3: 3

I stared at my phone screen, my fingers trembling faintly.

After learning I had late-stage stomach cancer, I'd sunk into a fog. That was the reason I stopped fighting the marriage alliance.

I only had a few months left anyway.

But I never understood it. I'd always eaten clean and healthy. How could I have gotten a disease like that?

Mom and Dad didn't believe me either. They insisted I was faking the whole thing.

Now I saw it clearly. This had been Otto's scheme all along, a trap inside a trap.

The captions exploded across the screen.

【Holy hell, is that something a human being would do? How did we never see how ruthless Otto was in the last life!】

【So the stomach cancer was fake!】

【Millie, it's not too late to turn back now!】

I didn't react. I just went home.

If I had parents who loved me, a brother, a man who loved me the way I loved him, I'd have been willing to fight for it.

But now, all I wanted was to see them dead.

The living room light was still on when I got home.

Otto saw me come in and held out a glass of milk. “Eat the cakes already. If Sophia finds out you still haven't touched them, she'll start reading into it again.”

I took the milk. “It's too late now, they'll sit heavy on my stomach. I'll eat them tomorrow.”

Otto frowned. “Don't forget, then. A few little cakes, and you have to keep putting it off?”

I smiled. “You know my stomach's bad. Relax, I'll definitely eat them tomorrow.”

Otto stared at me for a couple of seconds. “Fine. Go to bed early, you have to get up for hair and makeup.”

I nodded, and when he wasn't looking, I poured the milk out the bedroom window.

The next morning they dragged me up at five for makeup.

The makeup artist clicked her tongue admiringly at my face. “Miss Fox, your skin is gorgeous. Barely needs any concealer.”

I smiled and said nothing.

After all, this face was about to be ruined.

Nine thirty in the morning. Half an hour before the wedding officially began.

I sat in the waiting room with my eyes closed, resting.

Sophia pushed the door open in a hurry, a box of cakes in her hand. “Millie, didn't you say you'd eat the cakes today? Otto said you forgot, so he had me bring them over specially.”

The captions went wild.

【Don't eat it! Unless the host dies, the body-swap curse can't be reversed!】

【There's no undo button in life, Millie!】

The curse was that absolute? Perfect. Exactly what I wanted.

I ignored the captions, took the box of cakes, and picked one up and bit into it right in front of Sophia.

A moment later I felt something wriggle down my throat and into my stomach.

Then I ate a second cake, and a third.

The look on Sophia's face shifted from expectation to pure elation.

She suddenly leaned in close and dropped her voice. “Millie, do you know what you just ate?”

I played dumb. “Sweet almond cakes……”

“Wrong.” She smiled. “It's the curse. The child parasite is already inside you, and the mother parasite is inside me. Half an hour from now, we'll swap bodies. And then I'll be Millie Fox, and you, you'll only ever be Sophia……”

She stared at me, waiting for me to scream, to fall apart, to drop to my knees and beg.

But I didn't.

I just leaned back in the makeup chair and looked at her. “Oh, really? Well, congratulations.”

Sophia's smile froze.

“You're not scared?”

“Scared of what?”

“You're not afraid I'll take everything from you? Your company shares, your parents, your fiancé……”

“Of course I am.” I forced out two tears. “Sophia, can't you take the curse out? Please……”

4: 4

She was clearly delighted by the state of me, laughing so hard her whole body shook. "Millie Fox, so even you have days like this. Do you have any idea how much I hate you?"

"Same age, same everything, and somehow you got to be the little princess while I got beaten by my dad? Three years of high school, I clawed my way into the school I wanted. You? Your grades were barely good enough for community college, but you got to go abroad to polish yourself up!"

"And Caleb." She ground the name out through her teeth. "I've loved him for ten years. Why does he get to marry you, some pretty face and nothing else? Because your families match? He was obviously bewitched by you!"

"And on top of that, you actually handed me your old clothes, the ones you didn't want anymore! Were you pitying me or insulting me?"

It came back to me then. I had given Sophia a few dresses.

They were brand new, tags still on. I'd peeled the tags off myself, afraid the prices would make her uncomfortable.

So in her eyes, that was charity.

"Are you finished?" I looked at her.

"Since you want my life so badly," I said, picking up the fruit knife off the table slowly, "then let me give it to you."

Sophia's face changed. "What are you doing?"

I didn't answer. I aimed the knife at my own face and dragged it down, hard.

The skin split open, blood spattering across the white wedding dress, the pain twisting my mouth into a snarl.

Sophia shrieked, "Are you insane? That's the face I wanted!"

A second ago I was just a pretty face. Now suddenly it was the face she wanted. So false.

I ignored her and cut a second time, then a third.

Slashes crossing every direction, deep enough to reach bone.

Then I lifted the pot of chili oil from the table, still boiling, opened my mouth, and poured it down.

Sophia lunged to grab the knife, her eyes wild enough to split at the corners.

"Millie Fox, you bitch! You've ruined my plan, I'm going to kill you!"

I was watching the clock. Thirty seconds left.

"Sophia." My face was covered in blood, and I smiled at her. "Didn't you want to be the Fox heiress? I'm handing it to you, and now you want to kill me?"

"Plus Mom and Dad, my brother, Caleb, I'm so curious. Without this face, do you still have any use to them at all?"

I glanced at the mirror on the vanity. Flesh and blood, unrecognizable. Even surgery couldn't bring it back now.

Sophia stared at me, shaking all over, frozen where she stood.

The next second, the whole room spun.

When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in front of the mirror, and in the mirror was Sophia's face, clean, untouched, not a scratch on it.

I turned around. The real Sophia, wearing my face, was rushing at me with the fruit knife raised.

Blood smeared across her whole face, her eyes full of nothing but the will to kill.

"The curse only reverses if the host dies!"

My expression shifted. I quickly tore at the gown on me, mussed my hair, yanked open the lounge door, and bolted out.

The wedding hall was packed with guests. I ran and screamed at the same time. "Help! Millie Fox has lost her mind! She destroyed her own face to get out of the wedding, and now she wants to kill me to keep me quiet!"

I wanted to see exactly how the Fox family planned to clean up this mess.