Chapter 4

[You still have the nerve to play the loving mother online? Look at what you did to your own daughter.]

[How is someone this cruel still alive? And she’s been making money off that fake mom image?]

[Careful, everyone. She’s probably about to post some crying video about how depressed she is.]

Insult after insult pushed my mother closer to the edge.

With nowhere else to put her rage, she turned it all on me.

“You cursed girl.”

Her voice trembled as she glared at my body.

“Even dead, you still won’t leave us alone. You ruined me.

“What did I do wrong?”

She began to sob and mutter to herself.

“I just didn’t want you forming a bond with me. I didn’t want to die like my first daughter. Is it wrong that I wanted to live?”

Then she kicked off one of her high heels, grabbed it in her hand, and slammed it down against my corpse.

Again.

And again.

Every strike was vicious.

My face, already stiff in death, was beaten until it was almost impossible to recognize.

I floated above them and watched it all happen.

My eyes felt hollow.

And still, somewhere deep inside me, a faint ache remained.

“Mom, are you insane?”

Connor pointed at his phone screen.

In the livestream box at the lower corner, my mother’s face appeared clearly.

Twisted.

Grieving.

Vicious.

She had not realized that every second of this latest cruelty had gone live again.

My father stepped forward and tried to calm her down.

“It’s fine.”

His voice was low and controlled.

“Worst case, you stop posting online. It’s not like this family can’t support you.”

But even my father did not expect the image on the phone to change in the next moment.

The livestream camera turned toward him.

When I was fifteen, my father was targeted by a former business partner and nearly died in a car accident.

In the video, a car slammed into him and sent him flying across the road.

His leg snapped on impact.

White bone pierced through torn skin, and blood spread beneath him in a dark pool.

My mother and Connor saw everything.

But neither of them stepped forward.

They were too afraid of getting their expensive custom-made clothes dirty.

They stood far away and watched him bleed, as if he were a stranger.

Only I ran to him.

I was terrified, shaking so hard I could barely breathe, but I still rushed over without thinking.

I pressed my clothes against his wound and called 911.

My father was taken into emergency surgery.

I spent every point I had to make sure he survived the operation.

Then I took three days off from school and stayed awake for three days and three nights to take care of him.

But when he finally opened his eyes, the first thing he did was rip out his IV.

He grabbed the glass bottle beside him and smashed it against my forehead.

Blood ran down my face.

He looked at my exhausted, frightened expression and found comfort in his own twisted reasoning.

“It’s because of you.”

His voice was hoarse with hatred.

“Because you’re cursed, I got into that accident. Every bit of pain I suffered was because of you.

“I hit you because you deserved it.”

Beside me, the System let out a long sigh.

“Host, was it really worth spending all your points to save someone like this? Now your points are gone, and every mission has to start over. If you fail to form a bond in the end, you will be erased.”

I held back the pain and gave it a bright smile.

“It’s okay. I can earn more points.”

My voice was small, but stubborn.

“But I only have one dad.”

The System muttered under its breath.

“A dad like that is worse than no dad at all.”

In my last life, I had been an orphan.

I had never known what having a family felt like.

This time, after I came into this world, I finally had blood relatives.

For the first time, I thought I understood what it meant to belong to someone.

Nothing I did for them was ever for points.

I did it because they were my family.

The people I loved most.

By the time the video reached this part, the comments were still pouring in, furious and relentless.

That car accident had made the news back then.

It had caused a huge stir and stayed on the trending list for days.

People quickly realized this was not some scripted drama.

It had really happened.

[I’m honestly speechless. She was the only one in that family who cared whether he lived or died, and he still treated her like that? He’s worse than an animal.]