The Villainess Refused to Confess

"Tell me. Did you kill your sister?" On her deathbed, Mom clung to my hand with all her strength and kept pressing.

I'd barely opened my mouth when line after line of gold text drifted across my vision. [Don't you dare admit it!

This is a rebirth story where the whole family spoils the female lead—and everyone except you gets reborn!] [They'll swap the female lead back into the rich family and hand you over to the evil nanny, who'll sell you off to some backwoods family.] [And the livestream's still running.

Every word you say will be evidence that sends you to prison.] Reading those comments, I slammed the brakes on the truth that was already on the tip of my tongue.

When I looked up again, all that was left on my face was a sweet, obedient smile. "Mom, is the illness making you confused? My sister really did die from depression back then.

Did you forget?" Chapter 1 When the news came that my mom, Fiona Sutton, was gravely ill, I was in the Maldives. Feeding horses.

My mom had spent most of her life as a harddriving businesswoman, and yet on her deathbed she actually made the first move and softened toward her own kids. Honestly?

I was a little touched. Everyone out there said my mom loved her daughter more than life itself.

My brother graduated young from one of the world's toptier finance schools, and even so, the shares he got weren't a tenth of mine. Apart from my face, I was nothing like my mom.

Piano, painting, ballet—I couldn't do any of it. When I took the SAT, my combined score didn't even break 600. A pretty face with nothing upstairs, that's me.

And yet Mom favored me above everyone. She gave me enough money to live comfortably for ten lifetimes. Really? Of course not. Totally fake.

Any family with half a brain knows to put its resources behind the kid who'll amount to something, and my mom was a businesswoman to the bone.

She'd happily spend hours listening to my brother play piano, but couldn't spare even a moment to open the ridiculous little videos I sent her. Motherdaughter love: that fragile.

So when my mom came to me on her own, letting her guard down, I froze where I stood, a little lost. She apologized to me.

She said she'd been so busy with business for over twenty years that she'd missed me growing up, one milestone after another; said she'd never once regretted secretly switching me back after the evil nanny deliberately swapped me at birth; said I was her everything… After more than an hour of buildup, Mom changed direction. "There's one question I've carried my whole life.

Will you answer it for Mom?" Caught up in the moment, tears and snot streaming down my face, I nodded again and again. "Of course!" She pressed at once. "How did your sister really die, back then?" "That… is a long story." "Then make it short!" Mom got so worked up she choked on her own spit and nearly coughed herself to death.

As for how my adoptive sister died? Oh, I had plenty to say. It was a secret I'd been sitting on for nearly ten years, after all.

Just as I was about to launch into a passionate confession, gold text drifted past my eyes. [Don't say it! This is a rebirth story where the whole family dotes on the female lead!

Everyone except you has been reborn!] [The second you finish, Mom gets reborn back to when you and the female lead were swapped.

She'll quietly let your brother switch you and the female lead, and let the evil nanny sell you off to some backwoods family to suffer for the rest of your life!] Chapter 2 [Sigh, honestly, even if Mom doesn't get reborn, the villainess is done for.

The male lead planted a micro camera in that bookshelf in front of her, and it can livestream to the whole world in real time.

The second she admits it, she'll spend the rest of her life behind bars!] [Who cares, just move the plot along!

I want to see the female lead as a little kid, the soft, squishy little dumpling the whole family spoils! I'm crying, my heart is literally melting!] Wow.

My own fleshandblood mother, trying to screw me over one last time on her way out.

Once I'd read the comments, I swallowed the truth that had nearly slipped out and smiled sweetly as I dabbed the sweat from Mom's temples. "Mom, is the illness making you confused?

Back then my sister's depression flared up and she jumped. You were there too. Did you forget?" When I finished, some of the suspicion in Mom's eyes faded.

Without giving anything away, she glanced behind me, and her voice softened. "Really…? Then I guess Mom was wrong about you." The thermostat was set a little high.

Without thinking, I rolled up my sleeves. Against my pale skin, just below the cuffs of my exquisite designer blouse, the rows of angry red scars on my arms stood out all the more.

Mom looked away. I sat obediently on the sofa in front of her, patiently cut an apple into small pieces, and fed them to her.

For a moment, we actually felt a little like a loving mother and daughter. A few more lines of comments appeared. [Huh? The villainess didn't spill?

Can Mom still get reborn?] [In the novel, the villainess's confession made Mom so furious she died on the spot.

The global livestream got over a hundred million shares, and she became the first criminal ever put on trial by worldwide livestream!] [The villainess didn't spill, so there's nothing worth watching on the stream.

The male lead closed it from the backend. The plot's going offbook!] [Where's the female lead? Where's my big baby girl?

WTF, can the fucking idiot villainess hurry up and get written off already? Stop holding up my everyonespoilsher cutekid story AAAAAH!] Female lead?

The moment I saw those words, a soft, flawless, porcelainpretty face flashed into my mind on reflex.

Instantly, that face matched up with a name I'd loathed for over a decade. —Antonia Sutton. My adoptive sister. The nanny's daughter, who'd almost taken my place.

It wasn't like the classic novels, where the evil nanny swaps the babies and then, for no clear reason, spends over a decade abusing her own child.

When my mom switched me back, the nanny noticed something was off right away.

She spent a week on pins and needles, but in the end, the urge to secure a good future for her daughter won out.

The nanny stayed on with the Sutton family, and kept her daughter there with her. Antonia had been brilliant since she was little.

At three, she tagged along on my IQ test and was discovered to be a prodigy with a photographic memory.

At six, after I'd spent a week memorizing a piano score, she heard it just once and played it back.

At seven, at my birthday party, she composed a hundredword poem for my mom, praising how Mom had found herself again after the divorce and calling her the light she chased in her heart.

The whole room burst into applause. … One thing after another. Whatever I wanted to try, she showed staggering talent for it.

At first, Mom and my brother would hug me and comfort me. "Don't be sad, Esme. Mom and your brother don't need you to be exceptional.

Just be our little princess and be happy your whole life. That's enough." Until Antonia shyly invited Mom to come see her piano recital.

As luck would have it, Mom's business was unusually quiet that day, and as luck would have it, my brother had no homework. They both went.

Chapter 3 Under the spotlight, the little girl in a white gown, her face as pure as an angel's, thanked my mom and my brother from the bottom of her heart for making time to come see her perform.

Her smile was radiant.

After the show, Mom was surrounded by friends from the business world who'd also made time to come watch, all heaping on the compliments. "I thought Anthony was impressive enough, but who knew Ms.

Sutton's daughter would shine this bright too! Lucky you!" Antonia, Anthony. Names like a real brother and sister. Without meaning to, they stirred up Mom's competitive streak.

She started being hard on me. When I still hadn't gotten a piano piece down after two weeks of practice, my mom hit me for the first time. "Esme Sutton!

How did I end up with such a stupid daughter?" When my math scores landed at the bottom of my grade yet again, one more scar was added to my body. "You'll get dinner when you get every question on this test right." Later on, the scars crawled all over my body, thick and dense.

And I still didn't get any of it. Mom gave up on me. On my sixteenth birthday, in front of everyone, she took Antonia's hand and formally adopted her as her own daughter.

By then, Antonia's birth mother had long since quit and gone back to her hometown.

Antonia stayed on in the Sutton house, as if it were only natural, for more than ten years, bit by bit taking over my life. I developed severe depression.

Without my meds, I'd sink into terrifying mental states. I couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. Antonia started scheming. She swapped my meds for vitamins.

And time after time, she lured me up to the empty attic on the top floor of the school. Until the day of my twentieth birthday.

Thud— The sound of something heavy hitting the ground rang out through the mansion in the dead of night. Antonia had died by suicide, from depression.

That was the one and only conclusion every medical examiner reached. Her system contained high levels of antidepressants.

Because of the pressure my mom put on her, she'd been depressed for years. Heh. All I did was give her a taste of her own medicine.

I made one tiny little swap with her sleeping pills, that's all. My meds treat insomnia too, after all. Tell me that's not helping out. So that was the female lead.

Then who was the male lead? My childhoodsweetheart husband, Liam, or my own brother, Anthony, who'd always looked down on everyone?

The comments kept going strong. [Who wants to watch the villainess and Mom play loving mother and daughter?

Mom obviously hates the villainess's guts, and she still has to force down the apple the villainess feeds her.

My heart breaks for Mom, sob!] [Did the male lead believe the villainess?] [Of course not!

The male lead just texted Mom telling her to stall the villainess, and he's going to the female lead's old room to find out the truth!] [Mom really does love the female lead after all.

On her deathbed, all she wants is justice for her, even if the truth costs her own biological daughter her freedom.

I'm crying, love beat blood in the end!] Given: once I reveal the truth about Antonia's death, Mom instantly gets reborn, the game restarts, and the everyonespoilsher story begins.

Conclusion: they all get their happilyeverafter, and I die alone in some faraway place after a lifetime of misery. Why should they? I was so mad I actually laughed.

In the wall of botlike comments flooding the screen, I spotted a few that were completely different. [So if the villainess doesn't confess, the timeline can't keep going and they can't get reborn?

Then wouldn't this book be dead in the water?] [Dream on, commenter above. If the main plot collapses, the pocket world's will repairs the story on its own, unless…] Unless what?

The comment broke off right there. Chapter 4 I lowered my eyes to admire my fresh manicure, my gaze dark. The comments refreshed with a few new lines. [Here it comes, here it comes!

The world's will just dropped new evidence!

The male lead gets to the scene in three minutes!] [The world's will gave the male lead a direct order: don't let the villainess anywhere near the evidence!

He already texted Mom to stall the villainess. The plot's about to restart!] A shrill notification chime went off. I looked up and met Mom's eyes, flustered for once.

On reflex, she hid her phone behind her back. I stood up, reached around, and snatched the phone away from her