"Splash—"
A bucket of icy water came crashing down over Celeste Moreau, forcing her awake on the spot. Her right cheek burned like it was on fire, but the pain twisting through her stomach was even worse, enough to drown out everything else. The whole scene felt both painfully familiar and weirdly unreal.
She... was back?
Celeste froze for half a second, then slowly pulled out a near-crazy smile. Nice. Real nice. The system really hadn’t lied to her. Finish the missions, and she’d get a second shot at life.
Then in this life, every debt would be collected.
Every grudge would be paid back.
"Big sister, are you okay? Third Brother didn’t mean to treat you like that. He was just too angry."
A soft, weak little voice drifted into her ears, exactly like in her last life—gentle on the surface, rotten to the core, fake enough to make her sick.
"It was just a cup of cold water. What, is that enough to kill her?"
"She pushed Adriana down the stairs and now she’s acting pitiful. Who’s that act supposed to fool?"
The malice in those words was so thick it sounded like they were sworn enemies, not blood-related family.
Celeste lifted her eyes.
A few meters away, the girl in the white dress was looking at her with an embarrassed expression, all delicate and innocent-looking. Around Adriana Moreau, the five men of the Moreau family hovered like loyal dogs, each one gentle, protective, and full of indulgence.
But the second they looked at Celeste, their eyes were filled with naked disgust.
And sure enough, just like in her last life, they started talking.
The eldest, Harrison Moreau, said coldly, "Celeste Moreau, we brought you back to the Moreau family, not so you could bully Adriana."
The second brother, Armand Moreau, snapped, "If you don’t apologize, I’ll have you blacklisted."
The third brother, Austen Moreau, said in a chilling voice, "If you still want to stay in the Moreau family, then get on your knees and apologize to Adriana right now."
The fourth brother, Conrad Moreau, had the worst temper of them all. "Why waste words with her? Celeste Moreau, I’ll count to three. If you don’t kneel and apologize to Adriana, I’ll do it myself."
And the head of the Moreau family—Edmund Moreau, Celeste’s biological father—just stood there watching with a blank face, with zero intention of stopping any of it.
The corner of Celeste’s lips curved up in a vicious smile.
She and Adriana were the classic switched-at-birth real-and-fake heiress setup.
Before returning to the Moreau family, she had been discovered by a talent agent and signed into the industry. She had that kind of face—gorgeous, flirtatious, striking. Even in an entertainment world packed with beauties, she stood out as the kind of stunner people remembered at a glance.
So the moment Celeste debuted, she got attention fast.
But because she was too laid-back and had no real works to back her up, the buzz faded almost as quickly.
As for Adriana—after Celeste came back, she also made a fuss about entering showbiz. So Harrison Moreau specially opened an entertainment company for her and personally paved the road. In less than a year, she became one of the hottest rising young actresses, all momentum and spotlight.
Not long ago, the two of them had attended the same event.
During the event, the host casually brought up the topic and asked whether they were relatives since they had the same surname. Adriana’s expression didn’t change at all as she calmly said they didn’t know each other.
Celeste naturally had no interest in claiming kinship with her either, so she simply said they weren’t familiar.
The topic passed quickly, and Celeste didn’t think much of it.
But after the interview ended, as the two of them were leaving together, Adriana suddenly fell down the stairs right beside her.
From an outsider’s angle, it looked exactly like Celeste had pushed her.
Because of that stunt, Celeste got torn to shreds online by Adriana’s fans. And that still wasn’t the end of it. The Moreau family, furious, called her back to the Moreau villa.
The second she walked in, she was met with a slap and a cup of ice water thrown straight at her face.
They couldn’t even be bothered to ask her a single question.
And at the time, Celeste was already weak from period pain. Her whole body was in bad shape, and she was knocked unconscious on the spot.
Even then, the Moreau family still thought it wasn’t enough. Third Brother Austen Moreau brought over a whole basin of cold water and dumped it over her head, drenching her awake and forcing her to apologize.
Celeste, of course, refused to apologize for something she never did.
And then came the most humiliating beating of her life.
Fourth Brother Conrad Moreau grabbed her by the hair and slapped her dozens of times in a row, beating her until her face was swollen and bruised, until she was almost out cold.
After that, he kicked and broke her lower leg, forcing her to kneel and apologize to Adriana, that fake.
After suffering both mental and physical destruction, Celeste lost the chance to clear her name in time. The whole internet turned on her. She ended up saddled with massive breach-of-contract fees and spent her days dragging herself through dead-end jobs in a haze.
And even then, Adriana still didn’t let her go.
She took out a medical report and claimed her heart was failing, that she needed a transplant. And that whole bunch of idiots actually drugged Celeste unconscious, tied her to an operating table, dug out her heart, and in the end even scattered her ashes into a filthy drainage ditch.