Elements Of A Story

I failed my college entrance examination. My father decided to sell me to the village chief’s hot-tempered, crippled son. My younger twin sister helped me escape in the middle of the night. It was only later that I discovered my younger sister was the one who had failed the examination. She used my identity to attend college and hooked up with a rich heir. At her engagement banquet, they revealed the truth that she had taken my identity. As a result, the event fell apart. Out of rage, my sister pushed me down the stairs. I grabbed her and pulled her down with me. When I opened my eyes again, I returned to the day the examination results came out.

Seven years into our marriage, Zane Grimes and I remained childless. He once held me close, his voice tender and earnest. "Don't overthink it. I've never cared for children. You're all I want in this life." But on the day his company went public, as the ceremonial bell echoed through the hall, the doors burst open. My sister stormed in, cradling a wailing infant. "Zane, this is your son! How can you abandon us?" Zane's face paled as he turned to me, his eyes brimming with panic and a silent plea. Unbeknownst to him, I had long known about his betrayal and the child.

My younger sister was crazy about novels and always envied the way ordinary heroines pick up penniless heroes and climb the social ladder. So, she started picking up men wherever she could. Until one day, a man with a face covered in sores collapsed at our doorstep. I instantly recognized the signs of syphilis and warned my sister repeatedly, and only then did she give up the idea. However, fate had other plans: my sister's best friend "picked him up" instead and married into a wealthy family. My sister held a grudge. On my birthday, she locked me in my room and set it on fire. No matter how desperately I begged, she refused to open the door. Outside, she sneered: "I know you're just scared I'll live better than you, so you want to drag me down into misery with you. People like you don't even deserve to be a sister!" I burned alive, my body reduced to nothing but ashes. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day my sister insisted on "picking up that man." This time, I quietly stepped back, letting her have her way—of course, I chose to let her succeed.

"Miss Jackson, are you certain you want to undergo hypnosis? You should know that once the hypnosis begins, it cannot be reversed. Your body will be controlled by an alternate personality, and you will fall into a sleep from which you will never wake up again," the doctor asked in a grave tone from the other end of the phone. "Yes, I'm certain," Nina Jackson replied calmly.

I'm dressed in flip-flops and shorts when making an inspection of the five-star hotel my husband just acquired. When the front office manager spots me, she immediately calls for security with a disgusted look on her face. "The hotel's WiFi isn't meant for people like you to use. Hurry up and pay me 200 thousand dollars in Internet costs, then get lost!" I calmly tell her that I'm the owner of the hotel, but that only makes her sneer. "The owner of the hotel? Hey, old hag, you're putting on an act in front of the real deal! This hotel was a birthday gift from my husband to me. Aren't you fantasizing a bit too much?" Oh? Since when did Ian Lambert get another wife behind my back?

Our expedition team ventured into a desert wilderness to investigate rare mineral resources when we were suddenly struck by extreme heat that reached 158 °F. I nearly passed out from dehydration and quickly reached into my backpack for the electrolyte water I had prepared in advance. Just as I was about to drink it, I realized the bottle was half-filled with urine. When I turned around, I saw Ben Murphy, my wife’s childhood friend, gulping down my electrolyte water. As I was about to confront him, Amy Garner, my wife, grabbed my sleeve and said, “Don’t be mad. I gave Ben your electrolyte water. He’s almost dehydrated. You can make do with this for now.” My vision started to blur. Clutching the half-empty bottle of urine, I asked through gritted teeth, “I’m dehydrated. Instead of letting me rehydrate properly, you want me to drink this? Are you trying to kill me?” Amy was upset. “Don’t be ridiculous! Ben doesn’t work out daily like you do. He can’t handle this heat. Wasn’t it right to give him the electrolyte water? Besides, urine can hydrate you, too! Don’t be picky at a time like this.” Seeing how unreasonable she was being, I sent a distress signal with my location just before losing consciousness. [Severely dehydrated, near death. Expedition mission suspended. Request immediate rescue. Also reporting a robber in the team. Notify the police immediately.]

I go to the boutique my son has invested in to pick up the gown I've ordered for a banquet. Just as I'm about to leave, the manager, Wendy Reed, stops me and says that I still owe them money. She pulls out the bill. I look down at it and see that the boutique is charging me 300 thousand dollars for their creativity, 500 thousand dollars for fabric therapy, and one million dollars for their chief designer's mental wellness. On top of other expenses, the price totals up to two million dollars. I laugh incredulously and send a message to my secretary. "Withdraw our funding from my son's company and this boutique!"

While visiting a property development with my fiancé to buy our first home, I ran into a two-faced real estate agent.   She showered my fiancé with compliments, praising him for being young and successful enough to afford a Rolls-Royce.   Then, she suggested I was a fake socialite with a knockoff designer bag, implying that I was just using my charms to snag a free house.   When she found out the property was meant to be a marital home, her voice grew loud enough for everyone nearby to hear.   “I just think the sugar daddy who bought you those two properties last time treated you pretty well!” “Oh, wait. Miss Gwen, don’t you have several sugar daddies? Do they all know about each other?”   I chuckled. What she didn’t know was that my “sugar daddies” were my godfathers and I really was a socialite.   The kicker, though, was that my so-called wealthy fiancé wasn’t rich at all. In fact, he was just a scholarship student I had been financially supporting!

On my birthday, Jake handed me two bucks and took me to a gas station to buy a lottery ticket. Then he dashed off, claiming he had an urgent work meeting. As I sat alone in the restaurant celebrating my birthday, I spotted my boyfriend, who claimed he had no time for me, having dinner with another woman. Without a second thought, I sent him a breakup text right then and there. Two days later, that lying jerk had the nerve to demand I return the lottery ticket. That's when I discovered it was worth $5 million. I cashed in the ticket and told him to get lost.

My husband has asthenospermia, so we decide to try IVF. Before the embryos are combined, I catch my husband switching my ovum out for his true love's. I don't say anything and switch them back. At the same time, I switch my husband's sample out for my ex-boyfriend's. 25 years later, my husband's true love comes knocking. She holds my daughter's hands and weeps while saying, "I'm your mother, my darling!"