Hypocrisy

Married to Jasper Brook for six years, I found out that he was keeping a mistress under his wing. She was stunning but timid, shrinking back at the slightest raised voice. Because of this, Jasper never lost his temper around her. He indulged her fragility and treated her preciously. However, the mistress wasn’t as obedient as she appeared. When she stirred up trouble with me, Jasper’s patience snapped, and he unleashed his fury on her. The next day, she sent me a photo of her neck covered in hickeys. “Selena, Mr. Brook is so scary. I’m terrified.”

After I landed a five-million-dollar contract and saved the company from financial collapse, my CEO wife wrapped me in an excited embrace and said she wanted to have a baby with me. She took out her phone and showed me a virtual baby on an app she had just signed up for. "Look, honey," she said. "Isn't it adorable? You can even change how it looks. Do you like it? Once things settle down at the company, we can have a real one." That night, I came across a post by her male secretary on social media. It was a photo of a positive pregnancy test, with my wife's figure visible in the background. I did not comment. I just liked the post. When my wife noticed, she panicked and called me immediately. "Honey, it's not what you think. Please listen to me! I wanted to surprise you. The baby is yours! "Can you clear things up on social media for everyone? I promise I'll give you a child of your own soon." She insisted the baby was mine, yet she seemed to have forgotten that we had not shared a bed in six months. "End the pregnancy," I said. "We're finished."

At the wedding, I immediately recognized that the woman under the veil wasn't Selene, but an impostor. But I still went through with the ceremony as if nothing was wrong. In my previous life, Selene had been forced to return and complete the wedding with me after I exposed the fake bride in front of everyone. That very night, however, her childhood sweetheart was rushed to the ICU with acute alcohol poisoning. When Selene heard the news, she didn't shed a tear. Instead, she cursed him, saying he got what he deserved. … After we married, Selene and I appeared to be a loving couple on the surface. I kept funneling money from my family to save her family business from collapse. But on our first anniversary, my wife—with not even a sliver of warmth in her eyes—tied me to a helicopter with her own hands. "If you hadn't forced me to come back and marry you that day, Chase wouldn't have ended up like that," she snarled. "What right do you have to live so happily? I'll make sure you feel the pain he went through before he died." She threw me from ten thousand yards up, and I hit the ground as nothing more than a broken heap of flesh. So, this time, I pretended to know nothing and went through with the wedding alongside the fake bride. I wanted to see just how Selene would manage to save the crumbling Liraine Co. without the Schreiber family's support.

When Ingrid Stewart, the prettiest woman in the factory, got dragged into an abandoned warehouse by a hooligan named Edmund Holloway, I didn't rush after them with a brick in my hand, unlike my past self in the previous life. Instead, I went to the nearest police station right away. In my previous life, I sustained heavy injuries in order to save Ingrid from Edmund. The Stewarts decided to marry her to me so that they could repay my life debt. After our marriage, I treated Ingrid with utmost sincerity, but all I received in return was her resentment. On the night the rundown apartment we lived in was on fire, I rushed into the inferno to push Ingrid and our son out of danger. In return, a beam crashed down on me. When I raised my head, I saw Ingrid dragging our son toward Edmund. Then, she said to me icily, "This is all your fault, you stupid coward! You're the reason why Edmund and I weren't able to get together for so many years!" Edmund guffawed loudly as well. "Right, I forgot to tell you that your son, whom you've loved for 18 years, is actually my child!" In the end, I kept coughing up blood because I inhaled too much smoke. Just like that, I died a gruesome death in the fire. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Ingrid gets harassed by Edmund. In this life, I choose to grant Ingrid and Edmund's wish of staying together.

When I ran into my ex-husband again, he had just been appointed the new hospital director. In the past, manipulated by my so-called best friend, he misunderstood my sincerity again and again. Because of that woman, he eventually walked out of our marriage. As the vice director, I managed to keep things strictly professional around him, right up until the end of the workday. That evening, the head nurse brought some news. "Dr. Holloway, the Municipal Medical Association is hosting a networking banquet tonight. Leaders from all the major hospitals will be attending." The nurses immediately began discussing whether they could go. Just as I was about to agree, he appeared in the doorway without warning. "Dr. Holloway, you can't go. You're staying tonight to handle the hospital restructuring plan." In full view of everyone, he summoned me into the director's office. Seated behind his desk, he said with an icy gaze, "Everyone else can go. You must stay. If I find out you show up at that banquet tonight, be prepared to deal with the consequences."

On Halloween night, an accident struck the haunted house attraction. The children and I were trapped in a pitch-black room, while the staff outside spoke without the slightest urgency. “At this hour, the repair workers have already gone home. If you want them to come back, you’ll have to pay an extra thirty thousand in overtime. “If you’re unwilling, then stay inside for the night.” I begged them to call the repair worker first. We had been in the sealed space for too long, and one boy with heart issues was struggling to breathe. But the staff member only scoffed. “That’s got nothing to do with me. He’s not my kid. Either pay, or sit quietly.” Yet later, outside the emergency room, that same woman knelt on the floor in tears, begging the doctors to save her own child…

Despite me being three months pregnant, my husband asked me to jump into the water to help his first love look for her necklace. I teared up and begged my husband not to make me do this . Yet his friends all criticized me. “He’s just asking you to jump into the water. You’re the only one who can swim here. Nothing will go wrong if you’re only in for a little while.” “Minerva, that’s the memento Violet’s mother left for her.” I tried to keep fighting against it and grabbed the hem of Shaun’s shirt. But he shoved me into the sea. I struggled against the water as I hoped to see any hint of pity in Shaun’s eyes. Yet he said, “Minerva, you’re an excellent swimmer. You’ll be fine.”

When my husband and I drop by his childhood home for Christmas dinner, my mother-in-law, Melissa Potter, is the only one busying away in the kitchen. Everyone else is on their phones. I've just taken a seat when Melissa begins to lecture me. "What, are you just going to sit your ass down and wait for food to come? Don't you know when to lend a helping hand? Am I supposed to exhaust myself for your sake?" From time to time, she keeps rattling the pots and pans loudly. "I can't believe those with healthy bodies want a 70-year-old like me to serve them! Does anyone here have any conscience?" Feeling a little uneasy, I gave my husband a tiny nudge. "Why don't you help Mom out?" After Melissa hears my suggestion, she gets even more pissed off. Thinking that this is my first Christmas with my in-laws, I don't really want to cause a scene here, so I get up to my feet and help her out. But the moment I enter the kitchen, Melissa delegates all the tasks to me. I endure my fury as much as I can while finishing the Christmas dinner preparations. When I'm about to head back to the dining table and dig in, Melissa suddenly speaks up. "Hold up. We got scores to settle before dinner."

My husband sponsored a poor female college student. While I was being dragged into an alley by a criminal, he was helping her pick out lingerie. While I was hospitalized with serious injuries, he used the money my mother left me to buy her a limited-edition handbag. I confronted him in a heated argument, but he accused me of being unreasonable. "I thought your injuries were so serious, but look—you didn’t even die! Besides, your money is my money. I’ll spend it however I want!"

First day of school, and my roommate Sharon hits me with a $50k guilt trip over some "limited-edition" suitcase. "You're blind or just too dumb to walk straight?" My boyfriend? Useless. Classmates? Total sheep. The dean? Clown. Then I really looked at Sharon. Wait a sec—wasn't she the same scholarship case my family covered?