Among the previous criminals, one had been a major embezzler who was deliberately born into a poor family, only to suddenly be adopted by a wealthy one. His greedy subconscious immediately revealed all the man's underhanded methods of stealing from the family that had taken him in.
There was also a sexual predator. On the very first day of the live broadcast, viewers couldn't hold back their condemnation when the perpetrator peeked at a girl who was taking a shower—even though he was only sixteen in his simulated life.
And most recently, an official known for being exceptionally kind turned out to be a deranged psychopath who had murdered countless girls.
When Alex watched it back then, he vomited after seeing how the perpetrator devoured his special "dish."
On average, each perpetrator went through two or three life trials before the viewers voted and found them guilty. The court could use this as a basis and as evidence.
The most terrifying part of the program was the final life—a form of retribution in which convicted suspects were given a final life deliberately designed to be horrific.
Alex remembered all too well how the skin on his scalp prickled when he saw the sexual predator hated by the viewers given a miserable life filled with a deadly disease, only to die a gruesome death. They said the simulation was equipped with pain sensors, so even while asleep, the body lying motionless still received pain signals artificially generated in the brain.
And now.
Who would have thought... it was finally his turn.
Alex himself wasn't a good person, but he had always lived by the principle of never doing evil. But now, if Clara stood before him, the young man was ready to become a wolf that would tear the girl into a thousand pieces.
Taking her father's life, destroying her family's future—did all of that mean nothing compared to the girl's casual feelings?
"Clara Parker... your face is so gentle, but your heart is so cruel." Alex's hoarse voice trembled and echoed through the silence of the cell.
The man sneered. In that night's hallucination, he could almost hear Clara and her friends laughing at him.
"You son of a whore! Your mother deserved to die!"
"Just a merchant's kid, and you dare insult Miss Clara?! Has your brain rotted?"
"You lowlife!"
"Stop!" Alex screamed as he clapped his hands tightly over his ears.
After being locked in a dark cell for weeks, his mind had long since fallen apart. Hallucinations came and went, alternating with moments of sanity.
And knowing that tomorrow he would become the main character in a live broadcast, then be punished by living through a nightmare-filled life while his real body eventually died of a heart attack, the young man could no longer contain the surge of rage boiling inside him.
He wasn't afraid of death, but the social punishment his family would receive afterward was suffocating.
With determined steps, Alex walked to the far end of the cell window, moving closer and closer to the moonlight.
Before he was sent to prison, he had secretly hidden the object there. Since the end of his life had already been decided, Alex made this horrifying decision in his madness.
His hand reached through the gap in the window and closed tightly around an ancient keris with a green jade ornament hanging from it.
There was no better choice. Going through a simulated life would only destroy his entire family. His mother and two younger sisters would become social outcasts after he was gone. Because of this program, the consequences were horrific, even if no one realized it. The entire country would judge the families left behind by criminals.
Slowly closing his eyes, Alex calculated the exact angle. Then, with a single motion, the cut opened and blood spurted from his vein, splashing directly onto the keris's jade pendant.
A green light suddenly flared from the jade, nearly blinding him. In an instant, the young man's body collapsed to the floor.