The company manager, Elton Baldwin, wants to promote my best friend, Lacey Donnovan, at work.

In my past life, I, Giselle Ashford, told Lacey not to accept his offer. But after she realized that someone else got promoted in her place and even doubled her salary overnight, Lacey got extremely jealous.

She conspired with her boyfriend, Xavier Pugh, to push me off the top of a building, cursing at me and saying, "You jealous bitch! You've always hated seeing me do well, and now you cost me such a good opportunity!"

When I open my eyes again, I realize that my world is no longer a shattered one with crimson blood in my eyes.

Instead, Lacey's inquisitive face appears before me. She asks, "What do you think, Giselle? Do you think I should grab this opportunity?"

I was stunned for a moment. My eyes widened in shock as I tried to get a better look at the face in front of me.

However, despite my actions, the person just kept droning on and on.

"I mean, you were just transferred out of his department. So, that means you're the one who knows about what's going on in there. Do you think I should transfer in after all?

"He promised that as long as I went in and went along with his arrangements, he would promote me and even give me a raise…

"I'm only getting paid 18 dollars an hour now, and I keep getting yelled and shouted at all day while they keep making things horrid for me. I really don't feel like carrying on anymore…"

Then, the speaker finally turned to look at me, so I could finally see her full face.

"Do you think I should agree to his proposition?" she asked. "I mean, as long as I get paid, I'm willing to do just about anything."

I finally managed to take a good look at the person talking to me. It was none other than my best friend, Lacey Donnovan.

Memories immediately flooded my mind. I gritted my teeth and felt myself trembling uncontrollably.

We had been besties for seven years. I had always treated Lacey as close as a family member ever since we were in high school, until we began working in corporate.

However, despite treating her sincerely for years, she had heartlessly pushed me off the top of the building to fall to my death. I didn't even manage to keep my body intact upon hitting the ground.

In my past life, Lacey had been called into Elton Baldwin's office as soon as he transferred me out of his department. He had been my manager then. And he had then asked Lacey if she was willing to join his department instead for some personal work.

His so-called "personal work" was actually just referring to going along with the rules that he set while being his secret mistress at work.

I couldn't accept his filth and refused to be involved, so I automatically requested to be transferred out of his department. I even told Lacey all about it afterward.

At that point in time, Elton was a married man with an 8-year-old son. Also, Lacey had been serious with her boyfriend for a year.

Lacey had asked me the same question back then, about whether or not she should accept his offer to join his department.

I managed to convince her to turn him down. After all, normal people would never want to ever get involved in something like this.

Lacey hesitated and thought about it for a long time. Eventually, she chose to pass on the offer. She also agreed to report Elton to the authorities with me after we'd resigned from the company.

However, I never got to wait until we'd resigned in my past life.

After Lacey rejected the offer, Elton invited another employee to join his department instead, and the employee entered his office to "discuss" things.

The "discussion" lasted for over an hour. After the employee came out, our HR manager, Joe Johnson, then informed her that her salary had been doubled, effective immediately.

Lacey overheard that the young woman who'd just come out of Elton's office hadn't just doubled her salary but also been promoted to a higher rank at the office.

At once, Lacey was furious. She glared at me like it was all my fault. And after work that day, she stopped me from leaving and said, "Giselle Ashford, just tell me if you hate seeing me doing better than you at work! You hated that I would be promoted over you and be your supervisor instead!

"We've been best friends for so long, and I'd already treated you as family. And this is how you repay me?"

There was nothing I could say to defend myself. I just looked at her in shock, unable to believe that she was actually saying such things to me.

When she saw that I didn't say a word in return, she thought that I was feeling guilty about it and cackled disdainfully.

"You said about asking to be transferred out by yourself because you couldn't bear to watch all the filth going on? Ha! You were just mad that he didn't pick you!

"You got jealous because Mr. Baldwin never picked you, so you also tried convincing me not to join his department! And to think that you said it so self-righteously too. How dare you!"

At that point in time, the seven years of our past friendship seemed to have shattered at once.

Things weren't over after Lacey's outburst with me.

After Elton learned about our argument, he then fired Lacey for being incompetent. Yet, just as Lacey was about to leave the company, he crouched to my ear and pretended to be intimate with me, speaking to me in a teasing voice, "You're just a stubborn little girl after all, and yet, you're still trying to pretend like you're innocent after all that?

"You've got years of learning ahead of you, sweetie. You're no match for me!"

The sight of Elton smiling happily while whispering next to my ear triggered Lacey immediately. He had slyly and successfully led Lacey to believe that I was the one responsible for getting her fired.

In the end, Lacey conspired with her boyfriend, Xavier Pugh, to grab me from my rented apartment and shove me off the rooftop balcony.

Gradually, my mind drifted back to the present. I forced myself to calm down my ragged breathing.

I looked at Lacey, who didn't seem like she was having a hard time making a decision after all. After managing to calm my anger, I suddenly felt like laughing at myself.

Lacey had already made her decision from the start. And since she already knew what she wanted, what was the point of getting all entangled in her mess?

I had been too much of a busybody in my past life. If she insisted on jumping from the fat into the fire, then who was I to stop her?

"That's a very big decision, and I don't think I should take any part in that," I said. "I think you should make your own decisions. You already know what your answer is going to be anyway, don't you?"

It was true that Lacey had already made a decision on her own.

Right after I was done speaking, she got up, pretending to head for the washroom. However, she made a quick detour and walked right into Elton's office.

She spent an even longer time inside his office than the other woman in my past life did.

When Lacey finally came back out, her face was flushed and rosy, and her hair and clothes were obviously a lot more disheveled than before.

While walking past my cubicle, her facial expression turned slightly awkward, and she purposely turned her head to the side because she was too embarrassed to face me.

We had spent seven years together, sitting for our SATs, our college admission exams, and even finally making it through college and graduating together.

I thought that I would have already known what kind of person she was by now. I had also thought that we would continue being each other's best friends until the end of our lives.

But I had simply been too naive. Seven years was way too short for me to thoroughly understand someone. Humans were just too complicated.

After that day, Lacey was promoted over us, and she was put in charge of me and three other employees who had also been in the same hiring batch as her.

This was Lacey's first taste of power. She became arrogant, and her ego also bloated almost at once.

One of the other employees placed under her supervision was named Casey Flemington. Casey used to be classmates with me and Lacey, and she was also always the top scorer in class back then.

Lacey hated her.

So, she began making things difficult for her on purpose.

Lacey often made Casey make numerous changes to proposal details, telling her again and again, and even making her work overtime at the company for the unnecessary changes.

"Weren't you the top of the class every time back in school? How did you turn out so terrible once you stepped into the working world?

"This is not what I wanted! Can't you have a better sense of judgment for yourself? Are you daft?

"Can't you just figure out on your own what I want? Must you always make me spell it out for you each time?"

Lacey, who had always hated being told what to do and driven into a corner, was now doing even worse things to her subordinates after being given some power.

Once Lacey was done making life difficult for Casey, she would then sigh deeply and hold her head in her hand while speaking in a disappointed voice, "Forget about it. I knew I couldn't place any hope on people like you who only know how to memorize lines from textbooks. You wouldn't have any sense. Just use the original version instead."

After putting in overtime work for three days and having all of her hard work rejected, Casey, though dense, finally realized that Lacey was simply toying with her.

She glared angrily at Lacey and asked, "Were you making a fool out of me this entire time?"

Lacey looked down on her with her arms folded on her chest, giving her a nonchalant look.

"I'm a very busy woman. I do not have the time to fool around with lowly people like you. You think too much of yourself!

"Just admit that you're no better than me instead of barking the entire time. This is not a school. Nobody is going to put up with your nonsense!"

It was true that nobody would put up with Casey's nonsense, but that also meant the same for Lacey.

Casey raised the stack of proposal documents she'd edited at least ten times and hit Lacey in the face with it as hard as she could. Then, she threw herself on Lacey, grabbed at her hair, and tried to claw at her face.

Lacey had been sitting the entire time, so she had already lost to Casey in terms of position. Moreover, Casey had struck her when she wasn't prepared for it, so Lacey had no way to defend herself.

After tearing and clawing at each other for five more minutes, when Lacey's voice was close to being hoarse after so much screaming, the security guards finally managed to rush in and rescue her.

Lacey was a disheveled mess. She hid behind the security guard and waved a finger in Casey's face angrily.

"How dare you do this to me? You bitch! How dare you hit me? I'm going to fire you!"

Lacey's voice wasn't the quietest. Everyone in the office could hear her words.

Also, everyone knew how Lacey had managed to get to her position today. It was just that they unanimously and coincidentally decided not to say a word about it.

But now, seeing that Lacey had inflated her ego so much to that point that she thought she could fire Casey, the other employees had finally had enough.

Murmurs arose in the office.

"She's just a cheap thing who slept her way to the top. Did she really think she'd have the power to fire anyone? Who does she think she is?"

"Yeah. She's just a lapdog who thinks she's all that because she has a backer. She thinks she can just bark at just anybody now."

The murmurs weren't soft, and Lacey heard every word of it.

She immediately turned her head to where the murmurs and gossip came from.

"Who… Who dares to slander me? Stand up and face me! You're all nothing but useless trash who only know how to wag your tongues like they'd make any difference. I'm firing all of you today!"

The employees broke into laughter as they shot her mocking glances.

"Hahaha! Oh, I'm so scared! Hurry up and fire me! I don't want to come to work anymore. Come on, hurry up!"

"She's just made a supervisor over four people, and she thinks she can fire the whole company now! I wonder how she's gonna behave if they put ten people under her? I wouldn't want to imagine that."

"Such a coward. Here, I'll imagine it for you. If she has ten people under her, she'll be over the moon!"

"Hahaha! She's not much to look at, but her imagination's quite something, isn't it?"

Lacey was just about to retort, but Elton rushed out of his office and gave her a tight slap.

Lacey didn't manage to fire the entire company. In fact, she didn't even manage to get Casey fired.

Conversely, she was properly taught a lesson by Elton for being too pompous and arrogant in front of everyone else at the company.

She was indignant and kept insisting that the employees were being stupid and mean to her, and that she had done nothing wrong.

Elton had specifically engaged in these secretive, clandestine relationships at work because he'd loved the thrill of it. But now, Lacey had completely exposed him in public, so he was very mad at her about it. In fact, he had a mind to replace her.

Lacey finally panicked. However, her way of trying to get back on Elton's good graces wasn't to reflect on her behavior and lie low about it, but rather, to come looking for me to try and seduce him together.

There was a bright grin on her face as she planned meticulously.

"Back when you were still working under him, didn't he suggest that he wanted you to be one of his mistresses too? I bet he'd been very displeased when you turned him down," she said.

"How about you come with me tonight and serve him as well? Then you can tell him that I was the one who brought you along. He'd be so happy that I wasn't useless anymore because I could do something he had never been able to do. He'd never replace me then!"

My face was purple with rage. I immediately slapped her across the face.

Lacey held a hand to her smarting cheek and stared at me in disbelief.

"What do you mean by this? You're not willing to help me?"

I chuckled out loud.

"Not everyone is as despicable as you. You can go ahead and do those kinds of shameful things by yourself!"

I turned to leave. Lacey grabbed me and said, "Stop pretending like you're any more innocent than me! I really don't understand why you're still working here instead of resigning!

"At least 40% of the company's profits all go to Elton! You know how capable he is and how high his position is in the company!

"The only reason why you're still here is because you've been thinking of ways to seduce him and flatter him, isn't it? Don't think that I'm not aware of that!"

I forcefully released myself from her iron grip and looked into her eyes. Then, I said mockingly, "Out of all the employees in the same batch as us, you're the one with the least capabilities. You don't know how to do anything other than make coffee and run errands.

"So, with how incapable you are, and how narrow your field of sight is, you can't think of anything else except resorting to despicable methods to get what you want.

"Just play your part and continue being a pretty face. One day, you'll be amazed by what you see."