Hypocrisy Familial Bond 短篇故事與小說

After we get married, my husband places his assistant, Penelope Sanders, in complete control of our household finances. Whether I need money for groceries or a new car, every expense has to go through her entire review and approval process before she releases the money. Then, my mother-in-law, Margery Torres, is injured in a car crash and desperately needs 300,000 dollars for emergency surgery. When I can't reach my husband, I have no choice but to ask Penelope for access to our funds. However, she calmly paints her nails as she says, "You want the money? Fine, but you'll have to follow procedure. Submit a written request, and I'll review it." I've heard plenty about Penelope. She barely does any work at the office and spends most of her time making everyone else's job harder. However, Margery is waiting for the surgery that could save her life, so I immediately draft the request, while repeatedly emphasizing that it's a life-or-death emergency and that every minute matters. Penelope rejects it without even glancing at the page. "How do you expect me to approve 300,000 dollars based on this flimsy request? Who are you trying to fool? You're asking for 300,000 dollars, not 30 dollars. Denied." My voice trembles with desperation. "Ms. Sanders, the request clearly states that the money is for emergency surgery. Please make an exception!" Even so, Penelope remains completely unbothered as she slowly brushes glitter over her nails. "Rules are rules. Requests for major expenses must be at least two thousand words. Don't come back until you've written enough. If you want to save her life, write a request that actually meets the requirements."

I come home for the holidays to find four pairs of slippers beside the shoe cabinet. There's a pair for my dad, Dean Pratt, a pair for my mom, Nancy Kerr, and two pairs for my sister, Luna Pratt, including a spare. Mine isn't there. Although my sister attended school in another state, kept her room exactly as it was. Even her slippers sit by her bedside, waiting for her return. I had been away from home for three years. When I returned, I discovered that my belongings had disappeared one by one. And now, they hadn’t even kept a pair of slippers for me. I stand in the entryway, my feet bare. "Where’s my pair?" Mom pokes her head out. "You hardly ever come back, so I threw them away. They were taking up space." But the soles of my sister’s spare pair had already been worn smooth, and they were still neatly sitting in their original place. The next day, I buy a new pair for myself at the supermarket and put them beside the shoe cabinet. That night, I check the shoe cabinet and find them gone. Dad is watching TV on the couch. "Luna's classmate came over, so I gave them to her." "I just bought them." Dad doesn't even turn around. "It's just a pair of slippers. Get another one." Luna pauses. "Huh? I thought Mom had bought them for guests." It makes sense. Guest slippers were supposed to be thrown away once the guest had left.

My family was the most famous line of witches at the royal court. My sister, Lilith Seyler, was famous for her lofty principles. I was the only one who knew she was a complete fraud. When the royal marriage decree arrived at House Seyler, she shut herself in her prayer room out in the woods and refused to come out. "Duke Edmund, your wealth and your power are dust to me. A proposal from a duke is no different than a proposal from a farmhand." Then she laid out three conditions for Duke Edmund. The Duke was to build a prayer room on his estate, since she needed quiet meditation and practice with the elements to keep her magic stable. Before the wedding, the Duke was to wash in mountain spring water, burn dragon's-breath incense for three straight days, and abstain from meat and strong liquor so he could come to her purified. And the Duke was to agree not to share her bed for three years, both to protect the source of her magic and to keep her perfectly focused and clear-headed for her studies. Duke Edmund Ashbourne gave a furious laugh. "I think I have come to the wrong place. Is this House Seyler or a convent? "If no one accepts this decree today, House Seyler is defying the King, and every last one of you will answer for it!" My father, Alistair Seyler, dropped to his knees in terror and begged Edmund for mercy. But no matter how my father and my stepmother, Cordelia Seyler, pleaded, my sister would not bend. She would take the decree only if the Duke agreed to her terms. "Duke Edmund, everything that happens in time and space is already decided. Two people with no destiny between them are meant to pass each other by. Why force me to say yes?" The Duke turned to leave in a rage, ready to bring the King's punishment down on House Seyler. I huddled in the corner, took a deep breath, rushed forward, and dropped to my knees. "I am Rowena Seyler, the second daughter of House Seyler. I will accept the decree in my sister's place!"

In our tenth year of marriage, Sean Whitmore cheated on me with Sonia Sutton. He brought his Sonia’ son and daughter to see me. He said he felt sorry for the children. They needed a father. Our daughter begged him to stay, but he refused to change his mind. I didn’t fight to keep him. I took our daughter and left, and I never remarried for fear that a stepfather might mistreat her. Years later, my daughter married a good man. My granddaughter was adorable too. I spent my days caring for her, and life was happy and peaceful. On my sixtieth birthday, my daughter and son-in-law said they were busy at work, and my granddaughter had a last-minute tutoring session. They promised to celebrate my birthday the next day. But that evening, I came across a video filmed nearby. In a luxurious private dining room at a hotel… My daughter, her husband, and their little girl stood with Sean and Sonia’ two children. All six of them gathered around the woman he left me for and sang her "Happy Birthday." My daughter even called her "Mommy Sonia."

The day SAT scores dropped, my twin sister Emily totally tanked. She cried so hard she could barely breathe. Mom, Dad, and Kenneth spent all night babying her. After midnight, Mom finally remembered I existed. "Amelia, what'd you get?" I checked my score. 1580. "Good enough for Halston." Halston was one of the best colleges in the country. The whole room went dead silent. For one stupid second, I thought they might actually be proud of me. Dad just stared. "You and Emily are twins. You look almost exactly alike. "Why don't you switch identities? "Let Emily go to Halston as you."

My words can kill. Whatever I say comes true. When I was eight, my cruel adoptive father kicked me into an icy river. I glared at him and said furiously, "You'll drown if you go into water." The next day, he drowned in a stinking ditch where the water barely reached his knees. After realizing I could really kill people, I was so scared I stopped talking and became a mute. A year ago, I was taken back to the Shaw family. In order to stay with the family that I'd finally found after all these years, I absolutely refused to speak. But one day, after Jackie Shaw took a sip of the drink I brought him, he suddenly convulsed and fell to the floor, his face turning purple. A maid screamed in terror, "There's peanut powder in the drink!" Before I could even say anything, my twin sister, Violet, kicked the coffee table, grabbed my hair, and pressed me down hard onto the broken glass shards. "You know Jackie is severely allergic to peanuts! How could you poison him?!" After Mom gave Jackie an emergency injection, she turned around and slapped me hard. "I can't believe I gave birth to a malicious monster like you!" Dad's face was ashen. He splashed boiling tea all over me. "You heartless, vicious ingrate! I can't believe you tried to kill Jackie out of jealousy!" Boiling water mixed with blood dripped down my face, and I clenched my teeth tightly. They had no idea that if I truly wanted him dead, I wouldn't even need to poison him. I just had to speak. Like this. I slowly looked up at Jackie, and my lips moved...

On the day I moved into my freshman dorm, my mother posted a screenshot of a six-hundred-dollar wire transfer in the family group chat. [Giselle, you can't go without at school. Mom will always have your back.] The relatives all praised her as a generous, open-minded mother. Behind the scenes, though, she told me to click decline on the money, and sent me a chart instead: the Family Attendance Chart. [Reply to messages within ten seconds. Answer video calls within three. Every violation costs you ten dollars.] After she'd starved me sick a few times, I never dared miss one of her check-ins again. Then came today's anatomy class. My hands were submerged in formaldehyde, and I missed six of them. By the time I'd scrubbed up, she'd already docked my allowance for the month into the negative. Her voice message was gentle, laced with hurt. "Giselle, you've disappointed me so much. Your allowance is zeroed out. Think hard about what you've done." I fainted on the way back to my dorm, my blood sugar crashing from hunger. When I came to in the campus infirmary, my brother had sent me a message. [Mom's so generous. She gave me six hundred as a dating fund so I could really enjoy the whole college romance experience. Bet you got some too, huh?] Staring at my bruised, IV-punctured hand, I suddenly felt like a joke. Calmly, I went to the nurses' station, signed off on refusing the rest of my treatment, and blocked every one of their contacts. This kind of love, the kind you had to clock in for just to be handed a scrap of it? I didn't want it anymore.

Every time my mom, Miranda Turner, comes over to clean my apartment, something goes missing. The first time it happens, a silk scarf I bought goes missing. Not long afterward, my younger sister, Sheryl Colson, gets a promotion and a raise after giving a scarf to her boss as a gift. I think it's just a coincidence. The second time, every premium apple I store in the refrigerator disappears. That very night, Sheryl posts photos on Instagram. She writes, "Thank you, Mom. You're the best. Authentic purple star apple! And eight of them!" I can't help asking about it. Mom hides herself underneath the covers and cries all night, insisting I've wrongfully accused her. Later, several bottles of mineral water labeled "Imported" mysteriously vanish from my apartment. Coincidentally, Sheryl, who's been trying to get pregnant for five years, finally conceives. She proudly tells everyone that even the water she drinks is flown in from overseas. This time, I shudder at the thought of how dire the situation may be. What's missing is imported water from Esithra. It is water from the Gorga River, where there have been corpses floating around. Anyone who drinks it is asking for trouble.

My mom is a pathological liar who enjoys making herself seem like the victim. Unfortunately, I'm always the scapegoat. When I was little, there was one time when she went out to play poker with her friends. As a result, she forgot to go home and prepare dinner on time. After that, she slapped me in front of the entire family. "This brat ran off to god knows where earlier! I went out looking for her, which is why dinner got delayed!" Because of that lie, I had to kneel in the courtyard throughout the night. When I was studying, I had to take an extremely important exam. My teacher repeatedly reminded the parents to prepare all materials required for their children. But my mom didn't even prepare anything for me. After that, she even said in front of everyone, "I've already prepared the materials for her. She was the one who threw them away when she was on her way to school because she didn't want to take the exam at all!" Since then, all of my classmates ostracized me throughout my entire school life. After I came of age, my mom kept crying to me in the middle of the night. "Your father has been abusing me for so many years. I had to endure everything for your sake, you know!" I advised her to get a divorce, only for her to tell an exaggerated version of what I said to my father. "Your daughter egged me on to divorce you! She said she doesn't need a useless father like you! I couldn't stand it anymore, so I'm telling you this!" He flew into a fit of rage on the spot, which led to him accidentally pushing me down the stairs. I died on the spot from the fall. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day my mom cries to me about my dad for the first time.

Mom always said I was dead to the world when I slept. I would suddenly doze off in the middle of class, while eating, even halfway across the street. My homeroom teacher suggested I get checked at a hospital, but Mom brushed it off with a scoff. "She just stayed up all night on her phone!" After that, my phone was confiscated, the lock on my door was removed, and every time I showed the slightest sign of drowsiness, I got slapped awake. I did not want to be hit, and I did not want Mom to get angry, so I started pinching my thighs, yanking my hair, even downing medicated oil just to stay awake. But when that wave of sleep hit, nothing could stop it. On the day of the final exam, Mom happened to be assigned as one of the proctors. I bit through my lip, silently begging myself, 'Just this once. Just hold on.' But in the end, I still couldn't fight it. The desk was suddenly flipped over. I went down with my chair, crashing hard onto the floor. My head struck the edge of the desk, and darkness swallowed everything in an instant. Mom stood beside me, furious and disappointed. "Cecelia Thorne, are you really so obsessed with sleeping that you don't even care about your final exams? If you're that lazy, then lie there and keep sleeping!" I lay sprawled over my exam paper, my vision dimming bit by bit. Mom, this time, I might really sleep for a long, long time.

After the Ig publication S.H.I.T Journal goes viral, I search its website out of curiosity. The satirical journal bills itself as a home for all things academic garbage. The moment I open the site, the top trending article catches my attention. It reads, "A Research on How to Deceive a Gullible Foster Mother With Face Blindness and Trick Her into Raising Me as Her Biological Daughter for Twelve Years". "Keywords: deception, face blindness, self-delusion, false family bonds" I freeze and click into the full article with trembling fingers. The more I read, the more terrified I become. "1.1 Definition of face blindness and how to swap daughters to deceive the foster mother" "2.1 Practical uses and drawbacks of the foster mother" "3.1 How to profit by exploiting the foster mother through her face blindness" The content sends a chill through my entire body. The comment section is already in chaos. "Does this mean the author is actually the daughter of the mistress, and her father swapped her to be raised by his wife for twelve years?" "That's not all. Didn't you read 2.1? The wife had her own daughter, and the husband deliberately handed her over to traffickers!" "What the hell… In 3.1, it even says that because the wife has face blindness and can't tell people apart, the author makes deals with single fathers of classmates and sends the wife to…" At that point, my phone slips from my hand and crashes to the ground. The screen shatters instantly. I have severe face blindness, and I have a daughter who was kidnapped and only found again after three years.

Mom was a world-class micro-expression expert. She always said no lie got past her. To replay every emotional moment of Maya and me, she packed our house with HD security cameras. When Maya scraped her knee and burst into tears, Mom called it real pain. But when stomach cramps twisted my face, she pointed at the monitor and picked me apart. "The mouth twitch. The darting eyes. Classic attention-seeking." That day, I'd accidentally eaten something I was deadly allergic to. My throat swelled shut. I could barely breathe. Panicking, I clawed at my neck and crawled to her feet, begging for help. Mom adjusted her glasses, flipped open her notebook, and calmly wrote everything down. "Rapid breathing. Bluish skin. Sophie Schneider, your acting's gotten better again. Too bad your micro-expressions gave you away." To punish me for lying to her, she shut off the house's panic button, locked the front door, and took Maya to a concert. "If you love putting on a show so much, keep performing for the cameras. We'll see how long it takes before you admit you were wrong." I curled up on the cold tile, shaking in pain, and looked at the camera's blinking red light. My vision faded. Mom, you spent your whole life reading people. But you never understood your own daughter.

I ranked first across the entire district on our first statewide college entrance practice exam, but no one in my family was happy. All because I accidentally laughed once at the dinner table. My father, who had always favored my cousin, exploded. "Trevor had a bad practice exam, and you're sitting there laughing?" "If it weren't for you, Trevor's parents wouldn't have died so young! How dare you use your score to humiliate him?" Without listening to a word I said, Dad shoved me into the home sauna and locked the door from the outside. But I had a congenital heart condition. I couldn't survive extreme heat, so I pounded on the door and begged for help. My parents ignored me. They moved into the condo they had bought near Trevor's prep school, cleared their work schedules, and devoted themselves to helping him prepare for the final exam. They completely forgot about me until exam day, when my homeroom teacher called. "Mr. and Mrs. Pruitt, where is Micah? Why hasn't he arrived for the statewide college entrance exam?" They froze, then raced back to the family estate in a panic. When they saw what remained inside the sauna, they completely broke down.

Three years ago, on a full moon night, my mother jolted awake at midnight, claiming the Moon Goddess had delivered a prophecy: On the day of my twentieth birthday, the feral gene inside me would spiral out of control. I would shift into a wolf and kill my sister. At first, my parents were skeptical. But after I awakened my wolf at eighteen, my sister would seize up whenever she was near me, clutching her chest and collapsing to the ground in violent fits of gasping. To protect her and force my wolf into dormancy, my parents resorted to every harsh measure they could devise. They poured suppression potions down my throat that ate away at my organs, and clamped a restraining collar around my neck so my sister could keep me on a leash. Eventually, my wolf vanished completely. And somehow, I survived to my twentieth birthday. A flash of joy hit me, and I reached for the cake on the table. My father backhanded me so hard I went flying. "That feral gene in your blood really is impossible to tame! "If anyone eats first, it's your sister. What makes you think you can touch it?" Clara stepped forward as if to soothe things over, but my mother pulled her behind her back, eyes full of wariness as she edged away from me. Then my father dragged me up to the attic and bolted the door shut. Through the door, they said, "Stay put and get through tonight. The prophecy will be broken. "After this, we'll give you half the love we've shown your sister." I sank my teeth into my lip, not daring to make a sound. Years of the suppression potion had already hollowed out my body. My consciousness was fading, piece by piece. Mom, Dad, in that dream the Moon Goddess sent you, did she happen to mention this part? That the one dying today might be me?

Just because I refused to help my nephew, Albert Wesley, pay for his wedding, my very own sister took me to court. When my sister, Jocelyn Guthrie, appeared in court, she wept as she spoke. "I worked myself to the bone, taking every job I could find just to support your college education. I endured endless humiliation, and it even ruined my health." "You have an annual income of a million dollars, yet you won't even spare a fraction to help me! You're even talking about cutting ties with me? Do you even have a conscience?" Seeing me sitting in the defendant's seat, unmoved, she trembled as she revealed the grotesque scars covering her body, even pulling out a disability certificate. "I was even injured because of you. I was struck by a falling object at a construction site, leaving my leg permanently disabled. Now... I can't support my son anymore, so I'm asking you to repay the tuition. Isn't that the least you should do?" My mother, Samantha Lawrence, and my brother, Andrew Guthrie, nodded along, backing Jocelyn up, condemning me for my ingratitude. The entire courtroom erupted in anger, voices rising against me. "What a monster! Her education has gone to the dogs!" "Don't insult dogs! She's even worse than an animal!" "Three hundred thousand dollars is too little! Your Honor, she must repay it with interest!" Watching their righteous fury, I could only feel a bitter sense of irony. She claimed she had sacrificed everything to put me through four years of university. But the truth was... I had never even been to college at all.

My dad, who has gotten remarried and cut off contact with me years ago, suddenly sends me one dollar via Venmo, saying he wants to borrow my new car for two days. Thinking he wants to mend our relationship, I remind him to take good care of it before handing over the keys. That very afternoon, I stumble across a livestream of my half-brother street racing. The car he's driving is unmistakably my brand-new vehicle. In the livestream, the car is covered in crude graffiti, and the interior is a mess. I immediately take a cab over to stop my half-brother, only to be humiliated by him during our first meeting. "Who the hell are you? My dad says I'm his only son!" Only then do I realize that I no longer have a place in my dad's life. What they don't know is that the car is a gift from my CEO girlfriend. And she never lets anyone bully the people she cares about.

My parents have adopted an AI son called Adam. On the day he gets adopted, I get viewed by my family as a nuisance, for some reason. Dad hates how mischievous and cheeky I am. Mom thinks I'm inferior to Adam in every way. My older sister, Sapphire Griffin, even shouts at me. "What else are you capable of doing other than fighting with me over everything?" I feel like crying because the family has turned against me. So, I shove Adam to the floor out of rage. Mom's expression darkens instantly. She then slaps me in the face with all the strength she can muster. "Adam is your little brother! Oh, if only you're just as obedient and understanding as he is! I wouldn't have a building headache because of you! "Well, I want you to study at Elite Smart Academy and learn how to become a docile son!" I'm forced into an exchange program with Adam. That's how I begin studying at Elite Smart Academy. Three years later, my parents and Sapphire pick me up from the academy. When they call out to me, I don't move an inch at all. The director, Bruce Harrison, says with a smile, "Mr. Griffin, you need to say 'Power on, Unit 1314' for it to boot up."

A real heir who boasted of having watched 500 short dramas about real and fake heirs came to live with my family. He developed a high fever that wouldn't break during a torrential downpour on his very first night with us, earning endless sympathy from our parents. "I know every trope in those short dramas like the back of my hand. How could a villainous side character like you, who does nothing but throw tantrums, possibly be a match for me?" he bragged. After that, he drove the butler who had cared for me since I was a child back to the countryside. He also turned my closest cousin against me, so much so that my cousin slapped me in front of everyone. He trampled all over my dignity and became the apple of my family's eye within a year. He was just as dismissive when I got engaged to the young heiress from Kingsbridge. "It'll be easy for me to make her hate you. All I need to do is pull one little trick. You'll see!" During the engagement party, he pulled me toward the stairs and started shrieking, intending to accuse me of pushing him down the stairs. However, the triumphant look on his face morphed into shock when he lunged forward. He blurted angrily, "Are you kidding me? Who has a staircase painted on the floor?"

We'd just moved into a new house, and along with it came a brand-new fingerprint lock on the front door. On moving day, my parents rounded up the whole family to register their fingerprints. I was the only one left standing outside in the cold for half an hour. By the time I was finally let back in, my brother and sister were already testing the new lock, giddy with excitement. My mother cupped my sister's hand fondly, as if the fingerprint scanner might have hurt her fingers. "Oh, our little princess has her face and fingerprint all set up now. No need to worry about forgetting her keys." My father beamed, unable to stop smiling. "From now on, if anyone ever dares lock Cassandra out of this house, they'll have to answer to me first!" Nobody seemed to think there was anything wrong with that. I looked at the lock and asked quietly, "Dad, what about my fingerprint?" The smile on my father's face faltered for a second. He waved a hand dismissively. "The app for this lock only lets four people register. Your mom and I plus your brother and sister already fill all four slots. There's no room left for you." My mother shot me a look of open distaste. "You barely even leave the house. What do you need to register your fingerprint for? Just knock when you get back, isn't that simple enough?" I watched the four of them, huddled together in cheerful harmony, and thought back to something my parents had said when they bought the lock. 'A real family is one where anyone can push the door open and walk in, any time they want.' As it turned out, I had only ever been the outsider who had to knock. If there had never been a place for me in that house, then I decided I wouldn't be walking through that door again.

When the prestigious Mercer family finally tracked my brother, Shawn, down, he was digging through a dumpster, trying to scrape together enough bottles and cans to pay for my surgery. He didn’t care about the fleet of luxury cars in front of him. His only condition for going with them was that they had to take me, his blind little sister, along too. However, when we arrived at the Mercer estate, their spoiled daughter, Ava—who was Shawn’s biological sister—looked at the two of us in our dirty, tattered clothes with absolute disgust. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel Shawn's protective arms around my shoulders. He leaned down and whispered, "Don't be afraid, El. I'm right here." With his exceptional talent, Shawn quickly outshone Ava in everything, and before long, her disgust for him turned into worship. However, he also left me far behind. Eventually, I could no longer join in on their conversations, and the younger sister Shawn spoke of was no longer me, but her. The breaking point came on the day he officially took over the Mercer family empire, when Ava and I both fell into the river at the same time. "Ava!" Shawn rushed over from a distance. There was a loud splash as he dove into the water and saved her, forgetting I was even there. My heart sank as I drowned in the water. I didn’t even try to struggle. Shawn lied to me. We were never actually family.