Scumbag System

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."

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.

At the Costa family's annual capo banquet, Marco Costa declared the family would extend protection to one woman only: Rosa Frost, his childhood sweetheart, newly divorced and newly returned to the family fold. One by one, the other women slipped away into the night with their money, their dignity, and fresh protectors already lined up. I, Viola Rossi, once his Donna, was severed from the Costa family entirely, with nowhere left to go. Twenty-one years prior, The System ripped me into this life with a brutal mandate: make one of four made men fall irrevocably in love with me, and I'd earn my way back to my real life with a healthy body. I failed. Every single one of them chose Rosa. The system's final mercy: die here, go home. I stood in a rotting Brooklyn dock warehouse, gun in hand, and closed my eyes. Right as darkness closed in, a raw, raging scream of my name tore through the silence, like the man shouting would burn the whole world apart to reach me.

Three years ago, Capo Marco Rossi received an order from the Godfather. He was to leave and expand the Family territory. Before he left, he issued me a command the way someone would fasten a collar onto a pet. "Until I return, you will remain at the Godfather's estate. Remember your identity. Keep your legs closed." He gripped my chin, his voice carrying that kind of condescending gentleness that felt almost like charity. "When I come back, I'll give you a proper status." For my younger brother's medical expenses, I had no choice but to obey. Three years later, he returned with the wealth he seized from the West Coast Gambino Family, and there was a woman by his side. In front of the rose bushes at the Godfather's estate, he looked down at me from above, as if inspecting a dust-covered old possession. "Mia Moretti is carrying my child. I must take responsibility as a father. You've always been sensible. Endure this for now. Continue being my mistress." I lowered my head, my hand lightly stroking my still-flat abdomen. "Is that so?" I raised my head, a provocative smile on my face. "I have no objection. If the Godfather says it's acceptable, then it's acceptable."

"Mr. Clarke, can you help me get rid of the tattoo on my butt?" The young man asks me for help with red-rimmed eyes. A lot of people have specifically requested me to tattoo something on their body. Honestly, this is the first time I've received a request to remove a tattoo from one's butt. He grits his teeth, as though he has finally made up his mind. "I just found out that my girlfriend has a husband! I want to break up with her, so I must get rid of the tattoo!" I nod in response. "Strip down and let me see the area and the mass covered." The man hesitates for a moment before turning his back on me and slowly taking off his pants. As soon as his right buttcheek is revealed, I feel my breath getting hitched in my throat. My wife, Annie Sylvester's face is actually tattooed on that area.

In the second year of our marriage, my husband cheated on me with his first love and even had the audacity to ask me to step aside. So, I activated the system and made the two lovebirds swap bodies. Now, I couldn't wait to see if the husband burdened with a massive debt in place of his dream girl, and the dream girl waking up to a fortune overnight, could still maintain the “unbreakable love” they claimed to have.

My husband, Dominic Moore, insists on having his first love, Irene Cobb, at our wedding ceremony. Just when it's time for the bride to enter the hall, he suddenly asks for the ceremony to be paused for three minutes. Then, he gets off stage and pulls Irene, dressed in a white gown, out of the crowd. Right in front of all the guests, he takes her by the hand and walks her down the aisle, saying, "I promised Irene I'd walk her down the aisle someday." The tearful Irene throws herself into Dominic's arms before saying to my in-laws, "Mom, Dad. Although I won't get to be your daughter-in-law, I still want to address you as Mom and Dad just once." She turns back to Dominic and kisses him passionately. The guests exclaim in shock and whisper among themselves, eager to revel in my humiliation. However, I simply open the doors with a smile. I take off my veil and place it on Irene's head. "Why do you say you won't get to be their daughter-in-law? Since you like this cheating scumbag so much, I'll give him to you."

Crossing paths with Warren Parker is the biggest nightmare of my life. He admits my mother to a psychiatric hospital. He causes my younger brother and sister to drop out of school. He forces me to kneel before him, to dress as a woman, and to live a life devoid of any dignity. When I try to end my life, he stops me. "Your brother doesn't satisfy me the way you do. You can die once I'm bored with you."

When I open my eyes again, I notice that I'm lying on the bed of my archnemesis, Ashton Ford. Ashton calmly puts on his clothes before tossing a card at me, telling me to get out. He then looks at the caretaker stationed by the door and asks helplessly, "Is Sunny still throwing a tantrum? Tell her that we're going to be engaged soon. She can't leave women in my bed just because she's angry." I'm about to say something when a stream of comments appears before my eyes. "Here comes another one hoping to sleep her way into a prestigious position. Mr. Ford only loves Sunny. If she didn't comfort him, he might have taken his own life after what happened to Elizabeth a long time ago." "Can the author stop trying to force these flings onto him? It wasn't easy for Sunny to achieve success after taking over as the female lead. I want to see them live a sweet married life." "Unless Mr. Ford's dead first love, Elizabeth Miller, comes back to life, no one can possibly touch Sunny's position in Mr. Ford's heart." Confusion is written all over my face. I'm Elizabeth Miller. Since when did I become Ashton's first love?

My deskmate, Sierra Langford, handed me a throat lozenge. I turned around and melted it into the school cafeteria’s "Top Scholar Soup", letting all four thousand students share a taste. Because this time, I’ve been reborn. In my previous life, Sierra had a system that could steal other people’s exam scores. As long as I ate something from her, my grades would automatically transfer to her. She was a rich girl, already set to study abroad. Stealing my college entrance exam score was just a joke to her. On the other hand, I was poor. The exam was my only chance to change my fate. After three mock exams, my scores kept dropping for no reason, and no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find out why. In the end, I failed the college entrance exam. Lost and broken, I was hit by a car. After I died, my soul hovered in the air and overheard Sierra laughing with her best friend, Hailey Monroe. "Who would’ve thought Vera Collins could’ve ranked first in the entire city? Well, that title’s mine now! Someone like her deserves to rot in the mud forever." This time, I’m back. So, she liked stealing people’s scores for fun? Then stealing just mine would be too boring. This time, the entire school’s exam scores would be a surprise for her.