I woke up to the piercing cries of an infant. Opening my eyes, I realized I was lying on a hospital bed right next to my mother, who had just given birth to my baby brother. It hit me instantly. I had been reborn, brought back to the exact day the kidnapper swapped my brother. To confirm my suspicion, I peeked toward the sound of the crying. Sure enough, I saw a strange man roughly yanking the engraved gold baby bracelet off my brother’s wrist and slipping it onto the wrist of his own child. Because his movements were so violent, my real brother started wailing at the top of his lungs. The man, his face twisting with impatience, delivered a brutal slap that knocked the infant unconscious. Sensing something, the man suddenly glanced in my direction. I quickly squeezed my eyes shut, pretending to be fast asleep. In my previous life, to stop him from taking my brother, my three-year-old self had desperately clung to the man’s leg. In response, the criminal kicked me so hard I flew into the wall, shattering several of my ribs. Enduring the agonizing pain, I had screamed for help with everything I had, eventually drawing the attention of the nurses. Furious that I had ruined his plan, the criminal pulled out a knife and slashed it deeply across my face. "You ruined my kid's chance at a good life, so you don't get to live a good life either," he had hissed. From that day on, my face was severely disfigured. I spent a long, agonizing time recovering in the hospital. I didn't even start first grade until I was nine years old, placed in the same class as the brother I had saved. Throughout my school years, my scars made me the target of relentless bullying and mockery. Even my own parents and the very brother I saved looked at me with undisguised disgust. It was as if my mere existence was an unbearable humiliation to them. I had no choice but to study like my life depended on it. I wanted to get into a top-tier university, secure a good job, and escape my family to live my own life. But I never could have imagined what would happen during our senior year. After I successfully secured our high school’s sole early-admission recommendation to an Ivy League university, my brother ran me over with his car. All for the sake of Chloe Evans, a poor student our family had been financially sponsoring. All because he had fallen in love with her. As I lay dying, he stared down at me with pure venom. "Don't blame me, Lily. Blame yourself for being so selfish. You should have given the Ivy League spot to Chloe." He even mocked me. "You ugly freak, you deserved to be disfigured. Everything you've suffered is exactly what you deserve for how you act." But I was disfigured because I saved him. What shocked me even more was that when my parents found out what he had done, they didn't blame him for a single second. Instead, they helped him destroy the evidence and cover up my murder. In those final moments, I swore an oath. If I ever got a second chance, I would respect his fate. I would never play the hero again. Now, lying in the hospital bed, I listened as the heavy footsteps faded down the hall and the door clicked shut. When I opened my eyes again, the criminal was gone. And with him, my biological brother. My mother woke up right at that moment. She asked me, "Lily, was your baby brother just crying?" I tilted my head, flashing a sweet, innocent smile. "Was he? I didn't hear anything, Mommy." My mother looked slightly confused. "I must have been dreaming." A week later, my mother and my new, fake brother—Tyler Harper—were discharged from the hospital. I was enrolled in a local preschool. This time, without the scars, my teachers and classmates were incredibly kind to me. There was no bullying. There was no mockery. No one looked at me like I was a monster. I finally had the peaceful, perfect life I always dreamed of. 02 Time flew by, and ten years passed in the blink of an eye. One weekend, our family went to a crowded street carnival. Suddenly, someone bumped hard into Tyler and snatched his new smartphone. I recognized the thief instantly. It was my biological brother. He looked drastically different from my previous life. He was dark, emaciated, and wearing filthy, oversized clothes. He limped heavily as he ran. It was glaringly obvious that he was living a miserable life. The sight of him brought back a sharp memory from my past life. When he and his friends were mocking my disfigured face, I had finally snapped, screaming that he had no right to treat me like that when I took the blade for him. He had just sneered at me. "I never asked you to save me. Someone as brilliant and capable as me would have thrived even if I was raised in a murderer's house. Stop trying to guilt-trip me." Seeing how "brilliantly" he was thriving now, a wave of deep relief washed over me. Seeing my parents about to chase after him, I quickly faked a dramatic trip and fell hard onto the pavement. My real brother looked exactly like my father. If my dad caught a good look at his face, he would undoubtedly get suspicious. Unlike my past life, because I was flawless and at the top of my class, my image-obsessed parents actually valued me. They immediately abandoned the chase and rushed to my side. "Lily! Are you okay?!" I watched my biological brother disappear into the dense crowd, letting out a quiet breath. I looked up at my parents. "I'm fine, my hands just got a little scraped. It hurts a bit." Meanwhile, my fake brother, Tyler, was absolutely furious about his stolen phone. He cursed loudly, "That piece of trash! If I ever see him again, I swear to God I'll kill him!" I lowered my eyes and said nothing. The world was a very small place. I needed to make sure I nudged things in the right direction. 03 Tyler spent the rest of the day scanning the crowds like a hawk. When my parents went to the public restrooms, Tyler suddenly grabbed my arm. "Lily, I see that little rat." Before I could say anything, he shot off like a rocket into the crowd. Seeing my parents hadn't come out yet, I sighed in relief and jogged after him. This time, because my real brother had his guard down, Tyler easily cornered him in a narrow alleyway. Trapped, my real brother started cursing aggressively. "You filthy rich snobs! You have so much money, why are you being so cheap?! It's just one phone, why do you have to be so petty?!" His temper was exactly the same as in his previous life. He loved playing the victim and blaming everyone else for his own actions. Tyler let out a dark laugh. "So because we have money, we're supposed to just let people rob us?" My real brother put on a shameless, defiant smirk. "Alright, shut up. I gave the phone back, so let me go. I'm a minor. The cops can't do anything to me anyway." Tyler wasn't the type to swallow an insult. He inherited his biological father's reckless, violent temperament. He hated studying and loved picking fights. He kicked my real brother hard in the stomach, slamming him into the brick wall. "What a coincidence. I'm a minor too. As long as I don't beat you to death, the cops can't do anything to me either." Panic finally flashed across my real brother's face. I watched coldly from the sidelines. Just like he had coldly watched his friends torment me in our past life. Just as Tyler raised his fist to keep hitting him, a young girl sprinted into the alley and threw herself in front of my real brother. "Stop hitting him! Mason's dad is severely ill! He had no other choice, that's why he took your phone!" What an absolute, bold-faced lie. Arthur Davies, Mason's father, had never been severely ill a day in his life. When I got a clear look at the girl's face, my brow furrowed. What a coincidence. I knew this girl too. It was Chloe Evans—the poor scholarship student from my past life, and the exact reason I was murdered. 04 I wasn't actually surprised she was here. In my past life, Chloe and my fake brother, Tyler, were childhood sweethearts who grew up together. Now that Mason and Tyler's identities were swapped, Mason had naturally become Chloe's childhood sweetheart instead. Tears welled up in Chloe's eyes as she looked at Tyler pitifully. "I made Mason give your phone back. Please, just let him go. Please?" Tyler was a notorious terror who never listened to anyone. But the moment he saw Chloe crying, he visibly softened. "Alright, fine. Stop crying. I'm not totally unreasonable." For a second, I felt like I had been pulled back into my previous life. After I won the Ivy League recommendation, Chloe had cried exactly like this to Mason. Mason, acting like a thug, was furious that his precious childhood friend was crying. He rallied a group of his delinquent friends and ordered them to assault me. His excuse was that he needed to "teach me a lesson" so I wouldn't covet things that didn't belong to me. I fought back with everything I had, but their filthy hands grabbed at me relentlessly. It wasn't until one of them ripped the medical mask off my face, exposing my horrific scars, that they backed away in disgust. "What an ugly freak." "I wouldn't touch this trash even if you paid me." "Damn, looking at that face makes me wanna throw up." My ruined face was the only thing that saved me from being assaulted that day. When I got home, I scrubbed myself in the shower for four straight hours. I scrubbed until my skin was bleeding raw, then collapsed in the tub, sobbing uncontrollably. I thought I had survived the worst of it. But after that, I suffered from severe night terrors. Every time I closed my eyes, I relived that alleyway. The ugly faces, the sickening smell, the slimy hands grabbing at my clothes. Whenever I saw a man on the street, I would tremble and feel violently nauseous. I realized then that the trauma would never, ever pass. It was suffocatingly disgusting. A cold breeze blew through the alley, snapping me back to the present. I couldn't suppress a violent shudder. Noticing my pale face, Tyler asked casually, "Lily, what's wrong?" I glanced at him, burying the deep revulsion in my heart. I was about to say I was fine when Chloe suddenly grabbed my sleeve, dropping to her knees. "Sister, are you refusing to let him go? Please, I'm begging you, just let Mason go. He's already suffered so much." I stared down at her for a long time. She really hadn't changed at all. She still loved positioning herself as the helpless victim, using tears to morally blackmail everyone around her. Even Tyler tried to persuade me. "Lily, let's just drop it." My expression remained perfectly calm. "I have no interest in fighting with a kid. However, I need to speak to his mother. I need to warn her to discipline her son properly. Right now he's just a petty thief, but if she keeps letting him run wild, who knows what kind of monster he'll become." Hearing that I was going to his mother, the fearless, arrogant Mason finally showed a flicker of genuine terror in his eyes. 05 It didn't take long to find his current mother, Brenda Davies. She was a solidly built, tough-looking middle-aged woman. The moment she saw Tyler and me, sheer panic flashed across her face. It was incredibly obvious that she knew the truth about the hospital swap. She nervously checked the street behind us. Once she realized we were alone, she forced herself to calm down. "What... what are you doing here?" When I explained why we were there, she let out a massive, visible sigh of relief. "Don't worry. I will discipline him properly." The moment she said that, Mason flinched, shrinking into himself. I nodded, making my tone deliberately meaningful. "Your son got extremely lucky today running into me and my brother. If my parents had caught him, they wouldn't have been so kind. They wouldn't have let him off easily." Brenda's face darkened as the implication hit her. "I understand. I'll keep a tight leash on him. I promise I won't let him wander around making a fool of himself anymore." She grabbed Mason by the collar and violently shoved him into the house, locking the front door behind him. "You sit in there and think about what you've done." After locking him away, she turned to Tyler with a fawning, overly eager smile. "Young man, would you like to come in and sit for a bit? I just bought some fresh fruit, and I have candy inside." Tyler looked at her with pure disgust. "I'm not going in there. Your house looks filthy." With that, he turned and started walking away. Brenda looked like she wanted to chase after him to say more, but she ultimately stopped herself. She turned and walked into her house. Within seconds, the muffled sounds of Mason howling in agony echoed from inside. Brenda was taking out all her frustration over Tyler's rejection directly on Mason. As Tyler and I walked out of the neighborhood, Chloe waved at us from a distance, smiling her sweetest, most innocent smile. "Bye, pretty sister! Bye, handsome boy!" Pretty sister? Hearing that come out of Chloe's mouth was incredibly ironic. In my past life, when my brother ran me over with his car, she was sitting right there in the passenger seat. As I lay on the pavement, bleeding out and struggling to breathe, she stepped out of the car, leaned down close to my ear, and whispered her final words to me: "Ugly freak, you brought this entirely on yourself. You didn't listen to Mason's warnings, so you can just go ahead and die." Right now, seeing Chloe's sweet, lingering farewell, Tyler suddenly stopped and turned around, looking like he wanted to run back and talk to her. I grabbed his arm tightly. "Enough. Let's go. Mom and Dad are going to start panicking if they can't find us." In just a few short minutes, Tyler had already developed a crush on Chloe. If I let them interact any further, who knows what kind of psychotic things he would do for her in the future. I had absolutely no intention of watching my past life repeat itself. Tyler reluctantly followed me away. Because of that, he didn't see the innocent, sweet smile drop completely from Chloe's face the second we turned our backs. The dark, calculating look in her eyes looked nothing like a harmless little bunny.
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