Chapter 1

Sally Wallaker flinched when she saw me suddenly appear on camera.

"No, Kyla. The sponsor made this extra spicy just for the challenge. You won't be able to handle it."

I didn't let go. I just smiled at her. "What if I can?"

Before I could finish, my wrist was clamped in a crushing grip.

Francis Moss's hand felt like iron, squeezing so hard that it nearly broke me.

But facing the camera, he was still smiling. "Kyla, quit messing around. If you wanna try, I'll bring you some next time. Just don't disrupt Sally's stream today. It'll mess with the numbers."

When he leaned in close, his voice dropped.

"You're always accusing me of something with Sally. You keep pushing like this, even if there's nothing, you're going to make it into something. And that'll be on you."

The disgust in his eyes hit me like a blade.

Sally had been his first love. They had been apart for years.

I used to think once he chose me, he would be all in.

But everything that followed proved otherwise. He kept Sally in his heart while stringing me along, getting me to fund his streaming career.

After I died in my last life, he didn't even wait a week before marrying her.

I had even planned their wedding myself.

This time, no matter what, I wasn't letting that happen again.

I tilted my head slightly, looking up at the camera with wide, innocent eyes.

"Babe, I just want a taste. That's okay, right?"

Sally had that glamorous, seductive look. I was the soft, innocent type. From this angle, it was easy to draw sympathy.

Sure enough, the comments flooded in, telling me to go for it. Some people even started sending me gifts by name.

Watching the viewer count climb, Francis had no choice but to agree.

Still, as he stepped away, he leaned in and warned me not to say anything stupid.

It had been the same in my last life. Sally would eat piles of spicy food on a stream, saying it tasted like candy.

Meanwhile, my stomach felt like it was being torn apart.

When I was rushed to the hospital, the doctor said it was from eating too much spicy food; he even warned me not to push my luck just because I was young.

After that, I never touched anything spicy again.

But every time Sally went live, as soon as she started eating, the pain would hit me out of nowhere. I would pass out and end up in the ER.

Because I was Francis's fiancée, they would call him in every time.

He would have to cut his stream short.

The strange part was that once their stream stopped, my pain would slowly fade.

That was when I realized Sally wasn't actually immune to spice. The heat she ate got transferred to me a hundredfold. What she felt was reduced to almost nothing.

I tried to get Francis to stop her from streaming, but he thought I had lost my mind. He nearly had me locked up, saying I was just jealous.

Then he personally signed her up for the national spicy eating championship.

She ate ten pounds of ghost peppers without a scratch and won first place.

Meanwhile, I died from a ruptured stomach.

So this time, I was taking the first bite.

I needed to know. If I went first, would the pain transfer to her instead?

Before Sally could say another word, I shoved a mouthful of extra-spicy wings into my mouth.

The heat exploded instantly, sharp and suffocating. I frowned without meaning to.

The comments blew up, calling me reckless. People around us started laughing out loud.

"Where did this woman come from? She's asking for it."

"I've been watching Sally since day one. She can handle spice for real. This girl's just embarrassing herself."

"Didn't you hear? She's jealous of her boyfriend streaming with Sally."

"If I were him, I'd have dumped her already. That kind of jealousy is insane."

I ignored all of it, my eyes locked on Sally.

However, she didn't react at all.

Meanwhile, the fire burned from my mouth straight down to my stomach. There was no reduction, no transfer.

Was I really not going to escape dying the same way again?