Trade the Fruit Cup for Your Life

To win votes for the school's annual honors award, my stingy roommate picked rotten fruit out of the trash and made it into fruit cups for our classmates. The moment I found out, I rushed to stop them from eating it. Instead, they accused me of being jealous and tore into me for trying to ruin their chances. That very night, they were rushed to the hospital with severe food poisoning. Afterward, my roommate framed me, claiming I had deliberately poisoned the fruit because I did not want her to win the school honors award. She even hid a bottle of pesticide in my locker and convinced our other two roommates to lie for her. With no way to prove my innocence, I became the target of furious parents. In the end, they hacked me to death. My roommate, meanwhile, became an internet celebrity by publicly trashing me and made a fortune from the attention. Now, when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day my roommate had picked those rotten fruits out of the trash to make her fruit cups. Chapter 1 "These fruits only have a rotten spot or two. Throwing them away would be such a waste! Just cut off the bad parts. The rest will be perfect for making fruit cups!" The familiar voice reached my ears, and I suddenly realized the truth: I had been reborn. Not just anywhere either. I had returned to the exact day Yoana Morris started picking rotten fruit out of the trash. I followed the voice and saw Yoana standing beside a foul-smelling garbage bin, pinching her nose as she rummaged through it for fruit. Every piece was rotten and blackened, covered in mold. Flies swarmed all over them, and brownish-yellow juice dripped from the fruit. Just looking at it made my stomach turn. In my previous life, Yoana had felt sorry for all that wasted fruit. She thought throwing it away would be a shame, so she decided to pick them up and use them to make fruit cups. I had witnessed everything and kindly warned her that eating rotten fruit could cause food poisoning. She refused to listen and snapped at me. "Jessica, mind your own business! You have been spending money like crazy for so long that you have no idea how hard it is to earn!" Yoana was determined to cut those less-than-fresh fruits into fruit cups and hand them out to our classmates. She wanted to win everyone over so they would vote for her when the class awards were being decided. As soon as I found out, I rushed over to stop her. However, the moment Yoana saw me, she smiled and pulled out a box of fruit cups, holding them out to me. "I saved this box especially for you." I slapped the fruit cups out of her hand. Then I raised my voice so everyone could hear. "Do not eat these! Yoana picked the fruit used to make them out of a garbage bin. I saw her do it with my own eyes! "The fruit was rotten and covered in mold! It’s contaminated with dangerous mold toxins. Eating it can cause food poisoning!" My shout left everyone frozen. One by one, they lowered the fruit cups in their hands and looked at Yoana suspiciously. "Yoana, is it really true? You picked the fruit out of a garbage bin?" Yoana did not panic at all. Instead, she picked up one of the fruit cups beside her and ate several pieces right in front of everyone. "How could they possibly be poisonous? Look. I have already eaten this much and I am perfectly fine. "Besides, if I really picked them out of a garbage bin, how could I possibly eat them myself?" After watching Yoana eat the fruit, everyone finally believed her. Then they turned toward me with icy looks and started tearing into me. "Yoana ate one herself! How could there possibly be anything wrong with these fruit cups?" "Exactly! Just look at how fresh and juicy the fruit is. It obviously came straight from the store!" "I think you are just jealous that Yoana might win the school award. You cannot stand seeing her do well, so you came here to cause trouble!" "Yoana is always so thrifty. She must have spent a lot of money buying all these fruit cups for us, yet you slapped them out of her hands and tried to stop us from eating them? How ungrateful can you be? You are seriously heartless!" ... They had no idea why Yoana could eat the fruit without getting sick. The fruit cup she had eaten earlier had been made from fresh fruit she had just bought at the supermarket. The ones she gave to everyone else, however, were made from the rotten fruit she had pulled out of the garbage. To make the fruit look normal, Yoana had washed them more than ten times. She had even scrubbed away the dirt and mold with a shoe brush. Then she injected water into the fruit to make it look fuller. Ignoring all my warnings, everyone ate the fruit cups. That very night, they began suffering from food poisoning one after another. They were vomiting and had severe diarrhea before being rushed to the hospital. Chapter 2 A few of the victims had eaten so much that their poisoning was severe. Despite desperate attempts to save them, they vomited blood and died. Yoana had eaten the good fruit cups, so naturally, she was perfectly fine. Our other two roommates, Chloe Brooks and Lily Charlton, also survived because they had not eaten very much. Tests confirmed that the victims had suffered both aflatoxin poisoning and pesticide poisoning. The rotten fruit Yoana had picked up was not only moldy and spoiled. It was also covered in pesticide residue. Once the whole thing blew up, Yoana panicked and pinned everything on me. She claimed I was jealous of her and had deliberately poisoned her fruit. She even hid pesticides in my locker and convinced Chloe and Lily to help her fabricate evidence. "It was Jessica! She poisoned the fruit because she was jealous of me and wanted to ruin my chances of winning the school honor award!" "Now I understand why she refused to eat any and kept stopping our classmates from eating it. She already knew the fruit cups were poisoned!" "Yeah. We saw Jessica putting something on the fruit with our own eyes. She even lied to us and said the fruit had not been washed properly, then pretended to clean it." "If we had known she was putting pesticides on it, we would have stopped her!" With both witnesses and physical evidence against me, I had no way to defend myself. The furious parents of the victims surrounded me. One after another, they raised their knives. I was hacked to death. After I died, Yoana became an internet celebrity by publicly trashing me and made a fortune from the attention. She did not stop at attacking me. She even spread rumors about my parents. "If parents can raise a daughter like that, they cannot be good people themselves!" Because of her lies, my family's company was dragged through the mud. Its reputation was destroyed, and the stock price crashed. It was not long before the company went bankrupt, leaving behind mountains of debt. Furious employees began showing up at my parents' home with axes, demanding repayment. Yoana took advantage of the situation and sued my parents for compensation as well, forcing them to sell their house. After that, they were relentlessly attacked and harassed online. Not long afterward, my parents were literally driven to their deaths by the constant abuse. Even after they died, Yoana publicly mocked them during a livestream. "Those scumbag parents deserved to die! I am just getting justice for everyone!" At that moment, I died with hatred in my heart. That hatred was so deep that even death could not make me let go. However, somehow, fate seemed to have given me one more chance. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Yoana cutting already-rotten fruit into a fruit platter. This time, I did not stop her. I simply pulled out my phone, turned on the camera, and quietly recorded everything happening in front of me. This time, I was not going to stick my nose into other people's business. I was going to watch her walk into the abyss with my own eyes and pay the price for every choice she made. … Yoana carried the rotten fruit back to our dorm, and I followed close behind. The moment we got back, Yoana eagerly started working on her collection of rotten fruit. She was so focused that she did not notice me at all. The fruit was covered in blackish-yellow grease stains, with a sticky substance clinging to the surface. The containers were disgusting too. They were coated in layers of grease, and some of them even had leftover soup from instant noodles that had fermented and gone bad. Just looking at them made my stomach churn. Not only had Yoana picked up the rotten fruit from the trash, but she had also picked up the fruit containers. She used a shoe brush to scrub the fruit. After that, she held both the fruit and the containers under the faucet and rinsed them more than a dozen times. Only then did she start cutting the fruit into pieces and packing them into containers. There was exactly one portion for everyone except Yoana. She did not prepare one for herself because she had bought a fresh, good-quality fruit cup for herself. Just as Yoana finished arranging the fruit cups, Chloe and Lily returned to the dorm. Seeing them, Yoana immediately handed them each a fruit cup. "You guys are back! Perfect timing. The fruit was on sale, so I bought some and made these fruit cups! Try them!" Chloe and Lily had always treated Yoana like she could do no wrong. They practically nodded along to everything she said. They immediately accepted the fruit cups with big smiles and thanked her over and over. "Yoana, you are so thoughtful!" It was almost laughable. In my previous life, the two of them had nearly been poisoned by Yoana too. Even after learning the truth, they had still been willing to lie for her. This was all because Yoana had promised to recommend them as candidates for the school honor award. It was not as if I had ever treated them badly. I had always believed in being kind to people, so whenever they asked me for something, I almost always said yes. They borrowed my makeup, they borrowed my jewelry and I gladly lent them whatever they wanted. Even when they never returned the things afterward, I never made a big deal out of it. Chapter 3 Whenever we went out, I was usually the one who paid. Even when Chloe and Lily were on the verge of failing their classes, I had tutored them and helped them scrape by. I had given them everything I had. But what did I get in return? Betrayal. In my previous life, when Yoana framed me, I begged Chloe and Lily to help prove my innocence. Instead, they backed Yoana and testified that I was the one who had poisoned the fruit. With their lies and the evidence planted against me, I had no way to defend myself. I was brutally killed by the victims' parents. If Yoana was the murderer who had killed me, then Chloe and Lily were her accomplices. None of them could escape responsibility for my death. As I thought about all that, Yoana finally noticed me sitting at my desk. She looked startled for a moment. "Jessica, when did you get back?" I knew I could not let her become suspicious yet, so I simply smiled at her. "I got back just before Chloe and Lily. The second I walked in, I saw all these fruit cups covering the room." Hearing that, Yoana visibly relaxed. She brought a fruit cup over to me. "Here! It is so hot outside. Have some fruit to cool down. I just made these! "Things have really been going my way lately. Not only did I make it onto the list for the school honor award, but I also happened to find fruit on sale. Maybe it is a sign that something good is coming my way!" As she said that, a smug smile spread across her face. She looked practically drunk on her own success. Chloe and Lily immediately chimed in. "Then the school honor award is definitely yours! We are voting for you!" "Of course! Once you win, do not forget your two old friends!" Yoana's grin grew even wider. However, when she noticed that I still had not taken the fruit cup, her expression darkened slightly. "Jessica, why are you not taking it? Sure, the fruit was on sale, but I still spent a whole week's allowance on this." Chloe immediately nudged me. "What are you waiting for? Take it! Do not reject Yoana's kindness!" Kindness, my foot! This was not kindness. It was a deadly trap. In my previous life, the moment I slapped the fruit cup out of Yoana's hand, they had used that reaction against me. "If you were not the one who poisoned the fruit, why did you react so strongly?" This time, I still refused the fruit cup. However, instead of reacting as strongly as I had before, I smiled and gently turned it down. "Thanks for thinking of me, but I am allergic to peaches. Half of the fruit in there is peaches, so I cannot eat it." The moment I refused, Yoana's eyes turned red. She looked like I had just broken her heart. "It is my fault. I forgot, Jessica. You are a rich girl, after all. Regular fruit probably is not good enough for you, let alone fruit that is on sale..." Her words twisted the situation completely. Chloe and Lily immediately took Yoana's side. They glared coldly at me, acting as if they were defending her honor. "Jessica, do not use your allergy as an excuse to insult someone! You just think Yoana is beneath you because she bought fruit that was on sale, do you not?" "You were just lucky enough to be born into a rich family. If we are talking about who is actually better, Yoana obviously wins! She is a candidate for the school honor award this time, and it is only a matter of time before she gets it. Unlike you, who is nothing but a spoiled rich girl who thinks throwing money around makes her better than everyone else. With an attitude like that, you still think you can win a student excellence award?" "Exactly! So what if your grades are good? With a personality like yours, you are still nothing but an annoying snob!" "Since you are not going to eat yours, we will!" They snatched my fruit cup away and started stuffing the fruit into their mouths. Juice ran down their chins as they devoured it. Watching them, I sneered inwardly. I had already tried to warn them, so if they wanted to keep eating, they were welcome to help themselves. The more they ate, the better. Maybe they would even eat themselves to death. However, something about the school honor award still bothered me. My grades were excellent in every subject. I had even won multiple awards before. However, I had been eliminated in the very first round of the selection process. Meanwhile, Yoana, who had failed countless classes and seemed to be good at absolutely nothing, had somehow made it onto the list. There had to be more to this. Could there be some hidden reason behind it? Before I could think it through, Yoana had already packed up the remaining fruit cups. She was getting ready to take them to our classmates. Chapter 4 Chloe and Lily followed her, and I followed close behind them. I knew that what had happened in my previous life was going to happen again. … In my previous life, Yoana waited until I was not paying attention, then handed out the rotten fruit cups to our classmates. She wanted to use the favor to win their votes for the school honor award. The moment I discovered what she was doing, I tried to stop her. Instead, my classmates cursed me out. When they later came down with food poisoning, they somehow blamed me for that too. "If you were not guilty, why did you try to stop us?" "Exactly! You obviously knew the fruit was poisoned. Otherwise, why would you refuse to eat it?" In the end, I became the person everyone hated. I died with no one even willing to claim my body. Now, Yoana was once again going around cheerfully handing out fruit cups to our classmates. "The fruit was on sale today, so I spent a whole week's allowance buying fruit for everyone and making these fruit cups. Have some and cool off!" Everyone accepted the fruit cups and immediately started praising Yoana for being so kind and thoughtful. Yoana gave a shy little smile. "We are all classmates. Helping each other is only natural. "However, I hope everyone will remember my kindness and support me when it is time to vote for the school honor award!" Everyone understood exactly what she meant. After all, it was hard to say no after accepting someone's food. They all nodded eagerly. "Do not worry. You have our votes!" Just as everyone was about to eat, I gave them one more warning. "I heard discounted fruit usually is not very fresh. A lot of it is already bruised or starting to rot. Eating too much can upset your stomach, so it is probably better not to eat too much." After all, in my previous life, they had been fooled by Yoana too. In a way, they had been victims as well. Hearing me, everyone froze with the fruit cups in their hands and turned to look at Yoana. Yoana's expression darkened. Then, almost instantly, her eyes turned red. She pushed out her lower lip, looking like she had just suffered some terrible injustice. "Jessica, are you saying I deliberately bought bad fruit for everyone? That I wanted to make everyone sick? "You know I do not have much money. I only get fifteen hundred dollars a month for living expenses, unlike you, who gets three thousand. "I wanted to buy everyone something better too, but I cannot afford it. This fruit already cost me much of my allowance. I will have to live on bread for some time... "These fruits may not be worth much, but they are still my way of showing that I care. I know you look down on me, but did you really have to humiliate me like this? "If you do not believe me, I can eat one right now to prove it!" As she spoke, Yoana prepared to eat the good fruit cup sitting beside her, just as she had in my previous life. Before she could, I grabbed the rotten fruit cup and shoved it into her hands. "Do not eat that one. Eat this!" Yoana's face went completely white. She trembled with anger, and a flicker of suspicion appeared in her eyes. She just stood there holding the fruit cup, unable to make herself take a bite. Of course she did not dare eat it. She knew better than anyone just how disgusting those rotten fruits were. That was Yoana for you. She was unbelievably stingy, yet she still wanted everyone to like her and shower her with praise. Somehow, she had come up with the brilliant idea of using rotten fruit to buy people's favor. After a moment of silence, Chloe and Lily could not stand watching anymore. They stepped forward to defend Yoana. "Jessica, why are you making things so difficult for Yoana?" "When we were in the dorm, Yoana kindly offered you a fruit cup, and you refused it, claiming you were allergic. Now that she is giving fruit to everyone else, you are trying to stop her again. What exactly are you trying to do?" "Are you jealous because Yoana was chosen as a candidate for the school honor award? Is your jealousy getting the better of you? After all, you were eliminated in the very first round!" The moment they said that, everyone's attention shifted. Whispers spread through the crowd. "What kind of spoiled rich girl is Jessica? Just because she could not make the cut herself, she has to make things difficult for someone else!" "Exactly! If you are not going to eat, then get out of the way. We still want to!" "So what if the fruit was on sale? It is still a representation of Yoana's kindness. We like it. What business is it of yours?" Chapter 5 Despite my warnings, they insisted on eating the fruit cups. Some of them even demanded that I apologize to Yoana. "Jessica, apologize to Yoana right now!" Apologize? She was the one who should have been apologizing to me! My fate in my previous life had been entirely her doing. One hotheaded guy even shoved me out of the classroom. Yoana watched this with a flicker of satisfaction in her eyes. She had always wanted to get the upper hand over me, and seeing me humiliated gave her a huge sense of superiority. I looked at everyone laughing and chatting in the classroom and let out an icy laugh inside. I thought bitterly, 'I have already given you a chance. You were the ones choosing to walk straight into danger, so why should I stop you? Fine. Do whatever you want. If something goes wrong, you will be the ones paying the price. I have nothing to do with it.' ... Because so many students had eaten the fruit cups, things went wrong that very night. One after another, they came down with food poisoning. They vomited and suffered severe diarrhea. Some even started vomiting blood, and it would not stop. By the time they were rushed to the hospital, their clothes were already soaked in blood. Long streaks of blood trailed across the ground behind them. It was a horrifying sight. The situation quickly became serious. After investigating, the school discovered that the students had gotten sick after eating the fruit cups. The test report showed that the fruit used in the cups was rotten, with dangerously high levels of aflatoxin. There were also traces of pesticide residue. Even a small amount could cause stomach problems, let alone eating as much as they had. Gavin Lowe, a school representative, checked the security footage and discovered that the fruit cups had come from our dorm room, Room 612. He hurried over. While Gavin was on his way, students from the other dorm rooms gathered nearby to watch the drama unfold. "I heard the fruit cups came from Room 612. What kind of awful person would give people rotten fruit to eat?" "I heard there was pesticide residue on the fruit too. The students who ate the most are still being treated at the hospital!" Listening to everyone's whispers, Yoana, Chloe and Lily finally realized how serious the situation was. All three panicked. Their faces turned pale. Lily was the first to speak, finally putting two and two together. "It’s no wonder the fruit tasted weird when I first ate it. My stomach started hurting afterward too. I cannot believe the fruit was not only moldy, but had pesticide residue on it as well..." Chloe looked even more frantic. "What are we supposed to do now? We gave them fruit cups, and people actually ended up in the hospital! If the school investigates and holds us responsible, we are all going to be dragged into this. We are finished!" "Yoana, this happened because of you. Why not turn yourself in? Do not drag us down with you!" Lily immediately backed her up. "Yeah. We could even get expelled!" Hearing them, Yoana lost her temper. Her face turned bright red with anger. "I was only trying to do something nice! How can you blame me? "And besides, if you both noticed that the fruit tasted strange and felt sick afterward, why did you not warn me? "If you had told me sooner, they would never have gotten poisoned! When you really think about it, this is all your fault!" Chloe and Lily clearly had not expected Yoana to say something so ridiculous. They immediately turned on each other and started fighting over who was responsible. "Yoana, you were the one who bought the fruit! What does this have to do with us?" "Exactly! If we had eaten as much as everyone else, we would be in the hospital too. We are victims here. You should be grateful we are not demanding compensation from you!" Yoana was speechless. She could not win an argument against the two of them, so she resorted to threatening them with their own secrets. "Do not forget that we are all in this together. If you push me too far, I will tell everyone about what happened with your scholarships..." She stopped halfway through. That was when Yoana noticed me lying on my bed. She immediately shut her mouth. However, when she saw that I was wearing headphones and staring at her with a confused expression, she relaxed. After all, everyone in the dorm knew I was obsessed with studying. Whenever I was in bed, I almost always had my headphones on, memorizing passages and reviewing my lessons. Chapter 6 What they did not know was that there was no sound coming through my headphones this time. I could hear every single word they said. Terrified that Yoana might push things too far and leave them with no way out, Chloe and Lily quickly nodded. "Yoana, we will help you..." "However, the school officials are almost here. What are we supposed to do?" Yoana glanced at me on the bed. Then her eyes lit up. She lowered her voice. "Do not panic. I have a plan!" The three of them huddled together and began whispering. At one point, they even rummaged through my locker. I pretended not to notice. I simply sat there and quietly watched them put on their little performance. After all, the more confident they felt right then, the harder they would fall later. They had barely finished putting everything in place when the school representative burst into the room, followed by a group of furious parents. The parents were carrying kitchen knives, their faces twisted with rage. "Who did this to my daughter? I am going to make her pay!" "My son is still in the emergency room fighting for his life! Whoever hurt my son had better pray, because I swear I will not let her get away with it!" The sight of those parents made me shudder. After all, in my previous life, I had died by their hands, hacked apart by their knives. Even now, just thinking about it made my body ache faintly. Gavin tried to hold the parents back while glaring coldly at us. "Which one of you bought the fruit? Confess right now!" Yoana shrank back and spoke in a timid voice. "I bought the fruit. I also made the fruit cups..." Just as everyone was about to tear into Yoana, she suddenly changed her story. She pointed straight at me. "However, Jessica was the one who poisoned them!" The next second, Yoana opened my locker right in front of everyone. She pulled out a bottle of pesticide and burst into tears. "Jessica was jealous that I was chosen as a candidate for the school honor award, so she deliberately poisoned the fruit to get me disqualified. "I never imagined she could be this insane. She did not just hurt me. She dragged all those other students into this too. Their injuries are all my fault..." Chloe and Lily immediately joined in, acting furious on Yoana's behalf. "Jessica cannot handle losing. She has always targeted Yoana, even back in the dorm!" "Yoana was framed! We saw Jessica putting something in the fruit with our own eyes. She even lied to us and said she was just washing the fruit! If we had stopped her sooner, none of this would have happened..." As they spoke, the three of them buried their faces in their hands and sobbed, pretending to blame themselves. In the blink of an eye, they had shoved me straight into the center of the storm. Gavin stared at me coldly. The room erupted in whispers. "I cannot believe Jessica was the one who poisoned them. She is seriously twisted!" "She was not chosen, so she decided to get revenge by poisoning everyone? That is terrifying!" The parents were even more furious. Their eyes burned with rage as they raised their kitchen knives and charged at me. "So, it was you, you little monster! My daughter has been vomiting blood nonstop because of you! The doctor said her organs are failing and she may not have more than a few days left. I am going to kill you and avenge her!" The knife was already coming down toward my head when I spoke in an icy voice. "I did not poison anyone! Yoana picked those rotten fruits out of a garbage bin. That is why they were contaminated with dangerously high levels of aflatoxin, and why they had pesticide residue on them!" A flicker of panic crossed Yoana's eyes. However, she immediately doubled down. "What garbage bin? Stop slandering me!" I let out a harsh laugh. Then I pulled out my phone and played a video in front of everyone. Looking straight at Yoana, I asked her, word by word, "Slandering you? Then take a good look for yourself. What is this?"