Blinding lights, a droning buzz of voices.
I snapped my eyes open, my mind a complete blank.
Before me were the faces of Lin Jingxuan and Zhou Wanqing—faces I had etched into my very bones.
They were facing a phone camera, their smiles sweet and radiant.
"Hey everyone, welcome to Wanqing and Jingxuan's live stream!" Zhou Wanqing's voice was cloyingly sweet as she made a heart shape with her hands for the camera.
Lin Jingxuan wrapped an arm intimately around her shoulders and grinned. "We have a special guest for you all today."
With that, he turned the camera toward me.
A live stream?
Hadn't I died? They had driven me to jump from a building, my body shattered beyond recognition.
The last thing I remembered was Zhou Wanqing, arm in arm with Lin Jingxuan, looking down on me with contempt. "Lu Mingqian," she had said, "you're so useless. You can't even die with any dignity."
A tidal wave of hatred instantly drowned my reason. I nearly lunged forward to tear them to pieces.
But I held back.
I saw the stream of comments scrolling across the phone screen, and I saw the calendar on the wall.
I… was reborn.
Reborn on the day before they planned to publicly humiliate me on their live stream, paving the way for their "true love."
"That's right, this is Wanqing's… ex-boyfriend, Lu Mingqian." Zhou Wanqing deliberately emphasized the word "ex-boyfriend," a flicker of disdain in her eyes. "Mingqian is just… too simple. He doesn't know how to adapt, which is why his career has never really taken off."
She leaned into Lin Jingxuan's embrace and sighed with feigned regret. "Not like my Jingxuan. He's so capable and dependable. He makes me feel so secure."
The comment feed immediately filled with messages like "Poor Wanqing," "Get lost, scumbag," and "Jingxuan is the man!"
Lin Jingxuan looked smug as he patted my shoulder with false sincerity. "Mingqian, don't take it to heart. I just got a little lucky, that's all. And don't you worry. I've invested all of your assets into the most promising project. I guarantee you'll be set for life."
Set for life?
In my past life, he used those exact words to swindle me out of the entire inheritance my parents left me, saddling me with massive debt until I had nowhere left to turn.
I looked at his hypocritical face, sneering inwardly, but forced a simple, honest smile. "Th-that's… thank you so much, Jingxuan."
"We're family. Don't be a stranger," Zhou Wanqing said with a dismissive pout, shooting me a look as if I were a piece of trash in her way.
The atmosphere was just right.
I pretended to ask casually, "Jingxuan, that project you mentioned sounds really impressive. Can you tell everyone a little about it? Let the viewers learn from your investment genius."
The air went silent for a second.
The smiles on Lin Jingxuan and Zhou Wanqing's faces froze.
They exchanged a look, a flicker of panic in their eyes. The so-called "project" was nothing more than a shell company they used for money laundering. How could they possibly talk about it?
"Ahem, well… that's a trade secret. Not something I can disclose," Lin Jingxuan recovered quickly, forcing a laugh. "Let's talk about something else."
The more he tried to cover it up, the wider my own smile grew.
I lowered my head, secretly pulled out my own phone, and opened the video recorder, aiming the lens at them.
My finger trembled slightly as it hovered over the screen.
It wasn't from fear, but from an irrepressible excitement—the thrill of revenge.
I was going to record every word they said, every expression that crossed their faces.
And then, on the grandest stage possible, I would personally send them to hell.
Just as I was about to secretly send a clip I had recorded, Lin Jingxuan's laughter abruptly stopped.
He whipped his head around, his eyes locking onto me, sharp as a knife.
The live stream was still running, the comments still scrolling.
But the smile lingering on his lips didn't vanish; instead, it twisted into something sinister and terrifying.
He knew.
I knew the game had begun.