Chapter 3

When I came to, I was back home. I could hear Francis and Sally talking in the living room.

My stomach still ached faintly.

"Francis, Kyla cost me 30% of my revenue tonight. If she shows up and ruins my streams again, I won't go easy on her just because of you! Either you guarantee she stays out of it, or I'm switching agencies."

She was the company's top earner. There was no way Francis would let her walk.

He agreed immediately, saying that from now on, I would be locked inside the house whenever she streamed.

Fear crawled up my spine as I stepped back, accidentally kicking the doorframe.

Francis turned, his eyes cold. "Since you heard all that, remember this…"

I cut him off and rushed at Sally.

"Sally, you can't actually handle spicy food. You're just transferring the heat onto me, amplifying it a hundred times while you barely feel anything! My stomach is about to rupture from all the heat. You have to stop!"

She frowned, looking at me like I had lost it. "Kyla, are you sure you've got that right? You fainted earlier, so we took you to the hospital. The doctor said there's nothing wrong with you. Are you still out of it?"

I shook my head. "That's impossible."

In my last life, every time I collapsed, the doctors said it was from eating too much spicy food. They warned me never to touch it again.

So how could they find nothing now?

Seeing the confusion on my face, Francis threw the medical report at me. "Look for yourself. You're perfectly healthy."

I stared at the results from the endoscopy, completely frozen.

Why was everything different from last time? Unless...

I looked up at Sally and saw a flicker of provocation in her eyes.

She had come back, too.

That meant she knew what I was trying to do and had already taken precautions.

Was I really going to end up like last time, nothing more than a tool for her to make money and marry Francis?

No. I refused.

I turned and ran into the kitchen, grabbing a large bucket of pickled chili peppers.

I needed to prove to Francis that I wasn't lying.

These were insanely hot. No normal person could finish them.

If Sally could, then something was definitely wrong.

Before she could respond, Francis shoved me hard. The bucket burst open against me. Pepper juice splashed straight into my eyes, and they turned bloodshot in an instant.

Even Francis froze for a second before grabbing me. "Are you okay? I didn't mean to…"

He didn't get to finish.

Sally bent down, picked up a pepper from the floor, and popped it into her mouth.

"I'll do it. I'll eat them right now."

Ten minutes later, she had finished the entire bucket without a single reaction.

Meanwhile, I was writhing on the floor in agony. It wasn't just my stomach anymore; it felt like my whole body had been sliced open and soaked in chili peppers.

Francis called an ambulance right away.

But after every test they ran, the doctor's conclusion was nothing like what I expected.