Adela walked into her bedroom and pushed the door shut.

Her body instantly lost all its strength.

She slid down the wooden door panel and hit the floor.

The freezing pool water and the harsh wind outside had sent her core temperature skyrocketing.

Her skin felt like it was on fire.

She forced herself to stand up, her legs shaking, and walked over to her desk.

She opened her old Apple laptop.

The cold blue light from the screen illuminated her unnaturally flushed cheeks.

Her vision swam, the glowing lines of code blurring into a chaotic mess. The high fever compromised her motor skills, making her trembling fingers hit the wrong keys twice. She painstakingly retyped the commands, her breathing shallow and ragged. She dug her nails into her thigh, using the sharp sting of pain to anchor her fading consciousness.

She bypassed the Franks family's internal network firewall through sheer willpower rather than ease.

She logged into the independent trust fund account her mother had left her before she died.

The screen displayed the strict conditions.

She had to turn eighteen, or receive an early admission letter from an Ivy League university, to unlock the principal funds.

Adela stared at the admission requirements for Yale University.

Her brain throbbed violently against her skull from the fever.

A loud knock echoed from the door.

Brenda, the head maid, pushed the door open without waiting for an answer, holding a silver tray.

Brenda saw Adela typing on the computer, and a calculating, spying look flashed in her eyes.

She slammed the tray down onto the nightstand.

The metal hit the wood with a sharp, annoying crash.

"Master Preston ordered me to bring you these fever pills," Brenda said, her tone dripping with disrespect.

She crossed her arms.

"The young masters are not home tonight. They took Miss Kalyn to a private hospital in Manhattan for a full-body checkup."

Brenda's words were a deliberate insult, reminding Adela that she was nothing but a nuisance.

Adela did not turn her head.

Her eyes remained locked on the glowing screen.

"Put it down and get out," Adela said, her voice freezing cold.

Brenda flinched at the sudden authority in Adela's tone.

She rolled her eyes in frustration and marched out of the room.

Adela walked over to the nightstand.

She stared at the two cheap, over-the-counter fever pills sitting in the small cup.

Memories from her past life flooded her mind.

Brenda used to crush heavy psychiatric sedatives into her medication to keep her docile and asleep.

Adela picked up the cup, walked straight into the bathroom, and flushed the pills down the toilet.

She walked back to her desk and slapped a physical cooling gel patch onto her burning forehead.

She opened the academic portal for her elite prep school.

She pulled up her transcript from the previous semester.

In her past life, she had purposely scored a C in AP Biology just to make sure Kalyn looked smarter.

Adela placed her hands on the keyboard and started typing an email to the school administration.

She requested an immediate retake of the exam.

The fever made her vision blur, the words on the screen doubling.

She dug her fingernails hard into her thigh, using the sharp pain to keep herself awake.

Outside the window, a heavy autumn rain began to fall, hitting the glass with dull thuds.

At exactly three in the morning, Adela finally clicked the send button on the email.

She closed the laptop.

Her body completely gave out, and she collapsed forward onto the desk.

Her mind raced, listing the independent tasks she had to complete at school tomorrow.

Burning with a high fever, she closed her eyes and fell into a shallow, restless sleep.

Early the next morning, a harsh notification sound from her phone woke Adela up.

She grabbed the device from her desk.

The school's anonymous gossip app, GossipHive, showed over a hundred new alerts.

The number one trending post was a blurry photo of Adela standing in the banquet hall last night in her wet clothes.

The caption read: "The evil fake princess went crazy with jealousy and pushed her sweet sister into the pool."

The comment section was flooded with students cursing at Adela and demanding she be expelled.

Adela touched her forehead. It was still burning hot, and a dull, throbbing ache hammered against her temples with every heartbeat. She swallowed hard, tasting the metallic tang of blood from her cracked lips.

The corner of her mouth twitched into a cold smirk.

She did not break down and cry like she used to.

She opened the backend terminal on her phone.

Using the elite engineering skills from her past life, her fingers moved rapidly.

In exactly three minutes, she traced the poster's hidden IP address.

The data pointed directly to Tiffany, the head cheerleader and Kalyn's most loyal follower.

Adela saved the screenshot of the IP logs.

She changed into her crisp, pressed school uniform and walked out the door.

She stepped into the wide, marble-floored hallway of her elite prep school.

The moment the students saw her, they scattered like she had a disease, whispering and pointing at her back.

Adela kept her eyes straight ahead.

She walked to her locker and punched in her combination.

Tiffany marched down the hall, flanked by three other girls, looking aggressive.

Tiffany slammed her hand hard against the metal locker next to Adela's.

The loud bang echoed down the hall.

"How do you even have the nerve to show your face here, you attempted murderer?" Tiffany mocked loudly.

The students in the hallway stopped walking.

Several people pulled out their phones, ready to record the fight.

Adela slowly placed her textbook into her backpack.

She turned around.

Her throat was raw from the fever, making her voice raspy, but it carried a piercing weight.

She called out Tiffany's full legal name.

Adela shoved her phone screen directly into Tiffany's face.

The screen displayed the exact IP tracking data and Tiffany's hidden account details.

Tiffany stared at the screen.

All the color instantly drained from her face.

Adela took one step forward, invading Tiffany's personal space.

She lowered her voice so only the two of them could hear.

"If you do not delete that post and issue a public apology in the next ten minutes," Adela whispered.

"I will send the bank transfer records of you buying the SAT answer keys last month directly to the admissions office."

Tiffany's pupils shook violently.

She stared at Adela in pure terror, realizing the girl standing in front of her was completely different.

Adela took a step back, her voice returning to a normal volume.

"Now, move out of my way," Adela commanded.

Tiffany jumped backward like she had been burned, crashing into the student behind her.

Under the shocked stares of the entire hallway, Tiffany frantically pulled out her phone and started deleting the post.

Adela didn't even glance at her.

She grabbed her backpack and walked toward her classroom.

The hallway was dead silent.

Every single student was paralyzed by the freezing, dominant aura radiating from Adela.

Adela sat in the back row of the AP Biology classroom, right next to the window.

Her fever was spiking again, causing her vision to double and blur.

Kalyn walked into the classroom surrounded by a group of girls, soaking up their attention.

Kalyn scanned the room.

Her eyes immediately locked onto Adela, who was pale but sitting with her spine perfectly straight.

A flash of deep jealousy crossed Kalyn's eyes, but she quickly masked it with a look of extreme worry.

Instead of walking to her seat in the front row, Kalyn walked straight toward Adela's desk.

Every student in the room instantly turned their heads to watch them.

Kalyn spoke in a soft, gentle voice, making sure everyone could hear her.

"Sister, are you still mad at me?" Kalyn asked.

Adela kept her eyes glued to the cell division diagram on the whiteboard, treating Kalyn like thin air.

Kalyn bit her lower lip and pushed further.

"The brothers were just really worried about me last night. Please don't blame them for yelling at you."

The words sounded like an apology, but they were a deliberate flex.

The students around them immediately started glaring at Adela with disgust.

Adela finally turned her head.

She looked Kalyn in the eye and spat out two words.

"Get lost."

Kalyn gasped, pretending to be terrified by Adela's tone.

She jerked her body backward dramatically.

Her waist hit the edge of the adjacent desk with perfect precision.

She knocked over a plastic box filled with glass microscope slides.

The box hit the floor, and the glass shattered with a sharp crash.

Kalyn let out a loud scream and fell to the floor, landing right in the middle of the broken glass.

She quickly dragged the back of her hand across a sharp piece of glass.

A thin line of bright red blood welled up on her skin.

Kalyn grabbed her arm and started sobbing loudly.

The classroom exploded into chaos.

Tiffany was the first to rush forward, pointing a shaking finger at Adela.

"Everyone saw that! She pushed Kalyn into the glass!" Tiffany screamed.

The angry students immediately swarmed Adela's desk, trapping her in the corner.

The biology teacher ran in from the hallway.

When he saw the blood on Kalyn's arm, his face turned white.

He pointed strictly at Adela.

"You need to come with me to the principal's office right now!" the teacher demanded.

Adela placed both hands flat on her desk, trying to push herself up to defend herself.

But the prolonged high fever and the intense mental focus she had used earlier had completely drained her body.

The room started spinning violently. A cold sweat drenched her back, and her lungs simply refused to draw in any more oxygen.

The loud, angry voices of the students morphed into a high-pitched ringing in her ears.

Through the gaps in the crowd, she saw Kalyn looking up at her.

Kalyn was smiling-a toxic, victorious smirk.

Adela's legs completely lost all muscle control.

Her body pitched forward.

She crashed heavily onto the cold linoleum floor and instantly lost consciousness.

The classroom went dead silent for one second before erupting into panicked screams.

The teacher frantically ordered two boys to pick Adela up and carry her to the clinic.