Chapter 1

Through ten lifetimes, I've died miserably because people kept forgetting I existed.

So in this life, I decide not to struggle anymore and just wait for death.

When I was kidnapped at five years old, I lay down on the spot and held my breath, covering myself with white powder. The kidnappers thought they had killed me and were so frightened that they surrendered on the spot.

When the police found me, I was lying on a cart near the morgue entrance. I waved to the morgue staff and said, "Could you push a little faster? I've got another life to get to."

At seventeen, I'm found by my biological parents.

On the way back to my wealthy family, I refuse to sit in the backseat of the car and instead get into the trunk.

My mother, Sally Jensen, looks through the gap beneath the open trunk lid, crying her heart out.

"This child must have suffered a lot. How can he just lie in that kind of place?"

I close my eyes and say in a flat voice, "It doesn't matter. This life is going to end anyway. I like this narrow place. It's just the right place to wait for death."

My dad, Edward Cortez, slams the steering wheel and exclaims, "Nonsense, Kenneth Cortez! Now that you've returned to the Cortez household. Whatever happens, we'll protect you! So, how can you possibly die?"

However, as soon as I get home and go up to the second floor, the boy who took my place, Kevin Cortez, fakes losing his balance just so he can seize the chance to push me down the stairs.

Chapter 1

I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the sensation of weightlessness, ready and waiting to die.

Instead, there was a loud thud.

As it turned out, Kevin Cortez had lunged in the wrong direction, lost his footing, and landed face-first, tumbling all the way down the stairs.

And just like that, I'd dodged the lethal shove intended for me by the "fake" young master of the Cortez household.

I opened my eyes, glanced at the empty space beside me, and shrugged. It was too bad that I didn't manage to die after all.

Kevin's heart-wrenching wails echoed up from below, but I just ignored him. I turned away to find a suitable spot to tuck myself in and wait, once more, for death.

After a quick search, I set my sights on a ventilation duct above the toilet. The cover wasn't shut tight, and it was dark, cramped, and encased in sheet metal.

A perfect morgue compartment.

I nimbly climbed inside, folded my hands across my stomach, and closed my eyes, feeling quite content with myself.

Downstairs, Kevin's sobbing had drawn the entire family over. He wailed and said, "Kenneth said there was no room for me in this house since he's back! He even pushed me down the stairs on purpose!"

Mom, Dad, and my eldest sister, Kathy Cortez, were furious. The whole family stormed up to the second floor, hell-bent on settling the score with me. They tore through every room until Kathy finally kicked open the toilet door.

A flashlight beam cut into the ventilation duct, shining onto me, lying there stiff as a corpse.

A deathly silence fell over the room.

Kevin's wailing cut off abruptly like a squeaky toy being squeezed shut.

Mom pointed up at me, her finger trembling as she asked Kevin, "Didn't you say he pushed you down the stairs?"

Kevin's face drained of color before turning red. He even forgot to keep crying.

But he was quick in his thinking. He immediately grabbed Mom's hand and began to wail even more pitifully.

"No wonder he avoided me when I tried to greet him! I wouldn't have fallen, but just as I stood up, I heard a noise from the ceiling and I thought it was a ghost!

"I got scared and my foot slipped, and I fell… That's why I thought that he was the one who pushed me."

He clung to Mom's clothes and asked pitifully, "Does he hate me that much? Was he purposely pretending to be a ghost just to scare me away?"

Kathy shot a vicious glare toward me inside the ventilation duct.

"Kenneth Cortez! You have a perfectly good room! Why on earth are you hiding in the air ducts like a rat? It's clear you were hiding there on purpose to terrify Kevin! You wanted him to fall to his death!"

I opened my eyes slightly and cast a hollow, indifferent glance at them.

"Oh, my apologies. I had no idea that simply lying here could frighten him. Should I crawl a bit deeper inside and stay completely silent? Would that be better?"

I shifted further back, my back striking the sheet metal with a dull thud. However, that sound sent Dad into a rage.

He grabbed a golf club from somewhere and struck the exterior of the duct with all his might.

"Kenneth Cortez! Nobody has ever dared to lay a single finger on Kevin ever since he began living here 17 years ago, but the moment you came back, you turned this entire house upside down!"

He continued to roar, his face twisted in disgust.

"Is the Cortez household so short on space that you can't find a bed for yourself? Get out here now!"

I didn't crawl out.

Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't know which room to go to. They hadn't even bothered to prepare a room for me at all.

In the end, two bodyguards dragged me out of the duct by force. I was tossed onto the living room floor, completely covered in dust.

Mom looked down at me while gently patting the shaken Kevin in her arms. "Go get cleaned up. You can pick any room in the house you like. But you are absolutely forbidden from playing ghost to scare Kevin again."

They welded iron grilles over every single opening later on to keep me from crawling back into the ventilation ducts again.

I wandered around the second floor. There were plenty of rooms in the house—a music room, a study, an art studio, a walk-in closet, and so on—but all of them belonged to Kevin.

Even for the empty utility room, tucked away at the far end of the hallway, a servant rolled her eyes when I approached it. She told me, "That was just converted into a home gym for Kevin yesterday."

I nodded, signaling that I understood.

Since there wasn't a room in this house for the living, I would simply find a spot suitable for burying the dead.

In the end, I pushed open the door to the greenhouse in the backyard.

As it happened, there were several long, unused planter boxes in the corner. I chose the one with the softest soil and lay down inside.

Chapter 2

In the middle of the night, someone stealthily pushed open the greenhouse door.

I lay in the soil, half-asleep. I heard the noise, but I didn't move a muscle.

Then, a pungent, acrid smell of herbicide began to permeate the air.

Kevin trampled the orchids Mom had been growing in the greenhouse. He then sprayed the entire space with two bottles of herbicide. And finally, he locked the greenhouse door from the outside.

The toxic fumes spread.

My throat tightened, and breathing became difficult. Based on my experiences across my previous ten lifetimes, death by pesticide was a fairly standard affair. It didn't even faze me anymore.

I shifted into a more comfortable position and took a deep, long breath of the toxic air.

Perfect. This time, I should finally be able to die for good, right?

Just as my consciousness began to slip away, a loud crash echoed from outside, and a security guard on his rounds forced open the greenhouse's glass door.

Fresh air rushed in, and I was hauled out forcefully.

The lights throughout the villa flickered on all at once.

Mom, Dad, and Kathy burst into the greenhouse. Seeing the devastation, Mom clutched her chest in anguish and wailed, "My orchids! I've been growing them for three years!"

Dad turned, grabbed me by the collar, and delivered a stinging slap across my face.

"Kenneth! Your mother worked so hard to get these to bloom, and you—you've gone and ripped them all out!"

My cheek burned with intense pain. I rubbed my face, sighed in regret, and pointed toward the corner of the ceiling.

"It wasn't me. There's a security camera up there. You can check the footage."

Kevin's face turned deathly pale. He gripped the hem of his shirt tightly.

Kathy let out a cold sneer and strode over, exclaiming, "Fine, let's check it! That way, you can stop putting on this act as if you've been so terribly wronged!"

Kevin tried to intervene, but the butler had already pulled up the surveillance footage.

In the footage, Kevin glanced around, stomping on and tearing at the orchids before finally spraying them manically with pesticide.

The truth was laid bare.

Kevin dropped to his knees with a thud, on the verge of tears as he whimpered, "Mom, I didn't mean to… I saw Kenneth sleeping in a planter box. It was clearly an attempt to humiliate the Cortez family!

"I was so furious that I lost control… My hands just acted on their own…"

Not a single person stopped to consider that such a high concentration of herbicide in an enclosed space could have killed me.

Instead, Kathy pulled Kevin up to his feet, her heart aching for him. Then, she turned and pointed an accusatory finger at me.

"Did you hear that? This is all your fault for choosing to sleep in a place not even a dog would touch! Kevin has always cared deeply about the Cortez family's reputation. If you hadn't provoked him to the point of losing control, why would he have destroyed the orchids?"

I looked at them, my voice lifeless. "There's no room for me in this house. Where am I supposed to sleep if not there?"

Mom and Dad froze at these words.

Mom looked at Dad and asked, "Didn't you arrange a room for him?"

Dad frowned. "Wasn't that your job?"

Kathy's face flushed red. She looked absolutely incensed.

"If you didn't have a room, didn't you know how to open your mouth and say something? Why did you insist on stuffing yourself into a pipe or a planter box?

"Aren't you just trying to make outsiders laugh at us, claiming the Cortez family was mistreating or abusing you?"

I shut my mouth, not bothering to respond. I didn't really care where I was as long as I could lie down and wait for death.

Kathy snapped when she saw my utter indifference, like a corpse that couldn't care less about anything. She screamed, "Well, since you love acting like a corpse so much, playing dead to garner sympathy, I'll just grant you your wish!"

She turned and gave an order to the bodyguards. Moments later, a wooden crate was brought in and slammed onto the living room floor.

"From today on, you're sleeping in here! Let's see how long you can keep up this act of yours!"

"Thank you."

Without hesitation, I stepped into the wooden crate and lay down flat.

Kathy, seething with rage, delivered a vicious kick to the crate. She snarled, "Aren't you just clever! Always pulling these low, disgusting stunts! You'd better die in there without making a sound! Lock it up!"

The crate was then locked from the outside, and everything plunged into absolute darkness for me.

The lid fitted snugly, and its dimensions just right as if it had been custom-made for me.

The way it enclosed me felt so comfortable, in fact, that it was truly like I was being laid to rest in a coffin.

A satisfied smile tugged at the corners of my lips, and I closed my eyes, feeling completely at ease.

Chapter 3

I didn't know how long I lay there, but the faint airflow inside the crate dwindled.

I caught the faint, rapid patter of footsteps outside.

Then the final gap that allowed for any airflow was sealed shut, tightly covered with adhesive tape.

The temperature inside the crate climbed steadily. Every breath became as painful as though my lungs were being cut open by a blade, and my head grew heavy and muddled.

In my dazed state, memories from my previous ten lifetimes flooded my mind.

I had screamed desperately for help amidst raging fires, deep beneath the ocean, and buried under piles of rubble. But not a single person ever stopped to save me.

So, this time, even as I felt myself suffocating, I didn't move a muscle or make a sound. I simply waited in silence for the end to come.

I thought that this absurd 11th life was finally coming to an end.

But then, I woke up.

There was no underworld—only the pungent, sharp scent of disinfectant.

Dad stood by the hospital bed, his face ashen with rage, pointing at me as he unleashed a torrent of abuse.

"Kenneth Cortez! Have you lost your mind? How could you let an ambulance pull into the villa? Do you have any idea what the neighbors must be thinking about us now?

"Are you only satisfied if someone ends up dead, so the whole city knows the Cortez family abuses their own son?"

I stared blankly at the ceiling, trying to process his words.

Kathy stood with her arms crossed, looking at me as if I were some vermin crawling out of a sewer. "Dad, I told you he did it on purpose! Who gets locked in a crate for a day and a night without even knocking on the wood or calling out for help?

"He timed it perfectly to play dead, using his own life as a trap to frame us! He's just trying to disgust us!"

At that precise moment, Kevin tugged on Kathy's sleeve, feigning an expression of complete, innocent harmlessness.

"Kathy, please don't be angry with Kenneth. It's all my fault—I should have gone to check on him sooner…"

He sobbed, his face full of feigned grievance.

"But Kenneth would rather suffocate in there than swallow his pride and knock on the wood for help… He must hate me so much… That's why he's taking revenge on the Cortez family like this..."

"How dare he!" Kathy erupted in fury. "He's the one who's always so morose and insufferable! Why on earth would he blame you for anything?"

Mom sat by the bedside, gazing at my pale face, and let out a weary sigh. She reached out to tuck in the corner of my blanket. Her movements were gentle, yet every word she spoke cut like a knife.

"Kenneth, you take things too much to heart. You're far too stubborn and prideful for your own good. If you're feeling wronged, couldn't you have just talked it over properly with your family?

"Remember, we're your own flesh and blood. Family ties run deeper than anything.

"When Kathy locked you away, she was simply acting out of anger. She only wanted to teach you a lesson. If you had just given in and called for help, did you really think we would have just stood by and watched you die?"

Kathy let out a cold scoff and tossed an emergency alert device onto my blanket.

"Take it! Next time you want to pull this 'victim' act, just press this! And stop moping around with that dead-eyed look all the time as if the Cortez family owes you your life!"

The device pressed against my palm, cold and hard. There was a single button on it to press on during an emergency.

Would they not watch me die if I'd just called for help after all?

I lowered my gaze to the device in my hand and pressed it lightly. At once, a harsh, electronic tone blared from Kathy's phone.

She furrowed her brows and snapped, her face twisted in disgust.

"Kenneth! What's the meaning of pressing it right now? Do you think this is some kind of game?"

I pulled my hand back, my tone calm as I replied, "Nothing. I was just checking to see if it worked."

Mom reached over and stroked my hair. "Alright, stop sulking. Once you're discharged, we'll take you to our villa at Navarro Hills out in the countryside for a few days. It'll be a nice chance for the whole family to get together.

"Consider it a way to help you recover from the shock, and a chance for you and Kevin to bond."

I clutched the emergency alert device, staring at the gloomy, overcast sky outside the window. I said nothing.

Since they'd given me such assurances, I'd give them one last chance in this life..

Chapter 4

Three days after I was discharged from the hospital, Mom and Dad took the whole family to the villa in Navarro Hills. At their insistence, I reluctantly allowed myself to sit in the back seat of the car this time.

It had been raining heavily for days, leaving the roads a muddy mess. Upon arrival at the villa, everyone immediately swarmed around Kevin.

"Kevin, we decorated this room to your taste. Go take a look and see if you like it!"

"Just let us know if anything is missing. We'll have it brought over right away."

Kevin linked his arm through Dad's, offering a sweet, well-behaved smile as he said, "I know I'll love it as long as it's something that you picked out for me."

Only after everyone else had chosen their rooms did Mom turn to ask which one I wanted. But since the only room left was the one tucked away against the mountainside, I didn't know why she bothered with asking me at all.

Once inside, I instinctively scanned the room. It wasn't too bad. The space under the bed was just big enough for me to crawl in and lie flat on my back.

I skillfully wedged myself underneath, folded my hands, and waited for dawn—or perhaps for death.

In the middle of the night, a dull, thunderous roar erupted outside. The earth began to tremble. Then, a mass of mud and rocks came crashing down the mountainside, came rushing down the slope.

My room was situated right against the mountainside, and it took the full brunt of the impact.

I opened my eyes.

Beams and rubble came crashing down. The bed frame collapsed instantly, leaving only a small, precarious gap supported by what remained of the structure.

A jagged, broken piece of wood had pierced straight into my lower leg, and a wave of excruciating pain washed over me. I gritted my teeth, letting out a stifled groan as cold sweat broke out across my forehead.

In my previous ten lives, death had always been quick and relatively painless. But it seemed that this time, I was meant to experience the full process.

"Is there anyone still inside?"

Dad's anxious shout rang out from somewhere outside. He continued, "Thank goodness I was alert enough to bang on your doors and wake you all up. Without the villa shielding us, we wouldn't have found anywhere safe."

Outside, the beam of a flashlight darted erratically, its faint, piercing light filtered through the gaps in the rubble, landing squarely on my face.

I listened in silence.

"What about Kenneth? Did Kenneth make it out?" Mom asked as she leaned against a rockery in the distance, gasping for air, still shaken by the ordeal.

Beyond the gaps, Kevin cowered behind Kathy, his face deathly pale, his voice trembling as he said, "I think I saw him run out through the back door just now. He was moving so fast and didn't even look back…

"I wanted to call out to him, but I was too terrified and couldn't make a sound."

Kathy's hands clenched into fists, her tone dripping with disgust.

"That cold-blooded, ungrateful wretch! He's always the first to bolt when things go wrong. And to think that Mom and Dad even brought him along just to help him clear his head."

Mom let out a sigh, shaking her head in disappointment.

"That boy… How could he just abandon his own younger brother at a time like this… He truly is heartless after all."

Beneath the ruins, the weight pressing down from above grew heavier. I could feel the earth and debris slowly crushing the last remaining pocket of space around me.

My hand lay at my side, my fingertips brushing against the cold emergency alert device in my pocket.

I recalled what Kathy and my parents had said at the hospital, so I decided to try my luck asking for help this time. I pressed the button on the device five times in a row, using nearly every ounce of strength I had left.

Outside, Kathy's phone vibrated. She checked the alert on her phone, a sneer erupting across her face.

Mom glanced at the collapsed villa, her expression shifting instantly.

"Is that Kenneth? Did Kenneth send a distress signal? Could it be that he didn't make it out?"

Kathy looked at the device, a cold, mocking smile spreading across her face. Then she pressed the mute button right in front of Mom and Dad.

"Impossible. Kevin already said he ran out ages ago. He's probably hiding somewhere right now, watching us and laughing his head off. He actually had the nerve to trigger that button for fun!

"I bet he's just doing this to get back at us for locking him in that wooden crate earlier, trying to bait us into risking our lives to 'save' him. Why even bother with someone so malicious?"

Mom hesitated, "But what if he's actually—"

"Mom! Kevin saw him run off with his own eyes!" Kathy interrupted, sounding impatient. "He's just doing this on purpose to see us all worried and terrified. How many times does he have to pull this victim act before you've had enough?"

She disabled the alerts, and the beam of the flashlight moved away.

The whole family gathered around Kevin, fussing over him. No one spared me another glance.

The weight of the mud and debris crushed the bed frame, burying me beneath it. I closed my eyes, feeling a sense of peace.

It seemed that death was inevitable anyway, even if I didn't just sit here waiting to die.

Half an hour later, a rescue helicopter arrived, its searchlights cutting through the dark. The head of the search-and-rescue team jumped out and shouted, "Is there anyone else inside the building?"

"No," Mom, Dad, and Kathy replied in unison.

Just then, the property manager rushed over, his face deathly pale. He yelled, "Wait! There's someone still trapped inside!"

He held up a tablet showing surveillance footage, his voice trembling.

"Mr. Cortez, the independent security feed for the building shows that nobody else apart from the four of you has left through any of the exits ever since the mudslide started! In other words, there's one more person still trapped inside!"

At that same moment, the life-detection device in the rescuer's hand began to emit a long, continuous tone.

"We're not detecting any signs of life beneath the building."