Chapter 2

The girl in the mirror had sharp, neat short hair and refined, striking features.

But a terrifying birthmark stretched from her left eyebrow to the bottom of her left jaw — like a trail of tears.

I touched my own face.

Quinn Harper. Are you a boy or a girl?

Reborn into this life, I still can't tell.

Lily had already finished breakfast. While complaining to me that Mom and Dad were nowhere to be found, she dragged me off to school.

These days she'd gotten a new boyfriend — a notorious troublemaker at the vocational school next door. She was far too busy to notice anything different about Mom and Dad lately.

I thought about the little boy from my last life, the one Mom and Dad went through countless IVF treatments to finally conceive. I glanced at her.

Just then, Lily pointed ahead and shrieked.

"Brother, someone fell into the river!"

My heart lurched.

Exactly like before. A little boy was thrashing in the water. His movements were growing weaker and weaker. Lily's tears looked ready to fall.

She begged me, "Brother, hurry up and save him!"

An old woman with graying hair came running over, kneeling on the ground, howling.

"Oh, please save my poor grandson!"

I didn't budge.

In my past life, I'd dived straight in without a second thought. But that boy actually knew how to swim — he and that old woman were working together.

The area was remote with no cameras. Whoever jumped in to rescue the boy would immediately be accused by the old woman of pushing him into the river.

Last time, I never figured out if Lily was too scared to speak up, or if she did it on purpose. When strangers asked her what happened, all she did was shake her head, eyes brimming with tears, and say she didn’t know.

She didn’t know? She knew better than anyone.

She saw everything. But when the old woman clutched her and said she just wanted to scam some money to treat her grandson’s illness, Lily’s heart still softened.

"Brother..."

I cut her off.

"I'm sorry, Lily. I can't swim."

Lily looked at me pitifully.

"But it's a human life!"

The old woman on the ground wailed even louder.

I looked straight at her and said seriously, "But you can swim. Remember when Mom saw that news report about a flood sweeping away all those people who couldn't swim, she specially signed you up for swimming lessons."

Lily looked a little awkward.

"But I'm a girl! If a girl gets in the water, her clothes get all wet."

I stared at her in silence, utterly stunned by how ridiculous this was.

"Didn't you just say it was a human life?"

While we were going back and forth, the little boy in the river seemed to really start sinking.

The old woman panicked and immediately shoved Lily, who was standing closest to the river, right into the water.

Lily swallowed a huge mouthful of water. Before she could even react, the boy latched onto her with all four limbs.

Just as it looked like both of them were about to drown, a figure leaped into the water with a "whoosh."

It was Lily's boyfriend, Ryder.

The same guy who'd led the assault on me the first time around.