Fake Death

The day cancer spread through my whole body, my family took me to court for being heartless and cruel. All because I refused to donate my kidney to the fake daughter, even though I was a perfect match. When they saw me lying in the coffin, my sister, who never liked me, said, “What a drama queen! Even got yourself a coffin this time.” Even my parents despised me and said, “If you want to die, at least cut out your kidney first and go die somewhere else. Don’t die in front of us and make us sick.” But later, when the memory extractor cut into my brain, it revealed all the times I had been tortured by that fake daughter over the years. The family that despised me went insane at that moment.

It had been ten years, and Ethan—my mate—and I still didn’t have a pup. One day, he suggested we adopt one from the Werewolf Orphan Charity Agency. “My mate,” he said gently, “pregnancy is too hard for you. You’d have to go through so many checkups and herbs. Your wolf shouldn’t have to suffer like that.” When others heard this, they all said Ethan loved me deeply—that he couldn’t bear to see me in pain. But I saw the truth with my own eyes. He took an infant pup from another she-wolf. “Luckily, Mia isn’t pregnant,” he said. “That way, the excuse of adopting an infant works—and the pup can have a legitimate status in my clan.” I knew that she-wolf well. The same one Ethan used to call a “stupid omega.” Swallowing the bitterness in my heart, I called my mentor at the Werewolf Research Academy. “I want to devote myself to herb research,” I said calmly. Three days from now, during the pup’s first New Moon blessing, I’ll fake my death in a fire. No one will be able to stop me.

I was the real daughter—unloved, unwanted, and cast aside. The design draft I poured my heart into was stolen by my second brother and gifted to the fake daughter. Then he accused me of being a plagiarist. My father, the richest man in the city, had me blacklisted from the entire industry. The fake daughter pretended to apologize, then pushed me off a cliff. When I woke up, nearly all my bones had been shattered. I called my fiancé, the captain of the rescue team, but he was cradling the fake daughter's sprained ankle. He scoffed, "Oh, you had an accident too? Want me to save you? Why don't you just die already?" My body grew colder under the crushing pain. My eldest brother, the forensic pathologist, cut open my rotting corpse while grumbling that he was late for the fake daughter's birthday. Yet when they finally saw me again, they all cried, begging for my forgiveness.

Hubert Parker and I had been together since our teenage years. We went from innocent first love to planning a lifetime together. But a week before our wedding, he died in a sudden accident. I cried until I nearly passed out, only to see strange messages flashing before my eyes. [Can someone please tell the poor female lead he’s not really dead?] [Hubert’s secret lover ran away after hearing about his wedding. He faked his death that very night and flew overseas to chase her. The female lead’s crying by his grave while the mistress is crying in his bed. This is killing me!] [What a pity. When he finally came back, she knew nothing and still married him with a smile…] Half a month later, news spread across Ashford that I was engaged to the heir of one of the city’s most powerful families. One of Hubert’s closest friends confronted me in disbelief. “It hasn’t even been that long since Hubert passed, and you’ve already found someone new?” “He’s gone. I can’t spend the rest of my life in mourning, can I?”

My husband, an Army regimental commander, was killed in action. Before his body was even cold, I didn't hesitate. I filed for his death certificate and notified the Army, the Social Security Administration, and our bank. Then, three days later—on the very day his twin brother married his childhood sweetheart—I moved out, changed the locks, and remarried quietly at the courthouse, taking my son and the full line-of-duty death benefits with me. To everyone else, I was heartless. Cold. I let them curse me. I just looked into my “brother-in-law's” bloodshot eyes and felt a quiet, cruel satisfaction. Only I knew the truth. In my last life, I discovered the body sent home wasn't my husband's at all—it was his identical twin brother's. I ran to confront him, but by chance I overheard him and my mother-in-law whispering. "Mom, Sarah is strong. And we have our son. She'll be okay. The benefits will take care of her. But Amy has waited for my brother all these years. If she finds out he's dead, she might do something drastic." Their words struck me like lightning. I tried to expose them, but my husband knocked me out. He told everyone grief had driven me insane. He locked me in the garage apartment and, with cold detachment, married his sweetheart. And when that woman complained my son was too loud, my husband slipped sleeping pills into our boy's juice—right as my crying child was coming to look for me. My son never woke up. The day they buried him hastily, I ended my life in the garage, utterly broken. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day they delivered my brother-in-law's body to our home.

After the car accident, one of the Johnson sons was dead and the other gravely injured. When my devout, devoted husband woke up in the hospital, he called out, "Dorothy." He claimed that his body then held the soul of his brother, Elias Johnson. I went mad, calling doctors, priests, anyone I could, desperate to bring my husband back. It was not until that night that I overheard his conversation with our son: "Father, you've loved aunt for years. You even kept yourself chaste in your private prayer room, waiting. Now, finally, you can be with her openly." The man in the bed reached out to stroke our son's hair. "If it weren't to stop your mother from destroying her relationship, I wouldn't have married her." I hid in the shadows, still reeling from their words, when I saw what happened after our son left. The husband I had always known, icy, composed, and ascetic to maintain his devout faith for seven years, was then holding his sister-in-law close on that tiny hospital bed, sharing a warmth meant for lovers. The next day, I applied for Jim Johnson's death certificate and burned our marriage certificate. At his grand wedding, I climbed aboard the helicopter sent to fetch me. However, my once-cold husband went mad, chasing after us down several streets, desperate and unhinged.

My fiancé was the CEO of a powerful financial conglomerate, and to the outside world, he adored me beyond measure. A week before our wedding, I found out I was pregnant with triplets. I had planned to tell him the joyful news in person. But instead, I witnessed him in bed with other women. Not with just one. It felt like a knife had carved into my soul, cutting so deep I lost all hope, all trust. My tears begged for release, but I held my head high, forcing myself to stay strong. For him, I had given up everything—my pride, my family, my career. Yet he chose to share our love with others. All those vows to love me and only me for a lifetime had been lies. Our so-called future, our wedding—it was all a cruel joke. He was no longer the man I once loved. He had become tainted. I would not endure his betrayal. He no longer deserved to be the father of my children. So I made my decision—to disappear, to fake my death and start over, to give myself and my babies a chance at a free, unburdened life. But I never imagined he'd become obsessed and start searching the world for women who resembled me, all while declaring I was the only one he ever loved. Too little, too late. His affection now is worth nothing. This time, I'm not looking back.

I knew my husband, Josh Perkins, had faked his death and taken on his younger twin brother's identity—but I never said a word. Instead, I went straight to the commander of the military district and filed an official report of my husband's death, requesting his name be permanently removed from the service rolls. In my last life, my brother-in-law died in an accident. Josh gave up his rank as regimental commander, abandoned his own name, and stepped into his brother's shoes—all to spare his fragile sister-in-law from becoming a widow. Back then, I recognized him immediately. I confronted him and demanded to know why he was pretending to be a dead man. But Josh just looked through me, cold as a winter morning. "Riley, I know you're grieving Josh. But I'm not him. Don't mistake me for my brother." He shielded that delicate sister-in-law of his behind him, then shoved me into the icy river and warned me not to harbor delusions. Later, our five-year-old daughter cried, asking why her daddy didn't want her anymore. For that, she was dragged to the cowshed for "reflection"—left there, starving, for three days and nights. My mother-in-law called me a curse, a jinx who'd killed her son, and threw my daughter and me out with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Josh made sure everyone knew I'd "gone mad"—that I was lusting after my brother-in-law before my husband was even cold in the ground. The whole town turned their backs on us. That last winter, I wandered the streets with my girl, dazed and numb, until the cold finally took us both. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the very day Josh buried his old life and stole his brother's.

When I hear my boyfriend, Terence Bowen, is trapped in a house fire, I immediately rush back to save him. However, after dragging him out with all my strength, I realize it's just a dummy. Laughter erupts from the house next door. "Ariana Brock is such a fool! She fell for it again!" Through a half-open window, I spot Terence lounging on the couch, casually scrolling through his phone. He looks completely fine. "That's the 47th prank we've pulled on her. Three more to go and we're done." "Serves her right. She shouldn't have stolen Bethany Howard's scholarship. Bethany is the one Terence actually cares about. That's why he decided to fake a relationship with Ariana to get revenge 50 times over. Too bad the game will end soon." I bend over, gasping for air. All this time, the relationship I've worked so hard to protect is nothing but a game to them.

After the plane crash, I rejected the captain—my brother-in-law’s—final life jacket that he had as he handed it to me. Instead, I allowed myself to plunge a hundred meters from the sky. In my previous life, I had survived after accepting his life jacket. But he died a tragic death in the crash. After his death, I was consumed with guilt. My husband proposed to take care of two households at the same time so that he could look after his sister-in-law. Out of guilt, I reluctantly agreed to his proposal. I even had to give up my only chance of getting promoted to department head of the hospital to my sister-in-law, upon my husband’s insistence. When I was seventy years old, I suddenly saw my brother-in-law, who was supposed to be dead, show up in front of me. He said to my husband, “Bro, thank goodness you came up with that fake-death plan back then. I was drunk and caused the deaths of all the passengers after the plane crash. If not for that plan of yours, as the captain, I certainly could not have escaped scot-free and would have been sentenced to prison for life! “It was too bad we had to keep her in the dark for her entire life.” After a lifetime of sacrifices, I was so furious that I nearly passed out upon hearing my brother-in-law’s words. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the plane crash.