Imagination Flashback

The world was divided into the mortal realm and the divine realm. The Rain Clan belonged to the divine realm. They could hear the prayers from the mortal realm. The Rain Maidens would bring rainfall to the mortal realm through prayers. They could ascend to heavens through cultivation. In the Rain Clan, every rain maiden was born with a dragon who would ascend with her and become her mount. When my sister and I were born, we shared only one spirit beast—a white dragon. The white dragon was the lowest of all dragons, yet I ignored the clan’s objections and insisted on forming a bond with him so that we could ascend. However, on the day I succeeded in calling the rain and married him, he shot an arrow straight through me while I was pregnant and at my weakest from summoning rain. As I lay dying, I saw him rush toward my sister. “Leigh, now I can finally be with you forever.” Only then did I realize the white dragon had chosen me under pretenses to help Leigh ascend. When I opened my eyes again, he and I had both returned to the day of our bond. There, he learned that Leigh was the true heir to the Rain Goddess mantle. He dropped to his knees and loudly confessed that he had always loved Leigh, and that he wished only to be her mount. Everyone knew I had spent half my cultivation to save him when he first hatched. I smiled and pointed at a mottled green snake at the edge of the barrier. The white dragon thought that as long as he bonded with my sister, he would ascend. However, what he never knew was that without me, Leigh could never ascend.

On my first day back with the Cannon family as the true heiress, I heard the voice of the family’s guardian spirit. “You must stop your father from investing in the West City project. There’s an ancient tomb beneath the site. He’ll lose everything.” I convinced my father, Aaron Cannon, to abandon the project and invest in North City instead. But a factory next to the North City site had a toxic gas leak. Dozens of workers died overnight. Aaron lost his entire fortune to the compensation. While the family was drowning in despair, the guardian spirit spoke again. “Money can be earned again, but it’s a pity your mother will die in a car crash tomorrow when she goes out to borrow money from an old friend.” I immediately stopped my mother, Sally Cannon, from leaving the house. She avoided the car accident but tragically died from a sudden heart attack. With tears streaming down his face, Aaron told me she had been having chest pains for days but had endured the pain. She had only decided to go to the hospital today because she could not bear it any longer. My blood ran cold. By stopping her from going out, I had ultimately caused her death. Overwhelmed with grief, Aaron drank pesticide and died on the spot. Overnight, there was no one left in the family but me and the fake heiress, Pearl Cannon. To repay the debts and support my education, Pearl took on three jobs a day. Then, the guardian spirit spoke to me once more. “Your sister has been dragged into an alley. Go save her now!” I rushed to the location. I arrived breathless and frantic, but I was already too late. My sister lay in a pool of blood. She was not breathing anymore. I thought, ‘Mia Talbert, it’s all your fault! You’re a curse. You should’ve died instead!’ Consumed by despair, I jumped from a tall building and ended my miserable life. When I opened my eyes, I had traveled to the past.

In my previous life, my parents doted on my frail, sickly younger sister. For her sake, they chose a hawk beastman willing to settle in a human city as her husband. Me? They cast me into the deep sea, marrying me off to a giant shark beastman. When the apocalypse came and torrential rains drowned every human city, my parents and sister were left clinging to a rotting plank, adrift on the endless ocean. I couldn't bear to watch them die. With my giant shark husband, I dragged them down into the deep sea to safety. But resentment festered. Seeing me live comfortably while my shark beastman hunted day after day, my parents grew furious that my sister's life paled in comparison to mine. In their jealousy, they laced the fish we ate with poison and killed me. Now, given another chance at life, they've decided my sister should marry the giant shark beastman instead. My biased parents believe she will finally enjoy the blessings they once denied her. But what they don't know is this: after the cataclysm, fish become scarce. And a giant shark… does not survive on scraps. He needs flesh.

After dying suddenly from overwork, I found myself transmigrated into the life of a fake heiress who had been cast out of her wealthy family. While the real heiress reclaimed the life that had once been mine, I decided to leave the drama behind. Armed with my savings, I embraced a carefree lifestyle, swapping boyfriends every three days and living for the moment. Then, two months later, life hit me with a curveball—I discovered I was pregnant. The problem? I had no idea who the father was. With no choice, I approached the three powerful CEOs I had been involved with, each more arrogant and competitive than the last. What followed was a 10-billion-dollar bet by each of the three over who the father might be, with me caught in the middle. "I bet the baby belongs to all three of you," I teased, only for them to roll their eyes and dismiss me as ridiculous. Even so, when I gave birth to triplets, their argument outside the delivery room went viral, sending the internet into a frenzy and turning my life—and theirs—into a spectacle.

It's 11:30 pm. Home alone, I decide to order some takeout. When the map shows the delivery guy is zero miles away, I receive a call from him. I pick up, only to hear unsettling silence from the other end. I hang up, annoyed. The next moment, the guy texts me, "Sorry, I'm hearing-impaired and unable to speak. I called to notify you to pick up your food as soon as possible. I can't explain things over the phone, and I apologize for that." Then comes another text. "You must've been waiting for a long time. I've left your order at your door, so please pick it up as soon as you can." Just as I prepare to open the door, I see bars of live comments—reminiscent of livestream chats—floating right before my eyes. "Don't open the door! That dude isn't a delivery guy at all! He's a murderer!" "He called you to check if you're a woman living alone!" "Seriously, why are all thriller story protagonists always so dumb? The delivery guy is obviously suspicious, yet she still wants to open the door."

In the final stages of a terminal illness, my family abandoned me and threw me into a horror game. [Another one here to die. I bet she won't last the first night.] [Just listen to that cough. I'm scared she'll die right inside my phone.] On the first night, the head nurse made her rounds, prepared to execute any player whose heartbeat was abnormal. My heartbeat remained steady only because my body was too weak to fluctuate—and I even helped her sew up the tear in her uniform. "Miss, your clothes are torn. You'll get cold. If I mend it for you, you won't be cold anymore." On the second night, the surgeon swung his scalpel, determined to cut away anything imperfect. I handed him a wrist guard I'd made myself, watching his trembling hands. "Doctor, your talent shouldn't be buried by pain." … On the final day, the ultimate Boss gave me a choice: leave with a healthy body, or stay and perish with these strange beings. Back in the real world, the parents who had abandoned me were suddenly in tears, begging me to come home and split the money. I smiled and said to the creatures inside the instance, "I choose to trade my life… for a home for all of you." The next second, a burst of golden light erupted from the system. [Congratulations, player. You have triggered the one and only hidden ending—Divine Redemption.]

When I was at my absolute poorest, I got sucked into some kind of survival game. The challenge was to survive 7 days on just 50 dollars, and the winner would walk away with a million dollars. As someone who might as well be certified as a professional at being broke, I knew exactly how to survive on next to nothing. That prize money had my name written all over it.

I was a mermaid from the deep sea. Out of curiosity and playfulness, I was caught by a fisherman and endured unbearable torment. Just when I was on the brink of death, Trevon Chapman happened to pass by and saved me. So, I gave up my identity as a mermaid princess, left the ocean behind, and followed him into the human world. For five years after our marriage, Trevon granted my every wish and showered me with affection. I truly believed I had found a safe harbor I could depend on for the rest of my life—until fate struck with its cruelest blow. Trevon's childhood sweetheart had fallen gravely ill, and only a mermaid’s tail could save her. I begged him desperately, but he responded with chilling indifference. "You're only losing your legs. Corinne is losing her life. Are you really that heartless? You're just going to watch her die?" "Besides, you can’t return to the sea anymore. That tail means nothing to you now. From now on, I’ll be your legs." After the surgery, I sat in a wheelchair, running my hand over the empty fabric where my legs should have been, and calmly demanded a divorce. Trevon pulled Corinne into his arms, sneering. "You're neither human nor fish now—a monster. Without me, the only road left for you is death." Yet in the end, when I transformed back into a mermaid and leapt into the sea, his cries and desperate sobs echoed across the waves.

I bought a handsome, aloof incubus online. But he wouldn't stop making that low humming sound, just standing there, staring at me in silence. His body was burning hot. Worried he might be sick, I hurried to contact customer service. After listening to my description, the person on the other end went quiet for a moment. Then they said, "Um... is it possible that your incubus isn't sick—he's just starving, maybe wanting to kiss you, or... do something else?"

My boyfriend, Victor Pearson, was ranked number one in the world in horror games. Meanwhile, I was secretly working part-time as a monster NPC inside one of those dungeons. Every dungeon he cleared was SSS rank, whereas the one I worked in was the beginner level. We were never supposed to run into each other… until he nearly wiped out all the monsters in an SSS dungeon. The system pulled me in at the last second as emergency backup. When I tried to scare players with my awful acting, the live chat tore me apart. [Hahaha, since when did the monsters in this dungeon get so cowardly? She’s supposed to scare us, but we actually scared her instead.] [This is next-level dumb. Getting lost in a dungeon is embarrassing. Is this monster here for comic relief?] [Poor thing. She'd better hide. Anyone else might let her go, but if she runs into Big V, she's dead before she knows it.] [Come on. Big V only hunts the nastiest bosses. He wouldn’t even bother with trash like that. She would probably scare herself to death first.] I did everything I could to avoid Victor, to keep him from realizing I was the monster working there. But somehow, I stumbled right into him anyway. The chat exploded, waiting for my instant death. After all, he was a legend on the leaderboards, a god among players. But instead of killing me, he bent down and gently pinched my cheek. "Hey, babe. How many players do you wanna take out? I'll help you." The people in the chat lost their minds. [What the hell?!]