"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.

After death, Celeste was bound to a system and sent through different worlds to complete missions. The reward for finishing was rebirth—returning to the turning point of her fate.

Only—

Celeste glanced at the flickering black countdown on the back of her hand.

Less than seventy-two hours.

She had less than three days left to live.

Before leaving, the system had told her that if she wanted to survive, she had to blow up in the entertainment industry. The higher her fame value, the longer her lifespan.

At that thought, Celeste instantly lost all interest in wasting breath on these clowns. A curse flew straight out of her mouth.

"Apologize? Apologize my ass. I apologize to your mom."

Then she pulled out her phone and dialed 110.

The entire Moreau family was stunned.

They had never imagined that Celeste—the one who usually kept quiet, swallowed everything, and only knew how to please them—would suddenly start cursing people out.

"Celeste Moreau, what are you doing?" Harrison Moreau frowned.

At that, Celeste turned the phone screen toward him, showing the 110 call page, and said with a bright smile, "Calling the police. Didn’t you all say I viciously pushed Adriana Moreau? Then why not call the police? What’s wrong? Don’t want to?"

"Who allowed you to call the police? Hang up right now." Edmund Moreau barked in a low voice.

Panic and disbelief flashed across Adriana’s eyes.

What the hell?

Had Celeste gone crazy?

Why was she suddenly calling the police?

Celeste directly hit the call button.

"Ce-leste Mo-reau!" Harrison Moreau ground out through clenched teeth.

Conrad Moreau finally reacted and strode over quickly, trying to snatch her phone.

But before he could get close, the voice of a police operator came through on speaker.

"Hello, 110. How may we help you?"

"Hello, I want to report a crime."

Facing the Moreau family’s murderous stares, Celeste reported it word by word. She gave the address of the Moreau villa, then added, "If anything happens to me during this time, or if I become unreachable, then it wasn’t anyone else—it was people from Moreau Group. Just arrest them directly."

"Understood, ma’am. Officers are being dispatched immediately."

Soon, the call ended.

The Moreau villa fell into a deathly silence.

The faces of the Moreau men were dark as the bottom of a burned pot.

The daughter—the younger sister—who had never had any presence in this family had just smashed them in the face with one move.

Edmund Moreau wrapped an arm around the aggrieved-looking Adriana and ordered, "Celeste Moreau, call them back right now and withdraw the report."

Harrison Moreau frowned hard. "Celeste Moreau, I think you’ve lost your mind. What exactly are you trying to pull?"

Armand Moreau said with disgust, "How embarrassing. You did something vicious and still dare to call the police? How do I even have a sister like you? It’s one thing to be immature, but now you’re just making a scene."

If this were her last life, Celeste would still have been hurt by their attitude and words.

But now?

She let out a cold laugh and fired right back.

"How do I have brain-dead family like you? Four brothers and one father, all blind as hell, straight-up hopeless. No—actually even country bumpkins see better than you. You’re all obsessed with a fake, blind in the eyes and rotten in the heart, a bunch of absolute trash."

Ignoring their ugly, darkened expressions, she kept going, not giving them even a second to breathe.

"You want me to kneel and apologize to her? Dream on. Even if you all dropped dead, I still wouldn’t kneel. And her? She thinks she deserves it?"

"Back then I treated you like family, so I kept swallowing it and putting up with your crap. But now? Your girl here has finally woken up."

Edmund Moreau was so angry that the finger pointing at Celeste started trembling. "Unfilial daughter—you, what did you just say?"

"What, your eyes are blind and now your ears don’t work too? Fine. Since you didn’t hear it clearly, I’ll say it again."

Celeste stared at him coldly and repeated every word, slow and sharp:

"I’m cutting ties with all of you. You can rot and stink together with that fake."