Harem Tycoon System

Chapter 3: Between Two Worlds

Ethan Walker felt an unbearable pain spreading through his entire body. A sharp burning sensation in his chest made it hard to breathe. He tried to move his hands or open his eyes, but his body felt completely paralyzed. The world around him faded into darkness, but faint voices still pierced through the void.

He could hear hurried footsteps, the sound of heavy rain outside, and the panicked murmurs of a few people.

"He's still breathing! Get the stretcher, quick!" a man’s voice shouted—probably a paramedic.

Something pressed hard against his chest, making him want to scream, but no sound came out. Cold air pierced his skin, mixed with raindrops soaking his face. An oxygen mask was placed over his nose, allowing him to breathe a little easier, but the pain was still eating away at him.

"I'm... still alive?" Ethan thought, trying to reassure himself.

Before long, the sharp scent of antiseptic hit his nose. He realized he was being taken to a hospital. Everything felt blurry, like a never-ending dream.

But then, suddenly, his breath caught. It felt like he was being yanked out of that nightmare.

"I'm waking up now," he thought, hopeful.

But the reality he woke up to was far worse.

When Ethan opened his eyes, the sight in front of him made his blood freeze. He wasn’t waking up in a hospital bed like he had expected. Instead, he was standing in the corner of an emergency room filled with medical equipment.

He saw a patient lying on a hospital bed in the middle of the room—his body covered in wounds, his face pale and lifeless. That body—was his.

"What the hell?" he whispered, but no one heard him.

Horrified, he watched as a paramedic approached the bed and pulled a white sheet over the body, covering it completely.

"Time of death, 10:43 PM," a medic stated in a flat tone, as if it was just another routine.

Ethan wanted to scream, but no sound came out. He stepped forward, trying to touch his own body, but his hand just passed through thin air. He felt like a shadow—there, but not really.

"This can't be happening! I'm still alive!" he shouted, but again, no one heard him.

Ethan’s panic stopped when he heard another heartbreaking sound. He turned and saw a young woman standing in the corner of the room, holding a little girl who was sobbing uncontrollably.

The woman looked exhausted and hurt, but her tears wouldn’t stop flowing. In her arms, a five-year-old girl clung tightly to her mother’s hand, her small face drenched in tears.

Ethan stared at them in confusion. "Who are they?" he mumbled, though he knew no one would answer.

Slowly, he followed the woman’s gaze, which was locked onto another hospital bed in the room. There, another man lay still, his body covered in wounds. The doctors had just pronounced him dead. But his face—Ethan recognized it instantly.

Because it was his own face.

"Why does this guy have the same face as me? Who is he?"

Ethan was completely lost. The anger and fear in his chest suddenly faded. Instead, he found himself fixated on the woman and child’s grief—more painful than his own.

The woman lowered her head, gripping the lifeless man’s hand. "Lucas… why did you have to leave like this?" she whispered, her voice trembling.

"Lucas?" Ethan repeated in his mind. Then he turned to his own lifeless body on the other side, already covered with a white sheet. Dead.

"But why does this Lucas guy have the same face as me?"

Curious, Ethan moved closer. He overheard the nurses whispering about how bizarre this situation was—two men with identical faces, who didn’t even know each other, dying at the same time.

Through their conversation, Ethan found out that Lucas was a drunk driver who had crashed into him, killing them both.

Ethan scoffed in disbelief. "What kind of messed-up fate is this?"

But suddenly, his heart clenched as he looked at Lucas’s wife and child… his daughter?

In that silence, Ethan realized something painful. Even though the man who killed him was now dead, he still had people mourning him—someone who loved him despite all his mistakes.

Meanwhile, Ethan, whose life was already in ruins before the accident, had no one.

No one would cry for him. No family would miss him.

"I'm even lonelier than he is..." Ethan thought, tears welling up in his eyes.

But his self-pity quickly turned into guilt. He couldn't take his eyes off the little girl, who kept calling out for her father in a tiny, desperate voice, hoping he would wake up.

"Daddy... wake up, Daddy..." she whimpered, shaking her mother’s arm.

Ethan felt his whole being tremble, even though he no longer had a body.

"I want to live again... Even though my life was hard, dying without getting revenge on those who wronged me isn’t fair, is it? My research... all my hard work..." Ethan clenched his fists tightly.

Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly froze when he saw Lucas’s wife still crying over his lifeless body. But her grief, once filled with sorrow, suddenly turned into raw anger.

"Why, Lucas? Why did you have to die before signing the divorce papers?" she screamed, her voice hoarse and shaking. Her bloodshot eyes glared at the body before her, but this time, her tears carried nothing but hate.

Caroline clenched her fists at her sides, standing over her dead husband. "You bastard, Lucas! You left like a coward, dumping all your problems on me! Now all your debts are my responsibility as Mrs. Greystone!"

She collapsed onto a chair, burying her face in her hands as she sobbed again. The little girl, Emma, looked up at her mother in confusion, still too young to fully understand.

Ethan watched in silence, his heart aching as the child was forced to witness this chaos. But at the same time, Caroline’s words sparked a new feeling inside him—relief.

Lucas Greystone, the man who killed him, wasn’t just some rich guy. He was a bankrupt, debt-ridden failure, dragging his family down with him. His entire fortune had crumbled, leaving his wife and child to deal with the wreckage.

Ethan stood there, lost in thought. Moments ago, he had felt bitter that no one would mourn him. But now, he saw his death in a different light.

"I'm dead, but at least I didn’t leave anyone behind to suffer."

It was a bitter thought, but deep down, there was a small sense of relief.

He watched Caroline, still sobbing, pouring out all her frustration onto the husband who could no longer hear her. And in that moment, Ethan realized—sometimes, life is way more complicated than death.

Suddenly, the room darkened, the air growing heavier. Ethan felt an invisible force pulling him away from his own lifeless body—dragging him toward Lucas’s corpse.

"What’s happening?" Ethan panicked, trying to resist, but there was nothing he could do.

In an instant, he felt himself being sucked into Lucas’s body, as if his soul was being transferred. The sensation was surreal, like he was crossing the line between life and death.

Then, the heart monitor beeped.

Lucas’s heart started beating again.

Ethan gasped awake—but this time, he wasn’t Ethan Walker anymore.

He had become Lucas Greystone.

And he had no idea that the life waiting for him in Lucas’s body would be far more challenging than anything he had ever faced.