Picture Perfect Chapter 4 Novels & Stories

I knew my husband, Josh Perkins, had faked his death and taken on his younger twin brother's identity—but I never said a word. Instead, I went straight to the commander of the military district and filed an official report of my husband's death, requesting his name be permanently removed from the service rolls. In my last life, my brother-in-law died in an accident. Josh gave up his rank as regimental commander, abandoned his own name, and stepped into his brother's shoes—all to spare his fragile sister-in-law from becoming a widow. Back then, I recognized him immediately. I confronted him and demanded to know why he was pretending to be a dead man. But Josh just looked through me, cold as a winter morning. "Riley, I know you're grieving Josh. But I'm not him. Don't mistake me for my brother." He shielded that delicate sister-in-law of his behind him, then shoved me into the icy river and warned me not to harbor delusions. Later, our five-year-old daughter cried, asking why her daddy didn't want her anymore. For that, she was dragged to the cowshed for "reflection"—left there, starving, for three days and nights. My mother-in-law called me a curse, a jinx who'd killed her son, and threw my daughter and me out with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Josh made sure everyone knew I'd "gone mad"—that I was lusting after my brother-in-law before my husband was even cold in the ground. The whole town turned their backs on us. That last winter, I wandered the streets with my girl, dazed and numb, until the cold finally took us both. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the very day Josh buried his old life and stole his brother's.

On the day the gauze was removed from my eyes, I joked that I was blind. "Don't be afraid if you can't see. I'll take care of you my entire life." My husband and best friend took care of me while I was in the hospital. They sincerely made that promise to me. However, when we got home, all three of us were on the same bed. My best friend rode on top of my husband breathlessly. They were caught up in their intimacy as they thought I could not see. My best friend was worried I would suspect something and spoke up to eliminate any suspicion. "Uhh… Summer, I'm just giving your husband a massage." I was so disgusted that I wanted to throw up, but I held myself back. Once they were done, I was about to find an excuse to leave the room when my five-year-old suddenly ran in. "I miss you so much, Mom!" Hearing that warmed my heart, and I opened my arms to hug him, but he ran past me and lay down next to my best friend instead. The 'happy family of three' were all smiles and threw me looks of disgust. I could no longer tolerate this. When I called my lawyer, I told him to bring me the divorce papers. If they wanted to become a family so badly, I would make their wish come true. I just did not know if my best friend could afford to earn a decent enough income to take care of my useless husband and son.

Just because I refused to help my nephew, Albert Wesley, pay for his wedding, my very own sister took me to court. When my sister, Jocelyn Guthrie, appeared in court, she wept as she spoke. "I worked myself to the bone, taking every job I could find just to support your college education. I endured endless humiliation, and it even ruined my health." "You have an annual income of a million dollars, yet you won't even spare a fraction to help me! You're even talking about cutting ties with me? Do you even have a conscience?" Seeing me sitting in the defendant's seat, unmoved, she trembled as she revealed the grotesque scars covering her body, even pulling out a disability certificate. "I was even injured because of you. I was struck by a falling object at a construction site, leaving my leg permanently disabled. Now... I can't support my son anymore, so I'm asking you to repay the tuition. Isn't that the least you should do?" My mother, Samantha Lawrence, and my brother, Andrew Guthrie, nodded along, backing Jocelyn up, condemning me for my ingratitude. The entire courtroom erupted in anger, voices rising against me. "What a monster! Her education has gone to the dogs!" "Don't insult dogs! She's even worse than an animal!" "Three hundred thousand dollars is too little! Your Honor, she must repay it with interest!" Watching their righteous fury, I could only feel a bitter sense of irony. She claimed she had sacrificed everything to put me through four years of university. But the truth was... I had never even been to college at all.

In the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, a sudden power outage occurred. As the doctor on night duty, I remained calm and didn't panic, nor did I call for help. I calmly waited as the temperatures of the incubators where the babies lay slowly dropped... In my previous life, when the pediatric department lost power, I immediately switched to the backup power sources to ensure the children's safety. After doing everything I was supposed to do, I sat down to take a breather and took a sip of water. Suddenly, my coworkers rushed in, waking me up. "Dr. Luther, you're a healthcare staff, how could you kill those children?!" "You froze them to death! How vicious! You'll pay for this!" Only then did I realize that all the children had died, without exception. The police took me away. They said I was the only one in the room and they found my fingerprints on the thermostat. My son then produced a video to assist in the investigation. "She often complained about the patients being a bother and hoped they would all die." Enraged family members cornered me in an alley and tortured me for ten hours until I died. But until my last breath, I couldn't understand how the children could have frozen to death in a thermostatically-controlled environment. And why did my own son provide a fake video to frame me? Suddenly, I jolted awake. I found myself waking up on the day of the power outage.

When I was three and a half, the system sent me back to my dad's high school days. The good news—the brooding villain destined to destroy the world was still just a blond guy. The bad news—there were way too many blond guys at that school, and I could not tell them apart. Hence, every time I saw one, I called him 'Dad'. By the time I got to the 101st, I was robbed. He grabbed me by the collar with a fierce look on his face, like he was about to hit me at any second. The long-dormant system suddenly spoke up, "Kiddo, the one walking out of the school right now is your dad!" I sniffled and shouted, "Hey, you'd better be careful! I'm telling you, my dad's almost an adult! Right, Dad? Elliot!" Elliot Smith froze for a second and pointed at himself. "Who, me?"

In my previous life, I was eight months pregnant when my mother-in-law and husband forcibly dragged me to grab decorative gift boxes from the Christmas tree. I told them there was nothing inside, but my mother-in-law slapped me across the face while my husband pulled me into the crowd. A stampede broke out. They clutched their gift boxes and fled to save themselves, while my child and I were trampled to death. They eagerly tore open all the gift boxes with high hopes, only to find exactly nothing, just like I'd warned them. But as I lay dying, I noticed something in the final gift box. A Black Widow spider with an hourglass pattern on its belly crawled onto my mother-in-law's hand. This spider carries deadly venom. Anyone bitten either dies or suffers permanent disability. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on Christmas Day. This time, watching my mother-in-law and husband gear up to fight over those Christmas gift boxes, I won't try to stop them!

I went out in the morning and saw an abandoned baby by the roadside. I was about to pick the baby up and take him home when I heard the baby’s inner thoughts. The baby thought, ‘Dad’s plan is genius. He dumped me right where Scarlett would find me on purpose. That way, she’ll take me in and adopt me. Then, I’ll legally become part of the Lumley family without any issues. ‘Back then, Scarlett used her rich family background to ruin my parents’ relationship on purpose. Now she’s stuck raising me, Dad’s illegitimate child. Now she’s getting exactly what’s coming to her. ‘Once I become part of the Lumley family, I’m going to help Dad destroy this wench as fast as I can. Then, I’ll bring Mom over so the three of us can finally be together as a family.’ The baby on the ground was still grinning at me. However, I had already heard every single one of his thoughts. I smirked and made a phone call. Since he was an illegitimate child, he should go where he belonged.

From the time I was little, something in me was always a little off—I never listened to the whole story, only half of it. My grandmother called me a good-for-nothing who was financially burdening the family. She bought a little boy to be my younger brother and told me to take good care of him. I understood the part about buying a child, so I immediately called the police and reported her for illegal human trafficking. My father pointed at my face and cursed me for being unfilial, accusing me of cutting off his family line. I obeyed him, crept into his room while he slept that night, and used a knife to "cut off his lineage." My father screamed in agony. In the chaos, he accidentally killed me. When I opened my eyes again, I had transmigrated into the female lead of a melodramatic abuse novel. After ten years of marriage to the cruel male lead, his childhood sweetheart had just returned from abroad and was undergoing kidney surgery. He dragged me to the hospital and cruelly ordered me to donate a kidney to his precious first love. I nodded obediently, went out and bought a pig, and on the spot dug out the pig's kidney and handed it to him.

The newly-appointed leader, Eileen Shaffer, fantasizes herself as a queen. Because of that, she treats me like her personal maid. On her first day at work, Eileen sends me a list consisting of 16 workplace rules. Not only does she request that I prepare warm water that must be proven to be 113 degrees Fahrenheit by a thermometer every day, but she also wants me to prepare three meals per day for her. I'm not allowed to order takeout. Those meals must be cooked and prepared by me so that the food is safe and clean to eat. Finally, shit hits the fan at the Thanksgiving holidays. Eileen has the nerve to call me 18 times at 2:00 am just so I can leave a like on her son's video. Unable to tolerate her antics anymore, I slap her on the spot. "I'm the daughter of this company's CEO, and yet I have to slave away at work every day! Do you seriously think you're an actual queen now?"

On the same day I was admitted into the hospital for my pregnancy, my husband, Charles Page, received 108 missed calls on his phone. It was from Sue, his mentee, a girl who had cancer. I asked if he was going to pick up, and he replied impatiently, "All she does is call me all day! Doesn't she have any other family? She's so annoying." Later, that very girl posted a photo of herself on the hospital rooftop, wearing a white dress. The caption said: [If I jump down from here, will I become a butterfly in my next life? Maybe then, everyone won't hate me.] Charles only glanced at the post before chuckling mockingly. "What does she mean, turn into a butterfly? Is she delusional?" But after that, he grew visibly restless, before rushing out and not returning all night. That night, I hemorrhaged and was taken into emergency care. When the nurse asked if I wanted to keep the baby, I looked at the empty space beside me and answered calmly. "No, I don't."