Chapter 494: This... is me?

"Then tell me who the troublemaker is."

Even now, Penny didn’t fully understand Hugo. To stop herself from overthinking, she unlocked the phone, revealing a CCTV video from the hallway outside her hospital room. She had been expecting to see a suspicious person approaching her ward to harm her, but what she saw next made her freeze.

Instead of an intruder, Hugo was shown exiting her room, followed by her. They wrestled briefly, slamming each other into the wall, before falling to the floor. Penny was overpowering him, choking him with her arm as she pinned him from behind. Suddenly, Hugo pulled something out.

Without hesitation, he stabbed her leg with it — the same leg that now had a lesion and a faint bruise.

At that point, Penny paused the video, glancing down at her leg. Although the camera angle didn’t capture her face, she was certain she must have been shocked. Even so, she made a final attempt to put Hugo in a headlock.

Luckily for Hugo, whatever he had injected worked quickly, and she eventually collapsed to the side.

In the video, Hugo sat up, rubbing his neck, and gazed at her for a moment before shaking his head. Penny’s face twitched when she saw her second brother stand up and — rather than carry her — grab both of her ankles to drag her back into the ward.

"Ah, sorry about that last part," Hugo said, noticing her look of disbelief. "I was frustrated and tired. I couldn’t carry you."

"..." Penny was momentarily speechless. "This is... this is real?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"This happened last night?"

"There’s a date stamp and time in the corner. You can check," he replied nonchalantly. "I got the footage from the hospital records."

"..." Once again, Penny was rendered speechless. She couldn’t believe what she had just seen; it was far from what she expected. To be sure, she reviewed the footage again, confirming that the woman wrestling with Hugo was indeed her.

It was her.

"!!!" Her eyes widened, and she held her breath. Her face turned pale as she looked at Hugo in horror. "This is real?"

For the second time, she asked the same question. She couldn’t help it—it all seemed unreal.

"Yes," Hugo repeated patiently. He found it just as ridiculous. "That’s you... after having a drink. So, in conclusion, First Brother isn’t paranoid. He has every reason to ban you from drinking."

Penny continued staring at the footage, her face twisting in disbelief. She rewatched it once more, her expression growing uglier by the second.

"That’s really me?" she gasped in horror, looking back at Hugo, who nodded in response. She glanced down again. "How?!"

"How would I know?"

"Are you sure... I did that?"

"I wish I wasn’t."

"So, this bruise..." She pointed shakily at the marks on Hugo’s face, scanning the bruises and scratches in sight. Then, slowly, she pointed at herself. "... I caused these?"

"Unless a ghost attacked me last night, then yes," Hugo said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"How is that even possible..." Penny trailed off as a creeping dread settled in her heart. After a moment, she suddenly remembered Zoren’s men—and her own—when she woke up after drinking.

She looked at Hugo, then recalled the injured men at Zoren’s house. Her expression went blank, and with a vacant look, she pounded her fist against her chest.

"I’m a dog," she mumbled lifelessly. "No, calling myself a dog is insulting to dogs everywhere. I’m the worst."

"What?" Hugo asked, raising a brow. Penny glanced up at him before pounding her chest again. "Penny, don’t feel so bad. I’m fine."

"I know you are, but I’m not."

"Why not? Is it because I dragged you back into the ward?"

"No!" Penny winced, closing her eyes as she struggled to find a way to salvage her image. She covered her mouth, on the verge of tears. "Now Renren will think I’m just a troublemaker."

Hugo tilted his head, confused. He didn’t know exactly what his sister had done while drunk, but Zoren had fared better than he did. At least Zoren hadn’t been beaten up. If only Hugo knew that while Zoren himself was fine, his men were still nursing injuries and being punished because of it.

"Now that I think about it, what did you do to First Brother?"

"Huh?"

Hugo shrugged. "First Brother was the first to react when we’re out at a bachelor’s party. He’s the first to stop you, and he already knows how much of a troublemaker you are when you’re drunk."

"Ohhh..." Penny’s lips formed a small ’o’ as she recalled Atlas searching for her after she left the house.

"Can you remember?" Hugo pressed. "I’m curious. I’ve never seen First Brother beaten or hurt."

"Of course not," Penny replied. "You’re always in the base."

"But if something had happened, I would’ve heard about it, right? If not from Mom and Dad, then from Slater. But no one said anything."

"Oh."

"Try to remember."

Penny closed her eyes, trying to recall the incident, but it only gave her a slight headache. Opening her eyes, she looked at Hugo.

"Second Brother, I can’t even remember last night. How am I supposed to remember something that happened years ago?" She sighed, ruffling her hair. Glancing at the phone again, her heart swelled with bitterness. "Why would I do such a thing?"

"I know, right?"

Penny shot him a look. "Second Brother, what was I like last night?"

Hugo thought for a moment before answering, "Hell." He met her gaze. "You kept saying things I didn’t understand and mistook me for a ghost at first. But when I touched you, you went crazy."

"Crazy?" Her brows furrowed. "How?"

"You said Atlas lied to you, and I wasn’t dead. You claimed he just wanted to torment you by making you believe I died because of you, so you’d suffer day and night while serving your time," Hugo explained in one go. "Do you have any idea why you’d say that?"

Initially, Penny had no explanation, but after hearing his words, she had an answer.

’It seems... I haven’t truly recovered,’ she thought. ’Or perhaps, in order to live normally, I’ve split myself.’