Right at that moment, the Postman pedaled up on a heavy old bicycle and hollered at the foot of the mountain:
"Letter for the Fox family! From Seaview City!"
Everyone froze.
I'd sent it.
Inside was fifty dollars and a photo of me in front of a Seaview City landmark. I was wearing a trendy Hong Kong-style blouse, hair in big bouncy waves, smiling with the kind of confidence that said I owned the place.
The letter was simple:
"Dad, Mom, I'm doing pretty well in Seaview City. Gold is everywhere here—if you're willing to bend down, you can pick up money. Take these fifty dollars and buy some meat. Don't miss me too much."
That letter was an atomic bomb dropped into a cesspit.
It detonated.
Jade stared at the glamorous, glowing version of me in the photo, then down at her own mud-caked hands covered in blood blisters. Her eyes turned so red they looked ready to bleed.
"Why… why!"
She'd been reborn!
She'd stolen the cheat code!
So why was I living even better than last time?
While she was here choking down scraps and chaff, still being squeezed by her parents to pay off debts?
"It's all lies… The gold has to be in the Back Hills!"
Jade snapped.
She shoved her parents aside, grabbed Quinn's hunting rifle, stormed back into the house, and aimed it at him where he lay drunk.
"Get up! Go dig for ore! If we don't find gold today, I'll die right in front of you!"
She was certain that once they struck gold, all her problems would vanish.
She was certain that the fortune from her past life was waiting in that cave.
Unfortunately, memories lie. Especially when jealousy blinds you.
People's memories can be ridiculous.
Jade only remembered that Quinn and I had gotten rich, and that the Back Hills were involved. But she forgot that the mine's structure was treacherously complex.
In my past life, I'd gone in inch by inch, rope tied around Quinn's waist, testing every step. We only dared chip away tiny amounts at a time, always bracing with wooden stakes.
And Jade now? She was a gambler who'd lost her mind.
She forced Quinn to grab explosives and a pickaxe and head straight for what looked most like a "gold mine entrance." In reality, it was an abandoned limestone cave with rock layers that had long since destabilized.
"Dig! Dig until you drop!"
Jade stood at the cave mouth, still clutching my photo. She tore it to shreds.
Quinn was drunk, but a hunter's instincts screamed danger.
"Woman, something's wrong here… the rocks are crumbling…"
"Shut up! Evelyn got rich in Seaview City! Are we supposed to beg while sitting on a gold mine? Dig!"
She kicked him square in the back.
Rage flared through Quinn. Fueled by alcohol, he swung the pickaxe down hard.
Rumble—
Not the sound of gold.
The sound of a mountain collapsing.
The rock ceiling caved in like crumbling tofu.
In that split second, Jade saw Quinn lunge toward her and shove her toward the entrance.
It wasn't love.
Pure survival instinct—finding something to brace against, using it to launch himself out.
Too late.
Boulders crashed down.
More than half of Quinn's body was crushed to pulp. He died instantly.
Jade had been pushed partway out, but her left leg was still pinned beneath a boulder weighing several hundred pounds.
Only her shrieks echoed through the valley.
By the time villagers pulled her free, the leg was destroyed. Comminuted fracture. Nerve death.
Amputation.
When Jade woke, she was lying on a clinic bed.
Her left leg was gone.
"My gold… where's my gold…"
