Face-slapping

My dormmate, Summer Lodge, always uses heavy-duty electrical appliances to cook in our dorm. I kindly remind her that it's a fire hazard and that she'll get a demerit if the college finds her out, but she snaps at me and tells me to mind my own business. One day, her oven bursts into flames and burns one of our dormmates—the daughter of an affluent family—to death. When the college investigates the matter to apportion the blame, Summer and another dormmate push the blame on me. I'm expelled and cyberbullied. My dead dormmate's boyfriend even comes after me for revenge. He shoves me and my family into the furnace at a crematorium. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day when Summer decides to make a meal with the oven.

I've been married to Shawn Ford for three years, and he's humiliated and insulted me throughout. When he's with his friend, he brags, "The woman my Uncle Cameron can't have is licking my boots. I want to laugh whenever I see her sucking up to me." It wouldn't ever occur to him that I'm frequently in his uncle's bed, covered in hickeys and love bites he leaves on my body.

Half a year after our divorce, my ex-husband became a trending topic online. His current wife, who had just given birth, jumped off a building. When she jumped, she was clutching a printed, 98-page copy of the "Cloves Family Code of Conduct." The reason for her suicide? She couldn’t buy discounted groceries online. A reporter came to interview me and asked, "Excuse me, were you also given the same family rules?"

My husband, Lucas Gabriel, and I were on our way to sell paintings when we got robbed. I used all my strength to fight off the robbers. I wanted to keep Lucas’s hands safe so that he could keep painting. However, he failed to escape. He threw his paintings on the ground and yelled at me, “This is all your fault, Aria! “If I had married Chloe instead of you, I would be the leader of the Lenza Group in Ros Aegeles by now! I wouldn’t be some poor, helpless painter!” Right before the robbers killed me, I finally realized that he never got over his childhood sweetheart, Chloe Lionel. That was why he never wanted to have children with me while we were married. When I opened my eyes again, we had both returned to a time before our marriage. This time, we went our separate ways. I cut ties with him and left Ros Angeles to focus on medical research. Seven years later, I returned. Lucas was already the boss of Cosa. He had Chloe in his arms and mocked me. “I know you’ve loved me in both lives, but did you really have to stay single for me?” I ignored him and held my son’s hand. He lost it. His eyes turned red with anger as he demanded, “Whose child is that?! Didn’t you say you would only have my children?!”

Jessie Stewart spent twelve years as an orphan before she was finally brought home to the Stewart family. For the first time in her life, she had parents and brothers. But the very people who promised to love and protect her turned against her. Bruce Stewart, her father, who once vowed she'd be his cherished daughter, told her that if she had any conscience at all, she wouldn't fight Mia Stewart, her adoptive sister, for a man. Her brothers, who swore they'd spoil her rotten, dragged her onto an operating table just to draw blood for Mia. As for her fiancé, Henry Lawson, every time things got dangerous, he chose to protect Mia instead of her. Three years later, Jessie's parents were on their knees in tears. Her once arrogant brothers slapped themselves in shame. Even her arrogant ex-fiancé knelt at her feet. They all begged her to come back. Little did they know, Jessie's heart had long since been closed off during those countless nights of pain and betrayal. She had already met the love of her life. In the years to come, she would never again be alone. He tended to her every need. To him, Jessie was everything and more.

My sister and I were both adopted from the same orphanage. When we got to choose our paths, she picked a prominent family in Edenorf City—wealthy, influential, and utterly untouchable. But the heir turned out to be twisted and cruel. He tormented her day in and day out. I chose the unassuming Moss family. They didn't have the fortune or the status of her new family, but they treated me with genuine warmth. In time, their youngest son became a business titan, and he married me, giving me a life filled with more happiness than I'd ever dreamed possible. Consumed by jealousy, my sister secretly strangled me. But when I opened my eyes again, I found she had shamelessly stolen the life I’d built—this time, choosing the Moss family for herself. "Carmen," she sneered, "now it's your turn to suffer." I almost laughed out loud. Did she think the Moss heir was some simple jackpot?

"Tigilan mo na Ito, Tristan. I'm your brother's wife, for God's sake. This is forbidden." "I don't care if it's forbidden; if loving you was a sin, then I'm willing to be a sinner. Just love me back, Karina. I love you damn much." Pumikit si Karina at nilalabanan ang tuksong maaring sumira sa buhay niya. "Please, Tristan, iba na lang, wag ako." Naramdaman Niya Ang masuyong paghaplos nito sa bewang Niya pababa sa binti niya. Napapikit siya sa kakaibang sensasyong bumabalot sa kanya, kakaibang init na kailanman di Niya naramdaman Kay Travis. Only Tristan gives this kind of feeling for her. A forbidden bliss. Hanggang kailan nila ipaglalaban ang pag-ibig na bawal?

In my dormitory, there was a poor student. With all the good intentions in the world, my roommates and I were eager to help her, not realizing how much our help would cost. She wasn't impressed by the hairdryer we offered, insisting on borrowing a branded one instead. The skincare products we gave her? They were applied to her feet. And, as if that wasn't enough, she specifically demanded luxury face cream. One day, I lent her my tablet to look up some information, and to my surprise, she secretly opened up my gaming app, spent all the diamonds and reward tickets I had saved for half a year, and left me empty-handed. When I asked her to pay me back, she turned the tables and posted a public message online, accusing me. "I'm just a poor student from the countryside, never played games before. Are the materials in the game really worth this much?" Before I knew it, the comment section was flooded with criticisms of me. In a fit of frustration, I fired back with a post of my own, throwing her into the spotlight. "Well, I suppose you've never tasted the bitterness of being cyberbullied, have you?"

When I died with a smile on my face, right before my brother's eyes, he looked as if the anguish might tear him apart. Yet, for twenty-one years, he hadn't stopped wishing I would meet this exact end. It all traced back to my fifth birthday—the day I had innocently hoped our parents would come home from their business trip to celebrate with me. They rushed back that night but never made it. A car accident took both their lives. From that moment on, my brother resented me, despised me. He didn't just stand idly by as our cousin snatched up my work as her own; he encouraged it. And when my landlord threw me out, it wasn't a random cruelty—it was my brother pulling the strings. All he had ever wanted, from the very beginning, was to see me die a miserable death. But when he finally got his wish… why did he cry, pleading for me to come back, begging me to call him 'brother' one last time?

I was the Peacock Princess. On the day I came of age, suitors from every corner of the clan gathered, all eager to win my hand. I chose Silvan, the noble Green Peacock, believing him to be the finest of them all. But after our marriage, I gave birth to a third-tier White Peacock. When Silvan saw the child, his face twisted with fury. He snatched the baby from my arms, killing it in one brutal motion. In his rage, he attacked me, ripping me apart from neck to feather, and tossed my remains to the wild beasts for their feast. Meanwhile, my elder sister, who married a second-tier Blue Peacock, gave birth to a rare and magnificent Purple Peacock. Her husband was crowned the new King of All Birds because of their child. But when I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day I had first chosen Silvan. This time, he publicly rejected me, turning to my sister instead, convinced that marrying her would bring him the coveted Purple Peacock. I knew then that he had also been reborn. He believed he could change his fate and father a Purple Peacock with her. But in this lifetime, he wouldn't even be able to produce the humblest Black Peacock.