Retellings Of Sleeping Beauty Novels & Stories

A rich kid offers to pay anyone who'll be his companion to a ball ten thousand dollars. My roommate stops me from responding. "He's just a rich guy fishing for fun—he's using money to play around with women! Are you going to offer yourself to him for money? We can't be gold diggers!" My mother is sick, though. She needs my scholarship money to save her life. To my devastation, my roommate latches onto a school board member and takes away my scholarship. She even mocks me. "With your looks, you could've sold yourself for money. Here's a hundred bucks to compensate you." That's not all—an AI face-swapped picture of me are posted online. Countless people harass me because of them. My mother doesn't want to drag me down, so she takes her life. I break down and choose to jump off a building. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to the first day of the semester. The rich kid is looking for a female companion. I immediately say, "I'm the companion you've been looking for, sir!"

We were on a field trip to the Holy State of Aram, when the prom queen, Susie Lambert, complained about the hot weather and called for a bikini party. My boyfriend Ken insisted on bringing the whole class along just to satisfy her whim, even though I warned him, "That's against the law, and visitors who are found guilty will be remanded, if not killed…" He slapped me across the face and snapped, "Don't try to scare us! You're just jealous that Susie's got a nice bod, and you don't want to see us being happy together!" Everyone else in the class roared in approval too. "Exactly! You already took Ken away from Susie, and you'd now come up with such bullshit!" I was furious and frustrated, but for their sake, I spoke to Mrs. Dent, the class teacher. She scolded everyone when she realized what they were doing and called off the bikini party. However, Susie got so upset that she ran off alone and flaunted her bikini at the beach anyway, and she was caught before being executed as a spy by zealots. Ken blamed it all on me. In the middle of the night, he sneaked into my home and set fire to it with gasoline, killing my entire family. Afterward, the entire class testified on his behalf to create an alibi. But I opened my eyes again and found myself returning to that day when Susie goaded everyone to join her bikini party. This time, I simply smiled. "Go ahead, enjoy yourselves all you want!"

On the day we're supposed to fill in our future universities, my childhood friend, Emma Slater, who's smart enough to attend a first-rate university, doesn't hesitate to fill a community university as the university she wants to attend the most. All of our classmates are stunned, to say the least. They quickly tell me to stop Emma from submitting that form. But I just smile at them faintly. "It's fine. I completely respect Emma's wishes." No one knows that I've been reborn. In my previous life, Ezekiel Smith, the low income student who had transferred into our class, claimed that he was a transmigrator who was here to save Emma. If both of them couldn't get into the same university, he'd get eradicated by the system. Emma kept obeying Ezekiel's every command, as though she was under his spell. I didn't have the heart to see her give up on her future, so I exposed Ezekiel's lies on the spot. At the same time, I managed to switch Emma's future university back to Kingswell University and Bellsgrave University right before the due date was up. While Emma did get to study at a prestigious university with me, Ezekiel ended up jumping off a building at the third-rate university. In his suicide note, he kept pointing fingers at me and claiming that I was the reason he failed his conquest, which led to his eradication. Because of that, Emma hated my guts to the point that she pushed me off the campus' rooftop, resulting in my own death. Now that I've gotten reborn again, I just want to watch Emma fall into the abyss.

On the day of the SAT exam, my girlfriend, Heidi Moore, makes the entire class stay with her and wait for her childhood friend, Jeffrey Price, who's running late. But it's less than an hour before the exam starts. If they keep waiting for Jeffrey, they will definitely miss the exam. In my previous lifetime, I played my part as the class president by advising everyone to take the exam first. But all I received was their scolding. "You're just jealous that Jeffrey and Heidi are extremely close friends! That's why you want to ditch Jeffrey so that he can miss the exam, huh?" I could only stand in the pouring rain while begging my classmates relentlessly. Only then did everyone leave for the exam venue reluctantly. In the end, we were able to arrive at the exam venue one minute before the exam started. But after the exam was over, I was pushed off a building by Jeffrey, which caused my death. However, Heidi and the rest of my classmates gave the police their fake testimonies. "Finley caused Jeffrey to miss the exam. That's why he killed himself out of guilt!" Jeffrey even used the opportunity to sell his sob story and become a popular influencer. Mom tried to seek justice for me, only to get cyberbullied by the Internet users, who were blind to the truth. Dazed and disoriented, she drove off a cliff, and her body was nowhere to be found since then. Only after I died did I realize that this was just a part of Jeffrey's scheme. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Heidi tells the entire class to wait for Jeffrey before departing to the exam venue together. In this lifetime, I won't stop my ungrateful classmates from ruining their own lives.

After writing 999 love letters to the cold and aloof campus belle, Maddie Harrison, I finally successfully snag her heart. But on the day before our wedding, I accidentally stumble upon Maddie's conversation with her childhood friend, where she jokes about the mistakes she's seen in the love letters. "An elementary school student must have written these letters, from the looks of it! He might as well use AI, to begin with!" So, I terminate our wedding and withdraw all the funding my family has given to her company. Maddie can only shriek hysterically in return. "It's just a joke between friends! Must you go so far as to cancel our wedding?" I show her a virtual fortune-telling prediction of our marriage that's drafted by an AI. "You like using AI that much, don't you? Then look at this prediction properly! Our marriage is a huge misfortune! There's no way I'm going to marry a walking jinx like you!"

I was the top engineer at the National Deep-Sea Institute—and the only person in the world with real deep-sea rescue experience. When my younger brother's submarine went down and he called for help from 35,000 feet below, I hung up on him. Then, calm and unhurried, I went straight to the police station and turned myself in for leaking classified research data. A few minutes later, my father called, furious. "Your brother's life is hanging by a thread—where the hell are you?! I demand you to get to the site and save him right now, or you won't see a single penny of the family fortune!" I pulled the blanket over myself and said into the phone, perfectly composed, "Busy. Don't bother me—I'm trying to sleep."

Over the weekend, I went with my best friend to one of the premium auto shops owned by my company to get her car serviced. Just as we were about to leave, someone stopped me and ordered me to wipe down her car. I explained that I didn't work there, but she got angry anyway. She flipped a 10-cent coin at my face. "Consider it an honor that I'm letting you wash my car. A broke girl like you has probably never even seen a luxury car in her life! I'm trying to broaden your horizons, and you're not even grateful?" I shot back, "You're right. I've never met a car owner who can only spare 10 cents. Consider my horizons broadened." She exploded on the spot. "Do you even know who I am? The chairman of the Penzo Group is my mother-in-law! Scared now?" I paused for a beat, then calmly called Leo Penzo. "I hear your mother went behind my back and found you a new wife?"

I ditched a shot at studying abroad to help my boyfriend, Gavin Censori, launch his startup. Stuck it out with him through seven brutal years. Then boom—success hit, and so did the ghosting. On Valentine's Day, he hit me with the classic "work's crazy" excuse. Instead of showing up, he had some random delivery dude drop off a box of cosmetic samples. Samples. Later that night, his secretary Rebecca popped up on my feed, flexing hard. Caption: [With a boss like this, why go home early?] Pic: A box of high-end makeup. Same brand. Hers weren't samples. I dropped a comment: [You're doing great at your sidechick job. Gold star.] Gavin called instantly, losing it. "What's your problem? She's just an employee! I bust my ass making money for you, and you're always jealous!" I laughed. Didn't even yell. Just dumped him. Seven years, and I'd never touched a dime of his. Joke's on him—his precious startup? Secretly bankrolled by me. Fast-forward three years. Business summit. He rolled in wearing a tailored suit. The second he spotted me with a bag of bottles, his smirk kicked in. "Didn't like those cosmetics I gave you, huh? Now look at you—reduced to bottle collecting?"

The day I was about to quit the game, countless floating comments suddenly appeared before my eyes. [Finally! The villainess is quitting!] [Now Janet Cole doesn’t have to worry about getting exposed for using her account to flirt online.] [The heroine is so smart–she always uses voice chat in-game. The villainess has no idea.] [Janet is living the dream–using her max-level account to juggle five top-tier players at once!] [At 2 PM today, she’s meeting her 'No.1 catch'–the cold, untouchable campus heartthrob Cedric Barnes!] [Assassin god tomorrow, rich scion the day after… her time management is insane!] The Janet they were talking about… was the fake heiress who had taken my place in my own family. She had been impersonating me–using my account to flirt with five elite players at once? Then more comments appeared… [Why hasn’t the villainess left yet? The male lead is already waiting.] [This is the first sweet date between the leads–can’t wait!] I turned to look at Janet, touching up her makeup in front of the mirror–and suddenly, it all clicked. The 'villainess' they were talking about… was me. So the real heiress–me–was nothing more than a disposable side character, a stepping stone for the fake one? A faint smile curled on my lips. If she could impersonate me online and play the field, then me showing up in person and stealing everything... wouldn't be too much, right?

Right before the last full-length practice exam ahead of the SAT, my boyfriend, Blake Romero, who had always ranked in the top ten, somehow ended up with a score of zero. His eyes were red as he clung to me, his voice shaking while he said he had developed severe test anxiety. "Samantha, there's no way I'll get in this year. Can you stay back and retake the year with me? I can't do this without you." Looking at how pale he was, I almost gave in. On my way to the school clinic to grab him some meds to calm his nerves, I accidentally overheard him talking to a girl from a poor family. "Blake, what if Samantha finds out you're lying to her?" His voice turned soft, almost indulgent. "Relax. She loves me so much that she would give up anything for me. Even if she finds out, so what? Besides, her family's loaded. Losing a year won't matter to her. Arrington University only has two spots this year. As long as Samantha doesn't take the exam, those spots are ours." Standing outside the door, I felt as if I had just had a bucket of ice poured over me. So this was his plan! He was willing to ruin my future just to clear the way for the girl he really cared about. What he didn't realize was that Arrington University had only ever been my backup, something I chose just to stay by his side. Without him dragging me down, I could aim for something better.