Before the firefighters could check anything, Ruby yelled and sobbed. "Why must you keep targeting me, Janice? There's a fire! Why are you still trying to stop me when there's something as urgent as a fire?!"

The firefighters looked confused and kept glancing between us.

Danny also stepped in front of her and pointed at me. "Let them go in for the evacuation! How long are you going to keep this up?!"

I was furious. They could target me all they wanted, but the people in that factory were innocent. They did not even care enough to perform basic fact-checking.

I ignored them and ran over. After a quick explanation, I brought the woman over.

"Please save my husband. He's still inside!" She cried.

I cut her off gently and put a hand on her shoulder, calming her. "He'll be alright. But you have to tell me how many people are still inside, and if there's anything flammable or explosive stored in there."

Her sobbing eased before she nodded repeatedly, then pointed with a shaking hand toward the far side of the plant. "Yes! There's a truckload of metallic sodium stored inside. The fire spread too fast, and they're all still stored in the back."

Metal sodium would react explosively with water, which meant that they did not have much time left.

I had already done everything I could, so the rest was up to the firefighters.

However, there was still one person who could not let it go.

When Ruby saw that the firefighters were starting to believe me, she tugged at her sleeve and said, "Who knows if you just hired an actress to lie for you because you can't stand me."

She raised her voice just enough so that everyone could hear her.

Danny's expression hardened as he raised his head. "Exactly! Ruby already checked, and I trust her! This woman is obviously working with you, so don't think you can fool me."

Ruby kept her head down, but I still caught that faint smile on her face.

The fireman in charge frowned and sternly asked, "Which of you is telling the truth? You're the person in charge here, so you'd better think it through carefully!"

Danny's shoulders slumped immediately while Ruby's eyes darted away, unable to meet the firefighter's gaze.

I let out a cold snort. "Actors? You two are the ones acting! Don't you care about those lives out there?!"

The female worker, who had been sobbing, snapped out of it and lunged at Ruby, wanting to scratch her as she recovered from being accused of being a hired actress by Ruby. "Are you really a reporter?! There are over a thousand people inside, yet you lied! Are you trying to get them all killed?!"

Ruby ducked behind Danny and acted soft and fragile. "I didn't mean to... I really didn't..."

Then, her eyes darted around before adding, "But… I'm still new! Janice inspected the scene! I just repeated what she told me!"

With one sentence, she threw me back into the pit in front of everyone.

This time, even the worker glared at me.

Without solid information, the firefighters could not go in. They had already sent someone to check as soon as they realized the report might be wrong, but time was too short. There was still no evidence of who was telling the truth.

They were at a deadlock.

Ruby had too many tricks, and Danny kept on defending her by using the fact that she was new.

Unfortunately for her, that was exactly what I had been waiting for.

I smiled and stared straight at her. "Ruby, are you really saying you didn't inspect the scene?"

Danny jumped in before she could answer. "Of course, you inspected it. Otherwise, why are you even here?"

The two of them were practically announcing that I wanted the workers to die.

I pulled my phone from my bag and tapped open a video.

"Ms. Janice, let me cover the scene."

"Let Ruby handle it..."

Their voices played back, one after the other. In the footage, you could see Danny leading Ruby away at the end.

I raised my eyebrow and looked at Ruby's pale face. "So, who did the inspection? Don't tell me you have no idea who did that!"

In my previous life, I wondered if I had been too forceful when Danny accused me of trying to push him out.

He said I bullied newcomers, and I really did reflect on it. I realized I had only trained her by the book.

When I was suspended and thrown in prison, I asked to see Danny once.

He never came. He had asked someone to bring me the divorce papers instead.

This time, I finally saw it clearly.

He and Ruby had been sneaking around even before she joined the company.

The only reason he framed me was not only because it would make Ruby a full-time staff member, but also because it would allow him to leave me and take all of our assets.

He was killing two birds with one stone… However, he was not the only one who could play that game! This time, I would send them into the burning fires of Hell myself!

Boom!

There was a deafening explosion, and smoke and dust immediately filled the air.

Then came a chain of explosions.

Nearby buildings started to collapse, and the firefighters shielded us as they dragged everyone back. When the explosions finally stopped, we realized that the explosions were from the gas tanks, not the sodium metal.

The explosions were quite serious, but since there were only a few of them, the firefighters managed to move fast and clear the area. The remaining ones that hadn't exploded were also moved away.

"And this is what you meant when you said there are no explosive materials here?!" The leading firefighter pointed at the factory and roared at Ruby. He looked sick with disbelief at how cold-blooded she was.

He questioned the female worker again and started planning for an evacuation.

Without Danny and Ruby getting in the way, the workers began evacuating in an orderly line.

Then, everything changed again. The firefighters suddenly shouted at everyone to leave. "It's going to blow! Run!"

Because the evacuation had been delayed, the container holding the sodium metal had been baked by the heat until it was starting to fail.

Due to that, the factory's fire system kicked in, and water sprayed down from the ceiling.

Sodium metal would explode when it came into contact with water, and taking into account that there was a whole truckload of it present, no one wanted to gamble their lives on it.

I was already far, far away by then, at least around five to six miles away. However, the burning blast wave hit me anyway, slamming into me and throwing me to the ground.

Rocks cut my palm, but it was nothing compared to the acid eating at me from my last life.

I waited nervously as ambulances passed me by, one after another.

I knew it was not going well.

Meanwhile, Ruby and Danny were nowhere to be found by this time.

-

The next morning, the boss's roar shook the entire office. "Do you even understand that truth is the first rule of journalism?! No explosives and no casualties? Who told you that?! You can't even make this up in your dreams!"

Documents were hurled to the floor with a bang after they struck the door.

Danny was hunched inside the office with a pale face, and all I could feel was satisfaction.

So, he knew fear, too.

Even then, he still protected Ruby as he said in a dark voice, "I'll get to the bottom of this. It must be Janice! Ruby is just an intern. She would never do anything like this."

Originally, I did not want to be dragged into their mess again, but Danny refused to let it end.

He brought the boss straight to my office.

I had heard everything he said, but I cared little. Before they could throw the accusation at my face, I handed over my work ID. "I resign. Since my supervisor thinks he should train the new staff himself, I won't get in the way of your sweet daily lives."

Ruby's eyes looked at me slyly. "Janice, are you scared? You signed the final assignment roster. It's right there in black and white."

My eyes narrowed the moment I saw the name "Janice" on the page.

Last time, Danny had pulled out the same document with the same signature on it. However, I knew I had never signed it despite the signature being an exact match with mine.

"So, the queen of the newsroom can't even admit when she's wrong?" Ruby cried almost genuinely, and our co-workers began to look at me doubtfully.

Any doubt the boss still had vanished the second she started sobbing. Everyone couldn't help wanting to side with whoever looked weaker.

"Hello. We're here to investigate the false report regarding yesterday's fire." Two officers suddenly walked toward me. I still had the video of Ruby going to the fire on my phone. Even if they tried to pin the assignment on me, she could not escape making a false report.

Ruby's face tightened with fear as Danny pointed at me and shouted, "Not only did you sign off on the assignment roster, but you also even made a false coverage on the scene?!"

In my last life, the police showing up had shaken Ruby, and Danny had stepped in, dumping everything on me. With the security camera's footage destroyed, the assignment roster with forged signatures became the evidence for sending me to prison.

Nothing I said had mattered, and I was taken away and eventually sentenced.

This time, I understood something simple. If you wanted to survive people like them, you had to be even more brutal!

I slammed my palm on the desk and simply grabbed the assignment roster, tearing it to pieces. "You can't lie outright like that, Danny! You were the one who sent her to the scene! I still have the footage on my phone, and the firemen from the fire department can back me up as witnesses as well!"

At the word "footage", Danny hesitated, but when he saw Ruby's face pale, he took a deep breath and put on that righteous expression on his face. "Janice, you might be my wife, but I side with the truth, not with you. I get that you're jealous, but there were just the three of us there. What can a video from a phone prove when you can edit it? The cameras have been down for days. Stop lying and just turn yourself in."

He lowered his head as though it hurt him, playing the good husband forced into a hard choice.

I gripped my phone tight until my knuckles turned white, anger coursing through me to the point I was shaking. Even after living through this same scenario once already, I still felt resentful when I had to do it all over again!

"When did the cameras break? Why wasn't I aware of that?" I asked.

The officers called in the employee from the security room. He glanced at me, then he looked away in guilt. My stomach dropped.

"The cameras have been down for a week." He had been on duty the entire week. With one sentence, he sealed it.

That was when I understood everything. Danny had been preparing for this for a long time.

The officers closed in immediately. "Do you understand what your false information caused? Because of the mistake, the evacuation was delayed. Even now, the firefighters are still unconscious in the hospital after the explosion!"

My coworkers stared at me like I was already guilty and proof was simply optional.

Anything I said would be useless.

I looked at every face in the room.

I had never mistreated them, but some of them had heard my fight with Danny that day. They still chose to stay quiet, pretending to be deaf instead of standing up for me.

Fine.

If that was the case, they did not get to complain about what I was going to do next!