Cerita Pendek Mistress Imagination & Novel Marriage

It is the third year of the apocalypse. All water sources have been thoroughly polluted, making even a single bottle of clean water extremely rare. Every base has to send out search teams to find new water sources for all. My husband, Jasper Curran, is a geologist, and so, he is able to locate water sources that are still pure and unpolluted. However, when someone holds a knife to my throat for the last bottle of water—thinking that he will do anything to stop them—he hands the only bottle of clean water to Avery Grayson, the person who claimed she was my parents' real daughter instead of me. "Ave is thirsty. She's been suffering since she was little and she even had her parents taken by you, Arianne Grayson," Jasper says. "Just let her have the water." Jasper's expression is too calm and collected, as if my life is not on the line because of him. "They're just trying to scare you. You've enjoyed so many years of being spoiled with a luxurious lifestyle anyway. So what if you get bullied a little?" The people then kick me to the ground in a fit of rage as I watch Jasper huddle Avery into his arms and disappear into the desert. I get beaten up so hard that my chapped lips crack and start bleeding once again. I look at the menacing faces around me and quickly exclaim, "Wait, wait! I can help you find clean water too!"

At a private spa retreat, my husband’s assistant brought me a glass of iced coffee. I was parched and about to drain it when a stream of comments appeared before my eyes. [Drink it, you wicked villainess! The coffee is laced with enough sleeping pills to knock you out. Don’t ruin the leads’ big moment!] [I’m dying. The male lead is sleeping with his sister-in-law right under the villainess’ nose.] [The leads are all over each other in the sauna! This is getting spicy!] Suspicious, I lowered the glass, and the comment stream erupted. [Why isn’t the villainess drinking it?!] Were they calling me the villainess? I glanced toward the sauna, then walked straight over to it. I pulled a floor cushion over, sat down outside the steaming wooden door, and called to a staff member, “Excuse me, could you turn up the heat? I want to sit here and sweat it out.” [What?! No! Our precious leads are going to be cooked alive!]

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.

I was a mermaid from the deep sea. Out of curiosity and playfulness, I was caught by a fisherman and endured unbearable torment. Just when I was on the brink of death, Trevon Chapman happened to pass by and saved me. So, I gave up my identity as a mermaid princess, left the ocean behind, and followed him into the human world. For five years after our marriage, Trevon granted my every wish and showered me with affection. I truly believed I had found a safe harbor I could depend on for the rest of my life—until fate struck with its cruelest blow. Trevon's childhood sweetheart had fallen gravely ill, and only a mermaid’s tail could save her. I begged him desperately, but he responded with chilling indifference. "You're only losing your legs. Corinne is losing her life. Are you really that heartless? You're just going to watch her die?" "Besides, you can’t return to the sea anymore. That tail means nothing to you now. From now on, I’ll be your legs." After the surgery, I sat in a wheelchair, running my hand over the empty fabric where my legs should have been, and calmly demanded a divorce. Trevon pulled Corinne into his arms, sneering. "You're neither human nor fish now—a monster. Without me, the only road left for you is death." Yet in the end, when I transformed back into a mermaid and leapt into the sea, his cries and desperate sobs echoed across the waves.

My CEO wife, Cassandra Solis, has high hopes for me. In fact, she has drafted an elite training program for me. I have to work over 20 hours a day, finish every meal within 3 minutes, and spend no more than a minute in the restroom. "Honey, elites must achieve what normal people can't. Only when you become a true elite can I entrust the company to you." I can feel the major responsibility weighing down on my shoulders. Every day, I devote everything I have to work. Five years later, I've successfully taken the company public. I've also completed Cassandra's hardcore training program. But at the end-of-the-year gala, Cassandra hands over the position of the Executive Vice President—the same one that she's promised to me—to her newly-recruited assistant. Upon noticing my displeasure, Cassandra explains to me smilingly while holding a bouquet of flowers, "Oh, silly you! Having a completely useless boss is the final trial I've set up for you! Once you've completed this trial, I can finally hand the company to you!" But lines of text suddenly flash across my vision. "Oh, poor Harvey! He still has no idea that Cassandra has been training him just so he can earn more money in order to clear off Xavier's debt! Not only that, but she also steals the position Harvey has been longing for and gives it to Xavier! Cassandra really has crossed a line this time!" "You're being too dramatic. Cassandra is just paying Xavier back for his benevolence. She feels guilty for what she's done to Harvey, you know. Once she's done paying back her debt to Xavier, she'll pay attention to Harvey once again and live happily ever after with him." I'm stunned by what I see. Is this the actual purpose behind the elite training program? I'm about to pull out the terminal cancer diagnosis report, but I quickly stuff it back into my pocket. It's a shame that I'm about to die. I suppose that I can't live long enough to see that day.

After my miscarriage left me depressed, I stood on the rooftop the day I discovered my cheating husband was having an affair with my best friend. My best friend, Natalie Smith, regretted it so much that she slashed her own face with a knife before leaving the country. To make me feel safe, my husband, Steven Palmer, had a tracking device installed on himself. Every time he came home, he would hand me his phone. Even if he was only leaving for five minutes, he would always video-call me and tell me where he was. But when I became pregnant again and went to the hospital to start my prenatal records, I suddenly received a video call from myself ten years in the future. I stared at the woman on the screen. She looked painfully thin. Terrified, I asked, "Did I lose this baby too?" Her eyes instantly turned red. Then she suddenly flipped the camera around. Steven stood behind Natalie on the screen; his eyes filled with a love he could barely hide. "You forced me to become a good husband, and I did. But she will never be able to have children again. This is the punishment she deserves for what she did to you." "Steven, no!" Natalie slapped him across the face, but she couldn't stop crying. I sat there with a pale face as the woman on the screen laughed like she had lost her mind. "Go ask the nurse. Find out just how stupid you really are." As soon as she finished speaking, I heard the nurse say in confusion, "Ms. Schneider, our system says you're unmarried. You said the father of your baby is Steven Palmer, but he registered here last year. His spouse is listed as Natalie Smith."

From the time I was little, something in me was always a little off—I never listened to the whole story, only half of it. My grandmother called me a good-for-nothing who was financially burdening the family. She bought a little boy to be my younger brother and told me to take good care of him. I understood the part about buying a child, so I immediately called the police and reported her for illegal human trafficking. My father pointed at my face and cursed me for being unfilial, accusing me of cutting off his family line. I obeyed him, crept into his room while he slept that night, and used a knife to "cut off his lineage." My father screamed in agony. In the chaos, he accidentally killed me. When I opened my eyes again, I had transmigrated into the female lead of a melodramatic abuse novel. After ten years of marriage to the cruel male lead, his childhood sweetheart had just returned from abroad and was undergoing kidney surgery. He dragged me to the hospital and cruelly ordered me to donate a kidney to his precious first love. I nodded obediently, went out and bought a pig, and on the spot dug out the pig's kidney and handed it to him.

There was an open secret among upper-class society. The wealthy man, Brandon Anderson, loved his wife to death. However, he was addicted to cheating on her. He would give everything those young women wanted from him, but he had one strict rule for them: not to expose anything to his wife. Everyone knew that he had loved his wife for ten years, and he had put in a lot of effort to marry her. He had once said that if his wife died, he would not survive. However, this latest mistress did not follow his instruction. She came to me because he doted on her. She sent me a lot of photos of condoms and his sleeping face. “Ms. Lowe, this brand is too good. I was screaming the whole night. Has Mr. Anderson ever used that with you?” It was that moment that I realized the young man who was infatuated with me had given his heart to me, but his body to other people. When I saw the photos, I cried so hard that I had no more tears. Then, I drafted a divorce agreement and signed it. I turned around and saw Brandon, seventeen again, crying as he stared at me.

Thanks to an accident, I'm somehow able to get on a phone call with the past version of me from seven years ago. Upon hearing that I will be getting engaged to Edward Herring soon, Younger Me is so excited that she keeps rolling around in bed. She also claims that she will be the happiest woman in the world seven years later. Am I happy, though? I can only smile bitterly without saying anything. Then, I silently show Younger Me the old scars of the suffering and pain I've gone through in the past. The gentle Edward is no longer here. Now, the Edward I'm with is the type who allows others to call me a manipulative bitch repeatedly and demands that I grovel to his first love, Madison Scott, and her family in a form of apology before our engagement. "So, do you still want a future like this?" The sparkle in Younger Me's eyes fades away instantly. After that, my past has been rewritten. Let's never see each other from the start, Edward Herring.

Silas Jordan drew lots, which resulted in me being chosen as his wife. He hated me for getting his childhood sweetheart killed. Hence, he tortured me to death. But after I died, deep remorse overwhelmed him. After I returned to the past, I first rigged the lottery to help him get together with his childhood lover. However, there were endless new comments on the screen. They were from readers of the novel I was trapped in. [Based on the plot, the male lead will pick the female lead. Then, the male lead’s childhood lover will kill herself. When the female lead gets tortured to death, the male lead starts regretting it. But why would this miserable novel change when the female lead rigged the lottery?] It was because I no longer wished to marry him again.

There's a common secret kept by everyone in the upper crust. Liliana Coolidge loves me, her husband, to the core, and yet she loves the thrill of sleeping with others behind my back. She pampers her side pieces a lot, but there's one taboo that they must follow no matter what. They must never show up in front of me at all. Everyone knows that I'm the man whom she's loved for a decade and the one she almost died to marry. Liliana has made it clear that if I were dead, she'd definitely follow me to the afterlife without a doubt. But this time, her latest side piece is a rebellious one. He actually shows up before me, thinking that he has Liliana to back him up. He spams my phone with tons of used condom photos, together with Liliana's sleeping visage. "Mr. Rivero, the strawberry ribbed condom overstimulates Ms. Coolidge too much, judging from the way she kept moaning the whole night. Had she used it when she was with you in the past?" Only at that moment do I realize that my wife, who loves me to the moon and back, has chosen to pour all the love she has for me while giving her body to other people. As I stare at the photos, I weep until I don't have any tears left. Then, I draft a divorce agreement and leave my signature there. But when I turn around, I notice a 17-year-old version of Liliana standing behind me with tears streaming down her face.

On the day of our wedding, my fiance Thomas Warsh was killed in a car accident on the way there. His adopted sister rushed toward me, clutching his ashes, accusing me of being a jinx who brought him misfortune. I was drowning in grief when a line of floating comments suddenly appeared before my eyes. [You must remain a widow for three years for your deceased husband. After three years, he will be reincarnated and return to love you again!] [Don’t ever remarry. Otherwise, the male lead will never rest in peace, and you will suffer for the rest of your life!] That was when I learned that my fiancé and I were the hero and heroine of a novel. Only by following the spoilers in the comments and completing the storyline could I reunite with him. I did not remarry. Guided by the comments, I remained a widow for three years, and then another three. However, it was not until I suddenly died from a severe illness that I discovered the truth–the comments had all been written by Thomas. He had faked his death, changed his appearance, married his adopted sister, and fed me endless empty promises so I would continue to slave away for the Warsh family. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day before the wedding.

The day I found out I was pregnant, I accidentally called myself three years in the future. Clutching my pregnancy test report, I asked excitedly, "Was Adrian happy when he found out he was going to be a dad? Is my baby a boy or a girl?" The woman on the other end of the phone answered in a hoarse voice, "The baby was never born. After Jane found out you were pregnant, she gave you abortion pills. Adam even signed the papers to have your uterus removed. And Adrian ignored you completely just to comfort that illegitimate daughter." My mind went blank, and my whole body started shaking. "That's impossible..." I couldn't believe that my beloved older brother, my best friend of 20 years, and the man I had loved for seven years had all betrayed me. A muffled sob came from the other end of the phone. "Adrian had already secretly married Sophia. Everyone knew about it, but they all kept it from you!" I collapsed into my chair. Then my phone received a string of numbers. "If you don't believe me, go see for yourself."

My husband, Calvin Ziegler, recently bought a lifelike silicone doll. He says it's a companion to help relieve work stress. In the middle of the night, a faint noise wakes me up. I discover him holding the doll tightly, his expression unusually focused. Suddenly, a series of strange comments appears before my eyes. "Dorothy Sanders is using the resonance system again tonight to transfer her consciousness into the doll's body. Sneaking around right under Laura Halliwell's nose is so thrilling!" "Calvin and Dorothy really know how to have fun. That idiot of a wife probably has no idea what's going on. Haha!" I look at the doll on the couch. The corners of its mouth are curled into an eerie smile. I smile too. Since you love being a doll so much, I'll make sure you stay one forever.

On our anniversary, Nina Reid took our daughter—and her assistant, Ray Chapman—out for another "family day." Without me. That was it. I filed for divorce. Right after signing the papers and boxing up my stuff, I heard a buzz from the corner. Old phone. Twelve years old. Buried in a drawer. The screen lit up with a number I almost recognized. Hand shaking, I picked up. A voice I hadn't heard in years. Young. Way too familiar. "Hey, Liam. I need to talk to you."

For weeks, my husband had been disappearing for two hours every night. One night, I tailed him to a strange pawnshop. Inside, he was holding my nightgown. “I want to trade six months of her life. Wendy’s healthy. She’ll be fine.” Then he pulled out my lipstick and handed it to the shopkeeper. “It's only three days of her youth. She won't notice.” The shopkeeper placed my belongings on an antique bronze scale, selling off pieces of my life as if they were worth nothing. I stormed inside to stop them, but my husband grabbed me around the waist and pinned me against the cold counter. He pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You know Aria’s been coughing up blood. How can you just let her suffer? She’s only in this condition because of me.” Then, without a trace of hesitation, he crushed three of my fingers. I screamed, the pain so intense I nearly blacked out. “All you have to do is put up with a little pain, and Aria gets an entire day of relief. Seems like a fair trade to me.” The bronze scale flashed red, drowning out my screams. Then one day, my husband brought our wedding ring to the pawnshop. “She's worn this ring for ten years. I want to trade it for another ten years of life for Aria.” But this time, the shopkeeper smiled. “A transaction this large requires an exchange from both parties.” He turned to me. “Now, what would you like to take from him?”

I was born destined to be fertile. The kind of woman who brings heirs into the world as if it were destiny. My womb had never failed me. The Schuyler family had practically begged me to marry into their family. The reason was simple. For three generations, the Schuyler family had only produced a single heir each time. Their bloodline was hanging by a thread. The patriarch of the family, Albert Schuyler, went everywhere looking for solutions. Doctors, fortune tellers, shamans, anyone who could give him hope. In the end, every prediction pointed to me. After I married Jack Schuyler, my first pregnancy was twins. The entire Schuyler family exploded with joy. Albert donated to every church and fortune teller alike, kneeling in gratitude. Before the babies were even weaned, the Schuyler family business began to thrive. Everyone said that it was the blessing of having noble heirs. Wedding gifts, properties, and company shares. The Schuyler family spared nothing. They treated me like a queen, terrified that I might suffer even the slightest. Until the day I gave birth to my third child. Jack Schuyler's true love, Bianca Chance, barged into the delivery room, screaming at me, "You shameless tramp! You're nothing but a breeding sow! One baby after the other! Are you trying to trap Jack with your womb? You disgusting woman! Jack had said that everything you give birth to will just be burdens sooner or later!" I pressed a hand on my wound and looked at her. Burden? Fine. I would take these so-called burdens with me. As for the Schuyler family's precious bloodline, they had to figure out how to continue it on their own.

At my son's tenth birthday, I unexpectedly gained the power to read minds. Standing before the candles, he made his wish. "I hope I score a hundred on my finals." Before I could commend his maturity, a second wish slammed into my ears. "I don't like Dad. I want Mr. Shaw to be my dad.'' My hands froze halfway through a clap.

On the day the company goes public, my CEO wife, Stacy Levine, rewards everyone. She even makes an exception for her male assistant, Zack Lowe. She promotes Zack and gives him a raise. But when it comes to me, she throws a stack of papers in my face and treats me like I'm worthless. Everyone thinks I'm about to be fired, so they all rush to suck up to Zack. Only I, standing there with my head lowered in silence, know that Stacy is cheering inside. "Jacob looks so cute when he's jealous and upset! He has no idea I'm planning to promote him to vice president. He'll probably be so touched that he'll cry!" What she doesn't know is that I have a surprise waiting for her, too. I'm planning to divorce her and take up a job with her biggest rival.

On my thirty-eighth birthday, my husband, Hugh Shaw, nearly forty, found the love of his life. He asked me for a divorce. "Mina’s only twenty. She’s sweet and kind, while you’re old and boring." I nodded at my own reflection, looking worn and lifeless. That explained Hugh’s strange behavior lately. He’d started caring about his appearance. He never left the house without putting on cologne, and he bought a bouquet of flowers every day. No matter how busy he was, the first thing he did when he got home was work out at the gym. Before the divorce, Hugh asked me, "Maya, you’ve been a housewife for seven years. Can you really bring yourself to divorce me? Don’t come crying to me later!" I smiled. "I won’t." Because that girl he fell in love with was me at twenty.