System Short Stories & Novels

For the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time, the system in my mind warned me. [Warning! The lovesick part of your brain is highly active! If you refuse to leave John Miller, you’ll die an hour later!] I looked at my husband. He was scolding me for the sake of his secretary, who was his first love. I once burned down all of my award-winning drawings just because he disliked them. I calmly gave the system in my brain an order. “Since the cause of the malfunction is the lovesick portion of my brain, I hereby grant you the highest authority to remove it. Do the surgery now!” An hour later, John stopped me at the door of the ward. His eyes were bloodshot. “Grace Stone, what are you trying to pull?” I raised my head and watched him coldly and calmly. “Mister, you blocked the light. Based on an analysis, this constitutes an illegal detention. Do you need my help calling the cops?”

After my body was taken over by a conqueror for five years, I finally got it back. Full of hope, I rushed to see the family I had missed so much. What I got instead were their cold and complicated expressions. My girlfriend even asked me directly, "Why did you come back?" I was deeply disappointed, but I still refused to believe that they had already given their hearts to the conqueror. In my despair, I made a deal with the System. "Please bring that conqueror back." My family happily welcomed his return. But they never knew the truth. The conqueror's real goal was to push them all into absolute ruin.

After getting back together with Tabitha Stark for the fifth time, she sets three rules for me to follow. Rule number one: Whenever I see Jordan Corke, I need to greet him respectfully. Rule number two: I need to have my blood drawn every day, for it's a necessary catalyst in Jordan's medication. Rule number three: I can no longer bond with my biological son, Anthony Fordham. I nod immediately instead of nitpicking every single detail as I did before. Whenever I see Jordan, I'll always greet him humbly and wait for him to leave. Whenever I see Anthony, I'll always take an alternate route to avoid him. Even when Tabitha finds out that she's pregnant and intends to get rid of the unborn baby, I can deliver her the miscarriage-inducing medicine without a falter in my expression. Her face contorted in disbelief, Tabitha smacks the bowl off my hands before roaring at me, "Have you gone nuts, Hugo Fordham? Since when have you become like this? "Haven't you always wanted a child with me again? How dare you agree that I go through the miscarriage right now! Tell me why!" I can't be bothered to answer her questions. At the same time, the system's voice grows louder in my mind. [Congratulations on completing all of the main quests as the villain. Please perish three days later. Your rewards will be issued to you shortly after that.]

After the mission failed, I traded my emotions away with the system so that I could return to my own world. But two years later, the system urgently summoned me back. The system said my target had tried to destroy the entire world, and all she wanted was to see me. I rejected it on the spot. Even though I had already lost my emotions, I still did not want to stay next to someone who had hurt me out of rationality. The system grew frantic and threw out one reward after another. In the end, we agreed that I would only go back for three months. Once I returned, not only would my emotions be restored, but I would also receive a huge sum of money. Legal and after tax. But when I returned to Jessica Sand's side with no emotions at all, her madness seemed to have become even more erratic…

When Adrian Hale chose Rosalie Quinn for the tenth time, I was hanging helplessly over the cliff’s edge. He clutched a rope in one hand, the web between his thumb and forefinger worn raw and bloody. Rosalie was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. “Adrian, I’m scared…” He hesitated for only a second before pulling out a dagger and cutting through the rope on my side. “Clara, hold on. I’ll come back for you after I save Rosalie.” The system counted down in my ear. [The tenth abandonment has been confirmed.] [Life countdown: zero.] Before I fell, I didn’t wait for him to turn around like I had the previous nine times. I only smiled at him. “Adrian Hale, we’re even now.”

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!”

My husband's secretary, Regina Wade, claims she is a lucky charm. She wins every lottery ticket she buys and even wins three bets in a row. In truth, she is just transferring her bad luck onto me. In my previous life, she confidently invites the entire company to gamble, and everyone walks away with huge winnings. Well, everyone except me, as I lose everything. Regina throws money around in the casino, indulging her vanity, while my face rots and my body becomes riddled with illness. She conducts livestreams to auction off her good luck, while I get hit by cars every time I go out and almost die from infection during surgery. When I ask my husband, Jack Burns, to investigate her, he points at me angrily and scolds, "Ariel Nichols, stop blaming your bad luck on Reggie. You are just jealous that she is lucky. With such vicious thoughts, you deserve to get hit!" Three days later, Regina wins a trillion-dollar gamble and gains boundless wealth. I, on the other hand, bleed from inside and die suddenly. Even until my death, I never figure out why I have such terrible luck. When I open my eyes again, I return to the day Regina first claims she is a lucky charm.

On the final day of our graduation trip, an extreme heat wave struck without warning. I was unfortunate enough to suffer heat exhaustion, but my girlfriend, Claire Whitmore, gave all the electrolyte water to her male best friend, Alex Sterling. “You’re usually in good health, and you know first aid. Just drink some bottled water and take a break. “But Alex is different. He’s always been physically weak. If he doesn’t replenish his electrolytes, something could go wrong.” Too dizzy to argue, I had no choice but to ask the other members of our group for help. Instead, they rolled their eyes at me. “Daniel Hayes, there’s a limit to how jealous you can get.” “Claire is just taking extra care of someone who’s sick. You’re a grown man. Do you really have to act like you’re dying?” When the group continued ahead, Claire frowned at me sitting on the ground. “Do you really have to ruin everyone’s mood right now? “Fine. Stay here and think about what you’ve done. When you realize your mistake, catch up with us yourself.” What she didn’t know was that I had already begun showing symptoms of heatstroke. And she certainly didn’t know that the moment she left, a system notification echoed inside my mind. [Host’s life is in critical danger. Would you like to leave this world?] I calmly closed my eyes. “I accept.”

I'm an heiress who's been bound to a gossip system. Everyone reads my mind on my first day back home after being reunited with my family. "Mom sure has done a good job of maintaining her beauty. It's no wonder she became an OnlyFans streamer after divorcing Dad." My mother is about to berate me for something, but she pales and stops when she hears my thoughts. I glance at the fake heiress, who's weeping pitifully. "My, she's pregnant. Is it John's or Zach's?" My two brothers exchange odd looks. Then, my father arrives. I cluck my tongue. "Oh, it's Dad's."

To win Samuel Zane’s heart, I lost everything. My family was ruined, and I was forced onto an operating table so he could take my heart and save his adopted sister, Xenia Zane, whose organs were failing. At the critical moment, William Zane disguised himself as a doctor and rescued me. We left the country and started a new life overseas. I used all my points to change my target from Samuel to William. “Host, I need to remind you that if you fail again after changing your target, you will be reincarnated as an animal and never become human again.” I looked at William as he knelt before me with a ring in his hand. I said firmly, “I do.” But when I gave birth to our daughter, I saw two figures standing outside my hospital room. William handed our daughter to Samuel and said, “Samuel, you’re rushing this. We need to wait until her organs are fully developed before we can take them.” Samuel’s expression remained cold. “Thanks to your plan, we were able to grow a healthy, young heart for Xenia. Don’t worry. We can just use an organ maturation agent.” “But…” “William, don’t tell me you’ve fallen for that woman.” “Of course not!” I heard him deny it immediately. “I endured everything for Xenia.” The moment he finished speaking, the system’s robotic voice rang in my mind. “Host, your mission has failed. In one month, you will be reincarnated as an animal.”

My roommate was obsessed with those cheesy “milk-scented girl” romance stories. She wanted to become the kind of heroine from those books. Tiny, soft, and delicate, the type who was supposedly so sweet that even her farts smelled like milk. So she went completely overboard. She lived on dairy. Drank milk nonstop. Even took milk baths. She tried everything, all because she was convinced she’d eventually run into her destined male lead. I believed in letting people make their own choices. What I didn’t expect was for her to go after my boyfriend, the guy I’d basically grown up with. One day, she sent him a carefully posed thirst trap. He replied with one word. “Get lost.” Then she proudly showed me the screenshot, like she’d won something. “Only girls like me, soft and sweet and irresistible, deserve a powerful man’s obsessive love.” “Don’t be fooled by how cold he is now. He’ll be crazy about me soon enough. He’ll want me all to himself.” I was just about to tear into her when a row of floating comments suddenly appeared in front of my eyes. “Fresh one, guys. This host is bold. Coming in with a thirst trap right away? Nice.” “Wait, what? Isn’t this just harassment? The male lead already has a girlfriend.” “Bro, I think you’re in the wrong livestream.”

My new next-door neighbour was a total hottie. He fixed my plumbing and brought over baked goods, basically the perfect gentleman. However, I could see a bright red stat hanging over his head. Malice Level: 1,111 It could only mean he was out to get me. One night, he snapped my stalker’s wrist, and red digits reset to zero. Somehow, his murder meter turned into a pink possessiveness score of 9,999+. He wiped the blood off his hand, his tone eerily gentle. “Who gave you the right to touch my prey?”

I had special luck that would cause others to lose their money. If anyone tried to scam my money from me, they would suffer financial loss. When I was in elementary school, a female classmate stole five dollars from me to buy a snack. The next day, her father suffered a fifty-thousand-dollar loss in his business deal. When I was in high school, my homeroom teacher withheld my prize money. The next day, his wife got into a pyramid scheme, and he lost his house because of it. After I started working, I encountered my extremely snobbish boss, Fiona Anderson. I submitted a claim for five thousand dollars, which I had paid in advance for a company event. However, she refused to approve the claim for three months. As for the rich intern who drove a luxury car, she would immediately approve his claims with a huge smile on her face, even though he would submit fake receipts. I urgently needed to pay my credit card bill, so I went to talk to her. Fiona pointed at me and snorted. “Poor men like you always try to covet the company’s money! “How dare you ask me for money? You must be out of your mind!”

My girlfriend Chloe Bennett's childhood buddy, Daniel Miller, binds himself to a transfer system. Everything he eats gets sent straight into my stomach. He creates a live stream channel and eats nonstop for 12 hours a day to rake in money. Meanwhile, I end up in the ER with acute pancreatitis. I try to explain everything to Chloe, but she just looks at me like I've lost my mind. "How could something that ridiculous exist? If food could magically transfer, nobody would starve in the world. You're just jealous he's making money from streaming." Afterward, Daniel's every live stream triggers another pancreatitis episode, sending me back to the ER until I'm barely holding on. I get tested, but the doctors can't figure out what's wrong. They even want to admit me to psych. Later, in a desperate bid to outdo another streamer, Daniel downs ten pounds of mashed potatoes at once. The overload destroys my spleen and stomach, causing massive internal bleeding that kills me. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day of Daniel's very first live stream. This time, I rush out and order 20 takeout dishes before him. "This time, I'm eating first."

After I developed transient amnesia, fragments of my memories would come back to me every day. But after a month, I would lose part of my memory again. The doctor said my condition would shorten my life and that there was no cure. Devastated, I went to my parents, ready to tell them I was giving up on treatment. Instead, I overheard my family talking inside the room. "His memories are returning! We have to increase the dosage before he remembers everything!" My older sister, Lena Jackson, hesitated. "This has already happened 99 times. If we do it again, we might really ruin him." "What if he gets his memory back and wants to return to the other world? Won't Zach die because of him?" "Don't forget! The more he suffers here, the better Zach's life will be over there!"

Caleb Wallace was born with an unusual pair of eyes. Whenever two had slept together, he could see a red thread connecting them on their heads. Because of this ability, he'd witnessed more than his share of filthy secrets. When he was 10, another red thread suddenly appeared above his mother's head. She had always been the perfect wife and mother, yet the man she'd been having an affair with was none other than his father's brother. After his father was told the truth, the man abandoned Caleb and, consumed by resentment, hanged himself at home. When Caleb was 15, he discovered that his school's kind and compassionate principal had red threads connecting her to several male students. However, none of the parents believed him. Instead, they accused him of being mentally disturbed and spouting nonsense, and eventually got him expelled from school. Even the girls who had confessed their love to him and claimed to adore him had slept with other boys behind his back. Over time, Caleb developed a deep aversion to women. In his eyes, they were all filthy, promiscuous, and disgusting. Then he met Elena Coleman, the heiress to one of the country's most powerful families. She had every opportunity to indulge herself however she pleased, yet she remained impeccably chaste. Not a single red thread had ever appeared above her head. And she was the woman who unexpectedly took the initiative and asked him to marry her.

I've been granted early release from prison for good behavior. My three brothers come to pick me up, and they bring a dog chain with them. Ashton Scott, my eldest brother, hands it over and says coolly, "Put it on. You're not allowed to take it off until we reach the house. This is the final test. Once you pass, you'll officially be a daughter of the Scott family." Dalton Scott, my second brother, pats me on the shoulder and sighs. "You must've had a rough seven years. But that smell coming off you… You'd better shower three times before you join us at the dining table later." Preston Scott looks me up and down, his brows furrowed. "Why have you lost so much weight? But I guess it works out. The chain won't look out of place." They'd said something similar to me seven years ago. Tina Lewis, the one who took my place as the Scott family's daughter, had added something to her classmate's drink, and her classmate almost died on the school field. My brothers called me up at once and told me, "If you take the fall for Tina, we'll consider you our sister, too." I didn't think much of it then, so in the interrogation room, I staunchly insisted that I'd done it. I ended up with a seven-year prison sentence. At 18 years old, I was put in handcuffs and led off. No one even bothered to check on me as the officers took me away. I'm 24 years old now. Standing outside the prison entrance, I stare at the dog chain. Tina sticks her head out of the car window and flashes a sweet smile at me. "Isabel! Our brothers specifically picked that out as a gift to welcome you home, you know! It's a limited-edition piece. Even Rex never got to wear something so exclusive!" Rex was her dog. Without a word of protest, I obediently put the dog leash collar around my neck. The Scotts assume that I've simply learned to be meek and submissive after all these years. What they don't know is that there are only 12 hours left until I complete my mission in this world. Once the time is up, I can leave this place and reunite with my real family.

The Moretti Family raised a stable of orphans to be its next heir. I was one of them. But in every test, I always came out second best. Lucia always came out on top. Then, just before the bid that would decide the heir, I was bound to a Switching System. Comments scrolled past my eyes: [Oh, it's over. The villainess has always been jealous of the main character, Lucia, for getting first place. She’s definitely using the system to swap their proposals!] [Good thing Lucia can hear Olivia’s conversation with the system. She’s already planning to hand in a blank sheet of paper.] [So what if the villainess schemes all she wants? All she’ll get is a blank page! In the end, Lucia will inherit the Moretti Family and become the new Don! So satisfying!] Just then, the system prompted: [Please designate your switch target.] Without a second's hesitation, I thought, "Lucia." The moment I did, I saw Lucia shoot me a strange, triumphant look. I knew then. She'd heard everything. But she had no idea. I wasn't swapping her proposal. I was taking what was most precious to her.

After finding out that I'm the illegitimate daughter of the richest man in town, Frank Gibson, I excitedly rush over to meet my biological father. But the moment I arrive at his mansion, I discover that 98 other illegitimate daughters are already lined up to claim him as their father. It turns out Frank's only son has died, and he now needs an heir for his trillion-dollar fortune. So, he gathers all his illegitimate daughters and plans to choose the strongest candidate through a competition. I know I don't stand a chance against the others. Just as I hang my head in disappointment and prepare to leave, a line of text suddenly appears before my eyes. "Don't go, darling! It's your mom. I'm the Queen of Hell, and I know how to help you win the competition. "Remember your arch-nemesis from the orphanage? She's one of Frank's illegitimate daughters too. If you leave, his entire fortune will fall into her hands." I whip around, and sure enough, I see my arch-nemesis, Sophia Carter. The moment I remember how she locked me in the pigsty ten years ago and stole my chance at being adopted, resentment surges through me. Because of her, I've suffered for another ten years. Fine. I'll listen to Mom. I'm staying. That trillion-dollar fortune is going to be mine!

My best friend, Aria Sinclair, develops amnesia after killing my parents in a drunk-driving accident. Somehow, everyone forgives her. My own brother signs a letter of forgiveness on her behalf. The son I nearly died bringing into this world affectionately calls her "Ari". Even my lawyer husband of eight years stands in front of her and defends her. Because I insist on taking her to court, they join forces and have me committed to a psychiatric facility for an entire year. On the day I'm released, Grant Berton comes to pick me up. He says, "Aria has lost her memory. She's changed and turned over a new leaf. Do you really have to demand a life for a life? Can't we forget the past and move on together?" Voices rise around me from every direction, all urging me to let go and forcing me to forgive. I look at the people who are supposedly the closest and dearest to me. Then, I calmly utter one word. "No." This time, I don't scream and rage about sending her to prison. Even when I catch Grant and her together in the bedroom, I don't pick up a knife and drive them out. Instead, I silently speak to the system in my mind. "I give up on the mission." I don't want the wreckage of the past, and I have no interest whatsoever in a future without light.