Dorm Story

I knew perfectly well that people from the Emirates do not eat pork. Yet this time, I watched in silence as my husband's childhood sweetheart insisted on placing a pork dish on the table. In fact, I even supported her decision. In my past life, when our company hosted a welcome banquet for powerful investors from the Emirates, she had been desperate to flaunt her cooking. Against all reason, she forced a pork dish onto the menu. I stopped her then. I explained that pork was forbidden by religious belief, and that offending the investors could cost us everything. If they withdrew their funding, the company's finances would collapse overnight. She took my warning as jealousy. In a fit of rage, she ran out of the banquet hall and was struck by a car, leaving her in a permanent vegetative state. I thought my husband would break down. Instead, he remained calm, stayed through the dinner, and secured the investment in surprisingly calmness. The truth revealed itself later. After the company went public, he brought me abroad under the guise of business, only to drag me onto a medical ship in international waters. As my kidney was cut from my body, I cried and asked him why. His answer came with a slap. "If you hadn't been jealous back then... If you hadn't tried to sabotage her, she wouldn't have ended up like that." I died in agony on the operating table. After my death, he used the money from selling my organs to cure his beloved childhood sweetheart, and the two of them went on to live rich, comfortable lives together. And then I opened my eyes again, back to the very day she decided to serve pork to the clients.

It was a national holiday and we decided to drive back to my husband's hometown to spend the holidays. One day before we left, my husband's childhood crush came crying to him that she had not managed to buy train tickets home. My husband immediately decided to let her have my seat in the car and insisted that I take the train instead. I looked at him in disbelief. There was shock in my eyes. Even my son insisted I take the train. "Mommy, Aunt Rosie is so pretty. How could you make her take the train?" I did not argue. I booked my train ticket right in front of them. However, it was to my own hometown. I no longer wanted a biased husband and a disloyal son.

In the fashion industry, I was known as the most mysterious designer. I worked hard to keep my identity from the public. As I stood at the top of business, I was invited to be the secret judge of the Innovating Design Competition’s final round. The organizer reserved a VIP seat for me in the middle of the front row and ensured that my presence would not be revealed. Just when I was about to sit down, a new male influencer pushed me aside and threw his hand bag onto my seat. “What are you looking at, bumpkin? How dare you show up at the VIP section dressed like a beggar? Where’s the security? Throw this person out!” I swallowed back my anger and replied coldly, “This seat was reserved for me.” The influencer laughed. “Yours? Do you know who I am? Ms. Reid spent eighty million dollars in sponsorship to get me to come here! Ms. Reid has the final say in this industry. Do you understand me?” I could only scoff at him. How bold of the Reid family! Did they really think they could make this kind of decision without consulting me?

At the marriage ceremony before the altar, my Alpha partner stepped forward in front of everyone, took the Luna's crown that was about to be set on my head, and placed it instead on the head of that trembling human girl. "Don't make a scene. She's my fated mate." He pulled the girl behind him, a warning in his eyes. "You're the strongest she-wolf. I will allow you to stay and look after her, but you must respect her, or I will cast you out!" He thought I would keep compromising for him, just like I always had. What he did not know was that I had already decided to tear up this alliance that had long since gone rotten. Once the night of the full moon passed, I would no longer be the Luna who had stood by his side for five years and was about to be crowned. I would be the Blood Wolf King, and I would crush the entire pack beneath my feet, along with the pair who had humiliated me.

On our Christmas break road trip, my cousin Felix Lloyd spotted some high-powered speakers at a highway rest stop. He had to have them—said he wanted to "blast it." "It's Christmas. We finally get to see everyone! We need some vibe!" My wife, Lana Ramsey, smiled and helped him pay. "Young people have energy. They know how to enjoy life." I yanked the power cord out. "Those aren't for regular cars. This is an EV. Overload it, and the whole system fries. Then what—just stuck in the middle of nowhere?" Lana's parents, Vincent and Donelia, booed me, calling me a buzzkill. Felix cranked the volume all the way up. Lana glared at me. "Say one more word and get out. I'll drive." Later, the speakers fried the battery system. We were stranded in total darkness on a rough mountain road. They finished the last of the food, then shoved me out to "go find help." I slipped, rolled down the slope, and died. When I opened my eyes, I was back—right when Felix jammed the speaker plug into the charging port. I grabbed a few more subwoofers and handed them over. "One isn't enough. Add more. That's how you really crank it."

It was only after my boyfriend, Julian Mercer, received his HIV diagnosis that he finally understood what his childhood friend, Luna Sullivan, truly meant by "life and death together". In my previous life, after Julian collapsed from anemia, Luna insisted on donating blood to him. I fought with everything I had to stop it. I told him that Luna had already contracted HIV. If she donated blood to him, he would be infected as well. He refused to believe me. Luna cried and swore that she had never even had a boyfriend. To prove her innocence, she climbed onto the rooftop and pretended she was going to jump to her death. However, she slipped. She missed her footing and fell to her death from the building. To avenge her, Julian conspired with our classmates to kidnap me. He strangled me with his own hands. I still remember his furious roar. "This is all because of your slander! You killed Luna! I will make you pay for her life!" When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the blood transfusion. I watched as Julian lay there, already receiving blood from his beloved Luna. I smiled faintly. HIV? Fine.

After I turn five years of age and have my very own phone, I start receiving strange messages every single day. For some reason, the sender keeps referring to me as their mom. At 3:00 am, they send me another message. "Mom, I saw you in my dreams again. The rain is seeping into the attic. My stepmom told me to use a rag to soak up all the water, but the rag is too small. Even though I tried to wipe it up all night, it still wouldn't dry. Mom, I'm so cold and hungry. I miss you so much…" I tilt my head, looking at the rain pouring outside the window. I then earnestly reply, "Don't be scared, sweetheart. Where are you right now? I will bring you something yummy!"

After I'm done with the healing process at the Holy Springs, I return to the pack where my younger brother, Cole Blackclaw, and I reside. Unexpectedly, before I can step into the pack's territory, I find my path getting blocked by a few wolves whom I've never seen before. "If you want to enter the Moon Pack, you'd better submit everything on the list!" The leading she-wolf of the group tosses a list filled with things in my face. The list shows the criteria needed to enter the Moon Pack's territory—venison of the Deer King, tens of millions of Healing Rocks, and over a million beauty tonics! I never expected that Cole would list such harsh conditions for anyone who wishes to join the Moon Pack during my three-year absence! How did those geezers at the Elders' Council even let him get away with this idea in the first place? I roared angrily, "Tell Cole to get his ass out here and see me! I'm Wendy Blackclaw, his older sister!" As soon as my words fall, the she-wolf covers her mouth and begins shrieking at me. "How ridiculous! I'm Cole's mate, Amy McGrave! Cole never told me he had an older sister! Can you even submit these things? If not, then get lost! The Moon Pack doesn't welcome wolves like you!" I just stand where I am as I huff coldly in return. "You've never seen me, seeing as I was gone for three years. That's fine—I don't blame you for that. But now, I want Cole to see me right now. Otherwise, he can forget about retaining his Alpha status!"

My roommate had a strange obsession with taking cold showers on the balcony. She claimed it helped detox her body and brightened her skin. I warned her, “You should be more mindful of your privacy.” However, she only laughed, accusing me of being jealous of her flawless figure. Then, disaster struck. Her shower photos were leaked online, and soon after, thugs showed up at our door, demanding to humiliate her. Instead of taking responsibility, she turned on me. “It’s her! She’s the shameless one showering on the balcony!” Betrayed and defenseless, I was dragged into the woods and left to die, my life snuffed out in humiliation and pain. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on that fateful day—the day my roommate took her first cold shower on the balcony.

I knew perfectly well that open flames were forbidden at a gas-leak scene, yet as a firefighter, I still backed my girlfriend's childhood friend when he insisted on lighting a cigarette "to calm his nerves." In my previous life, a sudden gas leak erupted during a gathering. Her childhood friend insisted on smoking to steady himself. I slapped the lighter out of his hand and yelled at him for trying to get us all killed. Humiliated, he ignored everyone's attempts to stop him and stormed outside—only to be crushed by an advertising board blown loose by the explosion's shockwave. Later, when I saved a child who had fallen from a building and was left hanging in midair myself, my girlfriend—my second-in-command—maliciously cut my safety rope. She stared at my corpse and said, "If you hadn't humiliated George in front of everyone, he wouldn't have died." When I opened my eyes again, I was back in that room thick with the stench of leaking gas.