قصص وروايات قصيرة عن Feel-Good Story وتضم Independence وتدور في Face Slapping

My mother was the only sweet and naive woman in the Palace. She was not hungry for power, did not scheme against others, and did not command any authority. She lived her life in a messy way as the Queen Consort. It was because my father pampered her so much that she became even more ignorant of the world. Everyone in the Palace showed respect on the surface, yet behind her back, they called her an incompetent fool. When I got married, she clutched my wedding gown while she wept and told me again and again, "My little girl, if anyone ever bullies you, do not hold it in. Come home and tell me." I thought she was being naive because no one would bully me when I was the Princess, yet her advice turned out to be right. Before my husband married me, he already had a mistress who had been his childhood lover, and they already had a 3‑year‑old son. After our wedding, he ignored me, humiliated me, and instructed that my allowance be docked. During the Harvest Gala, he held his mistress' hand as they entered the Palace and let her take my seat. He even asked my father to bestow a title upon her. Everyone in the hall stifled their laughter, and it felt like a knife to my heart. I froze and did not dare shed a tear. Footsteps were suddenly heard, and my mother, who had been treated like an accessory by others all her life, started to walk toward us. The look in her eyes was sharp, and her voice was icy. "A title? Why would an insolent mistress think she is good enough to have one? Drag the mistress and her bastard out to be hanged in public."

The villagers raised me as a child. So, when I became successful, I initiated a development plan for the village to repay their kindness. However, because of forced evictions, the village chief’s family, who were the kindest to me, four villagers, and two youngsters died miserably under the excavator’s shovel. I gave away every penny I had, knelt in the rubble to beg forgiveness, and was beaten bloody by the enraged villagers. I was left disfigured, crippled, and eventually thrown in prison for ten years. After I came out of prison, I went to a faraway place, changed my name, and worked on a construction site. I planned to just drift through the rest of my miserable life in obscurity. However, my ex-wife and daughter tracked me down. “Max, why didn’t you tell me when you got out? That whole thing has passed now. Weylon has built a great career. He can get you a decent job. “Come home. Our daughter and I miss you.” Our daughter, Josie, glared at me with grievance. “Who misses this murderer? He’s the reason I can’t hold my head up. Everywhere I go, people curse me. I don’t want a beast like him for a father. “Mom, you and Uncle Weylon are all the family I need…” I caressed the scar on my face, looked at my crippled right leg, and felt my numb heart ache once more. Back then, the person who skimmed the compensation money, forced the evictions, and caused those deaths was Weylon, my ex-wife’s foster brother. To protect him, she had threatened me with our daughter’s life and made me take the fall. At that moment, she was standing before me, offering charity from on high.

The annual performance review came around. I was the company's top revenue generator. They gave me a D. I looked at the evaluation form in my hand and laughed, because the alternative was worse. "A D? No raise? You people call this a comprehensive assessment?" Even a dog that drags a forty-five-million-dollar deal home gets a couple of bones for it. Sonia Blake, our HR director, was busy touching up her lipstick. She didn't bother to look up. "Ethan, don't get arrogant. This company values character. It values teamwork. You lean too hard on individual heroics. The D was a unanimous decision by the board." "So that's the justification for wiping out my entire year-end bonus and cutting my pay twenty percent?" I didn't understand. That was when my direct supervisor, and the man I hated most in the building, Grant Palmer, walked in. "If you don't want the job, you can leave." He was flushed with satisfaction, waving around the letter of intent I had just closed. One and a half billion dollars. "Sonia, why are you still arguing with him? Ethan, here's the termination agreement. Sign it. And while you're at it, hand over the core code for the new platform." Use a man up, then throw him away. Fine. Wonderful. I picked up the pen and signed my name across the agreement with a flourish. "I hope you don't come begging me to come back."

My girlfriend, Layla Tanner, and her roommates want to sneak into the old condemned dorm on campus to mess around with a spirit board. Feeling scared, she asks me to come keep her company. The moment I get there, the whole building collapses. I call 911, contact the student advisor, and start digging through the rubble like my life depends on it. I manage to pull Layla's roommate, Tracy Maynard, out first. She's badly injured and completely naked. But in a situation like that, nothing else matters. I carry her to safety, then go straight back into the rubble to search for the others, pushing myself until I finally collapse from exhaustion. But when I come to, what's waiting for me isn't gratitude. It's an accusation. Tracy tells everyone I stripped her naked and sexually assaulted her under the guise of rescuing her. Layla immediately takes Tracy's side and breaks up with me. Overnight, my reputation is destroyed. I get expelled, and the whole internet comes for me. My parents can't withstand the pressure. They fall seriously ill and die one after another. Then Tracy's father decides to make me pay for what I supposedly did to his daughter. One night, he follows me home and stabs me more than 20 times. He then leaves me to die a brutal death in absolute despair. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the night the abandoned building collapses.

My 30th birthday. My childhood friend, Jax, told me to meet him at Chicago City Hall. “Wear the custom wedding dress. Bring your ID.” He promised me a surprise I’d never forget. But when I got there, he just casually lifted his cigar to his rich friends. “See? She actually wore the wedding dress. Pay up. The limited-edition Aston Martin is mine.” Then, he turned to me. “Clara. It was a joke. You didn’t take it seriously, did you?” I said nothing. He was so sure of himself. No matter what he did, I was his little shadow. The girl who couldn't live without him. I’d always come crawling back, crying, begging him to marry me. His face, the one I used to love, twisted into a sneer. “If you’re that desperate to get married, go grab some homeless guy off the street. See if anyone wants you. Don’t worry. I’ll party a few more years. Then maybe I’ll be generous and keep the fiancée spot open for you.” The crowd of men and women behind him erupted in laughter. They laughed at me. The parasite Jax couldn't shake. The idiot waiting for him to throw me a bone. But when I walked out on the arm of my new husband—a literal Mafia Don—and flashed a very real marriage certificate, Jax’s face went dead white.

To prepare me for life in the Moretti underworld, my boyfriend, Adrian Moretti, had his childhood friend, Chloe Marino, arrange a robbery drill for me every month. At first, they only stole my phone. Then came a knife in a parking garage, followed by someone tailing me late at night. Once I even opened my eyes in the middle of the night to find a masked man sitting on the edge of my bed with a gun pressed to my forehead. Afterward, Adrian told me, "Evelyn, if this is enough to scare you, you're only going to hold me back." Today was the twelfth time. A bullet grazed my ear and buried itself in the wall. Blood ran down the side of my face. I fell to the ground while Chloe stood at the curb, laughing so hard she could barely hold her phone. She waved the phone at Adrian. "I told you she'd be scared witless this time!" "A year, and you haven't improved in the slightest!" Adrian's voice was thick with disappointment. But he didn't know that I began weapons training at six, and at thirteen I got myself out of a kidnapping alone. If I'd wanted, none of those men would have gotten anywhere near my bag. The Morettis had long wanted a marriage alliance with the Castillos, but I had no intention of marrying a man who coveted my family's power. That was why I changed my identity, hid my abilities, and sought Adrian out on my own. Later, I heard Adrian admit it himself. The fearful look on my face made Chloe laugh, so they organized one robbery drill after another. And so I had my father end the marriage arrangement with the Morettis.

The day my husband, Leon Ford, won Best Actor, a video smearing me went viral. In the video, my sister, Lucy Carter, tearfully accused me of using my position as Leon's manager to break them up. She claimed I'd threatened to ruin his career and forced him to marry me, a 250-pound woman. Leon liked the video the moment it went up, making it look like he was backing Lucy's story. Within minutes, the entire internet had turned against me. "She used her power to pressure an actor into marrying her? Someone like that should be blacklisted!" "God, she stole her own sister's boyfriend! What a vicious woman. Leon must've been miserable waking up to that disgusting fat pig every day!" "I hope Leon and Lucy finally get to be happy. That damned woman can go to hell!" What no one knew was how much I'd sacrificed for Leon over the years. I'd found investors for him and spent countless nights drinking with clients until I ended up in the ICU with a perforated stomach. I'd even been injured protecting him from a hater. The medication I needed afterward made my weight spiral out of control. Back then, Leon had sworn he'd never be ashamed of me. He called me his only treasure and chose to marry me of his own free will. I believed him. Despite what the medication had done to my body, I kept working tirelessly for him until he finally won Best Actor. But now that he'd made it to the top, all I got in return was a public smear campaign and divorce papers. Just when I had nowhere left to turn and despair was closing in, I received a text from Stephen Moretti, the mafia Don. "Want revenge? Lose weight and I'll make you a queen."

I was the heiress of the world's richest family, and my one obsession was breaking into show business. Three years in, and I was still nobody. So to build up some buzz, I threw a fortune into joining a new show. It was a survival competition that had the whole internet glued to its livestream. Except the freshly minted "innocent flower" on the cast had declared herself a survival expert and seemed determined to make me her foil at every turn. Not only did she team up with my archnemesis and announce she was taking me on, she made a show of struggling to rig traps and catch fish right in front of me, then roasted them over a fire she'd started by hand. After all that effort, she turned to the camera and, with exaggerated caution, said to me, "Harper McAvoy, you're staring at me so pitifully. You're not hoping we'll hand over the fish, are you? "But we worked so hard for this one..." Between her survival skills and the contrast with her sweet image, she had the whole internet cheering for her. I raised a hand to block the blazing sun and pointed the other at the fat, golden fish in my rival's hands. "I'll pay a hundred thousand dollars. Hand it over." "You got it, Harper!" My rival didn't hesitate for a second and dropped the fragrant, roasted fish straight into my hands.

On the country's most popular live television show, if a death row inmate received forgiveness from the victim's family, they would not be executed. The camera focused on a young man behind a set of steel bars. "Vance Hester. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Committed six murders in six months. Currently awaiting execution." The host turned toward the audience. "Our producers contacted the families of every victim in the hope that they might be willing to give him a second chance." But all six families refused to forgive him. They demanded that he pay for his crimes with his life. As the tension mounted, Greyson Reynolds, the eldest son of the Reynolds family and a special guest on the show, spoke calmly, "Letting your emotions dictate your decisions is ridiculous. What good does killing him do? It won't bring anyone back. You might as well be the bigger person and show some mercy." He paused before adding, "Besides, there's always more to the story. Are we really supposed to believe the victims were completely innocent?" Beside him, Melanie Reynolds wore an expression of profound sympathy. "Everyone makes mistakes. How can we condemn someone to death over a single mistake?"

On the nineteenth day after giving birth, I told my mother something felt wrong. She didn't even look up. "Who isn't exhausted after having a baby? I didn't have anyone helping me after I gave birth, and I still got through it." After that, I stopped talking about it. At night, when Noah cried, I got up to warm his bottle. My hands shook so badly that I dropped it on the floor. Carol ran out of her room barefoot. The first thing she said was, "Are you doing this on purpose?" Once, a nurse from the clinic came out for a postpartum home visit and asked how I was feeling. Before I could answer, my mother cut in. "What could possibly be wrong with her? She eats my food, lives under my roof, and still complains that taking care of her own baby is exhausting." After the visit ended, my mother slammed the door. "You really know how to put on a show for outsiders." During that time, I spent every waking second trembling. Then I started growing hydrangeas on the balcony. Seventeen pots. I planted them one by one, counting the days. Those ten minutes I spent watering them every day were the only moments when I felt like I was still alive. Last week, driving Noah home from his vaccination, I thought the first flower should be blooming soon. Then I opened the door. The balcony was empty. Only smears of soil left on the tile. My mother was in the kitchen trimming beans. She didn't even look up. "I pulled the flowers out. They attract mosquitoes. The balcony's better used for the baby's things." I said nothing. I walked out to the balcony and stood there a long time. The wind came through. The air was clean, without even the faintest trace of flowers. I looked down at the dirt marks on the tile. And suddenly I thought they looked like the last evidence that I'd ever existed in this house.

Six months later, Carlo, who once terrorized Port San Vito and forced us to pay protection money, knelt in the muddy water and blocked my path. Red-eyed, he begged me to bring the Moretti convoys back. "Ms. Moretti, if you come back, there'll be no protection money and no parking fees... I'll even pay you." I regarded him coldly and remembered how, six months earlier, he had flicked ash onto my financial statements and looked down at me as he said, "Pay, or get out of Port San Vito."

The day I took over the Ashford family, a man from another world took over my body. He used my identity as head of the Ashford family to fawn over my three adoptive sisters and devote himself to winning them over. "The original owner of this body was far too cold-hearted. A thoughtful man like me, who knows how to treat women well, is the one who can win their hearts." But his efforts ended with my three adoptive sisters pushing him into the ocean after the nanny’s son shed a few tears. When I opened my eyes again, my two sisters were already storming in to accuse me. "Stop pretending. You knew Cade is afraid of water, yet you still pushed him into the pool.” "You only swallowed a few mouthfuls of water. Don’t think this little pity act will win you any sympathy!" "Kneel down and apologize to Cade right now." "Smack!" I slapped them both across the face. Then I wiped my hands. "When did the people living under my roof start thinking they could challenge me? The Blackridge mining project needs workers. You two will do."

Just after the New Year, as I was about to return to work, my phone suddenly rang. "Charlie." With just one word, I immediately guessed who it was. Franklin Wood, my former colleague and superior, who had my ex-company and the entire industry blacklist me. We had not been in contact for three years. I did not understand why he was calling me out of the blue. "Is there something you need?" Hearing my response, the man on the other end of the line suddenly took a deep breath, his voice becoming a bit urgent. "Charlie, do you have a job now? What happened back then was my fault. The company needs you now. Can you come back?" 'Needs me?' I thought and laughed. Three years ago, he was the one who told me, "The company's success depends on the connections of its employees, not on their personal merits." 'Now, he's asking me to go back?' I thought, hanging up without replying. After all, the company I was working for now, Apex Systems, was their biggest rival.

I'm born with a congenital heart condition. But when my illness flares up, my longtime boyfriend, Zeke Fulton, doesn't try his best to save me. On the contrary, he forces me to sign over my shares while I'm in agony. Then, he stands by and watches as the pain rips through me. I end up dying on that hospital bed. Thankfully, I'm given a second chance at life. I'm reborn on the very last day of filling out college applications. This time, I don't fall for Zeke's sweet talk. I turn my back on him and run straight into the arms of my childhood friend, Hugo Lodge. Hugo wraps me up in his embrace, his lips brushing against the side of my neck. He says, "Elisa, come to Joslin University with me."

The Crown Prince loves poetry, but my legitimate elder sister, who wants nothing in this world so much as to be Crown Princess, hasn't an ounce of talent. My mother was born in a brothel, and because of her I grew up skilled in verse, music, and letters. So my sister turned her attention to me, and had me write the poems she sent to the Crown Prince. She promised that if I helped her become the Crown Princess, I'd become a true daughter of House Vale. Because my mother was only a mistress, I'd entered the house as nothing but my sister's maid. But once I'd made her Crown Princess, she repaid me with a cup of poisoned wine. Before I died, I heard her say: "Only with you dead will no one ever find out my secret." When I opened my eyes again, I'd come back to the day she asked me to write the Crown Prince a poem. This time, I bowed my head and agreed, just as I had before. But I changed what I put in the poem. We're both daughters of House Vale. So why shouldn't the Crown Princess be me?

A week before our wedding, Damian Hale threw me a pre-wedding party at his family's private racetrack. His racing partner, Sienna Belmont, tossed a set of car keys into my lap. "Every bride should take a spin, right?" I wanted to refuse, but Damian slung an arm around me and said with a laugh, "It's just for fun. Sienna will show you around the track. You'll be fine." I let my guard down. But when I reached the third turn, I hit the brakes. Nothing happened. The car crashed through the barrier. My spine snapped, leaving me in a wheelchair. Three months later, I saw Sienna walk out of Damian's bedroom wearing my engagement ring. All he had to say was, "Avery, I need a wife who can stand beside me." Sienna wheeled me out to the rooftop terrace. "Want to know why your brakes failed?" With a smile, she released my wheelchair's brake and gave me a hard shove. I plunged 40 stories. When I opened my eyes again, I was back a month before the party. I called my father, who was out driving his cab. "Dad, before you became a cab driver, you were a championship coach. You trained some of the best racers in the business. Would you teach your daughter to beat one?"

I returned to the small Mississippi town I had left years ago for my high school's centennial celebration. My childhood friend, Emma Brooks, had stayed behind and found a job there. When she saw me arrive in a Rolls-Royce Cullinan, her eyes lit up. She immediately asked to borrow the SUV for her wedding. Back in high school, I used to pay for all her meals. But this time, I refused. She scoffed, "Seriously? You won't even lend me a lousy car? Or did you just rent it to show off?" I told her the truth: it belonged to my company, and I couldn't lend it out without permission. She rolled her eyes and stormed off. By the time I got back to my hotel, the alumni group chat was blowing up. Emma had told everyone I was some rich man's lover in New York. She claimed he'd bought me the car, then dumped me and sent me home after I caught some disease. My former classmates couldn't distance themselves from me fast enough. Someone even suggested I be banned from the celebration. But none of them knew why I'd really come back. A venture capital firm had sent me with a massive donation. Ten million dollars would go toward a new academic building at my old school. And I was also there to fund the private high school where Emma worked.

On the seventh Christmas of our marriage, my husband, Alan Seaton, who worked in France, finally agreed to let me visit him. That was when I learned he wasn't renting some basement apartment at all. He had bought a spacious three-bedroom apartment. His mother, Maria Seaton, had the primary bedroom. He slept in the second, and the third had been turned into a pink princess room for his mother's goddaughter, Daisy. Even Daisy's dog had a climate-controlled kennel on the balcony. When he caught me staring at the kennel, Alan laughed and patted Daisy on the head. "You treat that dog better than your own mother. You insisted he couldn't suffer, so you even had radiant floor heating installed for him." I stared at the border collie eating imported beef in his kennel, and something inside me broke. For a moment, I had no idea what to say to Alan. Should I tell him that I had worked three jobs to fund his business overseas and that when I had a fever, I could only afford expired acetaminophen? Or that I had lived on sandwiches until a bleeding ulcer made me pass out in my rented room? Before I could decide, Alan pulled me over to the dining table. "You haven't worked in Texas in years anyway. Why don't you sell your house there and move here to take care of my mom? You can look after Daisy's dog too." He had no idea I had sold that house in Texas years ago to clean up the mess he had left behind. Nor did he know that I was the real owner of the multinational company he worked for.

The day before the Imperial Academy trial, my online boyfriend told me his friend had drawn me as his partner. Before I could even process what he meant, he dragged me into a group chat. "Congratulations, Liam! You drew yourself a 200-pound partner!" Right after that, someone posted a photo of me from three years ago for everyone to see. In it, I wore an XL ceremonial robe, my face so chubby my ears practically disappeared. The chat instantly exploded with laughter. "God, that's not a werewolf. That's a porcupine on two legs." "A bet's a bet, Liam. You drew her yourself!" "Who says his partner is useless? She could sit on the prey and crush it to death! Hahaha!" Before long, someone started a betting pool. They were betting on whether I'd dare show up for the trial the next day. My online boyfriend bet 10,000 gold coins that I wouldn't. "Don't blame me, guys. You drew her yourself!" Liam, the werewolf who had drawn me, didn't say a word. Then Claire, the girl everyone in the chat had crowned the prettiest girl at the academy, suddenly tagged me. "Sweetie, don't listen to them. You'll still come tomorrow, won't you?" I watched the insults fly across the screen and laughed. None of them knew I'd lost 100 pounds for this trial, dropping from 200 pounds to 100. For the past two months, I couldn't leave the house without some werewolf hitting on me. Without saying a word, I placed my own bet. 30,000 gold coins that I'd show up on time.

My husband called me fat, ugly, and disgusting. Then he used that as an excuse to cheat on me with his secretary, Joanna. I threw him a birthday party, hoping to make him happy, but he chose to spend the night with her instead. Tired and fed up, I signed the divorce papers and walked out of his life. Three years later, I was no longer the unwanted XXL wife of Adrian Wellington. I was Miranda Wright, a billionaire heiress who had just bought my ex-husband’s company under a fake name. When Adrian finally discovered who I was, he was shocked. Then he fell at my feet, pleading for another chance. “Miranda, don’t do this to us.” I ignored him, pulled my hand away, and barked an order at my security guards. “Throw him out, and make sure he never comes anywhere near me again.” He once thought I wasn’t good enough for him. Now, he was begging for the woman he had thrown away.