Chapter 2

The presentation venue was lavishly decorated.

A giant LED screen was split down the middle, separated into left and right.

On the left was a highlight reel of Ethan's life, from childhood to the present. It was a life built on money.

He was riding horses at an equestrian club, winning an international fencing competition, and celebrating his birthday at a five-star hotel. He was like a proud little prince, shining so brightly.

And on the right... The footage was dark and shaky, filmed as though someone were spying on me.

It was me.

At ten, I wore rough linen clothes that did not fit and stumbled along a mountain path under a load of firewood taller than I was. At twelve, I knelt on the ridge between fields, digging up wild greens a little at a time with my bare hands. Black mud packed my fingernails. At fourteen, I held a sickle to my own throat to keep the landlord's daughter, who had an intellectual disability, from pestering me, my eyes fierce.

The reporters and scholars in the audience gasped in astonishment.

"My God, what a contrast."

"Is this how the same genes express themselves in different environments?"

"Dr. Howard's experiment is remarkable. The methods might be a little extreme, but its scientific value is enormous."

My mom stood in the spotlight, basking in their praise. She aimed her laser pointer at the filthy image of me on the screen. "Everyone, take a look. Six years ago, we separated these twins.

"The older brother, Ethan Howard, stayed with us and received the finest education available. The younger brother, Evan, was sent to a film studio we had built for this experiment to recreate a medieval city in every detail."

"We hired actors and recreated extreme survival challenges, including famine, epidemics, and severe cold. Our goal was to disprove the myth that people are inherently good. Under conditions of extreme scarcity, people's moral standards are extraordinarily fragile."

I floated beside the podium and watched myself on the screen.

It showed the drought that had happened when I was fourteen. My mother had fallen seriously ill, and she needed something to nourish her body. I had stared at the neighbor's chicken coop for a long time. Yes… Chicken soup would work.

My mom circled that image with her laser pointer, excitement in her voice. "Look here! Look at his eyes! That's greed! Possessiveness! The first sign of criminal behavior! Our data showed his heart rate increasing and his adrenaline surging. He was definitely going to steal that chicken!"

People in the audience nodded, almost as though they had already seen proof of my moral decline, but the footage kept playing.

I turned around and walked away. Instead, I went into the hills behind the village, crawled through thorn bushes all day, and returned with two snakes. I made soup with them and served it to my mother as I said with a smile, "Mom, eat this. It's good and will help with your strength."

My hands were covered in bloody cuts from the thorns.

She stumbled over her words, but she quickly recovered and brushed past the scene. "He didn't steal it this time, but the ignorance and shortsightedness that come with poverty are already deeply ingrained in him. Look, he would rather catch dangerous snakes. He doesn't even know how to get resources more efficiently. That shows a decline in intelligence."

I wanted to laugh at her absurd explanation, yet I could not shed a tear.

A decline in intelligence?

I had survived in that ruthless world through my own labor without stealing or robbing anyone, yet she called that a decline in intelligence?

My dad took the microphone and added his own comments. "We've also found that children raised in such environments become deeply repressed and insecure. They're nothing like our cheerful, outgoing Ethan."

He turned toward Ethan, who was sitting in the VIP section.

Ethan had his head down, playing on the latest gaming console. He had no interest in watching his younger brother suffer on the screen.

When he noticed our dad looking at him, Ethan gave him an exasperated look. "Dad, how much longer do we have to watch this? I'm supposed to meet my friends to play basketball."

Our dad gave him a gentle look. "Not much longer. This inferior subject should show his true colors soon."

Just then, my mom raised her voice, a crazed light in her eyes. "To make our findings even more striking... We created an artificial snowstorm on the film set and lowered the temperature to four degrees below zero Fahrenheit three days ago. At the same time, we cut off all food supplies to the area.

"We wanted to see what immoral things this test subject, brainwashed by poverty, would do when faced with death. Would he abandon his sick parents to save himself? Or kill someone for food?"

Her words made my mind go blank.

So, they had caused that sudden blizzard. The bitter cold that had killed me on the road was just the result of them pressing a button.

As I died, I had thought fate was simply cruel.