In my past life, my name was Claire Vance. I donated over $10 million and sponsored 101 underprivileged kids through school. When I died of stomach cancer at 37, not a single one of those 101 kids came to visit me. In this life, the very first thing I did after waking up was throw that densely packed list of sponsored students straight into the trash. Taking the money I had prepared to donate, I took advantage of the pre-boom housing market and bought ten rental properties in one go. Soon after, I saw familiar faces flashing across my screen. The boys and girls who had once sworn to repay my kindness in my past life were now wiping away tears during a local news interview: "Ms. Claire promised she would pay for my entire college tuition, but now she's disappeared. I heard she bought 10 houses instead." "Now, we have no choice but to drop out and work fast-food jobs." "I don't hate her... it just hurts..." "We just want to ask one thing: Ms. Claire, we looked up to you like a mother. How could you be so cruel?" I turned off the TV with a blank expression. The moment I unlocked my phone, a tidal wave of notifications flooded in. The first text: "Ms. Vance, I'm a reporter from Metro News Tonight. May I ask why you suddenly cut off funding for 101 disadvantaged students? Are you available for an interview?" The second: "Ms. Claire! It's Lily! Why aren't you answering my calls? You promised you'd put me through college!" The third: "Claire Vance, as a well-known local philanthropist, you suddenly have ten new properties under your name while leaving children to drop out and work minimum wage. How do you sleep at night?" The fourth, the fifth, the sixth... My phone was vibrating so hard it felt like it was going to explode. At the same time, chaotic footsteps echoed from the hallway outside. Judging by the sound, there were at least a few dozen people gathered outside my door. Through the heavy wood, their impatient voices drilled in: "Ms. Vance! Come out and give us a statement!" "Why did you stop the funding?" "Do you know the kids are staging a sit-in outside the news station?!" I closed my eyes. In my past life, I was a selfless, dedicated "good person" who only knew how to give. My husband, Arthur, and I ran a wholesale building materials supply store. We worked from dawn to dusk, pinching every penny. We spent very little on ourselves; the vast majority of our profits went straight to charity. Over ten years, we donated over $10 million, sponsoring 101 kids from impoverished rural counties in the state. We sponsored many of them from the time they were in elementary school. I promised them that if they just focused on studying, I would cover everything through their college graduation. They wrote letters, calling us "Mama Claire" and "Papa Art," promising they would repay us when they grew up. We saved every single letter. On nights when we couldn't sleep, we'd take them out to read, often shedding tears of joy and comfort. Arthur and I didn't have children of our own. We didn't want the kids to "repay" us; we just didn't want poverty to limit their potential in life. Then, Arthur died. His supply truck flipped on the highway. His last words were, "Make sure you take care of the kids." Then, he was gone. I cried until I thought I would die. Before I could even recover from the grief, I was diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer. During the year I was hospitalized, I lay in that bed, waiting for those kids to come see me. Not a single one came. I told myself they were busy, their coursework was heavy, and bus tickets were expensive. I didn't blame them. Later, when my medical funds ran dry, I had no choice but to suspend the scholarship payments. That's when my phone started ringing. "Aunt Claire, why hasn't this month's living stipend arrived yet?" "Aunt Claire, you promised to pay through college, and you're cutting me off in my freshman year of high school? Isn't this practically a scam?" "Ms. Vance, I'm [Redacted]'s parent. You made a promise. You can't just stop paying now! What is our kid supposed to do?" The very last phone call came from a girl named Mia. Back when I was selecting students to sponsor, she had knelt in front of me, crying her eyes out, calling me "Mom." On the phone, she said, "Mama Claire, how long is your treatment going to take? Hurry up and get better so you can get back to work. We have so many kids depending on you." I hung up the phone and burned every single letter I had kept under my pillow. Later, a reporter dug up my story and went to interview the kids. Reporter: "Claire is very sick. Are you going to visit her?" Student A: "She promised to pay for my college. Now she's just lying in a hospital and the money's gone. What good would it do if I went?" Student B: "She's so rich, it's just a medical bill. Besides, how much is our tuition really costing her?" Student C—Mia—smiled innocently at the camera: "Nobody does anything without a motive. I won't say what she was really after, but I think everyone can guess, right?" I turned off the TV. Without enough money to cover the final medical bills, I was discharged. I went home, lay in the bed Arthur used to sleep in, and suffered day by day. The night I died was New Year's Eve. People were setting off fireworks outside my window. Staring at the ceiling, I whispered, "God, if I could do it all over again..." "I would absolutely put myself first." Heaven had eyes. I truly was reborn. I woke up back when I was 33. Arthur wasn't dead yet, and our family was still relatively wealthy. Changing fate wasn't easy. That afternoon, I almost couldn't make it out of my own neighborhood. A massive crowd was gathered downstairs. Nearly a hundred kids, wearing their school uniforms, holding up banners. "Mama Claire, we need you." "Mama Claire, don't abandon us." Kneeling at the very front was Mia. Holding a megaphone, crying hysterically, she shouted: "Mama Claire! You said you'd put me through college! Did you forget?!" Countless reporters stood nearby, all their cameras aimed directly at my building's entrance. The moment I stepped out of the lobby, I heard a wailing cry—"Mama Claire!" Mia crawled forward on her knees, lunging to wrap her arms tightly around my legs. "Mama Claire, please don't abandon us! You said we were your children! You said you would always provide for us!" Her tears smeared against my pant leg, icy cold. Behind her, the other 100 kids started crying in unison. The sound was deafening. Security guards tried to step in but were blocked by the reporters. From every direction, telephoto lenses and cell phone cameras were pointed at me. People were livestreaming on TikTok and Instagram. Some bystanders were wiping away tears, whispering, "They're so pitiful. How can this woman be so heartless?" I looked down at Mia. This face was exactly the same as in my past life. In my past life, she had knelt before me, crying exactly like this, promising she would take care of me when I grew old. Then, when I was dying, she looked into a camera and said, "Nobody does anything without a motive." I reached down and peeled her fingers off my pant leg, one by one. "Mama Claire!" she shrieked, gripping tighter. I pried her last finger loose. I crouched down and looked her dead in the eye. "Mia, how old are you this year?" She froze for a second. "S-seventeen." "Seventeen," I nodded. "That's not so young anymore." I paused, enunciating every word clearly: "Nobody does anything without a motive. I won't say what you're really after right now, but I think I can guess." Her face stiffened entirely. I stood up, stepped around her, and kept walking. Behind me, Mia suddenly burst into dramatic wails. "Mama Claire! You can't do this! You promised us! You can't go back on your word!" The other kids followed her lead, crying even louder than before. Someone started chanting: "Bring Mama Claire back! Bring Mama Claire back!" Cell phone cameras followed me relentlessly. The livestream chats were scrolling wildly. "What kind of person is this? So many kids are begging on their knees and she doesn't even look back?" "So cold-blooded! I can't believe I used to like her posts!" "Ten houses, and she won't even donate one? I always knew her charity was a fake tax write-off!" "Claire Vance, how do you sleep at night?" The reporters practically shoved their microphones into my face, their mouths opening and closing, all asking variations of why I stopped the funding. Seeing that I couldn't avoid them, I simply stopped and gave the reporters a polite wave. "That's right, I have decided to permanently terminate the sponsorships." "As for the reason, it is a private, personal matter, and it wouldn't be appropriate to discuss it here." "However, I believe there are mostly good people in this world. Like all of you, for example. You are more than welcome to take over sponsoring these children." "Everyone here is so kind and righteous. I'm sure that even without me, they will successfully finish their education, right?" I smiled, scanning the faces of these seemingly "kind and righteous" people. Seeing me steer the conversation in this direction, the reporters instantly shut their mouths, not daring to pester me with more questions. Taking advantage of their silence, I pushed through the crowd and quickly walked to the neighborhood gate. A pickup truck was parked by the curb. The window rolled down; it was Arthur. He looked at me, his eyes red. "Honey, I saw everything," his voice choked up. "Those kids... they're so pitiful. Haven't we always sponsored them? Why the sudden..." I opened the door and got in. Arthur turned to me. "Didn't we always say we didn't want them to repay us, we just wanted them to do well..." "I changed the PIN on the savings accounts," I said. He froze. "What?" "The two main savings accounts. I changed the PINs," I repeated, looking straight ahead. "If you need to withdraw money, you have to ask me." "Honey, you—" I sighed. "Arthur, I had a dream. It was so real, I believe it's a premonition." "In the dream, you died in a crash. I got stomach cancer. I lay in a hospital bed for over a year, and out of those 101 kids, not a single one came to see me. When I stopped the funding, they called to harass me, telling me to hurry up, get cured, and get back to making money for them. They even went on TV to say I had an ulterior motive. In the end, I died alone in our house on New Year's Eve while fireworks went off outside." He was stunned silent. "Arthur," I said, utterly exhausted. "In this life, let's put ourselves first." He sat there with his mouth open, looking at me in confusion, unable to speak for a long time. Outside the window, a massive digital billboard was playing the local news. "Well-known philanthropist Claire Vance abandons 101 disadvantaged children. Students kneel in the street begging her to return..." Many pedestrians were looking up at the screen. Someone shouted, "Claire Vance, go to hell!" A chorus of voices immediately agreed. I sneered. Give a man a fish, he'll thank you. Give a man a fish every day, he'll hate you when you stop. The ancients were right. Cyberbullying spreads like wildfire. For days, the area downstairs was completely packed with angry mobs. "Claire Vance! Get out here!" "Heartless bitch!" "Stop pretending to be a philanthropist, you're just a scammer!" People threw eggs at my windows; the yolk dripped down the glass. Someone spray-painted the lobby doors with red paint: "Fake Charity, Real Bloodsucker." They even hung banners: "Punish the corrupt businesswoman, get justice for the kids!" Peeking through the curtains, I saw Mia still standing at the very front of the crowd, accepting interviews with a tear-streaked face. "We never wanted to ask her for much money. We just want to know why she suddenly threw us away?" Next to her, a teenage boy cried hysterically: "She buys ten houses, but forces us to drop out! My little sister is only in seventh grade, and now she has to go work in a sweatshop!" The crowd exploded. "Call the cops! Arrest her!" "Cancel her! Ruin her life!" "Smash her house!" Suddenly, a fairly large rock shattered my living room window, sending glass shards flying dangerously close to my eyes. Arthur shielded me, his face pale. "Honey, let's call the police." I shook my head. What good would the police do? To the public, they were just a group of "pitiful," "helpless," "betrayed" children. The next day, things got worse. Someone doxxed my home address and the location of Arthur's supply store online. By the time I rushed over to the store, I heard someone in the mob yell: "Smash it!" Before the words even faded, baseball bats shattered the glass storefront. The mob surged in like a tidal wave. Shelves were toppled, ceramic tiles were smashed, and the cash register was flipped over. Someone even lit the store's sign on fire; thick black smoke billowed into the air. Honest, hardworking Arthur, his eyes completely red, rushed in to try and stop them, but was violently shoved to the ground. People spat on him; people kicked him. In that moment, the blood rushed to my head. But I didn't charge in. Instead, I took a step back to the edge of the crowd and started a TikTok live stream. I pointed the camera at the fire, at the store being trashed, and at Arthur being trampled on the floor. The chat went wild: "What's going on here?" "Holy shit, this is a full-on riot!" "Did someone call 911?" "That's Claire Vance's store!" "Good job! Make that fake philanthropist go bankrupt!" I stared at the screen, my voice calm but laced with a slight tremble: "Hello everyone, I am Claire Vance. What you are seeing right now is my husband being attacked by a mob." "For the past three days, my home has been vandalized, my store has been besieged, and my husband is currently being stomped on the ground. And all of this is simply because I stopped funding 101 students." "Up until now, I have sponsored them for over 3 years, totaling roughly $300,000. Every single transaction has bank records." "As for why I suddenly stopped the funding, I originally didn't want to say this today—" I pulled a few pieces of paper from my pocket and unfolded them in front of the camera. It was a medical pathology report. The date was from 5 days ago. Under the diagnosis section, in black and white, it read: Gastric Adenocarcinoma, Stage II. In my past life, by the time I found out I had stomach cancer, it was already late-stage. After being reborn, the very first thing I did was go to the hospital for a full screening. "I stopped the funding because I need the money for my own medical treatment. I didn't want to make it public because I didn't want people to worry. But now, I have no choice but to tell you all." "I also wish I could keep paying for these kids to go to school, but my health won't allow it. My husband's health isn't great either. Our medical bills are going to be massive, and potentially never-ending." By the time I finished, I was openly sobbing. The live chat started scrolling frantically: "Wait... Stomach cancer?" "She didn't say that before!" "Of course she needs her money for medical bills if she's sick!" "Did the mob just force a cancer patient into this?" "Why didn't she just say she was sick? No one would have bullied her!" "Are you stupid? If she said it, people would have accused her of playing the victim card!" "So she was cyberbullied for three days straight and just took it?"
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