Bias Rebirth 단편 소설 & Regret 소설

During the heatwave apocalypse, I didn't die due to the heat, nor did I die in a conflict. My younger sister, Amber Carter, has a "heart of gold" by nature. She couldn't bear to see the people suffering in the apocalypse, so she gave away all the food in our cellar. After we ran out of food, Amber forced me to go look for food outside in the heat. That was how I died—from the heat outside. In this lifetime, I'm going to enjoy my ice-cold watermelon while watching Amber dig her grave with her own hands.

My boyfriend's childhood friend, Cassandra Lindth, performs one of the forbidden spells, trading 30 years of her own life just to steal the top spot on the civil service exam from me. She pulls off a 30-day miracle and becomes an internet sensation, her comeback going viral. Meanwhile, I take the fall, get reported for cheating, and am banned from ever taking the exam again. I turn to my boyfriend, Derrick Hayes, for help, but the look he gives me spells pure disbelief. "Have you completely lost it? You couldn't pass on your own, and now you're trying to drag Cassandra's name through the mud? I never imagined you'd stoop this low!" I am speechless, with no way to prove my innocence. Cassandra sues me for defamation, and Derrick shows up in court to testify against me. I have studied for three years straight, and it ends with a three-year prison sentence. My parents are disappointed with me. They go so far as to publish their statement in the newspapers, publicly shaming me. Derrick and Cassandra announce their wedding online and are set to dive into their new jobs as soon as the honeymoon wraps up. With no way to clear my name, I spiral into despair. Disoriented and numb, I fall into the river and drown. When I open my eyes again, I am back to the week before the civil service exam. I toss my exam ticket in the trash and sign up for a three-month temp gig instead. If Cassandra is dumb enough to trade 30 years of her life for my spot, she can have it and choke on it!

In the month before my 20th birthday, Dad digs out the information on the oldest daughters of the four most prominent families in Jorvale and tells me to select one of them as my partner for our upcoming marriage alliance. I choose Grace Sutton without hesitation, which shocks everyone else. After all, everyone in Jorvale knows very well that Connor Foster, the sole heir of the Foster family, has always been crushing on Abigail Chandler since I was a kid. Only I know that I've gotten to marry Abigail in my previous life. But on the day after our grand wedding, Abigail told me that Louis Hayes, the low-income student Dad had been sponsoring, was the man she loved. She announced in public that she was only my wife in name, but she'd always be Louis' wife for real. But when Abigail tried to pick Louis up the next day, she found out that he had already disappeared after leaving a relationship-severance letter behind. Abigail was hell-bent on believing that I was the one who forced Louis to leave. Because of that, she treated me like her mortal enemy for the rest of her life. She went through a lover per week, and she'd always be intimate with them in front of me. All of those lovers resembled Louis one way or another. Finally, on the day Abigail officially took over Foster Group, I died in a car accident by "coincidence". Now that I've been reborn, I decide to marry another woman and avoid getting caught up in Abigail's affairs anymore. But once Abigail hears my decision, she goes absolutely berserk.

I had funded Tilly Jenkins for five years—and spent those same five years chasing after her. Just when I thought I had finally won her heart—when I believed she was ready to spend her life with me—I discovered the truth: the one she had loved all along was her childhood sweetheart, the boy who had grown up by her side. I, on the other hand, to her, was nothing more than a privileged elite who used money to grind her pride into the dirt. A few years into our marriage, she secretly transferred my assets away—and even had a child with that childhood sweetheart of hers. In the end, I died filled with resentment, trapped in a raging fire. The flames reflected the sight of the three of them together, smiling like a perfect family, while I cried myself to death in despair. After I was reborn, Tilly's childhood sweetheart shoved me hard, sneering with open contempt. "What do you take us for? Toys for rich people like you?!" I slipped my bank card back into my pocket at once. "Sorry, having money doesn't mean I'm brain-dead. I'm not interested in trashy toys like that."

My husband’s childhood sweetheart pushed me off the cruise ship on purpose when she found out I was pregnant. I did not scream for help. Instead, I held onto my mother-in-law, who had fallen in too, and fought to survive. In my last life, I had screamed for help in the sea. My husband jumped in with others and saved both me and his mother. But his beloved ex, stained with blood, attracted a shark and was torn apart in the water. After she died, my husband said she deserved it for pushing me. He treated me with care and guilt, acting like the perfect husband. But when the baby was born, he killed him. "It is your fault, you wretch. I lost the woman I loved because of you. Now it is your turn to feel that pain!” I used everything I had left to drag him to death with me. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the ocean—right before it all happened.

Gilbert Pierce, my wife's male trainee, bragged that he could disarm a bomb just by relying on his senses and with his eyes closed. However, he misjudged it and triggered the bomb's secondary detonation sequence. I stepped in at the last second and used the most dangerous method available, liquid nitrogen flash cooling, to save the entire building. Gilbert was pulled off frontline duty and placed on suspension for review. My wife, Jasmine Clem, tried to speak up for him, but I stopped her cold. "If you defend him now, you won't save him. You'll just get dragged down and suspended alongside him." Unable to handle the pressure, Gilbert blew himself up in an accident. In his suicide note, he accused Jasmine of choosing self-preservation when he needed her most. Jasmine said nothing. She only locked that letter away in her study. Years later, Jasmine became a nationally renowned bomb disposal expert. During a terrorist attack, I was captured and strapped with a timed explosive. Jasmine came to the scene personally to defuse it, but right in front of me, she repeated the exact same mistake her trainee had made years ago. She watched the countdown and smiled lightly at me. "See? He was just nervous back then. If I had encouraged him, he'd be a hero now." The bomb detonated, and I was blown apart. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment she was about to defend Gilbert. She didn't know that inside that building sat the nation's most classified core servers.

As Jastrelle's golden girl, I draw lots to pick my groom, and fate finally hands me Felix Ledger, the childhood sweetheart I've wanted forever. During the impromptu wedding, a funeral convoy belonging to a scion of a rich family in Jastrelle passes right outside. I hate the omen. Felix laughs, pulls me into his arms, and places the veil over my head himself. "I'll take it as a good omen. With you, I'm covered from first breath to last," he says. His adoptive sister, Winnie Ledger, hears him, bursts into tears, and bolts outside. The funeral convoy runs her down, and she dies. Felix barely reacts. Three years later, Dad is framed, driven into bankruptcy, and falls gravely ill. He dies, and I lose everything. At the funeral, Felix sends everyone off, shoves me into the open grave, and buries me alive. He spits, "You rigged everything to get me. You left Winnie ruined. She bolted outside, and that funeral convoy ran her down. For three years, remorse has eaten me alive. I want you torn apart! "With your last protector gone, I can finally make you suffer a hundredfold the pain Winnie felt and ease my hatred!" When I open my eyes, I'm back at the groom-selection ceremony. Dad smiles as he hands me the lots. I shake my head, look out the window, and point at the funeral convoy passing outside. "I'm not choosing anyone. I'll marry that dead man!"

Clara Black, a wealthy heiress from Glenford, openly declares that she only dates men for a month at a time and never gets emotionally involved. Men eager to climb the social ladder line up across the city, hoping for a chance. After all, when she is in a good mood, she rewards them with a villa. When she isn't, she still gives them millions of dollars when the relationship ends. People in Glenford laugh at me, calling me the most humiliated live-in husband they've ever seen. They're convinced that I'll endure it for the rest of my life. That is until Clara brings home a college student named Leonard Frost. Leonard looks ordinary, yet he becomes the first man to break her one-month dating rule. Clara then gives me two options. One option is to accept an open marriage and let Leonard have equal footing with me. The other is divorce, with half of her assets given to me and a clean break afterward. Her close friends watch from the sidelines, certain that I'll keep enduring everything for the sake of money. Yet I choose the second option without hesitation. In my previous life, I chose to endure, only to have Leonard take advantage of me even more. He forbade Clara from touching me and refused to let her bear my child. In my old age, I could only look on with envy as Leonard enjoyed a household full of descendants. Even after Clara passed away, she didn't mention me in her will at all. Every part of her estate fell into Leonard's control. I kept the title of Clara's husband, yet I lived my entire life completely alone. Now that I have been reborn, everything is clear to me. I will take the money and walk away, severing all ties with her for good.

A gas explosion kills both me and my wife, Riley Sawyer. When I open my eyes again, we have both returned to our lives before we ever got married. In our previous life, Riley and I grew up together. We were inseparable as kids, and after we married, our relationship only deepened. People envied how well we got along. But in this life, she doesn't choose me. She accepts the romantic pursuit of Benjamin Prescott, the son of the wealthiest man in the city. I quietly erase every trace of her from my life and act as if she never existed. Five years later, the two of them announce their engagement in the grandest way possible and invite all our former classmates. When I show up wearing the same custom suit Benjamin has on, a diamond ring in hand, Riley's face tightens with anger. "Jared, it's been years. Why can't you let me go?"

After ten years studying interior design overseas, I came back to my hometown to do work that mattered to the people who raised me. I offered the full package, from site survey to soft furnishings. The materials were chosen by hand. The price was fair to the bone. The town had just gone through a redevelopment. Everyone was getting new units. With the new family policy, every family wanted a third bedroom too. My business was good. Customers from the next county were driving in. Then a girl just back from a city college kicked open my studio with her phone on a livestream and her neighbors at her shoulder. "This is the dishonest one. Look at her. She has been ripping the village off." "In the city, an eighty-square-meter unit can be done for twenty thousand dollars. She is charging eighty." "That's a sixty-thousand-dollar margin. Sixty thousand. Right out of our pockets." The village fell in line behind her. They demanded the difference back. When I refused, they smashed my studio. They beat me into a coma. The pile-on online killed me. When I opened my eyes again, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I would refund every single one of them. And then I would tear out every single thing I had installed. Let's see what twenty thousand dollars actually buys you.

My mother was the president of a listed corporation, she was both rich and powerful. More importantly, she loved me more than anything in the world. Meanwhile, my father was a man who cheated on her. When he found out his mistress was pregnant with a girl, he beat her until she miscarried and ended up in prison. So when the judge publicly asked me to choose between my mother and my father, everyone assumed the custody battle was just a formality. That was until I walked past my mother's trembling, outstretched hand and firmly chose my father instead. Everyone was shocked into speechlessness. In my previous life, I had chosen my mother, the one who spoiled me rotten. She was the type to buy the whole bakery just because I casually mentioned I wanted their cake. When I complained it was too sunny, she immediately arranged for four helicopters to put up a sunshade cloth and shade me. She even deposited a hundred thousand dollars on my school meal card because she was worried I wasn't eating well. Even though she spoiled me like a true princess and paved the way for me through life, I don't want anything to do with her in this life.

Due to an accident, my wife and I lost our lives in a massive fire. When we open our eyes again, we find ourselves back on the day we registered our marriage. In our last life, everyone thought we were the perfect couple. Little did they know that my wife, Queenie Lloyd, refused to consummate our marriage. Right before my death, I found out that I was nothing but a replacement for her first love. Queenie had intended to remain chaste for him for the rest of her life. After being reborn, neither of us speaks of the past. By an unspoken agreement, we get a divorce that very day and go on to live separate lives. Eight years later, she attends an industry summit holding her childhood sweetheart's arm. She's now a rising star in the business world. I am dressed in plain clothes. When she notices me, she walks over with a champagne glass in hand. "Mr. Lawrence! Even if you still have feelings for me, you didn't have to disguise yourself as a waiter just to approach me. Are you still trying to convince me to get back together with you?" she sneers. I ignore her and smile as I wave at someone nearby. My son runs over to me and tugs on the corner of my shirt. "Mommy said she's tired, Daddy. She wants to know when you're coming to pick us up," he tells me. Upon hearing this, Queenie's face stiffens immediately, and she almost drops her wine glass.

I fell in love with a man I should never have touched—my brother-in-law, Lucas Zahn. The first time he came to our home with my sister, Quincy, they looked like the perfect couple. He smiled at me, held out a peace talisman bracelet, and said it would keep me safe. I wore it like it was the most precious thing in the world. When the old injury in my ankle flared up, he would scoop me into his arms and rush me to the hospital without a second thought. When thugs tried to harass me, he made them scatter with a single look, then spoke to me in a voice so gentle it made my heart tremble. I told myself I understood—that everything he did was only because I was Quincy’s younger sister. Even so, I clung to those rare moments when I could be near him. Until the night Lucas was drugged by an enemy, his life teetering on the edge. If no one acted, he would die. So, I acted. On that reckless, desperate night, my sister walked in. The sight struck her like a lightning bolt, and she collapsed, her weak heart seizing on the spot. What came next was madness. In a frenzy of rage and panic, Lucas tied me to an operating table. His hands—those hands I once longed to hold—cut open my chest and tore my heart out for her. “When the avalanche hit, Quincy nearly died saving me. I swore I’d treat her well for the rest of my life. That means loving her family, too. I never thought you’d be so shameless. “This is what you owe her!” He never knew that I was the one who saved him in that avalanche. So, I died in agony, my love carved out of me—literally. When my eyes opened again, I found myself back on the night he was drunk.

Even knowing that wailing at an Eravalen aristocratic funeral was considered disrespectful to the deceased, I let my husband's adopted sister make a scene anyway. In my previous life, my husband, Robert Baker, had a distant relative among the Eravalen aristocracy who passed away. A lawyer informed him that he stood to inherit the estate and invited him to attend the funeral. His adopted sister, Mia Carter, insisted on tagging along to see how the privileged few in another country lived. She wanted to rub shoulders with nobles and make herself look important, even planning to wail dramatically in front of everyone. I rushed to stop her. "Loud mourning is taboo among the Eravalen nobility. Forget inheriting anything. We'll all be thrown out!" Yet she burst into tears, accusing me of looking down on her and thinking she was not good enough to mingle with aristocrats. She stormed out and was killed by street thugs in a random attack. I thought Robert would fall apart, but he stayed silent through the entire funeral and collected his inheritance without a hitch. Six months later, on our wedding anniversary, he took me to the snowy mountains for a photoshoot. The moment we reached the peak, he shoved me into a sleeping bag and tied it shut. "If you hadn't blown everything out of proportion, Mia never would've run off and gotten herself shot." He buried me alive in the snow. I froze to death, and he used that aristocratic fortune to become the CEO of a publicly traded company. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Mia insisted on wailing at the funeral.

After I get reborn, I've orchestrated every missed moment with my biological parents. When they want to take my adopted sister, Simone Graham, to take a family portrait, I'll take cold showers so that I can catch a fever. When they decide to book a cruise ship overseas in order to celebrate Simone's birthday, I join a classified project, which stops me from leaving the country. When they start a company for Simone, I quickly apply to get dispatched to South City, which is 600 miles away from my hometown. I also make sure to declare that I will never fight with Simone over anything in life. In my previous lifetime, Simone and I had been fighting over our parents' affection for decades. But all I got were comments on how manipulative and cunning I was. Everyone preferred Simone, who was pure and innocent, while showing disdain toward me, who was a woman of little words. Even my own husband and child couldn't understand my pain at all. "We're all family here, aren't we? Can't you just stop your dramatics for a few days? Whenever I come home, you always start a fight and cause unrest among everyone! You really should reflect on your own actions!" Just like that, I died on my sickbed all alone. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day I get accepted back into my family. This time, I'm not going to fight anymore. I'm going to live for myself instead.

When the gas cooker exploded and Sharon Milton was close to death, only her five-year-old son, James Collins, was at her side. Her spirit stood next to James and looked at him as he sobbed and called Sean Collins. He begged Sean to come home and save his mommy. However, Sean only scolded him and told him not to lie like Sharon before hanging up. James wiped the tears from his eyes and called 911. When the ambulance finally arrived, Sean appeared and stept in. "Daddy, Mommy is bleeding out and needs the ambulance. Please don't take it from her!" "You little liar. Looks like your mom hasn't taught you very well. Step aside! Riley is due. She needs this ambulance more than Sharon!" James's eyes had turned red due to all the crying, but Sean pushed him away and left without even taking a look back. He got into the ambulance with Riley in his arms. "Daddy... Daddy! Please save Mommy!" James sobbed as he chased after the ambulance, but he didn't see the speeding truck that was heading towards him. Sharon shouted her son's name and wanted to push him away, but there was nothing she could do. She could only watch as James was run over by the truck. Beneath the wheels, there was a pool of blood spreading across the ground. Sharon was about to lose her mind. Over the past years, Sean had abandoned Sharon and James countless times for Riley Winston and her daughter. Whenever Sharon and Sean had an argument about this matter, Sean would always just say that he was repaying Riley's father for saving his life. Sharon just felt that Sean didn't know what he was doing. What she didn't expect was that he didn't care about her and James's lives at all. Sharon felt that she was the one who killed James. Her heart ached as she took her last breath. If there was another life, she just wished that she had nothing to do with Sean.

When my girlfriend, Cherry Jameson, receives her HIV positive test report, she finally realizes what her childhood friend, Neil Sawyer, meant by "life-and-death". In the previous life, after Cherry fainted from her latest anemic episode, Neil insisted on donating his blood to her. I did everything I could to stop the procedure from happening. I told Cherry that Neil had been diagnosed with HIV a long time ago, so she'd get infected if she were to receive his blood. But Cherry refused to believe me. Neil broke down in tears, saying that he never had a girlfriend, to begin with. Then, he went to the rooftop and pretended to jump so that he could prove himself with his death. But he accidentally slipped and fell, resulting in his actual death. In order to avenge Neil, Cherry worked with her classmates to kidnap me. She was the one who personally strangled me to death with her hands. Angrily, she roared at me, "Your slanderous lies killed Neil! I want you to pay with your own life!" When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Cherry is supposed to receive a blood transfusion from Neil. As I look at Cherry, who's in the middle of receiving blood from Neil, I just smile faintly. It's just HIV. She'll be fine.

The day the Porter family went bankrupt, my elder sister, who had been engaged to Calvin Porter, claimed she was in love with someone else and cut ties with him without a second thought. I was the one who stepped forward to take her place, becoming the laughingstock of our social circle. I smoothed away all the hardness in him, tried to shape myself into the woman he liked, and swallowed countless moments of bitterness, hoping only to warm his distant heart. Until our wedding day. A car accident happened, and Calvin's first instinct was to shield my sister with his whole body. "Rebecca, don't be scared. Where are you hurt? We'll get you to the hospital right away!" He carried her into the ambulance without so much as glancing back at me. I looked down at the iron rod piercing my chest and felt warm blood gush out. It was only then I understood. He was not indifferent by nature, he was simply indifferent to me. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Calvin came to our house carrying the engagement gift.

My father was certain that the mother and daughter my husband brought back from Southern River were the daughter and granddaughter of an impeached official. As such, he locked them up. Afton Springfield, my husband, begged for my father’s mercy for seven days and nights outside the palace. This caused my father to fly into a rage. He wanted to get us divorced and execute Afton. To appease my father, I had begged him to release the mother and daughter as well in the previous timeline, even though I was heavily pregnant. Feeling resigned, my father sent the mother—Melinda—and daughter to the army as soldier servants. He also spared Afton and ordered him to treat me well so that he would not let me down. For ten years, we loved each other and got along cordially. However, ten years later, he poisoned my father and brother. Then, he put a child on the throne so that he could become the regent. Once he was done, he forced me to apologize before Melinda’s tombstone. He also had hooligans humiliate me. As for my son, he threw him into a den of snakes, and my son died in agony. In my despair, I saw his resentful gaze. “You killed Melinda and her daughter. You have no right to continue living! If Melinda didn’t die, she would be my wife, and you would live at the bottom of society. You could never compare to Melinda.” When I opened my eyes again, I found myself pleading for my father’s mercy with Afton. This time, I decided to fulfill Afton’s wish.

My residential area suddenly catches on fire, and the twins my husband had with his first wife are trapped in the room. This time, I call 911 without hesitation. After informing my husband of the fire, I don't stop him from leaving. In my past life, when the fire broke out, my husband was about to leave on a vacation with his ex-wife and true love. The trip was to a deserted island—it was to make up for past regrets. I ripped his flight ticket to shreds, stopping him from leaving the house. We successfully saved the kids. After the fire, my husband hurried to the island. However, he learned his ex-wife was declared missing after being taken away by a strong wave. He was calm and composed after returning, even being extra caring to me. Three months later, I discovered I was pregnant. I wanted to surprise him, but my vision went blurry. I collapsed on the floor while twitching violently. He stood aside and watched me coldly. Then, he placed a photo of his ex-wife before me. "You've gotten your wish, Caroline. Are you happy now that you've killed Sasha? You can accompany her now! No, you don't deserve that. An evil woman like you only deserves to go to the underworld!" I breathe my last breath as my vision clears, allowing me to see the frostiness in his eyes. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to the day the fire broke out.