How Does 'Life Is A Big Joke' End?

When the apocalypse struck, Ray Morley was brutally murdered and eaten by his wife's family. Only in his dying moments did he learn the cruel truth—his beloved son wasn't his own flesh and blood. He had been nothing more than a pathetic stand-in, a fool used and discarded. But fate gave him another chance. Reborn three months before the end of the world, Ray awakened to find himself in possession of an enormous, otherworldly storage space. This time, he wasted no time—he divorced his venomous wife, won a massive lottery prize, stormed into the stock market, and earned billions. He built fortified shelters and hoarded mountains of supplies. In this new life, he would make his ex-wife and her family pay—every last one of them. No more groveling. No more weakness. This time, Ray would rise above it all.

My adopted younger sister, Marissa Payton, loves pulling pranks on others. But I'm the only one who gets hurt in her pranks. Last year, she and our older brother, James Payton, locked me up in a cold storage room. Because of that, I'm afflicted with a case of severe asthma. James apologizes to me before telling me that he'll take me cave diving just to make it up to me. Marissa tags along with us on the trip. She keeps casting me malicious glances every now and then. Feeling rather uneasy, I quickly get into the water just so I can get away from Marissa. But when I'm 65 feet deep, I feel a wave of suffocation hitting me all of a sudden. It turns out that Marissa has secretly shut off the oxygen supply. I can hear Marissa's smug laughter ringing out from the underwater communicator. "Look, Jamie! I told you that Nat would fall for it again!" James' voice is filled with affection. "Leave it to you to be smart enough to think of such a prank to play on your sister, you little imp." My face has gone blue from the suffocation. I struggle with all my might in an attempt to turn on the bailout cylinder, only to feel my hands getting slapped away from them thanks to Marissa, who has swum over to me. She then whines into the communicator, "Look at how dramatic Nat is being, Jamie! She can't stand the suffocation at all even though it's only been a few seconds!" I hear James' icy and aloof voice reverberating in my earpiece. "Just hold on a little longer. Look at how delicate you are! It hasn't been all that long, yet you already can't stand it. How humiliating. You're not even in the same league as Mari!" This time, I can only stare at James in despair as my complexion slowly goes purple. Has he forgotten what happened to me? Thanks to their prank, my lungs have already sustained irreversible damage. It's getting more and more difficult for me to breathe. Finally, my vision goes black, and I collapse in the dark bottom of the sea. This prank isn't funny at all, James. This time, I'm going to die for real.

My girlfriend's so-called guy best friend found out I had epilepsy. He deliberately spiked my drink with stimulants. The moment I drank it, my nervous system was overstimulated. My heart rate surged. My chest tightened. Then the familiar warning signs hit–blurred vision, fragmented awareness, the onset of a seizure. The next second, I lost control of my body and collapsed onto the floor. My muscles convulsed violently. My jaw locked tight. My breathing turned uneven. I struggled to pull out the emergency medication I always carried with me, trying to stop the seizure from worsening. However, just as I was about to take it, I realized the hot water in my bottle had been replaced with highly concentrated coffee. The extra caffeine intensified the neurological stimulation. My convulsions worsened. My thoughts became more chaotic. My fingers stiffened to the point where I could barely move. Aaron Stone looked down at me on the floor and laughed. "Not bad. You're pretty convincing. "I've seen plenty of seizure patients before. Never seen anyone act this well." Gasping for air, I forced myself onto my knees in front of Mia, my jaw tightening from the spasms. "Mia... call an ambulance... I'm having a seizure..." Mia frowned at my obvious condition, but there was only impatience on her face. "Enough already. "If you keep acting like this, it's honestly too much. Since when can people having seizures still talk? "Aaron's a doctor. With him here, what could possibly happen to you?" I stopped trying to explain. Because I was already entering the next stage of neurological collapse. Even speaking had become difficult. Using the last of my strength, I pulled out my phone and sent an emergency distress message.

I had been dating Andy Lawson for five years. He had gone bankrupt, and during the worst of it, we had to sleep in parks and scavenge leftovers for food. After a hundred days of that life, I was just going to the blackmarket to sell some blood for money when someone sent me a video. [Surprise.] It was a livestream site, set up for rich kids to prank the common folk—and a video of me was pinned to the top. My finger trembling, I tapped on it and saw myself hidden in a corner of a park, munching on leftovers to nourish my frail body. On the split video, Andy was reclining against the armchair of a five-star hotel and savoring his gourmet menu. "Oh, this is amazing! All Andy has to do is say that he's sick, and she's selling her blood for him!" "On the sixteenth prank, she fell into the ocean… And on the fifteenth, she was sent flying in a car crash! Why is she so hard to kill?" "Well, Andy already made it clear that if she survives until the end, he will marry her and swear off women!" "One month to go! Will she die from the pranks, or marry into the Lawson family with pomp and circumstance?" "I'm betting fifty mil that she dies tragically! Hahaha!"

On the day I get discharged from the psychiatric hospital, my wife, Lisseth Gabler, speaks up all of a sudden. "When your mom was struck and killed by Donny's car, I was the one who hired a lawyer to defend him." My dad—the most elite doctor in the city—is still driving as he adds coolly, "I was the one who personally forged your mental illness records." Throughout the three-year torture I've received in the psychiatric hospital, I keep recalling the tragic way my mom died when she was struck by Donny Kaufman's car all the time. Meanwhile, my own wife chooses to defend him, whereas my own father has me admitted into a psychiatric hospital. I do my best not to collapse from the sheer shock. In a quivering tone, I ask, "Why?" Dad averts his gaze. Lisseth is the one who answers my question nonchalantly. "It's simple. You have everything. It's pitiful enough for Donny to be labelled as the illegitimate son. Now, I'm giving you two choices. Either patch things up with Donny, or stay in the psychiatric hospital for the rest of your life."

I got my marriage certificate with the heir of the most powerful family of the city in the morning. By the afternoon, he took me to file for divorce. I clutched the documents and stood frozen as his friends burst into unrestrained laughter around me. “Julian, just because Elena said that, you actually married Maya just to divorce her right away?” “Haha, look at her face. She’s gone pale. Is she about to cry?” However, Julian simply pulled my adopted sister, Elena, into his arms. His voice was soft with affection. “Now that we’ve got divorced, will you finally smile for me?” Elena let out a chuckle. Her cool, aloof face bloomed into a smile. I tried to step forward and question Julian, but my three brothers held me back. My eldest brother, the CEO, frowned and said, “Elena only smiles for him. Try having some decency.” My second brother, the actor, shoved me to the ground. “She’s had a hard life. You have everything. You don’t need this one man.” My third brother, a biology professor, said coldly, “Julian should’ve married her long ago. Stop interfering.” They forced me into the car, refusing to let me stand in the way of their love and her happiness. At that moment, the system that had been silent for so long finally came online: [Host, the objective has been completed. Do you wish to return to the real world now?] I sat in the back seat, gazing out the window. I almost let out a laugh. The tragic play I had put on for this mission was finally over. From now on, I wanted no part in their lives.