A blood-curdling scream sounded in the dark and empty forest. On the ground, in a puddle of dark red blood, lay a once beautiful lady, she wore a royal blue dress that was torn and stained with blood. Her face had been disfigured by three large black burns, making it hard to look directly at her. Surrounding her were four people in black clothing with hoods covering their faces, one woman and three men.
"Why..." She finally managed to say, trying to get a glimpse at the people who had tortured her, clutching her stomach as blood leaked through her clothes.
"Hahaha," the only lady of the four laughed as if she had heard the funniest joke in her 25 years of life, "why, you ask? You always acted as if you were better than us just because you were born into a rich family."
"No... I never..."
"Don't try to explain, we all know that every word coming out of your poisonous mouth is fake," a man on her left said when she failed to open her mouth again, pulling down his hood.
"Prestin..." Tears formed in the disfigured woman's eyes, "why must it be you, I thought..."
"What? That I died? Save your crocodile tears, we all know that you set me up," he said calmly.
Then the others pulled their hoods down.
The disfigured woman's eyes widened recognizing every face.
"Rachel, didn't you tell me to believe in myself and achieve my dreams? Well, I have to thank you for giving me the confidence to do what I am doing right now, killing the Queen of the Underworld and taking over her position," the woman in black taunted as she bent down and stabbed Rachel's heart.
Rachel screamed from the pain she felt as the dagger went deeper piercing her heart.
"You... I curse you all... One day I'll return to this place and collect this blood debt!" She rasped in her last breath as she closed her eyes.
Just like that Rachel Xu, Queen of the Underworld mysteriously died and her best friend took her place on the throne she'd built.
Flashback to five hours before...
Sounds of drinks clicking, music, laughter, and dancing were heard from the big four-story mansion, through its wide windows were seen happy people, enjoying the party. It was the Feng Family's annual Christmas party that only happened once a year. The party that girls from respected families spent all year preparing for and anxiously waiting for an invitation to. It was the biggest and most awaited event of the year that gave people the most benefits and opportunities, more connections, more friends, more allies, and also more proposals. But where it is good it is also bad, more people meant more enemies lying around, more schemes to be played, and more "incidents" to occur.
If Rachel had to pick between the words good and bad to describe this party she would describe it as bad, but it wasn't like she could avoid the event. If she didn't show up to the event then people would start talking and making assumptions, and those rumors would stay around for life. She knew this on a personal level because there was one year where she had gotten a rather important mission and missed the party, then she found out that there was a rumor that she didn't go to the event because she was spending time with her secret lover which affected her reputation and her business a lot. So because of that troublesome experience she had decided not to miss the party but now she was started to regret it.
"Miss Zhou... Please don't hit me! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to spill it on your dress!" Sobbed Crystal Xu, Rachel's annoying white lotus cousin.
"Wow, I never knew that the Young Miss of the Zhou Family was that two-faced, I mean look at her Crystal Xu just accidentally tripped and slipped!" Someone from the crowd exclaimed.
"Yeah but this isn't any party, this is the Feng's Chrismas Party! Girls spend all year picking out their dresses so who can blame the Young Miss," Another person from the crowd sighed else sighed.
"How annoying," Rachel grumbled watching the scene from her corner. 'Don't these people have anything better to do than frame each other?' she criticized in her mind.
"You seem to be enjoying the party," Jessica said as she slid next to her, handing her a glass of red wine.
"Whatever you say..." Rachel replied raising an eyebrow as she accepted the wine. "You... Drinking Wine?"
"Well, this party only happens once a year so I might as well," Jessica said as she clinked drinks with Rachel hiding her smirk as that both raise the glasses to her mouth.
Rachel narrowed her eyes when she tasted the wine, 'something is wrong, it taste's off,' then she glanced at Jessica who was chatting away about a rude flight attendant she encountered on her flight that morning. 'I guess it's nothing then...'
Soft music started and almost immediately the room quieted, it was the first dance of the night the had started and people started pairing up and heading to the ballroom.
"Rachel!" a male voice exclaimed, she immediately recognized the voice, it was Prestin her male best friend, "come dance with me!"
"Sure," she chuckled.
"You go first I'm going to get something," Prestin said.
"I'm going to find a dance partner," Jessica sighed as she set her glass down slowly.
Rachel smiled at them and with a nod walked to the huge french doors that led to the ball room, noticing some of her clients and chatted with them as she went.
Rachel does a lot of background and character checks on her coworkers, employees, friends, and clients before she interacts with them so after all that research she is pretty warm to them, but be warned, when she is talking to people she doesn't like or doesn't have a good impression on she is like a cold demon, a whole different person.
Two hours after dancing...
Rachel suddenly felt really bad, like she was going to faint or puke, maybe even both, either way she just felt horrible. 'Was it that drink that Jessica gave me?' she thought with suspicion.
'No, Jessica would never do that! Not after I saved her several times when she got drunk at all those bars from thugs." She quickly dismissed the thought, by now she was leaning heavily on the wall and digging her nails into her palm in order to keep herself awake.
"Rachel there you are! I was looking all over for you! OMG are you okay?!" Jessica's voice came from her right.
"Jessica... Help..." Rachel immediately turned to her right, as soon as she saw Jessica's silhouette she fainted.
"Rachel!!" Jessica shouted rushing to catch her with a worried face, but as soon as she made sure that Rachel was unconscious an evil smirk appeared on her face.
End of Flashback