เรื่องสั้นแนว After Death Romance และนิยายในฉาก Marriage

After losing his entire retirement savings to a scam, my father-in-law, Kyle Knight, tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills. I frantically called my husband, Joshua Knight, a psychology expert, hoping he could talk his father out of it. "Dad lost his entire retirement fund to a scam. He left a suicide note, and he's trying to kill himself. Come home!" Instead, Joshua snapped at me for making such a big deal out of it. "Your dad's made plenty of bad decisions before. Maybe this'll finally teach him a lesson. Don't bother me with stupid stuff like this again. I'm trying to watch a movie with Vanessa." For a second, I thought he hadn't heard me clearly. I was about to tell him that the man dying was his own father. Then Vanessa Morgan's voice came through the phone. The horror movie scared her. Joshua immediately turned to comfort her. Later, he casually told me to put together a PowerPoint on how my dad got scammed so he could use the case in one of his anti-scam livestreams. I swallowed everything I was about to say and obediently said, "Okay." After all, the person who scammed Kyle out of his retirement savings and drove him to suicide was Vanessa's mother.

To help her childhood sweetheart, David Middleton, take my place studying abroad, my wife, Sharon Griffin, destroys my records and deliberately fills in false information, ensuring that I'm permanently denied a visa. She even severely injured my hands before sending me to the Behavioral Reform Center. My mother-in-law, Paula Brown, who has always treated me with affection, takes Sharon's side. "Kyle is so ungrateful. We gave him everything, and he still wanted to get a PhD abroad to find his biological parents. Who's going to take care of me if he's gone?" Sharon snorts. "He's just vain. When he found out I'd turned down Westbridge's offer of admission, he gave me the silent treatment and threatened to divorce me. If I let him go abroad, he'd think he could do whatever he wanted. "As my husband, he has everything he could ever need, yet he still wants to take David's opportunities away from him. Maybe the Behavioral Reform Center can teach him to appreciate what he has." A semester later, Sharon goes to the airport to pick up David, who's returning from his studies abroad. For the first time in a long while, she asks her assistant, Adam Norris, "It's been so long. Has Kyle learned his lesson? Tell him he can come home for the winter break." She doesn't know that I've already died on the very first day she sent me to that reform center.

My wife, Christine Leigh, forced me to the brink of death all for her first love, Henry Carson. To give him a liver transplant, she sent me to the surgery table. I told her I had cancer and that the doctors had advised against the surgery. She just looked at me with an undisguised contempt, "Jason Lowe, stop with your petty tricks. Don't forget, you owe our family your life!" I lowered my head and smiled bitterly. I never left the surgery table.

After I became a vegetable, Samuel kept me alive for two years with all sorts of tubes. I thought he couldn’t bear to let me go—until his true love returned to the country. He took my corneas and transplanted them to her. Right in front of me, he spoke to her with the utmost tenderness: “Don't worry; you'll be fine. These eyes have been prepared for you for two years.” As a result, I had an adverse reaction after the surgery and passed away. When he heard the news, his eyes turned crimson with rage, and he nearly smashed the hospital: ”Didn't you say there wouldn’t be any problems?!”

When Cornelia Montero’s childhood sweetheart, Trevor Hampton, accidentally shoved someone into some concrete, she immediately got to the scene. The Montero family had always been in construction, so Cornelia knew exactly what to do after such an incident. She helped Trevor make it look as though the victim fell by accident. She even brought Trevor to the police station to give his statement. They hoped that the next of kin would be more understanding that way. But Cornelia did not know that it was me, her husband, who was pushed off the building. She was my next of kin.

The border crackdown finally comes to an end. The police finally capture the notorious Roxanne Thorne, who has made headlines across the country. In the interrogation room, Jordyn Croft sits across from her in a police uniform, repeatedly asking the same question. "Where is that traitor, Christopher Savile, hiding now?" Roxanne slowly raises her eyes, her slender fingertips gently rubbing the edge of her handcuffs. "That young cop? We tied him to a metal frame and took turns beating him. Then we injected him with highly concentrated drugs before using blunt weapons to smash his knees and ankles piece by piece. Finally, we chained him to the barbed-wire fence at the border." She licks her lips, as if savoring the memory. "By dawn, his body was already stiff." Jordyn stands up and slams the files onto the table. "You're lying! He was the one who leaked the information back then and got more than a dozen of our officers killed. He even covered your retreat through the back mountain. The surveillance footage captured everything clearly!" Roxanne suddenly bursts into laughter. Her handcuffs clang loudly against the table. She says, "Christopher never gave us a single useful piece of information until the end. Instead, it was a hostage he'd previously rescued from us who kept feeding us information. His only condition was that we take Christopher away and make everyone believe he was a traitor. "That way, he could conveniently take Christopher's wife for himself." The entire room falls silent. Just then, the interrogation room door flies open. Jordyn's newlywed husband, Milo Lumley, rushes in, his voice urgent. "Jordyn, did you catch the suspect? Did they tell you where Chris is?"

The year Chelsea Shelton, a Hawthorne Bay heiress, hated me more than ever, she brought home one guy after another. And after she was done with them, she made me pay them off. I'd cursed, fought, even landed in the hospital after throwing hands with escorts. Eventually, I stopped caring and signed one million-dollar check after another. All so she'd keep paying Dad's medical bills. Then Dad went into cardiac arrest again. He was critical. Hands shaking, I called Chelsea. She told the hospital to kick him out of the ICU. "Rowyn Reynaud, that's not how you beg. I don't like it." I tore home through the rain and begged her to let him stay. She made me stand outside all night and listen to her hook up with another guy. By morning, I signed another check and handed it over. Before I could ask her to spare Dad, a fist cracked across my face. Chelsea's college-age boy toy glared at me, pissed. "Chelsea, does this freeloader seriously think I'm some escort? We love each other. Who the hell does he think he is, throwing money at me?" Chelsea frowned. "Rowyn, apologize. Or do you want Frederick dead?" But the hospital had just texted me. Dad was already gone. Sometime during the night, he'd bitten through his oxygen line and ended his life. With the last of his strength, he'd left me one final note in blood. [Rowyn, I can't keep being a burden to you.]

On the day of her daughter Nina’s funeral, before the pastor could finish the eulogy, Rosalind answered Samson’s phone call. “Change of plans. Let’s meet earlier. I’m on my way now.” Ethan held the small cremation urn in his arms. His knuckles turned white from gripping it too tightly. Nina had been critically ill with leukemia. Only Samson’s bone marrow matched hers. Driven to the brink, Ethan desperately begged Rosalind to go along with Samson’s request. She promised that she would only be playing pretend and would not fall for Samson. However, as time passed, she eventually fell for Samson and indulged him in every way. On the night when Nina needed the transplant the most, Ethan called her, frantic. However, she was unreachable because she was camping deep in the mountains. Ethan helplessly watched the three-year-old die in the emergency room. Later, Rosalind even protected Samson and let him stomp on Nina’s cross necklace. She even forcibly confined Ethan to a sanatorium and forced him to donate blood to Samson. It was not until Rosalind learned that Samson had deceived her from the very beginning that she felt piercing regret. She gave him fifty percent of her shares, knelt for hours at the cemetery, and tried to make amends wherever she could. However, no amount of regret could bring back the man she had deeply wounded.

My wife, Caroline Bailey, was a forensic pathologist. For her first love, Ian Lawson, she was willing to break every rule she held sacred and allowed him into the autopsy room to observe. She even let him throw acid onto a corpse's face. That was, until Caroline took on a new case. As she stood over the disfigured body on her operating table, she began to fall apart. The acid-burned face was starting to look more and more like mine.

There is a running joke in Salbury. "If your husband is giving you trouble, just send him to Ian Rutherford. He's the only man who can watch his wife bring a different man home every night and still put up with it for the sake of their child." Whenever a group of married women gets together, someone always jokes, "I wish my useless husband had even half of Ian's patience." But they don't know that the man they see as the most patient and accommodating husband is done. I ask for a divorce, and I don't even want custody of our child. However, no one believes me, not even my wife, Celine Erwin.

Back when I was 20, I supported a girlfriend. I paid for her education and even found the best doctors for her mother, who had cancer. The sweet, brilliant girl stayed with me for four years. However, my family went bankrupt after my parents died. I even injured my eyes and broke my legs. I watched her have a heart-to-heart talk with her childhood friend, tears in her eyes. I left without a word, and she never sought me out. Years later, I saw her again while picking up trash outside a hotel. She had become a wealthy CEO and was about to marry her childhood sweetheart. Her gaze at me was cold and indifferent. I bitterly asked, "Do you still hate me?" Yet, with tears streaming down her face, she replied, "Yes… I wish you were dead."

When the Snow family reaches their wits' end, Julia Snow is forced to abandon her beloved, Bradley Holton, to marry me. Although we've been married for five years, Julia still hates me with every fiber of her being. She curses me time and time again, asking, "Why isn't a troublemaker like you dead yet?" Julia's wish comes true when she curses me for the last time. However, when I'm really about to die, she regrets her words.

It was our seventh year of marriage when my husband, Joseph Lowe, brought my best friend, Teresa Shaw, to my ward. And they were the picture of a perfect couple. I gave them my most genuine blessing. "You two make the perfect match." Joseph tossed an agreement in my face. An asset transfer. He demanded that I give Teresa everything I had. I took the papers and signed my name without wasting a moment to think. Teresa laughed happily, pleased with my obedience. She then hugged Joseph and said, "Thanks for taking care of Joseph for me, Selina. Oh, there's the divorce papers, too. How about…" I noticed the look of impatience in Joseph's eyes, so I snatched the papers from Teresa's hand. "Yeah, I'll sign them all."

Two years after my death, my wife, Libby Burton, wants me to take the fall for her first love again. She comes to my place with a fabricated confession, only to find the house completely empty. With nowhere else to turn, she asks my neighbor, Maddox Bell, where I am. Maddox just tells her, "Kieran? He's dead! I heard he went through hell in prison. Didn't even last two days after getting out before he died." Libby refuses to believe it. She's convinced that Maddox and I are teaming up to fool her. She rolls her eyes and sneers. "So, he did a little time. Now he's playing the martyr? Please tell him if I don't see his face in three days, I'm cutting off every last cent for that bastard daughter of his." She turns on her heel and marches off in her high heels, furious. As Maddox watches her go, she shakes her head with a sigh. "But that poor girl was killed in a hit-and-run, and the driver is still on the loose…"

Three years after my death, my wife’s first love was hanging onto life by a thread, and only my system could save him. To force me to show up, she cut off my father’s medical payments. My sick mother was forced to beg her out in the summer heat until she collapsed. She even threw my beloved little sister into a bonfire to be eaten up by the flames. As she waited for me to show up, apologize to her, and use the system to save her first love, my sister finally stopped hiding the truth. “He died three years ago! Three years ago, he traded his life so you would survive that car crash!”

I spend three years in prison taking the fall for Dwight Reed, the precious assistant of my hospital director wife, Gretchen Payne. On the day I am released, the first thing I see is yet another Medical Malpractice Liability Acknowledgment. "Sign it, Dustin. I want you to take the blame for this incident, too. Dwi has a bright future ahead of him. He can't have a stain on his record." Gretchen shoves a pen into my hand. "You've already served time. So, one more charge isn't going to make a difference." When I don't budge, she clicks her tongue impatiently. "Dustin, you're a convicted felon. You should be grateful for the chance to take the fall for Dwi! It's only five years! "Don't push your luck. Or is this about money? In that case, name your price!" I look at Dwight, who's sitting in the car with his arm around her waist, and let out a silent, bitter chuckle. My hand tightens around the late-stage leukemia diagnosis in my pocket. Gretchen, how am I supposed to serve five years when I only have seven days left to live?

Three years after my death, Logan Grant finally married the woman he'd always loved. To get revenge on her behalf, he had my father thrown in prison, drove my mother to jump to her death, and demanded that I get on my knees and beg for mercy. The problem was, Logan, I'd been dead for years. All that remained of me was a pile of dry bones. When my death certificate was finally placed before him, he lost his mind. He dug up my remains, cradled my bones in his arms, and sobbed as he begged me to forgive him.

My mother suddenly suffered a brain hemorrhage, and I needed to pay $80,000 for surgery immediately. I called my wife right away. Before I could finish, she cut me off impatiently. "Gabriel Cole, didn't we agree when we got married that we'd keep our finances separate? Your mother being sick is your family's problem. Why should you touch my savings? Can't you have a little respect for the contract?" Then my stepson's sneering voice came through from her side. "Uncle Gabriel, can you stop morally blackmailing my mom? As a grown man, isn't it pathetic that you can't even pay your own mother's medical bills? Stop bothering us while we're eating sushi." Because I couldn't pay the fee in time, my mother missed the best window for surgery and died. It wasn't until noon the next day that my wife called me. Her first words were an accusation. "What's wrong with you? It's already noon. Why aren't you back to cook? Don't you know Mason has tutoring this afternoon?" "My mom died of a brain hemorrhage!" I roared through gritted teeth. My wife froze for a second. The first thing she blurted out was: "Well, don't expect me to pay for the funeral. That's a matter of principle. "And your mother dying is your mother dying. That's not a reason for you to skip cooking." In that instant, I knew the devotion I'd poured out for more than ten years meant nothing to her. Rage hit my heart. I suffered a heart attack and followed my mother into death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my wife proposed separate finances after marriage.

The year I die, my wife, Liana Chandler, despises me more than ever before. Unable to handle her endless emotional abuse, I choose to end my own life by swallowing pills. At the crematorium, she watches the roaring flames in the cremation chamber with a rare smile. "Filth like him doesn't deserve a proper burial," she comments. When the employee hands her my cremation urn, she swiftly overturns it, scattering my ashes all over the floor in an instant. All this time, she has believed that I'm the one who caused her first love's death. So, she took great pains to formulate a plan—all for this very moment. When everything is over, she walks away without looking back, trampling my ashes underfoot. But before long, she's on her knees, begging for the funeral parlor to give my ashes back to her.

My wife's childhood friend and I were brought into the same hospital after a car crash. I had suffered a ruptured heart and needed emergency surgery. But my wife, Cassandra, was the hospital director. Instead of treating me, she ordered every available doctor to Miles Rowland's room so he could receive a full examination for a few minor scrapes. I begged her to save me. She only snapped, "Can you stop competing for attention for once? Do you have any idea Miles almost broke a bone?" In the end, I died in a corner where nobody found me. But when the wife who hated me most learned I was really dead, she lost her mind.