Chapter 3

My last memory of Shane was his affection score rising to 99, then plummeting.

I remembered his red-rimmed eyes and the fury on his face.

"You lied to me? I'll never forgive you!"

The Shane from that memory seemed to stand before me again.

His breathing grew heavy.

One question from me stripped away his composure.

He took two angry steps toward me. "You still dare bring up the past?"

His gaze swept over the men I had once tried to win over.

"Surprised? All of us have been making a fool of you."

"It felt good to watch you fawn over us without a shred of dignity."

Shane stood close to me.

He kept his eyes fixed on my face.

It was as if he wanted to catch every flicker of emotion.

To his surprise, I stayed calm.

I felt neither anger nor sadness.

I gave him a faint smile. "Good. I'm glad you felt better."

"This is your engagement party. Don't waste any more of your time on me."

A sea of flowers stretched into the distance.

Every detail matched the plans Shane and I once made together.

I guessed whose engagement party this was as soon as I arrived.

When I turned to leave, a brief hush fell over the guests.

Then a deafening crash rang out behind me.

Shane's fiancée stepped on the tablecloth beneath the champagne tower, and ten tiers of glasses collapsed to the floor.

I knew this sort of scene all too well.

Shane grabbed me and rushed forward, using me as a shield for his fiancée.

In a flash, a jacket appeared in front of me.

Even so, shards of glass rained down over my body.

The pain sent a thrill through me. I called to the system in my mind.

[System, can you make a shard cut my neck so I die right here?]

[Uh... Give me a second to check.]

Before the system could do anything, the jacket's owner, Shane, shouted in alarm.

"Yvonne! Hurry! Call an ambulance!"

He knelt beside his fiancée, Yvonne Chambers, and cradled her. The glass cut her.

In his panic, he glanced at me and at the jacket lying beside me. His lips twisted.

"I must've lost my mind. I forgot you have a system. No matter what happens to you, you always come back alive."

"Someone take her too. She can give Yvonne blood!"

I felt like a rag doll full of holes.

Glass shards and bloody wounds covered my arms and thighs as they shoved me into the car.

Pain spread through every part of me.

But I smiled with relief.

I obediently followed them to the blood donation room.

Through a pane of glass, I watched Shane's cold expression.

"Her blood type matches Yvonne's. Yvonne is frail and needs the blood. As for this woman..."

His smile twisted with hatred when he spoke of me. "You could drain every drop from her body, and she'd still be fine. Nothing you do can kill her."

I closed my eyes and held back my excitement.

[System, did you hear that? He's going to put me through it! Does that mean I'll die soon?]

I watched the doctor connect the tubing to me and couldn't resist telling her:

"Take more if you need to. I'm fine. Saving her is what matters."

The doctor paused and gave me a troubled look, though her hands kept moving.

"Miss Chambers only lost a little blood. She's in no danger. You only need to donate 300 milliliters."

I blinked in confusion.

The doctor in this virtual world suddenly acted like a normal doctor. My chance to suffer vanished, so I hurriedly called on the system for help.

[Don't worry. I've already tampered with the equipment!]

[Nice work!]

I lay back, reassured.

Sure enough, before long, the doctor noticed how pale I had become.

"What's going on? Is the pump broken? Why won't it stop?"

As I lost more blood, I grew dizzy. My heart raced, and my thoughts blurred.

"Shane, what are you doing? You're going to kill her!"

"Hey, Shane! I haven't even had my turn yet. Give me a chance! I actually kind of like her."

"Shut up!"

Had they all gathered here?

I couldn't spare a thought for it. Their voices faded.

Satisfied, I closed my eyes.