Family

After the college entrance exams, my parents left me at home and took their adopted daughter on a trip to the beach. A typhoon hit, and the three of them never came back. When the news reached me, I did not cry or throw a tantrum. I had their deaths registered right away and pulled out the life insurance I had bought in advance. I received one hundred million in compensation. My fiance scolded me for caring only about money. What he did not know was that I had been reborn. In my past life, after I learned about their deaths, the huge debts they had left behind fell on me. I gave up the chance to go to college and started working to pay everything back. I fought to protect our ancestral home from debt collectors. My fiance stayed with me and cheered me on when I came home late at night from delivery runs. But he never gave me a single cent to help. At thirty-five, I finally cleared every debt. On my birthday, I bought myself a ten-dollar cake to celebrate. Just as I was about to blow out the candle, the door opened. My parents and their adopted daughter, who should have died in the typhoon, walked in dressed in designer clothes. They smiled at me smugly. “Well done! We can finally believe that you aren’t greedy for money. You’ve passed the test. From today, you are qualified to be the daughter of the Jameson family.” “Jane, this brilliant idea was all thanks to you.” My adopted sister smiled. She leaned close and blew out my candle. The only light left in my twenty years of lifetime went out with it. My body gave in to exhaustion. My heart failed. I collapsed and died on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, they were about to head to the beach in the middle of the typhoon. I bought a massive accident insurance policy for them on the spot. This time, all I wanted was for them to disappear from this world forever.

It's my third day of being a ghost, and I feel like I'm going to starve to death again. The underworld messenger takes pity on me because I'm a child and secretly tells me that people like me, who suffered grievances and died with resentment, have to stay by the sides of the people who loved us most in life. Then, we survive on their "guilt". I lower my head and narrow my eyes. I choke up and say, "You might as well just leave me to starve." My mother hated me to the core. Why would she ever be guilty over my death?

My mother hated me, to the point that she wished I were dead. I knew I deserved to die. Sixteen years ago, if I hadn’t insisted on going out, my brother wouldn’t have died while trying to save me. Eventually, both of us got what we wished for. I got brain cancer. She had become a stranger to me as I forgot everything and went to die in blissful ignorance. Then, she went mad.

Mom has extreme mania. Dad was murdered when I was eight, and I went blind while trying to save Mom. I became her only family and weakness. Anyone who makes fun of me for being blind has their eyes gouged out; anyone who disrespects me is sliced and diced before being fed to the dogs. Later, Mom turns into a she-devil with a hundred-billion-dollar net worth. Everyone in Gristport fears her, but she treats me like a princess. The whole city knows not to offend Eleanor Heinrich's daughter. She scours the world for the best optometrists to treat my eyes. On the day I regain my vision, I hear about Mom finding her birth daughter. She says, "You'll soon have a sister who loves you very much, Sienna." I hear that my sister has been through a lot since childhood and is introverted. I prepare many gifts for her, even wanting to give her the pendant Dad gave me. Yet she instructs her people to take me to a deserted roof. "You're nothing but a faker who stole my place in life! I'm going to slice your tongue—let's see how you can continue lying to Mom when you can't speak!" She shatters the pendant, gouges my eyeballs out, slashes my tongue, and has several men torment me to death. Lastly, she includes my eyeballs as decorations in a bouquet and brings it to Mom. "This is a gift I've prepared for your birthday, Mom. Do you like it?"

My sister is diagnosed with leukemia after a medical checkup at the hospital where I work. My bone marrow is a match for her. Out of curiosity, I tell my family I'm the one who's sick. They vehemently oppose to her donating her bone marrow to me. "A bone marrow donation is risky! We can't let your sister put herself in danger." "Don't drag your sister into this just because you're sick. Everyone's life and death is fated—you have to accept your destiny." My sister also refuses to help me, brushing me off with the excuse that she's preparing to conceive. My relationship with my family is strained, so their behavior thoroughly destroys it. When I realize this, I leave the diagnosis report behind and walk out on them.

I'm the true heir to an affluent family who got switched at birth. But when I'm reunited with my family, they suddenly announce their bankruptcy. The sprawling mansion is repossessed, leaving me, my wife, and my parents to sleep on the streets. My parents are so furious that they end up getting admitted to the hospital—one gets a stroke, and the other passes away. My wife gets her legs broken by one of the creditors, and my son is so frightened that he becomes mentally impaired. To bear the astronomical medical bill, I work countless part-time jobs and put myself through the wringer. Everything changes when, one day, I accept a job as a temporary driver. I go to a lavish hotel's banquet hall. A celebration for a gold wedding is being held there, and I see my late mother and paralyzed father sharing a kiss onstage. My crippled wife is dancing offstage as she enjoys the festivities. Meanwhile, my son speaks fluently in a foreign language as he speaks with a foreign child.

After a car accident left Vincent Holt, head of the powerful Holt family, disabled, he stunned high society by publicly seeking a wife. My father immediately submitted my profile. “Since you’re so determined to break up with Cole, let’s see if you can land someone from the Holt family instead.” I refused, only to get slapped hard across the face as I tried to grab his phone. “You have no choice in this.” With nowhere else to turn, I went to ask Cole Brody for help. He was the only one who could change my father’s mind. However, I overheard their conversation. “Don’t worry, Mr. Brody. Vincent Holt is just a cripple. Bethany’s too proud to accept him. Just give it some time. She’ll come crawling back to you.” Cole chuckled. “Lulu wants a baby. I’m just helping her out by sleeping with her a few times. It’s not a big deal, yet Bethany just won’t leave it alone. I knew you got a way to keep her in check.” My body went cold. It turned out that I had been standing alone in a ruin of lies all along. However, when the Holt family really picked me, they panicked.

The night I find out I'm pregnant, my family's villa suddenly goes up in flames. I endure the suffocating smoke and run the risk of being disfigured as I run to my son's bedroom. However, it's empty. Just then, I hear his excited exclamations outside the window. "Monica, you look so cool when putting out fires! I bet you'll get first place in this upcoming Firefighter Challenge!" I'm about to head downstairs to lecture him when a wall collapses and crushes me. As I drift in and out of consciousness, I hear my stern, stoic husband praise Monica Sloan for her courage. If I'm guessing correctly, my husband and son have started this fire to please her. I stare at the door, which is so close and yet so far. I send out one final text before dying of asphyxiation.

I'm Sophie Gould, the only daughter of the wealthiest man in Arberton. My mother doesn't like me, though. She treats her niece, Tanya Hall, like her own and allows her to take over my identity. At a banquet where all affluent families are gathered, Tanya takes my seat before I can. Then, she says in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, "You wouldn't even be here if not for Mom wanting me to show you around so you can expand your horizons, Sophie. "Remember this—you might not be a member of the Gould family, but your actions are linked to us. Don't disgrace us." In the past, I would've stood there with my eyes red, at a loss for what to do. It was too bad I'd been reborn. I smile icily at Tanya and kick her off my throne. "I should've expected this of an impostor. To think an insignificant banquet like this is enough to make you act so obnoxiously! And did you say you're part of the Gould family? You have no idea the sort of trouble you'll be getting yourself into!"

On the first day Thea Storme is accepted back to her wealthy family, she signs a betting contract with the fake heiress, Clara Storme. The contract states that if Clara is able to steal from Thea nine times in a row, Thea will have to leave the Storme family on her own. Thea agrees to the bet. On the ninth time, Clara has her eye on Thea's boyfriend, who's a low-income student. She gives him two million dollars and demands that he marry into her family as a live-in son-in-law. "You want me to marry into your family? Sure." Thea raises her head in disbelief. Leonard Falkner taps a finger on the bank card. The moment he meets Thea's gaze of despair, he flashes her a comforting smile. "But I will marry into your family as Thea's husband. I might be poor, but I still have my pride. Except for the woman I love most, I won't lower my head for anyone in this world." That day, Clara cries as she runs out of the house. She even agrees to marry into the Larkin family out of spite. Leonard remains unmoved. He just watches Clara making a fool of herself coldly. But that night, Thea overhears something…