Ficorpio
Chapter 1
In my last life, I claimed the elite university placement that Evelyn Hayes, the darling of high society, had thrown away.
After graduation, I married into one of the wealthiest families in the country. In the space of a few years, I went from a poor farm girl to the wife of the nation’s richest man.
By twenty-eight, I had made every choice that mattered and seized every opportunity that could change my fate.
Then I opened my eyes and found myself eighteen again.
Lines of floating text appeared in front of me.
[The heroine has unbelievable luck. She stole the life that was supposed to belong to the supporting girl.]
[In her last life, Evelyn must have lost her mind. She gave up her guaranteed place at an elite university to follow some broke loser to a third-rate college. Then she handed the future billionaire who had adored her since childhood to another woman. She had every advantage and still ruined her own life!]
[The plot forced her to become stupid just to clear the heroine’s path. Thank God she’s been reborn. This time, the supporting girl is going to take back everything!]
[I want to see how Claire Bennett plans to play the heroine when she no longer has Evelyn’s life to steal.]
Claire Bennett was me.
But who said I couldn’t still be the heroine?
Anyone who waited until something was gone before trying to reclaim it had already lost.
I blinked through the haze and found myself staring into the ecstatic eyes of my deskmate, Evelyn Hayes.
She shot out through the classroom’s back door and raced into the room next door, shouting for Ethan Sterling, the man who had become my husband in my previous life.
She threw herself against the teenage boy and burst into tears.
“Ethan, I swear I won’t make the same mistake this time!”
Ethan stood frozen for several seconds. Then delight broke across his face, and he fumbled to comfort her.
The floating comments appeared again.
[Now that’s more like it! A high-society heiress belongs with a billionaire heir. Why should some country nobody like Claire Bennett get the triumphant heroine storyline?]
[Claire Bennett is a thief. All she did was snatch up what Evelyn discarded. We’ll never accept someone like her as the heroine!]
[Thank God Evelyn finally came to her senses. This time, Claire can crawl back to the farm where she belongs!]
Dazed, I lowered my gaze to the math workbook on my desk. The dense formulas covering the page confirmed the impossible.
I truly had returned to my senior year.
There was only one month left before the national university entrance exams.
A moment later, someone slid into the seat beside me.
Chapter 2
Evelyn’s eyes were red from crying, but they shone with almost feverish excitement. She curled her lips into a smug smile, absolute confidence written across her face.
“Claire Bennett, I’m taking back everything that belongs to me. Just wait and see.”
I smiled but said nothing.
I was looking forward to it too.
Given a second life, what kind of future would I build for myself this time?
The class bell rang, and our homeroom teacher walked in with a smile lighting up her face.
Evelyn Hayes looked ecstatic.
The comments on the livestream flashed by at dizzying speed.
【Here it comes! The heiress is getting her recommendation notice!】
【This is the first turning point that changed Claire Bennett’s fate. If she hadn’t stolen the university recommendation that belonged to the heiress, how could she ever have gotten into Tsinghua?】
【People who steal the fruits of someone else’s hard work without putting in the effort themselves are nothing but rats crawling through the sewers. And in the end, she even stole the heiress’s fiancé and became the wealthy wife everyone envied. Shameless!】
The next second, Ms. Harper spoke.
“Evelyn Hayes, congratulations. You’ve officially received Tsinghua University’s recommendation placement!”
A burst of enthusiastic applause filled the classroom.
Evelyn looked at me with a trace of regret.
“Although you and Evelyn both won awards in the competition, there was only one recommendation available.”
In my previous life, Evelyn’s competition score had been half a point higher than mine. Once the rankings were finalized, I was eliminated.
But to everyone’s surprise, Evelyn refused the placement.
“Teacher, a recommendation is the lowest-level option for someone like me. Give it to someone who truly needs it.”
After she said that, every student in the class looked at her differently.
Ms. Harper even teased her. “Then I’ll wait for Evelyn to become the top scorer in the entire state and bring glory to our school!”
The truth was that Evelyn had already been manipulated by her school-bully boyfriend, Mason Reed. She had sworn that the two of them would attend the same university and fall into a passionate, earth-shattering romance.
She was tired of hiding from everyone. She was tired of living like a criminal, sneaking around just to hold his hand.
Evelyn was showered with praise.
Meanwhile, when I accepted the recommendation placement, everyone mocked me.
“Charity.”
“Always looking for a loophole.”
“Shameless.”
I hadn’t cared.
My scores had hovered around the cutoff for the country’s top universities, so I treasured that opportunity more than anyone.
Chapter 3
Evelyn had the privilege of surviving a disappointing exam result. As a girl from the countryside, I didn’t.
A secure future mattered more than a few careless insults.
But this time, Evelyn’s voice rang out with absolute conviction.
“I accept Tsinghua’s recommendation placement!”
As the classroom filled with envious murmurs, Evelyn turned to me.
“You must be terribly disappointed, Claire Bennett.”
[Of course she is. Claire’s probably grinding her teeth to dust right now!]
[This recommendation placement is so satisfying! Evelyn dumped that delinquent bully, and now she gets to attend the same university as the male lead!]
Evelyn drew a deep breath. Her body trembled faintly, as though she had finally begun to believe that she truly had been given another life.
“I’m sorry, but this recommendation placement belongs to me.”
I gave her a faint smile.
“Congratulations.”
Ten years.
In my previous life, from eighteen to twenty-eight, I had gone straight from my bachelor’s degree through my master’s and doctorate. All the while, I had worked myself to the bone climbing the ranks at Sterling Group.
Evelyn, meanwhile, had spent those same years playing a tiresome game of chase with the school bully: fighting, reconciling, getting pregnant, having an abortion out of spite, and running away from home.
What I had gained over her wasn’t merely ten years of knowledge. I had learned how to judge a situation accurately, and I had earned the confidence to face anything without fear.
The national entrance exam was only one test.
This time, I trusted myself completely. Barring some unforeseen disaster, I would not fail.
But Evelyn mistook my composure for stubborn bravado. She looked at me with open disdain.
“I can’t wait to see your face when the exam results come out in two months.”
She was practically glowing with triumph, as though my humiliation were already guaranteed.
Her triumph lasted less than a single class period.
Then Mason Reed appeared, and every trace of color drained from her face.
Mason was the school’s resident troublemaker. He was also Evelyn’s current boyfriend.
As the only daughter of the wealthy Hayes family, Evelyn had grown up at the very top of the city’s social elite. Mason’s reason for pursuing her couldn’t have been more obvious.
He stormed into the classroom and kicked the front of my desk so hard it jolted across the floor.
“I thought we agreed we’d go to the same college. What the hell is this supposed to mean?”
Evelyn glared at him.
“Why should I do what you want? With your grades, you’ll be lucky to get into some third-rate college. How dare you even ask me that?”