Emotional

Three months after my baby was born, I found out my husband, Joe, was cheating. The other woman? Hailey. Pregnant and smug. Joe actually got on his knees, begging for a divorce. I said yes. Until I could find a place, Joe's mom, Claudia, let me stay at the house. "Hailey," Claudia said, "you'll handle all the household responsibilities now." Hailey, all fake enthusiasm, chirped, "I'll take good care of this family!" Claudia replied, "Great. You'll start your day at five making breakfast. When Luca's hungry, you'll feed him and change his diapers. Once he's down for a nap, clean the house, grocery shop, and prep lunch. Laundry in the afternoon, tea service mid-day, then bathe Luca and cook dinner. After that, you'll put him to bed." Hailey's face? Priceless.

On the eve of my wedding, my parents returned from abroad, and my fiancée, Seraphina Vale, went into the kitchen to host them, preparing her specialty—passion fruit tea—for everyone. My parents, Edward and Eleanor Blackwood, and I had barely taken our first sip when the bodyguard, Alaric Sterling, standing beside her, burst into laughter. “You really are a family,” he said. “All of you drinking toad eggs as if they were passion fruit, savoring every mouthful.” Nausea rose instantly, and my parents and I retched uncontrollably, after which I swung my fist and went straight for him. But Seraphina shoved me away. “You were the one who called Alaric a toad before,” she said. “I was just helping him get even.” Alaric looked at me smugly. “Aren’t your parents biologists?” he said. “You should be thanking me for the hands-on experiment.” I lifted the scalding soup and splashed it at Alaric. Seraphina screamed as she ordered the other bodyguards to break my hand. “You insulted Alaric first,” she said. “That’s why he retaliated. What right do you have to lay a hand on him? “If anything happens to Alaric, you won’t get away with it.” I watched Seraphina hurriedly escort Alaric away, her face tight with concern. I turned to my parents. “Can you ask her if she’s still willing to marry me?”

When I was seven years old, my father began subjecting me to extremely strict parenting. Not only did he withhold any support for my food, clothing, housing, or daily necessities, but he even charged me for drinking water in our own home. As a child, I endured relentless suffering and bullying. When I was critically injured by a vehicle that broke the law, I was severely injured, and my father refused to save me. Only after my death did I learn the truth that he already had a son somewhere out there. Everything he did to me was meant to drive me to my death. After rebirth, I no longer adhered to rules nor endured silently. Exploiting the fact that I was still a minor, I stabbed his secretary, bullied my classmates at school, and even set a fire on campus to force my father to give up on his brutal methods. When I grew up, I took everything he owned and sent him to prison. Only then was my revenge completed.

I paid the ultimate price in my last life for being too polite to refuse others. During a summer vacation, four children ended my life. "Talia, we’re already on the way to your place. We should be there in about two hours. No need to prepare anything special. Just keep things the way you normally do. Don’t fuss." I stared blankly as the voice came through my phone. The agony of my skin being scalded raw by boiling-hot stew was still vivid in my mind. When I had struggled and begged for help, those children had dragged me back together. In the chaos, I had fallen from the seventh floor and died with my eyes wide open. I glanced at the calendar on the wall. I had been reborn. In my previous life, my sister-in-law, Vanessa Mercer, had dumped her four kids at my home for the summer and left. I was forced to care for six children alone and was pushed to the brink of collapse. Simply because I wouldn’t let my nephew, Jaxon Mercer, play on his tablet for hours on end, and because I told him not to wander around the house in nothing but his underwear, the conflict escalated until it led to that horrifying death. My whole body trembled at the memory. I rushed into the bedroom, grabbed my identification documents, and fled toward the high-speed rail station with my two daughters, Kaia and Nova Mercer. "Mom, where are we going?" "I'm taking you on a trip. We’re going to have as much fun as we want!"

My in-laws were hit by a car crash. I called my husband, begging him to give me some money to pay the hospital bill. He said, "Oh, if you want money, just come out with it. That excuse is terrible!" He hung up on me. Despite how unfair it felt, I had to call him again. This time, a voice I was familiar with hit my ears. A woman's voice. "Chris, I got a bit too much sunscreen on my hand. Can I smear the rest on your abs?" Lovingly, my husband said, "You little troublemaker." His parents died that night. Overseas.

On the day we decided to get a divorce, I saw Miranda’s account book while I was packing up my stuff. Aside from our daily expenses, Miranda had also set up a scoring sheet for me. Miranda had taken notes of all the things I had done ever since we started dating. Some of them were such miniscule things that even I had forgotten. She took note of them all with a red pen, and she scored them by either awarding me points or deducting them. However, the further down the sheet, the more points were deducted. In the end, I saw Miranda add one line in black ink. [He’s no longer the Henry Jones who used to love me: -100]

Three days before our engagement, Zach Jefferson called me. “We’ll need to postpone the engagement party by a month. That day is Sienna’s first concert since she returned, and I need to be there. “It’s just a postponement. It’s no big deal.” He had postponed our engagement three times that year. The first time was because Sienna Lynch had been hospitalized with appendicitis. He said he had to take care of her and rushed over. The second time, Sienna said she was feeling down. He was worried she might get depressed and immediately booked a flight to see her. It was the third time. I simply said, “Okay.” After hanging up, I turned to the good-looking and refined man beside me. “Are you interested in marrying me?” Later, during Sienna’s concert, Zach left her without hesitation. With red, teary eyes, he rushed to my engagement ceremony. “Yulia, are you really getting engaged to this man?”

I, Lilian Newton, am the top luxury goods repair specialist. 90 percent of the store's revenue comes from me. Three years on the job, I turn a little shop that nearly goes bankrupt into a nationwide chain. Just because I am two minutes late to work, the new manager locks the front door and plans to take the staff on a trip. I ask her why I was not informed. She scoffs and says, "The capable should do more work. We are going on a trip. You stay behind to work overtime. If you can't handle it, then get lost!" I laugh in exasperation and call my husband right away. "I hear you're planning to fire me. Is that it?"

I dropped by to help my younger sister revise her thesis, and while I was at it, I joined her research group for dinner. The moment I walked into the private dining room, a few girls blushed and called out to me. “Hey, handsome, are you single? Give us a shot!” My sister’s boyfriend, Eric Pensworth, looked at me with a faint smile. “Man, you look kind of familiar. You remind me of that pretty boy everyone’s been talking about on the forum. “They say you slept with Professor Alva Jackson and stole my direct-entry PhD spot.” I froze. The Alva Jackson he was talking about was the newly hired professor at Adams University, fresh back from overseas. Just as I was about to explain, he cut me off with an innocent look. “Maybe I got the wrong guy. You look way too respectable to be the kind of guy who lives off women. “But Professor Jackson’s nearly fifty. How could you even do it with her?” I stared at him, completely dumbfounded. Since when had I become a fifty-year-old woman? Was there another Alva Jackson at Adams University besides me?

My mother and I pushed ourselves, slaving away to pay for my girlfriend’s debt. The work was too hard on her, and she was soon diagnosed with lung cancer. By the time I arrived at the hospital with money for her treatment, my mother had taken her own life and left behind a note. “I can’t go on, Gab. The money is best put toward settling the debts. Noelle is a good kid. She loves you. She’s just lost her way. That’s all. You two should settle down once the debts are cleared.” I held my mother’s ashes and gave Noelle the thirty thousand dollars she had left behind. Back in the office, I overheard Noelle talking to several creditors. “Ms. Strom, Mr. Lamb has passed your test. What’s next on the agenda for him?” Noelle’s childhood friend, Charles, jumped into the conversation. “Gabriel has proven that he’s willing to be there for you through thick and thin, but will he stick around in wealth? Noelle pursed her lips. “I need to know if he genuinely loves me. If he isn’t blinded by greed when learning about who I am, I’ll marry him.” I stared at my mother’s ashes, tears rolling down my face. “Noelle, my mother was wrong about you, and so was I. I don’t want to marry you anymore.” I thought to myself.