Chapter 1
After the real heiress reunited with her biological father, who was a tycoon, she tried to erase the shame of once being a poor student my family had sponsored.
She seized my family's fortune, forced my parents to commit suicide, framed my brother and sent him to prison, and left me drifting through nightclubs until I died alone on the street.
When I opened my eyes again, it was three years before she was reunited with her tycoon father.
My whole family sat around the table, talking about one thing: how were we going to destroy her?
*****
I returned to the past, to the day of Estelle Thompson's birthday party.
She was busy showing off the restaurant's hottest dishes to her classmates.
There were rib eye steak, lobster, oysters, marinated chicken, cured meats, and caviar, plus other delicacies.
Every single dish was imported, and tasted unbelievably fresh.
The waiters served the food with big smiles, while our classmates devoured everything.
Estelle got dozens of gifts and said, "Eat and drink to your heart's content. I'm picking up the tab for everything."
I sat in the corner for a while, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'd come back to life.
Right then, Estelle walked over to me and said, "Beatrice, can you handle the bill for me later?"
With that, she turned and went back to soaking up all the praise and attention from her classmates.
That was exactly how she was in my last life.
She took advantage of our relationship, my kindness, and my naivety, always freeloading off me, using my stuff, and burning through my family's cash without a second thought.
In the end, she got all the glory, and with just a few casual words, she made sure I was bullied, left out, and dragged through the mud.
Even my family, after ten years of helping her out, got labeled by her as people who 'hurt her pride'. In the end, they all met miserable ends.
"Whoa, check it out! There's an old lady over there picking up trash. Isn't that just heartbreaking?" Estelle called out, her voice full of sympathy.
Estelle's sudden outburst caught everyone's attention.
Everyone turned to look where Estelle was pointing.
There was a frail old woman, hunched over in ragged clothes, collecting empty bottles.
"She probably hasn't had anything to eat yet. Here we are, feasting on gourmet food, while there are people out there so poor they've never even stepped inside a restaurant.
"It's freezing tonight, and I'm really worried about her. What if she slips and gets hurt," Estelle said.
As she spoke, her eyes turned red, as if she might burst into tears any second.
Seeing this, everyone started gushing about how kind Estelle was.
She dabbed at her eyes and said, "Since I met her today, I'm going to donate some money to her."
With that, she walked right up to me. "Beatrice, can you bring me 3 thousand dollars in cash? I want to give it to the old lady so she can make it through the winter."
I didn't move.
She pointed at the nearby ATM. "If you don't have cash, just hit up the ATM. See if you've got any extra in your account. If you do, take out 6 thousand dollars. Maybe even just empty it out. Let's help out as much as we can."
She was so gentle and sweet, like an angel.
But I still didn't move.
With everyone watching, her smile faltered for a moment, and she started calling my name over and over.
"Beatrice, what are you spacing out for? Go get the money. Don't you want to help the old lady?" she said.
She was slick with her words, always knowing how to twist things just right.
To me, it sounded like she was pushing me to cough up the cash.
But to the others, it looked like Estelle had trusted me with all her money, so no matter who handed it over, the credit still went to her.
In my previous life, I did what Estelle asked and went to withdraw the cash. But I only had 7.5 thousand dollars in my account, and the meal itself cost about 6 thousand, so I could only bring her 1.5 thousand dollars.
When I handed the money to Estelle, she shot me a look and said, "Only 1.5 thousand dollars?"
That one line was enough to make everyone start thinking I was up to no good.
After that, with Estelle quietly stirring the pot, everyone started treating me like an ingrate.
They all believed I was mooching off Estelle all the time, couldn't even manage to hold onto her money without pocketing some for myself, and that Estelle was so 'generous' she didn't even bother to call me out on it.
But the truth was, she was the one always freeloading off me.
I sprang up from my seat and scoffed, my voice icy, "What if I don't want to help the old lady?"
Estelle's face instantly lost all color.
She immediately switched to her wounded act.
"Beatrice, come on, it's just 3 thousand dollars. It's really not much," she pleaded.
"Of course it's not much. It's not your money. 3 thousand, 6 thousand, whatever. That's just numbers to you. But to me, that's cold hard cash," I shot back.
She was stunned. She didn't expect me to be so direct.