Xiao Mao Mao

For three years, I documented the slow death of my marriage in a black journal. It was my 100-point divorce plan: for every time my husband, Blake, chose his first love, Ariana, over me, I deducted points. When the score hit zero, I would leave. The final points vanished the night he left me bleeding out from a car crash. I was eight weeks pregnant with the child we had prayed for. In the ER, the nurses frantically called him-the star surgeon of the very hospital I was dying in. "Dr. Santos, we have a Jane Doe, O-negative, bleeding out. She's pregnant, and we're about to lose them both. We need you to authorize an emergency blood transfer." His voice came over the speaker, cold and impatient. "I can't. My priority is Miss Whitfield. Do what you can for the patient, but I can't divert anything right now." He hung up. He condemned his own child to death to ensure his ex-girlfriend had resources on standby after a minor procedure.

I woke up ten days after being reborn, right on the day of my engagement to the ambitious prosecutor, Barrett. Before the ceremony, my illegitimate half-sister, Karly, intercepted my heirloom brooch. Also reborn, she smugly stole my fiancé, desperate for the glorious future of a powerful politician's wife. "He needs a wife who can help him rise, not an empty porcelain doll." She didn't know that in our past life, Barrett had ruthlessly traded me to a terrifying Mafia Don just to secure his political future. I happily let her take my nightmare, but my brief taste of freedom shattered instantly. To maintain power, my family's Matriarch ruthlessly married me off to the notorious Carney mafia family instead. On my wedding night, my playboy husband abandoned me for his screaming mistress, leaving me completely humiliated in front of the entire estate. The next morning, my vicious mother-in-law tried to hand me the family's financial ledgers. It looked like the ultimate power, but I knew it was a gilded trap meant to make me the scapegoat for their rotting, bankrupt syndicate. Karly paraded her perfect new life, waiting for me to be devoured by the underworld. My new in-laws laid deadly traps at every turn, expecting me to quietly drown with their sinking ship. Even the Dark Don of Chicago was stalking me from the shadows, furious that I had been given to another man. Everyone thought I was just a helpless pawn trapped in a monster's cage. But I was no longer the naive girl from my past life. Since they decided to throw me to the wolves, I would make sure I had the teeth to tear this whole world down.

My husband, Dalton, publicly humiliated me for the tenth time, flaunting his pregnant mistress, Justine, at a conference for the company I built. I was trapped, paying for my mother' s endless medical bills. But then Justine took it a step further. She went to my mother' s hospital and cruelly told her everything-all the affairs, all my sacrifices. My mother, in her despair, jumped from the rooftop. At the funeral, Justine crashed the service with a brass band, showering my mother' s casket with confetti. "She's just trying to be thoughtful!" Dalton yelled, shielding her as I lunged forward in a blind rage. He shoved me back, his eyes blazing. "Don't you dare touch her! She's carrying my child!" He raised his hand to strike me, and I braced for the impact, my world completely shattered. But the blow never landed. A chillingly calm, powerful voice cut through the chaos. "I wouldn't advise that, Dalton." My estranged, billionaire father had just arrived.

I flew to London with a custom engagement ring, ready to surprise my boyfriend for our anniversary. Instead, I found him wearing a matching "couple's bracelet" with his "anxious" female best friend, Britney. He even ditched our anniversary dinner because she had a "panic attack" over a chipped nail. Realizing I was the third wheel in my own relationship, I quietly transferred to a university in Berlin to escape. But Graham wouldn't let go. He followed me across the continent, dragging my mother along to guilt-trip me into coming back. When that didn't work, he handed me a "farewell gift." As I opened the box, a sickly sweet smell hit me-he was trying to drug me to kidnap me back to New York. My legs gave out, but I didn't hit the floor. I fell into the arms of Harrison McKee-Britney's terrifyingly powerful uncle and my new professor. "Find another side chick, Graham," Harrison growled, pulling me close. "This one is taken."

I had been dead for a year, my spirit tethered to my daughter, Emma, watching over her in the orphanage. Then, the director called my ex-husband, Elroy, for Emma' s urgent medical treatment, but he coldly refused, telling her, "Then let her die. It would be a convenience. She can go join her short-lived mother." A week later, Emma died at five years old, because her father wouldn' t spare the money to save her. Days later, Elroy arrived at the orphanage, believing I had faked Emma' s death to manipulate him. He pulled back the sheet covering her small body, sneering, "Very realistic. A good prop." He then picked up our daughter' s body, carried her outside, and tossed her into a dumpster, scattering raw meat around it, taunting, "Let's see how long this prop lasts when the stray dogs find it." My spirit screamed, but I was powerless as dogs tore at her. He believed I was alive, orchestrating a sick game, but I was a ghost, a silent, screaming witness to his monstrous cruelty. Why did he hate us so much? Then, I saw him with Ivonne, his childhood sweetheart, heavily pregnant, and the horrifying truth clicked: he had a new family, and he wanted Emma' s heart for his new daughter.

For twenty years, all Ava Lewis wanted was to find her biological family, the missing piece of her identity. When her adopted sister, Brittany Miller, beamed and said, "Almost there, Ava. You're going to love our old town. It's where all the family traditions started," Ava believed it was the start of something beautiful. But the moment they stepped out of the car at a secluded, dark cabin, the loving facade shattered. Two burly men appeared, seizing her arms as her "parents" stood by, their faces blank, their smiles gone. "Don't fight it, Ava," Brittany's voice was chillingly cold. "It'll be easier if you just cooperate." Dragged inside, bound to a chair, Ava watched in horror as Brittany approached with a strange, ancient device, a needle glinting. "This is our family tradition," Brittany explained, piercing Ava's chest. "We are connecting your life force to this ancient family relic. It will bring us good fortune and health." Her "parents" chimed in, "It's your duty as our daughter." Ava' s life force drained away with each transfer, leaving her hollow and weak, while her biological family seemingly thrived. But after the forty-ninth transfer, the truth, colder and crueler than any physical pain, was revealed: "That's the point," Brittany whispered, a malicious smile twisting her lips. "This was never about health. It was about your death." Bound, exposed, bleeding, Ava realized she was merely a product, auctioned off to the highest bidder for their depraved entertainment. Then he appeared, "the Master," a man who seemed to stop the horror, only to brand her with her own essence, making her a monument to his family's generational vendetta. But from the depths of betrayal and despair, a burning rage ignited. She might be broken, but she would not be silenced. She was Ava Lewis, and she would make them pay.

The scent of gasoline and burning silk was the last thing I knew on my wedding day. Flames danced around me, illuminating my new husband, Liam Thompson, my stepbrother, as he clutched a locket with my stepmother Sarah' s picture. "You ruined it all, Ava," he sneered, his face contorted with a hatred I' d never imagined. He carved Sarah' s name into my skin and then forced the locket down my throat, piece by agonizing piece. The suffocation, the searing pain, the betrayal-they were a twisted sacrament to a love I was only just beginning to comprehend, a love that would consume us all. Then, darkness. I awoke to the antiseptic smell of my familiar bedroom, sunlight streaming through the window. Downstairs, Liam' s frantic yelling and Sarah' s feigned sobs echoed from below, a chilling replay of the day my life ended before. It was real. I was back. Back to the day of the incident, the day my father signed away my future to protect his pride, the day I walked like a prisoner to my own execution. The humiliation, the pain, the fire-never again. A sharp knock on my door. It was Sophia, my "best friend," feigning concern, ready to lead me into the trap. "Ava? Are you in there? Something terrible is happening downstairs!" she called. But this time, I wouldn't be the victim. I smiled, a cold, sharp curve on my lips. "A Céleste purse like that is more important. You deserve it." As her footsteps faded down the hall, racing for a status symbol, I knew this was my chance. Let the real performance begin.

They threw me out of this city three years ago, calling me crazy, an obsessed medical student trying to ruin a business heir' s life because he chose someone else. Now I' m back, a doctor, ready to face the judgment all over again. But at my parents' suffocating welcome-home party, the news blared, announcing the brain death of renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carter. My world shattered. My glass hit the floor, and a raw, guttural sob tore through me. Everyone stared, not with judgment for Ethan, but with confusion for a grief I couldn' t name for a man I didn' t remember. They thought I was breaking over Ethan Hayes' engagement to Emily Vance. But I hadn't shed a single tear for him. Instead, I was destroyed by the death of a stranger on the news. That moment, kneeling amidst broken glass and a grief too immense to comprehend, was the beginning. It ignited a desperate, burning need to understand who Dr. Ben Carter was and why his death felt like the end of my world.

My daughter Maya' s ragged breath was the only sound in our quiet, dusty home, her small body wracked by fever. I begged my husband, Caleb, to take her to a doctor, but his eyes were cold and his voice flat as he refused, prioritizing his sister-in-law Brenda' s son over our dying child. My mother-in-law, Mary-Ann, handed me old, expired antibiotics, saying they should be "good enough," sealing Maya' s fate. For two agonizing days, I watched her fade, desperately clinging to a miracle that never came. On the third night, my world shattered as Maya went still in my arms, her silent passing tearing a primal scream from my throat. In my grief and rage, I confronted Caleb and Mary-Ann, only for Caleb to silence me with a violent fist, leaving me bleeding and abandoned in the darkest national forest. As I lay dying, I saw a chilling vision: Brenda, wearing my locket, stealing the life my long-lost Army Colonel father had come to claim for me. They took everything-my daughter, my life, my future-and gave it to my worst enemies. But then, I woke with a gasp, the silver locket cool against my skin, Maya sleeping soundly beside me. It was three days before her illness, three days before her death, and this time, I wasn't just a mother. This time, I was an avenger.

I woke with a gasp, the Southern sun blazing. Today was my debutante ball, the pinnacle for any young woman of the Ashley dynasty. But the date, the gown, the very air in my room, triggered a flood of memories from a lifetime ago-the same ball, the same stolen heirloom dress on Babs, my family's charity case. I watched passively as she paraded in my priceless gown, public outrage engulfing me, until Father' s sudden, suspicious death and my brother Tom Jr., infatuated with Babs, seized power. They sent me away, to years of hell in a "behavioral correction institute," where I eventually faded, learning Babs orchestrated it all for revenge, announcing her engagement to Tom Jr. as my life ended. The cruelty of that past life, the utter betrayal by Beau, my fiancé, Tom, my brother, and the sheer injustice of Babs's deceit, surged through my veins. How could they have been so blind, so easily swayed by a viper in our midst? No. Not again. This time, I sat up, my spirit forged in the fires of that hell. My gown was missing, but I remembered another: Mother's legendary debutante dress. This time, I would not despair. This time, I would be in control. This time, Babs would not win. This time, they would all pay.

I woke up in a stale motel room, the memory of my brutal murder, orchestrated by my fiancée Seraphina Vance and her cousin Julian Thorne, searing everything. This was my second chance, a fresh start. I tried to escape their glittering, poisonous world again, but they dragged me back, trapping me in a sadistic game. They made me Seraphina' s pet, then Julian' s punching bag, a living target for their physical and emotional abuse. Then, in a horrific twist, Julian brutally murdered my loyal dog, Buster, before my eyes, accusing me of madness. But the ultimate betrayal came when he ruthlessly orchestrated a fire, consuming my innocent parents and little sister. My family was gone. Annihilated because of them. How could such monstrous cruelty exist? Why was I doomed to relive this nightmare, only to lose everything again? As grief hardened into an icy, unyielding rage, an unexpected ally emerged: Veronica Shaw, the Senator's enigmatic Chief of Staff. She saw their evil. Together, we would expose them. This time, the Vance empire would burn, and the flames would consume their lies and crimes, bringing justice for my shattered life.

Every time it rained, Hans would wake up from the nightmare that had haunted him for the past eight years. The picture that his love died in his arms closed the door on others. Another rainy night, a car accident brought Moira into his life. This girl had the same features as his beloved. Now that she had lost all her memory after waking up, she was the perfect substitute for his lost lover. However, fate had another plan and their sweetness was replaced by the cruel truth. She was none other than the daughter of his sworn enemy. Where would their story go? Would love still survive in hatred?

For seven years, I played the perfect, hidden wife to billionaire August Chambers while working quietly as an ER nurse. Three days before our marriage contract expired, he stormed into my emergency room carrying a bleeding woman. It was Allena, his cousin's fiancée. She had suffered a ruptured corpus luteum from their violent, aggressive sex. Instead of hiding his affair, August ordered me to clear the floor and threw a massive check at my face to buy my silence. Later, his friends trapped me in a VIP club. When a waiter tripped, August violently shoved me aside just to protect Allena from a spilled cup of coffee. I crashed into a glass table, a sharp edge slicing deep into my arm. "Apologize to her, and I'll have my driver take you to the hospital." As my blood soaked into the white rug, he stood over me, demanding I get on my knees for his mistress. He didn't know I had faked a miscarriage five years ago to secretly raise our daughter far away from his cruelty. He also didn't know the money he flaunted was pocket change compared to my hidden AI tech empire. I calmly tied a tourniquet around my bleeding arm with my teeth and wiped my blood directly over his heart onto his custom suit. "I'm done with you." The submissive nurse was dead, and it was time to let him burn in the ruins of his own lies.

Ashley gave Nicolas ten years of love and five years of loyalty as his perfect housewife, only to be repaid with betrayal, humiliation, and death at the hands of him and his mistress. After being reborn, she vowed to make them pay. She tore apart the mistress, kicked her useless husband aside, and returned as the heiress of a top-tier family. Surrounded by billions, luxury, and a parade of elite bachelors, Ashley became the woman everyone wanted-including a cold, powerful tycoon. When Nicolas came begging for forgiveness, she smiled coldly. "Fuck off! My man is worth a hundred of you."

Cast out by an "elite" family and mocked by high society, Elena shocked everyone by marrying the most powerful man in town. They assumed it was a temporary arrangement-after all, he had said, "The agreement is for two years. After that, we're done." Yet after the wedding, he refused to let her go. "Elena, you can't leave me." As he doted on her, rumors shattered one by one. A renowned painter, top hacker, and tech mastermind-her true identities stunned the world. When a luxury empire announced their lost heiress, all eyes turned to her. "Why did she look exactly like Elena?"

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!"

My five-year-old daughter was dying in the ICU, her heartbeat replaced by the continuous, electronic scream of a flatline. I gripped her cold hand, my throat sealed shut by a terror so absolute I couldn't even cry out. I dialed my husband Grayson's private number, the one reserved only for me and his assistants. He declined the call instantly. A second later, a text buzzed against my palm: "In a meeting. Do not disturb. Stop calling." Five miles away, Grayson was at a luxury gala, adjusting his silk tie and laughing with Belle Escobar. He told her I was just being "dramatic" and using our daughter's "fever" as an excuse to avoid the event. He had no idea Effie's heart had already stopped. When I finally reached our penthouse, soaked from the rain and carrying Effie's small socks in a plastic bag, Grayson didn't even look at me. He snapped at me for ruining the hardwood floors and asked if I'd left Effie with the nanny just to "feel sorry for myself." Three days later, while I buried our daughter in a small, lonely ceremony, Grayson was at the Hamptons. Belle posted a photo of him golfing with the caption: "A mental health day with the boys." He didn't even attend the funeral, but he returned home demanding I clear out Effie's room to make a study for Belle's son. The injustice burned through me until there was nothing left. I swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, desperate to join my daughter. But instead of the darkness, I woke up to blinding lights and the scent of Grayson's expensive cologne. I was standing in a ballroom, wearing a blue silk dress I had already burned. Above me, a banner read: "Happy 5th Birthday Kaiden & Effie." I was back, exactly one year before the tragedy. This time, I wasn't going to be the grieving wife. I was going to be their worst nightmare.

I went to the City Clerk's office for a routine copy of my marriage license to finalize a trust fund audit. I expected a simple piece of paper, but the clerk's pitying look told me my entire life was a lie. "The license was never finalized, Ms. Oliver. In the eyes of the state, you are single." The three-hundred-guest wedding at the Plaza and the Vogue features meant nothing. My husband, Gray Cooley, had intentionally filed the documents with a "procedural defect" so he could discard me without a legal divorce. Moments later, an iCloud invite titled "Our Little Secret" popped up on my screen. It was a photo of my best friend, Brylee, holding a positive pregnancy test at our Hamptons estate. Gray's text to her was the final blow: "Happy anniversary, babe. This baby is the best gift. Once the trust unlocks today, we're done with the charade." I soon discovered they were even stealing my career, reassigning my architectural masterpiece to Brylee while preparing my eviction notice. Gray's mother called me a "barren mule" in a leaked recording, mocking the infertility I suffered after saving Gray's life in a construction accident. I wasn't a wife; I was a three-year placeholder used to secure his inheritance. How could the man I bled for treat me like a disposable prop? How could my best friend carry his child while pretending to comfort me through my darkest moments? The betrayal burned until it turned into a cold, hard stone of fury. I didn't cry. Instead, I walked into the penthouse of the Barretts, the Cooleys' most powerful rivals. I signed a marriage contract with Kane Barrett, the man the tabloids called the "Beast of Wall Street." "I want a wedding," I told his father, my voice steady and lethal. "Bigger than the one I had with Gray." If they wanted me gone, they would have to watch me become the woman who owns their world.

I spent three years building my husband, Axel Farrell, into Silicon Valley's ultimate "family man." As his lead PR strategist, I carefully managed his public image, making sure the world saw him as a perfect, devoted husband while I worked in the shadows of our estate. The illusion shattered when he came home one night smelling of sandalwood and roses, with three deep fingernail scratches carved into his back. When I tried to check his phone, the passcode we had used for years-our wedding anniversary-had been changed. The betrayal got worse the next morning when his mother called me a "defective product" and tried to force me into a fertility clinic. Axel didn't defend me; instead, he shoved me against a marble bar at a public gala to protect his mistress in front of the world's elite. By the time I tried to leave, Axel had frozen my bank accounts and filed a forged legal petition to have me declared mentally incompetent. He planned to have me legally kidnapped and locked in a private psychiatric ward just to stop me from filing for divorce. He even blocked every major law firm in the city from taking my case, leaving me with no money, no identity, and no one to turn to. I couldn't understand how the man who "saved" me from the mud years ago could be the same monster now trying to legally erase my existence. Was our entire marriage just a grooming process to exploit my genius for his billion-dollar empire? As the deadline for my forced commitment approached, I stopped crying and opened my laptop. I leaked the video of his affair to every tech journalist in the country, watching his stock price crash in real-time. "Axel thinks starving me out will make me crawl back to him," I whispered as I walked into the headquarters of his biggest rival. "But he forgot that the most valuable part of his company is in my head." I was no longer the abandoned wife; I was the one who was going to take his throne and burn it to the ground.

I lived as the "scarred ghost" of the Stephens penthouse, a wife kept in the shadows because my facial burns offended my billionaire husband's aesthetic. For years, I endured Kason's coldness and my family's abuse, a submissive puppet who believed she had nowhere else to go. The end came with a blue folder tossed onto my silk sheets. Kason's mistress was back, and he wanted me out by sunset, offering a five-million-dollar "silence fee" to go hide my face in the countryside. The betrayal cut deep when I discovered my father had already traded my divorce for a corporate bailout. My step-sister mocked my "trashy" appearance at a high-end boutique, while the sales staff treated me like a common thief. At home, my father threatened to cut off my mother's life-saving medicine unless I crawled back to Kason to beg for a better deal. I was the girl who took the blame for a fire she didn't start, the wife who worshipped a man who never looked her in the eye, and the daughter used as a human bargaining chip. I was supposed to be broken, penniless, and desperate. But the woman who stood up wasn't the weak Elease Finch anymore; she was Phoenix, a tactical predator with a $500 million secret. I signed the divorce papers without a single tear, walked past my stunned husband, and wiped the Finch family's bank accounts clean with a few taps on my phone. "Your money is dirty," I told Kason with a cold smile. "I prefer clean hands." The cage is open, the hunt has begun, and I'm starting with the people who thought a scar made me weak.

"Let's get a divorce. She's pregnant and deserves a place in my life." He once promised to protect Claire forever, yet when his first love returned, he cast her aside. For three years, Claire dimmed her brilliance, living quietly as the obedient wife behind him. When he handed her divorce papers to give his pregnant mistress a place, Claire no longer hid her talents. The woman he had overlooked was a legendary healer, racing prodigy, and a genius designer. After the divorce, she reclaimed her glory. When he pleaded, "Honey, let's remarry," another man pulled her close. "She's my wife now. As for you... Someone, take him out and give him what he deserves!"

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."