Ashley Pitch Perfect

I loved eating cakes. My dad would bring me one every day after work, and my mom bought a full set of oven and baking tools, patiently learning how to bake them for me. I once thought I was the happiest little princess in the world until the day my parents divorced. The person who came to pick up my dad turned out to be the bakery owner. My mom turned to me, growling, "This is all your fault! If you hadn't asked for cakes every day, your dad never would've cheated!" She stretched out her hands, covered in burn scars, and screamed hysterically, "I slaved away making cakes for you, and these hands have never healed since. What did you do? You both think the stuff from outside is so much better!" She grabbed a baking sheet and smacked me hard with it. I bit my lip, not daring to make a sound. That night, she brought home a little girl. Ignoring the pain all over my body, I begged for her forgiveness. "Mom, I'm sorry. Please don't throw me away. I swear I'll never eat another cake!" She slapped me across the face, but that wasn't enough to quench her anger. She tossed me into the big oven. "I'm not your mom! You love cakes so much? Stay in there and reflect on what you've done! You and your worthless dad both deserve to die!" After she slammed the door and stormed out, the little girl skipped over to the oven, grinning smugly as she hit the switch. "From now on, your mom is gonna be mine!" The oven kicked on, and the temperature began to rise. I smiled bitterly. At least this way, my mom could finally be happy.

To celebrate my first New Year after reconnecting with my biological family, everyone dragged me into signing up for a Tranvego tour. The moment we got off the plane, my parents completely changed. They just stood there while my brother tore up my passport. Then they shoved me into a bus headed for Draconville. The whole way, I begged them to take me back. Because I realized the place that the bus was going was the very same home I had spent ten years trying to escape. And the so-called big bosses they kept talking about? One was my foster father, the director of the compound. One was my foster mother, the head of the transplant center. One was my foster brother, the chief of the landfill district. They were famous for protecting their own. But under the excuse of "loving" me, they locked me up and tried to force me to become one of them. I had fought so hard to get away from them. I never thought I'd be sent back again!

On the very first day after I moved into the neighborhood, my neighbor, Fiona Harper, took me to court. She stood in the courtroom sobbing uncontrollably, accusing my son, Lucas Cole, of assaulting her daughter, Daisy Harper. "My Daisy just turned eighteen, and she was ruined by that sick pervert, Lucas! A piece of trash raised without morals like him deserves the death penalty!" Her daughter also insisted it was my son. "Lucas said if I did not take off my clothes, he would strangle me... I was so scared..." The moment those words were spoken, the spectators acting as the jury erupted in righteous fury, angrily demanding severe punishment for my son. "Animal! Lucas is nothing but an animal!" "Punish him harshly. Do not let that demon get away!" Then the judge summoned my son to appear in court. Everyone present was stunned into silence.

In the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, a sudden power outage occurred. As the doctor on night duty, I remained calm and didn't panic, nor did I call for help. I calmly waited as the temperatures of the incubators where the babies lay slowly dropped... In my previous life, when the pediatric department lost power, I immediately switched to the backup power sources to ensure the children's safety. After doing everything I was supposed to do, I sat down to take a breather and took a sip of water. Suddenly, my coworkers rushed in, waking me up. "Dr. Luther, you're a healthcare staff, how could you kill those children?!" "You froze them to death! How vicious! You'll pay for this!" Only then did I realize that all the children had died, without exception. The police took me away. They said I was the only one in the room and they found my fingerprints on the thermostat. My son then produced a video to assist in the investigation. "She often complained about the patients being a bother and hoped they would all die." Enraged family members cornered me in an alley and tortured me for ten hours until I died. But until my last breath, I couldn't understand how the children could have frozen to death in a thermostatically-controlled environment. And why did my own son provide a fake video to frame me? Suddenly, I jolted awake. I found myself waking up on the day of the power outage.

While I was traveling overseas with my family, a sudden flood hit. My fiancé slung my sister Joan over his back because her legs were weak, and ran for safety. My parents didn't have time for me, but they still remembered to grab the parrot they had just bought for Joan. All of them flew home overnight and even posted in the family group chat about how lucky everyone was to survive. But… They forgot something. I was still trapped in the flood, alone and helpless. When I woke up, I called my mentor without hesitation. "Dr. Jackson, I've decided to go with you and join Doctors Without Borders. I'm never coming back."

In my previous life, I was eight months pregnant when my mother-in-law and husband forcibly dragged me to grab decorative gift boxes from the Christmas tree. I told them there was nothing inside, but my mother-in-law slapped me across the face while my husband pulled me into the crowd. A stampede broke out. They clutched their gift boxes and fled to save themselves, while my child and I were trampled to death. They eagerly tore open all the gift boxes with high hopes, only to find exactly nothing, just like I'd warned them. But as I lay dying, I noticed something in the final gift box. A Black Widow spider with an hourglass pattern on its belly crawled onto my mother-in-law's hand. This spider carries deadly venom. Anyone bitten either dies or suffers permanent disability. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on Christmas Day. This time, watching my mother-in-law and husband gear up to fight over those Christmas gift boxes, I won't try to stop them!

On the seventh day after my daughter goes missing, I kidnap an entire kindergarten. I lock away all 27 students and two teachers in a classroom. I tell the police that if they can't find my daughter, I will kill a kid every 30 minutes. The principal falls to her knees, wailing and begging, "It's not my fault that your daughter is missing. Why should other children pay for it?" I glance at my watch. "29 minutes left. Find her." I know she's in this kindergarten.

My entire family could hear my thoughts. In my previous life, I was switched at birth with Victoria Harrington. I was reunited with my family 18 years later. It was the early 1920s, when owning a bicycle or a radio was still rare for most families. I had always dreamed of having one of those precious things. However, after I came home, Victoria would constantly brag right in front of me. "Mom told me that I'm the only one who deserves this fancy watch," she said with a sweet smile. "And look at this gorgeous bicycle Dad got me for my birthday! Oh, and when I mentioned wanting a radio, Daniel bought it for me immediately." Then came the real knife twist. "I know you're their biological daughter, Bernice, but let's be honest. When it comes to love, I'm their real daughter. Daniel definitely prefers me as his little sister too." Her words ate at me. I could not stop the bitter thoughts that flooded my mind about my parents and brother. The problem was that my family could hear every single one of those thoughts. Slowly, they began to resent me. Eventually, they threw me out into the cold, and I died alone in the winter streets while Victoria lived happily within the warmth of their love. When I opened my eyes again, I realized that I had been reborn. As I watched Victoria putting on her usual show, my thoughts took a delicious turn. 'Victoria thinks that Mom is such a cheapskate for only buying her a cheap watch instead of something expensive. She even calls Dad stingy behind his back because he didn't get her a pricier bicycle.' 'And she constantly complains about how ugly and crude Daniel is, saying that he embarrasses her. I wonder if I should share these thoughts with my family?'

Even knowing that wailing at an Eravalen aristocratic funeral was considered disrespectful to the deceased, I let my husband's adopted sister make a scene anyway. In my previous life, my husband, Robert Baker, had a distant relative among the Eravalen aristocracy who passed away. A lawyer informed him that he stood to inherit the estate and invited him to attend the funeral. His adopted sister, Mia Carter, insisted on tagging along to see how the privileged few in another country lived. She wanted to rub shoulders with nobles and make herself look important, even planning to wail dramatically in front of everyone. I rushed to stop her. "Public mourning is taboo among Eravalen nobility. Forget inheriting anything. We'll all be thrown out!" Yet she burst into tears, accusing me of looking down on her and thinking she was not good enough to mingle with aristocrats. She stormed out and was killed by street thugs in a random attack. I thought Robert would fall apart, but he stayed silent through the entire funeral and collected his inheritance without a hitch. Six months later, on our wedding anniversary, he took me to the snowy mountains for a photoshoot. The moment we reached the peak, he shoved me into a sleeping bag and tied it shut. "If you hadn't blown everything out of proportion, Mia never would've run off and gotten herself shot." He buried me alive in the snow. I froze to death, and he used that aristocratic fortune to become the CEO of a publicly traded company. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Mia insisted on wailing at the funeral.

My mother-in-law lives alone. One day, her house suddenly catches on fire. It's a life-threatening situation. I call my firefighter husband several times before he answers impatiently. "I don't care why you're calling—can't it wait? I'm fixing Sophie's pipes!" I tell him about his mother being trapped in a fire, but he merely sneers. "How dare you curse my mother just to make me go home? You're insane!" He hangs up without another word. I'm left helpless. All I can do is wait for his colleagues to arrive, but they only come half an hour later. Their expressions shift to horror when they see the blazing fire. "Didn't Captain Scott say his wife was lying?" My mother-in-law dies due to the delay. My husband even misses the funeral because of his first love. I give up on him and ask for a divorce. However, he rips the divorce agreement to shreds and shatters the urn that contains his mother's ashes. "Drop the act—I would definitely go through with the divorce if not for my mother!" I laugh. He doesn't even know his mother is already dead.