Blushing Anime Face

Stanley Porter, my wife Jessica Evans’ close male friend, and I are both competing to be the next fire captain. In my first lifetime, I was chosen by a unanimous vote. On my very first night on duty as captain, Jessica came over to the fire station to celebrate with me. Sticking to my duties as captain, I didn't touch a single drop of alcohol. Yet, after drinking the chicken soup Jessica gave me, I fell into a deep sleep. That night, a massive fire broke out in the old district, resulting in the deaths of 58 people. Because I missed the station's alarm, I was accused of dereliction of duty and labeled as the main person responsible for the tragedy. The enraged families of the victims ended up beating me to death. In my second lifetime, I withdrew my name from the selection for captain. I handed the badge over to Stanley instead, saying, "You're better suited to be captain than I am." I'd assumed that this was enough to ensure that the fire couldn't be pinned on me. Yet, when the authorities looked into the fire, they ended up seeing me appear in the security footage from where the fire began. Everyone assumed I'd deliberately started the fire to get back at Stanley out of jealousy for losing out on the captain position. I now open my eyes again to live my third life. I watch as Stanley excitedly gives his speech on the podium after being made the captain. This time around, I submit a request for annual leave and take a cab straight to the airport.

My husband, Lucas Gabriel, and I were on our way to sell paintings when we got robbed. I used all my strength to fight off the robbers. I wanted to keep Lucas’s hands safe so that he could keep painting. However, he failed to escape. He threw his paintings on the ground and yelled at me, “This is all your fault, Aria! “If I had married Chloe instead of you, I would be the leader of the Lenza Group in Ros Aegeles by now! I wouldn’t be some poor, helpless painter!” Right before the robbers killed me, I finally realized that he never got over his childhood sweetheart, Chloe Lionel. That was why he never wanted to have children with me while we were married. When I opened my eyes again, we had both returned to a time before our marriage. This time, we went our separate ways. I cut ties with him and left Ros Angeles to focus on medical research. Seven years later, I returned. Lucas was already the boss of Cosa. He had Chloe in his arms and mocked me. “I know you’ve loved me in both lives, but did you really have to stay single for me?” I ignored him and held my son’s hand. He lost it. His eyes turned red with anger as he demanded, “Whose child is that?! Didn’t you say you would only have my children?!”

My sister and I were both adopted from the same orphanage. When we got to choose our paths, she picked a prominent family in Edenorf City—wealthy, influential, and utterly untouchable. But the heir turned out to be twisted and cruel. He tormented her day in and day out. I chose the unassuming Moss family. They didn't have the fortune or the status of her new family, but they treated me with genuine warmth. In time, their youngest son became a business titan, and he married me, giving me a life filled with more happiness than I'd ever dreamed possible. Consumed by jealousy, my sister secretly strangled me. But when I opened my eyes again, I found she had shamelessly stolen the life I’d built—this time, choosing the Moss family for herself. "Carmen," she sneered, "now it's your turn to suffer." I almost laughed out loud. Did she think the Moss heir was some simple jackpot?

My dormmate, Summer Lodge, always uses heavy-duty electrical appliances to cook in our dorm. I kindly remind her that it's a fire hazard and that she'll get a demerit if the college finds her out, but she snaps at me and tells me to mind my own business. One day, her oven bursts into flames and burns one of our dormmates—the daughter of an affluent family—to death. When the college investigates the matter to apportion the blame, Summer and another dormmate push the blame on me. I'm expelled and cyberbullied. My dead dormmate's boyfriend even comes after me for revenge. He shoves me and my family into the furnace at a crematorium. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day when Summer decides to make a meal with the oven.

Half a year after our divorce, my ex-husband became a trending topic online. His current wife, who had just given birth, jumped off a building. When she jumped, she was clutching a printed, 98-page copy of the "Cloves Family Code of Conduct." The reason for her suicide? She couldn’t buy discounted groceries online. A reporter came to interview me and asked, "Excuse me, were you also given the same family rules?"

Jessie Stewart spent twelve years as an orphan before she was finally brought home to the Stewart family. For the first time in her life, she had parents and brothers. But the very people who promised to love and protect her turned against her. Bruce Stewart, her father, who once vowed she'd be his cherished daughter, told her that if she had any conscience at all, she wouldn't fight Mia Stewart, her adoptive sister, for a man. Her brothers, who swore they'd spoil her rotten, dragged her onto an operating table just to draw blood for Mia. As for her fiancé, Henry Lawson, every time things got dangerous, he chose to protect Mia instead of her. Three years later, Jessie's parents were on their knees in tears. Her once arrogant brothers slapped themselves in shame. Even her arrogant ex-fiancé knelt at her feet. They all begged her to come back. Little did they know, Jessie's heart had long since been closed off during those countless nights of pain and betrayal. She had already met the love of her life. In the years to come, she would never again be alone. He tended to her every need. To him, Jessie was everything and more.

Before the day of my husband's succession as the Don, my stepsister personally tattooed the "Inverted Angel's Eye"—the mark of a traitor—onto my back. My husband didn't just turn a blind eye; when the family vendetta broke out, he withdrew all the elite guards to protect my "pregnant" stepsister, leaving me alone in a defenseless city to face the slaughter.  "Elena, you are strong enough to protect yourself. But Sophia is fragile, and she is carrying my firstborn. She needs the protection more than you." Facing a siege of heavy firepower, I survived by the skin of my teeth. He thought I would swallow the insult for the sake of the family's reputation. He didn't expect that I would kick open the doors of his coronation ceremony wearing mourning weeds, flanked by the FBI and the Commission, and personally strip him of his title. "Goodbye, Lorenzo. This time, I choose to be the Don."

The first day I return to the country, my future mother-in-law, Sophia Damer, smacks a check against my face and says, "Here's five million dollars. Leave my son alone. The Simpsons cannot accept a gold-digging nobody like you!" Before I can even explain myself, the young woman in a white dress hiding behind her says, "Please don't do this, Sophia. If this young lady treats Jay well enough, I don't mind caring for him with her, too." I chuckle. So, Sophia and Crystal Richmond, my half-sister, think that I'm the evil mistress who tried stealing her man away from her, when Jayson Simpson was my boyfriend the entire time. And yet, Crystal still thinks that she's the legitimate one instead. However, seeing that Crystal still doesn't know who I really am, I pick up the check without even looking at it and stuff it into her V-neck dress. "Nice acting. Here's your reward." Then, I take out a black card and fling it onto the table. "Here's ten million dollars, lady. Tell your son to stay away from me and stop bothering me. I find him disgusting! "Oh, and by the way," I say, pointing at Crystal, who is still being shielded behind Sophia's body. "Might I remind you that this young woman you're protecting is just the bastard kid my dad brought home last year. "If you're thinking of using her to get close to the Richmonds, I'm afraid that you're barking up the wrong tree!"

When I saw her from across the bar with her pretty little face, her big brown eyes, her long black hair and her beautiful body, I just knew that I would never be able to shake her from my damn mind. She turned my life upside down from the day I laid eyes on her. But then, the situation changed. She saw something she shouldn’t have seen. Found out who I really was. The truth behind my rugged exterior. But you know the rules of the Corsican Mafia. No witnesses… So I had to take her in. I had to make her my hostage. And I had to make her my wife… Whether she liked it or not.

We were on a field trip to the Holy State of Aram, when the prom queen, Susie Lambert, complained about the hot weather and called for a bikini party. My boyfriend Ken insisted on bringing the whole class along just to satisfy her whim, even though I warned him, "That's against the law, and visitors who are found guilty will be remanded, if not killed…" He slapped me across the face and snapped, "Don't try to scare us! You're just jealous that Susie's got a nice bod, and you don't want to see us being happy together!" Everyone else in the class roared in approval too. "Exactly! You already took Ken away from Susie, and you'd now come up with such bullshit!" I was furious and frustrated, but for their sake, I spoke to Mrs. Dent, the class teacher. She scolded everyone when she realized what they were doing and called off the bikini party. However, Susie got so upset that she ran off alone and flaunted her bikini at the beach anyway, and she was caught before being executed as a spy by zealots. Ken blamed it all on me. In the middle of the night, he sneaked into my home and set fire to it with gasoline, killing my entire family. Afterward, the entire class testified on his behalf to create an alibi. But I opened my eyes again and found myself returning to that day when Susie goaded everyone to join her bikini party. This time, I simply smiled. "Go ahead, enjoy yourselves all you want!"