Chapter 2

I pressed the call button and raised the phone to my ear.

The entire classroom went dead silent.

"Hello, High-Tech District Experimental High School, Grade 11 Class 6. My name is Sophia. My desk has been spray-painted with offensive language and my personal property has been deliberately destroyed. I have photos of the scene. Please dispatch officers."

My voice wasn't loud, but every word drove into the silence.

Rachel's phone dropped to the floor in the back row.

No one picked it up.

Thirty seconds later, the classroom door flew open.

Homeroom teacher Mr. Walker rushed in, his expression caught between panic and anger.

"Sophia! What are you doing?"

He grabbed my wrist holding the phone: "Hang up! Do you know what you're doing!"

I looked up at him.

"Mr. Walker, please let go. I'm filing a police report. Interfering with a police call is illegal."

His fingers froze.

The entire classroom—forty students plus students from the next class peeking in the doorway—everyone watched as—

The homeroom teacher gripped the wrist of the most invisible scholarship student in class, while the scholarship student calmly continued her police report.

He let go.

Stepped back.

The voice on the phone said something.

I said: "Okay. I'll wait in the classroom."

Hung up.

Put the phone back in my pocket.

Bent down to pick up my chair and sat down beside the spray-painted desk.

Took out my notebook, turned to the first page, and started copying the formula on the blackboard.

No one around me spoke.

No one laughed anymore.

Mr. Walker stood by the podium, his lips moving several times, but in the end said nothing and left.

His phone call echoed from the hallway, voice kept low, but I caught one word—"dispatch."

I continued copying formulas.

The scratching of pen on paper was the only sound in the entire classroom.

**Ava, in my past life you killed with words. This life I'll use the law. Let's see who falls first.**

**Chapter Four**

The police arrived quickly.

When two uniformed officers walked into the classroom, the substitute math teacher stopped mid-chalk stroke.

The whole class's attention shifted from the blackboard to the door, then to me.

I stood up, took my phone and backpack, and followed them out.

Many people in the hallway craned their necks to look.

Passing the neighboring class's door, a girl held up her phone filming me.

Taking the statement took forty minutes.

In the small room in the dean's office, I showed the police the photos on my phone and explained everything step by step.

The post. The photo from behind. The forum attacks. The spray-painted desk.

The older officer finished recording and looked up: "Do you have any suspects?"

"Rachel, my classmate. She has red paint residue under her fingernails."

After finishing the statement, I came out to an empty hallway.

Lunch break.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes for a moment.

The incision in my lower abdomen throbbed dully. After being stuck to my clothes all day it was getting itchy. Time to change the gauze.

No time for that.

I rummaged through my backpack for painkillers and dry-swallowed one.

The pill stuck in my throat, bitter and astringent.

No classes in the afternoon.

I sat in the library until five.

Quiet. No one came looking for me.

Not even Mr. Walker showed up.

But the calm shattered at nine that evening.

I'd just finished changing my gauze in my rental when my phone vibrated.

Not the class group chat—I'd been kicked out long ago.

The grade-level group, the kind where people rarely spoke.

Today it exploded.

Someone threw a video into it.

The thumbnail was blurry, but you could make out a dim room, a girl and a man.

The title: four words: "Sophia's hookup."

My hand stopped.

Then I clicked in.

The face in the video was mine.

Features, contours, hair length—all matched.

But it wasn't me.

AI face-swap.

In my past life, this video spread throughout the entire school two weeks before I died.

After watching it, I locked myself in my rental for three days without eating or drinking.

Three days later, I opened that bottle of sleeping pills.

Now, it was back.

Stomach acid surged up violently, my throat turning sour.

My fingers gripped the phone's edge, nails digging into the plastic case.

Tinnitus buzzed, my heartbeat pounding against my temples.

I closed my eyes.

Counted to five.

Opened them.

The grade group had exploded.

"Holy shit is this real??"

"That face is so clear..."

"Photoshopped right? Something feels off."

"What's off? The face is right there!"

"Isn't she supposed to be a bookworm? Why's she always doing this stuff..."

Messages scrolled too fast. Before I could screenshot, the group admin deleted the video.

But it was too late.

It had already been saved, forwarded, sent to countless other groups.

**In my past life, this video was the final straw that broke me.**

**This life—it's the first steel beam that will break Ava.**

I swallowed my emotions.

Didn't cry.

Didn't type a defense.

Opened the screen recording tool, scrolled up through the grade group chat history, and screenshot every forwarding, comment, and distribution path one by one.

Captured thirty-seven images.

Then opened the dialer.

911.

Second time.

"Hello, my name is Sophia, Grade 11 Class 6 student at High-Tech District Experimental High School. Someone has created an AI deepfake pornographic video using my facial features and is distributing it widely in the grade group and multiple social groups. I am a minor. I'm requesting to file a case."

The other end went silent for two seconds.

"You're certain it's AI-generated?"

"Certain. The body in the video is not me. I'm requesting a technical forensic analysis."

"Alright, we'll forward this to the cybersecurity department. Preserve all relevant screenshots and links."

Hung up.

My phone lit up again.

Message from Ava.

"Sophia, things have escalated to this point. You delete the photo from the forum, and I'll have people take down the video. We both save face."

Save face.

You destroyed my reputation with lies, nailed me to a pillar of shame with an AI face-swap.

Now you want to talk about saving face.

I replied with one line.

"The police will find out who made the video. Ava, pray they don't trace it back to you."

No reply from her.

I closed my phone and pulled up the covers.

The incision jumped beneath my waistband.

I put a pillow under my lower abdomen and curled up.

The bitter taste of that half-bottle of sleeping pills rose again.

It still clung to the back of my throat, impossible to swallow no matter how I tried.

Some things you can't forget even after dying once.

But that's okay.

This life, I won't take them.

**Chapter Five**

The next day at 6:40 AM.

My mom called.

I looked at the word "Mom" on my screen. My heart clenched.

The ringtone went four times before I answered.

"Sophie honey, does your surgical incision still hurt?"

Her voice was a bit hoarse, but she was trying to sound cheerful.

"Not anymore, it's almost healed."

"Is the school food good? Does the cafeteria have pork ribs?"

"Yes."

"Sophie..."

She stopped.

A long breath on the other end.

Inhale, hold it, then slowly exhale.

"Sophie, is someone at school bullying you?"

My fingers tightened.

"Mom, no."

"Some people in town... showed me some things on their phones." She paused, her voice starting to shake. "Sophie, none of that's true, right? Mom knows it's not true. Mom believes you."

I bit my lower lip.

There was still a cut inside my lip from dry-swallowing painkillers yesterday. When I bit down, the metallic taste of blood spread along my tongue.

Past life.

In my past life she'd made this same call.

I'd cried and said "Mom, I didn't do those things."

She'd said "Mom knows. Mom will come to school tomorrow."

The next day she came.

Wearing her most presentable piece—an old gray jacket, carrying a bag of farm eggs, standing at the homeroom teacher's office door, bent over with a forced smile: "Teacher, please help. My Sophie isn't that kind of child."

Mr. Walker didn't even look up.

"Parent, your daughter has caused quite a stir at school. I suggest she do some self-reflection. The innocent need no defense—if she hasn't done anything, what's there to fear?"

My mom stood in the doorway holding the eggs, not knowing what to do with her hands.

When she left, her knee hit the threshold.

No one helped her up.

Seven months later, she joined me at the old oak tree.

"Mom, listen to me." I kept my voice very steady, saying each word carefully. "Those things are all fake. Someone is trying to hurt me. But I'm handling it. I filed a police report. You don't need to come to school."

"But—"

"Mom, don't come."

Silence on the other end.

Then I heard an extremely soft sob.

She was desperately holding it in.

"Okay."

"Sophie, you... you have to be okay."

"Yeah. I'll be okay. I'll come home to see you this weekend."

Hung up.

I crouched in the corner of the hallway, back against the cold wall.

Hands covering my face.

Didn't cry.

My eyes were dry and stinging.

The incision twinged once.

I stood up.

**This life you don't have to come. Don't have to beg anyone with a bag of eggs. Don't have to kneel. Don't have to die.**

At noon, the forum exploded again.

Ava posted an audio recording.

Post title: "Sophia admitted it herself—everyone listen for yourselves."

Thirty-six second audio clip.

A female voice inside—my voice—crying and saying: "I know I was wrong. I shouldn't have falsely accused Ava. I made it all up, the medical records are fake. I was just jealous of her..."

I listened to it.

Replayed it twice.

The tone was very close.

The intonation mimicked my speech patterns.

But there was one problem—the breath intervals in the four words "I made it all up" were too uniform.

Normal people don't speak like that.

AI-synthesized audio has mechanical breathing rhythms.

In my past life, I didn't know these things.

This life, on the first day after my rebirth, I'd researched everything online about AI voice detection.

The comments went crazy.

"Confirmed! She admitted it herself!"

"LMAO where's her face? Fake-righteous bookworm."

"Ava is finally cleared!"

"So what was that police report earlier about? What performance was that?"

I took screenshots and saved the original audio file link.

Then made my third police call.

"Hello, this is Sophia from the previous report. Someone has published an AI-forged audio recording using my voice pattern and is spreading it on the forum. I've saved the original link and screenshots. Please submit it for technical forensic analysis as well."

Three police calls.

Within three days.

Hung up.

Walked into the dean's office.

Mr. Walker was inside.

When he saw me, irritation flashed across his face.

"Sophia, what now."

"Mr. Walker, Ava has published a forged AI voice recording impersonating me. I've filed a police report. This will have legal consequences."

"Legal consequences?" He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Sophia, can you just settle down? The way you're making a fuss affects your own future. Do you still want that recommendation spot?"

I looked at him.

Behind his lenses, his eyes shifted away.

"Mr. Walker. I'm sitting in front of you right now with three police report receipts in hand."

My voice wasn't loud.

"I'm the victim. You're asking the victim to shut up."

His fingers froze on the temple of his glasses.

"I'll remember your exact words. If the follow-up investigation involves the school's handling responsibility, the Board of Education will see them."

I stood up and walked out.

Didn't look back.

The hallway was empty. Lunch break sunlight poured through the windows, bleaching the floor tiles white.

I leaned against the railing and took three deep breaths.

My hands were shaking.

Not from fear.

From anger.

In my past life, I knelt and begged him for help. He gave me four words.

This life I spoke to him standing up, and his first reaction was still to tell me to shut up.

That's fine.

If you won't help, I don't need your help.

But don't block my way.