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It was the third year of my brother Caleb's disappearance.
His body was finally found among eighteen skeletons which were dug up underground in Everbloom.
The skeleton of my brother was the worst180 stab wounds, each of which pierced the bone.
He held a slip of paper tightly in his hand.
[Don't be afraid, I'm just going home. If you can't hold on, go back home too.]
Caleb and I had transmigrated to this world. I was relieved that he had left the hell.
Just then, the system sounded in my head.
[The family affection level has dropped to 10%.]
[Host, please perish and return to the original world as soon as possible.]
That evening, I put on my wedding suit and sent the suicide note to the Muller family group chat.
My fiance who accompanied Zachary (my adopted brother) replied,
"Are you out of your mind?"
Danielle, my birth mother in this world and a movie queen, kept calling me.
She urged me to take off my suit and go over to apologize to Zachary.
My older sister and a police officer, Samantha, also scolded.
"You know Zachary can't accept that you marry Natalie."
"Yet you still wear your wedding suit to irritate him, trying to make his illness worse, don't you?"
No one cared about my suicide note.
No one knew I put on the wedding suit not to marry Natalie, but to bring out the serial killer who murdered Caleb.
I just wanted to break free from this world that had trapped me for twenty-five years.
My younger sister and a lawyer, Vanessa, detected something and sent me several voice messages.
"Nathan, do you know anything?"
"Is that corpse Caleb? Is the note left behind meant for you?"
I didn't reply to any of them, just holding my brother Caleb's photo.
Under the escort of numerous plainclothes police officers, I headed toward the hotel.
I sat in the wedding car.
The police disguised as bridesmaids and groomsmen had complicated expressions.
"Have you really made up your mind? To lure out the psychopath, you might end up losing your life."
"Although this case concerns whether Detective Muller will be dismissed, you don't have to risk your life ..."
I responded softly, "Samantha has nothing to do with it."
They had no comment, assuming I was just still angry with Samantha.
Someone said, "I'll call Detective Muller. She should be there to watch over you in such a dangerous situation."
I watched him dialing and just curled my lips.
The call was connected.
"Detective, Nathan is going to be a bait to catch the psychopath right away."
"I'm afraid it's going to be a dangerous mission, you ...."
Before he could finish his words, the call was abruptly disconnected.
And right at that moment, my phone rang.
I answered it with a blank expression. Samantha's angry curses came from the other side.
"I thought you were just selfish and ignorant because we spoiled you."
"I never thought you would even abandon your bottom line to force a marriage."
She gritted her teeth and questioned me word by word.
"Not only have you driven your own brother's condition worse, but now you're shamelessly having my colleague lie and say you want to be the bait."
"Do you want to deceive us into pitying you and agreeing to your marriage with Natalie?"
"Nathan, you're just like your adoptive father, a shameless bastard who dares to use such a big case to satisfy your own desires!"
Her words were harsh and sharp like a knife.
"Get over here and get down on your knees to apologize to your brother!"
"Make it clear in front of everyoneNatalie has nothing to do with you and it's you who's being shameless and foolish, trying to steal your brother's wife!"
I listened as my grip tightened bit by bit.
I went blank as Samantha compared me to my adoptive father.
Samantha once investigated the records and found that my adoptive father had drugged me and sent me to his lover's bed to please her.
I struggled to escape. That bastard struck me on the head with a vase, leaving a permanent scar on my forehead.
Learning that, Samantha trembled as she stroked my scar.
She swore in anger.
"Nathan, I won't let any of those who wronged you go."
I let out a bitter laugh and spoke calmly to Samantha on the other side.
"My adoptive father is Zachary's biological father."
"As you say, he is the one who inherited his father's bad character."
"He did try to steal his brother's marriage by acting crazy after all."
"Aren't you also accomplices?"
After a few seconds of silence from the other end, I heard my younger brother Zachary crying.
"Nathan, I really didn't mean to..."
"I was sick and I couldn't remember some things. I didn't know you and Natalie..."
"Mom, Samantha, Natalie. I never thought my illness would make Nathan unhappy."
"Sob I might as well die!"
Soon, Danielle's furious roar came.
"Enough, Nathan! If you still have any conscience, come and apologize now!"
"Otherwise, we'll sever ties with you from today!"
I heard a commotion on the other end of the phone.
Someone seemed to have snatched the phone away.
Then I heard Natalie Landau, my fiancee.
Her voice was cold and impatient.
"Nathan, cancel the wedding immediately. Come over here to kneel down and apologize to Zachary."
"Otherwise, I break off our engagement right now."
I lowered my eyes and replied calmly, "Alright."
Satisfied, Natalie hung up the phone.
The police officers exchanged glances.
No one mentioned asking my sister to keep me company again.
The wedding car stopped at the hotel entrance.
Just as I opened the car door, a fishy smell hit me in the face.
Egg peels and fishy liquid splashed onto my suit.
I was pushed backwards and almost missed a step.
"Bastard! You stole your brother's girlfriend, and you still have the nerve to force her into marriage."
"You even dared to use the psychopath case to act pitiful."
"I must teach this bastard a lesson today!"
"Even Mrs. Muller, such an elegant and gentle woman as she is, was driven to tears by him."
"Such a son is better off dead!"
I just realized that the phone call was live-streamed by Danielle.
Some people pulled my hair, kicked my body and forced me to kneel down, while the others were tearing my suit and recording the scene with cameras.
"Kneel and apologize to the Mullers!"
"And this suit! You don't deserve to wear it! Tear it off!"
I was so painful that my fingers were trembling. Yet I raised my head and shouted.
"I didn't do anything wrong."
"Why should I apologize?"
Triggered by my words, the crowd was in an uproar.
Just then, Samantha and Danielle's bodyguards rushed over and forcibly pushed the crowd away.
Samantha was so angry that her voice trembled.
"Still dare to say you did nothing?"
"I told you not to use your relationship with Natalie to provoke Zachary."
"Why did you insist wearing a suit for the wedding? Why did you have to stage such a forced marriage farce?"
However, when she pushed away the crowd and saw me, she froze.
The suit on my body was tattered and barely covered my body with injuries all over.
My forehead and body were covered in foul-smelling liquid.
Samantha instinctively rushed over and tried to wipe the stuff off me.
She asked Danielle in a low voice, trying to keep her voice steady,
"Mom, how could you broadcast live while we are on the phone? And bring these people here?"
"What if this incident drags Zachary into it again?"
There had been a hint of reluctance in Danielle's eyes.
But upon hearing Samantha said that, she replied sharply,
"He deserves it."
I took two steps back, avoiding Samantha's hand and spoke calmly,
"I'm not here to force a marriage."
"Natalie's decision to cancel her engagement with me and marry Zachary instead has nothing to do with me."
"I'm here to catch the psychopath."
Danielle's face turned pale in an instant.
Before she could say anything, Samantha slapped me in the face.
Her expression was complicated, with a hint of panic mixed in with anger.
"I warned you not to use the case to manipulate our sympathy!"
She took a deep breath, her face regained its coldness, and her voice became even more ruthless.
"You're just like Caleb heartless and immoral!"
"He betrayed Vanessa and ran away with the money."
"Afraid of being wanted, he slipped a note into a victim's hand and faked his own death."
"I've already told you, that person is definitely not that bastard Caleb, but that idiot Vanessa really took it seriously."
"She was so drunk that she didn't even bother investigating the case!"
The crowd cheered up.
"Isn't Caleb the scumbag who ran away with the money back then?"
"His passionate videos were all over the second-hand websites and you don't even need a dollar to watch them, LOL!"
"A despicable man like him disrupted the investigation of a murder case. He deserves to die."
I clenched my hands as my heart ached as if it was being torn apart.
Three years ago, Caleb Arnaut discovered that Zachary was faking amnesia and acting insane.
However, Caleb went missing before he could hand over the evidence to me.
Before he went missing, he was drugged and raped for a whole night.
The "passionate" video of him was put on a second-hand website and sold for less than a dollar.
At that time, he begged Vanessa, his fiance, with red eyes, to help him with the lawsuit.
But on the day of the trial, Vanessa, a top and zero-defeated lawyer, sat in the plaintiff's seat, playing with her manicure from beginning to end, without saying a word.
On the day she came out of the court, she put away her attitude and sneered,
"This is what you get for bullying Zachary."
"This time we're just showing your video."
"Next time, we're going to sell you on the black market to be people's plaything."
That day, Caleb, who had never shed tears before, hugged me and cried for a long, long time.
The next day, he disappeared.
I spent three years searching for him, but Vanessa always faced it with ridicule.
"He's just playing and wants me to find him. I wonder how long he will last."
Then, the victims of the psychopath dismemberment case were discovered in an abandoned basement in Everbloom.
At that moment, the system finally reported Caleb's death.
My brother died at the hands of a psychopath.
And the system also determined my ending.
For ten years, I had been trying to win my family's love. But the mission always failed.
So, the system asked me to perish and get back to the original world.
But at least, I wanted to use my death to seek justice for all the poor victims.
Natalie walked over with a sullen face and warned me.
"Since you insist on going against us, then as you wish, I will cancel our engagement."
I nodded, pulled my phone out of my bag and made a statement.
[I, Nathan Muller, cancel my engagement with Natalie Landau.]
I raised my phone and showed them.
"Is that okay?"