Ugly Duckling Perfect Match

After the college entrance exam, my parents left me at home and took their adopted daughter on a trip to the beach. A typhoon hit, and the three of them never came back. When the news reached me, I did not cry or throw a tantrum. I had their deaths registered right away and pulled out the life insurance I had bought in advance. I received one hundred million in compensation. My fiance scolded me for caring only about money. What he did not know was that I had been reborn. In my past life, after I learned about their deaths, the huge debts they had left behind fell on me. I gave up the chance to go to college and started working to pay everything back. I fought to protect our ancestral home from debt collectors. My fiance stayed with me and cheered me on when I came home late at night from delivery runs. But he never gave me a single cent to help. At thirty-five, I finally cleared every debt. On my birthday, I bought myself a ten-dollar cake to celebrate. Just as I was about to blow out the candle, the door opened. My parents and their adopted daughter, who should have died in the typhoon, walked in dressed in designer clothes. They smiled at me smugly. “Well done! We can finally believe that you aren’t greedy for money. You’ve passed the test. From today, you are qualified to be the daughter of the Jameson family.” “Jane, this brilliant idea was all thanks to you.” My adopted sister smiled. She leaned close and blew out my candle. The only light left in my twenty years of lifetime went out with it. My body gave in to exhaustion. My heart failed. I collapsed and died on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, they were about to head to the beach in the middle of the typhoon. I bought a massive accident insurance policy for them on the spot. This time, all I wanted was for them to disappear from this world forever.

I, Cassandra Channing, don't stop my fiance, Hades Emerson, from rushing into the flames to save his non-biological niece, Olivia Emerson, this time. Instead, I watch as the fire swallows him whole. In my past life, a fire broke out at the hotel on our wedding day. Hades and I escaped in time, but Olivia was trapped inside. Seeing the flames grow bigger, I did everything I could to stop him from charging in to save her. When the fire was finally extinguished, Olivia was dead. Hades claimed he didn't blame me for the incident, and purchased diving tickets for me and our son on our third wedding anniversary. When we were 300 feet below sea level, he ripped out our oxygen tank and snarled, "You're the reason I couldn't save Olivia back then. Now, a life for a life." Crying, I begged him to understand that our son is innocent, but he swam away without looking back. In the end, my son and I suffocated to death. After dying, I learned that Hades had always been in love with Olivia. He hated me for stopping him from saving her. He blamed me for causing him to lose the love of his life. I am back on the day of the fire when I open my eyes again.

My husband, Joseph Coleman, falls from the third floor, shatters both legs, and even injures what men fear losing most. I don't rush him to the nearest hospital. Instead, I drive him to a hospital two thousand miles away. In my previous life, Joseph jumped on purpose so the hospital intern he dotes on, Kimberly Parker, could secure a permanent spot by operating on him. He refused the capable surgeons nearby and insisted I take him to the hospital where Kimberly works, just so she can treat him. I turned him down because Kimberly is an untrained intern who got in through connections and has no surgical experience. Joseph had slapped me hard across the face. "I just want to use my injury to help Kim go permanent. Why are you being so petty?" He was dead set on Kimberly treating him. I worried the delay would ruin his legs, so I asked his mother, Diane Lowe, to talk sense into him. But what I never expected was Kimberly jumping from the hospital building when she failed her probation. Meanwhile, Joseph is treated in time, and both legs are spared. On the day he's discharged, I come smiling to take him home, but he runs me down with his car and kills me. As I collapse on the floor, choking on blood, I ask him why. He looks at me like I'm something stuck to his shoe. "If you hadn't stopped me from helping Kimberly go permanent, she never would've died!" When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day Joseph falls and breaks his legs.

The wealthy Hanson family makes it clear that whichever sister gives birth to the family's first grandson will inherit the billion-dollar fortune. In my previous life, my sister, under our parents' arrangement, married the strong and healthy third son, Jerome Hanson. I, on the other hand, was given to the gloomy eldest son, Lester Hanson, whose legs were paralyzed. Under my treatment, Lester regained full use of his legs. I became pregnant with the Hanson family's first grandson. Meanwhile, my sister was driven to madness by Jerome's abuse, becoming the laughingstock of every wealthy woman's dinner gossip. On the day I went into labor, my sister stabbed my belly with a knife. Then, she pulled me off a rooftop with her. Now, in this life, we start over. The moment Lester sends over a golden bridal bouquet, my sister snatches it without hesitation. "I want to marry Lester!" she declares.

At three in the morning, I stare at the unknown transaction record on my phone screen, my fingertips turning cold. The record is for a payment of 2980 dollars, made for an executive suite at the Wisteria. The time of payment was 8:00 pm last night. My husband, Tristan Griffin, is a detective. He was on the night shift last night. I clutch my phone, my knuckles turning white as I text Tristan, "I just saw your credit card bill for a hotel stay last night. What's up with that?" His reply is instant. "Our team had to work overtime at the last minute, so they put us up at the hotel. I forgot to tell you about it." I scan the text and sputter. The Wisteria is located in the western region of the city, which is on the other end from where his squad is stationed. I don't press him for more details and click on the bank app on my phone. Having found the vendor's address through the payment record, I sent it to my best friend, Rowena Sheffield, who works as a private detective. She replies instantly with an "OK" emoji and follows up with, "Give me a second. I'll find out everything you want in a jiffy!"

Valentine's Day. I was stuck on ER duty at Brighton City Hospital. Theodore Madoff, who was supposed to be working late, strolled in carrying his student—Cecilia Kuntzer. She had red marks everywhere and that smug little smirk. "Relax, Mrs. Madoff. Just stomach pain. Lucky me, Prof. Madoff rushed me here." Theo pushed me to treat her. Turns out? She was pregnant. From rough intercourse. And the dad? Theo. My husband. The same guy who'd sworn off kids with me for ten years. Felt like a punch to the gut. But I still saved her baby. Next day, she uploaded a video—ID in hand, cheesy PowerPoint, accusing me of malpractice. Claimed I killed her kid. Then Theo asked for a divorce. Priscilla—his mom—stormed the hospital, shrieking about her dead grandbaby. She brought a mob. All these "righteous" strangers who stabbed me to death. Right there in the ER. I died with my eyes wide open. Then—bam—I woke up. Valentine's Day. Again.

I wasn’t even pregnant, yet I ended up popping abortion pills like they were candy. It was all because in my past life, the moment my widowed sister-in-law got pregnant, every single side effect of her pregnancy became mine. She strutted around happily with her big belly, consuming spicy tamales, while I was rushed to the hospital for violent nausea and stomach pain; she showed off her flawless skin in crop tops every day, while my stomach broke out in hideous stretch marks. When I told my husband what was happening, he just shoved me away impatiently. “Enough with the jealousy! My brother’s dead, and she’s carrying his only child. Of course, I should look out for her. Do you really have to put on such an act?” After that, my sister-in-law went even further. She kept testing her limits during pregnancy and even ate a mango she was allergic to. And me? I went into anaphylactic shock, landed in the hospital, and nearly died. Doctors couldn’t explain it. They just brushed it off, saying I was overly jealous and it was all psychological. Later, my sister-in-law tried to brand herself as a “hot single mom”. She went live, belly and all, to show off her weight-loss workouts. She jumped around for three straight hours. And me? My uterus literally gave out, and I hemorrhaged to death. When I opened my eyes again, it was the exact day she first announced her pregnancy.

My husband's ex-girlfriend left behind a cat that could nurse my daughter like a woman. I turned on my camera and livestreamed this horrifying scene. The stream instantly went viral, and people approached me offering high prices for the cat. When I agreed to sell it, my husband went crazy, clutching the cat and screaming that it could not be sold. Even my sister-in-law, who had always doted on me, furiously yelled at me for being brainless. In my previous life, I accidentally discovered the cat in our house nursing my daughter. I was terrified when I saw my daughter's satisfied expression! What made me feel even more horrified was that the cat's chest area had no fur at all. It was smooth and delicate, like a nursing woman's. Moreover, this cat usually either bared its teeth at me or scratched me with its claws. Every night, it slept in my husband's arms. Thinking of all this made my skin crawl, and I immediately decided to throw the cat out. Unexpectedly, my usually gentle and refined husband became incredibly frenzied. "I raised this cat with my own hands. It's no different from my child! If you dare throw away my cat, then we're getting divorced!" My sister-in-law also urged me to keep the cat. She even gave me sleeping pills, claiming I had been under too much stress lately. That night, my daughter died in my arms, and I also died in bed from excessive grief. Only after my death did I learn that the cat was my husband's ex, and my daughter was the medium for her life exchange. Their true purpose was to steal my body. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day I was just discharged from the hospital.

In my previous life, I was eight months pregnant when my mother-in-law and husband forcibly dragged me to grab decorative gift boxes from the Christmas tree. I told them there was nothing inside, but my mother-in-law slapped me across the face while my husband pulled me into the crowd. A stampede broke out. They clutched their gift boxes and fled to save themselves, while my child and I were trampled to death. They eagerly tore open all the gift boxes with high hopes, only to find exactly nothing, just like I'd warned them. But as I lay dying, I noticed something in the final gift box. A Black Widow spider with an hourglass pattern on its belly crawled onto my mother-in-law's hand. This spider carries deadly venom. Anyone bitten either dies or suffers permanent disability. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on Christmas Day. This time, watching my mother-in-law and husband gear up to fight over those Christmas gift boxes, I won't try to stop them!

A gorgeous new lawyer named Charlotte Lowell joins our law firm and claims she has been reborn. One day, a publicly listed company offers us a massive ten-million-dollar case. Charlotte warns our boss, Levi Howard, that the company has major issues. If we accept the case, we'll lose in court and be hit with a huge payout. Levi isn't sure if she's bluffing, but in the end, he listens and passes. The next day, that very company collapses. And the rival firm that took the case is hit with a compensation claim worth tens of millions of dollars. To celebrate dodging the bullet, Levi asks me to book a restaurant. But Charlotte immediately tells him not to go to that restaurant because that place is about to have a gas explosion. Hours later, the restaurant blows up just as she mentioned. News of it hits the trending list. After those two incidents, Levi is all-in on believing Charlotte's claim of having been reborn. In order to keep Charlotte, he gives her the executive position that was initially promised to me. When I hand in my resignation, Charlotte urges Levi to stop me. "If Yelena jumps to another firm, she'll use the resources she gained here to crush us. A year from now, we won't even have a firm left." Upon hearing Charlotte's words, my boyfriend and colleague, Finley Smith, steps forward to back her up. "Charlotte's right. I saw a job offer from Vera Legal in Yelena's email. She's really petty. If she joins Vera Legal, we'll surely face her revenge." Levi believes them and rejects my resignation. I file for labor arbitration, but it's no use. In the end, I'm demoted to a janitor at the firm. Driven by resentment, I fall into depression and end up hanging myself at the entrance of the firm. When I open my eyes again, I've gone back to the day Charlotte claims she has been reborn.