Ashley Pitch Perfect

On the third day after my death, my body was sent to the police station in different packages. Jonathan Walsh, my husband, and Frank Stone, my junior at work, saw my corpse and frowned. “If only Elena were here, she would have been able to find some clues.” Frank sighed as he stared at my horribly mangled remains. “Don’t mention her. She’s not even worthy of being a forensic scientist!” I stared at my husband with a conflicted look. He analyzed each part of my body and deduced the manner of my death with familiar ease. “The murderer is a monster…” Frank’s face turned pale, and he sighed again. Jonathan calmly used all that I had taught him and perfectly pieced out the entire process of my death based on the clues from my dismembered body. I could not help but feel proud. Unfortunately, he was still a little off the mark. He did not manage to figure out that this body belonged to me, his wife.

After confirming I was pregnant, I suddenly heard my husband’s inner voice. “This idiot is still gloating over her pregnancy. She doesn’t even know we switched out her IVF embryo. She’s nothing more than a surrogate for Elle. If Elle weren’t worried about how childbirth might endanger her life, I would’ve kicked this worthless woman out already. Just looking at her makes me sick. “Once she delivers the baby, I’ll make sure she never gets up from the operating table. Then I’ll finally marry Elle, my one true love.” My entire body went rigid. I clenched the IVF test report in my hands and looked straight at my husband. He gazed back at me with gentle eyes. “I’ll take care of you and the baby for the next few months, honey.” However, right then, his inner voice struck again. “I’ll lock that woman in a cage like a dog. I’d like to see her escape!” Shock and heartbreak crashed over me all at once because the Elle he spoke of was none other than my sister.

I was in a car accident while saving my brothers. However, instead of gratitude, they urged the doctors to amputate my legs. "Carol, we're sorry," they said through tears. "We're useless… but don't worry. Even if we have to sell our blood or our kidneys, we'll make sure you're taken care of." Right after surgery, they abandoned me in a shabby apartment. Blood seeped through the sheets as they looked at me with teary eyes—then left in a hurry, claiming they needed to earn money for my treatment. I did not want to drag them down anymore. Enduring the pain, I crawled to the rooftop of a tall building, planning to end my life. That's when I saw it—inside a luxury hotel, a grand celebration was taking place. My brothers were there doting on another girl. She was eating an extravagant cake I had never even dreamed of, wearing a designer princess gown worth a fortune, sparkling with jewels. Everyone called her the Smith family's one and only princess. They had even hired a world-class symphony orchestra to play Happy Birthday just for her. While I lay bleeding in a dingy apartment, they would not spend a few dollars on bandages for me. I watched as my eldest brother gently fed her cake, his eyes full of tenderness. "Jasmine, only you deserve to be our one and only little sister." The second brother placed a tiara on her head with care. "Even for the smallest birthday, we won't let you suffer a single moment of disappointment." The third knelt to help her into a pair of crystal shoes. "Jasmine, you're our most precious darling." Then, standing on the stage, Jasmine held up the black credit card they had gifted her and smiled sweetly. "Brothers," she said, "Carol lost her legs saving you. Maybe you should go see how she's doing?" My eldest brother let out a mocking laugh. "She's not worth it. Now that she's crippled, she'll never be able to compete with you again. She got what she deserved."

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.

On her first day at work, a new colleague uploaded a 500-million-dollar property purchase agreement to the company group chat. The message was accompanied by the caption: “Thanks for the gift for my first day at work, Dad!” She quickly deleted it, following up with, “Sorry, wrong chat!” I frowned, recognizing the contract immediately. It was the same property my father gifted me for my birthday a month ago. Some sharp-eyed colleagues noticed the contract number and chimed in. “I have a relative in real estate. I remember this property. Our chairman bought it recently!” “So, the heiress has joined us to experience life. Forgive your humble servant for not recognizing you!” The chat was soon filled with flattering remarks. Even my stingy and miserly husband joined in. I felt a coldness in my heart and couldn’t help but respond in the group chat, “I recall the president always opposing ostentatious displays of wealth and advocating humility. This heiress seems to veer away from his usual philosophy.” Instead of support, I faced attacks from my husband and others. “Look at you being so poor and petty. How could you ever compare to Grace? Why did I ever marry someone so shortsighted?” “As if you know the president that well! I think you’re just jealous that Grace was born with a silver spoon!” I sneered coldly and, without hesitation, dialed the president’s number right in front of everyone. “Dad, I heard we’re not that close, hmm?”

I accompany my husband, Michael Yates, to a stationed assignment on a remote island. Out at sea, a sudden storm hits. The ship capsizes and begins to sink. As the commanding officer, my husband gives the last life vest to his so-called godsister, Naomi Hollister. I don't cry or scream. I just watch silently as he carefully fastens the straps around her body. In my past life, I had clutched my pregnant belly and begged him for help. After a brief hesitation, he finally put the vest on me. But Naomi was swept away by the waves, and her body later washed up on shore. Only half of it remained. Michael insisted it wasn't my fault. He also said that saving me was his duty, both morally and professionally. He even took leave to stay by my side before I gave birth. But when my water broke in the dead of night, he pushed me into the sea. His eyes were bloodshot and burning with hatred. "Leah, if it weren't for you, Mimi would still be alive! Did you really have to force me to give you the vest when you were just pregnant? Couldn't you have waited a little longer? Why do you get to live? Go down there and die with her!" I drown, and fish tear my body apart. I die without even a full corpse left behind. And then, I open my eyes. I'm back on the day of the storm.

My daughter is gravely ill, and her medical bills cost a bomb. My husband gives up on treating her. Then, he turns and runs into the arms of his childhood sweetheart, Chelsea Davies. Amid my despair, my first love, Elliot Cox, transfers five million dollars to my account. He cares for my daughter with me. However, my daughter ultimately fails to escape death. Six years later, Elliot and I have our own child. When I head to the hospital to visit one of my friends, I accidentally hear Elliot's conversation with a doctor. "You and Ms. Baxter have your own child now, Mr. Cox. What if she finds out the truth of what happened back then?" "Chelsea was gravely ill at the time; I had no choice but to pull some tricks to have the child's heart transplanted to her. Besides, Holly's pregnant again now, isn't she? It's high time she lets go and moves on." Only then do I discover that my daughter was misdiagnosed on purpose. Elliot took her heart and had it transplanted in Chelsea's body.

I was the second princess of the Phoenix Court. And I fell in love with a lowly black serpent. In my past life, just to be with him, I purposely picked that black serpent during the Sacred Bonding ceremony when we each chose our companion beasts. After that, we spent every night together. I didn't care what the whole clan thought. I was determined to marry him. But on our wedding day, that same serpent I'd given my heart to drove an arrow straight through me, killing me while I was three months pregnant. As I lay dying, I heard him hiss bitterly in my ear, "If it weren't for you, I'd have been with Seraphine by now. You should've died a long time ago." That's when I finally got it. All he cared about was power. And he'd been in love with my older sister all along—the sister who was next in line for the Phoenix throne. When I opened my eyes again, we were back at that same moment—the Sacred Bonding ceremony. Before everyone, he dropped to his knees and confessed he loved my sister. He begged not to be bound to me. The whole clan looked at me with pity. But I only smiled and pointed to a small white serpent resting quietly off to the side. That black serpent thought clinging to my sister would make him powerful. What he didn't realize was that only the one I chose would become the true heir to the Phoenix Court.

Despite dreaming of attending university all my life, I ended up stuck in my farming village. I married my brother-in-law and became my nephew’s stepmother. This all happened because my sister died trying to make money for my tuition fees on the day my results came out. I thought I had failed to secure a place at university and stopped thinking about higher education out of guilt. I married my brother-in-law according to my sister’s wishes. To pay for my sins, I raised my nephew and treated him like my own son. I made money and tutored him so that he could get into Northside University. In the end, I developed late-stage cancer. Before dying, I attended my nephew’s celebration, but he publicly accused me of being a homewrecker while my husband agreed that I had seduced him. They brought out my sister, dead for eighteen years, and made me apologize to her. It was then that I found out she had faked her death and used my university admission letter to finish her study. She had become a university lecturer after tricking me into taking care of her family. Outraged, I had a cerebral hemorrhage. When I woke up, I found I had gone back to the day my sister faked her death.

My sister had always despised school. So when she suddenly declared she wanted to go to college—and even urged our parents to marry me off to a high-ranking officer's son to fund her studies—I knew at once: she had been reborn too. In our previous life, my sister believed studying was pointless. She barely graduated high school before marrying Anthony Brown, the officer's son who had come to propose with a pretty penny. However, when Anthony was later transferred to a remote outpost, she found the harsh conditions unbearable and refused to follow him. Meanwhile, I worked part-time jobs to put myself through college, landed a secure job after graduation, and became a full-fledged city resident. My sister, still living in the military compound, started using her father-in-law's name to take bribes. Her actions dragged him into a scandal and got him dismissed from his position. Eventually, my mother-in-law kicked her out. After the divorce, she was tricked into investing in stocks in Eastbridge City. The market crashed, and she lost all of our parents' retirement savings. Desperate and with nowhere to go, she turned to me. Cornering me with a knife, she demanded I hand over my savings and apartment so she could "start over." In the chaos, she stabbed me twelve times. I died from massive blood loss. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment she asked our parents to marry me off to Anthony. This time, I smiled, said yes—and dropped out of school that very day.