New Spring The

My mom was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her life is smooth-sailing most of the time. The only mistake she's ever made is falling for my dad. That's why she insists on finding me a husband who's the complete opposite of my dad. My dad is tall and intimidating-looking, so Mom wants someone who's short and perverted-looking. My dad is a knowledgeable and well-read man, so Mom wants a guy who has only graduated from elementary school. My dad prioritizes his moral integrity more than anything else, so Mom prefers a guy who drinks, gambles, and sleeps around. She tells me, "This type of man is easy to manipulate, unlike your father, who just divorced me out of nowhere!" It's true that the man Mom has chosen for me won't divorce me. After all, he leeches from me on top of beating me up. It's not enough to leech my money from me, it seems—he just has to take everything from me. My mom says in a righteous tone, "This is the only way that proves you're valuable to him. He won't divorce you at all." I've fought back and escaped from my husband many times. Every time I do, my mom will trick me into returning to him by hurting herself. As always, I'm greeted with another round of beating whenever I do return to him. Mom will take me to the hospital to get my injuries treated. Then, she'll say, "Hurry up and give birth to a son for him. Once you have a son, you'll be extremely valuable to your husband. He won't beat you up anymore." Today is supposed to be the day Mom takes me to the hospital to check my ovulation timing. She spends a long time calling me on the phone, yet I never pick up. After that, she sends me a few audio messages that last for 60 seconds each just to lecture me. "Beatrice Anderson, what makes you think you can just ignore my calls? The hospital check-up is for your own good! As long as you can get pregnant with a son, your husband will be wrapped around your finger! He won't divorce you after this! Why can't you understand how much I care for you?" I seriously can't understand at all. After all, I've gotten beaten to death yesterday. My corpse is cut into 28 chunks, and they are being frozen in the fridge as I speak.

As a zombie outbreak spreads across the world, my boyfriend insists on delaying our evacuation so his drama-queen childhood sweetheart can catch the last rescue chopper. However, this is the last evacuation after the outbreak, and our team's only chance to survive. When she still doesn't show up, I knock my boyfriend out and haul him onto the helicopter. In the end, his childhood sweetheart is devoured by the surging horde, while I seize the opportunity to escape and start a peaceful, quiet life with him in the safe zone. The night before I am to take command and lead a massive counterattack against the undead, my boyfriend laces my drink with a tranquilizer and dumps me into a swarm of zombies. Thousands of zombies tear me apart, and I die in excruciating pain. He stands on the fortress wall, a cold smile on his lips. "Had you not been so selfish, Esmeralda would've survived. Now, you'll experience her suffering and atone with your life!" Given a second chance at life, I wake up on the day my boyfriend refused to evacuate on time. Since he's so determined to stand by his childhood sweetheart through thick and thin, I'll make sure they both become zombie food!

On the very night Ansel Halberg is in another woman's arms, Odessa Montclair meets a tragic end. The Grim Reaper gives her seven days to return to the world of the living and make one final request. Her only wish is to divorce Ansel and erase every trace of their shared past. She's determined never to cross his path again—neither in this life, nor the next.

I'm ten years older than Vincenzo Corleone. He had just turned 23 years old when he took over the Corleone family as the patriarch. A hint of teenage childishness could still be seen etched onto his youthful features. I was the one who held his hand and helped him calm the turbulence of his family affairs. I blocked three assassination attempts that were made on him. I used five years of my life to help him grow from a useless scion into the fearsome don who wielded the utmost authority in Nowork's underworld. Once, Vincenzo had embraced me in the church. He rested his forehead against my palm as he swore, "Age, identity, or the world's viewpoint of us will never stop us from being together, Freya. I will protect you with my life." But after that, he told his older brother, Marco Corleone, "Freya is too old. She's already 38 years old; I can practically smell the rot of age rolling off her. Even the crinkles in her smile disgust me to no end." Some time later, Vincenzo found himself a mistress who bore some resemblance to me. She was young and vibrant—like a white rose who had never experienced the ugly side of society. While Vincenzo gave me the title of the Donna of the Corleone family, he reserved his gentle, doting, and even passionate side for the mistress named Lina Marino. Vincenzo thinks he can pull everything off flawlessly. What he forgets is that the reason why I can establish my reputation in the underworld isn't because of his protection. I've been relying on my ruthlessness and my sharp sixth sense this whole time. When I slam the signed divorce agreement onto the spot before Vincenzo, I say with a smile, "You've fought by my side for so many years, so you should know very well that I can afford to go for high-stakes risks and withdraw my chips whenever needed. "But once I lose, someone here has to pay the price!"

After eight years of love, Liz Smith went from being the woman Zac Lincoln once saw as the love he could never forget, to someone he couldn’t wait to get rid of. She had spent three years trying to hold on, giving everything she had. But once her last bit of affection ran dry, she finally gave up and walked away. On the day they broke up, Zac sneered coldly and said, “Liz, I’ll be waiting for you to come crawling back, begging me to take you back.” But what came instead wasn’t a plea—it was news that she was getting married. Furious, he called her. “Are you done with your little game?” A deep male voice answered from the other end. “Mr. Lincoln, my fiancée is in the shower. She can’t come to the phone right now.” Zac let out a bitter laugh and hung up. He convinced himself it was just another one of Liz’s tricks—playing hard to get. It wasn’t until her wedding day, when he saw her in a white gown, holding a bouquet, walking down the aisle toward another man, that reality finally hit him. Liz had truly let him go. Like a madman, he pushed through the crowd and rushed to her. “Liz, I know I was wrong. Please don’t marry someone else. Please.” Liz lifted her dress and walked right past him. “Didn’t you say you and Xena were perfect for each other? Why are you kneeling at my wedding now, Mr. Lincoln?”

There was a time when Nyla believed that walking down the aisle with Clark, after being together since their university years, would be the happiest moment of her life. It was only when Clark cheated on her that she realized true love and growing old together were rare. More often than not, relationships ended in separation and loss. After their divorce, she swore she would never give her heart away again. But, Damon—Clark’s youngest uncle—barged into Nyla’s life and gave her no chance to escape. She kept trying to distance herself, not wanting any more ties with her ex’s family. Damon, however, pursued her relentlessly, determined to have her in his arms. "Uncle Damon, we're not right for each other." Damon gently pinched Nyla’s chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "You and Clark are divorced. How am I still your uncle? "Besides, how do you know we’re not right for each other when you haven't tried?" "I’ve tried," Nyla replied. "Then try again," Damon said. "Keep trying until it feels right." Nyla was at a loss for words.

Elise Clares, a wolf-less shifter, has run away from her pack: her family dead, no friends to turn to and all hope of freedom fleeting as the New Moon pack's warriors close. Jackson Snow, Alpha of the Full Moon pack, hates rogues after they murdered his parents. Finding Elise being chased down by her former pack, Jackson goes against all his instincts and offers her protection... At a price and with prejudice. Elise must get used to a new pack with an alpha who hates her, despite the feelings springing between them, and enemies that could spring out in any direction. She's a rogue he doesn't trust, and he's an alpha with all the power to destroy her, especially with the New Moon pack so desperate to get her back.

On the eve of my engagement banquet, news broke that my fiancé had fathered a child with his mistress, and it spread like wildfire. Before I could confront him, Jayden Ford brushed it off casually. "It was just an accident. Focus on organizing the engagement banquet first. Besides, your dad’s in the late stages of stomach cancer. Calling off the engagement now won’t do either family any good." That night, he skipped the banquet but posted a photo of a swaddled newborn on social media. When I video-called him, he was bottle-feeding the baby. "I’ve been busy taking care of the kid. You know how it is. Our family lineage has always been sparse and dwindling, and the child takes priority." He wiped milk from the baby’s mouth. "But don’t worry. Once he’s a month old, I’ll send him to the overseas. Just show up on holidays and pretend to be his mom. The title of Mrs. Ford will always be yours." I stared at the matching diamond ring on his finger and couldn’t help but laugh. "Jayden, this engagement is off." He scoffed, "You're really throwing a tantrum over something like this? Don’t be so childish." I hung up on him and called his father—Charles Ford—directly. "I heard you’re looking for a new wife? Why not consider me?" I ran a hand over my belly and smiled. "After all, I’ve got a naturally fertile body. I can give you as many sons as you want." So much for being the sole heir. I’ll make sure he has plenty of brothers to keep him company.

It was the apocalypse. A zombie apocalypse. We should've been running for our lives, but my girlfriend, Yvonne Brown, refused to. She wanted to buy as much time as she could for her incompetent childhood friend, Yves Claude, to hop into the last helicopter that would take survivors away. But the retreat was our group's only way to survive in this apocalypse. Yves was not showing up anytime soon. I had no choice but to knock her out and drag her into the chopper. And Yves, the one she could never seem to forget, died in the swarm of undead. I, however, survived thanks to what I did. Yvonne and I lived happily in a safe zone. And then that fateful day came. I was going to take over the territory and lead humanity on an attack against the zombies. The night before that decisive strike, Yvonne spiked my water with anesthetics. When I was caught helpless, she tossed me into the horde of zombies. The swarm of undead tore my flesh open, and the pain killed me. Yvonne? She stood on the wall coldly, a sneer decorating her lips. "Yves could've lived, but you took that chance away from him! You selfish monster, you killed Yves! I will make you suffer what he suffered! You'll pay for it with your life!" Death took me, but it tossed me all the way back to the day of the retreat. The day Yvonne adamantly insisted on waiting for Yves. Well, if she was so happy to live through a world like this with her friend, who am I to say no? I would grant her that wish, even if she would end up as zombie food.

On the day Fiona Starr and Mark Zimmer tied the knot, his childhood friend jumped off the Starr family's thirty-story apartment and was reduced to pieces. The wedding wasn't called off, but in the ensuing three years, Mark's poker face became even more creepy, even though he would do everything Fiona asked. Then, when Fiona was three months pregnant, she was told that her father had gone missing. But instead of taking her to file a police report, Mark took her up the peak of the mountain, where Fiona saw her father. His whole body was swollen and bleeding everywhere, and he was barely alive as he lay on the ground. There were puddles of his blood everywhere, after someone tied him to a car trunk and dragged him up along the mountain road. That was when Mark gave Fiona the same treatment, even though she was pregnant with his child. As his car dragged her up and down the mountain, her legs were reduced to bloody stumps, but she didn't die there. So she locked her up in a basement in the company of rats that nibbled and devoured her legs. She despaired, her mind breaking until she eventually stopped breathing too… But she opened her eyes again and found herself returning to the day before she married Mark, whom everyone called the Starr family's live-in son-in-law. Smiling through her tears, she told herself that she wouldn't choose him again in this life.