Perfect Twelve Novels & Stories

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 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 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 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 my way to a meeting at work, I call my daughter, who is at home. Instead, I hear a voice identical to mine over the phone. She claims that she is me three years in the future. "Dezarae, go home to Liv right now. Your daughter is in danger." I am stunned. I argue in disbelief and question who is behind this prank. When I step on the accelerator, she stops me sternly. "Do not drive ahead any further. There will be a traffic accident at the intersection where Peace Street is." In the next second, at the intersection that is less than 30 feet away from me, two cars collide. Cold sweat starts to trickle down my back when the woman with a voice identical to mine says, "Liv will fall off a building and die in three hours. This is your only chance to save her."

When my parents got old, they needed someone to take care of them. Katerina—my younger sister—was off to Amiraka with her smug husband Chris. Meanwhile, I was crammed into a two-bedroom in Bellavaro with my husband Pavel, who drove a taxi. Mom had no retirement savings, so guess who she dumped herself on? Yep—me. Dad took the cash and ran straight to Katerina. Our place was tiny, but we still gave Mom the master bedroom. She hated it. Constant complaints, constant drama. According to her, life with me was pure misery. Every night, she'd hop on video call with Katerina, gushing about Amiraka like it was heaven, while throwing shade at me for not "taking care of her properly." Meanwhile, I was drowning—trying to hold it together for Mom, help my daughter prep for exams, support a husband with spine problems, and check in on aging in-laws. Mom didn't care. She wanted a plane ticket to Amiraka to party for Katerina's birthday. I snapped. We had a blowout fight, and she collapsed—brain hemorrhage. Even in her hospital bed, she stared me down, whining Katerina's name like a broken record. Then she spat out, "I should've never picked a useless daughter like you!" My chest cracked in half. I blacked out. When I woke up—I was ten years younger. Back to the day they decided who'd get stuck taking care of them. This time, Mom didn't wait. "I want Katerina to take care of me. It's my turn to enjoy life!"

My dad’s crush came back, and my mom decided to fake her death. “Jane, I’m the main character of a tragic story. If I don’t fake my death now, I’ll end up miserable. “Go tell your dad that Quiana killed me.” In my past life, I had done exactly as she said. My dad had flown into a rage and destroyed the Sullivan family. After that, my mom returned to the land of the living. I thought our family would finally be whole again. Instead, she clung to Dad and cried. “I gave Jane my contact information. How could she say I was dead?” To punish me, my dad locked me in a cold storage room. My mom shot me a cold look. “That’s what you get for calling that woman pretty.” In the cold storage room, at −58°F, I froze to death. When I opened my eyes again, my mom had already faked her death and ran off with her devoted admirer. I looked at my dad and asked with an innocent expression, “Dad, what does eloping mean?”

On the day that I returned to the country, Lola Lawson, the one who was once the love of my life for ten years, sent me a picture of a baby. She told me to think of a name and meet her at the city hall to register the baby, as she had prepared a welcome-home gift for me. So, I rushed over with bags full of baby supplies. But when I arrived, she and her girlfriends were bent over with ridicule and laughter. "I told you! Even though he was gone for a year, he's still a loyal lapdog! Just a wave of my hand and he'd even be willing to raise someone else's kid for me!" She sized me up with mocking amusement. "Kevin Sheraton. How could you still be this naive? Just one joke and you come running?" They laughed without any restraint, calling me names and hurling insults, saying I'd do anything for Lola. But when I walked past them and took a number to register my own child's birth, and later wrapped my arm around my wife as the three of us took a family portrait, Lola's eyes were completely reddened with tears.

After following my grandfather abroad for five years of training, he finally entrusted me with the family authority—something he had given me with complete satisfaction. But my stepmother and my three younger stepbrothers were anything but pleased. Ever since I returned home, they had been blasting those ridiculous "real heiress versus fake heiress" dramas throughout the house, day after day. Sometimes openly, sometimes in veiled remarks, they hinted that I didn't resemble my father at all. On the day of my twentieth birthday—my official debut before the public—they even brought in a complete stranger and tried to brand me as the impostor. My stepmother looked at me, the corner of her lips curling in disdain. "Where did this counterfeit come from? Even if you're wearing a stolen gown, you can't hide that cheap, shabby air about you." My three younger stepbrothers shoved me to the ground, shielding the girl beside them—the one wearing my family's heirloom necklace. "We only have one sister, and that's Camellia! Wherever you came from, go back there!" In an instant, the guests' mocking gazes all converged on me. And in the very next second, I stepped forward and slapped my stepmother across the face. "If anyone should be leaving, it's you. Take a good look at what this is!" Then, the moment they saw what I was holding in my hand, the entire room fell into stunned silence.

I send my sister, Lola Graham, to my couture boutique to pick out a wedding dress. As she is leaving, a trainee clerk, Kayla Larson, demands three million for the gown. Helpless, Lola says my name. "I'm the owner's sister. I don't have to pay." Kayla rolls her eyes. "You're pranking the wrong store. Our boss doesn't have a sister. You're just broke and trying to scam us!" she snapped, blocking my sister's way. "This is your last warning—either pay up, or I'll rip that dress off you and throw you out!" Stunned, Lola calls me. When I rush over, I hear my long-time store manager standing deferentially behind Kayla, warning Lola, "You'd better behave. The woman in front of you is our boss' wife. Cross her, and you'll regret it." "Trying to fake your way in here? You've got some nerve," Kayla sneers, adding to my sister's humiliation. My hand freezes on the door. Without hesitation, I cut off my husband's secondary credit card and call him. "Have I been too generous with you? Or did giving you too much money make you think you could afford another woman behind my back?"