Waiter Story

I married a guy thirty-two years older than I am. Reason? Money. We got divorced, I got all his money and became the city's richest person. Just when my luck was starting to turn, I was hit with devastating news. My ex died. Drowned, they said. The cops think I'm the killer.

I worked as a waitress in a small-town diner, but I put my husband Tom through Harvard Law School. But after he graduated, when I was eight months pregnant, he divorced with me and married my best friend, Sarah. On their wedding day, I didn't cry or make a scene. Instead, I went to work as their housekeeper. Tom thought my love made me easy to control. Sarah treated me like dirt, thinking I was born to serve. I never complained – I just prepared a surprise for them. But when their daughter was admitted to Harvard, they opened the surprise and went crazy.

Midnight. I heard a faint meowing through the window. I was about to have a look when floating words appeared in front of me. [Don't open the window! There isn't a cat outside! It's a serial killer!] [I'm done. How could the side character be so dumb? I can already imagine how tragic her death will be.] [Go and find the villain! He loves you so much! He will surely protect you!] I quickly retracted my hand on the window latch…

I secretly invite my in-laws over for the New Year, hoping to surprise my husband, Huxley Carlson. But the moment my father-in-law steps through the door, Huxley's secretary shoves him out. He slams into the shoe cabinet, throwing out his back. She sneers. "Who do you beggars think you are, strolling into Mr. Carlson's villa like this? You're this broke and still have the nerve to call yourself his father-in-law?" I immediately call for the housekeeper to help him, but the secretary blocks her. She even shoves my mother-in-law. "You really think you're the lady of the house?" she snaps. "Mr. Carlson hired the housekeeper to serve him, not to waste time on you or your useless parents." My mother-in-law is so enraged that she suffers a heart attack on the spot. I call Huxley in a panic, begging him to come to the hospital. But he sounds utterly unmoved. His voice is cold and mocking as he says, "Jen told me what happened. The nerve of you, bringing your parents to my house! Now you want me to rush to the hospital because your mom's pretending to be sick? "Tell them to get out! If she dies, she dies. Hell, maybe it's a blessing—just in time for the New Year!"

The housekeeper became my stepmother, and together with her son, they humiliated and murdered me. After being reborn, I exposed a video of her affair with her lover at her wedding, destroying her reputation completely. I watched as she and her son were kicked out. They left with nothing, wandering the streets like outcasts. I smiled and tossed a moldy piece of bread into their begging bowl. “This is all you deserve.”

The powerful Will Hudson, Bardou City's untouchable kingmaker, was set to marry my sister. Everyone said he was a monster, a man broken in body and mind, that marrying him was no different from stepping into hell itself. My sister, Carrie Wheaton, wept as if her heart would break. I pulled her aside and said, "I'll marry him for you. But in return, you'll stay in the countryside and guard the safe buried beneath Mom's grave. For three years, you mustn't open it." She thought it held a fortune—billions, perhaps—and joy lit up her face. She agreed without hesitation. I watched her greedy expression twist with excitement and couldn't help the cold smile that rose within me. 'Carrie, guard it well. Let's see if you can handle the kind of fortune that can destroy you.'

My car was passing by the entrance of the office when I saw both my sisters 'wrestling' vigorously with a bum. I wasn't surprised, however, even recording a video of it and sending it to the biggest news outlet of the country, saying, "I want it seen across the world before 7pm." After all, in my last life, those two sisters were so keen to please Harold Langford that they allowed him to steal my birthright all he wanted. I bore with it because they were family, and ended up resting in pieces. But now that I had a second chance, I would return the favor. At the company gala, Harold once again took my seat as he snorted at me haughtily. "Hmph! If Ellie and Jennie didn't insist on showing you how the world works, a poor college student like you wouldn't even make it through the front door!" "Know your place and don't cause me trouble, or they will have you beaten to a pulp!" Seeing that he was still running his mouth, I kicked him three feet away as I chuckled. "Who do you think you are? How dare you strut when you're just a gigolo who only knows how to please hags!"

When my four sons were finally old enough for preschool, I arrived at the school office with my marriage certificate and their birth certificates, ready to sign them up. But the lady at the counter frowned and said, "These documents don't check out. According to the system, your kids don't even exist." I felt as if the floor had dropped out from under me. I remembered when Sheldon Clem and I got married—he was the one who handled all the paperwork, the birth registrations, everything. I never imagined that when I tracked him down with our four boys, he'd be holding his childhood sweetheart in his arms, with her little girl snuggled against him. And then we heard him sweet-talking her right in front of us. "Don't be mad, babe. I've got everything set up for us overseas. Gigi is going to the most expensive private school, and you'll be living in the nicest penthouse downtown. "Sure, she gave me four sons, but all my love and money are with you. I only kept her around because I felt sorry for her. "What else do you need? My will's already signed. Everything goes to you and Gigi." Riley Anderson pouted, smug and satisfied. "If you don't love her, then she's the other woman, not me. She's got no right to fight me for anything!" So he never went bankrupt. When we got back home, Sheldon acted as if nothing had happened. "Honey, I've found this amazing project overseas, so I won't have time to come home much. I'll need you to hold down the fort at home." I smiled and nodded. "Sure, go ahead." If that was how he wanted to play this, then fine. I'd make sure he really went broke, and then I'd find my boys a new father.

After being betrayed by her boyfriend and stepsister, Faye Brown married a hotel waiter on a whim. For a while, she thought her life would turn out to be yet another clichéd script of a rich beauty rescuing a poor guy from the trenches of poverty before her husband, Cedric Shaw, turns out to be a billionaire instead. As their true identities gradually unveil, Faye and Cedric find the realities they once knew and believed unraveling at its seams. How much of what they thought was true are, in fact, lies? More importantly, could this impromptu masquerade be a quest for true love instead?

My boyfriend's childhood sweetheart bound herself to a transfer system: everything she ate would be redirected straight into my stomach. She opened a streaming account and broadcast herself eating for twelve hours straight. She earned a fortune. Meanwhile, I collapsed with acute pancreatitis and was rushed to the hospital. When I explained the situation to my boyfriend, he only stared at me like I was insane. "How could something that absurd exist? If food could really be transferred, no one in the world would ever starve. You're just jealous that she's making money from streaming." After that, every time his childhood sweetheart went live, I ended up hospitalized again. I kept hovering between life and death. I sought medical help, but the doctors couldn't explain my condition. Some even wanted to commit me to a psychiatric ward. Then, one day, in order to outdo her rivals in a PK match, she devoured ten pounds of rice in a single sitting. At that very moment, my spleen and stomach ruptured, and I bled to death on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of her very first livestream. This time, I was prepared. I rushed out and bought twenty takeout meals. "This time," I said, "I'll eat first."