Rebirth

On the day of our tenth wedding anniversary, my wife, Cara Dempsey, jumped from ten thousand feet in the air after hearing that her first love's plane had crashed. It was only then that I finally understood the only man she ever truly loved all these years was Luthen Waltz. When we were both sent back in time to relive our teenage years, she wasted no time making a grand, public confession to Luthen, completely cutting ties with me. I just stood there, watching the two of them kiss like they couldn’t bear to be apart, and in that moment, my heart felt nothing. From that day on, we were over, and we lived our separate lives. Ten years later, we crossed paths again at a five-star hotel in Harbor City. She, who had become a celebrity adored by the world, was wearing a gown, laughing in Luthen’s arms. When she saw me wandering through the hotel, searching for someone, she thought I had come looking for her. “George, stop wasting your time! Even in ten years, I will never choose you!” I didn’t respond. Instead, I looked toward the little girl running toward me, calling me Dad, and gave her the warmest smile. Cara’s expression froze. Tears welled in her eyes as she choked out, “You lied to me, didn’t you? You said you hated kids and that you’d only ever love me.”

It was raining very heavily on the day my parents got divorced. There are two copies of the agreements on the table. One declares that the signee will stay with Dad, who's a gambling addict and has already racked up a huge debt, in the old town. The other declares that the signee will follow Mom, who will marry a rich businessman, and move to a coastal town. In the previous life, my younger sister, Tamara Browning, kicked up a fuss because she wanted to stay with Mom. So, I packed up my luggage quietly and went with Dad. Soon after, Dad quit gambling and received the compensation due to our house being demolished in a governmental project. Since then, he showered me with love and affection. Meanwhile, Tamara wasn't allowed to even leave the house. On top of that, she was neglected by everyone, so she died from depression. Now that we're given a second chance in life, Tamara snatches the cigarette out of Dad's fingers before hugging him, refusing to let him go at all. "Tiana, my heart aches for Dad's situation. You should live a good life with Mom. I'll give that chance to you." I deign to say anything at all. Instead, I just pick up the train ticket that'll take me to the coastal town. But what Tamara doesn't know is the reason behind Dad's decision to quit gambling in the previous life. At that time, I had overexhausted myself from paying off his debt, and I began vomiting blood due to my brain cancer. I practically had to risk my life just to get him to quit gambling once and for all.

My family's fate was sealed in an ancient war. We saved the lord of the Clare clan. In return, their lord forged an ancient blood pact with my line. Each generation, a woman from my family can choose a mate from the Clare heirs, to birth a hybrid child—one who walks in daylight, blessed with eternal life. When my time came, I didn't hesitate. I chose the eldest son, Evan, who had been in a cursed slumber for a century. Every vampire in the room was in disbelief. After all, everyone knew I'd spent the last few years obsessed with the third son, Julian. It had to be him, or no one. In my last life, I got my wish. I bonded with Julian and helped him seize control of the family's vast biotech empire. But after our union, he started an affair with my adopted sister, Chloe. To punish her for breaking the blood pact, the family exiled Chloe. Julian, however, was convinced I had orchestrated the whole thing. He hated me to his very core. From then on, he kept a string of lovers, and every single one of them looked like Chloe. The heartbreak shattered me. In the end, he poisoned my life-sustaining elixirs, making my flesh rot from my bones, and sacrificed my very soul in a dark ritual. Reborn, I decided to let them have each other. But I never imagined Julian would be reborn, too.

My boss gives me 200 thousand dollars in cash so I can pay his workers their salaries. I leave the house to buy some envelopes to put the money in, but that's when my father lends the money to our neighbor so they can buy a house. I question him about it, but he says I know nothing about forging relationships. Even my mother and brother blame me for not keeping my things properly—they say I'm dumb for leaving money lying around when I know my father likes to lend money to others. Later, my boss fires me but doesn't call the cops. All he wants is for me to repay him. To do so, my father finds me a high-paying job. It's only when I get there that I realize I'm supposed to be an old man's housekeeper. On my first day there, he violates me. I want to call the cops, but my father tells me to be forgiving of him. After that, the old man's daughter thinks I seduced her father and has me beaten to death. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day my father lent money to our neighbor.

I lucked out, securing a guaranteed admission spot at Westbridge University—the one the real heiress throws away. Nicole Stewart drops out for love and runs off with the school's bully, shattering what should've been her perfect life. Meanwhile, I'm branded a thief, accused of stealing her place. However, I fight my way up to become a powerhouse in business and even marry her childhood sweetheart, Spencer Lowe. Yet, at the peak of it all, I open my eyes to find myself back to graduation day of senior year, right when I'm filling out my choices of colleges. A live barrage of comments flashes before my eyes. "That fake heiress, Gloria Stewart, is nothing but a thief. She stole Nicole's life!" "In her last life, Nicole actually dropped out of school to start a business with some school bully. She even gave her childhood sweetheart, who was her fiance, to someone else! Ugh, she's so stupid and pathetic." "Good thing Nicole gets a second chance. This time, the real heiress has awakened, so let's just see how miserable that fake heiress who stole her life becomes!" I just smile at the scrolling insults. Sorry, but I carve my own path. Nicole can be reborn a hundred times, and she still can't stop me from rising to the top.

In my last life, my in-laws "died," and my so-called DINK husband, Eric, begged me to raise his sweet little "brother," Luca. Seven years flew by. That scrawny kid turned into a total cutie and blew up online—pulling in tens of thousands a month. Then one night, boom—Eric's parents came back from the dead. And with them? Tammy. Eric's first love. She clung to Eric with one hand, Luca with the other, all smug as hell. "I've been traveling for seven years. I'm tired. And wow, what a perfect son—thanks for raising him." Eric's parents didn't even pretend to care. "You couldn't give Eric a kid, but at least you were useful this once." "Sign the divorce papers. Make room for Tammy." I walked out of that law firm wrecked—and right into the path of a speeding car. Tammy was behind the wheel, smiling like she won. Next thing I knew, I woke up on the same day Eric's parents had "died."

On the eve of giving birth, my world turned into a nightmare. My husband’s sworn enemy broke into our home, seeking revenge. I was brutally cut open and my baby was ripped from me. Yet, I made the chilling choice not to call my husband for help. In my previous life, desperate and terrified, I begged him to return home. He abandoned a Valentine’s dinner with a scholarship student to rush back. That night, the student was preyed upon in a bar, leading to her tragic suicide. My husband’s wrath was unrelenting. Blaming me for her death, he locked me in a kennel, leaving me to be savaged to death. “This is the pain Wynne endured because of you. Now it’s your turn to suffer!” Given a second chance, I resolved to make a different choice. This time, I let him stay for his romantic Valentine’s evening with her. But when I returned home, he had spiraled into madness.

During the outdoor orientation boot camp, Wanda Lawson, the daughter of the richest tycoon, suddenly suffered from a heart attack. She collapsed to the ground and went through a seizure, her complexion bluish-gray. My boyfriend, Joseph Jensen, the drill instructor of the boot camp, overheard my pretentious roommate, Ella Ziegler, murmur, "She's usually fine, so why is she suddenly suffering from some sort of attack when it's time for the drills to start? She must be faking it in order to laze around!" Because of those assumptions, Joseph kicked the medication that Wanda managed to pull out of her pocket into the nearby river. "Get lost if you want to play dead! Don't drag us down with you!" I quickly dived into the river and scooped the medication out. Thanks to my efforts, Wanda's life was saved. Her father was enraged when he found out about the news and wanted to hold someone responsible. With tears streaking down my face, I begged Wanda to not expose Joseph. She nodded quietly to me. Joseph narrowly escaped the judgment. But Ella was expelled by the university right away for her malicious and provocative words. She even had a permanent stain of poor conduct marking her record. On the third day after Ella returned to her village, her family forced her to marry an older man who had remained single for far too long because of his violent temperament. Wanda's father was grateful to me for saving Wanda's life, so he listed me into the list of beneficiaries of his family's trust fund. The amount of money I received was second only to Wanda's portion. On the night news of Ella getting beaten to death by her husband got out, Joseph lovingly invited me to the place we first met so that we could go hiking. When I stood on the steep slope of the mountain, Joseph suddenly snatched the backpack filled with supplies, which included a life-saving whistle, from me. Then, he shoved me off the slope. "Why must you be such a busybody? If you never saved Wanda, she wouldn't have been able to testify against Ella because she'd have died! A murderer like you should just die!" Having broken my spine from the fall, I ended up dying at the foot of the mountain. After my death, not only Joseph got to receive the trust fund thanks to his relationship to me as my fiance, but he also began sponsoring low-income students by using Ella's namesake. That was how he reaped both wealth and reputation in one go. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Wanda suffers from the heart attack.

On the eve of the National Robotics Championship, I smashed my carefully designed bot to pieces and announced my withdrawal. Everyone said I was a fraud who was quitting out of fear of being exposed. Online, the netizens mocked me relentlessly. Only one person, Adrian Cross, the so-called genius of the century, spoke up in my defense, his voice dripping with false sincerity, "I believe in River Lowell’s skills. Only he deserves to be my opponent. No matter what setbacks he’s facing, I hope he comes back to the arena and proves himself." In my previous life, the robot I built was identical to his. No matter how I tried to prove he had copied me, Adrian stood before the cameras, wearing his benevolent mask, and said, "It’s fine. This robot can go to River. I can always build something even better." His fans swarmed me, tearing me apart online, and no one believed in my talent. I swallowed the humiliation and vowed to rebuild my robot from scratch. However, when I was assembling it, the Power Core in my kit exploded, shattering my skull. That same night, I was rushed into the ICU. Netizens clapped and cheered, saying I got exactly what I deserved. That night, my girlfriend, Lila Hart, signed the hospital’s DNR consent form without hesitation. Until the day I died, I never understood how Adrian had gotten my robot’s data or why Lila had joined forces with him. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day of the competition.

Before the SATs, everyone had filled in their dream colleges they'd like to apply to. Now that the results were out, my boyfriend, Sheldon Miller, and many of my classmates had successfully gotten into Astraeus University, which happens to be their dream university. In order to celebrate the success, Sheldon's childhood friend, Winnie Frost, decided to invite Sheldon and the classmates over to the tattoo parlor her family ran for celebratory tattoos. I grabbed Sheldon's hand and reminded him that students in aviation majors weren't allowed to have tattoos of their own, only to get slapped by him instead. The classmates around me even started mocking me relentlessly. "Just how shameless are you, Cassandra? Sheldon and Winnie are the actual childhood friends here! You don't want him to get a tattoo at her family's parlor out of jealousy, right?" I was so pissed that I could feel a headache coming. For the sake of Sheldon's future, I forcibly dragged him away. But what I didn't expect was that Winnie would secretly carry two barrels of gas to my residence. Just like that, she set my residence ablaze. That fire ended up killing my parents and me. Sheldon and our classmates even forged Winnie's alibi just so they could wash her off the police's suspicion. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Sheldon is about to walk into Winnie's tattoo parlor. Sheldon shakes my hand off ruthlessly and begins berating me angrily. "Aren't you just being jealous because Winnie and I are close to each other? I'll have you know that not only do I want to get a tattoo with Winnie, but I also want to have her name tattooed on my body!" This time, I just flash a wide smile at him. "Go on, then. You'd better have her name tattooed on an obvious spot."