Perfect Surgeon

The appointment of Susan Moore as the Broadcasting Channel's executive director has forced out the station's more valued news anchor, sparking heated discussions throughout Hayworth. Susan herself is standing before me right now. She wants to sell her jewelry. As the manager of a luxury boutique store, I'm here to inspect the goods. "These are pieces my partner commissioned for me. I have so many that I'm tired of them." One of them is a diamond-encrusted necklace, featuring a pigeon-blood ruby in the center, worth a few million. There are also several similar gifts on the table, with the crocodile skin bag the least eye-catching one. I smiled. "Your husband must really love you." I set about verifying the purchaser's ID and signature as part of a routine procedure. However, I freeze in place at the sight of the name. "I'm not his wife," she replied, bringing the coffee cup to her lips. "We're just each other's first loves. He said he missed out on 15 years of my life, so he gave me 15 gifts. Isn't that romantic?" It is romantic, indeed. However, it's my father's signature. For 30-plus years, I assumed that my father was a dull man who had never once surprised my mother.

My sister's best friend borrowed 20 thousand from me, saying it was for her mother's medical bills. As a cop, I lent it to her. I figured if I could help, I should. When it was time to pay me back, she didn't return a cent. Instead, she showed up at my precinct holding a baby and accused me of indecent assaults. After a paternity test, the baby turned out to be mine. She went on livestreams, crying about how I broke the law despite being a police officer. She used the scandal to make herself famous. The force treated me like a disgrace and fired me. I tried to explain, but no one believed me. I went from a model officer to a criminal overnight. My parents were cyberbullied; with nowhere left to turn, they both drowned themselves. My wife was also beaten in the street. She suffered a miscarriage from the attack and died from massive blood loss. As for my sister, guilt drove her insane; she was hospitalized before vanishing from the public eye. After my family fell apart, I hanged myself one night. Then I opened my eyes again. I'd been reborn. Facing my sister's evil friend, I vowed to fight back.

After being reborn, the first thing my cousin and I did was switch grooms. In our previous lives, we had gotten married on the same day. She, gentle and composed by nature, became the wife of Blake Malcolm, the aloof naval commander. On their wedding anniversary, Blake skipped the occasion to celebrate his childhood friend's birthday. My cousin had only wanted an explanation, but Blake claimed his conscience was clear. They fell into a silence that lasted fifty years. And me? With my temper—quick to fight, never one for patience—I had married an accountant from the machinery plant's compound. The accountant was soft-spoken, forever complaining about how loud I was, and how little I cared about appearances. We fought every three days, major arguments every five. Eventually, he stopped coming home. Less than a year into the marriage, we divorced. Then one day, my cousin and I opened our eyes and found ourselves young again—and it was the day we were to marry. Again.

My stepmother, Mary, hated me to the bone. All because when I was little, I went to a classmate’s house to play and forgot to close the courtyard gate. Her son ran onto the road and was hit to death by a car. My father loved my younger brother the most. After learning what happened, he was heartbroken. “Were you jealous of your brother? That’s why you deliberately left the gate open?” I desperately explained that I had closed the gate, but Dad didn’t believe me. He locked me in the basement and raised me like a dog for the rest of my life. Until one day, when Dad went on a business trip, Mary didn’t give me any food for three days. Starving, I crawled upstairs to the kitchen to look for something to eat. That was when I saw Mary sitting on a man’s lap, saying softly, “If you hadn’t forgotten to close the gate back then, I wouldn’t be living in fear every day of my husband finding out… We’re the ones who killed Ethan.” Only then did I understand that I wasn’t the one who had forgotten to close the gate and caused my brother to run outside, but my stepmother’s lover. Just as I was about to sneak back to the basement, my stepmother noticed me. “What did you hear? No! I can’t let your father find out that I killed our own son!” In a panic, she grabbed me and threw me down the stairs, killing me on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day the car hit my brother. I blinked my innocent, childlike eyes and pointed upstairs, speaking in a soft, baby voice, “Dad, I closed the gate. It was the man in Mom’s bedroom who didn’t!”

On my thirtieth birthday, Gideon Salton told me to meet him at city hall. He made sure I wore a wedding dress and brought my papers, hyping it up as a huge birthday surprise. But when I showed up, all dressed up, he turned to his trashy crew and laughed. "No way—she actually did it. Dress, docs, the whole thing. Pay up, fifty bucks each." Then he looked at me. "Come on, Madison. You didn't seriously fall for that?" I didn't answer. He smirked. "If you're that thirsty to get hitched, go inside and grab some rando to register with." His friends cracked up. They called me Gideon's loyal simp, his forever backup plan. Said I'd never end up with anyone else. But when I came out with my husband and a legit marriage certificate, Gideon just froze—pale, silent, wrecked.

When Father asks me who I want to marry, I resolutely give up on Prince Maurice Swain. I choose to marry his uncle, Prince Gideon Swain. Father is confused. After all, everyone in the capital knows that I'm desperately in love with Maurice. I've said more than once that he's the only man I'll marry. I only have a bitter taste in my mouth. I married Maurice in my past life, and I gave my all in managing the household. Yet he never came home and even took a mistress behind my back. When I eventually became bedridden after wearing myself out, he brought Camilla Chapman back and threw her a grand wedding. The children they'd secretly had together came with her. It was only then that I realized the tonics Maurice had given me had rendered me infertile and weak. They slowly ate away at me from the inside. I watched as Maurice and Camilla lived a happy life with their children. I chose to let them have what they wanted. Now that I've been reborn, I'm going to stay away from Maurice and marry Gideon instead. Yet when Maurice finds out, he goes berserk. He stands before me with his eyes bloodshot as he forbids me from marrying Gideon.

I'm bound to a rebound system by nature. Everyone who has come up with rumors about me will receive backlash in return. When I was in high school, a male classmate had spread rumors about me being a prostitute who had intimate relations with a few old men. That very same day, he was taken away by a dozen or so old men and was modified into a gigolo himself. When I was in college, my boyfriend's childhood friend spread rumors about me being the female lead in porno videos. That night, all of the available porno videos on the Internet featured her as the female lead. Since then, no one dares to gossip about me. That is, until I'm reunited with the wealthy Hartley family, which happens to be my biological family. The fake heiress, Claire Hartley, takes my hand while adopting a friendly expression. "Hey Amanda, I heard that you got pregnant out of wedlock and gave birth to a murderer's child. Now that you're back, why didn't you bring the baby home with you? "We're a family, after all. We won't look down on you."

After the college entrance exams, my parents left me at home and took their adopted daughter on a trip to the beach. A typhoon hit, and the three of them never came back. When the news reached me, I did not cry or throw a tantrum. I had their deaths registered right away and pulled out the life insurance I had bought in advance. I received one hundred million in compensation. My fiance scolded me for caring only about money. What he did not know was that I had been reborn. In my past life, after I learned about their deaths, the huge debts they had left behind fell on me. I gave up the chance to go to college and started working to pay everything back. I fought to protect our ancestral home from debt collectors. My fiance stayed with me and cheered me on when I came home late at night from delivery runs. But he never gave me a single cent to help. At thirty-five, I finally cleared every debt. On my birthday, I bought myself a ten-dollar cake to celebrate. Just as I was about to blow out the candle, the door opened. My parents and their adopted daughter, who should have died in the typhoon, walked in dressed in designer clothes. They smiled at me smugly. “Well done! We can finally believe that you aren’t greedy for money. You’ve passed the test. From today, you are qualified to be the daughter of the Jameson family.” “Jane, this brilliant idea was all thanks to you.” My adopted sister smiled. She leaned close and blew out my candle. The only light left in my twenty years of lifetime went out with it. My body gave in to exhaustion. My heart failed. I collapsed and died on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, they were about to head to the beach in the middle of the typhoon. I bought a massive accident insurance policy for them on the spot. This time, all I wanted was for them to disappear from this world forever.

I was cleaning up the house on the second day after my wife went for a business trip. I casually instructed the smart speaker. “Smart, play some music.” However, I heard a husky, strange male voice. “Sure. I’m the Sun that loves you. Plus, Lindy, I would like to remind you not to forget about your birthday surprise for Sam tonight.” I stiffened and found the music particularly annoying. Linda Clark was my wife, but I had no idea who Sam was. I immediately called my wife. “Did you use the smart speaker at home?” Linda paused for a moment before she laughed indifferently. “Oh, my friend visited me a few days ago. She might have connected her account to it. What’s wrong?” I laughed and told her it was nothing. After hanging up, I found the login record of the speaker and hailed a cab. I headed straight to the registered company associated with the unfamiliar account on the record.

On the very first day Jason and I made our relationship official, he insisted on handing over his salary for me to manage. He said marriage was only a matter of time and that he trusted his future wife to keep the money safe. On the day of our engagement, Jason demanded that I hand over the $960,000 in salary I had “kept” for him over the past four years. “Each month, I gave you $20,000. In four years, that’s $960,000. After expenses, there should be at least $800,000 left, right? I can’t bear to make my parents empty their savings for my marriage. We will use my savings for the wedding, $600,000 as the down payment for the new apartment, and the remaining $200,000 will be my wedding gift to you.” I froze. “But there isn’t a single dollar left!” Jason exploded. “You wasteful woman! You spent all the money?!” His mother also erupted. “So much money, and you squandered it all! What shameful acts have you been up to?! This marriage is off!” Jason demanded to see the accounts. I immediately pulled out the records in front of everyone. Seeing this, Jason’s mother panicked.