Cerita Pendek Plot Twists & Novel Hypocrisy Family Emotions

I closed my eyes, about to jump off a building, when an ill-timed phone ringtone blared. On the other end of the phone came a voice that I couldn't be more familiar with. It was my own voice. "Don't jump, Jack Sterling."

Not long after my wife and I got married, my mother-in-law unexpectedly had another child, a son. The entire family treated him like a miracle and let him get away with everything. Before long, he became an unbearable little monster. When he was ten, he pulled up a girl's skirt at school and yanked down her shorts. I confronted him about it, but my wife immediately turned on me. "He's my brother, not your son. What makes you think you have the right to discipline him?" I kept my anger to myself and moved out with our daughter, who had been growing more withdrawn by the day. Years later, the spoiled boy shoved a woman who was eight months pregnant down a flight of stairs. My wife called me in a panic and begged me to help him. All I wanted to tell her was that he was finally facing the consequences of his actions. Never did I imagine he could sink even lower...

For ten years, I woke at three every morning to knead dough for my breakfast stall, all so I could put my daughter through college. Hot oil splattered across my arms day after day, leaving scars on my forearms that would never fully fade. But today, just when I desperately needed the money to keep my stall open, I discovered that the $200,000 in my bank account was gone. It was not until I got the bank statement that I learned the truth. My daughter had reconnected with her biological mother back in middle school. All these years, she had been secretly transferring money to her. When I confronted her over the phone, I cried so hard I could barely breathe. "That money was our retirement savings!" But she only laughed impatiently. "Stop saying you raised me. You didn't even give birth to me. My biological mother is the one who gave me life. Consider the money you spent on me your way of showing her respect." The call ended with a cold beep. It felt like a blade had been driven straight through my heart. I rushed home like a madwoman to find my husband. I thought he would at least feel sorry for us losing our retirement savings. Instead, he sat calmly on the couch and took a sip of coffee. "Blood runs thicker than water. Stop being so selfish." That $200,000 was the money we needed to survive. And he was actually lecturing me about blood ties, when he was nothing more than her adoptive father too.

My tenth lawsuit against Dad fails again after the case goes to trial. A reporter, Kieran Wilcox, approaches me and asks, "Why do you keep filing lawsuits against your father when he's collecting trash to pay your school fees?" I look up at him and ask, "Can you secretly film Dad for ten days? I'll tell you the truth if you do." However, I come under fire after Kieran uploads the video of him following Dad around and filming him. I'm bombarded with endless criticism to the point that my name appears on the top trending chart.

I'm the daughter of a poor couple who make a living selling fish at a market. We're so broke that every penny counts. Even so, my parents scrape together everything they have to support my dream of becoming a professional dancer. They pay for my training and even spend their life savings on my scoliosis surgery without a second thought. However, when Sylvie Putnam throws me to the ground, leaving me on the verge of paralysis, and then beats me until my face is a bloody mess, Mom barely spares me a glance. Instead, she gently strokes Sylvie's head. "Good girl. You did the right thing after she upset you. Remember, never let anyone bully you." Dad even picks up a stick and strikes it against my spine. "Don't worry. Worst case, we'll just pay some compensation. What could this worthless life of hers possibly be worth? We have plenty of money anyway!" His words make the pain explode through my body and heart all at once. Just yesterday, Mom and Dad were keeping vigil at my bedside day and night, frantic with worry over my illness. Now, all I can do is curl up on the ground and let a stranger kick and beat me without mercy. "Good grief. She's practically being beaten into a cripple. How can something this serious happen and her parents still not show up?" "Isn't she a dance student? Their audition is in a couple of days. What a shame…" As the other students whisper around me, my consciousness slowly fades. Little do they know that the people who have just beaten me into a cripple are my very parents.

The day I was discharged from the hospital after giving birth, my mother-in-law, Patricia Whitmore, kept pointing at the baby in my arms and humiliating me the whole way home. "Genevieve, just look at that pathetic thing in your arms. I doubt he'll live very long." I shot back angrily, "Patricia, how could you say that? The doctor said the baby is perfectly healthy!" Patricia curled her lip into a sneer. "You're so ignorant. Here you are, yelling at me when I'm only telling you the truth out of the kindness of my heart." I didn't want to waste my energy arguing with her, so I turned away with the baby in my arms and stared out the window. It wasn't until we got home that my seven-year-old daughter told me something. She told me that she'd seen Patricia secretly switch my perfectly healthy son with the child of my husband's childhood sweetheart, Evelyn Reed. The same child who was suffering from a congenital heart defect. That was when I finally understood why Patricia had been humiliating us. She was acting that way because she thought she had already gotten what she wanted. Unfortunately, she never expected that Nina had already switched her little brother back while they weren't paying attention.

I land a 30-million-dollar deal for my parents' factory. On payday, my older sister, Hailey Irving, receives a 50,000-dollar bonus. Meanwhile, my younger brother, Hanson Irving, gets a 100,000-dollar bonus. But my pay slip shows only one line—Base Salary 3,000 dollars. "Hailey hasn't made a single mistake in the books in ten years. As encouragement, you get a 50,000-dollar bonus." "All the clients praise Hanson for being handsome and charming. He deserves the most credit for landing this big deal, so I'm giving him a 100,000-dollar bonus." Before I can even react, Mom throws 30 crumpled bills at me while saying with disdain, "Someone who's both stupid and ugly needs to work harder. Don't think putting in more effort means you're worth more. That's all the value you create." I stare at my pay slip, feeling dazed. My parents raise us to be independent, so everything in our family comes with a price tag. A plate of steak and fries costs 30 dollars. A ten-minute hot shower costs 50 dollars. To earn money, my siblings and I have to work at our parents' factory from a young age. Hailey is good at math, so she sits in the air-conditioned office writing receipts. Hanson is handsome, so he works as a greeter in the reception room, where snacks are available in unlimited supply. As for me, I was the family’s all-purpose errand runner, forced to fill in wherever help was needed. I unload shipments, sweep floors, and even go out to negotiate business deals. However, all three of us earn the same base salary of 3,000 dollars per month. If I want meat for my meals, I have to work desperately hard and constantly find ways to create more value. But now, I no longer understand what all that hard work is for. I lower my head and take out my phone to search through the spam messages until I find the one offering me a high-paying job.

My elder sister, Alice, was a white wolf. A witch had foretold that my power would devour hers, that the moment I shifted during our coming-of-age ceremony, she would die. The only way to save her was to suppress my power, let her shift first at the ceremony, and break the curse. To save her, my parents spent eighteen years breaking me. And the night before our ceremony, they followed the witch's orders and locked me in the basement with silver-banded iron chains. "Be good, Maria. The silver will only delay your shift. Just get through tomorrow, and your sister lives. Then we can all stop suffering." The chains pressed against my chest. I could barely breathe. But something was wrong. My shift was starting, early. I slammed my fists against the door. "Mom, it's starting. I'm shifting now—" "Don't lie to me." Her voice cut through, sharp and loud. "The witch said both of you shift on ceremony day. Or are you really that eager to watch your sister die?" Footsteps faded down the hall. The pain hit, searing, ripping through every bone. I curled into the corner, feeling my wolf slip away.

At the reunion dinner, my adopted brother, Isaac Johnson, whispers in my ear, "The Johnson family only needs one son. You're just a country bumpkin. We don't need you here." I think he's right. So, I run straight into traffic at the intersection. My family is terrified. They rush over and manage to pull me back from the road. My sister, Rebecca Johnson, turns pale with anger and warns me not to upset Isaac again. I obediently nod. Then, late that night, I turn on the gas and leave a suicide note. "It's my fault for upsetting Isaac. I'll take the whole family to heaven with me. None of us will ever have to suffer again." My family stares at me as if I've gone mad. Later, at a party, Isaac and his friends push me into the pool. But I don't struggle. I simply let myself sink slowly to the bottom. Isaac panics and has no choice but to jump in and pull me out again. "Idiot! What if you really drowned? Mom and Dad would hate me! Couldn't you at least struggle?" What he doesn't know is that I've fought back before. But every time, it only ended with me dying a horrible death. This is my tenth time being reborn. This time, I just want to die.

When Zack Fleming gets a tiny scrape on his arm, my wife, Melanie Perry, who loves money more than anything else in the world, rejects a business partnership that's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. She then forces my sister, Cindy Sherwood, to donate a large amount of blood to Zack, despite knowing that Cindy has a heart condition. I immediately call Melanie to demand answers. "We only took a few drops of blood from her," she says nonchalantly. "Why are you making a fuss? Besides, Cindy's tough. She'll be fine. But Zack's different. He's the company's lucky star, so nothing must happen to him. "Business has been improving by the day ever since he joined the company. Everything that I do is for your and the company's sake. Not thanking me is one thing, but how dare you lose your temper at me?" Melanie hangs up after she's done speaking and blocks my number. It seems that my unconditional support for the last five years has given Melanie the wrong idea. She wrongly assumes that the company is improving because of her and Zack's efforts and has forgotten that she's nothing but a pawn that her family used to establish a marriage alliance with me. Ten minutes later, Melanie calls me again even though she's the one who blocked me in the first place. "Have you lost your mind?" she snaps. "Why did you take Zack away and hook him up to so many tubes?" I scoff and answer, "You're the one who said that he was a lucky star. Why are you panicking when I just want to take a few drops of blood from him?"

Through seven years of secret marriage, I was nothing more than an obedient, tirelessly devoted assistant to Don Nathan Harrison. He walked the red carpet at high-profile galas with Susan Ferell, his business partner’s daughter. He booked an entire castle just to host an exclusive rose-themed banquet for her and spent millions at an auction to buy her a crown-jewel diamond necklace once owned by royalty. Their names dominated the headlines daily, dubbed by the Siciamira media as the ultimate power couple of high society. For the first time, I didn't make a scene or shed a single tear. Even when I found that royal diamond necklace intended for Susan tucked away in Nathan’s suit pocket, I simply pulled it out and quietly set it on the vanity. Nathan convinced himself that I had finally grown sensible and understood the overwhelming sacrifices he was making for our future. What he didn't know was that the world's top global syndicate had just tracked me down, crowning me as the sole heir to a century-old empire. And the signed divorce papers were already stamped, processed, and on their way from the courthouse straight to his front door.

When I was fifteen, my father brought home the daughter of the man who had once saved his life. He told me, "Stella, Hazel is your sister now. You need to be more understanding with her." From that day on, everything I had became something my father could freely give to Hazel. I cried and asked him if he no longer loved me. But he stroked my head and reassured me, "I am only doing this to repay a debt. Don't worry. I'll leave all my assets and the company to you." It was not until I graduated from college that I happened to overhear Hazel sweet-talking my father. "Dad, I like Julian. Could you get Stella to break off her engagement with him and let me have him? "Besides, Stella didn't study business management in college. Why don't you let me join the company and help out? I could take some of the burden off your shoulders." I clenched my fists, anger churning in my chest. For all these years, I had given in to her again and again. And now she wanted to take not only my fiance, but my inheritance as well?

My name is Jacob Brewer, and I'm the oldest child in my family. Both my parents are top graduates from elite colleges. My younger sister, Willow Brewer, is in third grade and gets perfect scores in every subject. My little brother, Ivan Brewer, has only just learned to talk, yet he can already recite the periodic table from memory. And then there's me, forever scraping by with barely passing grades. So when Willow cashes in her perfect grades for a family trip to Serova over the Christmas holiday, I volunteer to stay home. "I'll stay behind and take care of Grandma since she's paralyzed." Mom hesitates, but Dad simply turns to me and says coldly, "Fine by me. Being a good son might be the only thing you've got going for you anyway." I force the bitterness down and nod resolutely. I know this is already the highest praise they can give me. Being a good son is the only thing that gives me a place in this family. But I never expected that, right after my parents leave, Grandma dies unexpectedly while she's in my care. Then, moments later, I hear my parents' car crash through the phone. As I stare at Grandma's lifeless body on the bed and listen to the crash through the phone, I decide the useless me might as well go with them. Only later do I learn that the crash was nothing but a recording Dad had prepared for me, just to test whether my devotion to my family is genuine. And in the end, I give him my answer with my life.

The day my brother, Aaron Payne, is abducted by human traffickers, an older woman in our town tells me that if I can come up with 80,000 dollars, I can get him back. Desperate to save him, I return to the home I haven't set foot in for two years and beg my wealthy parents for the money. But they fly into a rage. "We sent you two to the countryside to toughen you up, not to give you an excuse to scam us for money!" "Human traffickers? You really expect us to believe someone could kidnap a child and then just give him back? Stop making up stories." With nowhere else to turn, I hear that I can make money by selling a kidney. So that same day, I go under the knife. As soon as the anesthesia wears off, my parents call. "Steve just told us he lost 80,000 dollars, and then we found out you received the exact same amount in your bank account. We were too soft on you. We've raised a thief!" Without giving me a chance to explain, they hang up and transfer the money straight out of my account. Later, my adopted brother, Steve Payne, walks past me with his arms linked through my parents', grinning from ear to ear. "Mom, Dad, thanks for buying me an 80,000-dollar watch. I'm so lucky to be your son." Is he? Without a word, I slip a missing-person flyer under their windshield wiper. If they can help me find Aaron, I'll gladly let him have that luck instead.

To get me out of the way for Simon Luther, the man who steals my position as heir of the Luther family, the three young women my dad took in as children and raised alongside me work together to send me to prison. "Once you get out of jail, one of us will marry you—but on one condition. You'd better take this secret to the grave." To stop me from revealing the truth, the three women even fed me a drug that rendered me mute. As the years go by, the endless and inhumane torment I endure in prison slowly destroys what feelings and affection I have for the three women I once considered my sisters. When we meet again, I watch impassively as the three of them fight to win the auction that gives them the chance to marry Simon. Chuckling, I arrange for the key evidence of Simon's crimes to be put up for auction. The three of them seem to have a thing for making bids. Let's see them scramble to win this one.

To shield my sister from a street thug's iron bar after she cut class, my right leg was shattered. The infection that followed left the doctors no choice but to amputate. From that day on, I spent ten years in a wheelchair. Consumed with guilt, my sister massaged my stump every single day. My parents wiped their reddened eyes and promised that everything they owned would go to me someday, to make up for what I had lost. Then my sister won the highest international ballet award, and the whole family wept with joy. Before the ceremony, she looked at my wheelchair. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "This is the greatest moment of my life. If a cripple tags along, what will the press write about me? "Dad, Mom, just this once, let the three of us go together, looking our best. Please?" My parents caved in the end. Before they left, Mom was afraid I might fall, so she lashed me to the wheelchair with hemp rope. "Be good, Audrey. I put all the knives and scissors away. Don't move around. We'll bring you back egg tarts from Belem." I sat obediently in the middle of the living room and watched the front door close, then heard the lock turn from outside. That night, the old electric blanket in the bedroom short-circuited and caught fire. The flames burned their way from the bedroom into the living room. I could not break free of the ropes. I could not reach the door handle. I could not find a single thing sharp enough to cut myself loose. The fire licked up my one remaining leg. The pain was beyond anything I had ever known. I sobbed through the smoke, begging my family to save me. They hung up. On the television, my sister stood in the spotlight, her smile radiant and dazzling.

I had just finished warming up at my adoptive father's boxing gym when I was brought back to my wealthy biological family. When my tanned, heavily muscled self walked into the living room, my biological parents, who had been ready to humiliate me, fell completely silent. They had brought me back because they wanted me to marry the heir of the Lamberts. He was rumored to have a violent temper and had already scared away ten fiancées. The fake heiress was still pretending to cry at first. But the moment she saw my massive biceps, she stopped crying. She nervously hid behind my older brother. "Jack, are you sure Mr. Andrew is abusing Rachel and not the other way around? What if Rachel is the one beating Mr. Andrew to a pulp?" My brother looked down at his skinny wrists. Then he looked at my palm, which could crush a brick with one hand. He silently took a step backward. I jumped up and threw a couple of punches. "I heard this guy has a terrible temper and is unpredictable?" My biological father awkwardly cleared his throat. "Yes. He's pretty violent." I excitedly slapped my thigh. "Whoa, why didn't you tell me sooner? What a coincidence. I was just looking for a decent sparring partner."

Every month on the 15th is the day I swap lives with Melody Foster. 18 years ago, a hospital mix-up places our IVF embryos in each other's mothers. After the truth comes out, my biological parents want their real daughter, and my adoptive parents want theirs. They arrange for Melody and me to rotate between the two homes on a monthly basis, switching every 15th. From then on, I become the burden neither family wants. In whichever home Melody stays, there are endless snacks and drinks, thousands of dollars in monthly allowance, and the sunny bedroom is always reserved for her. In whichever home I stay, there's nothing but plain meals and a windowless storage room. 18 years later, I find out I have kidney failure, and Melody turns out to be a compatible donor. My adoptive parents toss me a form to sign away my right to treatment. "We raised you, and that's more than enough. Go ask your real parents for money. You're not getting our daughter's kidney, so don't even think about it." My biological parents fall to their knees, begging. "We know we've failed you, but losing you we can live with. Melody is our whole world!" Just then, I get a call from the hospital. "Sorry, we mixed up the records again. The one with kidney failure is actually Melody." Everything clicks into place. I sell the jewelry my grandmother left me, buy a camera and a full set of gear. From now on, I'll be a lone traveler, roaming wherever the road takes me.

When I was eight, a prank by my little sister, Alice, left silver poison eating away at my heart. To save me, my dad knelt at the Temple of the Moon Goddess for ninety-nine days. Only then did he win two moonstone pendants from the Goddess, enough to hold the poison at bay. After that, Alice became the family pariah. They stopped speaking to her. They wouldn't even let her smile. For my sake, my father traveled far and wide searching for a cure for the silver poison. My mom quit her work as a healer to care for me, because the moonstone pendants needed her at the Moon Temple every day to replenish their magic. I always believed the Moon Goddess watched over me, blessing me with the best family in the world. That belief lasted until the day registration for the Imperial Academy closed. Three minutes remained before the Imperial Academy's registration portal closed. Then a sudden thunderstorm drained the portal's power crystal. Without hesitation, my mother ripped the pendant from around my neck and poured its magic into the portal. I clutched at her clothes, my lips turning blue. "Mom... I can't breathe..." But she looked at me with nothing but disappointment. "Grace, you've already taken all the love and resources that should have been Alice's. Now you want to rob her of her future too? "You still have the backup pendant, and yet here you are playing the victim! I'm so disappointed in you!" She shoved me into my bedroom and locked the door. But she didn't know. Alice had borrowed the other pendant for her graduation ball.

I have just disembarked from the plane when I receive a call from my sister, Sienna Miller's, manager. "Bad news! Sienna's role was stolen from her." I immediately rush to the set only to see Sienna surrounded by a group of people. Her cheeks are red and swollen from being slapped repeatedly. A mixture of fury and panic rages within me. I'm just about to step forward when a young woman, who looks no older than 16 years old and is wearing a dress that is covered in ruffles and frills, slaps me across my face. I'm stunned by the slap. A murderous glint flickers in my eyes. "Do you have any idea who I am?" I hiss. The young woman scoffs and sneers. "Who do you think you are? How dare you try to intimidate me? You'll be offending the only daughter of Deslano's Miller family, Quinn Miller. You'll also be facing a fate worse than death if you dare to fight me for this role." The director's arrogance from before has disappeared. He rubs his hands together as he tries to smooth the situation over. "She invested a significant amount of funds when she joined the crew. You're no match for her. If you know what's good for you, you'll accept whatever role that is assigned to you." The only daughter of the Miller family? What does that make me and Sienna then? I immediately call Dad and coldly demand answers from him. "It hasn't even been a week since Mom passed away. Are you in that much of a rush to bring your mistress and other children into the family?"