Jealousy

After a blackout leaves Qin Shuyi with swollen lips and three female roommates as suspects, her search for the mystery kisser forces her to confront a tangle of hidden crushes—and the girl who has loved her all along.

I fell in love with my rival—and my roommate.

The good news: she was a woman.

The bad news: she was straight.

On the surface, Pei Ruoqing and I couldn’t stand each other.

In secret, I was practically begging, “Big Sister, slap me.”

We stayed tangled up like that until our five-year college reunion.

After the reunion, I used my drunkenness as an excuse to climb into her car.

When I saw that our old class president was still hopelessly in love with her, I deliberately picked a fight.

She shot back coldly, “He likes me.

Does that really make you so jealous?”

Before I could answer, an out-of-control truck came hurtling toward us.

I threw myself over her without thinking—and died protecting her.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on freshman move-in day, staring straight at Pei Ruoqing as she pushed open our dorm-room door.

To break his betrothal to my elder sister and marry me, Lu Jin agreed to three conditions.

First, on her birthday every year, he must personally bring a bouquet of pomegranate blossoms to her residence.

Second, if we ever had a daughter, the child must bear her name.

He agreed to both.

As for the third, my sister said she would name it another day.

After we married, it did bother me that he went to her with flowers year after year.

But he was gentle with me, and we were so deeply in love that I could hardly bring myself to complain.

Besides, whenever I showed the least displeasure, he would say, “Once a promise is given, not ten thousand mountains can stand in its way,” and tell me not to ask again.

What truly stuck in my throat was the way he mentioned my sister every time he called our daughter’s name.

She did not live in our house, yet she was everywhere in it.

At last I could bear no more.

I wept and insisted on changing the child’s name.

Lu Jin merely watched me coldly.

“Have you finished making a scene in front of the child?”

He resented my suspicions and grew steadily more distant.

Then my sister sent word of her third condition: he was to help her divorce her husband and bring her home.

I promptly wrote a divorce agreement of my own.

Lu Jin took it with a weary sigh.

“She’s already given up so much.

What more do you want?”

“If she hadn’t stepped aside, I would never have married you.

Had I known it would come to this, she might as well have refused.”

I was reborn on the day Lu Jin came to ask for my hand.

He handed the betrothal token straight to my sister.

“The eldest Miss Xie alone holds my heart.

I wish to take her as my wife and remain true to her all my life.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

When we were kids, I told my childhood friend, “I like your best friend, but don’t tell him.”

Then came his best friend’s wedding.

I grabbed my childhood friend by the throat. “Wow, you really can keep a secret.”

He let out a cold scoff. “Say you like him one more time, and I’ll beat your ass.”

After I died, my boyfriend’s grief moved God.

God gave me a chance to be reborn, sending me back to my boyfriend in a stranger’s face.

If he fell in love with me again, I could come back to life.

But when I returned to him, he already had a new girlfriend.

In the third year of my relationship with Tan Zongmin, I caught him meeting the woman his family had arranged for him to marry.

The moment he saw me, he froze.

Noticing his distraction, she followed his gaze and asked curiously, “What are you looking at?”

Tan Zongmin looked away and replied flatly, “Nothing.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and played along with our unspoken understanding, pretending not to know him.

That morning, I’d received an email confirming that my resignation had been approved.

I’d been wondering how to break up with Tan Zongmin gracefully.

When the matchmaker came to propose the marriage, she said Cen Dalang (Eldest Master Cen) of the Cen family had talent, while Erlang (Second Master) had looks.

“A perfect match for your two young ladies.”

“The eldest son for the eldest daughter, the second son for the second daughter.”

“With their older brother and sister looking after them, how could the younger ones ever have a bad life?”

In my last life, things were indeed just as the matchmaker had said.

I married Dalang, and my younger sister married Erlang (Second Master).

Dalang and I spent years cleaning up mess after mess for our younger siblings.

Until Dalang died saving Erlang (Second Master).

I thought he would resent them.

But instead, he looked at my plain, unremarkable face, tears in his eyes, and sighed bitterly.

“This life was far too worthless.”

“Was I not even worthy of having a beautiful wife?”

He passed away with that regret.

It struck me like a bolt from the blue.

So all those messes he had cleaned up-he had done it willingly.

Not only for his younger brother, but for my younger sister as well.

Now, reborn into this life,

as I listened to the matchmaker say those same words,

I merely replied calmly,

“Let’s forget it. Dalang has no looks, and Erlang (Second Master) has no talent. Neither of them is a good match.”

Chapter 0

Chu Huai, the Crown Prince of Beijing’s Elite Circle, confessed his love to my roommate.

A helicopter showered flower petals from the sky, stunning the entire school.

But my roommate was distressed. She asked me:

“But I only see him as a bro… What do you think? Should I say yes?”

I said:

“Say yes. He’s rich and handsome.”

She narrowed her eyes, and the next second, shoved me toward Chu Huai:

“A Huai, my roommate seems to really like you!”

I stumbled and fell at Chu Huai’s feet, a sharp pain shooting through my knees.

Chu Huai didn’t spare me a glance, only looking at my roommate.

His dark eyes were somber, a hint of pain in them:

“Are you a block of wood? How could I possibly like trash like that! You know who I like, don’t you!”

My roommate tilted her head, as if she didn’t understand.

Her beautiful eyes curved, full of innocence:

“Wow, you two are so perfect together! A Huai, I’m kind of shipping you two. Mom, Dad, your baby is here!”

Chu Huai clenched his teeth. For a moment, no one dared to breathe, and a deathly silence fell over the scene.

But I have a severe people-pleasing personality and never spoil the mood.

I said:

“Yes, yes, we’re so perfect together! Hubby, hubby, gogogo, our baby is born! Haha.”

In the seventh year of having a crush on my childhood friend, encouraged by my best friend,

I carried flowers and a cake onto an overnight train to confess my feelings to him.

But on a basketball court roaring with noise and people,

I ran straight into the sight of the two of them kissing.

With his arm around my best friend, my childhood friend asked coldly, “What are you doing here? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Disheveled and humiliated, I was just about to explain

when his roommate beside him let out a soft laugh. “My girlfriend came to bring me a cake. What’s it got to do with you?”

A mistaken phone call makes Si Yun order her distant contract husband, Huo Jingheng, to come home before she locks the door.

He obeys—and after an illness brings them closer, the cold businessman discovers how much he wants her care, her rules, and a real marriage.

But meddling parents, a proposed heiress, and the fragile terms of their agreement force them to decide whether their marriage is still a transaction or the home they have both been missing.