

"Please, stop pushing. I can't take this anymore." The concert venue is packed tight. A man behind me keeps pressing into my backside. I'm wearing a mini skirt today with a thong underneath, and it only makes the situation worse. He lifts my skirt and presses himself against my hips. As the atmosphere heats up, someone in front of me slams into me, and I stumble back a step. My body stiffens as I feel like something just slid inside me.

"Please, stop pushing. I can't take this anymore." The concert venue is packed tight. A man behind me keeps pressing into my backside. I'm wearing a mini skirt today with a thong underneath, and it only makes the situation worse. He lifts my skirt and presses himself against my hips. As the atmosphere heats up, someone in front of me slams into me, and I stumble back a step. My body stiffens as I feel like something just slid inside me.

The moms at the company post about me online, claiming the free daycare I provide for their kids is a "prison" and a vile tactic to force them to work overtime. What they don't know is that the daycare was set up with imported equipment and staffed by internationally trained professionals. It costs nearly eight thousand dollars a month per child to operate. The internet curses me out, calling me a show-off and disgusting capitalist. So I grit my teeth and send out a company-wide announcement. "To support everyone's desire to handle their own childcare, the company has decided to close the free daycare program. Effective immediately, it will be replaced with a childcare benefit. Eligible mothers will receive 200 dollars a month." As soon as the notice goes out, the moms panic. They crowd outside my office, begging me not to shut it down.

My wife made me get a vasectomy. Not once, but ninety-nine times. Right before the hundredth operation, the doctor looked at me with pity in his eyes as the anesthesia failed to fully kick in. "Ms. Gibson really knows how to destroy a man," he murmured. "She's put him through ninety-nine vasectomies, then had them reversed—again and again. However, his body's long since broken. There's no chance of children now." "It's probably for her ex. Word is, it's his own brother. The scandals in these wealthy families—unbelievable." Because of a hospital mix-up at birth, my and Jeff Cunningham's fates were exchanged. He grew up with the Cunningham family, while I lived a poor life. Years later, my parents found the truth, taking me in and sending Jeff away. To make things worse, I became Wynnie Gibson's new fiancé. I once asked her, barely able to speak through the pain, why she would marry someone she did not love. She looked at me calmly. "To get revenge," she said. "You came home and stole Jeff's place. He was the one I love. He drank himself to death after you returned." Even my biological parents knew she was poisoning me. However, they turned a blind eye. They did nothing to stop her. They knew Wynnie had got pregnant with Jeff's child through IVF—planning to raise the child and let him inherit the family fortune. I coughed up blood and threw myself into the sea. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day I was first reunited with them. This time, when I saw the sorrow in their eyes—sorrow not for me, but for the son they lost— I chose to let them go.

I was dragged online by one of my own employees. According to her post, I was a stingy boss who refused to give out holiday gift boxes for Memorial Day weekend. What the internet did not know was that my company already had a long-standing tradition. Every holiday, and even every employee birthday, each person received a $300 gift card without fail. But once the whole internet started tearing me apart, I decided to give everyone exactly what they claimed they wanted. I issued a company-wide notice. To respect everyone’s demand for a more “thoughtful” holiday gesture, this year’s Memorial Day gift cards would be canceled and replaced with holiday gift boxes for all employees. The moment the notice went out, the entire company exploded. Employees crowded outside my office, begging me to bring the gift cards back.

On their third anniversary, Finley had all their friends over to celebrate. Claire walked in to find him on one knee, proposing to his childhood friend, Renee. "What is going on?" she asked. He shrugged like it was nothing. "It's just a game of truth or dare." But it wasn't until he shoved her down the stairs, causing her to miscarry, that she finally woke up. She'd given him five chances. Now? She was done. "Finley, it's over. Let's get divorced."

After our eighty-eighth canceled wedding, I called my business partner. "I'm taking the Haviana market project." There was a beat of stunned silence. "Seriously? That's ten years overseas. You just got married—well, weren't you? Does your husband even know? What about your parents? You always said staying close to them was everything." I glanced around the empty church and let out a sharp laugh. "There was no wedding. No husband. And my parents? They've got Cindy. That's all they need." Another pause. "Alright. Pack your bags. You leave tomorrow." After the call, I ran a hand down my wedding dress. One last tear slipped out, quiet and pointless. Cindy had another "episode" today. Claimed she'd off herself. Andrew canceled—again. I'd looked at him, drained. "It's the eighty-eighth time." He dropped his head, guilt all over him. "Just a little more time, Viv. She's been off since the accident. I'm scared she'll actually do it. I swear, I'll talk to her. For real this time. Then we'll get married. Promise." My parents didn't hesitate. "Vivian, let Andrew go. If Cindy hadn't gotten kidnapped trying to save you, she wouldn't have these breakdowns. Are you really putting a wedding over your sister's life?" "How could you be so selfish?" I'd heard it all before. Used to fight it. Not this time. If neither my fiancé nor my parents wanted me around, then fine. I'd leave.

Aria Vale loves her idol Noah Rivers so completely that his fictional death feels like a personal injustice. Then she blinks and finds herself inside the novel, in a world where the cities are overrun and the story is already in motion. Reinventing herself as a mysterious talent manager, she finds the boy before anyone else does and helps him become exactly who he was supposed to be, rewriting the ending she couldn't accept. Her phone knows what's coming, which helps. What she doesn't account for is how quickly depending on each other becomes something neither of them has a word for.

Brad Lowe is a top player who transmigrates into the fantasy world, the Twilight Continent, the moment he quits the game. He retains every perfected skill—but has zero interest in adventuring. Monsters? Too lazy to fight. Beauties? Too lazy to flirt.Even divine blessings are rejected. Yet fate drags him into wars among adventurers, turning a man who only wants to rest into an unwilling “savior.”

Jared Steele spends ten years composing hundreds of hit songs for his wife, Chelsea Locke, turning her from an unknown singer into a music queen. He loves her deeply, but discovering her with Dean Graham, his mother’s illegitimate son, shatters him. Enraged, he revokes all her song rights. Chelsea sees it as a game, pushing his limits—until her thousandth concert, when a lawyer’s notice confirms the revocation.