Feel The Bern Novels & Stories

My mother-in-law is extremely frugal. She reuses paper others have discarded, carefully saving the unmarked portions. She even takes the black waste oil from the kitchen range hood and uses it to cook our meals. She says, "Frugality is a virtue—it brings blessings!" I try tirelessly to convince her otherwise, throwing out all her filthy items to protect my family's health. But while she praises me to my face, behind my back, she uses my baby's food scissors to clip her grimy toenails. My child eventually dies of a lung infection, leaving me heartbroken. My mother-in-law, however, points her finger at me, saying I'm unlucky and that I've brought misfortune to their family. Even my husband blames me. In the end, they use a knitting needle to pierce my throat and stab me to death. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the day I first see her picking up dirty paper. The first thing I do is hide all the high-quality tissue paper I had stocked up on before my pregnancy, pretending I knew nothing. She calls these blessings, right? Fine. The blessings of this miserly frugality—she can reap them all herself!

On the eve of the National Robotics Championship, I smashed my carefully designed bot to pieces and announced my withdrawal. Everyone said I was a fraud who was quitting out of fear of being exposed. Online, the netizens mocked me relentlessly. Only one person, Adrian Cross, the so-called genius of the century, spoke up in my defense, his voice dripping with false sincerity, "I believe in River Lowell’s skills. Only he deserves to be my opponent. No matter what setbacks he’s facing, I hope he comes back to the arena and proves himself." In my previous life, the robot I built was identical to his. No matter how I tried to prove he had copied me, Adrian stood before the cameras, wearing his benevolent mask, and said, "It’s fine. This robot can go to River. I can always build something even better." His fans swarmed me, tearing me apart online, and no one believed in my talent. I swallowed the humiliation and vowed to rebuild my robot from scratch. However, when I was assembling it, the Power Core in my kit exploded, shattering my skull. That same night, I was rushed into the ICU. Netizens clapped and cheered, saying I got exactly what I deserved. That night, my girlfriend, Lila Hart, signed the hospital’s DNR consent form without hesitation. Until the day I died, I never understood how Adrian had gotten my robot’s data or why Lila had joined forces with him. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day of the competition.

Soon after I came back to the country, someone slapped me right across the face in broad daylight, yelling that I was a mistress. A crowd of reporters closed in, pelting me with questions about whether Chandler Armstrong, CEO of Armstrong Industries, was keeping me as his mistress. I was stunned speechless for a moment, but then I pulled out my wedding photo with Chandler from seven years ago and held it up. "What are you talking about? I'm his wife!" The crowd went silent, and the woman who'd slapped me turned white as a sheet. Only then did I finally get it: while I'd been overseas, Chandler had been openly involved with an actress, and everyone in his social circle had already decided she was the future Mrs. Armstrong. Today, they all came expecting to confront a mistress—only to find out that I was actually his wife. Later, Chandler tried to justify it. "Alina, you've been out of the country for years. I'm a man, and I have needs. She's just a B-list actress; it's not like she threatens your position. Why should you be upset? Just let it go," he said. "Don't make a scene." I handed him the divorce papers. "You make me sick."

Clayton Amos finally agrees to marry me during my fifth year as the antagonist of a novel. On the day of my wedding, the chandelier in the middle of the hall suddenly snaps and falls. At the most critical moment, he shoves me aside and runs over to protect Gladys Dawson, the protagonist of the novel, and his first love. Clayton's arm is slashed as a result, and blood pours out of the wound, dyeing his pristine white suit red. Meanwhile, Gladys remains unharmed in his arms. I hold a hand against the bleeding wound on my neck and finally accept the fact that Clayton never loved me. This is when the system appears and asks me, "Hailey Paltrow, would you like to abort your mission now?" I nod in silent response. "Since he's going to end up losing all four of his limbs and ultimately wish for death, I'll let him have it."

In front of the orphanage gates, Rebecca Schwartz, the impoverished student I had been sponsoring, stood glaring at me with a face full of disdain. "If you don't let Freddie come along, I'm not going to your house either," she declared, her tone sharp and unyielding. In the past, blinded by love and hopelessly infatuated, I would have caved to her demands, humbling myself just to keep the peace. But things were different now—I had been reborn. Staring at this despicable pair, who had once caused my tragic demise, a tidal wave of fury surged within me. Yet, it settled into nothing more than a faint, icy smile on my lips. "Then stay here," I said, my voice cold and steady. "Rot in this place alongside your precious Freddie. After all, trash like you belong in the garbage heap."

My mother claims my husband has cheated on me and pushes me to get a divorce. I want to collect evidence before proceeding with anything—if it's true, I have to uphold my rights. Yet she causes a scene at an art exhibition I've worked on for three years, humiliating me in public and making me sound like a gold digger. "How are you any different from a prostitute when you're holding this dumb exhibition with a man's money? I didn't raise you to be a gold digger! How can you be so revolting?" She slashes the million-dollar paintings in the exhibition, claiming that she's doing this for my good. She wants me to see the error of my ways and return to the right path. Meanwhile, I clutch my bloody hand, which she slashed with her blade. I say, "You say you want me to return to the right path, but is that what it really is? You want me to divorce my legally wedded husband, who's a CEO, without a penny to my name. "Then, you want me to marry a 45-year-old cheap man who has a child and no money? He even wants me to support him!"

The nanny, Polly Jackson, pushes me down the stairs when I'm seven months pregnant. I suffer from major blood loss and go into premature labor. Before I can question her about it, Zachary Campbell brushes me off with a lame excuse. "Polly didn't mean it. You and the baby are fine, so don't be so petty about this." I get out of bed to move around. I'm at the bathroom door when I hear Zachary and Polly's conversation. "Are you sure that wretch can stay alive, Zachary? Switching it out won't be that easy if it dies." "Don't worry about whether Daisy Jameson's baby can live, Mom. Either way, mine and Danielle's child will be the Campbell family's sole heir." I pretend I've never heard this and raise my son for 18 years. During a banquet held in honor of a share ownership transfer, Polly suddenly shows up with my mentally impaired daughter. She cries, "Mason is my grandson! It's high time he's returned to his rightful place after being raised by the wrong family for so long!" I'm unfazed. I even laugh at her words. "Fine, then!"

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."

While waiting for my husband to pick me up at the parking lot, I came across a trending topic in my city. "How do I deal with an overly-clingy wife?" Amidst a flurry of boastful, lovey-dovey comments, one female username caught my attention. "Just pretend to be incompetent! My childhood friend was forced to marry someone he didn’t love. I gave him the idea to pretend to be directionally-challenged, which he has done for five years now. "When his wife got pregnant, he secretly mixed lubricant into the shower gel, causing her to slip. Then, on the way to the hospital, he pretended to get lost. He deliberately circled the suburbs several times, which led to her miscarriage and now she can't have children anymore." "Coincidentally, today is supposed to be the selection day for her promotion to professor. He offered to drive her to work, but he actually plans to pretend to get lost to make her late so that I can get promoted instead. "When she fails the selection, he’ll use that as a chance to convince her to quit her job, turn her into a useless housewife, and then kick her out!" Reading this suspiciously familiar experience sent a chill down my spine. Before I could ponder further, I heard my husband’s apologetic voice. "Sorry, honey, I got lost. I hope this won't affect your selection."

Late one night, as I scrolled through social media, I came across a relationship influencer with over a hundred thousand followers, teaching men how to "control" their wives. "She actually tried to talk to me about privacy?" he scoffed. "I ignored her for three days, and she handed over all her passwords, crying and begging me not to leave her." The comments exploded almost instantly. The chat went wild. [Take me under your wing, man!] I felt sick to my stomach. Then, without warning, he lifted his phone and pressed a kiss to the screen. A face appeared in the reflection. Mine. Smiling, he turned back to his audience of thousands. "See this? This is the perfect wife I spent three years training." A chill ran through me. I clicked into his profile and scrolled all the way back to his first post. The upload date was the same day we got married. He claimed he was filming prank videos and that it was all just for the livestream—no wonder he got increasingly out of hand. That was when it hit me: he had been lying to me all along. From the moment I stepped into that marriage, I had been nothing more than his experiment, his content, his source of money. Fine. If that was the case, then I would turn his livestream into his worst nightmare. I picked up my phone and sat directly beneath the camera he had installed, then sent a deliberately suggestive message to another man. Three seconds later, the bedroom door burst open. Matthias stormed in and snatched my phone. After reading the message, his lips pressed into a tight line. However, he did not explode. He did not even look at me. Instead, he turned, opened his livestream, and faced the camera. "Send something through, and I'll show you exactly how to put a cheating woman in her place."