Unscramble Merely Novels & Stories

Peggy Flannery, the new recruit who's being mentored by my husband, Eugene Shaw, insists on practicing how to carve words onto a patient's heart. It so happens that my mother-in-law has suffered from a sudden heart attack. So, I quickly take her to the hospital so that Eugene, who's also known as a genius surgeon, can save her life. Unbeknownst to me, Eugene is quick to entrust my mother-in-law to Peggy, who has barely joined the hospital for three days, so that she can practice her carving on her. Peggy is very careless with her strength. When she's in the middle of carving something onto my mother-in-law's heart, she accidentally punctures a heart valve, resulting in my mother-in-law's instant death. Once the death happens, Peggy wails to Eugene, "That hag is really frail and delicate! I'm not even done carving my name onto her heart! What should I do now?" Eugene wipes her tears away gently. There's heartbreak in his eyes as he says, "It's fine. No one will be able to bully you with me around." Once Eugene exits the operating theater, he declares that the surgery is a failure and that I should start preparing the funeral matters. Unable to accept reality, I grab him by the shoulders and keep questioning him. "Isn't this just a minimally invasive surgery? How did Mom die just like that? I want to see the surgical footage!" But Eugene responds by slapping me angrily. "Your mom is already old, to begin with! How dare you pin the blame on others when her frail and weak body is the main cause of her death! I haven't even begun to settle the score with you for giving Peggy such a huge fright! "Hurry up and sign the letter of forgiveness! If this incident does affect Peggy in any way, I'll file for a divorce right away!" Needless to say, I'm so furious that I can't even utter a single word after hearing Eugene's shameless words. Does he seriously think that my mother is the one who's dead? I merely chuckle icily in return. "Honestly speaking, you have more right to sign the letter of forgiveness than I do."

Eleanor Sutton was in love with Harrison Luther since she was 20 years old. She married him when she turned 22. Five years into their marriage, they had yet to have a child together. Harrison kept protecting Eleanor from his family while enduring the pressure they kept inflicting on him. At that time, everyone claimed that Eleanor was Harrison's weak spot. But everything changed once news of Harrison having an illegitimate child was leaked. He kneeled in the downpour for the whole day afterward as a form of punishment. Then, he explained to Eleanor that it was just an accident, and that he vowed to love her and her only. So, Eleanor accepted the outcome of the illegitimate child being kept in the family, while the mistress was exiled far, far away. But despite Harrison's promise, his mistress, Winona Birch, still ended up moving into Eleanor's home, where she'd be cared for during her pregnancy. Harrison began skipping meetings for her sake, and he'd also ditch Eleanor just so he could go on strolls with Winona. In fact, he'd even abandon Eleanor halfway during their dates in order to be with Winona. The first time Eleanor brought up divorce, Harrison slit his wrists in the bathroom. He left a suicide note, claiming that he'd rather die than not being able to grow old with Eleanor. When divorce was brought up the second time, Harrison hurriedly pleaded to Eleanor to not leave him. But after multiple conflicts, his attitude toward her became wishy-washy. After their 100th argument, Eleanor ran away from their home. Harrison no longer went after her, thinking that she'd eventually return to his side. But she died in that rainy night. When Eleanor opens her eyes again, she finds out that she has returned to the day Harrison's illegitimate child is exposed. This time, she dials a number. "I shall accept the offer of becoming a war correspondent." Her editor reminds her that she won't be able to get in touch with the outside world once she embarks on this journey, and that she needs Harrison's permission in order to accept the offer. Eleanor merely replies, "I'll divorce Harrison soon. I'll depart on time in a week." She wants to make sure that Harrison will never be able to find her anymore.

On the day I'm set to go into labor, I plead to my husband, Timothy Langford, to take me to the hospital when I'm two centimeters dilated. However, a pissed-looking Timothy orders his men to lock me up in a sauna room that's heated to 356 degrees Fahrenheit. This is all because my estimated labor date is one day earlier than my widowed sister-in-law, Natalie Thornton. Since Timothy is bent on making Natalie's baby the oldest grandson of the Langford family, he instructs his men to inject me with 100 labor-suppressant injections. No matter how much I beg Timothy to spare our baby, he remains unmoved. Having received 99 injections, I feel a world of pain crashing down on me, seeing as I'm already suffering from contractions to begin with. But Timothy is the one who injects the final labor-suppressant injection into my huge pregnancy bump. As he gazes at my agonized and writhing form, he says coldly, "It's already difficult for Natalie to survive in this world after losing my older brother. As her brother-in-law, I'm merely fulfilling her wish to become a mother. "Still, you refuse to spare her. It's not enough for you to force her to survive overseas on her own; you even plan on receiving labor-induction injections just to give birth to your baby on an earlier date! "It seems that I've spoiled you far too much for you to have the guts to pull this stunt off! The doctor already told me that once I've given you the labor-suppressant injections and leave you somewhere extremely hot, it can stop you from giving birth. You're only allowed to give birth once Natalie is out of labor." At that moment, I've completely given up on life. The moment Timothy witnesses Natalie's baby being born, his eyes are filled with tears of happiness. He sets off firework after firework to celebrate the grand birth. Later on, as Timothy gazes at Natalie's newborn, he finally remembers me and our unborn baby. When he's about to order his men to take me to the hospital, he receives a phone call from his assistant. "The hospital has called to inform you to take Mrs. Langford's body away."

Dante and I have been married for three years. But he never knew my real name. We’d had countless arguments over the past three years—over the petty details of everyday life. I can no longer tolerate such a ridiculous life like a puppet today. Calliope, that’s what he called me, but it was actually my twin sister’s name. My husband may never know that the woman who married him three years ago was a substitute bride. Three years ago, my sister abandoned us and left before the wedding with her lover. To prevent the anger of the Laurent’s, my family had no choice but to let me marry Dante instead of my sister. My phone rang again and again, I finally picked it up. "Throwing another tantrum, are you? Calliope, tell me what you are capable to do if you can not even be merely a housewife?" I knew Calliope could always get her way through her sweet voice and innocent smiles. She can be an obedient and perfect wife—something I could never manage. "Dante. I’m not joking.” I didn't know if my voice sounded a little sad. "You can’t be serious—" For the first time, I heard a tremor in the man's words. He doesn't love me. He likes to be in control. When he realized that his puppet was losing control, he began to panic. It's time for this farce to end. I clenched my phone and spoke to the man on the other end in the calmest voice of my life. "Dante, let's get a divorce." But what shocked me more than hearing Dante's answer was the person who suddenly appeared in front of me. Calliope, my twin sister, who disappeared for the whole three years. “Are you crazy? Why on earth would you want a divorce? That's Dante Laurent, a billionaire heir, every woman's dream！” “Calliope? Our parents and I all thought you would never show up again. I entered this wrong marriage because of your escape. Dante... he’s not that a husband out of your dreams.” “Seraphina, put away your ridiculous niceness and compassion. I have returned this time to take back what is MINE and my place.” She lifted my hand with a sneer and removed the wedding ring from my finger.

When Dexter Welch, a security guard who works in the residential area, sees me driving my pink Toyota Corolla everywhere, he's very certain that I'm a sugar baby who's being backed by her own sugar daddy. On the first day, I see one word getting carved into the car hood. It says "bitch". I merely give the hood a wipedown without uttering a word. Later on, I swap out the current SD card of my dashcam to an SD card that has a 512 GB memory. On the second day, my car windows get smashed in. When I go over to the property management office to check the security footage, the front desk agent tells me that the security camera overseeing my car "happens" to be broken. Dexter leans against the desk with a grin on his face. "If that car of yours is ruined, then so be it. Tell your sugar daddy to buy you another one." I crouch down and take a picture of the damage. Then, I save it into a folder called "evidence" in my phone. On the third day, two of my tires have gone flat. When I bend down to pick up a spare tire, Dexter hugs me from behind all of a sudden. He murmurs into my ear, "What's so good about sleeping with an old codger? Why don't you date me instead? I'm young and strong—" That's when I grab a wrench and smash it right into his arm. As Dexter nurses his injured arm, he glares at me. "How dare you lay a finger on me! Go ahead and lodge a report, then! My uncle's the property manager here! What can you do about me, hmm?" I silently note down Dexter's work ID without saying anything. On the fourth day, I drive another pink car back to the apartment. As soon as Dexter notices the flash of pink in its usual parking slot, he smiles as he exits the guardhouse. Then, he pulls out a key from his pocket and scratches my car with all his strength. An older gentleman who happens to be walking his dog nearby freezes in his tracks. He sounds so startled that his voice actually cracks. "Have you gone nuts? Do you know the model of the car you've just scratched? That's a top-tier Rolls-Royce!"

I gave up on my inheritance right during the time my love for Matteo Rossini ran the deepest. When I was about to leave, Papa looked at me before saying lightly, "I bet that you'll come home in three years." Back then, I didn't take his words to heart. After spending three years overcoming life's hurdles with Matteo, he finally becomes the Don of his family. On the day the inheritance party is to be held, I decide to wear a dress that I've treasured for a very long time but never had the heart to wear. But the moment I walk into the banquet hall, I see Matteo holding hands with a radiant young woman. She's Isabella Ginevra, a popular socialite in the elite society. Isabella flits among the guests charismatically, as though she were the lady of the house. She's capable of engaging in any conversational topic, be it finance strategies or channels to obtain firearms. I try to participate in a conversation, only for Isabella to cut me off with a titter. "I thought you've been spending the past few years being cooped up indoors. It turns out that you know a thing or two about these topics, huh?" Everyone around us falls silent for a brief moment. My expression freezes on my face. Then, I turn to look at Matteo subconsciously. But he doesn't even bother looking my way. Instead, he merely says softly, "We're talking business here, Bianca. You should sit with the other ladies." I clench my fists instantly. But in the end, I opt to not say anything and just walk away. Through the throngs of the guests, I can see Matteo and Isabella chatting animatedly with each other in low tones. For once, Matteo looks relaxed and at ease—an expression that I haven't seen for a long time. Suddenly, I hear a guest remarking, "If someone like Ms. Ginevra were to become the Donna, she'd be of great help to the Don." A chorus of agreements ring out around him. Matteo just smiles in return, though he doesn't deny that remark. In fact, he even toasts to Isabella and drinks to her in front of everyone. That's when I draw to my feet and walk over to snatch the glass out of his hand. "I think so too. In that case, she can have the position as the Donna, then."

When the earthquake occurs, Kenneth Scott's childhood sweetheart, Gigi Lynch, and I are trapped under the debris at the same time. When I see the rescue equipment that Kenneth has tossed into the debris, I decide to give up on saving myself. So, I let Gigi have the opportunity to get rescued. In my previous lifetime, I successfully got rescued by Kenenth. But Gigi ended up getting crushed to death by the crumbling debris. Needless to say, she died a terrible death. After Gigi died, Kenneth hugged me and cried throughout the night. I thought he was crying tears of relief. That was, until he drugged me and had me delivered to the surgical table. When I woke up, I realized that my face had gone under the knife, making me look exactly like Gigi. I scratched at my face like a lunatic, only for Kenneth to grasp my wrists firmly. "Gigi traded her life to save yours! It's your duty to live this life for her from now on!" But later on, Kenneth was never satisfied with me. He kept criticizing me, saying that my gaze wasn't right, and my voice wasn't the same as Gigi's. All in all, I could never become her. After that, I got pregnant. Kenneth responded by bringing me miscarriage-inducing medication. I sank to my knees and begged Kenneth to spare the baby. In fact, I kept groveling to him till my forehead started bleeding. But Kenneth merely replied icily, "Impostors like you don't have the right to give birth to my child." Then, he gripped me by my chin and forced the bowl of boiling medicine down my throat. I felt as though my throat was being scalded. At the same time, blood kept oozing from my lower region. When my vision went blurry, Kenneth pushed me into a newly-dug pit. "Gigi is too lonely in the afterlife. Why don't you keep her company?" Mounds of dirt kept falling onto me. While I fought for air, I heard Kenneth's cruel laughter drifting from the surface. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the moment I'm about to get rescued.

My dad arrives at the hotel after taking three bus rides from the town two hours before the wedding starts. He's wearing the old suit that he has kept for the past ten or so years. The cuffs have gone white from all the washing, and his shoes shine brightly from all the polishing. Before entering, Dad has specifically pinned the red boutonniere to his chest several times while looking at his reflection in the glass of the hotel's main entrance just so he can get it right. After all, it symbolizes his status as the bride's father. When Dad is about to take his seat, he grasps the card that shows his seat as he approaches my future husband, Elliott Chambers, tentatively. "Elliott, there seems to be a mistake with my seat." Elliott merely glances at the card before pushing it back to Dad. "Your seat is correct. There are limited spots at the main table, so you'll have to sit at a spare table at the back." Dad is stunned by Elliott's answer. "But it says here that I'm meant to sit at the main table…" Elliott frowns at Dad. "This is a last-minute adjustment. The shareholders and important clients of Chambers Corp will be attending my wedding today. Not everyone gets to sit at the main table." Dad looks down at his old suit before he slowly stuffs the card back into his pocket. He wants to take off the boutonniere, but the pin gets stuck in the fabric of his jacket. The more he wants to take it off, the more his hand keeps shaking. That's when Elliott's mother, Catherine Aldridge, speaks up. "All the seats are the same, Patrick. Don't cause any trouble for Elliott now." Dad quickly nods in response. "You're right. I'm fine with any seat." Then, he picks up the old wooden chest that's sitting by his feet before heading toward the spare table that's located in the corner. I raise my head, only to see a seating card titled "The Carvers" being placed on the most obvious spot of the main table. At the moment, Elliott is helping Claire Carver's mother into her seat. As for my dad, he's hugging the chest containing the wedding gifts meant for me while sitting by the kitchen door.

My heartbeat is so steady that sometimes, I don't resemble a human being at all. The fluctuations in my heart rate are very small even though I might be sleeping, suffering from a fever, or losing too much blood. When I'm 18 years old, the Ziegler family admits me into a rehabilitation center. My new home is now a temperature-controlled intensive unit located on the top floor. Oh, Aiden Ziegler doesn't love me at all. It's merely because the one and only artificial heart present in this world—and also in his chest—needs to be fine-tuned with my own heartbeat as its primary frequency. If my heartbeat is steady, he gets to live. If not, he dies. Three months ago, a nurse accidentally took off one of the monitoring pads on my chest. Five minutes later, Aiden, who was ten thousand miles away, went through a temporary crash where his heart stopped. The next day, the third-party medical company filed for bankruptcy. Everyone who was involved in this incident got banned by the medical world. Because of that incident, all of the sounds get eradicated from the top floor. Even the elevator's chimes get muted when it reaches the top floor of the rehab center. Everything changes when Aiden flies to Iropa. That's when his fiancee, Mandy Sutherland, takes over the rehab center. As she flips through my medical bill of nine figures, she sneers at me. "So, the Zieglers are basically sustaining a loser who does nothing but gasps for breath while lying in bed, huh?" After that, Mandy tears off the monitoring pads and unplugs the sync line. Then, she forces me to get on a treadmill. "That'll be a six-mile run for you. You can forget about returning to the top floor if you can't finish the run." As I grip the handrails tightly, I can feel my heart rate turning erratic for the first time ever. It feels as though my heart is about to burst out of my chest. As soon as the alarm goes off, Mandy turns it off immediately. What she doesn't know is that Aiden's artificial heart has already gone crazy, just like mine, while he's stuck in a place that's 12 time zones away.

I had a mild hearing impairment, which left me mostly deaf in my right ear. Growing up, Tristan Lockhart always made it a point to stand on my right side. "That way, if anyone tries to talk behind your back, I'll be the first to hear it," he used to tell me. Eventually, we got engaged, and the wedding invitations were already printed and ready to go. Everyone around us kept saying how incredibly blessed I was to have a childhood sweetheart who had spent over a decade shielding me from the world. That was until Sunny Pierce joined Tristan’s company. She was stunning, vibrant, and always spoke with a radiant smile plastered across her face. The very first time she met me, she stared intently at my hearing aid for a long moment before turning to Tristan with a playful laugh. "With her like that, can she even hear you whisper sweet nothings in her ear at night?" My face drained of all color, but Tristan merely furrowed his brow slightly. "Sunny just speaks before she thinks. Don't take it to heart." On the day of our wedding rehearsal. I stood right outside the heavy chapel doors, listening to Sunny mockingly read my vows aloud. "Thank you for tolerating me as your constant complication for over a decade. I promise to be your comfort, your constant shadow, and your favorite complication for the rest of my life." The entire room erupted into a chorus of laughter, and Tristan let out a soft chuckle along with them. "Stop messing around," he said, his voice carrying a light laugh. "If she overhears you changing the words, she's going to get upset again." Sunny paused, her tone turning playful. "Are you seriously still going to marry her, then?" Tristan fell completely silent for two long seconds. "The invitations have already been sent out," he finally replied, his voice flat. "What else am I supposed to do at this point?" I stood frozen at the very end of the corridor. The umbrella he had once gifted me was still dripping rainwater onto the tile floor. But suddenly, I had absolutely no desire to walk through those doors.