Maiikling Kwento tungkol sa Plot Twists at Imagination, at mga Nobela ng Scumbag na may Cheating

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!]

Being fair and treating everyone equally has always mattered most to Chase Russell. That's why he has a specialized chip implanted in my uterus. Whenever his childhood sweetheart, Joanna Reynolds, suffers from morning sickness or any other discomfort during her pregnancy, every bit of her pain is transferred to me. "Didn't you always dream of experiencing what it's like to be a mother? I'm making that dream come true for you." The day Joanna goes into labor, the pain hits me so hard that I pass out in the hospital corridor. But Chase is in the delivery room, gently comforting her. "How are you feeling? It doesn't hurt at all, does it?" Later, he tells me he wants to hold a wedding with Joanna, so she and their child can have a proper place in the family. "Although Joanna will be the one marrying me, you'll still be the one whose name is on the marriage certificate," he says. "I told you… I've always treated you both equally." I say nothing. I simply take off the wedding ring he gave me and return it to him. When the wedding march begins to play, I have already boarded a one-way flight to a faraway place.

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.

I had been able to see the labels above people's heads ever since I was little. When I was three, my grandpa held a family dinner at his house. Dad showed up with his secretary, Vivian Clarke. The moment she walked through the door, she went straight to Mom's seat. She rubbed her lower back and smiled sweetly. "Mrs. Lincoln, I hope you don't mind. Mr. Lincoln and I have been working on a project all day, and we're exhausted." I looked around the room. Above Eric's head was a glaring label. "Cheater." Above Mom's head was a dull gray label. "Loser." And above Vivian's head was a brightly shining label. "Ultimate gold digger." I immediately tugged on Eric's sleeve and asked loudly, "Dad, what do ‘cheater’ and ‘gold digger’ mean?"

At the company's year-end party, a colleague asks me teasingly about when exactly my boyfriend, Hayden Potter, and I will get married. Hayden's female buddy, Melissa Somers, instantly speaks up for him. "He's not in a rush. After all, Hayden's main priority is his career." At first, I don't think much about Melissa's response. But the next thing I know, I suddenly hear her internal thoughts. [Marriage? When Hayden was sleeping over at my place, he promised me that he'd marry me!] I freeze up on the spot before whirling around to stare at Hayden and Melissa. At the moment, Melissa is taking a sip from Hayden's drink through the same straw he just used. Hayden never once looks at me. In fact, he even has an arm wrapped around Melissa's shoulders.

My husband, Gideon Hale, returned from the war with barely a breath left in him. Yet despite his condition, he insisted on going to the palace and used his military achievements to secure a royal decree. I thought he had gone to obtain a noble title for me. I was ready to berate him for his foolishness, but the contents of the decree rooted me to the spot. [By royal decree, Gideon Hale, Marquis of Northguard, and his first wife, Clara Reinhart, are permitted to share a tomb.] Clara was my dearest friend from girlhood. My ears rang. I opened my mouth to demand an explanation, but before I could utter a word, Gideon breathed his last. I stood frozen until my son suddenly snatched the decree from my hands and said impatiently, "Mother is Father's true wife. I'm her son too. You gave birth to a daughter, but she died long ago." The words struck me like lightning, and a sharp pain twisted through my chest. "You... What did you just say?" My son didn't answer. Instead, he ordered someone to bring out the family register. The place that had always belonged to me as Gideon's lawful wife now bore Clara Reinhart's name, inscribed there by Gideon's own hand with the utmost solemnity. "Father allowed you to keep the dignity of being his wife. He never publicly acknowledged Mother his entire life. You should be grateful, shouldn't you?" Then he handed me our marriage certificate. Gideon's name still stood beside Clara's. Yet the marriage certificate I had treasured for years was completely blank, as though it had never borne a single word. Only then did the full truth sink in. Not only had I been nothing more than a consort all these years, but I had also raised another woman's child as my own. Before I could draw another breath, I died with my eyes wide open. When I opened them again, I had returned to the day I gave birth.

I had always thought I was the happiest woman in the world. After all, my fiance was rich, handsome, and thoughtful. To everyone else, he was practically perfect. However, I found three divorce decrees and death certificates of his three ex-wives in his drawer the day before our wedding. Before I could even process the shock, a wall of floating comments appeared before my eyes. 'So, she's the next victim, huh?' 'The last three thought they could change Ivan and insist on marrying him, although they found his secret, and look where it got them. This one is even dumber, completely blinded by love. I bet she thinks he can still be redeemed. Little does she know, he doesn't love her at all.' 'We need more villainous male leads! I wonder how this woman would die this time. I can't wait to see it!' 'Great news, friends! The female lead, Cynthia, will appear soon! She's the only one who can free Ivan from his dark thoughts!' The next moment, a colleague dropped to her knees and grabbed my thigh. Tears spilled from her eyes in an instant as she accused me, "Please, give my man back to me! Being a homewrecker won't end well for you. He and I are soulmates. He needs me to pull him out of the abyss. Only I can give him what he truly wants!" My other colleagues circled me and echoed her accusations. I simply nodded. Then I tore the wedding invitations in half. 'Go ahead. He's all yours now,' I thought.