The next morning, the reality of that three-thousand-five-hundred-dollar mansion still sat heavy in Cari's chest as she walked into the lecture hall.

She adjusted the straps of her worn-out backpack and stepped through the doors.

The loud chatter in the room died for a single, heavy second.

Students quickly looked away, shifting in their seats like she carried a disease. No one wanted to be near the disgraced fake daughter.

Cari kept her face blank. She walked up the steps to the very back row and sat in an empty corner seat.

She pulled out a notebook and a pen, resting her hands on the desk.

Professor Theron Wallace walked up to the podium. He tapped his knuckles against the chalkboard.

"Listen up," Professor Wallace announced. "The core film project for this semester starts today."

He explained that the class would divide into groups. They had until next week to secure a filming location that fit the theme of a high-end, luxury lifestyle.

The heavy wooden doors of the classroom swung open.

Harper Zamora walked in, surrounded by three of her followers.

Harper wore a custom-tailored suit that looked simple but screamed money. She smiled softly and waved at the class.

She walked straight to the center seat in the front row, soaking in the jealous and admiring stares from the room.

Rory Corrigan immediately leaned over from the next seat.

"Harper," Rory asked loudly, making sure the whole room could hear. "Where did you go for the weekend?"

Harper lowered her voice, but kept it just loud enough to carry.

"My parents rented a beach house for me in the Hamptons," Harper said casually.

Rory gasped, her voice echoing up the tiered seating. "The Hamptons? The prime lots? The monthly rent must be astronomical!"

Harper covered her mouth with her hand and let out a soft, fake laugh.

"It wasn't too bad, really," Harper said, looking down modestly. "Only about eight dollars a month."

The entire classroom erupted into a collective gasp.

Students in the front rows turned their heads, staring at Harper with pure worship in their eyes.

In the back corner, Cari's hand jerked.

The tip of her pen dug into the notebook paper, tearing a deep line across the page.

Her mind did the math again. A Hampton beach house for eight dollars. This world was completely insane.

Professor Wallace clapped his hands loudly, cutting through the noise.

"Alright, settle down," he said. "Which group wants to share their location plan first?"

Rory suddenly stood up. She turned around and pointed her finger straight at Cari in the back corner.

A nasty smile stretched across Rory's face.

"Professor, Cari should handle the location," Rory announced loudly. "She spent years living in the Zamora mansion. She knows all about luxury."

Every head in the room snapped toward Cari.

Their eyes were filled with mockery and cruel amusement.

Harper turned around in her seat. Her face shifted into a mask of pure pity.

"Rory, don't be mean," Harper said, her voice dripping with fake sweetness. "Cari can barely afford to eat right now."

Harper paused, letting the silence hang before delivering the final blow.

"Cari, if you really can't find a place, I can ask my parents to let you use the maid's quarters at our house for your shoot."

The words "maid's quarters" triggered a roar of laughter from the entire class.

Cari felt the malice hitting her from all sides. Her stomach tightened, but her eyes grew colder.

She slowly stood up from her chair.

Her movements were steady. There was no panic in her body.

She looked straight into Harper's fake, pitying eyes. Her voice rang out, clear and sharp.

"Keep your maid's room, Harper," Cari said flatly. "I will provide a location far more high-end than your cheap little Hampton rental."

Rory clutched her stomach and laughed loudly.

"Are you going to take us to a homeless shelter?" Rory mocked.

Professor Wallace pushed his glasses up his nose. He looked at Cari with a strict frown.

"Miss Butler, if you fail to secure a location, you will fail this course," he warned.

Cari grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder.

She walked down the steps and out the door without looking back.

Cari pushed through the heavy glass doors of the university cafeteria.

Her stomach cramped with sharp hunger pains. The smell of grilled cheese burgers filled the air, making her mouth water.

She walked over to a self-service reloading machine against the wall.

She dug into her pocket and pulled out the original owner's campus card. The edges of the plastic were worn and peeling.

Cari slid the card into the slot. The screen prompted her to enter a reload amount.

Out of pure habit from her past life, she typed in the number one hundred.

The moment her finger hit the green confirm button, the machine let out a piercing, high-pitched red alarm.

The screen flashed violently.

The cashier, who had been dozing on a stool nearby, jerked awake. His eyes went wide with panic as he looked at Cari.

Two large campus security guards sprinted across the cafeteria.

Their hands rested heavily on the batons at their belts. They looked at Cari like she was holding a bomb.

The students waiting in line backed away quickly, staring at her in fear.

"Step away from the machine!" one of the guards yelled. "Are you trying to hack the financial grid?"

Cari raised both her hands in the air, her heart pounding against her ribs.

"I just wanted to put a hundred dollars on my card to buy lunch," she said, her voice tight.

The cashier sucked in a sharp breath.

"A hundred dollars?" the cashier screamed. "A hundred dollars could buy a massive luxury estate in Beverly Hills!"

Cari felt like she had been hit by a truck.

She stood frozen. The blood drained from her face. A wild, impossible thought struck her, but she immediately pushed it away. "Ten thousand times? That's completely absurd... But if it's true... then my savings?" She backed away from the machine, her hands shaking as she pulled out her phone. She needed proof. She had to verify this insane theory before she lost her mind. As she stared at the screen, all the absurd pieces of information finally snapped together in her brain. The prices and the value of money in this world had been compressed by exactly ten thousand times.

While the guards checked the machine for a system error, Cari grabbed her card from the slot.

She turned and ran out of the cafeteria as fast as her legs could carry her.

She did not stop until she reached a secluded wooden bench by the campus lake.

Her chest heaved. She gasped for air, her fingers shaking as she pulled her cracked phone from her pocket.

She took a deep breath to steady her racing heart and tapped the familiar Bank of America app icon.

The facial recognition scanned her features.

The screen loaded, displaying the original owner's account balance in bold black numbers.

$854,000.00.

Cari stared at the number. Her eyes burned.

In this world, that balance gave her the purchasing power of eight and a half billion dollars.

Her hands trembled with excitement. She immediately tapped the transfer button, trying to move one single cent to buy a burger.

A bright red pop-up blocked the screen.

[FUNDS STATUS: ESCROWED]

Cari's smile vanished. Her stomach dropped like a stone.

She slammed her hand against the wooden bench in frustration.

Suddenly, the phone screen went completely black.

A golden, high-tech interface slowly faded into view.

Large letters in the center read: WEALTH UNLOCK PROTOCOL.

Below the title was a detailed escrow agreement.

Cari read the terms quickly. Her eyes darted back and forth across the screen.

The only way to unlock her frozen funds was to complete specific gig economy tasks.

The protocol stated that the wages earned from these gigs would unlock her escrowed money at a one-to-one ratio based on her original world's currency value.

If she earned a daily wage of twenty dollars in gig pay, it would unlock two hundred thousand dollars of her available balance.

Cari let out a breath.

This golden finger gave her billions, but forced her to work at the bottom of society to access it.

She immediately opened the app store and downloaded a local gig app called GigMatch.

She registered an account.

The first urgent, high-paying job on the home page caught her eye.

It was a banquet server position at the Cloud Crest luxury hotel.

The job required her to start immediately. The daily pay was twenty cents.

In her current reality, twenty cents meant unlocking two thousand dollars of cold, hard cash.

Cari did not hesitate. She hit the accept button.

Her eyes locked onto the screen, burning with a desperate hunger for wealth.

Cari stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the towering, gold-tinted glass of the Cloud Crest hotel in midtown Manhattan.

She followed the navigation map around the side of the building and pushed open the heavy metal door to the employee entrance.

A wave of air hit her face, smelling strongly of industrial bleach and cheap coffee.

She walked down the narrow hallway to the supervisor's office to check in.

Trina Sharp sat behind a metal desk, slowly painting her fingernails bright red.

Trina looked up. Her eyes dragged up and down Cari's faded t-shirt and scuffed sneakers.

A loud, mocking scoff left Trina's lips.

"We don't need anyone," Trina said flatly, waving a hand to dismiss her. Trina wanted to give the shift to her own cousin.

Megan Keller, another server carrying a stack of folded uniforms, stopped in the doorway.

"Trina, the GigMatch system already confirmed her," Megan said quickly. "If you reject her now, the platform will hit the hotel with a massive cancellation fee."

Trina rolled her eyes hard.

She reached under the desk and threw a bundled uniform at Cari's chest. It was clearly a size too small.

Cari caught the fabric. She didn't argue.

She gave Megan a small nod of thanks and walked into the locker room.

When Cari came back out in the tight uniform, Trina pointed a sharp fingernail at her.

"You take the VIP private dining room," Trina ordered. It was the heaviest, most stressful section.

Cari loaded a massive silver tray with heavy metal cutlery and three bottles of champagne.

She balanced the tray on her shoulder and walked steadily through the maze of kitchen hallways.

She reached the heavy oak doors of the top-tier VIP room at the end of the hall.

Just as she raised her hand to knock, a busboy hurriedly pushed past her to exit the room, leaving the heavy oak doors slightly ajar in his rush. A familiar voice drifted through the resulting gap. Cari's hand froze in mid-air. Her eyebrows pulled together. She leaned closer, peering through the open space before the heavy door could swing completely shut.

The room was dimly lit with crystal chandeliers. A group of wealthy kids sat around a long mahogany table.

Cari's eyes instantly locked onto the young man sitting near the head of the table.

Her stomach twisted violently.

It was her boyfriend, Hamlin Ross. The guy who always claimed he was a broke student and made her split every penny with him.

Right now, Hamlin was wearing a perfectly tailored designer suit. A thick Rolex watch caught the light on his wrist.

Hamlin held a glass of red wine, leaning forward with a sickeningly eager smile.

He was toasting Harper Zamora, who sat at the head of the table.

Cody Boggs, one of the rich followers, slammed his hand on the table and laughed.

"Hamlin, you really worked hard pretending to be poor just to get into the Zamora circle," Cody mocked loudly. "Did the fake daughter ask you for grocery money today?"

Hamlin let out a short, cruel laugh. He waved his hand dismissively.

"Cari is a desperate beggar," Hamlin sneered. "Looking at her makes me sick."

Hamlin turned his attention back to Harper.

"I only dated her to get close to your family, Harper," Hamlin said, his voice dripping with loyalty. "I gathered all her embarrassing secrets just for you."

Harper covered her mouth with her hand, her shoulders shaking with a delicate laugh.

"You did well, Hamlin," Harper praised him. "Like a very obedient dog."

Outside the door, Cari stood completely still.

The heavy silver tray dug into her shoulder. Her fingers gripped the edge of the tray so hard her knuckles turned stark white.

A sharp, stabbing pain hit her chest as the original owner's lingering emotions flared up.

But Cari's eyes were dead and cold.

A brutal, icy smile slowly formed on her lips.

She took a deep breath, shifting the heavy tray entirely to her left hand.

She freed her right hand and gripped the heavy brass handle of the door.

Down the hall, Trina walked around the corner. She saw Cari standing still and immediately opened her mouth to yell.

Inside the room, the laughter paused at the sound of Trina's approaching footsteps.

Cari ignored Trina completely. Her eyes stayed locked on Hamlin through the crack.

She pulled her right leg back, shifting all her weight, and prepared to strike.