Perfect Strangers

On the day of the wedding, my best friend, Elena Hartman, can't bear to part with me, so she threads my wedding shoes with a string and ties them snugly around her slim waist. The groomsmen turn the whole place upside down, and we end up late for the ceremony. She eventually cracks up and tugs at her billowy bridesmaid dress, revealing the outline of the shoes at her waist. "I dare you to come take them. As long as I'm here, she's not getting married!" My fiancé, Miles Lawson, shakes his head and chuckles. "You just love tormenting us, don't you?" Miles exchanges a look with the groomsmen, and they charge at her at the same time. She squeals as she falls back onto the bed, squirming under her layers of tulle. "Don't be so rough! I'm ticklish…" The groomsmen flush bright red. Miles' ears turn scarlet as he feels around her waist. She giggles even louder. "How are you going to undo it through all these layers? Use your head!" Then, she gasped. "That tickles!" Her theatrics make my temper flare. I spring to my feet, lift her skirt, and rip the wedding shoes right off her. "If you're that ticklish, smack yourself with a slipper. Drop the act, or I'll yank out the nerves that make you ticklish!"

Every day, my son and husband finish all the house chores before I even get home. But only because they're bringing my husband's first love, Sally Sullivan, back for Thanksgiving, I pour boiling water on my son's face. I also kick both my son and husband out when it's 104°F outside. Desperate to save our son, my husband sprawls across the front porch, begging me to open the door. "Wanda, open the door! We need to save our son! I only invited Sally over because she saved you once back then. I didn't mean anything else by it!" "Mom, it hurts!" my son cries. "Mom, can't you kiss me? Mom…" Meanwhile, I'm slouching on the couch, snacking away as I watch TV. In the end, my husband can't take it anymore and brings me to the Bad Mom Court for trial. The moment my memories are extracted, the entire court bursts into tears.

I wasn’t even pregnant, yet I ended up popping abortion pills like they were candy. It was all because in my past life, the moment my widowed sister-in-law got pregnant, every single side effect of her pregnancy became mine. She strutted around happily with her big belly, consuming spicy tamales, while I was rushed to the hospital for violent nausea and stomach pain; she showed off her flawless skin in crop tops every day, while my stomach broke out in hideous stretch marks. When I told my husband what was happening, he just shoved me away impatiently. “Enough with the jealousy! My brother’s dead, and she’s carrying his only child. Of course, I should look out for her. Do you really have to put on such an act?” After that, my sister-in-law went even further. She kept testing her limits during pregnancy and even ate a mango she was allergic to. And me? I went into anaphylactic shock, landed in the hospital, and nearly died. Doctors couldn’t explain it. They just brushed it off, saying I was overly jealous and it was all psychological. Later, my sister-in-law tried to brand herself as a “hot single mom”. She went live, belly and all, to show off her weight-loss workouts. She jumped around for three straight hours. And me? My uterus literally gave out, and I hemorrhaged to death. When I opened my eyes again, it was the exact day she first announced her pregnancy.

In my previous life, my sister thought that since my husband and I had high-paying jobs, she could swap her son with my child without anyone noticing. But twenty-five years later, the tables turned. My son had grown into a street thug, while her son—raised under my care—rose smoothly through life. Young as he was, he had already become a CEO. He was dutiful, bought me a villa, and even sent me traveling around the world. My sister barged into his company, waving a DNA test report, kicking up a scene, only to be thrown out by security. "Mr. Kieran said that even if you are his biological mother, you never gave him a single day of care," they told her. "So he refuses to acknowledge you." Breaking down completely, she drove her car into me and ended my life. When I opened my eyes again, we had returned to the very day she switched our babies. This time, my sister clutched her own child tightly, a wild, triumphant grin on her face. "From now on, you can be the mother of a street thug," she sneered. "The villa and all those riches—they're mine!"

My husband, James Zeller, and I have established a common-law marriage. We did not have a formal wedding ceremony, nor do we have a marriage license. We also live separately, our lives barely intertwining, because he has a special profession. Therefore, despite being married to him for seven years, we've never met each other's friends and relatives. As his wife, I'm proud of being married to him despite how it pains me. I'm willing to give up the opportunity to study at the National Academy of Sciences to take care of things at home while he works. One day, my son, Jasper Chalder, comes home from elementary school crying. He sobs about not being a bastard child and requests to see James. Greatly distressed, I decide to take him to visit the military base over the new year for a family reunion. However, I don't expect this trip to turn my life completely upside down.

When the village chief delivered the items for my wedding, my fiancé's adopted sister, who was the apple of his eye, suddenly burst into tears. She cut my wedding dress and smashed the wardrobe that my older brother made for me. Every time I was about to lose my temper, my fiancé, who was also my childhood sweetheart, would immediately side with her. He claimed that she was still young and did not understand jealousy; she was just insecure. Even my own brother defended her, saying I had a birth brother who doted on me. It would not hurt to give in to her. When an earthquake happened, they both ran to her and protected her tightly beneath their bodies. Meanwhile, I was trapped under the ruins for three days and three nights. My brother and fiancé tried every possible way to cheer up her, leaving the villagers to rescue me instead. When they looked at me with wounds all over my body, they only said, "Don't overthink it. Jenn is timid and frightened. We couldn't leave her alone." I was on bed rest for a month, but not once did I see them. Only the village chief came to see me. He tried to persuade me, saying, "You're the first college student in our village. Are you really going to give up on your studies just to get married? This—" I interrupted him, "I made my decision before you came. I'll report to the college on time!"

I gave birth prematurely, just twenty days before the due date. Two hours after I entered the surgery room, I had a stillborn baby. I did not cry at all. I did not even spare a glance at the dead baby. I endured the pain from childbirth and calmly walked into the hospital nursery. After the door was tightly shut, I turned down the temperature of the air-conditioning. The temperature inside the nursery would be too cold for newborns to bear after an hour. The doctors and parents were begging me on their knees to let their babies live. They screamed and cried. They said I was a mother and hoped that I would understand. Instead, I laughed and said, “Yes, I was a mother. But my baby died!” The gynecologist knelt on the floor and begged, “We may be at fault for not being able to save your baby, but these babies are innocent! “Please don’t be reckless just because you lost your baby! You’re so young. You’ll have more babies in the future.” I gritted my teeth and roared, “But my baby isn’t dead! “She’s still alive. I’ll give you one hour. Bring her back to me!” But I was unsure if she would still be alive after an hour.

I was reborn before I signed up for a scientific expedition tour to the South Pole. My boyfriend’s adopted younger sister used a system to forcefully exchange my physical senses with hers. She deliberately went out to do something good on a day with a temperature of 107.6 °F, like delivering water to the outdoor workers. On the other hand, I got so hot in a 60.8 °F air-conditioned room that I fainted from heat stroke. I begged Wendy Little to stop, but she feigned innocence. “You must make a good excuse if you want to lie like that!” Max Little sounded disdainful. “How selfish! You’re quite lucky to enjoy yourself in air-conditioned rooms every day. You can’t tolerate Wendy doing something kind.” Wendy took her time and basked in the sun for a month outside. People took photos of her and put them on the internet. Countless netizens were moved by her. But I died from heat stroke in an air-conditioned room. Nobody even found my corpse. If that was how it was, I wanted her to enjoy the coolness of -184 °F in the South Pole.

I, Cassandra Channing, don't stop my fiance, Hades Emerson, from rushing into the flames to save his non-biological niece, Olivia Emerson, this time. Instead, I watch as the fire swallows him whole. In my past life, a fire broke out at the hotel on our wedding day. Hades and I escaped in time, but Olivia was trapped inside. Seeing the flames grow bigger, I did everything I could to stop him from charging in to save her. When the fire was finally extinguished, Olivia was dead. Hades claimed he didn't blame me for the incident, and purchased diving tickets for me and our son on our third wedding anniversary. When we were 300 feet below sea level, he ripped out our oxygen tank and snarled, "You're the reason I couldn't save Olivia back then. Now, a life for a life." Crying, I begged him to understand that our son is innocent, but he swam away without looking back. In the end, my son and I suffocated to death. After dying, I learned that Hades had always been in love with Olivia. He hated me for stopping him from saving her. He blamed me for causing him to lose the love of his life. I am back on the day of the fire when I open my eyes again.

My sister-in-law finally became pregnant at fifty. But the family parrot, Pip, suddenly said, “Abort it. Abort it.” Hearing this, I immediately forced my sister-in-law to go to the hospital to get an abortion. My brother and parents desperately stopped me. They shouted, “Have you gone mad? Do you trust an animal’s words?” I nodded and answered firmly, “Yes. I believe everything Pip says.”