Chapter 2

I took a cab to the villa in Galaxy Bay, and the lights shone across the neatly trimmed lawn.

Something pulled me toward the tall window, and I looked inside.

In the warm light, Stacy watched Emma with quiet tenderness.

My best friend, John, gently placed a birthday hat on Emma’s head.

A three-tier birthday cake sat on the table.

The three of them laughed with such ease, and they looked like a happy family.

John stood in my place while wearing a designer suit I had never seen before.

The watch he was wearing cost what I earned in an entire year of playing a corpse on camera. He looked as if he were Emma’s father.

I stood outside like a gutter rat, and I could only gaze at the happiness that should have belonged to me.

Inside, John said something to Stacy with a smile, and her expression darkened at once.

“It’s Emma’s birthday. Don’t bring up that man.”

My six-year-old daughter looked up, and her young voice carried a cold edge.

“Uncle John, don’t talk about him. It’s my birthday, and talking about a corpse brings bad luck.”

Her disgust cut straight through me, and tears slipped down my face in huge torrents.

Three years earlier, Emma had been diagnosed with a rare blood ailment, and the doctor said the treatment would cost several million dollars in total.

An ordinary family could not afford that.

Stacy had held me and said she felt useless because she could not gather that much money.

I told her I would take care of everything.

So I accepted livestream work where I pretended to be a corpse.

All I had to do was lie motionless in different coffins, and curious viewers would send tips.

At first, the income was decent. Then, the money dwindled.

I thought it was because the platform had more competition, and I raised my stream duration from eight hours to twelve and then to sixteen.

I believed that if I worked harder, I could collect enough money.

I did not know that all of it had been a carefully crafted trap.

My sacrifices and my failing body were the only things that were real.

My thoughts settled, and the villa door opened.

Stacy came out with a bag of trash, and she was humming like she was in a really good mood.

She raised her head and saw me standing in the shadows.

Her smile froze, as if I were someone who should not have appeared.

She rushed over and pulled me into a corner of the yard. She started questioning me at once.

“What’re you doing here?!”

I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood and forced the welling tears back.

I raised my head and tried to act as if nothing had happened.

“I went home and saw that the place had been sold. Your friend told me you’d moved here.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you moved?”

Stacy’s expression was painfully awkward, and her eyes darted away from mine.

“Well, the old place had bad luck, so I sold it. You were staying at the company, and I didn’t get to tell you.”

She stumbled over her explanation, and she pretended to show concern.

“You should’ve called me to let me know that you were coming home. I could’ve picked you up.”

I met her gaze calmly and said, “I called you more than ten times, but you didn’t answer.”

Stacy could not keep her expression composed. She was speechless for a long moment.

John emerged with Emma. When he got to us, he wrapped an arm around Stacy’s shoulders.

He spotted me and showed the perfect amount of surprise.

“Hey Sam, what’re you doing here?”