Chapter 4

Ever since Chloe "died," I had lived under a mountain of guilt.

I kept asking myself if my return had truly driven an innocent girl to commit suicide.

During my darkest moments, when I was on the verge of taking my own life, the System had intervened.

"Chloe Sterling is not dead," it told me.

"She ran away with the school's bad boy, Derrick Cooper, because she was pregnant with his baby."

She was too terrified of ruining her perfect image in front of her parents, so she didn't dare confess the truth.

But she also wanted to punish me. So, she played a brilliant final hand.

She staged her suicide on the day of my welcoming gala, escaping with her lover while leaving a note that ruined my life.

I truly couldn't wait to see the look on Tristan's face when he realized his beloved "pure" white angel had actually run away to play house with a deadbeat.

"Clara."

Maybe the mockery on my face was too obvious.

Tristan's expression darkened. "You don't deserve to speak her name."

"Every single day you draw breath, you must remember that you are the reason she is dead. You owe her for the rest of your life."

Tristan left, his face like stone.

Just like Julian, this was the first time he had ever seen me fight back.

That night, the excruciating pain returned. My bones felt like they were being pierced by thousands of tiny needles.

I curled into a ball on the bed, unable to sleep a single wink.

At dawn, I threw up a mouthful of blood.

I asked the System how much longer I had.

The System, which had spent five years with me, sounded like it was on the verge of tears. "Less than two weeks."

"Clara, don't be sad."

I wasn't sad. Before I came back to this family, I was filled with hope and excitement for the future.

But these past five years of being treated like a murderer, of enduring their cold glares, had completely drained every ounce of hope I had.

I actually regretted my choice. I should have just stayed dead in my previous life.

I opened my bedroom door, and Tristan was standing there, his hand raised as if he were about to knock. It was rare for him to look for me so early.

"Let's get a divorce," I said flatly.

Tristan’s lips went pale, his eyes wide with disbelief. "What kind of game are you playing now?"

"I don't want to live with you anymore. You don't love me, so why keep torturing each other?"

"Don't even think about it. You are never leaving me," he snarled, turning and storming off.

Right after he left, Julian arrived.

He told me Mom was sick and demanded I come back to the Sterling mansion immediately.

As we walked out, Julian looked down at me, his eyes filled with a cruel, smug satisfaction he couldn't hide.

Julian had a reason to be smug.

Ever since Chloe's "death," our mother had been plagued by severe anxiety and persistent fevers.

She was constantly trapped in nightmares, and no doctors could find a physical cause for her fevers.

Later, a spiritual medium told the family that this was a sickness of the soul. The only way she could heal was if the person who caused her grief repented.

Mom's grief, of course, was Chloe.

In her fever dreams, she would scream Chloe's name, weeping and apologizing, saying she regretted ever bringing me back.

She cried that she had let Chloe down.

So, every time Mom fell ill, I was forced to kneel at her bedside, forbidden to stand until her fever broke.

Over the past five years, I had lost count of how many times I had knelt there until I fainted from exhaustion.

But this time, when I walked into Mom's bedroom, I stood straight and kept my eyes lowered. I didn't kneel.

Our father, Arthur, glared at me with pure rage. "You ungrateful brat! Why aren't you on your knees? Your mother gave birth to you! Have you no conscience? How can you stand there and watch her suffer?"

I remained silent.

My father grew even more furious, raising his hand to strike me.

Julian stood by, watching the show with a smirk, mouthing silently: *Apologize to me, and I'll help you.*

I gave Julian a cold look, then voluntarily went down onto my knees.

Whatever. I would kneel. The sooner I died, the sooner I could escape this wretched place.

I never wanted to see these disgusting people ever again.

We were living in the twenty-first century, yet they still believed in spiritual curses. Or maybe they didn't believe it at all—they just wanted a scapegoat, and I was the perfect target.

In the past, even when I was punished, they would at least feed me.

But this time, Julian only sent up three bowls of plain watery congee a day.

I wasn't some weak-willed girl who thrived on scraps. I knew this was Julian's doing. In the past, he would sneak in at night and let me rest.

But this time, Julian stayed in the room, watching me through the night.

His arrogant eyes seemed to say: *Beg me, and I'll let you rest.*

I didn't give him a single glance. My knees had already gone completely numb.

I closed my eyes and forced myself to think of happy memories. But no matter how hard I searched through both of my lifetimes, I couldn't find a single moment of genuine happiness.

From the moment I could remember, Mrs. Miller had treated me like a pack mule.

Whenever I wasn't at school, I had endless chores. And whenever she missed her real daughter, she would lock me in a room and starve me.

After returning to my biological family, I thought I would finally be happy. Instead, I had plunged into an even darker abyss.

I had spent five years tiptoeing around them, begging for just a tiny drop of love.

But they couldn't even give me that.

I couldn't win over a single one of them. I felt like an absolute failure.

Sometimes, I wondered if I was just fundamentally unlovable.