Chapter 1

1

Right when I was about to get a lung transplant to save my life, my mother stopped the surgeon.

As the Chief of Medicine, she demanded the donor lung be reserved for my younger sister, Chelsea, who only had mild pneumonia.

I begged Mom to give it back to me. I had end-stage tuberculosis, and this was my final chance at survival.

Mom just looked at me with cold eyes. "You've been infected for years. Waiting a little longer won't kill you!"

"What if Chelsea's condition gets worse? Can you take responsibility for that?"

In the end, the donor lung never came, and I died on the cold operating table.

Yet when Mom finally saw my lifeless body, she held me and begged me to wake up.

......

After my death, my soul drifted out of my body.

I stared down at my corpse lying on the hospital bed, my eyes still wide open in despair.

Just a minute before I passed away, I had used my last ounce of strength to call Mom.

She did not even give me a chance to speak. Her vicious voice came through the speaker: "Stop bothering me! If you're going to die, just hurry up and die!"

The agonizing memory made me open my eyes again, and I found myself floating in Chelsea's bedroom.

Several doctors in white coats were gathered inside.

Mom had abused her authority as hospital director, forcing top specialists to stay at our house and even bringing over advanced medical equipment.

While I had to wait in line at the hospital for a life-saving surgery, Chelsea had doctors waiting on her at home for a simple cold.

Mom sat by Chelsea's bedside, stroking her hair with boundless maternal warmth in her eyes.

"Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere else, sweetie? The best doctors in the city are right here."

Wearing a nasal cannula, Chelsea let out a weak sigh and shook her head as if completely exhausted.

"How is Rainey doing? Wasn't her transplant surgery scheduled for today?"

Hearing Chelsea bring me up with fake concern, Mom's expression instantly turned frosty.

"Why are you mentioning that jinx? Rainey is a curse to our family, and that's why you caught pneumonia in the first place."

"She actually tried to hog the donor lung for herself today."

"As the older sister, she should have naturally saved it for you!"

I stood frozen in place, the words caught in my ghostly throat.

In the eyes of my biological mother, I was nothing more than a harbinger of bad luck.

"Mom, don't say that. Rainey wouldn't do that on purpose. There must be some kind of misunderstanding."

Chelsea's innocent act was getting better by the day. Nobody noticed the smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.

To Mom, Chelsea was always the obedient, sweet angel.

"Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding could there be! She called me herself, begging to take the lung away from you!"

"I've been way too lenient with her lately, and now she thinks she can push me around."

Hearing Mom's harsh words tore through my chest, hurting a thousand times worse than the tuberculosis ever did.

I rushed over to Mom, desperate to explain, but I was already dead.

I had never mattered in this family anyway, so even if I could speak to her now, it wouldn't change anything.

While I was spiraling in grief, one of the doctors answered a phone call from the hospital. His face grew dead serious.

Noticing his change in demeanor, Mom tensed up immediately.

"What is it? Did Chelsea's lab results come back? Is something wrong?"

The doctor shook his head slowly. "Director Dawson, your eldest daughter, Rainey... she passed away a few minutes ago after resuscitation failed."

I let out a breath of relief. Finally, someone told Mom the truth, and she would know I wasn't lying.

In the next second, Mom let out a cold, mocking laugh.

"Rainey? Are you kidding me?"

"That girl is like a weed. She didn't even die when human traffickers kidnapped her as a kid, so how could she die so easily now?"