Good Horror

Giselle Shaw, the intern, has sent a five-dollar bonus to the company's group chat that has 500 members in it. I get crowned as the luckiest person for being able to claim 20 cents from the bonus. So, Giselle tags me in the group chat immediately. "Hey Rebecca! Since you're the luckiest person in the group chat, why don't you send a bonus here? There are 500 people in this group chat altogether, so you can just send 5,000 dollars here. "5,000 dollars isn't much for you, right? It so happens to be the bonus you've received from Mr. Gallagher because of the project you've secured. You can send us the bonus so that we can get some good luck from you!" The moment I refuse, Giselle begins playing the pity card in the group chat by claiming that she can't reap good luck for everyone in the company. My boyfriend, Vincent Gallagher, rushes into my office and starts berating me angrily. "Rebecca Campbell, just how stingy are you to not want to send a five-thousand-dollar bonus to the group chat despite being a higher-up in this company? You even made a young woman cry! Is this how you do things? "You'd better send a 50-thousand-dollar bonus to the group chat right now and write a five-thousand-word apology letter by hand! I want you to sincerely apologize to Giselle as well! Otherwise, I'll break up with you! You can forget about retaining your position in this company, too!"

I drive a Rolls-Royce to the venue where my high school reunion is held. When my former classmates ask me how much the Rolls-Royce costs, I tell them that it belongs to the company. They begin telling everyone behind my back that I work as a company driver, and that I'm not living a good life at the moment. Then again, the car does belong to the company. It's just that the company is mine.

I donated 45 million to the city's best kindergarten, but my daughter failed the enrollment interview. She was a polymath. Furious, I demanded an explanation from admissions. She hurled an assessment file at my face. "Your daughter's brilliant, but you're the exact opposite! You're dead last among the parents!" She continued, "The others have tech domes! You're nothing but a regular Ivy League graduate! Your degree's worth about as much as toilet paper!" The other teachers laughed as well. "If we admit her daughter, it's going to look bad on the other kids. She can't take that responsibility." "Yeah, I can't believe she's demanding an explanation from Ms. Johnson. Her husband is the kindergarten's biggest stakeholder. He can make sure her daughter has nowhere to go." The admission teacher shoved me away. With disdain in her eyes, she said, "Out of my sight if you know what's good for you. My husband is picking me up in his Rolls-Royce. His car plate alone is worth more than your life! It's lucky 777! Only one in Georgeport!" Three sevens? That was my husband's car. I laughed mirthlessly and texted my husband. "I had no idea you had another wife behind me."

The Horror Game invaded the world. Real players entered the game, and their every move would be broadcast live. My adopted son shoved me—an eighty-eight-year-old woman—straight into a deadly dungeon to save his own skin. One of the comments in the live stream predicted: [What? They’re tossing in such an elderly woman? No way she’s gonna survive the first night!] On the first night, a frost-bitten ghost exhaled icy breath in my face. I shrugged off my thick floral coat, feeling sorry for her. “You poor thing! You must be freezing. Listen to me and bundle up quickly!” The second night, a starving ghost lunged at me with blood dripping down his chin. I sniffed the air, then found a jar of pickled cabbage. “Look at how skinny you are! Come on, let me get you something hot to eat.” On the final day, the last surviving players tied me up, desperate to steal the one ticket to escape. However, before they could touch me, every ghost in the dungeon came storming out, cleavers and rolling pins in hand. “Touch her, and you’re dead meat!”

My father-in-law, George Lane, suffered from a brain aneurysm and fell onto the ground. The floor was covered in his blood. I calmly picked up a mop and wiped the floor clean. As his daughter-in-law, I gave up on saving him within the most critical time. In my last life, I was the first person who found out that George was injured. I immediately got an ambulance and sent him to the hospital. Before the surgery, the hospital required his immediate family member to sign off the consent form. However, when I asked my husband, Brian Lane to come to the hospital to sign that document, he thought that I was acting out of jealousy because he was spending time with his first-love. He thought I was making an excuse to get him home, so he refused to go to the hospital. In the end, George passed away as he did not receive the treatment on time. Brian did not manage to see George for the last time, and he blamed it all on me. He then hacked me to death. “It’s your fault! My dad was so old, and you didn’t take good care of him as a daughter-in-law! Since you’re not doing your part when he’s alive, then you should continue your duties as a daughter-in-law in hell!” When I opened my eyes, I found myself on the day when George died again.

On Valentine's Day, I suggest going to a restaurant to celebrate, but my boyfriend, Michael Nelson, refuses. He says impatiently, "Why should we celebrate some lousy holiday? I don't want to waste good money on it." He turns around and happily chats away on his phone, completely absorbed in the conversation. Then, I hear the system's notification going off in my head. "Congratulations. You have received 2,860 dollars." This means that Michael just transferred 1,430 dollars to his side chick. He doesn't know it yet, but I have a system. It's called the Infidelity Cashback System. Every time he spends money on his other woman, I get double the cashback in my bank account.

My mother-in-law lives alone. One day, her house suddenly catches on fire. It's a life-threatening situation. I call my firefighter husband several times before he answers impatiently. "I don't care why you're calling—can't it wait? I'm fixing Sophie's pipes!" I tell him about his mother being trapped in a fire, but he merely sneers. "How dare you curse my mother just to make me go home? You're insane!" He hangs up without another word. I'm left helpless. All I can do is wait for his colleagues to arrive, but they only come half an hour later. Their expressions shift to horror when they see the blazing fire. "Didn't Captain Scott say his wife was lying?" My mother-in-law dies due to the delay. My husband even misses the funeral because of his first love. I give up on him and ask for a divorce. However, he rips the divorce agreement to shreds and shatters the urn that contains his mother's ashes. "Drop the act—I would definitely go through with the divorce if not for my mother!" I laugh. He doesn't even know his mother is already dead.

"The Rossi family doesn't need a Don. We just need a Donna." As the only heiress of the Rossi family, this was the law that I had set when I received the Browning pistol—a pistol that resembles the ultimate authority in the Rossi family—from my Papa when he was on his deathbed. But three years ago, the police relentlessly investigated the money laundering business that my fiance, Lorenzo Moretti, was in charge of. If that business were to get exposed, the Rossi family's hundred-year-old legacy would be ruined. In order to protect my family's legacy and to allow Lorenzo to continue legalizing my family's businesses, I decided to become the scapegoat for all the crimes. On the rainy night of my arrest, I personally handed the pistol over to Lorenzo. "Protect my family for me before my return." This gave Lorenzo legitimate authority to run my family. He used the pistol to purge my subordinates and take over the family business. He even broke my law by announcing to the public that he'd become the next Don soon. An invitation with golden borders is soon leaked from the family's inner circle. Lorenzo's and another woman's names are printed on the cover. During a visit, my private lawyer says mockingly, "If you don't get out of prison now, the Rossi family might take on another man's last name for real." I just sneer in response. After that, I get bailed out of jail in advance and return home to celebrate Lorenzo's "funeral". But no matter how many times I scan my iris at the biometric scanner in the estate, the result always comes out wrong. A young woman, who's toying with the pistol, opens the door at that moment. The contempt and disdain in her eyes are plain to see. "Where the hell did a crazy woman like you come from? You came to the wrong place. This is my private turf, you know."

I was reborn before I signed up for a scientific expedition tour to the South Pole. My boyfriend’s adopted younger sister used a system to forcefully exchange my physical senses with hers. She deliberately went out to do something good on a day with a temperature of 107.6 °F, like delivering water to the outdoor workers. On the other hand, I got so hot in a 60.8 °F air-conditioned room that I fainted from heat stroke. I begged Wendy Little to stop, but she feigned innocence. “You must make a good excuse if you want to lie like that!” Max Little sounded disdainful. “How selfish! You’re quite lucky to enjoy yourself in air-conditioned rooms every day. You can’t tolerate Wendy doing something kind.” Wendy took her time and basked in the sun for a month outside. People took photos of her and put them on the internet. Countless netizens were moved by her. But I died from heat stroke in an air-conditioned room. Nobody even found my corpse. If that was how it was, I wanted her to enjoy the coolness of -184 °F in the South Pole.

On our wedding night, my fiancé's best friend barged into our room for the third time, claiming a wedding prank. Having had enough, I warned Sam Whitman that if we didn't consummate our marriage that night, it was as good as over. He glanced at my half-unbuttoned dress and dismissed my words as a tantrum. Then Candace Lombard stormed in for the ninth time, ripped off the covers, and livestreamed our intimate moments. Sam merely pushed me aside and told me to be understanding. She climbed into our bed, smirking as she claimed the spot between us. "Wedding night prank? I get it," I grinned, leaning into her livestream camera. "Alright, everyone, fire up those donations! I'm about to let my husband take a mistress live. Let's make it a show!"