Chapter 1

While I lay unconscious in a hospital bed, a system found me and said it wanted to show me something.

That was how I saw my younger sister’s Koi System.

Her system could select a person and convert that person’s fortune into her own. The selected person, meanwhile, would become extremely unlucky.

Unfortunately, I was the poor soul my sister had chosen.

I had ended up in a coma after this car accident because my sister and I were competing for the same role. The director had already decided that one of us would be his leading lady.

Once I was injured and unconscious, the role could only go to her.

The system told me that over the past fourteen years, my sister had siphoned more than ninety thousand points of fortune from me. My fortune score was frighteningly low, which was why this accident had left me comatose.

My mind churned.

Fourteen years!

No wonder.

When we were ten, my sister and I had both been perfectly ordinary children.

But after she turned ten, it was as if she had activated a cheat code.

She found money whenever she went out, won the lottery, fished a gold bracelet out of the river while swimming, and even cracked open a mussel to find a flawless pearl.

I, on the other hand, was rather less fortunate.

I missed steps on the stairs, fainted every few days, and could trip over flat ground badly enough to break a leg.

I was an excellent student, yet on the day I was supposed to give a speech, a ball struck me in the face and left me covered in blood. My sister took my place, delivered my speech to thunderous applause, received a donation from a kindhearted stranger, and made the school’s honor roll.

All this time, I had believed I was simply born unlucky. So it had been her doing!

The system said, “Host, bond with me. I can rewrite the name in the Koi System and replace yours with someone else’s. Would you like to bind with me?”

I said nothing.

The Koi System had to drain my fortune to make my sister lucky. That taught me one thing: energy was conserved. If one person suddenly became fortunate, someone else had to become unfortunate.

If this system wanted to help me, it had to want something from me in return.

I asked calmly, “What do you want from me?”

It replied, “Something you no longer need: your familial love, friendship, and romantic love. Those feelings are useless to you now, aren’t they?”

I lowered my eyes. They truly were useless to me now.

I bonded with the system. The moment it entered me, the world took on a strange and wondrous clarity.

I could see my system and distinctly sense the Koi System attached to my sister.

She had just returned from meeting the director.

Guilt covered her face, but she could not hide the triumph in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Sis. Since you couldn’t go, Director Fu chose me as his leading lady in the end.”

“Her bad luck isn’t your fault. If it weren’t for you, she couldn’t even afford her medical bills.” My brother, Ye Mingchen, folded his arms and stared at me coldly, making no attempt to hide his impatience.

After my frequent hospitalizations over the years, my family had grown thoroughly sick of me.

More than once, my parents had complained right in front of me that I had been born to collect a debt from them.

My sister and I were twins, yet she was healthy and lively while I seemed to lack basic coordination, forever landing myself in the hospital.

At first, my family had worried about me. Then dealing with me exhausted them. Eventually, concern gave way to numbness and disgust, and they left me to fend for myself.

I understood all of that.

So I had always been careful—painfully careful. I avoided dangerous places, walked as if sweeping for land mines, gripped the railing whenever I took the stairs, looked both ways over and over before crossing a road, ate on time, slept on time, and made staying alive my highest priority.

I had even turned down my high school graduation trip.

I had wanted to go so, so badly.

I knew in my heart that it might be my last chance to spend time with the boy I secretly loved.

But I had been afraid that something would happen on the journey and cause my family more trouble, so I refused.

And Ye Xiaoxiao had caused every bit of it.

Yet now, she had somehow become my savior…

She expected my undying gratitude. Had it ever occurred to her that I should never have suffered any of this? That I should have been able to live a normal life?

I said coldly, “Ye Xiaoxiao, you won the leading role today, and I got into a car accident. The last time you won the lottery, I broke my leg. The time before that, you received special admission to the drama academy, and I was rushed to the hospital with an allergic reaction. And there was another time—”

Ye Xiaoxiao cut me off in a panic, her voice turning shrill.

“What are you trying to say, Ye Shengsheng?”

“My meaning is perfectly clear. Ye Xiaoxiao, as far as I’m concerned, you’re a walking disaster. You stole my luck. That’s the reason I’ve been so unlucky…”

Smack!

A vicious slap struck my face.

Ye Mingchen lowered his hand and glared down at me with icy eyes.

“Apologize to Xiaoxiao. If it weren’t for her, no one would pay your medical bills. Do you have any idea how much Mom and Dad have spent on you since you were little—”

His mouth kept moving, but I could no longer make out his words.

My ear and cheek burned with throbbing pain as blood surged to my head.

I yanked out my IV, grabbed the infusion stand without a word, and swung it at Ye Mingchen with all my strength.

The stand struck him in the head. Blood immediately streamed down his face. He stared at me in disbelief and raised an arm to block me, utterly stunned.

I kept hitting him like a woman possessed.

“Did I choose to be unlucky? Did I deliberately waste Mom and Dad’s money? Did I fail my exams on purpose? What gives you the right to call me a liar? What gives you the right to hit me?”

Ye Xiaoxiao screamed, “Ah! Stop! Somebody help!”

I spun around and slapped her across the face. My sharp nails left a clear, bloody scratch on her cheek. Then I brought the metal stand down on her arm.

“If I can’t have it, none of us will! No one gets to climb over my corpse to reach the top!”

Ye Xiaoxiao let out a bloodcurdling scream. Clutching her arm, she collapsed to the floor.

Furious, Ye Mingchen lunged forward and wrested the stand from me.

I had lost my mind. I grabbed a cup and hurled it at him.

People flooded into the room.

Men roared and cursed. Women screamed and sobbed. Frantic shouts and the sounds of struggling filled the air without pause.

At last, several nurses pinned me firmly to the bed while others dragged Ye Mingchen outside. He glared at me with naked hatred, still shouting abuse.

“Ye Shengsheng, I won’t let you get away with this.”

What a coincidence.

Neither would I.