My Ninth Life: Breaking Free

Chapter 3

Word Count: 652 | Released on: 16/06/2025

skull. Stars burst

with rage, was the last thin

piece of tra

eling by my bed, stroking my forehead when I had a fever. "You'

was a fresh w

by my hair, across the manicure

she decreed, her voice ringing with authority. "No f

spair settled deep. I just wanted

pain and thirst. The gravel bit

ong-time friend of the Hawthornes, and, more importantly, he had been close to my parents. His annual v

g in concern. Caroline, flustered, ordered t

he kitchen, where I was trying

she done to you?" he

what was the point? It would only make things worse f

h. I was clumsy," I mum

d have done more, years ago. After your pare

er that not everyone saw me as worthless

er, my resolve suddenly hardening. "I need t

ered within me. This was a t

chen, Derek on her arm. They were dres

"Derek and I have the most wonderful news!" She held up her h

got the cream. Caroline was the most daz

nt face to my bruised one. He nodded sl

Derek had left for the g

ncerned." He paused. "I can arrange for your departure. Funds, a place to stay, perhaps that design school in California I mention

it brought tears to my eyes. "Yes

ystem still claimed me in the end, thes

VER" in the night sky. It was a public spectacle celebrating the

Chapter End

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My Ninth Life: Breaking Free

Qian Mo Mo Modern

“I' d died eight times already, each a brutal end, all thanks to Caroline Hawthorne. Now, I was on my ninth life, cold in a dusty attic room, a flat digital voice repeating its impossible command inside my head: "Secure Caroline Hawthorne's genuine, exclusive romantic devotion." But this wasn' t just about winning her love; it was about survival itself. This time, the System' s chilling ultimatum echoed with no emotion: "Failure in this iteration will result in permanent dissolution." No more chances. My tormentor, Caroline, then entered, pregnant with her fiancé Derek' s child, and immediately imposed her latest cruelty: I was demoted to the gardener' s shed, while Derek' s prize-winning show dog got my warm room. She kicked me. Memories of my past deaths, stark and agonizing, flooded me: freezing in a wine cellar, drowning after being pushed overboard, a shank in prison, botched medical procedures where she watched me bleed out. I' d endured skin grafts from my own thigh because Derek faked an injury, been forced into life-threatening blood transfusions for his "recovery," and suffered public humiliation at her hands. Her blind devotion to Derek was absolute, her cruelty towards me boundless. I was broken, tired of the endless loop of torture and failure. Why did I have to suffer endless agony for a devotion she clearly didn't deserve, a woman who treated me as less than human? I just wanted it all to end, for oblivion to claim me. My silence became defiance against her rage. That yearning for freedom, once a desperate wish for death, hardened into something cold and resolute: revenge. If the System demanded her "devotion," or her "permanent removal from the equation," then I would choose freedom. After her last threat-to harm the only person who cared for me-I knew what I had to do. This time, I wouldn't just survive; I would ensure her downfall, and finally, truly break free.”