Chapter 3

The next day, the tension inside the car heading to the Life Pawnshop was suffocatingly heavy.

Chloe sat in the passenger seat. Arthur, hands on the steering wheel, kept glancing over to softly ask if the cut on her forehead still hurt.

In the backseat, my parents checked their watches with overt impatience.

"Drive faster, Arthur. Our appointment with the pawnshop owner is at 3:00 PM. If we miss our slot, who knows how long they'll drag this out for," my father urged.

I shrank into the corner, not making a sound.

"Are you cold, Elena?" Chloe looked at me through the rearview mirror, asking with sickeningly fake concern. "You look so pale. Are you still mad at me? Honestly, once you hand over your Love Value, the pawnshop will let you go right away."

"What does she have to be mad about? What right does she have?" my mother scoffed coldly. "She pushed you and is still playing the victim. If you ask me, she's just putting on an act because she doesn't want to save Noah."

I leaned against the window, watching the streetscape blur past, and didn't reply. Almost there. Just a little longer.

The car finally pulled up deep within a dark, cramped alleyway.

Pushing the door open, the inside of the Life Pawnshop was incredibly dim, illuminated only by the faint, eerie glow of a few blue sconces.

In the center of the hall sat a massive, bizarre contraption made out of brass gears and crystal tubes—the trading altar.

The pawnshop owner was a gaunt old man in a black tuxedo. Wearing a monocle, his vulture-like gaze swept over our group before finally landing on me.

"She's the one making the trade?"

"Yes, it's her." Arthur stepped forward, slapping a piece of parchment bearing Noah's birth details onto the counter. "We're using her Love Value to buy back Noah's life."

The owner picked up the parchment, glanced at it, and then looked at me with something remarkably close to pity. "Ma'am, are you certain you wish to proceed? I must warn you: if your Love Value is detected to be insufficient to cover the cost, this machine will automatically extract your life force... You will be drained dry and crushed alive."

Arthur let out a cold sneer. "Boss, don't bother trying to scare her. She's my wife, a daughter of the Miller family. How could she possibly have no Love Value? Just start the machine."

My parents chimed in from the side, "Exactly. Hurry up, stop wasting time!"

Looking at their impatient, eager faces, I walked over to the altar.

"Lie down." The owner pressed a red button on the console.

I lay flat on the platform. Several thick brass probes slowly descended from above, aligning themselves precisely over my heart, my wrists, and my forehead.

"Elena," Arthur stood a short distance away, hands in his pockets, looking down at me with arrogant condescension. "As long as you cooperate, once Noah is brought back, I'm willing to let all the wrong things you've done go. We can still live a good life together after this."

I turned my head. Looking at his self-righteous, arrogant face, I suddenly found it all utterly absurd.

"Arthur," I called his name softly, my voice echoing in the hollow pawnshop. "There won't be an 'after this' for us."

Arthur frowned, seemingly not understanding what I meant.

"Transaction initiated," the machine's mechanical voice announced.

With a violent jolt, the probes pierced my skin.

"Scan results: Love Value—Zero."

The icy verdict echoed through the pawnshop. Arthur froze. The impatience on my parents' faces completely petrified.

"Zero? How is that possible!" Arthur took a sharp step forward. "Is the machine broken? How could it be..."

"Warning! Insufficient Love Value! Forced collateral mechanism triggered! Initiating life force extraction!"

Before any of them could even react, the machine let out a deafening roar.

In an instant, an indescribable, agonizing pain engulfed my entire body. I felt my blood being violently ripped from my veins by a terrifying, unseen force.

I couldn't stop myself from letting out a blood-curdling scream.

My body convulsed violently on the altar. Veins bulged hideously beneath my skin, and I began to shrivel and hollow out at a visible rate. Immediately after came the sickening, bone-chilling sound of my skeleton fracturing.

My limbs were twisted into grotesque, unnatural angles by the invisible power.

Massive mouthfuls of dark blood spewed from my mouth, my nose, and my eyes, cascading down the metallic surface of the altar.

"Elena! What are you doing! Stop faking it!" Arthur was still yelling at first, but when he saw the blood gushing out of me like a fountain, his voice began to tremble.

My mother shrieked in terror, covering her eyes. My father scrambled backward, knocking over a nearby chair in his panic.

"Stop! Stop the machine!" Arthur finally realized something was horribly wrong. He charged at the pawnshop owner like a madman, violently grabbing him by the collar. "She's going to die! Turn it off!"

"Once the transaction begins, it cannot be reversed." The owner shoved him away coldly. "You were the ones who claimed she had Love Value. But the facts have just proven that in this entire world, not a single person actually loves her."

"Life force extraction progress: 80%... 90%..."

I lay in a pool of my own blood. My vision had turned entirely crimson. Through the red haze, I saw Arthur's utterly terrified face. I saw his violently shaking hand reaching out toward me.

"Elena... Elena, hold on! I don't want to save Noah anymore! Make it stop!" he screamed, completely breaking down. He lunged to rip the probes off of me, only to be violently repelled by the machine's force field.

"Life force extraction complete. Vital signs lost. Soul detaching."

With my very last shred of consciousness, I watched my blood cascade off the altar like a waterfall, pooling and spreading all the way to Arthur's shoes.

The arrogance, the sneers, the utter disdain that had constantly lived on his face—at this very moment, it all shattered into the dust of absolute despair.

I faintly curled the corners of my lips into a smile, and closed my eyes.

At long last, I was free.