Chapter 3

“What business doesn't take a loss now and then? He's just temporarily short on working capital.”

“You and Chen Zheng both have jobs. It's not as if the two of you can't come up with five hundred thousand yuan.”

“We could come up with it.”

I sent her the agreement we'd signed years ago.

“But this is between you and the person who received the assets.”

“I'm your married daughter. What right do I have to interfere in my brother's business?”

All I could hear on the other end was her heavy breathing.

She tried to hold it in, but eventually she burst out cursing.

“Are you really going to stand by and watch your brother get hounded to death by creditors?”

I transferred this month's living expenses to Mom, exactly as agreed.

“This is my share of the responsibility. Not a yuan short.”

“As for Kang Wei's business, he can handle it himself.”

Mom hung up.

That evening, my brother called from another number.

At first, he was very polite.

He said he only needed to borrow the money for three months and would pay me back with interest once he got his cash flow sorted out.

When I refused, he fell silent for a few seconds.

The next time he spoke, all the courtesy in his voice had vanished.

“Have you been waiting for a chance to watch me fail?”

“Mom gave me the houses and money, and you're still holding a grudge? Do you only feel satisfied when I'm doing badly?”

As he listed the assets he'd received, I laughed.

“You got the houses, the savings, and the shop.”

“You signed the agreement with your own hand.”

His breathing grew heavier.

I didn't give him another chance to play the victim.

“An adult has to take responsibility for his own signature.”

After I hung up, I blocked that number, too.

Without my money to cover the shortfall, the restaurant went under quickly.

Our relatives didn't get their wages and turned on my brother, accusing him of not knowing how to run a business.

The same people who had praised him as capable started showing up at his door demanding repayment.

Mom still refused to admit she'd misjudged him.

She said there was nothing wrong with a man failing once when he started a business. He could learn from the experience and get back on his feet eventually.

My brother couldn't afford to hire a helper, so Mom moved into his house. She shopped, cooked, did the laundry, cleaned, and took her granddaughter to and from school.

After my sister-in-law became pregnant with their second child, Mom couldn't even sleep through the night.

Whenever the baby cried, she had to get up and prepare formula.

She was so exhausted that she had to brace a hand against her back whenever she went downstairs, yet she still posted in the family chat, bragging that her son's household couldn't do without her.

I never called her out.

That was the life she'd chosen.

Then, one winter morning, my sister-in-law called me before dawn.

There was chaos on the other end.

I heard her crying first, then my brother's low, angry voice.

“Why take her to a private hospital? Do you know how much a day there costs?”

My sister-in-law was so frantic that her voice cracked.

“Your mother fell in the bathroom over an hour ago! If we keep waiting, she could actually die!”

After a brief silence, my brother answered impatiently.

“Replace the rug first.”

“She peed all over herself and stinks. How are we supposed to live in the living room afterward?”

I stood in the bedroom doorway with my phone, unable to move.

In my previous life, Mom had told me that my brother wasn't home when she had her stroke.

She said she'd fallen in the bathroom and lay there until a neighbor heard something and called an ambulance.

So my brother had been there the whole time.

He'd simply decided that a rug mattered more than Mom's life.

More than an hour later, Mom was finally taken to the hospital.

The doctor came out of the emergency room and told the family to prepare for the worst.

“We've missed the best window for treatment. We've managed to stabilize her for now, but she'll most likely be partially paralyzed.”

When he heard the monthly cost of rehabilitation, my brother didn't go into her room.

He went to the stairwell and video-called me.

On screen, he rubbed his forehead repeatedly, as if the weight of this were all on his shoulders.

“Sis, Mom won't be able to care for herself anymore.”

He paused, trying to make dumping the responsibility on me sound like a reasonable division of labor.

“You're a woman. It'll be more convenient for you to look after her. Once Mom is discharged, I'll bring her to your place.”

In my previous life, it had been exactly the same day.

I had brought Mom home despite Chen Zheng's objections.

From then on, my family never had another peaceful day.

This time, I took the agreement from my home office and went to the hospital alone.

Half of Mom's face was distorted on the hospital bed.

Hearing footsteps, she struggled to move her eyes.

When she saw it was me, her fingers, which had been clenched around the bedsheet, slowly relaxed.

She thought I'd step in and clean up her mess as I had in my previous life.

I walked to her bedside and straightened the corner of her blanket.

Then I placed the agreement she'd signed in front of her.

“Mom, you said you'd listen to your son when you got old.”

Her fingers clenched again.

I turned to the page with my brother's signature.