Open-ended Story

In my previous life, everything I do to care for myself somehow ends up benefiting my new housekeeper instead. I apply expensive skincare, yet dark spots and fine lines spread across my face, whereas the 45-year-old housekeeper's face becomes silkier. I jog every morning, yet my body only grows heavier and bulkier, while hers becomes slender and toned. When my husband notices the stretch marks on my abdomen, his face twists with disgust, and he never touches me again. "I genuinely can't bring myself to touch you. How can you look worse than Mirabelle when you take such good care of yourself?" My housekeeper looks at me with a sinister smile. A chill crawls up my spine, and the strange feeling makes me fire her on the spot. Yet, as soon as she leaves, I start aging at lightning speed, entering menopause 20 years early and developing diabetes and high blood pressure. I see every doctor I can, but after hanging on for a week, I die from a stroke. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day she first reports to work. This time, I push away the royal jelly she sets in front of me with a pleasant smile. "I've been avoiding certain foods lately. You can have it instead."

I become unemployed when I'm four months pregnant, and my husband asks that we become independent of each other in our marriage. We manage our own finances and pay for our own expenses. Even when I'm suffering from major blood loss during labor, he's unwilling to pay to save my life. My child and I both lose our lives. When I open my eyes, I find that I'm back to the day my husband asks that we become independent of each other. I readily agree. What he doesn't know is that I can morph into a seahorse and transfer the baby to his body so he can carry it to term.

I knew perfectly well that open flames were forbidden at a gas-leak scene, yet as a firefighter, I still backed my girlfriend's childhood friend when he insisted on lighting a cigarette "to calm his nerves." In my previous life, a sudden gas leak erupted during a gathering. Her childhood friend insisted on smoking to steady himself. I slapped the lighter out of his hand and yelled at him for trying to get us all killed. Humiliated, he ignored everyone's attempts to stop him and stormed outside—only to be crushed by an advertising board blown loose by the explosion's shockwave. Later, when I saved a child who had fallen from a building and was left hanging in midair myself, my girlfriend—my second-in-command—maliciously cut my safety rope. She stared at my corpse and said, "If you hadn't humiliated George in front of everyone, he wouldn't have died." When I opened my eyes again, I was back in that room thick with the stench of leaking gas.

When I got into a car accident, Carter was busy throwing a birthday party for his assistant. I was scrolling through my phone and somehow ended up tapping on the Love Pawnshop. Without really thinking, I hit the button to pawn my love. Five days later, the pawnshop took back every bit of love I had left to give, and there he was, Carter, on his knees, crying his heart out, begging me for another shot. But the thing is, once love is pawned, it’s almost impossible to get back.

I realized my period was two weeks late after going on a trip to the swimming pool with my best friend, Gianna Lowe. Gianna insisted that I take a pregnancy test. I was stunned when I saw the two red lines on the pregnancy stick test. I had a boyfriend, Mitchell Gray, but I was a conservative person, so I still hadn't slept with Mitchell. I couldn't help but wonder whose baby this was. I planned to just terminate the mystery pregnancy, but Mitchell pretended to be worried about my health, offering to marry me and raise the child. It was finally my delivery date. I was lying weakly in the delivery room when Mitchell shoved a pillow over my face and smothered me, roaring, "You slut! Did you think I'd raise another man's child? I'll make you and this illegitimate child pay for everything!" I was too weak to resist since I had just given birth, so Mitchell successfully killed me. I suddenly open my eyes and realize that I have returned to the day I found out about my pregnancy. I am completely determined this time—I have to find out who the father really is!

I had just placed the winning bid on an outrageously expensive piece of jewelry, but the auctioneer refused to close the sale. When I pressed her for an explanation, she turned to my husband with tearful eyes and claimed that I always bring different men here to spend money. “Ma'am, as a professional, I can’t sit back and watch you keep deceiving people. “Sir, I’ll refund your money and even cover the loss myself. Just open your eyes and find someone who truly loves you.” My husband looked visibly moved, their gazes locking in front of everyone as if I wasn’t even there. With all eyes on me, I snatched back my black card. “It’s my card, my money. Why are you giving it to some social-climbing chauffeur?”

My girlfriend called me frantically out of the blue, saying her mother's water had broken. She begged me to take them to the hospital. But I lazily hung up the phone and turned away, buying myself an ice cream bar instead. In my previous life, her mother had also gone into labor late in life. I had risked everything to rush her to the hospital, running twelve red lights, pushing my car to the limit until the fuel gauge nearly burst. Yet, despite all that, her mother had lost the baby. Worse still, she turned around and accused me of killing the baby. My girlfriend had hated me for it, blaming me for her mother's inability to have children again. That very night, she and her shameless relatives took over my family's house, forcing my parents into such anger and despair that they ended up in the hospital. My company went bankrupt, and as if that weren't enough, I was beaten so severely that both my legs were broken. In the end, I fell into a deep depression and took my own life. But when I opened my eyes again, I found myself reborn. This time, I uncovered the secret her mother had been hiding.

On my first day at the urology department, I stumble upon an affair between a female doctor and her patient. When I push open the clinic door, I hear a woman's muffled moans coming from behind the screen. Then, the screen rattles as bodies clash against it. I stand at the door, not knowing what to do.

My father-in-law said he wanted to experience "how the young folks have fun these days," so I took him to my wife's newly opened upscale cocktail bar for a quiet drink. I’d just finished ordering him a custom cocktail when a man from a booth across the room swaggered over, glass in hand. His eyes scanned the drink menu on our table, and a condescending smirk twisted his lips. "Only ordering the cheapest well drinks?" he sneered. "Brought the old man here to enjoy the free air conditioning? Trash like you belongs in a dive bar. Who even let you in here?" Anger burned in my chest. I stood up, my jaw clenched. "We're paying customers. What's it to you?" But before I could say another word, his face darkened with pure rage. He snatched the half-finished beer bottle from our table and smashed it on my head. "My girl owns this place!" he snarled. "Even if I crack your skull open, I can afford the payout! You filthy pauper—either get on your knees and lick my shoes dry, or get the hell out of my sight. You're an eyesore." The beer dripped down my face. My hands trembled with fury as I wiped it away. Then, a cold calm settled over me. I opened my phone, switched to the camera, and went live. "Alright, everyone," I said into the screen. "You won't want to miss this. We're going live to catch my cheating wife and see the double life she's been leading."

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!