Blood, it wouldn't stop. I lay on the delivery bed, the overhead lights blindingly white. Someone shouted "More pressure," people were running, the sound of shoes against the floor frantic and chaotic. My consciousness was sinking. I couldn't feel the pain anymore. Just cold. A coldness starting from the soles of my feet. The delivery room door wasn't shut completely. Voices drifted in from the hallway. It was my mother-in-law, Martha's voice. She was on the phone. "...Five hundred thousand dollars, that was the agreed-upon dowry. If she doesn't make it, can we get that money back?" I heard it perfectly clearly. Every single word. Oh, wait. That was another lifetime. The first time I met my stepmother, I slashed her arm with a knife. People told me it was this wicked woman, Nora Hayes, who stole my father and drove my mother away. I swore I would drive her out. But when I poured out the chicken soup she made, she replaced it with beef stew. When I cut up the dresses she bought me, she bought me pants instead. I thought I would never be able to get rid of her, until my fourteenth birthday, when she came to pick me up from school with a cake, and died pushing me out of the way of a speeding semi-truck. At her funeral, her mother pointed at her portrait and cursed: "You useless disappointment! Your husband gets stolen, and you still take care of the mistress's daughter, and now she's gotten you killed!" It turned out my mother was the mistress all along. I stumbled home, stared at the smashed cake, and belatedly made my birthday wish: "Nora Hayes, please come back to life." When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to three days before the accident. Standing amidst the crowd of students leaving school, I saw Nora looking around for me from across the street. A middle-aged woman shoved past her, causing her to stumble and nearly fall. The woman glared at her aggressively, "Stop blocking the way!" Nora stepped back, apologizing profusely. This was Nora. Born into a family that heavily favored boys over girls, she developed a chronic people-pleasing personality. Even when her husband cheated, she helped raise the mistress's daughter, and the result was being killed by me, the jinx. Given a second chance, my biggest wish was to stop Nora from being a pushover that anyone could bully. I walked straight over and stepped hard on the woman's foot. "Say you're sorry." "Are you crazy? You stepped on me and you want me to say sorry?" "If the person who gets bumped into has to apologize to the one who bumped them, then why doesn't the person who got stepped on have to apologize to the one who stepped on them?" Seeing that I wasn't someone to mess with, the woman resentfully muttered a "sorry" and walked away. Nora's eyes widened in surprise, mixed with a hint of quiet joy. "Chloe, thank you." I kept a sullen expression and said, "Anyone can bully you. You're so dumb, you might as well just die." Nora smiled good-naturedly and took me home. At our front door, we found an uninvited guest—Nora's younger brother, Kevin. "Sis, lend me a hundred grand, I want to open a small convenience store. I'm just short a hundred grand to get it started. I'm your closest brother, you can't just ignore me." I mentally spat in disgust. In my previous life, Nora lent him the money, and he turned around and blew it all gambling. After Nora died, Kevin and their mother signed a settlement agreement with the driver, split the million-dollar compensation, and sold off all her belongings. They even sold Nora's organs on the black market. A guy with dollar signs in his eyes playing the loving brother? Nora sighed and let him inside. While she went to pour water, I narrowed my eyes and said to Kevin: "You degenerate gambler, you deserve to be beaten to death by loan sharks!" Kevin never expected a little brat like me to speak to him like that. Furious, he slapped me to the floor. "So what if I gamble? You little bastard, you dare stick your nose in my family's business?" He raised his foot to kick me. Hearing the commotion, Nora rushed over and dropped the water glass in shock. "What are you doing?!" I quickly scrambled to her side, lifted my red, swollen face, and cried out: "I just asked Uncle what he was borrowing the money for, and he suddenly hit me! He even said he was borrowing it to gamble! Not to open a store at all!" Kevin cursed: "Bullshit!" Nora touched my cheek, her brow furrowed tightly, showing a rare flash of anger: "Kevin! You really haven't changed at all! Now you're not only gambling, but you've learned to hit people too! Get out!" Kevin gritted his teeth and said: "Sis, don't listen to her. I've changed, I won't gamble anymore! I really want to open a store!" "I'll get on my knees, okay?!" Kevin dropped to his knees in front of Nora and started crying and slapping himself. "It was all my fault before! Sis, forgive me, there won't be a next time!" I watched the shifting expressions on Nora's face. In the past, every time Kevin came to borrow money, after a routine of crying, throwing a tantrum, and begging on his knees, Nora would always give in. This time, with my little performance, would she change? I nervously grabbed her hand. She shuddered, gripped my hand tightly, and said: "Leave. I'm not lending you the money." "What?" Kevin couldn't believe his ears. He suddenly exploded: "Nora, I gave you an inch and you took a mile!" "Even if you're married, you're still a Hayes! Your money is my money! So what if I use it to gamble?" "Nora, even if you have to go sell yourself on the street, you better scrape together that hundred grand. If you're short even one dollar, watch out, I'll find a few guys to—" Before he could finish, I kicked him hard in the groin. "Go sell yourself!" Kevin let out an agonizing scream and collapsed. He recovered after a moment, stood up, and reached for me with a twisted, furious face. "I'm going to rape you, then kill you!" I was about to kick him again when Nora, having grabbed a paring knife from somewhere, stepped in front of me. "If you dare touch Chloe again, I'll kill you right now!" I looked at Nora in shock. She was trembling all over, but her eyes shot out a terrifying light, like a mother wolf protecting her cub. The paring knife I used to hurt her the first time we met was now being used to protect me. Kevin looked at Nora as if seeing her for the first time and backed away two steps. "Whoa, chill, sis, let's just talk." "Get the hell out!" "Fine, I'm leaving right now." He left with a resentful look on his face. Just as he reached the door, he looked back and sneered: "Playing happy family with the mistress's daughter, how pathetic. Does she know about all the filthy things you've done?" Nora's face instantly went deathly pale. I frowned. What filthy things could Nora possibly have done? After Kevin left, Nora dropped the knife and used a cold towel to compress my face. Not long after, her mother called, launching into a tirade of curses. Usually, to keep Nora acting as their ATM, her mother would pretend to care about her. This time, with just one refusal, she showed her true colors. "If you don't give him the money, I'm going to your office tomorrow and causing a scene!" She hung up the phone. Nora stood frozen like a stone statue. I hesitated for a moment, then went to the kitchen, made a bowl of noodles, brought it to her, and looking away, said: "Hurry up and eat, the noodles will get mushy." "Oh, right, my face looks like this, so I can't go to school. Take me to your company tomorrow." "If they come causing trouble, I can be your bodyguard." Nora paused, then suddenly pulled me into a hug. "Chloe, thank goodness I still have you." I blushed and pulled away forcefully. The next day, Nora's mother predictably knelt at the entrance of Nora's company, throwing a massive fit. She wailed loudly: "Nora Hayes! You heartless, ungrateful wretch! Your brother just needs a hundred grand to save his life, and you won't even lend it to him!" "All these years, I favored you over him, terrified you'd feel slighted! You ate better, dressed better, and had better things than your brother!" "Your brother dropped out of school early to work and pay for your master's degree! He didn't even finish high school, so nobody wants to hire him! Now he's asking to borrow a hundred grand to open a small store, and you chase him out with a knife!" "Now that you're an executive at Zenith Corp, you don't care about your own mother and brother!" The crowd of onlookers grew larger. Nora and her boss, Vice President Chen, had also come down. People in the crowd whispered among themselves: "To have such a good mother and brother and not appreciate them!" "How did someone like her get into Zenith? They should fire her!" Nora's mother crawled forward and hugged VP Chen's leg. "Zenith is such a big company, you can't let your employees abandon their own flesh and blood!" I stepped forward, held up my phone, and played a video. "So what you're saying is, Zenith employees should just let their relatives gamble their lives away?" Nora's mother's face changed. Kevin's voice came from the phone: "Your money is my money! So what if I use it to gamble?" "Nora, even if you have to go sell yourself on the street, you better scrape together that hundred grand. If you're short even one dollar, watch out, I'll find a few guys to—" The crowd immediately changed their tune: "Oh, so the brother was using it to gamble. No wonder the sister wouldn't lend it." "Threatening his sister like that for money, how vicious!" But some still said: "Even so, that sister isn't a good person either!" Nora's mother grasped at straws and cried: "Exactly! She's a bitch! If he hadn't sacrificed his education and couldn't find a job, why would my son have turned to gambling? She owes me!" Hearing those words, the last glimmer of light in Nora's eyes died out. She gave a miserable smile. "I've been working part-time since high school, and I got full scholarships every year. When did Kevin ever pay for my education? He dropped out because he couldn't get into high school! He got addicted to gambling, and I gave up my Ph.D. to work and pay off his debts! You're just like him, full of lies!" She pulled out her phone and opened her bank transfer history. "Over the years, you and Kevin have borrowed money from me countless times. It adds up to over a million dollars! You say I owe you? Yes, I do. I owe you a severance agreement!" Her mother's eyes widened. "What did you say? You want to cut ties with me?" "How was I ever bad to you all these years? When you took your college entrance exams, I fed you meat and shrimp every meal. Because I favored you so much, your brother was always neglected, which is why his grades were bad, and you still feel wronged?" I feigned surprise. "Meat and shrimp? The last time she took me out to eat, I accidentally had a bite of shrimp and ended up in the ER. You treat your daughter so well, how did you not know she's severely allergic to seafood?" Her mother was stunned. "What did you say? She's allergic to seafood?" Nora squeezed her eyes shut in pain. "The 'good meals' you're talking about were all things Kevin liked. He loves seafood, so you made seafood every day. During the period leading up to my college entrance exams, I survived on instant noodles and bread." "On the morning of the exam, my alarm woke Kevin up, and you screamed at me, making me almost late." "This is what you call treating me well, this is what you call favoring me!" Nora took a notebook from her bag, quickly wrote out a formal severance agreement, and threw it in her mother's face. "From today on, we have nothing to do with each other!" Her mother looked around in a panic and turned to VP Chen. "Boss, you have to do something about her!" But VP Chen said, "Nora is an outstanding employee, and Zenith needs talent like her! As for you, you reaped what you sowed. You deserve this!" Her mother slumped to the ground, looking completely defeated. "Oh no—my daughter has disowned me, and my son is useless. Who's going to take care of me when I'm old!" As the crowd dispersed and Nora and I were about to leave, her mother's scream rang out from behind us: "Nora Hayes! Aren't you afraid I'll scorch the earth and expose your true colors?" "All those filthy things you've done, Richard sent them all to me!" Nora's steps faltered. I glanced back at her mother. Richard was my father's name. It seemed he had something on Nora and had sent it to her mother and brother. But what dirt could anyone possibly have on Nora? As I was wondering, my phone buzzed. I opened it to see a message from Richard. "Your birthday is the day after tomorrow. Your dad and his new girlfriend are taking you out to dinner." Attached was a photo of him hugging a glamorous, young woman.
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