Jealousy

On the first day after I died, my boyfriend brought his first love back home.

They kissed passionately on the sofa I bought, acting as if no one else were there. They ate the celery dumplings I had made by hand and played with the gaming console I had given him.

One day, his first love asked curiously, “Where’s An’an?”

My boyfriend’s voice was calm. “We had a fight a few days ago. She applied for a business trip with her company.”

Oh, he still doesn’t know that I’m dead.

In my past life, my sister was adopted by a wealthy family, while I was taken in by a street cleaner.

As it turned out, that wealthy family was plagued by vicious infighting. Her parents were cold, her brother was a bully, and she was eventually kicked out with nothing to her name.

My home, however, was full of harmony. To top it off, a wealthy young heir fell in love with me-the poor, innocent Little White Flower. My life was like something straight out of a romance drama.

Consumed by resentment, my sister killed me, and we both returned to the day we were adopted.

This time, she rushed forward and threw herself into the cleaner’s arms before I could move.

“Sister, this time, it’s my turn to be the leading lady of the drama.”

But what she didn’t know is that a leading lady is never defined by her background.

After graduating from college, I moved into a shared rental with my rich second-generation boyfriend and started a business from scratch.

I was the one building the company. He was the one suffering through it with me.

Every day, I came home exhausted to our small apartment.

And every time, he would have a fragrant, steaming meal ready for me.

Life was hard, but we both felt happy.

Until one day, I saw the barrage comments:

[Oh my god, the male lead is still here suffering through this startup with his ex-girlfriend. When is the female lead finally going to show up?]

[The male lead is still too young. His parents already paved a golden road for him, but he refuses to take it and insists on staying in a rental eating instant noodles with his ex.]

[It’s fine. Once the ex-girlfriend’s startup fails and she starts drinking and getting violent, and later even cheats on him right in front of him, he’ll obediently go back and inherit the family business.]

[But honestly, summer, a rental apartment, bare skin, heads down and working hard… the sexual tension between these two is insane.]

During filming, the female lead intentionally shattered my Jadeite Earring, the one that never left my side.

My face turned deathly pale as I gasped. My Best Actor boyfriend, however, urged me to be magnanimous.

But no one saw the Companion Greed Maiden, sealed for five years, whispering in my ear: “Whose fortune shall we take first?”

I’ve read so many novels about the “crematorium” trope-where the husband has to crawl back and beg for forgiveness-but I never expected to find myself starring in one.

Except there’s no chasing, only the crematorium.

Because I’m actually dead.

I’ve become a ghost, watching the man who betrayed me. Seven days after my death, he finally seems crushed by a delayed sense of grief. In the home I can never return to, he howls in agony, acting as if life is no longer worth living.

You want to know how I feel?

I just stand there blankly, carefully admiring every inch of pain etched onto his face.

I listen intently to his desperate wails, triggered by my departure.

Beyond the desolation and heartache in my soul, a massive wave of schadenfreude suddenly wells up within me.

A joyful, blissful sense of schadenfreude.

It’s a sensation so sharp it borders on thrill. I cover my mouth and begin to laugh.

The day before our wedding, I accidentally stumbled upon a chat log between him and one of his old buddies.

“I’ve never met anyone so easy to fool.”

“She’s from a single-parent household, you know? She’s starved for affection.”

“So, even if I treat her just a tiny bit well, she comes crawling back to lick my boots.”

…

Honestly, I once believed he was the one who rescued me from the mire I was sinking in. As it turns out, he was just playing me for a fool the entire time.

I thought I had found love, but all my sincerity had been thrown to the dogs.

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.

To surprise my online boyfriend, I secretly traveled thousands of miles to his university.

When I arrived, I happened to see him coming back to campus from outside.

I was just about to go up and say hi when he walked right past me without so much as a glance.

?

A moment later, my phone buzzed.

“Holy crap, babe. I just saw someone who looked exactly like you.”

“But you’re the only one in my heart, so I didn’t even spare another woman a second look.”

I was so mad I laughed. Right then and there, I snapped a selfie in front of the school gate and sent it to him.

“Maybe try taking another look?”

My sister was beautiful and brilliant, always effortlessly winning people over.

Compared to her, my plain self was like a timid little mouse.

My parents used to say, “How can you even compare yourself to your sister?”

My childhood friend said, “Jiajia and you don’t look like sisters.”

I asked him, “Then what do we look like instead?”

Sniffling, he replied:

“Like a princess and her maid.”

That was until I met Cen Yi.

My parents were clinging to my sister, introducing her to his family and boasting about how exceptional their daughter was.

I stood off to the side, stealing glances at the cookies on the table.

But he bypassed everyone else and pulled me into a tight embrace.

“Mine,”

he said.

My boyfriend asked me to help him shut down his computer.

That was when I saw his chat logs.

A girl named Qingqing had messaged him: “So, when are you coming to marry me?”