Chapter 4

"Miss Reynolds, are you certain you actually sank your electric scooter here?" The officer climbed ashore, his expression serious.

"There's no scooter at the bottom—only this fragment. And according to our preliminary investigation, the electric scooter wreckage at the explosion site does match your vehicle information."

"I don't know how this happened..." I held my head, my mind in complete chaos.

I clearly remembered pushing the electric scooter here, tying stones to it, watching it sink.

But now the scooter was gone, leaving only a fragment.

Had I remembered wrong? Had I never sunk it at all and instead pushed it directly to the village entrance?

Impossible. I remembered the cold of the ice, the weight of the stones tied to the seat, the bubbles rising as the scooter entered the water.

Those memories were so vivid. How could they be false?

"Rachel, stop making excuses." Mom wailed in the crowd.

"A life for a life, debts must be paid—that's justice. Our family may be poor, but we can't do such unconscionable things!"

"Exactly. The nerve to do it but not admit it—what kind of person is that?"

"She always seemed like such an honest girl. Who knew she had such a black heart?"

The villagers' curses pierced me like knives.

I looked around. Every face was so strange yet so familiar.

In my previous life, they cursed me like this too. For a full twenty years.

But before I died in my previous life, I learned the truth—I knew I'd been wronged.

In this life, even I was starting to doubt whether I really had sunk the electric scooter in the pond.

"I want to see the surveillance footage." I suddenly said. "There's a camera at the village entrance, right? Check if I pushed the scooter there!"

The officer nodded. "We've already pulled the footage, but unfortunately, the camera at the village entrance broke yesterday and hasn't been fixed yet."

My heart sank.

"What about... other cameras nearby?"

"We checked. At six this morning, you were indeed seen pushing an electric scooter out of the village, but after that, no cameras captured you."

"What about the road to the pond? Are there any cameras at the back mountain?"

The officer shook his head. "The back mountain is wasteland. No cameras."

I felt despair.

No surveillance to prove I sank the scooter. No scooter to prove my innocence. Everyone was accusing me. Even I was beginning to waver.

Could I really not have sunk it? Could the explosion truly have been caused by my electric scooter?

"Rachel, don't do this." Brandon came over, looking concerned. "Even if it was an accident, we won't blame you. We're family—we'll bear this together."

He reached out to help me up.

Looking at his hypocritical face, I suddenly felt sick.

In my previous life, he said the same thing.

"We'll bear this together." Then I was the only one who bore it. He was the only one who benefited.

"Get lost." I shook off his hand. "I don't need your fake concern."

Brandon's expression changed, then quickly returned to that aggrieved look. "Rachel, I know you're under pressure, but how can you treat me like this..."

"Enough!" Dad rushed over and kicked my shoulder. "You make a mistake and still dare lose your temper at your brother! I think you've gone mad!"

I fell to the ground, my shoulder burning with pain.

Mom rushed up too, pinching and hitting me. "You killed two people and now want to drag our whole family down! Why don't you just die!"

I curled up on the ground, letting them beat and curse me.