Transmigrating as the Billionaire's Wife

Nora sat on the sofa in a daze, half-listening to the unfamiliar man ramble on. "Nora, don't be sad. Lucas and that woman are just fooling around. You've always been the one he truly loves. The one who got away."

"Haven't you noticed that woman's features look a little like yours?" The man lowered his voice. "I did some quiet digging. To keep Lucas, she got plastic surgery modeled on your face. She looks nothing like she did in college now."

Nora kept her chin propped on her hand and said nothing.

The man didn't know what to make of it.

Ever since Nora had been pushed into the pool and fished out, she hadn't said a single word.

Had she really been hurt that badly this time?

...

Actually, the person who understood it all least was Nora herself!

She remembered being at the beach. She opened her eyes and she was at a party.

Yes. She had transmigrated into the novel.

Last night, Nora had been scrolling on her phone when she stumbled into a melodramatic novel called His Locked Love: The Tycoon's Darling. The second female lead, the one who got away, had the exact same name as hers, so she'd tapped in to take a look.

In the novel, the second female lead, Nora, was an heiress whose family matched the male lead Lucas's in wealth and standing.

Lucas had feelings for her. She had feelings for him too. Neither ever said it out loud, but they both knew.

At the start, she'd put her studies first and gone abroad for a few years.

Lucas was heartbroken. He couldn't believe she ranked school above him.

Reading all this, Nora had been full of question marks. Of course school mattered. Love or education? Education, every time. Even an heiress needed a degree from a prestigious university to polish her résumé.

Besides, weren't you a domineering CEO? Flying overseas was easier for you than drinking water. Couldn't you just visit?

Clearly, Lucas didn't see it that way.

He and the one who got away went years without meeting. Somewhere in between, he ran into the novel's female lead, Chloe.

Chloe had been secretly in love with Lucas since high school. She knew his heart belonged to the one who got away.

So Chloe deliberately copied her style, dress and all, and finally clawed her way up to become Lucas's girlfriend.

But what kind of CEO romance would this be without a little agonizing angst?

That's right. Our one who got away came home!

She saw the man she'd once loved with another woman. The elegant, untouchable lady turned vicious overnight, tormenting the female lead at every turn and kicking her while she was down.

To make Lucas jealous, she even entered a marriage alliance with another man.

Then the female lead was misunderstood by the male lead, over and over.

And over and over, the male lead uncovered the truth and saw the one who got away's true face.

And a villainess never gets a happy ending, does she?

In the end, the one who got away lay on shattered glass, her beautiful face a bloody mess, and fell from the 27th floor.

The female lead kept her copied face and mannerisms, lived happily ever after with the male lead, and gave Lucas three sons.

Waking up as the returning one who got away, doomed to that miserable ending, Nora needed a minute to collect herself.

The man talking to her was Zane, a mutual friend of hers and Lucas's.

In the original story, Zane despised Chloe. He thought she was too scheming, copying his best friend at every turn just to climb her way up.

Zane and Nora had grown up next door to each other. His father and her father were close friends.

He'd called her big sis as a kid. Then he grew weathered and rough-looking, to the point he looked older than her, and switched to her name.

So Zane stood firmly on Nora's side. He thought she and Lucas were a perfect match, and he'd always been her loyal right-hand man.

Anyone who disliked the female lead was destined to become cannon fodder. Zane's ending was brutal. His company went bankrupt, and his wife ran off with his bodyguard. He got cheated on in the worst way.

Nora's feelings were complicated. "You're Zane?"

Zane blinked, baffled. "Nora, did you hit your head when you fell in? We've known each other forever. You don't recognize me?"

Nora's feelings got even more complicated.

One of them faced a ruined face and a deadly fall. The other faced bankruptcy and a wife who ran off with his money and his bodyguard. They were two of a kind.

"I know you're hurting. You've loved him for so many years..." Zane lit a cigarette. "Fuck. That bitch's friends are just as cheap. They kept taking shots at you, and then they pushed you into the pool."

As they talked, Lucas and Chloe walked over. Three girls flanked Chloe, all shooting defiant looks at Nora.

They were the three who had pushed her into the pool.

Lucas went without saying. Standard CEO material: six feet tall, broad shoulders, long legs, a face carved like a blade. And, well, that domineering CEO aura radiating off every inch of him.

Chloe was the classic innocent-looking girl. Dark hair to her shoulders, a white dress, brows faintly drawn together. She looked a little pitiful.

Looking at that vaguely familiar face, Nora's stomach dropped.

She grabbed Zane's phone from the table and used it as a mirror.

...Yep. Just as she thought.

The one who got away, the one with her exact name, looked just like her too.

Nobody likes being copied. Especially not their own face.

Now Nora understood why the one who got away kept targeting Chloe.

Who wouldn't lose their mind over that!

Still, Chloe's features were on the plain side. Mostly makeup and clothes doing the heavy lifting.

In the original story, Chloe wasn't written as a beauty. She was an ordinary girl who clawed her way up to wealth and the top of the world.

At a glance, Nora's features were the more striking.

The fall and the towel-down had wiped away all her makeup. A towel hung draped over her shoulders, damp dark hair spilling down her back. She glowed like a pearl, soft and luminous, as if she belonged to another world entirely.

In the original story, the one who got away strode up and slapped Chloe, then demanded her three roommates kneel and apologize.

Chloe cried beautifully, so Lucas pitied her, fought with the one who got away, and left with Chloe in tow.

Zane was, true to form, her loyal sidekick. If he were a girl, he'd be clawing those three right now.

He shot to his feet with a "whoosh." "What gives them the right to push Nora into the water? Lucas, you owe us an answer!"

Lucas frowned. "She fell in the water. She's not hurt. It's not a big deal..."

Chloe's roommates all started talking over each other.

"It was an accident. We didn't mean to."

"Lucas, you're Chloe's boyfriend. Why would you invite other women here?"

"Some people had no business being here today. The man has a girlfriend, and she still tagged along, shameless as ever."

Nora's eyes were cool and flat. She shot Zane a look, telling him to sit back down.

Then she said, "Where are my bag and my phone?"