Chapter 1

My roommate and her boyfriend had a major breakup, but I was the one who got kidnapped.

In my previous life, Chloe told me her boyfriend, Ryan, was probably cheating and asked me to test his loyalty.

I never imagined Ryan wasn't cheating at all. Instead, he was obsessively in love with her.

After Chloe broke up with him, he kidnapped me and forced an entire bottle of bleach down my throat, leading to my agonizing death.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Chloe pulled the same old trick.

Knowing the truth this time, I dialed 911:

"Hello, Officer, I suspect someone just drugged me…"

"Cassie, what are you spacing out for? Are you even listening to me?"

Chloe's sweet, yet oddly demanding voice, drifted into my ear through the phone.

Familiar memories flooded back, and I felt a jolt, instinctively touching my throat.

No burning sting. No numb sensation of chemical corrosion.

I had been reborn?!

In my last life, it was exactly today.

Chloe had pleaded and pestered me on the phone, begging me to help her test if her boyfriend, Ryan, was really cheating.

"Cassie, we're best friends, you know? Only you can help me with this."

She sighed dramatically on the other end, her voice filled with such grievance, as if she'd suffered the greatest injustice.

"I just have this gut feeling. Could you just go feel him out for me? Just chat with him a bit, see how he acts around other girls."

"You know Ryan. He seems aloof, but he totally falls for your straightforward type. If you test him, he won't be on guard."

"If he really has changed, I can at least get over him, right? Please, help me out?"

Back then, I had just graduated. I was naive and easily swayed. I couldn't resist her repeated pleas and agreed.

I never imagined my roommate, with whom I lived day in and day out, harbored such a venomous heart.

In my past life, I followed Chloe's script. At a party she’d conveniently arranged, I casually brought up relationship topics. I even said a few ambiguous things as she instructed.

Ryan, already upset by Chloe's recent coldness, blew up on the spot after my interference.

Soon after, Chloe broke up with him.

But then Chloe, sobbing dramatically with tears streaming down her face, told Ryan that I had been interested in him all along and deliberately stirred up trouble between them.

"I knew she liked you for ages. Her eyes always looked at you weirdly. I thought she'd give up eventually, but I never expected…"

"Cassie's my best friend, I don't want to hurt her, Ryan, let's just break up!"

All the words I had said, following her instructions, became "proof" of me "seducing" Ryan.

Looking back now, Chloe wasn't trying to test Ryan at all.

She clearly wanted to break up but didn't want to be blamed for cheating, so she staged this whole act.

Ryan, with his extreme personality, was blinded by rage. He kidnapped me. "I wondered why she suddenly dumped me! So it was you messing things up behind her back!"

I desperately explained that it was all Chloe's setup, but he didn't believe me.

During our struggle, he pulled out a bottle of bleach from somewhere and forced it into my mouth.

"She thought you were her best friend, but you secretly tried to steal her boyfriend!"

"Chloe loves me so much, why would she break up with me?! It's all because of you! Even now, Chloe refuses to get back with me."

"Since you like me so much, then just die!"

I writhed on the floor in agony. Before losing consciousness, I only saw Ryan's twisted, desperate face.

By the time the police arrived, I was already dead, from acute chemical poisoning.

Ryan was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. His entire life was utterly ruined.

His decent, hardworking parents turned white-haired overnight, nearly fainting from grief in the courtroom.

And Chloe?

At my funeral, she wept profusely, playing the part of a poor soul who had lost her dearest friend, but her eyes were full of triumph.

"Cassie, don't blame me. Blame yourself for being too trusting. I just said a few ambiguous words, and you actually believed them."

"I didn't want to hurt you, and I wanted to break up with Ryan peacefully. But that lunatic Ryan would just smash things and get violent every time I mentioned breaking up."

"Besides, it was that lunatic Ryan who did it himself. It has nothing to do with me."

It turned out she had calculated everything from the start. She wanted to get rid of Ryan but was afraid of his extreme personality and what he might do, so she designed this whole thing to implicate me.

She even posted tributes to me on social media, subtly implying that I had a crush on Ryan and was accidentally harmed when my advances were rejected.

She cleaned her hands completely, winning widespread sympathy.

My parents, having to bury their own child, had all the life drained from them overnight. They eventually withered away from grief and sorrow.

Perhaps Heaven itself couldn't stand such injustice, and miraculously gave me a chance to come back.

This time, I would make Chloe pay back every single debt, down to the last penny!