Half an hour later, with five hundred dollars tucked against my skin, I walked out of Village Chief Abbott's front door.

I turned back and glanced at the Fox family's run-down courtyard. Jade was inside trying on her wedding dress, grinning like an idiot.

Sis, I'm taking the money you sold your life for and heading to Seaview City to become the richest woman alive.

You shouldn't be idle either—hurry up and get to that crappy thatched hut and dig your gold.

Early the next morning, before dawn even broke, the village came alive.

On one side, the Fox family was marrying off a daughter. On the other, the village chief's son was heading to the city.

Jade wore a red cotton jacket that had been taken in to fit her, face painted up like a monkey's backside, beaming as she climbed onto Quinn Mason's borrowed flatbed cart. Quinn limped alongside it, face full of stubble, eyes so dark and hollow it sent chills down your spine.

In my last life, it took two years of patience and gentleness to thaw that block of ice. I'd coaxed him off the bottle. Taught him to read.

This life? With someone as pampered and spoiled as Jade, she'd be lucky not to make things worse.

As she passed me, Jade lowered her voice to a whisper only we could hear. "Evelyn, you can relax and go work at your little factory. When you strike it rich someday, I'll burn paper money for your grave."

I laughed—brighter than her.

"Thanks for the kind words. Hope you dig up exactly what you're looking for."

Firecrackers split the air.

The village chief's place was even louder—gongs, drums, the whole production. Derek Lambert sat on a tractor bound for the county seat, a big red flower pinned to his chest, looking smug as hell. The whole village seethed with envy.

Only I knew that tractor was a hearse headed straight for hell.

I slung a small cloth bundle over my shoulder and slipped away through the chaos toward the train station.

The five hundred dollars was sewn into my underwear, digging into my skin. Uncomfortable as hell. But it made me feel untouchable.

The green train rattled and clanked. The car reeked of sweat, feet, and cheap tobacco. I squeezed into the aisle by the restroom door, watching the fields blur past the window.

Two words pounded in my chest: Seaview City.

These days, the bold choke on their own ambition; the timid starve. I knew exactly what seismic shifts would rock this land over the next thirty years.

Half a month later, I stood on Border Market Street in Sha Tau Kok District.

This place was a special zone within a special zone—an adventurer's paradise. I didn't rush to start flipping goods. First, I watched. Three full days.

Digital watches.

Those flashy little things that lit up when you pressed them—over in the Harbor District, they were street-stall junk. A few bucks each. But inland? You could flip them for twenty, thirty, even forty or fifty.

Massive margins.

I went all-in with my five hundred—digital watches and a batch of Harbor-brand shirts.

It was around then that news came from back home. I heard it from a fellow villager who'd come to Seaview City to buy goods.

"God, it's awful. Just awful." He shook his head, gnawing on a stick of sugarcane. "That state-run factory—the boiler room blew up. Word is the new guy violated protocol. Was even smoking inside."

My heart lurched. Derek's smoking habit was legendary.

"What happened to him? Dead?" I asked.

"Not quite dead, but close enough." He spat out a wad of pulp. "Both legs blown clean off. Face burned so bad it doesn't look human anymore. Heard the old couple at the village chief's place cried themselves unconscious."

I took a silent sip of soda.

If I hadn't sold that slot, the one lying in that hospital bed—legless, faceless—would be me.

Or the Jade Fox of my last life.

Fate. Sometimes it really does come down to a single choice.

So what about Jade now?

She was probably ordering Quinn around, making him dig for gold.

I guessed right.

At that very moment, behind the Fox family's place in the Back Hills, screams erupted from a broken-down thatched hut.

"Quinn Mason! You useless piece of trash! I told you to dig that hole in the Back Hills—why the hell didn't you go!"

Jade covered her swollen, beaten face and shrieked.

Quinn clutched a liquor bottle, eyes vicious as a wolf's. "Shut your goddamn mouth, you nasty bitch! Keep yelling and I'll chop you up!"

In my previous life, Quinn dug up that gold mine because I noticed the vegetation on that stretch of mountain was abnormal. I was the one who dug through county records and geology books, confirmed the general location, and only then persuaded him to try.

And by that time, Quinn had already quit drinking. His temper had mellowed.

The current Quinn was just an irritable drunk.

Jade only remembered "there's gold in the Back Hills," but she didn't know exactly where. She forced Quinn to dig around like a headless fly. Other than unearthing a pile of rotten rocks, there wasn't jack shit.

"Impossible… it was obviously right there…"

Jade curled up in the corner, staring at the bare walls of the broken house. Then she thought of me "going to the city to enjoy the good life," and regret crashed over her like a wave.

But she still wouldn't give up.

"As long as I dig up that gold… as long as I dig up that gold, I'll grind Evelyn Fox under my heel!"

She was gambling.

She just didn't know the dealer had already changed.

I was doing extremely well in Seaview City.

Flipping electronic watches earned me my first bucket of gold, and my assets multiplied more than tenfold. But I knew this kind of speculative hustle wouldn't last.

I registered my first trading company and started doing clothing wholesale properly. Bell-bottoms, mirrored sunglasses, batwing tops—whatever was trendy, I sold it.

Soon, everyone in the wholesale market knew there was a sharp-eyed "Ms. Fox."

Even though I was only twenty.

While I was busy counting money, things back home had gone completely to hell.

The village chief's son was crippled. Sure, the state-owned factory paid out a bit, but this was lifelong disability. He needed ongoing hospital treatment, burning money every single day.

The more Village Chief Abbott thought about it, the angrier he got.

This slot had originally belonged to the Fox family—it was Evelyn Fox who sold it to them! Even though it was Derek smoking that caused the accident, desperate people always need a scapegoat.

So Abbott rounded up a bunch of relatives and stormed the Fox family's place.

"Pay up! Make your Evelyn Fox get her ass back here!"

"It's all that jinx's fault! If she hadn't sold the slot, would my son have ended up like this?"

My parents had never seen anything like this. They wanted to find me, but I'd already vanished without a trace.

With no other choice, they went to find Jade. After all, she was their only hope now. And even though the Quinn she'd married was poor, at least he had strong arms.

That day, Quinn was forcing Jade up the mountain to haul rocks. Her hands—once fair and soft—were now covered in blood blisters.

The moment my parents saw her, they demanded money without so much as a greeting.

"Jade, your sister—that bitch who deserves to be cut to pieces—ran off! The village chief's going to tear down our house! Hurry up and give us some money!"

Jade almost laughed from the sheer absurdity.

"Money? Do I look like I have money?"

She pointed at the drafty roof, then at the torn cotton jacket on her body. "I can't even eat my fill, and you're coming to me for money?"

Mrs. Fox's expression soured instantly. "Back then you were the one who insisted on marrying over here no matter what! You said Quinn would make a fortune! Where's the fortune? Where's the gold? Are you hiding money because you don't want to give it to the family?"

This was human nature.

When you can bring them benefits, you're their precious darling. When you're useless, you're a liar.

Jade had no way to defend herself. She looked at her parents' greedy, disgusted faces, and felt the string in her heart stretch to the breaking point.

Right at that moment, the Postman pedaled up on a heavy old bicycle and hollered at the foot of the mountain:

"Letter for the Fox family! From Seaview City!"

Everyone froze.

I'd sent it.

Inside was fifty dollars and a photo of me in front of a Seaview City landmark. I was wearing a trendy Hong Kong-style blouse, hair in big bouncy waves, smiling with the kind of confidence that said I owned the place.

The letter was simple:

"Dad, Mom, I'm doing pretty well in Seaview City. Gold is everywhere here—if you're willing to bend down, you can pick up money. Take these fifty dollars and buy some meat. Don't miss me too much."

That letter was an atomic bomb dropped into a cesspit.

It detonated.

Jade stared at the glamorous, glowing version of me in the photo, then down at her own mud-caked hands covered in blood blisters. Her eyes turned so red they looked ready to bleed.

"Why… why!"

She'd been reborn!

She'd stolen the cheat code!

So why was I living even better than last time?

While she was here choking down scraps and chaff, still being squeezed by her parents to pay off debts?

"It's all lies… The gold has to be in the Back Hills!"

Jade snapped.

She shoved her parents aside, grabbed Quinn's hunting rifle, stormed back into the house, and aimed it at him where he lay drunk.

"Get up! Go dig for ore! If we don't find gold today, I'll die right in front of you!"

She was certain that once they struck gold, all her problems would vanish.

She was certain that the fortune from her past life was waiting in that cave.

Unfortunately, memories lie. Especially when jealousy blinds you.

People's memories can be ridiculous.

Jade only remembered that Quinn and I had gotten rich, and that the Back Hills were involved. But she forgot that the mine's structure was treacherously complex.

In my past life, I'd gone in inch by inch, rope tied around Quinn's waist, testing every step. We only dared chip away tiny amounts at a time, always bracing with wooden stakes.

And Jade now? She was a gambler who'd lost her mind.

She forced Quinn to grab explosives and a pickaxe and head straight for what looked most like a "gold mine entrance." In reality, it was an abandoned limestone cave with rock layers that had long since destabilized.

"Dig! Dig until you drop!"

Jade stood at the cave mouth, still clutching my photo. She tore it to shreds.

Quinn was drunk, but a hunter's instincts screamed danger.

"Woman, something's wrong here… the rocks are crumbling…"

"Shut up! Evelyn got rich in Seaview City! Are we supposed to beg while sitting on a gold mine? Dig!"

She kicked him square in the back.

Rage flared through Quinn. Fueled by alcohol, he swung the pickaxe down hard.

Rumble—

Not the sound of gold.

The sound of a mountain collapsing.

The rock ceiling caved in like crumbling tofu.

In that split second, Jade saw Quinn lunge toward her and shove her toward the entrance.

It wasn't love.

Pure survival instinct—finding something to brace against, using it to launch himself out.

Too late.

Boulders crashed down.

More than half of Quinn's body was crushed to pulp. He died instantly.

Jade had been pushed partway out, but her left leg was still pinned beneath a boulder weighing several hundred pounds.

Only her shrieks echoed through the valley.

By the time villagers pulled her free, the leg was destroyed. Comminuted fracture. Nerve death.

Amputation.

When Jade woke, she was lying on a clinic bed.

Her left leg was gone.

"My gold… where's my gold…"