I had just been discharged from surgery for a collapsed lung when my boyfriend took me to a childhood friend’s birthday party.

At the party, he yanked off my ventilator and used it to inflate party balloons.

My chest seized violently, as if my lung had been torn open.

Justin Miller turned to Sophie Shaw proudly and said, “See? This is so much easier than blowing them up with your mouth.”

I gripped the doorframe. I was gasping as my vision blurred. “Justin, I need that to survive! I can’t breathe!”

His expression darkened. “Sophie was kind enough to invite you to her birthday party. Know your place! Besides, she put in a lot of effort for this day and spent hours preparing for it. Are you really going to ruin the celebration?”

I struggled to speak through the pain. “Is her surprise more important than my life?”

I extended a trembling hand toward the ventilator, but Justin waved it aside.

He said impatiently, “I already checked. You won’t die from holding your breath for just a moment. Don’t be so selfish!”

At that moment, pain stabbed me in the chest, and I used every ounce of my strength to press the emergency call button my brother had given me.

“Alex, my ventilator…”

My phone was ripped out of my hand before I finished my sentence.

Justin Miller glanced at the screen and ended the call without hesitation.

“Are you snitching? Sally, how old are you? Do you run to your family over every tiny problem?”

He frowned. He mocked me with every word.

“Sophie invited you because she was worried that you’d feel lonely after being discharged. She invited you to her birthday party out of kindness. You’re so ungrateful! Everyone’s trying to enjoy the night, and you insist on pretending to be sick to ruin the mood! Are you doing this on purpose?”

I sagged against the doorframe. My chest felt hollowed out as a wave of darkness closed in from the edge of my vision.

“Give me… my ventilator… back…”

Justin’s disgust deepened.

“Pretending again? You actually committed to the act, huh? Who’re you putting an act for?

“It was just a pneumothorax surgery. You act like you’re dying after just walking a few steps. Is this really necessary?”

A cruel smile curled at the corner of his mouth. Then, he grabbed a jar of colorful plastic glitter from the table and dumped it into my ventilator right in front of everyone!

“Alright! Since you’re struggling so much to breathe, I’ll add some special medicine.”

The device kicked on with a burst of airflow.

A blast of colorful glitter exploded across the room and shot straight toward me!

I turned away desperately and raised my arms to shield my face, but the tiny pieces of glitter still forced their way into my nose and throat like gnats.

Within seconds, a searing pain exploded deep in my throat, and the taste of blood rose in my mouth. I coughed violently.

I doubled over and coughed so hard that my ribs felt as if they would crack.

However, Justin did not even spare me a glance. He pulled Sophie close in smug satisfaction.

“Happy birthday, Sophie!

“I didn’t manage to blow 99 balloons for you, but I can give you a shower of flowers.”

Sophie gently nudged him with a playful pout. “Justin, you’re ridiculous! Look! You made Sally choke!”

Their friends burst into laughter at how pathetic I looked.

“Whoa, Justin, you’re wild! This is way more romantic than balloons! Sophie’s so lucky!”

“She’s coughing so hard! Honestly, it doesn’t seem like she can’t breathe.”

“Exactly! She needs better acting skills if she wants sympathy. Justin shouldn’t entertain her. All she did was try to ruin Sophie’s birthday!”

My vision flickered as I clung to the wall.

“Justin, I’m asking you for the last time. Give me my ventilator!”

“You’re being dramatic.”

He rolled his eyes in annoyance.

“It’s just a ventilator. You act like the world is ending. I’ll buy you a new one, okay?”

His indifference filled my heart with disappointment.

“If I hadn’t saved you that night, I wouldn’t even need this!”

Three months ago, he had been cornered in an alley by men collecting his gambling debt. I ran in and shielded him when they swung the knife at him.

The blade pierced my lung and caused a severe pneumothorax.

Justin’s dismissive expression twisted into anger.

“You’re crazy!” he said loudly. “Who asked you to jump in? Why couldn’t I see before that you always have to play the hero? You keep talking about that stupid incident because you want to guilt-trip me! You’re disgusting!”

The look on his face screamed, “You deserved it.”

I realized how foolish I had been.

“Fine. Very well.

“Justin. Sophie, and all of you who’re just standing there and watching this…”

I scanned their mocking faces.

“You’d better pray I survive tonight. If anything happens to me, none of you will walk away from this!”

I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and said coldly, “Alex Lawson is my brother. He’s the CEO of the Lawson Group. If something happens to me tonight, he won’t spare any of you!”

My words were followed by an even louder burst of laughter.

“Hahaha! Did she say the Lawson Group? Has she lost her mind?”

“You mean the Alex Lawson? The man nobody dares to cross? He’s your brother?”

“Girl, look at yourself! You think you’re related to him?!”

A girl who was wearing heavy smoky eye makeup pointed at me. She was laughing so hard that she doubled over. “Do you want to attend the Lawson Group meetings too? Please! They wouldn’t even let you clean their toilets!”

Sophie covered her mouth in mock concern. “Sally, don’t say things like that out of the blue. Pretending to be a CEO’s sister will not save you.

“I heard Mr. Lawson is a merciless man, and he hates it when people use his name. If he finds out someone pretended to be his sister…”

A guy standing next to her cut in eagerly, “It’ll be worse than a simple expulsion! We should teach this wannabe a lesson on behalf of Mr. Lawson!”

I could not spare another second on these lunatics.

My asphyxiation worsened, and my fingers started to tingle.

I ran my hand along the wall to search for the emergency call button in the room.

Just as I was about to press on it, Justin slapped my hand away.

“Are you done?”

He glared at me in irritation.

“You’re so jealous that you want to waste public resources? These resources are for people who actually need them. Do you really have to embarrass yourself like this?”

“Sally, didn’t you say you couldn’t breathe?” Sophie’s voice drifted in from the side.

She walked toward me with a birthday cake covered in lit candles.

“My grandma said blowing out candles is good for your lungs. It’s good for your health. Can you blow out these twenty candles in one breath? Just think of it as a birthday present for me, okay?

“Maybe it’ll even help you get better.”

She blinked with an innocent face. “I just want to help you recover. You’re not petty enough to refuse such a small request, are you?”

What an absurd idea!

But her friends around her began to cheer immediately.

“Blow them out! Blow them out! Blow them out!”

“Yeah, Sally, blow them out for Sophie!”

“In one breath! It has to be in one breath!”

Justin’s eyes lit up as if he had found a new game to play.

He grinned as he pulled me away from the wall and pushed me down in front of the cake.

“Did you hear that? Sophie’s doing this for your own good. Are you still going to be difficult? Know your place!”

As he spoke, he pulled out his phone, opened a livestream app, and pointed the camera at me.

“Good evening, everyone! My girlfriend hasn’t been feeling well lately and insists that she can’t breathe.

“But our kind Sophie’s here to help with some… candle-blowing therapy. If you enjoy this, like this video, and subscribe to Sophie’s channel!”

Hundreds of curious viewers flooded into the livestream, and the comments rolled across the screen.

[Wow, the streamer is wild!]

[Blowing candles as treatment? That’s a first. Sounds interesting!]

[That girl looks so pale. Is she really sick?]

[You’re naive. This is scripted. Look at her eyes! She acts pretty well.]

I shook my head desperately. My throat rasped as I tried to pull away.

But Justin held the back of my neck and forced my face closer to the flames.

Heat scorched my skin and singed strands of my hair. The smell of burning filled the air.

On the edge of suffocation, I touched the watch on my wrist.

It was the custom-made watch Alex had given me. Pressing the side button three times would trigger the highest-level emergency alert and send my location with a live recording.

I gathered every bit of my strength and pressed it.

One press.

Two presses.

Then, a third.

I looked at the face I once loved deeply through the flickering flames.

“Justin… I’m breaking up with you.”

Me breaking up with him did not make Justin pause for even a second. Instead, he treated it as a joke in his livestream.

“Hahaha! Did everyone hear that? She’s threatening to break up with me!

“My god! She’s acting like she’s the lead in some romance drama!”

The comment section exploded.

[This is hilarious! Is she the tragic heroine from some melodrama?]

[A breakup? Blow out the candles first!]

[Hold her down! Don’t let her run! I want to see the ending!]

The comments seemed to fuel him even further. He grabbed my hair and yanked me closer to the cake.

“Blow them out! Sally, blow them out right now!

“We have the highest number of viewers we’ve ever had. Blow out these candles first, keep our viewers happy, and then we can talk about breaking up!”

Just then, Sophie walked over with a laugh.

“Alright, Justin. Don’t force her. If she doesn’t like it, we’ll stop…

“Let’s cut the cake first.”

She walked around me, but she suddenly stumbled on something and let out a dramatic scream.

“Ahh!!!”

She fell directly onto me.

I lost my balance and toppled forward. I could not react in time, and my face slammed into the fluffy cream cake.

Sizzle…

A burning pain flared across my forehead. A lit candle was pressed against my skin.

Even worse, the thick cream blocked my nose and mouth and sealed off what little air I had left.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Sally! It was an accident!”

Sophie scrambled up from the floor with tears streaming down her face as if she was terrified.

“I only wanted to help you. Please don’t be mad at me!”

Justin, on the other hand, pushed the phone closer to my face and shouted excitedly at the stream.

“Wow! Guys, this is unexpected! An epic plot twist!

“Look at how real my girlfriend’s expression is! The pain… the struggle… This is peak entertainment!

“Exclusive clown makeup! Come on, everyone! Send some donations. Let’s get those donations going!”

I was on the floor, choking on cake and cream. The suffocating pain in my lungs, mixed with the blockage in my nose and mouth, made me sputter.

My vision went dark. My consciousness wavered.

Justin reached out, scraped a large handful of cream from my face, and smeared it on my hospital gown with a laugh.

“Look! With this outfit and this makeup, doesn’t she look like she’s indeed been through something? Incredible.

“Come on! To thank our top supporter for the biggest donation, let me show you all her signature ‘cream pull’ trick!”

He scraped my face again, and a long string of cream stretched out. He snickered triumphantly.

Just when Justin’s livestream reached an unprecedented peak of popularity…

Bang!

The private room door crashed open with overwhelming force.

The heavy, solid wood door fell to the floor and scattered dust as screams filled the room.

Against the backlight, a man strode in with two tall bodyguards in black behind him.

He scanned the chaotic scene before him, and his gaze finally landed on me. His gaze, usually gentle, was dark with malice.

“Who removed my sister’s ventilator?”