Nuan Qiu

I took a bullet for my husband, Christian. As his loyal shield, it was my duty, but his only concern as I bled out was for his fragile "sister," Gisselle. Days later, we were both kidnapped and trapped on a yacht rigged with a bomb. The captors gave Christian a choice: he could only save one of us. He didn't hesitate. "Save Gisselle first!" he screamed across the water. With her safe, he had the audacity to order me, the wife he'd just condemned to die, to save us all. "Alexandra, the bomb! Disarm it! Now!" After years of taking blows for him, after secretly losing our child while protecting his interests, this was my value? A disposable tool to be used and discarded. I stared at the blinking red light, the seconds ticking away. This time, I wouldn't save him. I would let the world believe I was dead, and finally start living for myself.

For five years, my husband Bennett refused to give me a child, claiming a "Blood Curse" would kill me during childbirth. I believed him. I thought his refusal was the ultimate act of love. That illusion shattered the day I found the surrogacy contract hidden in the gallery archives. There was no curse. There was just Aria—the mistress he paid to carry his legacy while I played the role of the immaculate, barren trophy wife. The truth turned violent when a massive steel sculpture snapped from the gallery ceiling. Bennett had a split second to choose who to save. He didn't look at me. He roared and dove to shield Aria, leaving me to be crushed by the falling beam. I lay bleeding on the marble floor, watching him frantically check her for scratches, completely ignoring my broken body. Even in the hospital, he didn't come. He was too busy playing house with the mother of his future heir. I didn't wait for an apology. I left my wedding ring on the table and vanished to Paris. Six months later, when Bennett finally found me and fell to his knees begging for a second chance, he didn't realize who he was talking to. I wasn't his wife anymore. I was the woman holding the hand of the rival billionaire who had just bought Bennett's empire out from under him.

A week before my wedding, my fiancé' s sister-in-law, Kimberlee, ran me off a bridge. As I lay dying in the wreckage, my fiancé, Deacon, rushed past me to comfort her, barking at the paramedics to prioritize her "superficial" shock over my fatal injuries. He forced my crushed hand to sign a waiver absolving her of all fault, then left me to die in the rain. "She's just trying to get attention," he muttered. "Kimberlee is the priority. She almost died." I watched as a ghost while he ignored the pleas of my colleagues to perform the life-saving surgery I needed. He even told my mentor he wished I were dead. Then, he proposed to Kimberlee with my ring. My love for him finally shattered. I was dead, my career was being destroyed, and my murderer was wearing my ring. But death wasn't the end. It was a front-row seat to their betrayal, and I was tethered to the man who let me die, forced to watch every single moment.

My coming-out party should have been the most glittering night of my life. As Chloe Davis, the Davis fortune' s true heiress, perched at the top of the grand staircase, I was the picture of cool, collected perfection in my silver silk gown. Then, everything shattered. The ballroom' s elegant music died, replaced by gasps as a grainy video flashed across the screens, showing me in a hotel room with a man who was not my fiancé. Humiliation burned through me, absolute and suffocating, as whispers turned to a roar of judgment. I fled, desperate for comfort, to my fiancé Liam Sterling' s penthouse, only to overhear him boast, "She deserved it," revealing the public disgrace was a calculated plan with my adopted sister, Sophia. The world spun, the betrayal a bitter choke in my throat. I escaped his apartment, returning home only to be slapped by my mother and banished to Europe by my parents, who watched with disgust. They had chosen Sophia over me. Days later, Liam appeared at my bedroom door, playing the concerned fiancé, claiming it was all a misunderstanding while Sophia texted me intimate photos of them. My last shred of hope withered when I called him, only to hear Sophia' s seductive voice in the background, telling him to "come back to bed." Then came the ultimate cruelty: Sophia' s staged fall down the stairs, followed by Liam's cold, calculating words to the guards, "Your eyes, Chloe, will be a perfect match." I woke to darkness, bandages covering my eyes. Liam spun a sick tale of my eye being donated to a blind child, while Sophia' s punishment for orchestrating everything was a single day of "grounding." The injustice was a physical weight, but the worst was yet to come. Accused of stealing Sophia' s necklace, I was dragged to an icy pond by Liam who, finding out I was pregnant, forced me into the freezing water to miscarry. I heard him confess afterwards, "Of course I did it on purpose. Now there's nothing standing in our way." The last bit of me broke, replaced by a cold, silent resolve. I called Julian Thorne.

The screech of tires, then black. I woke up in a void, a sterile blue screen floating before me, informing me I was Ava Miller, critically comatose, and tasked with a "Life Reformation" mission. One hundred missions, healing me 1% at a time, fulfilled the regrets of strangers. Ninety-eight down, and I was almost free, almost back to my life, my career, my husband Liam. Then mission 99 dropped. The client: Liam Stone. His request? To erase the public proposal that started our love story in high school. My love story. My heart pounded, disbelieving. It had to be a cruel twist, a cosmic joke. But then his tired, weary voice filled the silence. "I'm just so, so tired of this marriage. Seeing you lying in that bed... it's a burden. The whole thing was a mistake. Ava was always a bit much, so intense, so dramatic. Chloe was just... easy." And the final blow: "She let herself go even before the accident. There were stretch marks on her stomach... she looks like a corpse." He was speaking about me, the unconscious woman he vowed to cherish. The vibrant, loving man I married found my very existence sickening. The betrayal was a physical ache, a venomous poison seeping into my core. All my efforts, all my pain, all the lives I had changed-just to get back to him, only for him to declare me an intolerable burden, a mistake he wished to undo. A cold, hard resolve crystallized within me. He had shattered my heart, but he wouldn't take my life with it. My path to waking up, my only hope, depended on fulfilling his cruel, humiliating wish. With trembling fingers, I typed my reply: "I'll do it."

The last thing I remembered from my first life was the cold, damp despair of a prison cell. I was Dr. Ethan Blackwood, once a celebrated heart surgeon, slowly dying from a treatable infection. My life ended because of a single surgery, a complex heart transplant, and the betrayal of my ex-wife, Dr. Olivia Hayes, and her protégé, Liam Davis. They stitched a narrative of my instability and rage, painting me as a villain who abandoned his patient for personal vendettas, leading to Councilman Thompson' s death. I was convicted of medical malpractice and involuntary manslaughter, my license revoked, my reputation shattered, my life utterly destroyed. How could my trusted colleagues, who witnessed the truth, stand by and let such an egregious lie destroy me? Then, my eyes snapped open. I was back. In scrubs. Standing in the scrub room next to Operating Room 3, on the very day the tragedy had first unfolded.

The shrill alarm sliced through the quiet, dragging me back to a body that felt impossibly light, unmarked by the scars that should have been there. I was 24 again, in the apartment Liam rented, a year before our wedding, a year before everything fell apart. The memory hit like a cold shock: Liam' s voice, not of concern, but sharp with disappointment after my liposuction failed. "Chloe, the doctor said the liposuction failed. You didn't lose enough weight. The wedding is in two months. Do you understand how this makes me look?" And Maya, my best friend, whispering comfort that I now knew was pure poison. "Oh, Chloe, don't listen to him. You tried so hard. Maybe your body just isn't meant to be thin." She watched, smiling, as I starved myself, ran myself ragged, and went under the knife, all for Liam' s "perfect image"-until a post-op infection finally claimed me. It wasn't until I was dying that I understood the curse, the horrifying truth: every ounce of fat I lost, every bit of vitality I drained from myself, was subtly transferred to Maya. She wasn't just my best friend; she was a parasite, feeding on my self-hatred, growing more radiant as I withered. But I wasn't the weak, naive Chloe who died in that hospital bed. This time, I knew their cruel game. And this time, I wasn't just going to play. I was going to win.

The hiss of my espresso machine was a familiar comfort, a stark contrast to the storm brewing inside me. For five years, my marriage to Ethan, a renowned OB/GYN, was built on a promise: no kids, just us. My childhood trauma, the sterile scent of a hospital from losing my sister in childbirth, etched a deep fear in my soul. But I loved Ethan, enough to face my deepest fear. I secretly stopped my birth control, and this morning, two pink lines screamed hope. I bought tiny white sneakers, drove to his clinic, my heart pounding with dreams of his joy. Then I saw him through the window. His hand wasn' t on a chart, but on Chloe Davis, a pregnant intern' s, swollen belly. His head was bent low, his expression tenderness I' d only dreamed of. And on her wrist, a silver key charm-the matching half to my anniversary locket. The gift box slipped, the sneakers tumbling onto the dirty concrete. He came home later, all smiles for his "rough pregnancy" patient. "Who is she, Ethan?" I asked, my voice flat. He fed me a practiced lie, but I'd seen him. I'd seen the key. He confessed it had been going on for a year, a year of endless lies. The conferences, the late nights, all of it a sickening charade. "My parents... the pressure for a grandchild," he stammered, painting me as the villain. His words were a physical blow, turning my pain into pure fury. That night, my world crumbled further as his parents, Richard and Eleanor Hayes, swept into my home. "To think you would suggest terminating our grandchild," Eleanor sneered, revealing their cruel plot: they had orchestrated Chloe and Ethan' s affair to secure a grandchild. Then, she tagged me in an Instagram post-a beaming Chloe, a sonogram, Ethan' s arm around her. "Welcoming our grandson, Arthur Hayes," the caption read, stealing the name I' d whispered to Ethan in a moment of shared dreams. Chloe burst in, screaming accusations of my trying to ruin her life, then feigned a dramatic fall at my feet. Ethan kneeled, cradling her, then looked up at me, his face contorted in rage. "You're insane? You're trying to kill my child!" he screamed. The sharp, twisting pain in my abdomen returned, more intense than ever. A warm, wet sensation spread, staining my pants. Blood. My baby. Our baby. The one I had dared to hope for. They were all focused on Chloe, the fake victim. No one saw me, clutching my stomach, as my life' s greatest hope bled out onto the floor. I was completely, utterly alone in my loss.

The phone felt cold against my ear, a stark contrast to the Texas heat. My fiancée Jennifer' s voice, usually sweet, was sharp and demanding. "Ethan, I need $100,000 for the influencer party in Miami. Wes says it' s our big break. It' s an advance on our wedding fund!" My heart stopped. This was it. The exact moment. In my last life, this call was the beginning of the end. I remembered giving in then, selling my classic Mustang, draining my 401k, even taking out a high-interest loan – all to cover the hole she blew in our company' s marketing budget that could have sent her to prison. I remembered the twenty years of a miserable marriage, her constant contempt, and the daughter I loved more than anything, who looked at me with her mother' s resentful eyes, ultimately revealing she wasn't mine at all. Then the final memory flashed: the rising water, the rescue boat, and her face, a mask of false grief, telling the rescuer, "He' s already gone, the water took him." My own daughter, her voice clear over the storm, whispered, "It' s for the best, Mom. If it wasn' t for him, we would' ve been a real family with Dad Wes years ago." They left me there. They left me to drown. But I'm not that man anymore. This time, as her voice shrieked through the phone, demanding I say something, I took a deep breath. And I said it. "No."

Sarah counted down the hours to college, her scholarship a golden ticket out of her small Texas town and the suffocating grip of her mother, Brenda. Tomorrow meant freedom, a normal life beyond shapeless dresses and severe buns insisted upon by Brenda, whose piety was a performance for her church group, the "Sisters of Serenity." A private act of rebellion-a choppy haircut, a hidden pair of jeans-was meant to be Sarah's quiet transformation. But Brenda, discovering the defiant snips and forbidden clothing, erupted in a terrifying rage, shredding Sarah's new life before it could even begin, threatening to revoke her scholarship. The college drop-off became a public crucifixion: Brenda' s saccharine pronouncements about Sarah's "delicate nature" branded her an oddity, instantly isolating her from bewildered peers. Brenda's control extended hundreds of miles: she seized Sarah's hard-earned money, tailed her every move during orientation, and poisoned every burgeoning friendship with her omnipresent, humiliating presence. Sarah' s meticulously planned escape had become a new, larger cage, leaving her utterly despairing, smothered by a mother who saw her not as a daughter to love, but a possession to dominate. How could her own mother, the one who preached grace, systematically dismantle every shred of her identity, trapping her with financial dependency and public scorn? When Brenda, in a desperate attempt to redeem her public image, planned to expose Sarah's "rebellion" on the notorious reality TV show "Family Reset." Sarah saw her chance: she wouldn't merely play Brenda's victim; she would turn the cameras on her mother, prepared to expose years of emotional abuse and dismantle Brenda' s carefully constructed façade, live on national television.

For three years, I was Elara Vance, First Lady, the quiet power behind Governor Ethan Vance, a man who owed his very political life and success to me and to the ancient, mystical traditions of my people, the Keepers of Echoing Hollow. But everything shattered with the arrival of Veronica Hayes, his deceased fiancée' s sister, who, visibly pregnant with his child, orchestrated the brutal, unthinkable sacrifice of my newborn son to the Crimson Ash trees, a horror Ethan chillingly endorsed as my "atonement." He then unleashed a relentless, state-sanctioned purge on my innocent people, slaughtering my kin, desecrating our sacred communal grounds, and reducing me, his wife and the mother of his dead child, to a prisoner in my own mansion, utterly isolated and stripped of dignity. The final, unbearable slap came when he demanded I offer my own blood to soothe Veronica's manufactured anxieties, twisting my revered spiritual heritage into a degrading commodity. How could the man who begged for my help, who swore eternal love, betray me so utterly, turning our son's death into a weapon and my spiritual essence into a grotesque offering for his new lover? But then, gifted with the potent, ephemeral strength of the ancient Ghost Root, I refused to break. With a defiant slash across my arm, staining Veronica's pristine carpet with my blood, I signaled the end of my quiet compliance, embarking instead on All Souls' Eve upon a haunting, spectral journey to reclaim the seventy-two fallen spirits of my people and lead them, at last, back to sacred ground.

Our wedding was just three days away in scenic Napa Valley, a dream about to unfold. I, Ethan Walker, an architect, was set to marry Izzy, the beautiful heiress to half the valley, and adopt her sweet daughter, Lily, into our loving family. Everything seemed perfectly aligned for our bright future. Then, a sudden, blinding flash, the roar of an engine, and a devastating crash ripped my world apart. I woke up in a hospital, my body a lead weight, numb agony filling me; my legs, utterly unresponsive. But the true nightmare began when I overheard Izzy, my fiancée, whispering to her family doctor. She chillingly discussed delaying my critical spinal surgery to ensure I remained permanently paralyzed and utterly dependent on her. Then came the even more horrifying detail: a secret, untraceable vasectomy to take place while I was under anesthesia. All of it was meticulously planned to secure total control over me, paving the way for her ex-lover Marcus and his daughter Lily to inherit the vast Rossi fortune, with me reduced to a grateful, silent placeholder. The words washed over me, a tidal wave of betrayal that eclipsed all physical pain, leaving me frozen in a silent scream. I was just a pawn in her elaborate, monstrous game, a convenient obstacle to be eliminated and erased. How could the woman who claimed to love me, who was about to become my wife, orchestrate such calculated, soul-crushing malice? Feigning unconsciousness, a cold, unyielding resolve crystallized within my shattered heart. They thought they had trapped me, broken me, but they had just awakened something far more dangerous. I would orchestrate my own disappearance, rise from the wreckage, and reclaim not just my mobility, but a freedom they never intended for me to have. The architect of betrayal would soon face the ghost she created.

My husband, Alex, was the love of my life, a man whose quiet devotion always amazed me. I, Sarah, a surgical resident, believed our love was built on mutual respect and shared dreams. Then Kevin, Alex’s sickly brother, needed an urgent heart transplant, and the family turned to Alex, expecting him to donate his 'spare' heart. Alex claimed he only had one left, even providing recent medical scans, but I, burdened by professional duty and family pressure, dismissed his pleas as selfish lies. We'd always known he had two hearts, a miracle he was meant to share. As one of the surgeons, I participated in the procedure, unknowingly cutting out the only heart he had left for his brother. Alex died on the operating table, his passing a mere inconvenience, dismissed as stress or an expected outcome of his "unique physiology," while I focused on Kevin's survival, believing that Alex had merely "left" the hospital later. The crushing truth hit me like a scalpel to the chest when my former mentor, Dr. Albright, casually revealed I was the recipient of Alex’s *first* heart, years ago. Alex’s last words echoed: "My other heart… it's with you, Sarah." The man I loved, the man who’d already saved my life, died by my hand because I believed he was a liar. But the nightmare intensified. On Alex’s phone, I found texts from Kevin – a chilling chronicle of psychological torment, proving he knew Alex only had one heart and deliberately manipulated me into dismissing his truth. That’s when my grief turned to absolute fury. I marched back to Kevin’s room, not for answers, but for retribution.

The call came late, just as I was about to ice my leg, a throbbing reminder of my past tours. My fiancée, Sarah, was mugged, and her terrified voice sealed my resolve to protect her, always. Our wedding, even just days away, solidified my belief in our future, and I thought she felt the same. Months later, her ‘high-risk’ pregnancy was demanding, but I cherished the thought of our baby. Until I came home early one day, expecting to surprise her, and found her on a video call in the nursery. With Dave. My sleazy cousin Dave, who was supposed to be out of state. His slick voice echoed, "Our little jackpot is almost here! Good thing you pulled off that ‘mugging’ story. Mike bought it hook, line, and sinker." Sarah giggled, "He still doesn’t know we’ve been together since before he proposed. He’s too noble for his own good." My world shattered. The woman I’d pledged my life to, the baby I was so ready to father, Aunt Carol’s property, even my company funds – all were just parts of their cold, calculated con. The love, the sacrifice, everything built on a monstrous lie. The pain was searing, but beneath it, a chilling resolve ignited. I wouldn't break. I wouldn't let them win. I called my lawyer, then I called about a high-danger contract overseas, the one I’d turned down for ‘our’ baby. It was time to sever ties, escape, and then, deliver retribution.

Molly fell from grace on her eighteenth birthday. A policeman brought her the dire news of her parents' car accident- her father was presumed dead, while her mother was in a coma. Her mother's medical bills had to be paid and Molly had nothing but her youth to sell. Vito bought her for ten million at an auction. Little did Molly know that this was the beginning of his plan for revenge. When she turned twenty, he asked for her hand in marriage. In this way, he would be able to make sure that he destroyed her happiness forever.

Elliana, the unfavored "ugly duckling" of her family, was humiliated by her stepsister, Paige, who everyone admired. Paige, engaged to the CEO Cole, was the perfect woman-until Cole married Elliana on the day of the wedding. Shocked, everyone wondered why he chose the "ugly" woman. As they waited for her to be cast aside, Elliana stunned everyone by revealing her true identity: a miracle healer, financial mogul, appraisal prodigy, and AI genius. When her mistreatment became known, Cole revealed Elliana's stunning, makeup-free photo, sending shockwaves through the media. "My wife doesn't need anyone's approval."

"Stella once savored Marc's devotion, yet his covert cruelty cut deep. She torched their wedding portrait at his feet while he sent flirty messages to his mistress. With her chest tight and eyes blazing, Stella delivered a sharp slap. Then she deleted her identity, signed onto a classified research mission, vanished without a trace, and left him a hidden bombshell. On launch day she vanished; that same dawn Marc's empire crumbled. All he unearthed was her death certificate, and he shattered. When they met again, a gala spotlighted Stella beside a tycoon. Marc begged. With a smirk, she said, ""Out of your league, darling."

For three quiet, patient years, Christina kept house, only to be coldly discarded by the man she once trusted. Instead, he paraded a new lover, making her the punchline of every town joke. Liberated, she honed her long-ignored gifts, astonishing the town with triumph after gleaming triumph. Upon discovering she'd been a treasure all along, her ex-husband's regret drove him to pursue her. "Honey, let's get back together!" With a cold smirk, Christina spat, "Fuck off." A silken-suited mogul slipped an arm around her waist. "She's married to me now. Guards, get him the hell out of here!"

After five years of playing the perfect daughter, Rylie was exposed as a stand-in. Her fiancé bolted, friends scattered, and her adoptive brothers shoved her out, telling her to grovel back to her real family. Done with humiliation, she swore to claw back what was hers. Shock followed: her birth family ruled the town's wealth. Overnight, she became their precious girl. The boardroom brother canceled meetings, the genius brother ditched his lab, the musician brother postponed a tour. As those who spurned her begged forgiveness, Admiral Brad Morgan calmly declared, "She's already taken."

Sunlit hours found their affection glimmering, while moonlit nights ignited reckless desire. But when Brandon learned his beloved might last only half a year, he coolly handed Millie divorce papers, murmuring, "This is all for appearances; we'll get married again once she's calmed down." Millie, spine straight and cheeks dry, felt her pulse go hollow. The sham split grew permanent; she quietly ended their unborn child and stepped into a new beginning. Brandon unraveled, his car tearing down the street, unwilling to let go of the woman he'd discarded, pleading for her to look back just once.

In their previous lives, Gracie married Theo. Outwardly, they were the perfect academic couple, but privately, she became nothing more than a stepping stone for his ambition, and met a tragic end. Her younger sister Ellie wed Brayden, only to be abandoned for his true love, left alone and disgraced. This time, both sisters were reborn. Ellie rushed to marry Theo, chasing the success Gracie once had-unaware she was repeating the same heartbreak. Gracie instead entered a contract marriage with Brayden. But when danger struck, he defended her fiercely. Could fate finally rewrite their tragic endings?

Linsey was stood up by her groom to run off with another woman. Furious, she grabbed a random stranger and declared, "Let's get married!" She had acted on impulse, realizing too late that her new husband was the notorious rascal, Collin. The public laughed at her, and even her runaway ex offered to reconcile. But Linsey scoffed at him. "My husband and I are very much in love!" Everyone thought she was delusional. Then Collin was revealed to be the richest man in the world. In front of everyone, he got down on one knee and held up a stunning diamond ring. "I look forward to our forever, honey."

Maia grew up a pampered heiress-until the real daughter returned and framed her, sending Maia to prison with help from her fiancé and family. Four years later, free and married to Chris, a notorious outcast, everyone assumed Maia was finished. They soon discovered she was secretly a famed jeweler, elite hacker, celebrity chef, and top game designer. As her former family begged for help, Chris smiled calmly. "Honey, let's go home." Only then did Maia realize her "useless" husband was a legendary tycoon who'd adored her from the start.

The whispers said that out of bitter jealousy, Hadley shoved Eric's beloved down the stairs, robbing the unborn child of life. To avenge, Eric forced Hadley abroad and completely cut her off. Years later, she reemerged, and they felt like strangers. When they met again, she was the nightclub's star, with men ready to pay fortunes just to glimpse her elusive performance. Unable to contain himself, Eric blocked her path, asking, "Is this truly how you earn a living now? Why not come back to me?" Hadley's lips curved faintly. "If you’re eager to see me, you’d better join the queue, darling."

Blinded in a crash, Cary was rejected by every socialite—except Evelina, who married him without hesitation. Three years later, he regained his sight and ended their marriage. "We’ve already lost so many years. I won’t let her waste another one on me." Evelina signed the divorce papers without a word. Everyone mocked her fall—until they discovered that the miracle doctor, jewelry mogul, stock genius, top hacker, and the President's true daughter… were all her. When Cary came crawling back, a ruthless tycoon had him kicked out. "She's my wife now. Get lost."