Sacrifsatisfied My Last Life for Her Yet They Wept for Me

My younger sister and I were in a car accident. My life hung by a thread. Grace had only injured her leg.

Mom cradled her in her arms, voice sharp with panic. Michelle Fox, hurry up! Give your rebirth chance to your sister.

Dad hesitated, brow furrowed. Michelle's system only grants nine revival chances. She's already used eight...

"Don't be an idiot." Mom's tone dripped with self-righteous conviction. "Do you really think the System would let her die?"

She scoffed. "That nine-life limit is just a lie she told us to hoard them."

*Mom, you're right.*

I didn't have nine chances. I had ten.

But the tenth revival came with a curse. Once used, I would only exist for seven days. After that week expired, the System would devour my soul, erasing me from existence completely.

Under Mom's relentless urging, I gave my ninth life to Grace.

I saved the tenth for myself.

The tenth revival chance has been activated. Remaining lifespan: 168 hours.

The System's cold, mechanical voice dragged me back to consciousness. My eyes fluttered open. The first thing I saw was Mom's face, twisted in rage.

"Michelle Fox, are you obsessed with bullying your sister?"

No chance to speak. No chance to explain.

"You rely on your ability to revive people, so you deliberately cause accidents to hurt Grace just to show off! You just want to prove how important you are!"

Her finger jabbed toward me. "Count them yourself. Over the years, how many times have you pulled stunts like this?"

The room spun. I shook my head slowly, lost. "I didn't..."

It was Grace who had demanded cake. Grace who had insisted I drive her to buy it. The crash was an accident.

Mom's livid expression. The disappointment heavy in Dad's eyes. The words died in my throat.

I had lived through this scene too many times. No matter how I explained, the only response I ever got was furious condemnation.

Finally, a sob tore from my chest. "I'm hurt too... I'm hurt worse. It really hurts..."

Grace had a leg injury. I had fractured my spine. If not for the System's revival, even if the doctors had saved me, I would have been paralyzed for life.

Mom's anger faltered. Dad hesitated, taking a half-step toward me.

Just then, Grace burst into loud, wailing tears.

"When the truck came at us, Big Sister turned the wheel!" She buried her face in Mom's chest, trembling like a frightened little animal. "She exposed the passenger side to the impact... Mom, I'm so scared."

Mom's face hardened instantly. "Your father and I are doctors. Do you think we can't tell who is injured more severely?"

"Causing a car accident and wasting medical resourcesyou are becoming impossible, Michelle."

Dad's face was a mask of disappointment. He joined Mom, and together, they flanked Grace, each holding one of her hands.

"Why are you still hanging around the hospital?" Dad barked. "Go home!"

Every muscle screamed as I struggled off the hospital bed. By the time I reached the billing hall, Dad's voice drifted over from a distance.

"You take Grace home first. I'll take Michelle for a detailed check-up."

A spark of hope ignited in my chest.

But the next moment, Mom's words plunged me into an icy abyss.

"She used a revival. Does she need an exam?" A scoff. "You know how it works. After a System revival, she heals instantly, no matter how bad the injury."

A pause. Then, cruelly: "Besides, it would be good if she suffered some aftereffects. Maybe pain will teach her how to be a good older sister."

"First the accident years ago, and now this? Michelle is getting worse every time."

Mom spoke through clenched teeth. "If she keeps acting out like this, she might as well just die. Donate her body; at least then she'd make a contribution to society!"

I stood frozen.

It wasn't until their car disappeared from the hospital driveway that I finally came back to my senses.

So, they hated me that much.

A bitter smile twisted my lips. *Dad, Mom, you'll get your wish soon enough.*

I stood there blankly for a long moment before turning toward the administration desk to sign the body donation agreement.

As I turned to leave, an emergency nurse ran after me. "Excuse me? Michelle Fox? Your emergency fees haven't been settled."

I paid the bill. My remaining balance: eighty cents.

The countdown had already ticked past one hour and forty-five minutes.

*What should I do with my remaining time?*

Before I could form a plan, my stomach growled. Loud. Insistent. Across the street, a breakfast stall. The cheapest vegetarian bun was one dollar.

I had eighty cents.

Hunger gnawed at me until I couldn't stand it anymore. I dialed Mom. "Mom, I don't have any money. Can you transfer me some?"

Since I started working, every paycheck went directly to Mom's card. She claimed she was "saving it for me." She had promised that whenever I needed money, I just had to ask.

"Money, money, money. From morning to night, that's all you know how to ask for." Her voice cut like glass. "When will you be sensible like your sister?"

Through the phone, Grace's sweet voice floated in the background. "Mom, come cut the cake!"

The call disconnected.

A moment later, a notification pinged. Mom sent a red packet.

One hundred dollars.

I opened my social media feed and immediately saw Grace's new post.

Mom and Dad bought me a cake to celebrate my discharge! I'll love them forever. ?

In the photo, my parents flanked Grace, beaming with love. On the table before them sat an exquisite, multi-tiered cake.

I recognized that bakery. That cake cost over two thousand dollars.

My vision blurred. I reached up to wipe my eyes, but my fingers came away wet with tears.

On my forearm, the death countdown numbers flickered, counting down the seconds.

I rubbed at the skin furiously. Scratched at the numbers. Desperate to claw them off. It was all because of this thing. The moment this System appeared, my parents changed.

I scratched until my skin broke and bled, but the numbers remained, glowing beneath the crimson.

"Host." The System's voice held no emotion. "There is no need to take your anger out on me. I am merely a tool."

"I am not the cause of your suffering. The root cause is simply that your parents do not love you."

The truth I had spent years denying pierced straight through my heart.

I froze.

Then I buried my head in my hands and wept.

"Girl, are you hungry?"

I looked up. Eliana Norton, a sanitation worker, stood before me. She held a cup of steaming millet porridge, the sweet aroma wafting up like a gentle embrace.

She placed the warm cup in my hands. "Eat."

"Why are you crying out here?" Her voice was soft. Kind. "Did you fight with your parents?"

The hot porridge warmed my stomach, giving me a fraction of strength. "My parents... they don't want me anymore."

Once, I was their little princess. The apple of their eye. I thought I had the best parents under the sky.

The reason I bound myself to the System was for them. On a trip to the zoo, we were in a horrific crash. Their lives hung by a thread. My desire to save them was so powerful it summoned the System.

I used two revival chances to save Dad and Mom.

The next year, they had Grace. They still loved me then.

But when Grace turned ten, everything changed.

She suddenly told them that the car accident years ago was my faultthat I had tampered with the brake pads.

I was shocked. I explained desperately, weeping with anxiety, but they didn't believe me. Their hearts turned cold.

The very next day, I went to pick Grace up from school. At an intersection, a drunk driver plowed into us. Grace was critically injured.

I used a revival chance to save her.

When Grace woke up, she didn't thank me. She cried and told our parents that I had pushed her into the path of the car. She claimed I did it to punish her for telling the "truth" about the brakes.

"Big Sister told me she can revive me anyway, so I wouldn't die!" Grace had screamed, pointing a finger at me with absolute certainty.

My face went numb with shock. I demanded to know why she was lying.

But Dad just looked at me with eyes like ice. "She is a ten-year-old child. Is she capable of such a lie?"

Mom roared in fury. "Michelle Fox! You rely on this System to act lawless!"

"If we don't discipline you now, you'll end up rotting in prison!"

"You like using revival so much? Fine! I'll let you use it until you drop!"

From that day on, I never saw kindness in their eyes again. Their control became suffocating. The slightest mistake earned me harsh verbal abuse. Whenever Grace got sick or scraped a knee, they forced me to use a revival on her.

I held a thousand grievances in my heart, but I had no way to voice them.

I fell silent. Eliana didn't pry. She just hugged me gently and patted my back.

Her embrace was warm. It reminded me of how Mom used to hold me when I was sick as a child.

That memory gave me strengththe strength to fulfill my final wish.

I wanted to say a proper goodbye to Dad and Mom. Then, I would find a quiet place to die alone.

As I reached the front door of our house, my parents were just walking out.

When Mom saw me, her expression darkened instantly. She pulled the car keys from her purse and threw them at me. They hit my chest with a dull thud.

"Do you have no shame?" she hissed. "Does this family starve you? Do we deny you water?"

"You actually ran to the streets to act pitiful in front of a sanitation worker? Begging her to buy you porridge?"

"You're trying to make people think we abuse you, aren't you?" She stepped closer, eyes narrowing. "Michelle, I didn't realize your scheming ran this deep."

The barrage of accusations hit me like physical blows.

How did they know Eliana bought me porridge? Did they have someone following me? Was I bugged?

Years ago, to find "evidence" that I was harming Grace, they had installed surveillance cameras in every room of the house. They had even hired a private investigator.

I had naively thought the investigator would prove my innocence. Instead, when he found nothing, my parents accused me of being a master manipulator, claiming I was "hiding deeply."

During that time, I felt like I was living in a glass cage. Watched constantly.

Now, that old fear wrapped around my throat. I began to tremble, my teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Dad noticed. "Michelle, what is wrong with you?"

Mom sneered. "Stop pretending. The trashy things you did are already all over the internet."

*The internet?*

With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone. A video of Eliana giving me the porridge and hugging me had gone viral. Passersby had filmed it.

I watched the video on loop. Eliana's arms around me. Her gentle comfort.

In my mind, I contrasted it with the image of Mom and Dad hugging Grace.

Grace was right about one thing: these past few years, I had been like a rat in the gutter, jealous of every scrap of love they gave her.

I looked up, my voice barely a whisper. "Dad, Mom... can you hug me?"

*Before I die, just hug me one last time.*

They exchanged a glance. Their expressions softened, just a fraction.

Mom kept her face stern, though her posture relaxed. "It's good that you finally know when to give in."

"In the future, you need to listen to us and be a good older sister."

She walked toward me and opened her arms.

Before my hand could even graze her, my younger sister, Grace, bolted out of the house.

"Dad! Mom! She was wearing this dress when she pushed me into the road! She tried to get me killed by a car!"

"I don't want to see her! Make her leave! Get her out of here!"

Mom's expression frosted over. She turned on me, voice dripping with venom. "Michelle Fox, apologize to your sister. Now."

Dad didn't wait for me to speak. He shoved me toward Grace.

Grace shrieked, recoiling as if I were a monster. "I don't want her apology!"

Her voice was shrill, piercing my skull like an ice pick. The frustration and injustice I had bottled up for years finally exploded.

I couldn't hold it down anymore.

"Grace Fox, I never touched you! Who taught you to lie like this?"

My control snapped. My hand rose.

But Mom was faster.

*Smack!*

Her palm landed heavy and hard across my face. The force knocked my head sideways. A high-pitched whine filled my ears, and the copper tang of blood flooded my mouth.

Mom's eyes bored into mine. Profound disappointment. Cold disgust.

"You dare hit your sister right in front of us? I can only imagine how you bully her behind our backs."

"Get out." She spat the words like poison. "I don't have a daughter like you."

Dad gathered Grace into his arms, shielding her. "Michelle, if you can't be a good sister, then don't bother coming back."

I swallowed the bloody foam pooling in my mouth.

Bitter.

"Fine."

I turned on my heel and walked away. My movements were calm. Mechanical.

That slap had finally knocked some sense into me.

The truth was, I had lost my parents a long time ago.

The farewell was a disastera messy end to a messy lifebut I still had to pull myself together. I had to figure out how to survive these last few days.

I was a walking tragedy. About to die, yet still desperate for a quiet, clean place to take my final breath.

I reached out to Eliana Norton. She told me to come to her place. Her husband and daughter had both passed away in that house, she said, so adding one more dying soul wouldn't make a difference.

I moved in. While the online buzz about the "rich girl and the sanitation worker" was still hot, I started filming videos with her. It was my way of repaying her kindness. And also a way to earn enough for food during my final countdown.

When the timer on my arm showed only thirty hours left, Dad and Mom started calling me like crazy.

I didn't answer.

So they bombarded me with texts.

*You don't dare answer the phone? Think your wings have hardened, do you?*

*Grace had a nightmare and has a fever from the shock. It's critical. Hurry back and use Resurrection on her.*

*You have time to film those trashy videos, but no time to save your own biological sister?*

*I think you haven't learned your lesson yet!*

I calmly put my phone away.

Whether Grace was faking it or actually dying, it didn't matter.

I wasn't going back.

I had no Resurrection charges left.

I just hadn't expected my parentspeople who cared so much about their reputationto stoop so low. To force me back to heal Grace, they started a livestream.

Facing the camera, they wept, accusing me of having no conscience, of harboring a vicious, jealous heart.

They claimed that to compete for their favor, I had engineered accident after accident, trying to kill my own sister. Now that Grace was traumatized from a "car accident" and burning up with a fever, I wouldn't even visit. Instead, I was out filming videos with strangers, using the scandal to line my pockets.

Mom even flashed a bank statement showing my earnings. "Look closely! Michelle Fox doesn't lack money at all!"

"That sanitation worker buying her porridge? It's all a show! It's acting!"

The livestream turned me into public enemy number one.

The videos Eliana and I had filmed were mass-reported and taken down. Eliana was even warned by her supervisor: stop filming, or get fired.

By then, the countdown on my arm had reached single digits.

One hour.

That was all I had left.

"It's my fault," I said softly.

I took a deep breath, looking at the chaos I'd caused. "Auntie Eliana doesn't know anything. I lied to her."

Whether it was the internet mob or her boss, I took all the blame.

After clearing Eliana's name, I took a taxi to the hospital.

I pushed open the door to the ward.

Mom and Dad weren't there. Grace was leaning against the headboard, scrolling through her phone. Her complexion was rosy, her eyes bright.

She didn't look sick at all.

When I entered, she didn't even look up. Her gaze passed right through me, as if I were air.

I wasn't surprised. Whenever our parents weren't watching, the "sweet little sister" act vanished. She never called me sister. Never acknowledged my existence unless she had to.

"Grace, why did you frame me?"

Silence. Her thumbs kept tapping the screen.

"At this point, do you still not dare to speak a single word of truth?"

Grace finally looked up.

A teenage girl should be innocent. Bright. But her eyes held a gloom and a cold indifference that made my blood run cold.

"Mom and Dad only need one child." Her voice was flat. Empty. "That child is me."

"They don't need two daughters. And I don't need a sister."

"Their love belongs to me alone. The three of us are very happy without you."

A cruel smile tugged at her lips. "Now, they've finally given up on you completely. Do you know where they went? They went home to pack. Today, they're taking me abroad for a vacation."

She threw the words at me with malice, waiting for me to explode. To scream. To cry.

But she was disappointed.

Receiving this answer right before my death brought a strange sense of closure.

I nodded lightly. "So that's what you think."

I turned around and walked out.

As I stepped out of the hospital, the System's voice echoed in my mind.

*"Michelle Fox. Among the 574 hosts I have bound, you are the only one who used the tenth and final Resurrection chance. As per the contract, your soul will be devoured by the System."*

*"However, as a commemoration, I will grant you a parting gift."*

The moment the System finished speaking, the countdown on my arm hit zero.