Chapter 1

In my past life, my sister and I got married and pregnant at the exact same time.

My husband was a hardworking, self-made man, while she married a gambling-addicted trust fund jerk.

We gave birth on the exact same day.

She had a healthy boy, while my baby was frail, severely deformed, and had an abnormally enlarged head.

The doctors said he had congenital mental deficits and severe physical deformities, and wouldn't survive long.

Tyler and I couldn't bear to let him go, pouring every penny we had into his medical treatments.

In the end, our lives were ruined in poverty and grief, and our baby still passed away. Meanwhile, my sister lived the high life as a wealthy socialite, all thanks to her brilliant son.

Right before I took my final breath, she sneered and revealed the sickening truth. The deformed baby was actually hers, and she had swapped my healthy baby with hers right after delivery.

When I opened my eyes again, I was reborn on the day of my delivery...

1

The moment I opened my eyes after being reborn, someone shoved a glass of warm milk into my hands.

"Drink the milk. The baby in your belly needs the nutrients."

I turned around. The woman smiling warmly at me was my older sister, Roxanne.

It hit me instantly―this was the exact same glass of milk from my previous life, spiked with oxytocin to induce labor.

I could never, ever drink it!

With a loud crash, I deliberately loosened my grip and let the glass shatter on the floor, milk splashing everywhere.

"You can't even hold a glass? Don't tell me you're going into early labor?"

Roxanne glanced at my belly, a flicker of envy flashing across her eyes.

Noticing my intense gaze, she quickly put her fake, sweet smile back on.

"Oh well, if it's early, it's early. As long as the baby is healthy and safe."

She affectionately linked her arm through mine.

"Since you're giving birth at this hospital too, we can keep each other company."

I forced a dry smile and pulled my arm away from her grip.

"Giving birth isn't a trip to the restroom. Why would we need company?"

If I weren't heavily pregnant right now, I would have ripped that hypocritical face of hers to shreds.

Roxanne was five years older than me.

When I was just a newborn, she had tried to smother me in my crib. If Dad hadn't caught her in the act back then, I would have died before I even learned to walk.

As we grew up, she used her status as the older daughter to bully me relentlessly.

After Dad passed away from an illness, I tried turning to our mother for protection. Yet Mom despised me just as much, calling me a worthless burden who owed everything to her and Roxanne.

After all, Mom had always desperately wanted a son, not another daughter.

Later on, Roxanne threw herself at wealthy men shamelessly and finally bagged an heir who was addicted to gambling and wild partying.

I, on the other hand, married my high school sweetheart, Tyler―a self-made, reliable, and hardworking man from an ordinary background.

To suck up to her wealthy new in-laws, Mom favored Roxanne even more blatantly.

I didn't care about wealth or whether Mom loved me. All I wanted was to escape this toxic family, have a sweet baby with the man I loved, and live a peaceful life.

That was my only dream. Yet they still refused to let me go.

Roxanne had ended numerous pregnancies due to her reckless lifestyle, and her filthy rich husband was riddled with infections, making conception nearly impossible.

Her mother-in-law threatened to kick her out if she couldn't produce an heir. When she finally got pregnant, the ultrasound revealed severe brain deformities.

Roxanne panicked completely. And right around that time, I got pregnant too.

Mom and Roxanne plotted a sinister scheme to switch our babies.

First, Mom pretended to care, convincing me to stay at her place so she could look after me.

Meanwhile, Roxanne bribed the doctors at this private clinic and slipped labor-inducing drugs into my meals so we would deliver at roughly the exact same time.

While I was unconscious after childbirth, they stole my healthy baby and replaced him with her deformed one.

When I woke up back then and saw the shriveled, deformed newborn with an enlarged head, my world shattered.

My first instinct was that there had been a mix-up, because all my prenatal scans had been completely normal.

Roxanne, holding my healthy baby in her arms, mocked me cruelly.

"You birthed a broken child and now you're accusing others of stealing yours? Wendy, you're downright paranoid."

Mom backed her up, blaming me for not taking proper vitamins during pregnancy. Guilt consumed me, and I believed their vicious lies.

The doctors told us to give up, but Tyler and I couldn't do it. We dragged our poor baby to hospital after hospital across the country.

Over the years, we spent our entire life savings, and Tyler's career collapsed under the medical debt. Still, I refused to give up, buying outrageously expensive medications as long as there was even a shred of hope.

Five years later, the child passed away in sheer agony.

Meanwhile, Roxanne used my healthy son to secure her position in high society, and her mother-in-law transferred all family assets into the boy's name.

Roxanne and Mom lived lavishly, and whenever I begged them for financial help on my knees, all I got was cold ridicule.

It wasn't until my deathbed that Roxanne finally whispered the sickening truth into my ear before pulling the plug on my oxygen tank.

Now that fate has given me a second chance, I swear I will make them pay for everything...