After I Died, My Fiancée Finally Learned the Truth

After my fiancée lured me to a remote village called Blackhollow, deep in the Greystone Mountains, I became nothing more than a human test subject—a disposable body for the village to cut open at will.

The village doctor had sliced my abdomen open with crude, brutal strokes to draw blood for drug trials. Massive hemorrhaging followed. I lay in a pool of my own blood.

Through the door, I could hear the two village men on guard duty, puffing on hand-rolled cigarettes and chatting:

"This college kid from the city is so gullible. Still thinks he actually got kidnapped."

"No kidding. That's what he gets for crossing Miss Simmons' favorite person."

"Miss Simmons paid our chief half a million bucks to get the whole village in on this little 'escape room' game. Even those special meds that keep him from dying of pain? She shipped those in herself."

"Word is, Miss Simmons said as long as he survives three years in this hellhole—long enough to understand the suffering her best friend went through—she'll show mercy and take him back to get married."

Through the crack in the door, I saw the video call lighting up the guard's phone. The name on the screen: Constance Simmons. My fiancée.

So that was it. Three years of sunless, living hell—all of it was just a custom-made punishment she'd designed to make her best friend happy.

Searing pain ripped through my abdomen, clawing at every nerve. As consciousness began to slip away, a mechanical voice echoed inside my skull:

"Host, the target Constance Simmons' anguish value has reached maximum capacity. Do you wish to abandon the mission and extract from the current world?"

——

I opened my eyes. Stared up at the blackened wooden beams overhead.

The door exploded inward, smashed open by brute force.

The hinges snapped. The wooden plank crashed into the mud, spraying filth in every direction.

Constance Simmons stepped through the doorway in a black couture trench coat, striding into the dim, reeking pig pen.

Five bodyguards in dark sunglasses filed in behind her.

Then two private physicians carrying medical kits.

The village doctor was crouched beside me, pinching a rusted suture needle between his fingers. A length of coarse black thread dangled from its tip, hovering over my abdomen—where the flesh had been ripped open and blood kept surging out.

Constance stopped. Her gaze swept across the floor: pig dung, bloodstained straw.

She raised one hand and pointed at the village doctor.

"Stop. Get out."

He dropped the needle and thread, his hands smeared dark red, and scrambled out of the pen on all fours.

Constance turned to the physicians behind her and issued her orders.

"Give him a cardiac stimulant. High-dose adrenaline. He is not allowed to pass out right now."

The two doctors moved in fast.

One cracked open a medical kit, drew out a long syringe, and filled it with a clear solution.

The doctor grabbed the withered skin on my inner thigh and drove the thick needle into a vein.

The solution was pushed in fast.

Ten seconds later, the drug reaction spread through my bloodstream like wildfire.

My muscles began convulsing beyond my control. My body thrashed and rolled across the filthy straw. Every spasm tore the unsutured wound in my abdomen wider, forcing out more blood. It ran down my thighs and pooled on the ground in a dark, spreading puddle.

Constance stepped back, sidestepping the blood creeping toward her heels.

"Cut the act. I know exactly how much they used on you."

She stared down at me from above.

"I've read the script the village sent me. The pig-blood pouch and the fake wound glued to your stomach—nice prop work, I'll give you that."

A cold laugh escaped her lips.

"You really think playing the tragic hero is going to erase what you did to Caspian?"

The drug's stimulation sent jolts of agony through my brain.

My upper body lurched forward. My hands clawed instinctively at the ground ahead of me.

Skeletal fingers scraped through the mud and brushed the hem of Constance's trench coat.

The instant my fingertips made contact, a ragged, barely human sound crawled out of my throat.

"Constance... it hurts..."