At that moment, I hadn't cried because I was hungry.

I'd cried because Whitney had suffered multiple blows from a cane after the director found out she'd stolen the pies. She'd clutched them to her chest, protecting them with everything she had.

By the time she handed them to me, her entire body was covered in bruises. Bloody scratches marked her thin face, but her eyes were bright as she smiled and urged me to eat.

"I don't know what to do with you. You'd better make a ton of money and pay me back one day, you little brat," she'd joked carelessly.

I lowered my head even more, but my tears wouldn't stop streaming down my face. It was the first time anyone had ever been so good to me, and I was moved.

So, I lent her all my extraordinary luck. After that, she was never caught stealing again. Everything started going smoothly for her, so much so that even the orphanage director began treating her well.

I didn't have to go hungry anymore. Whenever Whitney got something, she would always think of me first.

A sharp pain twisted in my stomach, yanking me back to reality. Someone threw me into the back of the van, and Whitney's figure disappeared from my sight.

When I came to, I found myself by a cold, windy river on the outskirts of town. My hands and feet were tightly bound with rope.

A sudden thought struck me, and my whole body trembled. A numb, electric jolt shot down my back as though someone had jammed a live wire straight into me.

"Let me go… Please…" I begged weakly as the cold, damp air from the river hit me, fear squeezing my chest tight. I was terrified of water, and Whitney knew that.

"Throw him in!" she said coldly, not a hint of hesitation in her voice.

The icy water rushed into my mouth and nose, and despair swallowed me whole. I kept trying to scream for help as darkness engulfed me.

Somewhere above the river's surface, I faintly heard Whitney's voice. "You deserve this, Gabriel Johnson. If it weren't for you, Simon wouldn't have died."

I couldn't hear anything after that. My consciousness was slipping away. Still, I knew one thing clearly—I was the one who'd tried to save Simon, while she'd caused his death. So why was I the one being tortured?

…

"Hey, dummy, I'm talking to you. You deaf or what?" A sharp, cocky female voice rang out.

My mind exploded with a loud boom, the terror of drowning still clinging to me. When I opened my eyes, I saw Whitney's face.

For a moment, I thought I was dead. A surge of pure hatred rushed through me, and I shoved her away before I even realized what I was doing.

At the side, Simon reacted quickly and caught Whitney in time. She stared at me in shock, struggling to process what had just happened.

The next second, Simon stormed over and pushed me to the ground.

He snapped, "What is wrong with you? Why did you push her?"

He wrapped an arm around her as she put on a pitiful, teary-eyed look. "Whitney, I told you your little brother's sick in the head, but you never believe me…"

Perhaps he still wasn't satisfied, for he glared at me with pure anger and raised his foot to kick me. I dodged, and he roared, "How dare you dodge?"

Simon's incessant screams rang out a few seconds later. Like a madman, I'd lunged at him and started swinging punches. Both of us ended up with bruises all over our faces, swollen and beaten black and blue.

"It's you!" I screamed in my head. "You're the one who made my life a living hell!"

By the time Whitney finally snapped out of it and reacted, I'd already knocked Simon to the ground. She furiously shoved me away and carefully helped him up. I noticed her hands were trembling.

I frowned, only then feeling the sharp, stinging pain on my face. That was when it finally hit me—I'd been reborn and gone back to the time when Simon and Whitney were secretly flirting behind everyone's backs.

Looking at the two of them, I couldn't help but smile. My nails dug so hard into my palms that the skin split and blood smeared across my hands, but I didn't feel a thing.

Simon was the pampered son of a wealthy family, while I was just the Johnson family's adopted son. And yet I'd just beaten him up in front of a crowd.

The school didn't dare to sweep this under the rug, so both our families were called in.

"Mom, it's him! He pushed Whitney and hit me. Someone with such terrible behaviour shouldn't be allowed to stay in this school."

Simon held an ice pack to his face, glaring at me with hatred.

I recalled that Simon's mother, Ashley Campbell, a sharply dressed career woman, was efficient, strict, and also one of the school's shareholders. She looked at the bruises covering Simon, then glanced at me. Her expression was terrifyingly calm.

That was when Whitney stepped forward and apologized sincerely. "Our apologies, Mrs. Campbell. My brother shouldn't have laid a finger on your son."

Then, she came over and grabbed me by the neck, trying to force me to apologize to Simon. I resisted, refusing to give her what she wanted.

In my past life, when I first caught Whitney and Simon sneaking around under a tree, I'd only spoken to them harshly, but he'd beaten me up so badly that I'd ended up in the hospital.

The school had sent a fruit basket and some flowers as consolation, but that was the end of it. I was brushed aside like nothing.

Despite knowing I was furious, Whitney had held me down and warned me, "Stop provoking Simon, okay? He's rich and not someone we can afford to mess with. The less trouble there is, the better it is for us. Got it?"

I'd always trusted her, so I swallowed my anger back then simply because she told me to.

Later, when I accidentally saw them meeting in secret again, I overheard Simon ask her, "Doesn't it break your heart that your little brother is all bruised up because of me?"

Whitney, who'd been panting heavily just a moment before, suddenly went cold. "Why are you bringing him up? He's just a pet we happened to adopt and raise."

That night, I cried nonstop.

Since then, Simon's revenge had only worsened. After I lent Whitney my luck, I'd grown weaker and had terrible luck myself.

Every time I turned a corner, I somehow ran into Simon again. He tormented me so badly that I would still be shaking when I walked home.

Whitney would look at me with disgust and say, "I've told you a million times not to provoke him. You deserve it, looking like that."

After she met Simon, she'd changed completely. She was no longer the protective sister who stole meat pies for me.

Now, seeing that I refused to apologize, Whitney angrily tightened her grip around my neck. "I said, apologize."

Mom, who'd been quiet the whole time, didn't have the heart to step in.

I shrugged off Whitney's hand from my neck and, with a look of disgust, wiped the spot she'd just touched with a tissue.

Her face darkened, and I let out a cold laugh. "I might be in the wrong, but he's as guilty as I am. Why should I be the only one apologizing?

"Besides, I only stepped in because I saw Whitney being pinned against a tree by a guy. I thought he was bullying her, but…"

I paused, and everyone at the scene paled.

Simon tried to stop me from saying anything more. "What nonsense are you spouting, Gabriel?"

I went ahead and said it anyway. "But I didn't know they were kissing… I just thought she was being bullied and went to help her. Who knew I'd ruin their private moment?

"Then Simon came over and beat me up. He shoved me to the ground and insulted me horribly as well. If you don't believe me, feel free to check the surveillance footage."

The moment I stopped talking, I saw the color drain from Simon's face. His lips quivered as he turned to his mother.

Whitney, on the other hand, pursed her lips in embarrassment. Her eyes turned red as she glared at me, but I didn't care at all.

Mrs. Campbell was grooming Simon to be their family's heir, so there was no way she would let him date around this early. He only dared to put on a bold front in public, that was all.

As expected, Simon, who'd originally wanted to make things difficult for me, was now desperately trying to think of ways to get past his mother.

"I'll deal with you when we get home," Mrs. Campbell said to Simon, her expression darkening as she dragged him out of the principal's office.

Back at home, both Whitney and I were punished by being made to kneel in the back garden. I was punished for fighting, while she was punished for lying to our parents.

Back then, Whitney had sworn up and down that she only cared about studying as she planned to be our parents' successor and take over the family business.

When Dad found out about her and Simon, he was furious and made us kneel right then and there. Mom couldn't bear seeing us kneeling out at night, so she pleaded, threw a fit, and eventually got him to soften a little.

"I'll let you off if you get first place in this month's exam."

When Whitney heard the condition, she agreed confidently. "Don't worry, Dad. I'll always be first in our grade no matter what."

Meanwhile, I let out a cold laugh where no one could see. Perhaps it was time for some change, seeing as she'd gotten all her luck from me.

Even after Whitney reunited with her birth parents, it hadn't been easy. Dad's expectations were high—he wanted her to study finance and master every subject.

He was grooming her to be the heiress, but she'd grown up in the orphanage and had barely attended school. Compared to kids her age who'd received high-level education since they were young, she struggled.

Night after night, I'd seen her studying until she was exhausted. I would run to her and hold her to comfort her. "Don't be afraid, Whitney. As long as I'm here, you'll only get better and better."

No one knew that every time I hugged her, my luck would flow into her. I never told her that because I didn't want to hurt her pride. I wanted her to believe that she'd earned all her success through her own talent.

Now that she didn't have my extraordinary luck to help her, I planned to see just how she would get first place.

…

The news of my fight with Simon spread quickly. Some students even found out about his secret relationship with Whitney.

When Simon came to school that day, he glared at me as if he wanted to rip me apart. I didn't even flinch under his stare. Perhaps he remembered just how vicious I could be, for he didn't bother me after that.

I also heard that his parents froze all his cards and that he would only get an allowance if he ranked in the top 30 on the exam. He'd always been a poor student, ranking at the very bottom of the grade. In my past life, Whitney had even helped him cheat just so he could scrape by.

Even so, none of the ongoing drama could stop Simon from sneaking off to meet Whitney after school. Many students even caught them in the act.

During class, they would exchange looks and gestures. Even the teacher, Mr. James Watson, couldn't tolerate it anymore and threw a piece of chalk at them.

"That's enough, you two," Mr. Watson warned. "You're in your senior year now. I know you both come from wealthy families, but you still need to prove yourselves with your grades!"

However, Whitney dismissed Mr. Watson with a scoff, not showing an ounce of respect for him. "With all due respect, sir, I can still get first in the entire school even without your class."

Back then, with my luck lending her an edge, Whitney could read a page at a glance, remember everything perfectly, and ace every test effortlessly.

So, she didn't care about Mr. Watson at all. Instead, she laughed at him openly. "Honestly, your class is boring anyway."

Mr. Watson's eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

Looking at the overbearing Whitney at that moment, I couldn't understand why I'd ever been so devoted to her.

After that, I paid little to no attention to her and Simon. I buried myself in my studies instead. In my past life, my memory had worsened after I'd lent Whitney my luck, and misfortune had followed me everywhere.

Even though I still had some of my luck, half had gone to Whitney. That left me with only half.

Indeed, my luck wasn't unlimited. Once it was gone, it was over. That was what the fortune-teller had told me, looking deadly serious.

So I could only rely on hard work. It didn't bother me because I didn't regret lending my luck to Whitney before. She'd deserved it because she'd given me the warmth I desperately needed at that time.

From that moment on, though, we would walk our separate paths.