There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly

Before my crazy grandmother died, she gave me three walnuts. According to her last wish, I cracked open the first walnut on my twenty-fifth birthday. Inside the walnut was a slip of paper. 'Go to the skybridge and grovel at the first beggar you meet' was the instruction written on it. When I looked at the note, I could feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment. Still, I did as told. To my surprise, the beggar turned out to be an undercover cop. Only later did I learn that I had long been targeted by human traffickers, and the bow had saved my life. As for the second walnut, my grandmother told me to crack it open before I got married. When I put on my wedding dress, ready to marry the policeman who saved me, I happily opened it. This time, there was a crumpled old photograph inside. In the photo, my fiancé was smiling as he strangled another bride.

The Horror Game invaded the world. Real players entered the game, and their every move would be broadcast live. My adopted son shoved me—an eighty-eight-year-old woman—straight into a deadly dungeon to save his own skin. One of the comments in the live stream predicted: [What? They’re tossing in such an elderly woman? No way she’s gonna survive the first night!] On the first night, a frost-bitten ghost exhaled icy breath in my face. I shrugged off my thick floral coat, feeling sorry for her. “You poor thing! You must be freezing. Listen to me and bundle up quickly!” The second night, a starving ghost lunged at me with blood dripping down his chin. I sniffed the air, then found a jar of pickled cabbage. “Look at how skinny you are! Come on, let me get you something hot to eat.” On the final day, the last surviving players tied me up, desperate to steal the one ticket to escape. However, before they could touch me, every ghost in the dungeon came storming out, cleavers and rolling pins in hand. “Touch her, and you’re dead meat!”

The wheat has yet to ripen when my Grandma, Julia Simmon, appears to me in a dream. "There will be a plague of locusts in the autumn. Sell off the produce and raise fish to ensure the family has income." I, Vanessa West, convince my parents to harvest the wheat for grain and feed before irrigating the fields to raise fish. Then, a severe drought strikes and the fish die, leaving my family drowning in debt. We're at a loss to know what to do. Then, Grandma appears in my dreams again. "There are gold bars buried under the oak tree on the hill at our old home. Selling them will sort out our debts and leave you with money to spare." After telling my father, Alan West, this, he digs up a whole crate of white powder. The police happen to be staking out the area. They have him arrested, thinking that he means to buy the drugs. For the amount he gets caught with, he faces life imprisonment. My mother, Hannah Smith, is unable to bear the sight of this and faints on the spot. Again, Grandma appears to me in a dream and offers guidance. "Dr. Hank Vance at Central Hospital can cure her. If you don't hurry, she'll be in danger!" Desperate to save my mother, I threaten Dr. Vance with my life, and he agrees to operate on her. Then, my boyfriend gets into a car accident and urgently needs treatment. However, he succumbs to his injuries due to my asking for Dr. Vance. In the meantime, Mom doesn't receive treatment in time. As she is dying, Mom weeps, asking me why I ruined the entire family. Then, she passes away on the operating table. My boyfriend's parents think I am responsible for their son's death, and they stab me 18 times. While being rushed to the emergency room, I see Grandma again. However, she is grinning maliciously as she plunges a knife into my heart, mimicking the stabs I got from real life and giving me a ruptured heart. I died without understanding why Grandma's appearances led to my family's end. I open my eyes and find out that I've returned to the day Grandma told me to sell our crops.

My husband's first love was scalded by boiling water. To punish me, he forced me into a customized steamer half my height, turned the heat to its highest setting, and sealed me inside. "I'll make you feel the pain Jessica suffered a thousand times over!" Trapped in the suffocating space, my breath came in ragged gasps. Heat seared my skin, and my body felt as though it would melt. I sobbed, begging him for mercy. "Please! I'm going to die!" But he didn't look back. Holding his beloved in his arms, he walked away. He even locked the door after he left the room. "Don't worry, you won't die. This is the only way you'll understand Jessica's pain." Despair swallowed me whole. I screamed, my voice raw, but the boiling water beneath me splashed up, scalding my skin, stealing even the strength to cry. He left the country with Jessica that same night. A week passed before he finally remembered my existence. "That wretched woman must have learned her lesson by now. Let her out." What he didn't know was that the water had long since boiled away, the heat had faded, and inside the steamer, my corpse lay rotting—swarmed with maggots.

My grandmother, Gabriella Lorne, begs my uncle, Daniel Saldano, and his family to take me in after Mom and Dad pass away in an accident. To repay Grandma's kindness, I take care of her for seven years after she develops dementia and breaks her leg. I tell myself that I can't die when I'm lying in the emergency room after getting into a serious car accident. Grandma still needs me to take care of her. I hear the doctor's anxious voice coming from outside the door. "The patient is in critical condition. You're his family. You need to pay for his medical bills as soon as possible!" "We're not going to save him!" Grandma exclaims energetically in the next second. "We don't have the money to pay the bills." "Let's contact Mr. Anderson as soon as Jasper breathes his last breath," my lazy cousin, Ashton Saldano, chimes in excitedly. "He's been looking to buy a corpse for 100 thousand dollars. That's more than enough for me to buy a marital home and find myself a wife!" Grandma scoffs and says, "Pretending to be demented for the last seven years is finally paying off. The shaman told me that I'll be able to absorb this jinx's vitality once he's dead. He should feel honored that his death will fund Ashton's new home." My heart throbs painfully. It turns out that my beloved and respected Grandma is nothing more than a "man-eating" monster!

Amber Lim was famous for her luxurious style and beauty. But, she was also notorious as a man snatcher. Regretting her bad attitude, Amber was determined to start a new life. Despite the extreme winter, she headed north to learn from Adam Smith, the mysterious world's finest jewelry designer. Unfortunately, Amber was robbed and left in a deserted forest. There was only a small hut that could save her from freezing, and there was only one person who could help her survive—Mister Cold. No one knew the man's real name. He deliberately lived a solitary life and hated disturbance. Nearby villagers even called him the Cannibal because of the lack of humanity. While in fact, Mister Cold was just a widower who hated women, especially those who ruined people's relationship. What would happen to Amber? Could she conquer Mister Cold and go home safely? Or instead, could it be she ended up being the widower's delicacy?