Chapter 3

"Doctor just said you have stomach cancer, and you still dare to drink alcohol?"

Melody is my college classmate, and besides Seraphina, she used to be one of the people who cared about me the most.

It turns out Melody happened to pass by the hotel's private room, saw me passed out, and called an ambulance to take me to the hospital.

Her eyes were red as she was about to scold me harshly.

The next second, she couldn't hold back anymore and started packing things up, planning to move me to a VIP ward.

"Dashiell, be good."

"Trust me, even late-stage cancer can be treated successfully. You haven't even tried yet, so why are you giving up on yourself so soon?"

I helplessly called out to stop her, "Melody, thank you, but it's really not necessary."

"Why?"

She looked up at me in despair.

I smiled gently, "Anyway, these three months were borrowed time for me."

"If it wasn't for Scarlett, I would have been dead already."

"Let's just say... I'm paying back a debt."

Three months ago.

The person who was supposed to be dragged into a dead-end alley and brutalized was me.

That day, I had a last-minute errand, and Seraphina's eighteen-year-old younger brother went to the appointment in my place. When Arthur was discovered, clothes were strewn about, torn and tattered. He lay barely clothed in a pool of blood, clinging to life.

In his hand, he still clutched the documents I had given him.

As he saw me, tears rolled into his ears.

He hadn't forgotten to warn me.

"Dashiell, bro, they're not good people. Don't trust them..."

Only then did I realize I had been duped by those animals.

To help Seraphina's company weather the crisis, I had believed those people online and actually took the documents to sign a contract with them.

Little did I know, they were a gang of desperados who already had police records.

They deliberately used various tactics to scam and deceive young people into meeting them.

That time, Arthur didn't have to die.

But his fierce temperament had him struggling non-stop from start to finish.

He even shouted about calling the cops to arrest them.

Those guys panicked and took his life.

I went crazy, wanting to fight them to the death.

But Seraphina slapped me to the ground.

"Dashiell, when will you ever stop!"

"Because of your stupidity, my brother is already dead. Do you want to personally deliver your own head too?" I stared at her, trapped in the house. Seraphina had lost her closest loved one and was completely shattered.

The wedding, originally set for next month, had to be canceled.

Watching Seraphina suffer endlessly, I lived each day consumed by guilt, repeatedly asking why it wasn't me who died that day.

If I could trade places...

I would definitely exchange my life for Scarlett's.

Perhaps the heavens heard me, or maybe it was karma, but a month ago, I coughed up blood for the first time.

I went to the hospital for a check-up. Late-stage stomach cancer.

When the doctor's sympathetic gaze fell on me, I surprisingly felt relieved and smiled.

It was as if the sword that had been hanging over my head had finally fallen.

I told the doctor not to treat me and signed an organ donation agreement, specifying that my heart be given to Seraphina.

She had always had heart problems, but unfortunately, a suitable heart was never found, so she just kept pushing through.

I had secretly gone to the hospital for tests, and my heart was a match for hers.

This was perhaps the last thing I could do for Seraphina.

I declined Melody's kind offer and checked myself out of the hospital.