Quote Independence

Three months into my pregnancy, I was resting at home to ensure the baby’s health when a typhoon struck. My husband, Adam Quinn, received a call and rushed out to meet his childhood sweetheart. As a result, I experienced severe abdominal pain. The ambulance taking me to the hospital was involved in an accident, and I lost the baby. Adam arrived much later, only to blame me, saying, "Mona Thomas, why are you so useless? You couldn’t even keep the baby!"

For twenty years, Kyle and I were each other’s salvation. On the day he confessed his feelings, he promised to give me a warm and loving home. However, everything changed when the Gill family found him and brought him back, naming him the Crown Prince of High Society. Overnight, I went from being his proud fiancée to nothing more than his hidden canary in a gilded cage. With another woman in his arms, his voice was cold and distant, “The eldest young master of the Gill family can’t marry an orphan.” At that moment, my heart shattered completely. I left the capital that very night. Later, I heard I had become the Gill family’s unspoken taboo. That once-proud Young Master Gill ended up confined to a mental institution, clinging to a doll and whispering my name day after day.

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.

When the zombie apocalypse hit, pets leveled up into guardians. Three per person. That was the cap. My buddy dropped serious cash on three Caucasian Shepherds. My landlord dumped his fish and started raising crocodiles. My girlfriend bolted to the zoo and came back with a lion. Me? I had three strays. Bubba—blind. Missy—lame. Snowy—barely a month old. The second the system locked pet slots, I knew I was screwed. I barricaded myself inside with my three "broken" cats and kept my head down. Day one—fear. Day two—helpless. Day three—the cats strolled back in, tails up, dragging something I didn't recognize. Bubba looked at me. "Dad, I bit off every zombie head on the block. I'm solid, right?" I just stared.

"Dalam persepsi kuno laki-laki dan perempuan tak bisa bersahabat. Jika keduanya bersahabat biasanya ujung-ujungnya akan melibatkan perasaan pada salah satu pihak." Bagi Serena, quote itu hanyalah sebuah bualan belaka. Buktinya ia sudah bersahabat dengan Jeremy selama sepuluh tahun. Tetapi baik dirinya maupun Jeremy tidak memiliki perasaan khusus untuk satu sama lain. Namun apakah yang dikatakan oleh Serena sama dengan apa yang dikatakan hatinya?

The butler's son took my secondary credit card and burned through my money so he could play the part of a trust-fund prince everyone envied. He made me, his employer's real daughter, bring him lunch every day and run errands for him. In front of his classmates, he smeared me as his family's servant and a desperate girl chasing after him. He even stole my family's heirloom jewelry to impress the campus belle. I finally hit my limit. I decided to give him a lump sum and cut ties completely, treating it as payment for the life-saving favor he once gave me. But after I brought it up, he and his father poisoned my family's food and seized every bit of our property for themselves. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my college classroom. Facing the butler's son, who was still flashing the wealth he stole from me, I took his card and cut it in half. "If you keep pretending like this, your butler dad's salary won't cover the act."

I hid behind a thick tree trunk and watched silently as a grizzly bear attacked my husband. In my previous life, I was a guide. I led my husband—an environmental photographer—and his female colleague into a nature reserve to film wildlife. While scouting the route, I discovered a nursing grizzly bear and immediately warned them not to take any photos and to retreat slowly. To my shock, they intentionally bumped into me, causing my right leg to be cut and bleed. The scent of blood enraged the bear, and it charged straight at me, sinking its massive jaws into my abdomen. After the bear left, my husband calmly stripped me of all my equipment. Then, wrapping his arms around his female colleague, he kissed her. He turned to me with a sinister smile creeping across his face. "Kate," he said, "I'll be honest. I never loved you. You're dying. Now, all your assets will be mine." I bled out and died. When I opened my eyes again, it was the morning of the day we entered the mountains.

In my dormitory, there was a poor student. With all the good intentions in the world, my roommates and I were eager to help her, not realizing how much our help would cost. She wasn't impressed by the hairdryer we offered, insisting on borrowing a branded one instead. The skincare products we gave her? They were applied to her feet. And, as if that wasn't enough, she specifically demanded luxury face cream. One day, I lent her my tablet to look up some information, and to my surprise, she secretly opened up my gaming app, spent all the diamonds and reward tickets I had saved for half a year, and left me empty-handed. When I asked her to pay me back, she turned the tables and posted a public message online, accusing me. "I'm just a poor student from the countryside, never played games before. Are the materials in the game really worth this much?" Before I knew it, the comment section was flooded with criticisms of me. In a fit of frustration, I fired back with a post of my own, throwing her into the spotlight. "Well, I suppose you've never tasted the bitterness of being cyberbullied, have you?"

On the tenth day of my postpartum recovery, my husband, Deputy Commander Harvey Wyatt, uploads a photo of me breastfeeding my newborn in a disheveled state to the department's group chat. Obviously, that photo was taken without my knowledge. "See? After having a kid, she's as loose as a sack. It makes me sick just looking at her. I much prefer my side piece, who's nice and tight." A few female colleagues send sweating emojis to the group. The majority of the chat, however, consists of the male colleagues' perverse silence. While I continue to burp my baby with one hand, my tears land on the screen. In order to give birth to this baby, my pelvic bone was sawn in half, which causes me so much pain that I can't even walk properly. But all I get in return is my own husband body-shaming me in front of hundreds of people. I don't bother arguing with Harvey at all. Half an hour later, I drag my broken body all the way to the commander's office with a divorce agreement as well as the chat history over the past ten days, which has been printed out, in my hands.

My mom kindly took in the daughter of her deceased friend. Unexpectedly, the girl smoked, drank, fought, and refused to improve. She even fell madly in love with the school bully and jumped into a river to prove her love for him. My mom tried to save her, but the girl pushed her head underwater. The girl was rescued and embraced by the bully, but my mom drowned. Reborn, I stopped my mom from jumping in, but she shoved me into the river, shouting, "Why isn't it you jumping in?"