In my previous life, the fake daughter Linda Veil wanted the billionaire family all to herself.

She manipulated my adopted brother Jason with her two-faced act, sabotaging me at every turn.

All I ever wanted was family. Instead, they came to despise me, and shipped me off to the African savannah to fend for myself.

Before the plane even landed, Mom and Dad threw me out from low altitude, hatred written all over their faces.

"Stay out there and learn your lesson. Let's see if you ever dare hurt your sister again!"

"We'll come get you once you've straightened up."

Both my legs shattered on impact. I lay in the grass, sobbing that I was sorry, begging them to believe me.

But the sun cracked my skin open and wild animals stripped me to the bone.

They never came back for me.

Right before I died, I finally learned the truth. Sending me to the savannah had been Linda's idea all along.

She'd spent three hundred million commissioning a lifelike robot to replace my dead body.

Mom and Dad watched the cameras every day, seeing a lively, healthy "robot me" going about life.

They had no idea I was already gone.

And Linda? She married my adopted brother, poisoned my parents slowly, and inherited every last penny of the Veil fortune, handing it all to her human-trafficking birth parents.

Then I opened my eyes again.

I'd been reborn, back to the day the billionaire family first took me home.

This time around, I'd worked ten jobs at once to survive and developed a serious mental illness.

Whoever messed with me got the full crazy treatment.

The moment the billionaire parents brought me through the door, Linda Veil pulled me aside and hissed in my ear:

"Know your place. Get out of my house on your own, or I'll have someone kill you."

In my previous life I'd cowered. This time, I hit back.

I shook off the hug she was pretending to give me and burst into wailing sobs.

"I don't want to live anymore. This world is terrifying."

Then I pulled out a knife and slashed my wrist. Blood sprayed everywhere. The billionaire mansion became a crime scene in seconds.

Mom and Dad completely lost it, frantically calling emergency doctors to get me transfused.

They barely pulled me back from the edge when Jason slipped into my hospital room.

He ripped out my IV drip and wrapped his hands around my throat.

"If you ever set Linda up again, I'll carve up your face and burn out your voice. Then we'll see how much trouble you can stir up in front of Mom and Dad."

Nobody threatened me. I wasn’t taking that from anyone.

I covered my ears and screamed at the top of my lungs.

The nurse who came running mistook Jason for some kind of maniac. Security beat him until he was howling, eyes gone blank.

Linda wasn't done. She volunteered to handle my meals personally.

Three days straight, every plate she brought was either rancid meat or spoiled leftovers.

When she came again, I was so fed up I dumped the whole tray in her face.

Jason went ballistic and dragged me up, demanding I kneel and apologize to Linda.

I reached back and pulled out my personal alarm stun gun.

Mom and Dad walked in at that exact moment and nearly had heart attacks.

"Stop it, both of you!"

The second those words landed, I collapsed. My energy for the day was simply gone.

When I came to, a circle of stone-faced people sat around my hospital bed.

Dad spoke first, voice low.

"Tell me. What started it this time?"

Jason jumped in immediately: "Eve is completely out of line! She threw food in Linda's face on purpose; she was trying to ruin her looks. She's just jealous that Linda has a better life than her!"

Linda sniffled softly on the side.

"I don't know what I did to make her hate me so much the second she got here. My skin is smooth and she's all rough and sallow. Maybe she's jealous I'm prettier."

The two of them were perfectly coordinated.

Mom's brow tightened. The look she gave me didn't bother hiding the blame.

"Eve, I understand it hasn't been easy living on your own. But do you really need to go after Linda like this?"

Three against one. Like I'd committed some unforgivable sin.

I gripped the corner of the blanket, the rage creeping up slowly from somewhere deep.

In my previous life, their polished, two-faced fronts had messed with my head. I'd actually start wondering if I'd done something wrong.

But it never mattered what I said or did. The moment Linda cried, Jason would attack me. Mom and Dad would side with her. They'd use their authority to crush me, throw me in the dark room at the drop of a hat.

The memories made me shake back then.

Not anymore.

My eyes narrowed. I spun around and slapped Linda so hard the food scraps in her hair flew off.

"That's for lying."

"Go look at yourself in a puddle before you talk about anyone else's face."

Linda clutched her cheek, stunned, then started crying for real.

This time the tears were genuine.

Jason grabbed a chair and launched himself at me like he was ready to die.

Dad's foot hit the floor and he roared.

"QUIET! Everyone stand down!"

Mom took over from there, pulling the three of us apart for separate questioning.

In my previous life, Linda had bullied me, but I'd kept quiet. I didn't want to be labeled a troublemaker, didn't want Mom and Dad coming down on me for causing drama.

So I never told Mom about the rotten food.

They just turned it around and called me ungrateful, said I was picking fights with Linda.

After that, Linda got bolder.

"Spoiled leftovers today, pig slop next time. How's that sound? Ha!"

This life, I shoved the remaining disgusting food right under Mom's nose.

"This smells like death. A dog wouldn't eat it. You want me to?"

Mom's forehead creased, but she managed a strained smile and softened her voice.

"She just didn't realize the salmon had gone off. She was trying to give you something nice."

I watched her lie through her teeth with a completely straight face.

I smiled. "Oh, really?"

Then, while she wasn't looking, I grabbed a mouthful of the rotten, reeking salmon and shoved it straight into her mouth.

She gagged, "UGGH," and bolted to the bathroom, retching violently.

I watched with a cold smile.

"Still think it's edible? Are you sure this isn't attempted poisoning? She's trying to kill me with food contamination. Is that what this is?"

Mom staggered out, spent ten minutes rinsing her mouth, face gray as ash, and couldn't say a word.

She shot me a long, heavy look.

"I'll deal with her."

Really? I didn't believe it for a second.

When Jason and Linda came out, their faces were smug all over.

"Just wait. Your day's coming."

I let out a sharp laugh.

"Go ahead, keep putting on your little show. I can't stand people who perform."

Linda's face went white, then red, then white again.

She looked to Jason for backup, eyes brimming. "She's insulting me. She's so rude, wah—"

Jason's protective instincts kicked into overdrive.

He shoved me off the hospital bed onto the floor, face twisted with contempt.

"I'm warning you. One more time you make Linda miserable, I will rip your mouth off your face."

I stared up at his idiot face and shifted my gaze to Mom and Dad behind him.

"Are you watching? You see exactly who's hurting who here?"

I was pale and thin, the wound on my wrist still seeping blood.

Dad exploded.

He slapped Jason across the face and snapped, "Eve is your sister too. She's half-dead and you're still doing this? What kind of older brother are you?"

He caught himself, glaring at me furiously.

Linda whimpered and threw herself at Jason, wrapping her arms around him and sobbing pitifully.

"Daddy, don't hit him. Hit me instead. He was only trying to protect me."

She touched her reddened cheek and dropped her head.

Jason looked deeply moved. Mom and Dad looked like they had massive headaches.

Everyone stared at me.

I picked myself off the floor without any expression. Just as I opened my mouth—

Linda dropped to her knees in front of me with a loud thud.

"Sis, it's my fault. I've been in your place for over ten years. You can hit me, yell at me. I deserve it."

She clutched her chest, looking like she might faint from heartbreak.

Mom couldn't take it. She rushed to Linda and helped her up, then turned to me, impatient:

"Linda has been pampered her whole life. She's never suffered a day of hardship."

"No matter how much you resent her, you don't get to insult her like that."

"When you insult her, you insult the Veil name."

"I'm ordering you. You will apologize to Linda today."

Mom’s voice was ice. Linda stood beside her, tears still on her cheeks, the corner of her mouth curving up just slightly.

Here we go again.

In my previous life, Mom only ever protected the fake daughter she'd raised with her own hands.

During a family trip around the world, Linda shredded my passport and I was stopped at the gate.

Mom didn't ask what happened. She just said I was a problem.

Said they'd go without me.

I held back my tears and went home to the estate alone, watching two months of Linda's beach vacation photos pile up online.

After that I learned to be smarter, I hid my important things, locked my room.

Stopped letting Linda walk in whenever she felt like it.

That made her angrier.

At a family dinner, she claimed her eight-million-dollar necklace had gone missing and only I had been in her room. She said I'd been acting sneaky, hiding things, locking doors.

Mom believed her immediately.

She had people smash my safe and break my lock. Even when there was no necklace, she banned me from ever locking my door again.

Said she was worried about what I might do.

In my previous life, no matter what I said, they called it excuses.

I was stupid back then. I didn't understand that Mom's heart was already tilted. She didn't care what I said.

I cried until I had no tears left, and I couldn't figure out why my own family despised me so much.

This life, I was done trying to understand.

I flipped the table. Glasses exploded across the floor.

"I did nothing wrong. I'm not apologizing to a bully. I already called a reporter. They're on their way to watch the Veil family's real daughter get framed and die."

Before they could react, I ripped out my IV and climbed out onto the windowsill.

The wound on my wrist split open from the strain, blood pouring freely.

The scene was grotesque. Perfect content for the news.

When two-thirds of my body was already hanging outside the window, Dad's voice cracked completely and his knees buckled and he nearly dropped to his knees..

"Eve, get down. Dad believes you. Dad was wrong!"

Linda was crying, but her eyes were triumphant.

She thought the crazier I acted, the more Mom and Dad would hate me.

But she'd forgotten how she'd always been favored, hadn't she?

Around here, the person who suffers the most gets the attention.

And honey, I'm genuinely suffering.

Dad's eyes were bloodshot, his voice shaking as he bargained:

"You're our daughter. Just come inside. You don't trust Dad? I'll make it up to you right now. Whatever you want."

Then he turned and called his secretary: "Transfer all five companies under my name to Eve."

He pressed a bank card into my hand.

"Five million spending money. Your birthday is the password."

I let go of the window frame and eased myself back inside.

Then I buried my face in his chest and sobbed, every bit of the hurt pouring out.

"Daddy, I thought you didn't love me, didn't believe me. I had no choice. This was the only way I could prove myself—"

Dad pulled me close and patted my back.

Mom's expression was complicated.

Jason stood off to the side, completely at a loss.

Only Linda, her eyes locked on me, pure venom.

Of course she was panicking. In my previous life, by this point she'd already wrecked my reputation completely.

Classmates, teachers: people were constantly showing up to report me for something. Theft, bullying, you name it, every bad thing somehow landed on my head.

At first Mom and Dad listened to my side. But after enough times, they stopped believing me entirely.

They decided I was a born liar.

I couldn't fight it with words, so I tried with actions.

But no matter how well-behaved I was, they read it as guilt.

They thought I was someone who'd grown up in the gutter and couldn't be trusted.

Back then, Linda's monthly allowance was over a million. To punish me, they gave me nothing.

I could only watch helplessly as Gran, the woman who'd kept me alive, died in agony from a terminal illness.

I begged them through tears to save her. They called me a scammer trying to squeeze money out of them.

This life? I was going to insult people, flip tables, and claim every last thing that belongs to me.

Everything that was mine had to be given back to me, all of it!

But Linda was clearly rattled.