Linear System Substitution Novels & Stories

I feel unwell, so I head to the hospital alone to get myself checked. There, I find my wife, Luna Ackerman, accompanying the poor student I support financially, Levi Baker, for a health checkup. Just last night, the very same woman held me intimately in bed and said we would be together forever in every lifetime. I smile dejectedly and summon the system in my mind. "I choose to go back to my original world." What Luna doesn't know is that I'm a transmigrator. I have accomplished my mission the moment I married her. But now, I don't want her anymore.

To complete my mission of winning over the tragic second male lead, Charles Sawyer, I exchange all my system points to help him rise and become the richest man in Broxia. All that is left is for him to propose to me, and the mission will be complete. When the innocent-looking female lead, Natalia Leigh, causes the company to lose tens of millions of dollars due to a mistake, I simply fire her according to company rules. Unexpectedly, this causes Charles to lose his temper at me in public. Right in front of the entire company, he rebukes me, "Melissa McBride! Stop using work as an excuse to vent at Natalia just because you're jealous! I've seen through your little scheme to win me over!" To punish me for supposedly bullying Natalia, he bids aggressively and wins a priceless piece of jewelry at an astronomical price a few days later at a charity auction. Not only does he personally present it to Natalia, but he even drops to one knee and proposes to her in front of all the guests. When he looks at me, he says mockingly, "Melissa, as long as I refuse, your mission is destined to fail." He is convinced that he has absolute control over me. But he does not know that once the mission fails, my system activates a return function. When that happens, every advantage I once gave him will be returned to me with a single command.

In my seven years of being married to my husband, Mark Chapman, he always gives me whatever I ask for and prioritizes me in everything. This goes on until he keeps sending food coupons to a female college student named Hayley Larkson. Not only that, he stands up for her and beats up some thugs on her behalf. One time, he even takes her to the hospital to get treatment. Holding a toy, my daughter asks Mark innocently, "Dad, Ms. Larkson is so gentle and pretty. She's not as strict and mean as Mom, who always makes me do homework. Can you ask her to move in and be my teacher?" Mark smiles and replies, "Sure." I stand frozen in a corner, my lips trembling. Just then, the system's cold voice speaks in my mind. It asks if I want to go home. I close my eyes and reply, "Take me home."

The aloof CEO and his childhood sweetheart bring the tragic novel's female lead to an orphanage to adopt a child. All the children pounce on the childhood sweetheart, saying, "Mommy, pick me! Pick me!" The viewers' comments come flooding in. "She can't birth her own child, and now even the orphans don't want her. The tragic female lead is truly pitiful, humiliated by both her husband and his childhood sweetheart!" "The childhood sweetheart keeps winning—spoiled by the CEO, and the orphans scramble to call her 'Mom.' The female lead is nothing but a piece of decor." "It's not tragic enough! Make her even more miserable! It's even better if she cries on the spot so that later, when the CEO recalls this scene, he'll have to work double time to win his wife back!" I glare at the comments, feeling so mad that my short legs push me forward, landing me right in front of the ignored female lead. I tug at her sleeve. "Missy, can you make stew?" The female lead freezes up. "I… I can." My eyes light up with joy. "That's it then! That's exactly what I love. I'll go with you!"

The ER had taken in over a dozen patients on New Year's Eve. Yet, my widowed sister-in-law had called my husband into the on-call room to breastfeed him. When I caught them in the act, Diana hurriedly straightened her rumpled top, her face flushed with embarrassment. "Amber, please don't get the wrong idea. I was treating Elliot! He thinks I'm his late mother. He comes to me to relive his childhood every night. I've gotten used to it." Elliot Cladwell showed no trace of guilt as he remarked, "Diana has been doing everything she can to help me with my adult attachment disorder. As a doctor, you of all people should understand." I smiled and quietly stepped aside, giving them space. What I didn't say was that I had just activated the system's wish-granting function. Since Diana wanted so badly to be his dead mother, I might as well help her fulfill that wish.

After the Ritualist declared that Amber would not live past 18, I, a perfectly healthy girl, became the Misfortune Vessel. When Amber broke a leg, my left leg was crippled. When Amber tried to kill herself with shards of glass, the tendons in my hand were severed. I could no longer hold a pen. From childhood to the present, every wound meant for Amber landed on my body. She never stopped testing how far she could go. Skydiving from two miles up. Chasing sharks in deep water. Survival expeditions to the extreme North. Every choice courted death. I cried. I screamed that it hurt. My brothers refused to allow it. "Enough already. It's just a small injury. How could it hurt that much? You're too delicate." "If it hurts, then endure it." So I endured until the day I turned 18. That was when the Shared-Sense System found me. I enabled family sharing, and every single one of them went insane.

I fail my mission and jump off a building to restart the game. Then, I become a billionaire and am rewarded with a handsome young man as soon as the game starts!

Everyone in the mercenary group knew just how deeply Liam Smith loved me and feared losing me. He even suppressed his dark desires to make sure I felt truly safe. No matter how dangerous the mission, he made sure to check in every single day. Worried for his safety, I hid my identity and secretly became his team’s hacker. However, after one mission, I overheard the others joking over the radio: "Chief was in such a rush to pick that lock and go after Wendy. What's so irresistible about her?" Through an unattended monitor, I caught Liam glancing at the camera with a teasing smile. "Didn't I tell you guys that she nearly wrung me dry the last time we did it?" It felt like I had fallen into an ice-cold abyss. My heart shattered, and I summoned the system. [I want to leave this world.] The cold, mechanical voice replied without delay: [Once you leave, all traces of the host in this world will be erased.] [Starting the countdown: Seven days left.]

I was the kind of girl everyone called hopelessly lovestruck. That day was no different from any other. I clung to my boyfriend’s arm, leaned in close, and shamelessly asked for a kiss like I always did. However, right before my lips touched his, a line of glowing comments drifted across my vision. They floated in the air like a livestream chat. [Can this side character wake up already? Can she not see the male lead avoided her the entire time? He hated clingy relationships like this.] [The kind of person who really suits him is the female lead. Someone gentle, patient, and understanding.] [Once the real female lead shows up, this annoying clingy girlfriend is definitely getting dumped.] My body froze. I slowly loosened my arms from around his neck. In the next second, he suddenly looked up at me. “Why’d you stop?”

After my family joined hands to send me to prison for three years, I start learning how to behave myself. I do whatever everyone else tells me to do. The day I'm released from prison, my wife, Regina Johnson, sits in the car and says coldly, "If you ever lay those hands of yours on Ty again, I'll…" Before she can say anything else, I jump out of the car, pick up a brick from the side of the road, and smash my hand into a pulp with it. Regina stares at the bone sticking out and goes pale. When we get back home, Tyler Lowe, my adopted younger brother, ambushes me in the bathroom and scoffs. "So what if you're the biological son of the Lowe family? I can just as easily have you kicked out of the family!" Then, he uses a blade to make a small cut on one of his fingers before crying out in alarm, "If you really hate me, Cal, I'll leave right away! Please don't kill me!" Regina and my older sister, Calista Lowe, enter just in time to witness his display. Shaking with anger, they stomp on my wound with their high heels. "You haven't changed one bit! If anything happens to Ty, I'll make you pay for it with your life!" I nod obediently and march straight to the kitchen, where I jump into the massive meat grinder before turning it on. The blood and bits of flesh spray all over Mom and Dad, who end up walking in right then. Mom lets out a shrill shriek before fainting, while Dad forces himself to remain composed as he turns off the power. At this point, even Regina, my sharp-tongued wife, can't find the words to say anything. She stands frozen, her body trembling. When we're inside the ambulance, Tyler clings to Regina, quivering as he says, "This has nothing to do with me! He jumped into the machine himself. You have to believe me!" It's almost impossible for me to stay conscious through the unbearable pain, but I muster the strength to nod along with him. After failing to win over my family, I'd spent three years in prison. Later on, the system told me that if I showed absolute obedience until the day I died, I would receive massive financial compensation and be transported back to my original world.