Short Stories & Novels

My wife's childhood guy best friend came back to the country. He raised a toast to me, thanking me for taking care of her. I turned him down, but my wife blamed me for embarrassing him. To punish me, she stopped our daughter's treatment and demanded I kneel and apologize to her childhood friend. That night, our daughter's condition got worse. I held her as her body kept twitching, calling my wife over and over. But I could never get through. In my arms, our daughter's body grew colder. Meanwhile, her childhood friend posted a picture of them looking cozy on his social media. "Even the northern lights can't outshine you by my side."

On our third anniversary, I brought a gift and went to Jaxon's studio, ready to surprise him with a confession—I was actually the daughter of the richest man in town. However, when the door opened, what greeted me was a shocking sight: Jaxon, completely undressed, posing as a model for another woman. When I confronted him, he defended himself with righteous indignation. "I'm only doing this to save money for our wedding!" Sensing the tension, the woman chimed in coyly. "Jaxon is sacrificing for the sake of art. There's really nothing improper between us." I stared at the two of them, perched on their moral high ground, and quietly turned away to cancel the extravagant dowry I had prepared.

My wife has an emotional breakdown after being violated. She insists I'm the one who orchestrated it, but both our parents know her true love is the actual culprit. Still, they don't object to her insane retaliation. They even have me locked up in a prison abroad. As I'm tormented, she sells my company to help her true love get away scot-free. Ultimately, he's set free, but I die without even having a final resting place. When a judge informs her to collect my body, she sneers and says, "I've had enough of this nonsense. Does he think he can get away with a fake corpse? I won't even bat an eye if his body is flushed down the drain! He's nothing but a disgusting criminal!" Later, she realizes that I've truly died. She's delighted, but her laughter soon turns to tears as she holds my corpse.

My husband was tall and handsome, but he had no money to pay his debts. During the five years of our marriage, I sold my house and car for him. We then moved to a dark and humid basement that was only 300 square feet in size. When I got pregnant, I wanted to go for checkups, but he said that there was no need for it, as it was a waste of money. So I gave birth to a baby with a congenital heart condition. In order to get the money for his surgery, I worked three jobs every day. At that time, I noticed that my husband bought a mansion worth 40 million dollars for an influencer, and I finally realized that my husband was no orphan, but the son of the richest man in the country.

I was the last one to find out that Rowan River was going to be a dad. When I arrived at the hospital, I saw him giving orders to his staff. "Don't let the news of the baby leak out. If Angela finds out, she'll definitely come back and cause a scene." I had liked him for ten years, and a year ago, I confessed my feelings to him. At the time, he said, "Wait until you finish school and come back, then we'll be together." I found it laughable. This time, though, I didn't react like before. I didn't yell at him or ask why he had lied to me. Instead, I boarded a plane and left the country, agreeing to marry the guy who had been pursuing me recently. From that moment on, I no longer loved Rowan.

I died the night before my wedding to Christopher. But on the wedding day, a giant screen showed photos of me in bed with another man. In a fit of rage, Christopher smashed the screen and got engaged to my sister, Elizabeth. When my father informed him of my disappearance, Christopher sneered. “Disappeared? With the disgusting things she has done, she’s probably too ashamed to show her face!” My brother joined in with a scornful yell. “She hurt Liz, and now she has done such shameless things. I refuse to acknowledge such a wicked sister!” The shock and anger led to a fatal stroke, and my father died right there. Since then, I was despised by everyone in Cloud City. What they did not know was that it was the seemingly gentle Elizabeth who had brutally stabbed me to death and dumped my body in the river. Two months later, a fisherman found my body washed ashore.

During the tenth year I had a crush on Ron, I was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer. With a critically ill notice in hand, I stood at the door to the room where my former classmates gathered, and I heard Ron holding his crush and cooing at her, “Just ignore it. Willow has been bothering me for ten years. If there was even a possibility of us getting together, we would have done so a long time ago. Honestly, I would never like her. Even if she continues bothering me for another ten or twenty years, I still won’t like her.” My former classmates cheered, and Ron looked like he was about to kiss her. I stood at the door and cried so hard that I trembled, but I did not dare make a sound. Ron, I would not be able to bother you for another twenty years. I was about to die.

After failing the mission, the System gave me one final chance, and to succeed, I had to give birth to a child. The System promised that if the baby were born safely, it would reveal the truth to my target and give me one last glimmer of hope. However, six months into my pregnancy, just when things seemed stable, I was dragged onto an operating table in the middle of the night by my husband and family. My husband stopped the anesthesiologist from giving me any pain relief. “Let her feel the pain,” he said coldly. “We need to keep the kidneys as fresh as possible.” My parents instructed the doctor to draw my blood. “She’s the same blood type as our precious girl. Let’s take some for backup.” Even my childhood friend, the boy who had always been by my side, was the one to slice open my abdomen.  They wanted my kidneys to save my sister, who was dying from kidney failure. No one believed I was pregnant. No matter how much I begged, they went ahead with the operation, tearing me open. The baby couldn’t survive, and I died on that operating table. However, as my soul began to fade away, something strange happened. Those who had murdered me—my husband, my parents, my so-called friend—they all lost their minds.

My heart shattered when I learned my daughter was pimping herself out. I couldn't imagine the young woman I thought of as a precious princess lying beneath an ugly, middle-aged man. It was such a horrific scene…

When my parents were having an argument, my brother and I were put on the condenser fan unit out the window. We were tens of stories high. Our love-struck mother refused to let us back inside because he wanted our father to regret his decision. But that wasn't going to happen. Our father only felt that our mother was annoying. He then went out of the house after slamming the door behind him. Our mother was infuriated as she pointed as us. "If it weren't for you two drawbacks, I would have divorced him a long time ago. Shut your mouths or you can forget about coming back in!" My tears were blew dry by the cold wind. I swore inwardly that I would never forgive them. Later on, when our father was drunk driving and accidentally rammed into our mother. The two of them became disabled due to the car accident. The insurance company paid us over 1 million dollars, but I chose not to treat them.

I fail my mission and jump off a building to restart the game. Then, I become a billionaire and am rewarded with a handsome young man as soon as the game starts!

I got off work early and walked into the living room, only to find my wife lounging lazily on the couch. And next to her? Some random dude I didn't recognize. "Babe, you know I'm obsessed with that sweet, milky smell," he said, sipping away like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted. That was it—I completely lost it. Meanwhile, our baby was in the corner, crying her lungs out, hungry and ignored. I didn't even think twice. I grabbed the broom by the door and stormed in, ready to raise hell.

On our fifth wedding anniversary, my husband was in a car accident and lost his memory. He forgot everyone, including me, but he clung to his young assistant, Sophie. "The first person I saw when I opened my eyes was her. She's the most important person in my life. I want to marry her!" he exclaimed. Sophie, tears streaming down her face, pleaded with me, "Nadine, I'm sick. My only wish in this life is to marry the one I love. Please, have mercy and let us be together." Even my husband's so-called loyal friends, who had always referred to me as "sister-in-law," suddenly turned on me, urging me to step aside for their sake. Watching Lawrence's overly dramatic performance, I swallowed my pain and forced a smile. "Fine. I'll grant you your wish." After all, Sophie really was sick. It just wasn't cancer—it was something else.

My usually cold and distant wife shared a bowl of soup with her newly joined colleague. Surprisingly, I felt calm, even as I brought up divorce. She sneered at me, "Don't be ridiculous. I'm exhausted. He's just a colleague of mine." "Even if we're married, you have no right to interfere with what I do with my colleagues." "If that's what you think, then I can't help you." When I actually put the divorce papers in front of her, she flew into a rage. "Ryan, do you think the Wagners were still what they used to be? You're nothing without me!"

An older woman had wormed her way into my husband's life. A new hire in the company, she catered to his every need, from preparing his meals to washing his personal items. I had warned him repeatedly about the inappropriate nature of their relationship, but he dismissed my concerns. "Claudia's son is in college," Bryce had scoffed. "What could I possibly want with her?" Fine. I had a plan. I served him divorce papers and began showering attention on a young college student. His reaction was explosive. In response, I threw him a puzzled look. "Leon's father is about your age. What could I possibly want with him?"

I found a condom and a lace thong in the bathroom trash can. John and I had not been intimate in over a year, and I certainly did not own that kind of underwear. I thought about calling him, but then I came across a post from his god-sister of him passionately holding and kissing her foot. Though I was heartbroken, I did not cry or cause a scene. I turned off my phone and forced myself to carry on with life. Eventually, John finally noticed something was wrong. With red eyes, he asked, "Why didn't you care about me flirting with another woman?"

My husband's parents were stung by an unidentified venomous queen hornet and rushed to the hospital. As soon as I heard the news, I hurried to the entomology research institute to seek help from my husband, who was the director, hoping he could assist the doctors with the diagnosis. Instead, he called for security to block me at the entrance. "I don't handle work matters after hours," he said coldly. "Penny's mother is sick, and I need to go take care of her." I tried to show him the critical condition notice from the hospital, but he tore it up in one swift motion. "People die every day. So what if your dad and mom died?" After my in-laws passed away, I filed a lawsuit against Penny Madison, who had deliberately disturbed the beehive that led to the attack. My husband, who had disappeared for several days, suddenly showed up as an expert witness in court. He fabricated a false professional opinion to exonerate Penny. When I decided to leave the country, he lost his temper. "What do your parents' short lives have to do with me? Is it so hard to understand that after a long day at work, I just want to rest? And now you want to drag Penny into this mess. Just because your own family is broken, you want to ruin someone else's? How can you be so vicious? You deserve to lose your parents!" Watching his brazen attempts to twist the truth, I suddenly realized something. He still didn't know that he had become an orphan.

As I was cleaning up the house, I noticed something had fallen out of the cabinet my wife always kept locked tight. I remembered Megan's constant warnings. "That cabinet holds all our family's important records. If anything gets lost, there's no getting it back. Just leave it alone and don't touch it." Worried something valuable might have fallen out, I rushed to pick it up. But what I found was a thick stack of remittance slips. From forty years ago to now, every month, my wife had been sending money to the same account. And that's when it hit me. My wife had been lying to me. The money I'd been pouring into this family had been flowing right out, into the hands of someone else.

I was shattered to learn that my precious child was not mine. My own flesh and blood was gone forever. I was not going to crumble under the weight of the revelation or consume myself with hysteria or grief. Instead, I channeled my pain into putting my mother-in-law behind bars and breaking my husband before moving on with my life.

I was once the best undercover agent in the police force. But during the final raid of my career, I was betrayed and killed by my husband's first crush. From that moment on, the world believed I was a traitor. My name, my honor, everything I had fought for, was erased. Now, even in death, I watched as they lived the life they stole from me. And I was left with one burning question: how had I ever fallen so far?