The Invisible Chains

"Lauren, how are things going with that guy you've been seeing lately?"

The moment I heard that familiar voice by my ear, my eyes snapped open. Alice Manning, my so-called best friend, was leaning toward me, her face full of nosy curiosity.

I was so startled that I shoved her away, unable to hide the hatred in my eyes.

"Hey, why are you pushing me? I'm just asking! This is your first time dating someone, so I need to look out for you and make sure he's good enough."

First time? What a joke! I have dated several times in my past life, but the woman in front of me sabotaged every single relationship without fail.

I pulled out my phone and checked the time. After seeing the date clearly, I finally confirmed that I was actually reborn.

When she saw that I was not responding to her, Alice brushed the dust off her clothes and sat back down next to me. She had a mysterious look on her face, like she was about to say something important.

My stomach knotted. I already knew that she was going to talk about the system binding.

Sure enough, she started speaking with what looked like guilt, and her eyes even turned red. "Lauren, there's something I have to confess to you. Last night I accidentally bonded with a love system.

"That stupid thing told me that all your boyfriends will fall in love with me and break up with you. I don't want this to happen either, but it said that if I try to unbind from it, I'll die. You're my best friend, so you wouldn't want to see me die, right?"

In my last life, when I first heard those words, I did not believe her at all. I thought she was just messing with me. After all, I only saw system binding in novels, and there was no way something like that could exist in real life.

Besides, human emotions were incredibly complex, so how could a simple system control them?

If all the men I dated ended up falling for Alice, then it just meant I had terrible taste and was only attracted to scumbags.

Noticing that I did not believe her, Alice said she would prove it to me in a few days. I did not take her words seriously at all.

But then, just a few days later, my boyfriend, Colin Frey, actually came to me. He told me he wanted to break up and even said he was in love with Alice.

I could not believe what I was hearing and even started to doubt whether the system Alice mentioned was actually real.

I was heartbroken for quite a while, but I also learned my lesson. I stopped telling anyone about my relationships and did not post anything on social media either. Besides me and whoever I was dating, nobody else knew about my love life.

Even so, every man I dated would want to break up with me without fail. They would claim they fell in love with Alice.

Even though I really did not want to believe in that system, I had no choice but to accept it now. With my own power alone, I probably had no way to fight against Alice.

Feeling completely defeated, I returned to my hometown, cut off all contact with Alice, and even deleted every way she could reach me.

Later, my parents introduced me to a guy, and we decided to get married.

Even then, Alice would not leave me alone. She suddenly showed up at my wedding and destroyed everything, even causing my parents' deaths.

I lost everything and had no idea how to fight against that so-called system. In my despair, I chose to end it all.

Maybe because I died such a pathetic death, heaven gave me a chance to figure all this out. This time, I was determined to find out exactly what that damned system of hers really was.