I died.
It wasn't until the last moment of my life that I realized the person who brought about my death, was my very own sister.
......
"Wh-who... hired you to poison me?"
Not even a ray of light could penetrate through the cold prison.
The sudden pain in my stomach forced me to stoop over.
Curling up on the ground in pain, I stared at the woman in prison uniform in front of me as she approached me step by step.
With a grin on her face, she stomped her right foot hard on my hand and taunted, "Why don't you take a guess, and I'll let you know if you got it right."
Her smile was particularly fearsome. Fervent, even. There was a mixture of sympathy and disgust in her eyes. "You were so eager to rot in jail for her, but I guess you don't know it yet, do you? Girl about to get hitched, and the groom is your ex-fiance!"
"Who is this 'her' you're talking about?"
Already a figure was flashing through my mind, but I still couldn't accept it.
I had been nothing but nice to her.
She couldn't have wanted me to die.
All of a sudden my body felt sore, and I once again collapsed to the ground.
I had no choice but to hold on, with every bit of strength left, to the inmate's legs, trying to regain some of my consciousness.
She gave a cold snort and mercilessly kicked me away, and with that, I got the answer I wanted.
She bent down towards me, and her expression was nightmare-fodder terrifying when she snarled, "Aren't you dying to know who she is? She's Jennifer, your own sister!"
Jennifer!
Was it really her?
The blood all over my body seemed to solidify all of a sudden, all the warmth deserting me.
Blood suddenly gushed out from my mouth, and my heart seemed to be pressed against by tens of thousands of blades.
Jennifer!
My half-sister, who shared the same father with me.
She was also the person I used to trust the most.
Why would she have wanted me dead?
Was it because of Humphrey?
It wasn't until I was about to breathe my last that I realized all of this was her conspiracy.
She had framed me for murder and put me in jail, all to make Humphrey hers.
And I had become the whore that everyone despised!
Everything she had done was to get my fiance, Humphrey.
There was nothing I could say to Humphrey but "I'm sorry".
I had once hurt this man who had treated me like I was the world, all because of Jennifer's provocation.
I had said everything but nice words to his face.
But it was useless to regret it now. I was going to die!
No matter how enraged I was, no matter how sorry I felt, it would all be useless!
The guilt and hatred in my heart grew thicker and thicker.
The towering anger made me tremble from head to toe.
I coughed violently.
A mouthful of blood spewed out of my throat. I forced myself to get up, only for more and more blood to spew out.
I keeled over into the pool of blood. My vision became darker and darker, and my heart hurt more and more.
......
I could hear myself groan.
There was a sharp pain in my palm, which compelled me to crack open my eyelids painfully.
......
Before I could react, I was taken aback by the scene in front of my eyes.
Why was the golden-purple chandelier so familiar?
Wasn't this luxurious decoration the room where I had lived when I first got engaged to Humphrey five years ago?
Especially those golden-purple chandeliers, they were unforgettable to me.
I had smashed these lights that night because I had believed, with great folly, what Jennifer said.
I had also done all the things that Humphrey hated.
I told him that I had already given Carl my first time!
I also said viciously that I would rather die than fall in love with him.
So what exactly was going on right now? Hadn't I died? Had I time-traveled or something?
Could it be...
Had I been reborn?
Disbelief kept surging in my heart.
Until Humphrey came in, I was still befuddled by everything.
A look of displeasure appeared on his face.
His tall body seemed to be shrouded in a mass of black air, and his dark eyes were fixed on my eyes.
However, the joy of regaining what I had lost had already superseded all the remaining emotions in my mind.
The next moment, I threw open the blanket and hurled myself into Humphrey's arms.
"Humphrey, how great it is to be able to see you again!"
His chest was a little stiff, as if he hadn't expected me to do this.
After a while, he said in a cold voice, "Saoirse, taking sleeping pills isn't going to work. Even if I'd be doing this alone, the engagement party would be held as usual."
Taking sleeping pills to avoid getting engaged was totally a bad idea, and I got it from Jennifer.
If it weren't for the fact that Humphrey had saved me in time, I might have died!
Finally realizing my stupidity, I buried my head in his chest.
When I did this, his limbs stiffened.
He was scared by my sudden enthusiasm.
But I couldn't help but want to get closer to him.
Humphrey found the current me hard to accept, with my unusual antics.
He propped up my forehead with his wide and broad palm, and tried it a few times before he relaxed and said, "Saoirse, you can pull whatever tricks you have up your sleeves, and you still won't be able to run away."
"Don't waste your time."
"I won't run away," I crooned, "because I want to stay with you all the time."
I tried my best to modulate the tone of my voice. Gentle and soft words were the way to go if I wanted to slowly make Humphrey feel more at ease with me.
Who knew that after hearing my attempt at crooning, Humphrey's originally relaxed eyebrows wrinkled again, and he once again put his big palm on my forehead.
"Are you okay? Did you have a fever after stuffing yourself with pills?"
It seemed that my abnormal behavior had made Humphrey suspicious.
But since God had given me a chance to be reborn, I wouldn't care about what he thought.
This time, I'd protect everything that was mine, including Humphrey!
Suddenly, footsteps could be heard from outside the door. There was a knock on the door before Jennifer's familiar voice came through the gap, "Saoirse, are you up?"
Hearing this voice, the anger in my chest began to surge.
The past kept flashing through my mind.
In my previous life, Jennifer had been constantly pouring poison into my ears.
She told me that Humphrey didn't love me at all, that he married me solely because I was the daughter of the Moretz family.
Naive as I had been, I lapped up her claims that Humphrey married me because he wanted to take over the Moretz family's assets!
I had lived in panic every day.
In order to stay away from Humphrey, I kept testing his bottom line and keeping a distance from him.
I had even taken Jennifer's bait and had a secret rendezvous with Carl.
Thanks to the scandal du jour in the days, the whole city knew that the living devil, Humphrey, had been cheated on!
Now that I thought about it, it was truly laughable. What didn't Humphrey already have? As if he would have coveted the Moretz money.
At the thought of this, the tears swept over my face.
Regret spread to every nook and cranny of my heart. What wouldn't I give to crush Jennifer and Carl into pieces right now.
Over my second dead body would I let her scheme succeed this time!