Reborn as the scapegoat
Lily never expected her second chance at life to begin with her lying on the cold floor of a mansion she had never seen before. She woke up in a stranger’s body. Before she could sit up, a soft chime echoed inside her mind, followed by a voice that made her heart freeze.
“Binding complete. The New Scapegoat System has selected you.”
In one breath, Lily learned she had been thrown into the life of the infamous villainess Lily Cross—the disgraceful wife who ruined reputations, ruined relationships, and would eventually be ruined herself. According to the system, if she wanted a real chance to live again, she had to survive the fate of a woman destined to die as everyone’s convenient scapegoat.
The original Lily had destroyed the romance between the male lead and Molly, the world’s chosen heroine. She abused her title as Mrs. Cross until the day the world finally crushed her. Her ending was miserable: abandoned, humiliated, betrayed, and killed.
Lily, now wearing that same body, felt her soul tremble.
Absolutely not.
Her very first thought wasn’t noble or heroic.
“Quick—get a divorce!”
She knew the plot. She knew the ending. She knew that staying with Jacob Cross was her death sentence. The man was cold, unreadable, and in the original story, he never once looked at Lily with anything but disappointment.
So Lily ran to him with red eyes and trembling lashes, holding a divorce agreement that her hands pretended to fear—but her heart secretly celebrated.
“Hurry up and sign, you gorgeous walking iceberg…”
“I need to escape this storyline before I die again…”
“After this, I’m going to drink, dance, and maybe find a handsome idol or two to comfort me—”
But Lily didn’t know the world had changed the moment she arrived.
The New Scapegoat System had a flaw. A glitch that should have been impossible.
Jacob Cross—her cold, untouchable husband—could hear every single one of her thoughts.
She thought she was being subtle. She thought she was acting. She thought her inner commentary was safe.
Jacob heard it all.
The panic. The sass. The secret celebration.
And worst of all… the part about handsome young singers.
His pen hovered above the divorce line. His jaw tightened. His eyes darkened in a way that sent a strange shiver down her spine.
Then, in a voice that vibrated with something she couldn’t name, he said:
“…I’m not divorcing.”
Lily froze.
“Eh?”
And with that single sentence, everything in the story shifted. The villainess who just wanted freedom and the husband who wasn’t supposed to care became locked in a dangerous, unpredictable dance—one filled with crackling tension, sharp-tongued thoughts, jealous sparks, unexpected desire, and a possessiveness Jacob never knew he had.
While the world still expects Lily to be the villain and Molly to be the heroine, Lily begins tearing apart the story with her calm intelligence, her sharp intuition, and her ability to read people better than they can read themselves. Every step she takes flips the script. Every smile exposes hypocrisy. Every move she makes turns the “scapegoat” into the real force of the narrative.
And beneath all the chaos, one quiet fear lingers:
If she survives, if she reaches the end, if she earns her life back…
will she have to return to her original world?
Or will she choose the man who refuses to let her go?
This time, the scapegoat isn’t running from fate.
She’s rewriting it.
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