The first time Elena realized she had transmigrated into a novel, she was holding a bag of oranges.
Not dying.
Not falling off a cliff.
Not waking up in some strange ancient dynasty wearing a red wedding dress.
She was standing outside a restaurant, holding three oranges she had bought because they were on sale.
And someone was shouting.
"Didn’t I tell you to apologize?"
Elena stopped walking.
The voice came from inside the restaurant.
It was loud enough that several people sitting near the entrance turned their heads.
She would normally have kept walking.
It wasn’t her business.
Besides, she was already late.
Her mother had told her to come home before dinner, and if she was late again, there would be another lecture about how she had just finished the college entrance examination and should stop wandering around all day.
Elena had planned to buy some snacks, return home, take a shower, and spend the evening doing absolutely nothing.
The college entrance examination was finally over.
Eighteen years of studying had finally come to an end.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t have to worry about waking up early the next morning.
She deserved to be lazy.
But then she heard another voice.
"I already apologized."
A girl’s voice.
Soft.
Embarrassed.
And strangely familiar.
Elena frowned.
She turned toward the restaurant.
A young woman stood near the counter.
Her clothes were simple and slightly worn, her hair tied loosely behind her head. Her hands were clenched tightly at her sides as she faced a middle-aged woman who was scolding her.
There were several customers watching.
The girl lowered her head.
"I said I was sorry."
The middle-aged woman scoffed.
"Sorry? You broke something worth several Luni and think saying sorry is enough?"
"It wasn’t me who—"
"Then what? Are you saying the customer is lying?"
The girl immediately fell silent.
Something about the scene bothered Elena.
Not because the woman was being unreasonable.
Not because the girl looked pitiful.
It was something else.
Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
She stared at the girl.
The girl’s face was unfamiliar.
But the name the woman shouted next wasn’t.
"Lily Bennet!"
Elena’s fingers loosened.
One orange nearly slipped out of the bag.
She caught it.
Her heartbeat suddenly became very loud.
Lily Bennet.
The name echoed inside her head.
Lily Bennet.
Lily Bennet.
Lily Bennet.
No.
That was impossible.
She stared at the girl again.
The restaurant.
The humiliation.
The middle-aged woman.
The girl named Lily Bennett.
A scene she’d read before.
Years ago.
A novel.
A very, very long novel.
Elena’s expression slowly changed.
"No way."
The words escaped her lips.
A passerby glanced at her.
Elena didn’t notice.
Her mind was already racing.
She remembered a novel she had read so long ago that most of the details had faded.
It had been one of those long family-and-business stories.
The kind where everyone had complicated identities, wealthy families, dramatic misunderstandings, business empires, and enough family conflict to last several hundred Chapters.
She hadn’t even finished it.
She remembered reading roughly half of it before abandoning it.
But she remembered the beginning.
She remembered Lily.
She remembered the Shaw family.
And she remembered—
Elena Shaw.
Her own name.
Her face went pale.
She looked down at her hands.
Then at the reflection in the restaurant’s glass.
A familiar face stared back.
Her own.
Eighteen years old.
Healthy.
Young.
Beautiful in a way she had never paid much attention to.
She swallowed.
"I’m Elena."
She said it quietly.
Nobody answered.
Of course nobody answered.
She was standing on the street talking to herself.
She suddenly wanted to laugh.
Maybe she was tired.
Maybe she’d studied too hard.
Maybe the college entrance examination had finally broken her brain.
She turned around.
She walked away from the restaurant.
One step.
Two step.
Three step.
Then she stopped.
The memory came back.
Not gradually.
All at once.
Like someone had opened a floodgate inside her skull.
She remembered the novel.
She remembered the plot.
She remembered the Shaw family.
She remembered Lily.
And she remembered the biggest secret of the entire story.
The two girls had been switched at birth.
Lily was the biological daughter of the Shaw family.
Elena was not.
For eighteen years, the wrong daughter had lived in the wrong family.
And in the original story, that mistake was about to be corrected.
Elena stood motionless on the street.
The oranges were still in her hand.
Her mouth went dry.
"...I’m the fake heiress?"
She looked up at the sky.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because there was nothing else she could do.
Of all the novels.
Of all the worlds.
Of all the characters.
She had become the fake heiress.
And worse—
She knew exactly what happened to the fake heiress.
She was replaced.
She lost everything.
She returned to the countryside.
And the real daughter, Lily, took her place.
Elena slowly closed her eyes.
She remembered something else.
Something much more annoying.
A boy.
A particularly irritating boy.
Ethan Cole.
Her childhood rival.
Her lifelong enemy.
The person who had spent eighteen years competing with her over absolutely everything.
Who ran faster.
Who climbed higher.
Who got better grades.
Who finished exams first.
Who learned to ride a bicycle first.
Who got praised more by their grandparents.
Who was better at chess.
Who was better at arguing.
Who was better at absolutely nothing that mattered.
And then there was the college entrance examination.
Elena opened her eyes.
She suddenly remembered the last time she had seen him.
They had stood outside the examination hall after their final paper.
Ethan had looked at her with the same irritating confidence he had possessed since childhood.
"How do you think you did?"
"Better than you."
He had laughed. "You wish."
"You’re scared."
"Of you?"
"Obviously."
He had rolled his eyes.
"You’ve been dreaming about beating me since we were children."
"And?"
"And you’re finally going to lose."
Elena had smiled.
"We’ll see."
She knew his score now.
At least, she knew what she had written.
She had checked her answers afterward.
She had counted.
She was confident.
610.
Ethan would get 608.
Two marks.
Only two.
But two marks were enough.
Elena had never told him and now... he would never know.
Elena smiled despite herself.
At least she had beaten him again before losing everything.
That thought lasted approximately three seconds.
Then reality returned.
She was going back to the countryside.
She wasn’t going to university.
She wasn’t going to live the life she had spent eighteen years preparing for.
And Ethan—
He would go to the Capital
The NCU: National Capital University.
Then he would build his own future.
He would become the kind of man everyone talked about.
Successful.
Ambitious.
Untouchable.
While she—
Elena looked down at the oranges.
She sighed.
"Fine."
She had never been particularly sentimental.
If the heavens wanted to throw her into a novel, then so be it.
If they wanted to take away her identity, then so be it.
She had already lived eighteen years.
She could live another eighteen.
She would simply have to start again.
She turned around.
Then she remembered what happened to Elena in the original story.
She stopped.
Her expression slowly became strange.
"Wait."
She looked toward the restaurant.
Lily was still standing there.
Still being scolded.
Still looking exactly like the girl Elena remembered from the novel.
This was not a coincidence.
This was the beginning.
The story had already started.
Which meant, everything that happened afterward would happen too.
Elena’s smile disappeared.
She suddenly realized something very important.
Knowing the plot did not mean she could change it.
It only meant she knew what was coming.
And if she wanted to survive—she would have to move first.