Cerita Pendek Bias Imagination & Novel System

I've been granted early release from prison for good behavior. My three brothers come to pick me up, and they bring a dog chain with them. Ashton Scott, my eldest brother, hands it over and says coolly, "Put it on. You're not allowed to take it off until we reach the house. This is the final test. Once you pass, you'll officially be a daughter of the Scott family." Dalton Scott, my second brother, pats me on the shoulder and sighs. "You must've had a rough seven years. But that smell coming off you… You'd better shower three times before you join us at the dining table later." Preston Scott looks me up and down, his brows furrowed. "Why have you lost so much weight? But I guess it works out. The chain won't look out of place." They'd said something similar to me seven years ago. Tina Lewis, the one who took my place as the Scott family's daughter, had added something to her classmate's drink, and her classmate almost died on the school field. My brothers called me up at once and told me, "If you take the fall for Tina, we'll consider you our sister, too." I didn't think much of it then, so in the interrogation room, I staunchly insisted that I'd done it. I ended up with a seven-year prison sentence. At 18 years old, I was put in handcuffs and led off. No one even bothered to check on me as the officers took me away. I'm 24 years old now. Standing outside the prison entrance, I stare at the dog chain. Tina sticks her head out of the car window and flashes a sweet smile at me. "Isabel! Our brothers specifically picked that out as a gift to welcome you home, you know! It's a limited-edition piece. Even Rex never got to wear something so exclusive!" Rex was her dog. Without a word of protest, I obediently put the dog leash collar around my neck. The Scotts assume that I've simply learned to be meek and submissive after all these years. What they don't know is that there are only 12 hours left until I complete my mission in this world. Once the time is up, I can leave this place and reunite with my real family.

I've been trying to woo Caroline Davis for the past five years just so I can receive a healthy body and return to my original world. But Caroline, in her attempt to appease her first love, Kyle Holden, makes me the scapegoat for Kyle's crimes and gets me locked behind bars. After getting released from prison, Caroline forces me to drink the alcohol that's given to me by Kyle despite knowing that I'm allergic to alcohol. Flooded by despair, I try to commit suicide. "I'd rather die than continue to pathetically woo a woman who doesn't love me at all!" I cry out. But the system suggests that I exchange away 30 years of my lifespan for a brand new conquest target instead.

To stop my boyfriend from marrying me, his mother hired a group of thugs to kidnap me. They dragged me into the woods and tortured me for an entire day and night, leaving barely a patch of uninjured skin on my body. Eden York lost his mind after finding me. He went after every single person involved and ruined them without hesitation, even personally sending his own mother to prison. He never once cared about what had happened to me. If anything, he became even more determined to marry me, willing to turn his back on his entire family to make it happen. But the moment I woke up in the hospital again, a cold mechanical voice suddenly echoed in my head. [Host, your target’s affection level has reached 100%. Final marriage mission unlocked.] [Complete the mission to receive a sixty-million-dollar reward. You may also choose whether to leave this world.] [Warning: If the mission fails, you will be permanently erased from this world.] I was still trying to process the words when Eden’s voice suddenly rang out in my mind. [Perfect. After everything I did with my mother to set this up, I finally maxed out her affection points.] [Once the final mission is complete, I’ll dump her immediately and be with Tiffany instead.] Beside me, Eden instantly noticed how pale I had gone and reached out to touch my face. “Summer, what’s wrong? Are you feeling sick?” I slowly shook my head. “No. I’m just really looking forward to the wedding in seven days.”

Ever since I was born, my parents bound me to a Pain Transfer System. My body was covered in scars. My older brother, Dylan Jeater, had albinism and Hydroa Vacciniforme. His condition was so severe that he could not be exposed to any light. Doctors determined that he would only live to be sixteen years old. However, Dylan had always been playful. He often snuck outside. Eventually, his body was covered in sores. My father, Robert Jeater, worked day and night to earn money. He finally bought two Pain Transfer System wristbands at a high price for Dylan and me. For six years, the pain Dylan felt from every sun exposure had been transferred to me. My mother, May Jeater, always held me gently and treated my wounds. She said, “Chester, I’m sorry. I just want Dylan to be happy in the time he has left. I hope you understand.” On New Year’s Eve, my parents took Dylan out. It was very sunny that day. As soon as we left the house, my whole body broke out in blisters. I could not help but cry out in pain. Dylan tore off his wristband and broke down sobbing. “Does it hurt? Fine, if you think it hurts so much, then turn off the transfer! Let me just die of the pain! “I’ll only live up to sixteen anyway. I’m going to die sooner or later.” His body became severely sunburned, and he lost consciousness. Mom shoved me to the ground. “Dylan never complained once in all those years of pain! After only six years of it being passed to you, you’re already breaking down?! “He’s only going to live to be sixteen! Is it wrong to want him to be happy in his last few years?” Dad picked up Dylan. “I don’t want you getting hurt either, but the pain can only be transferred between biological brothers.” They then rushed him to the hospital. I picked up the wristband from the ground. A message popped up on the screen. [Do you want to transfer your remaining lifespan to the linked user?] Without any hesitation, I pressed confirm.

I get reborn, this time bound to a simp system. In my previous life, when the apocalypse happened during Christmas Eve, I gave Victoria Blake, a beautiful woman, shelter and respite, only for her to backstab me in the end. Apparently, she had revealed my home's location to a scion named Tristan Cole when I wasn't paying attention. Not only did those bastards take over my shelter, but they also tossed me to the zombie horde. When Tristan asked Victoria if she felt guilty, she just reclined in his arms while tittering daintily. "That's just one of the lapdogs I've reared. If he's dead, then so be it." Now that I'm given a second chance at life, I'll make sure to repay them for the pain and hurt they've caused me in my previous life.

My wife's first love was bound to an "overachiever" system—every ounce of exhaustion he racked up from grinding away at work got transferred straight to me. He pulled seven straight all-nighters to land a multi-million-dollar deal and became a legend in the industry. Meanwhile, I ended up in the ER with heart failure. When I tried to explain it to my wife, she shot me a look of pure disgust. "You're just born lazy," she snapped. "You can't stand seeing him succeed at such a young age, so you make up some sick fairy tale to accuse him." After that, every late night he pulled chipped away at my body. First came nervous exhaustion, then organ failure—until I was hanging on by a thread. I went to the hospital for tests, but the doctors couldn't find a thing. A few even hinted I might be suffering from paranoid delusions. Then, to get his company listed on the stock exchange, he locked himself in his office for two weeks straight. I wound up dead from overexertion in my own room. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the night of his very first all-nighter. This time, I bolted the door, pulled out a full strip of sleeping pills, and smiled. "Time to sleep."

In my seven years of my marriage with the Regent, I had risked my life bearing him five children. Every single one had died. My husband grieved so deeply that he collapsed. He knelt for three days and nights before the chapel in the bitter cold, praying for my well-being. He even spent a fortune to build a memorial tower in my honor. Everyone said the Regent loved his wife more than life itself. But the System's childbearing progress remained stuck at 90%. Then came All Hallows' Eve. I walked to the river alone to float a memorial candle for my fifth child, who had only just passed. What I found instead were four children carrying turnip lanterns, gathered around my half-sister, tugging at her skirts. "Mommy! Daddy said he's lighting a bonfire tonight!" Alaric Montague stood behind her, arms looped around her waist. His expression carried the same tenderness I knew so well. Even my father, as stern as he had always been, was chuckling beside them, more relaxed than I had ever seen him. My mother held a swaddled infant nearby, wiping the corner of the smallest child's mouth. "Odette is too frail to carry children. Thank goodness Alaric came up with a way to swap them." "Watch your words, Mrs. Devereaux," Alaric cut in at once, his gaze turning cold. "Laurel owed this to Odette. The debt is paid. I'll let her keep the next one." I bit down on my lip hard enough to taste blood. In my mind, an electronic tone stirred to life after years of silence. [Laurel, five registered offspring detected alive. Childbearing mission for the heirless Regent is complete.] [Portal activation imminent. Confirm departure?]

During the New Year holidays, I'm hooked to an IV in an ER ward because of my Pathological Lie Aversion, which is a condition that makes me vomit whenever someone lies to me. Meanwhile, Landon Yale shows up at a public event with his female best friend, Eunice Parker, in a high-profile manner. Clad in the Ice Queen championship costume that I've worn during the time I won my championship, Eunice whines to Landon cutely that she wants to ride on his shoulders. With a doting smile on his face, Landon replies, "Alright, alright. You're my queen tonight. If only that figure-skating numbskull is as sweet and understanding as you…" Thanks to my Pathological Lie Aversion, I keep vomiting the whole time. After taking off the IV needle, I rush toward the venue in the sports car that I've planned on giving to Landon. In the stark silence that follows, I hurl the divorce agreement in Landon's face. "Happy New Year, Landon Yale. By the way, here's an announcement. From now on, I'll be retiring as a figure skater. On top of that, I will be retracting all sponsorships that I've bestowed upon Yale Group." I want Landon to know that he can never afford to pay the price of offending me.

After failing my mission, the system sent me back to the modern world and stripped away all my emotions. But three years later, alarms suddenly blared through my mind as the system went into a frenzy. The system told me that Adrian Blackwood, the Regent I failed to win over, had gone mad. He bathed the royal court in blood and was determined to drag the entire Kingdom of Ashbourne into ruin. The only thing keeping him going was his obsession with seeing me one more time. I refused immediately. He had already ruined my life. Why should I go back and save him? The system grew so desperate that it started glitching. In the end, it offered me a blood-bound contract: if I agreed to return, all penalties would be erased. On top of that, it would give me a fortune large enough to let me live comfortably for the rest of my life. After weighing the pros and cons, I agreed. But when the emotionless version of me stood before Adrian once again, the Regent who held the entire kingdom in his grasp dropped to his knees at my feet.

In the tenth year of my marriage to a genius pianist, I came down with a strange illness. A month ago, my husband missed my birthday party to care for his ailing sister-in-law. Night after night, I had waited for him to return home. But that night I forgot to wait at all and went to bed early. Half a month ago, he attended an important performance with his sister-in-law. I had always been petty and prone to jealousy, yet this time I didn't get angry. I simply went home in silence. Three days ago, I fell seriously ill with a burning fever. My husband rushed back from out of town in a panic—but only to tend to his sister-in-law, whose hand had been scalded. When we ran into each other at the hospital, I was strangely calm. I, who used to be fiercely jealous, felt nothing at all. I forgot the promise we had made to grow old together. I even forgot how he once fretted over me for days when I'd scraped a bit of skin. It wasn't until he said he wanted to bring his sister-in-law home and take care of her for the rest of his life that I—my memories riddled with holes—summoned the system at last. "I want to go home."

Yelena Moon, the new intern, claimed to be someone who could bring wealth to everyone. Apparently, the lottery numbers she had her eye on would definitely win a prize. Everyone lined up to get her to buy lottery tickets for them. Surprisingly enough, they became millionaires overnight. But I soon realized that whenever Yelena won a lottery prize, I'd lose money to all sorts of incidents and accidents. I might suffer from a bone fracture one day, only to get into an accident that required a surgery the next day. Even my own luck started to run out when it came to my own wealth. I kept failing my investments while racking debts nonstop. In the end, the loan sharks came knocking on my door. My senses were all frayed at that point. In a fit of despair, I demanded answers from Yelena, only to get scolded by everyone else. "What do you mean Yelena swapped out your luck for hers? I think you're just jealous of the fact that everyone's getting rich now!" "You can't even retain your own wealth, and yet you have the guts to frame a young woman for such nonsense! People like you are absolutely toxic to this world!" I tried my best to defend myself, but not even my own dad believed me. To rub salt into my wounds, he even treated Yelena as his own biological daughter and kicked me out of my home. Later on, someone tossed a sack over me and kidnapped me. After torturing me to no end, they threw me off a high building, I was crushed beyond recognition. When I wake up again, I've returned to the day Yelena is flaunting her financial luck. Upon noticing how smug she looks, I start buying lottery tickets like mad. "What a coincidence! I'm also super lucky when it comes to wealth!"

"Anna, you don't look so good. Want some candy?" The class belle smiled sweetly as she held out a bag of fruit candies. In my previous life, I ate one. That very night, every penny in my bank account vanished—including the money I'd saved to pay for Grandpa's lifesaving surgery. Desperate to afford his treatment, I gave up my acceptance to Oxvale University and worked myself to the bone day and night, but before I could save enough, he died. And eventually, so did I, alone and exhausted in my tiny rented room. Only after I died did I learn the truth. The class belle had bonded with a transfer system. As long as I ate something she gave me, whatever money was in my bank account would automatically be transferred to hers. Now that I had been given a second chance, I stared at the candy she held out and reached for it. If she wanted other people's money badly, then I'd find out just how much her system could swallow—30 classmates' bank accounts. All at once.

I was the greediest stand-in in high society, and my motto was simple. As long as cash kept coming, my dignity could take a back seat. For Frederick Jameson, I played the role of his obedient pet, so when his true love accused me of stealing her necklace, I just bowed and apologized. With Samuel York, I served as his lab rat, testing drugs meant for his sweetheart's condition until they left me with a bleeding ulcer. And for Theodore Xander, I acted as a scapegoat, getting pushed out to take the blame of extortion for his crush. They all assumed I was hopelessly in love with them, even forcing me to sign a confession at their joint engagement party. That was when the system's voice chimed in, "Host, the portal home is now open." I wiped the blood from my lips, splashed my wine into their faces, and grinned brightly. "Game over, losers!" Right in front of everyone, I leaped straight into the sea. Later, word spread that the three big shots scoured the entire ocean just to find my body.

After finally wrapping up my mission, I figured sticking around in this world meant I was in for a smooth, happy ride from here on out. Then my twin brother and I got plowed over by a car. My wife, who happens to be a doctor, took one look at me drenched in blood and didn't even blink—she loaded my brother, who'd barely skinned his knee, into the ambulance first without a second thought. My own daughter, the one I raised with these two hands, just let out a sigh of relief that it wasn't her uncle lying in the ICU. When my parents got the news and came racing over, they barely glanced my way before swarming my brother to fuss over his scratch. That was it for me. I felt something inside go cold and dead. I didn't have it in me to fight anymore. I just let my eyes fall shut. Right there, in that last second before I slipped away, I finally heard the System again—the one that'd been dead silent for years. "Host, you regretting it now?" I managed a weak, bitter smile. "Yeah. I am." "Considering your attitude, if you can fill your family's Regret Meter, there's a chance you can go back to your original world. Host, you up for this new mission?" Twenty-five years, and I never once got them to truly love me. So what are the odds they'd actually feel sorry I'm gone—in just one week?

After I switched bodies with my driver, I ended up trapped in the body of an overweight, unattractive man everyone looked down on. My sister Joanne Harper and my fiancée, Serena Lane, did everything they could to find a way to switch us back. Joanne hired an exorcist and even gave her own blood for the ritual. Serena climbed three thousand icy steps to a remote mountaintop chapel in the middle of a blizzard, dropping to her knees in prayer every few steps. But Julian Brown, now living in my body, looked at them pitifully. “My romance system says we can only switch back if both of you truly fall in love with me.” From that day on, Joanne appeared to indulge his every whim, buying him sports cars and mansions. Behind his back, she made it up to me tenfold, a hundredfold. In public, Serena kissed him and acted affectionate. The moment she turned away, she looked like she wanted to scrub herself head to toe with disinfectant. I thought they were forcing themselves through all of it for my sake. Until one day, I accidentally overheard my sister talking to my fiancée. “The exorcist said that in three more days, they’ll be stuck like this permanently.” “Julian is so innocent. He deserves a good life. Asher’s always been spoiled and arrogant. Maybe this will finally teach him a lesson.” What they didn’t know was that I had a system too. And if I didn’t get my body back in three days, I would die.

The System told me that, as a player, I stood a chance of reviving my beloved if I played the game enough times. As such, I gave my heart to charm Mila Gibbs, even if it meant dying ninety-nine times. When I played the game for the hundredth time, Mila sent me into a room with a deviant just for her true love's fancy. "You're not going to die anyway. Just make Julian laugh, and I don't mind marrying you." She didn't know that once I played the game a hundred times, my wish would be granted, success notwithstanding. I shall hence disappear from her world without a trace.

My mother, Aileen Stuart, leaves me a bronze mirror upon her death. One day, I suddenly hear its thoughts. It says exasperatedly, "My naive child, Zara hid her brooch and blamed you for stealing it. And your stepmother? Her tricks are so banal. She rubbed pollen on your clothes, hoping you'd have an allergic reaction and become disfigured. They really are the perfect pair in household scheming. "Dead mother, philandering father, vicious stepmother, wicked idiot of a sister… What an unfortunate deck of cards you have been dealt with." With the mirror's guidance, I manage to carve out a place for myself in this household. One midnight, it wakes me from my sleep. "Jemima, your chance to change your fate has arrived! The assassin who just entered the study next door is the crown prince. Save him, and you will secure a bright future!" Summoning my courage, I push open the study door.

When I was 15, a thug outside our school swung a club at Trevor Jenson, and I took the hit for him. When I woke up, I had the mind of a five-year-old and could only call him Trevvy. He tore up his college acceptance letter on the spot and pulled me into his arms. "Don't be scared, Tessa. I'll marry you someday and take care of you for the rest of my life." Ten years later, Trevor goes out to eat and secretly arranges for me to eat in the private dining room next door. I'm on my third crab cake when I hear his mother sigh. "You can't spend your whole life taking care of a girl like her." Giselle Winslow says softly, "I don't mind. As long as I'm the one you love." Trevor doesn't answer. But when he gets home, he washes the travel mug Giselle gave him three times and sets it on his nightstand. That night, after being silent for so long, the system suddenly speaks in my ear. "Your last chance to leave this world is in seven days." "If I leave, can Trevvy get married?" I ask. "Yes." I'm so happy I don't sleep a wink. I practice writing my name 20 times because I want to leave him a goodbye note. But at a family dinner the next day, I mistake the scarf Giselle gave him for a rag and use it to wipe up some spilled soup. Trevor slams his bowl down in front of everyone. "Tessa, are you really that stupid, or are you just trying to embarrass me?" I clutch the wet scarf and stare at him blankly. "I won't embarrass you anymore after I leave."

Seven years into my mission to win Stephanie Chelle's heart, I had helped her become one of the business world's rising stars. And yet, she divorced me for her first love. All because her first love was terminally ill, and she had promised to marry him. I refused to give up and begged her to stay. "Once we're divorced, I won't remember you anymore." But she impatiently shook off my hand. "Can you stop being so selfish? Grayson is dying, and you're still fighting for my attention?" Later, I remembered everyone except Stephanie. Yet she came to me with red-rimmed eyes, begging me to come back.

After my fiancée, Morgan Sweeney, ran away from our wedding with her first love, Leonardo Bloom, I failed my mission, and the system erased every memory I had of her. Morgan, however, believed it was just another attempt to get her attention. Hence, she accepted Leonardo's proposal, posted their engagement photos on social media, and announced their honeymoon plans. She was certain I'd eventually kneel at her feet, admit I was wrong, and beg her to love me again. What she didn't know was that I would never be able to love her again. The day I announced my own marriage, Morgan finally panicked. She rushed to my wedding in tears and begged me not to leave her behind.