"Ms. Sterling, your account ending with XXXX is way past due. You owe us $175,000 total..."
"Ms. Sterling, because of your bad credit, we've decided you're not right for our customer service job. Thanks for applying..."
Beep beep beep.
The phone hung up with a click. A skinny pale hand reached out from the messy bed covers and threw the broken phone to the side.
"I need money to pay you back first."
In the tiny rented room, Vivian Sterling tried to sit up in bed. The torn curtains couldn't close right, letting bits of sunlight shine on her pretty pale face.
This was day three since she had woken up in the other world. She'd been playing games at home when suddenly she found herself here and stuck in some broke girl's body.
The small room was full of old food containers. Her phone buzzed nonstop with late payment warnings, from small loan companies to big banks, all wanting their money.
She got thousands of these messages every day. Lucky her cracked phone couldn't vibrate, or all those texts would have shaken it to pieces.
From what she could remember, the old Vivian had lived the good life. The Sterling family used to be rich and important in this world. At least in this city, Vivian could do whatever she wanted.
She'd been a real rich girl with fancy cars, boats, and all those expensive memories that popped up whenever she closed her eyes.
But that family business, which seemed rich enough to buy countries, had crashed overnight.
Gone. All of it was gone.
Vivian had just gone to sleep and woken up changed from a rich girl into a broke girl with tons of debt. All the Sterling family stuff got taken away, and the family leaders, including her loving grandpa, disappeared without warning. The leftover debt of over $42 million naturally landed on her shoulders.
That bill collector calls for $175,000? That was nothing compared to the rest.
Vivian figured she'd taken over this body because the original owner couldn't handle the stress and died, leaving her to deal with this mess.
But getting this body wasn't exactly lucky. Vivian had been a spoiled rich kid who grew up with everything handed to her. When faced with this mess, her first thought was to just give up.
Whatever papers people told her to sign, she signed. When they scared or pushed her around, she gave in right away. The little money she had got sucked dry by countless bill collectors using every trick they knew.
Along with her money, her credit got ruined too. She'd borrowed from almost every loan app out there, so now she couldn't do anything.
She couldn't even get hired to answer phones...
Vivian thought someone was trying to mess with her on purpose.
Other people who got transported to other worlds became heroes, or at least normal people.
But Vivian? Starting with $42,000,000 in debt... She was like a scared mouse hiding in this dark room, too afraid to go outside. The most expensive thing she owned was this broken phone.
The original Vivian had at least enjoyed being rich for years, but she hadn't enjoyed anything, and now she had to fix this disaster.
With such a hopeless beginning, she couldn't see any way out.
When she first got here, she'd been interested in her dolllike pretty face, her almost perfect body, and her shiny black hair.
But now? She couldn't eat enough, couldn't wash herself, and her beautiful hair had turned greasy. Plus there was that never ending pile of debt.
Her mind went blank. She had no clue what to do. So for three days, she'd done nothing but lay around. Sometimes she'd feel like doing something... well, feel like it. But then she got too hungry to even try.
Still, Vivian felt she couldn't just die like this.
Death was the most important thing in life.
In her old life, Vivian had learned old customs from her grandpa, doing work with dead people. She folded paper money,[1] made paper people[2], read house luck, told fortunes, and read faces. She was good at all of it.
Her grandpa had been really skilled. He was the kind of expert that college teachers would travel far to ask about house luck and old customs.
So for Vivian, death was serious business.
If she died like this, wouldn't she be letting down her old man's teaching?
Besides, she'd come to this world and suffered for three days without doing anything important. Those debt collector texts and calls made her head hurt like buzzards flying around a dying animal. They didn't hurt you directly, but they sure were gross.
Thinking about this, she grabbed her phone. The cracked screen gave off a weak light as she deleted countless messages. The phone was quiet for a moment, but within seconds, more texts came flooding back.
This made her even madder.
"Damn it! I'm... no wait, I'm gonna lose it on you people!"
Just as Vivian's hands started shaking, her phone got a call marked as a bill collector by over ten thousand people. Without thinking, she answered.
"GO TO HELL!"
Vivian started with a curse. The person on the other end clearly didn't expect such an angry response and went quiet.
After Vivian's crazy 60second rant, the caller quickly hung up.
After yelling at them, Vivian felt much better and more alive.
But after her angry outburst, her stomach started making loud noises. She'd used too much energy yelling, and not having eaten for three days, once the excitement wore off, hunger took over completely.
"Even if I die, I'm gonna die with a full stomach."
Vivian opened a food delivery app and, not caring about the price, ordered everything that looked good.
One last treat before dying. But when she tried to pay, she hit a problem. The barbecue order worth over a hundred dollars said [not enough money]
Vivian had less than a hundred dollars left...
Her phone was connected to an account with the last name Ruan. She didn't know whose it was, but she could use it and knew the card number and password. Her remaining money had only survived because it was in this account.
All of Vivian's real accounts were being watched. Even a single penny would get taken right away.
She had survived until now without starving thanks to this Ruan's account.
But the money left in this account wasn't enough for her to give herself a good final meal.
She couldn't even buy decent takeout...
This account had started with over a thousand dollars, but the original owner had spent it all on takeout while hiding in the rental. What was left now was because Vivian had starved herself for three days.
"In this world, even dying with dignity costs too much?"
She looked at the tissues next to her, but couldn't make herself eat them to fill her stomach.
Her grandpa had taught her that death was the only thing that really mattered in life.
Growing up with this idea, she'd helped him properly send off countless people. But now when it was her turn, she was so broke she'd have to eat tissues to fill her stomach.
"This is just... too sad."
A tear rolled down Vivian's cheek.
Then another call came in. Though Vivian didn't have the energy to curse anymore, she still answered.
"Hello, is this Ms. Sterling? I can give you a job. You must be in pretty bad shape right now, right? If you're willing, I can pay you around $300 per day. How does that sound?"
The caller was a man in a noisy place. Yelling mixed with loud music and the sound of glasses clinking.
"A job?"
Vivian's voice sounded weak, which made the man on the other end more sure of himself.
"That's right. Ms. Vivian Sterling, the former rich girl of the Sterling family, has world class beauty and body. If you're willing to work at our nightclub, we could even pay more. You'd just hang out with customers, have some drinks, let them touch you a little within reason."
"Don't worry, we're professionals. We'll keep you safe."
Hearing this, Vivian's fingers tightened around her phone until her knuckles turned white.
"FUCK YOU!"
Vivian cursed with all her remaining strength, but the man just laughed.
"Ms. Sterling, don't be ungrateful. The owner of our Gilded Rose Club is someone important around here. You need to face reality. All you've got left that's worth anything is your body. Our boss specifically wants you..."
Beep beep beep.
Vivian hung up. She'd thought this was a chance, but it just made her sick.
Before giving up, the original Vivian had tried to find work, but most companies wouldn't hire her, and she couldn't do hard physical jobs.
When you're desperate, you try anything. Vivian had sent her resume to many employers, but then she'd given up and stopped caring about replies.
With all those bill texts flooding in, she could barely notice anything else anyway.
Tears ran down Vivian's face.
If she could, she'd want to change her luck too. She wants to live well.
But paying off $42 million in debt versus rotting away in this rental room? The second option seemed more realistic.
But this time, like fate was helping her, among all the texts, she spotted a job reply that caught her attention right away.
Based on the words she'd seen, Vivian found that rare job reply among countless messages.
The message was simple: [You had passed our interview and could start work anytime]
Unlike that disgusting nightclub job, this work was straightforward. Streaming online to sell stuff.
"Streamer?"
Vivian had no idea how she'd passed an interview since she didn't remember applying for any streaming jobs.
They'd given her a streaming account, empty except for streaming rights and following another blank account called [Afterlife Emporium].
There was also a link showing the products Vivian would sell on stream and when to stream.
Her eyes went straight to the pay section: [$15 per stream, with extra money for sales, paid daily]
Forget how much it paid. Just those two words "paid daily" meant everything to Vivian right now.
The streaming time was pretty late though. About three hours total, from 11 PM to early morning.
The time rules were strict, and the products for sale were weird...
Vivian kept scrolling through the link, but what she saw almost made her drop her phone.
The late night stream was selling paper money, fake bills for dead people, and paper dolls?!
The person hiring Vivian had even added a note: [if you could fold paper money while selling to show they were handmade, you will get an extra $7]
"Streaming funeral stuff late at night? Are these people crazy?"
Below was a long section on how to fold paper money. Vivian didn't bother reading it since, as someone who knew funeral supplies, she could tell the method was complete garbage.
Those paper money pieces were just for tricking people who didn't know better. If you actually burned those, your dead relatives would probably curse you out.
Total fake money!
Though she didn't understand this weird job, her growling stomach and pathetic death options were both pushing her to take it.
After all, both the daily pay and not having to leave home sounded amazing right now.
You probably couldn't find another job like this among hundreds of choices...
The work was pretty creepy, but you can't argue with money.
Plus that call from Gilded Rose really hurt and embarrassed her, making her want to survive even more.
This job might not pay much, but at least it was honest work that could buy me tomorrow's food...
Thinking this, she decided to try streaming tonight. It wasn't like she'd never sold funeral supplies before!
[1] Paper Money:
• Purpose: Fake currency burned during funerals or ancestor worship ceremonies
• Belief: When burned, this "ghost money" is believed to provide wealth for deceased relatives in the afterlife
• Modern context: Still commonly used in Asian funeral traditions
[2] Paper Dolls/People:
• Purpose: Paper servants or companions for the deceased
• Belief: When burned, these figures are thought to serve the dead person in the afterlife
• Varieties: Can represent servants, guards, or even modern items like cars and houses made from paper