Chapter 1 The Day She "Died"

"Isla isn't breathing anymore! It's your fault that our daughter has lost her mother at such a young age!" Felix Zane's roar ripped through the winter air as he knelt by my best friend, Isla Kingsley's drenched, ice-cold body lying motionless on the riverbank.

The onlookers watched his grief-stricken display with pity in their eyes. If I hadn't been reborn, I might have believed his performance too.

…

In my previous life, at the company's year-end gala, I'd won a prize ticket worth a hundred million. Overjoyed, I shared the news with Isla. Who could have known that as she was looking at the ticket, she'd slip, fall into the river, and be swept away to her death?

Guilt had consumed me. To make up for what happened, I had raised her little daughter with all my heart. To avoid gossip and also to honor Isla's will, I married her husband, Felix.

To give my best friend's only child a better future, I juggled three part-time jobs a day until my body gave out. The only consolation was that my stepdaughter proved herself, receiving an acceptance letter from a prestigious arts college overseas. In order not to ruin her bright future, I sold blood and even a kidney to scrape together her tuition. She graduated smoothly and, just as she had dreamed, married into a wealthy family.

At her wedding, tears filled my eyes as I delivered my speech, believing my hardships had finally paid off—only to see Isla, dead for over a decade, walk gracefully into the hall dressed to the nines. The moment she spotted me, she ripped at my clothes like a woman possessed, calling me a murderer and a home-wrecking vixen.

Felix wrapped his arms around her with a trembling voice. "Honey, you've finally come back. I've missed you so much." Their daughter also threw herself into Isla's embrace, snuggling close as she accused me of years of mistreatment.

Looking at this ungrateful trio, I felt the sky cave in. Everything I had given for so many years had been for nothing. In a surge of rage, I suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died. Only after death did I learn that both father and daughter had known Isla was alive all along—they had simply conspired to get a free, tireless housekeeper.

Now I stared at Isla's unmoving body on the ground, itching to cut open her chest just to see if her heart was black or white.

"Oh, what a cruel fate! Poor Joy's going to grow up with no one to hold her, no one to love her." I wailed louder than Felix as I threw myself over her. Faced with the sudden turn of events, he was at a loss. This was what people meant by fighting fire with fire.

While crying, my hands roamed over her clothes. To outsiders, I looked like a grieving friend who couldn't bear her fate.

'Strange… where's my prize ticket?'

Just as confusion struck me, Felix grabbed my hand and barked, "Faye Garland, did you push my wife into the river?"

I quickly yanked my hand away from the scumbag. "Don't talk nonsense. I'm feeling how thin her clothes are. It's freezing, Felix. Even if Isla's gone, she should leave with dignity. Let me change her into something clean." As I spoke, I started undoing the buttons on her clothes, thinking the ticket had to be hidden somewhere in her pockets.

Felix's face went pale as he rushed to pull me back. "So many people are watching. My wife's dead, and you're disturbing her peace, trying to change her clothes in public?! You're insulting her. You're truly vicious."

Was I vicious? But no matter how vicious I was, it couldn't compare to how they had ruined my life—keeping me chained by guilt, draining me until I died without even a decent ending.

I gave a cold laugh and, with a loud rip, tore open her coat.