Free Shopping

I walked into the supermarket, my phone live-streaming, and shot the camera a defiant grin.
Alright, folks, today I'm going on a zero-dollar shopping spree.
The live chat exploded. Are you insane? Live-streaming yourself stealing? You trying to get arrested?
I ignored the comments, piling things into my shopping cart with a manic energy. Once it was full, I just pushed the cart straight out the door and ran.
It didn't take long for the police to track me down using my stream's location data.
In my past life, my twin sister murdered her billionaire ex-boyfriend and then vanished with her new lover.
I was home alone, with no alibi, no one to prove the killer wasn't me. They sentenced me to death.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the murder.
If she could forge evidence to place me at the scene, then I would use the entire internet and the police department's own records to prove my alibi.
At the exact time of the murder, I would be sitting in a police precinct holding cell for shoplifting.
This time, I was going to make damn sure she was the one with nowhere left to run.

1
I stood at the entrance of Brighton's Market, my fingers trembling slightly as I tapped my phone to go live. My own pale, nervous face stared back at me from the screen.
Taking a deep breath, I forced a wild, exaggerated smile.
"Hey everyone! Today, we're doing a five-finger discount haul!"
The live chat instantly blew up.
【Has this streamer lost her mind? Is this how people try to go viral now?】
【Shoplifting at a supermarket? Enjoy your jail cell!】
【Already reported. You're welcome.】
I ignored the torrent of comments scrolling past and pushed a cart straight toward the snack aisle. The red lights of the security cameras blinked down at me, feeling just like the cold, accusatory lenses in the courtroom of my past life.
My throat tightened, but my hands were steady as I began grabbing things off the shelves with frantic purpose. My cart quickly filled with high-priced items designed to look cheap: bulky bags of chips, boxes of cookies, and cases of water. Things that didn't cost a fortune but took up a massive amount of space.
The comments kept flying.
【She’s just grabbing cheap junk. Nothing valuable.】
【Yeah, this is totally for clout. Even a full cart of that stuff won't be more than a hundred bucks.】
【But is she actually going to walk out without paying? Even if it's under a hundred, she'll still get arrested.】
【Lame. If you're gonna steal, steal something big. What's the point of this?】
【It's probably just an act. She'll go pay for it in a minute. People will do anything to get famous these days.】
The debate sent my viewer count soaring. A crowd was gathering online to watch me furiously load up my cart. Since I had my location services on, people quickly identified the exact store, and the supermarket's security guards started watching me, though they didn't intervene yet.
Feeling the eyes of the world on me, I let out a loud laugh and shouted at my phone.
"Okay, folks, watch closely! I'm heading to the checkout now!"
With that, I shoved the heaping cart forward and sprinted for the exit.
The security alarm shrieked to life the second I passed the threshold.
I didn't care. I just kept running, feeling the frantic footsteps of someone chasing me from behind.
The live chat went insane again.
【HOLY CRAP, SHE'S FOR REAL.】
【Is this staged? Did she really just walk out without paying?】
【LOL, look at the security guard behind her! He ran so fast his shoe fell off! This can't be an act.】
【COPS ARE HERE!! Look!!】
I glanced up and saw them. Two police officers, hands on their holsters, standing directly in my path. They must have gotten the call the moment I started my "shopping spree."
Before they could even shout, I let go of the cart, sending it rolling away, and raised my hands high above my head.
"Don't shoot! I surrender! Take me in."
The younger officer frowned, confused by my bizarrely cooperative attitude, while the older one had already pulled out his handcuffs. The cold kiss of metal on my wrist sent a shiver through me—the exact same sensation as my arrest in my past life. But this time, it was my choice.
"Take her away," the officer said curtly.
As I was escorted to the patrol car, I made a point to look back at the supermarket's entrance camera. The angle would have perfectly captured the exact time I was taken into custody: 3:27 PM. Plenty early.
As the car pulled away, I saw several bystanders filming with their phones.
Good. Their videos would become another link in the chain of my evidence.
I leaned back against the seat, closed my eyes, and let the tide of memory pull me under.

2
The last image from my past life was the blinding white light of the execution chamber. And now, my story had to begin in that nightmare.
I was a crime novelist, writing under the pen name Jane Night. I was moderately well-known in the community but had never had a breakout hit.
In my previous life, today was the day I was arrested.
I was rushing to meet a publisher's deadline, writing the most crucial chapter of my new book, The Perfect Double. The protagonist had just discovered his identical twin brother had stolen his identity to commit a murder.
I had just typed the line, "He stared at the security footage, at the face that was a mirror image of his own, and suddenly realized the only person in the world who could perfectly replicate him was his own flesh and blood," when my keyboard jammed.
Looking back, it was a cruel joke played by fate itself.
When the police smashed through my door, I was on the floor with a screwdriver, trying to fix the keyboard. The explosive crash of the door made me slip, and the screwdriver sliced open my index finger. Blood dripped into the crevices of the keyboard, which later became evidence in court of my "violent tendencies."
"Anna Jane, you're under arrest for the murder of Marcus Thorne and the theft of a large sum of cash."
I collapsed on the floor as they pulled a blood-stained shirt from the back of my closet. It had my fingerprints on it, and traces of Marcus Thorne's.
"That's impossible..." My voice trembled. "I haven't left my apartment in three days. That's not mine..."
But the security footage shattered every one of my denials.
On the screen, "I" was wearing the black baseball cap I always wore and carrying my one-of-a-kind backpack, a gift from fans at a book signing, covered in their signatures. "I" showed up on camera at Marcus Thorne's penthouse apartment.
The footage clearly showed me plunging a knife into his chest, then taking a stack of documents from a safe in the bedroom. The most ironic part was the look on Marcus's face before he died—not fear, but pure shock. He must have recognized that face, too.
"So you're telling us you have an identical twin sister, and she was Marcus Thorne's mistress?" In the interrogation room, the lead detective tapped his pen against the case file.
"Yes. Check his phone. I guarantee you'll find tons of messages and pictures of my sister."
The detectives interviewing me huddled together and left the room. When they returned, they showed me a photo.
It was a picture my parents had provided, showing my sister, Nina, smiling at an airport gate. The electronic departures board behind her clearly displayed the date and time: 12:15 PM on the day of the murder.
The murder took place at 3:50 PM. At that time, her plane hadn't even landed.
My editor, Lucy, once told me that the alibis in my novels were too perfect, that reality was never that convenient. Now I knew she was right. It wasn't a coincidence. My gut screamed that the photo was a fake.
But no one believed me. My parents' testimony in court was the final, fatal blow.
My mother cried until she nearly fainted, but she insisted they had personally driven Nina to the airport that morning. My father produced ticket stubs and parking receipts as proof.
"Anna was never as smart as her sister," he said, his voice choked with false grief. "She was always secretly jealous. When they were little, she used to cut up Nina's dolls with scissors. But I never, ever thought she would be jealous of her sister's boyfriend, too. It's our fault. We failed as parents."
They sobbed hysterically on the stand, and everyone in the courtroom was convinced I had been a monster since childhood.
And me? A reclusive writer who spent all her time locked in her apartment. I barely even appeared on my own building's security cameras. No one could prove I was at home when the murder happened.
"The defendant is a long-term recluse with severe social anxiety..." The prosecutor's words flayed my ears. "Her novels repeatedly depict meticulously planned perfect crimes, proving she has the capacity for premeditation..."
It wasn't until the death sentence was handed down that I finally understood how all the pieces fit together. But it was too late.
I had become my sister's perfect scapegoat.
Three hours before my lethal injection, Nina came to visit. Through the bulletproof glass, her lips, painted a slash of crimson, moved. "By the way," she mouthed, "I helped you finish your new book. The protagonist confesses in the end. A beautiful story of repentance, don't you think?"
She didn't even stay to claim my body. She was finally free to run off with the pretty college boy she'd been keeping on the side.

3
I never expected to open my eyes again. But here I was, reborn two hours before the murder. I was sitting at my computer, the document's last save time showing 1:27 PM.
Nina's murder of Marcus was set to happen at 3:50 PM.
I spent the first twenty minutes doing three things:
First, I looked up the local laws and confirmed that theft of property under $200 was a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of fifteen days in jail.
Second, I researched the police response times for precincts in the area. The one covering Brighton's Market was the fastest.
Third, I checked Nina's social media. She had posted an airport selfie that morning.
As I grabbed my jacket and rushed out the door, I made sure to take the black baseball cap and the limited-edition backpack—the very items Nina had used to frame me in my past life.
This time, they would appear with me on the supermarket's security cameras, becoming a crucial part of my alibi.
"Name?" In the interrogation room, the officer's voice snapped me back to the present.
"Anna Jane. My pen name is Jane Night." I mentioned my profession intentionally, planting a seed for the media storm I knew was coming.
The officer raised an eyebrow. "A writer? What do you write?"
"Crime fiction," I said with a bitter smile. "Funny how life turns out to be stranger than any story I could ever make up."
The clock on the wall read 3:45 PM. Nina should be inside Marcus's building by now.
According to the police timeline from my past life, she would be swiping my key card—which she had stolen—to get into the lobby. She would flash my signature little lip-biting smile for the camera, a micro-expression she had spent three months perfecting.
"You're saying you caused this disturbance at the market on purpose?" The officer's voice sounded distant.
"Yes." I dug my nails into my palms, my eyes darting uncontrollably toward the clock.
The officer slid a photo across the table. "We've totaled up the value of the items you stole. It's less than two hundred dollars..."
3:48 PM.
My temples throbbed. On the security footage, Nina would be taking off the baseball cap now, shaking out her long hair. Hair that was identical to mine, right down to the carefully replicated split ends. When Marcus opened the door, he would be stunned. The last time he'd seen me was at a book signing.
"According to Section 49 of the Public Order Act..." The sound of the officer flipping through his file was eerily similar to the judge turning the pages of my death sentence.
3:49 PM. Nina would have locked the door from the inside by now. She would be holding the knife in her left hand. She wasn't left-handed, but she had practiced writing and eating with her left hand for months just to imitate me perfectly. The coroner's report had noted the angle of the wounds indicated a left-handed killer.
"Miss Jane? Are you listening?"
I looked up suddenly. "Can I have a glass of water?"
The officer frowned but motioned for his colleague to get one.
3:50 PM. On the dot.
My throat went dry. I could almost hear the second hand ticking. Right now. Nina's knife would be plunging into the space between Marcus's third and fourth ribs—the exact same spot I described in my novel when the protagonist committed his murder.
A cool, disposable cup was pressed into my hand. I stared at my reflection in the water's surface and, for a dizzying moment, saw Nina stuffing blood-soaked cash into my backpack.
"You're trembling," the officer observed.
I looked down and saw that the surface of the water was rippling.
3:52 PM. Nina would be cleaning the scene now. She'd use my favorite brand of sanitizing wipes on the doorknob but intentionally leave a partial print on the coffee table—my fingerprint, which she had collected earlier on a piece of tape.
"I have low blood sugar," I managed, forcing a smile. I watched the officer write "emotionally unstable" in his report. Every word he wrote would become my shield.
I didn't hear a single thing the police said after that.
I knew Nina had succeeded. By now, she would be on her way to my apartment to plant the t-shirt stained with Marcus's blood in my closet.
In my past life, I was taking a nap at this time. She was so quiet I never even knew she'd been there.
But she wouldn't succeed this time. She had no idea about the little surprise I'd left for her in my apartment. Before I left, I had deliberately left my computer on, the screen displaying the latest chapter of The Perfect Double:
"The moment the double believes they have won is the exact moment the protagonist's counterattack begins."
I remained silent, no matter what the police asked. My goal had been achieved. Anything more felt like a waste of effort.
"Sign here." The officer pushed the report and a pen toward me. "Given the circumstances, you'll be detained for a few days. Do you need to call a lawyer? Or family?"
An image of my parents testifying against me flashed in my mind. I shook my head quickly, grabbed the pen, and signed my name.

First, search for and download the MotoNovel app from Google. Then, open the app and use the code "263522" to read the entire book.