1 The night of my first day at the new company, the CEO called my phone by mistake. He thought I was Stella, the most beautiful girl in our batch of new interns. He added me on a messaging app, and for the next six months, we had an online relationship. It wasn't until his birthday that he discovered he had the wrong person. Humiliated and enraged, he took all his anger out on me. When he found out my mother was sick, he threatened to have her medication cut off if I didn't obey him. Powerless, I submitted. But he only pushed further, demanding I "sacrifice" myself to a greasy tycoon for the sake of the company. With no way out, I threw myself from the rooftop of the office building. After I died, my mother, consumed by guilt, took her own life. My father, unable to bear the successive blows, wandered into the middle of the road and was killed instantly by a truck that couldn't stop in time. When I opened my eyes again, I was six months in the past. I was back on the night the CEO made that first, fateful phone call. My head was a chaotic fog. All I could remember was the wind howling on the rooftop. When I hit the ground, there was a searing pain, and then, nothing. Death, it seemed, wasn't so terrible after all. But the pain vanished as quickly as it came. I opened my eyes again and found myself lying on the sofa. My father's gentle nagging filled the air. "Don't fall asleep on the couch, Anna. It's getting colder; you'll catch a cold." "I'm heading to the hospital to be with your mother in a bit. Dinner's on the table. Make sure you eat on time, okay?" My hand trembled uncontrollably. My father... wasn't he dead? My mother... she was still getting her medicine? Where was I? What time was it? I scrambled up, fumbling for my phone. The large clock and date on the screen confirmed it. I had been reborn, sent back six months in time. Back to the day my boss, Leo Cooper, made that mistaken call. In my past life, Leo had dialed my number by accident. But even though it was a mistake, he was captivated by my voice. He asked to add me on a messaging app. Soon after, we began a secret relationship. For six months, he was consumed with taking his company public, flying all over the world on business trips. We never even saw each other's faces. Then, on his birthday, he sent me an address. "It's been long enough," he wrote. "We should finally meet." I arrived, my heart fluttering with excitement, only to be met with his stunned, angry face. "What are you doing here?" I was frozen. If not me, who was he expecting? "I'm sorry, I don't date my employees. We're breaking up." His attitude did a complete 180. From then on, he made my life at work a living hell. I was a designer, but he sent me to a construction site to haul cement, forbidding me from leaving until I had moved five thousand pounds of it. He'd make the entire office work overtime, then send me out alone to buy dozens of meals for everyone, only to cancel the overtime at the last minute because it was "too late for everyone to get home safely." I thought about quitting, of course. But he used my sick mother as leverage. "If you quit, I'll have the hospital cut off her medication. You'll have all the money in the world and still won't be able to save her." I knew he could do it, so I endured. But my submission only made him bolder. He demanded I sleep with a disgusting tycoon to secure a deal for the company. The man was only a few years younger than my father but weighed four times as much. Worse, he was known throughout the industry for his sadistic tendencies. The young women he targeted all ended up with severe psychological trauma, vanishing from the professional world forever. Seeing no escape, my heart finally died. My phone was buzzing nonstop with his threatening texts. "Don't be ungrateful. It's just money you're after, isn't it? What else could you possibly want?" "Keep Mr. Harrison happy, and you'll be well compensated." Even then, he didn't forget to use my mother as a weapon. "You'd better think carefully. Your parents' lives are in your hands." Was my entire future just a choice between one form of submission and another? I stood on the rooftop of the company building, took a final leap, and ended my miserable life. But somehow, I was back. Just as the clock on my phone hit 7:13 p.m., it began to ring. Staring at the number I knew all too well, I didn't answer. I simply rejected the call. And sent back a text. "You have the wrong number. The last digit of her number is 9." 2 The phone rang again. Unsure of his intentions, I simply blocked the number. But moments later, a contact request popped up on my work messenger, sent from his phone number. After submitting a resume for another job, I accepted it. I was morbidly curious to see what he would say this time. The message came through instantly. "Are you psychic or something? How did you know who I was looking for?" That wasn't what he said in my past life. Back then, it was, "Your voice is incredible, like the first day of spring." I had thought it was the beginning of my happiness. I learned later that I was wrong. It was the beginning of my nightmare. He loved my voice but pictured someone else's face. My profile picture was similar to hers, and the last letter of our names was the same. A series of coincidences led him to believe I was her. This time, I hadn't let him hear my voice at all. I was sure things would be different. When I didn't respond, another message came through. "You must know who I am. Why aren't you saying anything?" "Are you nervous?" "Don't worry, I'm not one of those high-and-mighty types." He always said that. But in reality, Leo Cooper, the sole heir to the Cooper fortune and CEO of a massive corporation, looked down on people like me from the bottom of his heart. In his world, ordinary people like us were scum who would do anything to climb the social ladder. That's why, when he discovered his mistake, his first reaction wasn't self-reflection, but vile abuse. "You did this on purpose, didn't you!" "Have you looked in a mirror? What makes you think I'd ever be with someone like you!" "This is disgusting. The most humiliating thing that's ever happened to me." He had pulled a wad of cash from his wallet and thrown it in my face. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? Scheming to seduce me for money! Here, take it! Now get out!" I got out. But he never let it go. The endless bullying, the constant humiliation... it drove me to my death. Now, reading his words, I didn't believe a single one. It was almost laughable. I typed back a simple reply: Mr. Cooper, my name is Anna Shaw. I am not Stella Shaw. The chat went silent. The "..." indicating he was typing appeared and disappeared several times, but nothing came through. Just as I thought I might finally be free of this demon, a video call request popped up. My finger slipped, and I accidentally answered. On the other end, Leo was at a bar with his friends. Several handsome, smirking faces crowded the screen, staring at my side of the call. Then, they burst out laughing. It took Leo a long moment to compose himself. "Sorry about that," he said, still trying to suppress a chuckle. "My mistake. Wrong person." One of his friends shouted from off-screen. "Yeah, definitely not the beauty we saw last time. This one's so plain." "Seriously. And the acne... I thought it was a toad at first." The insults were just as cruel as they were in my past life. And just like before, Leo did nothing to stop them. But this time, I didn't get angry. I just smiled faintly. "I have to go. Goodbye, Mr. Cooper." 3 Perhaps it was my calm, unflustered demeanor that piqued his interest. He didn't let me go as I had hoped. Instead, he started sending me random, pointless messages every few days. "Have you ever been to Europe? It's beautiful when it snows here." "I love Portuguese red wine. What about you?" "Are the interns so busy they don't have time to reply to the CEO? When I get back, I'll have a word with your department head." He even punctuated that last one with a cute emoji. If this were my past life, his persistent attention would have charmed me. I would have quickly fallen into the illusion of a romance. But this time, I was calm. I knew he wasn't interested in me. He was driven by a need to conquer. In my past life, I had rejected him at first. I knew we were from two different worlds. But he had worn me down, starting with these same casual messages, slowly weaving himself into the fabric of my life. So many times, I truly believed I was special to him. But even before his birthday, I had started to see that he wasn't the man I imagined. He wasn't as innocent or as warm as he pretended to be. The moment we made our relationship "official," his attitude toward me cooled considerably. I didn't understand it then. I do now. Once he had conquered something, he lost interest. So this time, I didn't reply to any of his messages. When a response was unavoidable, I kept my tone cold and professional. "You're joking, Mr. Cooper. Our supervisor is very good to us, and the workload is perfectly reasonable." He sent back a voice message, a chuckle in his tone. "You're so serious. Can't take a joke at all, can you?" After listening to it, I exchanged a look with Stella, who sat at the desk across from me. She held up her phone with a disgusted expression. On her screen was a message from Leo, full of cloying flirtation. "Why are you ignoring me? Just because you're beautiful doesn't mean you can ignore people." "Talk to me, and big brother CEO will buy you candy when he gets back." Stella made a gagging motion and sent me a private message. "If I die of cringing, is that a workplace injury? Will the company cover it?" I replied, "Talk to him. Maybe big brother CEO will consider covering it." Stella shook her head so vigorously she looked like a bobblehead. Leo would never have guessed that a quiet, introverted person like me would approach Stella the moment I realized he was harassing her, just as he had in my past life. I had told her directly, "I know Leo Cooper is interested in you, but I'm advising you to stay far away from him." Most people would have seen it as a golden opportunity and dismissed my warning as jealousy. But Stella was a genuinely kind and simple soul, despite her stunning looks. She was stunned by my words. I thought she didn't believe me and was about to show her my chat history with Leo, but she grabbed my phone and turned off the screen. "I believe you," she said firmly. "We're the working class, he's the capitalist. Of course I believe you." "Just watch," I had told her. "He won't stop here." And I was right. After that, Leo started sending the same flirtatious messages to both of us simultaneously. He probably thought that with his status and looks, conquering two naive interns would be child's play. This time, however, he seemed to have miscalculated. No matter what he tried, we both remained completely indifferent.
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