Reading With Style

When I joined my pregnant wife at her class reunion, I heard the thoughts of her male bestie. 'Once she kicks her bum husband to the curb, the money's all mine!' He was snuggling up to my wife, raising his glass in salutations with a perfect smile, but I still caught the flicker of disgust in his eyes. 'Stupid sow thinks I'm in love with her? Who would care about her if it weren't for her money?' He had no idea that Mary's family had gone bankrupt long ago, and her life of luxury now was all thanks to me!

I was reborn on the day my sister, Tilda Wright, and I had to pick our husbands. That was when I realized I could hear people’s thoughts. I heard Tilda say, [This time, I’m gonna make sure I grab the best husband first.] Then, just like that, she rushed over and took the sweet guy I had married in my last life, while I ended up with the abusive man who used to beat her every day. I laughed to myself. Did she really think the guy I married before was some perfect gentleman?

My childhood friends switched their university of choice behind my back. Going to the capital, they enrolled in an elite university with an exchange student. To them, I was just a tool who could not survive without them. That impression lasted until the opening ceremony of an Ivy League university. As the representative of the new students, I stood at the center of the hall. Meanwhile, the youngest PhD advisor in the entire country watched me as he smiled. Beyond the world of the novel I lived in, the readers’ comments went wild. [Shouldn’t she be crying back at home? Why is she in an Ivy League university?] However, the next part was even crazier. That man actually asked me to be his girlfriend yesterday. He was Professor Samuel Grant, the one who had rejected my four childhood friends from studying under him. When my childhood friends left me behind to chase after that manipulative witch, they never expected me to cast aside my role as someone running after them. I ended up holding a full-ride scholarship and reached heights they could never touch.

I get into an online relationship with a rich scion named Oliver Radcliffe, who's apparently from Canverly and loves showering me with riches. The only bad thing about him is that he's too clingy and is very prone to jealousy. So, I decide to break up with him without giving him any preamble. Poor Oliver breaks down in tears. He claims that I've stolen his heart and that he hates my guts. I already find him insanely annoying, so I refute, "I was just toying around with your heart, you idiot!" Later on, I travel to Canverly on a student exchange program. But that's when I get kidnapped to a grand estate. There, I scream at Oliver angrily, only for him to smile dotingly at me. "I can't understand what you're talking about, but I think you're just acting cute around me. Will you do the same thing when I use too much force on you in bed tonight?" Oh no, I've screwed up this time! I can't believe I've attracted the attention of a lunatic!

After I married into a rich family as my older sister's stand-in, my powerful husband didn't touch me for six months. Then I overheard his friend. "You chased her ten years just to marry her, and you still won't touch her?" He looked down, smiling bitter. "I have a problem... I'm scared I'd scare her off." That night I stormed into his room and slapped the divorce papers on the nightstand. "Two choices—sleep with me or sign." He ripped the papers apart and pinned me to the wall, something wild breaking loose in his eyes. "Third choice... I make sure you can't get out of bed tomorrow."

My parents and my younger sister, Mable Munroe, are diagnosed with severe illnesses one after another. As I stare at the astronomical sum of medical bills, I can only grit my teeth and deal with them by taking on ten part-time jobs in one go. After stirring awake from collapse caused by exhaustion, I realize that I can hear the thoughts of everyone around me. My mom, who's too busy coughing up blood, has something else going on in her mind. "This low-quality fake blood really is disgusting! Why isn't that stupid brat giving us her salary of the day? I need the money to buy new bags!" My dad, who's already crippled from his disease, thinks, "I'm about to get cramps from all the cripple-faking I have to do! Once Talia clears my debt, I'm going to get myself a nice proper massage for a few days straight!" Meanwhile, the weakened Mable has already cooked up a plot in her mind. "Hurry up and tell that broke boyfriend of mine to stay awake from me! I want Talia to break up with him on my behalf! That way, I'll be able to reel in my next boyfriend without any guilt!" As I stare at my family, I choose to not expose their lies. Instead, I retrieve all the money that I've planned on paying their "medical bills" with. Later on, I track down Mable's boyfriend, Kyle Hargrove. There, I can hear his thoughts echoing loudly in my mind. "Did Mable get her sister to send the message that she wants to dump me? I'll have her know that I'm the only son of the richest man in town! Mable and that family of hers shall live in regret for the rest of their lives!" A bold thought pops into my mind all of a sudden. I twist my ankle on the spot and use the opportunity to collapse right into Kyle's arms.

My husband, Don Cassian, just survived an assassination attempt. He limped in, bleeding, and ordered me to stitch him up. But when I reached into his blood-soaked suit, my fingers brushed against something soft. Black lace panties. Not mine. My hand flew to my still-flat stomach. For our child. How could he do this to us? Ice flooded my veins. “We’re done, Cassian.” His gaze was heavy, exhausted. He gave a single, sharp nod. “Fine. I’ll have my lawyer draft the papers.” But then, a frantic little voice—one that wasn't mine—screamed from deep within my womb. [Mom, don’t leave him! Dad didn’t cheat! The family isn’t going to fall. It’s a setup!] [Oriana Gallo planned all of this! She wants your place! She put those panties in his pocket herself!] [If you leave, her men will grab you. They’ll take you to an abandoned warehouse and dump your body in Lake Michigan. Then she’ll play the grieving friend, comfort Dad, and become the new Mrs. Marino!] [Mom, I came back to stop this! Please, don’t fall for it again!] I snapped back to the present. Spinning around, I launched myself into Cassian's arms, my body wracked with sobs. “I was just trying to scare you! How could you agree so easily? Are you that tired of me?” I jabbed a finger at his chest, tears streaming down my face.

I always had a unique kind of mind-reading ability—I could hear the thoughts of people who didn't truly love me. On the night before my wedding, I suddenly heard my fiance's thoughts. 'If she shows up unexpectedly to disrupt the wedding tomorrow, will wearing leather shoes make it harder to escape?' I didn't say a word. The next day, without a second thought, I boarded a plane and left Chilia. In the end, that wedding, regarding a runaway bride and groom who never showed up, became the city's most infamous joke.

My name is Margaret Turner. After my daughter, Sarah McDowell, becomes pregnant, I am shocked to find that I can hear the thoughts of the baby in her womb. "Grandma, please don't let Mommy get the prenatal checkup! If they learn I'm a girl, Dad will make her get rid of me. I don't want to die!" I can't believe what I'm hearing. Knowing that my son‑in‑law, Jeremy O'Brien, works at a hospital and can use his connections to learn the baby's gender, I do everything in my power to keep Sarah from being examined. But three months later, doctors confirm that Sarah's baby has a congenital deformity and is fated to be born disabled. Sarah is devastated, and guilt consumes me. Suddenly, I hear my granddaughter's voice again. "It's all because of Dad. He cheated with that nurse and returned home soaked in her cheap perfume. As soon as Mommy breathed it in, I was fated to come into the world deformed. Poor Mommy…" Rage explodes inside me. Without a second thought, I storm into Jeremy's workplace, determined to catch him in the act. I don't expect to walk in on a critical heart surgery he is performing. My intrusion throws the room into chaos, and the patient dies on the operating table. The patient's family loses control, and they cause a violent scene in the hospital. In the mayhem, Jeremy is killed on the spot. When Sarah learns what I've done, she is consumed by rage and declares she wants nothing more to do with me. At that moment, my granddaughter's voice echoes in my mind once more. "Mommy is heartbroken and needs time to heal. Grandma, please don't make things worse. Mommy will be okay after she rests." Hearing this, I force myself to stay calm. But that very night, word arrives that Sarah has thrown herself into a river and ended her life. Shattered by grief, I eventually make the same tragic choice. As my final breath fades, my granddaughter's chilling laugh echoes in my ears. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the day her voice first crept into my mind.

On the day I received my prenatal test results, I heard a voice from inside my belly—my unborn child speaking to me. 'Mom, Dad will divorce you as soon as you give birth to me. His true love can't have children. That's why he married you. You're just a tool to give birth. Once I'm born, he'll divorce you, take me away, and go live happily ever after with her.' I believed every word. Without hesitation, I chose divorce. For nine months, I focused on carrying the pregnancy, planning to raise the child on my own. But on the day I went into labor, something went terribly wrong. The doctor said the baby was premature, and the position was dangerously abnormal. "The baby keeps flipping around inside you," she said. "It's like it's deliberately putting you through hell." Eight hours of emergency treatment accomplished nothing. In the end, it was a difficult labor—both mother and child died. As my consciousness faded, I heard that voice again. 'Haha. Dad never cheated at all. I lied to you.' Why would a child lie? I couldn't understand it, not even at the moment of death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day I first received the prenatal test report.