قصص وروايات قصيرة من فئة Imagination وتضم Mistress وتدور في Golden Finger

My camera could take pictures of people as they would look three days in the future. I took a photo of my parents. They were sitting in the front row at my wedding, their hands clasped tightly and smiles of satisfaction on their faces. Then a photo of my sister. She was standing off to the side, smiling as she held the ring box. Next was my childhood best friend. He was dressed as a groomsman, filming the ceremony on his phone with an excited look on his face. Everyone looked happy. Everything was perfect. Excitedly, I turned the camera toward my girlfriend Vivian. But the instant I pressed the shutter, I stopped breathing. In the photo, Vivian was slipping a ring onto someone's finger. And it was not mine. That unmistakable scar could only belong to my adopted younger brother. He was the groom at the wedding three days from now. I had been the fool they had all deceived for an entire year.

Ever since I can remember, every person who crosses my path has a floating number above their head. It shows the exact number of times we will ever see each other again in this lifetime. When that number hits "1", it means this meeting is our final goodbye. At ten years old, my grandmother's number dropped to "1". That afternoon, she brushed my hair one last time before passing away peacefully in her sleep. When I graduated from college, my mentor’s number stood at "2". After our second meeting, he moved his family abroad and never returned. At twenty-five, I married Lucas Bolton, a star defense attorney. He was an absolute powerhouse in the courtroom, yet he gave all his tenderness to me. Throughout our seven years of marriage, he made it a point to come home on time every single day. He willingly handed over all his income, and no matter how busy he was on business trips, he always called me on video before going to bed. Most importantly, from the very first day I met Lucas, the number above his head wasn't a few hundred or a few thousand. It was an endless infinity sign. I truly believed it meant we were destined to spend the rest of our lives together. That didn't change until the eve of our seventh wedding anniversary, when Lucas suddenly started working late all the time. Even though he never usually wore cologne, his collared shirts began carrying the unfamiliar scent of gardenias. When I confronted him about it, he paused for a second before leaning down to kiss my forehead. "A recent client is going through a tough divorce with her kid. She's been dropping by the office pretty often, so it probably rubbed off by accident." I looked at the unchanged infinity symbol floating above his head and told myself I was just being paranoid. After all, the numbers never lie. That was until another night when Lucas came home late again. Suddenly, the symbol that had never changed began to flicker. Its golden light faded away, and in its place, a bright, blood-red number "3" appeared. That was the moment I knew Lucas and I had no future left.

I did not really go crazy when I found out my fiance was cheating on me. There was one simple reason. Solomon Zimmer had a strange condition—every time he lied, his body would break out in a rash. He had never been able to lie to me. So, when I confronted him, Solomon remained perfectly calm. "You're the one I love the most, Yvonne. I'd never cheat on you." There was no breakout. Unfortunately, I did not buy his story at all. Whenever he said he was doing overtime, I would wait outside his office. Whenever he went on a business trip, I would book a flight and follow him wherever he went. In the end, I installed surveillance cams in his car and GPS on his phone. When he found out what I had done, disappointment filled his eyes. "It's been six months. You went from unhinged to crazy. So, tell me, did you find out who the woman was?" He pulled my fingers away and tore his ring off. "If you have so little trust in me, perhaps we should delay the wedding indefinitely." That shattered me into a million pieces, and my depression attacked me at the same time. I was going to slit myself, but then a screen of comments popped up before my eyes. "Finally, the side character's getting the boot! MMC forced himself to take allergy meds for six months so he wouldn't have a breakout when this girl demanded answers from him." "Well, this character is the FMC's best friend. The FMC's been staying overseas all these years so she wouldn't break this side character's heart. Poor MMC. He had to travel back and forth for seven years." My hand froze in midair, and along it was the blade that would cut through my flesh. Then, my best friend, Louise Stone, messaged me. "I'm coming home, Yvonne."

My boyfriend, my best friend, and I were dragged into some kind of relationship game. The system told us that if we cleared every round, we could go home. The first test was simple. Vote for one person to be punished. Sophie clutched my arm, trembling. I patted her hand. "Vote for yourself. If we all do that, it should end in a tie." The votes came in. One each. A three-way tie. Sophie let out a shaky breath, tears still clinging to her lashes. "Cecilia, thank God you thought of that." Then the system told each of us to pick a reward box. Mine contained a small silver shard. A message rang directly in my head. [Ability unlocked: View and alter the outcome of one vote.] I closed my fingers around the shard, smiling as I turned to tell them I’d gotten something useful. Then white light flashed around me. I arrived a few seconds after they did. And before the light had completely faded, I saw them. Sophie had her back to me, tucked into my boyfriend’s arms. "Why wouldn’t you let me vote for her just now?" Her voice was low. "If we vote for her every round, then the two of us can get out safely, can’t we?" He rested his chin on top of her head and lowered his voice. "We’ll vote for her next round." "It’s just a test. Don’t rush." The last of the light faded, and I appeared beside them. Sophie immediately turned around. As naturally as if nothing had happened, she slipped her arm through mine. "Cecilia, what did you get? Neither of us got anything." Inside my pocket, the silver shard pressed into my palm. I smiled. "Nothing." "Mine was empty too."

Several comments suddenly float across my vision on the day the college entrance exam results are released. "I can't believe that he's still in the mood to laugh. Your girlfriend is using the exchange system to swap your college entrance exam results with Hugo's!" "I feel so sorry for Daniel. He's the genius of the school, and yet he's only going to score 400 points for the college entrance exams." "That's not all! Taylor's system has the ability to absorb Daniel's luck. She's going to use his entire family as stepping stones to pave her own future." "She's so ruthless. I can't believe that she's going to 'annihilate' her boyfriend's family just because his better background makes her feel inferior." A chill runs down my spine as I stare at the strange comments scrolling past my eyes. I'm the "Daniel" the commenters are referring to, the unlucky sap whose college entrance exam results were swapped with the poor student Hugo Powell's. I have no idea that my good-natured girlfriend, Taylor Wakeham, hates me so much. However, what the commenters don't know is that I've already secured a special invitation from Woodrow University's Department of Science long ago. I only take the college entrance exams purely because I want to experience what it's like. Not wanting to take up space on the rankings, I write all my answers on a spare piece of paper instead of the actual answer sheet.