Transmigrator vs Regressor [Rules of Revenge Book 1]

The scent of white lilies, cold marble, and expensive perfume shouldn't have been so terrifying. To Annabeth Qin, everything smells like a well-hidden trap. One moment, she had been gasping for air on the cold, wet cement, watching her fiancé, Edward, hand a blood-stained handkerchief to Arisa. Her life slowly drained from existence as she saw their expressions full of malice, disgust, and triumph from Arisa. She could remember the cold words her fiancé spoke to her before they walked away. "You really should have stopped being so unreasonable, Annabeth. Why do you have to always hurt Arisa just because you are jealous of her? You are nothing more than a disgrace, Annabeth. I will never love you." The next thing she felt after she died, the freezing rain was gone, replaced by the suffocating, arrogant and prideful air of the Qin family manor. Annabeth stood in the grand foyer, her hand gripping the handle of a worn, duct-taped suitcase. She looked down at her reflection in the polished floor. She was eighteen again. Her face was gaunt, her clothes were cheap, and her eyes were wide with a trauma that hadn't technically happened yet. "Annabeth? Don't just stand there like a statue. You're blocking the light." The voice belonged to her mother, Madam Aurelia Qin. She was draped in silk, pearls, and gold jewelry, looking at her biological daughter with the same clinical distaste one might show a smudge on a windowpane. "I'm sorry, Mother," Annabeth said. Her voice was raspy, unused to the weight of a living throat. "Mom! Is she here? Is sister finally home?" A girl descended the grand staircase, moving with a grace that felt almost ethereal. This was Arisa, the girl the Qins had adopted to fill the void Annabeth left behind sixteen years ago after she was kidn*pped as a child. As Arisa approached, Annabeth felt that familiar, nauseating pressure in the air. It was a subtle, golden warmth of aura that seemed to radiate from Arisa, making the room feel brighter and Arisa herself seem like a saint. In her past life, Annabeth had also been blinded by it. She was naive to think that she cared for her. Now, she recognized it for what it was: an unnatural pull. She stole her own fate. "Sister Annabeth!" Arisa cried, reaching out to clasp Annabeth's hands. "I've prayed every day for your return. Please, don't be nervous. This is your home now, too." In the previous timeline, Annabeth had wept and thanked her. This time, Annabeth stepped back, letting Arisa's hands hang in the air. The warmth in the room instantly turned to ice. "Annabeth, Arisa is being kind to you, and you act like she's a disease?" Annabeth's eldest brother, Julius, stepped out from the shadows of the dining hall, his eyebrows furrowed in a scowl. Behind him stood her other two brothers, their expressions equally guarded. "She's lived in the countryside for sixteen years, Julius," her second brother, Soren, muttered. "You can't expect her to have Arisa's manners overnight. You should expect her manners to be so low-class." "I don't expect manners," Julius snapped, looking at Annabeth. "I expect gratitude. Arisa didn't have to welcome a stranger like her into her home, yet she's the only one making an effort to do so." Annabeth looked at them—the brothers who would eventually stand by and watch her be destroyed slowly. "What an interesting scene," she said softly. "I thought this was supposed to be my biological home. I didn't realize I was nothing more than a guest in Arisa's house." The silence that followed was brittle. Her father, Lucius Qin, the current Qin clan patriarch, cleared his throat from the top of the stairs, looking down at the "disappointment" that was his own blood daughter. "Take her to the attic room," he commanded a servant. "We have the gala for the Lin Group tonight. Arisa needed to prepare. Annabeth, stay in your room. You aren't ready to be seen by the public yet." As the family crowded around Arisa, ushering her away to discuss designer gowns and jewelry, Annabeth picked up her own suitcase. She didn't wait for the servant. She walked toward the back stairs, her heart beating a steady, vengeful rhythm. She reached the second-floor landing when a door at the very end of the hall—a door usually kept locked according to her memories of her previous life—creaked open. A woman stood there, framed by the dim light of a room filled with monitors and stacks of paper. It was Anna, the second-oldest sister. The "Black Sheep" and the Qin family's geek. While the rest of the family wore designer labels, Anna was wearing an oversize sky blue shirt with knee-length beige shorts, her short dark hair tied to a half bun, and her eyes hidden behind blue-light-filtering oval glasses. Despite being labeled as a geek or nerd by everyone else, she carries herself far differently from everyone else. In her past life, Annabeth had avoided Anna, fearing her sharp tongue and otherworldly aura. But every time she found herself looking at her, she always felt like an overwhelming shadow who observed the world like their personal chessboard. She noticed that she even looked at her own family as nothing more than ants. Except for her. Anna looked at her like a mother who genuinely loved her child. To which, until now, she has no answer. Anna leaned against the door frame, a lollipop stick protruding from the corner of her mouth. She didn't look at Annabeth with disgust or pity. She looked at her with a terrifying, piercing curiosity. "You look different," Anna said. Her voice was low, carrying a strange, melodic rasp. Annabeth stopped. "I've had a long journey." "I'm not talking about your trip back here, kid," Anna muttered, stepping closer. She leaned in, sniffing the air around Annabeth, then smirked. "The others are choking on that disgusting, floral scent downstairs. But you, you smell like a funeral pyre." Annabeth's breath hitched. "What do you mean?" Anna reached out, her fingers brushing the strands of Annabeth's hair. For a second, that suffocating "golden aura" from Arisa that usually followed Annabeth into every room seemed to snap and vanish, unable to cross into Anna's personal space. "This damn script has a hole in it," Anna whispered, her eyes flashing with a sudden, manic brilliance. "I was wondering when someone would finally stop following the plot. Don't let them put out the fire in you, Annabeth. You're the only interesting person in this house." Without another word, Anna turned and vanished back into her room, the sound of a heavy bolt sliding into place echoing in the hallway. Annabeth stood in the dark, her fingers trembling—not with fear, but with a sudden, jolting realization. Anna wasn't under Arisa's spell. Anna saw everything and knew of her manipulations. Annabeth looked toward the attic, then back at the closed door of the mysterious second sister. I died once because I played by your so-called rules, Annabeth thought, looking toward the laughter of her "family" downstairs. This time, I won't be pushed around by you.