Practice Makes Perfect

On my birthday, my boyfriend ditched his childhood friend's desperate call to be with me. Devastated by his rejection, she spiraled into depression and ended her life. Heartbroken, he proposed to me beside her body. "I've already lost Giselle. I can't lose you, too." I said yes, moved by his grief and sincerity. But on our wedding night, he turned on me, hacking me with a knife. "You vile woman! Giselle died because of you. Time to feel her pain!" As I bled out, the girl waltzed back, saying she'd faked her death to spook him. Overjoyed, he pointed at my corpse. "Thank God, you're alive. This wretched woman is gone, and we're free to be together." They looted my wealth for their lavish wedding and happy life. When my eyes snapped open again, I was back on that fateful birthday.

One night, my family sat together watching the New Year’s Eve Live on television. My little sister, Stella Larson, said she had to pee and hurried to the washroom. Half an hour later, she still had not returned. When I went to check on her, the washroom was empty. “When did Stella leave the washroom?” I asked my parents. Both of them were stunned for a moment before feeling my forehead and saying, “What are you talking about? You’re an only child. Who is Stella?” They forcibly pulled me back to my seat. My mind went blank. Did the three of them just pull a prank on me? After finishing his drink, my father clutched his stomach and rushed into the washroom. I stared fixedly at the washroom door. A long time passed, but no one came out. My father had vanished, too. My hand trembled as I pointed at the bathroom. My mother stepped forward to go in. “Don’t go in! Dad and Luna disappeared in there!” My mother looked grief-stricken as she said, “Sweetie, it’s been just the two of us for the past twenty-plus years, remember?” Her words hit me hard. I was in total disbelief. I explained myself frantically, but the more I spoke, the more confused my mother became. She finally shook me off and said, “Why are you doing this to me? I’ve raised you your whole life! Why do you have to ruin New Year’s Eve?” She walked straight into the washroom, and the house soon fell into a dead silence. Terrified, I called my best friend, Kathy Scott, who lived nearby. I rambled incoherently as I begged her for help. But her words utterly crushed me. “What family members? You’re an orphan.” I hung up the phone, rushed out, and pounded frantically on the neighbors’ door.

When I found out I was pregnant, I immediately went to buy abortion pills. When I decided to take the pills, I could hear my unborn son’s heartbeat. [Mom, please don’t abort me! I can bring you fortune!] [My dad is super rich. He loves simping and chasing women.] [He goes after innocent and strong-willed women. He gives away gifts freely, but the women usually would throw them away. I know where these thrown away gifts are!] I thought I must be crazy. I hurriedly swallowed the pills and drank water. [Several hundred grams of gold! The latest handphone! Tens of millions of jewelry! What’s more…] I gagged and spat out the pills into the trashbin next to my feet. “Where are they? Tell me now!"

My sister-in-law, Esmerelda Black, hates that her mother, Ruth Jennings, favors me. To make things worse, she has the ability to hear Ruth's thoughts. And she uses that gift against me. When I tell Ruth to have more vegetables to stay healthy, Esmerelda says, "Clara is such a cheapskate not to buy you meat. She doesn't ask her own mom to eat more vegetables." When I encourage Ruth to exercise more to build strength, she says, "Mom, you're already old. You should be taking it easy. Clara wants you to work yourself to death." Slowly, Ruth grows to hate me. In the end, Esmerelda acquires the family business, seizes the fortune, and trafficks me to North Maldia to die. However, when I open my eyes again, I have her gift too—I can also hear Ruth's thoughts.

After our class reunion, my best friend naturally expected me to play chauffeur and drive everyone home. I agreed. However, halfway down the road, a limited-edition luxury car slammed into the back of my car. The owner, who claimed to be a wealthy businessman from overseas, waved off the idea of filing an insurance claim. He said the crash was fate, and with a grand gesture, handed the luxury car over to me on the spot. From that day on, I drove the million-dollar luxury car every day, until jealousy consumed my best friend. She secretly sabotaged my car, and it ended with my death in a fiery wreck. My boyfriend turned on me, insisting I had simply fallen asleep at the wheel. My parents, unable to bear the shock, both died of heart attacks. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the reunion.

I had just left the hospital after undergoing a dilation and curettage procedure for uterine fibroids. On the bus, I happened to encounter a woman who was crying and claiming she had menstrual cramps and a terrible stomachache, asking me to give up my seat. But I refused. I never expected the woman to be the famous internet influencer, Bella Marsh. While I was completely unprepared, she started a livestream, and the next day, I was violently attacked online and pushed onto the trending searches. Netizens even dug up the record of my procedure at the hospital. “With a uterine wall that thin, it’s obvious she has had so many failed pregnancies.” “No wonder she was so shameless and refused to give up her seat—turns out she’s a despicable woman.” The so-called righteous netizens harassed me until I fell into depression, and even my boyfriend stepped forward to accuse me of being dirty and said he wanted to break up. Unable to endure the blow, I jumped from the rooftop, while the female influencer gained tens of millions of followers and began livestream selling, earning more money than she could count. Only after my death did I learn that the influencer had been my boyfriend’s childhood crush. To boost the popularity of her livestream, she and my boyfriend had deliberately staged the entire scene. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the very day Bella asked me to give up my seat.

The day I win a brand-new BMW, I suddenly receive a call from myself, ten years in the future. "Kieran will ask to borrow your car in a bit. And whatever you do, do not lend it to him. He intends to use it to pay off his gambling debt." Even with such an impossibility happening to me, I do not doubt a thing. When Kieran asks for my keys, I shut him down at once. That very night, he drives his old beater car to visit our parents. Along the way, he loses control of the car and collides with another vehicle. Just like that, he slips into a coma. The guilt hit me so hard that I eventually pass out. Mom and Dad stay by my side day and night until I can stand on my own two feet again. But the future version of me sounds cold when she calls again. "They only want to push you onto an operating table. They want your heart to save him!" Growing suspicious, I check their bags and find a donor report. Rage burns through me. I immediately block them on all platforms and throw them out of my home. When news that Kieran dies from blood loss arrives, I learn that they only ever needed my blood—not my heart. I try to find them to tell them the truth and apologize for my mistake. But the mysterious phone rings again. "They hate you because Kieran died. If you go to them now, they will drag you into a suicide pact." I freeze at the revelation, then tell my future myself that I will wait until they calm down. Later, I learn that a thief breaks into their home and kills them. I try to rush over and see them one last time, but a truck hits me and kills me on the spot. I die without ever understanding why the version of me from ten years in the future wanted me dead. When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day I won the prize.

My best friend, Emily Summers, who had always been terrified of dogs, suddenly told me she was planning to buy a pet dog. That’s when I knew that she had been reincarnated too. In my previous life, I bought a pure white toy poodle from a pet shop. From the moment that little dog came into my home, everything in my life turned around. Morgan Hale, our manager who had always been at odds with me, suddenly offered me a promotion and a raise. Even the client I’d been struggling to win over for months personally requested to sign the deal with me. But the most unbelievable change of all? Silas Sullivan, the company’s tall, rich, and handsome CEO got down on one knee and proposed to me after a party, saying he wanted to marry me. I had said yes and even invited Emily to the wedding to witness my happiest moment. However, driven by jealousy, she stabbed me to death on the day of the wedding. "Why should someone like you get to marry a CEO while I’m stuck working three shifts a day like a damn slave?" The next time I opened my eyes, I was back at that moment, standing beside her, at the pet shop, looking at dogs…

School had just dismissed us for the exam-break when my roommate begged me not to leave her alone in the dorm. She said she was scared and wanted to come home with me. Out of kindness, I brought her back with me. I had no idea that the very first night, she would sneak into my brother's room, and by the next morning, she was screaming that he had assaulted her. Because of that, my brother missed the exam, and his reputation was ruined. When the school board found out, they expelled him. No other school would take him in. To keep me from getting involved in this mess at school, my parents had no choice but to let that roommate live with us. After that, she treated our home like her personal hotel: never lifting a finger, demanding that my parents wait on her every night, and even having them wash her feet. My brother dropped out and took up work at an illegal factory just to support her spending. Then one day, a machine crushed him at that factory. My parents, already exhausted and heartbroken, fell gravely ill and passed away soon after. I was consumed by hatred. In the end, I dragged the roommate who destroyed my family down into the flames with me. Even as I died, I still couldn't understand. What kind of bitter grudge did her family have against mine for her to ruin us like that? But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day she asked to come home with me…

Can you believe this? I was just some random fake-sweet girl online, then boom—the richest couple in Rivora City showed up waving fifty million, begging me to be their daughter-in-law. All because their son—the golden boy who was supposed to have it all—threw everything away simping for some broke school beauty. "If that tramp actually loved him, fine. But instead, she keeps rejecting him while milking his name for her family." "Our son's obsessed with that manipulative girl? Then we'll find someone faker. More manipulative. Fight poison with poison." Yeah... that stung a little. But a black card with fifty mil? Hard to stay offended. I signed on to "rescue" their hopeless son. Then I opened the file and laughed. That tramp? My sister. The same snake I crushed years ago.