The day before the swim meet, my boyfriend's childhood sweetheart, Cecilia Deverell, was about to make him a cup of cold medicine. I stepped in just in time to stop her. "Don't give him that," I said, catching her by the wrist. "The cold medicine contains a sedative. As a competitive swimmer, he'll get a lifetime ban from the sport if it shows up in his drug test." Cecilia pulled her hand away and sneered, clearly thinking I was just making up lies to scare her. "You're just jealous that Neo and I are so close!" She crossed her arms, glaring at me. "If he performs badly because of this cold, I won't let you off the hook!" When my talking sense got me nowhere, I didn't waste another breath. I just snatched the water cup and hurled it straight to the ground. It shattered with a sharp crash. The second my boyfriend, Neo Kirkwell, heard what had happened, he stormed over. He slapped me hard across the face, no questions asked. I was so livid my chest felt tight. I couldn't get enough air. Later, after the competition wrapped up, he came down with a raging fever that wouldn't break. Cecilia immediately hopped on a live stream to rile up his fans into cyberbullying me. She even posted a choppy, heavily cut clip of me running the swimmers through training. The internet quickly painted me as some cruel, monstrous female coach. With all the online hate piling up, I had no way to prove I wasn't the villain everyone thought I was. Before I could clear my name, one of his deranged hardcore fans slipped me rat poison. I died in agony. When I snapped my eyes open again, I was right back on the exact day that his childhood best friend was getting ready to dump cold medicine into his water cup.

My husband was tied up in a meeting, so he sent the family driver to pick me up. The moment I opened the front passenger door and sat down, Walter Hayes frowned. "Ma'am, please sit in the back." I thought he was only being considerate, so I smiled. "It's fine. There's more room up front, and I'm not picky." Instead, he turned off the engine. "That seat isn't for just anyone. Mr. Shaw's former fiancée always sat there. She was sweet, sensible, and never wasted his money. Unlike some people, she didn't marry into the family, go 3 years without having a child, and still act like the lady of the house." I let out an angry laugh. Adrian Shaw and I had been married for 3 years. I had bought the car, and I paid the driver's salary. Yet he was using my money while guarding the front passenger seat for a woman I had never even met.

I had never worried about women circling my fiancé. Everyone in our world knew exactly who I was, and no one was foolish enough to cross me. Then I returned from 6 months of study abroad and saw a young woman sitting in Adrian Foster's passenger seat outside my own company. I didn't confront them. I simply told my secretary to invite Adrian and every member of his inner circle to dinner. A man who wouldn't behave was easy enough to discard. As for any woman who dared come after what was mine, even if she had only entertained the thought, I would make sure she never tried it again.

At the family reunion banquet, I sat there quietly tearing into a drumstick. Mia Prescott, dressed like the real heiress and soaking up everyone's attention, came over to me. "You're finally home. Mom, Dad, and I have missed you so much. From now on, we're family."   When Mia saw me brush her off, her eyes instantly turned red. Her gaze landed on the backpack at my feet.   My hands were greasy from the drumstick, so I had slipped the watch from my wrist into the backpack's side pocket. It was a tiny movement, but Mia seemed to catch it.   The next second, she dropped into a crouch, dug through the side pocket, and pulled out the watch. She raised it for everyone to see, her voice thick with tears. "Why did you steal the engagement gift Elliot gave me? I know you're jealous, but you don't have to stoop to stealing!"   Elliot Cole shot me a disgusted look. "Give it back to Mia, then get out of this house!"   With the whole room staring at me like I was dirt under their shoes, I pointed toward the second floor and asked, baffled, "What exactly did I steal? I didn't come here to reunite with my family. I tagged along with my boss for a free meal!"

Before the graduate entrance exam, my roommate could suddenly read my thoughts. She got accepted into graduate school by copying my answers. Then, right after the exam, she reported me for plagiarism and posted about it online, deliberately exposing my personal information. The investigators were careless. "It's definitely a matching exam paper. Since she reported you, you must have plagiarized." The ignorant netizens all ganged up to call me a plagiarizing bitch. "You have no integrity. If you have any self-respect, withdraw from school of your own accord!" In the end, she mocked me on the rooftop while telling me the truth, then pushed me off. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to before the exam. 'You can read minds, huh? Then I'll let you read as much as you want.'

I'd worked as the private chef for the Whitcombe family for eight solid years, and Mrs. Athena Whitcombe, the matriarch, swore by my cooking. She wouldn't eat anyone else's. But Sabine, the eldest grandson's new wife, had only been in the family for three days when she dismissed my two kitchen assistants. Suddenly, I was stuck doing everything alone: grocery shopping, washing produce, chopping ingredients, cooking every dish, washing everything afterward, and even submitting monthly cost reports. Sure enough, the patriarch, Ambrose Whitmore, complained that his fish was overcooked and rubbery, while Mrs. Whitcombe said her soup was far too salty. As if that wasn't bad enough, Sabine docked 30 percent of my performance bonus because of those complaints. I didn't say a word. I simply turned around, rummaged through the kitchen cabinets, and pulled out the delivery receipts. The next second, Sabine stared at them in shock and burst into tears, bitterly regretting her mistake.

On my first day as a hospital intern, I was in such a rush that I accidentally sent a photo of a car meant for the dealership to the work group chat. The new junior immediately came at me. "Daisy, why did you post a picture of my car? Are you jealous or something? Trying to steal my clout?" I was a little confused and asked if she had gotten something mixed up. After all, it was my car. She immediately sent over a bunch of photos of herself driving a G-Wagon with one hand, along with all kinds of video proof showing that the car in the photo belonged to her. She even sneered, "Some people really have no shame. They'll cling to anyone's clout just to make themselves look important. Do you seriously think posting a random stolen photo of a car is going to make you the Levines' new daughter-in-law?" I frowned and looked at my husband beside me. "Does the Levine family have a new daughter-in-law?"

It was the third year my husband, Ethan Carter, had been working as a rideshare driver. We had finally bought a place of our own. On the day of our housewarming, he suddenly said, "A few friends want to come over for dinner tonight. I already said yes." I, Ava Mitchell, had firm boundaries. I didn't like outsiders in my home. Even when we entertained relatives, we took them to a restaurant. "Can't we meet them at a restaurant?" He sighed. "I suggested that, but Chloe said it would be more fun here. She said a new home needs a proper housewarming. And since she knows I'm a good cook, she wants to try my food." My left eye twitched. Chloe Brooks was the female driver Ethan had mentioned more than anyone else over the past 3 years. She was also the only woman in their rideshare drivers' group chat.

In my senior year of high school, the whole school lined up for a bone marrow match for the leukemia-stricken school beauty, Mireille Hollis. I was the only match. I, Sybilla Carrow, the girl they had cornered in the bathroom and slapped for three long years, lay on that collection bed for four endless hours, giving up my bone marrow. I thought I'd finally hear a single "thank you." Instead, what I got after she recovered was this: "Someone like you, once you match, you're supposed to donate. If you don't, you're a murderer." After that, the humiliation only got worse. Sharper. Crueler. Then came the push on the stairs. I tumbled down, her laughter ringing in my ears. The back of my skull cracked against the edge of a step. Warm blood oozed from my ears, pooling beneath me. By the time the ambulance arrived, my pupils were fixed and dilated. I was reborn. The day the matching results came out, I clutched that report and walked into the bathroom. Whoosh! The toilet flushed. The paper was gone. "No one's laying a finger on my bone marrow. Not in this lifetime."

It was the second day of my husband's business trip. As I was tidying up the house, I casually called out to our smart speaker, "Alex, play some music." Then, a strange, sultry female voice dripped from the speaker. "Sure thing, my moonlit. And Rick, don't forget Mandy's birthday surprise tonight." The music suddenly sounded grating. My husband's name is Broderick Wilde. But who on earth was Mandy? I immediately dialed Broderick's number. "Did you tamper with the smart speaker at home?" There was a brief pause on the other end before he gave an easy laugh, as if nothing was wrong. "Oh, a friend came over a few days ago. He probably logged into his account on it. Why, what's up?" "Nothing," I lied, keeping my tone light. After hanging up, I pulled up the speaker's login history, grabbed my coat, and took a cab straight to the registered address of that unfamiliar account.

After I was fired, I went back to the countryside and spent my days playing cards with Grandma. Meanwhile, my family was frantically searching for me. Their precious daughter, a genius jewelry designer, couldn't come up with a single design without me around. In my previous life, my younger sister had always produced designs identical to mine before I could submit them to the National Jewelry Design Competition. Everyone accused me of plagiarism. Even my own family backed her up. My company said I had acted unethically and damaged its reputation by stealing someone else's work. They fired me on the spot and demanded a huge sum in damages. My family decided I was a burden and threw me out. Between my family's rejection and the public backlash, I sank into depression. Then one of my sister's fanatical fans ran me over in the street and killed me. As my consciousness faded, I still couldn't understand how she had drawn my designs before I did. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day before the National Jewelry Design Competition.

On my birthday, a post appeared in my feed. [What Does It Mean to Lift Someone Up Through Love?] Someone had answered in the comments. A: I can answer that. A guy who had a crush on me became my best friend's boyfriend just to get close to me. A: In college, I needed money for a bag. He was our class president, so he pulled her scholarship application and replaced it with mine. I got the money. The poor idiot thought she hadn't met the requirements. A: Later, her name appeared on the list for direct admission to grad school. I said it wasn't fair, and he reported her for me. She ended up having to take the entrance exam twice before she got in. Her smug account of being adored drew a flood of angry replies. As the thread gained attention, she only grew prouder. Then she posted a photo of a diamond ring. A: Be jealous. It won't change anything. Today's my best friend's birthday. He bought me a diamond ring. She got the free gift that came with it. A: One word from me and he'll even put off celebrating with her. My phone buzzed. My boyfriend, Ethan Brooks, had sent me two WhatsApp messages. Ethan: Baby, something came up at work. Can I use a late pass? Ethan: Your birthday present's on the nightstand. See if you like it. I opened the box. Inside lay a plain silver band. On impulse, I scanned the product code. The result showed the words "Free Gift" beside a diamond ring identical to the one in the post. The scholarship. Grad school. My birthday. The two rings. It all fell into place. I was the best friend they had made a fool of.

While we were playing an escape-room game, the non-player character or NPC in the haunted house scared my best friend Romilly Sinclair and me so much that we both threw ourselves into my boyfriend Amias Kensington's arms at the same time. Without a moment's hesitation, he pushed me away and held Romilly tightly in his embrace. He dropped a kiss on her forehead and comforted her softly, "Don't be afraid, I'm here." Then he turned around and locked me and the NPC inside a room. I was trembling all over with fear. We were supposed to get married in just a few days. He had always said that Romilly was the person he disliked the most. For the four years since we met and fell in love, I have always regarded him as the only redeeming light in my life. For his sake, I had kept giving way. But at this moment, I finally understood... It's time to part.

During the startup competition, Shawn Blevin's childhood sweetheart demanded to be the team leader so she could secure direct admission to graduate school. Prioritizing the team's success, I firmly refused her request. Defeated, she dropped out of the competition, only to be dragged back to a poor rural town by her parents and forced into marriage. Meanwhile, I led our team to victory. We became rising stars in the business world, and every member secured a spot in graduate school. Later, I married Shawn. During our cruise celebration for our company's IPO, Shawn caught me off guard and shoved me overboard—six months pregnant—watching coldly as I drowned. I desperately demanded to know why. Shawn replied with an icy glare, "If you hadn't selfishly hogged the team leader position, Hannah wouldn't have been forced into an abusive marriage and died." When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the needy student insisted on becoming our team leader.

My mom, Laina Hallowell, has kleptomania, she just can't stop wanting to steal.  But she's scared of getting caught, so she's used me as a cover ever since I was little.  When I was a baby, she slipped candy from a Walmart into my pocket. When the cashier found it, she pinned it on me. "Why are you such a greedy little thing, like you're never been fed, Kessia? Don't worry, I'll sew her mouth shut when we get home!"  Then, just to put on a show for the neighbors, my mom cut off my formula completely. That's why I've been shorter than everyone else since I was a kid.  When I started school, mom took me to my classmate's house to play.  She quietly slipped my classmate's iPhone into her bag. When we got caught, she wailed and cried. "How could I raise such a heartless child? I'd rather you had bad grades than a rotten character!"  My classmate cut off all contact with me, and everyone at school left me out. My grades dropped so much that I could only get a job at a factory after I finished school. When I grew up, I finally married my husband, Lior Veyra.  But on our wedding day, mom cut off my mother-in-law's gold necklace and stuffed it into my wedding bag.  When my mother-in-law found it, mom tried to cut ties with me right then and there. "My good son-in-law gave you a hundred thousand dollar dowry, and do you still have to steal from your mother-in-law? You're such a disgrace!" The video got posted online, and everyone called me a gold digger. I was so desperate that I jumped into the river. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to that day when mom said I stole the candy. I looked up with big, innocent eyes and spoke in my little baby voice, "Mommy, you're the one who put the candy in my pocket. Why do you have to say I did it myself?" 

My husband's first love, Madison Reynolds, and I were in labor in the exact same delivery room. On the very same day, month, and year, we each gave birth to a plump, healthy baby boy. My son was a handful, but I poured my heart and soul into raising him to adulthood. I thought I would finally be able to enjoy a peaceful old age. Instead, when I fell gravely ill, he pulled the plug on my oxygen tank with his own hands. It was only after I died that I discovered the truth: he was never my biological son! The moment I gave birth, my husband's first love had swapped her baby with mine. Meanwhile, my own flesh and blood had long been abused to death by her. Even after death, my soul lingered, forced to watch as the boy called her "Mom." I watched as my husband remarried his first love, bringing her home so the three of them could live happily ever after as a family. Reborn on the day she and I were in labor together, the very first thing I did was swap the babies back.

My mom was killed in a car crash. I was ten years old back then. I didn't find out until later that the crash wasn't an accident. Someone had tampered with the brakes. The person who did it? My own father. My mom went to her grave never knowing her husband had been cheating on her with another woman for ages. Less than three months after she passed, he married that woman, and doted on their daughter like she was his own little princess. He stole my mom's final composition, and claimed it was his other daughter's original work. Fifteen years later, I sat on the judging panel of an international piano competition. The so-called "prodigy girl" on stage was playing my mom's unreleased final work right then. I slammed the stop button. "This piece isn't yours." The microphone boomed my voice out to every single person in the auditorium. "I refuse to give you a score."

My father suffered from severe prosopagnosia, or face blindness. Forty years ago, he was drugged and spent a passionate night with my mother. But because he couldn't distinguish one face from another, he ended up marrying the mistress who stepped in and claimed my mother's place. Over the years, my father and his mistress became known as the ultimate model couple in the Capital, the highest and most exclusive elite circle. Meanwhile, my mother was subjected to relentless slut-shaming for her unwed pregnancy. She spent her entire life alone, never marrying. Forty years have passed. Relying on my exceptional intellect and beauty, I married into the Delacroixs, the wealthiest family in the city, and have lived a life of deep mutual devotion with my husband. On the day my son brought his girlfriend home to meet me, I sat in the high-backed chair at the head of the living room. The girl sitting across from me was delicate, radiant, and clearly accustomed to being pampered and adored by everyone around her. I knew exactly who she was: the granddaughter of my father and the mistress who stole my mother's life. Looking at her face, which bore a thirty percent resemblance to my father's, I refused to accept the gift she offered. 'You want to marry into the Delacroix family? Not in your wildest fucking dreams.'

When my husband, Hector Fuller, demanded a divorce for what felt like the hundredth time, I did not cry. I didn't argue. I simply signed my name on the dotted line with total composure, then quietly began severing every last tie between us. On the first day, I put our marital home up for sale—a property I had bought two years ago that remained a hollow, concrete shell to this very day. On the second day, I canceled the twenty thousand monthly allowance I had been paying for his grandmother's living expenses, along with the supplementary credit card I had provided for his younger sister. On the third day, I dialed my brother, boarded a flight, and headed back to the only home that truly mattered. As the plane touched down in a distant city, a sudden flicker of curiosity crossed my mind. Without me, his ever-yielding, doormat of a wife who cooked, cleaned, and paid for everything, how was Hector going to survive? How would he cater to his quick-tempered grandmother, appease his shallow sister, and look after that helpless, codependent crush he kept around?

I'd worked as the all-around housekeeper for the Carter family for ten whole years, pulling in a cool fifty thousand dollars a month. The very first thing Ethan's fiancée did after moving in was make an example of me to flex her new authority. "A lousy maid like you deserves fifty grand a month? What kind of spell did you cast on the Carters to con them into paying you that? Starting today, your pay gets cut to three thousand dollars. Your only job is to clean the house. You don't need to handle anything else." The entire family stayed dead silent, letting her rake me over the coals without lifting a finger to intervene. I didn't say a single word in protest. I just smiled and signed the pay cut agreement right there. A few days later, the whole Carter household completely fell apart. Crash! Mrs. Carter didn't get her usual pre-bed aromatherapy session from me, so her depression flared up badly and she flew into a rage and smashed up the entire living room. Thud! Mr. Carter didn't eat the custom medicinal meals I always prepped for him, so his gout acted up so badly he had to be rushed to the emergency room. Ethan had a critical cross-border video conference, and without me there to do simultaneous interpretation, the whole multi-billion-dollars project went straight down the drain. His fiancée was so furious she was practically spitting fire. She jabbed a trembling finger at me and shrieked, "Why aren't you waiting on them anymore?!" I gave the agreement in my hand a sharp little shake. "A three-thousand-a-month maid goes home the second I'm done mopping the floors."

I was a top-tier hostess at an exclusive club. Then the richest man in the city got down on his knees and offered me $10 million to marry his younger brother. His brother had abandoned his role as the crown prince of Whitmore Circle to become a simp for a poor, stubborn "innocent flower." He got into fights for her, raced for her, and spent $100,000 on fireworks to declare his love. She kept insisting she wasn't good enough for him while stringing him along and using his connections to make money. "Within a month, I want her out of my brother's life." My first instinct was to turn him down. Then I saw her file and smiled. Wasn't that the prettiest girl in my old class—the one who had bullied me? I picked up the limited-edition black card. "Rescue your brother from his life as a simp? I'm in."

My husband, Ethan Wexler, and I had ten good years together, and in all that time, we never once raised our voices at each other. Our one regret was the baby we never had. Ethan had azoospermia. Then, on our 10th anniversary, our housekeeper, Donna Pratt, announced she was pregnant with his child. At first, I thought she was joking. Two days later, she dropped a paternity report on the table, and the results said the baby was Ethan's. So Donna took us to court. On the morning of the hearing, she stood on the courthouse steps and sobbed to the cameras about how Ethan had forced himself on her. She told them we were a pair of sick freaks who had locked her in our house and used her body to make the baby I couldn't give him. Nothing we said landed. Online, we became the employers from hell, and once that label stuck, there was no getting it off. The university fired Ethan, and his own students were ashamed to say they had studied under him. I lost my job the same day. In the end, Ethan couldn't carry the weight of it, and he took his own life in his cell. As for me, I couldn't walk a block without being recognized. Strangers followed me, screamed at me, put their hands on me, and eventually, something in me snapped. I wandered into traffic and died in the middle of the road. I died without ever understanding it. How could a woman get pregnant by a man who had no sperm? Then, I opened my eyes again, and it was the day before Donna told us she was pregnant...

The moment my best friend rushed into the lottery shop ahead of me and rattled off those familiar numbers, I knew she had been reborn too. In our past life, we'd both landed interviews at a Fortune 500 company just before graduation. There was only one opening. On the day of the interview, I bought a lottery ticket on a whim. It made me late, and she got the job instead. My ticket won the $5 million jackpot, and after graduation, I stayed home and lived off the interest. Meanwhile, she was underpaid and bullied at work every day. Eventually, she took her anger out on me and pushed me off a rooftop. I died on impact. My boyfriend lied for her afterward, saying I'd become unstable from spending too much time at home and had jumped. They exploited my death to become influencers with tens of millions of followers, raking in money. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day I bought the ticket.

My cousin, Kelsey Lawson, asked me, Natalie Bennett, to cover for her while she went clubbing, and I lied for her. Before dawn, she was drugged and raped. Sobbing uncontrollably, she told the police, "My cousin took me to the club. She's the one who introduced me to that rich guy." When I opened my eyes again, another WhatsApp message from her appeared. Kelsey: I'm going out tonight. If Mom asks, tell her I'm sleeping at your place, okay? I typed a short reply. Natalie: Have fun, but be careful out there. Then I immediately called her mother, Rachel Lawson. "Rachel, Kelsey went out tonight. You should call her now." 'This time, I won't stop her from destroying her own life.'

I was reborn on the night Uncle Oliver was drugged with an aphrodisiac. This time, instead of sleeping with him, I called the woman he loved. In my past life, I fell in love with Oliver Davis, the man I called my uncle, though we weren't related by blood. Knowing he had been drugged, I ignored his pleas to call the woman he loved and slept with him instead. A month later, I found out I was pregnant. Oliver was forced to marry me. But on our wedding day, Aria Jones, the woman he loved, was kidnapped and murdered while abroad on a trip to clear her head. Before she died, she called Oliver 199 times for help. Busy with our wedding, Oliver didn't answer a single call. Afterward, Oliver stared at those 199 missed calls, saying nothing. But when I went into labor, he locked me in the basement. I begged him to take me to the hospital, but he only gave me a cruel smile and watched me suffocate as I struggled to deliver the baby. Before I died, I heard him say, "If you hadn't gotten pregnant, I wouldn't have been forced to marry you, and I wouldn't have missed Aria's calls for help. You deserve to die..." When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day he was drugged.

The boss went away on a business trip and told me, as his chief secretary, to keep an eye on the company for him. Not long after he left, a woman arrived who claimed to be the boss's girlfriend. I poured her tea and waited on her hand and foot, but she spoke in a shrill, sugary tone and splashed the water all over me. "This isn't the special baby cup my darling boyfriend prepared just for me! Go get me a new one right now!" I asked her if the air conditioning was too cold for her, but she stamped her foot and whined. "Ugh, how annoying! Can you tell already? My boyfriend punished me last night, I got spanked right there in bed!" When I finally brought her the milk-custard tart she had specifically asked for, she took one bite and spat it all over my clothes. She then beamed with a proud, happy look and said, "I'm carrying his child! He marked me with his love until I was swollen with life! If anything happens to me, do you think you could ever take responsibility for that?" I had finally had enough, so I called the boss.  "Sir, you must have been absolutely desperate! How could you ever put up with a girlfriend like this?" But the boss sounded completely confused on the other end of the line. "What girlfriend? I'm single!" 

The new intern at the company was an idiot. I told her to come to the fourth-floor office for a meeting at nine tomorrow. She blinked her big, innocent eyes at me and said, "9:00 PM is too late. I get off work at five." I said it was nine in the morning, but she retorted, "But it's already twelve o'clock now. Why didn't you notify me earlier?" I bit back my frustration and continued, "It's nine o'clock tomorrow morning." This time, she finally understood what I was trying to say. A beat later, she shot back with, "Then where is the meeting held?" I assumed she was deliberately playing dumb to avoid the meeting. Since she was just an intern anyway, I told her she didn't have to go. Instead, she deliberately barged in while we were in the meeting and asked me in front of the boss why I hadn't notified her of the meeting. "Maria, I really want to learn something during my internship. Please stop picking on me." My boyfriend also stepped up to defend her. "She's long been dissatisfied with the company and is planning to jump ship. She's obviously snubbing the intern on purpose, collecting a paycheck while doing no real work." When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day the new interns first arrived.

My little brother, Ryan, has been obsessed with stories about rich and poor children being switched at birth lately. After the driver's daughter, who looked just like him, moved into our house, my brother, who already disliked me, grew to loathe me even more. He was convinced I was the switched, fake daughter of the family, and that the driver's daughter was the real one. I couldn't be bothered to argue with him about it. Then came my eighteenth birthday. He brought Renna home, declaring she had come to claim her place as part of the family. He looked at our parents, proud as anything, and said, "Mom, Dad, this is Renna, she's your real daughter, my own sister, June is nothing but an imposter!" Then he slapped the DNA report right in front of my face. "You've taken my sister's place for eighteen years. Now you can get out of our family's home for good!" Behind him, Renna looked hurt and tearful. "I just wanted to be with my real family..." Everyone in the room gasped in shock. Even my parents stood frozen, stunned. But I stared down at that report, the one that supposedly proved he and I were related, and suddenly I laughed. "Tell me, has it ever occurred to you that you might be the fake heir?" 

My mother-in-law lived alone. A fire suddenly broke out in her home, and the situation was critical. I called my husband, who works as a firefighter, more than a dozen times before he finally answered impatiently. "Can't whatever drama you're manufacturing wait? I'm fixing the water pipes for Sarah!" I told him that my mother-in-law's house was on fire and she was still trapped inside. My husband just sneered. "To get me to come home, you'd even curse my mom! You're out of your mind!" He hung up the phone without hesitation. Helpless, I could only hope that other firefighters would arrive as soon as possible. But it took a full half hour for his teammates to finally show up. When they saw the raging fire, their faces all fell. "Didn't Captain Sullivan say Sarah was lying?" Due to the delay, my mother-in-law perished in the flames. And because of his first love, my husband even missed her funeral. I was completely disheartened, and I filed for divorce. But he tore up the divorce agreement and smashed my mother-in-law's urn to pieces. "Stop putting on this act! If it weren't for my mom's sake, I would have divorced you already!" I laughed, because he had no idea that he had lost his own mother.

On the day I married into the Lambert family, Nicole, my mother-in-law took my hand and said, "Kendra, a daughter-in-law of our family doesn't need to be capable. You just need to be gentle and obedient." I nodded with a smile, and etched those words deep into my bones. Four years flew by. In front of Nicole, I pretended I couldn't twist open a bottle cap, pretended I couldn't lift a bag that weighed barely two pounds, would scurry behind my husband the second I spotted a bug, and huff and puff after just a couple of steps of running. Just like that, the whole city knew the Lambert family had a porcelain doll of a wife. My husband, Howard Lambert, always stepped in to smooth things over, playing along with my act perfectly. When we got back to our bedroom at night, he'd poke my forehead and tease, "Nice work out there today. Keep it up tomorrow." Four whole years. I thought I could keep up the act for the rest of my life. Until the whole family was grabbed by our business enemies and dumped on a deserted island. Nicole had twisted her ankle. Nancy, my sister-in-law, was so seasick she'd thrown up so much she was dead on her feet, and my husband was burning up with a fever. Right in front of Nicole's eyes, I hauled myself straight up a 66-foot cliff barehanded. She collapsed on the sand, staring at me like she'd just run straight into a great white, her eyes practically popping out of her head. Howard leaned against a rock and let out a weak, amused laugh. "Mom, I told you before, my wife's way more capable than she lets on, remember?"

The bag of trash I had asked Alistair Sterling to take out three days ago still hung there in the kitchen, reeking to high heaven. Flies buzzed around it in a mad frenzy. Right then, I knew we should get a divorce. That evening, I slid the drafted divorce papers in front of him. He looked up from his computer, his eyes locking onto mine, like he could see right through me. "The day before yesterday, I was helping Corisande rework her data. Her fundamentals are shaky, and I am the only one she can turn to. "Yesterday, she got followed on her way home alone. She came to me sobbing, begging me to walk her home just once. "Today, her data has got a critical error, and it is due in three hours. She is my team member, I cannot just abandon her. "I know you have always had a problem with her. I can show you my phone, the company's surveillance footage, anything to prove there is nothing shady going on. "As for that trash, I honestly just forgot. Look, I have explained everything. If you are still set on a divorce, I will go along with it, Rowena." I watched him, my expression utterly calm. In those three days, he had bent over backwards for Corisande Lowe. The man, who had always kept a strict routine, had even stayed up late three nights in a row. But three times, when he headed out the door in the morning, he forgot to grab that stinking, rotting bag of garbage on his way out. I nodded. "Let's just get divorced, then."

I'd worked in the obstetrics department of the county maternity hospital for seven years. My whole job boils down to one thing: handing newborn babies over to their waiting families. It was almost noon that day when a newborn fresh off discharge paperwork was carried up to the handover counter. Mother's information, footprint card, wristband number—every check went off without a hitch.  But then I spotted it, right along the edge of the lock on his wristband, there was a faint ring of tiny, pinprick-like indentations. I spun around on my heel and flipped open the emergency cover with a sharp snick. In less than three minutes, all the exits on the obstetrics floor locked tight, and every newborn handover screeched to a dead stop. The corridor erupted in angry shouts instantly. "It's just a dumb little ring of marks! The kid probably squirmed and pressed them himself. Did you really need to blow this tiny thing out of proportion?"  "Come on, there are so many other babies waiting to go home with their families! Are you kidding me?"  I didn't bother arguing back. I just kept my eyes locked on that tiny baby curled up in someone's arms. Hell, I'd stood behind this handover counter for far too many years. I knew exactly what I was looking at. When you work with newborns? That wristband is the single most non-negotiable thing you never, ever get wrong.

As soon as we got home, ten voice messages popped up one after another from a parent in my daughter's class group chat. "Ms. Ellison, didn't I tell you my daughter is allergic to stuffed toys?" "Why did you still let Cian give her a Strawberry Bear plush doll?" The homeroom teacher rushed to reply, clearly flustered, saying there was no student named Cian enrolled at the preschool at all. But another parent spoke up angrily. "What do you mean there isn't? My son talks about him all the time! He says this Cian keeps pestering him to play hide-and-seek. And if he refuses, Cian tugs his hair!" I turned to my daughter right away and asked what was going on. She pulled a Strawberry Bear plush doll out from behind her back, leaned in close, and said in a mysterious whisper, "Ms. Ellison can't see Cian. Only really smart kids can see him. Cian is a little boy with bright red eyes. And every child who plays hide-and-seek with him gets one of these Strawberry Bear dolls."