The short video clips must have stitched together the most intense conflicts from the novel, which is why they're particularly captivating.
Ariana Thorne has been married for nearly ten years and at thirty-two, why hasn't she conceived a child?
The main couple only meets twice a year during the New Year, the rest of the time the male lead is never home!
With a marriage you can count on one hand, it'd be a miracle if she got pregnant!
What really infuriates people is that after a rebirth, the female lead only manages to change the "mistress surrogate" situation. Miles Crawford still becomes a famous doctor, and although she finally bears a daughter, after the daughter is born, Miles doesn't even come home!
In this life, Ariana Thorne didn't live long either. She died on the same day she did in her previous life—not by suicide, but in a car accident on her way to find Miles with her daughter. Her ungrateful daughter blamed her for not winning her father's heart, causing others to mock her for not having a dad.
Neither she nor her daughter escaped the calamity of this car accident.
A few days later, Miles swiftly marries a female doctor from the lab!
So, in the end, those who cling on too desperately end up with nothing.
...
Shea Thorne was jolted back to her senses by a cold breeze. She opened her eyes from a daze to see the solemn and serious experimental building of the National Medical University before her.
She was standing at the entrance of the building, with the glass curtain walls reflecting her image. A harsh white light illuminated from within, contrasting sharply with the dark night surrounding it.
She looked at her reflection in the glass of the towering building.
Her figure wasn't very tall; she wore a very simple T-shirt, jeans below, and a pair of black high heels on her feet.
Her hair flowed like black satin down to her waist, her skin was porcelaneous and delicate, her eyes deep brown, long lashes, and a small mouth—like a doll transcending dimensions.
If she changed into a more refined outfit and discarded the food container in her right hand.
Shea Thorne struggled to raise her hand and swayed it from side to side. The awkward girl in the glass mimicked her movements. She opened the camera function on her phone to reaffirm her appearance once more.
For a moment, Shea Thorne couldn't accept turning from a mature woman into a sweet young girl.
...
The short video didn't detail the text, but the plot details seemed etched into her mind. She had been reborn as Ariana Thorne and landed in the crucial period of her having trailed after Miles!
During that period, Ariana changed her college application from a top-tier music conservatory to a third-tier comprehensive university's music department, spending all four years in college taking care of graduate student Miles like a nanny!
It was because of her diligent care for Miles that Mrs. Crawford considered Ariana a virtuous and good wife, thus pressuring Miles into marrying her!
Now, at nine thirty at night, she was still carrying a food container for Miles.
It wasn't that Ariana Thorne was late in delivering the meal, she'd arrived at five in the afternoon and had been waiting there until nine!
Miles' phone couldn't be reached, which is why the fool waited at the door; the building's medical students had experimental subjects—cadavers—inside, and Ariana was afraid of the bodies so she didn't dare go in, instead standing outside in the cold wind.
"I never felt it before, but experiencing it personally, it's really quite eerie and frightening."
Shea Thorne walked into the lobby of the experimental building, a place Ariana had never entered. The lobby was three stories high, now past school hours, the information desk was deserted.
This building… it's quite cold.
Shea Thorne didn't want to see Miles, nor did she plan to go up and find him. She just glanced at the layout and setup, intending to turn around and head back to her own school, but suddenly her body wouldn't obey, she couldn't move.
A force controlling her body compelled her to stay where she was, unable to take a step away. Shea found it bewildering, wasn't she supposed to transmigrate into the novel's female lead, to change fates and reach the peak of life?
Could it be that Ariana Thorne hadn't died, her soul still lingered, and she was only temporarily borrowing the body, two souls in one?
It was also possible that Ariana had died, but her obsession remained. How deep it'd have to be, yet this explained her actions.
Unable to move, Shea Thorne resigned herself to fate, she picked up the phone to call Miles, only to find it still turned off.
Shea mused: Give up, he's not answering anyway.
The suffocating feeling of being controlled dispersed, Shea finally had strength, carrying the food container out of the experimental building.
Her steps became brisk once free, the high heels clacked "tac-tac-tac" as she disappeared into the empty hall.
She hadn't gone far when a figure emerged from the hall, standing at the second-floor railing. Dressed in a black suit, tall and straight, he held a newly unsealed scalpel, descending slowly to the first floor.
Stopping at the spot where Shea had just been standing, a cold wind indeed blew through, bringing a vague, chilling alertness.
He lifted his finger to adjust the gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose, a medical mask covered most of his face, he looked back at the building.
Is it eerie? That's just because the air conditioning is too strong.
That girl better not be a new student this year, or he'll make sure she spends four years in this building, see if she's still afraid, and dares to say it's eerie.
Then again, that doll-like girl, looks just my type. If she's a student at National Medical University, it's not good if she runs away at the sight of me.
To her, perhaps he'd be a bit more gentle.
...
Not sure what's going on, Shea Thorne could only follow the original storyline, hoping to regain her freedom.
She first went to the dorm Miles rented next to the National Medical University, emptied the food from the container, and used the water in the pot to keep it warm for him, then took off her own key, leaving it on the table for Miles, and returned to her school in the dark.
Following her memory, she returned to her dorm at F University, where the other three girls were. One was already asleep, the other two were watching computers with headphones, they glanced at her when hearing her, then calmly looked back.
She gently took her things for washing and went outside to the hallway to wash her face. In the old dorm building of the third-rate university, washing and using the toilet were done at shared taps and toilets.
Washing her face was alright, the toilet was a matter of chance, sometimes it was very dirty, sometimes it was very clean right after a janitor cleaned it.
Overall, it wasn't convenient or clean.
Ariana Thorne finished washing reluctantly and returned, all the roommates were already in bed. It's been only two months since she started at F University, yet she had successfully alienated herself from the other three girls.
In this four-person dorm, Ariana was like a chastity widow from feudal times, complaining about noise when they talked about male stars after lights off. When they all went shopping or hung out, she wouldn't go, she even went around claiming that the top student from National Medical University, Miles Crawford, was her boyfriend, but Miles never showed up.
She was always cooking and doing laundry for Miles, tirelessly giving herself away, making the other girls disdainful. In their eyes, Ariana seemed mentally unbalanced.
Behind her back, they gave her a nickname, "the Arch," a reference to the arch of chastity.
Shea Thorne returned to her bed, looking at her own face in the small mirror, still unable to believe "Ariana Thorne" had been reborn once more.
Shea pinched her face, the sensation real, the pain on her face equally real.
She had become Ariana Thorne, but wanting her to be a groveling doormat, not a chance.