[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.]

My father stared at my ruined, battered body.

For a moment, he seemed lost.

Then he lowered his head and began muttering, as if the words could hold him together.

“No.

“She was born evil. She traded her own sister’s life for that System. She killed her sister. She was cursed from the very beginning.

“When I woke up after the accident, she was right there beside me. How was I supposed to know whether she had caused it on purpose?

“Maybe that was part of another bond mission.”

His voice grew colder, but his hands were trembling.

“I just didn’t want to be manipulated.”

Comments slid across the screen one after another.

[So what if she had a System? Who told you she traded her sister’s life for it? Your daughter was kind. She loved you so much. Couldn’t you see even a little of that?]

[Without her System, you would have died. Where do you think those points came from?]

The moment my father saw those comments, his expression changed.

In his mind, he suddenly remembered the voice he had heard right before he passed out after the accident.

It had been mine.

I had held him the whole time, speaking into his ear again and again.

“Dad, you’re going to be okay.

“Don’t fall asleep. Please don’t fall asleep, Dad.”

He looked at my broken, unrecognizable face.

In that instant, he seemed to age ten years.

He stood there in silence, staring blankly at me.

The footage kept playing.

This time, the camera turned to Connor.

He watched himself in the recording.

He watched me staying up late every night to study.

He watched me work through problem after problem, reviewing until my eyes turned red, until I finally earned a scholarship.

Then he watched me spend every penny of that scholarship on the newest, highest-spec laptop for him.

Back then, he had only glanced at it with contempt before throwing it straight off the upper floor.

“I’m not using anything bought with a cursed girl’s money.”

His voice in the memory was careless and cruel.

“It’ll probably shorten my life.”

At the time, he had been wearing headphones.

He had tossed out those words without even looking back.

He never saw me standing behind him.

Never saw the way my face slowly turned pale.

Never saw how helpless I looked.

Now, watching it happen on screen, Connor froze.

He tried to explain himself to the comments, but even his voice sounded hollow.

“I didn’t know.

“I thought it was just some random item she got from the System. I thought it was a tool to please me, something she was using to trade for points.”

His throat moved.

“I didn’t know she only wanted to give me a birthday surprise.”

As the footage played, my family fell into a heavy silence.

My father clenched his jaw.

“I’ll find out who’s behind this.”

Then he looked at my body and let out a low sigh.

“But right now, the most important thing is to let our daughter rest in peace.”

His voice softened, almost painfully.

“Even if she was cursed, she was still our daughter. She was still your sister.”

“No!”

The moment I heard that familiar voice, my entire spirit shuddered.

Even the image on the screen flickered into static.

The person who stormed in was my fiancé, Ethan Whitmore.

Ethan rushed into the morgue without caring who was watching.

He tore the matching ring from his finger so violently it left a bloody mark, then threw the bloodstained ring beside my corpse.

“I won’t allow it.”

His eyes were red, but not from grief.

“Before she died, she was still sending flirty messages to other men. She never truly loved any of us. Why should we forgive her?”

Then he turned to my parents.

“Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, don’t you think this is strange?

“These videos were obviously recorded long ago. I suspect she isn’t dead at all.”

His voice grew sharp and certain.

“She’s setting a trap for us. She wants to drag all of us into hell with her.”

The screen, which had been filled with static, suddenly cleared.

The camera turned straight toward Ethan.

And when everyone saw what appeared on the screen, the entire room went still.

They stared at him in disbelief.

As if, at last, the ugliest secret had been dragged into the light.