Hypocrisy

As I'm unable to get a ticket for my return trip after the Thanksgiving holiday, I specifically booked a first-class seat home. Just as I find my seat, I see an unruly child jumping around on it. I patiently smile and say, "Kid, this is my seat. Where is your seat?" He makes a face at me. "It's mine now, old hag!" I grab him by the collar of his shirt, wanting to lift him out of the seat. At that moment, a woman's piercing voice sounds behind me. "What are you doing? Let go of my son!" I release my grip and say as gently as possible, "Please control your child. This is my seat." Suddenly, she raises her voice. "He's just a child! Can't you, as an adult, give way to him? You're young and dressed decently. How can you have no compassion at all?" I'm so angered by this distorted reasoning that I laugh. "If you're so compassionate, why didn't you spend the money to buy your child a first-class seat?"

My flower stall that's stationed outside the university entrance gets thrashed by the hooligans hired by my husband, Anthony Rivera. So, I show up at Sienna Wright, the low-income student's graduation ceremony with a bouquet of roses. Anthony, who's a university professor, is in the middle of turning Sienna's tassel for her. When they are taking a photo together with smiles on their faces, I turn on my megaphone right away. "My husband longs to have two wives. One is the student he's sleeping with. To celebrate their affair, all roses are now 3 dollars each." Everyone just stares at Anthony, clearly dumbfounded. Meanwhile, Anthony, who prides himself on being cool and composed, finds himself panicking once again.

My cousin, Monica Newman, turned down a blind date with a rich guy and insisted on marrying a broke kid instead. She begged me to steal her papers from my aunt so that she could get her way, yet two years after the wedding, she ended up killing me. She said it was all my fault that she had married an average guy and spent every day stressing about money. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the same day Monica was to meet that rich guy for the blind date. This time, I told her, "How do you know he's wrong for you if you won't even give him a try?" Since she blamed me for ruining her dream of marrying into money in my last life, this time, I would give her exactly what she wanted.

My husband woke me at 2 AM, demanding I come to the hospital to operate on Ava Foster— his first love. When I arrived, Ava was lying ghostly pale in the hospital bed. The chart showed end-stage uremia; she desperately needed a kidney transplant. I explained that her condition was critical, and without a matching donor, there was nothing I could do. My husband mistook my professional assessment for jealousy. He slapped me hard across the face. "What kind of doctor are you?" he snarled. "Are you just going to let her die? Test more people until you find a match!" I rubbed my cheek and nodded calmly. "Actually, we already found one." "Your kidney is compatible with hers. You'll be the donor."

Carl Larson's intern is about to die, and her only wish is for him to sleep with her once. I disagree, and he says I'm petty. "It's just a one-time thing. She's about to die! Why do you have to assume I'm up to something dirty?" Is that so? I've seen them together more than once, though. I later agree, and he's relieved… until he sees me lying on his operation table for an abortion. He widens his eyes in disbelief. "What are you doing here?" I smile. I want him to murder his child. I want him to regret this for life.

I stand before the judges at the jewelry design competition and admit to plagiarism. Then, I announce my withdrawal from the contest, along with my resignation as Design Director of Fairchild Group. My fiance, Caleb Fairchild, shoots daggers at me. "If you walk away from this competition, our engagement is off!" My father follows up by slapping me across the face. "First, you plagiarize your own sister, and now you're breaking off your engagement with the Fairchilds? Are you trying to ruin our family?" "Oh, I'm not just calling off my engagement. I'm also cutting off my ties with you," I respond apathetically. I make this decision because I have been given a second life. In my previous life, my stepsister and I competed in this contest. First place earns the title of the nation's top jewelry designer and 50 million dollars from Fairchild Group. However, round after round, her designs are exactly the same as mine, and she submits them before I do. The judging panel gives me a pass because of Caleb and lets me advance to the finals, but not without a warning to never plagiarize again. I refuse to believe it. I switch to a brand-new computer, lock myself in my room, and pour everything into a new design. Yet, when the final designs appear on the big screen, history repeats itself. In the end, my sister takes first place and walks away with everything that should have been mine. The reputation I painstakingly built is ruined, and my name is dragged through the mud online. My parents are ashamed of me. They knock me out and sell me off to the countryside to marry an old man. Ultimately, I die after endless abuse. When I open my eyes again, I'm back at the semifinals. Everyone is pointing at me as they stare at the two identical designs.

After my father died, my mother remarried and took my younger sister and me with her. But her new husband had one condition—she could only bring one child. From people who used to hang around my dad, I later learned that my grandfather was actually a wealthy antique collector. My sister clung to him for her own future, refusing to let go. But in his eyes, her only job was to get straight A's; everything else—her clothes, her meals, her allowance—was kept to the bare minimum. I went with my stepfather instead. His business took off, and we eventually moved into a huge mansion. He even set me up with an engagement to the heir of a powerful, wealthy family. My sister was eaten up with jealousy. One day, she doused me in gasoline and dragged us both back in time to that day we had to choose our futures. This time, she lunged for my stepfather's hand and held on tight. "I want to stay with Mom and Dad," she announced. I didn't miss a beat. I immediately ducked behind my grandfather. 'Fine, Phoebe. You're the one who chose a life as a bargaining chip. Don't blame me for it. You can have it.'

I had been managing the company’s warehouse software for five years. Then the new manager came to me out of the blue, saying I didn’t understand frontline operations and that I was being fired. Looking at the five-thousand-dollar severance, I just nodded. “Fine.” He patted my shoulder after seeing me so compliant and started lecturing. “Young people should be out on the line, moving boxes! What’s the use of sitting in the office staring at data every day? “We’re a logistics company. Strength is what matters, not a tech geek like you!” I glanced at the high-end gaming computer in his office and obediently replied, “Yes, Mr. Fuller. Lesson received.” Maybe I had been too comfortable these past few years, and he thought I was dispensable. So, I handed over my ID badge and casually deleted all my personal login keys from my computer. Little did he know that the entire warehouse logistics, inventory management, and route planning software had been coded by me. I had let the company use it for free simply because the place was close to home and the work was easy. Now that I was gone, the system running on my personal cloud server was naturally inaccessible. Tens of thousands of items in the warehouse ground to a halt. As for any commercial software that could replace my system, a year’s subscription would cost exactly one thousand times my severance.

The night before her wedding, Morgan Hayes was hit by a car while trying to save Sebastian Cole. She was thrown into the air, suffering multiple fractures, and her face was severely disfigured from the impact. Despite her injuries, Sebastian didn’t turn away from her. He still married her and continued to cherish and protect her as he always had. Everyone said Sebastian loved her more than life itself, that his love for her went beyond superficial appearances. She once believed that too until half a month ago when she discovered he was having an affair with their housemaid.

Years after graduation, someone suddenly tags me in the class group chat. "Mr. Warren is gravely ill, Mira. Aren't you going to do anything? You really are heartless!" I only realize what's going on when I click on the fundraising link in the chat. Our high school homeroom teacher, Joseph Warren, has late-stage cancer. Thus, Lyra Fairfield, the class belle, is leading a fundraiser and patient-donor matching process. "I'll donate ten thousand dollars. My husband is the director of Waverly General Hospital, and I've already asked him to arrange a VIP ward for Mr. Warren." Right after I send that message, the group pounces on me. "Mira, you contracted an STD back then and tried to pin it on Lyra. She didn't even hold it against you, and now you're trying to steal her thunder? You're unbelievable!" "I can't believe you're still lying through your teeth during such a serious situation. You never change, do you?" Lyra immediately defuses the tension. "Mira, I don't blame you for what happened in the past, but you really shouldn't impersonate the director's wife. I've already arranged the ward and surgery, and I'm donating another 100 thousand dollars to Mr. Warren!" I'm this close to laughing out of sheer anger. She's the one who scratched her name off the diagnosis report and framed me for having an STD all those years ago. I never even confronted her about it, and now she's playing the victim? Lyra soon posts a photo in the group chat, showing off her husband's car. Yet, when I see the man in the passenger seat, I guffaw. Isn't that my husband's driver? When did he start running a hospital?