1: The Bitter Cold of New Year's Eve I lay on the freezing operating table, hemorrhaging from my lower abdomen. The doctor asked if there were any family members I wished to contact. I dialed my mother's number. "Mom... I had the baby..." "I think I'm dying... Can you come be with me?" "Liv, what the hell are you नाटकing now? Giving birth and you're already acting like you're at death's door? How come you weren't so scared when you were secretly getting those abortions before?" "But..." "Enough. If you're going to die, die quickly. It'll be a relief for everyone!" Later, as she wished, I really did die. But then, she lost her mind. ... An excruciating pain shot through my lower abdomen. I lay all alone in the intensive care unit. "Enough. If you're going to die, die quickly. It'll be a relief for everyone!" My mother's final words were like the last slash of a knife on someone being slowly tortured to death. Outside the window, snow fell heavily. The New Year's fireworks were dazzling, and families gathered together, watching the countdown on their screens. On the brink of death, my soul slipped from my body, drifting on a faint consciousness towards where my mother was. I saw her at a New Year's charity gala, sumptuously dressed, taking a call in a corner. This woman, Catherine, yelled into her phone and then hung up. Ah, that must have been the last call I made. Then, she quickly plastered on a perfect smile and returned to the center of the gala. "Sorry to keep you all. As the New Year arrives, I'm thrilled to announce that the number of underprivileged children sponsored by our Angel's Wings Foundation has reached five figures!" After her speech, thunderous applause erupted from below the stage. The underprivileged children, sponsored by my mother, had tears in their eyes. They shouted one after another, "Mama Catherine! I love you!" "Mama Catherine, you're my angel!" The air was filled with joyous laughter. The New Year's bell chimed. I died. Died in a cold hospital room. Meanwhile, under the spotlight, my mother was laughing heartily, surrounded by the underprivileged children. It was a smile I, as her daughter, had strived my whole life to see but never had. A little girl shouted towards my mother: "Mama Catherine, it would be so wonderful to be your daughter!" Yeah, how wonderful for me. My soul looked at my corpse, covered in bruises and scars, and laughed coldly. A final tear slid from the corner of the eye of my already cold body. My last gaze, before dying, was towards the incubator in the distance in the hospital room. That was my daughter, my mother's granddaughter. It was a stillborn baby, dead for a long time. That's good, daughter. It's good that you died. You don't have to suffer in this unfortunate world like your mother did. My soul murmured to itself. My mother Catherine's Angel's Wings Foundation was quite famous in our city. For nearly a decade, it had been dedicated to helping underprivileged children from the rural parts of our city, enabling them to study, providing them with shelter, and even giving them the warmth of a home. She was known as a "great philanthropist," a "living saint" by the city's populace. To the underprivileged children, she was "Angel," "Mama Catherine." She could give selfless love to every child who needed it. But that didn't include me. I was the one detested by the "angel." Simply because half the blood flowing in my veins belonged to an alcoholic. 2: Your Angel, My Devil According to my grandma, when my mother was young, she too had been rebellious and made many mistakes. The biggest mistake was falling in love with my dad. When she met him, she fell for his handsome face and sweet talk. But it wasn't until after she married him that she realized the other side of this man was an alcoholic who didn't recognize anyone when he was drunk. She couldn't stand his domestic abuse after he drank and asked for a divorce. But to keep my mother tied to him, my dad secretly replaced her birth control pills with vitamin tablets. And so, I was born into this world. After I was born, they finally divorced. The court awarded custody of me to my mother. But my mother didn't like me, or rather, she detested me. She detested my sharp eyes and defined brows, so much like my father's, to the point that seeing me reminded her of the days she had suffered. Ever since the divorce, she rarely cared for me. With the settlement money from my dad and her connections, she founded the Angel's Wings Foundation and was never home. She never seemed to see me as her beloved daughter, but rather as a tool sent by my father to torment her, an instrument. So, naturally, she didn't need to consider my feelings. So even when I started self-harming and even attempting suicide due to severe psychological issues, she didn't care at all, and was even ashamed of it. I still remember that day. I was soaking in the bathtub, a cut on my arm gradually going numb. My consciousness, along with my blood, began to dissipate into the water. She came in. Vaguely, I thought an angel had come to save me. But the first thing this "angel" did was pull me out of the water and give me a resounding slap. "You dare to die? You owe me so much, and you still dare to die?!" "You coward! Why did I ever give birth to you!" "Get your ass to the hospital, now!" A few crisp bills were thrown in my face. I don't know how thirteen-year-old me walked to the hospital alone that year. I know I was soaking wet, clutching my bleeding arm, still holding the few hundred bucks my mother had given me, walking endlessly, endlessly. Until I completely lost consciousness. And collapsed on the side of the road. Before completely losing consciousness, I heard the "wee-woo, wee-woo" of an ambulance. Before I died, I donated my corneas and other usable organs to my mother's Angel's Wings Foundation. She used to always say I owed her from birth, but I never knew what exactly I owed her. This way was good too. At least, by giving her back my body in the end, I probably didn't owe her anything anymore. I still remember the disbelieving look in the eyes of the medical staff when I signed the organ donation agreement. "There are very few brave girls like you." "Your family will surely be proud of you." Would my mom be proud of me? That was something I didn't even dare to dream about. When I was little, to win my mother's affection, to make her proud, I studied desperately hard. My childhood had no video games, no cute dresses, no orange soda. Only countless, endless exams. Of course, getting straight A's and being top of my class every time was natural. I used to always see classmates at the school gate who scored lower than me showing off their papers to their parents, even if they'd only improved a little. And those parents would often smile and pick them up, or hug and kiss them. That feeling of being cherished, of being protected, was what I yearned for. But whenever I ran to my mother with a perfect score, how I wished she could encourage me like other mothers, praise me, tell me: "You did great." At least just hug me. But she never did. 3: Hailey "Liv, you get a perfect score and you have to come show off to me? You're just like your father, a leopard can't change its spots." "You certainly inherited your father's cunning mind. God knows if you cheated off someone or earned it yourself." But when I slipped, even if I didn't get first place just once, she would slap me right across the face. "You've been slacking off again! I never should have given birth to you! If it weren't for your beast of a father, I wouldn't have ended up with something like you!" "Liv, I'm telling you, you must study hard, study yourself to death, get into a top university, and then make money to support me well, understand! This is what you owe me by birth!" I owed my mother by birth; this was a phrase I had remembered since I was little. So when she brought her first sponsored child, Hailey, home, I didn't dare say anything. My mother treated Hailey, or rather, she treated Hailey as her own daughter, while I seemed like someone who shouldn't even exist. Everything I had, Hailey had. Things I never had, Hailey also had. Most importantly, she easily possessed what I had longed for my entire life but never obtained. My mother's love. When my corneas and eardrums were sent to the Angel's Wings Foundation, my mother was helping Hailey pick out a gift for her nineteenth birthday. "Mama Catherine, I want this big one..." Hailey pointed to the largest crystal necklace in the jewelry store display case, cooing and clinging to my mother's arm. "Hailey! This is too expensive," my mother said, feigning displeasure. "But you clearly said that if I got into college, you'd give me the best birthday present!" "But you're still a scholarship student. If you wear this to school, your classmates will talk." "Let them talk. I'm not Liv, falling apart over a little pressure and wanting to die." Hailey's face twisted into a sneer when she thought of me. Just then, my mother's phone rang. Someone from the foundation told her a new batch of donated organs had arrived. After hanging up, my mother patted Hailey's head. "Hailey, Mommy has to go. Take a cab home by yourself." "But the gift..." Hailey pouted. My mother said to the salesclerk, "This one, wrap it up." "Thank you, Mama Catherine!" Hailey jumped up excitedly. After my mother left, she immediately took out her latest iPhone and started taking pictures of the necklace, then posted them on her social media with a caption. "Nineteenth birthday! Spending it with my dearest Mama Catherine! P.S.: With such a wonderful Mama Catherine, what kind of trash person would she actually hate?" She might as well have named me directly. She had always liked to ostracize and mock me. Simply because I was her Mama Catherine's biological daughter, in name. She had all of my mother's love, so she naturally felt my existence was a mistake. She knew I had once wanted to end my life through suicide, so she often used it to ridicule me. "Liv, you might as well just die. Your death would be good for everyone, wouldn't it?" That's what she often said to me. This time was no exception. She sent me a private message, hoping to mock me with it. She knew Catherine never remembered my birthday, so I never had such a thing as a birthday gift. She waited a long time but didn't get my reply. So she became agitated and sent another one. "Dead? Struck dumb? Or secretly wiping away tears?" She didn't know that I had indeed died, just as she wished. But she didn't know that even if I died, she couldn't monopolize her Mama Catherine. Because I still remembered everything she had done to me. 4 She sent me a private message, hoping to mock me with it. She knew Catherine never remembered my birthday, so I never had such a thing as a birthday gift. She waited a long time but didn't get my reply. So she became agitated and sent another one. "Dead? Struck dumb? Or secretly wiping away tears?" She didn't know that I had indeed died, just as she wished. But she didn't know that even if I died, she couldn't monopolize her Mama Catherine. Because I still remembered everything she had done to me. When I was sixteen, something happened that I could never forget for the rest of my life. Yesterday, when my mother came home, she brought two cakes, one large and one small. The large one was for Hailey, and then, unexpectedly, she gave me one. Albeit the smaller one. I was overwhelmed by the unexpected gesture. Because this had never happened before. When my mother came home from work, she only ever brought snacks and gifts for Hailey. Ever since I attempted suicide at fourteen, my mother's attitude towards me had become even colder; she practically treated me like a stranger. Because my actions had shamed her. Catherine, the founder of the Angel's Wings charity, couldn't even manage her own daughter, who had attempted suicide – such gossip made her feel extremely ashamed. So she simply claimed to the public that I wasn't her biological daughter, just a little girl she had previously sponsored who had some mental issues and was slowly recovering with her help. That's how she weathered that PR crisis. After that, she truly didn't see me as her daughter, or even as a human being. She said if I wanted to die, I should wait until I was an adult, earned money to support her in her old age, and then die. I wasn't qualified to die yet. But today was different. It seemed like things at work had gone smoothly, and she actually showed me some mercy and bought me a cake too. Hailey looked at me with eyes full of jealousy. Even me getting the smaller one wasn't okay. I probably didn't deserve to receive gifts at all. So, the next day, after evening study, on my way home, I was stopped by a group of thuggish-looking youths. "You Liv?" I nodded fearfully, looking around, and found that there was no one else on this road. "I'll ask you again, are you Catherine's daughter, Liv?" Before I could finish answering, they dragged me into a narrow alley. What followed was something I never wanted to recall for the rest of my life. I only remember screaming, shouting in extreme terror. At the end of the alley, a familiar figure seemed to appear. She seemed to be laughing, that "hee hee hee" laugh was so familiar. That night, my body, along with my heart, plunged into darkness. … After that, I told my mother. Unsurprisingly, what I got was another resounding slap. "Liv, you're really something, aren't you? Haven't you embarrassed me enough!" My mother was so angry her hair was practically standing on end. Beside her, Hailey sneered: "Who knows if she was just messing around outside and then said she was forced. After all, for someone like her who doesn't even care about her own life, nothing she does is surprising." My mother told me she couldn't afford this shame. If I dared to call the police, she would immediately sever our mother-daughter relationship. So, a month later, I was pregnant. This time, I was smarter; I didn't tell my mother. Instead, using money I earned from a summer job, I found a private clinic and had an abortion. The cold touch of the speculum, and the excruciating pain of the D&C afterwards – even as a soul, the memory made me shiver. I thought I had hidden it well enough, but Hailey still found out. She told my mother, and my mother locked me in my room for a month. She said, "Don't you just love messing around! Go ahead and mess around all you want in your room!" A month later, when I was let out of the room, the first thing my mother told me was: "Liv, stop your schooling. I've already arranged your marriage." "After you turn eighteen, you'll marry Sean, the real estate developer from this city." … When my mother arrived at the Angel's Wings Foundation headquarters, my retinas and other usable organs had already arrived. Several staff members looked solemn. "Ms. Catherine, you're here." "Yes. Are these organs usable? If so, keep them. We'll hold a bid later and give them to the child who needs them most." "Well, yes, but the donor also left a diary, saying it must be read by you to the recipient before the donation." A staff member handed over my diary.
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