He Asked If I’d Only Forgive Her When I Was Dead, So I Showed Him Chapter 05

He Asked If I’d Only Forgive Her When I Was Dead, So I Showed Him Chapter 05

The whole room exploded into chaos as the guests began whispering to one another. 

“I heard they found a headless woman near the bridge, with a huge rock tied to her ankles. Some guy out fishing even caught footage of someone lingering there for a long time.” 

“That’s horrifying. Who could be sick enough to do something like that? In this day and age, how could 

anyone be so blatant about it?” 

“The news said the body was so badly mutilated they 

couldn’t even identify who she was…” 

Off to the side, my parents looked grim. 

My mother instinctively reached for her phone. 

She opened our chat history, and a long string of 

WhatsApp voice messages she had sent me filled the 

screen. 

She didn’t even have to play them. 

I remembered every word. 

“Haven’t we been good enough to you? Ever since we 

brought you home, haven’t we given you everything 

you wanted? Yes, Blaire was wrong to bully you for a 

while, but she went to prison for it. She already paid the 

price, so why can’t you just let it go?” 

They said “bully” so lightly, as if it were nothing. 

As if they’d forgotten all the times I ended up in the ER 

with critical condition notices. 

As if they’d forgotten how my private photos spread all 

over the internet, and how the harassment and abuse 

never stopped after that. 

“Nathan loves you so much. From the day you were hurt to all those years you spent overseas getting treatment, he’s been coaxing you, comforting you, 

standing by you. Can’t you think about how hard this 

has been on him and compromise just a little?” 

Nathan had stayed by my side for six years. 

He had stood up to Blaire for me and kept me under his protection. 

And yet, while I was overseas trying to recover, he 

listened to Blaire cry and play the victim, then helped 

her make up for her crimes and get her sentence 

reduced. 

He was a good man. 

The kind of good man who always wanted to help the weaker one, whether they were right or wrong. 

“We never should have brought you back in the first 

place. If it weren’t for you, none of this would’ve 

happened to our family!” 

When I was seventeen, the couple who raised me tried 

to marry me off to a sixty–year–old man for the 

groom’s family payout. 

I ran, got dragged back, and was beaten until my face 

was covered in blood. 

Then they threw me into the back of a livestock truck 

that reeked of chicken droppings and left me there 

half–dead. 

That was when the Bennetts showed up and told me I 

was their biological daughter, and that they were taking me home so I could finally live a good life. 

I clapped my hands over my ears, but those words still 

forced their way into my head, repeating over and over. 

“Richard, I have a bad feeling. What if something really happened to Ruby? I saw that news report, and the 

clothes on that body…” 

“Don’t start that. Rotten people never die easy. There’s 

no way it’s her.” 

My mother shook her head and fumbled across the 

screen until she opened my Instagram feed. 

The second she saw that travel post with the location 

tag, her expression darkened instantly. 

“Oh, that headache of a girl. She dumped this whole 

mess in our laps and ran off to enjoy herself.” 

My father scowled. “Look at the way she’s turned this 

whole house upside down ever since she came back. 

She can even walk out on a marriage alliance that 

affects the reputation of both families. I say the second 

she comes back, we cut her off for good.” 

My mother hesitated. “But…” 

My father pressed his hand over hers. “We can’t keep 

favoring her just because she’s mentally ill. We need to think more about Blaire, since she’s the sensible one. 

At worst, we give Ruby a little more money.” 

The conflict in my mother’s eyes disappeared almost instantly. 

Nearby, Nathan was helping the police question people and narrow things down. 

Standing beside him, Blaire’s expression kept shifting. 

I drifted closer and heard her arguing with the System. 

[What do you mean the original host doesn’t want to come back? Why do I have to stay stuck in this story world until I time out?] 

The System snapped back with a few sharp replies, 

then went offline. 

Then a voice I knew all too well suddenly cut through everything, sharp and vicious. 

“You bitch. You dug out my liver and kidneys to score 

points with those old bastards, donated my money to those two broke nobodies, and murdered that filthy bitch Ruby. And now you’ve still got the nerve to drag me back here to clean up your mess?” 

Even as a soul, hearing that voice again made my whole body tremble. 

The real Blaire Bennett had appeared.