Chapter 1

My father, Alistair Montgomery, blocked my path in a violent rage.

“Five years of learning discipline, and you come back acting like a mad dog! Where are your manners!”

My mother, Evelina Montgomery, quickly patted his chest to calm his breathing, before turning to look at me with heartbroken resentment.

“Your brother has been playing the victim and deceiving people since he was a child. These injuries are probably just another one of his self-inflicted pity plays!

“What on earth did that mental hospital teach you? It turned you into such a ruthless, vicious monster who doesn’t even recognize his own blood!”

Roman felt paper-thin in my arms, and I could barely feel him breathing.

Panic consumed me. Right now, nothing mattered more than saving Roman.

Yet Cassandra stepped in front of me, barring my way. “Apologize to Atticus right now! Otherwise, don’t ever dream of stepping foot through the doors of my family’s estate again!”

SLAP!

Without a second thought, I delivered a vicious slap straight across Cassandra’s face.

“Get out of my way! Anyone who blocks me dies.

“If anything happens to Roman, I’ll make every single one of you pay with your lives!”

Along with the slap, a system prompt chimed in my mind: [Strength +1!]

Cassandra clutched her cheek, her eyes filled with absolute disbelief.

“Lysander, how dare you strike me?”

Atticus gently touched her swollen cheek, looking at her with deep concern.

“Lysander, Cassandra is your fiancée! How could you... how could you hit her so hard!”

I didn’t have time to deal with them. I turned toward the servants in the courtyard and roared, “Call an ambulance right now! Get a car and drive my brother to the foot of the mountain!”

The Montgomery family mansion was situated halfway up the mountain. It would take an ambulance half an hour to climb up, so the fastest way was to meet them at the bottom.

Yet no matter how loudly I shouted, the dozens of drivers and servants in the courtyard kept their heads bowed, pretending to be deaf. Not a single person dared to respond.

A cold, bitter laugh escaped my lips.

Of course. They still viewed me as the weak, spineless young master from five years ago—skinny as a rail, with words that carried zero weight.

But now, I had awakened the Slap System. My combat strength was off the charts.

“Lysander… don’t let them… hurt you…”

Hearing me argue with them, Roman squeezed out a faint, anxious whisper from my arms as blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

My heart contracted painfully, and tears instantly blurred my vision.

Even at a moment like this, his only concern was protecting me.

I raised my hand and delivered a brutal slap across the face of the nearest driver, Everett Callahan.

“Get the car started now!”

With a sharp CRACK, vibrant red finger marks instantly swelled up on Everett’s cheek.

Seeing this, the other drivers rushed forward, shouting all at once.

“Lysander, how can you just hit people like that? We came here to work, not to be your punching bags!”

“Mr. Montgomery issued a strict order long ago saying Roman needs ‘discipline’ and isn’t allowed to ride in a car for even a single step! Whoever lets him in a car gets fired on the spot! If you force us to drive, will you take responsibility when we lose our jobs?”

I froze in disbelief upon hearing those words.

Roman struggled to flutter his eyelids open, his weak fingers clutching at the corner of my shirt.

“Lysander... don’t worry about me... I don’t want... to make things hard for you…”

Looking down at his pale, almost translucent face, I suddenly caught a fleeting glimpse of a small figure from five years ago.

Back then, he had clung tightly to my leg, refusing to let go no matter how hard the men pulling me away tugged, screaming in heart-wrenching tears:

“Don’t take my brother away…”

And throughout those five long years of torture, he had secretly trekked across the mountains every month to visit me, sneaking clean food and supplies to me—becoming my only ray of light.

And now they were telling me that he was forbidden from using any car in this household? How had he made those trips every time back then?

...Did he walk up and down the mountain, step by step, entirely on his own two feet?

Recalling the faded, washed-out old clothes he wore every time he saw me, along with his legs that were always trembling and unable to stand firm...

My heart felt as if it had been ripped in half, and tears gushed out uncontrollably.

I gently laid Roman down on the side, slowly rubbing my wrist as I raised a pair of blood-red eyes.

Refusing the easy way out?

Fine.

Then allow me to treat every single one of you to a feast of slaps!