Penguin Bloom: The Odd Little Bird Who Saved A Family

I was the broke scholarship kid, stuck sharing a room with Sherry, the spoiled heiress. From day one, she was all fake smiles and "let's be besties." She'd take me out for fancy meals. She even introduced me to Kenneth—her rich childhood buddy. It was fine—until Kenneth and I started dating. That's when the claws came out. One day, she "accidentally" dumped hot soup all over herself and claimed I'd done it on purpose. Then she demanded I pay her back. I gave her every cent I had, but it wasn't enough. Next, she accused me of stealing her wallet. The school bought it. I got written up, everyone turned on me, and Kenneth? He dumped me with, "You're just an ugly duckling trying to be a swan." I couldn't fight back. Humiliated, alone, and dragged through online hate, I dropped out. Then I let the river take me. And then—I woke up. Back to the moment Sherry introduced me to Kenneth.

From my earliest memories, my entire family is cold and distant toward me. When my parents look at my younger sister, Claire Lloyd, their eyes fill with warmth and joy. Yet, when they turn to me, only disgust remains. Claire's life is filled with applause and excessive love, while mine is filled with disdain and suffering. When the explosion erupts at the street corner, I save the stranger beside me. Later, I learn he is Byron Whitmore, a mafia family's Don. He begins pursuing me after I rescue him. Later, I quit my job and move to a new place, but he finds me and proposes in 100 different ways. "Why me?" I ask countless times. "Because it's you," he always answers. The wedding causes a sensation throughout the city. I truly seem to have transformed from an ugly duckling into a swan. That is, until I'm five months pregnant, when Claire needs a transfusion of rare Rh-negative blood after a car accident. The blood bank has a shortage. Because of that, my parents knock me unconscious and send me to the hospital. In my daze, the blood extraction machine hums continuously. As two thousand milliliters of blood leave my body, I see Byron. Tears well up in my eyes. I begin thinking he's here to save me. Instead, I hear him say, "We can't take any more. Sharon and the baby will die." "But Claire has lost too much blood. She'll die, too..." My mother pleads. "No one wants Claire safe more than I do." Byron's voice is thick with pain. "She's my first love. I've never forgotten her. I only married Sharon because her face looks so much like Claire's. "But I can't trade her life for Claire's. Trust me—I'll find another way." So, that's his reason for marrying me. The blood extraction machine continues running, but my heart has already stopped beating. The affection I see in his eyes has never been for me. He's always looking through me at someone else. Everyone in the world loves Claire, and Byron is not the exception that I foolishly believe him to be. That grand wedding is nothing but an ugly duckling's self-deceiving fantasy.

My sister and I married into the Phoenix Clan at the same time and, coincidentally, gave birth at the same time. After my sister birthed a purebred golden phoenix, the eldest prince she married was immediately crowned the next leader of the Phoenix Clan. Meanwhile, I gave birth to a mixed-bred pheasant and was condemned to death along with my husband, who was the second prince. It was only after my death that I found out the pheasant was my sister’s child! It was a ploy concocted by her and the eldest prince. The goal was to hide the bastard bloodline of the eldest prince and steal the throne of the Phoenix Clan. When I opened my eyes again, I realized I had been reborn. I didn't give birth, and my sister was visiting me with a haul of supplements…

My husband, Gabriel Buckner, and I had been married for three years. I'd gotten pregnant twice, but I'd lost both babies. It was all because of my in-laws' parrot that could talk. The first time I got pregnant and went to their house, the parrot stared at my belly and kept repeating, "Get rid of the baby! Get rid of the baby!" The second time, the same thing happened. It looked right at my stomach and said the same words. I thought it was just nonsense, but to my shock, my in-laws actually took the parrot seriously and forced me to end the pregnancy. I even showed them the prenatal checkup report from my doctor to prove that the baby was perfectly healthy and begged them not to do it. But they dragged me to the hospital anyway and made me have an abortion on the spot. When I got pregnant a third time, I wanted to be extra cautious. I went straight for an amniocentesis. The report confirmed the baby was healthy and even showed a 99.9% DNA match with Gabriel's. I thought everything would be fine this time. But as soon as the parrot saw me again, it repeated the same words—"Get rid of the baby." And just like before, the Buckners immediately tried to drag me to the hospital. I couldn't understand it. The baby was perfectly healthy, and the DNA report proved it was Gabriel's child. So why would they rather believe a parrot and insist that I get rid of the baby?

They always said you should not pick up a stranger from the roadside. However, what if he were devastatingly handsome? I brought home a badly injured man I found by the roadside. When he woke up, he could not remember a thing. I took care of him for three months, and, as expected, we fell in love. Without a ceremony and without guests, we consummated our marriage. It was just the two of us. When I was three months pregnant, that jerk regained his memory. He left me a letter and said he had something more important to do and that he would come back for me once it was done. I knew those were just excuses. When he got his memory back, he must have looked down on me for being a farmer’s daughter and wanted to abandon me after having his fun. However, the day I gave birth, imperial guards showed up at my door with the royal carriage. They brought an official decree, written by the man. He wanted to bring me to the palace, make me his queen, and make my child the prince. As I gazed at the baby leopards sleeping soundly on my bed, I was stunned. “My little ones, could you really become princes?”

Father is a seven-tailed white fox, and Mother is a five-tailed flame fox. By all logic, with those two rolling the genetic dice, the worst child they could get should be a six-tailed fox. But Mother has given birth nine times, and each baby is a single-tailed earth fox. The two of them think their cultivation simply isn't strong enough, so they train even harder. The truth is, every child Mother has given birth to is a nine-tailed fox. It's just that Father's subordinate, Oscar Brown, switches them at birth and strangles them to death. I'm the unlucky idiot who's died nine times. By the tenth time, I cry and scream that I'm done. The Heavenly Way is so sick of me kicking up a fuss that they say they'll help me solve the problem. I expect them to just strike Oscar and those fox cubs with divine lightning. Instead, they grant Father the ability to perfectly comprehend baby language. When I open my eyes again, Mother is crying to Father while holding a scrawny, dark-furred earth fox. "Darling, it's all my fault. Our child only has one tail again." Meanwhile, Oscar has hidden me in his sleeve. He's about to take me away to be disposed of. In my panic, I shout in my mind, [Father, save me! Your subordinate switched me! I'm in his sleeve!] Father, who is gently comforting Mother, freezes. He looks toward Oscar, who looks shifty, and says, "Stop right there. What's that in your sleeve?"