ARIS Ruled Me a Liar

To keep things fair, my parents bought an AI Resource and Integrity System, ARIS, for my younger sister and me. It scored us based on our grades, how much we helped around the house, and even how satisfied our parents were with us. Whoever had the higher score won the reward. At first, I was quite happy. My high scores won me little things like candy, hair clips, and keychains. But whenever it came to anything that actually mattered, such as advanced study placements, educational trips, or large cash rewards, I never won a single time. The more I thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed. I was about to bring it up with my parents when I overheard them laughing with my sister in the next room. "I only pretend to compete with that country bumpkin, letting her win when the rewards aren't worth much." "For anything important, the system has to favor our precious daughter. We can't possibly let that outsider walk away with the real prizes." "Don't worry, the parameters were adjusted long ago. We decide the results." A chill ran down my spine. Suddenly, my entire body began convulsing uncontrollably as I struggled to call for help. My parents immediately summoned ARIS to perform a physical examination, and the result displayed, "Physiological indicators normal. Suspected feigning illness to attract attention." Disgust flashed across my parents' faces. They grabbed my sister and dragged her suitcase toward the door. "According to ARIS' ruling, we're going to redeem your sister's travel reward. You should stay home and reflect on your behavior." I stared at the door as it slammed shut behind them. In the depths of despair, I lost consciousness. Chapter 1 The AI Said I Was Fine My head throbbed as if it were being stabbed with needles, while my chest felt as though a massive stone had been crushing it, making it impossible to breathe. The room was frighteningly quiet. The only sound came from the faint electronic hum of ARIS in the corner, its status light glowing an eerie blue. Tears suddenly welled up in my eyes. The truth was that my parents and my younger sister in the city had never considered me part of their family. If Grandma were still alive, I would have rather died than leave the countryside. I would have stayed there as a left-behind child, living a poor but peaceful life with her. I staggered to my feet, thinking about calling my parents and asking them to take me to the hospital. However, I didn't have a phone. My sister did, though. Hers had been an ARIS reward. She treated it like a treasure, keeping it locked in her drawer and never even letting me touch it. With no other choice, I turned toward ARIS in the corner. "ARIS? ARIS!" I shouted, forcing my voice as loud as I could. Only then did it respond in its usual unhurried, detached tone. "I'm listening." Normally, whenever my parents or my sister called it in their ordinary speaking voices, it responded with much more energy and warmth. "Please contact my family," I instructed, my voice hoarse. The screen on ARIS flickered. "Your guardians have enabled Do Not Disturb mode. They have gone on a trip. It has been determined that you need to stay home and reflect on your behavior. Please do not disturb their vacation." "I'm not feeling well!" I pleaded gently. "My head hurts so badly, and I can't breathe. I need Mom and Dad to come back and check on me!" "According to the medical records recorded before your guardians departed, your physiological indicators were normal. Medical intervention is unnecessary." Tears streamed down my face as I collapsed to my knees. "Please, just make an exception. I'm only twelve. I'm still a minor! I need my guardians to be here to supervise and take care of me!" Perhaps hearing that I was a minor who needed my guardians triggered something. ARIS paused for two seconds before finally initiating a call. The intelligent voice call connected. It was Mom, with the noisy announcements of an airport playing in the background. "Hello? Who is this?" Mom sounded extremely impatient. "Mom, it's me. My head hurts so badly, and my vision keeps blacking out. Can't you come home and check on me? If necessary, could you take me to the hospital?" I gasped for breath, my voice trembling. "Again?" Mom sneered from the other end. "What's wrong with you? Why do you always cause trouble whenever your sister is having fun? We're at the airport, about to board our flight to Harbor Isle. Stop pretending to be sick and ruining things for us!" Dad's voice cut in, equally furious. "Mallory Fallow! Are you jealous that your sister gets to go on vacation? Are you deliberately lying just to spoil our mood? Didn't ARIS already check on you? It says you're perfectly fine! You'd better stay home and behave. Don't make me come back and deal with you myself!" My sister's voice joined them, carrying a smug, triumphant laugh. "Mallory, this family trip was fairly and impartially awarded by ARIS. If you make a bet, you have to accept the result. Stop making a fuss." "Mom, Dad, I don't feel well…" I begged through my tears. "Please, if you can't come back, at least call 911 for me…" Before I could finish, my chest suddenly heaved. Half my body went numb in an instant, and cold sweat poured down my face. "Call 911? Do you have any idea how much money you're going to waste?" Dad roared. He immediately ordered, "ARIS, scan her physical data right now!" A red light swept across my face, then ARIS reported coldly, "Examination complete. Heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygen saturation are all within the preset normal thresholds. Determination: physiological indicators normal." "You hear that? Stop pretending!" Dad cursed. "Don't make us miss our flight. We're hanging up!" "Wait—" I screamed desperately, but all I heard from the phone was the busy tone. I stared at ARIS in despair. "Why are you doing this to me? I'm really dying…" ARIS simply repeated in its cold, emotionless voice, "Heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygen saturation are all within the preset normal thresholds. Determination: physiological indicators normal." I smiled bitterly and shook my head. Summoning the last bit of strength I had left, I crawled onto the bed and pulled the blanket over myself. "Okay, I'm not sick. If I get some sleep, I'll be fine…" Chapter 2 The Rules Were Never Fair I curled up on the bed, my head throbbing as though a heavy hammer were pounding against it again and again, waves of excruciating pain grinding through my nerves. My throat felt as though someone had a hand around it, making it difficult to breathe. My entire body trembled uncontrollably, and my eyelids had grown so heavy that I could no longer open them. Helpless and terrified, I called out for the person who had always been closest to me. "Grandma… Please help me…" But no one answered. … The sky was just beginning to lighten when I suddenly felt my body become strangely light. At first, I was relieved. ARIS had been right. I wasn't sick. I'd made it through the night, and everything was fine now. But when I looked down, I realized I was still lying in bed. My face was bluish-gray, white foam had gathered at the corner of my mouth, and my body lay completely still. But also, I was floating in midair. Panic seized me. Was I dead? Yet, in the next second, an unexpected sense of relief washed over me. 'Maybe this is for the best. Mom, Dad, and Maggie never liked me anyway. Now that I'm dead, they won't even have to pretend anymore.' I drifted aimlessly through the house until, without realizing it, I floated into my sister's bedroom. It was the largest and brightest room in the house, and my parents had decorated it like a lavish princess' bedroom. The sight reminded me of what had happened three years ago, when my grandmother had suddenly fallen gravely ill and passed away. I was only nine years old. With no one left to take care of me, my parents brought me from the countryside to live with them in the city. Back then, I had been incredibly envious of my sister, who was two years younger than me. She had grown up with our parents by her side and had always lived in such a beautiful room. I timidly asked Mom, "Am I sleeping with Maggie from now on?" Mom sized me up, her expression troubled as she took in the scruffy little country girl who had just arrived from the countryside. My sister immediately wrapped both arms around Mom's arm, her eyes wary. "No! I don't want to share my room with her!" Dad led me to the tiny 40-square-foot storage room at the end of the hallway. "You'll have to make do with this for now. Once I make enough money and we move into a bigger house, I'll fix up a proper room for you." He said it casually, but I nodded vigorously. After I moved in, I ate quickly and would involuntarily smack my lips while I ate. I thought it would show Mom how much I liked her cooking. But every time we sat down at the table, the disgust on my family's faces was impossible to hide. Mom impatiently taught me table manners, being even stricter than my teachers at school. Yet, whenever she turned to my sister, she indulged her in every possible way, unable to bear criticizing her even once. My sister loved strawberries and tiramisu. Mom would often sneak some into her room whenever I wasn't looking. One time, I caught her doing it, and I couldn't hold myself back. "Why can't you treat us fairly? I'm your daughter too!" Mom froze for a moment. "You're both my precious girls. It's just that your sister has been weak and sickly since she was little. You're the big sister—give in to her, okay?" I protested through my tears. "If we're both your precious daughters, then why am I Mallory, with such an awful meaning, while my sister is Margaret, like a precious pearl? Everyone in my village and all my classmates in the city make fun of my name!" My parents had been rendered speechless. Not long afterward, Dad brought ARIS home. "Mallory, Margaret, from now on, whenever either of you wants something or wants more time with your mom and me, ARIS will be the judge. It will decide who performed better and who deserves the reward. We won't favor either of you." Mom nodded beside him. "Exactly, this is the fairest way. The scores will speak for themselves, and neither of you will have anything to complain about." My sister bounced over excitedly and looked up at Dad. "If I win, can I make any wish I want?" Dad smiled and ruffled her hair. "Of course. So make sure you behave well from now on." … After washing the dishes, I stood in the kitchen doorway and stared at the machine glowing with its cold blue light, my heart filling with anticipation. If I worked hard enough, perhaps I could earn a little more of Mom and Dad's love. Little did I know, they never intended to let me "win" in the first place. Chapter 3 The Reward I Was Never Meant to Win After leaving my sister's bedroom, I unconsciously drifted back to my own little storage room. The small fan beside my bed was covered in dust, its blades yellowed with age. Once summer arrived, the room became unbearably hot and stuffy without a window. To make matters worse, the little fan had broken down. I finally mustered up the courage to ask my parents for help—of course, I didn't dare ask for an air conditioner. I said quietly, "Mom, Dad, my fan isn't working. Could you get me one with a little more power?" Dad looked at me kindly. "Funny you should mention it. The air conditioner in Maggie's bedroom is getting old and needs replacing. Let ARIS score the two of you based on your performance this month. Whoever wins gets the new air conditioner." I was thrilled. I threw myself into studying and worked as hard as I could on every exam, eventually scoring more than 100 points higher than my sister overall. I took care of every chore in the house—washing dishes, mopping floors, and doing laundry. I did it all. As for parental satisfaction, I thought I was obedient and well-behaved. Surely, I couldn't score badly there. But when the scores were announced, ARIS reported, "Academic performance: The two participants are in different grade levels and are therefore subject to different score conversion rates. The final scores did not produce a significant advantage." "Household chores: Mallory Fallow scored significantly higher. Parental satisfaction: Mallory Fallow, low. Overall determination: Margaret Fallow wins." I couldn't accept it, and tears immediately welled up in my eyes. "No! I scored higher than Maggie, and I did all the housework! How could my parental satisfaction be low?" Dad frowned. "ARIS determines parental satisfaction objectively through facial-smile recognition, vocal-emotion analysis, and heart-rate data collected by the accompanying wristband. It's professional and objective. It can't be wrong. If you make a bet, you have to accept the result." Mom chimed in with an understanding expression, her voice gentle. "AI doesn't lie. Just keep working hard and do better next time." I bit my lip and backed down a little. "Could you at least install Maggie's old air conditioner in my room?" A trace of hesitation crossed Dad's face. "The old one has to be traded in when we buy the new one. We can't give it to you. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to the winner if the person who lost still got a reward." I watched my sister happily get her brand-new air conditioner installed. Cold air soon blasted throughout her room, while I couldn't even get the old machine she had discarded. I felt terribly wronged, but I didn't dare say anything more. Summer without air conditioning was simply unbearable. In the end, I could only save up my own allowance to buy a new fan. However, no matter how much I scraped together, I couldn't even reach ten dollars. Whenever ARIS judged me the winner, my allowance reward was only a dollar or two, five dollars at most. That barely covered my school supplies. Where would I get the extra money for a fan? With no other choice, I spent my summer vacation collecting cardboard and empty bottles to sell. I wanted to save enough for a larger, sturdier fan that would last longer. So even on the hottest days, I never rested. I spent the entire day running around outside. When I finally dragged myself home, exhausted to the point of collapse, I still had to help Mom with the housework, help Dad sort and organize his documents, and stay up late at night making handmade posters for my sister. I had actually started feeling unwell around that time. I suffered from headaches and nausea, but I thought I'd simply been getting too little sleep or had a mild case of heatstroke, so I didn't pay much attention to it. Whenever I got too hot, I'd take a cold shower to cool down. Then, the morning before, my entire body suddenly began convulsing, and I collapsed on the floor. But all I got in return was my family's dismissive indifference. With that, I died—just like that. I floated outside the door of the storage room, staring at the narrow folding bed. Three years. From the age of nine, when I had been brought from the countryside to the city, to the age of twelve, when I had died in this stifling little room. For more than a thousand days and nights, I had lived in that family like an outsider. My parents never left me without food or clothes. They never deprived me of the opportunity to attend school. They never beat or abused me. But the people who were supposed to be my closest family by blood—my parents and my sister—had hidden their dislike beneath gentle masks. They had used ARIS as a pretext to deceive me and manipulate the results. The psychological wounds they inflicted on me had felt even more unbearable than physical harm. I had thought that now that I was dead, my soul would simply disappear with the wind, or perhaps the Grim Reaper would come to drag me away to the underworld. Instead, an unseen force pulled my spirit, carrying me straight to my parents and my sister. Chapter 4 They Came Home to My Corpse I drifted all the way to the seaside in Harbor Isle and watched my parents and sister. They were staying at a beachfront hotel in a luxurious suite, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean. My sister wore a pretty swimsuit and dug for shells on the beach. Dad held up his phone to take pictures of her while Mom stood beside her, applying sunscreen. They even went out for an extravagant seafood feast. Dad lovingly placed a serving of cheese-baked lobster in front of my sister. "Your mom never wants to make this at home. Since we're out here, our precious girl has to eat her fill!" Mom gently handed her a glass of chilled coconut water. "Does it taste good, sweetheart?" My sister took a long sip, her eyes curving into crescent moons as she smiled. "It's so refreshing!" I floated beside them, watching the warm, happy scene unfold before me. The love and attention my parents were giving her were things I had never received. I had never been on an airplane. I had never eaten seafood, never drunk coconut water, never even seen the ocean. The world was so vast. There were so many beautiful places I had never seen, so many delicious foods I had never tasted, so many new experiences I had never had the chance to enjoy. It was just a shame that all the beauty of being alive no longer had anything to do with me. … That evening, they sat on the beach and watched the sunset. Mom scooped up a handful of fine sand and casually remarked, "Come to think of it, ARIS is pretty useful." Dad laughed in agreement. "Yeah, it saves us the trouble of coming up with excuses for not favoring her. We just let the machine make the judgment. That way, she'll think it's her own problem, and she can't blame us." My sister pursed her lips. "Was she really feeling sick yesterday? Shouldn't we at least check on her?" Dad scoffed. "She was faking it. She's just jealous that you got to come to Harbor Isle." Mom thought about it for a moment before pulling out her phone. "Well, we've got some free time. Let's ask the AI." She opened an intelligent video call and connected to the ARIS at home. The camera turned toward the storage room, where it showed me lying on my side beneath the blanket. ARIS announced, "Target detected in a sleeping state. Physiological indicators are normal. Determination: no abnormalities detected." Mom nodded, then spoke into the phone. "Mallory, there's food in the fridge. Take care of yourself. We'll be back in a couple of days. We'll bring you a souvenir, too. No scoring from ARIS this time. We'll give it to you directly." On the screen, I remained lying motionless on my side, completely unresponsive. Mom frowned. "She must be in deep sleep. She isn't even responding when I call her." My sister leaned closer to the screen. "Is she still sulking?" Dad offered what sounded like a charitable consolation. "Mallory, next time ARIS rules that you win, we'll bring you along too." But the person lying on the bed remained completely still. Mom turned grim. "How rude!" Dad became irritated as well. "Forget it. Leave her alone." With that, they ended the video call. I floated beside them, desperately wanting to tell them that I was already dead. Yet, ARIS was still declaring that there was nothing wrong with me. Oh, the irony! I suddenly remembered how, earlier that day, my parents had taken Margaret to a souvenir shop. They had picked out an exquisite shell music box for her, priced at $1,200. They didn't even hesitate before making the purchase. Afterward, Mom had casually grabbed a $2 conch shell whistle from a little stall outside and tossed it into the shopping bag. "For Mallory," she announced. My soul no longer had a heart, yet I still felt a bitter ache in my chest. To them, I had never been worth anything more than a thoughtless handout. … After that, they happily enjoyed themselves for another three days—never mentioning me once—before finally returning home with their luggage, looking absolutely delighted. However, a foul, rotten stench welcomed them when they opened the door. Mom covered her nose, frowning. "Did Mallory forget to flush the toilet after using it?" Dad frowned and cursed under his breath. My sister pinched her nose and complained about the smell as well. However, when he checked the bathroom, it was completely clean. Mom began cursing as she headed toward the storage room. "I told you not to bring home stuff that rots! Now, you've made the whole house stink! What were you thinking?" The increasingly pungent smell coming from the storage room didn't help appease her anger. She angrily shoved the door open, only to let out a piercing scream before she fainted on the spot.