Ao Rebirth

After being condemned across the internet for plagiarism, I stood before everyone and announced my retirement from writing. My boyfriend, Carter Xavier, who had been furiously accusing me just moments ago, froze in shock. “What are you doing? Don’t you still have debts to pay?” Ruby Quinn—his precious and the so-called victim of this scandal—immediately panicked. “Vera, you don’t have to punish yourself like this. I’m willing to give you a chance to start over.” I remained firm, my expression cold and unmoving as camera flashes exploded around me. In my past life, these two had humiliated me, plotting together behind my back to steal my work. My painstaking efforts had built Ruby’s reputation as a so-called genius author. But not this time. Without hesitation, I deleted the pen name I had used for the past six years. I had spent enough time struggling in a cramped rental apartment. It was time to return home and claim my family inheritance. As for Ruby Quinn— Let’s see how you finish the rest of that stolen manuscript without me.

My wife, Wendy, faked her death and took her younger sister’s identity, and I pretended not to know. I removed her from the position of general manager at the company and went to the police station to cancel her identity registration. In my past life, Wendy’s younger sister, Stacy, died in a car accident. Wendy chose to live as her, only because she could not bear to let Eric, her sister’s husband, become a widower. I confronted Wendy and demanded to know why she was impersonating her sister, but she refused to admit anything. “I understand that losing Wendy hurts, but you cannot treat me as if I’m her just because she is gone.” After that, Wendy spread rumors everywhere, saying I had lost my mind. She claimed that my wife had just died and I was already harboring improper thoughts toward her younger sister. In a short time, I suffered an unprecedented wave of online harassment. In the end, an overzealous netizen stabbed me to death in an alley. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day Wendy was preparing to take her sister’s identity.

As Jastrelle's golden girl, I draw lots to pick my groom, and fate finally hands me Felix Ledger, the childhood sweetheart I've wanted forever. During the impromptu wedding, a funeral convoy belonging to a scion of a rich family in Jastrelle passes right outside. I hate the omen. Felix laughs, pulls me into his arms, and places the veil over my head himself. "I'll take it as a good omen. With you, I'm covered from first breath to last," he says. His adoptive sister, Winnie Ledger, hears him, bursts into tears, and bolts outside. The funeral convoy runs her down, and she dies. Felix barely reacts. Three years later, Dad is framed, driven into bankruptcy, and falls gravely ill. He dies, and I lose everything. At the funeral, Felix sends everyone off, shoves me into the open grave, and buries me alive. He spits, "You rigged everything to get me. You left Winnie ruined. She bolted outside, and that funeral convoy ran her down. For three years, remorse has eaten me alive. I want you torn apart! "With your last protector gone, I can finally make you suffer a hundredfold the pain Winnie felt and ease my hatred!" When I open my eyes, I'm back at the groom-selection ceremony. Dad smiles as he hands me the lots. I shake my head, look out the window, and point at the funeral convoy passing outside. "I'm not choosing anyone. I'll marry that dead man!"

On the eve of giving birth, my world turned into a nightmare. My husband’s sworn enemy broke into our home, seeking revenge. I was brutally cut open and my baby was ripped from me. Yet, I made the chilling choice not to call my husband for help. In my previous life, desperate and terrified, I begged him to return home. He abandoned a Valentine’s dinner with a scholarship student to rush back. That night, the student was preyed upon in a bar, leading to her tragic suicide. My husband’s wrath was unrelenting. Blaming me for her death, he locked me in a kennel, leaving me to be savaged to death. “This is the pain Wynne endured because of you. Now it’s your turn to suffer!” Given a second chance, I resolved to make a different choice. This time, I let him stay for his romantic Valentine’s evening with her. But when I returned home, he had spiraled into madness.

After my fiancée returned from six months of traveling with her childhood friend, she realized I had changed. For his sake, she broke protocol and promoted him to be the CEO's personal assistant. I obediently stepped aside and gave up my position. When he took over the project I had spent three sleepless months completing, I handed it over without a fight. My fiancée found my sudden compliance strange. Her childhood friend, on the other hand, was smug about it. He said with a grin, "Looks like your cold treatment finally worked. If you want him to behave, you just have to train him like a dog." My heart was calm and unmoved as I listened to their conversation. No one knew that I had been reborn. No one knew that I had finally accepted the truth: she never loved me from the start. No matter how reluctant I felt, from this moment on, I would cut ties with her completely. One clean break, free of all entanglements.

In my last life, my in-laws "died," and my so-called DINK husband, Eric, begged me to raise his sweet little "brother," Luca. Seven years flew by. That scrawny kid turned into a total cutie and blew up online—pulling in tens of thousands a month. Then one night, boom—Eric's parents came back from the dead. And with them? Tammy. Eric's first love. She clung to Eric with one hand, Luca with the other, all smug as hell. "I've been traveling for seven years. I'm tired. And wow, what a perfect son—thanks for raising him." Eric's parents didn't even pretend to care. "You couldn't give Eric a kid, but at least you were useful this once." "Sign the divorce papers. Make room for Tammy." I walked out of that law firm wrecked—and right into the path of a speeding car. Tammy was behind the wheel, smiling like she won. Next thing I knew, I woke up on the same day Eric's parents had "died."

Bertha Cobb's first love, Owen Rountree, made a mistake during his experiment, leading to an explosion occurring in the lab. Eight students died in this explosion as a result. However, Bertha insisted that I take on the responsibility of this accident and admit that the explosion occurred because of the error found in my data. "You're a professor here. Nothing will happen to you if you're the one taking on the responsibility. But Oewn, on the other hand, will get admonished by the victims' families." I got dismissed by the university afterward. In the end, the victims' families burned me to death. My daughter, Leah Callahan, got bullied as well. She was forced to drop out of school later on and died from depression. While Leah breathed her last on her bed, Bertha was in the middle of celebrating Owen's promotion as a professor. When I opened my eyes again, I realized that I was five minutes away from the explosion in the science lab.

After being reborn, I make up my mind to stop chasing after my childhood crush, Emil McLaren. When he puts up a sign banning my presence at his birthday party, I pack my bags and decide to go to Wanoki Island. When he says my scent makes his house feel nauseating, I quietly move out without complaint. When he says he doesn't want to breathe the same city air as me after our graduation, I leave and never look back. Then he tells me my existence might make his beloved first love uncomfortable. I nod and soon go public with someone else. In this life, I do the opposite of everything I did before. Because in my past life, I got what I wanted—I married Emil. But then his first love jumped off a cliff. He called me her murderer and tormented me. In the end, I jumped into the sea in a state of mental confusion and died. This time, all I want is to live. So, I find myself someone new. However, Emil blocks my path, his eyes bloodshot as he glares at me. "Penelope, I'll forgive this little joke of yours if you come with me right now."

Not long after getting married to my husband, he says he wants to teach me how to scuba dive. My leg cramps when I'm practicing alone in the deep sea. However, my husband, a swimming instructor, chooses to save his unattainable love—she's jumped into the sea to commit suicide. I don't ask him for help. Instead, I allow myself to slowly sink. In my past life, I stopped my husband from leaving. He saved me with gnashed teeth and allowed his first love, Millie Quirke, to drown. By the time he went to save her, she'd already disappeared in the water. He comforted me and told me it was okay, that he was glad he'd saved me. However, one night, he brought me back to the seaside. Just as I let my guard down, he grabbed my neck and plunged my face into the water. Then, he dragged me out before I could suffocate. "You were just cramping—it would've passed! But Millie got dragged away by the current because of you! You can remain in the ocean with her!" When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day I was scuba diving.

On the eve of the National Robotics Championship, I smashed my carefully designed bot to pieces and announced my withdrawal. Everyone said I was a fraud who was quitting out of fear of being exposed. Online, the netizens mocked me relentlessly. Only one person, Adrian Cross, the so-called genius of the century, spoke up in my defense, his voice dripping with false sincerity, "I believe in River Lowell’s skills. Only he deserves to be my opponent. No matter what setbacks he’s facing, I hope he comes back to the arena and proves himself." In my previous life, the robot I built was identical to his. No matter how I tried to prove he had copied me, Adrian stood before the cameras, wearing his benevolent mask, and said, "It’s fine. This robot can go to River. I can always build something even better." His fans swarmed me, tearing me apart online, and no one believed in my talent. I swallowed the humiliation and vowed to rebuild my robot from scratch. However, when I was assembling it, the Power Core in my kit exploded, shattering my skull. That same night, I was rushed into the ICU. Netizens clapped and cheered, saying I got exactly what I deserved. That night, my girlfriend, Lila Hart, signed the hospital’s DNR consent form without hesitation. Until the day I died, I never understood how Adrian had gotten my robot’s data or why Lila had joined forces with him. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day of the competition.