Chapter 1

We went back to Alfred's hometown for the wedding, and his parents had set a fire pit at the door.

"An outsider who wants to enter this house has to step over the fire pit."

"It burns away the bad luck from your side and a girl's pride, so you'll settle down and live a proper life."

I was furious, and without a second thought I meant to refuse.

But my husband, Alfred Edwards, took my hand and begged me.

"I had Julia set up this fire pit specially. There's no open flame at all. Just lift your feet and step over it."

"If you won't cross it today, tomorrow the whole family will be a laughingstock."

I couldn't refuse, so I swallowed my anger and agreed.

But the moment I stepped close, the pit that looked long since burned out suddenly exploded into roaring flames.

When I woke, I was burned over my whole body, in a state worse than death.

Alfred, though, wept with joy and signed to end my treatment right in front of me.

"That motion-triggered exploding fire pit Julia prepared really worked."

"Go in peace. Julia and I will treasure the inheritance your parents left you."

I understood everything, and I could change nothing. I died with hatred in my heart...

Given a second chance,

I looked at the four people in front of me, each wearing a different expression, and I smiled.

If crossing the fire pit was so good, then the unluckiest one, Alfred, should cross it too...

One:

"Rissa, I know you're highly educated, and I don't understand any grand principles. All I know is that a bride crossing a fire pit is a custom. It's for a smooth start, for peace."

"You married into this family, so of course you want the best for us. For the family's sake, surely you can do this one small thing?"

"If you won't, then next time anything goes wrong in this house, people will say it's because you refused to cross the fire pit today. Wouldn't that be terrible?"

My in-laws, Grant Edwards and Anna Harding, stood in front of me smiling so wide their eyes disappeared.

They pointed at the fire pit and ran through the speech they'd prepared in advance, then moved to flank me, one on each side, ready to lead me across.

I swallowed the refusal right there.

Because I realized I had been reborn.

In my last life, when I found that the Edwards family, who had promised me no feudal wedding customs, had set out a fire pit anyway, I was livid. I refused on the spot and turned straight for the car to leave.

But Alfred blocked me, refusing to let me go, and cried and pleaded through so much that I had no way to back down. Cornered, I was forced to cross the pit, and Julia Pruitt, his little childhood sweetheart, had rigged it to explode. It burned me badly.

After I was admitted to the hospital,

these same people turned it back on me in front of the investigators, weeping that the fire pit had been mine.

"We told her crossing a fire pit was dangerous. We didn't want to do it."

"But Rissa insisted she was some kind of cursed jinx who'd doomed her own blood relatives, that she had to cross the pit to burn off the bad luck. Who knew the pit she'd set up would suddenly explode?"

Because there was no evidence that they'd done it, the investigation was wrapped up carelessly.

And that wasn't enough for them. So no one would suspect them of seizing a childless spouse's whole estate, and so they could profit off my death,

they even put the whole thing online, smearing me, until warmhearted strangers who'd had doubts came around to believing I'd gotten myself killed. One after another they said the Edwardses had a blessed house, and I was the one without any blessing to enter it.

After Alfred and Julia announced their marriage, everyone piled on with congratulations....