Chou Story

My husband's protégé boasted she could disarm bombs blindfolded, relying on her so-called intuition. Her reckless misjudgment triggered a bomb's secondary detonation sequence, endangering an entire building. I intervened, using the dangerous liquid nitrogen condensation method to save the day. As a result, Rita Smith was removed from frontline duties and placed under investigation. Patrick Munoz tried to defend her, but I stopped him cold. "If you back her now, you won't just fail to save her. You'll be dragged down with her." Crushed by the pressure, Rita staged an accident that killed her, leaving a letter blaming him for abandoning her in her hour of need. He said nothing, only preserving her letter in his study. Years later, he became a nationally renowned bomb disposal expert. During a terrorist attack, I was strapped to a timed explosive. He arrived to defuse it but repeated Rita's fatal mistake. As the timer ticked down, he gave a bitter laugh. "Rita was just nervous back then. If I'd supported her, she'd be a hero today." The bomb detonated, leaving nothing of me behind. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the point when he tried to defend Rita. He didn't know that the building housed the nation's top-secret core server.

My brother calls me his princess and transfers money to me as allowance; his wife-to-be misunderstands and thinks I'm his secret lover. She crashes my new apartment, which I've lovingly decorated, with a group of friends and family. "I can't believe you're someone's secret lover when you're so young! I'll teach you a lesson on your parents' behalf! I'm going to spread your illicit relationship online so your teachers and classmates will all know how shameless you are!" They trash my new apartment and rip my clothes off. Then, they make sure to get my student ID in the scene as they record me getting bullied. My brother rushes over, his eyes red and bloodshot. "Have you guys lost your mind? How dare you bully my sister!"

I'm at an auction with my mother-in-law, Agnes Bachert. She spots a breathtaking emerald necklace, and we end up winning it for 30 million dollars. The auctioneer signals for payment. To make things easier, Agnes suggests charging it to my father-in-law Otto Garrett's account. But just as she says this, a flashy middle-aged woman and a young woman storm over. The younger woman, Janette Saccone, grabs Agnes' arm while the middle-aged woman, Ruth Coleman, slaps her hard. "I knew something was off!" Ruth snarls. "You're a nasty old bitch for destroying my family and trying to seduce my husband! I hope you suffer!" I rush to shield Agnes. "Are you okay?" Ruth's sharp gaze snaps onto me when she hears me speak. "Your mother-in-law has no shame, throwing herself at rich men. And you're not even embarrassed for her?" I step in front of Agnes and tell Ruth that I'm married into the Garrett family, then demand to know who she is. Ruth gives me a cold, arrogant look. "Who am I? I'm Otto Garrett's legal wife—the one he married officially!" She gives me a look of pure contempt. "And who are you to question me?" Before I can say a single word, she pulls out her phone and dials a number. "Clement, my dear son, get to the auction house right now! Help me catch this homewrecker!" Clement Garrett? That's my husband. Since when does he have another mother?

When my son was born, I noticed a small, round birthmark on his arm. But the weird thing? By the time I opened my eyes again after giving birth, it was gone. I figured maybe I'd imagined it. That is, until the baby shower. My brother-in-law's son, born the same day as mine, had the exact same birthmark. Clear as day. That's when it hit me. I didn't say a word, though. Not then. I waited. Eighteen years later, at my son's college acceptance party, my brother-in-law stood up and dropped the truth bomb: the "amazing" kid I'd raised was theirs. I just smiled and invited him and his wife to take their "rightful" seats at the table.

At the award ceremony, my fiance, Allen Walter, pulled his mistress on stage and publicly announced their relationship when he presented me with an award.. "Out with the old, in with the new. Just a man," I shrugged. My parents were furious. "Pull our investments and end all cooperation," they said furiously. My sister chimed in, "We'll retrieve the copyright. I would rather let it sit idle than sell it to them!" Allen panicked and came to apologize, but I waved him off dismissively. "Someone like you is not even worth talking to."

I went on a graduation trip with my boyfriend, Marcus Hale, only to have my shameless roommate, Vanessa Quinn, tag along. On the way to Rybia, our plane was caught in violent turbulence and plunged toward the Egete Ocean. Because of a malfunction, only half the oxygen masks dropped. The spiteful Vanessa snatched the oxygen mask meant for a Rybian socialite, Layla Al-Farouq. Unable to stand by, I shared mine with the woman, saving her life. After the emergency landing, her powerful oil tycoon husband, Khalid Al-Farouq, adopted me as his goddaughter out of gratitude, while throwing the vicious Vanessa into the Kibera Slums. Later, I married Marcus, but on the day we went skydiving, he suddenly unbuckled my parachute and shoved me from ten thousand meters above, leaving me to crash into nothing but broken flesh. "If you hadn’t meddled and saved that old woman, my darling Vivi would still be alive!" Only then did I realize the two of them had been betraying me all along. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the exact moment the plane first took off.

The beastfolk are a powerful race, and to strengthen our family's power, Father arranges marriages for both me and my stepsister, Arya Hearthguard. In our past lives, Arya entered a high-profile marriage into the wealthy, powerful dragon clan, while I was forced to wed into the crumbling lion clan. The clan leader of the dragons—Draken Vorgath—was cold and detached. He cared more for gold than his bride, leaving Arya in a glided cage of loneliness. Overwhelmed by the desolation, she seduced the future leader of the fox clan, who was flirtatious.. And when the scandal exploded, Draken resolutely divorced her. Arya's scandal brought shame upon our family. Despite Father's favoritism, he was compelled by family honor to exile her in disgrace. Clan leader of the lions and King of the Jungle—Kael Hawthorne—was a man of unwavering devotion. Our marriage blossomed, and within a year, I bore him a golden lion cub blessed with the Aetheric Divinity. With the Aetherborn, Kael rose to rule all beastfolk as the chieftain, and I became their most revered chieftess. Consumed by envy, Arya sneaked into my son's first birthday feast and strangled the golden lion cub in his cradle. Then, she set the place ablaze and burned me alive along with it. When I wake up, I am back on the very day of our marriage. This time, Arya volunteers to marry into the lions and leaves me the chance to marry into the dragons. I accept everything meekly with only a tenth of her dowry and marry Draken. Later, she bleeds her dowry dry, propping up the lion clan, only to fail in conceiving a cub. When the elders demand she mate with other males, regret drowns her. As for me, all I want in his new life is an heir and a quiet life among the dragons. But no one warns me about the dragons, least of all that my supposedly cold-hearted husband will relentlessly demand me once awakened. Or that his members came in pairs and ridges!

I poured my heart and soul into securing a big deal for my wife's law firm. But when I stepped out for a quick coffee break, she fired me on the spot, claiming I'd gone AWOL for too long. "New company rule: ten minutes away from your desk, and you're out. You were gone for ten minutes and five seconds. Now grab your stuff and leave." I sneered and flipped the script, turning over proof of her siphoning funds to buy her intern boy a Maybach to the police. She thought she could burn bridges with me, but this bridge didn't crumble so easily.

My sister-in-law is eight months pregnant. One day, she gets pushed to the ground and starts bleeding heavily. She's then taken to the hospital right away. As I drive by, I quickly roll up the window and pretend not to notice. I step on the accelerator and speed away. In my past life, though, things were different. The moment I saw her collapse, I sprang into action and took her to the hospital without delay. She was in critical condition. After the heavy bleeding, she developed amniotic fluid embolism. My husband was the city's top obstetrician. Thus, I called him urgently, pleading for him to come straight to the hospital. However, he accused me of jealousy. He was having dinner with his first love's family, after all. He claimed that I was exploiting my sister-in-law's accident to force him to come back. By the time my in-laws arrived, my sister-in-law had already succumbed to the amniotic fluid embolism. Her family blamed me for her death, convinced I had stirred trouble with my husband and brought about her demise. Having just returned from out of town, my brother-in-law believed their accusations without question. Overcome with grief, he stabbed me to death at the funeral. Opening my eyes again, I realize I've been transported back to the very day my sister-in-law is knocked down.

I married Mason Fleming, who comes from a prestigious family with a long line of lawyers, at 19. For over 20 years, I devoted myself fully to our home by raising our child, keeping the household together, and supporting his career. Now I'm 40, and he cheats on me. Friends and relatives try to advise me. "Your husband is handsome and successful. He even lets you manage the money he earns. Compared to most men, he's considered one of the good ones." In other words, they want me to turn a blind eye and continue playing the role of a "good wife" to maintain appearances. But I can't keep up with the act anymore.