Masked Emotions

My husband brings a pregnant Meryl Cleat home and lies to me, claiming that she's his stepmother. I'm wholly against the idea, but she says, "The children will call you their mother when they're born, so you don't have to go through the pain of childbirth. Think about how lucky you are, experiencing motherhood without the suffering!" I demand a divorce in the heat of the moment; Meryl is so infuriated by this that she faces labor complications and later dies. Out of guilt, I become a stay-at-home mother to care for her two super male kids. Yet they scaled me with boiling water and blind me in one eye. My health deteriorates under their intense torment, and I'm diagnosed with uremia. That's when I accidentally discover Meryl isn't my stepmother—she's my husband's mistress! I'm in despair when I return home. To make matters worse, I catch her—when she's supposed to be dead—and my husband in bed together. Her two super male sons ultimately stab me to death. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to the day she fakes her death!

My mother-in-law is extremely frugal. She reuses paper others have discarded, carefully saving the unmarked portions. She even takes the black waste oil from the kitchen range hood and uses it to cook our meals. She says, "Frugality is a virtue—it brings blessings!" I try tirelessly to convince her otherwise, throwing out all her filthy items to protect my family's health. But while she praises me to my face, behind my back, she uses my baby's food scissors to clip her grimy toenails. My child eventually dies of a lung infection, leaving me heartbroken. My mother-in-law, however, points her finger at me, saying I'm unlucky and that I've brought misfortune to their family. Even my husband blames me. In the end, they use a knitting needle to pierce my throat and stab me to death. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the day I first see her picking up dirty paper. The first thing I do is hide all the high-quality tissue paper I had stocked up on before my pregnancy, pretending I knew nothing. She calls these blessings, right? Fine. The blessings of this miserly frugality—she can reap them all herself!

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.

The day that I divorced my third husband, the system told me that I had completely failed my mission. I had married three times in this world and they were all targets that were supposed to fall for me. But every single one of them chose to divorce me because of Wendy Somerfield. The system pitied me for doing my best for the past 30 years, so it asked me to target my son. It said that if my son could confidently choose me, between me and Wendy, then I could live. However, it was no exception that the son I gave birth to after 40 weeks of pregnancy chose Wendy, just like my three ex-husbands. They all even pinned the cause of Wendy's illness on me. My first husband, who was my childhood sweetheart, pretended to be softhearted, but he was actually ruthless. He actually tried to convince me to donate one of my kidneys to Wendy. My second husband, who I met on a blind date, used a scalpel to personally cut open my body. My third husband, who I fell in love with at first sight, even threatened me with my son. While spitting out blood from my mouth, I agreed to their requests with a smile. However, when they saw me being pushed out of the operating room, those people who turned their backs on me went crazy.

When I was seven, my constant vomiting got so bad that my mother took me to court and accused me of being born dangerous. If the charge stuck, I would be stripped of my family ties and sent straight to prison. Everyone said my mother was overreacting. "He's just a kid. Kids get sick. As his mother, you should be more understanding." But the moment the evidence was shown, the room went dead quiet. My mother had drunk herself into a stomach bleed just to land a contract, and the second she got home, I threw up all over it. The deal was voided, and she lost her job on the spot. On my sister, Ophelia Sowle's, birthday, I threw up all over her cake right in front of all her classmates. After that, she was shunned by everyone at school. She spiraled into depression and even slashed her wrists. It didn't matter where I was, at the dinner table or under the covers. I could start vomiting at any moment. My mother and Ophelia had to clean me up more than 30 times a day. It wore them down to the breaking point. What infuriated them the most was that every time I finished throwing up, I would look at them and laugh, as if I was mocking them. The judge brought the gavel down and declared me guilty of being born bad. Ophelia's eyes turned red as she cried, saying she couldn't bear to lose me. I didn't cry or fight it. I accepted the verdict. But I requested that the judge watch my memories first. The judge looked stunned. "Memory extraction means drilling into your brain. The pain is unbearable. Are you sure?" I nodded without hesitation. But Ophelia suddenly panicked. "I don't agree!"

My daughter and my husband didn't look alike at all. My father-in-law always complained about it, accusing me of cheating. In the end, he even took my daughter to get a paternity test done. As expected, they were not blood related. My father-in-law told his son to divorce me and not to give me anything. My husband even wanted to kill my daughter by choking her. "I've been raising another man's daughter all this while! I'll be humiliated as long as she's alive!" I immediately threw the paternity test report involving my husband and my father-in-law at them. This time, it's my mother-in-law that was nervous as I looked them in the eyes and said, "Why don't you take a good look and see who is the one who is not blood related!"

Daddy brought me to Aunt Jenny’s party. As I was eating a piece of cake, I tasted a cherry between the layers and hurriedly spat it out. Once, I broke out in rashes after eating a cherry and nearly died, so I was deeply traumatized by that flavor even as a young child. However, Aunt Jenny looked heartbroken. “I hid a cherry in the cake as a little surprise, just like it’s good luck to get a bay leaf in a pie. How could you be so rude, Kenny?” Daddy did not even let me explain. He chased me out in the yard and made me stand there as punishment. Mommy said it had been more than a hundred degrees out lately, so she told me to stay home and not go out to play. Now I knew just how hot 104 degrees could be! My body was all itchy, too. I was finding it hard to breathe. I wanted to ask Daddy to forgive me, but he refused to open the door no matter how hard I knocked. He glanced at me coldly through the floor-to-ceiling window. He was not going to let me back in.

My bride went missing on the night of our big day but woke up in my brother's room the next day. My parents persuaded me to ignore it for the sake of fame but scolded my wife as an easy girl. Angrily, I moved out of the villa with my wife. Soon after, my wife had a miscarriage and suffered from depression due to gossip. She jumped off from the top floor in front of me. Desperately, I followed her. Opening my eyes again, I found myself back to the time when the wedding ended.

After I studied and lived in Descensio for five years, I finally graduated and was ready to return to my home country to take over my dad's company. When I arrived at the Sullivan Group building, I took a picture and posted it on my Instagram story with the caption. 'Since you're the man I love most, I'm here to see you immediately after graduation.' Yet, a woman appeared out of nowhere and slapped me as soon as I arrived at the company's lobby. "It's her! She's the hussy! She had seduced my husband back in high school. Now that my husband has become the director, she shamelessly showed up here to flirt with him. So, I want you girls to beat her up. I'll take the blame if anything happens." While the woman was cooking up a story about me seducing Marcus Lane, a director of Sullivan Group, others around simply looked on coldly and judged me. She slashed my limited-edition bag to pieces and smashed the expensive seal I wanted to give my dad. "You're just a gold digger wearing and buying fake luxury goods. It's just a few hundred dollars. I can still afford to pay you." However, little did she know that everything I had was real. Even if she and her director husband worked for the rest of their lives, they would never be able to afford to pay for the damages.

My brother Mitchell sided with his dream girl when she accused me of bullying her. Despite being the only family member I had left, he exploded in anger and sent me away to a boarding school for so-called reformation to learn how to become a meek and obedient little sister. In time, I became exactly what he wanted—a docile sibling who never fought back, never argued. But everything changed the day he saw my medical report. He lost his mind. "Nora, I'm begging you—forgive me and let me be your brother again!"