"Dora, have you eaten? I made you some sweet bean pastry. At least have a bite—you'll crush it today."

I didn't reach for it.

I just stared at him.

"No thanks. The college entrance exam is too important. I'm not eating anything handed to me by a stranger."

I stepped past him and walked away.

The smile on Landon's face froze solid.

"A stranger?"

He frowned and followed after me. "Dora, what's wrong? Why are you suddenly being so… distant?"

He looked genuinely confused.

Because before the exam, we'd made a promise: once we got into the same university, we'd be together.

I'd always believed it was mutual. That we both felt the same way.

I never imagined I was just a pawn in his hand.

A stepping stone to help Leonora Pruitt get everything she wanted.

I didn't even spare him a glance. I lengthened my stride toward the exam hall, trying to shake him off as fast as I could.

"Dora, my stomach— it hurts, all of a sudden!"

Landon clutched his stomach, his face twisted in pain, and grabbed my arm.

"I can't take it. Can you… take me to the hospital?"

I stopped. Turned around and looked at him.

His face was pale and drawn, and he really did look like someone in the grip of some sudden attack.

I almost laughed.

So the car crash didn't work. Time for Plan B, is that it?

I said nothing.

A flicker of guilt passed through Landon's eyes, but he kept up the agonized act.

"Dora, please. I'm begging you. It's one test—if it doesn't work out, we can just retake next year together."

"I think— it's the hereditary thing, the one that runs in my family. If I don't get to a hospital soon, I could actually die here…"

I smiled, cold, and pointed toward the staff at the entrance.

"If you need help, go ask them. Why are you coming to me? I'm a student about to sit an exam."

"Landon."

I locked my eyes on his and spoke word by word.

"What makes you think I'd throw away my one shot at this exam for you?"

Something cracked in his expression.

He clearly hadn't expected me to say that.

The old Dora Sullivan loved him so deeply she would have dropped her exam pass and carried him to the hospital herself.

"Dora, you've changed."

He clutched his stomach, his voice shaking. "You weren't like this before. So cold. So heartless."

"You're right. I've changed."

I glanced at my watch. "There are forty minutes until the math exam. You have two choices."

"One: go find a staff member. They'll call you an ambulance. Two: keep performing out here, and I call the police and report you for disrupting the exam."

Every trace of color drained from Landon's face.

I smiled and added one more thing.

"Besides, nobody knows better than I do that you, Landon Henson, don't have any hereditary condition."

After all, in my past life we were married for ten years. Every single physical came back clean. This whole act was just another way to stall me until the exam started without me.

More and more students were pouring into the exam hall. I had no interest in wasting another second on him. I turned and walked away.

"Dora Sullivan, how can you be this cruel? You're just going to abandon me?"

I kept walking, pace quick and unhesitating, when a body slammed into me from the side.

"Ow!"

"God, do you not have eyes? Watch where you're walking!"

Leonora rubbed her shoulder, all wounded indignation, and glared at me.

"I mean, sure, we're in the same exam hall, and everyone knows you're the big genius—but do you really have to barrel in here like you're trying to kill me?"

I stared at Leonora, cold, and stepped back on instinct.

She smiled.

"What's with the look, sis?"

"Relax. It's exam day—I'm not going to mess with you the way I used to."

"That can wait until after."

Leonora let the words hang like a gift, then turned on her heel and walked away. I narrowed my eyes at her retreating back.

This time, I finally made it into the math exam hall.

The room was dead silent.

I sat at my desk, and the sunlight through the window hit so hard it stung—I had to blink the tears back before they could start.

The math papers were handed out.

Every problem I never got to answer in my last life stared back at me now like an old friend.

Derivatives, conic sections, probability and statistics—all of them, right there.

I could have done them with my eyes closed. In another life, I'd sat up through countless midnights with the answer keys to these exact questions, crying over them until the print blurred, reading them again until I cried again.

I picked up my pen and started writing, steady, deliberate, one answer at a time.

I was deep in concentration when hurried footsteps broke through from outside.

A female proctor walked up to my desk, her expression severe, and stopped.

"Dora Sullivan. Put your pen down. Someone has reported that you brought cheat notes into the exam."

I froze, looking up in confusion.

"Ma'am, I didn't."

"We were all searched before we came in, weren't we?"

Leonora's voice cut in from the back row, bright with a triumph she wasn't even trying to hide.

"Ma'am, I saw it with my own eyes. She stuffed a slip of paper in her pocket. The right pocket of her school uniform."

I turned and looked at her.

The look on her face said everything it needed to.

*Go ahead, Dora Sullivan. Talk your way out of this one. Cheat notes in the exam hall—doesn't matter if you used them or not, you're done. Zero on every section. Daddy's favor, the inheritance, the oceanfront villa—gone.*

I pressed my lips tight and looked away.

"Dora Sullivan, please stand up."

The proctor stepped in front of me, her tone brooking no argument. "Per regulations, we need to conduct a search."

I stood and turned my pockets inside out for her, one by one.

Left pocket. Empty.

Right pocket—

Leonora's gaze locked onto it, and the curve of her smile climbed higher and higher.

I spoke up. "Ma'am, before the search, can I say one thing?"

"Go ahead."

"There are cameras in this room."

I raised my head and pointed to the corner of the classroom, then to the surveillance camera in the hallway outside.

"If anything is found on me that shouldn't be there, I'll accept every consequence. But if nothing is found—"

I paused, letting my gaze travel past the proctor and land on Leonora's face.

"—then what happens to the person who made the report?"

Leonora's smirk stiffened for a split second, then snapped back into place.

"Oh please, sis. I'm looking out for everyone in this room. If you've got nothing to hide, why are you so nervous?"

"Besides, I saw it with my own eyes. Calling out my own sister for the sake of a fair exam—how is that wrong?"

The other students were already piling on.

"A cheater. In *here*. Get her out!"

"Wait—isn't that Dora Sullivan? First in the class at No. 1 High? So what, were all those grades copied too?"

…

"Quiet."

The proctor silenced the murmuring.

Without another word, the woman reached into my right pocket.

Her fingers hit the bottom of the pocket and circled the lining.

Empty.

She circled again.

Still empty.

Leonora's expression finally cracked. She leaned forward, craning to see.

The female proctor turned the entire pocket inside out. Clean. Not even a loose thread.

"Nothing in this pocket either."

She glanced at the other proctor, who shook his head.

Every drop of color drained from Leonora's face.

"That's impossible!"

Her voice shot up to a shriek. "I put it there my— I *saw* it! Right there in her right pocket!"

"You put it there yourself?" I asked.

Leonora's mouth snapped shut. She looked like she might pass out.

"I misspoke."

"Ma'am, she definitely brought cheat notes. She must have moved them somewhere else!"

The proctor frowned, then told me to open my bag and dump everything out.

Pens, eraser, ruler, exam ID…

She went through each item, one by one. Nothing.

The entire room was dead silent.

"Ma'am!"

Leonora was frantic now. "She's hiding them somewhere else! Her pants pockets? Her shoes? Come on, actually search her!"

The proctor looked at her. The look wasn't the kind you give a concerned witness anymore. It was the kind you give a problem.

"Dora Sullivan, please cooperate. Take off your shoes."

I sat down and took my time with the laces, pulled both canvas shoes off, and turned them upside down on the desk.

Nothing.

I stood back up, peeled off my school jacket, gave it a shake, and held it open for her.

Nothing.

The proctor's face was getting harder by the second, but not at me. At Leonora.

"You."

She turned to face Leonora, her voice dropping cold.

"You claimed you saw Dora Sullivan carrying cheating materials with your own eyes. When exactly was that? Where did you see it?"

Leonora opened her mouth. Her eyes darted back and forth.

"It was… right before we entered the exam room. In the hallway. I saw her stuff something into her pocket—"

"There are cameras in the hallway."

I kept my voice level. "Pull the footage and we'll know, won't we?"

Leonora's breath caught.

She scrambled to explain. "Ma'am, maybe I was wrong! Let's just skip the footage—it'll eat into everyone's exam time, people still need to finish—"

I smiled. "You've already made the accusation. For the sake of exam integrity, you can't just wave it away with an 'oops, my mistake,' can you?"

I turned to the proctor.

"I'd like to request that the footage be reviewed. To clear my name and protect the fairness of this exam."

She nodded, picked up her walkie-talkie, and stepped outside.

A few minutes later, the door opened again. She walked back in with the head proctor behind her.

He was carrying a tablet. On the screen, hallway footage was already playing.