Death

Three years ago, I broke up with my girlfriend—Audrey Hades—while she was on the verge of going bankrupt. Immediately after, I got engaged to her biggest rival, Clara Sterling. Later, she turns into a celebrated and adored rising star of the business world. She allows people around her to mock and label me as a gold-digger who leeches off rich women. But what she doesn't know is that I've been dead for three years.

Five years after my death, my wife, Charlotte Blake, once again asks me to take the fall for Leo Cane, her first love, in his drunk driving case. She barges into my home with fabricated evidence but finds no trace of me anywhere. Left with no other choice, she knocks on my neighbor's door. My neighbor tells her something unexpected. "Shane Foster? He's been dead for a long time. I heard the victim's family from the case he was convicted for wasn't satisfied with the verdict. "They abducted him the day he got out of prison and tortured him for three days straight." Charlotte refuses to believe it. She furiously accuses me of making up any lie to escape responsibility. She storms at the neighbor, shouting, "You think I don't know Shane paid you to cover for him? "Tell him there's no use in hiding. If he doesn't contact me within three days, he won't get a single cent of child support for that bastard." But she doesn't know that the person Leo killed in that drunk driving accident is the very "bastard" she keeps referring to.

In the third year of my relationship with Aden, he died in a war between werewolf packs. His beta twin brother, James, brought back the obsidian pendant that Aden had dropped on the battlefield. He told me in a choked voice, “Emily, Aden isn’t coming home.” I fainted on the spot. After waking up, I went mad and tried to go to the battlefield to die with Aden. However, James held me back. Later on, I attempted suicide multiple times, only to be saved by James and his mother, Louise. All the werewolves in Moon Forest Pack said that Aden and I were deeply bonded. It was not until the third month after Aden’s death that I finally discovered the one who died wasn’t him at all.

I died on the day I won the Global Medical Doctorate Award. Fresh from celebrating the sixteenth birthday of my younger sister, my parents, brother, and my fiancé finally returned home, but it was three hours after my death. My family photos were beaming with happiness on social media, while I laid in the suffocating basement drenched in blood. Before I died, I had struggled to slide my tongue across my phone screen in a desperate attempt to call for help. My parents and brother had blocked my number. Only my fiancé answered my call. The moment his voice came through, he snapped, "Winona, Winnie's sixteenth birthday is important. Stop trying to hijack attention with your pathetic excuses. Enough with the theatrics!" It murdered my last spark of survival. In that electronic death rattle, my heart flatlined. The 100th time they chose her. The 100th time they abandoned me for her. But it was also the last time. They thought I had ran way to get their attention again, and that if they taught me a harsh lesson, I would come crawling back pathetically. But not this time. Because I didn't leave home. I had been lying in the basement of my house.

After the most wanted bachelor in Renowoods, Marvin Chambers, lost his memory, he began to pursue me relentlessly. I dated Marvin for three years and fell hopelessly in love with him. Just when I was about to tell him I was pregnant, I overheard a girl who used to bully me say to him, "Thanks for pretending to lose your memory and pulling 99 pranks on Serena just to avenge me. "Once you hit 100, I'll be your girlfriend." That was when I finally understood—Shirley Hunt was the one Marvin had always loved. And I was just the fool he used to make her laugh. Later, I died in a plane crash. Marvin lost his mind searching through the wreckage, only to find a single ring. Inside, it was engraved: [Hope You'll Love Me After 100 Pranks]. They say he collapsed crying in the debris and had to be rushed to the hospital after passing out. When he woke up, he turned against everyone who had helped him prank me. Meanwhile, I stood smiling in the snowstorm of Frontania, watching as my medical records went up in flames. He had faked amnesia to win my heart, so I faked my death to teach him a lesson.

After my death, I found myself inside a romance strategy game, where the system assigned me three male leads. If I followed its instructions and successfully captured the heart of any one of them, I would return alive and well in the real world. Drawing on my experience, I crafted careful scripts to win their affection. Yet, every attempt ended in failure. The reason was simple: each of them had already fallen for the dazzling heroine of their world. They hurled cruel words at me, as if wishing I would just drop dead. In the end, I fulfilled their desire—when my strategies failed, the system erased me. But the moment I died, they all regretted it. One by one, they begged the heavens to return me to them.

It had been ten years, and Ethan—my mate—and I still didn’t have a pup. One day, he suggested we adopt one from the Werewolf Orphan Charity Agency. “My mate,” he said gently, “pregnancy is too hard for you. You’d have to go through so many checkups and herbs. Your wolf shouldn’t have to suffer like that.” When others heard this, they all said Ethan loved me deeply—that he couldn’t bear to see me in pain. But I saw the truth with my own eyes. He took an infant pup from another she-wolf. “Luckily, Mia isn’t pregnant,” he said. “That way, the excuse of adopting an infant works—and the pup can have a legitimate status in my clan.” I knew that she-wolf well. The same one Ethan used to call a “stupid omega.” Swallowing the bitterness in my heart, I called my mentor at the Werewolf Research Academy. “I want to devote myself to herb research,” I said calmly. Three days from now, during the pup’s first New Moon blessing, I’ll fake my death in a fire. No one will be able to stop me.

I was the real heiress in a case of a mistaken identity. Three months after my return, the imposter heiress disappeared.   My brother, Caleb Carter, accused me of jealousy, believing I had driven the fake heiress away. The disappointed look on my parents’ faces revealed their true thoughts.   I was confined in the basement, subjected to daily torture.   Even after my death, my family donated my brain to a research institution.   Later, I watched from heaven as my family broke down upon watching my memories.

Three months after Pete took his foster sister as his mistress, I terminated my marriage, chose to die on paper, and vanished from his life entirely. One quiet morning, I handed my child over to the nannies arranged by the family and walked out of the Rizzuto estate alone. Pete didn’t chase after me that day. He believed I would come back. Once I had calmed down, I would lower my head. The following spring, I was diagnosed with cancer. Standing in the hospital corridor, I suddenly remembered years ago— Pete had taken my hand and said, “You’ll be the finest Donna this Rizzuto family has ever had.” What pulled me back was not Pete. It was a letter from Sicily. Thin paper. Cold, rigid handwriting—the kind favored by old families who had ruled too long to bother with sentiment. “The heir has begun showing signs of emotional instability.” “Recent violent behavior has caused internal concern.” “There is disagreement within the family regarding the current Don’s judgment.” In the mafia world, there is only one reason the elders would bypass a man and reach out to a wife officially presumed dead— When the family itself begins to lose balance. So I returned. To the place I had once fled with everything I had. This time, there were no illusions. I no longer placed any hope in emotion. I was there only to fulfill the obligations of the family. I knew exactly how much time I had left. And I knew exactly what needed to be done. I became a proper Donna.

I have been dead for seven years. For seven years, a rare plague had ravaged the Silver Moon Kingdom. The new Luna, Lilith, wasn't immune either. She coughed up blood daily, her old wounds weeping anew with every full moon. Even in death, to the wolf packs, I was still the jinx. The false Luna who had beguiled the Alpha King. The cursed one destined to bring ruin to the kingdom. The entire kingdom begged Alpha King Kaelan to banish my vengeful spirit. My former mate was in the royal palace, softly consoling his current Luna, my sister. "Lilith, don't be afraid. If she insists on tormenting you with her curse even after death, then I will tear her inner wolf to shreds. You'll never be threatened by her again." But when they set foot in the Rogue Lands where I had been exiled, they found no wandering spirit of mine. Before them knelt the corpses of dozens of she-wolves, arranged neatly before my crude grave. They had all been exiled as "sinners", yet now, in death, they offered their final act of devotion. There was no trace of any spirit. There was only a small girl, about six years old, sitting beside the tombstone and clutching a photograph of me from when I was alive. Her ice-blue eyes were a perfect reflection of Kaelan's. "You're too late," she said. "Her inner wolf returned to the Moon Goddess long ago." "I've only been waiting here to get justice for my mother."