Chapter 2

He had been even gentler than when my parents had beaten me.

Before I died, he even let me call my parents. As long as they had called me their precious daughter, the killer would have let me go.

But Anthony didn't answer. I called ten times, and he never picked up.

Lisa answered the phone quickly, but she immediately started scolding me for not coming home to cook and for not taking care of my brother.

She cursed, "Why did I give birth to such a jinx? I should have never let you see the light of day."

The anesthetic numbed the pain in my wrists, but it throbbed in my heart.

I said weakly, "Lisa, I'm about to die. Could you call me your precious daughter just once?"

Lisa cursed again, her voice mixed with the sound of cooking.

"If you're going to die, at least buy your brother a phone first. Even if you die, I'll sell your valuable organs and use the money to get your brother a wife.

Precious daughter? Oh my god! You're just a jinx!"

The call ended, and so did my chance of survival.

The blood drained away, and my body remained in the pose of holding a phone.

Anthony received a scheduled text from my phone, sent by the killer, and read it aloud.

"Hey, this is my last gift to my brother, an unforgettable one. Do you like it?"

Lisa, holding a spatula, glared angrily at my lifelike statue.

"Yesterday she said she was going to die, and today she sends back a lifelike statue. Why didn't she send her body back? I could have read the Bible for her."

I stood beside the lifelike statue of my body, mimicking its pose of holding a phone.

Lisa, this was my body.

Lisa, please read the Bible more times for me. I had suffered enough when I was alive. I had been working as a child laborer since middle school. I didn't want to suffer a lot after death either.

Lisa, my clothes were all wet and cold. I had wrung them out several times, but they were still damp.

Luckily, I was a ghost, and the water droplets stayed on me. Otherwise, if they had dripped on the floor, Lisa would have scolded me again.

Just like when I was a child, waiting in the rain for Lisa to pick me up, but she never came. I walked home in the rain, and the water dripped from me, dirtying the mat and wetting the floor.

When Matthew slipped and fell, Lisa scolded me and beat me with a hanger.

Anthony smoked on the side, advising her, "Don't hit her face. If it scars, the gift for her marriage won't be worth much money."

It was like raising a pig to sell when it got fat.

Oh, in their eyes, I was worse than a pig, since a pig didn't come out of Lisa's belly or compete with Matthew for nutrients in the womb.

Anthony cursed my lifelike statue for being unlucky and wanted to throw it away.

But Matthew liked it, hugging it tightly.

"This is Raina, my sister. You can't throw it away. I want Raina to play with me."

Because Matthew was simple-minded, like a child, our sibling relationship was good.

His innocence healed the wounds I suffered in this family time and again.

When Lisa hit me, Matthew clumsily protected me and said, "Don't hit...Raina...It hurts." When Lisa didn't feed me, Matthew would secretly hide a chicken leg for me, always getting his clothes greasy.

When Anthony forced me to drop out of school to work, and I cried all night, it was Matthew who clumsily made me laugh, threatening to run away from home to force Anthony to let me study.

My suffering wasn't because of Matthew but because of parents who didn't love me.

Matthew wanted to keep my lifelike statue, and our parents, who indulged him, had no objections.

Matthew happily took out paints and started coloring my lifelike statue. He tilted his head and looked at me, as if he could see me, and asked, "Raina, what color do you like?"

"Green." I replied, and he picked out the green paint.

I liked green because it symbolized life and vitality.

Lisa stared at the lifelike statue for a long time until the smell of burning came from the kitchen, and she walked away, cursing.

Anthony took out his phone to call me.

"Beep-beep-"

The sound of the phone being dialed was like the beat of my heart.

I felt a glimmer of hope.

The phone in the hand of the lifelike statue was not a model. It was my phone!

My parents would find out I was dead, that this was my body!

Would they regret it?

Would they kneel before my body, weeping and lamenting their past actions?

Would they regret never treating me well in those twenty years?

Unfortunately, the phone didn't ring, and the screen didn't light up.

Anthony gave up after two calls, only scolding me for not coming back for Matthew's birthday, not caring about my safety or life.

They wouldn't wait for me to come home for dinner, let alone to cut the cake together.

They ate delicious apple pies and barbecued ribs. Matthew wore a birthday hat on his head, dancing and waving his hands, looking very happy.

I sat beside Matthew, pretending to be part of the family, my hand passing through the chopsticks, pretending to pick up a piece of barbecued rib to eat.

I squinted, imagining their taste, probably similar to the restaurant outside. I had never tasted Lisa's cooking, and she had never let me sit at the table. Lisa left the gnawed bones and leftover food in a copper basin for me, like feeding a dog.

Indeed, all these years, they treated me with utter disregard, just like raising a dog.