1 To protect me, my sister defied the rules of our novel’s world. Instead of showering her affection on the story’s protagonist, the fake young master, she cared for me, the real one. Every time she was kind to me, the System shocked her with an electric current. She told me she would rather be electrocuted to death than stop loving her real brother. And yet, the night before I was due to give the valedictorian speech at graduation, I was abducted. Dragged to an abandoned construction site, I was defiled by a gang of thugs, my limbs were broken, and my tongue was cut from my mouth. In that abyss of despair, I somehow connected to my sister’s System. 【Host, you sent a live location to the gang, ordering them to torture your brother until he was crippled. Do you not intend to call them off?】 My sister’s voice, cold as jade, echoed in my mind. “I can’t. This part of the plot has to happen. We can’t let Julian go through it, can we?” “Besides, Noah is the protagonist of a ‘doted-on-hero’ story. He’s destined to survive. No matter how much he suffers, he’ll recover completely. This is just making use of his plot armor.” “When it’s all over, I’ll be twice as good to him to make up for it.” My heart died. I stopped fighting death. — “As expected of the top scholar. You’re tougher than most.” “We’ve had more than twenty guys go at him, and he’s still hanging on…” In the dim, filthy cell, the instruments of my torture lay scattered around me, slick with my blood and flesh, piled into a small mountain. A hulking man grabbed my chin, forcing my head up. He saw my lips, bitten raw from the pain, and burst into laughter. “Well, well. After being so thoroughly ‘cared for’ by the boys, our little Master Noah is now tender enough to bruise at a touch.” His thumb smeared across my lips before he ripped the filthy rag from my mouth. “Speaking of which, we’ve tasted everything else, but I haven’t had a go at this mouth yet.” “I wonder if it’s any different from the ones you pay for downtown?” Before I could curse him, another man chimed in with a suggestion. “Half a tongue tastes even better. More… exotic.” I saw their eyes fix on me, and I tried to shrink back in terror. The next second, a hand tangled in my hair, slamming my head against the ground. A flash of cold steel. I screamed, clamping a hand over my mouth as blood gushed between my fingers. The pain was a blinding, stabbing agony that made me want to smash my head against the wall just to make it stop. Through a hazy fog, someone yanked my hair again… And in that moment, on the brink of death, I heard a conversation. A sterile, electronic voice: 【Celeste, your brother Noah is at his breaking point. Any more torment and he will suffer a fatal mental collapse! You must stop this!】 I thought I was hallucinating, that death was playing tricks on my mind. “No.” The voice that answered was unmistakably my sister’s. She was the only person in our family who had ever been kind to me, but now her tone was glacial. “Noah is the protagonist of fate. He can’t die this easily.” “Continue. Tell them not to hold back. Only when his suffering mirrors what Julian endured in the original timeline can we successfully cheat fate… Only then can Julian live a good life.” The System seemed to hesitate. My sister, sensing its doubt, added confidently, “He’s been abused since he was a child. This is nothing he can’t handle… It’s just making use of a resource.” 【When you insisted on binding Noah as the target for this mission, you set this course. Now, we can only see it through.】 The mechanical voice sighed with resignation. My sister laughed. “What’s the rush? He won’t die anyway. Better to get it all over with at once than to drag it out…” Her voice softened, but her words were daggers in my heart. “He’s the only one in this world who can blind the eyes of fate. It’s not what I want. But only by having him endure Julian’s fated death can our family stay whole and live happily ever after.” “After all, Julian is my brother too. I can’t just stand by and watch him be humiliated and killed, can I?” “...He deserves a life of peace and security. This is the only way.” I coughed, a spray of dark blood leaving my lips. The pain was so intense my heart felt like it had been burned to ash. So that’s all I was. A tool for my sister to use, a substitute to suffer in place of someone else. “Tch, what a buzzkill. His face is all covered in blood…” More brutes entered the room. They laid me flat on an iron table, their hands roaming freely. Two needles pierced my chest, sharp and brutal. “Man, if the valedictorian shows up to his speech tomorrow with these, haha! If anyone sees them, they’ll all know what a little slut he is.” “Take more pictures. We could sell them as a collection.” One of the men set up a high-definition camera, pointing it directly at my face. Amidst waves of agonizing pain, I was torn open. Again. And again. It was a nightmare, a torment beyond human endurance. And the architect of it all was the one person who had been my reason for living, my pillar in this cruel world—my own sister, Celeste. “Hey, scholar,” one of the men whispered, his lips against my ear. “Ever wonder how we found you at the school, no matter where you hid?” He bit down. Hard. Through the searing pain, I remembered the endless nightmares of footsteps and shadows that had haunted me. I remembered the conversation I had just overheard. The truth settled in my heart like a stone. And with it, a deeper, more profound despair. “Since you’ve been such a good boy for us, I’ll be merciful and tell you—” “It was that little ‘family tracking beacon’ your parents bonded you with at the welcome-home dinner.” I began to tremble uncontrollably. A cold, desolate sorrow washed over me. I had never imagined that my cries for help to my family would be the very thing that led to my betrayal. They were my blood, my kin, yet they treated me like an enemy. Even the one exception, my sister… 【Warning! Protagonist Noah’s life signs are critically low! The world is at risk of collapse!】 The System’s alarm blared in my mind. A tiny spark of hope flickered within me. Surely, she wouldn’t drag the entire world down with her just to save Julian? My sister’s voice came, firm and cold. “Shut up, System. There’s only one part left, the castration. Then it will all be over.” “How can we stop at such a critical moment?” “If we stop now, Julian will have to endure it, and it will kill him! Our family won’t be whole anymore… All my efforts will have been for nothing. I absolutely will not allow that!” The mechanical voice sounded shocked. 【Enough! What does Julian’s fate have to do with him?】 【How long has he even been back in this family? And you’ve already flayed him alive!】 【If anyone owes a debt here, it is all of you who owe it to him! Why are you torturing the victim?】 My sister’s voice cracked with anguish, her words becoming a hysterical, distorted scream. “You think I don’t know that?!” “But he’s the only one who can survive a certain-death scenario!” “We’ve come this far! Better for him to be broken than for Julian to die! And Noah is the protagonist! He won’t die!” “I am preserving the integrity of my family, don’t you understand?!” She finished her tirade and wiped her face, her voice returning to a chilling calm. “Don’t worry. I won’t let him die.” “After he has taken Julian’s place, I’ll have someone call an ambulance. Even if he needs a catheter for the rest of his life, even if he’s a broken man, I will take care of him.” But would a life like that even be living? My heart was a frozen wasteland. I closed my eyes, shutting out the world, shutting out the pain they were inflicting on my body. It’s no use. No one cares about me. It wouldn’t be a loss if I died. I relinquished my will to live, letting my soul plummet into the abyss.
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