Instant Death

On the day of the company's annual gala, I quit my job and went back to the countryside, using up all my savings to help my best friend raise her daughter. She had died tragically, swept away by the river while trying to retrieve my hundred-million-dollar gala prize ticket that had fallen into the water. Wracked with guilt, I honored her dying wish and married her husband. After the wedding, I sold my blood and even a kidney just to make ends meet, raising my stepdaughter with everything I had. Eventually, she fulfilled her dream of winning the Best Actress Award and was about to marry the richest man in the country. But just as I was preparing to give a speech at her wedding, I saw my best friend, who had been dead for over a decade. She clutched my stepdaughter's hand and accused me of being a homewrecker who seduced her husband, and even claimed I had been the one who pushed her into the river all those years ago. Only then did I learn the truth—she had faked her death all those years ago, just to steal my prize ticket and travel the world, leaving me behind to raise her family. The shock sent me into a cerebral hemorrhage. When I opened my eyes again, I had gone back to the day she drowned.

On April Fool’s Day, my CEO husband cut out my heart to save his childhood sweetheart's son. After the surgery, he tossed me into a cold rental apartment, where I died in agony. Three days after my death, my five-year-old daughter played in the room as usual. Walking by the sofa, she wrinkled her little nose and mumbled, "Mommy, there's a weird smell in here." She touched my face and murmured, "Mommy, are you pretending to be Snow White? Why are you so pale?" She shook my arm harder and raised her voice, "Mommy, it's my birthday today—get up and blow out the candles!" Confused, she picked up the phone and called her father. “Daddy, did I make Mommy mad? I lit the candles, but no matter how much I call her, she won’t wake up.” On the other end of the call, Patrick Hart’s voice was cold and impatient. “What could possibly be wrong with her? She’s just pretending to be asleep for sympathy. It’s Johnny’s birthday, I’m busy. Don’t bother me! Tell your melodramatic mother to stop playing her little tricks. I don't have time to humor her." My daughter removed the candle from her bun, pinched off a piece of the bun, and fed it to me. "Mommy, I made a secret wish… I really wish you could hold me again, just like before."

"Is this what you want?" he murmurs, gaze gliding down to where his fingers linger dangerously on my upper thigh. Resting his hand on the surface beside me, he leans down above me. "You just have to say it, and it's yours." *** On her eighteenth birthday, Aven starts to notice strange things. She feels watched, and one day, when facing death, she is saved by a stranger. For years she wonders who he is or who he was. When facing death again, he comes back. Aven doesn't realise how special she is, or how many people will go at great lengths to protect her, and to use her hidden gifts for their own gain. Although no one wants her more than a powerful Immortal. However, his desire for her may prove to be deadly, and as her mate, his vow to protect her will prove to put their entire world at risk.

Despite dreaming of attending university all my life, I ended up stuck in my farming village. I married my brother-in-law and became my nephew’s stepmother. This all happened because my sister died trying to make money for my tuition fees on the day my results came out. I thought I had failed to secure a place at university and stopped thinking about higher education out of guilt. I married my brother-in-law according to my sister’s wishes. To pay for my sins, I raised my nephew and treated him like my own son. I made money and tutored him so that he could get into Northside University. In the end, I developed late-stage cancer. Before dying, I attended my nephew’s celebration, but he publicly accused me of being a homewrecker while my husband agreed that I had seduced him. They brought out my sister, dead for eighteen years, and made me apologize to her. It was then that I found out she had faked her death and used my university admission letter to finish her study. She had become a university lecturer after tricking me into taking care of her family. Outraged, I had a cerebral hemorrhage. When I woke up, I found I had gone back to the day my sister faked her death.

Three days after my boyfriend’s adopted sister died a tragic death, I clutched a so-called "hush money" check in my hand and became an accomplice in everyone’s eyes. My boyfriend once knelt in the pouring rain to beg me, and his sister’s five-year-old daughter cried and begged me to testify, but I refused them both. Ten years later, when I was dying of cancer, my boyfriend had become a billionaire. The first thing he did upon returning to the country was to forcibly extract my memories, even though I would suffer endless pain. "Elara, you vain, heartless monster! Lily and I must have been blind to ever treat you like family!" "Lily has been dead for ten years, and you’ve been walking free with that dirty money the whole time!" "Today, I’m going to find out exactly who paid you off—the person you protected just for money!" My boyfriend held a press conference to publicly crucify me for my crimes. But after seeing the whole truth, he went completely insane.

Five years ago, my brother's fiancée died because of me. Five years later, I'm burned to a crisp and laid out on his autopsy table.

Ang anak ng first love ng tatay ko ay nagdusa sa heatstroke dahil iniwan ito sa sasakyan, kaya itinali niya ako sa galit at ikinulong ako sa loob ng kotse. Tinignan niya ako nang may labis na pagkamuhi at sinabing, “Wala akong malupit na anak na tulad mo. Manatili ka rito at pagnilayan mo ang sarili mo.” Nagmakaawa ako sa kanya, humingi ako ng kapatawaran sa kanya, at nakiusap na palabasin niya ako, pero ang nakuha ko lang bilang kapalit ay ang kanyang malupit na utos. “Maliban kung mamatay siya, walang sinong pwedeng magpalabas sa kanya.” Nakaparada ang kotse sa garahe. Walang makarinig sa akin kahit gaano kadaming beses akong sumigaw. Makalipas ang pitong araw, sa wakas ay naalala niya ako at nagpasyang palabasin na ako. Gayumpaman, wala siyang ideya na namatay na ako sa loob at hindi na muling magigising.

My mother was the best portrait artist in the police station. She had a strong sense of justice and brooked no evil. However, all I got was a sharp retort when I called her to save me. "You know it's your sister's coming-of-age celebration today, and you're cursing her? Kidnapped, are you? Fine, the kidnappers can kill you for all I care." She assumed it was a prank call. So, she refused to go to the police station and do her job. I wasn't saved in time and was tortured to death. When the DNA report came out, she came to the scene all wobbly. She drew a portrait of me with my bones as reference, her hand trembling all the way. "Jessica? It can't be her. This is a mistake!" She tried again and again. Yet, it didn't matter how many times she redid it as the portrait showed my face. My mother, who had hated me my whole life, teared up.

I have three dads who love and spoil me for fifteen years. Of the three, Maxim Ulfric is the high-ranking and authoritative Alpha of the Cinderhowl pack. The second is Ethan Skoll, the pack's most valiant Beta warrior. The third is Aidan Rafe, the most skilled healer of the whole pack. They're the reason I am the happiest princess of the Cinderhowl pack before turning 15. Everything changes after Raeya Wargan appears. Time and again, she accuses me of leading others to sideline and pick on her. Even my disappointed dads say I'm insensible and give everything I have to her as compensation. From then on, no one believes a word I say. Even the pups of the pack call me a pathological liar. Everything ends when Raeya throws me into a Rogue's den. As a ferocious Rogue hunts me down, I reach out through the mind-link to my dads for help. But none of them believes me. They call me devious and cunning. They say that I'm trying to frame Raeya on purpose. While a wolf pack tears my limbs apart, and my mangled corpse is left abandoned in the forest, my dads are wholeheartedly presiding over Raeya's grand coming-of-age ceremony. They once promised to give me the most unique coming-of-age ceremony, but it's a pity I'll never live to see that day.

"I don't want to go with you on this business trip," Lucy Landon said at the dinner table. Her voice was calm, so calm that no one could sense anything unusual. Steven Cooper's trip was set for June 1st. It wasn't their wedding anniversary, nor was it anyone's birthday. Just an ordinary Children's Day. Three days ago, she had stumbled upon a voice message on Steven's phone. A child's soft and childish voice had said, "Daddy, for Children's Day, I want to go to Maldove to see the fishes!"