Why Could Everyone In The Family See A Countdown?

My daughter, Elise Dolton, got sick, so I rushed over to take care of her. The moment I stepped inside, a rotten stench hit me right in the face, so I offered to help clean the place up. Her roommates' faces dropped right away. "What smell, Mrs. Dolton? The place is fine." "If you think it's such a dump, then have Elise move out. Don't come in here acting like you're better than all of us. We're not putting up with that!" Even Elise shoved me impatiently. "If you’re here to visit, then just act like it. Stop making a scene and embarrassing me, okay?” They were all college roommates, splitting rent on a run-down unit in an old complex. When I went in, I noticed them gathered around a pot of spicy stew. The room was thick with steam and smoke, but it still couldn't cover that awful stench. Strangely, none of them seemed to notice it. Had something gone wrong with my sense of smell? That night, the smell was so overwhelming that I couldn't fall asleep. In the end, I realized the odor was coming from Elise herself. I hurried her into the bathroom and scrubbed her down over and over, but the smell didn't fade at all. It stayed just as strong. With no other option, I called a cleaner, planning to disinfect the entire place inside and out. But Elise's roommates felt offended and started arguing with me. In the chaos, someone shoved me. My temple slammed into the sharp corner of the coffee table, and I died on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment I first walked through the door. The stench rushed at me all over again...

Gilbert Pierce, my wife's male trainee, bragged that he could disarm a bomb just by relying on his senses and with his eyes closed. However, he misjudged it and triggered the bomb's secondary detonation sequence. I stepped in at the last second and used the most dangerous method available, liquid nitrogen flash cooling, to save the entire building. Gilbert was pulled off frontline duty and placed on suspension for review. My wife, Jasmine Clem, tried to speak up for him, but I stopped her cold. "If you defend him now, you won't save him. You'll just get dragged down and suspended alongside him." Unable to handle the pressure, Gilbert blew himself up in an accident. In his suicide note, he accused Jasmine of choosing self-preservation when he needed her most. Jasmine said nothing. She only locked that letter away in her study. Years later, Jasmine became a nationally renowned bomb disposal expert. During a terrorist attack, I was captured and strapped with a timed explosive. Jasmine came to the scene personally to defuse it, but right in front of me, she repeated the exact same mistake her trainee had made years ago. She watched the countdown and smiled lightly at me. "See? He was just nervous back then. If I had encouraged him, he'd be a hero now." The bomb detonated, and I was blown apart. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment she was about to defend Gilbert. She didn't know that inside that building sat the nation's most classified core servers.

When I was born, the nurse handed me over to my parents, and the smiles on their faces instantly vanished. Hovering over their son's smooth head was a line of numbers that no one else could see. 6570 days. It was exactly 18 years. Not a day more, not a day less. The nurse thought they were just nervous first-time parents, but my parents knew the truth. That number was my lifespan. While everyone else in the delivery room was celebrating a new life, my parents were staring at my death. For the next 18 years, I was the most precious person in the family. No matter how poor we were, the eggs were always mine, the new clothes were always mine, and the meat was always mine. My younger sister could only look on enviously. My parents often told her, "Let your brother have it. He doesn't have much time left." I was well-behaved from a young age, never causing trouble, quietly waiting to die. On my 18th birthday, I blew out the candles and said a sincere goodbye to the world. The next day, my parents and sister, dressed in black clothes, walked into my room with swollen eyes. I rubbed my eyes, smiled at them, and said, "Good morning." The air froze. The sadness on their faces slowly turned into astonishment, then coldness.

To stay by the side of award-winning actress Victoria Quinn, I gave up the system's one-billion-dollar cash reward. I also drained every last one of my luck points to make her paralyzed legs heal. The price was that my life became bound to her loyalty. If she ever betrayed me, emotionally or physically, my soul would be ripped from my body and erased completely. At the moment of binding, I hesitated. But when I looked into her eyes and saw the depth of her love, I believed her. I believed her when she said, "Out of all the people in the world, I only want you." So I chose to become the man who stood silently behind her, giving everything without complaint, and I pressed confirm. For seven years, we loved each other as deeply as we had in the beginning. Hand in hand, we weathered every storm together. Until our wedding anniversary. I was in the kitchen making her favorite soup when I suddenly coughed violently and spat out a large pool of black blood. Then I looked down and saw my fingers slowly turning transparent, so faint that I could no longer even touch the glass in front of me. At the same time, a piercing alarm rang through my mind. "Warning. Bound target's love value has fallen below the critical threshold. Erasure protocol activated..."

Everyone in the mercenary group knew just how deeply Liam Smith loved me and feared losing me. He even suppressed his dark desires to make sure I felt truly safe. No matter how dangerous the mission, he made sure to check in every single day. Worried for his safety, I hid my identity and secretly became his team’s hacker. However, after one mission, I overheard the others joking over the radio: "Chief was in such a rush to pick that lock and go after Wendy. What's so irresistible about her?" Through an unattended monitor, I caught Liam glancing at the camera with a teasing smile. "Didn't I tell you guys that she nearly wrung me dry the last time we did it?" It felt like I had fallen into an ice-cold abyss. My heart shattered, and I summoned the system. [I want to leave this world.] The cold, mechanical voice replied without delay: [Once you leave, all traces of the host in this world will be erased.] [Starting the countdown: Seven days left.]

I plan a family trip at my mother Lucia Sweeney's request. While avoiding the danger zones, my sister Linda Harper and I are ambushed by rogues. To protect her, I throw myself in the path of their claws and get driven into a silver mine. As I fall, my back is slashed open to the bone, and shards of silver embed deep into my right leg. The searing silver poison spreads quickly, burning through me and my wolf. My wolf is whimpering—she's close to death. However, as the pack's chief healer, Mom gathers all the healers around Linda to give her a full check-up over a few minor scrapes. I sob and beg her to save me first. "Mom, the poison has almost reached my heart. I can't hold on anymore." She turns around impatiently and yells, "Are you seriously still fighting with Linda now? Do you have any idea how close she came to getting clawed in the face by a silver claw? Our pack doesn't have a wolf as heartless as you!" And in that moment, I hear my wolf's final whimper, saying goodbye. I finally fall asleep in the cold wind, never waking up again.