Chapter 2

“Mila, are you out of your mind? It’s 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and you’re planning to go to a sauna?”

Just as I was about to leave, Rio grabbed my wrist so hard it felt like he was trying to crush my bones.

I tried to shake my hand free, but he was too strong.

The sticky sweat from his palm rubbed against my skin. It felt like the slime of some reptile.

“I’m perfectly clear-headed.” I raised my other hand and waved the e-ticket on my phone. “It’ll be 140 degrees Fahrenheit at the dry sauna. I’ll only experience fifteen minutes of sweating. Isn’t that way more comfortable than sitting in an air-conditioned room?

“Besides, is what I do any of your business?”

Rena’s white spaghetti-strap dress clung to her body. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. She was not embarrassed or out of breath, she was purely overwhelmed by the heat.

Her family’s “air conditioner clearance sale” had clearly been cut off because I had not played my part. The buyers were blocking her front door and cursing loudly.

“Mila, stop this,” she said, biting her lower lip. She looked pitiful. “I know you’re upset, but no matter how upset you are, you can’t risk your life. What if you get heatstroke in a sauna?”

“Exactly,” Rio chimed in, his voice rising. “If something happens to you, people will think we’ve been mistreating you!”

I almost burst out laughing.

In my previous life, I had died of heatstroke in this very building. My body turned black and my eyeballs burst. Yet they did not even call an ambulance. They just dragged me into the living room for a photo op, with the caption: Girlfriend died of heatstroke because she was too poor to turn the AC on. She turned into a dried corpse.

That livestream had raked in three million in tips. Arion Leiz used the money to buy a villa while my mother wept herself to death right in front of my corpse.

“Get lost! Even if I die of heatstroke, it’s none of your business!”

The two exchanged a glance and actually tied me up with a nylon rope they had prepared in advance.

“Let me go!”

I struggled desperately, but Rio simply wrapped the nylon rope around my wrists and tied a tight knot.

Rena was even more ruthless. She took off her sock and shoved it into my mouth.

“Stop fooling around,” Rio panted and shoved me toward the bedroom. “Mila, you must have a heatstroke. That’s why you were babbling about taking a sauna. We need to cool you down now.”

“That’s right, Mila, we’re doing this for your own good.” Rena slammed the air conditioner remote to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and the air vent immediately let out a hissing sound.

Instantly, Rena and Rio both wore expressions of utter bliss. In contrast, I only felt intense heat.

To prevent me from escaping, they wrapped a charging cable around my ankles twenty times.

The two of them stared at me coldly. “Mila, just stay put in this air-conditioned room.

“Once your temperature goes down, you’ll stop talking nonsense.”

The two of them laughed as they walked out the door.

Through the crack in the door, I heard Rena whisper. “Hurry up. The buyers are still blocking the door upstairs. We need to cash in today’s batch of 9.9 coupons first.”

Rio gave a sinister smile. “It’s so satisfying to have this dumb woman pay our electricity bill for us.”

Footsteps faded into the distance.

It was 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the room, while the air conditioner read 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

I felt like I had been stuffed into a sealed steamer. Every breath carried the scorching, rusty taste of iron.

Sweat that had just broken out evaporated instantly. My skin began to tighten and ache.

I frantically twisted my wrists, but like a snake sated with blood, the rope tightened even further.

My skin began to burn, and my throat felt as if a red-hot coal had been shoved down it.

My vision went black in waves. But I bit down hard on my tongue trying to force myself to stay conscious.

No. I could not die.

At least not in a more pathetic way than I did in my last life.

I kicked with all my might and knocked over the bedside table.

Crash!

Glass water cups shattered across the floor.

I used my shoulder to grind against the shards to slowly wear through the rope.

Blood trickled down my arm, but I could no longer feel the pain. The intense heat had already numbed my nerves.

Finally, the rope loosened around my wrist.

I rolled over and sat up. Then, I immediately bolted out the door.

At that very moment, Rena’s shriek echoed from upstairs. “Mila must have escaped!”