the world. It makes people listen to anyone—even a moment after their scam was exposed.
"Can you tell me your name?" I asked him.
"Uh?…I'm Eric Chen."
"Eric, are you in the country or in Myanmar?"
"I'm in Mengla County. I do this work, can't help it…" He was right there in that city. I should be relieved.
A plan began to form in my mind—one to leave her without burial, to make her pay.
"Eric, does your phone have a recording feature?" I said. "Please, turn on recording."
"Huh?" He paused. "Okay…done."
"My name is Rachel Cheng." I said. "By the time you hear this, I should be dead in a coffin." I recited a string of my ID numbers.
"I was lured to Myanmar by my ex and my best friend, buried alive in the soil, forced to give all my money. My daughter was killed by them. The evidence is my body."
"I'm buried outside an armed camp, less than a hundred kilometers from home. I remember leaving Mengla County, heading south about half an hour by car, all mountain road. My body is there. Finding my body will prove I'm telling the truth."
I paused and moved on to the next part—spoken directly for Eric.
"Eric is the only person willing to help me. I appreciate his help. I willingly give all my legal inheritance to this man, free of charge." I repeated the declaration three times to make it clear: all legal inheritance, given freely. I knew the legal force of that was limited. But it was all I had.
Eric was utterly stunned. "What do you mean…I've not really helped you…"
"Now you'll help me," I said. "I need you to send the message about my ex and my best friend to as many domestic media outlets as possible."
If those words got reported, my ex, hiding back home, wouldn't escape punishment. But that still wasn't enough—not nearly enough. The woman who taught me to profit off dead people's money—
"I need you to do a second thing," I said. "Help me kill my best friend."
He was silent. I knew asking him that was a heavy lift. It was my last bargaining chip. "You know the tens of millions I mentioned—where are they?"
"They're in her hands," I said. Yes, I'd already converted the money to cryptocurrency and stored the private keys encrypted on a hard drive. For safety, I encrypted the keys to the disk. To access my money she had to open the drive. She'd tried the password earlier and had successfully verified it—meaning she was trying to open that hard drive. The hard drive with tens of millions was in her possession.
"Kill her, and the money is yours. My domestic inheritance can't compare. Ten million—enough to make you a local king in Myanmar."
He stayed silent for a long time.
"Please…" I whispered. What else could a desperate mother say?
"My daughter…" I sobbed. "She has selective mutism." Tears streamed. "Today was the first time in my life I heard her call me 'mom.' I wanted to hear her speak more. I wanted to teach her songs, tell her so many things. I wanted to hear her call me mom again. But now I'll never hear her voice."
He remained silent. I was left only with my sobs, heart sinking to the bottom of the abyss. She'd killed my daughter, kicked the body to the roadside, and walked away like nothing happened. Why? Why?!
"…I'll try," he said suddenly.
I blinked in shock. "But not for the money…" He hesitated. "I have a child."
He stopped. "I had a child once."
Everything fell into place. If he had a child, he wouldn't be out here risking his life for dangerous money unless he'd also lost his child. Whatever had happened in his past, I didn't have time to ask.
Air thick and the coffin stifling, I inhaled the remaining oxygen, heart pounding.
"The problem is…how do I kill her? I don't even know where she is."
"I'll tell you where she is," I said.
My mind raced. I remembered the last time my best friend and I exchanged calls—she'd been in a moving car. That had seemed odd then; she'd been expected to be near my coffin. Now, something in that detail would be useful. I had to piece it together. I had to make her pay.
If I’d been smothered to death earlier, who would tell her the code?
She wouldn’t get a penny.
Thinking further, she shouldn’t have buried me alive at all — she should’ve tortured me, to make sure I was alive when I gave up the password… But now I had a conclusion.
Only one possibility. It had to be this.
The local militia had nothing personal against her; they were just paid to do her bidding.
Killing? That was everyday business for them. If the price was right, they’d do it.
If it was just a money deal, she wouldn’t dare linger here.
If the militia discovered she had that much cash, she wouldn’t survive either.
That’s why, when they forced me out of the car at gunpoint, she said nothing except demanding the password.
So after I was buried alive, she must have taken my daughter, gotten into that SUV, and headed straight back toward the border.
As fast as possible.
“Eric, she’s heading for the border!”
But Eric hesitated.
“Yet if I go now, how could I make it… Do you want me to go back home and kill her?”
“She won’t return home! I’ll make her come to you.”
Eric didn’t understand at first.
To be honest, I’d never been so grateful that I’d crossed paths with a scammer.
“You work that racket — you must have some kind of phone-bombing software, right?”
“Yeah… I do.”
“I need you to call my best friend. I’ll give you the number. Tell her you’re with the militia. Tell her you dug me out and want to renegotiate! If she won’t agree, say you’ll let me go home alive!”
I was certain — letting me go alive was my friend’s greatest fatal weakness.
“But if she calls the militia to verify, she’ll blow the whole thing…”
Eric paused, then seemed to get it.
“Exactly. So you need to bomb every phone number that militia has. Then she can’t verify anything and will have to negotiate with you.”
I spoke fast and low. “Tell her where she’s going — that’s your call.”
“Wait, wait… I don’t even know which militia it is. All I know is it’s south…”
I bit my lip and forced my memory. “I saw them wearing blood-red armbands with crossed blades.”
“I know which one that is, but… how am I supposed to get every number? I can only get a few small leaders’ numbers… maybe the driver’s too.”
This was already far better than I’d dared hope.
“We have to gamble,” I said. “My best friend won’t have every number either. She’ll only reach out to some small leader, maybe the driver. We have to gamble that those two are in the list you’re going to blast.”
“I get it… I get it…”
Eric finally understood my plan.
“And when you call, make sure she’s actually in the car! Wait until the driver leaves before you bluff her, otherwise she can confirm things.”
One last point: “She’s armed, but once she’s near the border she’ll have to ditch the gun.”
“Damn…” Eric swore. “If those militia trace it back to me, I’m gone too.”
He was right. Against my friend’s three-year setup, this was a reckless, risky play. But if it worked, Eric just had to wait for her to walk into the trap.
“Shit!”
He hung up. “Wait for my call.”
Those were his last words.
Silence fell again.
I lay in the coffin, chewing every breath from the oxygen tank.
There wasn’t much left.
But I couldn’t die.
Not until I heard with my own ears that she was dead.
Time had never felt so long.
I forced myself not to sleep, forcing my mind to think of anything useful — my ex-husband’s indifferent face when he’d asked for the divorce; the cramped rental where I’d held my daughter close; the soft smile on her face when I told her fairy tales; and Eric.
Eric was a lot of mysteries. Why would a scammer call Myanmar numbers instead of domestic ones? I pieced together a possibility: maybe the SIM card I’d been using was something he’d sold on the black market. For him it’d be a perfect “zombie card” — he could harvest buyers’ information and run precise scams. If the card connected, that meant the holder was in Myanmar and, after being scammed, utterly unable to find help. Foolproof.
Or maybe he had a scrap of conscience and didn’t want to scam people from his own country. Maybe.
If I survived, I’d get my answers. Including about the child he’d once had. How long had it been? Why hadn’t he called me back?
Then, in the dark, the phone rang.
Eric’s voice came through.
He spoke in Burmese.
I froze. He knew I couldn’t understand Burmese. That meant he was speaking to someone else — to whom? My best friend?!
Eric urged whoever was on the other line. I dug my nails into my palm to keep from making noise inside the coffin, and I kept my voice weak and trembling, as if rescued.
“Please… please don’t bury me again. I’ll pay whatever….”
A woman’s Burmese swore at him — furious about a breach of contract, furious that I was still alive. It was my friend’s voice.
Her words were muffled. Eric couldn’t reach my friend himself; he was talking to her over the phone the way I was talking to him. She vanished from the line again. Had she gone to call the militia to verify? If she did, everything would be ruined.
I silently prayed.
After a long time, a different phone rang. Eric had answered another line. He was indeed on his way, talking to my friend on that second phone. I heard her voice again. I didn’t dare breathe.
Finally the call ended.
“She took the bait,” Eric said.
I broke out in a cold sweat.
“You guessed everything right,” he said, excited. “She couldn’t reach the militia and had to believe you. She turned back to negotiate with me.”
From the background I could tell he was in a car, engine revving. “She didn’t make it through the border — she turned around.”
“I picked a quiet place,” he said. “She took a local motorcycle taxi there. I’m heading over now. Ten minutes and we can gamble. The moment the motorbike leaves, I move.”
“How long can you hold out?” he asked.
“Don’t know… ten minutes, maybe.”
“I… I’ve already called the embassy… but I don’t know how long that’ll take…”
“It’s okay,” I said with a bitter laugh. “You’ve done well. How long I hold is my business.”
Silence, broken only by road noise.
“Can I ask you one last question?” I said.
“What?”
“Your child.”
Eric told me while working odd jobs: his child lived with him at the construction site, and one day ran into the path of a dump truck. Was it an accident? “He was killed,” Eric said.
“The driver was a guy from my hometown,” he continued. “The night before he’d stayed up all night gambling. He could’ve avoided it. He could’ve avoided it… but he fell asleep at the wheel. I went and pulled him out — there was still drool on his shirt.”
He laughed bitterly. “Don’t blame me for being awkward about this. I kind of envy you.”
“Envy me?”
“You can hate someone and demand revenge. I wanted revenge, but I didn’t even know who to blame. The driver? Myself?” His voice trailed off. “I drifted through life, and I’ll keep drifting.”
We said nothing after that. The air in the tank dwindled to almost nothing.
I took only shallow sips every few seconds. The coffin’s stale air made me drowsy. For the last time, I tried to reach the oxygen canister, but my arms were too weak to press the release. I fumbled, the mask bumped the wood and came loose. I used my teeth to press the button with the last strength I had. The bottle gave up its final breath.
I sucked it in and held onto consciousness.
“Kill her…”
I managed to whisper.
“You’re awake?!” Eric sounded shocked.
“Kill her…and I’ll tell you the password. While I still have my mind…”
“Don’t kill me — I’ll tell you the password too!”
My friend screamed, frantic. “You don’t have to risk anything. You can still get the money! This is the best plan, right?!”
“Also! Also! I don’t know if she told you, but there’s an exploitable hole at my job. You can make money from it!”
She clawed for every lifeline, panicked. “I’ll keep sharing that exploit so others can make money! Then I’ll bring those people here — like her — kill them and keep the cash! I’ll share the cut with you—”
Half—no, however much you want, take it all!
This money isn’t risky. You can take it back home and become rich!”
“I really am planning to do that. You can check my phone—look at my messages with my husband. We were really going to keep doing this!”
“You don’t have to kill anyone yourself. I’ll handle it!
I’ve done this before!
You just need to split the money!”
He stayed silent.
It felt like we’d hit an impossible stalemate.
My best friend and I could only wait for him to make a choice.
37 It’s strange—at a time like this, I suddenly remembered something interesting.
When was that?
I think it was just after the divorce. I’d rented a place with my daughter and was haggling with the elderly landlady.
She accused me—pointing right at my nose—like I was some kind of profession.
I eventually won the bargain, but I cried in front of my daughter.
I held her in that empty little spare room and sobbed.
Suddenly my daughter wiped my tears.
She brought paper and wrote: “Mom is a great hero.”
38 “Eric.”
With the last of my strength I said, “I won’t last many minutes….”
“When I get there, I’ll look for my child and I’ll look for yours.”
“I’ll tell him that you’ve been blaming yourself.”
“My daughter will tell him his father was a hero.”
Eric didn’t answer.
But I heard my best friend’s voice turn into a strangled sob.
And then a spraying sound—like a gas cylinder letting off pressure.
Her windpipe had been cut. Blood sprayed out.
39 The coffin felt dull and immovable; the wooden lid wouldn’t budge.
On the phone, Eric got back into the car.
After flooring the gas, I heard him take another call.
A few quick sentences and he hung up.
“Once we find them, I’ll arrange to stop the call-bombing. I gave the small bosses’ numbers to the embassy.”
He said, “They just negotiated the money and agreed to release them.”
He said, “I’m on my way to your place to hand over that hard drive.”
Strangely, it was all full of dead people’s money, and now it could be used to save lives.
“I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”
He said, “But you don’t have to hold out that long—someone’s coming to dig you up!”
Can I hold on?
I don’t know.
My eyes were already failing me. Voices through the phone sounded impossibly distant.
My daughter was gone.
My thirst for revenge was sated—but I couldn’t even muster the will to keep fighting.
“If you fall asleep now, you’re done!
You’ll die!!”
He shouted, “Don’t sleep!
Don’t sleep!!!”
But my body had reached its limit.
I could feel every nerve burning out, like a candle guttering in oil.
“You know, I saw the chat history on her phone.
They really planned to keep doing this business!”
“You saved those people!”
Did I…? I felt the coffin tremble slightly, like the heavy soil above being clawed away by an iron shovel.
But my mind was slipping.
My eyes rolled back involuntarily; darkness closed in, swallowing me bit by bit.
“Don’t sleep!
Ganning!
I’m Ganning!
Don’t sleep!”
He screamed, throwing my own insults back at me.
“I haven’t found your daughter’s body yet. If you sleep, I’ll bring her home for burial!”
“You want us buried together, right?
No fucking way!
Don’t even think about it!”
“No embassy will help you. If you dare fall asleep, I will make sure you are buried separately!
You’ll die without seeing her again!
I mean it!”
God… “Gan…ning….”
I forced the words out, barely coherent.
My teeth bit into my finger until it bled.
An excruciating pain flared through my head.
The coffin shook harder.
One finger went numb, then another.
“Wait for me.”
He said, “We’ll look for the kids together.”
A thin sliver of light shone through the cracks.
I would wait for him.
—end
After the day they told me to go home, I found my daughter.
She lay collapsed in the roadside grass, a bullet in her chest, her blood dry.
She never woke up.
Two days later I held my daughter’s ashes and moved into Eric’s house.
His home was small. On the wall hung a portrait of his child—a chubby little boy.
Downstairs was his “company.”
It was full of phones used for scams and several computers.
Secondhand smoke and the sour stink of sweat drifted up to the upstairs rooms.
I crouched on the floor, burning paper money for the kids.
The man beside me said softly, “I’m sorry.”
He was Eric.
Tall and thin, wearing a floral shirt.
He still felt guilty—if he’d believed me earlier, maybe my daughter wouldn’t have… I didn’t blame him.
I planned to bring my daughter home and turn myself in.
But before that, I had one more thing to do.
3
“You know, to everyone else I’m already dead.”
I told him.
Yes. When they dug me out of the dirt, the first thing I said to Eric was: “Tell the embassy I’m dead.”
He didn’t understand but did it anyway.
Today I would tell him why I’d done it.
“Because my death will terrify my ex-husband.”
“That terror is the bait to make him take the hook.”
4 Remember earlier, when I was trapped in that coffin?
I recorded a message exposing my ex-husband and my best friend for colluding to defraud and murder.
My original plan was to leak it to the media at home, so my ex—hiding back in the country—would be cornered and face justice.
But, as Eric said, “Time was short, the mission heavy. I couldn’t spare the time.”
He never got the recording to the media.
Back to that day.
After they dug me out, Eric sped me along the mountain road toward the nearest hospital.
Fresh air flooded the car; my head was so congested I felt like I was going to die.
“It’s okay, it’s okay now.”
He floored it and tried to calm me. “We’re almost at the hospital.”
Then his phone rang.
He glanced, answered.
“He listened a bit.
‘Yes, the person is in my car…’”
He said.
“The embassy? Where are you located? No, I need to get her to the hospital first…”
It was the embassy calling.
“Yes, I know who buried her…”
“All the details? Damn, this is complicated—hold on while I sort this out… oh, I have a recording. I’ll send it and you’ll understand!”
Right then, through the blur, I realized something.
It seemed the embassy didn’t yet know. Everything that happened had been plotted by my ex-husband and my best friend.
An opportunity—an opportunity to make him pay in blood.
Half-lying on the back seat, I wanted to ask Eric to wait.
But I could barely make a sound.
Finally I fumbled the seat belt and tumbled heavily out of the back.
Eric heard the noise and looked at me in the rearview, startled.
He noticed me, gently shaking his head.
He hung up and stopped the car. I gasped for a long time.
“Tell the embassy… I’m dead…”
I finally managed to say.
He froze.
“And… that recording…”
I said, “Don’t send it to anyone.”
Then I blacked out.
5 Luckily, Eric did as I asked.
When I woke in the hospital, he told me.
He said he had told the embassy I’d died en route to the hospital.
“Of course they kept calling, wanting to help repatriate your body. I kept dragging my feet…”
“Don’t contact them for now…”
My body was weak, but I thought of something. “Will this cause you trouble?”
“Not really… my phone numbers are a mess; they can’t trace me. But…”
“You didn’t want them to know the truth?”
He couldn’t understand. “Why? Still trying to protect your ex?”
I shook my head.
The truth was the opposite.
Because of Eric’s call, I’d confirmed one thing: when he had called the embassy for help that day, he only had time to say I’d been buried alive by local armed forces and give the forces’ affiliation and contact info.
He didn’t have time to explain the reason I was buried or name the mastermind—he had no time and had to hang up and go after my best friend.
Fortunately, the things I arranged before I lost consciousness had prevented him from spilling everything.
Now, besides Eric and me, nobody knew my ex-husband was the real killer!
He was still free.
And his freedom was exactly what I needed.
6 Back to the present.
We burned paper for the kids.
I held my best friend’s phone.
The chat ended at the conversation between my ex-husband and me.
Posing as my best friend, I told him: your ex-wife’s body was handed over by local forces to the embassy.
It’s not safe to return home; it’s too risky.
Maybe the local forces already outed our deal.
Run!
The faster the better!
Come here— the hard drive is with me.
We can become local overlords.
He wanted to call me. I refused, saying, “You’re in the country; you might be tapped.”
He was suspicious, sure.
But as I expected, something else happened.
News of my death spread through the media back home.
Why didn’t the local forces hide this secret?
Had the local forces already betrayed us?!
All those questions would keep him terrified day and night.
Even more telling was the embassy’s stance—they couldn’t confirm or deny anything. They could only say my status was uncertain and they were searching.
He was already panicked; with me, the scariest explanation was the one I gave: “They’re trying to lull you before arresting you—that’s why it’s ambiguous!”
“If you don’t run now, it’ll be too late!”
The last message on the phone said he’d left the country.
He was on a local motorcycle taxi headed for the place he’d agreed to meet me.
The paper money had burned to dry ash.
“Because my death will terrify him.”
I said.
The climate here was much more humid and hot than back home.
I’d gotten used to sandals and floral shirts without noticing.
I climbed into Eric’s car and we drove to the meeting place.
The place where they killed people.
7 The sky darkened.
We’d arranged to meet on a deserted road.
Eric’s car was an old SUV.
Right now, we sit by the roadside, quietly inside the car.
Quietly waiting.
Saying I'm not nervous would be a lie.
My hands are trembling slightly.
Slowly, a local moto rickshaw appears up the road.
The driver had already taken our money and was urging the man in the back to get out. Then he drove off without looking back.
The man who got out clutching a bag.
It's my ex-husband.
On this desolate road.
Only this old SUV waits for him.
"Turn on the hazards."
I tell Eric.
The lights blink.
My ex waves and starts walking toward us.
But this is a road he will never forget.
Beside the road is a pre-dug pit; I see him glance at it, startled and uncertain.
Once, I had terrifiedly asked myself the same question: what was it for?
Next to that pit is another patch of earth—
clearly disturbed, like something adult-sized had been buried there.
Laura is in it.
Less than a few meters from him.
Eric's car still has its hazards on.
My ex finally grows wary. He stops and calls me.
It's the first time I answer.
"Laura, get out. I want to see you."
I can feel the fear in his breath.
He's close now. Close enough.
I say nothing, open the car door, and get out.
His face is the face of someone seeing a ghost.
"Long time no see."
I smile at him.
He drops the phone in panic and flees blindly.
The sky is dim; it feels like it could crush us.
He can't get away.
My ex's hands and feet are bound, his mouth taped.
Blood seeps from the back of his head—Eric landed a heavy blow when he turned to run.
I check his breath; he's alive.
I empty his pockets—documents, phone, wallet… everything—and then slap him hard across the cheek.
Finally, his eyes flutter open.
He struggles violently and lets out a pained whimper.
But it's all pointless.
Tears stream from his eyes as he looks at me, pleading.
He wants to speak—at that moment a thousand pleas and bargaining offers flood his mind—anything if I'll spare him.
"Do you know? My daughter spoke for the first time here."
I say.
"But no one cared what she said."
"No one gave her a chance to live."
"You caused that."
He sobs, his head hitting the ground like he's kowtowing.
I stay silent for a long moment.
"You are the child's father… I once loved you… Laura also said your plan was to get the child back to the country alive…"
I say.
A new spark ignites in his eyes.
He crazily bangs his head on the ground, wailing.
"If you sincerely repent, I could let you go…"
Maybe he didn't expect that I would rip the tape off his mouth.
After that, like a terrified animal, he screams endless confessions.
He says he's sorry to us both, that he's not human, that he never intended to kill our daughter, that he was wrong about Laura.
I wait calmly until he's finished.
Then, into his horrified eyes, I put the tape back over his mouth.
"Shh—quiet," I soothe him. "You confessed well."
"But my daughter can't hear you."
"Your confession is meaningless."
I shove his heavy body into the pit.
Gripping the shovel, I throw dirt over him.
I make a point to avoid covering his face and eyes with the first shovelfuls.
I want him to watch himself being buried alive, bit by bit.
He still struggles at first, but the dirt keeps coming. With what's left of his strength, he can't break free.
A strange irony hits me.
This was supposed to be the ending he set for me.
Eric stands to the side, smoking, thinking.
He had offered to help earlier, but I refused.
This is between my ex and me; I have to finish it.
"Are you really going back to the country?" Eric asks.
He knows what awaits me there.
"Yes… I'm sending my daughter home."
"Can I go instead?…"
Then he realizes: for a mother, the last stretch with her child can only be walked by the mother.
He scratches his head and sighs. "I'll go with you."
I pause with the shovel in my hand.
"I want to go home and see my child too," he says.
"My house will probably be lost—likely auctioned by the courts."
"I've legally earned my wages these years; it's a nest egg," I say.
"Why are we talking money now?"
"Not all of it is for you. I'll give you an address—the spare room we used to live in."
"That place is out of the way; it's not worth much. Buy the whole place. Whatever it takes, buy it," I say. "Clean it up. Let my daughter come back there."
It feels like time rewinding.
I'm still working late; she's still waiting for me to come home.
One day I'll return.
I'll hold her.
She waited for me; I'm back by her side.
"If nobody lives there, it'll get dusty," he says, scratching his head.
I look at him.
He hesitates. "…I'm actually pretty good at cleaning and organizing."
"Are you sure? Your office and home are a mess," I say.
He gives an embarrassed smile. "Practice makes perfect. You build skills over time."
We go quiet for a long while.
I turn back and finish burying the last of the dirt.
Thick soil covers him; there is no trace of my ex anymore.
Only the sound of the shovel breaking earth.
"…You'll wait a long time, you know," I say.
"Yeah, I'll wait there for you."
It's strange—while we're burying a man alive, we're talking about the future.
…The abandoned road, the covered pit.
Covered with dead grass, unknown to anyone.
We drive off in the old SUV, moving slowly.
Night is falling; the road ahead is dark.
But the car's lights brighten what's right in front of us.
The end of the night doesn't seem so frightening anymore.
—end
