After my best friend, Penny Hallmark, found herself a wealthy man, she suddenly became a different person.

I had done nothing more than glance at her husband, Martin Rembrandt, yet she slapped me hard across the face.

“I treated you as my closest friend, but you dared seduce Martin right in front of me. He’s Chris’s brother! Have you no shame at all?”

Her accusation brought tears to my eyes, but Penny resorted to locking me inside a reservoir.

“What are you playing at anyway? Fine. Let me give you something to really cry about!”

I nearly drowned, and she uploaded photos of me soaked to the skin, claiming online that I was behaving indecently.

I became the target of cyberbullying, my boyfriend, Christopher Rembrandt, proposed a breakup, and in utter despair, I decided to end my life.

Yet my best friend mocked me coldly.

“Do you really think I don’t know your little tricks? You’re just pretending to be pitiful to gain sympathy, aren’t you?

“That won’t do at all, Rose. Let me give you a hand!”

She pulled out my breathing tube, and only when my life completely slipped away did she smile in satisfaction.

“Good. Now I can enjoy both Chris and Martin’s affection.”

When I opened my eyes again, I had transmigrated into the body of Chris’s mother, who had just passed away.

Given a second chance at life, I was determined to make Penny pay.

After all, the man she loved most was nothing more than a hopeless mama’s boy.

“Mom, you always loved wearing white dresses when you were alive. Now you can wear them forever.

“Don’t be hard on me, Mom.

“I didn’t mean to do it…I was just afraid you’d take Martin from me.

“Besides, people online always say widows are the most likely to treat their sons like husbands.

“I love Martin so much. You had a husband, too. Even though he died more than twenty years ago, you should be able to understand, right?”

When I heard my best friend, Penny Hallmark, spewing those twisted words, I realized I had been reborn.

Before I could even sit up, Penny walked to the front of the coffin, lowered her voice, and hissed manically into my ear.

“You old hag, you’re finally dead. I couldn’t stand watching you dress up every day, trying to seduce your two sons!

“They’re both mine. No one is allowed to take them from me!”

Just then, I opened my eyes and met her gaze.

“Who said I was dead?”

Penny’s scream pierced the silence of the wake.

Everyone turned toward the sound, only to see me sitting up inside the coffin.

In an instant, the crowd scattered in terror, screaming as they fled.

At the same time, a flood of memories that didn’t belong to me surged violently into my mind.

Only then did I understand.

I was now the mother of the Rembrandt brothers and also Penny’s mother-in-law.

A year earlier, after my death, Penny had married into the wealthy Rembrandt family.

The youthful-looking Mrs. Felicity Rembrandt became her new target of obsession and rivalry.

If Felicity wore a white dress, Penny accused her of pretending to be young and trying to attract a man to replace her husband.

And if Felicity spent some time with Martin and Christopher Rembrandt, Penny claimed that grown sons should not be so close to their mothers.

In less than half a year, under Penny’s relentless insinuations and venomous remarks, Felicity suffered a sudden heart attack and died.

With old hatred and new grievances piling together, I swore that in this life, I would make Penny pay.

Coming back to her senses, Penny immediately resorted to her old tricks and began crying.

“I know you’ve never been happy about me marrying into the family, Mom, but there’s no need to fake your death just to gain sympathy, is there?

“Dad passed away a while back, so I know you’re lonely, but both Martin and Chris are already grown men. It’s time for you to let them go.”

Every word painted me as an aging, shameless mother-in-law clinging to her sons.

My lips curved into a cold smile as I pinched my skin.

I sat upright in the coffin as tears streamed down my face and I wailed loudly.

I wanted to see who would win in the end, the grieving mother-in-law airing her sorrows, or the rivalry-obsessed daughter-in-law stirring up chaos.

“Oh heavens, what misery my life has been! I lost my husband while I was still young, raised two sons all by myself, and just when I finally saw them grown and married, I hadn’t even held a grandchild yet before I was angered to death!”

Penny staggered back half a step, startled by my sudden outburst.

But in the very next second, I climbed out of the coffin and nimbly locked my arms around her legs.

“God pitied me and let me come back to life, yet my own daughter-in-law clearly never wanted me to live!”

The people who had fled earlier heard the commotion and returned to the hall, whispering among themselves.

Penny endured the pain in her leg and struggled in panic.

“Mom, what are you saying? I never wished for you to die!”

Martin, the eldest son of the Rembrandts, snapped out of his daze.

He shoved Penny aside and helped me up.

“What the hell, Penny? You were hoping Mom would die, weren’t you? Apologize to her now!”

Penny froze in place.

After a long moment, she bit her lip and forced out the words.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

At her words, Christopher, or Chris, the younger brother, who had remained silent all along, finally spoke.

But instead of defending Felicity, or more like me, he spoke for Penny.

“Mom, you’re already pretty old… Why are you arguing with someone like Penny?

“You know how she just speaks her mind. She didn’t mean any harm.

“Stop crying already. It’s embarrassing.”

At his cruel words, I wailed even louder as I pounded the ground with all my strength.

“So now I’m an embarrassment to you, is that it? Fine! If I’m dead, I won’t shame you anymore. I’ll go ahead and die right now!

“It’s perfect. When I get to heaven, I’ll have a proper talk with your dad about how his son forgot his mother the moment he got himself a wife!”

I shook free of Martin and hurled myself toward a wooden post in the distance.

Before I could reach it, Martin grabbed me and turned to Chris in fury.

“Have you lost your mind? Do you think it was easy for Mom to raise the two of us? How could you side with an outsider?”

The color drained completely from Penny’s face.

Martin had always been Felicity’s favorite and so never spared Penny a single glance as he focused entirely on calming me down.

Chris, by contrast, looked conflicted.

Looking at him—my ex-boyfriend from my previous life—my heart filled with bitter irony.

In my past life, Penny had posted photos of me online wearing nothing but my lingerie.

The caption read: [Starting the bid at one dollar.]

When I confronted her in rage, she brushed it off with a careless remark.

“Only sluts change clothes in front of windows. If you weren’t trying to sell yourself, then what were you doing?”

Chris had not only failed to defend me but even excused Penny’s behavior.

“Penny was just trying to teach you a lesson.

“She’s always blunt. If you cut ties over something like this, people will think you’re very petty.”

In the end, Penny deleted the post.

But every day, tens of thousands of insults and obscene jokes still flooded my inbox.

At that thought, I smiled coldly and rose unhurriedly, before making my way to Chris.

Then, gathering all my strength into my palm, I slapped him across the face.

“This,” I said, “is the price you pay for siding with outsiders.”

Chris staggered back from the blow, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, his eyes filled with shock.

Penny and Martin looked as though they, too, had been slapped, their faces frozen in disbelief.

Penny reached out to gently cup Chris’s swollen cheek, her heart aching for him.

“What right do you have to hit him? Have you lost your mind?”

Martin stepped in front of me and spoke with righteous certainty.

“Chris is still Mom’s son. If she hits him, she must have had her reasons.”

I patted Martin on the shoulder and replied with a cold smile.

“What right? Because I’m his mother.

“Let me give you some advice, Penny. When a mother hits her son, it’s not madness; it’s discipline.

“If I don’t teach him now, society will teach him later.”

Just then, a memory from Felicity’s past surfaced in my mind.

It turned out only Martin had been raised by Felicity.

When Chris was born, her husband, Noah Rembrandt, tragically passed away.

To keep the Rembrandts from falling apart, Felicity had no choice but to leave Chris in the care of a nanny.

Chris had always believed that Felicity favored Martin and neglected him.

He even made it difficult for Felicity to remarry, claiming that she must always mourn for Noah, and that if she remarried, he would make sure she was never welcome in the Rembrandt home.

When Penny repeatedly targeted Felicity, Chris saw it all clearly yet never once stopped her.

When I had been with Chris in my previous life, I had pitied him.

Now I saw him for what he truly was: an ungrateful wretch.

Since I had taken over Felicity’s body, I decided it would be my turn to teach Chris how to be a filial son.

After the chaos in the hall spiraled out of control, Penny struck first, deliberately revealing the bruises on her arm.

“Ever since I married into the Rembrandts, Mom has found fault with me every single day.

“If she wasn’t accusing me of dressing too provocatively, she was saying I was too close to Martin.

“When Chris spoke up for me, she even hit him. Is that really my fault?”

She cried with tears clinging to her lashes, stirring waves of sympathy online.

[You disgusting old hag! At your age, you’re still competing for male attention.]

[You’re making all women our age look bad!]

[Her husband hasn’t even been dead that long, and she’s already been cycling through men.]

[Now that she’s old and can’t pull anyone, she’s set her sights on her own sons. Is she trying to commit incest? How vile!]

[Don’t cry, Penny. You did nothing wrong. The one at fault is that hag!]

One unbearable comment after another flooded my vision.

When I thought about how Felicity had endured such abuse every single day while she was still alive, I was reminded of the cyberbullying I had suffered in my past life.

Even though ‘Rose Denning’ was already dead, these people still refused to let me go.

I shoved the video at Penny’s face.

“Either you come forward and clear things up,” I said coldly, “or you walk away.”

Penny immediately collapsed into Martin’s arms.

“I love Martin. I’m begging you! Please don’t take him away from me. I can’t live without him.”

Martin rubbed her shoulder gently as he tried to soothe her.

“Mom isn’t that kind of person. There must have been some misunderstanding.”

In the past, Felicity had repeatedly endured everything because she didn’t want Martin to be caught in the middle—until that forbearance cost her life.

But times had changed.

I had no intention of holding back.

“I think Penny just doesn’t want me around. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gone online saying I hit her.

“I might as well just die and be with your dad.”

At my words, Martin immediately turned on Penny.

“When did Mom ever hit you? Delete that video right now!”

Penny looked utterly aggrieved.

In a place Martin couldn’t see, she shot me a vicious glare.

Just as she was about to delete the video, Chris stopped her.

“Mom, you were the one at fault for embarrassing everyone in public.

“Penny only wanted to teach you a lesson. There’s no need for you to blow things out of proportion.”

I laughed in anger.

Penny immediately found her confidence and began fanning the flames beside Martin.

“That’s right, Martin. I did it for Mom’s own good.

“Don’t you think she’s been acting like a completely different person since she suddenly came back to life?

“Situations like this usually mean she needs a man, or, like Rose, she’s just jealous of my good fortune, and so she’s deliberately targeting me.

“If it really comes to it, we should just send Mom to a psychiatric hospital.”

At that point, I could no longer endure it and violently overturned the coffee table.

Everything on it clattered to the floor.

Water spilled everywhere as all three of them sprang to their feet, faces filled with terror.

I was just about to slap Penny across the face when she suddenly thrust out her stomach and screamed.

“Go on—hit me right here! I’m carrying the Rembrandts’ legitimate heir.

“If you’ve got the guts, then hit me!”