Histoires Courtes Emotional Realism & Romans

My family and I have gone on a road trip. But when I help an old lady to her feet after she suffered from a fall in the rest stop, my wife, Cindy Ford, who has been chatting animatedly with me the whole time, scowls at me instantly. "I never knew you were this underhanded! Just the sight of you disgusts me! Get lost!" Even my eight-year-old daughter, Tessa Hayes, glares at me disdainfully. "I don't want someone like you as my dad!" With an ashen face, Cindy whisks Tessa into the car immediately. Just like that, they abandon me at the rest stop. What I don't expect is that my in-laws actually call me on the phone and insult me as a walking jinx after finding out about the incident. Now, they want Cindy to get a divorce with me as soon as possible. Furious, I return to my childhood home and dump all of my emotional load on my parents. But my parents, who have always doted on me, don't console me at all after they find out I've helped an old lady up. Instead, their expressions go stormy. "How on earth did we end up having a son like you? You should just die already!" My parents kick me out of the house right away. Dazed and disoriented, I end up getting struck and killed by an incoming truck. Even as I breathe my last, I never understand what I've done wrong. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day I help the old lady up to her feet.

My father-in-law, Noah Quinlan, and I go on a vacation together. After checking into the hotel, we decide to swim around in the hotel's swimming pool. But a well-dressed man shows his disdain toward us outright while pinching his nose. "This is a high-class hotel! Ugh, why are there all sorts of people here? Don't tell me you two secretly snuck in just to use the pool! "I'm really scared of catching any infectious diseases just by sharing the same pool as you!" That man's words instantly spoil the mood for Noah and me. I reply coldly, "The hotel's swimming pool is meant for public use. Anyone who stays in the hotel has the right to use it. If you can't accept that fact, you might as well have one built at your home." The man is so angry that his brows are all scrunched up. He retorts furiously, "How dare you talk to me like that! Don't you know that my wife is the owner of this hotel? The fanciest suite here belongs to me all year round! "I order you to get lost right now! What if your poorness dirties the pool water? How disgusting!" Noah and I exchange looks immediately, soon noticing the coldness in each other's eyes. My wife, Zara Quinlan, is the one owning this hotel. Since when has she become another man's wife?

When I'm working as a deliveryman, I receive a delivery order from a hotel. As I look at the bag of adult toys in my hand, I can't help but snicker knowingly. "Youngsters nowadays sure are wild in bed." The moment I open the hotel room door and see my girlfriend, Natalie Brooks, I feel as though all color has been drained from my face. Natalie's work junior, Brandon Clark, laughs arrogantly in my face with a bath towel wrapped around his waist. "How did that broke bastard track us down?" Natalie just frowns at me in displeasure. "Brandon helped me secure many projects at work. His only wish is that he gets to spend a night with a woman. "This is nothing but physical collision between bodies! This is the 21st century, Oliver! Must you be such a prude? "But don't worry, though. Even though I'm spending the night with Brandon, I'll still marry you according to my family's wishes." I shake my head immediately out of fear. "I'm not interested in marrying a woman who's been used by others, so I hope you two have a great life together! But I'll also withdraw my funds from your company. You'd better kiss those projects of yours goodbye!"

The new security guard watching over the neighborhood is a university student named Jake Gould, who happens to be sponsored by my wife, Jenna Hudgens. My mother-in-law's illness suddenly gets triggered for no reason. But Jake has the audacity to have my car clamped over the excuse that I've illegally parked it. I'm worried that my mother-in-law's condition will take a turn for the worse, so I quickly call an ambulance. But as soon as I leave the apartment block, I see the ambulance's tires getting clamped down as well. Furious, I yell, "How dare you clamp an ambulance! If anything happens to Mom, I will never let you off the hook! Now unclamp the ambulance right now!" Jake looks at me with an aggrieved expression. "Mitch, I was just doing my job according to the policy. Can you please not make it difficult for me to do my job?" Jenna begins shifting the blame to me coldly. "Jake is a newbie, which means he must be listening to his boss' instructions. Why are you acting like a madman for no reason? "Besides, your mom seems to be in good health. Why does she even need an ambulance, to begin with? From the way I see it, she's just kicking up a fuss!" At that moment, the doctor suddenly yells, "The patient's heart has just stopped! She won't make it if we don't go to the hospital right now!" Jake's expression goes stark white immediately. He then rushes off to remove the clamps.

"Sorry, but we've oversold the seats in this flight. We'll give you a compensation. Please get off the plane right now." The manager of the airline company keeps a firm grip on my luggage. I look at him coldly before turning to look at the woman, who's covered in branded apparel from head to toe. After all, the manager has just welcomed her onto the plane. "Why does that latecomer get to board the plane? Meanwhile, I'm the one who's bought my own ticket at the regular price, am the one who gets kicked off the plane!" The manager chortles in return. He lowers his voice before mocking me, "That's because she's Kellie Castille, the heiress of the top-tier medical conglomerate in Jorleton! She's in a hurry to travel to Jorleton to hire the mysterious miracle doctor in order to save her life! "I don't care how urgent your matter is—there's no way it can be even more urgent than Ms. Castille's! If you cause any sort of delay to her business, nothing you do can ever make it up to her! Now hurry up and get off the plane!" A few security guards drag me off the plane forcibly. Just like that, I'm forced to watch the door close before my eyes. Fury courses through my veins at that moment. According to the manager, that Kellie woman is afflicted with a terminal disease. What he doesn't know is that I'm the "mysterious miracle doctor" who the Castilles have been begging for the past three months to accept their request. Today is the day I finally agree to fly to Jorleton in order to perform the life-saving surgery on Kellie. Since Kellie has already kicked me off the flight, I won't be going through with the surgery, then. Kellie can go to hell for all I care!

We have weird rules set in place in this home. 1. Ethan's opinion is the one that matters the most in all events. 2. If Matthew has any objections, please refer to the first rule. Ethan Moreno is the real heir who has been reunited with the family. I am Matthew Moreno, the fake heir. My adoptive parents claim that they've set up these rules because they are worried that Ethan might not feel at ease when he's home. That's why when Ethan asks to move into my room, I let him have it. When he demands that I give him my scholarship, I give it to him obediently. When he tells me he wants to marry my fiancee, Holly Nottings, I agree to it. Even when Ethan plans on using our family's account to donate ten million dollars to a university in exchange for an exchange student slot, I agree to let him have his way as well. After all, when I refused to give Ethan what he wanted in my previous life, he threatened to commit suicide after he got his sorry ass dumped by Holly. When my adoptive parents found out about it, they strung me up and had me whipped for three days and nights. By the time I was released, I was already reduced to a shriveled-up corpse. When I open my eyes once again, I hear my adoptive father claiming that he'll wire ten million dollars from the family account to Ethan.

In my past life, I was performing emergency pipeline repairs 300 meters beneath the ocean when my oxygen line ruptured. I swam back for help, only to have my wife, Summer Yates, and her first love, Zachary Gibson, lock me out of the diving bell. Not only did they ignore whether I lived or died, but they also started live-streaming an extreme no-oxygen endurance challenge to the entire internet. In the end, I suffocated and drowned. Even after my death, Summer and Zachary smeared my name, calling me a deranged saboteur, while they ran off together with my massive life insurance payout. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn to the exact moment I was banging on the hatch. Right on cue, Summer's sweet, teasing chuckle came through the comm. "All units, don't open the hatch. Carter wants to attempt an extreme challenge today. He's going to swim back to the surface without oxygen!" Immediately after, Zachary's voice followed, trembling with excitement. "Babe, the sponsors said if Carter succeeds this time, I'll be the lead director on next month's million-dollar documentary series!" In my past life, I had begged them through mouthfuls of blood, only to be met with Summer's impatient urging. "Stop wasting your energy. You should save your oxygen and start swimming up. You're such a strong swimmer. Just hold on for another half hour, and you'll make Zachary's dream come true!" Now, as I listened to this pair of scumbags plot against me, I sneered and cut the communication. I raised the highest-powered underwater cutting torch in my hand and aimed it directly at the main load-bearing cable connecting the diving bell to the surface vessel above. They wanted me dead, so none of them would be leaving alive either.

My name is Adrian Hart. The day my sister Serena found me and brought me home, I thought I finally had a family again. I was wrong. In Serena's eyes, her adopted brother Evan mattered more than I ever would. When he was too scared to marry into a powerful family, I walked down the aisle for him. When he wanted out, I swallowed a fake-death pill and disappeared. Every time, Serena swore it was the last. The seventh time, she poured the pill down my throat herself. And that was the time I actually died. My soul stayed behind. I watched Serena stand over my body in the morgue and fail to recognize me until it was too late. And the cruelest part wasn't dying. It was knowing that, until my very last breath, my sister still wasn't on my side.

Someone steals my takeout at the school gate. It is from a BBQ restaurant. Not only does the thief eat it all, but he also humiliates me in front of my classmates. He mocks, "Look, everyone! This is what a pauper would eat. Even my dog eats better than this!" He pulls out a stack of cash and slaps one bill against my face. Then, he tosses the rest into the air. "Happy birthday, beggar!" Three days later, he is burned to death in the alley behind the school, his limbs stretched out and tied to a tree. He is literally "grilled." And I become the murderer.

I was having lunch in the cafeteria when my pregnant coworker, Cindy Jenkins, reached across with her fork and speared the fried chicken drumstick right off my plate. She did not say a word until she had finished every last bite, then casually remarked, "I'm six months pregnant now, which is when I need the most nutrition. Plus, I'm carrying a boy, the only grandson in my husband's family. Do you all understand how important this baby is?" I stared at her, dumbfounded. "What's that got to do with me? It's not like I'm the father." She completely ignored me and said, "I'm just letting you all know. From now on, you're taking turns giving me your chicken drumsticks." The other coworkers at the table quickly looked down and focused on their food, nobody daring to say anything. Only me, the one person who never backed down, kept staring straight at her. Cindy slammed her fork onto her tray. "What are you looking at? Your drumsticks are mine from now on, got it?"

Three years after I died, my mother sent me twenty dollars for living expenses. Three years before that—the first time I ever asked my family for money—she said to me, offhand, "Sometimes I think you're just putting on an act. What's so unsanitary about a thirty-cent boxed meal? And why can't you wear a five-dollar down jacket? Face it, you're just more high-maintenance than your little brother." Later, when I needed twenty dollars to buy some cheap medicine for my stomachache, she blocked me immediately and cut off all contact—along with every relative we had. "Don't contact me anymore. I'm clearly not a good mother. I can't afford to give my son a life of luxury." But for my younger brother, who had just started high school, she spared no expense—renting him a three-bedroom apartment. Even the family dog got its own room. In the end, on the day my brother became the top scorer in the state, she finally remembered me. She took me off her block list and transferred twenty dollars. "It's only twenty dollars. Was it really worth giving your family the silent treatment for three whole years?" What she never knew was this— On the night my stomach ruptured, three years ago, I had already died. I couldn't afford to go to the hospital. I froze to death in the snow.

My mother-in-law was rushed to the hospital with sudden chest pain and sent straight into emergency surgery. However, my wife, who was the head of the thoracic department, insisted that her clueless young male apprentice be the lead surgeon instead. The apprentice stood in front of the operating table. He couldn’t even recognize half of the surgical instruments laid out before him. He pouted and fidgeted a little. “I forgot again…” My wife just smiled indulgently at him. Even though the patient’s chest had been opened, she patiently spent ten minutes explaining the instruments to him before the surgery finally began. In the end, the apprentice’s hand trembled, and he accidentally punctured the tumor. Terrified, he let out a sharp scream and threw himself into my wife’s arms. To console him, my mother-in-law’s only chance at survival was gone, and she died right there on the operating table. My wife walked out of the operating room, supporting her badly shaken apprentice, and glanced at me indifferently. “Before you take your mother’s body away, provide an affidavit of non-prosecution to the hospital. Your mom couldn’t have been saved anyway. Anthony is still young. His future can’t be ruined because of your mother.” Only then did I realize that she thought the person lying on that operating table was my mother. I chuckled and said, “I'm afraid I'm not qualified to do that.”

My father was a senior HR executive. He used KPIs to define my life. "Rank top ten in your grade, and I'll give you a B, with a bonus of 250 dollars. "Place in a state-level competition, and you'll get an A, with a bonus of 500. "If your SAT score hits Ivy-level, I'll give you an S+ and a 5,000-dollar year-end bonus." I studied as if my life depended on it, and in the end, I got the acceptance letter. My father slapped a contract down in front of me instead. "Congratulations on onboarding into the next phase. Starting today, your allowance will be structured as base salary plus performance plus attendance bonus. "Base pay is 250 dollars a month, enough to keep you from starving. "To prepare you for a high-pressure work environment, I’ll conduct random inspections. Fail, and your pay gets docked." When I ran a 104°F fever, he cut my attendance bonus, saying my physical resilience didn't meet standards. When I forgot to submit a weekly report because I was buried in schoolwork, he froze all my money. To stay alive, I went behind his back and sold blood at the hospital. At the end of the semester, I held my transcript and scholarship certificate, thinking I had finally earned the highest rating. But my father looked at me without a trace of warmth. "Your S+ bonus has been reallocated. The company decided to invest it in your brother, Harry. He has more potential." I looked at the 100-dollar "consolation prize" he handed me and laughed. So in his company, I didn't even qualify as an "outstanding employee."

I've invested in my cousin, Jack Glenwood's farm. His net profit is more than four million dollars per year. On the day I'm supposed to receive my bonus, Jack tears the contract stating that I get a 55% profit share right in front of my family. After that, he transfers 40 thousand dollars to me. He even has the audacity to pat me on the shoulder with a smile on his face. "Noah, you never did anything throughout the year. Since I'm giving you 40 thousand dollars, that means I'm treating you well, right?" I just smile as I look at Jack's greedy and despicable expression. Then, I accept the 40 thousand dollars without saying anything. The next day, I cut off the secret formula to the farm's feed and travel overseas to carry out a new round of investments. This time, I want to see how Jack will fare without my secret formula.

While I was eating, I came across a post on X. [Found out my girlfriend has a nasty disease and is pregnant. I want my buddy to be the one left holding the bag. What should I do?] I was just about to comment that the poster was out of his mind when I scrolled down and realized people were actually giving him advice. [That's easy! If you two are close, just invite him on a trip.] [Get your girlfriend and your buddy drunk in the middle of the night, then have them stay in your buddy's room. When the time comes, catch them in the act. You can break up and push the kid onto your buddy to take responsibility…] Reading that comment, I couldn't help but laugh in disbelief. I was about to show my friend this mind-blowing post so we could rant about it together when he suddenly looked up at me and asked, "Tyler, are you free this weekend? How about we go on a trip?"

The day after my mom used 880 grand from selling our family restaurant to buy a house for my cousin, my girlfriend of five years dumped me. "Evan," Ruby Lawrence said while she sat across from me. "Let's break up." My hands trembled. "Why?" "I waited for you for five years." Her eyes welled with tears. "You said once the restaurant was sold, we'd have the down payment for a house in Seahaven. Where is it now? Where's the money?" I tried to explain, but she cut me off. "In your parents' eyes, you're not even as important as your cousin. So tell me, who's really their son? I'm 28, Evan. I can't keep waiting." She grabbed her bag and walked away without looking back. My phone buzzed. My mom sent me a photo of her and my cousin at his new house. That was followed with a voice note. She sounded joyful. "Your cousin finally achieved his biggest life goal. We can relax now." I stared at his smug smile in the photo. I laughed until tears ran down my face. I exited the 'Clark Family Forever' group chat and blocked every single relative. 'Since you all choose him, then from this moment on, your reputation or loyalty will have nothing to do with me. I only wonder if you'll think of the son you abandoned when that precious nephew of yours, who you poured all your resources into, throws you out of your own home.'

After my best buddy, Jack Hughes, certified my 20th girlfriend as 'another gold digger', I finally agreed to an arranged marriage to the wealthy heiress Cyndi White. My family was delighted. Later, at a gathering with friends, Jack snatched Cyndi’s half-eaten cake and said like he was her real husband, "Cyndi, this cake is too sweet. Eating too much won't be good for you. I'll eat it for you." I stopped him, but he did not just think he was in the right. He even let his guard down and said, "I was just testing your wife's character. Why all the fuss? We've been bros for over a decade. Do you think I've got my eye on your wife?" If it were in the past, I might have believed him. However, I had been reborn. I grabbed the cake from the table and slammed it into his face. "What kind of character do you have, testing other people's character like that? You're just my late driver's son! Why are you pretending to be some wealthy heir? I bet you've not only got your eye on my wife, but you've already planned how to get into her bed!"

I had always been fragile, the kind of kid who could not handle a gust of wind without losing balance and who teared up over the smallest thing. The day my biological parents found me and took me back into their wealthy world, everything had already felt unreal. Then, things got worse. Out of nowhere, an old woman came sprinting down the street and dropped right in front of the Bentley, like she had timed it perfectly. I panicked and completely froze, so I did the only thing I could think of. I dropped down beside her and started crying. However, I overdid it. I cried so hard that blood started streaming from my eyes. The old woman jolted upright like she had seen something horrifying. She shoved 500 dollars into my hands, muttered a string of curses, and ran off without looking back. Just like that, I was back with the Snyder family. The house rose in front of me, all polished stone and perfectly kept lawns, like something out of a magazine. However, the closer I got, the more my nerves kicked in, and that familiar metallic taste crept up my throat again. The so-called heir walked over, smiling like we were supposed to be close. Then, he gave me a light shove. He leaned in, his voice low enough that only I could hear. "Stay in your place. Don't start wanting things that were never yours." Right there, in front of everyone, I leaned back and collapsed. I did not move at all. He froze. His face turned red as he grabbed my collar and shook me. "Quit pretending. Get up!" A few seconds passed, then a few more, before he slowly turned his head, his movements stiff. Tiny drops of blood speckled his clothes. His voice trembled. "Mom… Dad… I think…" He swallowed hard. "I think he stopped breathing."

My future mother-in-law, Diane Grant, loved setting rules. On the day I proposed, she sat there with that smug, superior look and told me if I wanted to marry her daughter, Olivia Grant, I had to pass her so-called "son-in-law training", which was three months working as a food delivery driver. She said she wanted to test whether I could handle hardship. For my fiancee's sake, I kept my identity hidden. I was the heir to one of the most powerful families in Crestfall City, and I agreed without hesitation. For three months, I shed every trace of privilege. I worked from dawn to night, delivering orders across the city. My parents didn’t understand. My friends disapproved. Mrs. Grant watched me like a hawk, picking me apart every single day. "Three minutes late? That’s a $3,000 penalty. The wedding shall be delayed by a month!" "Wrong unit delivery, bad review? $8,000 penalty. You don’t get to see Olivia this week!" Even then, I never gave up. Until the final day. I received an urgent order with a massive tip. The note was in bold: "Lifesaving medication. Immediate delivery." I sped through the streets, pushing myself to the limit. Just as I was about to enter the residential compound, Mrs. Grant stepped in front of me, blocking my way, her face full of disdain. Her voice shot up sharply. "The wedding gift goes up to $200,000. Not a cent less." I looked at her look of absolute certainty and suddenly laughed. My finger slid across the screen. The recipient of that urgent order was her precious son, Christopher Grant. I slowly put away the unlimited card in my pocket, along with the check I had prepared for a million-dollar wedding gift. Originally, I had planned to reveal my identity that day to give her the surprise of a lifetime. It seemed there was no need.

My wife sent a whistleblower letter to the airline that I worked 15 years for. It was a PowerPoint that was 56 pages long. She reported that I was a playboy captain that cheated on her 999 times and that I embezzled millions of company funds. When the Disciplinary Department found out the truth, everyone fell silent. The funds that I had embezzled were just a couple of packs of tissue and some paper cups. The total cost of these things wasn’t even worth the superior’s time. The person who cheated on their partner was actually someone else.