On my eighteenth birthday, my parents suddenly brought a strange girl into the house. "Haven, you are not our biological daughter," my mother announced coldly. "Claire is." My father threw a $1.2 million invoice for my upbringing in my face. "This is the cost of everything you've enjoyed in this house. You will pay it back down to the exact cent." My fiancé, Cooper Holland, looked at me with deep disgust and threw our engagement ring at my feet. "You stole Claire's life for eighteen years," Cooper sneered, his eyes filled with contempt. "Our engagement is over. This is what you owe her, and you will pay it back even if you have to sell your blood." I didn't scream or beg. To pay off the debt, I tore up my Ivy League acceptance letter with my own hands. For three full years, I worked twelve-hour shifts delivering food in freezing blizzards, and spent my nights scrubbing grease traps in a filthy dive bar until my knuckles cracked and bled. I bit my tongue and paid them back. The night the final payment was transferred, my hands were trembling so hard I could barely hold a pen. The moment the balance dropped to zero, I felt completely detached from this world. With my last few coins, I bought a cheap bottle of sweet peach soda and a bottle of lethal agricultural herbicide, thinking the sweetness could take away the bitterness. The moment I swallowed it, my phone screen lit up. It was a text from my mother. "Haven, the test is over. You actually are our biological daughter, too. It's just that Claire was lost as a child and suffered a lot. We did this to teach you humility, afraid that you might bully her." "We will refund all the money tomorrow. Come home, and put your sister first from now on." Cooper called right after, his tone full of arrogant charity. "Have you thrown enough tantrums? Come to the banquet tonight, kneel down and publicly apologize to Claire. Then, I might consider taking you back." I stared at the glowing screen, dark blood welling up in my throat. It turned out that everything I had done was nothing but a sick prank in their eyes, yet I had paid a devastating price for it. At this moment, I suddenly realized that no one cared about my life anymore. Chapter 1 Haven Bennett POV I stared fixedly at the glowing words on the screen. A sudden, violent burn tore through my throat and chest. My phone began to vibrate frantically. The caller ID displayed Cooper Holland's name. With trembling, numb fingers, I swiped the green button and pressed the phone against my ear. "Haven," Cooper's arrogant voice boomed through the speaker. "Your mother told you the truth, didn't she? Stop throwing your pathetic tantrum. Tonight is Claire's formal high-society debut at the country club. Put on something decent and get over here immediately. You need to kneel down and publicly apologize for your past attitude toward her. If you behave well, I might consider taking you back." I opened my mouth, but no words came out. The highly toxic chemical was frantically corroding my esophagus and stomach lining. A thick gush of dark blood welled up in my throat, spilling past my lips and splattering across my worn, faded jeans. "Claire specifically begged your father for this," Cooper paused, his tone dripping with arrogant charity. "She said as long as you are willing to kneel down and apologize to her in front of all the guests tonight, the Bennett family will still allow you to step through their doors." "Your mother even had the maids keep your old guest room for you." He continued impatiently, "This is your last chance, Haven. Stop clinging to your ridiculous pride. It's been three years. Haven't you thrown enough of a tantrum?" A trickle of dark, blackish-red blood spilled from the corner of my mouth. A tantrum? Three years ago, on that freezing, torrential rainy night, Colin Bennett threw a stack of itemized invoices in my face, declaring that I owed the family $1.2 million. It was Cooper who personally drove me away and dumped me under a dark, leaking overpass in the deepest part of the slums without a single penny to my name. That night, he rolled down his window and looked at me as if I were a pile of rotting garbage. "Haven Bennett, from today on, do not ever parade around claiming to be my fiancée," he spat coldly. "You occupied Claire's life for far too long. This is your karma." It was late autumn. I was wearing nothing but thin pajamas, shivering uncontrollably in the biting cold wind under that overpass. Back then, I thought their cruelty was just the natural hatred directed at a fake daughter. I truly believed I was a predator who stole someone else's life, so I accepted my fate and worked myself to the bone to pay back a debt I could never afford. But now, my mother texted me to say I was their biological daughter all along. They orchestrated this entire living hell just to teach me to "put my sister first." I tried to pull my lips into a smile, but my internal organs felt as if they were being ground into paste by a meat grinder. I violently coughed up a massive mouthful of dark, foul blood. On the other end of the line, Cooper's voice turned icy when he didn't hear a response. "Haven, are you playing dead again?" "Every time I mention Claire, you use this pathetic silent treatment to protest. Do you still think you're the untouchable heiress of the Bennett family?" "If Claire wasn't so kindhearted, pitying you for the hardships you've suffered working these past three years, do you really think I would condescend to call you?" I used every ounce of strength left in my broken body, desperately trying to press the red 'end call' button on the screen. But the daily friction of scouring metal pans over the past three years had long worn the skin on my fingertips smooth, erasing any trace of my old fingerprints. The touchscreen failed to register my touch. "Eight o'clock tonight at the Bennett estate." Cooper delivered his ultimatum, entirely oblivious to my dying struggle. "If you don't show up, your father will directly donate the $1.2 million refund to charity." "You love money more than anything else, don't you? You threw away your dignity to scrub filthy floors for a few bucks. You wouldn't bear to lose a million dollars, would you?" With those final words, he hung up directly. The dial tone echoed through the empty, damp basement. Beep... Beep... Beep... I looked at the darkened screen. Tears finally spilled from my eyes, mixing with the blood as they smashed onto the mold-covered bedsheets. Cooper didn't know. I only washed glasses at that dive bar because the owner was willing to pay me in cash daily. I didn't even dare take the slightly better-paying job of serving plates. Because I only slept three hours a day, my hands shook so badly that I was terrified of dropping a customer's glass. I simply couldn't afford to pay for it. That $1.2 million... It was my drained blood, my extracted bone marrow, and the money I saved cent by cent riding a rusty bicycle through blinding blizzards. Now they wanted to give it back to me. What was the point? My stomach felt like it was filled with boiling sulfuric acid. The searing agony frantically climbed up my nerve endings. There is no antidote for this kind of herbicide. The most sadistic part of this poison is that it gives you ample time. It forces you to remain perfectly, absolutely conscious as you truly feel your internal organs slowly rotting and melting away. I tilted my head back, staring at the dim, flickering yellow bulb on the ceiling. My vision began to blur into a dark, grainy haze. Suddenly, my phone screen lit up again. It was a notification from the "Bennett Family Chat" group. I had been kicked out three years ago, and just tonight, my mother, Inga, had pulled me back in. The chat was incredibly lively. Voice messages popped up on the screen, one after another in rapid succession. With a violently trembling, bloodstained hand, I tapped the auto-play button.

Haven Bennett POV Mother Inga: "Haven has always been so stubborn. I pulled her into the chat a while ago, and she hasn't said a word. She's probably just holing up in that cheap, broken-down rental right now, eagerly waiting for us to beg her to come home." Father Colin let out a cold snort in his voice message. Colin: "Then let her wait. A girl must be properly disciplined. After three years of hardship, the arrogance in her bones should have been ground away." Claire: "Dad, Mom, please don't be too harsh on Haven. She suffered so much to pay back all that money. As long as she's willing to accept me as her sister, I don't need her to apologize at all." I lay curled on the freezing concrete floor, convulsing in agony. My lungs were undergoing rapid pulmonary fibrosis; every attempt to draw oxygen felt like inhaling razor blades. Listening to my father's self-righteous tone, I felt nothing but utter absurdity. Discipline? My mind couldn't help but drift back through the past three years. I remembered the blizzard last January, when my delivery bicycle broke down on an icy highway. My fingers had frozen numb, the skin turning deathly pale and stiff. I delivered the hot soup thirty minutes late, and the customer threw the boiling broth right in my face, leaving a patch of red, swollen blisters. I remembered the week Colin sent a lawyer to my door to demand additional interest payments—I even went to sell my blood plasma twice. I passed out on the sidewalk outside the clinic, waking up with my face buried in the dirty slush, the veins in my arm already bruised, black, and swollen. And this was what they called "discipline." The voice messages in the chat continued. Claire's soft, timid voice chimed in again. "Dad, Mom, my sister might still be mad at me. After all, she suffered so much these past three years." "Actually, you shouldn't have made her pay back that $1.2 million. If anything, you can just deduct it from my allowance from now on." Inga immediately replied, her tone aching with maternal affection. "Claire, you are just too kindhearted. She lived off your blessings for eighteen years; what is this little bit of hardship?" "Besides, if we didn't push her to the absolute edge, how would she ever learn to appreciate this family? How would she learn the value of family ties?" "Don't worry. When she shows up tonight, Mom will hand the bank card with the refund to her in front of everyone, giving her a way out with her dignity intact. I guarantee she will cry tears of gratitude and apologize." My consciousness was already beginning to slip. My retinas were hemorrhaging, turning the world before my eyes into a blurry sea of blood-red. So, in their eyes... The massive hole I had filled with my own life and blood was nothing more than a "way out" they were graciously offering me. I vomited violently, throwing up black mucus mixed with chunks of my own melted internal organs. The excruciating pain was so intense I couldn't even roll over on the floor. At that moment, Cooper Holland also sent a message to the group. "Aunt Inga, I've already had my driver drop a dress off for her. It's an off-season Chanel piece. Haven shouldn't be so materialistic anymore; she'll be happy with an off-season dress." "After the banquet tonight, I'll take her to the hospital for a full-body screening. Look at how pathetic and filthy she's been living—we need to make sure she didn't pick up any infectious diseases." I bit down on my lower lip so hard my teeth pierced straight through the flesh. Three years. I had loved Cooper Holland for ten whole years. From a young, naive girl with her first crush, to his official fiancée. During these three years of hell, it wasn't that I hadn't begged him. Once, a high fever triggered acute pneumonia, and I didn't even have enough money to buy basic fever medication. I dragged my half-dead body to the lobby of his prestigious law firm, begging him to lend me fifty dollars. He sat in the back of his Bentley, rolling the window down only halfway. "Haven, can you stop using these cheap, disgusting pity tricks? Fifty dollars? Do you think I run a charity?" Right in front of Claire, who was sitting next to him, he ordered the security guards to drag me away. That night, I lay half-conscious in the snow for hours. Finally, a kindhearted street sweeper found me and dragged me to a free clinic. I used to think he truly despised me. Only now did I realize he was just playing along with the Bennett family, acting out a twisted script in their game of a "test." Breathing was becoming impossibly difficult. My lungs had completely lost their ability to exchange oxygen. It felt exactly like someone had tied a thick plastic bag tightly over my head. I struggled, reaching out a trembling, bloodstained hand, desperately trying to grab my phone. I wanted to type to them. I wanted to tell them I wasn't going. I was never going again. But the moment my smooth, printless fingertips brushed against the cold glass screen... My heart exploded into a violent, massive spasm. Along with one final, brutal convulsion, my body slammed heavily onto the concrete floor. My lifeless eyes remained wide open, staring fixedly at the group chat name on the screen: "Bennett Family Chat." The world finally descended into absolute, deafening silence.

Haven Bennett POV The heavy, suffocating pressure in my chest vanished all at once. I felt a sudden, weightless pull, as if an invisible tether had snapped, lifting me up toward the peeling ceiling of the basement room. I looked down. My corpse lay curled on the dirty linoleum floor, looking so small, thin, and pale. Dark red blood was smeared across the corners of my mouth and my neck, pooling into a stain at the collar of my five-dollar, worn-out flannel shirt. My eyes were half-open, staring blankly into the dark corner beneath the cot. I was dead, reduced to a soul without a physical body. Before I could even process the fact that I was already a corpse, an invisible force dragged my consciousness through the ceiling, past the gray city streets, and straight into the glittering ballroom of the Grand Oak Country Club. Massive crystal chandeliers hung from the high, vaulted ceilings, pouring soft golden light over the marble floors and bouquets of white lilies. On an elevated stage, violinists played a soothing melody. Wealthy guests in silk gowns and tailored tuxedos held crystal flutes filled with vintage champagne. In the center of the room stood Claire. She wore a custom emerald-green satin gown that accentuated her delicate frame; she was radiant, looking like a true angel surrounded by adoring stars. She held Cooper Holland's arm, smiling sweetly as she greeted the guests. Colin and Inga stood nearby, their eyes full of parental affection. "Where is Haven?" Inga muttered under her breath, glancing toward the entrance with an annoyed frown. "The toast is about to begin. She is always so selfish, making everyone wait for her." Colin let out a cold snort, slamming his champagne flute onto a passing waiter's tray. "It's definitely her pathetic pride acting up again. She probably thinks showing up dressed like a beggar is too embarrassing." "She doesn't even think about the fact that if she hadn't taken Claire's place, Claire wouldn't have been wandering the streets for eighteen years." "We let her suffer a little hardship, and now she's acting like the victim." Floating in mid-air, I listened quietly to their conversation. A soul cannot feel physical pain, but I felt a strong wave of nausea. Three years ago, they claimed that the Bennett family's nanny had gotten greedy, kidnapped the newborn Claire, and sold her, while I was a baby stolen from an orphanage to act as a replacement. It wasn't until tonight that I realized the so-called "truth" was nothing but a sick lie they fabricated to test me. I was clearly their biological daughter too, yet I had to bear all their anger and revenge. Cooper Holland walked over holding two glasses of champagne. He handed one to Claire with a gentle smile—a gentleness that, in the entire three years of our engagement, he had never once shown me. "Don't let her ruin your mood, Claire," Cooper comforted her softly. "I just spoke to her on the phone half an hour ago. She remained completely silent, deliberately giving me the cold shoulder. She thinks if she plays hard to get, I'll chase after her." Claire took a sip of champagne, looking up at Cooper with wide, seemingly innocent eyes. "Cooper, maybe Haven is really hurt," Claire murmured, her voice just loud enough for the nearby socialites to hear clearly. "She spent three years living in such terrible conditions. Maybe... she feels resentful that I have taken her place." Inga immediately placed a protective, aching hand on Claire's shoulder. "You took nothing from her, Claire," Inga said firmly. "We raised her for eighteen years and gave her the best life. Making her repay the upbringing expenses was just to teach her that privilege must be earned. If she has even a shred of conscience or decency, she should kneel before you tonight and thank us with tears of gratitude for being willing to take her back." With that, Inga opened her velvet clutch and took out a heavy diamond necklace. "I bought this for her," Inga continued, showing it to the surrounding guests. "As long as she is willing to apologize and publicly kneel before you to admit her mistakes, I will personally place this around her neck. We have already been more than generous to her." I looked at that necklace. Suddenly, I remembered the winter half a year ago. An SUV had clipped my bicycle on an icy turn. My right leg was severely fractured. Using the last one percent of my phone battery, I called Inga. The moment the call connected, I cried out, "Mom, please save me." But Inga's voice on the other end was cold to the extreme. "Haven, are you out of money to pay your debt and trying to trick the family into transferring you cash?" "Let me tell you, this trick won't work. You owe Claire, and you must pay it back yourself." With that, she hung up the phone. I lay in the snow for three hours, and in the end, I dragged myself to a roadside pharmacy. Later, because that leg wasn't treated in time, it left a permanent complication. Whenever it rained or snowed, it ached so badly I couldn't even walk. And now, she took out a necklace, thinking it could just erase the agony of a broken bone from those three years. I felt no anger in my heart. There was only a deep, boundless disgust that seeped into my very bones.