I Exposed My Daughter's Scheme

The midnight bell had just struck three. I hadn't fallen asleep when I heard hurried footsteps in the living room. Then, the bedroom door was suddenly thrown open. Ann Scott knelt straight down in front of my bed, accompanied by a girl in a blue and white school uniform. The girl's forearm was marked with bruised finger prints; she tugged at her collar, revealing faint pink hickeys on her collarbone. "Mom, Mike Scott is a b*stard! He didn't even spare my deskmate, Lily Lynn!" Ann Scott's voice was choked with sobs, her shoulders trembling, but I clearly saw her hand hanging by her side, quietly clutching the edge of her clothes. In my previous life, I was fooled by this very act of 'standing up for me.' Seeing the marks on Lily Lynn's body, I was so furious that I grabbed the kitchen knife and stormed out, ready to slash Mike Scott. It was Ann Scott who gripped me tightly, saying, "Mom, if you kill him, you'll pay with your life. It's not worth it." She said, "Let's first gather evidence to make him leave with nothing; the family assets will all be ours." I believed her. Following the address she gave, I went to catch him in the act, but when I pushed the door open, a strange male college student was lying on the hotel bed. Mike Scott burst in holding a camera, shouting loud enough for the whole floor to hear: "Willow Lynn! You actually cheated on me during our marriage and are keeping a younger man!" My parents-in-law pointed their fingers at me, yelling that I was 'unfaithful,' while my own parents, with tears in their eyes, said, 'How could you be so despicable?' When everyone had abandoned me, I held Ann Scott's hand and said, 'Ann, you're all I have left.' But she slammed a stack of photos in my face—pictures of me and her boyfriend in 'intimate moments'—which I later found out she had photoshopped. In court, she sobbed, 'My parents tried to sell me to a lame old man in the countryside for ten thousand.' She even released a video of 'abusing and killing stray cats,' showing someone wearing my coat, though it was obviously not me. She knelt before the judge, shouting, "They are all beasts—please order them to leave with nothing." When we came home to confront her, the moment we pushed open the door, several cobras slithered out from beneath the sofa. Mike and I were bitten; the mobile phone wouldn't connect, and by the time the neighbors found us, the venom had spread throughout our entire bodies. In the end, I lay on the hospital bed, watching my flesh rot and fester in unbearable pain until I died. In the last second before I closed my eyes, Ann Scott leaned close to my ear and whispered, "Mom, the family fortune is all mine now." The moment you open your eyes again is now. Ann Scott was still kneeling on the floor, Lily Lynn kept her head bowed, her shoulders trembling slightly. I looked at my hand—smooth skin, without the slightest sign of decay. There was no stinging pain from a snake bite anywhere on my body. I was truly reborn. Reborn on the very night when all the tragedy began. "Mom, why aren't you saying anything? Are you so angry you're speechless?" Ann Scott shook my arm, her fingertips pressing down with a deliberate force. I snapped back to reality, burying the hatred rising inside me, and forced out a pale smile. "I'm fine, just a little stunned." Ann Scott saw me like that, immediately stood up and pushed Lily Lynn in front of me. "Look at the wounds on Lily! That old b*stard Mike Scott—he's almost fifty—and he's still up to such filthy deeds!" "Mom, let's find a lawyer right now and sue him at the Courthouse tomorrow!" She patted her chest, promising, "Don't worry. After the divorce, I'll take care of you. From now on, I'll tend to you through all your old age." Familiar words—exactly the same ones I heard in my past life. At that moment, I was so moved I cried, believing my daughter was truly my rock. Now that I listen to it, I can only feel a chill creeping down my spine.