Hypocrisy

Just because I refused to let my husband, Timothy Blackwood, bring his late friend's widow, Gracie Morgan, home to live with us, he started spreading vicious rumors about me everywhere. Overnight, my reputation was completely ruined, and scandalous photos of me barely dressed spread all over town. Customers stormed into my restaurant and dumped food on me in disgust. "You're disgusting! Who would dare eat here now? Who knows where your filthy hands have been?!" One shouted, "Restaurant owner during the day, sleeping around in God knows whose bed by night!" ... Timothy had hired all of these people just to make the rumors seem real. Crying, I finally agreed to let Gracie move into our home. I begged Timothy to clear my name, but Timothy kicked me hard in disgust and hissed coldly, "You made Gracie cry for three straight days. Her eyes are swollen from it, so how am I supposed to face my dead friend? This time, you need to learn your lesson." Later, I became exactly what he wanted, broken down into a harmless nothing who could never threaten Gracie again. Just when he was about to let up, he got a panicked call from his friend. "Alyssa Winter jumped off a building!"

In a drought-ravaged apocalypse, I kept our entire apartment block alive with my “watermaker” ability. But when I grew weak, my neighbors shattered my limbs and turned me into a living water source. Later, when raiders stormed in, they dragged me out to take the blade for them, only to realize that even my severed arms could still produce water. So, they shouted about “saving humanity,” then shoved me into the crowd and fled in the chaos. People rushed forward one after another, tearing at my flesh. But I didn’t die. What was left of me fell into the hands of a monster, and I was subjected to inhuman torment day after day. Ten years later, when the apocalypse finally ended, that monster tossed me into an incinerator. Only then did I die. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the moment I first awakened my ability, just as my neighbor knocked on the door, begging for water.

In my previous life, I, Ruth Spencer, fell seriously ill. Because of that, I managed to stop my husband, Zayne Colman, from going on a business trip to the country border. He immediately canceled his flight, pulled me into his arms, and gently comforted me. Over the phone, he gave instructions to my younger sister, Reagan Spencer. "The project comes first. You go in my place." But no one could have known that the so-called business partner was actually a ruthless scam syndicate. Reagan had her organs harvested and was tortured to death. I was devastated. Zayne held my frail body in his arms and hoarsely promised that even though Reagan was gone, he would still love me twice as much. And he kept his promise. For ten years, he never let me suffer at all. In fact, he spoiled me rotten. This went on until the day I gave birth. The pain nearly knocked me unconscious, but Zayne put his hand over the call button to prevent me from summoning help. The words he spoke were laced with malice. "If you hadn't gotten sick at such a convenient time back then, Reagan wouldn't have gone alone! I could have saved her. "It's your fault she's dead! She must feel so lonely down there. You and this bastard child can go keep her company!" That was when I finally realized that our love were nothing but a lie. When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day he is about to leave for that trip to the border. This time, I release them to the path leading to freedom, or, in other words, to hell.

My roommate is the kind of person who has to get to the bottom of everything and doesn't stop asking questions until she's satisfied. One night, while I'm sound asleep, she suddenly stands by my bed and calls my name, "Melissa, are you asleep?" Having been awakened by her, I shoot her an annoyed glare, but she just says, "See? You weren't really asleep. Otherwise, how could you have answered me?" One day, she decides to skip class. Thinking that I could help by signing her in on my phone, I do just that. However, near the end of the lecture, she suddenly bursts into the room and asks the professor, "I wasn't here today, so why does it show I was marked present? Is the system down?" The professor traces it back to me, fails me on the spot, and makes me retake the class. Later on, I join a speech contest. My roommate stands up in front of everyone and asks why my speech sounded exactly like her ideas. I get disqualified, lose my scholarship, and am labeled a plagiarist. Devastated, I climb onto the rooftop late at night. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the night when my roommate first asked if I was asleep.

There's a saying that circulates among anglers: "If a dead fish still takes the bait… reel in and leave." The day I went fishing with my dad, we ran into exactly that. What unsettled me was not the fish. It was the look on my dad's face: an excitement that felt completely wrong. Then a message flashed across my livestream, and a chill ran down my spine. [Get out. Now. Your dad is about to trade your life for the one who died in this river a year ago.]

When my family went bankrupt, I was drugged and sent to the bed of my childhood sweetheart, Craig Kennedy. From that night, he brought women home every evening, tossing a divorce agreement in my face. "Beg me, and I won't leave you." He stood above me, watching as I humbled myself to dust, pleading to preserve our marriage. He even ordered me to kneel in his office and massage the feet of his secretary, Lucia Langston. On the day the Moore Group needed ten million to survive, she blocked all my desperate calls for help. I waited 24 hours, watching my family's legacy collapse and my parents take their lives. Craig, with Lucia at his side, entered the house and threw the signed divorce agreement at me again. "You wanted money to save your family, didn't you? Beg me, and as long as I don't divorce you, no one will touch them." But I signed it with calm despair. "Don't bother. We no longer need your help."

A king crab in the company's storage is about to die. In order to prevent the company from suffering a loss, I decided to buy it at the price of 480 dollars and treat my friends to a nice feast. The next day, my boss, Mitchell Wright, calls me to his office. "Ms. Langford, it's true that the net price of a king crab is 480 dollars. But the company has a rule that states that if an employee buys the company's products, they still have to pay according to the selling price." While I'm quite displeased, I still transfer an additional 400 dollars to the company's bank account. But Mitchell raises his voice at me. "Stop being a smartass! The selling price of a king crab is 88 thousand dollars, not 880 dollars!" I do my best to refute. "But we give all of our customers a 99% discount! Surely you can't force me to spend 88 thousand dollars on a crab!" Mitchell just chuckles icily in return. "Rules are rules! While customers are always right, you're nothing but a corporate slave! What makes you think you deserve to receive the same treatment as the customers? "If you refuse to pay the selling price for the crab, then don't blame me for being ruthless!" As I watch Mitchell, who keeps yelling at me with spittle flying everywhere, I find myself filled with an eerie sense of calm. I hope that Mitchell will still be able to chuckle when he finds out that my dad is the biggest seafood supplier.

My daughter, Elise Dolton, got sick, so I rushed over to take care of her. The moment I stepped inside, a rotten stench hit me right in the face, so I offered to help clean the place up. Her roommates' faces dropped right away. "What smell, Mrs. Dolton? The place is fine." "If you think it's such a dump, then have Elise move out. Don't come in here acting like you're better than all of us. We're not putting up with that!" Even Elise shoved me impatiently. "If you’re here to visit, then just act like it. Stop making a scene and embarrassing me, okay?” They were all college roommates, splitting rent on a run-down unit in an old complex. When I went in, I noticed them gathered around a pot of spicy stew. The room was thick with steam and smoke, but it still couldn't cover that awful stench. Strangely, none of them seemed to notice it. Had something gone wrong with my sense of smell? That night, the smell was so overwhelming that I couldn't fall asleep. In the end, I realized the odor was coming from Elise herself. I hurried her into the bathroom and scrubbed her down over and over, but the smell didn't fade at all. It stayed just as strong. With no other option, I called a cleaner, planning to disinfect the entire place inside and out. But Elise's roommates felt offended and started arguing with me. In the chaos, someone shoved me. My temple slammed into the sharp corner of the coffee table, and I died on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment I first walked through the door. The stench rushed at me all over again...

Dorian Ashford was the Empress' only son. From the moment he was born, he was destined to be the Crown Prince. However, after he fell in love with my sister, Celeste Vale, he decided to throw his title away and run off with her to live a simple life together. I could not stand watching him destroy his future, so I told the Empress everything. Dorian was confined to the palace and could not make it to meet Celeste. Later, she ended up getting killed by bandits. After Dorian took the throne, he did not hesitate to send me off to marry into an enemy nation as part of a political alliance. He said coldly, "Consider this repayment for your betrayal back then." In the end, I was brutally assaulted and killed by bandits on the road to that forced marriage. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to before any of this happened.

The night before our wedding anniversary party, my husband—Harvey Clarke—receives constant calls from his first love, Cassie Moss. He responds by holding me closer, and I ask, "Aren't you going to pick up? What if it's urgent?" He firmly shakes his head and says he has already moved on. But when he receives news of her at the party, he breaks down right there and then, oblivious to the room of staring guests. When he tries to leave, I stop him in a panic, but he turns to me with a pure look of disgust. "Cassie's dead. Happy now?" The words hit me like a lightning bolt.