Theater: NovelMaster | Language: English | NEW
Synopsis
Tags: Floating Chat System | Sibling Rivalry | Luck-Stealing System | Academic Comeback | Sweet Revenge
At the college decision hall, my sister shoved a pastel pink gel pen right into my face.
A glowing line of text suddenly floated before my eyes:
*[She’s doomed. The second she uses that pen, her Harvard acceptance letter will switch to her sister’s name.]*
*[She has no clue that by swapping writing tools, all eighteen years of her good luck will be drained and transferred to Natalie.]*
*[Remember the midterms when she lost her top rank after borrowing Natalie’s eraser? Nobody believed her then either.]*
My fingers froze.
It was true. Over the past eighteen years, every single time I touched something of hers, I mysteriously lost something precious.
Natalie smiled, popping the pen cap off. "Use mine to sign your commitment form, Chloe. It’s for good luck."
I stared at the pen.
If I used it, I would end up stuck at some bottom-tier community college.
So… what would happen if I slipped this exact pen into the pencil case of my sworn rival—the dead-last slacker sitting right next to me who was stressing over not having a single college to go to?
My sister, Natalie, pushed the pink pen closer. The cap was off, revealing its fine metal tip.
"Chloe, use mine to fill out the form. It brings good luck."
The floating comments were flashing across my vision at lightning speed.
*[I can’t even watch this. Her sister has been leeching her luck with this system for years. Touching her stuff rips away a whole layer of her life. Hasn’t she learned by now?]*
I stared at the pen and didn't reach for it.
Eighteen years of memories rushed back all at once.
Back in elementary school, I qualified for the district art showcase. Right before the final submission, Natalie handed me her special ink stick, telling me to get a feel for it. The next day, my hand trembled so badly I couldn't even draw a straight line. My spot went to the alternate—and that alternate was Natalie.
In middle school track, I spent three years posting perfect scores in the 800-meter sprint. On race day, Natalie said it was too hot and lent me half a bottle of her sunscreen. That day, I ran the worst time of my life, missing the varsity cutoff by two seconds. Natalie barely scraped past the qualifying line and took my spot.
During the final mock exams before college boards, I ranked second statewide. Natalie handed me a water bottle. I drank it, and when the results dropped the next day, I plummeted past two hundred. At dinner, Mom and Dad sighed, lecturing me about how I was never as stable or reliable as Natalie.
Meanwhile, Natalie had performed beyond her wildest dreams, hitting her highest rank in three years.
At every major turning point, I had touched something of hers.
And every single time, I lost something of mine.
I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms.
"Chloe, why are you spacing out?" Natalie pressed the pen toward my hand, her fingertips almost brushing the back of mine. "Come on, sign it. The sooner you lock it in, the sooner you can relax."
I took a half-step back and smiled faintly. "I brought my own pen. I’m good. Thanks, Natalie."
Her hand froze in midair.
The floating chat exploded.
*[Wait, she said no? She actually turned it down?!]*
*[Look at Natalie’s face! She’s practically twitching with irritation because her plan just got derailed.]*
*[Don’t celebrate yet, you guys. She definitely has a backup plan.]*
Standing beside us, Mom frowned and lowered her voice: "Chloe, your sister is being nice. Why are you pushing her away? You always do this—throwing her kindness right back in her face."
Dad glanced over as well, his eyes filled with that familiar, reflexive disappointment.
Natalie pulled her hand back. Her smile was stiff, but she quickly smoothed it over with her usual gentle facade. "It’s fine, Mom. Chloe’s probably just used to her own pen. I don’t want to force her."
Not forcing me.
Sure. But as she spoke, she quietly placed the pink pen on the table, pointing the tip directly toward me.
I didn't spare the pen another glance. Lowering my head, I used my own pen to neatly fill out my first-choice commitment form.
Harvard University.
Sitting beside me, Natalie sneaked a peek at my paper, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly.
She pulled her own sheet over and began writing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her first choice: a third-tier private vocational school charging twenty-eight grand a year.
A line drifted across my sight:
*[She spent three whole years siphoning Chloe’s luck, and she still only qualifies for a garbage diploma mill. The system can steal luck, but it can’t steal a brain.]*
A chilling calm washed over me.
Once everyone finished submitting their forms, the crowd began filtering out. As I packed up my bag, I casually flicked my hand, knocking Natalie’s pink pen off the desk.
"Oops." I bent down to pick it up, smoothly sliding it straight into the side pouch of my backpack.
Natalie looked back at me, opening her mouth as if to say something, but stayed silent.
Stepping out of the registration hall, the midday sun was blinding.
Mom wrapped her arm around Natalie’s shoulders, saying we should go home and cook a lavish meal to celebrate Natalie finally wrapping up her college submission.
Nobody mentioned me.
I trailed behind them, slipping my hand into my backpack and running my fingers over the plastic barrel of that pink pen.
There was a tiny sticker on the cap—the initials of Natalie's name.
My gaze swept past the bustling crowd and landed on a slouching figure sitting on the concrete steps by the exit.
Cole.
The guy from the next class over. A perennial troublemaker who ranked dead last, smoked behind the bleachers, and got into fights, but never bullied anyone weaker than him.
Once, when someone knocked my lunch tray over in the cafeteria, he was the one who handed me a napkin before walking away without a word.
Right now, he was hunkered on the steps, clutching a crumpled, completely blank college application form.
A comment floated by:
*[He can barely even get into community college. He’s sweating bullets over having nowhere to go.]*
I quickened my pace and walked straight toward him.Cole looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps. Seeing it was me, he blinked in surprise and quickly tried to shove the wrinkled paper behind his back.
"What are you looking at?" he muttered, his tone rough around the edges.
I didn't beat around the bush. Pulling the pink gel pen from my pocket, I held it out to him.
"Here. Take it."
He stared at the pen, then looked back at me, his face practically screaming: *Are you out of your mind?*
"Are you sick or something?"
The floating chat went wild.
*[LMAOOO the rival’s reaction is killing me.]*
*[Girl, just be direct! If he doesn't take it, your whole plan goes down the drain!]*
I took a deep breath, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. "You haven’t submitted your form yet, right? Use this pen. It works."
Cole looked me up and down twice, like he was checking out a certified lunatic. "Chloe, did exam prep fry your brain? It’s just a pen. What’s it gonna do?"
"Are you going to use it or not? If you don’t want it, I’ll give it back to its owner."
I made a move to pull it away. He snatched it out of my hand and clicked it into his pencil pouch.
"Free stuff is free stuff," he grumbled, squatting back down on the steps. He smoothed the application over his knees, popped the cap off, and began writing.
Standing beside him, my heart pounded against my ribs.
A countdown flashed in my vision.
*[System detected a transfer of the writing tool.]*
*[Target: Cole. Luck rating: 3. District Ranking: Bottom 200.]*
*[Transfer in progress. Within one hour, 100% of Natalie’s luck will be reallocated to Cole.]*
*[Warning: During the transfer window, Natalie will physically sense the loss of her luck. If she recovers the pen before the transfer completes, the process will fail.]*
A knot tightened in my chest. I spun around and headed back toward the hall.
Two steps in, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was a text from Mom, telling Natalie and me to wait for them by the parking lot.
When I got to the parking lot, Natalie was already standing by the car.
Her back was turned to me, and she was on a call, keeping her voice down. But I was close enough to catch every single syllable.
"The system is showing the pen’s binding snapped. It wasn't discarded—someone actively took it."
A two-second pause.
"Track it. It’s a guy with a rock-bottom luck stat."
Another pause on the other end.
"Then what about my luck? All eighteen years of luck I’ve collected—is it going to transfer over with that pen?!"
She spun around abruptly and saw me standing just three steps away. All the color drained from her face.
I looked right at her, saying nothing.
The floating comments were flying:
*[She’s freaking out! The system is actively draining her luck, and she can feel it!]*
*[Look at that twitch by her eye—that’s the physical fallout of luck draining away.]*
*[In one hour, every bit of luck she stole over the last eighteen years belongs to Cole.]*
Natalie hung up and forced a strained smile. "Chloe, when did you get here?"
"Just now." I opened the back door, climbed in, and stared straight ahead.
She slid in right beside me. Just the two of us sat inside the car as the air conditioner hummed quietly.
After about ten seconds of silence, she finally spoke up.
"Chloe… that pen. Did you take it?"
Her tone was casual, as if we were just chatting about the weather.
I turned to meet her gaze. There was no gentleness in those eyes, no sisterly affection—just the cornered, venomous glare of a trapped animal.
"What pen?" I asked calmly.
"The pink gel pen I offered you." She locked eyes with me, enunciating every word. "You knocked it down. Did you keep it instead of giving it back?"
"It fell on the floor. I assumed you didn't want it anymore."
The corner of her mouth twitched violently. She leaned in close, dropping her voice so low only the two of us could hear.
"Chloe, give that pen back to me right now. You have no idea what it means. If you don't return it, you will regret it for the rest of your life."
I met her fiery gaze and answered evenly, "Natalie, I genuinely have no clue what you're talking about."
Her face darkened completely. She reached out, clearly about to rummage through my backpack.
Right then, the front doors opened. Mom and Dad stepped in. Natalie snapped her hand back instantly, plastering her sweet, harmless smile right back on.
"Mom, Chloe says she dropped a pen, so I was helping her look for it."
Mom glanced at me through the rearview mirror and scowled. "Why are you always losing things? Since you were little, you can’t keep track of a single item."
The chat room blew up with rage:
*[She has the audacity to blame Chloe for losing things? Natalie literally STOLE all of them!]*
I kept my eyes down and tightened my grip on my bag strap.
The car pulled out. Sitting beside me, Natalie furiously tapped on her phone, her complexion growing uglier by the second.
The glare from her screen lit up her face. I sneaked a glance.
She was messaging Cole on Snapchat.
I couldn't read the text clearly, but the floating comments translated it for me in real time:
*[She figured out the pen went to Cole! She’s texting him to meet up right now to get it back!]*The second the car pulled into our driveway, Natalie claimed she had plans to discuss college options with a classmate and hurried away.
Mom yelled after her to come home early, but Natalie merely waved without looking back.
The floating chat provided a live GPS update:
*[She’s heading east. Cole’s apartment is in that direction.]*
*[Her luck drain is already showing—she can barely walk straight! Did you see her stumble getting out of the car?]*
I walked up to my bedroom, pulled out my phone, and shot Cole a message on Snapchat:
*Do not give that pen to anyone. Especially a girl named Natalie. No matter what she tells you, do not hand it over.*
Five minutes passed. Marked as read, but no reply.
Ten minutes later, Cole finally sent back a single word: *Got it.*
The floating chat breathed a collective sigh of relief.
*[The bad boy might have an attitude, but he’s shockingly dependable.]*
*[Natalie won't go down without a fight though. The system backlash is kicking in, and the luck drain is going to break her.]*
Sure enough, twenty minutes later, another message from Cole popped up:
*Your sister is downstairs at my place. She brought some guy she claims is her boyfriend. Demanding the pen back, saying it was a birthday gift from her mom.*
I let out a cold laugh and typed furiously:
*Don’t buy it. It’s an ordinary dollar-store pen. She’s completely making that up.*
Just as I hit send, the front door slammed open downstairs. Mom’s loud, frantic voice echoed through the hallway.
"Why isn't Natalie back yet? Dinner is getting cold!"
I stepped to the top of the stairs and saw Mom on the phone. After a few seconds, her face turned pale.
She hung up and looked up at me.
"Chloe, your sister is at the police precinct."
The chat exploded again.
*[Wait, what happened? Did she get into a fistfight with Cole over the pen?]*
*[No way, she probably got desperate and tried to force her way in, so someone called 911.]*
I put on a face full of concern. "What happened?"
Mom grabbed her coat and rushed toward the door. "They said Natalie got into an altercation with some boy, and the police were called. Your dad already went over. Stay here and wait."
I nodded, watching her hurry out into the night.
The instant the front door clicked shut, I dialed Cole on FaceTime.
It rang three times before he picked up.
"Are you at the police station?" I asked.
"Yeah," he answered, his voice somewhat muffled. "Your sister showed up with some dude and tried barging into my apartment. I blocked the door, and the guy shoved me. So I dialed 911."
"Where's the pen?"
"In my pocket. She didn't touch it."
I exhaled a long breath.
A comment scrolled by:
*[That was close! If she got that pen back, the system would re-bind to her, all the luck would flood back, and Chloe’s eighteen years of suffering would be for nothing.]*
I hung up, locked my bedroom door, and checked the floating chat log for the crucial timer:
*[Luck Transfer Countdown: 47 minutes. Once complete, Natalie will lose every ounce of boosted luck granted by the system, and her college exam results will undergo an official automated recalculation.]*
I stared at those glowing words, my pulse quickening.
Forty-seven minutes.
As long as Cole held onto that pen until then, everything Natalie had stolen from me over the last eighteen years would be stripped away.
My phone vibrated again.
A voice memo from Mom, filled with frantic rage:
"Chloe! Get down to the precinct right this second! Natalie says you took her pen on purpose and gave it to that boy! She says you're jealous of her good grades and trying to ruin her! Get over here and explain yourself right now!"
I switched off the screen and took a slow, deep breath.
A single line floated quietly before my eyes:
*[She’s pinning the blame on Chloe again. That’s the exact trick she’s used for eighteen years, and it never fails.]*By the time I arrived at the precinct, a crowd was already lined up in the hallway.
Mom, Dad, Natalie, Cole, and Cole’s mother. His mom was a petite, thin woman, standing protectively in front of her son like a mama bear.
Natalie was seated on a plastic bench in the corridor, her eyes red, clutching crumpled tissues and dabbing at her tears, looking as fragile and helpless as humanly possible.
The moment she saw me enter, she looked up, and the tears poured out even faster.
"Chloe, you're finally here." She scrambled to her feet, her voice cracking with sobs. "Mom bought me that pen. Why did you take it and give it away to a stranger? Do you have any idea how much that pen meant to me?"
Hearing that, Mom snapped her head toward me and glared. "Chloe, you took your sister's pen and gave it to some boy? What on earth is wrong with you?"
Out of nowhere, Cole cut in from the side.
"That pen has Natalie’s initials stuck to the cap. It’s her pen, alright. But she was the one who practically shoved it into Chloe’s face at the registration hall today. I watched the whole thing with my own eyes. Chloe dropped it, picked it up, and tried to give it back, but she ignored it."
His voice was calm and steady, but every word hammered straight into Natalie’s sob story like a nail.
The chat room laughed hysterically:
*[Damn, the rival’s observation skills are top tier!]*
*[Natalie’s whole script just got wrecked by an outsider. Look at her turning green!]*
Natalie’s weeping hitched for a beat, before she leaned harder into Mom, sobbing even more pitifully. "Mom, that’s not true! Chloe was—"
"Natalie."
At the end of the hall, an officer in uniform approached carrying a folder, cutting her off cleanly.
"We already pulled the security footage from the registration hall." Officer Miller opened the folder on the desk. "The cameras clearly show you initiated the interaction by handing the pen to Chloe. When she dropped it, you made zero attempt to retrieve it."
Natalie’s face went bone white.
Officer Miller continued: "Furthermore, you brought another person to Cole’s residence demanding the return of personal property. But given the footage and the circumstances, ownership of the pen is in dispute. Until that’s settled, nobody has the right to forcefully seize anything."
Cole’s mother scoffed loudly from the side. "My son was minding his own business at home when you brought some thug to push him around. If anything, I should be pressing charges against both of you!"
Mom’s face flushed red and white in rapid succession. She hurriedly tried to smooth things over: "A misunderstanding. It’s all a big misunderstanding. Natalie, let it go. It’s just a pen—"
"I CAN'T LET IT GO!"
Natalie screamed suddenly. The pitch was so shrill and piercing that everyone in the hallway jumped.
She glared at Cole, every ounce of her gentle, fragile persona stripped bare, leaving only raw, rabid desperation.
"That pen is mine! You have to give it back to me! Do you have any clue what that pen means to me?! You're a total failure who can't even get into community college—what right do you have to hold my pen?!"
Silence dropped over the corridor.
Everyone stared at her in utter disbelief.
The countdown in my vision flickered rapidly.
*[Luck Transfer Countdown: 11 minutes.]*
*[She’s cracking. The luck drain is wrecking her emotional stability.]*
*[Look at her hands. She’s shaking violently.]*
Cole pulled the pastel pink pen from his pocket and twirled it between his fingers.
"It’s a five-cent pen. What are you losing your mind over?" He scowled, tossing the pen onto the desk. "Take it. Nobody wants your trash."
Natalie lunged forward like a starved animal, grabbing the pen and clutching it tight against her chest, her knuckles turning stark white.
A flashing red banner popped up across my vision:
*[System detected the pen has returned to its original owner. Binding re-established. Luck reversal initiated.]*
My heart sank like a stone.
Natalie took a deep, shuddering breath, her composed, polite smile creeping back onto her face. She turned to Mom: "Mom, I’m fine now. I got my pen back. Let’s just go home."
As she brushed past me, she paused, leaning in close to my ear. Her whisper was as soft as a feather, dripping with venom.
"Chloe, you really thought you won? The past eighteen years belonged to me, and so will the rest of our lives. You will always live in the shadows of whatever I discard."
A single line slid across my eyes:
*[Don’t panic. The main character still has a trump card.]*
I watched her walk away, a faint smirk slowly tugging at the corners of my lips.
Because she didn't know that right before Cole tossed that pen onto the desk, he had used it to sign the very last box on his official commitment form.
The final notification glowed brightly before me:
*[System Ruling: During the transfer window, the pen was utilized to author another individual’s destiny. The luck reversal will trigger an irrevocable karmic backlash. Natalie, your luck has officially run out.]*
Chapters (4)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Watch & Promotions
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