My five-year-old daughter learned to lie. During her teacher's home visit, she clung to the woman's legs, sobbing that I'd broken her fingers to avoid homework. The teacher called the police. I was arrested in cuffs and lost my job. Returning home, I found she'd secretly photographed me with the teacher, sending it to our family group chat: "Teacher visits Mommy daily when Daddy's gone. When he's home, Mommy doesn't hit me." My furious husband kicked my leg until it snapped. As I wept on the floor, our daughter tilted her head innocently: "Kids don’t lie, right?" He divorced me. In court, my daughter begged him: "Save me from Mommy’s photo shoots with strange uncles!" My phone revealed edited logs of me selling inappropriate photos of her. A mob of "child protectors" crushed me to death. Dying, I couldn’t fathom why my cherished child would destroy me. Then I woke up—back to the day she first accused me. … 1 “Mr. Peterson, I finished all my homework, I swear. But last night, my dog, Buddy, he… he ate it all. I don’t have it to give you right now.” My daughter, Zoe, hugged her teacher’s leg, her face a perfect mask of sincere pleading. Mr. Peterson looked helplessly from her to me, seeking confirmation. “Mrs. Miller, is this… is this true?” I looked at Zoe’s innocent smile, and a deathly chill crawled up my spine. I was back. I had been reborn. In my past life, when Zoe used the same clumsy excuse, I had patiently tried to guide her. “If you didn’t finish your homework, you need to be brave and admit it, honey. Mommy will help you with it. But lying is a very bad thing to do. You should apologize to your teacher.” But before Mr. Peterson could even scold her, Zoe had thrown herself onto the floor, wailing as if her heart was breaking. “Mr. Peterson… I really couldn’t do my homework! Mommy comes home drunk every night and she hits me! She just broke two of my fingers. I can’t even hold a pencil! Please don’t be mad at me!” Mr. Peterson immediately scooped her into his arms. He saw the faint, bluish marks on her fingers and, without another word, called the police. I frantically explained to the officers that she’d hurt her fingers on the slide at the playground the day before. It took pulling the security footage from our apartment complex to finally make them believe me. But the damage was done. Word got back to my company, my reputation was ruined, and I lost my six-figure job. I couldn’t fathom it. My daughter, who was always so well-behaved and sensible, why would she tell such a monstrous lie just to get out of homework? When I dragged my exhausted body home that day, I was met not with the chance to discipline my daughter, but with a kick from my husband, Mark, that shattered my leg. “You filthy cheat! I break my back working to support you two, and you dare bring some pretty boy into my house behind my back?” I was completely bewildered as he pinned me down, hitting me, until I saw the photo Zoe had sent to the family group chat. Only then did I understand. [This is so nice! Mr. Peterson is visiting Mommy again! She’s always in such a good mood when he comes over, so she probably won’t hit me today. I wonder if he’ll sleep over at our house again tonight…] I looked at my daughter in disbelief, desperately trying to explain to my enraged husband that it was all a lie. But Zoe just looked at him with wide, innocent eyes. “Daddy, I don’t know what ‘lying’ is. I only say what I see.” Mark had completely lost his mind. He landed another heavy punch on my face. “She’s four and a half years old! How could she possibly know how to lie? You’re not fit to be a mother! You’d throw your own daughter under the bus just to cover up your affair!” I was beaten until I was legally disabled, and he filed for divorce. In court, terrified that Zoe’s habit of lying would only get worse, I fought with everything I had to keep her with me, to guide her. But she knelt on the floor, crying, begging Mark to take her. “I don’t want to wear those weird clothes for those gross uncles anymore! I want to go with Daddy so I can study and be a good girl. I don’t want Mommy to hit me anymore. Please, please save me!” I froze, stunned. Before I could even process what she’d said, my mother-in-law rushed forward, snatched my phone, and handed it to the judge. The screen was filled with lurid photos of Zoe in white stockings and dark frilly dresses, posed in ways that made my stomach clench. Alongside them were countless transactions from anonymous accounts, all with suggestive notes attached. “Claire! Zoe is your own daughter! How could you be so depraved, using her to make money? She’s not even five years old… and you’ve ruined her!” I never got a second hearing. I was ambushed by a group of enraged parents and “child safety” fanatics outside the hospital. They pinned me down and choked the life out of me. My last sight was of Zoe, nestled in her father's arms, a sly, triumphant smirk flashing across her face. Even in death, I couldn’t understand why the sweet, obedient child who used to love helping me with chores would tell lie after lie to see me destroyed. Now, reborn, I wondered: if I make a different choice, can I prevent it all from happening again? 2 I forced a smile, meeting Mr. Peterson's questioning gaze. “I’m not sure about the dog eating her homework, but Zoe hasn’t been feeling well these past few days. Could we perhaps put the homework on hold for a bit?” Mr. Peterson nodded, not pressing the issue further. I looked at Zoe and saw her smiling sweetly back at me, with none of the sinister energy I remembered from my past life. A wave of relief washed over me. Maybe she was just being a mischievous kid. Maybe I had pushed her too hard with school in my past life, and that’s what made her act out. She was just a child, after all. If I communicated with her properly, a small problem like lying could surely be fixed. I stood up to walk Mr. Peterson to the door with Zoe. But the moment I opened it, my world froze. Mark was standing there. He threw a punch that connected squarely with Mr. Peterson’s face, sending the teacher stumbling back into the apartment. “You dare carry on your affair in my house! I’ll kill you, you bastard! If my daughter hadn’t told me the truth, I would’ve been wearing these horns for the rest of my life!” I stood, paralyzed, feeling as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head. I had given Zoe what she wanted. Why did she still lie? A notification popped up from the family group chat. It was the same message as last time, only this time, Zoe’s tone was even more pitiful. [Mommy wants me to call Mr. Peterson ‘Daddy.’ I don’t want to, but what if she hits me if I don’t?] Seeing Mark, Zoe ran to him and burst into tears. “Daddy, you’re finally back! Mommy and Mr. Peterson were hitting me together! I thought I’d never see you again!” Mr. Peterson, dizzy and stunned from the unexpected blow, stared at Zoe in disbelief. “Zoe, I’m just here for a home visit to check on your homework. Why would you lie like that?” Zoe’s sobs grew louder. “But… but why do you only ever come to our house for visits? I’m so scared…” Mark’s face was purple with rage. “My daughter is four and a half! She doesn’t know how to lie! You two adulterous scumbags, you have the nerve to blame your filth on her? I’ll teach you both a lesson you’ll never forget!” As Mark raised his fist again, I threw myself between them. “If you want to know if Mr. Peterson comes here often, just check the security camera footage from the lobby! You’ll see if Zoe is telling the truth!” I turned to Zoe, my brow furrowed, and deliberately softened my voice. “Zoe, sweetie… if you admit right now that you were lying, Mommy will forgive you. If you just apologize to us, we can pretend this never happened. Okay?” Perhaps my confidence gave him pause, because Mark looked down at our daughter, his fury wavering. “Zoe, just tell us the truth. If your mom really hit you, Daddy will make it right.” Mr. Peterson, though flustered, managed to speak calmly. “Zoe, perhaps you’re mistaken about the time? I only do a home visit once a week, at most.” Zoe chewed her lip, crying for a long moment before she slowly looked up at Mark. “Daddy, don’t check the cameras. You won’t find anything.” I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, a flicker of hope warming my chest. Maybe she was just being naughty, not completely lost. With proper guidance, she could still get back on the right track. But in the next second, Zoe shook her head helplessly. “Mr. Peterson always stays for a really, really long time. The security cameras don’t record for that long. He stays for hours and hours. I’m not lying.” A bomb went off in my head. Mark’s face, which had begun to soften, instantly turned to stone. “So that’s your game! Trying to threaten your own daughter into lying for you! How can you call yourself a mother? God knows what you’ve put Zoe through!” He stormed into the storage closet and came back with a golf club. He was going to teach me and Mr. Peterson a lesson. Zoe flinched beside me, her voice a tiny, terrified whisper. “Mommy hits me on the head with that all the time. It hurts so much… she almost killed me once…” I stared at the club, speechless. It was covered in a thick layer of dust, clearly untouched for a very long time. But Mark was beyond reason. He swung the club at us. Just as it was about to connect with my skull, I reacted, grabbing a chair to block the blow and screaming with all my might. “Stop! I have a witness who can prove Zoe is lying!” 3 Mark’s hand, gripping the club, trembled violently, but he didn’t swing again. “I work a nine-to-five job every single day, and your mother, who lives downstairs, sees me come and go! If you don’t believe me, you can’t possibly disbelieve your own mom, can you? Just ask her if I’ve ever laid a hand on Zoe!” Mark’s face was a grim mask, but he gave a curt nod. He would go ask. Zoe, who had been sitting quietly on the sofa, glanced nervously at her little wristwatch and then looked back at Mark. “Daddy… it’s… it’s getting late. Zoe needs to sleep. Can we not go?” A child’s guilt is a transparent thing. This time, even Mark could see something was wrong. Without another word, I picked Zoe up and marched downstairs to my mother-in-law’s apartment. Thankfully, we had bought her a place on the ground floor of our building years ago to better care for her. Otherwise, I’d have no one to vouch for me. Tonight, I was going to break this destructive habit of lying, once and for all. I couldn’t let it fester like last time. I knocked firmly on her door. “Mom, Mark thinks I’m seeing other men. He also says I beat Zoe all the time. Can you please set the record straight for us?” My mother-in-law had always been good to me over the years, helping with laundry, cooking, and watching Zoe. I loved her like my own mother. I didn’t need her to embellish anything, just to tell the simple truth: that Zoe was lying today. She wrapped her arms around Zoe, her eyes darting nervously between us. “Well… Claire does go to work on time every day. And I… I certainly don’t see her bringing men home.” I silently breathed a sigh of relief. As I prepared to confront Mark, my mother-in-law’s expression suddenly changed, and she began to sob quietly. “Oh, what a tragedy for this family… My poor Zoe, to have a mother like you. My son… oh, my son… can your mother speak honestly?” I froze, completely baffled by her sudden performance. She wiped her eyes, tears and snot streaming down her face. “Every time you beat her, Zoe comes crying to me! It breaks my heart to see my granddaughter suffer so much. I was just so afraid you two would get a divorce that I never dared to say anything. It’s my fault… it’s all my fault for letting Zoe get hurt.” I stood there, rigid, a cold blade twisting in my heart. “Mom… what are you talking about? Why would you slander me in front of Mark?” My mother-in-law seemed even more furious than me. She snatched my phone from my hand, her voice shaking with rage. “Then you explain this! Where did these pictures on your phone come from?” She held up my phone. The screen was filled with images of Zoe in revealing clothes, tears glistening in her eyes as she forced a smile for the camera. It felt like I’d been struck by lightning. I stared at the phone, my head roaring. In my past life, those strange photos and contacts had mysteriously appeared on my phone, leading to my wrongful death. The moment I was reborn, the very first thing I did was delete every single one of those photos and any suspicious apps. I left no trace. There was absolutely no way those photos should be on my phone again. But I couldn’t understand how. I had just deleted them. No one else had touched my phone since. I reached for the phone, needing to see for myself, but Mark kicked me to the ground before I could touch it. “You make me sick! Zoe is just a little girl! You’re her mother! Making her take pictures like that for money… are you even human?” His voice was low and menacing. “Today, even if I go to prison for it, I’m going to get rid of a monster like you. I’d be failing Zoe as a father if I didn’t.” I clutched my stomach, the pain sharp and deep. “Zoe… why are you lying? Who took these pictures of you?” Mark kicked me again, and I tasted blood. My mother-in-law fanned the flames. “I only tolerated you this long because I wanted Zoe to have a happy family. But you beat her half to death, you torture her into taking those disgusting pictures! Do you really think she could just make something like that up?” Zoe stood in the corner, a bizarre, knowing smirk playing on her lips. She didn’t look like a kindergartener at all. “Daddy,” she said, her voice soft and sweet, “if Mommy dies… will that mean no one can bully me anymore? And I won’t have to take weird pictures, and I can just focus on school? Is that right?” Her voice was as soft as cotton, but it sent a freezing dread through my entire body. Mark, pushed beyond his limits, let his gaze fall on a heavy, metal stool nearby. His eyes went blank and cruel. I scrambled backward, knowing there was nowhere to run. With a final, desperate surge of strength, I lunged for my phone. I just needed to understand before I died. The moment my fingers closed around it, I saw it. And I was struck absolutely speechless. The reason for all of Zoe's strange behavior and lies finally became clear in that instant. So that was it. The truth had been right in front of me all along.
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