Hypocrisy

Housing prices collapsed. My parents ran a real estate business. They and their long-time family friend, the Goodwin family, went into bankruptcy. My parents had me and my younger sister draw lots to decide who would marry into the Goodwin family to fulfill an old engagement. In my previous life, I drew the short stick. From that moment, I became a slave to both families. During the day, I needed to work to pay off the Goodwin family’s debt. At night, I needed to deliver food to cover my parents’ financial losses. I survived on scraps and slept in the cold. I continued to work even when I coughed up blood. That day, I went all out and finally secured a multimillion-dollar business deal. My heart burst with excitement. I was eager to tell them the good news. Across the street, I saw my parents get off a Rolls-Royce with wide grins. They dressed up in luxury brands from head to toe. Then, I saw my husband, Alfred, gently wrap one of his arms around my glamorous sister’s shoulder. I wanted to rush over and question them. But a speeding truck slammed into me and sent me flying away. I lay in a pool of blood while staring at them indignantly. I heard them chuckle softly. “What a pity… She was so close to enjoying a good life.” When I opened my eyes again, I returned to the day I drew the lots. Since they liked to pretend to be broke, I would make it a reality!

On my wedding day, my fiancé’s childhood sweetheart arrived, wearing the exact same custom wedding dress as me. They stood together, greeting guests, while I smiled and praised them as a match made in heaven. Humiliated, she left the venue in tears. In her defense, my fiancé publicly accused me of being petty and unreasonable. After the wedding reception, he left with her for the honeymoon we had planned together. I didn’t cry. Instead, I called my lawyer immediately.

After the plane crash, I rejected the captain—my brother-in-law’s—final life jacket that he had as he handed it to me. Instead, I allowed myself to plunge a hundred meters from the sky. In my previous life, I had survived after accepting his life jacket. But he died a tragic death in the crash. After his death, I was consumed with guilt. My husband proposed to take care of two households at the same time so that he could look after his sister-in-law. Out of guilt, I reluctantly agreed to his proposal. I even had to give up my only chance of getting promoted to department head of the hospital to my sister-in-law, upon my husband’s insistence. When I was seventy years old, I suddenly saw my brother-in-law, who was supposed to be dead, show up in front of me. He said to my husband, “Bro, thank goodness you came up with that fake-death plan back then. I was drunk and caused the deaths of all the passengers after the plane crash. If not for that plan of yours, as the captain, I certainly could not have escaped scot-free and would have been sentenced to prison for life! “It was too bad we had to keep her in the dark for her entire life.” After a lifetime of sacrifices, I was so furious that I nearly passed out upon hearing my brother-in-law’s words. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the plane crash.

To scrape together my mother's surgery money, I worked myself to the bone at this company for three straight years. My performance was always number one. By myself, I supported half the sales department. Then, a newly hired HR director decided every desk needed an AI camera, claiming it was to optimize efficiency. Every blink, every breath I took was measured and calculated by the system. "Warning. Employee Nathan Gray blinked more than twenty times within one minute. Mental distraction detected. Fine: 50." "Warning. Employee Nathan Gray took 3.5 seconds to drink water, exceeding the standard by 1.5 seconds. Slacking detected. Fine: 100." "Warning. Employee Nathan Gray's mouth corners drooped for over thirty seconds. Suspected spread of negative emotion. Fine: 200." The most ridiculous part was the way he stood in front of the entire department, pointing proudly at my data on the giant screen. "See that?" he said smugly. "This is the power of technology. In front of AI, you lazy freeloaders have nowhere to hide. Nathan, your bonus for this month has already been wiped out by the system. If you don't like it, get lost. Plenty of people are lining up to take your place." What he didn't know was that the AI system he trusted so blindly had its core code written by me. Tonight, I was going to show him what happened when he angered the one who built the machine.

After blowing through 15 million, which was my wedding gift from the Masons, I turned myself in for marriage fraud. That was when the housekeeper's daughter, Hannah Castillo, panicked. On May 5th, Castillo Enterprise and Mason Group were set to unite through marriage. I was meant to be the bride, but instead, I was locked away in a dark storage room. By the time I fought my way to the ceremony, Hannah had already finished the wedding using my identity. I went onstage and said I was the Castillos' real daughter, only to be questioned by everyone in the company. The reason was simple: Hannah had been using my name and status openly inside the company for the past six months. Hannah kicked me to the ground and sneered, "You're the housekeeper's kid! How dare you make a scene!" Before I could pull out any proof, the bodyguards Hannah hired dragged me out and dumped me on the road. A car ran into me, and I died on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day before the wedding.

Due to my outstanding performance, Mdm. Hall granted me flexible working hours. After a full night of entertaining clients, I had barely fallen asleep when a colleague’s call jolted me awake. “It’s already 9:30 a.m.! How could you be late again?” I patiently explained that I had worked late signing contracts last night. So, I would not be coming into the office this morning. However, my colleague scoffed. “Don’t think that being the top salesperson gives you free rein to skip work! “The heiress, Ms. Hall, is visiting the office for the first time today! “If you upset her, you’d better watch out. She’ll have you fired!” I pushed through my headache and searched my memory. The heiress he mentioned was Cadence Hall. If I was not mistaken, she was the woman who had been desperate to marry into my family.

My daughter, Tina, locked herself in her room, crying so hard her body shook. I pried the door open and saw that she was clutching a test paper that was torn to shreds and pieced back together. It was a math Olympiad selection test. She should have gotten a perfect score, but was given a score of zero instead. "Mom," she sobbed, "the teacher said 3x5 is not equal to 5x3; that it's taking shortcuts. She tore my paper up in front of everyone, revoked my eligibility for the competition, and told the whole class not to talk to me…" I looked at the deep red scratch marks on my daughter's wrist and immediately picked up the phone to call the principal. "What good does it do for your school's reputation to drive a kid who loves math to their breaking point?"

My name becomes the sensational topic on the trending list thanks to my company's employees, who have cyberbullied me relentlessly. It all started when an intern named Cecily Plinkton posted a complaint on her social media feed, claiming that the seafood thermidor, a new food item that had just gotten released in the company's cafeteria, was sold for 14 dollars, which was four dollars more expensive than before. "What a scum company! Are the higher-ups that crazy over money? They're just leeching from us white-collar peeps repeatedly!" The entire Internet doesn't hesitate to curse me out. They claim that I'm a cold-blooded capitalist who's greedy enough to charge her own employees for lunch. No one cares about the fact that I've been shelling out my own money in order to upgrade the cafeteria's food choices just so I could make the employees happier. Every day, they get to eat over hundreds of dishes to their fill for free. Every week, the expensive dishes, such as lobsters and crabs, are charged at the net price. Thanks to these free benefits, the administrative department has been suffering from almost a one-million-dollar loss every year. So, I announce that the food prices in the cafeteria will be changed to reflect the current market's prices. At the same time, I've fired the head chef and the kitchen staff and left the meal preparation to another company that produces instant meals. As soon as the announcement is made, the entire company goes into a frenzy. The employees all crowd outside my office while begging me to bring back the benefits with tears streaking down their cheeks.

My fiancé was obsessively possessive. I was the newly found real daughter. To make sure I couldn’t leave him, he had thugs assault me in an alley. Then he showed up pretending to be my savior, taking the beating himself. I developed depression and had no choice but to rely on him. Then the fake daughter showed up with her gang. Grabbing my face, she sneered, "I'm the only daughter of the Shaw family!" I was dunked in a toilet, my face slashed, my body violated, and every wound sewn shut with needles. Blood covered the floor. My fiancé burst in with my parents. Seeing my state, they got furious. "You filthy maid's daughter! How dare you?"

After I reincarnated, I went to the hospital right away to get an abortion. In my past life, I was suddenly found to be pregnant with fraternal boy-girl twins after a childless marriage of five years. I was told that I needed to abort one, or I could die due to the excess size of the foetuses, but while I hesitated, I heard my son's voice. [Mommy! You have to abort this brat—she's going to kill me! She's been stealing all the food!] [She's not my sister—she's Tina and daddy's bastard! They used black magic to move her here and kill me, while you would treat her like your own daughter… and she can then inherit all the family wealth!] Hearing that, I promptly went to the hospital to abort the twin daughter, keeping the son. But on the day I went into labor, he threw a fit, punching and kicking my room until he finally killed me. And just before I died, I heard him gloating. [Stupid broad! You really believed me and aborted your own daughter! Just die already! I'm going to meet my parents!] When I opened my eyes again, Tina was sitting right in front of me, telling me to abort one of my babies…