Perfect Twelve

On the day of my son's one-month celebration, my notoriously stingy sister-in-law surprised me with a branded baby bottle. But instead of accepting it, I turned away and gave it to the neighbor's cruel son who had XYY syndrome. In my previous life, I had accepted that bottle with genuine gratitude, using it day and night to feed my son. I never imagined that a month later, in the dead of night, my son would suddenly suffer a heart attack and die in my arms. Strangely enough, the very next day after my son passed, my sister-in-law's sickly child—who had been confined to the neonatal intensive care unit since birth—was miraculously discharged in perfect health. Losing my son shattered me completely. I spent my days drowning in tears. My husband called me a cursed woman, claimed I brought nothing but disaster, and demanded a divorce. Not only that, but he insisted I leave with nothing. When I refused, he and my sister-in-law joined forces and accidentally beat me to death. It wasn't until after I died that I learned the truth. The woman I had thought was my husband's younger sister wasn't his blood relative at all. She had been adopted by his mother years ago to be raised as his future wife. Together, they had plotted to destroy me. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day my sister-in-law handed me that baby bottle.

I quit and dipped. City threw a parade. Only Jenna Blake—my oh-so-gifted junior who claimed she could "see through killers' eyes"—lost it. At her celebration banquet, she went full drama queen: "I owe everything to Kate Mercer. Please, bring her back!" I laughed. Cold. Not happening. Last time around, I was the hotshot detective. But every clue I found? She dropped it first like she read my mind. People started saying I was washed. So I went all in—three months, no sleep, cracked a massive trafficking ring. Led the raid myself. She beat me there. Again. Place was cleaned out. Boom. She's the city's golden girl. I'm the clown with no game. Pressure got ugly. My head snapped. I died chasing the last scumbag. Then—bam. I woke up. Same day. Raid morning. Round two.

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.

A gorgeous new lawyer named Charlotte Lowell joins our law firm and claims she has been reborn. One day, a publicly listed company offers us a massive ten-million-dollar case. Charlotte warns our boss, Levi Howard, that the company has major issues. If we accept the case, we'll lose in court and be hit with a huge payout. Levi isn't sure if she's bluffing, but in the end, he listens and passes. The next day, that very company collapses. And the rival firm that took the case is hit with a compensation claim worth tens of millions of dollars. To celebrate dodging the bullet, Levi asks me to book a restaurant. But Charlotte immediately tells him not to go to that restaurant because that place is about to have a gas explosion. Hours later, the restaurant blows up just as she mentioned. News of it hits the trending list. After those two incidents, Levi is all-in on believing Charlotte's claim of having been reborn. In order to keep Charlotte, he gives her the executive position that was initially promised to me. When I hand in my resignation, Charlotte urges Levi to stop me. "If Yelena jumps to another firm, she'll use the resources she gained here to crush us. A year from now, we won't even have a firm left." Upon hearing Charlotte's words, my boyfriend and colleague, Finley Smith, steps forward to back her up. "Charlotte's right. I saw a job offer from Vera Legal in Yelena's email. She's really petty. If she joins Vera Legal, we'll surely face her revenge." Levi believes them and rejects my resignation. I file for labor arbitration, but it's no use. In the end, I'm demoted to a janitor at the firm. Driven by resentment, I fall into depression and end up hanging myself at the entrance of the firm. When I open my eyes again, I've gone back to the day Charlotte claims she has been reborn.

After my rebirth, the very first thing I did was ride from one blood donation van to another, giving blood until I nearly collapsed. Why? Because in my previous life, my fiancé's newly hired intern, Shirley Lynch, had bound herself to a blood-exchange system. Every milliliter she donated was siphoned directly from my own veins. In just a month, she transformed from an ordinary college girl into the nation's beloved Blood Angel, showered with fame and fortune, while I, suffering from severe anemia, was fired from the hospital for being unable to work. When I exposed her scheme to my fiancé, he looked at me with disgust and broke off our engagement. "You're selfish and cowardly," he sneered. "You refuse to donate your rare blood type, and now you slander Shirley? You call yourself a doctor, yet you believe in such ridiculous nonsense!" From then on, every time Shirley donated blood, I would suffer heart palpitations, dizziness, and sometimes collapse outright. I begged the doctors in my department for help, but my fiancé blocked every attempt, accusing me of jealousy and wasting medical resources. In the end, to steal my promotion ahead of schedule, Shirley donated a full 1000 milliliters of blood live on television. As her blood drained, so did mine. I went into shock and died. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Shirley first claimed she carried my rare blood type.

The Beast Nation sent our royal family two beast slaves as a token of goodwill after they were defeated. My concubine-born younger sister took the tall and upstanding white tiger with piercing eyes, leaving me and the dying merman to look at each other. In my previous life, I took the merman as my personal bodyguard and trained him out of compassion. I spent a fortune to treat his injuries, and I even bought his slave contract at the price of ten cities and set him free. He also took great care of me, staying by my side day and night. I thought we were both in love, so I turned down dozens of marriages and stood by him with all my heart despite everyone's loud disapproval. However, when the beasts attacked again and threw my sister and me into the surging river, I frantically pleaded with the merman to save me, only to be violently slammed under the water by his massive tail. I watched helplessly as he carried my sister away. I realized at that moment that he had only given himself to me to save his own life. He had remained loyal to me even after regaining his freedom because he wanted to see my younger sister. I struggled in the filthy river, eventually suffocating as my lungs filled with mud and sand. When I reopened my eyes, I was transported back to the day of the beast slave selection. Looking at the dying merman, I covered my nose and taunted, "Where did this dead fish come from? It reeks!"

I had a miscarriage and was confined in the ICU. Meanwhile, my husband was off traveling the world with his first love. It wasn't until he decided to divorce me that he finally remembered I existed. He called my mother, demanding to know how long I planned to act out. She was disheartened, looking at me, who was barely clinging to life. "Shannon will never cause you trouble again! Happy now?" she snapped.

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 was reborn on the day of my first birthday party. Even though I had the power of good luck, I ignored my parents' requests. In my previous life, I used my luck to help my parents become the richest family. My eldest brother became a business tycoon. My second brother became a famous doctor. My third brother became a superstar in the music world. Only my family's adopted daughter, Jade Baker, was unaffected by my luck because we weren't related by blood. She failed her college entrance exams at eighteen, was kidnapped at twenty, and died in an accident at twenty-five. Before she died, she wept and said, "It's not Mindy's fault. I've always been an outsider. She has no obligation to help me." Everyone thought I was jealous and let Jade suffer on purpose. They locked me up and ran all sorts of experiments on me, hoping to use my luck to bring Jade back to life. In the end, they tortured me to death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at my first birthday party. My dad smiled and asked me, "Sweetheart, do you think I should sign this million-dollar deal?" I blinked. And smeared a handful of mud on his face.

Connor Greene, a golden boy in Brookhaven, is unwittingly drugged, and I end up being the cure for his "predicament". It's exactly a month later when I discover that I'm pregnant during a routine medical examination. Upon learning the news, Connor offers me 50 million dollars to carry the baby to term, and then another ten million dollars to take full custody of the child. It's then that Julie Sutton, my so-called righteous friend, persuades me to terminate the pregnancy, saying, "You ought to know that money isn't everything, Queenie. If you throw away your dignity for just 60 million dollars, then you're no better than those women who entertain men in clubs!" In my past life, I had an abortion at Julie's suggestion and pursued legal action against Connor, accusing him of assault. I later sought financial assistance and support from Julie after my parents fell gravely ill, but Julie slapped me hard across the face instead. "Your parents are seriously ill, and instead of figuring things out on your own, you come running to me, huh? You're truly shameless, Queenie!" Julie broke off our friendship right then, and I also lost the lawsuit against Connor. I couldn't afford the treatment, so my parents' lives were cut short by their illnesses. In the end, the grief of losing them was too much, so I decided to take my own life by jumping off a rooftop. When I open my eyes, I find myself returning to the day Julie tried to persuade me to get an abortion.