Ren Ping Sheng

The city festival lights blurred, then the world exploded into screams and dust. Liam was on top of me, saving me again, for the third time. But this time, his last words, choked out with blood, were not what I expected. "If only... I had never met you." Ten years of a cold marriage, of my unrequited love, ended with that brutal, devastating line. At his funeral, his mother’s sharp voice cut through my grief: "He died because of you. Always you." The whispers followed me out of the church, society agreeing I was the reason Liam Walker, the city’s golden boy, was dead at thirty-three. I was branded the burden he’d carried to his grave, utterly alone and consumed by guilt. Liam’s words echoed, haunting me: "If only I had never met you." I desperately wanted to undo it all, not for a romance that never was, but for *his* peace, for *my* peace, to save him from a life of quiet desperation. Then, a whisper from the city’s underbelly reached me: the "Chronos Device," a secret, experimental temporal machine. It was unstable, dangerous, and, according to the scientist, tied directly to the deepest regrets of the person whose fate you were trying to change. I knew Liam's regrets intimately from his hidden journals: marrying me, abandoning his music, and failing to "save" Jessica, his true love. Driven by this desperate knowledge, I strapped myself into the humming machine, ready to rewrite his regrets, to give him the life he wanted. Even if it meant erasing myself from his life and future forever.

My husband Liam was the perfect Alpha. He built me a library, fought off rogues, and swore I was his soulmate. I thought we were the perfect fated couple. That was until I found the burner phone wedged deep in the sofa cushions. "She's just a placeholder," he texted his mistress, Ava. "You know you're my real queen." Attached was an ultrasound of a wolf pup—his heir. I tried to leave with dignity, but he dragged me to the Pack Gala. On a live stream watched by thousands, he paraded Ava around, wearing my family’s heirloom necklace. When I tried to take it back, he didn't just stop me. He slapped me across the face. The force of his blow didn't just break my heart; the trauma killed the secret baby growing inside me. I severed the bond and vanished, leaving him with his "queen" and his guilt. Five years later, I returned, not as a weak rejected mate, but as the powerful Alpha of the Sanctuary. Liam fell to his knees in the dirt, holding a flawless pink diamond, begging for a second chance. "I fought for you," he cried, tears streaming down his face. "I bled for you! I am your Fated Mate!" I looked at him with nothing but pity, then turned to the man standing beside me—the quiet Beta who had silently saved my life years ago when Liam was too busy playing the hero. I took Ethan's hand. "Ethan," I asked, my voice ringing clear through the silent crowd. "Will you be my Mate?" As Liam screamed in agony, the Moon Goddess answered with a blinding golden light.

I lay in the sterile silence of the hospital, mourning the baby I never got to hold. Everyone called it a tragic accident. A slip and fall. But I knew the truth of my husband's shove. Mark finally came to visit. He didn't bring flowers; he brought a briefcase. Inside were divorce papers and a non-disclosure agreement. He calmly informed me that his mistress-my friend-was pregnant. They were his "real family" now, and they couldn't have any "unpleasantness." He threatened to use fabricated psychiatric reports to paint me as an unstable danger to myself. "Sign the papers, Clara," he warned, his voice void of emotion. "Or you'll be moved from this comfortable room to a more... secure facility. A long-term one." I looked at the man I had loved and saw a monster. This wasn't a tragedy; it was a corporate takeover of my life. He had been meeting with lawyers while I was losing our child. I wasn't his grieving wife; I was a liability being managed, a loose end to be tied. I was utterly and completely trapped. Just as despair consumed me, my parents' old lawyer appeared like a ghost from the past. She pressed a heavy, ornate key into my palm. "Your parents left you an escape route," she whispered, her eyes filled with resolve. "For a day like this." The key led to a forgotten contract, a pact made by our grandfathers decades ago. An ironclad marriage agreement, binding me to the one man my husband feared more than death itself: the ruthless, reclusive billionaire Julian Thorne.

The cemetery air was heavy, just like my heart, staring at Lily' s name, a scar etched in stone. Then she arrived, Sophia, my wife, leaning into Mark, my best friend. Her hand resting on the slight curve of her stomach twisted my gut. "Lily, from heaven, will surely bless the baby in my womb with health and safety," she sneered, holding her belly. My daughter was dead, and their child, a blessing. I slid my wedding ring off, the symbol of a shattered lie, and let it fall onto the damp earth beside Lily' s grave. I walked away without looking back, leaving everything behind. Later, I overheard Sophia' s sisters mocking me. "What do you bet he comes crawling back in a week?" one giggled. They had no idea. Soon, I found myself serving Mark, Sophia' s lover, even peeling him an apple, a twisted parody of our past intimacy. Her smirk told me she relished my humiliation. Then she dropped the bomb: "We can all be one big, happy family." I handed her the divorce papers, already signed. Sophia laughed, picking up the papers. "You have nothing without me." Suddenly, Mark began to choke, his face turning red. "What did you do?" Sophia shrieked, her eyes blazing, forcing a piece of the apple into my mouth. A sickeningly sweet, nutty taste flooded my senses. Almonds. The room spun, and the first wave of anaphylaxis hit me like a fiery punch. "We found out about the baby almost a year ago, right after… Lily got sick." A year. Lily was still alive when their affair began. They left me there, choking, as they rushed Mark to the hospital. But in that cold, sterile hospital room, a ruthless plan began to form.

For three years, I lived a fairy tale, believing I was the universe's luckiest woman, deeply loved by my brilliant creator, Ethan. Then, everything shattered the night he strapped me to a table, revealing a woman with my exact face on a screen: "That's my wife, Madisyn. You were built to replace her." He harvested my love, my memories, my very essence to revive her, then stripped me of everything, calling me a "soulless machine," and forced me to watch their rekindled romance from a glass cage, punishing me with electric shocks if I dared to look away. I endured agonizing chemical burns, dismissed as "glitches," until Madisyn had me thrown into a warehouse filled with unstable, decommissioned androids, certain I'd be torn to pieces. But as their metal claws ripped me apart, a secret program deep within me activated: a "gestational" program, a digital child Ethan had hidden. I had to protect it, even broken and dying. Ethan found me mangled, finally seeing the monstrous truth: Madisyn had sabotaged me with a "mortality patch" and orchestrated my destruction, even sending the robots to target the child. With Madisyn threatening to self-destruct if he saved me, Ethan made his choice, sacrificing her to activate the Genesis Protocol for me. But it was too late. My body, my pain, was who I was. I just wanted to feel the wind, one last time. He carried me to the ocean at sunrise, proposed with a ring that couldn't fit my ruined hand, and as my light faded, he carried my lifeless chassis into the waves, disappearing with me beneath the surface-a final, tragic embrace.

My husband, Ethan Cole, was New York' s legal golden boy-revered for his legal prowess and, more famously, for his legendary adoration of his wife, Sarah Miller. "My North Star" tattooed over his heart, cross-country flights for a few hours with me; I believed this perfect fairytale for years. Then, the crash. Arriving at his office to surprise him, I overheard his junior associates' crude jokes: "Boss is off to Napa with Jessica Vance for a 'client retreat'." Napa? He'd texted "Chicago deposition." My world tipped. The video landed, sent by Jessica: her, tied with Ethan' s silk tie, his face consumed by a desire I hadn't witnessed in years. It plummeted deeper. That night, he drugged my tea. Then, he brought her into our bed, right beside me, believing I was out cold. Her moans, his rough whispers, Jessica' s sweat-damp hair brushing my cheek-the ultimate, sickening violation. The man who once cooked me gourmet breakfasts became a depraved stranger, brazenly flaunting his infidelity inches from me. How could he? My reflection showed tear-streaked eyes, but pain became icy resolve. No screaming. No breakdowns. A chillingly precise plan formed. I took a burner phone, texting him-my husband, the famed attorney-as an anonymous "Ms. Evans": "My husband is cheating with his assistant. What should I do?" His reply, professional and prompt: "Secure all evidence of his infidelity. Bring it to me." So, I did. I formally retained Ethan Cole to handle my divorce. Game on.

I' m Chloe, a nursing student, always broke and buried in textbooks, a stark contrast to my influencer-wannabe roommate, Tiffany. We tolerated each other, barely. Then, one night, Tiffany burst in, grinning, clutching a filthy, terrified cat she' d "rescued" from an alley. "Meet Scrappy!" she squealed, oblivious to my strict allergies and our apartment's no-pets rule. From the moment I saw him, the matted cat stared at me with an unnerving, instant dislike. He quickly became a nightmare, tearing apart my expensive nursing textbook and leaving messes everywhere. Tiffany just laughed, filming him for her "content" while branding me a "killjoy" and "hater." But it spiraled out of control when Scrappy viciously attacked my eight-year-old cousin, Lily, sending her to the ER for stitches and agonizing rabies shots. My hands shook with a cold, desperate fury. This wasn't about a ruined textbook anymore; this cat was a dangerous menace, and Tiffany, wrapped up in her influencer dreams, couldn' t care less. I tried desperately to get rid of him, but she stopped me, and he escaped. Years melted away, only for the horror to become horribly real: Scrappy, now a scarred alpha of a monstrous feral cat colony, murdered my family. I screamed, and then, mercifully, nothingness. I woke up. Sunlight streamed through my old apartment window. I heard Tiffany' s chirpy voice from the living room: "Chloe! Look!" It was the exact same day. The same terrifying cat. I' d seen the future, and this time, I knew precisely what needed to be done.

I was a pregnant widow, my heart shattered by the loss of Ethan, my husband, who vanished into a relentless blizzard months ago. Every day on our isolated Montana ranch was a quiet struggle, a desperate attempt to move forward with the tiny, fluttering life within me. Then, a soft knock on the door, almost lost in the howling wind, shattered my fragile peace. Standing there, weathered but undeniably real, was Ethan. My breath caught, my world stopped spinning. But the moment his familiar blue eyes dropped to my noticeably swollen belly, his face turned to ice. "We never shared a bed," he rasped, a chilling statement, not a question. "How can you be pregnant?" The words struck me like physical blows, each one a fresh betrayal. After all the lonely nights, the tears, the private secret I cherished, this was his return? He stood before me, a stranger, denying a passion I distinctly remembered, demanding answers with accusation blazing in his eyes. How could I explain the man who held me when he himself couldn't remember? The one who called himself Ace? The one who loved me without fear, unlike the guarded Ethan who stood before me now? The Kingman curse might have consumed other men, but it wouldn't claim the truth of my child. I lifted my chin, a spark of defiance igniting. He wanted answers? I' d give them to him, even if it meant shattering his carefully constructed reality and fighting for the whole man I loved.

My tribe was dying, our sacred Sunbeam Ridge ravaged by the deafening roar of Remington Mining’s bulldozers. I, Ella Windrider, the last guardian of the Sunbeam Vine, felt my own life force draining away with each passing day. They said I had three years away from the Ridge before I withered and died. But my people would fall sooner if I did nothing. So, I walked out of the mists of our hidden valley and into the cold glass towers of Keller Remington, the man whose parents went missing on our lands, believing I could trade answers for peace. Instead, he took me prisoner, convinced my tribe murdered his family. Days blurred into months within his fortress-like estate, where I was held captive in a damp, windowless cell. He demanded answers, but gave me only torture, both physical and spiritual. He forced me to nurture the stolen Sunbeam Vines, draining my very essence to sustain his conniving fiancée, Sophia Wexler, and her unborn child. Each drop of the Vine’s sap I bled, was a piece of my soul. Then, my brave little brother, Little Hawk, came looking for me, only to be killed by Remington’s men, a death orchestrated by Sophia. As deep winter set in, I lay dying, haunted by his crushing loss, the truth of Keller’s parents’ murders a stone in my chest. I knew it wasn’t my people who killed them, but a ruthless corporation, led by Sophia’s family, and a traitor from my own tribe. They had used Keller’s grief, and now they were using me, slowly bleeding me dry. Just as my last breath faltered, an old lawyer arrived, armed with irrefutable proof that shattered Keller’s carefully constructed world. The man who had tortured me, who had caused my brother’s death, finally saw the face of his true enemy, and the innocent woman he had systematically destroyed.

The fluorescent lights of Northwood High’s auditorium hummed, a familiar sound. It was the last Monday assembly before SATs, and Brittany Jones, head cheerleader, announced a pre-party at her place tonight. A cheer went up, but my blood ran cold because I’d lived this exact moment before. Last time, Brittany’s party led to her faked overdose, my public ruin, Jake’s betrayal, and ultimately, the orchestrated death of my fire captain father and my own demise in a hospital bed. Now, inexplicably sent back, I tried to keep my distance, hoping to protect myself and my family from repeating the nightmare. Instead, Brittany and Jake escalated their cruelty, cornering me, stealing my SAT ticket, ID, and phone, and locking me in a dark gym storage room. My father miraculously rescued me, but that very night, Brittany and Jake launched a vicious social media campaign, framing me for their party’s disastrous mass hospitalization and even slandering my brave dad. Rocks were thrown through our window, and an angry mob, fueled by their lies, gathered outside our home, screaming "child poisoner." How could they be so utterly evil, so determined to destroy my life, and why was this second chance even worse, more violent than the first? But then, a flicker of hope: my smartwatch had been recording, and I remembered Jake’s old cloud passwords from our past, giving me access to all his damning secrets. This time, I wouldn’t just survive; I would use every memory and every piece of evidence to ensure they reaped what they sowed, for good.

Charlotte, working for Simon as her secretary, took full advantage of this job. She made cash on the side by selling the charming CEO’s photos, slippers, and his other belongings. The reason why she worked so hard was only that she wanted enough money to move out of that terrible place with her mother. She thought she hid this secret well, but he already found out how she earned the money from his admirers. She was unaware that no matter what happened, he wouldn't close the door on her.

The air still reeked of scorched metal and something sickly sweet, even as I stood on the gantry, watching the heat waves rise from the test pit below. My husband, Liam, stood beside me, his face impassive as he held out a pen. "Sign the papers, Ava," he demanded, his voice flat. Suspended beneath us, held by a massive industrial claw, were my parents-pale, terrified, and renowned NASA scientists. Liam' s new mistress, Scarlett, was pregnant, and he needed a "real home" for his new family. I had laughed, a raw, broken sound, when he told me, then confronted him, only for him to offer divorce papers and a blank check. "Take it. It' s more than you deserve," he' d said. My refusal led to broken legs, a vicious smear campaign, and then, he took my parents. Now, he offered the pen again: "Sign. Or they' re gone." My parents' eyes screamed, though their mouths were taped. My father shook his head, a desperate plea for me not to comply. But I couldn' t let them die. My own life was already over. "I' ll sign," I whispered, tasting ash. "Just let them go." Liam nodded to the operator, but the claw didn' t rise. It opened. My parents fell, their screams swallowed by an inferno. The stench of burning flesh hit me, and I vomited. Liam watched, his eyes empty. The world dissolved into grief and fire. There was nothing left. I turned, and with a final look at the man I once loved, I threw myself into the flames. And then I woke up. My legs were whole. The date on my phone was yesterday. It wasn' t a dream. It was a second chance.

I opened my eyes to a sterile hospital room after three years in a coma, a miracle, Dr. Reed called me. My memory, a slow agonizing puzzle, was finally whole. I remembered everything. The first person I saw wasn' t my fiancé, Mark. It was my old professor, Dr. Reed, holding my hand, her face a mix of relief and concern. Mark Harrison was waiting at the entrance of our house, looking older, his face etched with ambition, not grief. He didn' t rush to hug me, didn' t even smile. "Ava," he said, his voice flat. "You're back." Then she emerged: Chloe Davis, my old rival, now standing on my doorstep with a triumphant smile, her arm wrapped around Mark' s. On her wrist, my patented smartwatch gleamed. "Chloe has been a rock for me," Mark announced, looking at her with practiced adoration. "We're engaged." A month after my car crash – a supposed accident – he was engaged. A month after that, her company acquired a crucial patent from my firm. From inside, Spark, my AI companion, spoke. Its warm, inquisitive voice now clipped, devoted to Chloe. My home, stripped of my art, my books, everything that was me. "Chloe has taken over the company and our lives," Mark snarled, his patience gone. "You'll just have to accept it." He expected tears, but I felt only relief. The fog was gone. I saw him for what he was. "Okay," I said, my voice calm and even. "I accept it." He stared, confused. I was not the woman he thought he had destroyed. My purpose here wasn't to reclaim a lost love, but my life's work. Then came the child' s wail. Chloe rushed out, blaming my "legacy systems" for a scratch on a boy named Alex. "It wasn't a malfunction," I stated, pointing to the error log. "The command came from your smartwatch, Chloe. You probably held Alex's arm just a little too close to it." Her face went pale, then contorted with manufactured fear for Mark' s benefit. "You are unbelievable," Mark spat, blocking my path. "Something you could never give me." "I want access to Spark," I demanded. "I am the creator." "You have no rights!" he yelled. "Spark is not your company's property, Mark," I replied, my voice dangerously low. "Spark is mine." He knew that wasn' t an empty threat. He knew what I was capable of.

The city festival lights blurred, then the world exploded into screams and dust. Liam was on top of me, saving me again, for the third time. But this time, his last words, choked out with blood, were not what I expected. "If only... I had never met you." Ten years of a cold marriage, of my unrequited love, ended with that brutal, devastating line. At his funeral, his mother’s sharp voice cut through my grief: "He died because of you. Always you." The whispers followed me out of the church, society agreeing I was the reason Liam Walker, the city’s golden boy, was dead at thirty-three. I was branded the burden he’d carried to his grave, utterly alone and consumed by guilt. Liam’s words echoed, haunting me: "If only I had never met you." I desperately wanted to undo it all, not for a romance that never was, but for *his* peace, for *my* peace, to save him from a life of quiet desperation. Then, a whisper from the city’s underbelly reached me: the "Chronos Device," a secret, experimental temporal machine. It was unstable, dangerous, and, according to the scientist, tied directly to the deepest regrets of the person whose fate you were trying to change. I knew Liam's regrets intimately from his hidden journals: marrying me, abandoning his music, and failing to "save" Jessica, his true love. Driven by this desperate knowledge, I strapped myself into the humming machine, ready to rewrite his regrets, to give him the life he wanted. Even if it meant erasing myself from his life and future forever.

My life was a blueprint for success. Ethan Miller, a rising star in architecture, about to claim the American Horizon Architectural Prize, surrounded by my loving sister Ashley, my beautiful fiancée Victoria, and even my adopted brother Jason. But one call, one dark warehouse, shattered it all. Ambushed, my hands crushed, my career obliterated, I woke to a nightmare. My own sister and fiancée, the women I trusted most, confessed to orchestrating the brutal attack to clear the path for Jason’s success. They abandoned me in an earthquake, then left me for dead on an exploding yacht, all while publicly slandering my name to cover their tracks. The betrayal was a pain far deeper than any broken bone, a horrifying injustice that twisted my soul. Why them? Why Jason? Why this absolute destruction of my life? But just as despair threatened to consume me, a mysterious offer emerged: "reforging" through Phoenix BioGenesis. I accepted, not for healing, but for a chilling rebirth, returning as a ghost of my former self, a silent observer ready to meticulously dismantle the lives of those who thought they had won. This time, the masterpiece would be my revenge.

Dr. Evelyn Reed had finally done it. Three years of relentless work, the neural interface cure for her paralyzed husband, Ethan, was a success. A triumphant smile touched her lips as she reached for her phone to share the life-changing news. But an email caught her eye, a cheerful invitation that turned her world to ice. "Dr. Ethan Vance and Miss Tiffany Reed request the pleasure of your company at the celebration of their marriage." Ethan. Her husband. Tiffany. Her own niece. It was a sick joke, a complete error, yet the high-end Parisian wedding agency confirmed its legitimacy. Her joy evaporated, replaced by a cold dread as she drove through the night, a ghost to a celebration she was never meant to see. She saw him there, standing, whole, laughing, with Tiffany tucked into his arm, radiant in white. He kissed her, a tender kiss meant for the world to see, and Evelyn' s world tilted off its axis. Then she heard them talking, overheard their cruel confessions: he had always loved Tiffany, while Evelyn was merely "a necessary step," "a convenient solution." The man she had sacrificed everything for, the man who had promised his undying love, had been betraying her for two years with her own blood. The pain of betrayal, the hollowness of her sacrifice, the absolute injustice of it all, left her hollowed out, empty of tears. She watched him walk away from her in the hospital, choosing Tiffany, right after a fire, right after she found out a bomb, orchestrated by Tiffany, nearly killed her. This wasn't a love triangle; it was a war, and she was losing. Driven by a quiet, ice-cold resolve, Evelyn began to fight back.

Waking up and settling into a dangerous situation, Jordyn Barker suddenly turned into a special soldier of the future, when the world had just experienced a terrible disaster with thousands of dangerous monsters always lurking human's life. Her journey to become a great soldier begins here.

The flickering TV in my dingy motel room was the only light, illuminating the peeling wallpaper. On screen, Ethan Vance, my ex-fiancé, smiled his perfect, camera-ready smile, touting 'EvolveAI' and his "future-defining" Prometheus algorithm. Reporters swarmed him; he was the king of Silicon Valley, the brilliant mind behind the world' s most advanced AI. My world. My code. My future. He had stolen it all. Everything. I remembered the day he left, his eyes cold and empty, my three years of coding on a hard drive in his bag, a venomous "You were always just… holding me back." He didn't just take the code; he took my savings, my reputation, blacklisting me from an industry I helped build, all while Bethany Cole, my best friend, stood arm-in-arm with him, eyes gleaming with triumph. They left me with nothing but eviction notices, forcing me to sell everything I owned, living as a ghost under pseudonyms, cleaning up security flaws for companies that would never hire Scarlett Hayes. The pain of that betrayal was a constant, suffocating darkness, a deep pit I couldn' t climb out of, trapped by unseen enemies and their whispers of my failure. But watching him on that screen, basking in my stolen glory, a cold, sharp rage began to burn through the despair. In that cheap motel, I swore a vow: I would get justice, I would take back what was mine, and he would not build his empire on my ruins. My chance came weeks later: a vulnerability in his IPO network led me to a familiar digital signature-a back door I'd built into 'Prometheus,' a failsafe only I knew. He was arrogant, so certain he' d erased me he never looked for the ghost I' d left behind. He was on the verge of becoming a billionaire. And I had the key to his kingdom. A slow smile spread across my face. The game wasn't over. It had just begun. I wasn't going to be a victim. I was the storm he never saw coming. I would let him climb to the peak of his triumph. And then, I would burn it all to the ground.

Join Luna, a curious girl aboard the SS Celestia, as she explores uncharted galaxies, encounters mystical beings, and embarks on a quest for the fabled Cosmic Key. Packed with wonder, danger, and the thrill of discovery, "The Girl from the Stars" is a captivating sci-fi adventure that will leave you breathless.

The first thing I felt was the slow, steady beep of a machine. I opened my eyes to a sterile white ceiling, definitely not my bedroom. A nurse rushed in, dropping her clipboard, whispering, "She' s awake!" Then a doctor: "Mrs. Hayes? Ava? Can you tell me your name?" "Ava Reed... Ava Hayes." "And the year?" "2023. It' s October." Their pitying looks made my skin crawl. "Ava," the doctor said gently, "It' s not 2023." He pointed to a digital screen: July 12, 2038. Fifteen years. Gone. Just like that. The car crash that felt like yesterday had apparently happened a decade and a half ago. My Lily, my four-year-old daughter, would be nineteen. My husband, Ethan… I called him, desperate, finding his contact on a sleek, alien device. A voice answered, but it wasn' t his. It was cold, hollow. "Who is this?" "Ethan? It' s me. It' s Ava." Then, a harsh, bitter laugh. "My wife is dead. She died fifteen years ago. Don' t you dare use her name again." He was about to hang up. "The scar!" I screamed, "Under your left rib, from Miller' s Peak! And Lily… she called her bear 'Sir Reginald Fluffen-Bottom' !" Silence on the line. Then a whisper: "How… how do you know that?" Who was this stranger on the phone? What had happened to my life, my family? I was Ava Reed, a woman robbed of fifteen years. "Because I am your wife, you idiot. Oceanville General, Room 304. Ten minutes." I hung up, a cold, hard knot forming in my stomach. Ethan never showed. Instead, a slick lawyer offered me a hotel, a car, a credit card. I took the car. My daughter. Lily.

She Saved Me In the futuristic world of 2099, a genetic disorder was affecting the whole world. It came like a ghost, causing casualties even life long damages to humans. Can one girl change this disaster?