Chapter 1

"Alex, your brother's life is entirely in your hands! Just one more bone marrow transplant, and he'll live. How can you be so stone-hearted, refusing to save your own brother?"

The speaker was Sophia Summers, Alex Young's childhood sweetheart and fiancée.

At that moment, her fine brows were knitted in fury, her beautiful eyes blazing with a fierce, demanding light. It was a look meant to force him into saving Jason Young, Alex's elder brother.

But she didn't realize that Alex would die if he underwent another bone marrow aspiration.

What was worse, if Alex didn't survive, she would die along with him.

*****

Back when Alex and Sophia were kids, Sophia got into a serious car accident and was barely clinging to life.

Anxious, Alex searched for every doctor and miracle cure he could find, but nothing worked. Desperate, he begged the heavens for mercy.

Maybe his sincerity really did move the gods, because a merciful deity actually answered his prayer.

Without a second thought, Alex begged to trade his life for Sophia's.

But the deity had a different plan. "I'm going to link your lives together. She gets to live, but from now on, you're bound together. If one dies, so does the other."

Twenty-two years went by. During that time, Alex donated his bone marrow to Jason again and again.

All those years of surgery had long wrecked his body. Every organ of his was failing.

The doctors had warned everyone that if Alex went through another surgery, there was no way he'd survive.

Besides, Jason's aplastic anemia had already stabilized.

As Alex recalled everything he'd been through, his eyes reddened, and sorrow filled his heart.

With reluctance in his eyes, he gazed at Sophia and spoke with a slight quiver in his voice, "Sophia, my body really can't handle another bone marrow donation. And if something happens to me, you'll die too. Do you really want me to risk it?"

He'd barely finished when a stinging slap rang out.

Jason, who was lying in bed weakly, somehow managed to lurch forward and struck Alex across the face.

With reddened eyes, Jason yelled at Alex, "Alex, even if you refuse to save me, how can you be so vicious as to curse Sophia?"

As Jason spoke, he clasped his hands in front of him and cried out to the sky, "If there are deities above, please ignore the cruel words Alex just said! If someone has to suffer, let the punishment fall on me instead."

"Jason, don't say that," Sophia said in distress.

She hurried over and helped Jason up, wrapping her arms around his trembling shoulders. When she turned to face Alex, her gaze was ice-cold, filled with hatred.

"Alex, if anything happens to Jason, I won't forgive you. You have to save him today!" she threatened.

Susan Young, Jason and Alex's mother, chimed in, "Alex, if your brother hadn't needed a transplant, we never would've had you in the first place.

"To put it bluntly, Jason's the reason you were born. Now all we want from you is some bone marrow, not your life, so what's with all the drama? Don't you feel sorry for your brother?"

Color drained from Alex's face when he met Susan's furious glare.

With quivering lips, he asked, "So I was born just to be Jason's bone marrow donor, wasn't I?

"If so, have you ever asked yourself if I wanted to be brought into this world?"

Susan froze for a moment. Her expression changed slightly, but her fury was soon reignited.

"I brought you into this world, so your life belongs to me. You'll do as you're told," she growled.

The doctor had bitten his tongue for as long as he could. But hearing that in this day and age was beyond belief. He couldn't stay silent any longer.

"Alex is an adult. He has the right to decide for himself whether he wants to donate his bone marrow," he said. "Also, Jason's condition isn't as critical as it used to be. He—"

Before the doctor could even get the rest of her words out, Jason suddenly yelled as if he were terribly mistreated. "Sophia, Mom, enough! I've been troubling Alex for so many years. I owe him more than I could ever repay."

As he spoke, he staggered toward the window. "Alex, I'll never be able to repay you for this, not in this lifetime!"

He grabbed onto the windowsill and made to jump off the building.

Sophia reacted in a flash, as if she had expected him to do this. She rushed over and pulled Jason into her arms before he could do anything stupid.

The truth was, Jason had pulled off this guilt-tripping stunt more than once.

Whenever Alex started to hesitate about donating his bone marrow, Jason would pull his classic "take his own life" show. Every time, Sophia and Susan fell for it, and Alex never failed to fold under the guilt trip.

Unsurprisingly, Susan grabbed hold of Jason tightly. Then, without missing a beat, she swung a slap straight across Alex's face.

"You heartless brat! Are you really trying to drive your brother to his grave?" Susan barked.

"Listen, you're donating that bone marrow today, whether you like it or not. I'll tie you down and haul you to the OR myself if I have to," she added.

Half an hour later, Alex ended up on the operating table.

Years of repeated bone marrow donations had exposed him to so much anesthesia that he'd developed a tolerance. Now, he was aware but paralyzed during surgery.

When that long needle punctured his body, a wave of blinding pain hit him so hard that he blacked out instantly.

Just before he passed out, the voice of that deity from years ago echoed in his ears once more.

"You have ten days left to live," the deity said.

Alex forced his eyes open, and floating right above his head was a faint, glowing number of ten.

In that instant, everything became crystal clear to him.

Ten days from now, he'd finally be free from this hellish life and from the Young family, once and for all.