Practice Makes Perfect Novels & Stories

Of the five boys who'd been raised to marry me, Lance Riverford was the one who hated me the most. And yet, he was the one I loved the most. Three times I was reborn, and three times I forced him to be my husband. Each time ended the same way—he and his childhood sweetheart killed me. When I opened my eyes for the fourth time and met that same look of loathing in his eyes, something inside me finally let go. I turned away and chose his rival, Jace Elden, as my husband instead. But at the wedding, Lance demanded with tears in his eyes, "Why did you choose someone else this time? Are you doing this just to spite me?" That was when I realized… he'd been reborn too.

A week before our wedding, my fiancee announces that she is pregnant using my younger brother's frozen sperm. "I'm grateful that our love can carry on in another way," she gushes on social media, showing off the test results. My brother replies, "Meeting you was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me." Then Mom chimes in. "Jenny, you've been through so much. Nathan's apartment should be under your name alone." I don't argue and simply reply with a single word—"Congratulations". My phone rings almost seconds later. "Your brother can't have kids anymore. It's just one child, and it's still related to you. Why are you being so petty?" she snaps. I laugh under my breath, hang up, and dial another number. "Want to get married?"

After I dropped out of school, my parents didn't pressure me to do anything. But Nicole Hicks kept calling nonstop. She was my boyfriend's childhood friend who had established a reputation as a genius. I was too busy helping out in the fields, growing vegetables, and splashing around in the creek, living my best carefree life. Writing code wasn't even on my mind. In my past life, she had turned in a project just one day before I did. Her codes were exactly the same as mine. Everyone called me a fraud and said I had stolen it. I tried to explain, but no one believed me. Later, she even did a livestream, accusing me online of being a school bully. People went wild. They didn't just come for me—they went after my whole family. Some obsessed troll chased my parents in a car, and they died in a crash. I couldn't take it anymore. I jumped off a high-rise, my eyes still wide open, refusing to accept the way it all ended. Even in my last moment, I couldn't figure it out. That code was mine. My hard work. So how did she manage to post it before me? When I opened my eyes again, I was back, right before everything fell apart.

I picked up a system with my sister. The system said only one of us could bind to it, and the other could take twenty million dollars. My sister shoved me aside and chose the money. Ten years later, she squandered everything and ended up homeless. Relying on the luck the system gave me, I excelled in my studies, climbed the career ladder, and reached the peak of my life. Driven by jealousy, my sister stabbed me to death at my birthday party. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day we found the system. This time, she said without hesitation, “Luck is too intangible. I’ll take the loss. You can have the fortune.” I knew she had been reborn, too. What she didn’t know was that the luck granted by the system always came at the cost of one’s lifespan.

On the first day of classes, my roommate gives me a crystal bracelet as a welcome gift. Without thinking, I quickly adorn it around her mother's wrist. In my past life, my roommate wanted to be a social butterfly. She was determined to have a hundred boyfriends by the time she graduated. But no matter how reckless she was, she never ended up conceiving. On the other hand, I kept getting pregnant and having countless miscarriages. But unlike her, I had never been in a relationship. The entire university mocked me, labeling me promiscuous and shameless. During my 66th miscarriage, I died on the operating table from severe bleeding. It was only after death that I realized the crystal bracelet my roommate gave me had somehow linked our wombs together. As soon as I opened my eyes, I realized I had gone back to the first day of the semester.

After I get reborn, I've orchestrated every missed moment with my biological parents. When they want to take my adopted sister, Simone Graham, to take a family portrait, I'll take cold showers so that I can catch a fever. When they decide to book a cruise ship overseas in order to celebrate Simone's birthday, I join a classified project, which stops me from leaving the country. When they start a company for Simone, I quickly apply to get dispatched to South City, which is 600 miles away from my hometown. I also make sure to declare that I will never fight with Simone over anything in life. In my previous lifetime, Simone and I had been fighting over our parents' affection for decades. But all I got were comments on how manipulative and cunning I was. Everyone preferred Simone, who was pure and innocent, while showing disdain toward me, who was a woman of little words. Even my own husband and child couldn't understand my pain at all. "We're all family here, aren't we? Can't you just stop your dramatics for a few days? Whenever I come home, you always start a fight and cause unrest among everyone! You really should reflect on your own actions!" Just like that, I died on my sickbed all alone. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day I get accepted back into my family. This time, I'm not going to fight anymore. I'm going to live for myself instead.

I return home from my business trip that night. The pharmacy I always go to calls to say that my membership card was used that afternoon, but the payment failed, and the account needs to be topped up. I look over at my wife, Catherine Francis, who's focused on making dinner. I ask her what she bought. She smiles and pulls out a box of supplements. "I've been staying up late working these past few days. My heart's been acting up a little, so I bought some heart supplements." Seeing my expression go flat, she lets out a helpless sigh and takes a card out of her bag. "I know you're particular about money. Since I accidentally used your membership card, I'll pay you back ten times. Okay?" However, I don't take the card like I used to. I just look at her calmly and say, "Let's get a divorce."

I won a hundred million. Without a second thought, I quit my job, the one that paid me twenty thousand a month. My husband, who earned barely six thousand, assumed I had been laid off, and in that instant, he showed his true colors. "Let's get a divorce," he said calmly. "You're not good enough for me anymore." Even my mother-in-law, who had always seemed so gentle, turned on me without hesitation. "Get out of this house," she snapped. "And take your sick daughter with you. From now on, you're on your own." That was the moment I gave up on both of them. I did not argue. I did not try to stay. Meanwhile, they were thrilled, convinced they had finally rid themselves of me and my daughter, the burdens they no longer wanted. What they did not know was that inside my bag was not just a lottery ticket worth a hundred million. There was also a diagnosis. My husband, Wade Zeller, had late-stage stomach cancer.

I found out my husband, Logan Atkinson, had quietly added his secretary's number to our family plan. [Dear customer, the number ending in 8848 has been successfully added to your family plan. Effective immediately, all calls between plan members are free.] I held up my phone and looked straight at Logan. "You're treating her like family. What does that make me?" He sounded annoyed. "Regina said staying on the phone with me every night was getting expensive. If she's on the family plan, it doesn't cost anything. She's just used to saving money. Don't read into it." Regina said she had severe depression and couldn't fall asleep, so Logan stayed on the phone with her every night for at least seven hours. I stared at the call logs in the family plan. Even on our wedding anniversary, when I closed my eyes, wishing we would make it through another ten years and grow old side by side… He was still on the phone with Regina Dittman, coaxing her to sleep. When I didn't say anything, Logan looked a little surprised. "Wow. Quiet today? Finally learned how to be the bigger person?" I just didn't feel like arguing with them anymore. All those fights before had only proven one thing: he always chose Regina. After ten years in a broken marriage, it was time to set things straight.

I came home from abroad to save my nephew's company from going bust, and also to attend his wedding with his sweetheart. But just as the banquet was about to start, a barrage of comments suddenly popped up before my eyes: [Thank goodness the sweetheart is clever and came up with the idea of framing the substitute for poisoning! The male lead will definitely be over with the substitute after this!] [Exactly! So what if the substitute has stayed by his side for ten years? The male lead still loves his sweetheart the most!] Elaine Geston, decked out in a luxury wedding gown, strutted up to me with her nose in the air, looking smug. "So you're the woman Nolan has cherished for ten years? I hate to break it to you, but you're just a substitute for me! You should get lost if you know what's good for you!" I glanced down at my phone, checking the stock prices, not in the mood to deal with her. She suddenly looked shocked. She picked up one of the two glasses of wine prepared for the newlyweds, sniffed it, then pointed a finger at me and yelled, "What a vile woman! You actually poisoned the wine! Just because Nolan loves me, you want to kill us both!" Hearing this, the security guards instantly surrounded me, looking hostile. I was totally baffled. I pointed at my nephew, who was chatting with guests outside the venue, and said, "What substitute? Ask your husband if he dares to treat his own aunt as a substitute. Does he want his whole family to beat him up? Does he want his company to go bankrupt?" The comments went wild. [Oh crap, she's not a substitute but his aunt? The sweetheart's messed up big time!]