Cirque Du Freak Books

When my grandpa fell gravely ill and needed treatment abroad, the elders in the family decided to choose a junior to accompany him. They picked my cousin, but my mom tearfully pleaded with me to take her place. "You're a doctor. Caring for your grandfather is second nature to you. Bianca is an orphan, frail and delicate. She can't handle such a grueling task." To save her distress, I agreed to go in Bianca Pittman's stead, embarking on a five-year stay abroad. When my grandpa finally recovered, I boarded a flight home, eager to reunite with my family. But as I landed, a post on my mother's social media froze me in my tracks. [My daughter is getting married! Thank you all for your blessings!] But I was her only daughter. I couldn't help but wonder who she was referring to.

I had been dating Andy Lawson for five years. He had gone bankrupt, and during the worst of it, we had to sleep in parks and scavenge leftovers for food. After a hundred days of that life, I was just going to the blackmarket to sell some blood for money when someone sent me a video. [Surprise.] It was a livestream site, set up for rich kids to prank the common folk—and a video of me was pinned to the top. My finger trembling, I tapped on it and saw myself hidden in a corner of a park, munching on leftovers to nourish my frail body. On the split video, Andy was reclining against the armchair of a five-star hotel and savoring his gourmet menu. "Oh, this is amazing! All Andy has to do is say that he's sick, and she's selling her blood for him!" "On the sixteenth prank, she fell into the ocean… And on the fifteenth, she was sent flying in a car crash! Why is she so hard to kill?" "Well, Andy already made it clear that if she survives until the end, he will marry her and swear off women!" "One month to go! Will she die from the pranks, or marry into the Lawson family with pomp and circumstance?" "I'm betting fifty mil that she dies tragically! Hahaha!"

During the three years after I'm diagnosed with a malignant tumor, my husband performs over 30 major surgeries on me so he can keep me around to donate my corneas to his true love. Finally, when she has the courage to face her illness under his encouragement, he follows a doctor's advise and gives up on treating me. I laugh when taking my last breath. He has no idea that the cancer has already spread to my eyes. He won't be transplanting my corneas in his true love's eyes—he'll be planting cancer in her.

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.

While picking up my parcel from the mailroom, I run into Ivan Judd, an underprivileged student from my grade who is working part-time there. While we chat, he finds out that I'd spent 128 thousand dollars during the Black Friday sales. Dumbfounded, Ivan cries, "I've never even seen that kind of money in my entire life! And you're spending it so casually? Did your mom send you to college to study or to blow money like this?" He yanks the parcel out of my hands and physically blocks the exit. "Return it immediately! Kids like you never understand how hard it is for adults to earn money! If you're this wasteful now, what man can afford to marry you in the future?" I can't help but laugh angrily at Ivan's ridiculous attitude. I retort, "What does me spending my mom's money have anything to do with you?" "How does it not?" He looks completely justified when he says, "I'm dating your mom. Every cent you spend counts as our future marital assets!" I am shocked. Isn't Mom a lesbian? Since when did she start liking men?

The company manager, Elton Baldwin, wants to promote my best friend, Lacey Donnovan, at work. In my past life, I, Giselle Ashford, told Lacey not to accept his offer. But after she realized that someone else got promoted in her place and even doubled her salary overnight, Lacey got extremely jealous. She conspired with her boyfriend, Xavier Pugh, to push me off the top of a building, cursing at me and saying, "You jealous bitch! You've always hated seeing me do well, and now you cost me such a good opportunity!" When I open my eyes again, I realize that my world is no longer a shattered one with crimson blood in my eyes. Instead, Lacey's inquisitive face appears before me. She asks, "What do you think, Giselle? Do you think I should grab this opportunity?"

My younger brother, Samuel, gave me a call and asked me to go to his university. However, his unusually serious tone took me aback. I rushed over to his counselling office, only to see him, his fellow counselors, and a female junior whom I had coincidentally helped in the last semester. The female junior, Sally, was covering her slightly protruding belly. She abruptly dropped to her knees before me in front of the counselors. “Honey, I know this unexpected pregnancy has put a lot of pressure on you. But you can’t just abandon me and our baby!” she choked back with tears. Then, she reached out to grab the hem of my clothes. However, I stepped back and left. Sally’s cries turned sharp and shrill. “You heartless jerk! How could you behave like this?! If I’d known that you’d pretend not to know me the second it was over, I would’ve never gone to a hotel with you!” One of the counselors looked furious, and he seemed furious beyond measure. “Kid, being young is no excuse. A man needs to take responsibility!” A crowd began to gather outside the office. Their pointing fingers and contemptuous stares nearly overwhelmed me. In the middle of the chaos, Samuel casually leaned against the wall and spoke with a drawl. “Chris, aren’t you going to stay and see your unborn baby?”

Five years ago, I was the rising star of the nation’s top chemistry research lab, but on the eve of publishing the results of my study, my husband’s crush, Grace, killed me. She made several people violate me and cut my face up. Then, she injected sulfuric acid into my stomach, crushed my teeth and bones, and discarded my body without anyone’s knowledge. At that time, I was three months pregnant. But she told everyone that I stole the project’s research results and fled to another country. Jim, my husband, personally wrote a report to the government to label me as a globally wanted criminal. Five years later, a livestreamer who did nighttime explorations found my dried-up corpse in the basement of an abandoned warehouse.

An employee blasted me on TikTok, accusing me of not approving her wedding leave. Ainsley Castillo ranted, "Our marriage rates are low; birth rates are low. It's all because of toxic capitalists like you! You won't even approve my wedding leave. In your eyes, am I just a workhorse? Not even a person? I believed your nonsense about building an all-women company and a women-friendly workplace. Now your true bloodsucking capitalist face is showing!" The video blew up instantly, and countless young people empathized with her hardcore. They piled on online, cursing me, even doxxing me and sending razor blades. As the boss, I went live and confronted her head-on. "Sorry, but I can't approve her wedding leave. She can quit and go through labor arbitration, or sue me, but her wedding leave is out of the question." The live stream exploded in views that day. Among the supporters for her, some claimed to be lawyers, offering to sue me pro bono. But Ainsley looked troubled. "I just want my wedding leave. I never thought about quitting, let alone suing her."

Everyone says I have the face of an angel. However, I choose to take a knife and slash my own beautiful face. When my twin sister sees the drastic change in my appearance, she loses it and screams at me, wanting to know why I ruined my face. In my past life, she couldn't stop stealing food deliveries. When our next-door neighbor caught her, she shoved the pregnant woman so hard that she miscarried. The woman was seven months along, and both she and her baby died. But my sister just shrugged it off, bragging that she was some popular influencer, and two pathetic lives didn't matter. She even slapped down a 50-dollar bill like it was nothing, just to humiliate them. "Still trying to scam my money? For all we know, that woman's baby was already dead inside her. Your family must've done pretty awful things to deserve losing two lives like that!" When the dead woman's family showed up at our door with kitchen knives, ready for revenge, my sister chickened out and hid. Before that, she tricked me into coming home instead. The second I walked up to our front door, the grief-stricken husband slashed at my neck, severing the artery. I died right there on the spot. After I died, everyone spat on my memory. They all said I got what I deserved, and my parents covered up what my sister really did. She even had the nerve to come forward and apologize for me, cashing in on my death while hooking up with my boyfriend. The two of them became this perfect couple online and made tons of money. This time around, I decide to destroy my face. I want to see how she will steal my identity and pin her crimes on me now!