"Break off the engagement?"

Serena Caldwell stood there frozen, fingers pinching the letter sent from the army. It took her a long while to come back to herself. She had been reborn.

In her last life, just a few days before she was supposed to marry Spencer Colton, someone had drugged her and dumped her onto the bed of a strange man.

By the time she woke up, she had not even seen that man's face clearly, yet the whole village already knew.

Wherever she went, people pointed and cursed, calling her ruined goods. Only Spencer Colton had held her hand and said, "I don't care about any of that. I still want to marry you."

The Colton family had not said much out loud, but Serena understood it in her heart. She felt she owed Spencer Colton for the rest of her life, so she kept swallowing everything and enduring it.

Not until the Coltons had squeezed the last bit of use out of her and tormented her to death did she finally understand the truth—every bit of it had been a trap laid by the Colton family.

"Serena, Spencer's doing this for your own good too. He was badly hurt in the army. He doesn't have long left. He doesn't want to drag you down. Just think of it as granting his last wish and agree to end the engagement." Harriet Colton wiped at her tears as she spoke, all while holding Serena's hand and trying to persuade her.

Behind her, the rest of the Colton family all wore the same pained, heartbroken look.

Serena watched the whole act and found it laughable beyond words.

In her last life, she had believed them too, believed that Spencer Colton had been badly wounded and died in the army. To fulfill what she thought was his dying wish, she had agreed to break off the engagement.

But because she wanted to help him show filial duty to his family, she willingly supported the whole Colton household and never married for the rest of her life.

Farm work, mining work, construction work, driving freight trucks—anything a man could do, she did.

She raised Spencer Colton's three younger siblings, found jobs for them, helped arrange their marriages, and watched with her own eyes as each one of them went on to live a good life.

And what about her? Her body had long since been worked into the ground. In the end, she got cancer.

The Coltons were afraid she would become a burden, so they threw her out of the house.

It was only then that she learned the truth: that letter had been fabricated by the Colton family. Spencer Colton had never died at all. He had married in the army, had children, earned a promotion, and was living a happy, comfortable life. Without all those hangers-on from home, he had it easy.

Every one of the Coltons had known from the beginning to the end, yet they had kept her in the dark the whole time.

As for her, after being kicked out by the Colton family, she had not a penny to her name. She could not even afford treatment. In the end, she was reduced to begging on the street and froze to death by the roadside, with not a single person left to collect her body.

Maybe heaven had seen just how pitiful her life had been. That was why she had been given one more chance to start over.

The moment Serena Caldwell realized the whole thing had been cooked up by the Colton family, she stared at those sickening faces, hatred burning in her eyes. With a cold expression, right in front of everyone, she tore the breakup letter into tiny pieces.

"He wants to break off the engagement? In his dreams!"

"Oh, Serena, what are you doing?" The second Harriet Colton saw her rip up the letter, her face changed on the spot.

The rest of the Colton family looked just as stunned, like they had seen a ghost. Why did Serena suddenly seem like a completely different person?

Harriet’s heart started pounding too. Now that the letter was gone, how was she supposed to explain this to Spencer?

They had gone behind Spencer’s back and told him Serena had been acting shamelessly in the village, flirting around with men, and that was what pushed him into writing this letter. But to make it sound decent, to leave her a shred of face, they had dressed it up as a polite, respectable cancellation of the engagement.

They had thought that with how deeply Serena cared for Spencer, she would definitely agree to it. Who would have guessed she would tear the letter to pieces?

"Serena, I know you can’t accept it right away, but this is Spencer’s final wish. If you refuse, then when I die, I won’t even be able to close my eyes in peace."

Harriet knew Serena had always been soft-hearted. As long as she cried and put on a miserable act in front of her, Serena would usually give in to anything.

Serena looked at Harriet’s grief-stricken face. She looked so heartbroken it was as if her son had already died, yet Serena’s own face stayed flat and calm.

In the past, she had been soft, easy to talk to, easy to bully. That was why they had trampled on her and drained her dry for so many years.

But now that she had been given another life, she would never fall for their tricks again. She was going to the army herself. She would stand in front of Spencer Colton and ask him plainly what he really meant. And she would let everyone see what kind of people this family truly was.

"Exactly. Back then my brother wouldn’t listen to anybody and still insisted on marrying you. Because of that, people in the village talked behind his back for ages. He never once minded that you weren’t clean, and now he’s only asking for this one little thing. Why can’t you just do it for him? Do you even have a conscience?"

Leah Colton jumped in from the side and started scolding her too.

In her last life, Leah had always used that old matter to crush her, to keep her down, until Serena had almost started believing that being ruined had been her own fault, that she somehow owed Spencer for it.

So every time the subject came up, all she could do was lower her head and stay silent, letting them say whatever they wanted.

And it was exactly because she had always acted so weak that the Coltons came to think she was easy to control, easy to squeeze, easy to use however they pleased.

A cold laugh rose in her chest. Then she walked straight up to Leah and lifted her hand.

Slap.

The sharp sound cracked through the room and stunned the whole Colton family. Every one of them froze where they stood.

"Serena Caldwell, you cheap piece of trash nobody wants—you dared hit me?" Leah clutched her face, unable to believe it. She was her brother’s precious darling. Who did Serena think she was?

The moment those words left her mouth, Leah Colton had just started to raise her hand to hit back when Serena Caldwell caught her wrist clean and fast, then slapped her hard across the other side of the face.

Serena had spent years going into the mountains with her eldest brother to hunt. Of course she was stronger than Leah, who was still in school and spoiled rotten by the Colton family.

"My marriage to your brother isn’t over yet. Leah Colton, listen good. If you dare spit one more filthy word at me, I’ll slap you again and again till that mouth of yours is smashed shut."

Only then did the rest of the Colton family finally snap out of it. Seeing their sister get hit, Spencer Colton’s two younger brothers rushed forward at once, trying to back her up.

"Serena Caldwell, you shameless slut, you dare hit my sister?"

"Let go of my sister, you disgrace!"

Serena looked at the two little brats charging at her and kicked one of them over without the slightest hesitation.

The boys were still in primary school. They didn’t even understand what those ugly words really meant. No doubt they’d just heard the Colton family say them about her every day and copied it like parrots.

"This is outrageous. Just outrageous!" Frederick Colton’s face dropped on the spot when he saw his son get hit.

Harriet Colton was stunned too. Serena’s fierceness had shocked her so badly she just stood there, frozen.

Then, right in front of all of them, they watched Serena walk to the door, grab a broad hatchet, and come straight back into the room. She lifted it and brought it down hard on the locked cabinet.

"My money!" Harriet finally came to herself. All the family’s cash had been locked inside that cabinet.

But Serena knew perfectly well what was in there. The money Harriet had hidden away was all brought from Serena’s own family, along with what she had earned these past two months by hunting in the mountains. There was no way she was letting the Coltons swallow it for free.

Once she got the money, Serena went back to her room and packed up her things in quick, neat motions.

When Harriet saw she was about to leave, she hurried over and grabbed her arm. "Where do you think you’re going? Give me back that money."

"Give it back to you?" Serena let out a cold laugh. "If I remember right, every cent of this was brought by me. Your Colton family didn’t pay a single penny in betrothal gifts, so what gives you the nerve to eye my money?"

Right in front of Harriet, Serena sneered, then swung the hatchet down hard onto the table. It split apart on the spot.

Harriet was so scared she dropped straight to the floor, and her trousers were soaked through.

"You’d better remember everything your Colton family has done to me. I’m going to the army right now to ask Spencer Colton face to face. If he’s really dead, then fine—I’ll collect his corpse myself."