Scumbag

After Nathan Seville stands me up for the seventh time we're supposed to register our marriage, I finally cut all ties with him—completely and on my own terms. If he shows up at a gathering, I don't go. If he's invited to perform at the college anniversary, I leave early. The moment my company decides to work with him, I resign on the spot. Even on Christmas Eve, when he shows up at my house with gifts, I make up an excuse about needing to visit someone. Calls? Blocked. Socials? Deleted. My strategy is simple—cut it all off. I don't reach out, and he has no way of finding me. For the first 30 years of my life, I spent most of it loving him with everything I had. I cared for him, supported him, and waited for him. But after being left hanging for the seventh time at the City Hall, I finally wake up. I don't want to live like this anymore. Even if I end up alone, it's still better than spending night after night waiting in an empty house that never feels like home!

In my previous cycle, when I graduated from university, my cousin Laura gave me a gramophone. But after I received the gramophone, accidents kept befalling my family. In the end, even my boyfriend betrayed me to be with her. It was only then that I learned that all of this was my cousin’s scheme. After I got to the current cycle, I pretended to accept my cousin’s present but never used the gramophone. It led to the curse delivering such a vicious backlash to my cousin and her entire family that they died.

My husband has asthenospermia, so we decide to try IVF. Before the embryos are combined, I catch my husband switching my ovum out for his true love's. I don't say anything and switch them back. At the same time, I switch my husband's sample out for my ex-boyfriend's. 25 years later, my husband's true love comes knocking. She holds my daughter's hands and weeps while saying, "I'm your mother, my darling!"

Elijah Morris has been fooling around for four out of the five years we've been married. And from the very first month, he openly betrays me. Meanwhile, I spend my time warding people off with expensive contracts, one after another. Eventually, all that's left between us is constant fighting. One day, his younger stepsister, Abigail Wright, returns. And just like that, he finally settles down. That's when the system tells me that I can finally go home. For the next five days, I no longer ask about his schedule. I don't care if he is with Abigail, nor do I care if she is pregnant with his child. I even move out of the master bedroom myself, listening to them going at it all night. The fifth day after Abigail's return is our wedding anniversary. Elijah bursts into the room, tears up our marriage certificate in front of me, and smashes my most treasured vase into pieces. He grips my throat tightly and growls, "Why did you put mango in Abby's cake? She's allergic, and she almost died! How could you be so cruel?" For the first time, I don't argue with him. Instead, I go along with his accusations. "So what?" I then pick up a shard from the broken vase on the floor under his disbelieving gaze. Then, I draw it across my artery. Just like that, I end my life in this world.

After being married for seven years, my husband, Samuel Ford, falls for Maggie Burner, his company's new accountant. He says, "It's only upon meeting her that I realize what love is." For the sake of his love, he allows Maggie to anger my aunt, who's gravely ill. She subsequently dies. He also stands by and watches as Maggie locks our four-year-old daughter in the car, leading to her asphyxiation. I lose all hope in life and ram my car at Samuel and Maggie. We die together. When I open my eyes, I realize that I've traveled seven years into the past. It's me and Samuel's wedding day. The officiant gives a speech, then asks, "Do you, Samuel Ford, take Penelope Waterworth to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?" Samuel is taken aback. Then, he flings my hand aside and says coldly, "No, I don't." I lower my head to conceal the emotions in my eyes. What a coincidence—I don't want to marry him, either.

On our first wedding anniversary, my husband came home with a woman who was six months pregnant. He introduced her as his cousin, someone who had fallen on hard times, and asked me to take care of her. I was just about to agree when fragments of imaginary commentary floated through my mind: [She's just my 'cousin'. Uh-uh, that's a cliche.] [Poor supporting female character! A maid by day, the husband's bedwarmer by night.] [But she totally deserved it! If she hadn't broken up the main couple, they'd have a whole soccer team of kids by now!] Wait—what? Supporting female character? Me? And what's this about breaking them up? So now these two get to cheat under my roof, and somehow I'm the villain? Before I could process it all, my husband was already dragging her luggage inside. "Alice doesn't like fried food," he said matter-of-factly. "And nothing too salty or spicy. Make sure you keep that in mind when you're cooking. "Oh, and pregnant women love sweets. Go out now and buy a cherry cake. The one from that bakery in the suburbs."

At my engagement ceremony, Luke Brown's first love suddenly appeared. He kissed her right in front of everyone and rekindled their old romance. "I'm sorry, Claire. I can't lie to myself," he said to me. "No matter how hard you try, you'll never be her." The ceremony turned into a joke. But later, when the most powerful man in Grento took my hand, Luke finally panicked. "Wait, the one you love is me," he said. Anderson Brown chuckled and pulled me into his arms. "Allow me to introduce my wife, Claire West."

My boyfriend was both poor and mute, yet we were deeply in love. When the earthquake struck, he clawed at the rubble with his bare hands to save me. His ten fingers were reduced to raw, bloody stumps. I worked three jobs just to support him, often pushing myself to the brink of exhaustion. Most days, I was so hungry I fainted. But I never imagined the truth—he had only pretended to be mute to deceive me. And he wasn’t poor at all. In fact, he was the wealthiest man in the city. He could casually order a Ferrari worth millions for his first love, without so much as a second thought. Yet he spent the 10,000 dollars I had painstakingly saved on a handbag for her, leaving me unable to pay for my grandmother’s surgery. She died, helpless and in agony.

My childhood friend called, saying he was trapped in a fire. He wanted to hear my voice one last time, and I rushed to the scene as fast as I could. But in that small, blazing spot, there was only a cat. Stumbling, I got the cat out, but my arms got burned. A crowd gathered, pointing at me and laughing hysterically. "She actually went for it?" "What a simp, risking her life like that!" Safe and sound, Colin Porter stepped out of the crowd with a grin. He picked up the cat from my arms and handed it to his crush. "See? I told you the cat would be fine. When have I ever lied to you?" Turning back to me, he said, "The cat got spooked and ran into the fire. We didn't know what to do, so we called you. Thank you for your help." The people around us snickered, like they were watching a trained dog. Later, on my wedding day, my husband carried me to the car. Colin, dragging his burned, bloody legs, crawled on the ground. He begged, "I'm hurt, Selena! Come help me!"

I had been dating Andy Lawson for five years. He had gone bankrupt, and during the worst of it, we had to sleep in parks and scavenge leftovers for food. After a hundred days of that life, I was just going to the blackmarket to sell some blood for money when someone sent me a video. [Surprise.] It was a livestream site, set up for rich kids to prank the common folk—and a video of me was pinned to the top. My finger trembling, I tapped on it and saw myself hidden in a corner of a park, munching on leftovers to nourish my frail body. On the split video, Andy was reclining against the armchair of a five-star hotel and savoring his gourmet menu. "Oh, this is amazing! All Andy has to do is say that he's sick, and she's selling her blood for him!" "On the sixteenth prank, she fell into the ocean… And on the fifteenth, she was sent flying in a car crash! Why is she so hard to kill?" "Well, Andy already made it clear that if she survives until the end, he will marry her and swear off women!" "One month to go! Will she die from the pranks, or marry into the Lawson family with pomp and circumstance?" "I'm betting fifty mil that she dies tragically! Hahaha!"