Chapter 1
The first thing I did after returning from the past was smash the lucky sigil pendant straight into the pond.
Martha Wright was already on her knees by the water's edge, her voice trembling in that fragile, pitiful way she wore so well. "Adelynn, why would you do something like this?"
I looked down at her and smiled. "You think you're worthy of saying my name?"
Her eyes reddened instantly. Tears welled as she staggered to her feet and threw herself into Jason Robertson's arms.
He pulled her close, his gaze slicing toward me, cold and merciless. "Adelynn, the way you act out of jealousy is disgusting."
I laughed.
Disgusting?
Oh, he hadn't seen anything yet.
In my previous life, it was the two of them who held me down and forced me beneath the freezing water, watching as I drowned.
But this time, I would make them understand what it truly meant to wish for death and never be granted it.
*****
The icy water filled my mouth and nose.
I fought desperately, but my hands and feet were tied up with heavy ropes.
Torchlight blazed along the shore.
Countless people stood at the edge, holding torches, watching me struggle in the water, their faces cold and uncaring.
No one tried to save me, not a single soul.
"Drown her!" someone shouted, their voice drawn out.
In my final moments, the last thing I saw was Jason's handsome face.
He stood at the very front of the crowd, clad in a dark brocade robe. The torchlight flickered across his features, making him look aloof and privileged.
He had someone wrapped in his arms—Martha.
She was wearing the white dress I'd embroidered for her with my own hands, her head buried against Jason's chest, her shoulders quivering.
But she deliberately turned her head from Jason's arms and looked right at me.
Under the torchlight, she curved her lips into a smile at me.
I would never forget that smile, not even in death.
It was gentle, sweet, and innocent, just like she always did with everyone else.
But I knew exactly what that smile meant.
She was telling me, clear as day, "At last, you're dead."
I struggled to scream, to curse, and to demand why she would betray me like this.
But I had already asked her that.
Just moments before, in the family hall, Jason had thrown that accusation of me "cheating with another man" right in my face.
I lost it completely, grabbing Martha by the collar and demanding, "Martha, I treated you like my own little sister. Why would you hurt me like this?"
How did she respond back then?
She dropped her gaze, tears streaming down her face, her voice quivering in that helpless, pitiful way she always did.
"Adelynn, I swear I didn't... I really didn't. Why are you blaming me?" she said.
Everyone around me was berating me. "Adelynn, you did something so shameless, and now you dare to accuse Martha?"
"She's always been so good to you. She greets you every day, makes you embroidered handkerchiefs, and when you were sick, she stayed by your side day and night, never resting, just to take care of you..."
"You vicious, ungrateful wretch."
Jason backhanded me so hard I hit the floor, sprawled out in humiliation.
He stared at me like I was nothing but worthless mud. "Adelynn, you're disgusting."
He called me disgusting.
The man I had poured my heart and soul into for ten years called me disgusting.
I slumped on the floor, blood pooling in my mouth, watching as Jason stood protectively in front of Martha.
She gazed at me from behind his shoulder, tears streaming down her face, her expression pure and innocent.
But I saw it.
I caught that trace of a smile in her eyes.
It was already too late.
The water closed over my head.
I couldn't breathe at all.
My chest felt like it was about to explode.
I kept my eyes open, watching the torchlight on the water drift farther and farther away, until it was nothing but a distant haze.
As the darkness finally swallowed me, all I could think was that if there was a next life, I would make them pay, blood for blood.
*****
I heard a dull thud, and then I snapped my eyes open.
Blinding sunlight flooded my vision.
It wasn't the icy water, and it wasn't the pitch-black night.
It was the pond.
I looked down and saw my own hands.
They were perfect and slender, not a single scar from those ropes.
In my hand was a pendant.
It was carved from green emerald into the shape of a fish, with a single cinnabar bead set in its eye, shimmering gently in the sunlight.
Wait, was this the sigil pendant?
I stared at the pendant in a daze, as if something had detonated in my mind. Memories surged back, overwhelming me.
In my previous life, it was this very pendant.
it was this very pendant.
I "accidentally" left it behind by the pond.
Martha picked it up.
After that, it was as if she became the living embodiment of luck. Everything started going her way.