Novel & Cerita Anupama Story Ahead

Our bridal room was set on fire, and my husband, a firefighter, was grievously wounded while trying to save me. I sent him to be saved at the hospital where Winnie Sloan, his childhood friend worked, but the surgery ended up being a failure, and my husband passed away. After the announcement that my husband was deceased, Winnie told me that his dying wish was that he wanted a child. Hearing that, I powered through my grief and used the sperm he had previously frozen to conceive a child through IVF, raising my son to be enrolled in the most prestigious university in the area. On the day of the celebration party, my son kicked me out and invited my husband and Winnie onto the stage as his 'biological parents', and that's when I found out that my husband had faked his death. All those years ago, he and Winnie had swapped out the embryo I'd conceived in secret. The son I had painstakingly given birth to and raised turned out to have no blood relation to me whatsoever. Meanwhile, my husband had been enjoying a luxurious life overseas with Winnie while waiting for a chance to reconnect with his son. In my rage, I confronted them and demanded an explanation, but ended up dying because they pushed me down the stairs. When I came to, I was back to the day of the fire.

Right after finishing a meeting, I opened a forum and saw a warning post. The location tag was our company. The title read: “Red flag! What a cheap company. Anyone who joins is a total sucker. They can’t even afford a decent coffee break.” The photo attached showed the expensive coffee and five-star desserts I had just asked my assistant to distribute to everyone. I frowned and tagged the entire group chat, asking if anyone had suggestions about the afternoon tea. A Gen-Z intern who had just joined, Julian Hayes, instantly replied with a voice message: “Boss, no offense, but these assembly-line desserts are full of trans fats. Nobody would eat them.” “A truly humane company hires a Michelin chef to cook and slice everything fresh on site. That’s what real respect for employees looks like.” I laughed in disbelief. Our company’s daily coffee break budget was thirty dollars per person—already considered top-tier in the industry. So I replied, “Since it’s impossible to satisfy everyone’s taste, we’ll cancel afternoon tea from now on and convert the budget into cash for everyone instead.” Less than five minutes later, that post was updated: “Guys, can you believe this? I made a perfectly reasonable suggestion and the lame boss immediately canceled the whole coffee break perk! This is the true face of corporate greed—can’t handle even a little bit of honesty!”

I've won a lottery hosted by the local bank that gives me an opportunity to experience a day as a rich person. Because of that, I'm given a temporary black card that has a credit limit of a billion dollars. Excited, I rush home to tell my wife, Lara Crawford, about it and plan on taking her to a fancy meal. Unexpectedly, Lara drugs me just so she can steal the black card. Then, she starts a livestream that's titled "Goodbye, Loser. Hello, Billionaire Life." with her male best friend, Adrian Schmitt. Lara can be seen buying a shopping mall with the black card on the livestream. Then, she mocks me for being an impoverished man who only deserves to eat the cheapest food available. What she doesn't know is that the purchase history of the black card is being live-streamed on the bank's channel at the same time. The title of that livestream is "A Test of Human Nature—When a Gold Digger Finds a Billion Dollars." Now, there are ten minutes left before the experience is over.

To defuse the bomb strapped to the hostage, I had no choice—I cut off all her clothes. My clueless new wife, Dana Poole, blasted it online. She cried as she faced me. "Why not at least leave her underwear on? You were saving her, I get it—but did you have to take everything? Doesn't a girl's dignity matter? With cameras everywhere, how is she supposed to live after this? You couldn't even cover her up?" The backlash exploded. The unit benched me to calm things down. So I stopped caring. I followed procedure, no improvising, no extra effort. Then one day, at the busiest mall in the city, Dana's mom got strapped into a brand-new linked bomb. This time, the whole unit panicked.

Three years after our breakup, I ran into my ex-girlfriend, and she had her new boyfriend by her side. "Hey, isn't that Henry the expert?" Diego Stanley taunted with a smirk. "Three years post-breakup, and you're slumming it here playing with clay?" I furrowed my brow, ignored them, and carefully moved the Victorian-era porcelain musician figurine onto its preset base in the display case. When I wasn't biting, he reached out to grab the figurine from my arms. "What's this junk you're treating like gold? Let me take a look." Cynthia Wyatt frowned, her voice laced with that familiar arrogance. "Henry, I've given you three years to shape up, and you're still the same loser? Come on, hand over that clay doll to Diego. Don't kill the vibe. If you play nice, I might even reconsider our old engagement." As Diego's hand neared the figurine, I dodged quickly and barked, "Hands off! It's a historical artifact!" Diego got pissed off and shoved me hard. "Some flea market find, and you're acting all high and mighty?" In the ensuing scuffle, I lost my balance, and the figurine slipped from my grasp, crashing to the floor. That sealed their fate. This entitled pair was about to go bankrupt trying to fix it.

After being away for three years on a special mission, I saw a prenatal examination report on the passenger seat of my CEO wife's Maybach. Fiona Geller told me, "My sister died so young. I must leave her a child. It's just a test-tube baby with my brother-in-law. It's not an affair." The brother-in-law in question, Phillip Stanton, sent Fiona's pregnancy photos to my parents, mocking me for using his sperm to produce a baby with Fiona. My parents suffered a heart attack upon learning the news and were hospitalized. Fiona looked aggrieved. "Don't get so worked up, honey. One of the twins can have your surname!" I looked at her, completely giving up hope. I then called the unit.

I knew perfectly well that open flames were forbidden at a gas-leak scene, yet as a firefighter, I still backed my girlfriend's childhood friend when he insisted on lighting a cigarette "to calm his nerves." In my previous life, a sudden gas leak erupted during a gathering. Her childhood friend insisted on smoking to steady himself. I slapped the lighter out of his hand and yelled at him for trying to get us all killed. Humiliated, he ignored everyone's attempts to stop him and stormed outside—only to be crushed by an advertising board blown loose by the explosion's shockwave. Later, when I saved a child who had fallen from a building and was left hanging in midair myself, my girlfriend—my second-in-command—maliciously cut my safety rope. She stared at my corpse and said, "If you hadn't humiliated George in front of everyone, he wouldn't have died." When I opened my eyes again, I was back in that room thick with the stench of leaking gas.

After my friend Josh Yates fell deep into gambling, he showed up one day wearing a wide, excited grin, insisting on taking me to Macoria. "I just won big," he said. "My treat. We're staying at the most luxurious hotel." However, the moment we landed, he led me straight into a private room buried deep inside a casino. "The truth is, I lost 7.5 million," he admitted. "If I can't pay it back, they'll sell me off to the Mykar Borderlands… "However, the woman who runs this place is looking for a man with a crescent-shaped birthmark. If they find him, all debts are wiped clean. "You've got one on your stomach. I saw it when you were showering. I'm sorry, man… I really don't want to die." Four men pinned me down on a sofa. That was when I noticed a child's drawing hanging on the wall. I had made it for my mother before I was taken from her. She cherished it, said she would keep it for the rest of her life. An icy smile tugged at my lips. Josh, Josh… this time, you really did place the right bet, I thought. Too bad the winner would not be you.

My roommate had a strange obsession with taking cold showers on the balcony. She claimed it helped detox her body and brightened her skin. I warned her, “You should be more mindful of your privacy.” However, she only laughed, accusing me of being jealous of her flawless figure. Then, disaster struck. Her shower photos were leaked online, and soon after, thugs showed up at our door, demanding to humiliate her. Instead of taking responsibility, she turned on me. “It’s her! She’s the shameless one showering on the balcony!” Betrayed and defenseless, I was dragged into the woods and left to die, my life snuffed out in humiliation and pain. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on that fateful day—the day my roommate took her first cold shower on the balcony.

When Roxy showed up at my engagement party to Ian, wearing a dress from the same collection as mine, I knew the marriage wasn’t going anywhere.  The daughter of a homewrecker, Roxy would steal Ian from me just like how her mother took my dad from my mother. However, I'm not letting her get away with it.  Before anybody knew, I trashed my own engagement party and skipped town. I was done playing games.