The moment I opened my eyes in this new life, I made one, critical decision. The first thing I did was grab the sponsorship list, filled with names, and shove it deep into the trash. In my past life, my name was Jade. I died of stomach cancer at thirty-seven. Of the 101 children I had sponsored, not a single one came to see me off. This time, I took the money I’d set aside for donations and, without a second thought, bought ten houses before the market boomed. Not long after, familiar faces began appearing on my television screen. The same boys and girls who had once knelt before me, swearing they would repay my kindness, were now wiping away tears as they gave interviews. “Mama Jade promised she would support me through university, but now she’s vanished. I heard she bought ten houses.” “We have no choice but to drop out and find work.” “I don’t hate her, it just… it hurts so much.” “We just want to ask one thing: Mama Jade, we called you our mother. How could you be so cruel?” 1 I switched off the TV, my face a blank mask. The instant I unlocked my phone, a flood of messages crashed in. The first: “Ms. Jade, this is a reporter from Cityline. Could you comment on why you’ve suddenly ceased funding for 101 underprivileged students? Would you be available for an interview?” The second: “Mama Jade! It’s Faye! Why aren’t you answering your phone? You promised you’d see me through university!” The third: “Ms. Jade, as a well-known philanthropist, you suddenly have ten properties to your name while children are forced to drop out of school. Can you live with yourself?” The fourth, the fifth, the sixth… My phone vibrated ceaselessly, as if it were about to explode. At the same time, I heard a clamor of footsteps outside my apartment. From the sound of it, dozens of people were gathered at my door. Their voices seeped through the wood, impatient and demanding. “Ms. Jade! Come out and say something!” “Why did you stop the funding?” “Do you know the children are kneeling in front of the TV station?” I closed my eyes. In my past life, I was a good person—selfless, altruistic, always putting others first. My husband, Mark, and I ran a small building supply store. We worked from dawn till dusk, pinching every penny. Most of the money we earned went to charity. Over ten years, we donated more than a million dollars, sponsoring 101 children from the poor, rural parts of the region. We started supporting many of them when they were in elementary school. I promised them they could focus on their studies, that I would support them all the way through university. They wrote us letters, calling us “Mama Jade” and “Papa Mark,” promising they would repay our kindness one day. We kept every letter, pulling them out on sleepless nights. Reading them always brought tears of joy to our eyes. Mark and I had no children of our own. We didn't want repayment; we just wanted to ensure poverty wouldn't define their lives. Then, Mark died. His delivery truck overturned. His last words were, “Make sure you take care of the kids.” And then he was gone. I was shattered. Before I could even begin to process my grief, I was diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer. For over a year, I lay in a hospital bed, waiting for those children to visit me. Not one came. I told myself they were busy with school, that the travel was expensive. I didn't blame them. Then, my medical funds ran out, and I had no choice but to stop the sponsorship payments. The phone started ringing. “Auntie Jade, where’s this month’s living stipend?” “Auntie Jade, you said you’d support me through university. I’m only a freshman in high school. Are you backing out now? You’re ruining my life!” “Ms. Jade, this is Kevin’s father. You made a promise. How can you just cut us off? What’s our son supposed to do?” The last call came from a girl named Lily. When I had first selected her for sponsorship, she had knelt before me, tears streaming down her face as she called me “Mama.” Now, on the phone, she said, “Mama Jade, how long will your treatment take? You need to get better and get back to work soon. There are a lot of us kids waiting for you.” I hung up and burned all the letters I had kept under my pillow. Later, a reporter dug up my story and went to interview the children. Reporter: “Jade is very sick. Aren’t you going to visit her?” Child A: “She promised to support me through university. Now she’s in a hospital bed with no money. What good would it do if I went?” Child B: “She’s so rich. It’s just an illness. Besides, how much is our tuition, really?” Child C, who was Lily, smiled innocently at the camera. “Everyone does things for a reason. As for what her reason was… I don’t have to say it. You can probably guess, can’t you?” I turned off the television. With my last bit of money gone, I left the hospital and went home. I lay on the bed Mark used to sleep in, wasting away day by day. I died on New Year’s Eve, as fireworks lit up the night sky outside my window. Staring at the ceiling, I whispered, “God, if I get another chance—” “I will love myself first.” And He listened. I was reborn. Reborn at thirty-three. Mark was still alive, and we were still relatively well-off. Changing my fate wasn't easy. That afternoon, I barely made it out of my apartment building. Down below, a sea of kneeling figures. Over a hundred children in their school uniforms, holding banners. “MAMA JADE, WE NEED YOU.” “MAMA JADE, DON’T ABANDON US.” Kneeling at the very front was Lily. She held a megaphone, her voice cracking with emotion as she cried out: “Mama Jade, you promised you’d see me through university! Have you forgotten?” Reporters swarmed the area, their cameras all pointed at the entrance to my building. The moment I stepped outside, a wail pierced the air. “Mama Jade!” Lily crawled forward on her knees, scuttling until she reached me and wrapped her arms around my legs. “Mama Jade, please don’t abandon us! You said we were your children! You promised you’d always support us!” Her tears soaked into my pants, cold and damp. Behind her, the other 100 children began to cry in unison, their sobs echoing through the courtyard. Security guards tried to intervene but were blocked by the reporters. I was surrounded by cameras, microphones, and cell phones. Someone was live-streaming. People in the crowd were dabbing their eyes. I heard someone mutter, “How pitiful. How can that woman be so heartless?” I looked down at Lily. Her face was exactly as I remembered it from my past life. She had knelt before me just like this, crying and promising to care for me in my old age. Then, when I was on my deathbed, she had told a camera, “Everyone does things for a reason.” I reached down and, one by one, pried her fingers from my leg. “Mama Jade!” she clung on tighter. I pried the last one off. Then I crouched down, meeting her gaze. “Lily, how old are you this year?” She hesitated. “Seven… seventeen.” “Seventeen,” I nodded. “That’s not so little anymore.” I paused, then enunciated each word clearly. “Everyone does things for a reason. As for what your reason is right now… you don’t have to say it. I can guess.” Her face went rigid. I stood up, stepped around her, and walked away. Behind me, Lily let out a gut-wrenching sob. “Mama Jade! You can’t do this! You promised us! You can’t go back on your word!” The other children joined in, their cries even louder than before. A chant began: “Mama Jade, come back! Mama Jade, come back!” The cameras followed me, their live-stream comments a dense, scrolling blur. “What kind of person is she? All those kids are on their knees and she won’t even look back?” “So cold-blooded. And I used to ‘like’ her posts.” “Ten houses, and she won’t donate a single one. I knew her charity was fake!” “Jade, how do you sleep at night?” The reporters’ microphones were practically in my face, their questions a barrage of “why.” Seeing no escape, I stopped and faced them with a calm smile. “Yes, it’s true. I have decided to stop the donations.” “As for the reason, that’s my private business, and I won't be discussing it here.” “However, I believe there are more good people in this world than bad. People like you, for instance. You are all more than welcome to take over sponsoring these children.” “With so much kindness in this world, I’m sure that even without me, they will be able to finish their education. Am I right?” I smiled as I scanned the faces of these righteous, well-meaning people. At my words, the reporters fell silent, no longer pressing me. I seized the opportunity, pushed through the crowd, and hurried to the complex gate. A car was parked by the curb. The window rolled down. It was Mark. His eyes were red. “Honey, I saw everything.” His voice was thick. “Those kids… they’re so pitiful. We’ve always helped them, haven’t we? Why the sudden…” I opened the car door and got in. Mark turned to me. “We always said we didn’t want their gratitude, we just wanted them to have a good life…” “I changed the password to our savings accounts,” I said. He froze. “What?” “The passwords to our two accounts. I changed them.” I stared straight ahead. “If you want to withdraw any money, you’ll have to ask me.” “Honey, what are you—” I sighed. “Mark, I had a dream. It was so real that I believe it’s destined to happen.” “In the dream, you died. I got cancer. I was in the hospital for over a year, and not a single one of those 101 children came to see me. When I stopped the funding, they called to hound me, telling me to hurry up, get better, and go back to work to earn money for them. They went on television and said I had ulterior motives. In the end, I died alone at home on New Year’s Eve, while fireworks were going off outside.” He was speechless. “Mark,” I said, my voice weary. “In this life, let’s love ourselves first.” He stared at me, his mouth agape, completely bewildered. Outside the window, a massive screen on a building was playing the news. “Renowned philanthropist Jade abandons 101 underprivileged children, who kneel in the street begging her to return…” People on the street were looking up at the screen. Someone shouted: “Jade, I hope you rot in hell!” A chorus of agreement followed. I let out a cold laugh. A handful of rice creates gratitude; a sackful creates an enemy. The old proverbs were never wrong. The online backlash spread like wildfire. For days, a crowd surrounded my building. “Jade! Get out here!” “Heartless monster!” “What a fake. She’s nothing but a fraud!” Someone threw an egg at my window, the yolk sliding down the glass. Someone else spray-painted my building’s entrance in red: “FAKE CHARITY, REAL VAMPIRE.” Another group held up a banner: “PUNISH THE UNSCRUPULOUS BUSINESSWOMAN! JUSTICE FOR THE CHILDREN!” I peeked through a crack in the curtains and saw Lily, still at the front of the crowd, giving a tearful interview. “We never wanted her money. We just wanted to know why she suddenly abandoned us.” A boy next to her was sobbing hysterically. “She bought ten houses but made us drop out of school! My sister is only in middle school, and now she has to work in a factory!” The crowd erupted. “Call the police! Arrest her!” “People like her deserve to be canceled!” “Let’s trash her place!” Suddenly, a rock shattered my window, sending shards of glass flying perilously close to my eyes. Mark threw himself in front of me, the color drained from his face. “Honey, we should call the police.” I shook my head. What good would that do? They were just a group of “poor,” “helpless,” “betrayed” children. The next day, things got worse. Someone had posted my home address online, along with the location of Mark’s building supply store. By the time I got there, I heard someone in the crowd yell, “Trash it!” Before the words had even faded, a baseball bat shattered the glass door. The crowd surged in like a tidal wave. Shelves were toppled, tiles were smashed, and the cash register was overturned. Someone lit the sign out front on fire, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. My honest, good-natured Mark, his eyes red with fury, rushed in to stop them, only to be thrown to the ground. Someone spat on him. Someone else kicked him. In that moment, a rush of blood went to my head. But I didn’t charge in. Instead, I took a step back, to the edge of the crowd, and opened my phone’s live-stream. I aimed the camera at the fire, at the ransacked store, at Mark being trampled underfoot. The comment section scrolled frantically. “What’s going on?” “Holy shit, this is a riot!” “Did anyone call the cops?” “That’s that Jade woman’s store!” “Good! Serves her right! Hope that fake philanthropist goes bankrupt!” I stared at the screen, my voice calm but with a tremor I couldn't hide. “Hello everyone, I’m Jade. What you are watching right now is my husband being attacked.” “For the past three days, my home has been vandalized, my store has been besieged, and my husband has been beaten. And all of this is because I stopped sponsoring 101 children.” “To date, I have supported them for three years, donating approximately $300,000. I have records for every single transfer.” “As for why I suddenly stopped… I didn’t want to talk about this today.” I pulled a few folded papers from my pocket and held them up to the camera.
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