เรื่องสั้นแนว Reborn Romance และนิยายในฉาก Face Slapping

To help his childhood friend secure a spot in a high-ranking institution, my boyfriend, Frederick Linton, steals my academic report. The two of them use my work to publish a research paper before I can. Then, they proceed to accuse me of plagiarism. After they twist the truth and spread it online, I become the target of a vicious wave of cyberbullying. Eventually, the relentless harassment drives me into severe depression. Meanwhile, Frederick's childhood friend, Elaine Anders, rises to prominence in the academic world using my work. On the day Elaine receives her award, Frederick gets down on one knee and proposes to her. I, on the other hand, end my life by jumping off a rooftop. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the very day I finished my research paper.

Ten years after I missed my shot at college, I was selling burgers from a street cart when I ran into Marisa Doyle. Her eyes fell on the empty pant leg where my left leg should have been, and she froze. I calmly bagged up her order and held it out. "That'll be ten dollars." She did not take it. Instead, she scanned the QR code taped to my cart, and my phone chimed with a notification. She had sent me a million dollars. "I never thought you'd end up like this. Back then... What I did to you was wrong. I gave your Wexley University acceptance letter to Tobias." Scalding grease spattered off the griddle and turned my arm red, but I did not feel a thing. Ten years earlier, Tobias Kerr had been brought home as the family's real son, and I had become the fake heir nobody needed anymore. Even my engagement to Marisa was handed over to him. Anger stung my eyes as I stared at the diamond ring on her finger, and my voice broke. "So now that it's all out, you get to feel better. What about me?" After losing my place at college, I was thrown out of the house. I scraped through community college and hit dead ends everywhere I turned. When I finally found a job that kept food on the table, a car accident took one of my legs. Just then, a runaway truck came barreling straight at me. Marisa lunged forward and shoved me out of the way. A second later, the truck slammed into her and sent her flying. In her final moments, she apologized to me. "I've paid back everything I owed you. Please don't hate me. If there's another life, don't love me again." Her blood splashed across my face. The moment her hand went limp, everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day everything changed.

My sister had always despised school. So when she suddenly declared she wanted to go to college—and even urged our parents to marry me off to a high-ranking officer's son to fund her studies—I knew at once: she had been reborn too. In our previous life, my sister believed studying was pointless. She barely graduated high school before marrying Anthony Brown, the officer's son who had come to propose with a pretty penny. However, when Anthony was later transferred to a remote outpost, she found the harsh conditions unbearable and refused to follow him. Meanwhile, I worked part-time jobs to put myself through college, landed a secure job after graduation, and became a full-fledged city resident. My sister, still living in the military compound, started using her father-in-law's name to take bribes. Her actions dragged him into a scandal and got him dismissed from his position. Eventually, my mother-in-law kicked her out. After the divorce, she was tricked into investing in stocks in Eastbridge City. The market crashed, and she lost all of our parents' retirement savings. Desperate and with nowhere to go, she turned to me. Cornering me with a knife, she demanded I hand over my savings and apartment so she could "start over." In the chaos, she stabbed me twelve times. I died from massive blood loss. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment she asked our parents to marry me off to Anthony. This time, I smiled, said yes—and dropped out of school that very day.

I was in the parking garage of my Beverly Hills high-rise. And I backed my car into my neighbor's Ferrari. On purpose. I got out, a half-empty bottle of tequila in my hand, right in front of her. "Are you blind? Do you know how much this car costs? Can you even afford to fix it?" She was furious, her face turning red as she whipped out her phone to call 911. I just smirked. "You should probably call them. Get the LAPD down here to arrest me. I'll wait." The first time around, I was the fall guy for my fiancé, Grant, and his sister, Blair. They got high at some Hollywood party, went joyriding, and killed an innocent valet. But the car was my Porsche. And they swore I was the one driving. I rotted in a California state prison for ten years. The shock killed my mom. A heart attack. When I got out, they weren't done. They forged offshore debts to drain my trust fund and drove me to suicide. I woke up 24 hours before it all happened again.

I jump into the sea to save Terrence Fletcher. After giving him CPR in front of everyone, the engagement meant for my cousin, Anna Stone, unexpectedly becomes mine. However, Terrence gets drunk on our wedding night instead of spending it with me. I naively believe that if I stay by his side long enough, he'll eventually open his heart to me. Three years later, Anna returns with a child who bears a striking resemblance to Terrence, leaving me stunned. That's when I realized he had been with her on the night he left me alone in our bridal suite. "Annie, I'm sorry for everything you've gone through all these years. I'll take responsibility. I'll make Mabel understand that her place is yours!" I tell Terrence that I'm pregnant as well, hoping it will rekindle his love. But his response makes my blood run cold. "Get rid of it." I'm forced onto the operating table, where two lives end at once. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day Terrence falls into the sea. As I see him drenched to the bone, I turn to the crowd and call out for Anna…

My wife, Piper Carlson, yanked out my ventilator tube with her own hands. All because she believed the man who donated a kidney to save her was the guy she'd never gotten over. And me? The husband she'd hated for ten years? Just a liar who stole his credit. "Don't be scared, Elliot. The thief who stole your life finally got what he deserved." The second she pulled the tube, my body locked up. I couldn't breathe. Piper barely looked at me. She just held her "savior" close, relieved I was finally gone. Then, while I was dying, she hit me with one last secret. "Marco, wanna know why you could never get me pregnant again? I slipped something into every bottle of vitamins I gave you. You don't deserve my child." I was so furious I almost lost it. But Piper was already posting her marriage certificate with Elliot Lacy. [After everything we've been through, I finally got my happy ending with the man who saved me.] With the last bit of strength I had, I left one final comment. [Piper, how's my kidney treating you?] Then I opened my eyes. I was back ten years earlier, on the rainy night Elliot stole credit for saving her with my kidney.

As soon as I became a chief surgeon, I immediately had my corneas removed. In my previous life, on my first day in the operating room, my boyfriend's childhood friend secretly used my access badge to perform a critical procedure on a wealthy patient. She botched the surgery through sheer negligence, causing the patient to bleed out and die on the table. However, the medical staff testified that I was the one who performed the failed operation and then fled the hospital. When the medical board confronted me, I desperately explained that I had never performed that surgery in the first place. However, she threw herself into my boyfriend's arms and said with great grievance, "Serena, I know you don't like me, but you can't frame me like that!" Lucas took out the operating room's surveillance footage. The video showed that I was the one holding the scalpel, causing the fatal hemorrhage, and leaving in a panic. "Instead of repenting, you're trying to push the blame onto someone else." After seeing this, the victim's grieving family confronted me and savagely beat me to death. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day before my boyfriend's childhood friend stole my access badge.

The night my in-laws were rushed to the hospital after a car accident, I hurried over to handle the situation. At the payment counter, I swiped my card—only to find that the joint account I shared with my husband had a mere two dollars left. I called my husband, Zarrick Thompson, over and over again. But he never picked up. It wasn't until later that I learned the truth—he had taken our money to celebrate his first love's birthday. Desperate, I borrowed seventy thousand from a friend to save my in-laws. But after they recovered, they flat-out denied everything. My husband, meanwhile, made no attempt to hide his relationship with her. He wanted me gone. To force me into a divorce, he went as far as setting me up—staging an affair, taking photos of me being humiliated. Then he used them to threaten me. Either I walked away with nothing, shouldering all our debts, or he would ruin me completely. I worked endlessly, day and night, to pay it all off. Until, one winter, I collapsed in a frozen alley and never got up again. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the accident.

My father, Caelion, was the High King of the Three Realms, and my mother was Aurelia, goddess of the sun. As their only son, I was meant to inherit my father’s throne. But my sisters became so absurdly infatuated with Corvin, a lowly sparrow from the mortal world who had assumed human form, that they allowed him to pass himself off as me. Father held my coming-of-age feast at the Silvermere Palace. There, he presented me with the Atlas of Dominion. Corvin had snatched it from my hands and sneered. “I will take your place on the throne.” A murderous rage stirred inside me. In the original timeline, I had swallowed every insult for the sake of my family, only for them to join forces and murder me in the end. Since fate had sent me back to that fated day, I would not make the same mistake twice. I wrenched the Atlas of Dominion from Corvin’s grasp. As he stared at me in disbelief, I punched him. “This was Father’s gift to me. What makes a witless little bird like you think you are worthy of touching it? Guards!”

At the celebration, the pampered heiress in Crownridge, Aveline Sage, confessed her love for me in front of the entire school. I turned her down flat. I was one of the Sage family's candidates—handpicked top students from every state—to improve their next generation's genes. In a few days, when the exam results came out, whoever earned the highest national score would become her fiance. For three years straight, I had been ranked first in the country. In my previous life, I achieved that top score. I got engaged to Aveline and became the envy of everyone—the son-in-law of Crownridge's most powerful family. But on the day of our engagement, her first love, Caspian Lorne, jumped off the top of the Sage Group building. His body was shattered beyond recognition. Aveline hired the best mortician to restore his face and placed him in a crystal coffin, where she slept beside him every night. During our honeymoon, she brought Caspian's body along, then kissed and clung to him right in front of me. When I confronted her, she looked at me with disgust. "The Sage family sponsored your education for twelve years. You knew Caspian and I were in love. Couldn't you let him win just once? You've been in first place for twelve years. What would it have cost you to lose? You ruined his future, ruined our love. You deserve to die." She drugged me, turned me into a fool with the mind of a three-year-old. I couldn't recognize my parents. I lost control of my own body. And I died in agony. … Then, I opened my eyes again, back on the morning of the exam. Last time, I beat Caspian by a single point. This time, I left an answer blank. Let him be the top scorer. Let him marry her. I hoped they grew old together, with plenty of children to match their love.

When our teacher caught my desk mate, Avery Collins, and me stealing mock exam papers just before the college entrance exam, he shouted, "The college entrance exam is right around the corner! What was the point of stealing the mock exam papers? Tell me, who was the mastermind?" In my previous life, I took the blame without hesitation. My father nearly beat me to death for it. Avery and I attended the same university, got married after graduation, and raised a daughter, spending thirty years together. I believed I had the perfect life. Then, on the day of my daughter, Emma's wedding, I was thrown out of the venue. Emma told me, "You have no right to be here. Caleb Morgan is my real father." Avery looked at me coldly. "After you got drunk, you already signed the divorce papers. The company, the house, and all the assets belong to me now. You're leaving with nothing. From this day forward, we're strangers." Lost in a daze, I wandered into the street and was crushed beneath a speeding truck. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day everything began. This time, I told the teacher directly, "Avery was the one behind it. I gave her the papers, but I never looked at them. My score belongs to me."

I was the lowest-born black serpent in the Serpent Clan, yet the Dragon Court's most honored crown prince chose me as his bride. He gave up his betrothal to my sister, surrendered his place as heir, and walked away from the Dragon Court for me. I was moved beyond words and became his wife. But after I gave birth to only a black serpent, he flew into a rage. He crushed our baby beneath his foot, then killed me with a single strike of his sword. As I was dying, I saw hatred burning in his eyes. "If I'd known you were this useless, I should've married your sister!" Only then did I learn the truth. I was the woman of fate named in the Dragon Court's forbidden book, the one born with primordial blood. If I gave birth to a primordial child, he would be able to secure the dragon throne. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of the bride selection. This time, Adrian chose my sister, the woman who had given birth to a golden dragon in our previous life, without the slightest hesitation. I laughed and chose a lowly worm servant instead. Adrian didn't know that I truly did carry primordial power. He was simply born with a broken essence. Without me, he was meant to die childless. In this life, I would give birth to the true primordial child. And I would make sure he never inherited the Dragon Court.

I had spent my entire life in the shadow of my sister, Celeste—the woman every wealthy heir in our circle had adored since childhood. She did not know I had been reborn. Just as she had in my first life, she smiled sweetly and offered to let me choose a husband first, making herself look generous and considerate. But this time, I refused to play along. In my first life, I had been foolish enough to believe she meant well. I chose Adrian Vale, the heir who had supposedly lost the use of his legs in a car accident. I gave up my career and spent five years caring for him. I became his caregiver, his assistant, and the only person he claimed could ease his loneliness. But no matter how much warmth I gave him, I could never make him love me. The truth came out on the night of Celeste’s pregnancy celebration. As we left the hotel, one of Hart Group’s former competitors drove a black SUV through the security barrier and sped straight toward Celeste. Adrian—the man who had relied on a wheelchair and my help for five years—rose to his feet without hesitation. Then he shoved me into its path. The SUV struck me hard enough to throw me beneath its wheels. As I lay on the pavement with my pelvis shattered and blood pouring from my body, I watched Adrian pull Celeste into his arms and shield her behind a concrete pillar. Only then did I understand. He had never been unable to walk. His family had never abandoned him, either. He had pretended because Celeste had chosen Julian, and he would rather live as a helpless man than admit he had been forced to marry her sister. “I’m sorry, Evelyn,” he whispered as my blood spread across the pavement. “I lied to you. But I couldn’t let Celeste lose her baby.” “I’ll repay you in our next life.” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my father asked us to choose our husbands. This time, I would choose neither man. One day, they would both beg for the love they had thrown away.

After being reborn, I secretly switch the man I want to marry the most to the useless scion who loves flirting with me that lives next door. My dad, who's a high-ranking military colonel, is quite surprised by my choice, but he respects my wishes. In my past life, when Dad asked who I liked the most in the entire neighborhood, I had written down Damian Conrad's name. He nodded and told me, "This man has contributed greatly to the country despite only joining the army for three years. His future will definitely be a bright one. "A man as just and fair as him will undoubtedly be a good man who takes good care of his family and stays devoted to them." Dad immediately arranged for the two families to meet. Everyone thought that it was a rare and fated union. Our wedding was very grand and high-profile. Most of the people living in the military base came over to celebrate our wedding. But Damian set off for the frontier half a year after our marriage, with the excuse of wanting to contribute to the country. Not only did he leave me behind to take care of my in-laws on my own, but he also cut off all contact with me when Dad was severely ill. When I was finally done dealing with Dad's funeral matters, all I received was the bad news of Damian's death at the frontier. Crushed by the devastation and despair of the news, I fell into severe depression. Soon, I took my own life by jumping off the building. After my death, my soul refused to fade away at all. 40 years later, an elderly man and woman with graying hair showed up before my grave. With an arm around Heidi Myers' waist, Damian paid his respects to me at my grave. "It's my fault for lying to you back then, Carla. But Heidi doesn't have much time to live, so I can resort to desperate measures. Please let everything go and stop pestering her, Carla. If you really are resentful, feel free to come at me instead." It turns out that Damian loved Heidi this much that he was willing to fake his death just to trick me. But at the same time, they were so superstitious that they thought I was the one pestering Heidi, causing her to be afflicted with a terminal cancer. Now that I found out about the truth, I finally let my obsession go. When I open my eyes again, I realize I've returned to the day Dad asks me who I want to marry the most.

My family has this outdated tradition. On my twenty-second birthday, whoever gets my heirloom bracelet first becomes my wife. For the past eighteen years, my childhood sweetheart, Madison Young, teased that she’d be the one to claim them. However, when I opened the box, the beads snapped and spilled across the floor, right in front of a blind girl passing by, Grace Bellamy. She bent down and picked them up. Madison made a scene, urging me to marry her instead, just to please my father’s illegitimate son, Connor Vaughn. Watching Grace stand there, flustered and surrounded, I stepped forward, shielding her with my body. "Fine," I said. "I’ll marry her."

My husband was a Gold dragon. So was I. Yet I gave birth to a small Ice Blue dragon. Then came the news: my younger half-sister had borne a Gold dragon for his younger brother. Her fame spread like wildfire. Drakon Vexis, the Crown Prince, flew into a fury. He slaughtered my child. He threw me into the frozen dungeons, where I was tortured and starved until I breathed my last. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of my coming-of-age ceremony—the day the dragon court chose its brides. Without hesitation, Drakon chose my sister. I knew then. He had been reborn too.

My wife, Valerie Larson, had a congenital heart condition. Despite that, she still wanted to have a child with her first love, Eugene Dyer. I refused without a second thought. Ten months later, Eugene's mother, Susan Turner, passed away. Her eyes were still wide open as if refusing to accept death without ever holding her grandchild. Overcome with guilt for failing his mother, Eugene took his own life in his small, rundown apartment. Valerie, consumed by grief and anger, took us on a road trip, only to crash the car head-on into a truck without hesitation. She shouted, "It's your fault Eugene died! If you had let me give him a child, he never would have ended up like that! His whole family is gone, so yours doesn't deserve to live either!" When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day Valerie first asked to have Eugene's child. This time, I forced a small smile and said, "Darling, go ahead. Our whole family will support you."

I open my eyes, only to find Monica Shepherd lying beneath me. I'm just about to get up when a sudden ringing sound prompts Monica to shove me away. Monica's previously flushed face turns completely cold the moment she hangs up. She lights up a cigarette and says indifferently, "You shouldn't come around anymore since the new man I'm seeing gets incredibly jealous. He's quite a handful to deal with." I look into her eyes and readily agree. In my past life, I refuse to let go after she falls for someone else, shamelessly clinging to her like a desperate simp. She absolutely loathes me for that, though, to the point that when she sees a group of thugs break my leg and drag me into an alley, she doesn't hesitate for a second to grab her new man, Michael Harrison, turn her back, and walk away. In this lifetime, I'm the one who doesn't want Monica anymore.

My mother-in-law, Lillian Pierce, gets into a car accident and needs a liver transplant from my wife, Elena Prescott. However, she is busy playing a murder mystery game with her first love, Ethan Bennett. In my previous life, I forcibly drag her away from the game and bring her to the hospital for the liver transplant. No one could have foreseen the tragedy that would happen. During this time, Ethan crosses paths with a deranged serial killer and ends up dead in an alley. After his tragic end, Elena doesn't show any reaction to his passing—until the anniversary of his death. On that day, she locks me in the basement and slices the flesh off my body piece by piece. "If it weren't for you, Ethan would never have died. Go down there and apologize to him!" Her smile is sinister, a tell-tale sign of the madness that has consumed her. When I open my eyes again, I am back to the day when Lillian gets into an accident. This time, I do not force Elena to do the liver transplant. She saves Ethan but loses her mother forever.

A week before our wedding, Damian Hale threw me a pre-wedding party at his family's private racetrack. His racing partner, Sienna Belmont, tossed a set of car keys into my lap. "Every bride should take a spin, right?" I wanted to refuse, but Damian slung an arm around me and said with a laugh, "It's just for fun. Sienna will show you around the track. You'll be fine." I let my guard down. But when I reached the third turn, I hit the brakes. Nothing happened. The car crashed through the barrier. My spine snapped, leaving me in a wheelchair. Three months later, I saw Sienna walk out of Damian's bedroom wearing my engagement ring. All he had to say was, "Avery, I need a wife who can stand beside me." Sienna wheeled me out to the rooftop terrace. "Want to know why your brakes failed?" With a smile, she released my wheelchair's brake and gave me a hard shove. I plunged 40 stories. When I opened my eyes again, I was back a month before the party. I called my father, who was out driving his cab. "Dad, before you became a cab driver, you were a championship coach. You trained some of the best racers in the business. Would you teach your daughter to beat one?"